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World of Warcraft. If you’re watching this, you’ve probably played it, or still play it. If you haven’t, you’ve probably at least looked into it. There’s no doubt, however, that you’ve heard of it. Just about everyone has, how could they have not? As for whether you play or not though, it shouldn’t matter. WoW’s player base does not universally agree on everything, and the reason Player A decides to subscribe for another three months is the same reason Player B decides to cancel his subscription immediately. There are plenty of reasons why people would quit, have quit, and may yet still. People will harp on and on about how WoW’s subscribers are declining, how it’s slowly falling from the 12 million player base throne WoW once sustained. But so long as you’re having fun, does it matter? Let’s not forget that WoW has been out for nearly ten years now, and it’s -still- chugging on quite merrily with nearly eight million players. There really aren’t many, or any other MMOs, that can compare to that. It takes far, far less than 8 million to kill an MMO like WoW.
Let’s make some points to clarify why. It’s established. Not just in the sense that it was founded on the setting of the Warcraft RTS games. You’ll often take this for granted, but it has an existing community and countless resource sites like wowhead, addons to make customizing the game to your liking a little easier, and all of these have been polished and perfected over it’s long life span. You hop to another MMO and suddenly, you appreciate things like Deadly Boss Mods, MMOchampion, websites for transmogrification gear and items, and simply the massive amount of coverage Warcraft has. Wowpedia is the biggest video game wiki in the world. Wowhead alone has hundreds, if not thousands of player written guides, a vast database of information and tables, I could go on and on. These aren’t things that a new and upcoming MMO can’t possibly have, right off the bat.
You need help with a quest, tips on how to play, advice and discussions, or you just want to watch some movies made in-game, you can get it with one Google search.
WoW is the epitome of MMO in the industry and has redefined it today the way Everquest did years ago. Heroic mode raiding and dungeons, the way talents work, and most certainly the user interface, you’ll find carbon copies and clear mirrored reflections of the way these work in WoW in other MMOs. It is the source of so much terminology used throughout all MMO games. It makes sense that all MMOs are compared to Warcraft. It is the de-facto, the default.
One point worth going over in detail, for the sake of comparing MMOs, is graphics. WoW is running on an old engine, a modified version of the Warcraft games engine if I remember correctly, which obviously means it is limited in it’s graphical capabilities. But it has improved, graphically, with each expansion, yet maintains being easily manageable by less powerful systems. I can play Warcraft on my 5 year old £300 PC from Aldi and it will still look nice. No matter how good the graphics on another game might be, no matter how good the game might be, and no matter how much I want to play it, if it turns out I have to PvP or raid at 6 frames per second, there’s simply nothing I could do about it. I could buy a new computer for sure, but that effectively bumps the price tag of this game up by however much it takes to get a decent PC to run it. How many people would be willing to do that? No matter what you say or think, you can’t possibly expect an MMO to thrive if it takes expensive machines to play them. There are RPGs for that sort of thing. The value in an MMO is in it’s multiplayer online capabilities, and WoW is accessible. It’s easy on the eyes and I’m glad for it. Besides, the older players amongst us will remember the fear that gripped us whilst leveling in Duskwood. There’s more to Warcraft than it’s graphics.
Besides, the beauty is all but lost if I have to slide everything on the graphics settings down to absolute minimum because the game wasn’t made to look like that. WoW does not have that problem, to an extent. Warcraft has it’s own feel, it’s own stylisation. Some people will simply attribute this to it being an old game, but this doesn’t do it justice. Players, as we know from the new models being developed, clearly care intimately about the smallest details, but they only realize it until those details are subject to change.
WoW also has plenty and plenty of lore. If you’ve not been keeping an eye and an ear on the lore of WoW, you really are missing out. This is also something that I feel will go under appreciated. Warcraft was founded on it’s RPG elements and story, this is what immerses the players, makes the player attached to their characters and compels them to level, improve. They may even feel a story of their own developing - some of you, at least once, will have given your character a bit of personality, a bit of history - you think about who they are in the world. The players who take this step all the way are the role-players. Notoriously thought of as being Shakespearean drama actors, they are simply players who appreciate the story, and explore it for themselves.
All in all, if you don’t see now why there’s more to Warcraft than how many other subscribers there are, you likely never will. Ultimately subs are what keep the game alive and running, certainly. But everyone has their own reasons for joining and leaving, and it will never be one thing in particular, but a culmination of several things.
We’ve done a lot of praise for Warcraft, but now it’s time to stick it, working backwards through the points made.
The lore is getting stagnant, at least to me. It was good, but I don’t like the way it’s going. Mists of Pandaria could have been an exciting change, in that we had a new continent, ALL new lore, ALL new characters, a chance for a new culture to truly become a part of the World of Warcraft. But we only have two patches set in Pandaria before the focus of the expansion is suddenly on Durotar and Orgrimmar. People say this was the pandaren expansion, but two important characters, Aysa Cloudsinger and Ji Firepaw, barely got any spotlight at all. Blizzard admitted they wanted to do something with them, but decided to prioritize character development of Varian and Jaina, Baine and Vol’jin and other familiar names. This was disheartening for me. As a pandaren enthusiast and RPer, I don’t think pandaren were fairly or accurately represented in MoP, and I don’t think they’ll ever get another chance to shine. They haven’t been effectively introduced into the Horde or Alliance because Ji Firepaw and Aysa Cloudsinger, who’re supposed to be the respective faction leaders, are ultimately left out of all affairs.
They will probably never get a better time or more relevant expansion to get involved, and I fear the pandaren are simply going to slip into irrelevance. This is just a shame after all the work they did making them the historic race they are. You could say that these character’s I’m complaining about are the main characters of the game, and like in a book, should be the most prominent. But every player has their own favourite character, and I don’t think a universe as large and grand as WoW’s should have it’s history and future so deeply rooted into only a few individuals. We saw new characters with every expansion up until WotLK, and that is why I think they worked. Come Cataclysm and MoP, it’s been all about the same characters.
Let’s say 25% of all WoW players love Varian Wrynn, Thrall, all prior mentioned characters. We know that isn’t true already. But even in this optimistic situation, it means 75% of players really couldn’t care for those characters, and want to see ‘their’ characters get a bit more involved. Of course there’s no possible way to satisfy everyone at once, surely it would be better if more characters took slightly less important roles in the story than a few characters having disproportionally large roles in the story. I believe Warcraft’s storyline would ultimately be far better off if the focus of characters was divided between all characters, the other characters we want to see, rather than a select few with others making cameo appearances, if no appearances at all. They say they’ve had little time to develop the draenei, and they’re finally getting some love in Warlords of Draenor. But even Burning Crusade was a more blood elf-centric expansion, and how is it that they have all that room for Varian, Thrall and friends, but none at all for Velen? An immortal, ancient prophet, probably one of the most powerful beings of Azeroth? Brother to Kil’jaden and Archimonde, generals of the Burning Legion second only to Sargeras himself? You’d think someone like him wouldn’t spend four expansions mumbling about how the Legion’s end is drawing near.
Garrosh was a good character, though. We loved to hate him. He was developed over the course of several expansions to reach this penultimate point in the Siege of Orgrimmar. But was the same thoughtful writing given to the Shado-Pan? Nope. They are made out to be an elite force - they really are, if you do your research. But they are butchered by the writers, always foiled by foes with plot armour. Taran Zhu is possessed and freed by adventurers. But to be fair, he was possessed by THE Sha of Hatred, not just any Sha. The Prime Sha also possessed beings like Chi-Ji and Yu-Lon and the Empress Shek’zeer, who are practically gods. He beats up Shan Bu on the Isle of Thunder whilst the Alliance and Horde bicker on Lei Shen’s front door, so of course none of them got harmed. Shan Bu had strength to rival Niuzao, one of the Celestials, described as having the power of a God.
Taran Zhu practically took him out alone. Then he fights Garrosh. Of course he was going to lose, otherwise we’d have no raid to go to, would we? When we defeat him and he’s finally taken away by the Shado-Pan, turns out his story isn’t over where it really should have ended, and he escapes. So again, he’s blamed. Once more, the Shado-Pan are once again taking the heat by the majority of players so the Alliance and Horde don’t have to. I feel all in all, they could have been represented better.
It would have been better if Garrosh’s story ended there, but nope. No matter what they do, it’s going to be a step down from storming into Orgrimmar, beating down all who stood in our way and dethroning him. Garrosh’s real end will be part of some quest, more than likely.
Being completely honest, I’m a little tired of orcs after MoP, and now we’re going to Draenor to fight more. Anyway, I think I’ve made my point about story. It’s time to move on to graphics.
Blizzard prioritises game and design over story. That’s probably for the best. We’re playing a game here, as I said earlier, not reading a book. But it also seems they prize it over immersion, and I think this is an unnecessary compromise. I said Warcraft was founded on it’s RPG elements earlier, but they haven’t stuck to it. Slowly, the things that make Warcraft an immersive, exotic world is being lost. The most immediate example is the lighting. No matter what new environments Blizzard’s artists come up with, they are unfortunately being abysmally, horribly, completely butchered by the shoddy, terrible lighting system they currently used. What used to make Duskwood scary? It was dark. Now? Daytime really isn’t different to night time. There are shadows, and mountains and rocks shine as if the sun is glistening off them.
This is all for the sake of not effecting mood, as Blizzard says the dark has an effect on player’s reaction times, psychological state, and a bunch of other variables we probably don’t know about. This is probably true. But what I do now, is that there are three forum threads, one of which is at around 50 pages, with a 97% approval rate of wanting to bring back the dark nights. I don’t think any subject in Warcraft has ever had such a unanimous, shared opinion.
But we’re still seeing no change, at all. I know that darker nights are a little thing that would make a big difference. It does affect our mood, it does affect our psychological state. It affects it in a good way, and we want it. This isn’t rose tinted goggles, you can see screenshots, video comparisons. The game looks horrible with it’s current lighting, and it looks better with the lighting it used to have. Whilst this is an opinion, it’s one the majority of players share.
But it seems like if it will affect gameplay or design slightly, it simply can’t be done. It seems like Blizzard is afraid to be a little bold - as if implementing natural lighting is the height of boldness. More accurately, it’s as if so long as there’s the risk or the worry, they have to take extreme care doing it. Perhaps that’s why it’s taken them so long to finally update the player models, or for us to get some form of customisation through transmogrification - with which they are still very strict regarding rules compared to some other games, where we can dye armour, or wear a different armour type that our class is usually permitted to wear. Hell, we can’t even transmog our legendaries. I don’t see how that’s better than letting them sit in our bank. They’re neglecting the RPG side of the game, and just sticking to the MMO. They’ve put safety jackets on us. They’re holding themselves back, and they’re holding the game back.
Warcraft’s establishment is it’s strength, but it is also a weakness. This won’t apply to everyone, but it does for me, at least. It’s assets, resources and such can often suck the fun and adventure out of the game. We used to experiment with our specializations and specs, explore, use tricks and clever macros. The earlier days of WoW were the days of exploration and the new, the feeling of being a complete noob and learning the ropes, improving, getting better, and the gratification of that is what we find in progression raiding - accomplishing that which was previously impossible or hard. Ulduar hard modes were great, but the next expansion, we lost the fun way of opening up or activating those hard-mode mechanics to a menu. Select, raid difficulty, heroic, and that’s it. No-one discovers anything for themselves anymore. It’s a matter of what add-ons to I download, what websites should I visits, which specs are the best, item levels, where does the best gear drop, what zone gives the most experience per hour. Most things in WoW have been reduced to numbers, statistics, necessities, efficiency. We spend our time staring at numbers and keeping an eye out for procs, which are also managed by numbers. PvP becomes a routine of when to use what against which enemy you’re fighting, a matter of memorising when is the most optimal time to use an ability.
Perhaps this is an inevitability of an established MMO. If there’s a question you need answered, someone has already answered it. Being stuck on a quest or not knowing where to find an NPC or where to get a particular gear are problems I never have anymore. Sometimes I appreciate it, especially when I play Rift which doesn’t have as thorough resource like wowhead because it’s counterpart, Rifthead, isn’t invested into as heavily by it’s community. But other times it eliminates the joy of doing the research for myself and finally discovering something. I find cool gear in Rift by going out, exploring, finding hidden quests or talking to people and asking where they found that gear.
As it is now though, in WoW, I could look at any piece of armour in-game and tell you far more information than I’m proud to admit. What it is and where it drops, or what quest it’s from - where that quest is, a bunch of other stuff, whether there is other gear with the same model or a different colour or the same of both, and whether it’s more easily obtainable - or whether it’s even obtainable anymore. This is the case for hundreds, if not thousands of in-game items. The same point I made as a good thing earlier, I also believe is a bad thing. You need help with a quest, tips on how to play, advice and discussions, or you just want to watch some movies made in-game, you can get it with one Google search, but you don’t learn it for yourself. Or, you can - but most choose not to because they do not have to.
Is this my fault for playing so long? Yes. I can’t really ‘blame’ WoW for it, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. I think we play MMOs to get away from the real world and go somewhere new and exciting. But I’m so familiarised with it now that it isn’t new and exciting anymore.
Touching on the subject of armour briefly, the lack of customisation options in WoW isn’t so great, either. Transmogrification is just about all we have, and it’s still very restrictive as mentioned. Allowing additional options for that is only half a step towards what we really need. For some reason, there are plenty of items in-game that use the same model and colour, whilst there are many models and colours that have been removed from the game entirely and can no longer be obtained. There are also sets of gear that are either not in-game at all, or parts are missing so that some sets are incomplete. There might be several different versions of a robe you like in red, and you saw someone wearing one in blue and suddenly you wanted to get them. But, sorry, that’s only available from this one quest you completed a few years ago and you didn’t choose it as a reward. You probably vendored the reward you got, too.
Frankly there’s no reason why they couldn’t bring in more cosmetic items. Currently there are only a few purely cosmetic transmog items in game. Challenge mode sets, which are very hard to obtain. The helmets from the Blizzard store, which you have to pay money for. The Kor’kron shaman set, which only shaman can obtain and I imagine it isn’t easy to obtain in it’s entirety. I don’t think allowing us to obtain some of these sets, which are unavailible for whatever obscure reason, is going to come with any risks or drawbacks besides suddenly having a lot more transmog gear to work with.
All in all, I don't think anyone would have thought 10 years ago that WoW would still be going strong today. It might not have as many subscribers as it used to, but it still has more more than most, if not any other MMO - and it is always a game in progress. This proves that there is no perfect formula to the game, nor any game. But I do believe it takes critical evaluations such as this to highlight the areas that need correcting. It may not be a perfect circle, but it's longevity proves it is the closest we have.
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