Do you want WoW to feel like a "bigger" game?

Community General Discussion
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I suppose the topic question is a bit counter-intuitive when you consider how much there is in this game with all the content that has been added over multiple expansions… but looking at how the game is structured right now, it definitely feels a lot smaller than it should be.

Luckily, there’s an easy saying which covers this situation:

Water, water everywhere.
But not a drop to drink.

WoW’s current structure, probably starting back with the Garrison in WoD, has become so overly compartmentalized and streamlined that there’s no “world” to the “World of Warcraft” anymore… it’s just a series of randomly chosen mini-objectives coupled with what feels like a meaningless grind for slightly stronger pieces of gear again and again.

There’s no purpose.
There’s no sense of scale.

There’s no more adventure.

Which just begs the question… how did we get here?

As I mentioned earlier, it feels like this whole problem started with WoD… namely, with the Garrison. I actually didn’t mind the Garrison system, always thinking it was a neat place to look around and explore, but I would concede that the biggest issue was that it actually did automate too much (especially early on); in particular, awarding gear for no effort while your followers went on adventures.

WoD’s benefit was the solid gameplay, but the Garrison and shift towards mini-objectives at random locations throughout the world did a LOT of damage to WoW as a whole. The daily quests in MoP were definitely over-the-top and copious, but they did at least preserve the sense of adventure… which was also aided by Pandaria’s great and fantastical world design.

Legion is a bit curious, as it’s largely an evolution of the systems introduced in WoD. World quests are a step up from the previous mini-objectives, and tend to be more focused and giving more variety. The key difference is that it DID re-capture that sense of adventure and help the world feel bigger again, in no small part thanks to the class-specific campaigns, the (somewhat) unique artifact questlines which sent you all over the world, and a grand narrative woven into the Suramar zone. The artifact system also gave the grind a sense of purpose, and the gameplay felt like a genuine improvement from the already-solid WoD.

… and now we have BfA, which feels like a DEVOLUTION of the systems introduced in Legion… and all-around less interesting. Easy examples are ALL the world quests take longer to complete (what awarded 7-10% of a bar in Legion awards only 2-3% in BfA), and the Heart of Azeroth doesn’t provide consistent progress (traits and extra effects every few artifact levels instead of each and every one, not to mention the whole RE-earning of traits on Azerite gear). And to top it off, the gameplay was horrendously butchered for nearly every class and spec in the game.

But this seems to draw away from the key point… I’m talking more about systems, not the world or the game anymore.

WoW is no longer a giant, sprawling adventure.
It’s a bunch of systems to slog your way through.

No wonder players are unhappy.

This brings me to one of the strangest counterpoints to the modern version of WoW:

WoW Classic

Looking back, I’m fairly confident players will notice rather quickly – it’s a grand adventure. Maybe not the best-presented narrative, but it definitely is an adventure worth going on through a colossal and wide-spanning world.

The secrets may have been found, but I think people will find that there’s been enough time that they can genuinely spark that sense of wonder at the sheer scale of the game that is the World of Warcraft.

It will be a bigger game, with more to do in it. It may be simpler, but the world itself will be more than enough those that want to explore it.

… I just wish there was a good explanation as to why the current iteration lost it’s sense of direction.

And probably rambled on a bit long here… may have lost track of the point I was going for in the beginning.

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is this like doing the Taxi missions in GTA ?

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I played classic when it was first released. It was fun dont get me wrong. It did not have yhe grand adventure feel.

That was something i specifically remember coming from eq1 to wow. Wow was very much a game where we all level up through running missions in assigned zones. It was not an open world like eq.

Zones didnt feel like places; they felt like levels in game. Dungeons were not dark and dangerous but curious; they we indoor zones with high hp mobs.

Eq captured that grand adventure feel. Meeting up with people same level as you. Tackling a camp or dungeon together. Discovering a world. I really dont agree wow classic had that.

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Talking about “adventure” is just nostalgia at best, or being a noob at worst.
No two ways around it.

Wistfully describing games in such a way is just not being realistic.
There is no magic to recapture.
You outgrew that feeling and there is no bringing it back.

There are things they can and will learn from Classic, but ironically, many of the hottest topics around here are because of things they have already been adjusting to make more like classic.

Flying.
Leveling slower.
Combat pacing / GCD changes.
More time consuming PVE content.
Threat reduction.
and almost ironically, Class “balance.”

I can’t help but laugh when people attempt to say class design and balance are poor in live wow, but then praise Classic.

In the end, that “adventure” was there because you didn’t know what to expect.

You will not feel that way after playing through it for years on end. Not in live, and not in Classic.

It may feel recaptured, but its just the wistful emotions that you have tied to the past.

Level 6 toons to 60 in a row and tell me if your still feeling that after the 6th one.

Anyway, tldr
yes they should make the game and its world attempt to be as integral as possible, but you are accurate in your opening analogy about water.

Too much of it dilutes just about everything, but trying to distill out that pure enjoyment is just too subjective to justify peeling off layer after layer in a game this old.

Maybe the best thing they can do is make a WoW 2, but really, the best thing anyone can be do is be realistic about what this game and what Classic is.

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We don’t need a bigger game… We need larger maps with less mountains.

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I would argue the world and game feel too big. I think it’s why the community feels distant. Classic is like living in the country, everyone knows each other and helps each other out. Retail is like living in the city. Everyone is time poor and its easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle.

Some people like city life and some like the country. They both serve their purpose.

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I cant properly analyze the sense of scale imparted to the impression of adventure by the various systems’ structure, but in a more direct sense, WoW has never really had much of a sense of scale, in the literal meaning.

Towns were right from the beginning clearly telegraphed and just over the horizon. The quests have two distinct flavors; literally on the other side of the city walls or just over that hedge on the edge of town.

Zones are “set pieces” rather than anything real. Never was much of an issue for me as I never really took the world seriously anyway.

Although less so in early days it was always about dishing up a tantalizing pile of steaming hot fun, and boy did it satisfy.

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I’ll have to disagree there.

Looking back, Vanilla WoW did feel like an adventure to me back during the day. Maybe not the “grand adventure”, but an adventure and huge world to explore just the same.

Keeping in mind, like many others it was my first foray into the MMORPG genre and I can’t say how it compares to EQ simply because I haven’t played that game.

While the novelty and nostalgia is one thing, it’s not accurate to there’s no longer anything there.

To use an analogy, have you ever gone back to play a game you’ve finished before from start to finish? For any particular reason? Especially if you haven’t played it in a few years?

Nostalgia would be one reason for going back.
… but you can’t really deny you’re still having fun retracing your old steps.

Seeing what you’ve forgotten. Seeing what you remember.
Piecing together the puzzle pieces which were hidden in plain sight to you before.

Who isn’t to that isn’t an adventure all by itself?

While I did veer off course a bit, this is actually the OPPOSITE of my intention at the beginning.

What I was intending to lead into was making more of the game’s content relevant, to make it feel “bigger” by making more parts of it feel important (and to an extent, placing more importance on the open world). Make exploration and discovery a more important part of the game, as it was during Vanilla WoW; while you can discover it only once yourself, there’s also the joy of teaching others and guiding them through the content for them to discover for themselves.

WoW, from a purely analytical standpoint, is a damn huge game. The problem is that it tends to make itself feel smaller by focusing on bite-sized pieces, most often the newest piece of content.

In essence, integrating more of the game’s overall content and the world back into the “relevant” aspects of the game.

Interesting take, and quite accurate from how the community has changed.

But I’d say it isn’t because the game is “too big”, but simply that people don’t have enough reason to head back out into the open world (or at least lack the time to do so).

People are too caught up in the hustle and bustle.
No one takes the time to stop and smell the roses (figuratively speaking).

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WoW was a new thing back in the day. We’ve already done it and games and our expectations of games have changed. WoW is having difficulty keeping up. Things are streamlined, sure, but then they are also padded.

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until they hire people that are passionate about creating content designed with fun and immersion which isn’t a tedious rail track following nonstop grind fest rather than just send in people from another game that is now dead in the water “yes D3 im talking bout you” WoW is NEVER going to get better itll eventually end up slipping into a coma and succumbing to the same fate as all MMOs that came before it either put on life support AKA free to play or Blizzard will sign a do not resuscitate form and simply let it flatline and do nothing but pull the sheet over its face

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That’s the problem. Your “feeling” of it isn’t measurable.
its not a valid metric on which to make a decision.
In the end, the notion of “relevant” and things being an “adventure” are largely based on your experience and enjoyment with them.

You’ll need to be far more specific if you want to see change here, because 90 percent of what you have said in this thread is just directionless wishing.

You made a good point about going back to games and that being an adventure in some ways.

Pokemon Crystal is that way for me.
I look back at that game with such fondness I could always enjoy it. And at the same time, I realize its a horrible game by today’s standards and can barely stomach playing it because its so easy and limited.

I love the idea of the game, but the idea and the reality don’t match.

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One of the understated problems with Classic is that we already know how the journey ends for most of the characters and the story at large. We know that the Sylvanas and the Forsaken never actually get to confront the Lich King in a meaningful way. We know that the Nelves never really go on to do anything meaningful, but instead just get invaded by the orcs when a faction conflict is necessary. We know that the gnomes never actually retake Gnomeregan. We know that Cairne will die offscreen and be replaced by his inept son, and that Vol’jin will get killed mostly for shock value and parity. We know that so many loose threads go unresolved, ans so many amazing things never pan out. As a rogue, I can tell you that, while every race has their own rogue organization, only one matters in the end - S1:7. Ravenholdt never gets expanded upon until Wrathion appears in Cata.

That’s why I don’t see Classic recapturing anything -we know the ends of the stories, and they do not end well for most.

(Truthfully, what will really kill Classic is that the endgame is raid or die. Raiding’s not exactly popular on live, and all Classic does is amplify the logistics problems while cutting back on the mechanics. I don’t see it being a sustainable model in the long run.)

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But I want to play a prot Paladin in Classic!

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Three most common objectively false statements I hear about Classic are:
“PvP was better!” “Classes were balanced!” “Raids were more challenging!”

Anyone who knew vanilla real time know in their heart that none of these statements are true.

That being said, the sense of adventure, with no end in sight for a long time, expansively large world, those were certainly memorable and true.

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I don’t think you played Vanilla?

Pre-Cata, the place was pretty bleak. It was very obvious that the main game was only certain areas, with some places (Desolace, etc.) seeming like unfinished afterthoughts. Cata improved all of those old zones, quite a lot. It actually was a lot of work.

The current game did not lose its sense of direction, they realized that they should not design an area without it having a purpose/theme. So unlike Vanilla, there is a REAL STORY to a zone like Drustvar/whatever. It isn’t just an empty area you mainly pass through, if ever even visit once.

Vanilla was pretty dang flawed. I think “Classic” is going to really open up a lot of eyes to how bad it was. Vanilla mainly had a feeling of promise, which was never delivered on. You were initially leveling, always thinking there must be “something really great, just on the horizon!” Then you were eventually level 50, thinking “hmm, something must be really great, just on the horizon, like around 60 maybe?” Then you were 60, finding out all there was was for your guild to first do Onyxia a lot, then MC a lot, then BWL a lot, etc.

Original Wow made the exact same mistake that original EQ did, with areas like the Karanas. I remember my druid going across East Karanas/whatever, with it being really empty and not really having much reason to exist. That same feeling was replicated in Wow, with quite a few zones which seemed to only exist so they could claim the game was “big.” They really seemed to learn their lesson, with subsequent expansions (as well as remaking the old zones with a purpose/theme in Cata.)

"Parking my main outside Onyxia/MC/BWL, then playing my alt until we are back there again…", was something you heard from other players A LOT. I saw that as a game flaw. I’ve never ONCE said that in Legion or BFA. See, that “main” literally had NOTHING ELSE to do, since there was really nothing else to the game.

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Sounds like Classic is for you. Casual players don’t want to waste time exploring a world

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By ‘exploring’ you mean wading through trash while crossing the same road a million times. It’s not like the experience varies.

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The ironic situation with WoW is that while it has added so many new zones over the years, it has one of the smallest relevant play areas of any MMORPG, largely due to Blizzard not only rendering everything in every previous expansion irrelevant, but doing the same to everything in every previous patch within an expansion.

Every time Blizzard releases a new expansion, they do their best to invalidate every piece of content and system that came before, and every time they release a patch, they do their best to make only the new zones (if any) mean anything. They’ve even taken to drastically changing or removing touted features mid-expansion, too.

Modern WoW is a 15-year-old game that is lucky if it has even two or three small zones of relevant content at any point mid-expansion. Blizzard continually casually casting aside 99% of the content of this game, and leaving only a tiny world for all practical purposes, has been a major and entirely justified complaint for years now.

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It has nothing to do with “people” outgrowing “a feeling”. It has to do with so much content and story being gutted, neutered, or repurposed so as to make the world lifeless.

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I somewhat agree with you here. Legions World Quest System did get born out of Warlords of Draenor … i think mainly out of Tanaan Jungle. With Legion … one thing they did was weave the Main Storyline in a way that you already have to do Quests that turn into a World Quest later. And that is very lazy. Instead to get unique Quests … and then later other Quests as World Quests … they just combine. It’s cheaper that way, from a resource standpoint.

Yes Battle for Azeroth does feel like a Devolution … in more than one way. On one hand Islands turn out to be simple areas where one goes and bashes Mobs … there are not allot Warfronts … and the Two we do got are fine to do once … but are a bore to do more than once a week(have fun with alts on this one).
To top it off … the Main Storyline is somewhat enforced … and if you play a Alt most of the Quests you do on a daily base as World Quests on your Main.

There where Stories in Vanilla Zones as well … even before the Cataclysm. While not every Zone was full to the brim … most of them did have NPCs living in them. Those NPCs would give Quests that let the player help said NPCs … there where allot Quests that would lead to the inside of a Dungeon … and then tell Stories and explain the Dungeon’s Background … especially Attunement Quests did tell allot Story Background around a Raid.

I do agree with you here. Even though there were allot Quests in Vanilla, telling Stories and what not … there where allot areas in every zone that had nothing in them. Yes … there would be a enemy NPC Village(Tyr’s Hand anyone?) with a ton Elite Mobs or just a corner in the World with Elite Mobs(like in Grim Bathol in the Wetlands, or Eastern Ashenvale in Vanilla) where there is little else.
Vanilla was Flawed.

But looking back, the World felt bigger … there were corners that where Dangerous … frontier like … calling for Adventures.
There were a ton hidden Quests or things like drops. I remember friends always farming in Tyr’s Hand for the Crusader Enchanting Recipe … that they then sold. Or running Stratholme Cloister part for Holy Orbs.

One thing is certain: World of Warcraft Vanilla did not take players by their hands … and then lead them through a Theme Park like experience … like World of Warcraft started to do in Legion heavily.
They took players more by their hands earlier … but I think after Warlords of Draenor it became allot more apparent.