If you don’t know what crate farming is, then I’ll explain. War Mode allows for War Crates to spawn within zones. These crates are marked on the map for everyone. They fly around for a bit, drop down, and then someone from either the Alliance or Horde can unlock it. It rewards a bit of bloody tokens, tiny bit of honor, and some conquest. It’s not the most efficient way to earn each of those currency, but it feels MMO-y. And that’s the best part.
In LFG you’ll find huge raid groups running these. 40 people. And sure, the main gameplay loop is just waiting for the raidlead to tell you where to go for the next crate, and there is a bunch of downtime, but that’s what makes it good. Because of that downtime and large group of players, people will just talk to each other. It’s social, and I think the game needs more of that.
It reminds me of trains in other MMOs like GW2 or FFXIV. In both of those games, I have explicit memories of seeing a giant CAVALRY of people fly over me while I was questing. And, at least in GW2’s case, even as a low level I could hop on these trains and help out.
Why don’t we have world bosses like that in WoW? I know nothing about game design or anything, but I feel like it’s an easy way to make older zones feel more alive. Have them drop cosmetics, or maybe even some valorstones to incentivize people doing them. We’ve had similar things during anniversary events where we kill bosses and got veteran (i also kinda remember getting champion gear during df but that might be a false memory). Why not just make it a permanent thing? I guarantee you that if a new player was just randomly questing in Northrend and one day they see a giant mass of players flying over them to take on some world boss, they would get curious and follow. And because of scaling, they could actively participate. That player would totally be more willing to stick around.
Look, I’m not gonna trash on this current patch like everyone else. I don’t dislike these events, but I also don’t particularly like them. They’re going to be obsolete by next patch anyway, which is my main gripe. The thing I’m proposing has much more longevity and promotes interaction between max and low levels which is vital for game growth. I don’t even think this is that big a change to implement, but like I said, I’m no dev.
I’m curious to see what other people think about something like this