Found it interesting as I was playing minecraft the other day. I definitely notice the way their game has been progressing over time in which, Wow and minecraft and their directions have gone two separate ways. Instead of making the game more convenient, minecraft is going the opposite direction. If you play in survival mode, don’t engage the cheats, it is WAY more difficult to obtain diamond and iron ore. They made map making more tedious. They’ve made that little arrow from combining a compass and a map go away if you go off map. It’s an interesting thing to think about…
Minecraft basically kept it as basic as possible with more depth and more challenging with each successive patch. However there’s major differences in wow vs Minecraft, such as the ability to do creative mode which is almost a completely different game. Now you also have the engage cheats, which allows you to keep your gear after dying and etc.
Creative mode is fun don’t get me wrong but eventually people get tired of it and go back to survival. And what does that psychology tell you like - “yea we had fun seeing what the limits of the game are and etc but it’s not the real game”. At this point I’m sure you can understand where I’m coming from. Buying wow tokens and boosting are essentially “creative mode” or enabling cheats. I think that most of time, eventually people want to go back to classic.
On the other hand however, the temptation to cheat is always there. You grind for a month and people start contemplating buying gold. /Shrug. I bet eventually people in minecraft do the same thing. They start in survival and have ALL THE BEST INTENTIONS on not cheating but the grind is just so long. So what do they do, flip the creative mode switch and craft 100 diamond ore. ALL TO QUIT to start a new survival game lol.
I have a wife that will sit there in a mine shaft and mine for hours and days on end and she’s completely fine with it. Analyzing this though, what keeps her engaged? I think I have a good theory - Discovery, mystery and danger. Those three gaming feats will keep her engage for SO LONG. She’ll play it for 12 hours straight.
I think wow should have more profession crafting in it using the same professions we already have. Crafting in minecraft is basically the same as wow on a cracked out level and crafted gear should be the most powerful gear in the game! What about when Asmongold got his hand of sulfuras? That was a major feat dude. Stuff like that just keeps you engaged in the game.
Here’s another one, the final fantasy series when they decided to make everything a tunnel. I remember running through the game and thinking - ok, where does the world map start? It doesn’t and never did. There’s no mystery. Just basically a story with a bunch of grinding. Which is what dungeons and raids are in wow retail. Minecraft and games like FF7 and even GTA are true open world games with lots of mystery and depth with a sense of danger.
You know what dungeon has so much interesting depth and mystery to it - BRD. Another? Gnomer. It kept people bewildered for 6 months! I have to descend into this lava pit of hell to even enter the instance, and avoid horde the whole time. Then when you enter the instance its an open world maze.
I feel like many of these games are going backwards. We should always be patching new things in the game and making the world more and more mysterious and massive. While keeping as basic as possible. New wow is a scripted tunnel adventure with the disguise of an open world game!
Thank you for reading.