First, I want to say that this is not a goodbye letter, as someone who’s been playing this game off and on since the launch of the game all I have to say is, Bravo! Well, that’s not all I want to say, the individuals working on this game deserve acknowledgment for the efforts they put into it though. That includes all the artist and the design teams, and the people trying to improve things as best they can. From the past to the present, this is not something I ever wrote out, but I still appreciate the work that goes into this game.
I’ve come to see MMO’s as a social content mine. We work together to acquire content, just because it’s there and it’s something we can do together. Certainly, there’s things you can do on your own, those are also nice activities to have. So, my perspective on playing this game most of my life is just that, I wasn’t sure what I should get out of it, but now I know what I want out of this kind of game. I want social interaction, even if it’s just seeing other people going about their own business. I want to have the option to run dungeons with people I know, or raid with a larger group. I want content to acquire, and that content is the cosmetics, it’s the mounts, it’s the pets, and its anything else you’ve made to be acquired.
This current expansion, I’d like to say is the biggest evolution in WoW’s history, I would say even bigger than Legion’s artifact weapons, which were nice but ultimately failed to live up to what this expansion has achieved. In other words, what the Dev team achieved was a proper evolution of WoW’s systems and core gameplay experience. That’s no small task, its not even easy to put into words, how much I appreciate this expansion’s design goals and achievements.
To me, this is what it means to support a game like World of Warcraft. I want to see the tired and useless fighting between Horde and Alliance finally come to a close. I want to see the evolution of that faction struggle for resources into a struggle of understanding. I want to see new systems that can evolve the core gameplay, not just rehash what’s already there. I want to see the Dev team that makes this game do something new, something different, something they enjoy working on, and something that will truly evolve the game.
Of course, I know that’s asking for a lot, I’m asking for a game that can evolve and be better, and what does ‘be better’ mean? For me, being better, means listening to the base, and struggling to understand the players who play this game. It means listening to the people who make the assets for the game, it means listening to the people who work on the games code. It means listening and struggling to understand those that interact with every aspect of this game. This is what it means to make something better. Because once you come to an understanding, you come to an alignment of goals. That alignment is the evolution I want from a game like World of Warcraft.
I’m not asking for perfection, no one is, we all just want to play a better game. And I believe this is the right path, the path that’s been taken in Dragonflight. Do better, be better, and understand better, the core needs to evolve.
Thank you again, to everyone who has worked on this game and everyone who has put forth useful feedback for the Devs, you’re all doing exactly what needs to be done.