Hey everyone, once again I’m creating a personal opinion topic more directed at Blizzard, although I doubt they ever read these posts…
These days, I’ve been focusing on PvE content, I took a break from PvP — I got to 1800, got the set, helped a few friends, and then stopped because I wasn’t enjoying the direction some classes were taking in PvP (and Ragnarok Online relaunched in Brazil… so I focused on that since I love this game).
I’ve been doing delves lately, managed to do the higher levels, the new modes… I’m trying to drop certain ilvl gear to get the normal raid appearance, and later I’ll try for the heroic one… but I’m doing it at a slower pace because I work, have a girlfriend, so life gets busier lol …LOL…(i’m really laughing bcause i have no free time…~panic intensifies)
But obviously, after so many years playing this, we develop strong opinions on what the game should and shouldn’t have.
FOR ME, in my view, what would sell a lot more and bring massive attention from players boils down to 4 things: New races, New classes, Rework of old zones/larger new zones, rework/remaster of sets (as they’re doing now.… but on a bigger scale)
I must say that the return of old remastered sets is excellent. But obviously, what would grab more attention is having MORE of that. (we always ask for more, right?)
About races:
I’ve made so many posts about this… I created lore suggestion threads, I made threads responding to problems that could be solved with certain new races, etc…
Quadruped races in WoW are hard to implement, but not impossible.
For example, the centaur lore was expanded in DF — the new centaur clans don’t have conflicts with the tauren/Horde, in fact they’re civilized, advanced, organized, they have warrior, hunter, and shamanic classes…
So what would justify a centaur hero coming out of their people and joining a faction?
There’s a solid ground for this, like: A brave centaur ventures out to help with conflicts triggered by a Void invasion, he/she helps the Horde defend Mount Hyjal, Cenarius sees this and blesses him/her with wings — I nicknamed them Pegasus wings — and that’s it, a centaur that can fly.
“But they wouldn’t use a mount” — of course not, they’re a centaur that can fly… “but I’m a mount collector” — then play a race that can use mounts, come on.
That’s one of the biggest arguments against playable quadruped races. People say this, but nowadays with a strong focus on ALTs, that argument doesn’t hold much ground.
Any quadruped race can be made if based on this motivation, and armor pieces that can’t be equipped could be magically relocated, like Dracthyrs do.
That would work for a vrykul, a two-headed ogre, a naga, a gnoll, a sethrak…
Any race that has a problem with scaling, or using specific pieces like head, back, etc… could use the Dracthyr approach and make the slot a “magical slot”.
About classes:
With this idea of hero talents — we got a vision of a character with a very specific “fantasy”, but the problem is that some fantasy themes were missing, and although Blizzard said there would be more hero talents in the future — there were some that didn’t make sense, like the hunter ones. I also noticed that because of this, we might have issues getting truly new classes.
The class the community asks for the most is a tinker. That would make anyone excited to come back and play the game…or play more.
To this day, I don’t understand why they created the evoker when the community always talked about tinkers. Blizzard really needs to stop running from what the community wants — I understand, Blizz, that you have your vision for the story, the game, that you don’t want to bend to the players’ desires, that you want to be strong, bold, and follow your path… but look — more and more people are quitting precisely because you’re not bringing what the community is asking for. Why do you think people stop playing?
Even with my job, my girlfriend, playing RO which I love… I still log into WoW. Whether it’s nostalgia, love for the game, or because I still have some fun — even if just a little.
BUT, that fun has an expiration date — and that expiration is measured by what you do with the game. You finally got it right by bringing housing in the near future but… so what? Is it going to stop there?
You have a very clear list of things that would make players stay in the game for at least 10 more years:
Playable new races: centaurs, nagas, ogres, vrykul, sethraks, gnolls, jinyu, tol’vir… ;
New classes: tinker, bard, lancer — new hero talent branches — battle mage for mages, samurai for warriors — apothecary for rogues — ranged necromancer for DKs (but…if festering striker becomes ranged, unholy DK would be 100% ranged so this one is open to debate…);
New zones/reworks of old content — all the trees, vegetation, buildings, etc. from the old world (Classic, BC, WotLK…) getting a rework — new zones being larger and inspired by WotLK scale…
New high-quality sets, reworks of old sets like you’re already doing…
There, what’s so hard to understand that THIS is what makes players stay?
I speak for myself, of course, but do you really think this wouldn’t make players stay logged’n playing?
And a particular viewpoint here:
I have friends who play RO because it’s free, play Dota 2, or even pay one time for a game like pubg or poe2… they pay for Xbox Game Pass because of the huge game variety there, and they don’t play WoW because they don’t like the subscription model for just ONE GAME.
I just told you how to keep the players who love the game right here, and on top of that, new players would come if you just put WoW on Xbox Game Pass… why are you so reluctant? I don’t know, your decisions seem strange to me, Blizz.
I get that the argument might be that today you make a lot of money from subscriptions via BNet — putting it on Game Pass would make people migrate over there and you end up losing to win in two sides (bnet+gamepass), but… do you know why that argument is nonsense ?
Eventually, the person will drop one of these two services…they will choose between bnet or gamepass…
IF you have, for example, 2 million BNet subscriptions… how many of those also have Game Pass? I don’t, for instance… IF you put WoW on Xbox Game Pass, you’d make those 2 million players pay for Game Pass instead, bring in more players to WoW, and have a reason to slightly increase the price of Game Pass itself… claiming it’s now more “complete”… That’s such an obvious decision from both a business and player standpoint.
Some of my friends would come to WoW because of that… I would pay for Game Pass because of that and would still have access to other games — I’d have no reason to ever cancel Game Pass again.
You’d reach the goal of: retaining people in Game Pass for many reasons, bringing more players to WoW, and bringing more people to Microsoft/Xbox titles…
I honestly don’t understand your decisions or even the delay in making them, Blizzard.
The time is now, today is what matters — don’t wait for tomorrow, because we might not even be here anymore…bcause the world is in a mess right now.
That’s it. Thanks.