Nah the main thing that killed WoW as it was was the merging with Activision and it’s corporate culture. Having to meet all those stockholder deadlines and design around that along with the stupid sparkle pony from Wrath onwards let me know exactly how things were going to play out. Luckily I got to see WoW at its peak.
After that it was all about trying to suck in as many players as possible with homogenization, questing on rails, reduced options talent trees, reducing the need to learn spell upgrades and handing us our spells on our bars, specializations, and more that reduced the epic rpg feel of the game. Then they oddly decided they also needed to make the game as hard as Dark Souls from Cata onward in many ways.
We had Deathwing which was kinda something they pulled out of thin air to make an expansion about after Wrath, then Pandaria which got mixed reception obviously as by then subs dipped to half of what they were down to like 6 million, and then nearly killed the game with WoD.
But one of the biggest issues is they didn’t have much of a solid story vision for the game and bounced from idea to idea. You know people really do care about the story when they made Legion though with Guldan, Illidan, and Sargeras being a part of the Legion invasion. Then we go again from that to some random faction war expansion that felt disjointed, and then into Shadowlands out of left field.
It baffles me that so many people still think this. Deathwing was around since Warcraft 2, and was mentioned more than once in WoW prior to Cataclysm. He was also a major player in the novels that came out before WoW did.
By the time Cata released, he was a major figure in the lore.
“The Defias Brotherhood, you say? Well, you’re certainly the bearer of wonderful news, aren’t you? Next you’re going to tell me that Deathwing is still alive and attacking the city.”
Yes, and I hope he’s doing ok. Having to cancel at the last second doesn’t sound good. I’d also like to say that a lot of my enthusiasm for WoW going forward exists because Metzen came back. New features are fun for a bit, but it’s the lore, the story, the world building that really captivates me.
Mediocre features in a game with a great story makes for a great game. Incredible features with a bad story makes for a bad game.
I kinda worded that wrong but I know they pulled out Deathwing for Cataclysm because they felt they needed some new big bad. I don’t think you need back to back big bads like that in every expansion that are going to destroy all reality or whatever. After awhile it just gets comically old.
So Google AI (which is a horror, but you can’t escape it and on occasion it can be useful) said that he has terrible anxiety about appearing in front of large crowds. That would seem stupid since he has regularly presented at huge Blizzcon crowds, but maybe it’s a different vibe for him since that is his “home”. I’m not saying this is why, but that’s what Google AI thinks, lol.
Similarly people cry about Liadrin saying she is not worthy of the Light is “bad writing.” Not realizing that the blood knight paladins were purely out and out forcing the Nauru to do things they didn’t consent to, and that is how they got to be paladins–and she was the one who led it. People act as if they know the story like the back of their hand and know very little about the lore.
Except the Naaru aren’t the Light. They are beings of Light (and Shadow) but they aren’t the Light itself. The Light doesn’t really give a damn about morality frankly, dozens of villains have wielded the Light.
