Although I still play WoW and probably will for some time, I do entertain myself outside of it in games such as Elder Scrolls Online, and a comment I made elsewhere about how ESO does its content releases made me wonder how WoW players would react to ESO’s style of content release.
Note, Im not talking about the combat style or the type of things to do there, but how it is managed. In ESO you generally get a Chapter (expansion) release every 12 months. For example, Blackwood was released in June 2021 and the next Chapter will be High Isles, due in June this year. While its expansions are not generally as large content-wise as WoW’s they are more frequent and there are also smaller content releases (called simply DLCs) that become available fairly often.
The other thing they do which is different to how WoW functions (and this is probably what some WoW players would not like) is that all content in the way of raids and the various types of dungeons are available at your matched level, forever. So there is no release of an expansion’s content, doing that for x amount of time, then releasing the next expac at which time the last expac’s content is considered “old content”. All instance content is viable forever, whether you are playing a lower level character or a capped character.
The obvious downside for WoW players is that you don’t outlevel it so you can’t go back and solo farm stuff. I believe iis possible to be very strong and to theoretically overlevel a smaller instance but I doubt any single player could solo a raid (Im not certain of this as I dont raid currently in ESO). As I said, Im not comparing quality (mostly because WoW’s raids leave ESO’s raids in the dust, quality-wise). Its just me looking at how the two games structure their content.
In a way I like the idea of content being relevant across an entire game, so that a raid in Wrath would be the same (difficulty wise) as a raid in Shadowlands. Especially if the rewards were the same. It would mean you could go do Ulduar and its 14 bosses and expect to get more chances at gear drops than if you only did, say, SoD and its 10 bosses. Of course, ESO was designed differently from the start and is newer than WoW which was made to be outlevelled so it wouldn’t work now. Not the way the game is built at this time, anyhow…
I don’t expect WoW to change its paradigm in regard to horizontal vs vertical content progression. A lot of bad players have gotten used to the idea that old content becomes mog content. Even the slightest deviation from that expectation can cause mass unrest (see: the drama in regard to Mythic Legion mog runs).
As far as expansions every year, Blizzard has literally already tried that and failed. So that is unlikely to change either.
I expect you are right.
Still, annual smaller expansions at a lesser cost would please this poor old retiree. Have an expac release with 3-4 dungeons, 2 x 5 boss raids and 1 x 10 boss raid that sells for $40 with the next one due 12 months after I think would probably work fine.
Not sure what the Mythic raiders would think of a 5 boss raid but I dont see it would make any difference if they could still do world first runs, and if there were less bosses and a guarantee of more decent loot drops people would probably be happy to run them, especially if all the raids stayed relevant for gear across the entire expansion. Imagine if doing Castle Nathria now rewarded the same level of gear as SoD, and then whatever the last raid will give…
As a solo player I would not be happy with this. I don’t group because I want to enjoy the content, not run thru it, and that design would not allow that.
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Aye, and thats why I said I know many wouldn’t like it. The difference for ESO is that it provides a huge amount of casual solo content. It has solo instances called Delves where you can go in alone and they reward you appropriate stuff for your level. So even if you can’t outlevel group content, there is plenty of solo content that will still give you good stuff. And their crafting system is also very good.
I think they can circumvent that issue by copying ff14 and have it where the player(s) can choose to scale the content or not. So solo players can go back and solo the raid for their transmog, or a raid can scale the raid up to current content difficulty for current rewards. If blizzard would be willing to put in that amount of effort to make sure everything scaled properly.
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One of my younger relatives used to play it a few years ago and it looked like fun but I didn’t like the dull colors.
Mario, Zelda and WoW spoilt me for a lot of other games 
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As far as recycling old content for modern use… I mean, they’re kind of doing that already. We just got some Legion Timewalking content with 9.1.5. As far as the raid content… well, nobody really cares for it. It’s very likely why they abandoned it in the first place instead of doing Throne of Thunder for MOP timewalking.
i’d like better quality content and more frequent.
i personally would just want Retail servers that function kind of like classic tbh. mobs are scaled up, threat is detected more easily, the feeling of dying is there. gold is harder to get, no boosting allowed not even for gold. it would basically follow retail schedule but leveling would just take long af and everything would be harder.
Really? I think parts of ESO are some of the loveliest environments Ive seen in an MMO. For example:
https://cdn.gamer-network.net/2018/usgamer/Elder-Scrolls-Online-Summerset-Shot-(8).jpg
A shot of an area in Summerset. Though I will agree a lot of the gear is quite ordinary looking, it could definately do with a bit more bling.
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Would they be normal wow xpac price? People probably wouldn’t like that. I’m personally in favor of longer cycle xpacs (3 years).
Unacceptable, that’s all I do lol.
I don’t think that would be possible without significant alterations. You can’t just scale Wrath Naxx up to 60 and say have at it because of the gear available to us at 60.
This is one of my fears lol, not for me because I would have 0 parts of it, but imagine if all raid gear in the game was on the table for viability and the big theorycrafting nerds came up with a BiS list that had you going to 10 different raids for a different item 
I play ESO and hate the way they release content. WoW, for all its many flaws, does it better.
Old Republic tried their version of the chapters route. It was 15 minutes of story and 45 of trash mobs you couldn’t skip. A month later, they’d do the same thing. It kind of sucked.
I enjoy large expansions with content patches instead of smaller chapter style, personally.
That reminds me a lot of Rift. Not sure if that is a compliment.
i like solo content and raids. not dungeons.
I like the concept of dungeons but experiencing it is a lot different.
I feel like there is alot of effort put into dungeon details.
But people’s nature and game system like mythic+ just rush through the map asap.
I think examples of balanced dungeon content are old ubrs, and karazhan. they go up to 10 people are moderately difficult. if you dont pay attention between pulls wipes do happen.
I believe High Isles will be $60, however it covers a lot of content as well as access to all previously released expansions. So yes, they are a bit pricey but then the game can be played for free (ie no sub) if you want to after that.
I know its unlikely that the old content could be handled the same ways as ESO. However, the ESO devs seem able to do it, gear and multiple levels of talent trees earned over the years taken into account.
Well, I guess they could put in an Off switch similar to what is done when you go to Uldum, so you could play things in the original form or in the current form.
But I realise it wouldnt suit everyone. Its more just an interesting mental exercise.
The best way to go about it all is to make it optional.
Utilize party sync tech to have a selection in open world for leveling down with the content.
Utilize timewalking for an option in dungeons and raids. Make timewalking permanent.
Also make Brawler’s guild and Darkmoon Faire permanent. Add events to them occasionally to keep them special.
It’s a way of making content in game evergreen. But still giving the easy farm option to those that want that.
Whatever they do, our new Microsoft overlords should implement housing in WoW.
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ESO is that a game you aren’t paying monthly game time fees for ? For blizzard to charge monthly fees then charge every year for a new expansion would be a little much don’t you think? Or is this all supposed to be for free?
ESO does have a subscription, its just that its voluntary. You can play it without paying a sub but paying the sub gives a player a lot of extra very valuable perks, including the bottomless materials storage system and the right to play through all but the most current expansion content and all other DLCs.
If Blizzard put out smaller annual expansions and charged slightly less for them, I doubt anyone would object to that. They even said previously that annual expansions were something they wanted to do, so the idea would have been that they did that and just kept charging what they were charging because players would be getting more stuff to do more frequently. Either way I know I wouldn’t object. Paying even $60 a year for an entire expansion full of content wouldn’t be such a huge ask. I mean, how much do people play for their streaming services in a year now?