#0 - July 6, 2009, 10:43 p.m.
Below are a few specific concerns which I believe show a trend:
1) Since BC, item art is being constantly recycled, with many items sharing models. Unique and good-looking sets like most of Tiers 2 and 3 are a rarity.
2) Late in the BC cycle and soon-to-come in 3.2, 5-man Heroics are made relevant far after people stopped doing them on a regular basis [in the first case, by adding items; in the second case, by changing the emblems that drop].
3) In WotLK, unique 10-mans are cut out and instead are the same instance as 25-mans. In 3.2, one instance will be a 5, 10, and 25-man.
4) Classes seem to be losing uniqueness as their roles become more and more homogenized. Blizzard's stance on this is made clear with the introduction of "Damage Dealing," "Healing," and "Tanking" forums. The removal of specific healing power/spell power, spell crit/melee crit, etc, reinforces this.
5) "Hardcore" progression for top guilds now comes not in the form of besting the top content, but rather defeating a "hard mode" of relatively-accessible bosses.
For some of these (most prominently 2, 3, and 5), some people claim that the direction that the game is taking is an extremely casual-friendly approach. This may be true, but I feel it misses the point, as WoW has always been a very casual-friendly game, relative to the MMORPG market.
My problem with the game's direction is that, given the above evidence, it seems that Blizzard is realizing that it can get away with being lazy due to a lack of competition. After all, why make unique gear models? No one's going to EQ2 over it. Why work hard to balance classes when you can make them more similar? No one's going to stick to Aion Online for over a free trial month because of it. Why fix bugs as they come up? No one's running away to Age of Conan because he or she can't get the Defense of the Ancients achievement.
The emblem change in 3.2 seems most egregious to it. There are many complaints that the change is a huge appeasement to scrubs, but I think "scrubs" who will benefit most from it are being cheated. In the past, when Blizzard wanted to make gear more accessible to people, they added things like the Tier 0.5 questline (which used the same instances but at least added quests and bosses). Blizzard is blatantly recycling the content it already has to artificially increase the lifespan of WotLK content, and I think that's ridiculous.
I will never be one of those people who say that x will destroy the game (where x is badge changes, the changes to 2v2 arena, the Warsong time change, 25-man raids, paladins to Horde and shammies to Alliance, death knights, or innumerable other things) because x has never killed the game and it's highly likely that it won't. Blizzard has created a truly excellent game that people love. The problem is that, from where I stand, it seems that Blizzard is resting on its laurels instead of continuing to challenge itself to make a truly great product.
I really wish a game could compete with World of Warcraft, just to make Blizzard try a little harder. What does everyone else think, though? Am I way off-base and failing to appreciate the difficulty of maintaining an MMORPG, or is Blizzard exhibiting laziness?
