Why World of Warcraft Will End Up Like EQ1

#0 - July 29, 2009, 7:31 p.m.

Here is a quote from Crygil.

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/18698008855-blizzard-read-please-read-and-comment-people.html

Q u o t e:
As for updating the "Old World", we've touched on this in the past. It's simply not something we can just patch in, as it would require far too much development time to revisit this older content. It's something we may think about doing in time.

The old world is something that everyone and I do mean everyone that plays World of Warcraft in the future will be playing in and through. And unless those of us currently playing never level another character, except for deathknights... then we'll also be revisiting the classic realm.

Here's what happened with EverQuest 1 around the time that WoW came out. More advanced expansions started coming out that took the player into far better designed and higher graphic quality realms. Instances, "Monster Missions" and the like kept players sucked in for a time. They were better designed, higher quality graphics, better loot and experience, better itemized drops, etc.

Then after a few years, it started going stale.

Even making a new tutorial zone and a new racial starting area didn't keep interest, because there was just SO much content that was beyond outdated. You felt in some places, as if you were playing a different, older game. This created a drought of new players for the game, spiraling downwards, UNTIL they announced they were redesigning areas like the classic "Commonlands" and the like. Showing vast before and after pictures, video fly-throughs, etc. They announced they'd be tackling more areas as well to entice a newer audience to join. This actually increased "resubs" and new player accounts as intended. And despite my personal grudge against them, they actually listened to their audience.

World of Warcraft can end up in decline the same way if Blizzard keeps their belief of not updating the old world.

I love this game. I love the lore and the feel of gameplay. But the vanilla world is getting stale. It's showing it's age now and justifying letting it rot over "development time" is a mistake.

You are THE #1 MMO company in the world. Making excuses like a small fry is very unattractive to those of us that support you.

Crygil

#50 - July 30, 2009, 5:33 a.m.

Q u o t e:

Also need to remember that you can solo to max level in wow.

This is a very large appeal to many players and something that currently sets World of Warcraft apart from its competition. We allow players to do things on their own and we try to provide depth in that philosophy beyond the end of leveling.

Will World of Warcraft eventually be dethroned? Who can say? Time certainly has a way of making these things happen.

Do we think that we are invincible? Hardly. We have a deep and healthy respect for our players and their opinions. We are always working to make choices that we feel will be best for the players. A harsh reality we have had to come to terms with is that players may not always get what they want. We may run into technical limitations or time constraints or even regional concerns that prevent us from being able to deliver on certain player requests.

We also have to make sure that the ideas and projects that we're putting together don't have residual effects. On occasion, things slip by us. This happens because we're human. We do our best to keep those kinds of incidents to a minimum, but it simply isn't possible to prevent them all.

All of this leads to my point. While some people would like us to look back and revisit the past and old content, many other players would like us to move forward and provide them with new and improved content . Perhaps sometime in the future, we'll be able to do both. Unfortunately, we simply aren't there just yet.