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World of Warcraft Editorial: Keeping the Market Share
MMORPG.com World of Warcraft Correspondent Dan Growns writes the ways that he feels that Blizzard is moving toward keeping its share of the MMO market and gives his opinions on what the gaming giant will have to do to maintain it in the future.
By Daniel Growns on September 10, 2009
A Cataclysmic Event, Azeroth Reborn
'Cataclysm' the third expansion in the World of Warcraft series, was announced on the first day of the annual Blizzcon event. The expansion brings back one of the mightiest and the maddest of dragons, Deathwing. The theme for this expansion is a cataclysmic event that redefines and reshapes Azeroth as we know it. This expansion will bring us five new levels instead of the ten we saw in both previous expansions. There are some large additions and changes happening to the game that will improve character choice and game play quality.
Combat statistics - Some of these are being removed from the game, some merged into primary stats such as strength. Blizzard has decided to simplify the combat stat system so people can make easy and intelligent decisions on whether or not an item is an upgrade for their character without too much confusion.
Guild leveling - Guilds can now increase in level. This makes it more essential for players to be a part of an interactive community that will help them improve their character or get through the levels faster. Items such as Guild Heirlooms are being added to the game as one of the benefits of increasing your guild's level. Your character, after level 20, will earn guild currency which is used to buy items for the guild; this is a system similar to the Prestige system found in City of Heroes.
Races - Although there are no new classes being added to the game, two new races are being introduced. These are Worgen for the Alliance, as Blizzard felt there was nothing monstrous for the Alliance, and the Goblin race for the Horde which has caused some tension in the community as some people feel it's wrong to give a neutral race such as goblins over to a faction.
Character based improvements - There are new secondary professions being added to the game, which mean that everyone will have a chance to use this profession. Blizzard has stated, however, that there will be no increase in the number of primary professions for a character. Character customization is also being addressed and they are working on allowing players to change the look of their toon in greater detail such as through possibly changing the colour schemes of your armor sets.
Recent Changes, Paving the Pathway
One of the big changes in Patch 3.2 was to lower the level requirement for mounted movement. This made the game a lot more 'alt friendly' - encouraging people to level their other characters and keep their interest in the game. It will be interesting to see how 'alt friendly' the game still is once Azeroth has been redefined, however, it may bring a better feel back to Azeroth instead of all zones being barren and empty of anyone at max level.
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100% Speed mounts, now for level 40
The other recent change that I thought I would discuss was Blizzard's controversial decision to allow players to achieve "Emblems of Conquest", now the second highest tier of badge, through heroic dungeons. This decision infuriated many people that I know as they worked very hard in Ulduar to achieve these badges and now they are all too easy to obtain. There is a motive behind this which is to get the maximum amount of players experiencing some of the end game content before the expansion comes to a close, as a company this is a key requirement to keeping the majority of players interested.
End of the Cold Road: Icecrown Citadel
We are now preparing for the next large content patch in the game. The trailer for Patch 3.2 tells us that it is next on the list; however this is the point of the expansion, to fight Arthas. After Icecrown has been explored, Blizzard need to find new ways to keep people interested in their company, although an expansion will be out, they will have to look to marketing their new MMO project and trying to retain current subscribers to their current MMO.
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Ascent to the King's Domain
A Few Ideas for the Future
In the past, the most you could customize your character on World of Warcraft would be to change the name or sex of your character at a price for real currency. I believe to maintain much of their market share they need to increase the customization you can do to your character.
- One of the ways they could do this would be to allow you to change the look of your armor (to other armored pre-sets), and the colour scheme of that armor for a price in virtual currency. This would distinguish people's characters and they will get a better sense of their character truly being unique.
- Guild housing could be a large improvement to the game with the correct structure they could implement this without any effect on the way the game runs. In City of Heroes, you are able to create a base for your guild which is instanced and does not affect the environment. In your base you have many options to create a base that is truly your own. Instanced guild housing would be a brilliant addition for World of Warcraft using key items in the base such as a summoning stone, raid teleports and city teleports: guild housing could become essential for serious guilds. The only issue with this would be the potential for cities to become deserted.
- Caverns of Time - This area is potentially the most expansive part of Warcraft, its potential is without any boundary. Blizzard could put in effort to have a part of the Caverns where you can choose instances from original Warcraft and the Burning Crusade and have their difficulty scaled to level 80. This would allow many players to go back to content they may not have experienced since they were low level players and enjoy everything the game has to offer. Of course, this would take a lot of effort on the part of the development team to implement properly.
The abundance of instances available would give players a great amount of choice in what they want to do when they log onto Warcraft. Many people I have spoken to had very bad experiences with the low level instances as many players were new to the game and may not have understood the structure. Allowing you to revisit these instances with more experienced players would really give a great experience to the player base.
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The Delicate Fabric of Time
Ultimately, keeping a good market share for a company like Blizzard it is most important to ensure that the maximum number of players can experience most of the important and well thought out content in the game, by which I mean all of the raids available at the maximum level. This is also the reason that the stats are being re-simplified in the next expansion as to gain more revenue it is easier to appeal to ease of use than sitting and thinking gamers.
It would be interesting to see what some of you believe could help Blizzard keep the market share, See you in the forums!
very nice article
I'm just curious, is there some particular reason why we should want to help Blizzard maintain its market share?
Because some of us want to see Blizzard/WoW thrive maybe?
Well, for a start, they should add more level 80 dungeons and give them loot on par with what heroics in WOTLK drop, in normal mode. These special normal dungeons would be doable just one per day, with difficulty equal with current heroics. However, on heroic mode, these dungeons would be very challenging, needing a lot of coordonation to be done. They will need decent CC, interrupting and plenty of tricks that will require extensive moving and thinking. These heroics would drop normal dungeon item's ilvl+10-20 and would be objective of attunement's quests.
Then, each raid setting would have a heroic option(for both 10 and 25 man, just like TOTC system works). Heroic option would mean very challenging bosses, on par with BT/Hyjal and end-bosses with Sunwell difficulty. To be able to enter in heroic setting, you'd have to do attunements who involve killing the endboss of normal setting and getting certain items from heroics mentioned earlier. Attunements will differ: there will be attunements for 10 man version of the instance and 25 man version of the instance.
Each time a new raid is released, one of two of early mentioned dungeons would be released, so new attunements can be at least a little bit different. However, in the new raids, attunements will also include quest items from previous hard setting raids and will involve summoning a "gearcheck" style boss, which drops no loot, other than the quest items necessary to finish the attunament. This will add a feeling of progression for guilds. Again, attunements will differ from 10 man to 25 man, being completely different chains.
Each heroic setting of a raid will also include 1-2 extra bosses for itemisation, especially in the 10 man part where things can get fishy from time to time. Of course, these bosses will match the heroic setting and will be very hard.
Ilvls should not be way too increased, otherwise people doing normal modes would start complaining, but heroic drops from 10-man raids should be better than drops from 25 man normal raids.
With this approach, people who want a hard WoW will have it hard. Of course, guilds like Ensidia or STARS could do them very fast, but even them will sweat a little, just like they did in Sunwell and old Naxxramas.
Because some of us want to see Blizzard/WoW thrive maybe?
some of us want MMO companys to stop trying to copy WoW but with how well its doing that wont happen for along time
The expansions have ruined WoW. Theme-parks and expansions just don't mix. Everyone still playing this poor excuse of an MMO are all a bunch of mindless automatons.
Pst, chain quoting random things you heard on forums then jumping in the bandwagoon isn't good.
BC is the best thing that happened to WoW and even if WOTLK was subpar until now, it's still better than the mess which was vanilla.
Hi Everyone,
Due to the unfortunate clash between BlizzCon and the process of editing I had to make many quick changes to this article to update it. The original article was written before BlizzCon and the announcement of a new expansion. I have done my best to be thorough in updating the article and retaining the highest possible standard in quality.
Hopefully you enjoy my article regardless, my next article will not be time sensitive
Thanks,
D.J.G.
Because some of us want to see Blizzard/WoW thrive maybe?
I'm sure most of us wish Blizzard well and want to see WoW continue successfully. I'm just not sure that automatically means maintaining whatever gynormous market share they currently hold. Personally I'd rather see three or four strong games competing for the top spot.
Pst, chain quoting random things you heard on forums then jumping in the bandwagoon isn't good.
BC is the best thing that happened to WoW and even if WOTLK was subpar until now, it's still better than the mess which was vanilla.
I disagree. Everything that you have done, is undone with a patch or new expansion. Something is wrong with that imo.
Great article Dan!
The announcing of the new expansion will shake up the player base and as we have already seen there are split opinions as to whether it will be a sucess or not.
I personally cannot see player housing being implemented anytime soon, it's been an option that has been suggested since early on in the game's creation but never been used however I would love to see further customization to gear - an aspect that would truly enable players to differentiate their character from similar others.
IOW, "I was having so much fun when MMO was a small community of geeks who thought they were l33t, but Blizzard has ruined things by making a casual game millions of ordinary folks can enjoy. WAAAAH!''
News flash: Blizzard isn't making games just to be your personal sandbox. They're a company trying to make MONEY by selling a product to the largest number of people they can. And they've proven to do their job very well... your measly opinion doesn't rate much when compared to the billions they've collected.
I've got a few problems with WoW right now so I've pretty much stopped playing, but they're my problems not Blizzard's.
I disagree. Everything that you have done, is undone with a patch or new expansion. Something is wrong with that imo.
Don't forget:
-Most of the specs were useless. Discipline? What the hell was that. Feral and prot paladins tanking? You'd get laughed at. Shamans having a viable spec? Nope, just put totems and do w/e you want, we don't need your damage/healing lol.
-Itemisation. Was barely fixed in AQ40 and Naxx. Until then, spirit on everything, random strenght on cloth, etc.
-Raids: all BC raids and most WOTLK hardmodes are harder than anything in vanilla, bar old Naxx. MC was just...something I'd never want to experience again. BWL was meh, that if you managed to get past Razorgore's bugged stances that weren't fixed until today. Most vanilla raids were tank-and-spank but bosses dealt a huge amount of damage and health, calling for a shitload of buffs and world buffs.
-PvP: Grind 15/24 to get high warlord(mostly with account sharing, since if you didnt get bored in 3h, you got amazing willpower, if you didnt get bored in 6h, you were not a bloody human being). Grats, you got the equivalent of tier 1.25 and you'll still get destroyed by players with t2+. Stats played a huge role, even higher than res and every class got an oneshot/close-to-one-shot trick. If not, in case of SP, you needed 3 people to solo them, since PW:S absorbed 1k+ dmg, a huge amount at that level.
-Bugs: Undead shadow priests stacking all ranks of ToW=instant 1k damage. Bosses randomly despawning. Doors bugging out. Abnormal respawns. These things could make someone ragequit in an instant.
BC and WOTLK at 60, as progression after Naxx or an alternative...dude, WoW needed a full revamp on most former raid items, dungeons and anything. Just to fix the bugs. Don't think Blizzard enjoyed that.
I personally think Blizzard needs to shift their focus with WOW if they want to remain at the top...
People are starting to get disillusioned with the fact that every piece of gear they raid for is replaced by a new, better piece of gear within a couple of months. It completely devalues the gear players work so hard for and eventually leads to them quitting. This is what happened with me. I used to raid a great deal in Vanilla WOW and the Burning Crusade, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it all again when WOTLK came out. I raided a little bit and got my set of all epics in Northrend, but I could not justify the time commitment when the next set/raid begain.
If Blizzard would shift their focus away from constant gear progression and towards a gameworld that is actually changeable based upon the actions of the players, I think this would make many people want to play again. If I were in charge, I would start implementing a heavier focus on PvP and try to get some meaningful RvR-style battles going. I would STOP the gear progression after one or two VERY difficult raids so that the hardcore raiding guilds are the only ones who can complete it, but also make an easier version of the same dungeons (with slightly less powerful rewards) so that everyone can experience the content.
I think the constant progression in gear sets is killing the game at present because many people (like me) recognize that there is no point in even trying to stay competitive unless we have MASSIVE amounts of free time.
At the same time if players aren't interested in PVP what do they do when they get their gear? They're cut off till next xpac?
I'm sorry but your vision of WoW is limited to what would be a good way to turn WoW into CoD4. Grind till gear level 55 and then pvp till modern warfare 2. I don't play WoW for CoD4 I play CoD4 for CoD4.
Plus if they don't add any loot who would honestly want to go continue progression when the next instance came out? Or are you suggesting they should have never released Uld, or TotC? And shouldn't Release Icecrown Citadel?
Because personally I quit because naxx was boring and I came back for uld. I did not want a rehash of an instance that I bashed my face against the first time. It trivialized my previous effort.
P.S. CoT Will never be used to rehash instances. Heroic modes will. CoT is used to relive epic moments in the history of Azeroth that could not normally be fit into the plot. There's no way players could go back 4 years before WoW release to participate in the Battle at Mount Hyjal So they had to make a way to do it.
There's no way We could go back to the Culling of Stratholme or the opening of the dark portal, or Thrall's escape from Durnholde Keep without CoT, but to go to deadmines in lvl 80/85 format. Heroic mode.
I have a feeling it would be fun if they did that but it would get old fast. (Although I could run SM indefinitely I love that instance for some reason) I think that's why they are rehashing a few instances at a time(Ony ond I think I heard Deadmines was being redone correct me if I'm wrong), so you don't have to grind lowbie instances for gear, but you can do a few out of boredom to relive the content.
Edited to add Note that was relevant to OP.
Progression through gear is the only logical way to determine people do instances in a game like WoW(aka with its design). Progression through skills? Blizzard tried to do that with 60 tomes giving new ability ranks, it wasn't the brightest idea ever.
Progression through...fun? You won't see it in MMORPGs.
At the same time if players aren't interested in PVP what do they do when they get their gear? They're cut off till next xpac?
I'm sorry but your vision of WoW is limited to what would be a good way to turn WoW into CoD4. Grind till gear level 55 and then pvp till modern warfare 2. I don't play WoW for CoD4 I play CoD4 for CoD4.
Plus if they don't add any loot who would honestly want to go continue progression when the next instance came out? Or are you suggesting they should have never released Uld, or TotC? And shouldn't Release Icecrown Citadel?
Because personally I quit because naxx was boring and I came back for uld. I did not want a rehash of an instance that I bashed my face against the first time. It trivialized my previous effort.
That's why it's a failed model. Sandbox>theme-park.
That's why it's a failed model. Sandbox>theme-park.
Well, a well implemented sandbox MMO would be a huge hit.
But, dear devs, if you call it a MMORPG, then make it both a MMO and a RPG, otherwise it won't end up well.
That's why it's a failed model. Sandbox>theme-park.
I like WoW the way it is, I just did not like that particular ride. Naxx was not fun for me. I preferred TBC WoW's model of difficulty but because I quit for 4 months I'm struggling to catch up while avoiding naxx and it's scaling the difficulty back up xD
nice artikle
At the same time if players aren't interested in PVP what do they do when they get their gear? They're cut off till next xpac?
I'm sorry but your vision of WoW is limited to what would be a good way to turn WoW into CoD4. Grind till gear level 55 and then pvp till modern warfare 2. I don't play WoW for CoD4 I play CoD4 for CoD4.
Plus if they don't add any loot who would honestly want to go continue progression when the next instance came out? Or are you suggesting they should have never released Uld, or TotC? And shouldn't Release Icecrown Citadel?
Because personally I quit because naxx was boring and I came back for uld. I did not want a rehash of an instance that I bashed my face against the first time. It trivialized my previous effort.
P.S. CoT Will never be used to rehash instances. Heroic modes will. CoT is used to relive epic moments in the history of Azeroth that could not normally be fit into the plot. There's no way players could go back 4 years before WoW release to participate in the Battle at Mount Hyjal So they had to make a way to do it.
There's no way We could go back to the Culling of Stratholme or the opening of the dark portal, or Thrall's escape from Durnholde Keep without CoT, but to go to deadmines in lvl 80/85 format. Heroic mode.
I have a feeling it would be fun if they did that but it would get old fast. (Although I could run SM indefinitely I love that instance for some reason) I think that's why they are rehashing a few instances at a time(Ony ond I think I heard Deadmines was being redone correct me if I'm wrong), so you don't have to grind lowbie instances for gear, but you can do a few out of boredom to relive the content.
Edited to add Note that was relevant to OP.
I understand your points, but surely I am not the only one who is getting tired of doing nothing but raiding? In WoW, that is the only thing you can do to acquire the best gear. Nothing else if even slightly worthwhile if you want to be competitive. Why even bother when all of your efforts are completely trivialized the next time they release new content?
I'm just tired of the same old formula. I love the game, but surely there has to be something else they can focus on rather than raiding. For me, PvP would be the perfect alternative. I don't see how you compare that with COD4 since in an MMORPG it would be more about capturing territory and altering the world map... which is completely absent from a FPS like COD4.
I'm not saying that PvP is necessarily the answer, but I wish Blizzard would try to mix it up a bit. Raiding is such an old and tired concept at this point and it is boring many of us out of the game.
Raiding is like a job. You have to get there on time and stay until you kill your boss.
Their Recent efforts with siege vehicles and an entire PVP dedicated zone have been steps towards that goal, but WoW is primarily a PVE focused game and I can't see that changing anytime soon, they have a subscriber base that keeps asking for more.
I like World PVP i wish they created more daily hubs like sunwell which were NOT PVP locked, but other than that Arenas and BGs don't get me going too much.
As far as raiding for gear they at least added a new 5 man which heroic gear of is comparable to Ulduar 10 gear. So it's not ALL about raiding.
I personally think the game would stagnate and they would lose their player base if they stopped releasing content or even stopped releasing gear with their content.
Also I was referring to your character completely stopping progressing if there's no new gear. Not that the gameplay is similar to CoD4. I play wow for reward based grinding essentially I don't want to stop getting rewards at gear level 55 and just PVP against players in the exact same gear.
Then it's the equivalent to different game types in an FPS level playing field and different objectives but the same game underneath that mask.
I'd rather keep my time sync(WoW) as it is and play MW or MW2 when it comes out for 45 minute frag fests on an even playing field.
I agree with Anubisan. I also quit a little bit after Ulduar, because the gear progression is TOO fast. You can't combine the fact to make it a more casual raiding experience with the rediciulous gear progression. It ends up being too much gear, too fast, i mean how many days did it take for a guild to down the entire Ulduar? Most guilds are NOT like that, they played 24/7 but they need to make a HARDER difficulty and a EASIER one. Not just 10 and 25, yes 10 man and 25 man can be harder depending on the boss but it is not a actual setting, they need it to be like actually Normal and Heroic like a normal instance. Where 5 man HoL is easy, but if your not geared and never been there HoL can be hard in heroic. To be honest i played WotLK to be able to kill the LICH KING! Where the hell is he? They are coming out with a Expansion without even developing the instance to down the last boss in this expansion. That is way too fast progression, and if you can't see that then you are partly blind. Are they going to release Cataclysm with the dungeon to kill the Lich King? Really what are they thinking is beyond me.
The only people that get to do 2k+ PvP arena (the BEST PvP gear) are the people who already WERE 2k PvP before it. They keep trying to fix it, but there just isn't a way. A new team with no gear vs previous season arena, who is going to win? They need to add a system liek Warlord again, multiple ways to get this gear not just 2K+ honor. Also do not make it easy, because 2K is not that easy to someone who hasn't already reached it. I do agree with the fact that they need to focus more on PvP because there are two ways to have fun with this game: Raiding and PvP, and anyone who doesn't quit bounces between the two or only logs on when they raid.
IceCrown (patch 3.3) will add 2 new 5man dungeons as well as the main raid. I think that is a step in the right direction.. i would like to see professions used more to create top end gear, when ever a new teir of raid/gear is released be good if blizzard updated profession recipies to give some peices of top end gear.. and you need to collect parts and rare items from 5man dungeons to craft these top teir peieces.
If you read inbetween the lines Blizzard are now talking about the market share and not about the number of subscribers it has . This really does point at some significant loses this year . I think Warcraft will maintain a large market share because people arnt going to give up on mass for a new game . They will never have 11.6 million players again though .
Because some of us want to see Blizzard/WoW thrive maybe?
Yes, that would be the reason. The more they can afford to add content and the cool new stuff the better for players. I dont even play wow anymore but am sure tempted to check it back out only because it Thrives.
I disagree. Everything that you have done, is undone with a patch or new expansion. Something is wrong with that imo.
What you said is equally applicable when you level from 9 to10 and you leave Elwyn forrest and go to Westfall. You will get new gear that replaces what you got in Elwynn. See new locations. Get new quests, new spells, new abilities.
An expansion is no different than playing any other part of the game. It is the same basic formula of character progression throughout the entire mmo and nothing is undone.
This is the *exact* reason that I quit, along with every other player I knew personally. The hamster wheel only works for so long.
I disagree. Everything that you have done, is undone with a patch or new expansion. Something is wrong with that imo.
What you said is equally applicable when you level from 9 to10 and you leave Elwyn forrest and go to Westfall. You will get new gear that replaces what you got in Elwynn. See new locations. Get new quests, new spells, new abilities.
An expansion is no different than playing any other part of the game. It is the same basic formula of character progression throughout the entire mmo and nothing is undone.
What a laughable comparison! How much time and effort does it require to get from Level 9 to Level 10? You could almost do it in your sleep. Now, how much time and effort does it require to earn a complete set of top tier end-game gear? Slightly more, eh?
So because it takes a few more hours in one dungeon, all your efforts are undone? What I said is true. It doesn't matter if it is the first dungeon in the game or the last dungeon in the game. Just because it takes less time to level from 9 to 10 doesn't make what happens any different. The entire game is about achieving. Gain a new level, new item, spell, title, achievement, discovery, tradeskill recipe it doesn't matter. Something is always replacing what you have already earned and it starts at level 2.
When someone replaces tier 7 with tier 8 was all that previous effort wasted? Was it undone and for nothing? When a raid group moves from naxx to ulduar does that somehow undo everything that was accomplished in naxx?
It is the same exact thing happening over and over again at every level in an mmo. It just takes a little observation to see that it is the same.
What you said is equally applicable when you level from 9 to10 and you leave Elwyn forrest and go to Westfall. You will get new gear that replaces what you got in Elwynn. See new locations. Get new quests, new spells, new abilities.
An expansion is no different than playing any other part of the game. It is the same basic formula of character progression throughout the entire mmo and nothing is undone.
What a laughable comparison! How much time and effort does it require to get from Level 9 to Level 10? You could almost do it in your sleep. Now, how much time and effort does it require to earn a complete set of top tier end-game gear? Slightly more, eh?
This doesn't justify keeping vanilla's horrible PvE bosses bar AQ40 and Naxx and the PvP which was won by stats, not skill and the fact that you could count the number of useful specs of all classes on one hand, and the horrible itemisation.
Blizzard should have never released Naxxramas in patch 1.11 and keep it for WOTLK.
I would love to see housing implemented in WoW. Unfortunately, I think they're waiting till their market share starts the slide before they introduce this upgrade.
I generally agree with the article, but I suspect that Blizzard already is on to some of those things.
We already know that they are going to revisit the old dungeons for new end-game content, and you won't be needing Caverns of Time to do it. For example, I could totally see a new Shadowfang Keep run where, after the death of Arugal in Grizzly Hills, a new "evil" worgen arises to try and subjugate the "good" worgen and/or kick the Forsaken/Scourge out of Silverpine once and for all. With Deathwing and Ragnaros back (the latter apparently moving to Tanaris, I think was what I heard), that reopens all kinds of possible story tie-ins to entire range of Blackrock Mountains instances (and they apparently are adding a new one there, too, just for new end-game).
So I'm totally not worried about new instances made out of old ones. Considering how huge places like Blackrock Spire and Blackrock Depths are, my only question is what kind of ridiculously-overpowered crap they'll be flinging at us. Half fire elemental dark dwarves? Maybe some half earth elemental black dragonspawn? I see lots of possibilities; all you have to add/change in the game are mobs, because the architecture is already totally done.
By the way, this is going to be great for outdoor PVP, I think, because with that many opposing faction members in old stomping grounds, they'll probably get a wave of nostalgia and go knock over the sandbox in some town belonging to the enemy. I think we'll see at least a slight increase in outdoor PVP during prime time raiding hours. If Blizz was smart, throwing a few outdoor PVP objectives in a few extra zones wouldn't hurt our fun out there, either.
Housing is something I've totally bought into the idea of. I hate to say it, but EQ2 had the correct model of what to use it for. It's not just some neat thing to sink gold on. You can use it for trophies of past glories, hanging your first epic or legendary on the wall, rather than just melting/vendoring/deleting to make more room. You can also use housing as a business endeavor; allow players to buy extra banking space, counters to sell crafted goods from, and links to the auction house, and it'd give us tools that would greatly enhance our enjoyment of things.
Guild housing is a good idea, and we should definitely look to City of Heroes as the model there. Not only are guild bases for crafting and decoration, but guilds can schedule meaningful PVP attacks on one another. In COH, there are even guild-based items housed in the base that provide buffs to the guild. While this shouldn't be a huge thing in WOW (don't want a riot about "unfair advantages" or anything), even something that just provided PVE advantages could make for a huge difference. For example, if a Horde guild seized a relic that gave all members a 5-10% damage buff against dragons or elementals, an Alliance guild would totally love to break in, steal it, maybe smash their mana loom or kitchen while they're at it.
Regardless of exactly what housing is used for, it would add a lot of opportunity to the game. If Blizz has the capability server-wise to add it, doing so as soon as possible can't hurt them.
Varying the look of gear (not just color, either, but actual appearance) is something else that's a good idea. But I think we should be taking it a step further: allow crafters to actually choose specific gear models for their crafted gear. That, along with gear respecs, would enormously improve customization in the game.
Overall, I'm pleased with the pace of development. They don't want to release everything all at once; players get burned out just as fast, only they'll have nothing new to maintain interest. And keeping people interested in your product is a huge part of keeping market share.
All they gotta say is their next game will be a worldly, sandbox as in UO, SWG, EVE , style, and we're yours. All of us. Or be pussies and we'll keep taking our friends back one at a time. Starting with the women.
Please tell me you realize theFact that patch 3.3 will be close to a year before Cataclysm. Also while I disagree that the gear upgrading is bad I do agree that it has been at a very fast pace this expansion and it is hard to keep up.
Ultimately WoW is a level and gear base game. So part of the progressions is always about better gears and more gears. Though we will see once players hit 85 there'll be another way to progress their toon.
What i personally hope to see in WoW is that they will have scalable instances, than that will definitely makes them hold on to more players and hence continue to dominate/ keeping the market share...
Pre Tbc it took me months to get decent gear.
Tbc came all the tier 3 raid gear was surpassed by dungeon blues.
Wotlk came tier 6 stayed about for a while until then that became obsolite.
Levelled a Pala to 80, had 3 4 epics within a week from badges and ToC.
The games a joke.
Now World of Warcraft is just a coin op.
Thats my honest opinion.
The above is why I quit 5 months ago, haveing completed raid after raid and a heavy time investment, only to have the gear thrown out of the window within a months time. That made the game I loved for 5 years into an abomination of time consumption, and the reason I and many others eventually quit.
Imho., the game should be about alot more than just gear, it should be about the community and not about who had what purple with an ilvl higher than the other.