The big WoW post
August 10th, 2007In the last months I’ve seen a lot of my friends leave WoW and I might leave myself because I’m bored. Why?
Lets take a look at the options you have at lvl 70. If you want to raid you’ll need a decent guild. Right now anything further than Gruul demands preparation (pots, etc..) and focus. You just need to know the tactics and not make mistakes. A dot too much on Hydross can get you aggro and wipe the raid, one click too late (or too soon) on Magtheridon is instant wipe, moving at Void Reaver it absolutely necessary, etc…
Even as attunements got lifted the encounters still demand some skill and good dps. That means that casual raiders have hard time keeping up and unskilled players are of no use to any serious guild. Zul’Aman might make the change from 10 to 25 man easier but it’s still just another instance.
I’m afraid even Wrath of the Lich King won’t bring anything really new. New zones, new quests, new instances and em… new dances! Woot! Not that I have anything against new dances or leveling up. In fact… I love leveling up because I’m free to travel around and try different things in different zones. But once I hit max level that stops. Instances and daily quests are fun for some time but not forever. Now I just run the game when the raid is scheduled, join it and when that’s over I log off. And even raids are boring when you wipe for the 100th time.
Blizzard has made some great and fun encounters but I think most instances are just too “static”. You step inside, buff up and pull a group after group of mobs. Games like Guild Wars have some much more interesting instances. While I haven’t played GW much (got bored at around lvl 12) I did love some special missions there. One required the group to run back to town when too many enemies came, one was a chase of a NPC, there are escorts, etc…
Caverns of Time are the only instances which try this approach in WoW. I hope WotLK will bring more of that. There could also be some random elements in instances.
How about something like this: Your group is escorting a NPC to his home town trough a narrow valley but the way splits into two. You could choose the longer but easier one or the hard short one (like in the Orc mini campaign in Warcraft 3). Instances could also have optional repeatable quests marked with “(Dungeon)”. That would mean that you need to finish the quest in that instance or lose it (but you can always pick it up next run). So back to the mentioned instance… you choose the easy long way which leads you over few hills. There you need to clear some mob groups and you come to a NPC. He gives you quest to help his family on their farm. You can go off the main path and up to the farm, defend it from an attack and save the family. When you return to the NPC he gives you rep and some gold. If the group thinks that the quest is an unnecessary risk you just don’t go to the farm. Those quest could even count into daily quests. After that you continue the escort and finish the main quest in a town. But if you chose the hard way you enter a small dungeon full of mobs and a small boss and you come out near the same town. Both ways should give about the same rep and rewards.
Then there are the random events like in Karazhan Opera. But instead of just giving you a random boss there could be other random stuff like an attack or avalanche which closes one way so you need to go around.This way instances wouldn’t feel so repeatable.
Perhaps there could even be different endings which could have an effect on the outside world. Maybe you would have to choose between saving a mage or a warrior NPC. Depending on the more popular choice (from all parties doing the instance on the server) that NPC would spawn outside and give zone buffs (mage would give caster buffs, warrior melee buffs) or maybe even help your faction in outdoor PvP on that (or next) day.
Of course this wouldn’t be limited to 5 man instance. It would also work in 25 man raids. Or how about an instance where you have use your flying mount? Tempest Keep already demands a flying mount but only for access. Why not expand that inside the instance? There could be an encounter where the raid has to fly over a lake but it gets shot at (kinda like in Blades Edge) and dismounted (but not killed). On the other side there are 5 or 10 buttons which need to be pushed. Each raid member can only push one (he gets a debuff). That means that at least 5 or 10 people have to fly over. Once they push the buttons a gate opens and the rest can swim out of the lake. There could be different tactics used here. One raid might just fly over and everyone tries to dodge the bullets but another raid might have few people taking the bullets on purpose to save the “button team”.
This would make the raids less static and I think more fun.
Also.. I read outdoor bosses are not popular with players which is a shame. I’d like more outdoor stuff. WoW doesn’t even feel like a real mmorpg anymore. We spend most of the time in cities and then get summoned directly to the instance entrance. There isn’t much reasons to ride or fly around the world except to farm herbs/ore and do daily quests. It just feels more and more like Guild Wars where everything outside the cities is instanced (and I hated that).
I think PvP is also something which should be improved. I’m not talking about class balance or whatever.. I’m talking about reasons to PvP and places to do it.
Right now PvP is done in instances. The battlegrounds are nice. They could be better but they are fun. Then there is the Arena which is great but it’s not something you play for several hours every day. And there is outdoor PvP. WotLK is promising an outdoor zone with siege weapons. Sounds fun… but so did the BC outdoor objectives and when was the last time you played those?
I like some outdoor PvP objectives and think they would be fun if more people played them. I’ve never seen any group fight for the Zangarmarsh PvP objectives when it could see constant PvP action if the rewards were better. Guilds raiding SSH might even send few people to take or guard the PvP objective if the buff would help them take down a boss in the instance. This way those guild members who didn’t get into the raid wouldn’t just sit around in Shattrah waiting for an invite but would help the guild outside of instance.
Another thing I’d like to see is combined outdoor bosses with outdoor PvP. I remember killing Azuregos when a horde raid came and attacked us. We had to defend the raid and at the same time kill the boss. For me that was one of the best raids in WoW because of the unexpected twist.
That’s why there should be more outdoor bosses but with few changes. Fights should be longer (not like Kazzak) and 2 raids (one alliance and one horde) should be able to tag the boss. This way a raid would be able to kill the raid already fighting and just take over the boss. But since it would also stay taged the 1st raid could reorganize and attack again. And it would be worth it with good rewards.
Bosses could even spawn in places like Halaa where 2 raids would fight for the town and at the same time fight the boss. When the boss dies he wouldn’t drop anything.. but the controling factions NPCs would give out the rewards to the raid. So it wouldn’t matter who kills the boss but who controls the town.
I just read that Blizzard is also thinking about implementing guild vs. guild battlegrounds. I hope this is true. Guilds really need more to do together. Ever since WoW release guilds haven’t been much more than just a chat channel and a tabard. There are no guild banks (at least that is coming), no guild houses and no guild activities beside PvE raids.
So yea… guild vs. guild battlegrounds are a great idea. It would bring more tactics and teamwork to the battlegrounds and also establish something official where guilds can compare. And finally.. there would be a real reason for PvP guilds to exist.
Then there are guild houses. There has been much interest in this but not much has been done. As far as I know it’s still on the drawing board and planed for sometime in the future. There are 2 ways to implement guild houses: instanced or not instanced. Each have their good and bad sides.
I’m not a big fan of instanced guild houses. It would mean every guild can get one but all would look the same. They wouldn’t be anything special. When I played Auto Assault (the soon to be closed driving/shooting mmo) beta there was player housing available from the start. As soon as I got to the first larger town I got my own place. That was the 1st and last time I entered it. It was instanced and every player had the exact same room. It’s just wasn’t interesting. I think the same thing would happen with instanced guild houses. Since every larger guild would have them they wouldn’t be worth much.
That’s why I’d like to see guild houses outside in the world. My idea is to have about 10 totally different houses in different parts of the world with new being added together with new territories. The entrances would be made similar to the officers barracks (loading screen) so maybe they would technically still be instanced but each would only exist once per server.
One such guild house could be placed somewhere near the Caverns of Time in Tanaris. I’ll call it “The Tanaris House”. It would look similar to Gadgetzan: goblin architecture, actually more of a town than a house. There would be 2 entrances: the main direct entrance and the “siege entrance”. Inside there could be the main building with a large hall and several smaller buildings with NPC vendors which would offer cheaper repair and maybe some rare BoP recipes available only to guild members. It would also have a direct flight path to CoT, an inn and perhaps portals to large cities. In the middle of the “house” there would be a large flag pole which would also be seen from outside. The flag would be based on the tabard of the controlling guild. Under the house there would be a large mine with ore. There members of the guild and maybe also their friends could mine. Of course, the ore should be useful for the guild so no copper and other low lvl stuff. (I’m not sure how this would work when expansions bring in new ore.) It could also have a garden for herbs. Other guild houses could include lakes for fishing (obviously not this one as it is in the desert), alchemy labs, etc… These areas could also be upgraded with quests. For instance you could get a quests for a major upgrade to the garden by bringing Gruuls “fertilizer” or for a small upgrade by bringing some Un’goro soil.
The point of all this things is to make the guild house more than just a status symbol. It needs to be worth fighting for even for guild which focus only on PvE raids. Yes, fighting! This is where the “siege entrance” comes in. This entrance would only open at certain times (kinda like the castle sieges in Lineage 2). When that happens any other guild could enter and fight their way trough the mines. During the battle players wouldn’t be able to corpserun back. If the attackers manage to reach the flag and replace it with their own (similar to AB flags) they would be the new owners of “The Tanaris House”, but if the owners manage to keep the flag safe for a certain period of time they keep the house for another week.
Other guild houses could have other ways to attack. Some could even use siege weapons or bombing runs. Each guild would only be allowed to own one house.
So this would be 10 guild houses. The rest could be located in cities either as instanced or not. If you look around cities like Ironforge or Stormwind there are many empty buildings which could be rebuild as guild houses. These wouldn’t have any gardens or mines and would also be acquired differently (with gold, guild quests, one could go to the top battleground guild if that guild BGs get implemented,…). They would still be a nice place for a guild to meet and show their achievements (like Onyxias head, pvp rewards). Even the big outdoor guild houses could have small rooms as embassies in cities (maybe with portals directly to the house). With city guild houses you could get maybe 20 more to total of 30 for 30 guilds on the server which should be enough. This would make guild houses something that people would try to get and not just something everyone gets.
So.. this are a couple of ideas for WoW. Hope you like them even if we’ll never see them in the game. 
— ahac