The first night we ventured in may have had a couple of issues. I brought in a new raider who was geared but inexperienced, and it showed a little. Also, the first boss just kept outright destroying us and we couldn't figure out why. The healers couldn't keep the tanks up through the first few mobs, and I think we only got to the second siege weapon once. finally called it.
The second night our mystery was solved. On the way in my wife noted that there was a skull in front of the portal. Somehow I had my raids turned to heroic, and we were all expecting normal. To put it lightly, I screwed up. But that second night we downed the first two bosses and had our best attempt on the third we have seen so far. More importantly, we managed to raid two days in a row. I am hoping this means more happy things to come.
Now, I've been thinking of the next expansion in reference to the subscription drop. For those living in a cave Wow is now down to just over 5 million subscribers. Now, I do not think this is unexpected. The game is ten years old and we see a lot of drop off as expansions go on. Warlords itself feels like an expansion that just has aged prematurely to me too. While it's been out for less then a year, for some reason the content just hasn't felt lasting. Normally we get some excitement, you feel content to log in every day and do stuff, but this time it feels like it's all been done pretty quick.
Part of it is the shock of how the end game feels after the great leveling experience. You hit level 100, and half the stuff you want to do is tied into your garrison. There are rep grinds, but you really don't need them. There are daily apexis, but while they are fun the first couple of times they just don't feel great after a while. The dungeons felt ok, but I wasn't enthralled. And raiding, as always is fun, but that is only a couple nights a week. Overall the experience people got after a while was, log in, check garrison, log out. There was no benefit to hanging around in game for the most part, other then visiting with you guild mates.
I also think this is where the faster content expectation they built hurt them. When it feels like very little is coming, and it's coming quickly it just isn't a wonderful experience. In Pandaria it worked because we had things like the Isle of Thunder, or the invasion of Krasarang Wild as our factions showed up. All that had direction and felt like it had purpose behind it. Then we got the wild treasure hunt that was Timeless Isle.
Now the best we have is Tanaan Jungle, which is fun, but feels as directionless as the rest of the expansion.
Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed Warlords, but I wanted to take a look before I went forward at the issues I have had, and that I have heard discussed before I moved forward. Because there are a lot of things that Legion is going to have to be in order to keep the current subscriptions they have. Let's be honest too, we know when the expansion drops those subscriptions are going to go up again. I don't know if they will go all the way to ten million, but no one expected to see that with Warlords and it happened.
Legion is going to have to have direction and purpose. We need to feel like we are interacting and controlling the story, not just witnessing it. Being called general, master, etc... doesn't make up for the fact you don't feel like your character is important to the story. I want to feel like the driving force behind taking down the baddies, not like I'm holed up in my castle giving orders and surfing chat.
It is going to have to play on our nostalgia, and keep a hold of it. The themes we are seeing so far are familiar and exciting. Demon hunters, Illidan, Tomb of Sargaras, are all fan favorites and great memories from Warcraft III and early World of Warcraft. Blizzard needs to make sure that these places and people feel enough like the original that we don't feel cheated. It also has to feel shiny and new enough that we don't get the, "It's all been done" feelings. Right now the excitement is high, and i'm hyped up, but I need a good pay off for that excitement. If I hop on my new demon hunter and I feel like, "Well, I've played this class before" it's not going to be so great. If I go into the Tomb of Sargaras and say, "Oh, I seen this cave skin since vanilla." It will be disappointing.
The last thing Legion needs to do is find a way to find new players. Most of us who have been playing for years don't have the time we did long ago. I know I can't spend hours upon hours questing like I used too. I have also debated lately dropping my subscription for a while with work and school just so I don't have one more thing pulling at me. (I'm not dropping, don't panic raid team) We need to find a way to get new blood into Wow. I don't know if it's possible but getting those late teen and early twenties crowd to hop in would build a player base with more time, and durability then those of us die hards who have been logging in for years. At some point we generally move on to other things, there needs to be players coming in, to slow the number drop of those going out.
Not that Wow is dead or dying. They still have more subscribers by far then any other MMO out there. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be looking to the future a bit more. I imagine this game will still be going on in some form ten years from now. I also think with the MMO market what it is, we will never see another MMO with 12 million subscribers that dominates the market like Blizzard has in days past. I would love for them to prove me wrong.
That is my thoughts on it anyway, what are you all thinking at this point?
Lag
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