267: Azeroth Is Burning

[JackRyan64]

Fantastic article, I don't play WoW. But I've developed attachments for plenty of game locations. The most prominent probably being the No Mercy and Blood Harvest campaigns in L4D1.

I played a lot of Versus mode with a group of my friends pre-survival pack, so all we had were those two campaigns. We knew those maps like the back of our hands, and we played every single day. I guess I just associate those maps with the good times I had with my friends.

 

[Spendrik]

No, my analogies are not perfect, and yes I seem to dislike a lot of things, but WoW is one of those things I've defended heavily over the years, and have been very invested in. I was psyched up for "Burning Crusade", and "Lich King" (even if I do think they should have resolved the storyline via a RTS game), Cataclysm is just "meh". I mean yeah, it's kind of cool that we'll eventually get to see what's on the other side of the wall in Silverpine forest, but at the same time is retiring Shadowfang Keep and Archmage Arugal really nessicary?

Some food for thought: Maybe after going through BC and WoTLK, you're just bored and possibly jaded? After all, it's been, what, 2-3 years between these expansions.

Maybe you grew older and wiser as well.

Many of us fail to consider that maybe the designers aren't necessarily doing a poorer job, it may just be the players growing up, assuming more responsibilities in life and enjoying different things.

 

[Vortigar]

Lovely piece and one thing popped out at me because of these lines:

But what does it mean for Blizzard? They're putting their own work to the torch. They were the architects of World of Warcraft's original Azeroth, and soon nobody will ever be able to see their creation as it once was. That is huge.

This made me wonder if they could release the original world (up to WotLK) as a single-player campaign, or as a Diablo-style semi-multiplayer-online world without the updates, support and monthly subscription.

They'd effectively be competing with themselves, but it would also crack the MMO playerbase who refuses to pay fees. I don't see it happening, but I liked the thought anyway.

 

[Thirtysomething]

I'm sure they've kept the original maps (touched up of course) for some time-travel based quests/instances they can add in later on down the line, to tickle our nostalgia.

They need to make these changes, leave them for a couple years so the old maps have faded into distant memory allowing our nostalgia for them to grow, and then release said quests in a patch, using it as a selling point: "Re-visit the Barrens as it once was, before the sundering!" To tempt back old-old-school veterans.

Or is that excessively jaded?