It is time for a reckoning with the modern World of Warcraft. Because WoW demon Cortyn has had enough.
You know me. I have been writing for MeinMMO for 13 years and about World of Warcraft. I have accompanied the game through its heights during Legion and also experienced the lows of Shadowlands.
Basically, I like World of Warcraft. I love the Warcraft world, find most of the new areas and stories great, and celebrate housing like almost nothing else in gaming.
But what has been going on in recent months since the first patch of WoW Midnight is simply no longer bearable. It is a shame for a game that has shaped several generations and could still shape them – and probably will again with “WoW Forever.” But today we will talk about Midnight, though the origin of the problem actually dates back to Dragonflight.
World of Warcraft Midnight really started well. The initial content was rich, well thought-out, and good. Sure, there were a few minor bugs, but nothing that was really “game-breaking.” Normal teething troubles that I can handle with any major MMORPG release.
That was acceptable, and most of it was fixed in the first weeks. Small, insignificant bugs that were a bit annoying – but nothing devastating. This was the case with the solid quality in The War Within as well as Dragonflight.
However, that changed with the following patches.
Every patch is a catastrophe to be ashamed of
Absolutely every single patch after the release of Midnight was a pure bug fest. Features were simply unfinished or unplayable.
I can only think of the decoration duel (the “Prop Hunt” mode), which brought so many problems, exploits, and bugs that the community’s strategy was quick: We simply won’t play the mode, but let ourselves be caught at the beginning so that the crap is over.
This is just the first of many new features that came into the game unfinished. I could list them all individually, but actually, you could take any patch and extract the “highlight feature” and ask the question “Did it work smoothly on day 1?” and the answer every single damn time is: No.
The next problem is the balance of the game. I don’t mean differences between classes – they exist, but are mostly significantly less dramatic than claimed. I am talking about the game’s balance for solo content.
The nightmare hunts are ridiculously easy. Even a character who has just reached level 90 and maybe has a handful of blue items from rare mobs can handle them effortlessly. There is nothing “nightmarish” about that. The only thing that was really stupid were the traps that could appear at the beginning of the hunt – but not the actual fight. That was extremely easy.
Kindo’jan was a damn joke
The same problem also applies to the Labyrinth of Kindo’jan. This is particularly because it is the first time you can earn Mythos items here, which solo fans otherwise have no access to. But what does a solo fan even need these items for? There are no solo contents to work towards for which Mythos items would be suitable. The labyrinth at level 11 can even be completed with champion items and eyes closed.
Also the boss Kindo’jan is, and I must say this clearly, a damn joke. This was not a nemesis boss. That was fall fruit. Even with my typically equipped demon hunter, I could defeat the boss in the first phase before any challenging mechanics came up. Actually, the boss has 3 phases.
The only thing that made Kindo’jan difficult was the fact that – you already guess it – the labyrinth was so ruthlessly bugged in the first week that many could not even reach Kindo’jan. The errors were so massive that Blizzard even extended the time limit for an exclusive achievement by one week.
The YouTuber Bellular made a nice video about this a few days ago that speaks to my soul:
Why Kindo’jan is so easy is also obvious: When you arrive at Kindo’jan, you have the buff effects of a total of 9 Depth Chambers in your bag. Your character is then happy to deal double to triple damage, takes hardly any damage, and has 90% more health points.
I can’t prove it, but I am pretty sure how this mistake came about: They balanced Kindo’jan as if you were coming to him without the buff effects. Then the fight would have been at the level of previous nemesis bosses.
This lack of quality in new gameplay content in World of Warcraft Midnight is all-encompassing. It affects absolutely every type of content, perhaps with the exception of raids and housing. There, they actually deliver really good quality.
Not even the shop is safe
This drop in quality even affects the “premium content” for which you would have to pay money in the shop. A shop mount had a placeholder text at release where simply “Name” stood instead of the name of the mount. A new transmog set was even removed from the shop after 2 days because on some races it showed no skin in the right places, but complete blackness, as if one had prepared for a BDSM night in the basement of the Silvermoon inn:
I don’t know who is responsible for this. Whether it is Ion Hazzikostas personally, some senior person, or the whole collective of developers of World of Warcraft that cannot make this decision, but my explicit wish: Delete the 8-week rhythm for patches. I am tired of it. You have impressively proven to the player base for over 4 years: You can’t do this. You cannot deliver content that works flawlessly at such a fast pace.
Every single time, the community makes fun of the developers, asks cynically whether there is no QA team (which there is, but apparently they don’t listen to them) or whether they are paying the 13 euros a month to be beta testers.
The most loyal fans feel betrayed
Again and again, the biggest fans who want to experience the content on day 1 and look forward to it are the ones who suffer. It’s the WoW players who have been loyal to you the longest and who, despite the experiences of the last years, keep checking to see what’s new.
But the way questions are asked in guild chat has gradually changed. It is no longer a How does this work or where does the quest for it start?
, but has become a Can you already play this or should you still wait?
.
When a new update for the beloved MMORPG comes out, it should be a day of joy. Nowadays, it’s like in the gray early days of World of Warcraft, again a “Never play on patch day.” Just that this time it’s not the servers that crash, but the faulty mechanics.
The developers know that their contents are released with errors. Because the bugs that are in the launch patch have been discussed and debated for weeks in the WoW forums and subreddit, even during the PTR phase. It is literally impossible to not be aware of the existence of these errors at launch.
If anything ever brings modern World of Warcraft to its knees, it is not questionable story decisions that sacrifice long-time characters, no “WoW-killer” games, and neither other game versions like Forever or Classic. It is the lack of quality at release and the amount of thoughtless “slop content” that almost everyone is fed up with and seemingly exists only to make the patch notes look nice and long.
World of Warcraft is great when it takes its time for features, thinks them through, and creates something really interesting out of it, as was last seen with the Depths and housing. But after over a dozen copy-paste invasion events, the community is slowly fed up. Especially when the rest of the game is faulty at launch.
And I say this with all the love I still have for World of Warcraft inside me: Stop, Blizzard. Take your time for content until it is finished. Because otherwise your fans will eventually be done with you.
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