If you ever liked World of Warcraft, you should look forward to Patch 10.0 and the new expansion – at least that’s what the WoW demon Cortyn from MeinMMO believes.
No matter how you look at it, if you associate many beautiful years of memories with World of Warcraft, the last months and also the last expansions have been quite hard to endure. Whether it was the generally negative mood surrounding Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands or all the incidents surrounding the sexism scandal at Blizzard – none of it looked good.
I am no different. Even though my job is to report as neutrally as possible about the incidents surrounding Blizzard and World of Warcraft, I personally want the game and the developer company behind it to do well – including all the employees there.
This is why the last two years have bothered me even more. Reporting on World of Warcraft has been exhausting, aside from a few positive stories. Whether it was the disgusting sexism scandal or the general mood surrounding the game – it simply didn’t feel good and there was predominantly a negative atmosphere everywhere.
But I have hope that it will be different with the next expansion, which will hopefully be announced within the next few weeks. The hints point to a dragon addon – one of the original races of Azeroth and hopefully a story that is a bit “down to earth” compared to the story of Shadowlands.
That one, with its afterlife dimensions and strange locations, while cool, doesn’t fit the flair of Azeroth.
The story chaos can only get better
That the story will get better, I am convinced. An important point here is the incident surrounding Afrasiabi. Even if not all the details are known, a lot indicates that the current storyline surrounding Sylvanas is primarily due to the former story chief Alex Afrasiabi. The storyline isn’t necessarily bad; I liked the burning of Teldrassil and also the war that resulted from it.
However, I missed a resolution, a coherent narrative, and the feeling of finally getting some reasonable answers. All of this didn’t happen because Afrasiabi – according to current indications – pushed the story through on his own and then was fired, leaving behind no red thread for the story.
The current developers had to cobble something together from this debris and find some meaningful conclusion in Shadowlands.
It’s no secret that this has worked rather poorly and also alienated the most loyal Warcraft fans. Very few liked that the Jailer suddenly became the big evil behind all the machinations in the Warcraft universe.
At the same time, the Afrasiabi incident also explains a lot. It offers a, admittedly very simple, explanation for why the story of World of Warcraft has not felt right since Patch 8.3. As if everything doesn’t really fit together anymore, important aspects have been forgotten, and one somehow gets the impression that characters are forced into situations that don’t really suit them.
But this also fits wonderfully with the statement of Steve Danuser, the new story chief at WoW, who said in the trailer for Patch 9.2 that this is now “the conclusion of a chapter of the Warcraft saga.”
I initially scoffed a bit at that, but in light of the latest indications, it seems sensible. It also aligns with other statements that Patch 10.0 – the next expansion – will be entirely Steve Danuser’s baby. In terms of story, this probably represents a new beginning or at least a reorientation of the team.
This means in the best case new stories in a world that finally feels like home again, with characters you love.
Less intertwined systems – less borrowed power
Therefore, I believe, and I believe it wholeheartedly, that World of Warcraft will experience a turning point with 10.0. Not just because the story now comes from a team that hopefully pulls together and the penny has finally dropped, that players no longer want to grind indefinitely. Not only because Blizzard has just “cleaned up” among themselves and fired problematic developers, and not just because after Patch 9.2, a chapter of WoW ends that hardly anyone wanted to see.
That the developers are willing to change something is already shown by Patch 9.2. In the current version on the PTR, they have already moved away from a lot of compulsive grinding. Sure – whoever wants can still farm reputation, but as an optional means, if they want extra rewards. A competitive pressure does not currently exist.
However, there are also a number of things that I don’t see as dramatically as the “loud part of the community”. Whenever I read that “World of Warcraft is dead”, I am confused and raise my eyebrows. Because either these people have never seen a truly dead game or something completely different is happening on their realms and realm pools than on mine.
When I log into World of Warcraft, especially not at 4:00 AM on a Wednesday, I do not have the impression that the game is dead. Whether it’s about “Mythic+”, visiting a raid, PvP battles, or role-play – a group is easily found.
The core of my guild is still there and the capital cities are not deserted. I do not have the impression of a “dead” game. Sure, it’s not as crowded as during an addon release – but it hasn’t been since the implementation of the sharding system.
But I don’t want to just defend WoW in its current state. The ever-new “Borrowed Power” systems have simply been poison over the years. The same goes for the compulsive intertwining of more and more game systems that have created an unwieldy tangle of tasks that hardly any newcomer can navigate through.
As a PvP fan, I cannot just play PvP. I must complete the PvE campaign, level my covenant, farm legendary materials in Torghast, farm legendary recipes from dungeons, grind media and reputation in Korthia, and ideally also visit the current raid for the Shards of Domination.
However, I also think that WoW has produced a lot of good things in recent years. The “Mythic+” system has made dungeons interesting well beyond their original fun factor. The different difficulty levels in raids offer incentives for different groups of players.
But even with these systems, there are enough players who say that this has initiated the downfall of WoW and that anyone who defends this is just clinging to a big bottle of copium. Difficult to comprehend, since these are just options that offer more variety and diversity and appeal to different types of players.
If these contents were solved by other systems, so that only those players who really want to could access them – it would already be considerably better.
Patch 10.0 sounds good, even without knowing anything about it
The first leaks about the next expansion – whether they are now “legit” or completely made up – at least make me feel positive. It has made me realize that I am still interested in how things will unfold with WoW and that my fundamental interest for a new beginning is still there.
I believe this too because my trust in the current development team is still relatively high. This is not just because of Patch 9.2, but simply because of the feeling regarding Blizzard’s current communication. It seems as if they are pulling together again and pursuing a common idea. I am ready to see a real improvement.
Especially because I truly believe that Patch 10.0 is the last chance for World of Warcraft to become relevant again. The last few years have painfully shown fans and also skeptics that a rule does indeed exist that Warcraft taught us decades ago: No king rules forever.
I believe it is completely legitimate not to return for Patch 9.2: Eternity’s End. It is the conclusion of a story that many simply are not interested in, in a game world full of systems that do not bring enjoyment to many. The patch cannot fix all of that. It is okay to skip it to make a statement and clarify: We don’t want this and we never want to see that in WoW again.
But anyone who has seen World of Warcraft as an important game over the last decades and enjoyed it for a long time should at least approach the next expansion with an open mind and try to engage with whatever comes.
And if the new expansion then really does not please and falls short of all expectations – then WoW has probably really earned to gradually fade into obscurity.
I hope that the developers can convince us of the opposite. I am at least cautiously optimistic. And yes, I am, without having seen a single tangible piece of evidence for Patch 10.0 yet.
