Flop 1: WoW is Gone
The biggest disappointment in 2015 for us is WoW and the content development there. Some have crowned WoW as “the MMO of the year 2014” – completely absurd, because there was nothing until November 2014 (!), only then did the add-on “Warlords of Draenor” come out and offered players an outstanding 6-8 weeks of fun. But then it became clear: This fun came at the expense of long-term motivation.
For while the quests and the journey to max level worked as well as perhaps never before, the post-level 90 engagement was completely neglected: The usual mix of dailies, dungeons, and reputation was no more – and Blizzard could deliver nothing to replace it.
And so for many, WoW was already over again at the beginning of 2015. The first patch that came, brought Twitter integration and a few other things. The developers later said: That was not a major patch, we admit.
The 2nd patch was overshadowed by the news “That’s it, the expansion is over, we’re starting the next one – that’s what you wanted.”
Disillusionment set in. The add-on ended disgracefully with only 2 raid tiers and essentially one content patch. With this announcement, one could finally describe WoW as “the game between content breaks” – much like it was rumored about movies on Pro7: They were what ran short between commercials.
When soberly looking back at WoW in 2015, one sees a “content patch” that brought a fresh zone, one raid – and that was basically it. And of course: The gigantic marketing machine for WoW: Legion and the movie is running.
Maybe, Blizzard, 2016 will be great again. In 2015, what happened in the game was simply too little. And that, after nothing happened in 2014. From the biggest and most successful MMORPG in the world, one can and must simply demand more, more ideas, more innovations.
The lethargy that the game has fallen into in recent years does not bode well for WoW itself and the entire MMORPG genre – for us the disappointment of 2015.
What’s your disappointment?
