With the release of WoW Classic, the developers in retail can finally let go of old baggage. There is now hardly any reason to cling to old things.
Okay, I admit, the headline might be a bit provocative, but let me explain what I mean.
World of Warcraft has been going around in circles in its development for quite a long time. Basically, every 2-3 years, a new expansion comes out with a few new features, but the basic layout is always the same:
There are 5-6 new areas on a new continent, 5-10 new levels, and a few new talents or updates. The old content remains more or less untouched, and all the action takes place only in the new areas. The old zones are all irrelevant, except if a special questline leads there for 10 minutes.
Of course, the new areas are mostly cool, graphically more sophisticated than their predecessors, and have an interesting story. But the rest of the world is stagnating; a large part of the game world remains unused for players at the max level.
Cataclysm was unpopular because it destroyed nostalgia
Blizzard once tried to break this system a bit, and that was with Cataclysm. Here, old areas were revised or completely redesigned. Because of new questlines, some players even got lost again in the old zones at max level, just to replay the stories and see what Deathwing had made of the areas.
But Cataclysm was not well received. The overhaul of the old world took something away from the players that they immediately missed. Thanks to the revision, the nostalgia that was associated with starting in World of Warcraft was gone.
Anyone who had memories of the Barrens from 10 years ago barely recognizes it since Cataclysm. Many of the quests have changed, and the entire layout of the area is different. This upset many players and caused it to no longer be “their” game world. It was no longer their homeland, where they had once begun.
The memories and feelings associated with years of playing were simply destroyed and replaced by something new. And these new quests, areas, and content could not compare to what for many players was the very first MMO experience.
Sure, the revamped areas were more modern, often told interesting stories in the quests, and offered more variety. They often had long, coherent questlines and provided a red thread. But the nostalgia was indeed lost.
Classic is always there, the nostalgia stays forever
That is now over. Thanks to World of Warcraft Classic, every player has a legitimate way to keep returning to the origins of WoW. The developers no longer have to worry about players losing a beloved part of their game world because it still exists in Classic.
This could be quite a liberation and allow the developers to “go crazy”. One could completely overhaul the game world again and perhaps scale it entirely with player levels. A thematically fitting expansion could completely revamp Azeroth once more and ensure that all zones have a certain relevance in the endgame.
These wouldn’t just have to be world quests, but perhaps varied events from the individual factions residing in the respective areas.
Why retail is the better video game, but Classic the better fantasy world, we explain here.
There are many reasons for an overhaul. After all, many areas were actually destroyed during the Legion’s attack, story-wise. Many NPCs died during the invasion, yet they still stroll around the game world even at level 120.
How has the world changed since such a significant event as the Legion’s attack? Are individual factions rebuilding certain areas, and what consequences did the quests that perhaps initiated a change years ago with Cataclysm have?
If in the future there really is the “Black Empire” of N’Zoth that threatens to overshadow the world once again, it would be pretty cool if it weren’t just 5 new zones again. How great would it be if such events finally meant huge changes to the entire world?
In summary, I think that WoW Classic is a significant advantage for retail, and not just because of the generally larger number of players who have returned to WoW. Because the original version of the game is officially available, one can now comparatively easily say in the retail version, “Let’s do something completely crazy!”
Whether the developers will take this step will probably not show in the next expansion. But the one after at least has the opportunity to completely change World of Warcraft. Hopefully, Blizzard has the courage and the ideas for it.
Would you wish for something like this?
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