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World of Warcraft has begun its transformation. Better late than never, the game is finally ready to revise its core pillars.
The last few months have been characterized by negative news and reports about World of Warcraft. Boring content, forced systems, a questionable story, and the seemingly endless waiting time between patches have left WoW: Shadowlands more than just a few shortcomings. On top of that, the major sexism scandal at Blizzard has overshadowed everything else.
But slowly, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel, and the news surrounding WoW is improving. Better yet: The developers seem to truly listen to the players and make significant changes. Not only have many boosting communities been curtailed, but the cross-play feature is coming and the necessary grind is drastically reduced in new content.
This clearly shows that World of Warcraft is ready to tinker with the fundamental pillars of the game or even completely tear them down.
After 18 years, WoW finally breaks taboos and is ready to become a different and hopefully better game.
About the Author:
Cortyn has been playing World of Warcraft for nearly 18 years and has been covering the online role-playing game for MeinMMO for 9 years. Along the way, they have accumulated thousands of hours of gameplay without specializing in any particular content.
Whether it’s raids, dungeons, occasional PvP, roleplaying, lore, or simply collecting achievements – Cortyn follows almost everything there is to know about World of Warcraft and shares it with the readers.
The Breaking of Taboos: Horde and Alliance Together in Dungeons
When one thinks of World of Warcraft, the eternal conflict between Horde and Alliance comes to mind pretty quickly. Those who have played the game for many years will surely have some painful memories of friends who also play WoW but with whom one could never do anything together – because they were not part of the same faction.
For 18 years, this was simply a fixed fact: “You and I will never be able to play together unless one of us switches sides.”
And that’s how one had to come to terms with it. Because those who have played for years are rarely willing to give up their faction. They feel a belonging to the Alliance. Or they have been a loyal member of the Horde for years.
Until now, choosing a faction guaranteed that you could never play with the other side. This previous impossibility is even firmly anchored in the game’s code. Some dungeons are designed to provide different gameplay experiences for Horde and Alliance. These contents were always created without the thought that players might someday be able to traverse them together.
Even Game Director Ion Hazzikostas finds this step eerie. Not because he doesn’t welcome it, but because it shakes the very foundation of what World of Warcraft has been for nearly two decades. In an interview with IGN, he said:
[…]In a game like this, we are stubborn and traditionalists. And it is eerie to say: Let’s uproot this fundamental pillar that the game has had for over a decade. But it was time.
In doing so, some seem to lose sight of the fact that it is only about one thing: more options.
Friendships should be maintained and expanded within the game. It’s not about diluting the gameplay experience or the sense of belonging to the Alliance or the Horde. It’s solely about not hindering friendships and enjoyment by clicking the wrong side 18 years ago.
Because those who believe that the possibility of cross-play weakens the private feeling of belonging to one side have perhaps not fully understood the system.
Anyone who does not want to participate in the system does not have to. In the open world, orcs remain hostile to humans, and trolls will not suddenly jump through Stormwind – or if they do, it will only be because they are currently tearing up the city in PvP.
In the dungeon browser, you can exclude the other faction. When visiting random dungeons, players will never even group with characters from the other faction.
Peace, joy, pancakes! So why not crossplay? Less Grind = More Fun?
Even though the hype around cross-faction play is currently dominating the news, Blizzard is doing more. Patch 9.1.5 was the beginning of drastically reducing the grind in World of Warcraft again. Anyone who has leveled a second character in Korthia may have already noticed that this went much faster than with the first character.
In Patch 9.2, this trend will continue.
The necessary grind to unlock flying is virtually nonexistent. The same applies for unlocking features like double legendaries. It basically happens “on the side” and requires hardly any significant time investment. Even flying is already possible after about 2 weeks if you complete the story quests.
Here too, it should be noted: The grind is not gone. It’s just optional and mainly of interest for cosmetic rewards. Those who would rather raid all day, visit dungeons, or participate in PvP are no longer indirectly forced to grind reputation with a new faction through monotonous daily quests over weeks.
This is a change that will very likely continue in 10.0, the next expansion, at least if Blizzard wants to demonstrate that they have genuinely listened to the players and do not want to incur a new shitstorm.
Optionality in the grind only for those who truly want specific rewards – and not for everyone who is simply dependent on it to be able to effectively play in completely different content.
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