[intense_lead ]Blizzard’s flagship World of Warcraft resembles a frighteningly successful sports team that becomes champions year after year, defying all challengers, even as the naysayers grow louder. Will WoW strike back in 2014?[/intense_lead]
In American basketball, the Miami Heat have been in a similar position for years. With superstar LeBron James, they are favorites for the title each season. However, every year new teams, the so-called contenders, emerge. They look young, fit, and agile. Tens of thousands of sports journalists earn their living writing about basketball, declaring a changing of the guard at the top – every year.
The Miami Heat are said to be getting old. The air is out, the dynamics have exhausted, the team is clearly past its prime. And on the other side: Just how great Golden State can shoot, how dynamic the Pacers are playing again this year! And then – when it’s time for the Finals, LeBron and his Heat will once again be crowned champions.
In MMORPGs, things have been similar for years. Many in the industry are tired of WoW still reigning supreme. They say: The graphics are now truly outdated, the gameplay is simply exhausted, the old stories of Arthas and Illidan have been told, it’s finally time for something new. Every decline in subscription numbers is now viewed as the final demise of WoW.
[pull_quote_center]Every game is now deemed the ultimate WoW killer, a savior – and every year, in the end, WoW is still just ahead.
After Blizzard took a big hit with the somewhat disastrous expansion Cataclysm, it seemed they would steer the ship back with Mists of Pandaria, but that excitement has since dissipated.
Especially with a fresh crop of contenders for 2014 like TESO, WildStar, and Everquest Next waiting in the wings, there was a critical eye on what Blizzard would have in store for 2014.
The answer: A lot, of course.
This year, they plan to bring the player models of the old races up to the level of the Pandaren, Goblins, and Worgen – a preview is set for the end of January. Additionally, Blizzard is returning to its strengths in storytelling. With Warlords of Draenor, the new expansion, it’s once again into the shattered world. This content was already addressed in Burning Crusade and that era is retrospectively seen by many fans as WoW’s golden age.
Further delicacies planned for the new year lie in a consistent development of existing content. With Mists of Pandaria, they already provided players with a taste of housing with their own farm. In Warlords of Draenor, players will now get their own fortress. The concept is reminiscent of Baldur’s Gate 2 and other games.
In addition, they are of course relying on proven concepts: The level cap will once again increase, this time to level 100. New raids are planned, new dungeons, new items, new quests. Throughout the last expansion, they also made good use of fresh concepts from Guild Wars 2, making mass questing in new zones easier to manage.
World of Warcraft and Blizzard also seem to be pursuing a strategy this year that has served the Miami Heat well. Instead of focusing on spectacular innovations or transfers, they polish their own strengths, observe what the contenders are doing, analyze that, and adopt the changes that prove beneficial into their own system.
For journalists, there isn’t much to report; fans of other teams may get a little bored, but in the end, it’s still enough to secure the title once again. Whether 2014 will end with the crown for Blizzard remains to be seen. The competition is strong this year, and Blizzard has not announced any killer ideas yet. But it’s just as clear that WoW will not relinquish the throne without a fight.
Depending on where one stands on the Miami Heat and WoW, one can either speak of an evergreen that is experiencing its third and fourth spring, or of a zombie that keeps coming back and is impossible to kill, no matter what you throw at it.
Either way: Both deserve respect … just like a Duracell bunny. Or as LeBron James fans have been saying for years: Hail to the King, Baby.
By the way, that was also the motto of Blizzard’s second expansion Wrath of the Lich King.
And let someone say that our comparisons are far-fetched!
