YouTuber Bellular has given a lot of thought to what World of Warcraft needs. He believes that a total of 10 steps are necessary for success.
In World of Warcraft, things have not been going smoothly in recent months. Many players are dissatisfied with the current systems, and Blizzard was virtually forced to react. First meaningful improvements are expected to come in Patch 9.1.5. However, some feel that this is not enough. YouTuber Bellular presents a total of 10 demands in his latest video that Blizzard must meet if they want to get World of Warcraft back on the “right” path.
Who is Bellular? The YouTuber and streamer Bellular has entertained the WoW community for many years. He is known for his extensive analyses, but his well-thought-out speculations and interpretations of the lore are also quite popular. On YouTube, he has an impressive 612,000 subscribers, and his videos often attract between 100,000 and 300,000 viewers.
In his nearly 30-minute video, Bellular highlights a total of 10 points that Blizzard must implement both in the short and long term for World of Warcraft to get back on a better path and provide players with lasting joy.
1. Acknowledgment and Insight
For Bellular, it is particularly important that the developers acknowledge their mistakes and recognize that they have made wrong decisions. From his perspective, Blizzard’s large post about Patch 9.1.5 does not fulfill this and reads like a justification. Bellular sees no reason for joy if Blizzard is not willing to admit its own mistakes – because only then is there hope that future errors will also be recognized as such and avoided early on.
2. Developer Communication
Bellular also places great importance on the second point: the communication of developers with the community. In recent years, this has been painfully neglected and rarely have the community and developers exchanged opinions. In other games, this is quite normal, but in World of Warcraft, he feels that there are only rare reactions or responses from the developers. This inevitably leads to a lack of willingness to provide feedback because there would never be a response to it. He states:
Why should we play on the PTR and give feedback if we never get a response? Why should we care if you don’t?
3. Immediate Game Improvements
When major problems are found in the game, they need to be addressed promptly. Patch 9.1.5 is a good first step and looks promising. However, this must continue in the future and should not always take a year or longer for criticism to be truly acknowledged and the wishes of a large portion of players to be implemented.
4. Long-term Changes
All these changes must also be implemented in the long term. It is not enough to briefly address the players’ problems and enable more communication, only to neglect this again in the next expansion. If World of Warcraft wants to be successful, the developers must adhere to the previous points – and that as long as WoW is a product and not a day less.
5. World of Warcraft is not a Job
From Bellular’s perspective, the design in World of Warcraft has changed over the years. It used to be a game where you could work on your character, and that felt fulfilling and fun. However, WoW has increasingly taken on characteristics of a job, which is simply: exhausting.
He explains it like this: Work is something you enjoy doing, like working on a hobby. A profession or job, on the other hand, is something many people primarily do to then be able to do the things that bring them joy.
WoW needs to change its design here so that it no longer feels like a job in certain aspects.
6. More Content
Bellular cannot clearly see what is wrong with the content pipeline at Blizzard, but he believes it must be substantially improved. The last time players had a reasonable amount of content was in the expansion “Legion.”
The game has increasingly developed into a direction of eSports and session-based gameplay in recent years. That is fine to some extent. But: The actual world of Warcraft must also be supported. Blizzard has simply forgotten the players who are there for the world of Warcraft, not just for the gameplay of Warcraft.
7. Create a Game, Not an Expansion
A major issue in WoW, according to Bellular, is the content that is “thrown away” every time a new expansion is released. On one hand, it is extremely poor planning for all current content to become irrelevant and forgotten after 2 years. On the other hand, it feels bad for players to experience a “reset” every 2 years and start over again. Thus, Blizzard should plan so that old content remains an option – perhaps not for power gain, but as an activity to engage in:
Stop incorporating planned obsolescence into your design. Over 17 years of development time have mostly been wasted in World of Warcraft. For example: There is currently no way for a group to go back and experience the grand raid “Throne of Thunder” in a way that feels good. Spend the money, train the developers, and revitalize the old content. (…) Maybe you can simply get a badge there that can be exchanged at the end for a complete T-set as transmog.
8. Class Balance
The balance of the different classes has been a problem in World of Warcraft since Vanilla. Players who play the “wrong” class or specialization find themselves invited to certain content far less often – or only by groups that don’t mind it. This leads to a handful of specializations being less fun every expansion.
9. Develop for Experience, Not Engagement
Bellular believes that much in World of Warcraft is currently being developed to maximize player engagement. But little is created to ensure that it is actually a pleasant experience.
The developers should refocus on creating a game that prioritizes how players feel about certain content and design it in a way that brings enjoyment and fun.
10. Bring WoW Home
Bellular’s last point specifically addresses the story and setting of World of Warcraft. Many players started playing WoW because they loved Azeroth and were interested in the world and its races. With the last expansions, WoW has increasingly strayed from this – now in Shadowlands, everything feels alien. While this can be good and meaningful at times, it has become enough. He demands that WoW “reconnect with its roots” and return to Azeroth without introducing new cosmic laws and entities.
What do you think of all these points? Do you agree with Bellular? Or do you have completely different wishes regarding the future of WoW?
