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World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

Also known as: WoW:WotLK

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Are expansions ruining World of Warcraft?

We look at common complaints concerning the state of Azeroth

Words: Tyler Nagata, GamesRadar US

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First, The Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft was announced at BlizzCon 2005. Next, the Wrath of the Lich King expansion was announced two years later at BlizzCon 2007. It got us thinking that BlizzCon 2009 might be the perfect time for Blizzard to announce a third expansion for WoW. With all the hype and anticipation for StarCraft II and Diablo III, news of a third WoW expansion would only further strengthen Blizzard’s already mighty death grip on PC gamers around the world.

Whatever the case, all this speculation over what will be shown at this year’s BlizzCon got us pining for the days when we used to raid till our eyes bled in what is now known as “classic WoW,” or “vanilla WoW” – that is, World of Warcraft before The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King expansions. But as we began leveling a fresh new character with a few fellow ex-WoW addicts, we realized that we had forgotten how bitchy WoW players (including ourselves) can be. MMO fans invest so much more of themselves into their game-of-choice than any type of player out there. Think you logged a lot of hours perfecting your Fallout 3 character or leveling your Final Fantasy party? Ask any hardcore WoW player to tell you how many hours they’ve put into their main character, and you’ll begin to understand why some are so demanding when they quantify answer in terms of weeks, months, and years instead of mere hours.

Above: Are expansions ruining WoW? Or are the naysayers just a bunch of sour trolls?

Maybe that’s why - despite the overwhelming thumbs up given to Wrath of the Lich King by fans and critics - there are still those who argue that more content from expansions don’t always mean more fun - especially if you’ve got 60 levels to grind through before you can enjoy the new stuff. So we decided to check out some of the most common complaints we’ve seen about the impacts the last few expansions have had on WoW, and looked at how the experience of rolling a new character has changed over the years.

So how could more content possibly be a bad thing? Well, most complaints we’ve heard seem to stem from the general way MMO expansions tend to funnel a majority of the population into its new areas, rendering old content obsolete. For example, The Burning Crusade provided players with a new level cap of 70, and introduced Outland, giving level 60-plus players a new – but comparatively smaller set of zones to play in.

Above: The world map for the original World of Warcraft featured two huge continents with tons of zones

A mass exodus to Outland was partially balanced by the addition of two new races and classes for both Horde and Alliance players. Since both factions had brand new options for starting a new level one Paladin (for the Horde) or a Shaman (for the Alliance), there seemed to be a healthy amount of players to group with on the way to level 60 in “classic” WoW when TBC released.

Above: The Burning Crusade moved most players to the seven new zones in Outland

With the introduction of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, the argument that expansions actually reduce the size of World of Warcraft’s world seems to hold a little more weight. By now, the novelty of rolling a Blood Elf Paladin for the Horde, or a Dranei Shaman for the Alliance had worn out. The mass migration to WotLK’s new zones in Northrend had begun, making ghost towns out of major cities and hubs in “classic” and TBC zones.

Above: Is WotLK’s Northrend the new Outland, the only set of zones that truly matter anymore?

So did the WotLK expansion really suck all the life out of the older WoW zones? Is leveling a new character up to 60 as lonely as some naysayers report? We started a new Blood Elf Priest to find out, and have found complaints of under-populated zones and cities to be exaggerated. It certainly does seem that there are fewer players stomping through fields in lower level zones and you won’t have much luck finding groups for the most challenging pre-expansion raid instances, but major cities like Orgrimmar and Ironforge still have as much hustle and bustle as they used to.

Above: You won’t find as many random players dueling outside of Ogrimmar and Ironforge, but they’re far from ghost towns

50 Comments

Order Comments: Newest First | Oldest First

Cyberninja - 6 months 7 days ago

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sh33phead - 6 months 7 days ago

The achievement system sucks. Nobody wants to group with you unless you've "done it before". Elitism is ruining WoW :p
Second?

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Sebastian16 - 6 months 7 days ago

I think hitting 80 is kind of a bummer, seeing as how all you do is either a) Farm honor for gear, or b) Farm heroics, and then raids for gear. Both are time consuming and repetetive.

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FierceDeity - 6 months 7 days ago

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Major_Wuss - 6 months 7 days ago

I agree with sheephead. Nobody will group with you unless you have the achievement, it's been reduced to who has the better gear and more achievements (Achievement whores in WoW?)

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Gonzo4Life - 6 months 7 days ago

Achievments are stupid anywways Major_Wuss
ReCaptcha:Mrs misreads

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GamesRadarTylerNagata - 6 months 7 days ago

personally, I wouldn't want to join a group led by someone so anal that they won't invite you for not having the proper achievement.

That kinda elitism reeks of the sort of snobby attitude of that raid leader in that old 'Ony wipe' video.

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Mavarious - 6 months 7 days ago

What realm were you on that you had no trouble grouping for Mara and ZF? I was just trying to group for mara on my dps warrior and NOBODY was looking for a group. I spent like 4 hours piecing together a group and then half of them had to leave by the time we got started.... this is on Alexstrasza, a high population realm.

It does seem like half the people you run into now are DKs. Alterac valley PVP has been reduced to blood and unholy dks smacking other blood and unholy dks and then reaming the bosses.

My warrior's guild is a relative noob guild, only a couple 80s, not seriously into raiding, and now over a period of a couple weeks since I joined, half the guild population has turned to DKs. It's like a fucking plague.

I have to admit though, playing as a DK can be really fun however common you are.

reCAPTCHA: especially expert Why yes, yes I am.

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GamesRadarTylerNagata - 6 months 7 days ago

Hi mavarious,

I was playing on khagar, a medium population server. What can i say? When i was the right level (not the minimum level) for each instance, i'd pick up whatever quests I could find and do a little advertising on the LFG channel. It takes work to put together a PUG, so if no one's advertising in trade in a major city near the instance or doing some '/who' investigating to find more for the group, it'll be tough no matter how many people are on your realm. Well, that's just my opinion.

And although there are a ton of DKs, i still find complaints of Death Noobs (who don't know how to tank/dps) are still a little exaggerated. I expect that the ratio of DKs to non-DKs will even out a bit as guilds progress further into WotLK content. Again, that's just my guess.

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infestedandy - 6 months 6 days ago

Hey Tyler,

Nice article. It really shows that you understand the game, but from my experiences I have a far different opinion. It's too much to talk about here so check it out if you get the opportunity.

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-4157-Phoenix-Video-Game-Examiner~y2009m3d31-World-of-Warcrafts-mistakes-revealed

I feel that expansions are necessary for any MMO and they're going to increase content whether you like it or not. However, the way WoW is crafted makes it cumbersome to continue playing at later points. But while I absolutely despise the end-game and time you have to put in to earn anything, I hate Blizzard's random talent buff system even more.

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DarkPaladin - 6 months 6 days ago

My co-worker (who quit WoW a few months ago) and I have talked a lot about why WoW doesn't feel the same as classic and TBC, and the reason we came up with is there isn't the same feeling of accomplishment in anything.

Killing Onyxia, Ragnaros, Nefarian, Vashj, TK Kael, and Illidan were exhilarating and a cause for celebration, while Kel'thuzad was met with a collective "meh, what's the loot?". Before you'd spent a few raids on every boss learning it, now if you don't clear half the place on your first try something's wrong. Every raid now is built to be cleared quickly, and their new method of adding challenge of activating "hard modes" feel more annoying than anything.

Gear used to be your way to show to others your accomplishments, or as incentive to do better and see more content yourself. They've replaced that with achievements, titles, and mounts .. which makes every new gear acquisition feel unremarkable, whereas before they were symbols of pride.

Also, unless your raiding or heavily PvPing, there doesn't feel like a whole lot to do. Heroics are brain-dead easy as opposed to the heroics of TBC (which actually required some stratagy and knowledge) and provide no benefit to those in Naxx 10 gear or better (as badges from heroics can't be used for high level gear like TBC). Battlegrounds haven't changed in the past 4 years, and are still the same old maps, and while Wintergrasp is fun, when a lot of people come onto the map it creates server lag that just kills it and any enjoyment it was giving.

Naxxarmas was a lazy cop-out for raid content and retained none of the epicness it had when it was the top raid in classic WoW, being as dumbed down as it was.

On the plus side, Northrend questing is great, and you can tell they put a lot of effort into it. Ulduar also feels like a better raid already, even the siege part in the beginning plays pretty well, as vehicles (especially in PvE content) are right now really either hit-or-miss (there is a reason no one ever does Occulus).

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GoKanuks - 6 months 6 days ago

Yup, I do believe they are. Just too many of them out there if you ask me.

www.privacy-center.de.tc

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anon902503 - 6 months 6 days ago

Here's how you revitalize the Azeroth Pre-BC map. Global incentivized PVP. Allow factions to conquer territory and destroy/occupy enemy camps. Allow NPC factions to get in on the action.

Rather than having the PVP rewards be stupid things like temporary "5% bonus damage" or "10% bonus XP" instead give each zone a unique PERMANENT reward, like a permanent +20 Stamina for controlling all of Ashenvale. Or maybe +5 stamina for every week that you retain control with some cap. And you only gain the reward if you participate with.. I dunno.. a large number of PVP kills/building captures in the effected zone.

It would be epic. People would be fighting in every zone on the planet.

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magamiako - 6 months 6 days ago

DarkPaladin hit the nail on the head for the raiding content and how fighting the likes of Ragnaros, Nefarian, and Onyxia felt significantly more epic than the current bosses in WOTLK.

Blizzard is faced with a vexing problem which I don't think they're handling well and they're being very conservative about. The fact is, WoW is a large game. It's the largest MMO ever created--but they still have other projects they need to work on and other properties they can work on.

Sure, it would be nice to see this or that added in WoW. It would be nice to see more professions or more focus on the old world or other things to do other than just raiding or arenas. But at the same time, the numbers just don't lie. There are games that give you a million things to do and they don't have anywhere near the populace that WoW has.

That said, that doesn't mean some of these ideas and concepts wouldn't work in WoW if they introduced them.

They've toyed with the idea a little bit throughout the game but have never made it all that prominent. For example, the orb drops from bosses used in crafting professions. They could expand on this further. They could revamp professions to allow you to make significant item enhancements to everyone's gear.

There are a million things they could do with professions that they haven't.

The other thing you touched on was the world environment. And this is certainly an interesting dilemma for WoW. One of the largest problems WoW has faced has been travel times. This was a complaint even way back when. They added flight paths to Camp Taurajo and Ratchet in the Barrens. They added a flight path in Un'Goro Crater. They added a flight path to Southern Felwood.

In WOTLK, there are no less than 35 different flight paths. Even with patch 3.1 they made adjustments to the taxi system in the game. Flying from Dalaran to River's Heart in Sholazar used to take you all the way around the top of Icecrown and down--now you fly directly through Wintergrasp. There are other minor tweaks I've noticed but that's been the big one.

In addition to nerfing "ghetto hearthing", they also reduced the cooldown of the hearthstone to 30 minutes from 1 hour.

Through the use of phasing they could help slightly revamp the old areas--or that is, add content to areas of the game that was never there before. They could change entire areas. I'm sure they floated the idea, but I'm sure it's not a priority.

But phasing wouldn't solve the "ghost town" feel, it would only serve to move players back into the old lands and cause them traveling headaches as they tried to get back to some place like Dalaran.

Even doing the Children's Week quests involved planning out a route for the little kids so you could get back and hearth properly. I couldn't imagine if this was implemented on a much wider scale.

In short, they haven't really "ruined" WoW. At least, not the expansions by themselves. Blizzard's design philosophies that cater to the common masses definitely have went to help ruin the game's experience for many of us more dedicated players.

But really....if it gets 'em another 1M players....they're gonna go where the $ is.

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shadowless92 - 6 months 6 days ago

too much to read ill make mine short
PLAY WARhammer online
its new and great

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VMPSaberwolf - 6 months 6 days ago

Good article! As a 2 year WoW vet over in the Bladefist server, my major gripe is that a lot of end game content is just not accessable to casual players. I have a job and a life outside of WoW, so spending months grinding either honor pvp rewards or trying to find a group to do the easy dungeons for loot like violet hold is tough. Most hardcore players have already passed the easy ones and many don't feel like wasting their time going back to help out the fresh ones that hit 80.

All in all it has a lot to offer and I enjoy playing it, and I do have to admit they dumbed it down a lot since vanilla, but making things so gear dependent on these raids deters those who have little time to play. Why not make easier dungeons for the casuals to play, or perhaps mini-dungeons for 2-3 people where the mobs aren't elite? Hardcores can skip right over it, but it would give us casuals a chance to experience an epic dungeon without the pressure of stats.

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Sash - 6 months 6 days ago

Very interesting read. Not relevant to me in the WOW side of things since I play Warhammer Online, but I have to admit it seems like this happens in a lot of MMOs. As new content comes out they focus on the higher tiers rather than focussing on helping people who are lower or rerolling.

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dreamgor - 6 months 6 days ago

there is only one rpg that is bigger than wow: DISGAEA you get to level up to 9999 with i dunno... 70 chars that you can freely create and you can level up each item and it has the most awesome humor that ive seen and each character is a masterpiece

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marshymon90 - 6 months 6 days ago

i can see how the expansions are ruining the game just a little bit, but when is it going to stop? how many expansions can they present and still expect to be respected by the gaming community? eventually it just becomes overkill. pre-BC, a friend of mine was #2 pvp on his server and as soon as BC came out, his rank plummeted, almost seems unfair.

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Endo - 6 months 6 days ago

The problem they're running into right now is that you can't have an MMORPG that delivers for both the "hardcore" players (or players that have lots of time) as well as "casual" players (players with a lot less time) AND have ALL the content be accessible to both groups. Ultimately, the biggest problem is the "casual" players that demand to be able to play through ALL the content before the next expansion comes out. Sorry, if you have less time to play, then you should not expect to be able to play through as much of the game as the players that have more time. Wait until the expansion comes out and the level cap goes up, then you'll be able to play through the older content more quickly. If there's really enough "casual" players to make it worth the money to cater to them, then you shouldn't have any problem finding enough of them to do old content with. TBC when it first came out had the difficulty and content amount pretty much exactly right. There was enough hard content there to keep the hardcore players busy almost until the next big content patch, and there was enough easier content to keep the casual players busy as well. And they changed the PvP gear situation so you weren't forced to do the hardcore endgame content to get it. Apparently though that wasn't good enough, as now everything is designed purely for casual players, and anyone that has more than 10 hours a week to play has long since blown through it all and is looking for another game.

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