The future of WoW: Hopefully Blizzard won't screw up on April 19

The future of WoW: Hopefully Blizzard doesn't screw it up on April 191

though I've spent significantly more time with the classic WoW content in recent years (most recently Burning Crusade Classic, for example), I still care about modern Azeroth. Quite the contrary: even more than 17 years after its launch, the announcement of a new expansion for the World of Warcraft always remains something special for me. No wonder. My pure playing time is probably no longer spent in days, but in years, and with the subscription fees I paid, I could buy a fancy car.

In addition, I count the time from the launch in 2005 to the end of WotLK as the most intense and coolest phase of my gaming time, and beyond that WoW (buy now ) acted as my personal door opener for the games industry in 2009 (more on this in the article How WoW changed my life

All bad things come in threes?!

The times when I could automatically assume that Blizzard would deliver are long gone. Most recently, the Californian developers have even broken the long-standing cycle of disappointing expansion, great expansion, disappointing expansion and so on. Blizzard was able to counteract the end-game weakness of Cataclysm with the Swiss Army Knife of WoW add-ons (because: great content for all player types), Mists of Pandaria.

The story patchwork and content joke Warlords of Draenor was followed by the strong Legion. And finally, after the mediocre Battle for Azeroth, there was the equally mediocre Shadowlands. Sure, the launch sales numbers looked great for both BfA and Shadowlands. Activision Blizzard was happy about the records. And afterwards, player numbers plummeted faster than ever before in WoW history.

Does Microsoft have a positive effect?

And why should we also assume that things will get better with the next WoW expansion? Last year's internal problems combined with the pandemic have certainly affected the development process, and probably not positively. On top of that, key decision-makers like Game Director Ion Hazzikostas, who have waved through low-fun features and ignored community feedback in the past, continue to set the direction of WoW. And anyone hoping for a positive influence from Microsoft will have to wait a few more years. The takeover must first be waved through by the relevant authorities. That will take time. Then, hopefully, restructuring and a significant change in corporate philosophy will be on the agenda. And that, too, will take time.

For my part, I fear bad things for WoW, if Blizzard should also put the third expansion in a row in the sand. Not bad in the sense of: The servers must be shut down. Rather: The player numbers fall so low that it is no longer worthwhile to develop new content updates and expansions at the current pace.

Hope dies last

Bottom line, I'm clinging to my positive-optimistic nature. At the beginning of April there were several hints that the new expansion is called "Dragonflight"

But from my point of view it is much more important that the developers rethink the topic "Endgame". All these "borrowed power" systems that are for the dustbin after a few months are really getting on my nerves. Concentrate on content that is fun to play and that makes you want to twink, dear developers. The Order Halls and class quests in Legion showed perfectly how this can look. Also, it would be great if our character progression could have a lasting effect again (oh, how I miss the old talent trees). As far as that goes, I'm hoping for a clear statement from Blizzard that shows: We get it!

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Almost more importantly, Blizzard is letting us onto the beta servers early and they want to not only collect feedback, but also get away from the attitude that they know better. Torghast and many other examples have shown in recent years that this is not the case. It would be nice to start into an expansion again, whose key features work, motivate and are fun - right from the start and not because Blizzard finally makes changes in the umpteenth content patch, which were already demanded in the beta.

By the way, as far as my wishes for a WotLK Classic implementation are concerned, I had already let off steam here. An official confirmation of the new edition of the Northrend trip would be great on April 19. Now I would like to know from you: What hopes and wishes do you have for Blizzard's upcoming announcement event?