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What will it be like in 5 years?
jusomdude
Member RarePosts: 2,706
WoW seems to evolve (or devovle to some) with every xpansion. What do you think it will be like in 5 years?
Will they introduce a pony class?
For a serious guess, I think they will try to put players back in the world, instead of just hanging out in the capitals. They have said they might also put in player housing.
I think they will actually try to make it more sandboxy since the whole themepark thing is becoming old.
Comments
Definitely devolves. No more 40 mans. Epic AV battles are no more. Easier content.
Second this. Over the years from launch, WoW was only losing and losing. I remember being excited by some features, like Cataclysm's rated BG's, but overall, it only went worser and worser.
Sure, comfort features did evolve (features like dungeon finder, better ui, more smooth animation, better connectivity and less lag influence, more addon power).
But if you see the game itsef, the world:
BC:
- flying mounts made it too easy to gank low-levels or get away from low-levels, hurting WPVP very much
- huge disparity in stats also hurting WPVP, if before 55 had a chance against 60, now difference between 69 and 70 is broadening
- flying mounts also hurting the feeling of "adventure" and "wanderlust" you get from travelling the world
- no more epic 40man raids
- no more epic alterac valley
- epic outdoor elites removed
- loot acquisition homogenised with tokens, pvp loot spearated into their own "reservation"
- free epics for everyone! No longer getting an "epic" item feels truly "epic"
- economy destroyed by huge inflation because Blizzard couldnt find another way to fight gold sellers
- introduction of structurised daily grind with daily quests (if before you actually had a sandbox-feel to it, now it feels like a job)
Wotlk
- flying mounts further affecting the feel of epic travels and wanderlust and WPVP
- stat difference further spreading, making it even less fun to WPVP since higher level is way more powerful, especially at cap
- no more premading at BG's (nerfed by only allowing 5 people to queue up for random bg
- freebie epics even more! more epics for everyone for almost no skillful effort
- introduction of raid "dumb-down" mechanic that makes it easier for everybody to down the raid (damn stacking buff i'm talking about), yay for no effort lich king kill!
- even more dumbed - down daily experience, everything is outlined for you, PVE is just another job now you do in game, with daily tasks to complete that take no skill, only time
- introduction of dungeon finder that made it impossible to actually gank near entrances to dungeons, allowed people to get in dungeon without even knowing where it's located or ever visiting it, game feels even more like a "lobby" now and not a "persistent world"
- people are all sitting in one capitol city, noone is out in the world
Cata:
- flying eveywhere just destroys the sense of adventure in the WHOLE WORLD OF WARCRAFT
- WPVP further destroyed by flying everywhere and people having no point of going out in the world AT ALL since they dont have to
- even more dumbed down raids with "raid finder" feature, so that one year old can tank the lastest expansion boss
- rated BG's turn out to be a boring experience of slowly winning/losing up to an obvious result
- class homogenisation means every class feels the same, has same abilities (everybody got an interrupt, everybody got a slow, etc etc)
- talents dumbed down, no more complex specs with hybrid trees, all specs are similar now, even more cookie cutter and less options
Pandaria
- flying still stays where it is
- talents dumbed down even further
- more childish feel, less epic feel
- trend to make game easy, fun etc without effort involved for everyone continued
WoW is on the road of catering for masses. They are trapped by the capitalism hunger for "more profitz!!!!". They must show "sub numbers" since that makes shareholders happy.
Catering for masses never leads to any good for the fans of the product. It means that if tomorrow, some majority of people who arent even target audience will decide they'll buy the product if X is done to it, X will be done to it, because that means more subs, even if minority like yourself leave.
On the countrary, business models like "We want to make product Z which will be tailored for needs of A,B and C groups of people and we will continue to cater for their needs and develop product with those groups in mind" is what makes a game that is good for the fans. Thats why games like Guild Wars 2 get so much fan love, and WoW is hated.
What will they do exactly in 5 years? Who cares what EXACTLY they do, honestly? General trend is clearly seen, what exactly happens is just a wild guess which doesnt maen anything.
They will do anything that will make them grab more subs at that exact time. They would carefully study the market and see what can be done to apply for "masses". If pony class would do it, they'd add ponies. If ranked pokemon arena would do it, they'd work on it (leaving other serious problems continue to harm the gameplay). They will continue removing old ways to have fun and prosper (like they did with nerfing gold from old raid instances, and like they do with DIII now - after all, same company same business model) to introduce new ones (you cant transmogrify this or that great piece of gear you own from the past - but you can farm this new epic transmogrify set we made!!!).
WoW will never be "more sandbox" since sandbox is made for people who can entertain themselves, and those are a minority. Majority needs to be "entertained" by someone else. Thats where the masses lie and thats what Blizzard pursues. If anything, expect even less sandboxing, more dumbing down of talents, stats, more removal of abilities, more removal of skill requirement from content, more homogenisation and less options. You will have even easier time tanking and healing, even less choices in how to build yoru class, even more on-rails system to make you "the hero who saved the world" without you actually having to make an effort.
I think it'll be dead... With expansions they're just demolishing the game I loved playing. Also, I doubt it's engine can keep up with new mmorpgs which are and will be released in the next 5 years.
edit.
maybe not dead... But it might have a lot less players than it has today, even tho this has been said for many many times and well... wow still stands firmly on it's top position, I think the next 5 years are in for some refreshment in mmorpg genre, thus the "lesser players" opinion.
"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life."
-------------------------------
5 years from now?
Fully lobby based. Being on a specific server will be meaningless.
Content and grouping will be available for everyone with automatic sharding / phasing handling load balancing.
Walking out of Silvermoon City into Eversong Woods will pop a character into a cross-server phase. Being grouped will pull all the group members into the phase.
Overland zones will exist solely for questing, which will be for the most part a single player activity. Because quest progression pops phases, it will be almost impossible to bring a person into a group unless they are on the same stage of a quest.
Level reversion will be common. Taking a level cap character back to a lower zone will auto-scale the character to the zone so they can quest missed areas, earn badges for rewards, reputation etc.
Reaching level-cap will be trivialized. Perhaps by forward level scaling in mixed level groups. Level 20 to 100 in an afternoon running dungeons with high levels.
Average dungeon run length will drop to 20 minutes.
Guild participation will be fully automated. Being in a guild will actively help level a character based on guild population ranks. Guild chat will be dead, with nobody ever needing to use it other than "Welcome" and "K THX BYE".
Raid setup for guilds will be fully automated. Server picks who goes and who doesn't based on gear and past peformance.
RMAH with Blizzard charging commision per transaction. That shiny welfare epic gear could be crafted with a ton of work, can be purchased from AH for 20,000,000 gold, or can be purchased from AH for $14.95 via credit card.
Overall, a twisted utopian future.
To some this might sound fantastic in terms of evolution. Technically of course it will be, because it's Blizzard and for the most part, everything they write works as intended. Also some will highly approve of the streamlined gameplay and refined game mechanics. Without a doubt it will make plenty of money.
Hopefully Murlocs as a playable race. :-)
What do you mean by "positive"? You expect what? Wow targets masses who need to be held by hand to be entertained. You think they even know about website like mmorpg? I doubt it. You need to use google for that! You need to learn to look for stuff in the world, not having it fed to you. Thats why, despite WoW being no doubt THE most powerful and popular MMORPG, you only see people with negative attitude towards it around.
Grim Dawn, the next great action rpg!
http://www.grimdawn.com/
Donno about you guys, but i play on a private vanilla server and i haven't had this much fun since... Retail vanilla. xD
People who think we're just glorifying vanilla don't remember what it was like / haven't played it yet. Sure, there isn't auto-loot, 10.000 addons and flying mounts in 1.12. PvP is way more punishing though, epics aren't common and endgame doesn't just boil down to farming a raidtier at a time.
You're free to say i'm still just fanboyin' out on vanilla, but i love logging in every time i boot up that 1.12 client, you can keep your pandas and your green epics.
Free To Play. Talent trees will be completely removed at some point. you will have 5 buttons with 5 spells or abilitys. creatures and mobs will no longer be set to red they will all be yellow and you can choose to attack or save them them if you like. you will also be able to make a small farm and raise critters and grow crops.
All scantily clad female armors will be removed and be replaced with age appropriate attire. Learning and math puzzles will be added to the game as well as story dungeons were kids can solve these puzzles and learn how to read write. a new "friends & family" program will be added to allow parents friends and family to all join in on the fun with their child as they go on a learning adventure!.
A new program that uses learning in the class room for grades 1-8 so teachers can choose and help tailor and develop a childs educational needs by becoming a game guide and lead a class room group through a learning adventure!
World of Warcaft will be rated for EVERYONE
Titles rated E (Everyone) have content that may be suitable for ages 6 and older. Titles in this category may contain minimal cartoon, fantasy or mild violence and/or infrequent use of mild language.
At some point lore will converted to a more silly and child like nature as it has been slowly going that way for years. in time, raids will be converted to large group story book dungeons and puzzle instances. PVP will be changed so that young adults can learn good hand and eye coordination and also learn how to resolve conflicts through kindness and diplomacy.
I think Wow wil last for at least another 20 years. If blizzard releases there new MMO it will be a huge blow to Wow.
But even then it will continue to exsist in a form of free to play and less servers.
Wow simply is the best profitable MMO alive.
And seeing Vangaurd is still alive today, i suspect that Wow will have a very long time ahead before its truly gone.
A lot of people dislike Wow and the casual way it goes but that doesnt bother Blizzard at all.
Playing: World of Warcraft.
Played: Lord of the Rings Online, Starwars Galaxies.
Tried: Starwars the Old Republic, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, Vanguard, Age of Conan, Aion.
Dragnon - Guildmaster - Albion Central Bank in Albion Online
www.albioncentralbank.enjin.com
I see 3 scenarios here, as I feel WoW is at a big Crossroad right now so it is hard to answer simply.
1) Mists of Pandaria is released to the usual success. WoW returns briefly to great splendor and it revitalize the game. It does not stop the downward spiral but slow it down considerably and put it on same level as other MMOrpgs of the past, Eventually the downward trend will stabilize at a much lessened number (but still quite big, like 1-2 millions) in about 5 years and we will see the classical ups and downs as new expansions get released regularly.
From there, it all depends on what has happened to ActiBlizzard, most probably Blizzard will lose some of their independence and WoW will go F2P. Titan will release F2P.
2) Mists of Pandaria is a smashing success. WoW returns to the glories of the past, the Devs quickly incorporate succesfull elements from other MMorpgs as applicable to WoW. Mini-games proliferate, the next expansion is even bigger. In 5 years, the "2011-2012 gap" is just a memory, subs are back on the rise, albeit quite slowly and there have been other gaps before, but the overall trend is positive.
Vivendi will stop the sale or sell anyway but the continued success of WoW guarantee Blizzard's creative freedom a bit more. WoW remain the only sub game to be viable, more WoW clones are released. Maybe 1 or 2 games manage to carve bigger niches for themselves.
3) Mists of Pandaria is a disappointing failure. Either it does not sell well or it does, but people get bored with the content in very little time. WoW's empire gets splintered and it either dissolve or get gobbled up by competitors. This will take time. 5 years in the future, WoW exists as a F2P title everyone remembers as the top Gorilla of the past, now one of the many. ActiBlizzard has been sold and divided. Blizzard lost their creative freedom OR managed to get free of Activision/Vivendi, depends how that pans out, but they are vastly diminished either way, might return to greatness however if they break free of Activision, they started small after all.
The MMO's scene is in great turmoil and here one of two things happen: A) we go back to the EQ era, with games being quite near each other in terms of subscribers OR
A new game capture the main stream audience and becomes the next king of the block, leading to clones of it and so on.
EDIT: as for the game itself, in all 3 scenarios, Blizzard will continue to do what they do best. Take features from other games, polish them to shine and add them to WoW with their pinch of SecretBlizzardSauce(TM). How the game itself evolves is impossible to tell at the moment as it all depends on gamers trends and what other games come out.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
win! perfectly describes my feelings about modern mmos.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
Indeed. This site especially seems to be full of people letting their emotions guide their writing when it comes to World of Wacraft. Most of said discussion is bias and misinformed based on one's own interpretations of what is going on, while not exasperating the truth of the matter. This is especially true when people talk about an expansion that has yet to be released, and can be seen especially when they say the new talent system is "dumbed" (It may be found to be thus after release, but as of right now I've changed talents close to five times a day for a few months) down and the game is more "childish". In all honesty, I haven't seen WoW as bloody as it is in MoP's beta. There are some really dark turns it takes in the questlines that almost border on Guild Wars: Prophecy and Factions type of depressing. Though the real matter is yet to be seen, as I am not fool enough to say it is childish or "mature" without playing through the full release (though the fact they changed the Ale drinking into Brew Drinking with the Monk left a sour taste in the mouth).
With regards to the topic at hand, I would have to say that WoW will undergo some significant changes in the next five years. There will be many factors to this, including (but not limited to in any way) the decline or incline of subscriptions, the release of Titan, the characteristics of subscribers (and what they want), the acceptance or rejection of the latest expansion (in addition to other games), and how the story evolves while considering prior points.
Likely it will comes to the point where fan favorite "Hero" classes will be introduced into the future expansions. Among these will probably be the Demon Hunter, the Blood Mage, the Spell Breaker, Warden and possibly even the request runic knight by some people. Granted, I don't think all of them will be implemented in that time frame, but quite possibly one or two of them at least. This will be dictated by whatever the next expansion is as well, such as it possibly involving the Burning Legion again and perhaps the Southern Seas, Twisting Nether, Emerald Dream or one of the many Legion Planets where demons live.
Some time ago Ghost Crawler admitted to looking into possible ways to implement player made content. This may be added in an expansion involving the Twisting Nether due to the very nature of said place. In it Illusions are pretty rampant and the creation of things may be done in a matter of seconds out of nothing. That is pure speculation of course. Though it would be interesting if guilds or players could simply create quests or even build entire areas with a system similar to the WCIII world editor and then invite people to play in it or some such. Naturally such an idea would have to go through thousands of iterations, but it is an (I believe) interesting prospect nontheless.
New measures are being taken to implement more story archs and quests in the game on a two month basis, and raids are supposed to come out in around four to five months now. Granted I will believe such when I see it. Though, the path they are on now seems to dictate that with each patch the storyline of MoP will press on along with the war and the introduction of whatever the next expansion will be.
I would imagine that new types of quests will be added that are similar to GW2's dynamic events in small doses. If you would recall, ghostcrawler said specifically that they do not want to add too many unfamiliar things to WoW as people who pay for WoW want to play WoW, and not gimicks that other games are basing their systems off of. They have the "WoW formula" down and do it best.
That said we can probably see the character models being upgraded as well, and possibly even the High Elves becoming a playable race for the alliance, and perhaps even the broken for the horde. Though that's more so a hope than anything else, as it would be pretty neat to have the High Elves become a playable race for the Alliance and not just rely on Night Elves to give it that elven feeling.
It is also my hope that the horde will become a more savage / tribal faction as they were in Vanilla before they were given pretty elves. This goes hand in hand with the Alliance getting the elves back as well, to make them feel more like the Alliance of Warcraft old.
In terms of BGs, they may add a Dota like map in the future, with some warcraft touches here and there. Perhaps defending gold minds and the structure that needs to be destroyed is a castle, with barracks and blacksmiths and mage towers and such around; then the Ally and Horde Towers littered around the field and gold comes from the gold mines worked by peasants and the like.
Whatever is done, it is my hope that the world will feel massive again; since the inception of flying mounts it has just felt so small. Though with the cross zones you should run into more people than you have in the past. We'll just have to see the problems that arise therein once that system is fully realized.
At the very least I believe Blizzard has learned its lesson not to fragment an expansion so much; having all those areas miles apart from each other instead of on a single connected continent left it typically barren as a whole and put too much emphasis on the main cities (which people were already used to and didn't need an expansion to liven it up, as nice as they look now). This should be more lively for PvP again, especially with world bosses in the mix once more.
With all that said, it's kind've hard to imagine the future of World of Warcraft as there are too many variables. Even though there is ample evidence (in the beta) to suggest that the Legion is returning, we won't know for sure until something more concrete is offered by Blizzard.
forgot one -- most PreCata outdoor heroics nerfed for solo play
http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_4.3.0
Many Group quests in Outland and Northrend have been re-tuned to allow players to complete them solo. They are no longer labeled as Group quests.
on topic,
WOW 5 years from now, I really have no idea but i expect Blizzard to add more modes of play
hopefully Blizzard will find a better alternative to dailies
EQ2 fan sites
Hopefully shut down!
Ha, I kid. Wouldn't want all of that horrible community to spill over into the rest of the games on the market!
Within 5 years I see (at the very least the announcement of) WoW2 which will finally destroy WoW....
Only thing that will kill WoW is WoW2...GW2 will definetly cripple it more than WO:AoR, SWToR, Rift, or TERA ever did.
They'll probably be converting to Free to Play, or reducing their subscription fee in that time. WoW is a good game, but it's getting very old, and it doesn't seem to have the staying power it used to have.