At one time, World of Warcraft was considered the most beginner-friendly MMORPG on the market. At the time, this verdict was due to the unwieldiness of its predecessors, such as Everquest. And what the WoW developers can definitely take credit for, even today, is that they opened up an entire genre of games to new gamers. What a groundbreaking success!
But if the words of new WoW player Kajidourden (and many other fans) on Reddit are to be believed, there's nothing okay about the newbie experience at all. In the hunt for quick levelups, which veterans certainly enjoy, newcomers have little chance to follow and understand 17 years of story development.
But it's not just WoW (buy now ) that shows that the story is becoming more and more important. And we also know: Fresh blood in the player community is also becoming more and more important, because more and more veterans are deciding to turn their backs on WoW for good. If there's no one to follow ... what will happen to WoW?
Experience vs.
I just have to quickly come back to the headline. Kajijourden is talking about the amount of XP you collect while playing, which (also, not only) cuts down on the story experience. Meanwhile, with the WoW developers' streamline processes, you have the choice of leveling only through expansion.
This choice makes sense for veteran players, as there's a good chance they've played all the WoW expansions. In most cases, it's just a matter of getting twinks to 60 as quickly as possible. Fair enough.
However, WoW beginners only have the choice to play Battle for Azeroth after starting and then, starting at level 50, to continue with Shadowlands. The XP gain is absurdly high. Veterans will be happy. Newcomers who have even a hint of interest in the story are not. Kajijourden felt like he was boosted to level 50 during his Mists of Pandaria experience and only later figured out how to stop the XP rain via Chromie Time . In doing so, he also only scratched the surface of the story during his island adventures. Thunder King, where was he? What about the Garrosh story? And the destruction of Theramore? It's not possible to relive all of that just like that.
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Perhaps it would make sense for the Blizzards to work on the new player experience, and not exclusively have in mind how to get the characters into the endgame as quickly as possible. Just a retrospective à la "The Story so far" doesn't help to understand - to put it in Kajijourdan's words - "who this Bolivar is or this Darian" is. A throwback video doesn't take the newcomers emotionally. Why should I understand Jaina when I don't even know why Theramore was razed to the ground? Why does Bolvar look the way he does? And what about the dragons, for that matter?
02:32World of WarCraft: Cataclysm: Cinematic Intro (german)
This is several problems at once. Not only is the speed at which heroes gain experience points a hindrance to understanding the story as an Unsullied. Also, important story beats are simply thrown out of the game, probably to good FOMO firing at the time. And many story beats can no longer be experienced as an individual, simply because they happen in raids. How do I explain that to a newcomer?
Story first, gameplay second
Again, I have to make the often-used comparison with Final Fantasy XIV
. The character is at the center of the story, is part of a team, the League of Dawn. And it may seem annoying, but if you want to reach the new content, you simply can't avoid the story of the main game and all four expansions. But nothing is cut in between, you just play the given order and good. All of this is due to the fact that FFXIV is not a twink game. Any hero can take almost any job he wants, and the focus on my hero being THE hero and being able to accomplish anything with him wipes the floor with WoW's twink concept in my eyes.Story is now what is important in a roleplaying game. Whether I trigger spell Y by pressing button X, which talent I choose or the umpteenth raid with repetitive mechanics - that may be important for long-term employment, but when I'm new to a game, I'm not the least interested in the end game. In my eyes, a logical story should be told first, and the story was already a problem in vanilla WoW - there was simply hardly any. The lore of WoW is based on the lore of Warcraft. Back in 2004 and 2005, WoW was a sandbox game. Today, WoW is an endgame game. And I think that's a mistake.
And the future, should we fear for it?
To ask the question again: What will be with WoW in five years, in ten years, when even the biggest lovers of the MMO are gone? The developers have to do something to get new players ... if they care at all. Maybe they also want to bleed WoW dry, the thought should never be ruled out.
By the way, the devs themselves shouldn't keep taking things away from veterans. I remember when I wanted to level my shaman through Legion after BfA release. The place where no weapons drop and all content is balanced around artifacts. Too bad those legendary weapons were as puny as a toothpick in their basic de-sargerast form and I was getting knocked down every five feet. Why does the end of an expansion of WoW not end with its real end, but with the patch cycle of the developers?
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