Big Pointless Ideas!

It’s been a PITA week and now that Friday’s finally here, I feel like I have a whole month of vacation ahead. Time for some more WoW rambling! And this time I’m really going to let my imagination fly. We can start with: OK, so everyone says WoW is dying because it’s old. Fair point.

Dying from old age, or chronic sameness?

But what exactly is old, the mechanics or the world? The devs make a point of implementing relatively radical changes to gameplay on a regular basis, presumably to prevent everyone from getting so used to their characters that they doze off on the job, Euro Truck Simulator style.

People don’t always like the changes (I know I don’t), they don’t always like where their class or faction ended up, but I don’t think many people actually quit over that (and the devs apparently agree, if their disdain towards “I’m quitting because my class is broken” is any indication).

I think the net effect of regular changes in mechanics is positive. People generally like learning new things, so long as it doesn’t overwhelm them.

So if the button mashing itself isn’t a major inducer of sleepiness, what about that same old quest design – “kill 10 rats and bring me 3 of their tails”? This is one nail that keeps getting hammered on, but unfairly, I believe. Some age-old, repetitive things make up a necessary part of everyone’s day, such as going to work and sleeping with one’s spouse. (Not that I would know about that last one.)

Humans will be humans, always prone to thinking that someone is out to unfairly get them. So there are always going to be accusations of quests being an unnecessary time sink imposed by the greedy company just to make more money off the players, just like there will always be those incomparable talents unfairly kept down by The Man (i.e. mediocre, lazy people who keep telling themselves they’ll work harder... if they get a raise).

Okay, I’ll try to stay focused. What I’m trying to say is that questing is the bread and butter of any story-driven game, including MMOs. They’re the boring stuff that make the cool parts worth it. The darkness that reminds us of the light’s beauty.

You say: “dude, there’s more than enough darkness in my life. I just want some LCD panel sunshine at the end of the day.” Well, there will always be the question of how much darkness you can take before being shown a little light, true. But I trust the devs to figure out the specifics of each demographic. The point is, saying that

“WoW could do better if it got rid of questing”

is akin to saying that

“Modeling would be more interesting if the kits came already assembled and painted.”

I think that, if players just wanted most of the thrill with none of the work, they wouldn’t be players, but TV couch potatoes.

My contention, then, is that the issue with WoW’s growing rheumatism isn’t the method, but the substance.

Story, verisimilitude matter

Yes, even for those players who purportedly just want to log on and kill stuff. The human brain works in terms of stories, on various levels. There’s a reason why the biggest questions of all are “How did we get here”, “Where are we going” and “Why”. Continuity.

That is what’s sorely missing in WoW today. When a fictional universe’s fabric is young, supple and taut, it can take all kinds of hits without falling apart. Any story in development is constantly bombarded by inevitable inconsistencies and arbitrariness. In the case of a game, that is compounded by practical frustrations such as bugs and balance issues. In the beginning, those things are largely overlooked in the exhilaration of discovering all the traits of a new world. That’s the single biggest driver of nostalgia.

Inevitably, though, like a canvas roof exposed to sun and rain, the fiction becomes dry and cracked and eventually full of holes, until it ceases to provide any shelter from reality and becomes just another ugly reminder of the arrow of time.

Let’s try again without all the bullshit: WoW’s fiction is no longer gripping, it no longer invites suspension of disbelief. You’re not a rising hero fighting through unlikely odds to gain new powers and discover new mysteries. You’re just a guy trying to get the damn boss to drop the shoulders token so you can complete the armor set. That invites the awkward question, why do you want the armor set? Any kind of internally consistent answer to that question will involve the fiction. Belief matters, even for the most “professional” of players.

WoW’s fictional fabric has been particularly frayed by Blizzard’s increasingly desperate appeal to the “heroicness” of everything that players do. When every other NPC has a desperate issue that needs resolving, when existence itself is endangered fifty times every patch, it gets harder to keep a serious face.

“But,” you may say, “Pandaria tried to do exactly that: get back to a more down-to-earth story. Instead of some cosmic menace, we get a war between factions as the main driver of the story. We even got farming, for goodness sake.”

Yes, true, and I applaud Blizzard for that!

“And Pandaria sucked for Blizzard. They haven’t bled so many subscribers in... well, forever.”

Also true. But I don’t think the dive in subscriptions happened because of a lack of heroic stuff to do. On the contrary, Pandaria feels like an acceleration of the “excessive heroism” problem. It’s supposed to be a mysterious new land, yet the player, a complete foreigner, can just walk in like he’s always been around and save the land from a number of ancestral threats that are somehow all rising up at once!

Replacing the Canvas

I think by this point I’ve meandered about enough to make my main point. WoW needs a reboot. A sincere, head-to-toes, bone-deep refresh, especially of the story. Wait! By that, I don’t mean a sweeping retcon. No, no, no. I mean a change in temporal perspective.

You needn’t look further than Warcraft itself for an example. A mere 20-year interval in the fictional world between Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness and Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos allowed for dramatic changes in the layout of things.

Take Lordaeron, for example. In WC2 Lordaeron was a newfangled, ill-explained kingdom that served mainly to justify why the humans hadn’t been wiped out after their defeat in the first game. In WC3, thanks to nothing more than WC2, Lordaeron appears as a storied, familiar nation, whose sudden fall was all the more shocking and gripping thanks to this appearance.

There’s nothing new about this effect. Tolkien used it very effectively, leveraging his previously written mythology to create an awesome perception of depth in a newer, fresher age of the fictional world in which his most successful works took place.

Even Blizzard showed they could bootstrap some ancientness with things like the Dark Iron Dwarves of Blackrock Mountain, and the Night Elves, who didn’t exist prior to WC3 and suddenly became one of the most interesting races of the world afterwards.

An interesting occurrence of this effect, but backwards, is the shift from the original Star Wars timeline to that of Knights of the Old Republic. The original timeline is old and worn (read any of the novels following up to the movies if you don’t believe me). Enter SW:KOTOR, and wham! You have three thousand years of “anything could have happened” before the movies take place, and you get to take part in the pivotal events that helped to shape the world of the movies. That is quite possibly the most amazing reboot ever.

I’m not suggesting that Blizzard make their next big title “World of Warcraft: the Troll Wars.” (Actually that would be pretty cool, but I digress.) But I do think that it’s high time for a Warcraft 3-style reboot with a fast forward of 2 or 3 decades.

New, interesting characters of Arthas’s caliber could be introduced. The balance of power could be changed; old locations could have very different denizens from what you remember. New cities, forts could be built. Forests could be grown and leveled. Heck, mountains could change places – there is such a thing as magic in the world, after all.

Ancient ruins could be uncovered at a more believable pace. Factions that were previously just another rep grind can be incorporated into the social, economic and political structures proper. There would be a more reasonable explanation for the sudden reset of item levels, the arrival of new abilities, new mechanics.

And, last but not least... a new strategy game could take place in-between. Something to remind the peons (players) that the real world-changing events take place with true heroes in the front row, not a band of nameless loot-crazed mercenaries. And to inspire said peons to try their best to make their own dent in the world.

But... Cataclysm...

Cataclysm is not the same as what I’m proposing. Yes, it would similarly require a massive reworking of the world, something that Blizzard doesn’t seem all that keen on (GC is on record as saying that he’s “not sure the bang for the buck was there”). I can appreciate the sentiment, but I disagree. The game’s longevity is no longer a given, so it might be worthwhile to start considering measures that may not seem “investment-grade” at first sight but could help to steady the boat in the long run.

Besides, considering that they charge the price of a full AAA game for each x-pac, I think it’s not so unreasonable to expect them to provide one.

Another benefit of a remake of the world would be that leveling could be kept realistic and interesting. One of the main complaints from older players is that they can’t stand going through that same crap all over again in their alts. Well, there would no longer be “that same crap” if the leveling process was revamped more often. Thus leveling could go back to being an integral part of the game, not just an awkward time sink to prevent people from just rolling maximum-level characters.

I don’t know about everybody else, but I find the idea of re-encountering a seemingly unimportant NPC from a previous expansion as a grizzled veteran, or a tired old hermit, or the usurper of a kingdom very appealing. Untold stories – just waiting to be dug into. Much more appealing than “uhh... Brann? Didn’t I see you in Northrend a week ago? I see... you found a major Titan complex. Again. Riight.”

Microtransactions

I’ve always been a pay-for-what-you-need-not-for-the-whole-package person, but for some reason I’ve yet to determine, the idea of paying for an advantage in a game turns me off. In games, I want to prove myself with raw determination and skill. Must be the same thing that makes those crazy people climb mountains on foot instead of taking a helicopter.

Anyhow, I recognize that the free-to-play model is lucrative and effective, yadda yadda yadda. Anyway, I have a thought. Mostly unrelated to the reboot idea. What if there were microtransactions that appeal to people who dislike your typical microtransactions? “Elitists”, so to speak?

The specific idea I had was to sell a more palpable (as far as bits go) sort of “bragging rights”. You’ve killed Grug the Belcher, have you? Well good for you! You can tell all your friends! Now, how about you buy this here “Head of Grug” that still belches even without a stomach attached?

You get the idea. Tabards, mounts, titles, your name or your guild’s as the official slayer of Grug on the server (or the world!)... the possibilities are many. Just attach the product being purchased to the actual game, making it an extension of gameplay, not a substitute. And for sanity’s sake, stop selling actual advantages in gameplay mechanics. RAF, I’m looking at you.

Do I realize that none of this is ever going to be considered, let alone implemented? What, do you think I write this hoping that it will? It's called a "ramble" for a reason.

Thanks for reading.