Blog Azeroth posed this question to the population of WoW bloggers; If you could reign over the design of WoW, what would you do? What do you change to make this game your dream game? With this post I shall attempt to answer that question and with that participate in the weekly Blog Azeroth Shared Topic.
My idea of a perfect World of Warcraft is most likely very different from the general population. Of course, like most I want a game without bugs and with new fun content that keeps things fresh. What I want to focus on here are the things that I might be alone in wanting…
I want more grinding
When I started playing this game I absolutely loved discovering new factions whenever I got to a new corner of the world. They all had a different set of lore and vendor-bought items that you would never use, but it was just nice that they were there.
I fondly remember my first encounter with Argent Dawn in Western Plaguelands. What’s up with these guys and their special tabards? Oh, they want me to wear this special trinket so I can gain reputation with them? It’ll make the questing slower, but yeah, sign me up! Neato, they even have special patterns and stuff for my professions, awesome!
Since then I’ve basically grinded up every single reputation in the game to Exalted. I am currently sitting at 57 at Exalted and only missing Bloodsail Buccaneers, the Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin ones (I despise PvP). I have “the Insane” title. I have done both Aldor and Scryer, and both of Oracles (twice) and Frenzyhearts. I have done all of the goblin cities twice and will eventually do them a third time when Bloodsail Buccaneers grinding works properly.
The point I’m making here is I like reputation grinds and I want more of them. I want more impossibly hard and convoluted grinds like Shen’dralar or Ravenholdt.
So for me, Cataclysm arriving with only seven new factions, all of them very easy to gain reputation with by just running your daily random heroic, was very disappointing in the reputation-grinding department. In fact they even removed two old factions (Shen’dralar, Zan’dalar Tribe).
If I could have a hand in the designing of this game I would add several new factions, especially to the new Cataclysm zones. Not factions you need for gear or enchants, but factions that are just there. Maybe they could offer some minor rewards such as some vanity items, pets or patterns, but nothing essential so no one feels the need to get the rep if they don’t want to.
I would also re-design the Centaur factions of Desolace to allow for grinding all the way up to Exalted.
I want more reasons for traveling through Azeroth
A lot of people complained when the portals where removed from Dalaran. How much more would they complain if the portals in Stormwind and Orgrimmar were removed as well? Unlike most people, I feel the traveling bit is an essential part of a MMO such as WoW. It makes the whole virtual world seem more realistic and it allows for actually running into other players, causing meetings between people.
Now, I’m not saying we should abolish the use of portals – They sure are handy. I am saying there should be reasons for us to travel out across the world other than just getting from one place to another.
The implementation of Archaeology was a good step in this direction and it brings several people out to random locations, allowing for running into leveling players, causing meetings. All that is good stuff, but I don’t think it’s enough (also, archaeology is boring).
I would like to see daily quests that brings us out across Azeroth. Maybe some settlements in certain zones could get under attack by invading troops now and then and it would be the players’ job to stop them. The Hero’s Call Board could be used as hubs for these daily quests.
I want it to be more like Starcraft 2
The achievement system in Starcraft 2 is wicked. It allows you to personalize the display of your achievements, highlighting a few of your choice. Simply put, I want this in WoW.
And while we’re at it, let’s add some other interesting data to the achievement display. Such as number of raid bosses defeated, mounts/pet obtained, factions at exalted, etc.
I had some other ideas as well but the one’s above are the most appealing to me and the deadline is up so I have to let this one go already. If it weren’t for this horrible fever I have at the moment the article might have gotten a bit longer. 🙂
Cheers,
Gav
Rapid Fire RSS Feed
Rapid Fire 
“And while we’re at it, let’s add some other interesting data to the achievement display. Such as number of raid bosses defeated, mounts/pet obtained, factions at exalted, etc.”
I’m pretty sure you can see these things, the list of statistics on your achievement tab is -huge-. There is a tab only for instance/raid bosses for example. This must be there somewhere 😛
Yeah that’s true but I meant more as in a character profile, viewable to others such as the one in Starcraft 2. Sorry I didn’t specify it further, I shall direct the blame to my previously mentioned fever. 🙂
Unfortunately it appears to have not been updated for Cataclysm. I don’t see a count for the number of times I’ve killed normal and heroic dungeon bosses in Cataclysm.
Yes, I don’t think we’d be in the majority but I love weird difficult rep grinds too and like you said if the rewards weren’t necessities what could it hurt to add some horrendous Shen’dralar or Ravenholdt-like rep grinds.
I always wanted an excuse to visit lower level places, archaeology helps but the idea of dailies spread around the world is great!
I like rep grinds as long as they’re not TOO grindy. Burning Crusade reps were horribad, but Wrath and Cataclysm ones are decent. I also found myself missing killing 30 of each animal for the Nesingwary quests in Nagrand, 12 almost seems too few.