Two Biggest Lessons to Learn From World of Warcraft

VmanGman

I am a huge Ashes of Creation fan and an old World of Warcraft fan (that game lost its way many many years ago).

I believe that there are two big lessons that Ashes of Creation (and other MMORPGs) can learn from World of Warcraft.

1. In its early days World of Warcraft was a great MMORPG. It had some flaws such as horrible class balance, PvP progression, and more. However, one of its greatest successes was the fact that it was an adventure.
What I mean by this is that on any given day, you could log in and progress your character in a variety of ways and you did not feel restricted or required to progress in any specific way (aside from raid progression). You could farm mats for that piece you've been wanting to have crafted, you could farm dungeons, gold, etc. I am not a fan of early WoW's progression since its systems were rudimentary and too focused on PvE and instanced content, but it felt nice to log into the game and go on your adventure for the day.

In modern World of Warcraft there is a clear progression path defined by systems and daily/weekly activities that the players NEED to engage in so that they can effectively progress their character. This system is horrible and it's a big reason for me quitting WoW. Every day I would feel like I HAVE to log in and do things that I DO NOT want to do for the sake of my character's progression. It came to a point where I dreaded playing and then I just stopped playing because it felt like chores.

Please try to keep Ashes of Creation an adventure where players can log in and go about their day in whatever way they seem fit or fun. I can tell that this seems to already be your goal. However, I am bringing it up because I truly believe that the day to day gameplay will be so so much better if you get this right.

Key point: adventure vs. chore like game.


2. Expansions in World of Warcraft make all previous content obsolete. When you play WoW and you take a step back and sit there to think for a moment, you realize that all your progress will be reset with the next patch and then later become completely obsolete when the next expansion drops.

What's almost worse is that not only does the player progress become obsolete, but also the world around them. Expansions should not make the world smaller by implementing a single area of importance and thus making the rest of the world obsolete... that is the opposite of expanding the game... it's effectively removing content because everyone flocks to the newest thing and aside from transmog and achievement hunters the old world becomes forgotten.

Once again, I am happy that Ashes of Creation seems to already be aware of this issue through their zone design (many level ranges) and overall player progression as players of all levels and proficiencies can contribute to their node.

Key point: Expansions need to add content without making old content obsolete.



Like I said before, I am glad to see that Intrepid seems to be aware of these two aspects of game design, but I wanted to bring them up again as a reminder that they are incredibly important when it comes to building a MMORPG that desires to be more of a world to adventure in than a game to complete/beat.

Warth

I do agree with your points, however... the mentality nowadays is simply different.

If you offer 10 progression path to a player upon a log-in. Then a large percentage of players will simply go for the one thats most efficient at any given time. That feeling of adventure is very hard to get back. People who want it have to make the concious decision to go for that casual playstyle.