World of Warcraft: Is it Time for Massive Changes?

When a game has been out for a decade, how do you still make it feel new, fresh, and rewarding for more recent players as well as the veterans who have been in it for the long haul? How do you change components of a game that has been the most successful in its' genre? Changes to UI, graphics, or the way the game functions overall? What do you do? Do you begin to accept the slow decline and focus on a new game or continue? What should Blizzard do?

With Warlords of Draenor, players will see a lot of game components fixed that need to be fixed as Blizzard resorts to character remodeling and stat crunching. But is this, on top of the incorporation of player owned garrisons, enough to keep players captivated in the world of Azeroth? It seems that Blizzard hasn't taken much risk to severely change the World of Warcraft. Sure things have been introduced over the years, such as machine controlled quests/raids/BG's, a new talent system, BG system, LFR, etc, but is it enough to make a game feel completely new to the point where it totally grabs you in? I would say no and here's what I think needs to be done.

PvP. New players without heirlooms don't stand any chance. Sure this can be fun for veteran players who get to 1-2 shot the newbies, but for those newbies, they get harassed and told not to even join the battles. This isn't a fun way for a first timer to try out a game component. Why not bring back that now useless (unless used for transmog) PvP gear, that once reigned supreme at the level cap of expansions? Make it change stats for a bracket like heirlooms do, meaning a set of PvP gear would improve stat wise from a bracket, for example 60-69. Buff it and slightly increase the honor needed to buy it. Give players a chance. Don't let those pieces sit at the vendor to collect dust anymore. Do something with it. Bring back the Quartermasters of the Battle Grounds so you can get amazing looking gear that makes you look like a champion of AV,WSG,AB. This is something old veteran players would appreciate, and new players could utilize.

Scale Zones & Bring Back World PvP!  Questing is just not a viable option when being ganked 209320923 times by a level 90 who has nothing better to do with his time than disrupt the lives of people trying to level without dungeon grinding. Bump their gear stats down to the mid-high level of the zone and their level as well. This could make for some pretty fun battles actually. I know a lot of you will say, "Well just roll on a normal server," but PvP ones can be fun when you're matched with someone who is "your own size". Bring back zones that veteran players loved for World PvP. Give more honor for kills that happen in the world. Maybe add certain buffs for components like flag control in a mid point between South Shore & Tarren Mill or something like that, but add an AV style component where players can gather resources to summon a "protector" so that they stand a chance even if their numbers are small. If a player (primarily of higher level) has been doing some ganking, maybe there can be a posting in major cities as a bounty, and whoever kills this character gets a pretty decent reward and a reputation gain. Just some open thinking...

Bump the amount of XP that Quests Give & The Gear
As a veteran player who has introduced many people recently into WoW, it's very sad to see how much quest content is skipped because of dungeons & ganking problems. I would love to see quest XP bumped so that players can enjoy their experience questing, and feel like it is an equal option to dungeoning. In this case, blues should be given more frequently for quests of heightened difficulty, or for small quest chains within a zone that are completed.

Quests

Quests need to be able to immerse players, even those who don't know the lore. Seeing a switch up in quests would be nice, and it would be great to see an addition where players can do small things for xp, such as helping out citizens folk with small tasks, or doing little weekly pvp quests that grant xp. For instance, there could be an NPC in town whose brother was just killed under the hands of the horde, so he wants you to go out there and kill 50 horde (online) players for vengeance, or something like that. It'd be nice to see some switch ups, and something different for a change. I haven't felt very immersed in a quest line in this game to be quite frank. I'd love to see a general overhaul of how quests are currently presented in the game to be honest, but this is asking for a lotttt.

Make professions give XP. I actually had a ton of fun in GW leveling my professions, and I actually gained a shit ton of experience doing it. I would love to see this added to World of Warcraft. I think the professions need an overhaul in general to make them more entertaining and feel more unique. I can't specifically say how yet, but maybe through the use of UI changes and just the way they are leveled completely. I want to feel immersed in my professions, and that just isn't happening.

Make Old Raids Scale-able  It would be cool to run Kara at 90 for fun, for a chance at some newly added rare raid gear, or maybe even possibly within a level bracket as a way to gain massive chunks of XP while leveling. It's sad to see most raids collecting dust unless a player is grinding for a rare mount or a piece of gear for transmog. I'd love to see older raids brought back somehow.


No Player Housing? How about Guild Halls?
I know we are getting lucky with even having garrisons, but how about Guild Halls if Blizz won't do player housing? As a guild, players like to celebrate group accomplishments, so it would be nice to have an area dedicated to it. Each major raid boss could maybe present a guild with a momento, such as a claw, fang, possibly even their head, etc. There could be a readable plaque within the hall stating what achievements have been accomplished as a guild. Simply a nice thought to really honor your guild, which seems rare nowadays.

Bring Back the WoW Population with Reduced Payments per Month.  A majority of people do not play World of Warcraft due to the fact that gamers must pay monthly. Blizz could bring back a lot of people while still making money by reducing the fare to let's say, between 8-10 dollars per month. The game went from close to 12 million subscribers down to a measly 6 million in recent times, so it might be a really great strategy to bring back players.


Many more things on my mind as I write this, but this was just a brief overview :)

What We're All Excited for in Draenor: Character Remodels!

It's obvious that veteran WoW players are finally excited to see fixes with character models, and new animations that seem to bring our characters more up to speed with the times in terms of graphics. With the time ticking until Warlords comes out, we have seen pretty much, if not all race remodels now, and they definitely are not disappointing.
TAUREN:  I was surprised to see the female tauren actually cleaned up pretty nicely in a character remodel. I wouldn't mind rolling one now! The Males always looked so badass in comparison, but I feel that the female remodel will look more presentable in gear!

The male Tauren on the other hand, are...questionable. It's obvious to see their features have definitely been smoothed out and cleaned up, but the face to me just looks a tad bit dopey. Maybe that's a personal opinion, and of course we are not seeing the other faces there are to choose from yet, so this may actually be different. I was hoping the extreme bulginess of the arm muscles would have been fixed to look a tinyyyyy bit more natural, but arm structure obviously looks almost exactly the same. The embellishment of the feather on the horn though is a nice little touch that actually seems to go a long way for the Tauren personality though, which I really like. Hey, sometimes it's the small things right?




HUMAN:  The human female remodel, in my opinion, is one of the best improvements WoW has made. The facial features have really kicked up a few notches and the crazy beady eyes were definitely fixed. Really happy to see such improvements here, because I think for this gender/race combo, it truly needed it.





The human male remodel pretty much follows the same terms, with the addition of some truly manly chest hair, same crazy abs, and some defined nipples (lol). Anyways, facial features pretty much follow the same terms here. Super cleaned up. More life-like, and a step up! I never found any flaws with the original human male model, yet now it seems that the manly features are definitely more defined here.



ORC:  For orc females, not too much is really too noticeably different here except for one thing that has been one of my pet peeves since I rolled one: HAIR!!! Finally the textures have been smoothed out and it's not as crazy, blocky looking. I could understand if orcs are supposed to have kinda dry frizzy-ish hair, but to have it with badly defined edges is something that is painful to look at. So the hair is finally more natural looking. GG Blizz & Thank you!!!

Male orcs have nothing too crazily different either. Still the same old-man hunch, but their fangs are definitely more noticeable, and they have a serious case of grumpy-cat face! Looks more orcish in feature though without a doubt!


TROLLS:  Unfortunately NOTHING yet :(! Hopefully this is a good means to show what the possibilities are, but again, I guess this is a race we will still be anxiously waiting to see. Hopefully jewelry and hair is fixed drastically for the females! For the males, I would say they just could use the texture smoothing, but there was never anything really flawed with their design.




GNOME:  Gnome females look so cute! Daw! Pretty basic remodel. Overall I'd say the changes really add more personality to the facial features. Nothing too drastic of a change here other than that.

Gnome male character remodel left me pretty disappointed. The hair (both facial and hairline) don't seem to blend well with the face, and even then, the gnomes have some weird creepy-old-guy feel to them. Picture is kind of unsettling. Hopefully the other faces prove me wrong and serve as a better example. Meh.






DWARF:   The dwarf female remodel combats that of the gnome male model, going from creepy, to actually settling. Never thought I would say that about female dwarves. The character remodel makes them seem more roll-able and yet they keep the same dwarvish features. Overall I feel that the female dwarf has a warmer association, mainly due to facial features being cleaned up, again, to have more personality.


As for the male dwarves. Uhm...LOVE! I actually am not the biggest fan of dwarves, and I never would think to roll one, but there's something about the remodel of the males that just perfects the look that male dwarves are supposed to have. Muscles are kinda like the male tauren and a bit TOO bulgy, but other than that, the facial hair and facial definition have been remodeled in a way that really hits the nail on the head for the way dwarves are pictured to be. Happy Megsterrz.

NIGHTELVES:   Female nightelves have always been my favorite. I'm biased because my first character (as you can probably guess....) was a female, NE Hunter. I actually really have loved the original model, but I want to give Blizz a personal high-five for the remodel. It's subtle in change, but just...perfect. /happytear. The face is given less of a curious, "what's going on rn?" look, and more of a "I'm going to kick some ass" look. Not too much is different, other than a slightly dumbfounded look being refined, which is totally fine considering Night Elf females have always looked fine in stature.

Male nightelf...another one to look forward to. I feel that this will be a character remodel that will also look like a masssssive improvement. Fingers crossed!!

UNDEAD: Another huge huge huge improvement here! The females look a lottttt more feminine, and a lot more realistic while still maintaining that pure-undead feel! Not too much to be said. The overall model from head to toe just flows a lot more smoothly.




And to top the cherry on the sundae, the male undead model looks breathtakingly different...In a good way. I think this, like the male dwarf revamp, just hits the nail on the head for what the undead male is supposed to look like.





DRANEI: Another one of my favorite original models, the dranei female really has not changed noticeable. There isn't much to be noted here which is good, because female dranei(s?) looked fine. Just up to date with the current graphics which is all that needed to be done. GG!




Male dranei have also been refined, but not tooooo much is different besides facial features. I overall do not like the square blockiness of the male dranei model, and that was not fixed with the revamp, but if that was Blizz's vision for the male dranei then I can't really complain against it, although to me I find it aesthetically displeasing. So..meh. Nipples are more apparent and their muscles are even more juiced up. Facial features have been drastically improved though, and appear more lifelike.


BLOODELF:  Still nothing, but I'm extremelyyyy excited to see what is done with this one! My second favorite character model next to Nightelf!