by Byron Mudry on Jan 28, 2008
This week I take a look at a topic that I haven't talked about in a long time. In fact the last discussion about it happened a little over a year ago. The topic is the rate of change in the World of Warcraft (WoW) . Since the Burning Crusade has been out for a little over a year and still no date has been set for the Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK), are players still ok with the rate of change? How is the rate of change viewed, and is there is enough to keep players happy and playing.
Where to start? Maybe the same place as the previous article "WoW's Expansion Rate: wow or blah?", at the expansion of the game and the zones themselves. Since WoW first launched there is no question that the game has expanded. In fact with the additions Silithus, the Outland zones, and the new race starting zones the world has come pretty close to doubling in size since its release. When the WotLK launched players will be given many new zones to explore as well, providing even more space to spread out in.
Instances and Raids have seen an even greater expansion rate than zones. When WoW launched many of the instances that we take for granted as players were not even there. There was no Black Wing Lair, no Dire Maul, no Naxxramas, and of course none of the Burning Crusade (BC) instances. We went from less than 20 instances/raids to easily over 50 now and that's without counting heroic versions. In most games this never happens and for this amount of change for instances and raids Blizzard deserves huge credit, it has given players at least ten tons of fun.
A huge amount of change has come about in WoW surrounding the PvP aspect of the game. Upon release the game had very little PvP other than actual PvP fighting out in the world. Honor was introduced first and the days of huge battles that raged from Tarren Mill to Southshore were born. Then battlegrounds were introduced, which gave focus to the PvP aspect of the game. They also gave rewards and titles to players. Problems where found though and the system was revamped several times. World PvP was also added back in with several zone objectives. Then the Burning Crusade came with even more zone objectives and the all mighty Arena combat system. This allowed players to test their skills in a much more personal way 2v2, 3v3 or 5v5 with a group of their friends. All this amounts to WoW being an essentially new game in the PvP area since release.
Expansions
The reaction to Blizzard's first WoW expansion was huge. The Burning Crusade sold over 2 million copies in the first 24 hours, making it an instant success. No one was really surprised at the popularity, since WoW at that time had roughly 5 million subscribers. It however had taken a little over 2 years to actually reach the market and many WoW players had gotten bored and left the game.
As mentioned above, the Burning Crusade expanded the game a ton! In fact is did so to a degree that it essentially is a whole other game from 60-70, taking almost as much time as 1-60 did in the first place. Blizzard had promised big and delivered. WoW now has over 8 million players world wide and continues to grow. Blizzard promised early on though that expansions would be once a year, and so far this hasn't happened. In fact no release date is even set for the upcoming WotLK expansion and there are rumors floating around that patch 2.4 will not be here for at least 2 months and WotLk could be 2-4 months after that. Meaning that it could be 18+ months after the BC release date for players to have their hands on WotLK.
The one problem with WoW expansions however is the cost. The Burning Crusade was essentially the same cost as a full game. You however still needed WoW to play it. Blizzard addressed the expansion issue that most other MMOG's have about only being for existing players by allowing players to start fresh as a new race in new zones which allowed new players to join in at the same time. However with the upcoming WotLK this will not be the case as all the zones are set to be level 70+. Will it be as big a success as the Burning Crusade? Probably, but it won't do much to bring in new players, and does nothing (or very little) to expand the game for anyone sub level 70.
Messiah's take on it
Over all, I have never been able to fault Blizzard from providing quality updates and often enough to keep most players happy. They have constantly added items to the game through patches that many other companies would have put an expansion out for and charged extra for. The game is very much different than the original game released. I'm spoiled though, and want more.
However, it all comes down to money. When WoW came out it was $60 and we gladly paid it, and it was worth the money. But, we also pay $15 a month to play, some of that money goes to pay for servers, bandwidth, support, and profit. However at least some portion of that money also goes into refreshing the game and providing updates and changes. That rate of change should be consistent with the money you are putting into the game. Therefore at $15 a month I could buy a new WoW every 4 months, therefore there should be close to a new games worth of content or change in the game every 4-6 months.
I know it may not be reasonable with small subscription games that eek out an existence, but with the millions of WoW players pumping money into Blizzard I have to believe it is. Why is that? Well, simple economics, if each person is $15 income, you divide the money out based on subscriber. Example: $3 to profit, $5 to cover support and servers, $3 to bandwidth, $1 to administrative and $1 to change. Even if only $1 of every subscription coming in goes towards change and expansion that is still $8million + dollars. Most of these costs cover a per player fee, the required bandwidth a player uses, the amount of support it takes to cover them, etc. However when a change is done or a patch is created, it effects everyone. Therefore while small companies have to content with small amounts of money and provide small amounts of change, the more players there are the more changes and expansion that can happen.
While the game changes, it does so either based on class in the forms of updates or in the form of raids for high level guilds. Lately Blizzard has also started updates in the way of PvP rewards. However many of these mean very little to the average player, who either never sees a raid. Even to raiding players, most have never seen all the raids, since there are very few guilds capable of running them. This means that most new content is focused on a very small groups need for progress. While this is important so that there is an elite group that all players aspire to, it is also equally important for the normal player to have new things to do. For many this could be solved by new instances and new daily type quests on a more regular basis.
The first expansion was great! I gave many of us a lot more to do, for quite a long time. In fact most of us are not even done everything we "could" do (some never will do to not being in raiding guilds, into PvP, etc). However it is now over a year since its release and players are anxious for more. I know many players who have put their accounts on hold until the next expansion comes out. With Blizzards "it's done when it's done" attitude, it makes sure its near perfect, but keeps players waiting a long time. Many players are getting frustrated and looking for other games, and if it's another MMOG, will they come back?
All this brings me to my real opinion, while I am happy with the changes that have taken place in WoW, I really want more, especially for the average player or casual raider. I firmly believe that for those that have been with WoW since the beginning that for the over $650 paid to Blizzard (in the way of game cost and monthly fees) since release, that we should have received more new content. That's a total of 10 new games that could have been purchased.
It may sound like I'm down on WoW and / or Blizzard, and if it does, rest assured that it is not the case. I love WoW, and I think Blizzard does an amazing job. This shows by the simple fact that three years after its release WoW is still entertaining, which is long after most games have lost their appeal. The problem is that it comes at a very steep cost. It sure would be nice to have a new instance / 10 man raid / new zone monthly, since we all pay a lot of money for the game. Maybe it's expecting a bit much, but I set my expectations high on everything, after all I am the Messiah.
The Messiah has had his say, what’s yours? Do you side for or against the new policy from Blizzard? Will you put in AFK complaints or let them slide? I want to hear your comments and explanations.
Email me at: Byron Mudry - (Messiah@TenTonHammer.com) or post in our forums thread!