World of Warcraft has begun its transformation. Better late than never, the game is finally ready to overhaul its core pillars.

For the past few months, the news and reports surrounding World of Warcraft have been rather negative. Boring content, forced systems, a dubious storyline and the sheer endless waiting time between patches, have given WoW: Shadowlands more than a sting. On top of that, the big sexism scandal at Blizzard overshadowed everything else.

But slowly there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel and the news around WoW is improving. Better yet, the developers seem to really be listening to the players and making big changes. Not only have many boosting communities been put to a stop, but the cross-play feature is coming and the necessary grind is being drastically reduced in new content.

With this, World of Warcraft clearly shows: they are willing to screw with the game’s cornerstones or even tear them down completely. WoW is finally breaking taboos after 18 years and is ready to become a different and hopefully better game.

About the author:

Cortyn has been playing World of Warcraft for almost 18 years and has been involved with the online role-playing game for 9 years for MeinMMO. In the process, many thousands of hours of play are on the hump of the demon, without specializing in any content.

Whether it’s raids, dungeons, occasional PvP, roleplaying, the lore, or simply collecting achievements, Cortyn follows just about everything there is to know about World of Warcraft and then passes that on to readers.

Breaking the taboo: Horde and Alliance, together in dungeons.

When you think of World of Warcraft, the eternal conflict between Horde and Alliance inevitably comes to mind fairly early on. If you’ve also played the game for many years, you’re sure to have some painful memories of friends who also play WoW, but with whom you could never do anything together – because you didn’t play with the same faction.

For 18 years, that was simply an established fact: “You and I, we’re never going to be able to play together unless one of us switches sides.”

And that’s what people had come to terms with. For those who had been playing for years were rarely willing to give up their own faction. They felt they belonged to the Alliance. Or you had been a loyal member of the Horde for years.

Until now, choosing a faction was a guarantee that you would never be able to play with the other side.
This previous impossibility is even firmly embedded in the game’s code. Some dungeons are designed to offer different player experiences for Horde and Alliance. This content was always created without the thought that players might eventually travel here together.
Even the game director, Ion Hazzikostas, finds this move creepy. Not because he doesn’t welcome it, but because it shakes up what World of Warcraft has been about for nearly two decades. In an interview with IGN, he said:

[…]In a game like this, that’s where we’re stubborn and traditionalists. And it’s scary to say, let’s uproot this fundamental pillar that the game had for over a decade. But it was time.

In the process, some seem to lose sight of the fact that this is all about one thing: more options.

Friendships are meant to be preserved and developed in the game. It’s not about diluting the feel of the game or the sense of belonging to the Alliance or the Horde. It’s solely about not hindering friendships and gameplay by clicking the wrong page 18 years ago. For those who believe that the possibility of cross-play softens the very private feeling of belonging to one side, perhaps they haven’t fully understood the system.

If you don’t want to participate in the system, you don’t have to. In the open world, orcs remain hostile to humans, and there won’t suddenly be trolls jumping through Stormwind – or if there are, it’s only because they’re tearing up the town in PvP.

In the dungeon browser, you can exclude the other faction. When visiting random dungeons, players will never even get into a group with characters from the other faction.

Less grind = more fun?

Even though the hype around cross-faction play is dominating the news right now, Blizzard is doing more. Patch 9.1.5 was the beginning of drastically reducing the grind in World of Warcraft again. Those who have upgraded a second character in Korthia may have already noticed that it went much faster than the first warrior.

The grind necessary to unlock flying, for example, is virtually non-existent. The same goes for unlocking features like the double Legendarys. It basically happens “on the side” and hardly requires a big time investment. Even flying is possible after about 2 weeks, if you have completed the story quests.

Again, the grind has not disappeared. It is merely optional and mainly of interest for the cosmetic rewards. Those who prefer to raid all day, visit dungeons or complete PvP are no longer indirectly forced to increase their reputation with a new faction through monotonous daily quests over weeks.

This is a change that will most likely continue in 10.0, which is the next addon. At least if Blizzard wants to prove that they really listened to the players and don’t want to reap another shitstorm.
Optionality in the grind only for people who really want special rewards – and not for everyone who simply depends on it to be able to play effectively in completely different content.

Is this thanks to Microsoft?

As you might expect, there are also some voices that think that the changes to boosting ads and cross-faction play are Microsoft’s influence. Many times I’ve read on Facebook, for example, “Amazing what the acquisition by a major corporation can change.”
And that, of course, is big nonsense. For one thing, changes like cross-faction play are discussed internally for weeks and months, and careful thought is given to how to implement it before going public with it.

Will Microsoft have any influence in the future? Pretty sure. But it probably won’t be this year, because the purchase hasn’t even been completed yet.
But this is a reason to be happy as a WoW fan. Because it shows that the changes that are being made or prepared came from within the team. And that should give hope that the developers will also make such decisions in the upcoming expansions that will finally make World of Warcraft again the MMORPG that players want it to be.

However, it should also be clear that WoW can never please everyone. If you think that World of Warcraft will get a new engine, completely different graphics, no time-gating at all, or even a completely different combat system – you probably won’t be happy with World of Warcraft in this lifetime.

Everyone else can at least be cautiously optimistic. Because if Blizzard has really “dropped the penny”, then 10.0 will be the turning point in the history of World of Warcraft.

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