How well is World of Warcraft doing right now? MeinMMO demon Cortyn is of the opinion: Things probably won’t be better than 2023 in the coming years.
After another successful visit to the heroic Amirdrassil, there was a long discussion in my raid group’s Discord on Thursday about the current state of World of Warcraft. A slightly clammy warrior felt that World of Warcraft was at its lowest point – nothing was fun for him anymore. It was the “worst year for WoW in a long time”.
The (astonishingly factual) discussion that ensued caused us to reflect on the entire year since the release of Dragonflight. Ultimately, most people, including me, came to the conclusion:
World of Warcraft had its best year in 2023 since the game was released in 2004, even if many will probably only appreciate that in a few years.
More content than ever before – and nothing is mandatory
When you look at the sheer amount of content patches World of Warcraft has received since Dragonflight’s release, it’s pretty impressive. It’s hard to understand why Shadowlands has kept us waiting for so long and how quickly fresh content is coming out in the “non-stop fire”. A new patch every 6-8 weeks with a handful of quests and smaller activities to get lost in.
Yes, not every patch brings weeks of entertainment for everyone. But there’s at least a little something to look forward to in every patch. Whether mounts for collectors, new toys, pets, small story quests or a new world event where you can farm transmog.
If you enjoy multiple content here, you can spend an almost endless amount of time in the game – and all without any pressure.
Although there are many options, there is almost no obligation. There is no time pressure because many rewards are simply cosmetic and completely optional. If you don’t feel like getting the last toy out of the Zskera vault, you’ll never go back in there. Very different from Torghast, where everyone was basically forced to run in there every week.
World of Warcraft no longer “forces” players to spend time in the world. But it’s making more offers than ever before.
Some people miss this catalog of compulsory tasks – but the vast majority of those around me really enjoy finally only having to do what they really want to do.
Another point is the number of significant revisions to the classes. Paladins and demon hunters have been drastically reworked (and significantly improved), mages have been given more diverse talents and the caller even has a completely new specialization. These are things that Blizzard would have brought in the best case scenario at the start of a new expansion – now all of this was available “on the side” in the smaller patches.
In addition, there are so many small but subtle “Quality of Life” improvements. Never before has it been so easy to play together with friends, no matter what realm they are on or what faction they belong to. Guilds that combine Horde and Alliance have even been possible for a while now, and this mix has been present in all types of dungeons and raids for a long time.
These are details that you get used to incredibly quickly and that are simply “good”, even though they are in stark contrast to what World of Warcraft has been doing for almost two decades.
The developers are listening – and I feel like they really are. The tent toys were nice, but unsuitable for RP fans as they appeared in a random orientation and had a short time limit. One patch later, the tents last a full 15 minutes and always appear in the desired location and then I’ve earned my due for you.
Sure, in some places something was taken away from me. So today I can no longer go for a walk with my gigantic tree in the capital – but hey, it was stupid that that was even possible anyway.
There were similar improvements to “Mythic+”. The criticism here was that people only pay attention to the affixes and no longer to the dungeons as such. Blizzard has taken this to heart, reduced the number of affixes, removed the most annoying affixes and also increased the limits at which affixes play a role.
Other little things:
When you list it, there is so much “new stuff” that has made individual groups of players very happy.
An ending that felt like it too
Patch 10.2 and the follow-up patch 10.2.5 have achieved something that has also been praised several times in the World of Warcraft subreddit. Because Dragonflight feels like it got some real closure.
No matter whether it’s the heartbreaking quests where we talk to the Aspects, Tyrande and Shandris again or the big party in the last patch – but above all the party!
For many, the Amirdrassil dedication ceremony was just another quest that they sprinted through without looking left or right. In fact, there were well over 100 NPCs gathered here – pretty much all the quest NPCs we could encounter in all of Dragonflight. Almost every character from every side quest, no matter how small, appeared somehow, could be spoken to and had a few sentences to say about our actions.
Anyone who took the time here could certainly spend half an hour at the festival (or rather longer) and think again about what actually happened in the story.
This felt rounder, more complete and simply more coherent than in all previous expansions, where there was never a real, visible recovery, but was always rushed from one problem to the next.
This time it feels more organic, more natural. There are first hints about the next expansion without immediately painting the devil on the wall. There was a “happy ending” for the dragons and the night elves.
More than just Dragonflight
When I talk about the “best year,” I don’t just mean World of Warcraft Dragonflight. Because the other WoW versions also had a pretty strong year. I just want to summarize this briefly because I personally don’t have much to do with these WoW variants, but I am aware that there were still many fans who were very happy with them.
World of Warcraft Classic had the expansion “Wrath of the Lich King” – today it is still considered by many to be the “best expansion” and it was correspondingly nostalgic for many to move to Northrend again and give the Lich King his iron cap . Many people were able to experience this add-on for the first time because they were simply too young at the time.
Season of Discovery, on the other hand, might be the most creative and fresh thing World of Warcraft could have done with Classic – no wonder the servers were overcrowded. The old game in a new look and with some interesting “What if?” ideas. There are fresh raids, new abilities for old classes, and even entirely new roles for heroes to fill. As a little bonus, there are even a few story approaches that only become relevant many years later in “Retail”.
Oh yes. And there was also WoW Classic Hardcore, which delighted us with magnificent scenes of numerous heroic deaths, which sometimes even received their own cinematic.
World of Warcraft had a good year overall – not just Dragonflight.
It’s not perfect, but it’s still the best year
Of course, for me the “best year” doesn’t mean that everything went perfectly. For example, I’m very dissatisfied with the current state of the Shadow Priest and I’m pretty sure that a few other specializations could also use another update – monks in particular have been crying out for an update for months, and rightly so.
But these are all small things. Because even though I don’t really like my Shadow Priest in terms of play, I continue to play and always have something to do. Although World of Warcraft has reduced or eliminated most of the mandatory tasks, I continue to find new activities that I enjoy.
In the end, it remains clear to me: If you look at the last year and simply list how much new content there was, how many good and sensible changes, how many adjustments to classes and specializations were made, how much feedback was implemented and wishes were fulfilled became: We WoW players as a whole have never had it so good.
And then on top of all that you add “Wrath of the Lich King Classic” and “Season of Discovery”.
Even though a lot of people are complaining at the moment – because WoW players always do that – I’m pretty sure that in 5 or 10 years we’ll look back on the past WoW year and say: “That was pretty cool back then. Now I miss it.”
In a similar way to how Mists of Pandaria was only learned to be appreciated later.