World of Warcraft is gearing up to release the final chapter in the Shadowlands story, Eternity's End, in the coming months. Once that hits the live servers, players will be looking toward what is next: the ninth expansion. The ninth expansion is set to begin a brand-new chapter in the World of Warcraft story and could be the big revitalization that the game needs right now. Not much is known about the expansion itself, but if the rumors of it being a Dragon Isles-focused expansion are true, then it may be just what players are looking for.
As the MMO genre becomes a more crowed and competitive place with games like Final Fantasy 14 thriving, World of Warcraft needs to come out swinging with its ninth expansion. If it can avoid previous expansion missteps and make players care about Azeroth again, then it may just be able to win back its fanbase.
Making Old Content, and Azeroth, Relevant Again
World of Warcraft is sitting on 18 years of storytelling and world building that the majority of players do not even get to see. Old players are whisked away to brand-new islands or realms with every new expansion, leaving the old continents behind. When they create a new character, they are allowed to select the expansion they want to level in until level 50, but they tend to hit level 50 before they are even close to finishing that expansion's storyline, and then they are brought to Shadowlands to level to 60. New players do not even get to make a choice, as they get forced to playthrough Battle for Azeroth for 50 levels and then Shadowlands for the final 10.
During Warlords of Draenor, the fifth expansion, Blizzard introduced Timewalking. Timewalking is a way to playthrough dungeons from previous expansions and earn Timewarped Badges that can be used to acquire gear appropriate for that player's level. This went a long way to make previous dungeons relevant again, but the major downside is that these dungeons are on a rotating schedule that occurs once every three weeks. That means that players can only participate in Timewalking dungeons once a month. If the ninth expansion wants an easy win to revive old content, then making timewalking a permanent fixture would be the best move.
Most of Azeroth and its quests go untouched by the majority of players, and instead of feeling like the World of Warcraft, it feels more like the Islands of Warcraft. Crafting a story that involves the entire world would go a long way to bringing Azeroth back to life. Along with that, Blizzard could introduce World Quests to all of Azeroth, not just the new zones, giving players a reason to return to Azeroth. Making old dungeons relevant all the time would fill them with players wanting alternative ways to gather gear.
Avoiding a Borrowed Power System
Ever since Legion, World of Warcraft's sixth expansion, the game has become obsessed with adding a borrowed power system every expansion, World of Warcraft players will reach the max level of the expansion and then spend months grinding up power to improve their character. Then, when the next expansion rolls around, all that power they earned is erased and does not carryover, making the entire endgame of the previous expansion feel like a waste of time.
Legion had the artifact weapons, powerful weapons from Warcraft lore that players could imbue with Artifact Power to make stronger. Then, in Battle for Azeroth, the artifact weapons lost all their power and were replaced by a new item, the Heart of Azeroth ,which was filled with Azerite Power. Now, in Shadowlands, that heart has been replaced by Anima and Soulbinds. Every time a new expansion rolls around, all that time grinding goes to waste. Maybe for the ninth expansion, Blizzard should leave the borrowed power system out and make the end game grind more engaging, making it matter for the tenth expansion.
Creating Optional Content not tied to the Endgame
Every World of Warcraft expansion has the main story, the endgame grind, and various other activities for the player to participate in. Battle for Azeroth had Island Expeditions, Warfronts, and Horrific Visions. Shadowlands has Torghast and Covenant Assaults. The problem is that these activities are penned as alternative activities to partake in, but then they become heavily tied to the endgame grind and are no longer optional.
Battle for Azeroth started this trend by having Azerite Power in these activities, with Azerite Power being the focus of the endgame grind. Shadowlands took it a step further by tying the entire legendary item system to Torghast. No longer could players jump into Torghast for fun, as they had to do if they wanted to craft a legendary item. If the Mage Tower in Legion showed anything, it showed that if the game has fun optional content, then players will flock to it. Not everything needs to be tied to a system, as sometimes the game should just have fun alternative activities for the players to do.
Allowing Players to Run Alts at the Start
Most avid World of Warcraft players have a main character they play for the majority of the expansion and a collection of alternate characters with different classes, or alts, that they play when they want something new. World of Warcaft tends to release an expansion pack with mains in mind and often forgets to make it alt-friendly. Blizzard leaves out catch-up mechanics like armor and reputation tokens, forcing players to grind out the armor or reputation on more than one character. Then, a couple of months down the line, Blizzard releases a small patch that adds those alt-friendly mechanics.
The ninth expansion should not wait for a small patch to make World of Warcraft more alt-friendly, as those machanics should be there at launch. Without these alt-friendly mechanics, the game feels more like a job than a game for a lot of players. They just want to log in, play for a couple of hours, and log off. If they have to grind out items for both their main character and their alts, then they spend much more than a couple of hours in the game. World of Warcraft is no stranger to catch-up mechanics, and if they are in the expansion on day one, that will give the expansion a pretty strong start.
Crafting an Engaging Story for Players to Follow
One of the most important pieces in a brand-new expansion is the story that players will be following. The Shadowlands storyline is a controversial one for players since they feel many characters have weird motivations, it is too heavily focused on Sylvanas Windrunner, the Jailer is not a well written villain, and the story is too far removed from Azeroth. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of it is the choice to alter events that occurred all the way back in Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos by saying it was all a part of the Jailer's plan, seemingly retconning events to build this new villain.
WoW players have not been the happiest with the storyline ever since Battle for Azeroth, the game's seventh expansion. The upcoming update, Eternity's End, will serve as the climatic final chapter in the story of Shadowlands and the end to this saga of World of Warcraft. This will allow Blizzard to tell a more Azeroth focused storyline disconnected from the events of Shadowlands, and if the rumors of a Dragon Isles expansion are true, then that could be exactly what is going to happen. Providing an engaging story with interesting characters for the players to follow will help draw players back and make them actually care about the events of the game.
If the ninth expansion can get these things right, then it has the chance to bring World of Warcraft back to the forefront of the MMO genre. Player expectations will be high in the coming months as 9.2 hits live servers and Blizzard begins discussing the next expansion. Players will just have to wait and see if the ninth expansion will save the game or if it will give them one final reason to log off.
World of Warcraft is available now on PC.
