WoW: We're Being Scammed Out of Content
With the announcement of the latest expansion in Blizzard's notorious MMORPG series, World of Warcraft, many disheartened fans are wondering “Should I even bother?” I know I sure as hell am.
As an avid fan of the Warcraft franchise, I’ve played every expansion of WoW (although only minimally in Cataclysm, and Mists of Pandaria). I’ve watched the game go from a life-consuming, fun filled, adventure of fantastical and social proportions, to becoming a slog, rife with social isolation that would make Carl Jung say “I told you so!”
In hopes of grasping whether or not I really want to shell out any more money for Blizzard (politics and social justice issues aside), I decided to do an analysis of WoW’s history. I could figure no better way to evaluate the “bang for my buck” of each expansion, than by drawing a comparison of content.
The initial game, released in late 2004, broke the mold, and reinvented the budding genre of MMOs. With the subscription model, and constant updates / new content releases, players were given immediate incentive as to why they should sign up, and play.
I’ve focused on a brief breakdown of what each expansion brought to the table, and whether or not it seemed like a reasonable amount of content.
WoW Classic
(Levels 1-60)
World of Warcraft began with 8 classes per faction (one exclusive to each faction, so 9 in total). Your race (out of which you have 4 choices, per faction) determined what classes were available to you.
The base game hosted 20 dungeons, (27, if you count the separated wings of certain dungeons). All of these dungeons (other than one’s separated by wings) were quite different, both in enemies, and in layouts.
7 raids (2x20 player raids, 5x40 player raids) were introduced throughout the base game. Many of which took several hours to complete, even when you had them on farm (I’m looking at you Naxx!).
3 PvP battlegrounds (10v10, 15v15, and 40v40). World PvP objectives existed in end-game zones, but were largely ignored as a source of true PvP, due to consistency issues.
The Takeaway:
8 playable races, 9 classes.
Two megacontinents
27 dungeons.
7 raids.
3 PvP battlegrounds.
The Burning Crusade
(Levels 60-70)
Introduced in this expansion were two new races. One for each faction. Distinctly, these races had access to the other faction’s “exclusive” class.
BC added a whopping 16 new dungeons, one of which was added in the ending tier.
There were 9 raids in total, even more than the base game!
While only one measly PvP battleground was added, an entire new PvP system, arenas, was added. This massively bolstered interest and competition in PvP, and made it truly viable as end game content. Additionally, world PvP objectives were further bolstered by the addition of objective specific rewards, and unique objectives.
The Takeaway:
Two new races, one per faction (with access to the other faction’s exclusive class).
16 new dungeons.
9 new raids.
1 new megacontinent, and a new zone following afterwards.
1 new battleground.
Arenas.
Wrath of the Lich King
(Levels 70-80)
This was a hotly anticipated released. As the second expansion, people were expecting it to happen, and had very high hopes. A new “hero” class (which starts at level 55) was introduced, and able to be played by any race of either faction.
WotlK introduced a whopping 16 new dungeons, 4 of which were added in the tail end of the expansion.
9 raids were introduced, by the end of the expansion, 2 of which were revamped raids from WoW Classic (Naxxramas, and Onyxia’s Lair), beginning the era of recycled content.
Two PvP battlegrounds were introduced, both involving vehicular warfare/siege engines as crucial facets of the gameplay. A massive world PvP event was also introduced, that lent the winning side a peculiar raid (that added new bosses as tiers went by).
The Takeaway:
One new “hero” class.
16 new dungeons.
7 new raids, and 2 revamped old raids.
1 new megacontinent.
2 new battlegrounds.
1 new world PvP “battleground”.
Cataclysm
(Levels 80-85)
This expansion followed in the footsteps of BC, bringing us two new playable races. It also brought with it 7 new dungeons, a steep decline from the previous expansions. Following the recycled content trend, set in Wrath of the Lich King, two WoW Classic dungeons were revamped as max level “heroic” dungeons. This essentially leaves us with 9 “new” dungeons.
A pittance of 4 raids was added.
2 PvP battlegrounds were added, alongside another large-scale world PvP event, that granted the victor access to one of the four raids
The Takeaway:
Two new races, one per faction.
9 “new” dungeons.
4 new raids.
An entire overhaul of most of WoW Classic’s original zones.
7 new zones.
2 PvP battlegrounds.
1 new world PvP “battleground”.
Mists of Pandaria
(Levels 85-90)
This expansion introduced a new race. Just the one? Yep. Just the one... Apparently available to either faction. MoP became more saturated with recycled dungeons. 3 of the 9 “new” dungeons introduced, were revamped dungeons from WoW Classic. Starting to see a theme here?
5 raids were added, not quite the shame of Cataclysm, but a far cry from the series’ earlier installments.
3 new PvP battlegrounds were introduced, making Mists of Pandaria the largest boon to PvP battlegrounds, so far.
The Takeaway:
One new race (available to both factions).
6 new dungeons, 3 revamped dungeons.
“Challenge Mode” dungeons.
5 new raids.
One new megacontinent.
3 new PvP battlegrounds.
Warlords of Draenor
(Levels 90-100) came to us with a new class, right? No? Oh, okay, how about a new race? Nope? Then surely a ton of content, otherwise, right? Nope.
WoD brought us 8 new dungeons, only one of which was really recycled from WoW Classic. Another one was kind of a revamp of a dungeon from The Burning Crusade, but honestly, not really. The layout, bosses, and aesthetics were completely different.
A depressingly low 3 raids were added, the entire expansion.
No new PvP battlegrounds were added. Figures. But Ashran, a zone dedicated to non-stop massive PvP (similar to WotLK’s Wintergrasp, and Cataclysm’s Tol Barad) was introduced, featuring several mini-objectives and zone specific pvp loot.
The Takeaway:
One new megacontinent.
7 new dungeons, one revamped.
A pitiful 3 new raids.
1 new world PvP “battleground” zone.
Legion
(Levels 100-110) surely we’d get a new race and class, after the meager content of WoD? Nope, just a class. Oh, and it only has two specializations. Take it and be happy.
Legion introduced a surprising 13 (14 if counting separate wings) dungeons. One of which was a revamp of a WotLK dungeon, and 1(2) was a revamp of a BC raid, although entirely different.
A reasonable 5 raids were introduced in Legion.
1 PvP battleground was introduced in Legion, but world PvP was drastically overhauled, with a whole new method of “flagging” one’s self for PvP, and access to a new PvP specific talent tree.
The Takeaway:
One new class.
One new megacontinent.
One new mini continent.
11 new dungeons and 2 revamped dungeon/raids.
5 new raids.
1 new PvP battleground.
New PvP system.
Battle for Azeroth
(Levels 110-120) seems as though it intended to appease our want for diversity in races, and more content as a whole. It tried, but not really very hard. We got a whopping 10 new races, but they are all basically re-skins of existing playable races, so not nearly as exciting as it sounds.
BfA gave us a decent amount of dungeons, 11, in total. None of which were recycled/revamped.
5 raids were introduced again, for BfA. Not terrible, but could be better.
No new battlegrounds were added in BfA, but a new type of PvP conflict could be engaged in, Island Expeditions. There was also a focus on inspiring more world PvP, this expansion.
The Takeaway:
2 new continents.
1 new zone.
10 “new” playable races.
Horrific Visions PvE challenges.
11 new dungeons.
5 new raids.
New PvP “Island Expeditions”.
Shadowlands
(Levels 50-60) introduced a level squish. Players at level 120, were scaled to level 50. Only 8 dungeons were introduced, this expansion, but all of them were new.
Shadowlands went back to the sad state of raid content, seen only in WoD, with only 3 new raids.
No significant additions to PvP content were introduced in Shadowlands. With the decline in quality of the new PvP content, most avid PvPers breathed a sigh of relief at not getting new content. Seems back-asswards to me.
One new PvE “dungeon” type instance was introduced, that scales in difficulty as you progress. Torghast. Not quite a raid, not quite a dungeon. Just a tedious crawl.
The Takeaway:
1 new megacontinent.
8 new dungeons.
3 stinky raids.
New PvE challenge, Torghast.
Now a few common tricks you can see in the scaling down of quality/quantity of content are:
Recycling/revamping old content.
Shrinking the amount of introduced raids.
Shrinking the amount of introduced dungeons.
Shrinking the amount of introduced PvP content.
Monotonous “new” content, to distract from the lack of content otherwise, as a time sink.
Overall cheap imitations of previous successes.
This brings me back to my initial point. Should a returning player (or prospective new player) put their faith in Blizzard, once more, for their latest expansion? If it follows the trends, they’ll likely try to stuff it with hollow content, in order to make it feel like you’re getting a lot.
In truth, I find myself highly speculative. I certainly won’t be eagerly jumping into this expansion, on release. I’ll bide my time, and see if Blizzard’s scummy cash grabbing, and degradation of content keeps up, before I commit myself to their games, once again.
Oh, to be a starry eyed young gamer, once more…
Got a problem with something I said? Did I talk too much smack about your favourite expansion? Feel free to leave a comment, bashing my opinion, and stating why yours is better!