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PC | RPG | World of Warcraft

Boxart for World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft 150 screen shots
  • GRAPHICS: 4.5
  • SOUND: 4.5
  • CONTROL: 4.5
  • FUN FACTOR 4.5
  • AVG USER SCORE 4.4
  • AVG CRITIC SCORE 4.7
Winner of the GamePro Editor's Choice Award

Feature: This Persistent Life: Expansion Dreams

Feature by Miguel Lopez | 08/03/2007 | 12:09:06 PM PST

With Blizzcon around the corner, a WoW expansion announcement seems imminent. Here are the three things it has to do in order to be a success.

Well, Blizzcon is two days away, and it's starting to look as if the second World of Warcraft expansion will be announced at the show. Rumors abound, although I won't speak as to the plausibility of some of them. Here's the "Big One", so to speak--scroll down a bit for text in English. I do believe that it will be called Wrath of the Lich King, but I'm not sure if I buy some of the stuff that's listed in that "Q&A."

Only the Lich King can pull off skull-cap knee accessories and look so cool.

Only the Lich King can pull off skull-cap knee accessories and look so cool.

In any case, given how much WoW I play, I have a few ideas as to what would make this upcoming expansion a resounding success.

Also, it would be in your best interests to stick around this weekend--I'll be at the show, dishing out the goods as they happen. Stay tuned!

#1:

Integrate PvP gameplay into the world A large part of why people seem to be so excited about Warhammer: Age of Reckoning is precisely this reason: Mythic is promising meaningful (and completely optional) PvP gameplay from the moment you start your character. Zones are designed around the PvP objectives built into them, this sort of action will supposedly be worked into the quest system. Further, players will actually get experience from PvP.

While WoW does have PvP objectives in many of the Outland zones, they're hardly trafficked by anyone who isn't already questing in those areas, and even these people tend to ignore them completely once they acquire all the rewards they want. As any hardcore player will tell you, WoW's PvP happens in separate instances, be they battlegrounds, or arenas. The PvP that does happen in the world typically tends to involve uneven numbers, or awful level disparities (on PvP servers, at least--PvE servers have yet another level of lame layered onto this feeble dynamic). Simply put, WoW's PvP it isn't very compelling when it happens outside of an instance.

The Answer: WoW needs to take a page from WAR's book, and work hard to design meaningful PvP objectives into each of the new expansion zones. They have to be meaningfully integrated into the zone's overall dynamic, and they need staying power. There are some challenging hurdles involved in realizing something like, that's for sure, but I have faith that Blizzard can come up with a design that works.


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