WoW: The B Squad

I recently came across an article on Elder Game regarding World of Warcraft and how many of Blizzard’s employees had shifted onto new projects (Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, Unannounced MMO), while a newer and less experienced team was handling the current live content for WoW (dubbed the B Squad). Being a longtime (and current) player of WoW, I found a lot of the insight in the article to be spot on, and felt it could be extrapolated even further with both the latest additions to the game and the recently announced expansion, Cataclysm.

- Patch 3.2 removed earlier versions of badges (heroic and valorous) and has changed it so every boss drops Conquest Badges which allows the purchase of high level gear. A new 5 man instance, Trial of the Champion, also drops gear equivalent to what you would get in 10 man Ulduar. These two changes are part of what some are calling a gear reset, where Blizzard is trying to get everyone on the same level again in preparation for their final instance.

- Patch 3.2 added a new badge that is used to buy even higher level gear, and is required by raiders to purchase a lot of their raiding gear. These badges drop in the new raid, but you can also get 2 per day by running the daily heroic instance. Any serious raider will be farming these, which means each day they have to run an old instance that is way below their gear level if they want to stay competitive. This wasn’t a “fun” change, and instead feels like a chore.

- Patch 3.2 released a new 10 and 25 man instance, Trial of the Crusader, which includes very high level gear at a very low difficulty. The raid takes place in a single room, and the 5 bosses are all reused enemy models from the game. In order to drag out the limited content, Blizzard only released one boss per week, and didn’t allow guilds to attempt the hard modes until 5 weeks in. The normal modes were considered too easy, and with the hard modes having just released last week, many were able to clear all of the hard modes the first week out (something that did not happen in Ulduar).

- Patch 3.2.2 will commemorate the 5 year anniversary of WoW, and with that they are re-releasing Onyxia, one of the original raid bosses in WoW. This is being re-done to accommodate 10 and 25 man raids, and drops nostalgic gear that has been updated for level 80. Blizzard stated that there is no lore to why she is suddenly a lot stronger, and see’s this as a fun way to celebrate their anniversary.

- WoW: Cataclysm was announced at Blizzcon (and correctly rumored on MMO-Champion a few weeks prior), introducing a new race for each faction (Goblins for Horde, Worgen for Alliance), a level cap of 85 (only 5 levels?), no new talents (a lot easier to balance that way), and the major gameplay taking place on the two original WoW continents, Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms. Blizzard is redoing these continents to account for a major “cataclysm” in the game that sunders the world and changes the layout of many of the zones. This is allowing them to redesign the main world to allow for flying mounts, but it is somewhat disappointing that we seem to be going back to where we started. The whole announcement is what I’d call a “.5 expansion”, as the lack of new classes, new talents, and new continents seems like they’re giving us half of a game. They have even announced some of the bosses we killed in original WoW are back. I firmly believe in progression, and love seeing the “story” of WoW progress, and can’t help but feel a bit lackluster that Ragnaros, the first real badass raid boss that I killed in November 2005 is going to be back again. I already am suspending disbelief a bit that I had to kill these guys each week, but with Onyxia, Ragnaros, and Nefarian all making comebacks, I can’t help but feel the Blizzard is re-gifting their raid content.

I am still looking forward to Icecrown and fighting Arthas (though I fear he will be very easy on normal difficulty so everyone can enjoy making him a loot piñata), but with all the changes that have seemed more like rehashes, I am less enthusiastic about my future in the game.