Warlords of Draenor has been, much like Cataclysm, a kind of odd mix of success and failure. Subscription numbers surged when the expansion was released, climbing back up to ten million. Leveling up through Draenor has been maybe most pleasant leveling experience in WoW history, and certainly since Wrath.
A lot of nice new features have been added, and I think the gear consolidation has been tremendous for us hybrids. Draenor is also a gorgeous setting, and the game certainly has never looked so good (especially now that we all have fancy new character models. Well, almost all of us.)
But there are some ways in which the expansion has felt not as good. Probably the biggest problem there is content - we got a huge first raid tier, yes (in fact, it's tied with tier 7 for the largest number of bosses in a raid tier,) but there has been a sense that the expansion has felt fairly limited to raiding and sitting in one's garrison.
The garrison itself I think was a noble failure. Blizzard insisted on making the garrison more gameplay-based than cosmetic, when they should have done the opposite. The relative value of the different buildings is quite skewed (I can't imagine not having a Dwarven Bunker or Armory on any character,) and the ultimate result of much of the garrison's gameplay has made it easy for players to simply check in on their follower missions and get better stuff than they would get going out in the world.
But let's not talk about Warlords - let's talk about what we want to see in expansion six:
New Toon/Low Level Content Incentive:
With no new race, class, or race/class combination, Warlords is the first expansion that did not give anyone an incentive to start a new character. One could argue that the free level 90 boost does this (something I still haven't used) but I'd argue that this is almost the opposite of a new-toon incentive. The boost further concentrates players at the highest levels, and while that's probably good for Draenor, it effectively cuts away the rest of World of Warcraft as content.
WoW's expansions do, by their nature, kind of cut off their predecessors, but it seems to me there should be an incentive to do low level content. Timewalking's ability to mix people of various levels together is a good start, but I think new races and classes are really the best way to get people to do the old stuff. It's also a great incentive to try the expansion: you might have been disinterested in going to Pandaria, but playing a class that tanks by getting their opponents drunk? Count me in!
The best routes for this are of course new races and classes (especially the latter, though I recognize how difficult that is balance-wise.)
New race-class combinations are perhaps less exciting, but also pretty fun (I still want Undead Paladins just because of how much of a mind screw that would be.)
Player Housing and Not Garrisons:
The Ashran capitals were pretty underwhelming after the promise of using Karabor and Bladespire, but ultimately, Stormshield and Warspear are really secondary to our own isolated capitals - our garrisons.
Warlords has thus been kind of lonely, and much of the excitement about player housing was directed toward features that didn't wind up being there.
Player housing should essentially be a new kind of vanity item. You like collecting mounts? Battle pets? Toys? Make furnishing your house the new collectable.
Get everyone to hang out together in a real capital city (you can split the factions if you want, but I always loved Dalaran, even with the lag,) and those who care about housing can pursue that as a fun thing. And hell, put the housing in old zones. There's enough spare room in just about all the racial starting zones that you could easily set aside some space for a house. (You might have to have Goblins use Azshara.)
More Small Group Content:
I'll admit this is kind of a pet issue, but I've always felt 5-player dungeons were the best content in WoW. Sure, Raids can go big, but there's a lot more personal responsibility in a 5-player situation.
It might even be a good idea to bring back scenarios - just make sure that tanks and healers have something compelling to do in them.
Bring back Justice/Valor Points:
Admittedly Tanaan Jungle has made Apexis Crystal farming much quicker and more rewarding, but the JP/VP system was great - knowing you can work toward a specific piece of gear (none of this random stat nonsense) was a great way to lessen frustrations over RNG. It works for PvP, why not PvE?
Draenor-style Exploration:
No, this isn't just a litany of things that Warlords did wrong. Draenor is a fantastic setting, and the myriad nooks and crannies to search made leveling up tons of fun. Holding on to that expanding upon it is something I both hope and expect Blizzard to do.
New Types of Exploration:
If, as we've often postulated, we wind up getting a South Seas expansion, I think there's tremendous potential to make the world feel huge. Creating an ocean to explore - allowing zones to be near each other or isolated far away - would be a great opportunity. I'd love to see a "continent" where there are tiny islands hidden out in the ocean that don't belong to any specific zone.
Cool Lore Developments:
Warlords had some cool characters (I'm a big fan of Yrel,) but ultimately, its place within the story of Azeroth feels a little flimsy. Because so much of the story took place not only on another planet, not only in a different time, but in a different universe, the longterm repercussions on the price of bread in Ironforge are ethereal at best. Warlords was basically a nostalgia kick to allow us to see some old famous names from the original Horde (though most of them died without getting much of a personality) and admittedly a really fun way to see the Draenei at better times, but expansions should have a big impact on the ongoing story. Wrath and Mists did this quite well, but I don't know if we're really coming out of Draenor feeling we've learned anything particularly new other than "wow, I guess Orcs have kind of always been assholes."
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