Tag Archives: Wishlist

Three – Er, Two – Things I’d Love to See in WoW

A couple of months ago, I asked what you’d change if you had the ear of Blizzard’s dev team for a day, and I promised my own answer to the question – which I am now, finally, getting to.

My top three wishlist:

1. Achievements. Done! I’ve long lamented the lack of recognition in-game for non-mechanical achievements – exploration, world events and the like. Star Wars Galaxies, my first real MMO experience, handled it very well; LOTRO does a good job with it too. I’d hoped for something similar in WoW, and it’s good to see Blizzard are answering my prayers!

2. Meaningful Crafting. I really enjoy tradeskills. I like working on them, improving them, learning about them, and spending time on them. Unfortunately, in WoW there’s little reward for doing that; one crafter is much the same as another. I compare this with Star Wars Galaxies or EQ2, where a dedicated crafter could produce items that were better – in terms of stats or effects – than the items produced by other people.

The trouble is, even if Blizzard introduced a ‘quality’ differentiation, they’d be likely to make it a reward for time expenditure or a random uncontrollable reward (like alchemists learning recipes via discovery, or the new random ‘perfect gems’ for jewelcrafters). I want a system that rewards knowledge and good decision-making, not spending four hours a day on profession quests or random luck.

3. Web Chat Interface. This is something EQ2 did from launch, nearly four years ago; logging into the EQ2 website allowed you to talk in guild chat, custom channels and whispers.

As a guild leader, this would be a godsend – I have a certain obligation to be online and available for my guildies, at least to talk to, if not to play with. Web chat would allow me to stay in touch easily without having to be logged into the game itself, which would be incredibly handy.

What Would You Change?

So. If you had access to Blizzard’s devs for a day, and you could make any one change in WoW – trivial or significant, but not game-transforming – what would you pick?

I have a few favourite answers to this question, but I’m interested to hear what everyone else would pick, too. I’ll post my answers in a few days.

Feature Wishlist: Specific Titles

So, with all the new faction stuff in 2.4 comes a new title: “of the Shattered Sun”, which you get by hitting Exalted with SSO and then spending 1000 gold during a specific phase of the world event. (And to be honest, I’ll probably spend that money, because “Sailan of the Shattered Sun” sounds frankly awesome.)

It’s made me think about some other titles I’d love to see in game; titles are really just flavour, vanity rewards for stuff that doesn’t sit on your shoulders or glow in your hand.

I’d really like to see, for instance, some class-, race- or profession-specific title options. How about “Tinkerer” and “Demolitionist” for 375 Engineers (Gnomish and Goblin respectively) who’ve done a further quest? What about “Sentinel” for female night elf warriors, hunters and druids who are Exalted with Darnassus? “Peacekeeper” for those who are Exalted with Sha’tar, Lower City, Scryers or Aldor and Sha’tari Skyguard? “Hero of Outland” for those who are Exalted with all five dungeon factions (Honor Hold/Thrallmar, Cenarion Expedition, Lower City, Keepers of Time and Sha’tar)? “Crusader” for Paladins with certain faction levels or quests? “Wayfarer” for people who’ve done a given (very high) number of quests?

Some of the above are probably too easy to get, but they’re an example of how Blizzard could provide a range of titles for different kinds of achievements. You get the idea of how they can provide some nice flavour and variety, for people of all different playstyles. I’m sure Blizzard won’t actually implement any of the above, but they’ve said they do want to expand the existing title options, and I’m eagerly looking forward to the results.

Heroic loot imbalances

Now this is something that really bugs me. Heroic instances are a regular part of life for many (most?) level 70s; they’re the next step after gearing up at 70, and provide a good transition between standard instances and raids. There are heroic versions of every TBC dungeon, from Hellfire Ramparts through to Shattered Halls and Arcatraz.

Unfortunately, the loot is a little imbalanced. Heroic versions of pre-70 dungeons (ie Hellfire Ramparts, Blood Furnace, Slave Pens, Underbog, Mana-Tombs, Auchenai Crypts, Old Hillsbrad, and Sethekk Halls) have all-new loot tables on every boss; the early bosses will drop a level 70 blue item (iLevel 115), with a chance to drop an epic gem, while the final boss will drop similar stuff and a nice Heroic-level epic (iLevel 110). (And every boss drops a Badge of Justice.)

Heroic versions of level 70 dungeons, however, are a bit different. (ie Shadow Labyrinth, Black Morass, Steamvault, Shattered Halls, Mechanar, Botanica and Arcatraz.) The final boss has the same sort of tasty loot tables as the final bosses in other Heroics, but the earlier bosses have exactly the same loot tables as they do in Normal-mode versions of the instance! The only difference is that they have a chance to drop an epic gem, and they drop a Badge of Justice.

This has always felt like a real gyp to me. Heroic dungeons are not easy until you’re fairly well geared, and when you’re running them to try and gear up (rather than just farming them for badges and nethers) it feels like a total ripoff to slog your ass off to a boss, often dealing with brutal trash on the way… only to get just the same junk you’d get from a Normal-mode run of the instance. It makes PuGs a particularly dicey proposition; if you’re not confident that your group is going to go the distance to the final boss, there’s almost no point in starting.

It’s not a huge deal, but I do hope that if Blizzard retains the Heroic-mode concept for WotLK, the Heroic versions of level 80 dungeons will have more generous loot tables.