So I have been playing World of Warcraft for about 3 years now. The game is by no means perfect, but it is defiantly part of my lifestyle. Here are some things that could use some upgrades in the game, some slight tweeks, or just an all out overhaul.

10: Power Scale
You just reached level 70 and you are feeling really good about yourself. You have braved the Cavern’s of Time, defeated the ancient elemental Murmur and are ready to try some of the Tempest Keep instances. A quick trip to Shadowmoon Valley nets you a flying mount. Sweet, flying! You jump into the instance, ready for a new experience. Fingers tremble over hotkeys, allowing your lightning fast reflexes to take over at the drop of a hat… Here it comes… get ready… the Tank pulls…

And you cast Fireball. Sure, now epic and powerful, drawing magical energies from various augmentations on your items and using a couple of additional boosts from your talents, but isn’t it still the same spell you have been relying on since level 1?

One problem with the World of Warcraft is the lack of advancement in both spell/skill progression and power level. Shadowbolt is very helpful when used in combination with other spells, but then why do mobs get the ability to split their Shadowbolts to hit multiple targets? As an all powerful Warlock I should be able to apply that minor augmentation to a spell that I have been using for as long as I can remember, albeit at a small cost to overall damage for a small percentage of more mana.

While the need to create a community and encourage raiding is flourishing lets take a step ‘backwards’. Where is my character’s defining moment? Destroying Illidan sounds epic. Comparatively, destroying Illidan with 24 other people sounds less than stellar. Arthas and Illidan once fought at the foot of the Frozen Throne, Thrall and Grom squared off against Maanoroth, Rexxar proudly fought for the Horde against the Kil’Tiras Marines, Gul’dan died a stones throw away from that what he seeked most. What has your character done that cements him in the history of Azeroth? Sure you have experienced all of the scum and despair that Azeroth and the Outlands have to offer, but have they experienced you?

9: World Events
World events are awesome. Ask anyone who played before Burning Crusade. Now the game has changed completely. The last world event that united both the Horde and the Alliance in a common goal was the opening of the Dark Portal. 4 major content patches later we are still doing the same stuff. No resource pooling to open the gates to Ahn’Qiraj, no ominous Ziggarauts hovering too close to capital cities. Nothing. It makes the game kinda boring at times. Opening the Sunwell is kinda fun, but it is still just a grind of more dailies. Let us do something new.

Have something unknown threaten Azeroth, and have a timed world event to escort all of the Faction Leaders to a Neutral city like Shattrath to discuss strategy. I am not talking about no 15 minute escort either, I am imagining an escort that takes days. I could see a full entourage of the Horde guarding Thrall, but then in the world defense channel you notice that Slyvannis is under attack. You get a quick port to Undercity, hop on a Bat to rendezvous with more players at Tarren Mill. Thrall and Cairne finally meet up at Camp Turajo, and prepare for the journey to Ratchet. All the while the Alliance is working Jaina up to Ratchet as well, while Magni Bronzebeard and Wyrnn make their way to the Dark Portal. Velen and Tyrande march though Barrens, arriving at Ratchet, only to be jumped upon exiting Booty Bay. Once all the leaders make it to Shattrath, an all out invasion takes place. The Shattered Sun, Aldor and Scyer’s all take up arms to defend Shattrath, but players are forced to rush to the portals to each city to defend their homelands with honor, or else the capital cities will be changed forever.

Where is that shit?

8: PvP VS PvE Gear Distribution and Scale

Give PvE gear resilience and more non-PvP bonuses to PvP gear (spell damage, attack power, critical change, etc). Then make it so even the best PvP gear is outdone by the best PvE gear, but not by much. I am not trying to say PvP is easy, it is anything but by any stretch of the imagination, but PvE takes more of an investment, thus the rewards should be greater. I personally believe Season 3 should be equivalent to Tier 5 armor, not Tier 6. Tier 6 should be the epitome of your class, regardless of your character’s focus.

7: Endgame is the Death of the Single Player Experience

When I went to BlizzCon 2007, Blizzard shared an interesting design philosophy at the Starcraft 2 Single-player panel. They say they want Starcraft 2’s storyline to be a football experience, in which all player’s experience the same beginning and the same ending, yet everything in between is decided upon the will of the player itself. I wish this was the case with World of Warcraft at times.

Upon starting the game, you are tasked with questing to progress from one quest hub to another, but the further out you venture, the more complex the world gets. You are slowly introduced to flight paths, professions, and battlegrounds. This is not counting your advancement as a character, with the decision to level via questing or instancing, how you spend your talent points, and what gear you pick up. There are thousands of things to do, before you hit what has been dubbed ‘end-game’.

At level 70 choice is nothing but an illusion of binary code. You either PvP or PvE, and to a lesser extent, you either Battleground or play Arena, or you either Raid or instance (heroic or not). The only problem is, without a significant amount of investment, you cut yourself off from everything else. You may be able to down Keal’thas, but you will get absolutely shredded if you enter the arena in that gear. You are thus forced to go back to square one. Regression shouldn’t be encouraged in the slightest.

The biggest problem I have is the fact that upon reaching level 70, regardless of which path you decide to go down, is that you are dependent on other people. Sure you can enter the battleground solo, but you get thrown into a random pre-made and you might as well go punch out God. Dailies are cool for getting gold, but they just become part of daily habit. I can do dailies without thinking about them, without being challenged.

Bottom line: There is no solo game at 70.

6: There was World of Warcraft before Burning Crusade

Blizzard completely ignores everything before Burning Crusade. They have patched things to make it easier to level, but that is just so people can get to Outland, as that is where experience becomes harder to earn. But why should we skip all the Azeroth content? Blizzard wants people experiencing endgame raiding and what not, but most people haven’t even set foot into Molten Core or Naxxramas. Naxxramas is the perfection of the 40-man raid and only a small percentage are not even attuned for the raid, let alone attempting it.

On most servers Karazhan is being used as a pick-up group now, but no one even thinks to run anything before then. Not to mention things like Stratholme or Scholomance. Everything designed for level 60 is getting overlooked these days. Give us incentive to experience all of the game Blizzard, not just the ‘new’ stuff. Why do new server’s not have to open Ahn’Qiraj?

5: PURPLE!

I remember way back when, before 70 was the level cap, when a couple things were different. Some have been changed for the better, like linked auction houses and guild banks, and other things have changed for the worse. Now a days everyone is wearing a purple item. EVERYONE. I remember when a purple was a sense of accomplishment and bragging rights, not the gold standard. I understand everyone likes to advance, but it seems to me advancement is taking a nose dive in difficulty. Would it be that horrible to make it so purples are actually rare?

One way Blizzard could fix this is completely keep it the way it is, an introduce a healthy amount of Legendary quality items. As long as there isn’t a giant influx of Legendary items, it should be kept somewhat balanced. It may have to do with the fact we are nearing the drop of point for Burning Crusade, so Blizzard wants to get as many people as they can to experience all of the expansion before they release Wrath of the Lich King.

4: Two Profession Cap

Looking forward to Wrath of the Lich King, I think the primary profession cap needs to be increased to three, while still being able to get all 3 of the secondary professions. However I think it doesn’t need to be just increased, but also modified, albeit slightly.

My thought is that each person can have 3 professions, but only one of each type of profession. Here is what I had in mind for the potential Profession ‘classes’:

Gathering: Herbalism, Skinning, Mining
Augmentation: Enchanting, Inscription, Alchemy, Jewelcrafting
Crafting: Tailoring, Blacksmithing, Engineering, Leatherworking

Not only will this allow you to be more focused in your profession, but it will allow for some synergy between some of the professions, Inscribed Skinned leathers can be used to make very specific Leatherworking armor. Enchanted Ore could be used to forge a killer weapon. You know stuff like that.

The only problem I could see with that is with everyone taking Tailoring, due to the fact that it doesn’t have a skill synergy built in with it right now. (Herbalism = Alchemy, Mining = Engineering, etc.) Although after you get to skill level 300 it becomes tough to advance without Enchanting.

3: Crafting Craziness

I shudder to think of what skill 450 Epic Patterns require for materials. Blizzard got profession advancement right, until you get around skill 325, at which point it becomes utterly ridiculous. You either have to buy your Materials off the auction house, or just come to terms with the fact that it is going to take you near a month to make it all yourself due to cool downs. That is of course not counting farming the materials for each individual piece.

I do understand that your profession should get more complicated the further along it is, but there are other ways to do it. As a Tailor, I like the idea of Shadowcloth, Spellcloth and Primal Mooncloth. I hate the fact they are on cool down. Why not just increase the required amount of Shadowcloth, make it so you only create one piece as apposed to two, and increase the amount of materials required to make the cloth itself. That way it feels like you are doing a lot of work, but it doesn’t take forever and a day.

2: Price

$14.99 a month works, but $9.99 would work too. 9.99 x 10 million = 99.9 million a month. I think that is more than enough to continue work on WoW.

1: The Alliance

I don’t think this one needs justification. For the Horde!