Will Wrath of the Lich King Be Enough?

Published by Alinden under World of Warcraft on June 5, 2008

With the recent release of Age of Conan (AoC), and Warhammer Online (WAR) scheduled for release later this year, I find myself asking this question and wondering what I’ll be doing next year.

I guess the question is more whether the content that comes with WotLK will be enough? I say content because that’s really what we’re talking about. There is nothing really radical about WotLK as far as I know. Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised, but at this stage there is nothing that indicates a major change to the graphics engine or the mechanics of the game. It really comes down to a new class, new zones, new instances, and a new profession. Sure, there will be “updates” to existing content, but nothing … radical or particularly inspiring. Maybe that’s Blizzard’s plan? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Or is it the bane of some other successful enterprises; the issue of maintaining compatibility with legacy systems?

Blizzard has a few things going for it, namely money, infrastructure, experience, the player base, literally years of personal investment by players, the lore, and reasonably acceptable game mechanics (particularly for the casual player), not to mention a cross-platform client. All these things act against people committing to switching. Better the devil you know …

My guess is that WotLK will be the last of the major content releases we see from Blizzard, at least for WoW as we currently know it. I just can’t see the game continuing into the new decade the way it is. That means major change, or simply “WoW will diminish, and go into the West, and remain WoW” (sorry Galadriel).

I’ll continue this later with a few observations based on my (limited) time in AoC (and LotRO), and the considerations that naturally arise when hypothesising about leaving WoW behind.