Time and time again, Blizzard manages to keep surprising and delighting me with their ongoing work to ensure World of Warcraft stays on top of the MMO pile. Just when you think they've abandoned the old world in favour of pumping out more and more endgame content to keep the hardcore happy, they announce the next expansion will only raise the level cap by 5 and will totally revamp the old world top to bottom. This, without a doubt, is the smartest decision they could've made. Why? I'll tell you why, good sir/madam!
Alts.
Everybody rolls them. There isn't a single person who doesn't, at some point, get bored with his class and decides he wants to try a facerolling Ret pally, or maybe face-melting Warlock. Because hey, the grass is always greener, right? But you can only find Mankrik's wife so many times before you get bored of that, too. It's a long road to 80, and despite Blizzard's constant moves to make leveling faster, it can still feel like a drag, especially since the quests aren't as plentiful as in the later expansions, so the old world feels somewhat dated compared to the more recent additions to the game. Redesigning the entire old world means that everyone will WANT to level alts again, and will probably result in more people hitting the level cap in the first place. Though I can still imagine burnout setting in once you get to Outland, but I guess it's too much to hope Blizzard will also accomodate levels 60 through 70 (and maybe even beyond) in Azeroth, but we'll see.
This also has the added benefit of finally being able to use flying mounts in Azeroth, so you no longer feel sort of gimped. In addition to all this, Blizzard has also announced that they are severely streamlining the itemization system. Gone are confusing stats like armor penetration, and less-confusing, but still somewhat obtuse, stats like attack power, mana per 5 seconds, block value and defense. Obviously, this means how these stats work, as well as talent trees, will see some major overhauls. For one, Plate-tanks will get new talents to compensate for the lack of defense on gear. It should make itemizing your gear much more intuitive and will (hopefully) result in less people Needing on gear that isn't really meant for them.
I am not currently playing World of Warcraft, but they always manage to pull me back in somehow. Now that I do have a pretty decently geared 80 Prot/Ret Pally, I definitely plan to go back once Arthas is killable, for one. That dude has it coming.
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