Here Are Our 10 Reasons Why WoW Might Die Before 2020
Love it or hate it, World of Warcraft is still relative. Even after 12 years many people are still logging in daily to do PvP, do Dungeons, Raid or just hang out in the Guild chat. It’s definitely not how it was back in the day but the game is still alive and kicking. The biggest reason this game has been successful for so many years is definitely due to the staggering amount of new content Blizzard has added through the years. We also mustn’t forget the World of Warcraft community that played no small part in keeping this game relative.
Despite Blizzard’s best attempts to keep the game fresh and exciting, the game is definitely showing its age now more than ever. Many ex-WoW players talk about the “good old days” of WoW while hardcore fans try to find reasons to come back and enjoy Azeroth once more. We have speculated many times why World of Warcraft will die so today we bring you a list of 10 reasons (in no particular order) why World of Warcraft might die before 2020. Please keep in mind that this is our list and therefore is entirely based on our own opinion.
Reason 1: Outdated Cartoony Graphics
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Should We Tell Her?
Back in 2004 World of Warcraft looked amazing, despite its cartoon graphics. Players were willing to completely forgive the games art style because of how immersive and fun the game was. 12 years later, despite Blizzard updating the character models and textures several time, the game just doesn’t look as groundbreaking as it did in the early 2000’s.
Arguably, the graphics fit in well with the overall somewhat goofy theme of World of Warcraft, but let’s be real here, the game looks ancient.
Before you say the old gamer saying: “Graphics don’t make a good game”, allow us to stop you right there and tell you that we know this. However, if you show a person who has never played in 2016 World of Warcraft and say… Final Fantasy XIV, which one do you think they will prefer?
While many of us still adore the cartoony graphics of WoW, these lovely cartoons aren’t going to draw any new players into Azeroth unless Blizzard completely rebuilds their engine (and let’s be real, they won’t).
Reason 2: Outdated Cartoony Animations
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The Animations Don’t Look So Bad for Early 2010’s Graphics. Unfortunately Its 2016
Speaking of graphics, another thing that drew us to World of Warcraft back in the day was how lively the characters behaved. Man, back in the early 2000’s you couldn’t get livelier than a WoW character.
They could laugh, cry, dance, make a train noise and did we mention the battle animations? The way how warriors would swing their swords and axes, the way how mages would cast their fireballs and especially the way how you truly felt in control was one of the many reasons people started spending so much time in Azeroth. As time went by, many other games copied this formula and made their own, better, animations so poor old WoW isn’t as cool as it used to be.
To Blizzard's credit, the new battle animations added in Legion do look fantastic but we really would like to see much more.
As it is now, it still looks like an old game with some cool moves.
Reason 3: Same Boring Quest Mechanics
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Kill 10 of (insert name here) and report
In the early days of MMOs this was the standard formula for quests. Kill 10 monsters or collect 10 items, come back get, get gold or loot, repeat. World of Warcraft was no different.
12 years later, things haven’t changed much, have they. While it is true that we get to kill things in more creative ways (like from a flying machine, with bombs, on a giant), it still boils down to this boring old system that many players are more than a little sick of.
Other MMOs have done interesting things to change up the pace, with dialogue options, different quest outcomes and quests that you can complete in various different ways and some have been more successful than others, but unfortunately, WoW still largely follows the above mentioned formula.
Yes, WoW, has done quite a lot to improve it’s questing with every new expansion but we still come across, quests like these. We want to say that quests like these should no longer exist, but parts of us worry that if that were to come true, we would be even unhappier with questing.
Reason 4: The LFG System Is Killing the Game’s Social Aspects
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Remember When You Had to Actually Go and Look For a Group? We Remember.
Oh boy, this one is a real double edged sword. So let me start from the beginning. Back in Vanilla and all the way until Wrath of The Lich King, WoW players had to use the various in-game chats to find groups for dungeons, raids and quests. This was often a long and tedious process as it meant that you could be shouting for over an hour about that one open spot you have in your group for a Tank but nobody would answer.
However, when you actually found the tank at the end both you and the rest of your party jumped from joy. 3 of you would go to the dungeon location, except for the tank who, of course, wants a summon, you would start the dungeon and during it you would exchange tactics and occasionally curse at each other, but in the end, when the final boss has been slayed all of you are suddenly friends and are already on your way to the next dungeon. Long, yes! Annoying, definitely, but did it help you make friends in WoW, most certainly?
Fast forward to Wrath of The Lich King where we get the “ “LookingForGroup” tool. All you do is select your role and wait (depending on your role) for a few minutes. Once the minutes are up, the game sends you to the dungeon with 4 people you have never seen before. You finish the dungeon in 10 minutes and the 4 players are gone, never to be seen again. Fast, yes! Good for leveling, yup! Good for making friends… NO!
It’s really hard to say whether the game would be better should Blizzard decide to remove this feature but one thing is for sure, we have never felt so lonely in WoW ever since the LFG tool was implemented.
Reason 5: The Game Is Just Too Old and There Is Nothing New About It - It No Longer Provides a Refreshing Experience
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You Know You’ve Got Nothing to Do When You Start Fishing.
Sorry if you actually like fishing in WoW, but then again, you know better than all of us that it’s not something many people do in WoW. When some of us left, or took a break from the game and then came back a year later only to find out that nothing has changed, we were a bit disappointed. Oh sure, there have been countless new quests, new dungeons and raids, but nothing groundbreaking.
After 12 years of the game’s development, do we really sound greedy and spoiled if we, say, want something truly NEW? To be fair Blizzard has tried to alter the game with Garrisons (which didn’t work out that well) and with World quests (which are a bit better) but we still want more (just like Disney Princesses). Make more stuff for us to do Blizzard.
Reason 6: People realize they are spending hundreds of hours on the game and getting no real life benefits
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World of Warcraft Is Not an Addiction! I Can Quit Whenever I Want
Probably the number one reason why most people quit WoW is when they realize just how much time they spent in the game and even worse when they realize that nobody cares but them. This was the case 12 years ago, and that’s still the case today. What can be done about this? Make it so that people can earn money while playing World of Warcraft?
Unless you are Game Master (which basically means being customer support and not even playing the game all that much) or a Gold Farmer / Power Leveler (which is illegal according to Blizzards Terms and Services) you are out of luck.
Blizzard tried to make earning money in Diablo 3 a thing and saying that it didn’t end up well is an understatement. So, basically it all ends up as World of Warcraft just being a gigantic waste that could be used on much more meaningful things… like playing other games that will still waste your time only a little less.
Reason #7 The Game Doesn’t Allow You to Become Super Powerful
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I Can Gank Any Player, Unless There’s Two Of Them, Then I Hide.
If you are not at all affected by reason number 6 then you have probably been in this position. You have played your class for so long that you have become the best. Nobody can kill you in a duel or in PvP. That is, of course, until another opposing player starts fighting and you end up dying. Perhaps Blizzard likes to keep all of their children, especially those that are the most dedicated, in line but almost nobody we met in World of Warcraft felt like a God.
On one hand, if you have spent so much time invested in the game then surely you deserve all the spoils, but on the other hand other players don’t stand a chance against you and will eventually quit (which is something Blizzard doesn’t want). So the highest you can get is being really powerful, but not much more than that.
You know how in Dota 2 or in COD if you are really good you can get a doublekill, triplekill, quadkill or even a pentakill all on your own? Well in WoW you usually kill one guy, then you hide so you can recover your health, then you kill another guy and then 2 guys who aren’t even as well-equipped as you run you over.
Balancing the game’s PvP is great, but Blizzard should let us feel more powerful.
Reason 8: A Next-Gen MMORPG Appears and Steamrolls It
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Nobody Has Been Able to Take Down WoW For Over a Decade but It Could Still Happen.
“This new MMORPG is going to be the WoW killer”, yeah, yeah, we’ve heard it all before numerous times but look, WoW is still here and it’s making Activision and Blizzard lots of money. Star Wars: The Old Republic, The Elder Scrolls Online, Wildstar and many others have tried very hard but none of them were able to do it.
A famous youtuber TheLazyPeon once said in one of his videos that if there ever does come an MMORPG that will kill WoW it will probably be made by Blizzard themselves.
That may not be true, but as time goes by and nobody seems interested to take down World of Warcraf we may be inclined to believe in this statement too.
Either way you look at it, creating a WoW killer MMORPG is something that we would definitely pay to see because, at this moment, we are not sure such a thing is even possible.
Reason #9 Blizzard May Mess Up a Future Expansion - Making the Majority of Players Quit For Good
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Many People Didn’t Like Mists of Pandaria
When the very first WoW expansion was released, many people quickly stated that WoW is dead and that the expansion has ruined the game. Fast forward to the present day and we are looking at World of Warcraft’s sixth expansion.
So, we guess the statements were false right. Well, yes and no. The amount of players playing World of Warcraft has been quite a roller coaster when you look at each expansion. It seems that no matter how much blizzard may mess up an expansion, cough Pandaria cough, there has never been an expansion so bad to simply chase the WoW community away.
Legion seems to have hit the sweet spot and most WoW veterans seem satisfied with it but as time goes by Blizzard will have to work that much harder to make the next expansion feel even better than the last. Anything less might just kill it.
Reason 10: The Thought of Continuously Grinding but Reaping Little to No Reward in the End. When Players Wake Up to This, They Will Quit the Game
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Nothing to Do? Time For More Fishing
Yes, yes, we made the fishing joke before, har, har, let’s go back to the topic. We have all been there; we finally got the last piece of gear we wanted, we beat each of the raid bosses over a dozen times, we are dominating in PvP, what else is there to do? Nothing, guess it’s time to find a new game.
Even worse, when you do get to that point, you barely feel any sense of accomplishment. It’s truly amazing how a game with so much content can feel so unrewarding during its endgame. At that point, many people usually quit the game and come back for the next expansion and after they finish everything there, they quit again. It’s a cruel cycle.
If you are a World of Warcraft player and if any of these 10 reasons didn’t affect your love for the game then we salute you and wish you all the best in your journey in Azeroth and beyond. For many of us, we would like to see more changes made before we dig out our old WoW account and start playing again. For the rest of you, happy fishing.
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