WoW targeting new players… again

August 13, 2006 on 4:17 pm | In WoW, Playstyles

The big news about the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion is that the raiding group sizes is changing.

And in my opinion, it's for the better.

The community site for the in-transition Computer Gaming World magazine broke the news on Friday:

In Burning Crusade, end game raiding (which occupies WoW's max level players) will be done in groups of 25 or 10. Illidan's Black Temple, the most challenging raid instance that will appear in Burning Crusade (at release), has a 25-player limit.

This was also confirmed by Eyonix on the WoW forums.

It's true, the plan is for five-player capped grouped dungeons. Ten-player capped raid dungeons. As well as Twenty-five-player capped epic raid dungeons. We wanted to focus on smaller raid environments, primarily to allow for greater individual player contribution. Also, in these smaller environments, hybrid classes have more opportunity to shine.

This is great news, to me. WoW is one of the most approachable diku-inspired MMORPGs on the market. It lowered the barrier of entry on both graphical requirements and experiential time-based requirements. It progressed players through the levels from 1 to 60 far faster than any other MMORPG did for the inexperienced. It basically allowed a lot more people than other games to hit the endgame.

But then those people saw what lay ahead: raiding.

Raiding is not just about getting together a large group. It's about focusing on a singular task (getting to the boss mobs for drops and getting craftable components from everything else), and then accepting the very small chance of actually getting something oneself. The only way to increase one's odds is to continually raid. Over and over and over again.

This is not an activity universally enjoyed. There's a few other barriers to raiding beyond the basic desire to focus on just one activity:

• Number of participants. It's just not easy to get 40 people together and keep them together. Once done it's hard to get them to recognize who's leader, and then to listen to them. Basically, the ideal raid consists of a dedicated group of people who know themselves, know what the others are capable of and have an established chain of command.
• Time. Even the most experienced raider needs to spend time first learning the zone and then completing it over and over. Once a zone is mastered, it could still take a few hours to clear. So even if someone only has a few hours a week to play, they'd have to focus all of it to raiding.
• Money and preparation. Raids are something of a money sink, a pure Lottery. You have a chance of walking away with a good item, but for all those times you don't, you're dumping money into equipment repairs, consumables and so on. And the item you do end up looting can most often not be resold anyway, because it cannot be traded once looted.
• Interest. This is about focusing on a singular task (getting to the boss mobs for drops and getting craftable components from everything else), and then accepting the very small chance of actually getting something oneself. The only way to increase one's odds is to continually raid. Over and over and over again. That takes a lot of interest.

Time and the number of participants could be combined to be the biggest barrier to raiding.

Yet raiding is also a very compelling activity for enough players to keep feeding them. WoW has been out for almost two years and the activity most expanded upon has been raiding, whether it was new raid zones for 5, 20 or 40 players. Even the relatively revamps of existing zones have focused on allowing smaller groups more challenge while raiding it.

But after all of this time, I think it's smart to focus again on the players that make up the bulk of WoW's success. I think Blizzard shares this thinking, as the above announcement is not the only feature of Burning Crusade. None of this is new information:

New Races 

Two new races complete with new quests and zones to complete them in. New players, or returning ones, get to play all new content within lore not yet experienced before.

More Levels 

New level cap of 70 

Continued Equipment Upgrades 

It has been long known that equipment gained through quests and raids from 60 to 70 will out-class that which is already in the game. That of course begs the question of why people bother raiding at all now, when in a few months their gear, and the time spent getting it, will be obsolete. The current raiding community seems split on this new fact, thinking that the "best" gear should only come to those who spend their time focusing on 40-man raids.

However, and probably partially in deference to that, there's been a bit of confusion tossed into the mix on the main forums. Basically, it seems that those in full Tier 3 gear by the time the expansion comes out may enjoy an upgrade from 60 to 70, but will experience the bulk of their upgrade potential from the level 70 endgame dungeons:

There has been quite a bit of discussion on the boards lately concerning how current end-game gear will be replaced upon leveling in the Burning Crusade and we thought that many of you would appreciate some clarification. The basic idea is that players who have recently obtained level 60 will gain access to immediate upgrades from expansion quests and creatures. Our exact estimates as to when tier 3 gear will become outdated have shifted back and forth somewhat as we continue to tune the expansion, however not dramatically so. While we do anticipate players wearing full tier 3 gear to find some upgrades/sidegrades from new endgame dungeons, the big draw will be in Karazahn and higher.

Please keep in mind that this information is simply meant to provide everyone with some insight into this process, and much like any aspect of game play that's still in development, it's subject to change.

Sounds to me like it'll be the folks in Tier 1 and Tier 2 gear, and of course those folks who stopped playing when they hit 60, who'll experience the bulk of the upgrades from 60 to 70. Certainly fine by me. 

New PvP Rules 

Finally, just announced by GameSpy, the old PvP Honor System is being scrapped in favor of something more conducive to non-hardcore. This quote summarizes the change:

Post BC, honor points will instead function like currency; you kill people, capture Battleground objectives, and get points. With these points, you can buy loot. Some pieces of equipment will also have a certain number of Battleground-specific tokens worked into their costs. Chilton mentioned that all current Battleground reputation reward loot will be rolled into the new honor system, so say goodbye to "rep farming."

One thing that may disappoint current PvP diehards: Loot attained via the honor system won't be as powerful as gear got from raiding. There's a plus side, though: There's a whole new PvP system in place that will provide gear that's on par with the best PvE-garnered stuff.

That last bit is most interesting. Instead of rep-farming, there's, err, not really sure yet what it'll be.

So this expansion, in my mind, is all about grabbing back new players. And I think it will do that in spades. For every player in WoW, there's been quite a few that have quit. The new expansion rightly targets players not already here, because that's an established audience already understood.

This expansion is for everyone else. WoW boasts a well-above-average retention, but this can largely be attributed to the game being the first in this genre many have experienced. With Burning Crusade coming with features geared specifically for those who stopped enjoying the raiding endgame that has so far gotten so much attention, I think the above announcement has increased their chances even more of both getting back new players and retaining who's already there.