Interview: Wrath of the Lich King

The object of RPGs in any form - be they offline or online - is, always has been and always will be progression.

In offline RPGs this takes the form of lore and story and the continuity of the product is much less obvious. Players progress through a finite story that takes them from a beginning to an end, along the way they will encounter items and gear and this aspect is secondary to the story. A good example of this is The Witcher which placed limited importance on items and more importance on the story; Neverwinter nights which placed great importance on the story and limited importance, once again, on items. Neverwinter Nights was successful enough to spout two official expansions and hundreds of player written exapansions which, for the most part, placed great importance on the telling of a story and less importance on items.

Exactly the same philosophy is applied to MMORPGs but due to the nature of the gameplay, they open up a whole new array of options and gameplay types that offline (or limited multiplayer) RPGs can't cover due to their obvious limitations, or that could be incorporated with massive amounts of effort. Examples include persistent world environments, live progressive content, multiple story arcs and massive amounts of lore, story and character development for those who like that aspect of RPGs. As well as that, most MMOGs recognize a large portion of the player base (if not all) who will not be going to raiding dungeons or instances because the story tells them to as they aren't interested in the story; they are interested in another type of progression - power - and this is where items and professions come in, allowing those players the chance to experience raid content simply to say they have the best gear or to experience PvP to say they are the most skilled.

Your comment about items becoming obsolete is pointless. I am an avid PvPer and every 3 months, my gear is rendered completely obsolete for the level of PvP I like to undertake but I don't whinge. I get on with playing arena so that I can once again say that my gear is better than most and that my skill and the skill of my team mates led to that being the case. Tiered gear is constantly out done by the next tier of gear and sometimes you find that none-tiered gear is out doing tiered gear. If the top end gear never changed, then people would get bored of the game and there would also be no reason to write new content.

Also, lots of people seem to be complaining about the act of adding 10 levels and new gear to the game and I don't see why. It is not a foreign concept. I know of many games that have followed that format - EverQuest, Eve Online etc etc. Adding new things to keep you playing is commonplace. As for not adding new features, you're obviously not reading what I'm reading. WotLK wil see new hair styles, dances, siege warfair, talents, pets, monsters etc etc etc. Typical expansion content not counting the brand spanking new class they are adding. As for the instances being obsolete, that isn't the case. There will still be reason to go back for legendary items and nostalgia and also, 5 mans will still be good for leveling up, as they have always been. Naxx is being upgraded to level 80, 25 man content so Blizzard obviously see the benefit of keeping some of the old stuff but I've always like the phrase out with the old, in with the new.