What We Want To See in World of Warcraft 2

There's no question that Blizzard's cornered the MMORPG market with World of Warcraft. The release of Cataclysm has all but sealed the deal, with none of its competitors coming even close to challenging the behemoth. Back in '08, there was a slight flicker of hope that EA Mythic's Warhammer: Age of Reckoning would come to rival WOW. If not with its great setting--of which Warcraft is most undoubtedly inspired by--then certainly for its PVP-focused gameplay. 

History will show that WAR, like LOTRO and the countless other MMORPGs ended up being nothing more than small blips on a radar dominated by WOW's overwhelmingly large signature. 

The World of Warcraft can't go on forever. Although the game remains stronger than ever, Blizzard has plans for the future and that future involves the creation of a brand new game, one not of any existing franchise--or so they've said. The game they're making may well be a World of Warcraft 2, or even a World of Starcraft, but we can only speculate on the theme at this point in time. 

With that said, we can talk about what we'd like to see in the next installment of Warcraft or whatever their next MMO might be. 

#9 Better Graphics

It's time to put World of Warcraft's ancient graphics to rest and embrace something better. Keep the art style if you must, but a step towards making WOW resemble its cinematics would be a huge incentive for most players to pick up the new title. Just think about how cool your mount would look with high resolution textures. If Morrowind can get a new lease of life with the fan-made "Morrowind 2011" upgrade, there's no telling how good a huge graphical update to World of Warcraft could look. 

#8 Better Animations

Let's be clear on this: World of Warcraft's animations are really well done. The problem with them is that there's far too few attack animations, and on top of that, the movements play out independently, disconnected from the rest of the environment and characters. Blizzard could take a cue from Grand Theft Auto IV (or even the upcoming Diablo III) by implementing a physics engine into their next MMORPG. Admit it, you think it'd be cool if you could decapitate enemies with a sword. While you're at it, throw in some facial expressions for the characters. 

#7 Cut Down Travel Time

The flight from Darkshore to Gadgetzan may be pleasant to watch--mesmerizing, even. But once you seen it for the first time, there's little desire to spend fifteen whole minutes watching the scene every time you make the trip. There's a reason why players prefer teleports. But beyond the ability to teleport, which simply exists as a workaround to a much bigger problem. Simply put, they're a waste of time. 

#6 Less Grind

Cataclysm was a step in the right direction when it made gaining experience a much less tedious process by increasing the experience rewards for quests. Even so, the whole system is a throwback to the MMOs released ten years ago. It's a new decade, and that calls for a new system to be put in place--one that doesn't require players to grind pointlessly for days just to get to the next area. An MMORPG should emphasize role-playing and socializing, not grinding. Grinding is not fun. It's not even in the description.

#5 Fewer Servers, Larger Communities

There's a reason why World of Warcraft's community is so split up -- there's too many servers. The reason for that is technical, of course. Servers can only hold so many people at once. But the existence of so many servers creates the problem of not being able to play with your friends who've rolled on multiple different servers. It also creates the problem of being on a server with a very low population. Blizzard has attempted to solve these problems by offering players the ability to transfer their characters for free to more populated servers, while other companies have merged servers when their playerbase was simply too split up. These are workarounds. Their new game should be made to support more people per server, if not house them in a single server the same way EVE Online does. 

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