The state of randomized loot is seemingly always in flux nowadays. With the introduction of loot chests to full priced games, practices considered normal a few years ago are now reexamined by weary players. Such is the case with World of Warcraft. With the recent managerial shifts behind the scenes at Blizzard, players are seeing some changes to the game like the randomized loot and simplified combat that don’t seem to fit.
These complaints all coalesce in a Reddit post that’s currently sitting atop the World of Warcraft subreddit. From store changes to simplified combat, no change seems to go without some controversy. The main crux of the post concerns why players log in nowadays when compared to why players used to log in. The main criticism is that the game has become an elaborate casino, and some recent changes help to shape that full picture. Redditor alizbee outlined his complaints about the loot system.
“I think I wore the same robe for 2 years during classic WoW. I only replaced it after The Burning Crusade released,” he said. “I didn’t log on just so I could tab-out to third-party websites because they were the only way to find out if I had the right talents, the right gear, or to simulate numbers with the gear I did have.”
Perhaps the most egregious comes in the in-game store. The See You Later Bundle is a new offering that gives players one last chance to purchase a set of cosmetic items. After a set date in January, all the items are “hibernating” for an indeterminate amount of time. This style of item retirement is new to World of Warcraft, generally designed to make players purchase items they otherwise wouldn’t due to scarcity concerns. It’s the same reason why Overwatch and other shooters have seasonal loot chests, to encourage players to play or spend regularly to keep up their collections.
Other unpopular changes include an in-game mount that adds six months to your current paid subscription to the game. Recent updates have also simplified combat, focusing more on grind than any measure of skill. Since new Blizzard president J. Allen Brack worked on Star Wars Galaxies in the past, fans think there are many comparisons to be made between the two games.
Between this and the recent kerfuffle over Diablo expansion into mobile, it seems that the incoming management needs to be wary. Blizzard has one of the most loyal fanbases around, but as it shifts further and further towards becoming an Activision subsidiary, it might lose a bit of that traction.
