Uhm.. Is It Time To Worry About Season Of Discovery?

Now, I know things are a bit slow when it comes to the Season of Discovery right now, considering we are dead smack in the middle between Phase 2 and Phase 3, but I think this dark and quiet time is going to end very soon, and by very soon, I actually mean this week.

Mid-Season Update

We even had a tweet over from Agren a couple of days ago stating about how it’s kind of quiet on here, and the team working on the Season of Discovery has been working hard on things, preparing for Phase 3 as well as Cataclysm, and they’ll have more information on Phase 3 pretty soon.

Cataclysm’s Reception and Strategy

Now, I don’t know how popular Cataclysm is going to be, considering most, if not like all, players that I’ve talked about it don’t really seem to be interested. But them taking the overperforming Season of Discovery developers, who are really trying to push and excel this new version of WoW, and then having them shift their focus on Cataclysm doesn’t really feel like a good move in my opinion.

Personally, I think the Season of Discovery has struck gold in terms of bringing players in from all aspects of WoW, whether it be classic, retail, or players that haven’t played WoW in many years. If anything, they should even add on to this team to develop maybe even more systems. But this is something we’ll talk about later.

Expanding Variety in Gameplay

In simple terms, it just means more variety of power rather than endless power-ups for your character. Moving on, the user continues to say classic World of Warcraft players love the leveling experience, and seeing it being treated as a chore to get to the end game is not the most ideal situation. Agan responds to this by stating, “I agree with this.

I think one lesson we’ll walk away with from the Season of Discovery is that adding all this stuff for classes and encouraging everyone to play multiple characters isn’t compatible with the slow and enjoyable leveling approach that original WoW has. This is actually the exact kind of design problem we suspected would be created with the format of what Season of Discovery is.”

Leveling Experience Contrast

He adds on to this by stating, “It really throws into contrast how much it slows down going from levels 25 to 40 compared to level 1 through 25.” He states, “This is an experiment through and through, but it’s something we’ll think about if we ever try something like the Season of Discovery again. It’s going to be interesting to have a retrospective with our team on Season of Discovery someday for sure.”

Season of Discovery’s Unique Position

I think we can all agree here, ladies and gentlemen, that the Season of Discovery is not classic WoW, and the Season of Discovery is not retail WoW. I really like to think of the Season of Discovery almost as like World of Warcraft’s greatest hits album, where they pick and choose pretty much what works for classic and all these different types of versions of WoW, including retail, and they bring it onto this temporarily seasonal realm.

I know everyone out there has a different version of what you know Classic Plus should be, but one thing is for sure is that the Season of Discovery is almost like a kind of giant testing ground. Not only that, there are not that many developers actually on the Season of Discovery right now. Of course, I think they’re doing a phenomenal job, and I mean.

Developer Engagement and Expectations

I think they’re actually doing better than all the other versions of World of Warcraft in terms of developing and being in touch with our community. But I think we all really need to manage our expectations for what’s to come inside a Season of Discovery and how long these systems could take to be created. I mean, have you ever seen an open-world, zone-wide, free-for-all in WoW like the Stranglethorn event we have now? Have you seen raids at level 20 or 40? These are just one of the many, many things they’re adding that is brand new here, and these developers deserve a lot more credit than what the player base is giving them right now.

Constructive Criticism and Development Challenges

By the way, one thing’s for sure, don’t just sit here and think I’m kissing the developers’ backsides here because every time I or you all have a problem with the game, and something can be improved or updated, I’m the very first one to be upfront and give them flack about it, believe me.

I want brand new, never-before-seen raids. I want completely revamped zones, spells that are creative and fun that we’ve never seen inside of World of Warcraft before. I want new content. I mean, I want it all. That sounds awesome, but you got to understand how long something like that would take to develop between a team of maybe less than 10 people.

Managing Expectations and Future Development

Just remember, when it comes to the Season of Discovery, it’s like a giant testing ground meant to bring seasonal fun to the player base. So, just try to manage your expectations and pressure when it comes to developers and the innovation this game can bring because we’re already getting a ton of it as it is.

We had other users actually respond to Agan about when he was discussing other avenues in the future by saying, “I’m surprised that there’s even an idea of doing anything other than Season of Discovery-like content in the future. It feels like you’ve caught lightning in a bottle, and the next step would be to build upon it instead of toss.”

Feedback and Future Directions

Pretty much, this user is stating that they should build upon the Season of Discovery because the player base seems to really enjoy what’s happening here rather than just toss it away. And of course, Aran responds to this as well by stating, “It’s hard to say exactly what we’ll do, and we have tons of ideas, that’s for sure.

The funny thing about our process on classic is that we have tons of ideas and plans going into the release, but those ideas often time evolve rapidly into something else based on reception and feedback. It’s one of the best and worst things about our team because the idea can’t be set too much in stone too early because we know we’ll want to pivot based on what we learn mid-race.”

Agility and Adaptation in Development

It’s also why our team, being smaller and more focused, is so valuable because with a large team comes a lot of capabilities we may not have, but it also comes at the cost of agility. To break this down, ladies and gentlemen, in simple terms, is that they have tons of ideas on other seasonal aspects they could bring to Classic but they’re constantly going to change throughout the active season based on what we want as players and what the feedback is that we’re giving them. They can’t just have a set-in-stone idea because it could very easily fail, and no one would like it.

The Value of a Compact Team

He also thinks that their team being a bit smaller and a real tight group is more beneficial because there’s not so many people to go through to make a decision. A funny but serious example is kind of thinking of them almost like the Spartans; there may be only 300 of them, but they’re as effective as an army of thousands. So, Aran is kind of like our Leonidas in a way.

Preserving WoW’s Legacy and Innovating for the Future

Moving on, he states that he’s just thinking about the comparison of great original World of Warcraft leveling versus our goals they had with the Season of Discovery.

He says they’re very glad they still have classic era and hardcore to preserve the original WoW journey as it is. Of course, I think the Season of Discovery is fantastic, and I’m very happy with it, and super proud of what the team did with it. I absolutely want to keep doing more things like this or build upon it. Part of being a good developer is looking at what could be improved, though, and keeping that in mind as much as we can, looking at what works and building on that. I mean, it’s important no matter what you do in any situation.

Continual Improvement and Player Engagement

If you’re succeeding and things are going well, it’s always best to try to look for other ways you can improve upon and to not be so complacent and comfortable. I mean, I think the Season of Discovery team knows at this point that a PvP event with new runes and a new raid is something that everybody likes, but I think they’re going to continue to build upon it in the future phases, and they might even take this thing further once we hit level 60, which would be amazing to see, like maybe even bring new features and content to the table later on down the line.

Seasonal Development Strategy

To touch on it a little bit more, it kind of goes in tandem with the whole seasonal aspect of the Season of Discovery. You know, even massive content creators like sth stated things like the real enjoyment of classic WoW leveling experience is in hardcore, which I think in general, if you haven’t done vanilla WoW leveling a bajillion times, no matter what, it’s going to be fun.

Experience Buffs and Open World Engagement

But then he also continues to applaud the developers for bringing the XP buff in the Season of Discovery because the open world feels amazing. There’s players everywhere, and doing activities like dungeoning and questing feels powerful, efficient, and fun again.

The Joy of Leveling and Experiencing Content

And I’m going to be honest, I think when a new phase launches, one of my favorite things to do is actually just take my time and enjoy the leveling process, so I can get that little taste of journey when it comes to that vanilla World of Warcraft itch. But then I can also get the updated gameplay style, raiding, and PvP from future versions of WoW, all packed into one, which is the Season of Discovery.

Community Feedback and Suggestions

Also, it seems that players are taking to the forums to make some pretty bold statements about where the Season of Discovery is standing at this point, stating things such as there’s an emergency patch needed before people quit the game entirely. Saying that all we got in Phase 2 was an increase in level cap, another raid, more runes to discover, and a PvP event. Now, of course, he’s not actually lying when he mentions the amount of content we got because technically, that is all we got.

Managing Expectations and Content Pace

But there’s nothing wrong with taking a little bit of time off of the Season of Discovery to go play something else in between the phases or to take a little bit of break if that’s what you want to do. We’re talking about a seasonal realm here.

As players, we kind of have to be more technically understanding of what goes into creating brand new content because everything that we want, such as new raids, new zones, new battlegrounds, PvP events, brand new never-before-seen spells, give me everything, these things don’t just take 30 minutes to create. Hell, they don’t even take two weeks to create; they don’t even take a month; they take way longer.

Content Development Realities and Recent Updates

The emergency patch that he’s talking about, we actually just got, and that was the experience boost and gold increase with the quest with Discovery’s Delight. Because what are you going to do in the middle of a phase? You’re going to drop heroic dungeons in a brand new battleground? Like, once again, we got to try to manage our expectations here as players for what’s happening right now in the Season of Discovery and what’s to come.

Upcoming Announcements and Phase Three Expectations

I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of exciting news being announced as late as probably the end of this week, and we’re going to get a lot of information on what’s coming for the future in terms of phase three and beyond.

So, hopefully, that includes more features and potentially brand new content for the Season of Discovery. Honestly, I think the developers are well aware at this point that alternate characters are a decent form of content, but at the end of the day, at some point, all of your alternate characters do what your main character does, and that’s pretty much just raid log, maybe queue for a battleground if you have the time, and that’s about it.

Speculation on New Content and Surveys

So, if I had to bet, the developers are cooking up something big, man. And I mean, hell, we even got those surveys on heroic dungeons potentially coming, so that could very well be a possibility heading into phase three, maybe as late as phase 4.

Analysis of Class Performance Changes

Also, I just quickly wanted to show you guys some very drastic log changes since the very beginning of the phase that is actually very important to break down just for a couple of the classes out there. As you can see at the start of the phase, classes like the shadow priest, arcane mage, were performing very well, and generally, the logs are all over the place. Then you had classes like the enhancement shaman, warrior, and paladin that were really lackluster in terms of damage overall compared to everyone else.

Current Class Performance and Developer Adjustments

And I mean, you got to take a look at these changes right here; this is now today, which is last week, and you have so many things to look at. I mean, DPS warriors in top five DPS, enhancement shaman is somehow the number one class overall, shadow priest arcane mage dropped to like the bottom, feral druid is middle of the pack. I mean, the point I’m trying to make is that these developers are making so many class changes, and it’s fluctuating; it feels like almost every other day with any new things being implemented.

Class Changes and Community Feedback

I mean, I’ve played retail World of Warcraft for a long time, and there would be months, I’m talking months, that would go by where there wouldn’t be any class changes. So, them doing it almost every week at this point is nothing but a blessing that we really shouldn’t take advantage of. I just thought that would be something really interesting to see and note. I mean, good God, Enhancement Shaman being the number one damage class is just, I don’t even know what to think about something like that. I would have never guessed that class would be number one, you know, looking at it at the beginning of phase one.

Content Ideas and Player Expectations

Starting off, we have Urban loves the Lakers stating, “No, most of what you’re saying is related to retail. I want to make something very clear here, ladies and gentlemen. When I suggest an idea, I don’t want them to simply just go down the retail WoW path. If I want to play retail, I’ll just go play retail. I don’t need that for the Season of Discovery. I don’t think there needs to be Mythic plus inside. I’m purely advocating for content to do with the community that is straightforward to get into, that you could do between raid days, such as heroic dungeons.”

Engagement Beyond Raiding

I mean, I’m just trying to pitch ideas that have worked really well in the past, and right now, the only thing I’m doing in Season of Discovery on my two level 40s is raid log and farm gold because I’ve done everything else I can do. I mean, there’s no other content for me to complete that I’m enjoying. I’m not going to force myself to play and do things I don’t find fun. Also, ladies and gentlemen, try not to be so scared of change, you know, whether you’re a bigger fan of classic or whether you’re a bigger fan of retail, because the truth is, both of those versions of World of Warcraft have absolutely jaw-dropping features inside of them that feel really good to play.

Community-Driven Content and MMORPG Dynamics

Because sometimes, I just want to go on journeys to acquire cosmetics or titles that nobody has or hang out with my friends and do something with my community. I don’t think an MMORPG needs to be all about min-maxing all the time. I don’t know about you all, but when I play Warlords or Draenor, I actually really like the Garrison system because it was like a crappy version of a housing system, but it was just something so cool to, you know, invite my guild into and do like the profession stuff inside. I thought it was so awesome, man. I think seeing things like that would be a really nice breath of fresh air inside a Season of Discovery.

Classic Dungeons and Creative Content

I know some people out there didn’t like the idea of these classic dungeons, like you know, Deadmines or Wailing Caverns, for example, scaling up to our level and then dropping loot that we can equip that’s either on par with pre-raid best in slot or like a couple of pieces maybe being our BIS, but pretty much because they didn’t think it was creative enough. But I think the Season of Discovery is already full of creativity, man.

The Need for More Engaging Content

Right now, the biggest issue is simply content between raid days and things to actually do. Every time I put up a poll, everyone responds the same way; it’s like 60% or so everyone’s complaining about the lack of content, endgame things to do with friends or, you know, your guild or whatever. Right now, I mean, currently, my guild does Onyxia, and that’s it; then we just log off, and I don’t see them for 3 days at a time.

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