What do you think deserves an update?
The story is always the same: I find a particularly intriguing piece of transmogrification gear, one that will totally make that midnight blue set I've been working on piecing together. And the piece is pretty easy to get, relatively speaking; it's a drop off of a boss in one of those old Burning Crusade-era heroics. Easy enough to solo at level 85, so it should be a snap to get, right?
Well ... not quite. Because for some reason, all of these old heroics still have their old lockouts in place. Despite the fact that you really don't get anything of consequence from these dungeons and you haven't been able to for years, you still can't repeatedly head into these dungeons. Now I realize there is a five-dungeon-per-hour limit to keep people from excessively farming, and I get that. I really do. But when you introduce a game feature that encourages farming old content, it seems silly that you not only have to cross your fingers that the item drops, but you can only attempt to get it once a day.
And really? That's not the only thing that could use an update in today's World of Warcraft.
The Grumpy Elf wrote up a really good list of eight things he'd like to see updated in the game, and honestly, I agree with every single last one of them. Some of these concerns will be addressed with Mists of Pandaria.
A tale of two shrine cities
Grumpy Elf notes that everything is depressingly centered around Stormwind and Orgrimmar, encouraging people to stay there. That's changed a bit in Mists, where the Vale of Eternal Blossoms holds two shrines that act as mini-cities, complete with vendors, trainers, and just about anything you could ever need.
In fact, what I really love about the shrine cities in Mists is that they're eerily similar to Dalaran. One side of the valley is clearly for Alliance, the other is clearly for Horde, and there are guards protecting both. Like Dalaran, the entirety of the area in between the two shrines is neutral -- either faction can wander into it without worry.
I miss Dalaran; I liked having the Alliance and Horde in close proximity, under the watchful eye of the Kirin Tor. What I don't miss is Dalaran's lag, and Mists has clearly addressed that. Instead of the area being one small city, it's spread out over a corner of a zone. It's like Dalaran on a much larger scale.
Bagging on collections
One thing I really agreed with Grumpy Elf on was the subject of bag space. It's pretty common knowledge that I collect more than my share of useless stuff. I love all my trinkets and TCG items and various bits of armor for transmogrification. But Blizzard keeps introducing more trinkets and fun items with every patch. Where are we supposed to put it all? At least give us another void storage tab to keep us happy. Please?
But the one thing I am hoping Blizzard updates over everything else is perhaps the simplest of all: the barbershop. The feature was introduced with Wrath of the Lich King, and everyone was really excited about it. Since then, it has received very little in the way of updates. It's the same old hair styles with the same old hair colors to choose from, and it's been that way for years. And I have to ask, in an age when we've been given incredible amounts of customization with transmogrification, why has everyone forgotten about the barbershop?
Give us new hairstyles. Let us pick different hair colors where feasible. I'm not saying give a blood elf the option to have green hair, but why not some varying shades of red or gold? Heck, why not let druids change the color of their animal forms independently from their non-animal forms? Let worgen women pick a hair color for their worgen that isn't the same monochromatic, dark shade. The potential of that feature is really cool, but it doesn't feel like it's being utilized at all.
The little tweaks that count
... Which I suppose is my main problem with the cool features added in World of Warcraft -- they're cool when they're introduced but quickly forgotten and left to rot in favor of other cool things. There isn't anyone working on updates for them. This is understandable. Obviously, Blizzard wants to give us new content and other cool new features, and it's got a limited number of people who can be working on any given project at a time.
Still, when you've got a game that's over seven years old, it'd be nice to see some of these old, neat things get a little update, a little polish. We don't need everything to be brand, spanking new all of the time. Sometimes, all it takes is an update of something we loved way back when to make us happy. As Grumpy Elf said, not all updates to the game need to be huge to be good.
