World of Warcraft: But It Doesn’t Have…Nevermind.

I’ve written many times about how I’ve been simply amazed by World of Warcraft. The game’s almost unbelievable subscriber base, the way it has expanded and popularized MMO gaming, and especially the way it continues to be a relevant game 5 years later are all topics that blow me away any time I think about them. World of Warcraft is the Shaquille O’Neal of gaming; an unbelievable specimen that dominated its competition and still demands your attention even in it’s old age. Yet it is far from perfect; for years new games have been able to release and bring those imperfections to the forefront.

Games like EverQuest 2, Warhammer Online and others have been able to flaunt very robust guild management systems for example. Blizzard’s game has always lacked good management features and tools for it’s guilds, despite guild play being a huge cog in the WoW machine. Recently Bobabouille at mmochampion.com posted a wrap up of some of the known information that was released at Blizzcon in regard to certain upcoming features, and Cataclysm’s upcoming guild management functionality appears in the first recap. Looking at these great (and very, very overdue) features got my mind churning. Could Blizzard have possibly left something like this off of their to do list intentionally?

Could it be that Blizzard was smart enough to identify all the really good pieces of functionality that need to be added to the game long ago, yet put them on the development back burner purposely? It could be that adding such great features at this point in time make great selling points for a new expansion, which makes sense. But it also makes sense that adding key features like this 5 years after the game has launched are things that continue to make the game relevant despite its age. The guild management tools in particular seem to knock out yet one more of those key features that other developers can highlight in their game since World of Warcraft doesn’t have it.

Mythic introduced queuing for a scenario from anywhere, later Blizzard introduced the feature to World of Warcraft. Not to be outdone, they eventually added the same queuing functionality to PVE instances. EverQuest 2 (and other games) showed some of the best guild management tools available, and in Cataclysm Blizzard will bring many of the same tools to World of Warcraft gamers. They seem to be going a bit further by facilitating tools for guild recruitment in game, something I’ve always thought should be done in game rather than spread across various guild web sites.

Blizzard is catching up to other games in areas that it has been lacking, and in many ways leapfrogging the functionality that other games have done so well. I think that Blizzard’s dominance and late age relevance is pictured perfectly in the survey on this site’s sidebar. With over 200 votes, Blizzard’s Cataclysm expansion is the 2nd most anticipated game of 2010 despite being pitted against totally new and highly anticipated games. What do you think? Does my theory of Blizzard intentionally holding back on features and functionality hold water? Are you looking forward to Cataclysm and all the known (and probably many unknown) features it will bring?

Merry Christmas!

-br3ntbr0