MoP needs a Goal

I first thought that MoP was disturbing because it did not have a big bad enemy, but that is not it. It has no goal for the players – no draw-card, no massive call to action that creates an excitement and sense of impending challenge. The Pandas are ok, monks are cool – but not even close to the “You are not Prepared” trailer.

Think about it, you login, create your panda monk, level it and then…nothing. The announcement should have had a call to action. It is basic marketing to have a draw-card, and the audience for wow need more than this to get excited.

In an effort to post solutions as well as problems – We have no villain, but we can have goals.

1. I like the idea that the war between the factions will heat up, that is good and makes perfect sense. They should be at each others throats and trying to kill each other – especially now that you’d think that resources are that much more scarce. That is a side plot, but does not make an expansion. It is a theme that WoW has had since inception, its not enough to blow up about with out further development.
1. How about making the War have a tangible affect on the cities and realms?
2. Use phasing to make the areas either under siege, at war, or victorious based upon the player participation.
3. If each city has basically all the trainers and vendors duplicated, then allow a city to get locked out – in affect totally taken over by another faction for 1-2 days.
2. Use the Emerald Dream, and hook the mystical side of the panda lore (they have mystics and seers I assume) into using the dream to repair the damage to the world from Cata.
1. Instance to purge the remaining twilight enemies from a holy site, and have the instance change as the players succeed. A clean-up and purge can be as useful a goal as a big bad, if the setting is correct.
2. Have the dream fight back against the changes, so that we see Dreaming Beasts, which are like the defense mechanism of the realm.
3. Maybe they could add a message about the big-bad being partially us too, and we work to build and restore our world ourselves. Do we do this by raiding another place perhaps, another realm?
3. The Burning Legion. We raid the lands burnt out by the Burning Legion, for resources – but find remnants and survivors. We may also find outposts of the Legion. That is a nice way to have a feeling of striking back, and could start the prep for taking the fight to their homeworld.
4. What ever happened to fighting against the Old Gods? The creatures that corrupted Deathwing should be made to answer for what has happened, even if that answer was to permanently displace them into a dead world, rather than Azeroth.

Happy hunting.