Complaining about WoW #1

Note: Don't bother reading this, it's not really worth anyone's time.

With the recent (for this blog anyway; I'm always several weeks behind) announcements about WoW's next expansion I'm filled with raging ambivalence. I'm like the Hulk except with a happy form as well as an angry one. Also my forms don't give me any powers. You know, never mind.

Judging by the revelations at this year's Blizzcon Cataclysm seems to be following in Blizzard's tradition of having clever ideas and innovations but somehow managing to be crushingly disappointing at the same time. It'd be like having a machine that cured cancer and stopped world hunger, but also kicked you in the balls. I think I'll give up on the similes now.

Since I can go on indefinitely about what I like and dislike about Cataclysm (despite not being out yet) and WoW in general for this post I'll just focus on some non-specific issues and leave the interesting stuff for another time ;P.

I feel dirty for using that now.

On the most basic level I'm opposed to purchased expansions to subscription games mostly because I was under the impression that subscriptions were essentially an alternative to having to purchase an expansion from time to time. But apparently subscribers are only paying for continued playing of old content. Funny, most companies with less money than Blizzard allow players to do just that without charging them money.

If having to pay for a glorified content patch isn't bad enough, the new content generally comes in two unpleasant flavours: more of the same, and gimmicky gameplay shifts.

To clarify more of the same; naturally I don't expect everything in an expansion to be new cutting edge ideas that reinvent the genre while transcending it. The fundamentals of the game should remain intact for the most part. So why the hell am I complaining about expansion having more of the same content when I've just said that things need to be the same? Examples can illustrate this better than I can.

One of the major features of the first WoW expansion TBC (The Burning Crusade) was the addition of 2 new races. Now this would be great if race was particularly relevant; too bad in WoW all race essentially does decide appearance and grant some minor skills.
It's a shame to because race can be used to give radical gameplay differences. In Vampire: the Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 of the available clans have unique features. A a Nosferatu you are visibly monsters and thus have to hide from mortal view, and as a Malkavian you are completely insane and so you get very distinct dialogue.

I don't have any more notable examples for more of the same, but I've got plenty (2) for gimmicky gameplay shifts. So what do I mean with this collection of buzz words? Basically any deviation from the standard gameplay style, but not so far as to become a total Genre Shift. Since I clearly suck at clearly explaining things, let's just go back to examples. Both of the WoW expansions have a brilliant one each.
In TBC one of the big selling points were flying mounts. While they allow you to pass difficult terrain and avoid enemies, flying mounts unfortunately also defy some of the open world's features, such as difficult terrain and enemies in your way. Quests where you'd have to fight your way up a mountain to assassinate a named boss become trivial when you can fly straight to the target. I suppose ultimately it depends on whether you think things like immersion and exploration are important, and if you don't wtf are you doing playing an open world game?
In WotLK (Wrath of the Lich King) the gimmick was vehicles, although despite the name this also included instances of riding mounts or transforming into things. Basically it was a standardisation of all the mechanics that changed the nature of the player's character (which to be fair before WotLK was pretty atrocious). What I don't like about this was that this created various occasions where your actual characters growth and capabilities were completely irrelevant. It is a similar problem to a lot of the minigames in Final Fantasy games, where any and all of the leveling you've done will not help you unlock useful items.
Further more, the developers use vehicles rather frequently in the expansion as it's far easier to balance the difficultly when everyone is the same rather than for 30+ different types of playstyle.

Well that's all for now. Looking back at this post I can see it's even less focused and coherent than usual. However given that I've already typed it all, I guess I'll unleash it upon the world like an unwanted pregnancy and just try to make up for it with better posts in the future.