Can't go home again

There's been a lot of talk about Legion, lately.  People wondering in the dark corners of the forums and comment sections around the land whether Legion will be the next Wrath.  Lots of speculation about WoW's potential return to greatness.

Well I have some bad news for those who are clutching those hopes to their bosoms.  Pull up a chair and let nasty ol' nuncle Tael disillusion you, my children.  For I was here during the halcyon days of undead-murdering and lich-king-slaying.  I remember it all and I tell you now: there will never be another Wrath.

There are a few reasons for this.

The first, and main, problem is the curse of the comparison.  See, Wrath was still early in the game, comparatively.  Our basis for comparison, as always, was that which had come before -- vanilla WoW and BC.  The game was still arguably "fresh;" it was really still finding its feet in some ways.  There was a lot of room to innovate, to polish, to refine.  Lots of low-hanging fruit to be plucked, and oh boy, did Wrath pluck that fruit.  Plucked it right down and made kungaloosh with it.  And lo, it was good.

Think about all the things that Wrath brought to the game.  Achievements.  Account-wide mounts and pets.  Dual-spec.  LFG.  Death knights.  Glyphs.  Ulduar.  Selectable raid size.  Encounter-based hard mode mechanics.  The Argent Tournament.  Phasing.  Passenger mounts.  Five-man content that stayed relevant through the endgame.  Every spec viable in group content.  "Bring the player, not the class."  Profession daily quests.  Wintergrasp and Archavon.  Vehicles.  Heirlooms.  On and on.

It's hard to overstate how revolutionary Wrath was in comparison to what WoW had been before.  The game was more accessible, more varied, than ever.  Before Wrath, if you wanted to tank, you had to play a warrior -- druids and paladins got some love in BC but they still had trouble with endgame content.  Wrath changed all that.

Absent a transition to virtual reality, it's hard to imagine that any expansion will introduce so many profound changes to how the game is played as Wrath did.  That, more than anything else, is what made Wrath awesome.  Wrath was when World of Warcraft found its shape -- everything since then has been either building on structures established in Wrath, or simplifying them.  Thus far, I can't say as Legion looks to be bringing anything world-shattering to the table.

But how could it?  That's my point.  You can't introduce something as revolutionary as "bring the player, not the class" again, because it's already been done.  Vehicles are already in the game.  Heirlooms are already there.  So are glyphs, selectable raid sizes, token-based reputation grinds, achievements...you can mess with how they work but you can't make them new again.

So that's part of it, that Wrath is what really established the game we know and love, where everything since then has been variations on the same theme.  We're never going to feel the way about another expansion as we felt about Wrath, because there simply isn't room in the game for those kinds of innovations anymore.  Wrath was the Calculus, the Theory of Relativity, and the development of the transistor, all rolled into one.  I feel comfortable asserting that no future expansion can possibly top that, no matter how awesome it might be in its own right.

There's also the fact that the player base has changed.  There aren't as many of us as there were, for one, and we're all older now.  If you started playing WoW at launch, you are now eleven years older than you were then.  No matter how old you were when you started, that's a lot of life to live.  The vast majority of the initial player base has grown up, moved out, gotten jobs, and started families.  Perspectives change, play styles change, and attitudes change with them.

Then there's the weight of all that has come before.  I've done the gear treadmill thing six times now.  I'll admit it's a teensy bit hard to get excited about doing it again.  I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels that way.  Granted, it's basically the point of the game, which I do still love, but what seems awesome the first or second time you do it does get a bit stale after the seventh or eighth.  We've been fundamentally doing the same thing for eleven years now.  It's comfortable, it's routine, it's sometimes even engaging, but it's all familiar.

The TL;DR is -- there will never be another Wrath because there was already a Wrath.  It's the standard against which all other expansions will be compared, only now our innocence is gone.  We can't go home again, my friends.  Best to enjoy each new expansion on its own merits rather than to ask whether it will finally make us forget our first love.  Cus that just ain't how the heart works.