Why Japan and Japanese Things Has Unique Appeal in the West

 

It is no secret that Japan is very popular around the world. It's not just Japanese games and electronics, but other aspects of culture as well. Nowadays there are at least as many sushi restaurants as there are McDonalds or Pizzerias if not more. 

To top it up there is also anime that people enjoy watching with subtitles despite American Hollywood can offer life action movies in many languages. Yet people around the world choose subtitled anime instead. There is supposedly large cultural barrier between Japan and the west, yet it does not stop fans. 

A similar problem prevents people from enjoying cultural products from other countries. China, Russia or France are supposedly huge countries with long history of culture, yet they only enjoy very limited to non-existent interest around the world. A far cry to the interest Japan has.

However, why Japan wins the hearts of the globe, while everyone else misses by a longshot? What does Japan have that other countries do not?

A simple answer would be humble women; I wrote a separate article about why Western Men choose Asian women. In this article I will cover reasons not related to women.

Imitation

Back in the past, Japanese heavily borrowed from Chinese. culture, technology, even writing system. Some Sinophiles might even say that everything originated in China and Japanese and other Asians simply copied it. That however will be shortsighted. While Japan indeed copied a lot from Chiese, not everything Japan has comes from China. For example, even if Kanji are from China, Hiragana and Katakana are not. The same with other things.

In copying and imitating good ideas from other cultures, Japan is remarkably similar to the Western civilization. Greeks borrowed from Egyptians, Romans from Greeks, barbarians who destroyed Rome, later grew to imitate it in many ways. Even at its pinnacle, West does not grow complacent and start thinking that everything great comes from us and there is nothing to learn elsewhere. That makes it much easier for western people to understand Japanese who think the same way, than say Chinese who think that everything good originated in China and everyone else is just a barbarian compared to us.

Language

Japanese language a lot closer to western languages compare to say Chinese or Vietnamese. Japanese may be using Chinese characters, but their spoken language is rather distant from Chinese. Chinese and Vietnamese normally limited to one syllabus per word and are heavily tonal. Japanese language is not tonal, and words typically consist of several syllabi. Most other languages share these features with Japanese, making Japanese more accessible and easier to understand than Chinese. 

Japanese also have access to Hiragana and Katakana, that allows them to write words phonetically, like in most other languages. In contrast Chinese a limited to characters that represent objects and concepts and have no ready way of writing down sounds.

The sound of Japanese language is pleasant to ear, its soft and gentle. Much unlike many other languages. It sounds almost childish and wins Japanese people much sympathy because people tend to like children.

Religion

Japanese religion, Shinto, while different from either Christianity or more ancient Hellenic, Norse and Egyptian religions, but it does have many parallels with them. All of these have a lot of stories about gods. Japanese gods, much like Olympians or Norse have humane personalities and flaws. They also have complex human interactions and relationships with each other. Each also has world founding myth as well as stories that explain various natural phenomena. Finally, each has dedicated places of worship (shrines), elaborate rituals that performed at such places and even formal religious authorities in charge of religion.

Japanese attitude towards religion is also similar to increasingly secularised west. There is more curiosity towards religion than righteousness and zealotry. That allows for communication and mutual appreciation of religion and culture of each other.

History

Japanese history has many parallels with the western one. Japanese daimyos were much like Western feudal nobility; samurai were like knights. Both even had a peculiar code of conduct for warrior class, Chivalry in the West and Bushido for samurai. Both of these codes were equally far from how warrior class actually behaved. Nonetheless legends about knights and samurai continue to exist in both cultures even in present day.

Even warrior states period division during times of shoguns are similar to how medieval western society have operated. In both cases warrior class took control of the country after defeating barbarians. 

Long periods of war are also common for both Japanese and the West. Peace is more of an exception than a rule. That is different from say China where one dynasty just takes down another in a coup or a very fast war that does not affect broader country that much and peace returns, just under different authority.

Past Poverty

Modern Japan and the West are rich, prosperous and well developed. That was not the case in the past, however. Europe has cold climate and poor-quality land. Better and richer lands were that of Byzantines and later Arabs in the South-East. Japan geography is also not very fortunate; there are not that much habitable land between mountains in the middle of the Japanese islands and sea that surrounds them. One of precursor of modern Western civilization, Greece has similar geography. 

Compare these with near endless plains of China and huge rivers that make these lands very fertile or vastness of Russian lands, that are full of valuable natural resources.

Poor geography and resulting poverty pushed west towards exploring the world and eventually allowed them to discover New World. It also encouraged innovation and creativity. In the same way Japan too became much more creative and innovative as a result of their circumstances.

Dealing with poverty of the land, while secretly envy those lucky neighbors who have it much better simply because they were born on better piece of land, is something Japan and the West have in common.

These similar experiences allow Westerners to relate to Japanese and their experiences. Just like Chinese can easier relate to Russia instead. Much like in my previous article about paradox of wealth of nations. Russia and China are poor Kraterocracies on rich lands. West and Japan are rich democracies on poor lands.

Understanding Emotions

Despite distance and physical differences, similar past experiences ended up shaping West and Japan to be broadly similar to each other.

That allows Japanese to better understand feelings of a Western Person. That allows them to create video games and anime that appeals to Western audiences even when they do not particularly try to. Similar past allows for an unspoken understanding and relatability.

Meanwhile China, Russia, France, Arab World, Iran or Latin America all had different past and history. Thus, their experiences and works of art are not as relatable as those of Japan.

In Defence of Formula 1

For quite a while various internet pundits and content creators have been bashing F1. Most of the reasons they cite are repetitive and awfully same: few overtakes, very expensive and full of nepotism. Some even go as far as call it corrupt. They make it seem that F1 has nothing going for it and its place on top of autosport hierarchy is completely unwarranted.

As someone who enjoyed F1 ever since I began watching it in 1998, I could not agree with such assessment. Yes, F1 does have less overtakes, which it certainly compensates with quality of overtakes. There are other issues too. 

However, there are a lot of things that F1 does that other series do not. Here I will explain what make F1 pinnacle of auto sport.

Engineering

F1 one is not just competition of racers, it's also a competition of engineers or in more recent times, engineering teams and R&D departments. Just as racers try to outrace each other, engineers try to out engineer each other and build a car that will be head and shoulders fasters that what other have.

F1 is a race of concept cars. Other series, who race on tried and tested at best, and downright outdated at worst, equipment. The kind of cool over the top cars that you occasionally see on exhibitions. What if all carmakers will bring their concept cars to a race so we can see which one is the fastest. That is what F1 is about. 

Pre-season testing is where we get to see fruits of these efforts. That is why everyone who understands the game, paying great attention to cars in these events in an effort to notice a future GP winner.

Nowadays teams go conservative with designs as certain design solutions just work best and best not to alter them. However, even in modern times we occasionally see original and bold solutions, like Mercedes without sidepods.

F1 is famous for many of the engineering innovations. Some of these later made into road cars as well. Others stay in F1 because they are either too expensive or impractical. 

Some innovations later get banned, but not before team that came up with them, gets to win a championship or two, becoming a legend of the sport in the process.

In F1 its not only racers, who get famous, chief engineers and sometimes team principles become legends as well. Nick Fry, Adrian Newey, Patrick Head, Harvey Postlethwaite, John Barnard and of course Colin Chapman are all famous for their engineering innovations.

Money

F1 is famous for being extremely expensive. Nepotism, paid drivers and dubious sponsorships deals are regulars of F1 life and often make a lot of F1 news and rumors, fuelling accusations of corruption.

What rumor mongers do overlook however is what all this money is spend on. Running a full-on R&D department with dozens of people with engineering experience is not cheap. Equipment they use to build and test cars is not cheap either.

Unlike other series, F1 uses expensive materials, such as carbon fibre, titanium and so on. When it comes to what it builds of, F1 is closer to Space Shuttles and other rocket equipment than to cars from similar series such as IndyCar. At one time teams even experiment with fuelling cars with literal rocket fuel until FIA outlawed it because it's too flammable. Rocket science behind these cars is real.

Overtaking

Now to the elephant in the room: overtaking. Yes, there are a lot less overtaking in F1 compared to many other series such as NASCAR or IndyCar. However, when it comes to quality of these overtakes then F1 is clearly ahead.

Number of overtakes is not everything. Take soccer and basketball for example. In soccer there are at average only 1 or 2 goals per game. In basketball players hit the basket so often, score often goes into third digit. Does that make basketball better or more popular? Statistics says that soccer fans outnumber basketball fans by large numbers. 

The reason for that is when a soccer player does score, the entire stadium goes mad. After every goal it takes several minutes for players to calm down and continue playing. You will never see something like that in basketball. Easiness to score makes each scoring repetitive and ordinary. Michael Jordan hitting the ring in 100's time is nothing to write home about. A Ronaldo finally getting through tenacious goalkeeper and scoring after 20 or 30 previous futile attempts to do so, drives the stadium to celebrate with him as he running wild all over the field.

F1 is like soccer in that regard. Less so nowadays compared to the past, however. Overtaking is hard, but when it does happen, everyone gets agitated. F1 overtake is a dish that is served slowly cooked and well prepared. You get to see it being cooked over many, many laps. Near entire race sometimes. 

Overtakes are typically precede by a lengthy fight over position, where the chasing racer tries to put pressure on the one in front of him by staying within striking distance and occasionally fainting overtakes. Every so often they will attempt to take on the car in front of them, forcing them to defend and try to block the chaser to prevent them from overtaking. That goes on and on for many laps straight, making viewers speculate who will blink first and make mistake. 

A good commentator is needed to narrate the whole process to the audience.

Long Term Plans and Plots

F1 is a long-term sport. To begin winning in 2030, you need to start in 2020, ten years ahead. Take for example Audi. In early 2020 they negotiated with F1 authority's engine regulations. After getting what they wanted they started investing money in R&D to build the engine, as well as started their takeover bid for one of the existing teams on the grid. As of 2025 Audi is not yet on grid, but on track with their plans to get winning by 2030.

Other now famous teams did not become so overnight. Both Mercedes and Red Bull spent several seasons to get things right. Some might call Brawn GP an exception, but if you understand how F1 works, it really wasn't. Brawn GP was a former Honda factory team with all the same personnel. Due to head office decision to terminate their F1 involvement, Honda name was withdrawn in 2009. However, the F1 team already knew in 2008 that they will have a winning car in 2009 because one of their engineers figured out a clever workaround against the F1 rules. Thus, engineering team offered Honda to buy the team and entered 2009 season as Brawn GP and won.

This long-term planning is also part of the game or F1 process, much like playing chess or contract bridge. Pit-stop strategies. Complex deals even paid drivers are part of smart solutions to get ahead in the long run. Sure, you will have to take a deadweight driver on board, but money their will bring will let you build a better and faster car several seasons into future, so it's worth it. When Haas and Sauber were saying they will have a poor season this year, that is what they meant. Poor season now, for a good one several years on.

High Stakes

Another reason that brings a lot of interest to F1 is the fact that stakes are much higher here compared to other series. In a casino no one will care if a slot machine doubles your $1 bid or not. However, if someone bids a million that will get heads turning.

It's the same with F1. Big money is part of it but there is also a competitive racing spirit. Many famous F1 drivers are fiercely competitive. Take Prost and Senna, who infamously caused a crash each to win a championship. While Prost used to deny it was deliberate, Senna did not. Michael Schumacher was also famously competitive, ending two battles for championship in a crash in a final race. For one of these he was even disqualified. Even when he did not crash into anyone, he would do anything possible and impossible to win.

There were also many incidents of fistfights and hurling insults due to perceived undue interference. As for mutual accusations between teams and occasional complains to FIA, then these happen after nearly every race. 

Big money brings big stakes; big stakes make everyone nervous. Add to that ambition and stubbornness and you get tension that will explode if something falls on the wrong side of the track.

Compare that to an overly relaxed attitude of some IndyCar racers, where even not getting to start at all is no big deal for some.

Meritocracy

One of the important aspects of F1 is meritocracy. In F1 the best driver and best car wins. In NASCAR people accept that sheer luck can make you a winner. Not so in F1. F1 champion is someone who races better and faster than the rest. F1 constructor champion is one that builds fastest cars.

That is a double-edged sword. On one hand F1 fans can accept that one team dominates a season or two if they indeed managed to build a better and faster car than anyone else. On the other hand, fans do not like when someone gets victory handed down to them for free or wins through no talent of their own, by pure chance and luck. 

For example, Senna is so popular because he had Alan Prost to fight for championship with. Fans liked seeing them fighting for victory. Michael Schumacher in his early career too had to fight Damon Hill, Jacques Villeneuve and Mika Hakkinen for leadership. Later however he became uncontested, and fans grew to dislike him, calling him red baron. 

Mercedes had much more goodwill of the public when Lewis Hamilton had to fight Nico Rosberg for title. When Rosberg left, citing unwillingness to just let Hamilton win all the time, that goodwill dissipated. Rosberg was replaced with uncompetitive support driver, Bottas, who was just there to pave way for Hamilton to win. Hamilton became silver baron.

Some might question equality in sport. Considering that some teams have better cars and engines than others, giving them clear advantage. That may be true in F1 but to get there, a racer typically has to go through the equal machinery F2 and F3. However, a truly equal and accessible for nearly everyone is the very first step, carting.

By carting I do not mean go-carts where you rent a cart for a time to race with friends. In (semi) professional carting you have to buy your own cart, engine and other equipment from a specialised store. All together it costs less than a typical road car. 

Once you have your cart, you can enlist in regional carting league and start racing right away. Races are typically in the same country and not too far away from each other, meaning you can just drive there with a caravan and a cart in a trunk.

Carting is more accessible because you do not need to somehow convince a team boss to give you a chance; in carting you are your own boss and your own team.

On the flip side it means that you also have to manage everything yourself and be your own engineer and mechanic. However, that experience is what makes good races that later became F1 champions. Sure, there are engineers and mechanics in F1 who can set your car up for you. However, if you are not knowledgeable enough to understand what does what, then your car will be average at best, and you will never be the first. 

A truly good drivers have peculiar driving style they developed in carting. To match this driving style, they also have a peculiar setting preference that somehow work for them. Max Verstappen is a good example of that. All of his teammates struggle to drive a car tuned and build to his driving style, yet he alone can win championships with it. Something like that can only be achieved through thorough understanding of technical aspects of the car and its settings. Without caring background it will be hard to have such understanding.

Legacy

in other sports racers come and go and forgotten almost immediately they have left. Not so in F1. If you achieved in F1 something of will be remembered forever. People talk forever about legendary cars, engineers, racers. Great innovations are remembered and analysed decades after the fact. So are famous overtakes and battles for championships.

F1 is immortalised as it goes with meticulousness of a museum collection of royal jewels and then showcased with no less reverence. If you want to become part of history and not forgotten the season you stopped racing, F1 is the way to go.

Why legends of F1 are remembered and those from other series are often forgotten. Some might say its only because F1 is more prestigious, however there is more to it than just that. To win in NASCAR or Indy you mostly need luck. A lucky break can make even a very average driver a champion. In F1 that does not work, to win you actually have to be better than others. That is why legends of F1 are remembered.

It is the same in other spheres in life. People who won a million in Nobel Prize money will be remembered, while those who won as much in lottery will soon be forgotten. Because to win a Nobel Prize one has to be good at science and to win in lotto just luck will suffice. 

Conclusion

F1 is a sport like no other, it has it all, fast speed, glamour, money, iconic locations such as Monaco, cutting age space level technology and chess level strategy. What other sport has just as much. not even posh upper-class golf can compare. So, tune in and take your time to understand how it all works, it will be worth your time.

What Went Wrong with World of Warcraft: Part 3 Design and Game Mechanics

 

Blizzard used to say that attention to details is what differentiates them from the competitors and makes their games win over in the end. However, since Cataclysm this attention to details was somewhat lacking. In this article I will outline the details that made early WoW shine but were lost in later expansions.

Distinctly Looking Biomes

I already mentioned it in the in the previous part in section about Cataclyms but will iterate on it further. Zones have to look different from one another. That gives the impression that world is much larger than it really is. As you travel you move from jungle into desert into grasslands, into mountains, into snowlands into plaguelands.

Making biomes distinct means using different colour palettes for different zones, different trees, different rocks and so on. When you move from Feralas into Thouthand Needles, you immediately notice a much lighter coloured and open world compere to the thick jungle you just left. You do not need to check map or interface to tell its a different zone.

Since Cataclysm however it is much less apparent. Zones became lot more similar to each other.

People call modern WoW controlled by content creators precisely due to lack of this distinction. There is a tendency to use the same new pretty assets in every single zone possible. Designers spent a lot of time making this fancy new tree or rock and now want it everywhere. 

However, this frequent asset re-use is what makes all zones look the same. So, designers should make a new type of tree for every every other zone there is. Some zones should be plans or other type of terrains.

There is another aspect to this and that is consistency with zone's original character. Do not just suddenly start growing pines in desert. Pines are cold weather tree. Use desert vegetations such as palms instead. Some basic knowledge of biology and geography is needed to make biomes realistic and meaningful.

Finally, some zones like, Plaguelands or Felwood are deliberately made to look toxic and inhospitable. That was done for story purpose, to showcase the damage, Scourge and Burning Legion will do to Azeroth if they win. There are other more hospitable biomes out there so these should be kept as it is.

Distinct Denizens and Structures

Terrain and plants are not the only things that need to be distinct, denizens and structures they live in should also be appropriate for the biome they are located. There is a reason why Centaurs for example live in open and spacious regions, such regions in real life are often homes for horse riding nations and cultures like Mongols and Comanche. It is only reasonable that Half-horse half-human creatures are found in such zones in WoW.

Since people live in homes in cities and villages, creatures in WoW need their homes as well. How homes look like depend on culture and location. Different areas and people have their homes look different from one another. Upwardly curving roofs are distinct feature of Asian architecture for example that is not found elsewhere. WoW races too each need to have a distinct style of housing they use and build in areas they control. 

There is also a utility aspect in architecture as well. Deserts often have sand-coloured homes with flat roofs. There is no rain in deserts so there is no need to build steeped roofs that will make rainwater flow down on the ground. Cold areas with a lot of snow have to take steep roof much further and build very tall roofs with steep inclination to prevent snow from piling up atop of the roof. Thus, before deciding what homes of new race will look like, practicality of such dwellings for the environment race inhabits should be considered.

Houses are not the only unique things about races. There are minor things such as postboxes as well. There are iconic postbox and telephone booth design around the world, particularly in the UK. WoW does that too and each race has its own unique looking mailbox. Other small things such as furniture, decorative patters, even typical colour of clothes and such are also sometimes part of that race identity. Thus, great attention needs to be paid to such things when making new zones. There are also flags but I will dedicate a separate section to the flags and tabards further below.

Fractions

There are two playable fractions in WoW: Horde and Alliance. However, in the broader world there are many more unplayable fractions. Some but not all have a dedicated reputation you can gring. Fractions differ in size power and influence. They can be just bunch of local lifeforms or organisations that contest your fraction control of the area, like Quillboars in Barrens and Durotar and Defias Brotherhood in Elvyn Forest and Westfall. Alternatively, they could be as huge as Burning Legion that has many subfractions, that have subfractions of their own. If someone were to create a political map of WoW it will be very large and complex, not quite the Voltaire's Nightmare of Holy Roman Empire but at least half-way there. 

This plethora of fractions makes world look bigger and more diverse, there is always more to learn and see when you enter a new zone. There is no one big global government that controls everything, every area has their own authority. There are many organisations, big and small.

Motivation to Play

Multitude of fractions gives gameplay its reasons too. You fight for your race and fraction against others. If everything already controlled by your fraction, then what do you even do it. The whole thing is just a staged training exercise made by your bosses. That just does not give people enough motivation to play. 

People will have more reason to fight some monsters if these monsters are in organisation that threaten existence of their race and the world. Their heroic efforts will be more appreciated by NPCs as well. They will get to be heroes. 

After all, why play a bootcamp simulator when you can instead play hero simulator. No one ever dreams being in a perpetual bootcamp training, but many do dream of being a hero, winning wars and then be hailed and worshiped as champion for the rest of their lives.

Flags, Insignia and other Symbols

That could have been part of distinction section, but it is so important that it needs a separate section. Just like real world, WoW is full of multitude of flags, banners, symbols, insignias and so on. All these things denote allegiance to fraction, being part of a race or an organization. Just like in real life, these symbols can be confusing by their similarity to a slightly different symbol of a different organisation. Take real life flags of Poland, Indonesia and Monaco. In WoW symbols of Lordaeron, Scarlet Crusade and Stromgarde are similarly confusing. 

Just like in real life it is very important to get symbols right, it will offend a Pole if you depict "his" flag red bar above like Indonesian on, it will offend fans if symbols of one or another fraction are substitute with a similarly looking ones from another. BfA reconstructed Stromgarde with unrelated Scarlet Crusade flags is a good example of what not to do.

There are secondary insignia too. Some kingdoms and organisations have different design on a tabard compared to a flag. 

There are separate flags for religions and other such things as well. Above mentioned Scarlet Crusade often uses Symbols of Church of Holy Light to showcase their devotion, that are also present in Stormwind Cathedral and some other places too.

People understand the world by using symbols stereotypes and such. Thus, it is of utmost importance to get such things right. Mistakes in such things shows lack of attention and care for the games and players.

Convenience vs Lore

As I mentioned before, there are many fractions in WoW and two playable fractions are not the biggest powers in Azeroth. That means they do not control every zone in game.

In vanilla WoW you could tell you control the zone by looking what major settlements are. For example, in Elvyn Forest Kingdom of Stormwing is in control. Stromwind affiliated settlemts located on major roads and Stormwind knights patrol the roads. Enemies of Stormwind are hiding in dark corners of the map as they plot against Stormwind. On the other hand, in Plaguelands, the Scourge is in control, Scorge minions swarm roads and settlements. The only people there who are friendly to players, Argent Dawn, are hiding in the dark corner of the map in non-descript building called Light's Hope Chapel as they plot against the Scourge.

Such places like Light's Hope Chapel could be hard to find and hard to use as questing hubs. However, making this location as visible and accessible as a McDonalds restaurant for players convenience makes a Lore error instead. If Scourge cannot just destroy a piny settlement in the middle of their lands despite it standing there in plain view, then may be Scourge is not really a threat to Azeroth. That removes the reason to fight the in the first place and by extension motivation to play the game.

Player's convenience is good, but it should not break the Lore. Alternative quest-based option can be arranged to show players where to go and who contact in a territory controlled by enemies of their fraction.

Player's Freedom

Making game more hands on where something always happening may seem like a good thing, but it's not as one sided as it seems. Classic WoW gave people more freedom by allowing to explore the game as their own pace. They also had agency over what quests to fulfill, where to quest and what to do in general.

In a more hands on game, such freedom and agency could be compromised by game being overly obnoxious and constantly asking for attention.

Introverted Players

There is also an issue that more players are introverted rather than extraverted. After all extroverts would prefer life human interaction to games. Its introverts who would rather sit home and play.

While extroverts welcome any human interaction, introverts are bewildered when people talk to them too often or too much.

So, inability to leave players alone for prolong periods of time can be a problem for many players, particularly for introverted one.

Old Wow was clearly a game for introverts. A lot of time you were quietly exploring zones and looking at scenery without talking to anyone. The game has since clearly shifted towards more extroverted players. A lot more is constantly going on at the same time. That is something introverts have problem with.

Showing Damage and Decay

As much as it is good to make games pretty polished and healthy, it is also necessary to be able to show damage and destruction. You cannot make enemy feel real and dangerous if you cannot show how much damage they are capable of doing. Both biomes, structures and even people can be affected by this damage. 

For example, Felwood is infected example of a Night Elf Forest that stands just next to its healthy analoge Ashenvale. Travel from one zone to another and you see just how twisted Burning Legion can make things be.

Another example is Elvyn Forest and Plaguelands. In Elvyn Forest you see recently build and well-maintained human houses, taverns and so on. In Plaguelands very same buildings are damaged and dilapidated, because Scourge took control of the area and damaged them. Other areas like Alterac Mountains also have dilapidated human buildings.

There is also a playable race, Undead, who among other things, live in dilapidated human buildings, it's part of what makes them who they are, even though there are also purpose build undead structures.

Races and Differences Between Them

In WoW its races that are like countries. Both Alliance and Horde are associations of countries that cooperate with each other against their enemies. Cold War with its NATO and Warsaw Pact are good example for real world.

Just like amount the Cold War allies on either side, relationships within Horde and Alliance are nuanced and have certain internal politics. 

For example, Horde is clearly divided into inner and outer one. Orcs, Taurens and Trolls have utmost respect for each other. They fought side by side for a long time and helped each other a lot. They also share many believes, have similar ways of life. 

In contrast Undead and Blood Elves mostly view Horde as ally of convenience. Only mutual district of the Alliance keeps them cooperating with the Horde. They do not think much of other Horde members and will not hesitate to betray them if opportunity presents itself. Blood Elves mostly see the rest of Horde as dirty savages and only work with them because they were driven out of Alliance by Grandmarshal Garithos. Undead have certain hatred for the living in general and only even greater hatred for the Lich King keep them allied to the Horde against the Scourge. Also, Trolls and Elves have mutual animosity towards each other that goes way back to when Silvermoon was founded, though that is mostly towards hostile to Horde Jungle Trolls and not the Horde Island Trolls.

In Alliance it is somewhat between these two extremes. They neither think too much of the fellow allies, not particularly apprehensive towards them. Sober logic that allies are good for mutual defence and self-preservation mostly dominates as Alliance way of thinking.

That was part of the original lore but have long evaporated in later expansions. 

These vastly different attitudes towards allies stem from individual character of each race. Snobbishness is one Blood Elves and High Elves defining features. They would not be the same elves if they would embrace Horde just as Taurens do.

Every other race too has certain character traits and attitudes that define majority of them. There

Blood and High Elves are snobbish and arrogant. Orcs are brutal, they value strength and victory, but also loyalty, Taurens are loyal and have deep care for nature and Azeroth, Trolls are wicked, but ancient and know a lot about past and things in general. Undead are angry for being turned into these monstrosities and hate both living and Lich King who did it to them. Dwarfs are loyal, love to drink and love stone underground places. Gnomes love tinkering with technology. Night Elves are most ancient and wise, their experience during war of the Ancients makes them very concern with survival of Azeroth. Drenai are calm and sophisticated and focused on surviving and fighting back Buring Legion. Goblins love tech as much as Gnomes but unlike Gnomes they also love money and explosions just as much. These are short descriptions of each race traits. There are also Humans who do not have many traits to make them a choice for those who do noy find anything else appealing. There are more to them of course.

Players pick to play as one or the other race because they feel certain racial traits are relatable to them personally. Take that away and players will feel like it's not the same anymore.

Differences in traits is also what makes story work. In a good story each character just doing their usual thing and that sometimes leads towards unusual outcomes. People will think plot makes no sense if characters act out of character. However, to act in character they have to have character to begin with. That is why these racial traits exist.

Post Cataclysm developments homogenized races. They now do not feel as different from each other as they once were. That is something that should be reversed. Distinct character of each race has to be showcased in their dialogise, rituals, religion and so on. That will give players context of who they play as, allow them to immerse themselves into a different culture, even if it's a fictional culture. 

For example, Warcraft II mentioned how Orcs practice burning corpses of their fallen enemies as a religious ritual. Of course, Orcish religion should be administered by Shamans rather than Priests. We have yet to see that being done in WoW. Other races too could benefit from more exposure of their distinct cultures.

Fractional and Racial Leadership

Final issue that produced a lot of rage back then. Issue of leadership, particularly that of Garrosh. However there similar but less dramatic problems with other leaders too. Just others had some redeeming qualities or were much less noticeable in game while Garrosh stood out as sore thumb.

As far as I understand Blizz wanted to bring back some of the Horde original feel from first and second Warcraft. Warcraft III and early WoW made Horde far too pacifistic compared to its old self and developers wanted to bring back some of the original feel.

As someone who is also nostalgic for the Doomhammer's and Ner'Zhul's Horde, I am somewhat sympathetic to these efforts. However, Garrosh was a wrong way to go about it. Garrosh resembles Blackhand a lot more than either Doomhammer or Ner'Zhul. He is spiteful, pointlessly cruel and lashes out at people at random. Meanwhile the other two did their share of cruelty but were never unreasonable. Doomhammer ordered extermination of two orcish clans, but arguably they had only themselves to blame for suddenly deserting the Horde before the important battle with Dalaran and putting their brethren in undue danger. Gul'dan too had it coming due to his constant scheming.

Also, Garrosh was groomed and parachuted into leadership by Thrall and did nothing to prove himself. People do not like to see rich scions just getting ahead because of connections. Doomhammer made his way up from the bottom. He took power by force but only after he has proven himself to be a capable leader. Meanwhile Blackhand was misusing his authority because of his daughter.

If you think of a real-life example of leadership in an independent militaristic community such as pirate crew or a Cossack Host, then leader had to be able of cruelty, yet at the same time he also has to be reasonable, smart and cunning. Pirates and Cossacks has to be able to trust them to lead them to victory and not screw them over either due to stupidity or wickedness. They will not be able to trust someone who just fucks up someone of their own for no good reason. At the same time, they should be able and willing to kill others.

There is more detail in CGPGray video about How to be a Pirate part 1, part 2. I think good leader for the Horde should combine brutality with reason, ability to win and concern with survival of the crew. Such a leader will be a leader liked by players.

Of course, those who install Garrosh might simply wanted a pointlessly cruel leader because of their masochistic kinks. However, majority is not masochistic and thus it was poorly received by community.

Conclusion

That are some of the ways in which WoW can be improved and win back love of veterans. I might be able to think of more ideas sometime later, but so far that is all.

Hopefully Blizzard will realise their mistakes and fix WoW back to how we loved it.

What Went Wrong with World of Warcraft: Part 2 Expansions

This is a second part of what went wrong with WoW, first part is here. After I outlined general issues in the first part, now I will go into details what each expansion did right or wrong. I will then follow it with part 3 where I will outline what individual aspects of the game went right or wrong.

Burning Crusade and Wraith of the Lich King

As we all remember, at least I still remember, the first two expansions were overwhelming success. Sure, there are some purists that insist that only vanilla WoW is good, and every expansion was a mistake. Nowadays they got increased traction after flops of the so-called new WoW. Back then however community was near completely behind the BC and WotLK. It was WotLK that saw record high subscriptions.

Even among the pirate servers, there were 20-30 WotLK for every Vanilla. 2-3 Vanillas for every BC (for those who for some reason did not like Northrend). On the other hand, even when pirates could figure how to make Cata and later expansions work, they never overtook the WotLK numbers. 

The first two expansions were like cream, icing and cherry on top of the cake. They completed the game. They fixed flaws and issues that were present in the original game. They also added a lot of anticipated new content: people saw Outland and Northrend in Warcraft III, now finally these areas were in WoW as well. Finally, they concluded the story of two of the Warcraft universe major characters Illidan and Arthas.

First the flaws. Defenders of "modern" WoW often liked to point out how original game had many issues with respawn times, ques. There were long and complex quest chains to get basic stuff and so on. All that however was true only for early vanilla WoW. BC and WotLK pretty much fixed most of the inconveniences. Blizzard learned what works and what not from the original game and made first two expansions much more playable. There were further quality of life improvements in later patches, but something like v3.3.5 (WotLK) was very streamlined and had few inconveniences if any.

Outland and Northrend were much more connected to the original game that later locations. Famous Dark Portal stood in Blasted Lands from the early version of the game. It was only natural that one day, this portal will open. Northrend too was connted to Azeroth with story and many references. After all it was the place from where the infamous Lich King of the Scourge ruled. It was only natural that one day we will get to go there to fight him. That is something that later locations sometimes lack completely: sometimes new continents emerge on the map completely out of nowhere and with no real explanation.

Finally, Arthas and Illidan. In western wirting it is antagonists (villains) that often drive the story. Take Batman, who is defined by its Joker or Blizzard own Diablo. Diablo is named after main antagonist whom you fight at the end of the game and win once you defeat him. Sure, later LoD expansion added Act V, so game no longer ends with defeat of Diablo, but the point still stands. Diablo is heart and center of the game, he appears in every cinematic, other characters constantly talk about him, his actions and his plans.

Vanilla WoW somewhat lacking in charismatic overreaching end game bosses. There are several contenders, but they all leave to be desired. Nefarian and Onyxia share this honour with Ragnaros. There are raids to defeat each of them. There are also side main villains with Silithids, Qiraji and C'Thun. Finally, there is Lord of Naxxramas, governor of Plaguelands and second in command in Scourge, (elder) Lich Kel'Thuzad. The last one practically advertises that there will be an expansion where we will get to fight his boss.

Burning Crusade and Wraith of the Lich King clearly improved in that regard. Both Arthas and Illidan are charismatic enough to carry the story. Each have a complex back-story behind them. The kind of story where one can argue whether decisions they made in the past were right or wrong, whether they were unfairly targeted for what they done or got what they deserved. Regardless of whether you love or hate them, they are certainly characters that bring emotions and provoke thoughts. Regardless of whether you want to slay them with righteous indignation or just curious to see where they are now, you will look forward for the day you can raid them.

Both also have plethora of interesting followers: Kael'Thas, Lady Vashj, Kargath Bladefist, Akama, Kel'Thuzad, Anub'Arak, Sindragosa are all interesting in their own way. Nagas, Felblood Elves and Fel Orks all work for Illidan, makes you think how he managed to convince them all to work together. Arthas cleverly turns his every enemy into an undead servant, will that fate befall you as well as it did befall Varok Saurfang? They have plenty of schemes and plots for you to uncover.

As you wandered among the twilight-coloured walls of Dalaran's Violet Citadel, that floated over the Northrend, you can all the reasons to come back to this world to uncover its secrets, fight ever stronger opponents and explore ever more fascinating locations.

Alas it was not to last as Cataclysm happened.

Cataclysm

I remember how back them everyone anticipated Cataclysm as something groundbreaking and over the top innovative. Blizzard wanted to roll out new gameplay systems and completely revamped the original zones from vanilla WoW. Everyone expected it will be much better.

The result was mixed. Improved game mechanics came with dubious artistic decisions. Take for example Blackrock spies in Northshire that all have to look through the spyglass despite being only within couple of meters from the target. Surely game is an abstraction, but this is just silly. That is but one of many examples of bad design decisions. To name the few: in Westfall you have to literary kill homeless, in Grim Batol organise a wedding for a dwarf. It is a game about epic life and death struggle against forces that want to destroy your entire world. What the hell have happened?

Zones were not so much revamped, so much broken and thrown into chaos. Random destruction and whirlwinds prevent you from even guessing what zone it is, as such events are now everywhere. Zones became much more samey too: Desolace stopped being desolated, Plaguelands stopped being plagued. There is now a bit of everything everywhere. However, that makes whole game experience samey. 

Original calm and meditative Azshara lost its autumn charm and was replaced with noisy Goblin hub instead. Sure, few visited original Azshara, but that was only because there were little quests there. Instead of adding more Azshara quests they just removed it. A true beauty lost. Really sad.

Back in the original when you travel to another zone, you could clearly see the difference between them. These differences made you believe that world is large as you cross so many biomes when you travel from north to south or even from east to west. After Cataclysm revamped them, this distinction has blurred into a mess. As if someone just poured water on an unfinished painting and then smudged it with their hands until one could no longer tell what was depicted there.

New zones were plugged across the two original continents here and there. I am not sure if all effort went into Mount Hyjal but Grim Batol was even more generic than Elwyn Forest. There was also an Egyptian themed zone south of Tanaris with daily quests and an island PVP that looked like Duskwood light. I can check for more details, but I think it makes the point. After something as picturesque as Zangar March or impressive as Hellfire Peninsula or Netherstorm, that is lackluster. Northrend also had nice Tuskarr villages on ice, Nerubian Tunnels, granite Troll City, Coldarra and finally huge Icecrown with its many ramparts around Lich King's Citadel. Somehow in Northrend certain places in dark corner of the map made bigger impression on me compared to big ticket locations.

Story, wise they did go with by now classic main villain. Prior to Cataclysm Deathwing had supporting role in Warcraft II Beyond the Dark Portal. In Cataclysm he kind of continued work of Nefarian and Onyxia, this time using Twilight Hammer clan instead of Blackrock clan. Unlike Blackrock clan that was a traditional horde of the Warcraft II era but with no traditional Death Knights and Black Dragonflight instead of Red one, Twilight Hammer decided to go international and accepted every race in its rank. That had mixed effects: unlike Dalaran that retained its magocratic character, as it opened its doors to both Horde and Alliance, Twilight Hammer became even more of ragtag mix of every race than Venture Co. You could neither tell it was once part of the Horde, nor get any idea who its core members are. In retrospect that was a sign of times to come where races will lose their individual character defined by their lore and will just become interchangeable faces in the crowed.

In retrospect Cataclysm was where WoW went wrong way. Back in the day however public was most patient. Blizzard had strong record of delivering good and most were willing to forgive and overlook issues with Cata and focus instead of what Cata did right and wait for better things to come. Turned out things got only worse.

Mists of Pandaria

I still remember that most players back then perceived MoP as a filler expansion. After long and arduous Cataclysm, Blizzard decided to take pause and experiment a little bit. The result was Pandaria.

MoP went against the established formula in many ways. To begin with Chinese aesthetics were never really tried before. Sure, there is a lot of interest in Asia, but that is mostly about Japan or Thailand or just generically Asian. It was a risk to try something distinctively Chinese and not Japanese or otherwise just generally Asian. 

The result was kind of meh. China just does not have the same appeal Japan has. To explain why when Japan does anything world goes aww, so cute/cool and why there is no same awe when China or Korea does something I have to write a separate article. Japan is just lucky when it comes to appeal to Western and other audiences. Thus, Pandaria was received without great interest. 

It would probably work better if Pandaria was just one of many zones and there were other differently themed zones in the expansion as well. Originally Pandaren Brewmaster was just one of many tavern heroes in Warcraft III The Frozen Throne, that worked well enough, and he was reasonably popular. I doubt it would work the same if there was a Pandaren fraction instead. Realistically Pandaria only has enough appeal for a zone or a subzone, not for an entire continent and major theme of the expansion. Overplaying their hand had the opposite effect and Pandas ended up hated. To make matters worse it was the only race in this expansion, uniquely available for both fractions, even popular Blood Elves are only available to Horde and Drenei were released for the Alliance in the same expansion. Yet here they bet it all on Pandas and with females lacking in curves on top of that.

Just like Pandarens are special snowflake race that allowed to be in either fraction, Pandaria is the luckiest continent of all Azeroth. It avoided major wars. Pandaren rule there was not threatened by anything and biggest threat there is ... giant mantis? A continent of peace in a game about war, what seasoned veterans who defeated Illidan, Lich King and Deathwing even going to do here? Turned out not much. You do not call pest control if you do not need pest exterminated and you do not call WoW adventurers if you do not have worlds to save and dungeons and raids to clear. 

In later patches they somewhat rectified that by introducing Mogu invasion and getting players to fight them to save Pandaria. That and end of Garrosh, problem with whom I will explain separately later, allowed to MoP to appease the fans and leave them to anticipate the next expansion where Blizz will finally get it together and make them happy again.

Warlords of Dreanor

Unlike MoP, WoD had players hyped. After a misty detour we are getting back to what made Warcraft popular. Legendary heroes and orcish clans from Warcraft II Beyond the Dark Portal era are now in WoW and main focus of this expansion. That got veterans all excited about playing WoW again.

That excitement however quickly turned to anger as WoD had many issues. When criticizing WoD most focus on it having too few raids and dungeons. That however overlooks glaring issues with lore: many heroes were far too different from how we remember them. 

Most notably Ner'Zhul who was central character of Beyond the Dark Portal expansion and later a Lich King of the Scourge. Back then Ner'Zhul was cunning, resourceful, smart and ruthless. In WoD he instead is just weak. Looking at him in WoD you cannot believe that someone like that was Warchief of Dreanor in alternative timeline. 

It is the same with Ogrim Doomhammer who is in the expansion to just get killed by Blackhand. That is Orgrim Doomhammer who is in the normal timeline, led his unit in a civil war against Blackhand, became Warchief, conquered Stormwind and razed it to the ground, ruled in Shadow Consul and Gul'dan and then almost conquered the entire Eastern Kingdoms and was only stopped by a combined power of Humans, Elves and Dwarfs. Is it the same Doomhammer or just someone who has the same name?

Finally hated Garrosh, who was supposed to be gone by the end of MoP, somehow gets main role here instead.

Instead of nostalgia trip, we got basically an insult that shits on our memories of the game and lore. It is hard to tell if that insult was intentional or accidental, though most lean towards the former. It is hard to believe that there was no one on the team who worked on Warcraft II or III and could not point out inconsistencies with how Ner'Zhul and Doomhammer were depicted in early games and in WoD.

WoD failure and lore negligence got fans outraged in blazes. It was no longer possible to explain failuers with experiment and filler expansions. WoD got fans question if Blizz is still the Blizz they know and love. Videos criticizing corporate greed and Bobby Kotick became fans answer to WoD.

Blizz responded with announcing Legion, the expansion that was meant to fix it all.

Legion

Legion was a partial return to WoW as we loved it. Looking back at it, it was the last good expansion and the last stop on the way to hell. Back then Legion possibly could have saved WoW and return things to normal. That is if Legion became a trend rather than a one-off thing.

Legion somehow brought back Illidan, a be it in a strange role of a savoir from behind the scenes who rejects pity, refuses help or good things in general. Back then Illidan was independent minded and driven as well as self-indulgent and self-pitying. It was these qualities that made him relatable to many fans as his unrequited love for Tyrande.

It also brought back main antagonists and let players defeat them. This time also killing Archimode again, Kil'jaeden for the first time and Stopping Sargeras.

Finally, class halls were a nice touch that really added to making each class unique. Differences between halls of different classes made it easy to see what it is that makes a Warlock, Paladin or a Shaman who they are.

Legion was not a complete return to what made people love WoW. Dialogues and protagonists remained the same. Horde got its second controversial Warchief in Sylvanas. Alliance became a triumvirate of sorts between Greymane, Mekkatorque and Anduin. Overall vibe of the protagonist remained that of the new WoW. In early WoW each racial leader with exception of Vol'jin was in their own capital or dedicated racial area, now they all together, serving as advisers to leader instead.

Nonetheless Legion was the last partially successful attempt to appeal to veteran fans. That will not last.

Battle for Azeroth

BfA was called another filler expansion. After all the major antagonists were killed in Legion, they needed time to invent new ones. So main focus was now on the war between fractions.

War between fractions is not bad per-se, but the problem is what became casualties of such war. Sylvanas destroyed the entire Night Elf area. Anduin responded with conquering Forsaken areas and Sylvanas destroyed them too to prevent Alliance from taking them. 

Night Elves areas are one of the most picturesque areas in game. Night Elves also one of the more lore rich races with long and complex history. All of that is gone now, there is Chromie to get you back but...  Undead were also among the more interesting Horde races, their Undercity is no more as well. Now rather basic and trivial Ogrimmar and Stromwing has less competition from better racial capitals.

Most hardcore fantasy fans played Night Elves, destroying their area is a blow to veteran players. Undead too had many skilled players. Sure, you can still have character of these races, but without racial capitals and areas experience is not the same.

The Syvanas War resulted in a Cold War of sorts. Now Horde is in Kalimdor and Alliance is driven out of it. Alliance is in the east and Horde is driven out of it. Between them is Maelstrom that keeps them apart like Iron Curtain kept East and West separated during Cold War. Cold War of Azeroth.

Now there is less options and less choice of areas to visit. Once again better areas in game were destroyed and worse ones were kept. 

Generally, WoW became more homogamaized over time. Distinct races with distinct lore, traditions and cultures were reduced to just different looks for either team red or team blue. Zones are a lot less different from one another as they were back then. Best zones are gone altogether. More about it in a separate article as this one is getting too long.

Shadowlands and Afterwards

If there was a final nail in the coffin, then that was it. 

Sylvanas destroyed Helm of Domintor, releasing undead of the Scourge from Lich King's control and letting them rampage through everything uncontrollably. Avoiding that scenario is why Bolvar Fordragon took it upon himself to contain the Scourge as new Lich King.

That did not happen in SL however. Instead, we got the world broken together with the iconic helm. It was replaced with Shadowlands 4 realms, neither of which looks appealing. Not only that, but they also hardly have anything to do with WoW at all. All that history from Warcraft I Orks and Humans of 1994 was somehow discarded for something altogether different and that different had bad Christian undertones. Serve in Bastion, fight in empty wasteland or torture "bad guys" who should have gotten a break already, like an underling of hell. How any of that had anything to do with what WoW was up to this point? You might as well make it a standalone MMORPG and it would work just fine. Why call it WoW? To cash out on recognisable brand? To troll the veterans and rub salt into wounds?

Then there was Dragonflight so that dragon furries can play as dragon now. There is also Vulpera for fox furries from this or other expansion. Now there is War Within that is another near total reset with Diablo III style paladin for some reason. 

WoW as we know and love it only lives as Classic or on private servers.

Afterwords

Can WoW return? I guess it can if Blizz remembers what made them popular in the first place. Ideally it should continue on from where WotLK left the game and forget all later expansions as some bad dream.

If I am to rate expansions in a tier list, then:

S: WotLK, BC

A: Vanilla

B: Cataclysm, Legion

C: MoP, WoD, BfA

D: SL, DF, tWW

This was part two on What Went Wrong with WoW. In part three I will outline individual game mechanics, design choices and lore aspects that made original WoW so appealing and destroyed it in post Cataclysm expansion. I will also address Garrosh problem as well as Horde identity.

What Went Wrong with World of Warcraft: Part 1 General Principles

 

I intended to write this article for a while now but sheer volume of what I wanted to cover was so large I kept postponing it to better think through on how to cover it all. WoW went from an all-time success story to a frustrating disaster. After several successful expansions there were many that turned fans away. Now WoW Classic exists in parallel with the Retail and arguably more popular than the latter.

However, shouldn't it be the other way around. Technology wise game improved, gameplay also improved. Retail looks crispier and plays smoother than it was at its launch. Why players, me included, prefer Classic? 

There are several reasons.

Story and World

Plot, story and worldbuilding is often an underestimated aspect of gaming. Unlike polygons in models or quality of life features, story cannot be effectively measured. Yet it is story that is probably the most important aspect of the video game, particularly a fantasy one. 

Experience shows that people would brave cumbersome mechanics of the game to indulge in the game world they find compelling. If that was not true, then original Fallout, Legacy of Kain series or even Nier Gestalt would have never succeeded. 

At the same time, games with uninteresting world and story cannot be salvaged by game mechanics alone. Age of Wonders series is a good example of that. You can play as any fantasy race there, what not to like. However story and world are just lacking, and it does not work.

Yes, John Carmack from id Software once said that story in video games are like plot in a porn move, necessary but unimportant. However, while that works in Doom and Quake, but they are more of an exception than a rule. In fact, lack of meaningful story in Doom actually adds to building character of a Doomslayer as someone who does not care for anything and goes straight to killing.

To begin with, before video games and movies, there were only books. Good writers could depict huge, wonderful worlds using words alone and people enjoyed and still enjoy reading about them. Yes, movies and games add more tools to paint the world with but one should not neglect the basics. Not matter how crisp your hi-poly models are, the lackluster story and world will eventually see people leaving.

In the past Blizzard actually was very good at building world. Possibly their experience with tabletop games like Warhammer and Dungeons and Dragons. Back then Blizz could make their world tangible and compelling with something as simple as floating text before every mission and a few hand-drawn maps to help people visualise where everything is located. 

See a map of what Eastern Kingdoms in WoW from Warcraft II Tides of Darkness. Layout was adjusted in WoW, because they wanted locations to be more rectangular, but many of famous WoW locations are on this map as well. 

After Warcraft II came Warcraft III and by WoW time there was deep history behind every corner and every stone. This allows for continuity between original Warcraft games and WoW. People who played older titles can visit the locations from these games in WoW and see how things changed since they led their armies in Warcraft II and III. 

It is small things like that that add these intangible things such as atmosphere to the game. Without story and lore, it's just bunch of polygons and numbers, with lore it's a world that people can love and would want to come back to.

Yes, actual players often talk in abbreviation and technical language, many do not read quest descriptions, but that does not mean they do not care about lore. Not everyone has patience to role play on a RP server, but people actually care about lore. The fact that RP servers exist and has people on them shows that.

Fantasy and Lord of the Rings

WoW came out within several years of release of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy movie. Even if WoW was not officially based on LotR, it became de-facto video game adaptation for the latter.

Parallels between WoW and LotR are many. In LotR Frodo began his journey in safety of familiar Shire, then travelled through woods, rivers and mountains, visited towns of elves and dwarfs and ended up in the dark lands of Mordor where in the heart of Mount Doom he was to destroy the One Ring and save the world from Sauron. In WoW you start in safety of (North)shire, visit Redridge Mountains, Duskwood, meet elves and dwarfs as you gradually make your way towards end game content in Black Rock Mountain in between Searing Gorge and Burning Steppes, both of which looks much like Mordor and full of orks. There are even two kings' statues in Loch Modan that seems inspired by the kings on Anduin River. 

There are other more in-depth similarities as well. For example, unlike Warhammer and other later fantasy titles in LotR orks are not a separate race per-se, but a de-evolution of elves, engineered by Morgoth. While orks are separate race in WoW, there are devolved forms of elves: satyrs and nagas. A nice story touch that links WoW back to the LotR. Sargeras corruption and role in the world is also broadly similar to that of Morgoth in LotR.

Lord of the Rings and JRR Tolkien are very important names in a fantasy community. Most fantasy fans would name LotR as their favorite book or a masterpiece. Because of similarities between LotR and WoW, a lot of fantasy fans went on to play WoW. Together with veteran players of other Blizzard titles, they made up the core player base of early WoW.

However not everyone finds LotR or fantasy in general so compelling. Screen Junkies for example criticised LotR as too long and boring. Some do not find long immersive stories compelling. 

It's that kind of people who did not like LotR would also find Classic WoW boring. Not sure if it's because of money or other consideration, but Blizzard decided to listen to them. 

However, by catering to this non-fantasy demographic, Blizzard ended up destroying the game for the veterans. The threshold expansion was even aptly named Cataclysm. Ever since internet is full of angry former Blizz fans who decry "what Blizzard has become", often blaming it on corporate greed and Bobby Kotick.

For me it's hard to tell if it's indeed a corporate greed, some sort of internal politics and power struggle between executives or Blizzard themselves do not understand where and how it all went wrong. Nonetheless the result is what it is. Here I this article I outlined general principles that made and broke the WoW. In part two I will outline individual parts that contributed to this outcome. Stay tuned.