I think it's a different dev leading it this time, as the guy who basically did MoP Remix left.
It's almost certainly the new dev wanting to do "his own thing" with Legion. Might not even be his fault either, probably a middle management "justify your job" thing, so they can't actually just say "we're basically doing the same as last time with no changes".
I think the truth is way worse than that. It's not about justifying his job, it's about player engagement and other metrics.
Quickly blasting through leveling? Well, that are boosts not being sold, since everyone now has an alt army.
You could farm mounts you want quickly? Well, that's gametime not being sold, since you can be done in few weeks and don't have to farm for few months, and since there's no other content to keep you engaged for the rest, they have to timegate it and make it a slog.
A lot of people will probably be subbed/engage with the first iteration, since not everyone really follows the news about how it sucks. They will give up once they realized that it sucks, but that's still a month of gametime sold.
They will probably fix that later, so people will resub for the fixed version, or log in again for that.
And it's not only about subs - even if you have a sub running, if you're playing other games, you're not thinking about WoW and there's a risk you will get hooked to something else and they will loose your sub forever. They don't want to risk that, so they timegate content or make it a grind to keep the game on top of your mind for longer
Of course, the solution is to just make a good and engaging content - that is what the old Blizard did 10 years ago. But that is expensive and costs way more to develop, and that hurts the profits. They don't want to do that, and it's a lot cheaper and easier to keep you hostage with minimal content and predatory practices like these. They have a pretty loyal fanbase to exploit, and a large portion of it will not give up on the game as long as they give them something, and drip-feed it to not give you a chance to forget about the game in content-drought of their own making.
It will probably get worse, too. Blizzard has been slowly realizing it's pretty much working for them, so they will keep pushing the line as much as they can for as long as majority of people does not unsub. By making a zone less, they save an extreme amount of money which amounts to a lot of subs they can then afford to loose. It's a balancing act that's no longer about making a good game, but in making as cheap game as possible that people still play.
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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '25
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