Since 2007, I have played World of Warcraft through the pre-expansion build up of both the Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm. Through the countless articles I read covering the previews of the game, I have noticed a curious trend of Blizzard always had one feature in their expansion that they fail to complete before the expected due date.
In Wrath, Blizzard had the infamous Dance Studio service that would let you choose a different dance style for your character, that never made it to the live servers. And that the fans are still eagerly waiting for. Blizzard also completely killed the idea for aerial vertical PvP scenarios. This failed service would not be as bad, looking from hindsight of the problems wrath had with vertical mechanics, if they did not advertise this feature on the finished product on the box art
See it's right there, go grab your Lich King box and look at the flap.
In Cataclysm the game designers promised another cool new way for character customization, called Path of the Titans, allowing you to choose a religion of sorts, picking a specific titan following, and completing weekly challenges that would allow you to advance through the ranks and get more glyphs as rewards.
A photograph of Path of the Titan. From Wowwiki
If you play World of Warcraft now, you will notice that this was another service that got the ax. Although some of the path of the titan’s aspects was rolled into the archeology skill and the new layer tier of glyph, I am still counting this as a failure to deliver.
So when Blizzard plans to release more information about Mist of Pandaria next month, you will know that as I review all the new potential content, I will be also be thinking on if any of these promises will be see the light of the final release date. I am thinking that I should start a Be MOP betting pool, after march, about what features Blizzard said will be dead in the water. But that’s for a future post.
((P.S I do know that some of the reasons Blizzard would kill an idea is because they could not get the game mechanics to work properly, or they could not balance it with all the other parts of the game, but it is still an interesting pattern))
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