Quote Originally Posted by Elm11 View Post
Quite true, Sargeras would undeniably be the bbeg of WoW, and I've no doubt it'd be immesurably awesome to take him on, but it does raise the question:

Then what? Once he's karked it, WoW is officially out of good villains. The powercreep inherent in the game model makes it impossible to justify any further bosses. It was difficult enough getting over the absurdity of a common garden camel in Cata being capable of soloing a 60ft tall molten giant from Molten Core. After a point, willing suspension of disbelief begins to fray.

I'm distinctly reminded of a hilarious comic I saw on the WoW website a while back titled '2014'. It was made in 07, and examined exactly the problems involved if powercreep. You have a standard party, except they've all reach level 100, and each has about 2.5million hp. They're discussing the mechanics of the latest bossfight, who has an ability that will permanently lower the tier of your equipment every time it procs. The leader explains it as 'Just like the Elune mechanic from 2012' to which the Hunter replies 'Ha, my dog soloed Elune!'.

At what point does a dog killing a God begin to become a problem? I'm not about to complain that we need more realism in a game where wizards can yell loudly and make fire explode from their hands, or where enemies won't bother attacking you unless you walk within 15 feet of them, but I feel like the powercreep is going to pose an insurmountable obstacle eventually.
Not so much out of villains as out of preexisting villains. There are numerous steps that can be taken from there. You could go the everquest route, "Oh sorry, those werent the actual gods you slaughtered, just their avatars. HERE is where the REAL gods are hanging out." Or just make up some dark power that has been drawn to azeroth in response to the level of power being given off by this world now that everyone is capable of soloing the elemental lords. There is always room for another threat to show up, so running out of bad guys will never really happen.

As for power creep, yes, it is a problem when it gets to that stage, as it does for any mmo that doesnt crash and burn shortly after opening. I find its best to ignore levels and relative power of trash in new content versus bosses in old. Clearly a camel isnt actually stronger than molten core ragnaros, (and I doubt it would actually win anyways if it was possible to set things up) but from a game balance view, the trash and bosses have to get harder to match the progression of gear, which has to happen or else people feel like they arent moving forward, which causes lots of retention issues. So once again, its best to pretend that that camel isnt 25 levels higher than an elemental lord. After all, in game, that elemental lord has been dead for years now anyways, so its hard to judge accurately. /nudge /nudge, /wink /wink, say no more.