It might seem weird to complain about having "too much content." I've been around World of Warcraft for over two decades, more than half of my entire existence, and I've known some of the game's notorious and mighty content droughts.

When Blizzard first introduced roadmaps a few years ago, I was pretty excited. The World of Warcraft team offered unprecedented transparency about where the game would go over the coming weeks and months ahead. In a subscription-based game, that is a pretty great thing. I pay for the 12-month subscription year in, year out, rain or shine. WoW is my go-to game, and I presume it always will be. I've taken breaks; I've even said I'm totally done with it a few times. But I, like many others, always come back.

With World of Warcraft: Forever on the horizon, I can't help but lament the state of the separate Retail experience. It should be the core of what WoW ultimately is. It comes with expansion packs; it has the most investment, the most history, and legacy. Yet, it feels worse than ever in a lot of ways.

I've come to decide Blizzard's self-imposed 8-week patch cadence is to blame. But whatever the cause, something needs to change.

I wrote this week about Blizzard's mid-season patch, which featured the highly unceremonious death of a major lore figure . The 30-minute quest chain concludes with a painfully anticlimactic cutscene, at the hands of an entity that has about 5 seconds of screen time.

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