Immersion.

Dear Blizzard,

I am deeply disturbed by the lack of immersion in the World of Warcraft.  Although some subscribers will contend that immersion was "broken" by the implementation of an RMT store that sells artfully assembled (but still ultimately pointless) pixels, my complaint is that it never truly existed in the first place.

Like most of the socially-challenged basement dwellers who make up the majority of your customer base, I view Azeroth as an escape from reality and have come to view these constant intrusions as nothing short of abhorrent.  For $15 a month, the very least you could do is provide me with a fantasy world I can believe in!

In the spirit of constructive criticism, I have compiled the following list of suggestions to restore immersion to Azeroth:

1.  Remove all global chat channels from the game, including General Chat, Trade Chat, Looking For Group, Local Defense, World Defense and especially Barrens.  Not only are chat channels disruptive in and of themselves (when was the last time you chatted with random strangers in [1. Wal-Mart General] while stocking up on Hot Pockets and Mountain Dew?), but they also invite other players to intrude upon my gaming experience.

... On second thought, remove all chat channels, period.  This includes /party and /guild, as communication should happen via emotes or in /say, with /whispers permissable only between characters who are within arms length of each other.

2.  With the exception of a warlock's Dreadsteed (which is, of course, summoned from the Nether), mounts should be stabled when not in use.  Characters should only be able to mount in friendly or neutral towns after talking to an allied stable master.  If for some reason a character is dismounted in combat, then her mount should simply run away.

3.  PvP flags and sanctuary zones make no logical sense and should be removed from the game.  Keep things simple and eliminate Normal servers altogether.

4.  Speaking of logical sense...  Do you really expect me to believe that my shaman can put a sword in her backpack but can't hold it in her hand?  Or that my hunter had to wait until her 40th season to learn how to put on a new pair of pants?  Armor and weapons restrictions are arbitrary and nonsensical.  Do away with them.

5.  Make death permanent.

6.  Give all of the raptors in Arathi Highlands two eyes or a debuff called Depth Perception that causes them to periodically walk into walls.

7.  Raids should have a lifetime rather than weekly lockout.  Once a guild has defeated Yogg-Saron, he should be well and truly defeated.  If he didn't drop the loot you wanted — oh well.  Disappointment is part of immersion, too. 

8.  Please revisit all lower level loot tables.  If I rifle through a gnomish corpse, then I expect to find a few coins, some [Pocket Lint], perhaps a [Trinket of Engineering Fail].  But a green-quality staff three times the gnome's height?  I don't think so.  (And I don't even want to think about where that devilsaur hid a plate helm...)

9.  Provide an alternate path of progression.  My Foresaken mage is a sweet little thing who devotes her time to casting Arcane Intellect on dumb warriors and conjuring pastries for orphans.  The idea of slaughtering dozens of innocent farmers in Hillsbrad breaks her Undead heart!  Please consider providing an alternate path of progression, preferably one oriented around altruistic (rather than genocidal) deeds.

10.  In their current form, level 1 critters are little more than eye candy.  The cockroaches in Undercity should be level 83 elites with 5,000,000,000,000 HP.  Each. 

Cincinnati was just the beginning.

These are just a few preliminary suggestions.  Once you have these worked out, I would be happy to provide more!  In fact, you might as well add me to your payroll now and get it over with.

Just don't make me leave the basement.

Sincerely,

Elle