World of Warcraft has endured a long and envious shelf life, with the Blizzard MMO celebrating its 17th Anniversary this past November. Over the course of its existence, World of Warcraft has undergone through various stages of iteration and reiteration upon its core pillars of gameplay to such a degree that it necessitated the reintroduction of "classic" World of Warcraft servers to its subscription service in hopes of sating the passionate demands of the playerbase.
Given the sheer scope of World of Warcraft and all the countless, intertwining game systems built upon this foundation, sometimes the game has vestiges of old expansion systems in the form of information or a reference that is no longer applicable to its present state, and one such occurrence is the source of a recent discovery.
Prior to a crafting profession overhaul, and part of its own separate, earlier profession overhaul – the game used to rely on a jack of all trades NPC to instruct players in the basics of their chosen professions, as well as to provide them tips on how to earn a profit or to explain the benefits and perks that each profession provided. While the NPCs still find ample use for characters who have opted for World of Warcraft's legacy starting zones as opposed to Exile's Reach, the information they provide points to removed content from the game.
Notable examples include the above pictured mention of Mining seemingly providing the player with a bonus to their Stamina or needing to equip a Mining Pick in order to harvest ore and stone. While the information provided by the Profession Trainer NPCs does not actively harm a player's experience in the game as there are no negative repercussions for following their advice and obtaining a Mining Pick, it does confuse and mislead new players, as well as misrepresent the current iteration of the profession system in World of Warcraft.
The fix should be no more complex than changing the NPC dialogue to more accurately represent the professions in World of Warcraft, and thus it stands to reason that Blizzard will likely implement the necessary changes by the time "Eternity's End" drops.
With the recent news of Activision Blizzard being bought by Microsoft, no one knows what this means for the long-term future of the game, but given that the majority of the work for "Eternity's End" has been completed, it should do little to affect the release date of the final Shadowlands patch – or the rumored Dragon Isles expansion that comes after.
World of Warcraft is out now for PC.