It’s quite the moment to be a World of Warcraft player, with so many versions of the game from which to choose and plenty of developments happening on both fronts. For retail players, WoW’s been steadily — if sometimes shakily — pulling out of a nosedive that it went through in the Battle for Azeroth/Shadowlands era.

And while retail certainly is not perfect, it’s loads better than it was even five years ago. A lot of love and work’s gone into this version of the game to shore up its weak points and pave the way for a (hopefully) better future. Here are 10 great improvements that retail’s made in the past half-decade.

A focus on evergreen systems

It took a long, long time for Blizzard to change course from its narrow-minded focus on temporary “borrowed power” progression systems that would reset with each new expansion (or sometimes patch!), but we finally saw real and sustained movement toward evergreen systems starting with Dragonflight. Implementing systems that will be around for a while to come and allow the studio to build upon offers far more stability and engagement than toys that are given and then taken away.

Warbands

The War Within’s warband system isn’t any one feature but rather a growing batch of them that tie together a player’s entire roster. It’s the ultimate quality-of-life upgrade for alt-heavy accounts, from shared reputation to shared storage to that really cool character login screen where four of your dudes get to hang out like they’re pals or something.

Delves

Another War Within addition, delves created an opportunity for solo players to have their own endgame progression with challenging pocket dungeons. While there’s more refining and growing to do in this space, delves already have proved to be very popular, especially that they help players earn slots in the weekly Great Vault. And who doesn’t love plundering a treasure room at the end of one of these?

Bringing back talent trees

Do you realize that it was a full decade — 2012 to 2022 — that World of Warcraft scrapped talent trees entirely for other systems? None of those seemed to work as well, and so many players rejoiced when Dragonflight re-introduced a beefed-up version of talent trees, while The War Within added hero talents on top of those.

Skyriding

Dragonriding — which became skyriding in the current expansion — was another one of those hits right out of the gate when it debuted. This faster and more involved version of flying gave players a different way to traverse the world. And while it wasn’t for everyone, the system expanded to include all flying mounts in The War Within while allowing players to opt out and use “steady flying” instead. Best of both worlds right there.

Remix seasons

Usually the period before an expansion launch is marked by a huge content drought, but last summer Blizzard flipped the script by “remixing” Mists of Pandaria into a crazy leveling mode with tons of cosmetic and mount unlocks. It was so popular that the studio’s getting ready to do it again later this year with Legion.

Housing (soon!)

While Blizzard is incredibly late to the party with this — and guilty of ignoring players demanding it for decades now — housing is finally on the way to World of Warcraft. And while the system isn’t here quite yet, we’ve seen enough to know that the studio isn’t paying this feature mere lip service; it’s going all-in on a very involved housing system that wants to compete against some of the best MMO housing markets out there.

Lighthearted, fun expansions

Something that I think deserves some praise is the more upbeat tone from the past two expansions. There’s been this real sense of adventure and momentum since Dragonflight with an emphasis on delivering more fun than sheer grind and confusion. While there are high stakes present, we’ve been reminded that the game can step back from time-to-time to enjoy more lighthearted fare.

Trading Post

I don’t know whether this is a controversial take or not, but I genuinely like the trading post. It’s not been exploited for real money the way I was worried it would be, and every month it offers some fun new rewards to grab and goals to attain. I love logging in on the first of the month to hear people chat about the latest fashion or mounts and whether or not they’re worth spending precious tender.

Growing up crafting professions

I want to preface this by saying that I don’t think that crafting is where it needs to be — yet — but it’s encouraging to see Blizzard put in some serious work to help this system grow up from its far more basic roots. There’s a lot more in the way of choice and interaction with crafting these days, and players have several options for how to earn money. And now with housing items promised to existing professions, there’s going to be even more incentive to engage in this part of the game.

Everyone likes a good list, and we are no different! Perfect Ten takes an MMO topic and divvies it up into 10 delicious, entertaining, and often informative segments for your snacking pleasure. Got a good idea for a list? Email us at justin@massivelyop.com or eliot@massivelyop.com with the subject line “Perfect Ten.”