A symbolic cancellation: "Bring back the RPG in the MMO" says the player to the GM.

[Eats Compost]

You are right, what made WoW feel engaging was the social aspect, PvP, raiding and the systems that kept you going to get somewhere. Once you take away the need for using professions, the easy access to high level gear, making small things like a pack of mobs completely irrelevant, etc. That is when the game stops being interesting, because the base gameplay is pretty bad. The story is cheesy too. Vanilla WoW had a lot more depth to its story than what it's expansions has had, if you bothered reading the quest texts. The storylines weren't easy to follow, and they ended abruptly with no conclusion sometimes, but they weren't playing on too many Internet references and cheesy comedy. The writing was ok, back then. Sure, the writing didn't really make up for the stupidity of fetching 10 bear arses, bit otherwise it made sense.

WoW story took a dive when it stopped being short tales of (mostly) little ultimate relevance and started trying to be a big, grandiose, overarching story. It just doesn't work very well, and even when the stories they're trying to tell are halfway decent, they're absolutely butchered by the restrictive delivery of the game. In a lot of ways, it's quite clear that they're not writing for the medium they've got, which is frustrating.

For me, the tipping point was Battlefield: Barrens. They tried to do something very heavily story-driven, but what that meant in practical terms was that I'd fly out of Orgrimmar, kill some Kor'kron in the Barrens, and then fly right back to Orgrimmar like nothing ever happened. There's a permissible level of flex between gameplay and story, and then there's a story that almost goes out of its way to be untenable for the sake of a plot that clearly hadn't mapped this out in advance.

[tankbug]

I agree with every single thing he/she said.

You're cutting too much game out to satisfy people who don't like actually playing the game.

This.

What are they cutting? Who are these people that don't like to play and hate content?

[Atelniar]

I remember in Wotlk when a lot of the Quality of life improvements came out. Oh lawdy they were amazing. But now, looking back, we've lost the immersion in the game. I don't think we will ever be able to capture that again. On a scale that can make money

Yep, I've been saying so for some time myself. WotLK introduced good use of exposure to story telling, but the depth of the systems that make out an MMO was replaced by convenience, to attract those who wanted to put less effort in. The problem is that the gameplay itself isn't that great as to keep those players for ever. MMO's the like of WoW was based on social interaction, and even as early as TBC when the honor rank system got removed, WoW lost some of its inherent charm. The question is if the evils of the old Honor Ranks made the removal of that old system improve the game or not. Arenas certainly prospered, but the current PvP scene is not looking great in comparison. And I do not think it's balance reasons, as imbalance has always been a thing in WoW PvP. I think it's a lack of incentive to play as gearing up in PvP is increadibly easy now. Too many things that held the experience afloat as an immersive trip in pixxel territory has been torn down. In the long run it won't work, not with the f2p tendancies coming to titles such as Wildstar, GW2 still being a title that maybe was too hyped but still has quality (especially in terms of combat).

If you want a short fix of PvP you don't have to play WoW BG's either, games such as World of Tanks and their like has grown big, very big. They very much fill the gap BG's do in WoW, but in a different setting. WoW's lost its charm by now, people just have to accept that some of the charm might have been lost with "improvents" that were made.

Accessability is important, yes, but when the product takes a hit that's when it's time to stop and think. Garrisons, LFR, LFD, they have all been about accessability. They also have broken down fundemental core aspects of MMO-games. In some manner. Be it social interaction, dungeon difficulty, gear progression ladder or exploring the world.

[Deleted]

HAHAHAHAHAHAA you really think this gm will forward this directly to his higher ups and they will read this ? LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLOLOLOL

[Atelniar]

WoW story took a dive when it stopped being short tales of (mostly) little ultimate relevance and started trying to be a big, grandiose, overarching story. It just doesn't work very well, and even when the stories they're trying to tell are halfway decent, they're absolutely butchered by the restrictive delivery of the game. In a lot of ways, it's quite clear that they're not writing for the medium they've got, which is frustrating.

For me, the tipping point was Battlefield: Barrens. They tried to do something very heavily story-driven, but what that meant in practical terms was that I'd fly out of Orgrimmar, kill some Kor'kron in the Barrens, and then fly right back to Orgrimmar like nothing ever happened. There's a permissible level of flex between gameplay and story, and then there's a story that almost goes out of its way to be untenable for the sake of a plot that clearly hadn't mapped this out in advance.

There was an overarching story. The overarching story was about unknown adventurers who had taken it upon themselves to rebuild their world and strengthen their race and faction (as foreshadowed in the cutscene when you first started playing). The story then consisted of minor and larger acts of good in the eyes of each faction. The Horde and the Alliance respectfully. The larger acts consists of quests such as confronting Onyxia and her brother. Ragnaros, AQ, etc. The minor acts was sometimes tied to reputation grinds, and mass-killing of for instance furbolgs (which allowed you to travel through a tunnel to reach Moonglade or Winterspring without having to fight the furbolgs).

These are just a minor set of examples, but that was how story-telling worked in Vanilla and to some degree TBC. The introduction of repeatable quests that weren't resource-management (cloth for racial rep or Silithus related), aka. dailies, kind of started to wear down some of the immersion when you did it for weeks on end. For however complicated and little friendly on the impatient the storytelling was in Vanilla, it made more sense than it has done since. If not immediately, it did once you picked up on a neat little plot amidst all the unimportant tasks you did.

There's never going to be a way back, however. Returning to that won't work.

[captiva]

Wow I agree with all this. I miss professions... A lot

[Deleted]

Well, something has to be done about professions.. it just has to.
They said this xpac: you will be able to make less but you will profit more.
And see how that went :P

Other than that, I mean... if leveling starts to take ages again? I hate leveling, a lot of people do because wow is where the endgame is the endgame and people will find fastest way to get there. Forcing people to do slow leveling is not a good idea.
However, I don't think anyone would mind at end level dailies like argent tourmanent that people could do but rewards were just fun stuff like mounts and pets and so on.
I understand you feel that people that don't feel like you "don't play the game" and Blizzard shouldn't care about them, but people play the game differently. Forcing them out in the world, slowgrinded content that rewards "must haves" without flying... it will not make people in general more happy about the game, I think you old schoolers aren't that many as you might think you are...
Also people like other things, like pvp for example that has been neglected this expansion, like dungeons that has been neglected this expansion... the leavers didn't leave just because there wasn't anything challenging, nice and slow to do in the world, in that case we would see lots return for next patch which they most likely won't :P

[D3athsting]

There was an overarching story. The overarching story was about unknown adventurers who had taken it upon themselves to rebuild their world and strengthen their race and faction (as foreshadowed in the cutscene when you first started playing). The story then consisted of minor and larger acts of good in the eyes of each faction. The Horde and the Alliance respectfully. The larger acts consists of quests such as confronting Onyxia and her brother. Ragnaros, AQ, etc. The minor acts was sometimes tied to reputation grinds, and mass-killing of for instance furbolgs (which allowed you to travel through a tunnel to reach Moonglade or Winterspring without having to fight the furbolgs).

These are just a minor set of examples, but that was how story-telling worked in Vanilla and to some degree TBC. The introduction of repeatable quests that weren't resource-management (cloth for racial rep or Silithus related), aka. dailies, kind of started to wear down some of the immersion when you did it for weeks on end. For however complicated and little friendly on the impatient the storytelling was in Vanilla, it made more sense than it has done since. If not immediately, it did once you picked up on a neat little plot amidst all the unimportant tasks you did.

There's never going to be a way back, however. Returning to that won't work.

Vanilla had some epic quest chains, morbent Fel, stalvan mismantle, the missing diplomat, Rak'Likh, the ones for Ubrs key and onyxia key, pamela redpath, the battle of darrowshire, wotlk had battle of undercity (that they decided to scrap in cata coz it was too good for how bad the game was slowly becoming), the battle at light's hope for dk, the sons of hodir and thorim and many icecrown chains, the only nice quest chain after wotlk is a low lvl horde chain involving an orc warrior in full hc t11 and his frostbrood vanquisher with a touching ending that i won't spoil here...

[Atelniar]

Well, something has to be done about professions.. it just has to.
They said this xpac: you will be able to make less but you will profit more.
And see how that went :P

Other than that, I mean... if leveling starts to take ages again? I hate leveling, a lot of people do because wow is where the endgame is the endgame and people will find fastest way to get there. Forcing people to do slow leveling is not a good idea.
However, I don't think anyone would mind at end level dailies like argent tourmanent that people could do but rewards were just fun stuff like mounts and pets and so on.
I understand you feel that people that don't feel like you "don't play the game" and Blizzard shouldn't care about them, but people play the game differently. Forcing them out in the world, slowgrinded content that rewards "must haves" without flying... it will not make people in general more happy about the game, I think you old schoolers aren't that many as you might think you are...
Also people like other things, like pvp for example that has been neglected this expansion, like dungeons that has been neglected this expansion... the leavers didn't leave just because there wasn't anything challenging, nice and slow to do in the world, in that case we would see lots return for next patch which they most likely won't :P

There's a difference between slow level-grinds and actually having to try to do the right thing when you fight something. Most mobs can be killed without effort. Kiting is not needed. Compare it to GW2 were even a single mob can kill you if you you go afk. It didn't take months to level in Vanilla as the heresay myth goes. It took a while, but "elites" and "rares" were actually elite or rare. They hit hard, needed to be kited and had more health. Granted, that is a cheap way to make something difficult, but at this point we have gotten to the place where Blizzard officially says: buy our expansion and you don't have to level at all. If you go and level it's a breeze anyways.

People like to talk about people who played Vanilla and bring up some valid arguments as if they are looneys walking around with naive thoughts. Making people forcefully travel the world isn't the "wrong" thing to do. It's what an MMO is supposed to do. But it's supposed to be done through many different means so as to give the illusion that you have choice. Be it gathering for professions, questing, killing enemy players for sport (or honor points for climbing the honor rank system in Vanilla). Garrisons kill the immersive factor that is a living, breathing, illusion of an MMO world. Which was what made people praise WoW to begin with when it launched.

Add to that what you mention, dungeons and PvP, that's when you see where things go wrong.

I hate leveling too, but I hate mindless and non-challenging leveling much more than I did getting killed 5 times by an elite Tiger in STV. Just saying. At least that made me look for others to group up with and kill the damn animal. There's no incentive to group up anymore, I can kill about anything while leveling alone. See the flaw? That's not good design in what is supposed to be an MMO...

[Arconome]

You're making some great points.

"You're cutting too much game out to satisfy people who don't like actually playing the game."

Great way to describe the direction post patch 3.2.

If I had to add something else to the rant, I'd talk about the cross realm plague that has been infesting the game and the genre as a whole for the past 5 years or so as well.

[MrUrthor]

Well said OP.

In terms of immersion and engagement, WoW has been on the slippery slope of gameplay convenience for quite some time. Talent simplification, profession gutting, removal of attunements and the 'everyone must have epics' mentality are just some examples. I took the 7 free days Blizz offered as an opportunity to return to retail, and was struck by my lack of desire to play at all after logging in for the first time since Feb. The game systems have become so simplistic, and forgive the term - console-ish, they hold no lasting interest.

I do believe that recent and current raid content is very good, but that the experience is greatly cheapened by the number of difficulties (specifically the current incarnation of LFR). CRZ and cross realm grouping for raids has significantly impacted guild and server communities, reducing them almost to the point of meaninglessness. Achievements make people loathe to play anything other than a particular toon in order to maximize point returns, further reducing the value of alts.

[Bumkin]

That guy is a huge nerd

[Atelniar]

Vanilla had some epic quest chains, morbent Fel, stalvan mismantle, the missing diplomat, Rak'Likh, the ones for Ubrs key and onyxia key, pamela redpath, the battle of darrowshire, wotlk had battle of undercity (that they decided to scrap in cata coz it was too good for how bad the game was slowly becoming), the battle at light's hope for dk, the sons of hodir and thorim and many icecrown chains, the only nice quest chain after wotlk is a low lvl horde chain involving an orc warrior in full hc t11 and his frostbrood vanquisher with a touching ending that i won't spoil here...

They did have so, but none of them made you out as the ultimate "commander", as if you were Captain America or Superman. it works in SWTOR where you can actually have some personality and the story is actually somewhat good when it's on rails, but in WoW it just doesn't work. WoD is essentially a bad similarity to what SWTOR was when it launched (to some degree). You can compare garrisons to your spaceship in SWTOR. Both were a part and drove your story forward. Both contained "followers" of some importance, but SWTOR just did it better. The followers mattered. They were a part of the actual game, not static mini-game for minor rewards alone.

[Deleted]

There's a difference between slow level-grinds and actually having to try to do the right thing when you fight something. Most mobs can be killed without effort. Kiting is not needed. Compare it to GW2 were even a single mob can kill you if you you go afk. It didn't take months to level in Vanilla as the heresay myth goes. It took a while, but "elites" and "rares" were actually elite or rare. They hit hard, needed to be kited and had more health. Granted, that is a cheap way to make something difficult, but at this point we have gotten to the place where Blizzard officially says: buy our expansion and you don't have to level at all. If you go and level it's a breeze anyways.

People like to talk about people who played Vanilla and bring up some valid arguments as if they are looneys walking around with naive thoughts. Making people forcefully travel the world isn't the "wrong" thing to do. It's what an MMO is supposed to do. But it's supposed to be done through many different means so as to give the illusion that you have choice. Be it gathering for professions, questing, killing enemy players for sport (or honor points for climbing the honor rank system in Vanilla). Garrisons kill the immersive factor that is a living, breathing, illusion of an MMO world. Which was what made people praise WoW to begin with when it launched.

Add to that what you mention, dungeons and PvP, that's when you see where things go wrong.

I hate leveling too, but I hate mindless and non-challenging leveling much more than I did getting killed 5 times by an elite Tiger in STV. Just saying. At least that made me look for others to group up with and kill the damn animal. There's no incentive to group up anymore, I can kill about anything while leveling alone. See the flaw? That's not good design in what is supposed to be an MMO...

Yea, but many mmos offer endless grind in the world, with challange and all. A lot of them come from the east and aren't very successful here.
And tbh people enjoyed WoD leveling, because it was fun but still fast. However, at the end of the day... people will start leveling their alts and if they have to go through kiting mobs and so on and for it to take ages they will be sick and tired, many of them. Like I said, eastern mmo type don't work in west anymore.
That's why having what you wish for is better placed as side content as endgame activity, so that people can choose what they like: dungeons, pvp, raids or quest in the world. The jungle now is an example of what you want probably same as timeless isle...
But to start making leveling take ages, it's not the way of mmos today unfortunately.

[Deleted]

Blizzard has never produced any RP exclusive content for WoW so how they could bring it back?

Someone doesnt get the difference between RP and RPG

[Azgraal]

That post is all made up. GMs don't pop up to question you when you cancel.
3 million conversations in Q1?? Right.
Somehow they missed me

When you cancel your sub on the site there's a button to chat with a GM.

[Atelniar]

Yea, but many mmos offer endless grind in the world, with challange and all. A lot of them come from the east and aren't very successful here.
And tbh people enjoyed WoD leveling, because it was fun but still fast. However, at the end of the day... people will start leveling their alts and if they have to go through kiting mobs and so on and for it to take ages they will be sick and tired, many of them. Like I said, eastern mmo type don't work in west anymore.
That's why having what you wish for is better placed as side content as endgame activity, so that people can choose what they like: dungeons, pvp, raids or quest in the world. The jungle now is an example of what you want probably same as timeless isle...
But to start making leveling take ages, it's not the way of mmos today unfortunately.

I'm not talking about making killing mundane mobs take ages.. I am talking about doing important stuff, like avoiding mechanics like major hits, timing a defensive cooldown. Make their attacks actually hurt. I am not talking about bringing back health pool swampy combat, I am talking about engaing gameplay instead of mindless button mashing, yea? I saw traces of it, but it wasn't enough. Some mobs had these things, but they were too far between. 90-100 was cool enough, anything prior to it takes a huge hit as usual (I am getting used to that, hence why I edit this part).

6.2 is too late for me. You need challenging content while leveling and at end-game. Not many months later. That doesn't work. PvP is pretty dead atm. What I want WoW to be is an MMO that doesn't piss on its own structure just to cater a crowd who want to level alts. They want high level alts but not play through somewhat botheresome leveling for the umpteenth time? Guess what? You can now pay for boosting yourself to 90. But you already knew that, the very counter argument which renders your comment about catering to altoholics moot, isn't it?

Then again, this entire expansion has been aimed at altoholics (this term is not meant to be offensive, just a little play on words to make my point). as the garrison and achievements tied to it is proof of that. I find that pretty sad when the focus could have been on making professions work properly, more zone/world oriented PvP that wasn't instanced, or PvP in general. There's too much focus on something with no longevity gameplay-wise, for me.

I stress to point out: this is kind of derailing a bit. What I really want is a functional MMO, be it leveling experience, professions that matter, a world that has something in it even at end-game, etc. Garrisons is not my thing, it should have been a neat thing like player housing in SWTOR, not a huge change in the structure of professions and resource management. That was badly implemented.

[Deleted]

I'm not talking about making killing mundane mobs take ages.. I am talking about doing important stuff, like avoiding mechanics like major hits, timing a defensive cooldown. Make their attacks actually hurt. I am not talking about bringing back health pool swampy combat, I am talking about engaing gameplay instead of mindless button mashing, yea? I saw traces of it, but it wasn't enough. Some mobs had these things, but they were too far between. 90-100 was cool enough, anything prior to it takes a huge hit as usual (I am getting used to that, hence why I edit this part).

6.2 is too late for me. You need challenging content while leveling and at end-game. Not many months later. That doesn't work. PvP is pretty dead atm. What I want WoW to be is an MMO that doesn't piss on its own structure just to cater a crowd who want to level alts. They want high level alts but not play through somewhat botheresome leveling for the umpteenth time? Guess what? You can now pay for boosting yourself to 90. But you already knew that, the very counter argument which renders your comment about catering to altoholics moot, isn't it?

Then again, this entire expansion has been aimed at altoholics (this term is not meant to be offensive, just a little play on words to make my point). as the garrison and achievements tied to it is proof of that. I find that pretty sad when the focus could have been on making professions work properly, more zone/world oriented PvP that wasn't instanced, or PvP in general. There's too much focus on something with no longevity gameplay-wise, for me.

I stress to point out: this is kind of derailing a bit. What I really want is a functional MMO, be it leveling experience, professions that matter, a world that has something in it even at end-game, etc. Garrisons is not my thing, it should have been a neat thing like player housing in SWTOR, not a huge change in the structure of professions resource management. That was badly implemented.

Well, that's what raids and world bosses could be for, not make mobs in the world act like that. Also, there are balancing issues by doing this. I think in order to get the eastern long time leveling there must be options, like make dungeons and battlegrounds reward decent experience as well to make it a viable option. Then people who do not want long "challenging" leveling can level other ways... and guess what many will do, at least after leveling their mains? It's simply not working, there is a reason most mmos these days goes for making leveling faster, at least here in the west. We work differently, that's all.

I don't understand how 6.2 is too late? If it's that kind of content you enjoy then you should go and enjoy it. But then there must be something other that made you not want to play... not a challenging world, because you will have that.

A lot of people enjoy having many alts, it's to them what keeps them interested in the game. I don't think it would be a good design choice to have those players pack their bags and leave.
Personally I've had a hard time leveling alts, I don't like questing, I'm not really that into dungeons and now they made it almost impossible to level in pvp. So I was planning on leveling up two alts at least this expansion, but tbh it's very doubtful I will. Im not very altie, got a quite pimped main though :P

[Atelniar]

Well, that's what raids and world bosses could be for, not make mobs in the world act like that. Also, there are balancing issues by doing this. I think in order to get the eastern long time leveling there must be options, like make dungeons and battlegrounds reward decent experience as well to make it a viable option. Then people who do not want long "challenging" leveling can level other ways... and guess what many will do, at least after leveling their mains? It's simply not working, there is a reason most mmos these days goes for making leveling faster, at least here in the west. We work differently, that's all.

I don't understand how 6.2 is too late? If it's that kind of content you enjoy then you should go and enjoy it. But then there must be something other that made you not want to play... not a challenging world, because you will have that.

A lot of people enjoy having many alts, it's to them what keeps them interested in the game. I don't think it would be a good design choice to have those players pack their bags and leave.
Personally I've had a hard time leveling alts, I don't like questing, I'm not really that into dungeons and now they made it almost impossible to level in pvp. So I was planning on leveling up two alts at least this expansion, but tbh it's very doubtful I will. Im not very altie, got a quite pimped main though :P

Personally? It's too late because I'm not convinced it's enough. I don't plan to pay for something that I don't think will have that impact, when I can play WoT, The Witcher 3, GW2, etc. Also, I think professions will still be ruined, garrisons (as I said) while neat the first month is just horribly boring now. There's nothing in 6.2 that I think will make PvP become a thing again without having to wait 30 minutes. I doubt it. Shipyards is just a new garrison work order, really.

It took too long and it's not enough. That's the gist of it, also making new friends to play with is somehow harder these days than back in Vanilla or TBC. I don't know why, I think LFD and LFR is part of the reason, but I also think it's because I have played the game so much that I am kind of jaded by what I deem to be bad decision making by devs. Sometimes I helped out people who needed to find a rare mob or treasure on my alt, but in most cases they just leave the party and don't even say thanks these days. Weird that. Hehe, not sure what to think about it. It seems to be driven by what people like to call "ADD-mentality". Which is kind of an offensive term, but the idea is that things are just meant to be breezed through and as a result there's no point in teaming up outside of raids and dungeons, or PvP. This negates the idea of a social experience where you interact with others, garrisons negate this, LFD negate it, LFR does to. It just caters to getting stuff without working to find people you can team up with. I don't know many who said they did LFR more than once to "see content". Let me just put it like that.

- - - Updated - - -

I never saw those basic things as "achievements" because they were just grinds. I don't feel any achievement when I just roll my face on my keyboard for hours and hours in a video game.

And yes, if I wanted to feel accomplished, I'd go back to raiding to try to get a decent progression rank or something like that. All I see here is a bunch of people who are apparently incapable of anything challenging and instead are saying, "Please make it so that everyone has to spend 10 hours collecting bear asses because then they can all see how accomplished and dedicated I am when I show up with my Bear Ass Farming rewards!"

I mentioned bear arses, but you seem to have read me quite wrong if it's me you are referring to with those bear bums. What you are doing in the above quoted text is to give someone an opinion they do not hold in order to try to negate their actual opinion. It's deconstructive to a healthy debate, mate.

[SodiumChloride]

/sigh

Everyone wants different things.

Hardcore raiders want nothing but raids. They even find having to sleepwalk through LFR for runes "offensive". These people probably have an overlap with the pro-flying crowd - heaven forbid that they have to fight an easy mob once in a while.

Then there are people like me, who want a "solid" virtual world and not just nothing by instanced content. Who wants the world to feel like an actual place, not some superficial construct to funnel you from one grind to another.

As for Garrisons, it doesn't feel "real" because everything was handled to you on a platter. You were pretty much funnelled to this position by the not-so-invisible hand of fate - i.e. Blizzard made it so. You did very little on your own volition to deserve the title of Commander - to digress, one of the problems with WoW NPCs is that they spout honorifics like "champion" and "hero" so much, at the drop of a hat, that it feels more like flattery than a show of respect; Such titles should come not necessarily from difficult content but "effort" - i.e. earned.

On a different note, there is too much focus on "competitive content" IMHO - raids, arena ... etc. All of which are "high-pressure" and are only enjoyed by the hardcore players - which are frequently the most toxic players. They feel like boardroom meetings, all srs beans, jobs are on the line.

Where the heck is the "social" content? Where are the "company new years eve party" activities? Activities where it's more about mixing around with other player rather than watching metrics like DPS meters.