Immersion and Wow

[Deleted]

This is something that happens in every roleplaying game that goes on for long enough. If you want players to have a sense of progression, you have to start them out fighting weak things, then making them stronger, and end up with them fighting very strong things. This goes for any RPG - even classical ones and tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons, which is where WoW drew a lot of its inspiration.

In that game, you start out fighting bandits, wolves, critters, and solving minor problems in a minor settlement. By the end, you're a godlike being of immense power who is capable of saving or destroying the world, and consequently you can travel very far very fast, and you know about many of the dark corners of the world.

Is it less immersive? Well, to some extent. It certainly suspends your disbelief, at least if you're given a mechanic that catches you up into it instead of growing into it, which is what WoW does. The Cataclysm overhaul echoes this - it took the mundane stories of the original's early game and made them about the destruction of the planet.

If you ask me, I think World of Warcraft needs a reset, so to speak. You know, in the Elder Scrolls for instance you lose your character and 200 or so years pass between each installment. WoW should do something similar, and I think the entrance of the Old Gods can do that, because they truly have the power to make us fear our own power - to corrupt us and destroy our minds and souls. The fear of this is something Blizzard can and should do to reset the escalation without it feeling artificial.

To talk about D&D, even the game, that shuold be infinite, endless, limited only by imagination, can be un-immersive after you play 100+ campaign. Just look at metagamers, they suck all the "fun" and immersion out of the game. And you know what happen? The GM need to bring on the table all of the most strange, god-powerful enemies, because common bandit can't survive a gruop of metagamers/veterans. (for example, i still play D&D and i tend to play for fun, avoid meta builds, and going for underpower composition, it's way more funny then fight dragons all day long).

This is the same thing happening in WoW. We can't be anymore the kobold's salyers, and Blizzard give us Gods, Titans and so on.

But, this is not a bad thing, if you think the game, the player and the characters are more then 10 years old. It's just natural.

I think that some players now want to feel more "challenged" then immersed. But i can be wrong. Again, of course everyone wuold agree that feeling the first time immersion wuold be great, but the ones who use logic, knows that it's impossibile, unless, like you said, Blizzard came up with a brand new game.

[ItachiZaku]

The only moments that got me in Legion were Warbrave Oro getting impaled, Ysera getting wrecked easily by us, and that fly ass dude Thaon Moonclaw that was a boss and we had to push his shit in. Nothing else really stuck out as far as questing goes.

I like immersion, I've only felt immersed a few times in this game. The initial taking of the Thunder Clan (Zaela coup de tat), Mount Hyjal cuz I'm a druid. Val'sharah cuz I'm a druid. I'm native, so the Highmountain Tauren stuff was kinda cool. MoP overall was solid until they made us turn on our IN THE RIGHT warchief. I mean, i love my Tauren but Cairne was dead ass wrong.

[sociald1077]

Also back to the "there was an outcry for vanilla servers come cata)" there was an outcry for vanilla servers come TBC. A lot of people quit come TBC. Cause holy shit. The first time people ran into "wait all my hard work is compeltly gone and wasted now? And the game is massively changing? Paladins no longer only alliance. This game is dead"

I remember about a 1/4 of my guild quite at the end of Classic. So many changes between Classic and TBC. Specifically as a warrior, I was truly upset at the changes to Druid and Paladin tanks. I felt like Blizzard was taking away the one role I had by buffing them and reducing raid size to 25 there by reducing the amount of tanks needed. Of course, things worked out though, and I regard TBC as the pinnacle of WoW. But there were lots of people that felt differently and left the game and have never returned.

[Deleted]

One thing I remember that made the world feel immersive and dangerous, was when I first traveled from Shadowglen to Dolanaar. There were those tips that told you to avoid running in the forest but follow the road instead, so that you had a safe journey and didn't die from those huge spiders.
Travelling to Darnassus was even scarier and deadlier.

I remember thinking to myself and talking with friends about how this is exactly the opposite of what people were doing in the Lotr movies to keep themselves safe, which was hiding in the forest.

That is simply not the case right now, even without heirlooms. Even most of the mobs are now Neutral instead of Hostile.

Things changed to attract new and younger players, I guess. Newer players didn't like feeling weaker than the monsters in the world, I suppose, and popular games today are more fast paced than wow was, like Overwatch, mobas, etc. But those little changes, and those mentioned by others before me, are what make the game feel a lot less like Skyrim and more like a mobile game.

[HeiAggra]

It's not that the game is lacking immersion, it's that that the majority of players can't pace themselves and then they blame it on blizzard for changing the game. But here's the thing, blizzard hasn't changed that much. It's just that the goal of many players has become to rush to max level via any shortcut possible and play at endgame, thereby not getting immersed in the world.

I admit I'm like that myself, or was. I was far more immersed in wow back in tbc and wotlk simply because it was a new game for me and it took a while for me to understand everything, so I couldn't just rush to endgame. But once you start playing with the goal of actually being efficient, you sacrifice some of that immersion in the way. If tbc or wotlk were released today, I definitely wouldn't be as immersed as I was back then, simply because I would want to reach max level as soon as possible.

Both in mop and legion blizzard managed to create rich, immersive environments, far superior to those of previous expansions and while I greatly enjoyed playing through them, I still had that feeling that I had to get to max level asap, so I kinda rushed through some zones and didn't get as immersed in them as I could.

But after being burned out and taking a break for a while I decided to start playing at my own pace and guess what, I can immerse myself in the world just fine if I want.

Immersion doesn't just come from the game, it comes from the player's perception of the game. Sure there are some factors, like zone design, music, aesthetics, npc interaction, etc. but all those things have been well done even in mop and legion, but the biggest factor is how a person approaches a game and paces themself.

I for one can still get immersed in wow, even after 10 years of playing, I just have to play with the right mindset.

100% this! players blame blizz for everything.
it's human behavior, blame someone else but not yourself.

[Vaelorian]

OK so what did you do for 80 hours a week that you found fun? PvP? OK you can still do that noe. Dungeons? Pfft that didn't take 80 hours 5-10 tops. Raiding? 12 tops. Farming? Not fun. Dailies? Fun the first half a week. Questing? Those run out...

What I did?
- I raided 5 days a week from 20.00 to 0.00
- I did dungeons pretty much non stop during the weekends from 11.00 until 03.00. Why? Looking back... I haven't a clue. But I did and I know I had a lot of fun. Obviously 1 single dungeon (BRD) did took a long time to complete vs now and obviously finding a group was trickier but I did not have many problems as I was a "popular" guy with a "popular" guild.
- I leveled a warrior alt, whom I took through old raids that my main was not interested in anymore on my off days from raiding
- I did do PVP but stopped PVP altogether from TBC onwards, I loved the grandmarshal system... weird I know
- I grinded mostly enchanting materials via dungeons and selling them to buy consumables for raids, so I did not need to grind much

in TBC, it is mostly a copy of Vanilla in terms of what I wanted to do. Dungeons were shorter but a lot harder, especially before the pre-prenerf. In the first weeks we needed 2 healers and 2 tanks in a 5 man heroic. Obviously we got to outgear it quickly to just run them as per usual. But those were the days when I just lived in dungeons. TBC also had dailies.

I have to add though that when TBC hit, I became a guildmaster. So part of my 80 hours now consisted also of running my guild. Admin forum, doing the roster for the raids, doing the applications etc. I did it mostly myself apart from raidleading.

Fast foward: it is now Cataclysm and I quit being a GM after Firelands. I noticed that there isn't much to do when you're not raiding and quit. During mop I maybe spend 3 hours a week in the game. WoD at first was 12 hours and then after a month or three I just logged in to raid 1 or 2 times a week. Legion, sofar so good. Raid 1x a week and keep myself entertained with mythic+ and WQ. But whenever I have a weekend off... (relationship etc) I can at most entertain myself for 10 during that weekend.

I know I have changed in mindset. I know the game has changed aswell - perhaps even to accomodate me (the player who cannot commit to a lot). But a lot of the aspects which make immersion run for me, are now gone. Streamlined and viewed as a hassle that is not required or rather should not be.

Anyway think I am past the rose tinted glasses now. I look back now at WoW and remember the good and bad times I've had. But realise that this state of the game can never ever happen again. Even if I do go to "some server". It works for a while but then just falls flat (for me), mainly because I have done it already and I cannot commit anymore to that level of play.


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[grexly75]

In most cases - it's your fault. You know Wow too well and everything simply has become stereotyped. For example, low level locations are almost the same, as they were back in Vanilla. Same Mulgore, same Barrens. Yeah, quests are different. But anyway - there in no that old feeling of immersion. It's not due to age, cuz when you play brand new game - this feeling returns. It's due to playing the same game too much and knowing it too well, so there is nothing mysterious in it anymore.

This ^ exactly no matter how hard one tries unless you get amnesia/alzheimers or one of those MIB neuralizers, you will never ever ever again have that sense of wonder that WoW had when you took your first character and stepped into the world..

[Deleted]

I've burnt myself out on WoW - Tryed out legion played the game roughly 4 months and got tired of it. Why? - I know the game back to front, I know what happens each time a new patch releases it's the same thus why I have not logged back in. However I've been playing Tera quite a lot now, and it has captured a sense of immersion from me. I do recommend to try out other MMO's but you will never capture that full sense of immersion because it's not your first time playing an MMO.

[Flurryfang]

Immersion is something that is very hard to keep up in a game, that is ever evolving. Sooner or later, you will have figured out the game and all its corners. So i believe, that it is near impossible to bring back the immersion of old with a new expansion to WoW, unless they ofcourse did a complete remake and kept most of the information from us. Most of our immorsion is also being given away, when we look up things on WOWhead and see Blizzcon panels. The unknown is not unknown for long, so if you want good immersion, try to stay clueless for aslong as possible.

[Ishayu]

This ^ exactly no matter how hard one tries unless you get amnesia/alzheimers or one of those MIB neuralizers, you will never ever ever again have that sense of wonder that WoW had when you took your first character and stepped into the world..

Except for the fact that people did have exactly that when they played on Nostalrius.

I'm not going to talk too much about private servers, but this "rose-tinted goggles" BS that's being thrown around by people like you is just that: BS. The game DID change, and it changed because Blizzard made our powers grow and that changes things like this.

I personally think it's a bad thing, and I think the soul has slowly been ripped out of this game in order to grant us ever more power, but ultimately that's just my preference.

That said, let's not deny the facts. This game doesn't have the sense of scale that it did back then despite technically being many times larger. It's much easier, and many different systems have conspired to make travelling easy and convenient. This isn't the WoW we played in 2005 regardless of how many hours you've put into this game.

[HeiAggra]

Except for the fact that people did have exactly that when they played on Nostalrius.

I'm not going to talk too much about private servers, but this "rose-tinted goggles" BS that's being thrown around by people like you is just that: BS. The game DID change, and it changed because Blizzard made our powers grow and that changes things like this.

I personally think it's a bad thing, and I think the soul has slowly been ripped out of this game in order to grant us ever more power, but ultimately that's just my preference.

That said, let's not deny the facts. This game doesn't have the sense of scale that it did back then despite technically being many times larger. It's much easier, and many different systems have conspired to make travelling easy and convenient. This isn't the WoW we played in 2005 regardless of how many hours you've put into this game.

LOL yeah sure! 50% of the ppl playing there were rogues... i wonder why, ah inmersion on Nostalrius!

[Ishayu]

LOL yeah sure! 50% of the ppl playing there were rogues... i wonder why, ah inmersion on Nostalrius!

Doesn't matter one jot how many players played Rogue on Nostalrius.

And yeah, Rogues were OP in vanilla and this is one of the ways that manifests itself, although I know that the amount of rogues was nowhere near 50%.

[HeiAggra]

Doesn't matter one jot how many players played Rogue on Nostalrius.

And yeah, Rogues were OP in vanilla and this is one of the ways that manifests itself, although I know that the amount of rogues was nowhere near 50%.

It was over 50%!
I had some friends playing there. Guess what after 8 lvls they just gived up!
Been there done that! That was what they said.

[WowIsDead64]

Except for the fact that people did have exactly that when they played on Nostalrius.

I'm not going to talk too much about private servers, but this "rose-tinted goggles" BS that's being thrown around by people like you is just that: BS. The game DID change, and it changed because Blizzard made our powers grow and that changes things like this.

I personally think it's a bad thing, and I think the soul has slowly been ripped out of this game in order to grant us ever more power, but ultimately that's just my preference.

That said, let's not deny the facts. This game doesn't have the sense of scale that it did back then despite technically being many times larger. It's much easier, and many different systems have conspired to make travelling easy and convenient. This isn't the WoW we played in 2005 regardless of how many hours you've put into this game.

Nostalgia - nothing more. I wish, I could play on WotLK legacy server, cuz my best Wow experience happened back then, but I realize, that it's just illusion. WotLK content is still there, but there is no magic in it anymore. Yeah, I would do old pre-Cata quests to remind myself, how they felt like. But even now I realize, that they were actually terrible. So I would do it and then return back to live servers.

Also forget about legacy servers. Problem isn't with resources or profits. Problem is with fact, that Blizzard have fixed tons of bugs, flaws, cheats, exploits and problems since then. They just don't want to regress back to that state. They realize, that players expect current quality of game, but that means, they need to completely rebuild Vanilla on current engine. And they just don't want to do it.

[Deleted]

Except for the fact that people did have exactly that when they played on Nostalrius.

I'm not going to talk too much about private servers, but this "rose-tinted goggles" BS that's being thrown around by people like you is just that: BS. The game DID change, and it changed because Blizzard made our powers grow and that changes things like this.

I personally think it's a bad thing, and I think the soul has slowly been ripped out of this game in order to grant us ever more power, but ultimately that's just my preference.

That said, let's not deny the facts. This game doesn't have the sense of scale that it did back then despite technically being many times larger. It's much easier, and many different systems have conspired to make travelling easy and convenient. This isn't the WoW we played in 2005 regardless of how many hours you've put into this game.

............ yeah sure, immersion.

There is a difference between: "I prefer older version of WoW" and "Immersion". After 12 years of playing the game, you can love it, hate it, but immersion? Can be hard, but immersion for playing not only the same game, but an older version of the same game i already played? I don't think so. Again, you can like it more then the current expansion, but that's a different topic.

And about travelling, let's make a D&D comparison again, since D&D is the epitome of fantasy game RPG and so on. Try to ask people, after reaching certain levels, what they use to travel. I bet they have a mage for teleport too or something else, but for sure they don't go on foot.

[Coffeexbean]

I've been playing on and off since Vanillia, took a long break after Mop and recently came back for Legion. Loving Legion mostly btw.
But one thing that always bothered me is the lack of immersion in Wow. The game world didn't always feel that alive.

Legion did a lot in that respect, there were some heartfelt moments (Tyrande and Ysera, loved that moment) and some quest lines really felt involved. I just wonder, is it something Wow is lacking in general, the feeling the world is breathing and evolving?

I think legion did a good job of trying to immerse people into wow by bringing life into the world with world quests and zone scaling. The reason it doesn't feel as alive imo is because there is still a limited communication people play for efficiency. I really hope blizz puts pristine servers in to fix this

[Cwimge]

I've been playing on and off since Vanillia, took a long break after Mop and recently came back for Legion. Loving Legion mostly btw.
But one thing that always bothered me is the lack of immersion in Wow. The game world didn't always feel that alive.

Legion did a lot in that respect, there were some heartfelt moments (Tyrande and Ysera, loved that moment) and some quest lines really felt involved. I just wonder, is it something Wow is lacking in general, the feeling the world is breathing and evolving?

I can be standing there and some assfuck called "itsadeeps" runs past spamming gamon emotes atop his largest mount or doing any number of stupid things. Immersion is a fucking meme that cannot exist while I have to share wow with others.

[Deleted]

Man levelling is so darn easy these days. Group quests are soloable most of the times for every class/specc. On top of it instanced content is easy meaning that you can burst through it without getting punished. And I am not talking about old dungeons that have lost most of their difficulty due to new abilities and classes and heirloom gear abd the obvious need to rebalance them that they didn't bother to go ahead with.
Remember when heroic dungeons were introduced in tbc and even with bt gear u could get a hard time if tank couldn't hold aggro properly or missed a couple of cc's. Now you can roam freely in them if tank can remain alive u don't even notice the different mob abilities unless high mythic++ (where u may also ask for certain classes/specs ).
And on top of it u get to spend most of your time playing with bots. The vast amount of % time played spent pugging these days it actually kills the mmorpg aspect of the game that made it so popular. Bots are everywhere and u hope they do their job. Trying to design the game around that basis has changed the way instances work (either 5 man or larger). And although their design followed the initial need/demand of players having an easier time when forming raid teams etc they have lost the balance now and the game becomes really annoying.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Immersion is entirely subjective. I've never felt more immersed in a game than I have in WoW, and it still rings true even though I'm currently leveling my 35th character through the 1-60 content.

If YOU don't feel immersed, the problem is on your end. Simple as that.

And fyi, the world of Legion is more alive with more players out in it doing stuff than any previous iteration of the game.

"The game has a problem with immersion because I don't enjoy it and can't feel immersed in it anymore!"... Top kek.

[grexly75]

Except for the fact that people did have exactly that when they played on Nostalrius.

I'm not going to talk too much about private servers, but this "rose-tinted goggles" BS that's being thrown around by people like you is just that: BS. The game DID change, and it changed because Blizzard made our powers grow and that changes things like this.

I personally think it's a bad thing, and I think the soul has slowly been ripped out of this game in order to grant us ever more power, but ultimately that's just my preference.

That said, let's not deny the facts. This game doesn't have the sense of scale that it did back then despite technically being many times larger. It's much easier, and many different systems have conspired to make travelling easy and convenient. This isn't the WoW we played in 2005 regardless of how many hours you've put into this game.

And yet the first thing you talk about is private servers, and then you go off yammering about rose tinted goggles, something I was not talking about but what ever..

And the thing is that change is needed or the game will stagnate and if you let the game stagnate, people will leave to find something new and exciting..