When wow lost its mystery.

[Deleted]

WoW didn't lose the "sense of mystery" for a fact.

Yeah. For me it brings back its mystery with a new expac. Most times the classes get changed a lot, so you even have to relearn the classes you play most. At the end, novelty is just more rare, but still exists.

[Not A Cat]

Unfortunately no matter how well Blizzard may do, this game will never be as fun and mysterious as when I first played it back in vanilla. I still enjoy it, but I'll never enjoy it THAT much again. That's what happens after playing for so many years, even new stuff doesn't feel new. That's not Blizzard's fault, but rather something that just happens.

Albeit I always avoid joining betas or watching streams so not to spoil it and that helps a ton.

[Deleted]

Ah, I see. WoW is dead again. Ok then.

[FelPlague]

There is no wonder that a feeling is missing while playing Wow nowadays. A feeling so great. Mystery. There is no need for exploration anymore, there is no need for an unwanted search through the content. You get everything you need to know, through guides, patch notes etc.
When something is going wrong from Blizzards point of view, you'll get a response within a matter of time, explaining everything. They will also go to an extend making the game so simplified and make sure that EVERYONE has access to EVERYTHING.

That simple thing has made the game called World of Warcraft, into what it has become.

Hardcore gamers, casuals, mediocore all merged together into one. No matter what you do in the game matters anymore, knowing its only a matter of time until everyone is going to have achieved the same.

When people argue about Old Content and why Vanilla,TBC etc was great or rubbish, I think only of one thing. I know deep in my heart, if I mount up and go around whats left of Feralas, or Desolace, or even Silithus and you just pass by on your normal mount, you'll find why that kind of content was GREAT! Mystery! Even for me, a person that went through Vanilla content and did it all, probably lost 1 year of his entire life, I will still get goosebumps and a sense of mystery. A sense of unknown.

Do I feel Blizzard is going to turn the game around to make it a bit more than just a hack and slash merged with 3D moba? No, not really. I think they've shifted their interest elsewhere, knowing that the game is Old enough to attract new players.


I just felt I had to come clean and speak my mind of what I think its going on with the game nowadays.

This is by no means a comparison between expansions etc, and a not this is/was better. Its a fact that the past few expansions had little to no mystery involved, and we all knew what was there available to us.

its simple

the mystery is gone because you have been playing the game for 13 years, you know how everything works, you have addons that allow you to know where every rare and treasure is, you look up the incoming changes in the ptr and beta you watch boss fights time and time again before doing them

heres an example


when i was 8 and started playing pokemon, i did not know any of them, (i started with ruby and saphire, was too young to play red and blue, gen 3 for life!)
every time i ran into a new pokemon was an experiance i was in awe, i was so happy, excited, i caught everything, it was amazing, i would brag to my friends and show my parents

then when i found they could evolve me and my friends would talk, trying to find out how each pokemon evolved, and when one of us traded a haunter and it evolved... holy shit the 6 of us fucking blew up, we started trading every single pokemon in the game, it was madness, it was the funnest thing ever, 6 kids, all working together, talking about all these cool things we found, and all these awesome evolutions, we each had our favorite pokemon and we loved it



now adays, when the game comes out i know every pokemon, every way they evolve, and where they can be found, aswell as how strong they are, so i dont fucking use my favorite because it sucks (Example, my 2 favorites are both super fucking boss, garchomp and metagross so) but yeah you can see how years and years, age, and having acsess to everything can ruin something



it runs into the issue of adult versus child, atleast in multiplayer games were you compare to others


child likes mystery and having to find things out
so they just play the game and learn things for themselves

adult wants stuff to be the most efficent
so they download addons to let them find rares and treasures, leveling paths, and boss fights aswell as coming stuff in patches

[glowpipe]

Funny. I didnt read anything abour Legion when this expansion started. I didnt get any sense of mystery, danger or adventure.

Thats probably cause you are burnt out of the game. I have played it since vanilla. There are limits to how much new and refreshing stuff they can add

[FelPlague]

Funny. I didnt read anything abour Legion when this expansion started. I didnt get any sense of mystery, danger or adventure.

you also most likely have been playing the game 13 years, so you know what to suspect, you know what is to come

[iamthedevil]

WoW lost it's mystery when i starting looking at data mined stuff in the TBC beta. I had a TBC beta client sandbox and everything. Then once this site came out for wrath beta, it was all over.

[Orby]

WoW never really lost its mystery. I do feel the internet and places like YouTube, WoWhead and MMO-champion really killed the real mystery. I remember when I first got WoW in 2004 I had no idea what I was getting in to

I remember speculation threads on the WoW forums like Salems Chest and Ashebringer and unreachable areas hidden objects and strange quests. There were very few places to go for spoilers.

As the internet evolved WoW became so spoilerific...I dont think I was not aware of any sites outside of the WoW forums until 2006/07 (other than Thottbot) when I discovered all these other WoW sites.

WoW isn't really to blame its out use of the internet that made WoW lose its mystery, wanna know something 99% chance the internet will have info about it... Try and not visit any WoW sites when the new expansion is announced, I guarantee that'll get your mystery back.

[Deleted]

You have dungeons, raids, questing. You have boss mechanics you have seen before. You know that quests literally split into 3 different types (collect, kill, guard) and you know all the classes to a degree you easily could change your main.

Those are basic mechanics, they did not create the mystery. And they are all things that you became very familiar with in a month, or already were if you came from another MMO. It's like saying no 3D shooter can have mystery if you played Doom and Quake.

[analmoose]

The game ended for me after about a year straight of ICC. That's when i truly started to lose interest in wow, and never fully regained it. Played since day one until then religiously, and since, maybe 2 months a year if that to check out the new xpacs

[Lodreh]

Players did it. No one wants anything hidden or hard to get to, and if you don't know the encounters before they go live, you're a [insert pejorative here].

I think this is the reason I don't enjoy raiding. I hate watching people play games. I can't be bothered with watching someone (or a whole raid team) down a boss. I'd rather do it with a few deaths using trial and error. Talking and laughing while having a go for it. Raid leaders put a lot of stress on people to perform at a high watermark for something they have only seen and not done.

All that creates is anxiety and nerves hoping that you can remember the movements you've watched someone else do dozens of times. To me that's not fun. That's going through the motions of a choreography that you've studied but haven't done in front of a live audience. It's just too nerve wracking to be fun. So I'm generally self exiled to LFR until I learn the basics good enough to fill in for RL friends when/ if the need arises.

[Deleted]

I think this is the reason I don't enjoy raiding. I hate watching people play games. I can't be bothered with watching someone (or a whole raid team) down a boss. I'd rather do it with a few deaths using trial and error. Talking and laughing while having a go for it. Raid leaders put a lot of stress on people to perform at a high watermark for something they have only seen and not done.

All that creates is anxiety and nerves hoping that you can remember the movements you've watched someone else do dozens of times. To me that's not fun. That's going through the motions of a choreography that you've studied but haven't done in front of a live audience. It's just too nerve wracking to be fun. So I'm generally self exiled to LFR until I learn the basics good enough to fill in for RL friends when/ if the need arises.

Sounds like the vanilla style 5-man dungeons would be the perfect content for you. Large group play basically always boils down to getting everyone to do the same dance correctly, so if you don't enjoy that you shouldn't raid. It's a shame Blizzard is forcing large group play down everyone's throats.

[Redwyrm]

I believe the mystery started to disappear when Blizzard started making the mini map/world map/quest tracker too quest friendly. When WoW first came out you HAD to read the quest text to know where to go or what to get. You had to explore and figure things out. Now the mini map throws an arrow and a highlighted circle around the area to need to go and the quest tracker makes it very clear what you need to kill to get what you are looking for.

Mankrik's Wife?

[Nitros14]

The feeling of awe and mystery in a raid dungeon took a serious blow with WOTLK release and died with LFR.

[Echocho]

It lost its mystery when we didn't have to think anymore. No need to research where your BiS comes from and how to get there, no need to try to figure out how your spec works, no need to try to figure out how to unlock things. All you need to do is get on the ride, go in a straight line and have everything explained to you and someone guiding you on the rails every step of the way.

The game lost its mystery when it lost its depth. Streamlining killed the mystery and it drove the RPG straight out of the MMORPG.

[McNeil]

I miss those real mystery places that vanilla had, which could be entire areas that weren't meant to be seen by the players: Shatterspear Village, Uldum, Old Ironforge, Ironforge Airport, Hyjal, Emerald Dream, Gilneas (getting behind the gate), old Quel'Thalas. They don't make these kind of inaccesible zones anymore, but it was fun to speculate about them and I actually had a lot of fun trying to get inside each of these areas which used to be quite tricky to get there.

[dextersmith]

There is no wonder that a feeling is missing while playing Wow nowadays. A feeling so great. Mystery. There is no need for exploration anymore,

Partly due to the requirement to watch and memorize fights on youtube before entering dungeons.

[tankbug]

Imagine being blown away by Warcraft 3 lore and the universe.
Then you jump into a world that you love from before where you have thousands of other players walking around in wast areas.
Even trivial things like getting leather for a new pair of gloves is meaningful. Maybe they'll be awesome!
Ah, this was my WoW-youth, where even "boring" stuff was great. Where we would group up to do even meaningless things with no reward, and still enjoy it, like killing every NPC in a camp and "claim" it.

Yes, the deep mystery is gone, game mechanics are familiar to put it the nicest way possible. It's still enjoyable, but not magical, not addictive in a degree that I think about the game when I'm not playing.

I blame time, but that's inevitable. I have happy memories and still play casually.

[Icoblablubb]

you are a joke

so why are u still around when WoW died with end of Wotlk? the only joke here is you sir

[Shadowman 747]

For me, it's not the mystery, it's the scope of the world.

In classic through Wrath you were a murderhobo making a name of yourself by killing things that needed to die. You obtained glory and reputation by stepping above your peers and slaying the most evil of the evil, only then did you have any prestige, otherwise you were just a joe in the world. In Cata onwards, the player character is a superhero regardless of their status as a player. Raiders to the most casual of pet battlers have the same RP value because the game defines your character for you.

The shitty travel system and with mounts being so hard to get made the world absolutely expansive. There's one thing you can always argue against flying's addition, although flying in and of itself isnt a problem. It made the world small. 280% and 310% flying speed destroy the scope of the world. What was so huge became miniscule as player movement advanced in both speed and dimension. No longer did you have to navigate the world, but now you can fly up, press auto run, and get to your objective in a set amount of time.

Transmog also did a number on the natrual flow of player ranking. Prior to its addition in 4.2, there was no reliable form of epic gear outside of raiding. You could visually see who raided and who was very fresh on their character progression path.

WoW's early days are a classic RPG. Not too hard mechanically, everything was about who you know and organization. Nowdays, WoW is more of an action adventure game held back by game engine limitations. There's very little RPG to the game outside of stats. The flavor and RP elements are gone. There's no community made divisions of players into set roles anymore. There's no room to rise above and thrive, being the elite, killing the biggest of bads. There's also no room to be a meager blacksmith and make bank selling crafted goods to levelers and capped players alike. It's automatically assumed that by playing the game, you, according to lore, are the biggest, baddest motherfucker on Azaroth, even if you just want to pet battle.

Que based systems such as RDF, LFG, and LFR destroyed the ability to grow your server community by running content. In the past, when you could only play on your server, you had so much room to grow your community just by playing and contributing to group content. Now it's Que up, finish the content, leave.

WoW isn't the same game it was for me. If mythic raiding and the heavy numbers crunching and stratagy didn't exist, I wouldn't be subbed. There is no magic to this game anymore. There is no community outside of isolated guilds. Servers are dead, their concept outdated and destroyed by cross server matchmaking options. WoW is a game I treat like League of Legends or Overwatch. You log in, do your desired game mode, then log off. It's no longer about a living breathing world full of players at all progression and skill levels, it's about an isolated superhero who doesn't really make companions because he doesn't need to, because they're given to him randomly via ques.