What do you think is the greatest contributor to the downfall of wow?

[OldSchoolWow916]

My vote is for Portals/LFD. I don't like flying mounts or welfare epics either but it seems like the thing that really stopped making world of warcraft feel "worldly" when was blizzard allowed players to port all over the place without leaving their healthstone location (sw/orgi). Even in WOTLK pre LFD where welfare epics and flying mounts have been around since BC, playing WOTLK still felt "worldly" and it really felt like I was playing a massive mutliplayer rpg with tons of interaction with other players.

Cata in comparison seems to have lost all semblance of a "massive world" feeling.

[Buxton McGraff]

If you took away everything that you claim to dislike, you wouldn't even have WoW anymore.
Half the things on your list, have been gone for a LONG time, and WoW is yet to be even close to dead. The only thing that is going to kill WoW is Blizzards complete disregard for the opinion of the players. They seem to be following their own guidelines of what they THINK the players want, and not listening to the players to see what we ACTUALLY want.

[Deleted]

My vote is the upcoming Black Auction House in Mists of Pandaria and the Diablo 3 basis system cash for item progression at their AH.

[McNeil]

In one word: Cataclysm

[Darsithis]

WoW isn't in a decline, to me, and nothing you listed is a problem...to me.

Remove it all and you don't have a game. 'Nuff said

[Tziva]

"The downfall of WoW" is pretty dramatic phrasing. It's not a fallen empire; it's still a highly successful video game despite 20% subscription loss.

In any case, it's a tie for me between "assholes" and "content shortage."

[Deleted]

Cataclysm was cool it was unfair was how much Blizzard promised us playerbase and then left us in the dark without game progression for an long time. and the Return of ZA and ZG.

[OldSchoolWow916]

Remove it all and you don't have a game. 'Nuff said

So vanilla wow didn't exist?

[Miralynn]

The community, plain and simple. People are assholes because they can be, because they haven't got the testicular fortitude to be that kind of asshole IRL and risk having their teeth punched down their throat - and what a coincidence, three-quarters of them use one of the things you listed as their so-called 'justification' for being a giant, gaping asshole. Not one thing you have listed in your poll has ever caused as many problems in WoW as the simple fact that cowardly rude people suck.

[mvaliz]

Other... that's the most biased pro-BC poll options I've ever read.

Other is this... times have changed, and so have gamers tastes. They got a taste of Wrath, and instead of hating it - they loved it. Only the ones who wanted challenge complained on the forums while the rest of us were having fun.

I truly believe most players ended up like me - learning a valuable lesson that you CAN actually have fun with a game without having to slam a car-door on your head. There are more ways to have fun than "beating a difficult goal", and Wrath taught us that.

[Nicola]

Time.
How old is wow now? 8 years?
People have been playing it too long, got bored and quit.

[Darsithis]

So vanilla wow didn't exist?

Ah ha! We get to the meat of the matter. It isn't that you think any one thing is a problem in WoW today, you just think that WoW should never have changed, grown, or adapted in any way. Classic WoW is the only WoW worth it to you.

Good luck playing the exact same game for 8 years straight. A game that never changes, never alters, never fixes anything.

[Zharradan]

flying mounts, it ruined world pvp, it ruined the feel of a bigger world, it ruined everything.

lfd and portals are fine, cause you don't get portals to every place you want to go, just capitals...

[Shampro]

Most retardly biased poll ever. Seriously...im shocked.

Where is my the comunity option? or Time option? Jesus another ''Bring back TBC'' thread in disguise

[melodramocracy]

Other: the people playing it.

[Requiemcliff]

"The downfall of WoW" is pretty dramatic phrasing. It's not a fallen empire; it's still a highly successful video game despite 20% subscription loss.

In any case, it's a tie for me between "assholes" and "content shortage."

I would agree, the community as well as content or lack thereof I think are the biggest issues with WoW.

[Notos]

Do we really need another thread on this?

But to try to be constructive:

1) Flying mounts were around since before WoW hit its peak, so obviously that's not it.

2) Welfare epics have been around since BC as well, and the game was doing just fine with them.

3) When they actually added "hard" content (t11/cata heroics) people threw a shitstorm, seems to me like people prefer generally easier normal content with difficult heroic modes.

4) LFD has its upsides and downsides. I actually started bothering to run dungeons when LFD came out, so I guess that was a positive effect for me. I spent BC not bothering with heroics because badge gear was practically worthless to anyone who raided, except for gearing up alts, and even then it was easier to pug Kara and maybe one of the T5 raids for extra badges if you needed them. As for portals, they have been around since BC and the game was fine then.

5) Attunements were a pain in the ass for raiding guilds, nobody ever enjoyed them after the first time. And most people just skipped group quests, unless they felt like spamming general for 20 minutes to find the people for it.

I guess if I had to pick the most detrimental thing to the game out of the ones you have listed, I would pick LFD (using words like downfall is just asking for a flame/trollfest).

[Deleted]

So vanilla wow didn't exist?

Vanilla WoW was no where near as good as people like to make out. Yes it was fun because it was new, but you'll find that the game has improved a hell of a lot since. Yes Cata was overhyped and failed because it didn't live up to what it was made out to be, but WoW is no where near dead and when MoP comes out, massive amounts of players will return, just like they did at the start of Cata.

[Deleted]

Cataclysm, with lazy and clueless devs.

[Static X]

Anyone else think it has to do with the fact that they cater to new players, yet push them away financially? If you were to look into getting this game as a new player and didn't buy the games on sale, the total for getting all the way to current content is tremendous. $20 battle chest, $20 WotLK, $40 Cata and $15 a month? AND $40 for the next expansion in a month? You're looking at over $100 just to start up, when you could easily go buy multiple games for much cheaper. Honestly, if all my friends hadn't been playing for years as a kid, I probably wouldn't have gotten this game either simply because it was very expensive.