I find myself logging on less and less because that new car smell is starting to finally wear off for me in MoP. I know a lot of people are still enjoying the game and sub numbers have even been pushed back up over 10 million but I myself am now currently searching for a reason to continue logging in/playing. I'm an Annual Pass subscriber until at least January.
- Dailies: This is one of the reason that I'm just losing excitement. For a month, I did every single one of them every day and queued for Heroic Scholo for a chance to get the staff which is a slight upgrade for me. I'm glad we're not just sitting around in town and the option of dailies are there but some of the dailies just feel too repetitive for me. I actually don't mind the following daily zones:
Valley of the Four Winds, Vale of Eternal Blossoms
However,
Jade Forest, Karasang Wild, Dread Wastes and Kun-Lai Summit were just not places I could ever get excited about going to after a week of doing them.
- The Brawler's Guild: Yes, I know there's countless people talking about it right now and there's an official thread but this really heated me up when I saw the news for this. The way this was built up to be (for me at least) was that you would have a chance to prove yourself in Gladiator style solo-combat. It was an exciting opportunity to not have to rely on a group and rely on your own skills instead to win rewards or just to have bragging rights (no rewards necessary). Maybe a title or a little extra gold, I don't care.
Then, I saw the news that they were gating it so that only one person at a time could do it? Are you insane? Do you have any idea what a nightmare that's going to be when 100 people have an invite or when 1,000 people have an invite? How can this have possible even sounded like a good idea?
Then, I saw the news that they were going to put invites on their Black Market Auction House. While this is either a cleverly disguised test to find out the interest behind their "BMAH" or this is a piss poor implementation of a great idea in theory.
Is the Brawler's Guild changes the nail in the head for me? No, but it certainly was enough to piss me off because I was actually genuinely excited for this event. After spending so much time pugging and doing LFRs every week, I wanted a chance to win rewards or bragging rights based on my own solo game play. I liked that idea that if there was a wipe, it was my fault and I was likely doing something stupid.
- Raiding: This is one of those things where, I've just grown up a bit and I don't have time to devote to that lifestyle like I used to. Back in the Burning Crusade, I would play probably 14-18 hours every single day without doing anything else. Now, I wake up, work on my business, talk to clients, hop on and do dailies and if I have enough time, I might see if there's something going on but other than that, there's not much else I can afford to spend time to. This is why I don't purposefully join normal or heroic raiding guilds anymore.
Plus, the majority of normal guilds on the server are having such a hard time managing basic and simple concepts. Going from heroic raiding in BC with people who were aware of their surroundings and always spread sheeting their characters to people who die in fire, are never prepared, have no idea what's in store for first time fights and appears to have downs, I just can't do that. It would be like going from where I am now back to a minimum wage job. Plus the time spent downing bosses in those "normal" guilds is far longer than the time spent in Heroic guilds downing bosses.
I will say that they've done a great job with the raiding though.
- Leveling: While there are some areas of the game I don't mind leveling, because I haven't ran into many "World PvP" (AKA: Level 90s who are bored) yet, I still highly prefer dungeon grinding. I've done it god knows how many times but for me, it's still so much more enjoyable than leveling in the world. Leveling today consists of slapping on BoAs and power grinding through instances. I don't even dare try to quest in the Outlands, because there are so many 90s there thanks to CRZ that it's impossible to finish a quest on my server.
The only reason I even tried leveling in the 1-58+ world through quests was to help level up my guild.
- Guilds: This is another one which Blizzard poorly thought out. I'm talking about the perks. This has to be some of the most ridiculous thought up plan I'd ever seen. How did they honestly see this going? "Oh well, if players see that guilds will unlock perks at higher levels, they'll help level it"? I think anyone who has any idea of how this general online community is could have told them otherwise.
I saw this in chat today actually when someone posted their recruiting message for a 15 guild: "GTFO scrub no one wants to join ur non 25 guilds"
I'm currently leveling a Level 11 guild and the only way I have found to get people into it is to spam like holy hell and a couple people a day do join. It's not practical or is it friendly but it's the only way I'll ever see it level besides hiring friends who no longer play to make new characters and level through the world.
The guild perks instant gratification has to go if Blizzard ever wants to see SOME kind of community entitlement or reward for guild perks come back. Gaining instant access to guild perks makes no sense to me what so ever. Especially when Blizzard (ever since Sunwell) has been the king of gating/withholding content until a certain progression point.
Why not do the same with guild perks? Players should have to EARN their perks, not just be "Rewarded" for joining the guild. It's no wonder that no one wants to help out lower level guilds or join any non-25 guild when they get access to all those great rewards for nothing. Make Guild Perks based on guild contribution via experience and the lower level the guild, the lower the amount of contribution is needed. Perhaps even donating to the guild bank can give some guild XP. The second that the GM or an Officer withdraws money from the Guild Bank, that Donation experience factor is turned off to prevent repeatable turn ins for experience.
- LFR Loot System: This.. really gets on my nerves. As I said previously, I don't raid with a normal guild because I have no desire to go through that nightmare and I don't raid with a heroic guild anymore because I simply don't have the time that it would take to do so.
From what I have noticed about the loot system, it's just completely random. 25 people could win an item they already have or 25 people could win gold. I've won 11 sigils (i'm hoping there's a use for more than 10 of the same kind...) 2 x of the same belt, a trinket worse than mine, a back and some bracers. Now that sounds like a lot of loot but do you know when I won that? All in one week.. I decided to be a scumbag and AFKd all of the fights. To my surprise, the loot just kept coming.
Before this however, for every single week I was in the top 3 of the overall damage and DPS and found that I had only won ONE piece of gear since LFR was released. This reminds me of the Dragon Soul loot where usually the majority of the loot would end up going to the people who did 9k DPS. INB4 Tinfoil hat but I really feel like there is some kind of system here that rewards people who are doing their worst because the system thinks they need the gear the most. I like the idea of individualized loot like in D3 but making it completely randomized without any kind of bonus factors such as - not dying in AoE, being in the top 5 damaged dealers, top 2/3 for healers, tanks should get a bonus anyways just because they have to deal with the above.
- Challenge Modes: I really feel they overestimated just how many "hardcore" players were still left in the game or wanted those "BC Heroic" feels back. If I recall, even Blood Legion of Illidan only has 4 of the Challenge Mode dungeons done and they don't appear to attempt them very often. I've tried to form groups for the daily Challenge Mode but people get upset when it's not an AoE Fest and usually leave after 1-2 wipes. This was a great idea in theory, but it was way overestimated how many people would actually like this idea.
Back in Cataclysm, they did an amazing job with revamping all of the 1-58 content and I even enjoyed some of the leveling content (Go to hell Vashj'ir) but they just said screw it when it came to the end game content. I even enjoyed the heroics back in Cataclysm more to be honest. While the MoP heroics are a new change of scenery, I just don't find any joy or fun in doing them. In Wotlk/Cata, I would farm heroics for achieves or to relieve boredom and earn a little extra gold but in MoP, I find myself rarely touching them or having the urge to even want to do them.
That's why my MoP excitement is going down and I can't unsubscribe until January (something), I don't know.
Edit: I forgot to touch up on a couple of things.
Pet Battles: These really are funner than I thought they would be. They're great optional content for people who are still interested in the game and have nothing better to do until raid time/arena time/etc.
Valor Change: I wish they would STOP flip flopping on this. Either you want players to obtain Tier gear through badges or you don't. It just appears they keep going back and forth on who they want to appeal to. I actually saw no problem with obtaining great gear through non-reputation sources and having a valor vendor. So what if "casuals" have tier gear, the heroic raiders have superior gear. Let's say you pair up 10 casuals and 10 heroic raiders together and have them do an event that requires class coordination and skill, it's going to become painfully obvious which of those players are hardcore raiders and which of them are casual even if they're wearing the same gear.
I don't agree with the valor change and turning it into a rep grind to obtain ok-ish epic gear, especially since it costs 1/2 or 3/4 of your total Valor maximum cap.