What drove you away from WoW?

[Schroedinger]

Greg Street and the lazy design he represents. His constant whining on the forums how hard it is to balance the game and then deliver one impotent decision after another, empty words followed by empty design. The approach his direction in game took and the changes in community it has made. The transformation of once great game into a mindnubbing soulless festival of inept design ideas, lore jokes and PvP inbalances. The fact the PvP is based on class/spec > gear > RNG > skill.

Pick and choose, one as good as another.

[DarkT]

Outdated class mechanics and laziness of devs.

[Lazy Gecko]

Played since vanilla. Stopped shortly after Pandaria released.

It has nothing to do with "teh casuals" or some notion of being a pretty snowflake. Mostly, it was from all the collective design changes that have resulted in the game feeling more like you're playing in parallel with other people rather than together with them. I could always find solace in PvP, but the surge in botting pushed me over the edge. From what I've read, it seems things haven't gotten any better since then.

I've always been more of a "sandbox" player and I think early on, the world of WoW had several aspects which enabled that kind of attitude in other players. But these have been successively chipped away over the years.

[Dirgon]

5 man content being ignored.
JP Gain nerf.
JP uselessness.
VP gain nerfs.
Lack of alt-friendlieness (I rarely raid for realsies, so I rarely have a toon in amazeballs gear. My preferred method was an army of alts in decent gear)
Massive, massive time sinks. I used to be able to log in for an hour, do a few dungeons, and feel like progress was made. I really can't feel like I've made any progression in one hour in MoP.
Forced LFR to progress gear wise outside of organized raids. I was perfectly happy leaving most of my alts pre-tier equivalent gear (rather than going balls-out for.. 6 ilvls?) at the end of Cata. I had two toons that were LFR-Done (only did one at a time) and VP-done. The rest were 378 and I was happy to leave them there.

[Sastank]

Other games keeping my interest and I don't feel the "need" to be on WoW. Also WoW being more casual friendly is a major part of it as well.
Playing League mainly till other less time consuming games come out like Hearthstone and waiting for Ps4 release later this year as well.
RIP WOW

[Deleted]

Played since vanilla. Stopped shortly after Pandaria released.

It has nothing to do with "teh casuals" or some notion of being a pretty snowflake. Mostly, it was from all the collective design changes that have resulted in the game feeling more like you're playing in parallel with other people rather than together with them. I could always find solace in PvP, but the surge in botting pushed me over the edge. From what I've read, it seems things haven't gotten any better since then.

I've always been more of a "sandbox" player and I think early on, the world of WoW had several aspects which enabled that kind of attitude in other players. But these have been successively chipped away over the years.

The words "sandbox" and "WoW' don't go together. At all. WoW is a theme park MMO.

[Deleted]

Id like to say it was the cataclysm or the cash shop or any other reason but the truth is that I was just bored of WoW and when I broke up with my ex boyfriend I started avoiding WoW as we used to play it together and it just brought back bad memories. Now, over a year later, I guess these arent a problem any more but I dont exactly miss playing it either and there are no reasons to come back, at least not yet, so I just keep following whats going on with it.

[Lazy Gecko]

The words "sandbox" and "WoW' don't go together. At all. WoW is a theme park MMO.

I didn't say it was. I said it had sandbox aspects. Old WoW in general felt more player-driven, which is essentially what a sandbox game is to me. World PvP, the way guilds and raid progression was handled, etc. These things have now been replaced by automated systems. It's not the convenience or easiness that bothers me, it's the fact that they require a bare minimum of social interaction which I thought was the very point of an MMO.

[But I Hate You All]

I didn't comment on him complaining on the game. I commented on what he had in his sig: promoting kicking people from groups if they have the new transmog from the shop. Do you think that's an ok thing to say? Hating on someone for buying an item in a computer game has the same roots as rasism or any other hate driven behaviour.

None of that has anything to do with the thread. There is a difference between hate and choosing who you play with but if you want to talk about those things make a thread about it.

[Djuntas]

I started playing WoW december 2005, and I stopped around april 2012.

I've pretty much cleared everything ingame (except for naxxramas 40, since I was too slow on getting rep).
The feel was simply different. Or rather, the people and mindset was different.

When Blizzard made wow for "everyone", something went wrong, and the game wasn't as enjoyable as before, in my opinion. If you inspected people in both Vanilla and TBC, you'd think "damn, that's a badass". He'd be "proud", you'd be astonished, simple. Later, people weren't amazed, just jealous, and required Blizzard to give everyone the same gear.
Blizzard kind of became Oprah Winfrey. YOU GET A LEGENDARY, AND YOU GET A LEGENDARY, AND YOU AND YOU, EVERYBODY GETS A LEGENDARY!
They implemented heroic versions of raids, 10 and 25man difficulties, thinking that would satisfy people, since then "everyone got to see content". It was never about seeing content, since after a short period of time, people started whining they wanted to "see" heroic content too (in other words, get phat loot, fancy then rare mounts and so on), and everything got nerfed to the ground.

Why is this bad, in my opinion? Because even if the world's top 3 guilds have cleared the content on heroic, maybe I too want to. Our offtank suddenly stopped logging in the middle of our ragnaros hc progress, and rather being a fight against its mechanics, it was a fight against time. We really enjoyed the fight in its glory, non-nerfed, but we had to get a new tank, before the nerfs, and it took time. Normals, go ahead, share it with everyone, but leave heroics to the people who want a challenge, even if it's "late".
sidenote: we got server first Ragnaros 10hc, but it was a pain thinking "it'll get nerfed next week, hurry!".

In Cataclysm, I didn't think of people in LFG or LFR as real people behind the screen anymore. Half of my friends list was from Vanilla and TBC, not only guild mates, but randoms which you met through leveling, doing dungeons and such. Reputation simply meant nothing anymore. We had a guy in MC who ninjad some epic, and that guy couldn't find a new guild. WoTLK and CATA? Ninjaing, assholeing, douchebaggery? In your face, all the time.

Call it nostalgia. I don't play this game anymore, because it's simply not as good and the community has become worthless.

Still following the thread, and this replie is great. Now days the only glory you can get inn wow seems to be if you are inn top 100 world guild. Just back inn vanilla/TBC if you raided, you we're somebody. You we're achknowledge, and tough off as something above average. MMO's needs to have this, period.

[draykorinee]

5 man content being ignored.
JP Gain nerf.
JP uselessness.
VP gain nerfs.
Lack of alt-friendlieness (I rarely raid for realsies, so I rarely have a toon in amazeballs gear. My preferred method was an army of alts in decent gear)
Massive, massive time sinks. I used to be able to log in for an hour, do a few dungeons, and feel like progress was made. I really can't feel like I've made any progression in one hour in MoP.
Forced LFR to progress gear wise outside of organized raids. I was perfectly happy leaving most of my alts pre-tier equivalent gear (rather than going balls-out for.. 6 ilvls?) at the end of Cata. I had two toons that were LFR-Done (only did one at a time) and VP-done. The rest were 378 and I was happy to leave them there.

Aye, very much my POV too actually.

[Ekudar]

I realize what drove me away now after just leveling my new character to level 10 in TOR. There was actually a feel of adventure and DANGER on the way. I DIED to a solo quest even after playing very well, and that felt incredibly good. I miss the challenge immensely, and need it outside max level too.

Same is happening to me, I am using a Starter edition account to see if it is worth it coming back, and paying the $50 plus dollars for MoP. But I do not think it is, as I said before the Community is pretty much dead IN game, you do not get to go out there and make a name for yourself (As a tank it always feels good to get a pst asking you to raid with them ) you just hit 15 and queue for dungeons .

I rolled a goblin rogue since I never got to play one, but I hate how it starts out :" Look at you the most incredible goblin ever! you just saved your complete cartel (Boss included) but hey, that was just to suck you in, you are lvl 10 now, you are a nobody now ". Makes no sense.

When I started playing you still had to find groups for some of the hard quest, you new that if you went in alone you would die. Now you get crazy buffs to kill elites, or an all mighty NPC to do it and you are just tagging along.

[Notos]

Still following the thread, and this replie is great. Now days the only glory you can get inn wow seems to be if you are inn top 100 world guild. Just back inn vanilla/TBC if you raided, you we're somebody. You we're achknowledge, and tough off as something above average. MMO's needs to have this, period.

Why top 100? Most servers still have their top raiding guilds who are well known to people on the server, just like during Vanilla. Honestly the guilds that raided MC in the second half of Vanilla were a dime a dozen, nobody cared unless you were progressing in AQ or Naxx.

[Rinji]

This sums it up for me. I played on Stormrage and it was rare to find nice people.

It also became rinse and repeat every patch.

I play on Stormrage now and people could careless about anything. I have even asked to offer help randomly when I see something wrong like a mage with spirit gems. and I get cussed out for it. The game isn't what it once was simply due to the people that play it. The serious decline started in WOTLk because the game really went main stream and the didn't want to lose subs so they caved to the casual and gave in to basically whatever they wanted while still keeping the game somewhat fun for the people that value what it once was. Sadly this quickly ended with LFR and the LFG while the thought was nice it made people care even less. I am not trying to be a care bear in my statement but people will only help you anymore it seems if they can benefit from it rather then just to help a fellow player anymore. There is no common decency anymore in the game and I miss that. Back in the day of vanilla you had to be nice and you had friends you could count on. Now a days you are on your own and unless you got gold / female voice since this game is primarily ruled by virgin ragers then you get nothing seemingly. I wish people would just go out on that realm for a day and just learn to say "thanks" and not be a troll or sarcastic about it or help some random lowbie with something. I know it isn't going to happen but Karma does exist and sooner or later it will come back to you.



P.S. Been playing since before patch 1.2 aka mara...... Favorite patch of all time 1.6 followed by 1.7. If you was around at these times you know why. I use to go by since beta, However I look back at the times I have had and remember what was the most fun for me what really defined the game in the light I use to see it from. Not how long I have been playing in terms of years.

[Orangetai420]

homogenization, removal of attunements, LFR and LFD; basically destruction of realm communities.

Dumbing everything down to appeal to a mass audience, making the game too easy.

[Rinji]

homogenization, removal of attunements, LFR and LFD; basically destruction of realm communities.

Dumbing everything down to appeal to a mass audience, making the game too easy.

/Agree, You should try the legendary cloak questline. While not as difficult as it should be still it is the hardest quest/senario event I have seen in some time. Even more so if your a clothie DPS such as a mage fighting the black prince that was alot of fun lol.

[Volitar]

Honestly the reason I quit is because:
1. I don't really have time to devote to WoW and stay competitive anymore.
2. My guild died.

There are many things that caused the game play to decline for me but it didn't push me over the line and make me quit. I still think WoW was the best game I've ever played.(10 and 25 becoming the same lockout,the class changes in MOP,MOP being all about daily quests and never giving you a day off,The cash shop,LFR dumbing down the raiding community and making sure no new players ever strive to be good,LFG/LFR destroying realm community,Removal and rehashing of content)

[Deleted]

homogenization, removal of attunements, LFR and LFD; basically destruction of realm communities.

Dumbing everything down to appeal to a mass audience, making the game too easy.

This is a very good summary of the themes on this thread i think. Toxic community seems to be the most popular reason for quitting in the past few pages.

[Autumn]

homogenization, removal of attunements, LFR and LFD; basically destruction of realm communities.

This - plus my friends list got smaller and smaller as they all quit

[Lilija]

None of that has anything to do with the thread. There is a difference between hate and choosing who you play with but if you want to talk about those things make a thread about it.

If anything was ever destroying WoW's community it's people like you. So once again, glad you unsubbed and noone has to deal with your attitude. And yes, kicking people from group ONLY because they bought an item in a in game store is harrasement - not chosing who you play with. It's quite sad you apparently can't understand that. It's even more sad you promote it. Your sig is hatefull and mostly childish.