When will World of Warcraft become World of Warcraft again? the spark is long lost.

[Deleted]

I really don't understand how people still qq with the same line "epics should be epic"

Jesus, is that all you play for? Is that your satisfaction, items with a purple name? Who cares?

Do you really raid for gear?

But the truth is that this is a very important part of the mentality of MMO gaming.

The gear your toon is dressed in shows the progress and success of the player behind that toon. This is the main reason why gear is so important in an MMO. Players care what it looks like, they care that it stands out, they care if its blues, greens or epics...

Obviously back in the day your toons gear showed what u had done in the game, basically all the guys with the top gear were clearly the raiders, the guys who had played Wow at endgame. Similiarly thats why everyone shows off their mounts, it shows what theyve achieved in the game.

I can remember even in Wrath when the first guys killed the Lich King and all of them came to Dalaran to show off their new skeletal mounts, the chatter was electroc and everyone came out to see them to congratulate them. Ofc everyone wanted those mounts, we were kinda jealous... thats part of the game. Its healthy.

These days we all know that pretty much all of the gear etc is much easier to access. Its how Blizzard have given in to QQing basically.

[Ausr]

When will World of Warcraft become World of Warcraft again? My spark is long lost*

Fixed the title for you, OP.

[Draknalor186]

Two things ruined WoW in my opinion:

1. Character services and cross-realm technology.

Name changes, server transfers, faction changes... All together these things completely ruined server communities which is often one of the best things about an MMO. All this so I can play with my friends? I started on the same server as my friends and I made new ones there. Maybe help improve our server instead of allowing everyone to jump ship? Maybe make the cost of being an annoying asshole higher by not allowing name changes or transfers?

WoW communities are magnitudes worse than they used to be. I get that its the internet and stuff, but you were held accountable in Vanilla because you had two options; be a decent human being or reroll. That's when rerolling required much more effort.

2. Barely an MMO anymore.

I can power level through quests and then just sit in the main city until the next expansion. This is barely an MMO. It's pretty much just a multiplayer lobby.

Why farm? You get gold from dungeon and raid queues.
Why explore? Everything you get is worse than the stuff from dungeon and raid queues.
Why quest? Dungeon and raids queues will get you by.
Why raid? There gear isn't THAT much better and it'll be obsolete soon anyways.

Why play? Good question.

Why live? You are gonna die soon enough anyway

[ApeDosMil]

I get nostalgic about my old resto druid pvp build. You know the BC build that had us always running in cheetah, absorbing inc damage in bear, stunning in bear, and when we had enough distance, throwing out heals, entangles, and cyclones in caster. For the most part, you can do this now again, with the talent wild charge. That said, I guarantee no one liked trying to kill a druid in pvp back then. Hell, dk's were built to be the antithesis to them.

[Txiv]

When will World of Warcraft become World of Warcraft again? My spark is long lost*

Fixed the title for you, OP.

Exactly what I was thinking.

I also have a question; why do people who quit because they don't like the game still come to mmo champ and post? It's kk if you move on and feel wow isn't for you. But why come back and still argue? What do you get from it? Just something I've observed lately, lots of professed people who quit but won't actually quit. Part of leaving wow means you leave. Like part if a breakup means you don't keep stalking your ex on Facebook.

[Deleted]

Exactly what I was thinking.

I also have a question; why do people who quit because they don't like the game still come to mmo champ and post? It's kk if you move on and feel wow isn't for you. But why come back and still argue? What do you get from it? Just something I've observed lately, lots of professed people who quit but won't actually quit. Part of leaving wow means you leave. Like part if a breakup means you don't keep stalking your ex on Facebook.

obviously because we want old servers back? vanilla realms or something! :3

[valcrist]

I love when people just say the game sucks but gives no legit reasons why. Wow is better then ever and it's not blizzards fault that you can't break away from nasatga, I'm sorry but vanilla sucked, I've been playing since the begging and the game itself hasn't changed much they just have added more way to play and allow more gamers of all types have access to it, vanilla wow didn't have that it was way to hardcore to get anything done and that crap doesn't survive very well. Anyways no game can last forever and if you are not willing to adjust then sorry go play something els, sadly there is nothing els even wild star didn't impress me as a awhile.

[BenBos]

But the truth is that this is a very important part of the mentality of MMO gaming.

.

A lot of the gear was replaced with titles and achievements you still can show off.

And certain things are NOT easy to come by.

Let's take PvP for example: Season's Gladiator is pretty much EXTREME HARD to get in difficulty as it is based on a human competition ladder. At the other hand you have an extreme long playing time to get to a PvP title like Justicar (some 1000 hours to get all those 1200 flags capped in WSG).

Apart from that, Legendary weapons/amor are still very good bragging tools.

So WOW was SUPPLEMENTED with extreme achievements, titles, mounts ON TOP of the gear chase.

Perhaps playing the game would solve your knowledge...

[echoSAW]

When will the game match the selective and lofty standards of your own nostalgia "again?" Never. The answer is never.

[Bentusi]

Fucked up experiences with people were often then and they are often now, the difference is that back then you had only the people on your server to deal with. The past tends to look glorious, I get it, I get nostalgia boners about TBC too, even if I was a miserable no-damage tank being forced to blackmail people into helping me farm money so I can respec every evening for PVP. But thinking about it and weighing the facts I much prefer the game the way it is now (with certain exceptions) than go back to no dual speccing, no dungeon tools, no flying and no many things that have become so much a part of the game.

But that's my opinion. You know, this reminds me that at some point people were asking for Vanilla servers. I don't recall if they went with it, but I think those servers would have been really dead.

Certain people seem in the habit of going "OH FUCK MY RED ASS IT WAS SO AWESOME THEN IM EXPLODING IN MY PANTS" till you put them face to fave with "then" and not only do they notice that it wasn't as nice as they trained themselves to remember but the novelty of "then" wore off long ago...

Do you seriously think obscenities and insulting people makes you right about anything?

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I feel like Class homogenization has really hurt this game. I remember in the WOTLK days where damn near every dps spec brought a unique buff to the group.

Warriors commanding shout was added hp and separate from fort
Demo Warlocks had a special buff
Threat actually mattered, so rogues tricks and hunters MD were good tools
Healers were vastly different from each other, you had paladins and priests tank healing and shams and druids raid healing.
As much as I love LFD I think that it played a big part in dissolving server communities. I remember everyone spamming for the daily heroic, It was always fun unless it was HOS.

Gearing up outside of raids has sucked as well. The only gear available through VP is from reps, where in previous expansions there was a neutral vendor in a capital city that actually sold some good stuff. Not top tier stuff, but good enough for entry level raids. That in combination with new 5 mans made gearing alts or casual characters really easy.

Precisely. But this came about through whining from people who didn`t understand that they were ruining the whole point of the game through their short-sightedness, which was teamwork. If a character can do everything there`s no real incentive for teamwork and none takes place. And since almost every class has had the mechanics simplified, with shaman totems being the worst example, it all conspires to make a game you could teach your dog to play, and which is about as fun.

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There are objective truths to what OP is saying.

1: Gear comes a lot faster now than it did back in vanilla/TBC. The reality of the situation is that people burn out on this game when they have (in their opinion) done everything there is to do in the game. To most people, item level doesn't matter. They literally pick up ilvl 496 epics off the ground, head into LFR, get a full set of LFR gear in a few weeks, and from that point on their character is completed to their standards, because the only "upgrades" they can get are just higher item level versions of the same gear they're wearing.

There are people who like that, yes, but in terms of an RPG, it's not a compelling reason to do harder content. Imagine playing a Final Fantasy game where the secret optional boss drops "Ultima Weapon" for your main hero, then you crank the difficulty up and kill the same boss and he drops "Ultima Weapon" but underneath it it says "Hard Mode" and it's literally just the same weapon that you just got, but slightly higher stats, which only serves the purpose of fighting "Extreme Mode" of the same boss that will then drop the "Extreme Mode" "Ultima Weapon". To me, at least, it doesn't sound that fun.

This is the direction the gear has gone in this expansion. You get the low item level gear very fast, and then you slowly just build your item level up by replacing your gear with the same gear from a different difficulty. Since most people don't particularly care of ilvl differences, this gearing system results in you burning out on the gear grind -very- early.

2: "Feeling" Epic is a very big problem in WoW right now. I don't care who you are, you're lying through your teeth if you don't think that humans have the natural inclination to want to feel they have worth among their piers. In the context of an MMO, that base desire manifest in feeling "epic". You want your friends and piers to view you as having value in the game. This can be broken down semantically, as epic has different meanings to different people, but a -very- common meaning is to have super awesome gear that shows how powerful your character is.

Right now, it's very hard to feel epic, because even in full heroic warforged SoO gear, you still look exactly like the guy who's in full LFR gear. There's no defining visual features on gear anymore that can be associated with progress in the game. In vanilla, if you were wearing T3 gear, people knew you were epic. There's no arguing this. On live, if you're wearing T16 gear, you need to actually inspect the character and check the stats/tag to see whether they've just got lucky in LFR or have been doing heroic raids.

This is being slightly addressed in WoD with mythic gear having different models. In case you don't know what that means, Blizzard recognizes this problem, and is actively working to fix it, but right now it's a very real and objective problem that discourages players from investing more time in to the game.

3: Content longevity is horrible right now. SoO has 16 bosses and still feels boring at this point because it's been out for almost a year with no other content to do. Back in vanilla/BC, there were multiple raid tiers out in very quick succession, it led to people progressing through the content at very different paces. There also wasn't an "easy mode" option for people who just wanted to see the content. If you started playing a year into BC like I did, there were guild still progressing in -every- tier. Kara/Gruul/Mag, SSC/TK, and BT. There was -never- an opportunity to farm those raids to the point where you have full BiS gear from them before the next tier was released. That meant in order to progress at the bleeding edge level, you didn't outgear the first half of the new raid because you had all the best gear from the previous raid. Nobody had the time to -farm- T4+T5 every week to get all the gear from there while still trying to progress on T6. In MoP, we farmed T14 until T15 came out, blasted through T15 because we had all our T14 gear, then T16 came out, and we blasted through T16 because we had all our T15 gear farmed.

WoD is again attempting to fix this issue. I believe they're releasing two tiers very close to each other, but I might just be mistaken and T17 has like 18 bosses or something. In any case, this is objective truth. You will not find guild actively progressing on T14 content right now, because LFR T15 gives better gear and is essentially "soloable". Blizzard's very accessible raid model is -very- detrimental to content longevity.

These are the only 3 things I have time to write about right now, but like I said, all of those points are very clear, and very real, and to a lot of people like me, we prefer the old way that kept us addicted to this game. I -want- to be addicted to WoW, and right now I seriously -can't- be addicted to WoW, and those three factors play a -huge- roll in that.

This is all true. But you can`t leave the game in this bedraggled state for three expansions and expect to rescue it with different models. It`s much too late for that. At the most basic level every single part of the game has become as easy as putting on your socks. Sure you can put on a tutu while fighting bosses and other pointless stuff that makes it artificially hard, but for slight rewards and gear that looks identical to LFR crap. But the peak of WoW popularity came at the start of Wrath. Why? The answer is obvious to me: the game had made its name by having tough as nails raiding which only the best were able to do. Poor or disorganized players would never see any of the endgame content and because of attunements this got layered down on every server. Some people did Kara, some SSC/TK and some BT and SWP. And that was just the way it was. Sure, some people got frustrated when they found themselves stuck, but they all came back for Wrath. Why? Because this was a fresh start for them to establish themselves in a better guild and become a better player so they too could get the status good PVE players used to have. But of course Blizzard had already decided to wreck PVE progression by making everything too easy, too accessible, too unrewarding and by adding 10 mans and later easy modes of everything. The immediate consequence of this was that the prestige and excitement of PVE progression went away to never return, and the people who swarmed back into the game when Wrath launched left again, because the chance they wanted was not there anymore.
And that`s why any amount of statistical sophistry, insults and other logical fallacies will not avail. The game is dead and Blizzard killed it. The people presently playing it are the flies on a horse carcass. Things are still going well on the surface but the horse is, in fact, dead. Denial and nonsense will not revive it. Nothing can now. The real truth is that WoW became great and as popular as it did because it was hard and a challenge on many levels. This was what made it so alluring to people, who wanted to try themselves at something truly epic. Whether it ever was I`m sure we can debate, but at least it felt a hell of a lot more epic to down most of the bosses in TBC than anything did in Wrath, not to mention Cataclysm. When WoW became trivial and handed everything, gear included, out for free it became less popular, which is what it is now because it has dropped about 40% of its max subs and never regained them. And this drop coincided with the nerf barrage in Wrath.

[foxHeart]

Do you seriously think obscenities and insulting people makes you right about anything?

About as much as going, "Oooooooh, you said bad werdz!" does. And at least he had a point in those naughty words and wasn't just finger-wagging over language.

[Mellrod]

Vanilla certainly wasn't the golden days as much as people like to think it is. That's just nostalgia. Sur eit had some good points, but Classic and BC were VERY problematic. Especially gameplay, and endgame content-wise. Blizzard isn't scared to test things by trial and error as they have always done, and while it seems a bit formulaic now (that's just the price of being an old game), the game has alot of innovations and good aspects from each expansion (even cataclysm) that make it good.

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I thought your profile pic was a Cubone for the longest time...

[Bentusi]

Exactly what I was thinking.

I also have a question; why do people who quit because they don't like the game still come to mmo champ and post? It's kk if you move on and feel wow isn't for you. But why come back and still argue? What do you get from it? Just something I've observed lately, lots of professed people who quit but won't actually quit. Part of leaving wow means you leave. Like part if a breakup means you don't keep stalking your ex on Facebook.

Mostly because if we don`t people here claim they`re in a majority when they praise Pokemon WoW.

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About as much as going, "Oooooooh, you said bad werdz!" does. And at least he had a point in those naughty words and wasn't just finger-wagging over language.

And neither was I. Also I had points . Several in fact. Perhaps you should read them.

[Gsara]

If you want to play wow from that time period of the game, just go play on the wow rebirth or emerald dream private servers. Corecraft is also going to be a BC blizzlike private server.

[The Penguin]

Played since Vanilla too OP. Your logic is flawed. I could get Epics the same day in Vanilla that I dinged 60. It was called knowing people.

"Can I come to MC?"
"Sure dude."

-Epic, epic, epic-

[wowaccounttom]

Having played back in vanilla and on private servers, I must say that Vanilla was and was not awesome.

You gain so many things including how to do:

- Proper mana management
- CC
- 40 man raids (if you dont like them, is cause your group sucked) both on live - back in the day, and on private servers, those raids feel just as awesome....actually even the 25m raids from BC were great. After that, very few have been that awesome.
- Frost Shock! and Wind Fury!

I could mention things that I think would make WoW a better game again. The problem is that it is too late. Too many features have been introduced. Too many people have been spoiled and casual catering is beyond repair.

Even the casuals from back in the day enjoyed playing WoW because it took time and dedication to obtain something. Even if it was 1 item. Nowadays, you pay to win and in less than 2 hours you don't know which purplz to delete from your inventory.

Legendary cloak quest was awesome. Letting everyone get it wasn't. Should have taken a lot longer to obtain imo since everyone was able to get it.

um.. dont pay too much attention to me anyways.. im bored, doing homework, watching the hangover iii and its 12am..

[BenBos]

...l. The game is dead and Blizzard killed it. The people presently playing it are the flies on a horse carcass. Things are still going well on the surface but the horse is, in fact, dead. Denial and nonsense will not revive it. Nothing can now. The real truth is that WoW became great and as popular as it did because it was hard and a challenge on many levels. This was what made it so alluring to people, who wanted to try themselves at something truly epic. Whether it ever was I`m sure we can debate, but at least it felt a hell of a lot more epic to down most of the bosses in TBC than anything did in Wrath, not to mention Cataclysm. When WoW became trivial and handed everything, gear included, out for free it became less popular, which is what it is now because it has dropped about 40% of its max subs and never regained them. And this drop coincided with the nerf barrage in Wrath.

Someone should tell this guy that 7.5 million people PAY for it just to be able to play it, each minute in China and each month in the West.

It assembled over 1 billion dollars in 2013 alone and if that is dead, the whole gaming industry is dead too.

And ... you are wrong. Every day a new player enters Azeroth for the first time in his life. I encountered several of them in RL over the past few months even.

The subscriptions went mostly down because new recruitment was VERY hard when all other MMO's went free to play over the past 3 years. This garbage had to change their subscriptions into a free to play system just like a single map iPad game to even attract players.

As this movement is now mostly finished we will see growth again as WoD will launch and the movie attracts new blood.

Your opinion is that from an old war horse that is talking like HE matters. You don't. You are just ONE of many who played WoW and your personal single perception pales to the numbers of present day active players.

That's all really. Your WoW life is gone, others are very much alive. You don't matter at all really. If your feeling is otherwise, you are even more stuck to yourself than you think.

[Deleted]

You won´t get that stuff again, dude, game changed, community changed, get over it, srsly.

[Evilfish]

You won´t get that stuff again, dude, game changed, community changed, get over it, srsly.

Also you as a player changed and that's the most important factor here.

[Voij]

Having played back in vanilla and on private servers, I must say that Vanilla was and was not awesome.

You gain so many things including how to do:

Gonna reply to each aspect individually. Also, since you didn't include any of the insanely massive downsides of Pre-WOTLK WoW, I'll not mention any improvements either.

- Proper mana management

Balancing decision. They kinda failed at it in MoP, especially towards the end of the expansion, maybe they'll manage to get it done in WoD. Remember, it was always their goal to have proper mana management be important, it just didn't end up working often times. BTW: Proper mana management today means watching for spell costs and using them efficiently. Back then it simply meant casting or not casting something. That's a terrible design choice when it comes to proper "management".

- CC

Depends on balancing. Was avoided more than before in WoD, since it can be a massive nuisance. Will probably be reintroduced in heroic dungeons, since people now need to succeed at proving grounds to even be allowed to queue for those. Did sporadically exist in MoP aswell, trash before Garrosh can be horrible without proper CC.

- 40 man raids (if you dont like them, is cause your group sucked) both on live - back in the day, and on private servers, those raids feel just as awesome....actually even the 25m raids from BC were great. After that, very few have been that awesome.

The only reason you could possibly like 40 man raids is because you've never had to be a raid leader... at least not for anything above 10mans or perhaps flex. The only advantage to 40mans was that 5 people slacking off there wasn't as bad as 2 people failing in 10mans, and that you could go and do them with ~35 people, but can't do 10mans with less than at least 9.5.
10-30 players Flex-system for WoD is a massive improvement over the previous versions, though. Way easier planning, handling, pretty much no limitations on who can and who can't join, yadda yadda.

- Frost Shock! and Wind Fury!

Both were kinda meh. Wind Fury wasn't dependable, did make for some fun times, though. [Whohoo, double WF proc. Finally got a kill. Now off to die to the Rogue, Hunter and Warlock for the next 30 minutes until I get another double proc.]

Even the casuals from back in the day enjoyed playing WoW because it took time and dedication to obtain something. Even if it was 1 item. Nowadays, you pay to win and in less than 2 hours you don't know which purplz to delete from your inventory.

That 2 hours statement is probably in regards to Timeless Isle, for which it holds true. That's a catch-up method they've implemented, though, which is a nice addition when the current content is that old, though.
That aside, back in the day, especially when doing 40 man raids, the reason it "took time and dedication" was because there were 2-3 item drops per boss... in a ~10 boss raid. Fully equipping your raid, even if you'd be insanely lucky with drops, would take about 40 weeks... could potentially take about 60 weeks aswell, though. Do you really want to go back to those times? Patch 6.0 lasting us until Christmas 2015, then 6.2 hitting early 2017?

Legendary cloak quest was awesome. Letting everyone get it wasn't. Should have taken a lot longer to obtain imo since everyone was able to get it.

Prolonging it doesn't make it any harder, hence doesn't reduce the number of people who'll get it. [At least not by anything but a miniscule margin.]
Unless they'd have stretched it out much, much further... like collecting 100 sigils each, 20000 valor points, 300 secrets and about 200 runestones. Still no difficulty involved, just that you'd be fucked if you didn't collect everything from the start of the expansion with every char you had.