Has efficiency hurt WoW in the long run?

[Ferocity]

I am not sure why people say early Wow was "grindy"... Perhaps it is them who dislike that gameplay, but it should have stayed. Or, in most compromisable way, there should be an option to experience the journey as it was - unnerfed exp. curves, old talents, etc... Basically give preCata servers, and it will make a lot of people happy.

Heck, make something special and unusual and just make "non-competitive" servers, which have WoD world but old game mechanics. Servers with different rules. Easy way to make people play for longer, by not actually providing new content, but also not by artificially slowing people down by no-fly stuff.

I don't want to derail thread, but I wonder how many would roll/x-fer to server, whose only difference from other servers would be ability to fly in WoD. It might expose obvious game design failures for all their ugliness.

That brings up an interesting question about data mining and the avalanche of stuff now available before an expansion, game or patch is ever launched. Does all of that function as a kind of cheat? Many raiding guilds make their raiders watch videos before attempting content.

For me it was one of the reasons I started plainly despise raidnig. While you pretty much can ignore all the datamined stuff and spoilers and only look at them when you feel missing something, in raiding you basically need to know bosses way before stepping into actual raid itself - by watching videos and reading guides: that's one of main raid guild requirements. So what's the point of doing raids then? Copycatting others? It is like buying new game, printing out Walkthrough (or even worse - watching Youtube let's plays) and following that Walkthrough/lp.

How is it tedious? Oo
You don't even have to joust anymore. Just kill the mobs using your normal spells. ^^

Oh wow. Though I remember there was one jousting-heavy daily, where you had to be on your special mount or you will get phased out.

[Armourboy]

Yeah there is little doubt in mind that not only are players much more efficient these days, but the games has gone overboard with it.

I'll use me for an example because I figure I'm the pretty typical " casual " player these days. I did some raiding in vanilla, a ton in TBC and Wrath, a touch in Cata, up through ToT in MoP, and pretty much one normal boss in this expansion, rest has been LFR. I have the ability to play roughly 2 maybe 3 nights a week at best, usually between the hours of midnight and 7am, start times are often random in there. So while my break up of time may be different of others I only average at best probably 10 hours a week ( and here lately not even that). Having said that, I may not be a pro raider these days, but I'm efficient as hell at doing tasks, generally always have been ( for instance I memorized the fastest path to farm nodes in Nagrand and all spawn points).

Anyways on to WoD. I was leveled in less than a week on the main, took me two weeks in TBC playing several hours a day every day . First problem imo.
I was done with 5 mans in roughly two weeks, think I was already at 622 ilevel by the time I finished leveling. Was done with heroics and was waiting on LFR in roughly two weeks. Think it took me maybe 3-4 weeks by the time it was fully open to be done with it ( and if it wasn't for legendary drops wouldn't of lasted that long). By that time I was already done leveling another alt and had it started LFR. Obviously I could of done more raiding, but with my schedule I'm not doing anything past normal and wasn't concerned enough with the gear to care ( what did I really need it for? ).

I think with the amount of time I have played this expansion compared to TBC I would still be in heroics, maybe getting a Kara run if a guild needed a fill in but that's about it. Definitely still working on Reps and other things. WotLK I'm probably at the point of running heroics and probably a 10 man Naxx run.

All that to be said, I don't play that much, probably spend as much time on here as I do on the game, and outside of a raiding difficulty I don't have time for I don't really have anything I need to do, well other than wait. Frankly that's way too fast if even I can burn through it.


Also I'm one that tends to believe that LFD isn't a problem, the cross realm addition to the point queue times were dropped to roughly 10 minutes even for DPS is more the problem. I think if it was server based it would still offer the ease of use with much much less efficiency.