What is your opinion on immersion in World of Warcraft?

[Gimlix]

So in my opinion, immersion is a big deal on a game.
I have seen old footage of vanilla and i can say that it looks like there was much more immersion back in the days. ( i haven't played, so excuse me if i am wrong) What i saw there was much more intense weather effect, better nights, more dangerous feeling if you enter a new high zone.

So as i want to ask you, has in your opinion, wow gone down in immersion, or has it stayed the same, or did it even go up?

[Aigilas]

yer i've been around since vanilla, a bit of immersion has been lost, due to loss of nights was my big one, but also massive deadly danger, but that ones hard to replicate once you are at max

[Darsithis]

Immersion, to me, is what you make of it. If you want to invest time in each quest by reading them and carefully completing them, especially on an RP server in a group, RP'ing, you've got plenty. If you want to just rush to the end of the game, then you're not going to worry about it.

So I think it's about the same.

[Haselden]

Immersion went up in smoke with the game after WOTLK.

Cata it was still there kind of, but when LFR came. It went dead as a doornail.

[Sliske]

No immersion at all. Players are too busy having to fight tooth and nail like its the new SOPA just to get basic shit in the game such as flying and the reverting of the ability prune

[Deleted]

Same level for me.

[Fullmetal89]

As others have said I haven't felt "immersed" in WoW since Wrath. I guess it's in part due to a lack of good villains and overall story focus. Even in WoD which had relatively good questing the story itself was pretty garbage outside of the starting zones. At least if you follow Warcraft lore.

[twiddler]

Immersion is always there for me when I play these days. Of course, I only do the level grind prior to unsubscribing. When I used to play more liberally, immersion always left after the first clear of every raid or when PvP'ing, where the constant crying or the obvious immersion breaking mechanics make it quite obvious that you're playing the game for competition, not story.

[TheWorkingTitle]

It's only gone down as more and more RPG elements have been stripped away.

[MoanaLisa]

Immersion is partially a function of how long you've played and the quality of the story for me. You're always likely to get mentally involved with something new and less likely for that to happen as time goes on. Blizzard hasn't really helped any with making RPG elements less important over time not to mention where they play it cute with cultural references and the like. But story is most important for me.

[Deleted]

Immersion, to me, is what you make of it. If you want to invest time in each quest by reading them and carefully completing them, especially on an RP server in a group, RP'ing, you've got plenty. If you want to just rush to the end of the game, then you're not going to worry about it.

So I think it's about the same.

You can go out and immerse yourself in a world where running around public places naked is okay, but is the authority of that environment going to facilitate it? No.

It's incredibly naive to suggest that immersion is 'just' your imagination, - Blizzard went from facilitating it and promoting it in Vanilla to practically making it a taboo subject in MoP and WoD.

World of Menus does not provide a suitable environment for adventure, immersion and worldiness. I'm sorry, but you're deluded if you think otherwise.

Immersion is partially a function of how long you've played and the quality of the story for me. You're always likely to get mentally involved with something new and less likely for that to happen as time goes on.

Or it's just that over time, graphics age & the developer's philosophy changes from that of operating an RPG to operating a game where the main objectives are to raid and farm old mounts.

Immersion died with the introduction of LFG/LFR and things like the removal of night time, roaming world bosses and the such.

QFT

[Hotsforyou]

Immersion died with the introduction of LFG/LFR and things like the removal of night time, roaming world bosses and the such.

Edit: Also the extreme class homogenization. Pallies on horde and shamans on alliance.

[Jaspias]

For me, immersion is the single most important thing a game can have, and WoW virtually has none now. If it continues, all we will have is 100 classes with the same abilities just renamed, 100 different raid difficulties including a story mode where you are immortal and follow Thrall while he does everything, and you start the game three hours away from level cap, where you have to log on each day because time gating, and even leveling greens look like epic drops so everyone can feel like a special snowflake.

[Caerule]

From a roleplay guild leader's perspective, it has gone down. A lot of my immersion, feeling part of the world, involves what adventures I can have there with other people. Overall, I feel Blizzard would really benefit from hiring a developer in charge or immersion/RP.

The Cata times had their ups and downs. Phasing was everywhere, making RP hard, though flying and the mass summon guild perk also gave tremendous freedom to go everywhere and interact with the entire world. It helped me run some very great campaigns.

Roleplay opportunities have suffered on the Horde side especially, since then. Alliance ships had an interior, Horde ships don't. Stormwind has 5 great inns, one of which has a secret warlock basement. One of which is a ship.
Orgrimmar was thrown into war, meaning the RP hub there wasn't usable by rebel players.
Shadowmoon has amaaaazing Draenei villages. Vast, luxurious, with everything a living town needs, and much more. Frostfire Ridge ridge and the Horde Garrison are much less amazing. People can't even make use of the Hammocks to lay down when wounded or tired.

The new Shipyard doesn't even allow you to physically see your ships at the harbour, let alone stand on them. And even if you could, all the new ships have no interior, only an upper deck.
Draenor is vast. The story is engaging and even appealing to me. There's less space for actual RP however. Every space has a purpose. Every cave, hidden nook, or hard to reach lookout has a rare to fight or treasure luring in other players. A lot of stuff only looks good physically, but can't be interacted with.

And with summoning and flying out the window forever, I feel less a free part of the world. And am less able to get people to the few areas of use, that can be enjoyed with my fellow adventurers.

So yeah. I'm still enjoying WoD greatly, but immersion is the one thing that I feel has definitely been decreasing.

[Deleted]

SNIP

To be honest man, even if they had a dedicated developer to Immersion & RP, it wouldn't sway the tide enough to make a real difference.

The general attitude from the developers is so, so patently anti-RPG. The best answer they could come up with at last BlizzCon for 'Any plans for improved RP experience?' was 'Uh, yeh we think Group Finder is really gunna enhance it'. Come on. Another fucking menu. Because you want to fast-track finding people to RP with through a menu, instead of exploring the world and stumbling across things. Cause it's efficient, yo!

They don't care about immersion, or worldliness, etc. Metzen cares about story but only because he's writing it - the story is largely irrelevant if the player is irrelevant to the world, and vice versa.

Ion and his team have an attitude that is based around WoW being focused completely on raiding, class balance, and small irrelevancies - they do not give a single fuck of credence to the immersive, RPG side of the game, and they never will again.

I'd classify WoW at this point as an MMOMRG. Massive multiplayer online Menu & Raiding game.

[Peso]

The game is way too streamlined and immersion is far far gone from the days of Vanilla.

[Blufossa]

So as i want to ask you, has in your opinion, wow gone down in immersion, or has it stayed the same, or did it even go up?

Blizzard re-introduces rep gating, like we had in BC and Wrath, in MoP- people bitch.

Blizzard reduces all rep gating in WoD- people bitch.

I'd say go back to gating rep, making professions more personal, reduce garrison auto-giving by a bit, and BAM- you have more "immersion" (aka flushing people back into the world).

They could also add events like GW2 or RIFT has. Give lots of items, gold, rep, etc, for completing them "fast", and have the amount of enemies go up/get harder when more people join in.

Immersion died with the introduction of LFG/LFR and things like the removal of night time, roaming world bosses and the such.
Edit: Also the extreme class homogenization. Pallies on horde and shamans on alliance.

I have both of those classes on either side, I do LFD/LFR, and I STILL go out into the world to bork around.

I think the issue, besides some game changes, is the players. MMO-C whiners all DEMAND to be catered to, meanwhile a good 7,000,000 people seem to be having fun.

[TheTaurenOrc]

I found the mechano hog very difficult to accept back in Wrath. But Twatter integration broke what little immersion I still felt.

[Deleted]

Blizzard re-introduces rep gating, like we had in BC and Wrath, in MoP- people bitch.

Blizzard reduces all rep gating in WoD- people bitch.

I'd say go back to gating rep, making professions more personal, reduce garrison auto-giving by a bit, and BAM- you have more "immersion" (aka flushing people back into the world).

They could also add events like GW2 or RIFT has. Give lots of items, gold, rep, etc, for completing them "fast", and have the amount of enemies go up/get harder when more people join in.




I have both of those classes on either side, I do LFD/LFR, and I STILL go out into the world to bork around.

I think the issue, besides some game changes, is the players. MMO-C whiners all DEMAND to be catered to, meanwhile a good 7,000,000 people seem to be having fun.

'Borking around' isn't being immersed. The issue is lack of incentive or care from the developer - the facts are clear. Check the patch notes from the past 7 years or so and you'll see a trend of decreased focus on nuance, and increased focus on QoL and microscopic focus on the game - instead of tweaking the RPG, they singularly reduced their focus to tweaking numbers, 'balancing' unsuccessfully, and implementing stupid, immersion-breaking routines like daily hubs and LFD.

[Deleted]

So in my opinion, immersion is a big deal on a game.
I have seen old footage of vanilla and i can say that it looks like there was much more immersion back in the days. ( i haven't played, so excuse me if i am wrong) What i saw there was much more intense weather effect, better nights, more dangerous feeling if you enter a new high zone.

So as i want to ask you, has in your opinion, wow gone down in immersion, or has it stayed the same, or did it even go up?

Vanilla immersion was down to a lot of things IMO:

A massive world. (2 full continents that take a long time to get from one end to the other)
Zones that span 10-15 levels, and are next to other zones that are up to 40 levels higher/lower. (danger mode)
Availability of quests that are up to 7-8 levels higher than you. (dangerous and challenging)
All-elite areas in some zones (esp. the ones with quests in) and roaming elites in other zones (eg. devilsaur)
Each character had a myriad set of features and requirements (from complex professions and talent trees right down to the little things like pet food and spell reagents) that really allowed you to get into the RP aspect.
The community played a big part, due to the fact that doing stuff together made a lot more possible. (from elite quests and instances to levelling with friends and helping out with professions)
The slow progress of character speed (from running -> class abilities -> slow mount -> fast mount) was just accepted as the norm, and it did give a greater sense of being small characters in a big world. (trying to revert to that nowadays will just fall flat on it's face though, due to how the game has changed)
It's already mentioned, but night time and changeable weather worked nicely.
It took a loooong time to reach the level cap - often you'd have to bounce around all over the world to find quests to reach the next big level range (for zones and instances)
Instances were long, hard and epic-feeling as a result. (and you could make them harder by undermanning or being below the level range)
The raid tiers all being active at the same time, despite the obvious issues with guild recruitment tactics it still played a crucial part in character progression beyond the level cap.

The loss of all of those over time (anything to do with large level differences were the first to go in TBC, followed by the raid tiers in WotLK, elite mobs/quests in Cata and the rest gradually) means immersion nowadays is pretty much gone. The last time I levelled was MoP and I was able to force a certain amount of immersion by doing specific things (to ensure I didn't outpace everything) but it was still artificial.