WoW attracting players it never should have

[worsthitmanNa]

The ones where CC is almost entirely ignored and the trash packs are harder than the bosses by a timer?
Not sayin CMs are a joke but they don't seem all that similar to how people described TBC Heroics.

Aoe cc is used and the only thing hard about bc heroics was the trash.

- - - Updated - - -

I tend agree. If people aren't good at an aspect of the game, if they find the game compelling they'll improve. If they're not motivated to see more difficult content, then sure... there should be content that they find compelling, or an approach to the game that interests them, but bending most of the content towards convenience, speed, and accessibility does more damage than good.

It pushes active players into a position where they feel that they've run out of content faster than they should. It makes content 'irrelevant' or dated far quicker than it should. The worst element of the practice is that it simply encourages players to push that much harder for even more convenience, as they quickly adapt to whatever has been changed, and now view it as the norm.

Out of all the complaints I've ever read on these forums about the game, never once have I seen someone say "Blizz... ya know... <element> is really too easy. You need to make this a bit tougher to attain" coming from someone that actually participates in that element. (in other words, the dumb "remove lfr!" statements can be properly ignored here). You don't ever read a comment stating that stats are too simplified, and that something that involves more planning and micro-management be put in place.

Leveling is a perfect example. It's gotten continually faster, more direct, clear cut, and far more forgiving as the game has aged. And instead of players really voicing the idea that perhaps it's time to rethink this, instead requests are for it to be even quicker, or for it to be completely bypassable since it's now so 'pointless' (and that's exactly what we're getting). It will take very little time for players to a) request that the insta 90 option be given to more than 1 character per account, and b) insta-100 given to alts.

There's already no risk, no true decisions that actually matter... compartmentalized "go here, now get this, now go there" routine end game isn't much of an end game at all. When you as a player have no real impact, when nothing has an impact on you, and wins / progress are expectations rather than actual victories, one starts to wonder why it's even worth subbing to in the first place.

I wouldn't mind harder hitting mobs or pulling 1 or 2 extra mobs = dead but having leveling take longer is silly.

- - - Updated - - -

mainstream =/= too mainstream

It was more casual then every other mmo at the time. Wow has been hella mainstream.

[Pancaspe]

Really? I've been around since Vanilla and I would love to be able to buy a lvl 90 so I can skip the quests I've done 10 times already.

Right ON! I have played non-stop since Day One of Vanilla. I have never taken any pansy ass breaks, and I would LOVE to buy four or five 90s

[Deleted]

WoW got so big and popular it began attracting a large number of players who totally hated many of its core gameplay elements. I hear it over and over again "I HATE leveling. I HATE questing. I HATE exploration. I HATE having to interact. I HATE having scheduled raids."

How does someone with those gaming preferences ever find a game like WoW?

Over the past few years the game has evolved to cater to this crowd and as such WoW is basically morphed into a different genre game than it was 4-5 years ago.

I LOVE leveling, I LOVE questing I LOVE exploration, I LOVE being able to interact, I LOVE having scheduled raids

... but I sometimes dislike some of that because I simply don't have time for all that, so TY blizz for making it easier for me to do all that over these years

though my fav exp is still the second one I played, WoTLK

[Gamespud]

The topic of this thread is ridiculous. I'm sorry I didn't realize some people were unworthy of playing this game....

[Deleted]

I'm curious about how many here are really from vanilla since a lot of people claim it in this thread....

About the threat: Blizz unfortanly had to do that to be able to grow even more (as a company) but if you have a good guild which you raid with you hardly see/talk to that kind of people

[Gamespud]

It's an MMO and as such it will attract a wide variety of players. In order to do so it will offer experiences to those players that will differ from what others want to do. If youre too hardcore to stand for things like LFR then just... don't do LFR... it wasn't made with you in mind.

[Tastyfish]

How much of it is ligit hate and how much of it is whining?
All of that QQ can be quelled if people are more socially engaged anyhow.

[Chaoslux]

You can easily spot who is a new player (arrived in Cata or later) and who has been playing for a longer period, like started in vanilla-tbc, wotlk even, or even some mmo before wow.

Those who recently started wow, are those people who happily welcome the idea of buying lvl 90 characters at real money store etc.

You can easily spot who is a new player and who has been playing for a longer period.
Those who recently started wow, are those people that say vanilla was great and they wished it came back because the true story is that they never actually played it and want to see what it's like

This is my opinion, and thus, it is a FACT.

[Jessicka]

Was thinking the same myself. The 1-90 journey now, for better or worse, bears little relation to the 1-60 one in vanilla and it's benefits to current endgame play are marginal at best. I'm wondering what exactly is lost by allowing players the capacity to skip the previous expansions content and jumping right in at the current one. Leveling isn't hard, it doesn't foster meaningful social interactions and it doesn't develop overall player skill.
Anyway , WoW was built from the ground up to catch as wide of a playerbase as possible and the diverse playerbase wasn't some some accidental happenstance; perhaps the scale initially surprised Blizzard but the overall intent was implicit in the original game.

During classic and TBC, levelling itself was a journey; one almost everyone was still on and still enjoying in its own right. I enjoyed it, having come from Diablo and other RPGs where levelling in and of itself was its own reward, and seeing the world, doing the quests were all a part of that, this was normal and expected coming from there, so the question of what to do at the level cap didn't really exist and because of that, it didn't really matter that it took forever, was deadlier etc. The next level, next ability, next quest reward would fix that.

That isn't WoW anymore though, WoW is entirely focused on the end game, and the reason for that is that you're there a long time. And at this point in the game, everyone has already made it. That's why everyone, including Blizzard wants you there, so they can focus their resources there.

[Daffan]

The ones where CC is almost entirely ignored and the trash packs are harder than the bosses by a timer?
Not sayin CMs are a joke but they don't seem all that similar to how people described TBC Heroics.

dont forget invis pots

tbc heroics are way better than the 5 minute fragfests thesedays

maybe it wasnt super hard as it is made out to be

at least it was involving

aoe spamfest while watching porn thes e days

[nocendi]

Those who recently started wow, are those people who happily welcome the idea of buying lvl 90 characters at real money store etc.

I have played WoW since the first alpha phase of Friends & Family, and I have no problem with this at all.

[Lirina]

You can easily spot who is a new player and who has been playing for a longer period.
Those who recently started wow, are those people that say vanilla was great and they wished it came back because the true story is that they never actually played it and want to see what it's like

This is my opinion, and thus, it is a FACT.

I played in Van. I do wish certain aspects of Van WoW came back. I miss the community and overall difficulty of Van WoW. Your lack of credentials and evidence makes me firmly believe your opinion isn't worth a factual backing.


EDIT: I do miss BC and Early Cata heroic Difficulties. It's fun when you feel challenged doing "simple" tasks. I do hate how the gear has scaled. Its almost pointless to see all the time and effort blizz put into earlier raids (of the current expansion) because the LFR gear is easier to get and higher iLvL. I'm not trying to start a flame war but LFR giving out such "good" gear I think is killing the community of WoW the most. It's a hand holding tool, I doubt few feel accomplished about finishing LFR. Like heroic boss kills accomplished. Not, "just get through this" accomplished.

[nyc81991]

That makes for the best business sense, but not for the best game possible.

Generally things that try to be all things to all people are very generic and unspectacular.

Think McDonalds and Wal-Mart.

And that is the difference between Blizzard now and Blizzard in the past. Blizzard use to focus 100% on making the best game they could. Now they make games to try to get as many people to buy it as possible.

That isn't to say that Blizzard doesn't make good games anymore, However they are more focused on numbers / $.

[Falu]

This topic makes me sad...
oh... the good ol' days, they're long gone...

[Lumocolor]

You can easily spot who is a new player (arrived in Cata or later) and who has been playing for a longer period, like started in vanilla-tbc, wotlk even, or even some mmo before wow.

Those who recently started wow, are those people who happily welcome the idea of buying lvl 90 characters at real money store etc.

Really? I've been around since Vanilla and I would love to be able to buy a lvl 90 so I can skip the quests I've done 10 times already.

Ya me too. I started in vanilla, quit about 2 months into cata and one of the best things i heard from blizzcon was that if i ever decided to return that i could skip the whole panda expansion.

[h4rr0d]

I don't think new players are necessarily the ones calling for changes. The game is around for 10 years. I starred playing wow at the end of vanilla (september before tbc hit) and I was 19 then. I was uni student and I had plenty of time to sink in wow while still doing most of my student duties and maintaining social interactions with real world.

Now I'm 28, I got a 9to5 job (which is atually still pretty good for wow playing), I'm thinking of starting a family and I'm still going out with friends. All of this means I don't have as much time to play the game. And since I was around for quite a while now, I feel entitled to request some changes to catter my needs.

[Lilija]

mainstream =/= too mainstream

'too anything' is really extremly subjetive especially in this case. I can't really tell how mainstream WoW is nowadays but since I'm not bothered by it couldn't care less. WoW being mainstream doesn't affect my gameplay at all (don't think I'm that hardcore anymore due to my job but for sure I'm able to spend a lot of hours in game as long as I have some free time). I really can't imagine how someone can be bothered by WoW being more mainstream. How does it affect the more hardcore players? If something it's even better because those of us who were super hardcore back in the day can now still achieve a lot in game with less time requirements (and seriously, someone being able to be in game 24/7 doesn't prove anything good about a person :P you know, it is unhealthy, and early WoW did enforce unhealthy life style if you wanted to achieve something meaningfull)

Anyway, you need to remeber, that WoW being mainstream since day one (always much more mainstream than anything on the market) lead to its success.
- - - Updated - - -

It's been 9 years. People grew up and got more time restricted.
You don't have half the time with job&family compared to high school.
Naturally many welcome any change that reduces time demand.
WoW has to change with its userbase growing older unless they can replace them with new kids which is very unlikely.

True that. If the game was expecting me to spend on it something similar to what I had to spend in TBC I'd be forced to quit long time ago. After playing the game at certain level it's hard to suddenly get so much lower only because you have slightly less time at your disposal.

[freighttrain]

You can easily spot who is a new player (arrived in Cata or later) and who has been playing for a longer period, like started in vanilla-tbc, wotlk even, or even some mmo before wow.

Those who recently started wow, are those people who happily welcome the idea of buying lvl 90 characters at real money store etc.

Vanilla player here and I welcome the idea of buying lvl 90s of the classes I hate leveling. You cannot make blanket statements like that.

[draykorinee]

Reading this thread reminds me how crap it was in the old days and how many people who should never have played it have now thankfully quit.

[Tastyfish]

I see a lot of commentary on what I would call, wow being too mainstream/accessable or w/e, but wasn't the point of the game to not be EverQuest/Ultima Online and what not, which were very niche style games?
Feel like there is a lot of whining like the game would of progressed differently if certain people weren't playing... I don't see anything to make that case valid. It's all conjecture. Who is to say this even be a thing still if it was just hyper focused on one type of people. Prob would be dead by now.