What drove you away from WoW?

[But I Hate You All]

Um the cash shop has been around for years....... with cosmetic mounts and pets and now you leave because of cosmetic helms......that just sounds dumb. At least pets can help you win pet battle in game and the mounts count towards your 200 mount achieve, the helms do absolutely nothing, if you were gonna quit over this you should have quit years ago when they started selling the mounts and pets. Seriously it still boggles my mind how stupid people are getting over these helms, it is in no way different than anything they have sold before, they affect gameplay even less than ANYTHING else in the store.

I really did not like The Xp potion and announcement of faster charms for real life $. The Xmog helms are just another step in that direction. I personally do not think micro transactions belong in a sub based game. The Short version is this I do not agree with what the company is doing so I am voting with my wallet. Its their game they can do whatever they want with it but that does not mean I have to give them my 15 bucks a mo.

[Gheld]

I just stopped finding the storyline very compelling. It was great up until Firelands. I felt like only having Firelands didn't adequately wrap up the elemental planes aspect of the storyline. I came back for the end of Cata and I liked most of the raid and the 5 mans but I felt cheated by the Deus Ex Machina end of Deathwing.

It just felt really lazy.

Then I tried out MoP and it was good, but I just couldn't get back into the mindset. I also just didn't find the story all that compelling.

[Coombs]

Hate to bust your fucken bubble but wow has and always will be casual. That was one of its major selling points.

You think Vanilla or TBC was hard go play Everquest. So tired of people saying "OOO WOW IS CASUAL NOW UNLIKE BEFORE" if you got a reason you quit fine state it but if that is the reason then you really need to dig deeper because was has and always will be the most Casual MMO.

"Casual" isn't this A or B distinction. Everyone lets the term define a different form to validate or invalidate any opponents argument. Approachable is what I guess you are going for? Everquest was beyond a level of hardcore than what anyone in WoW beta could ever hope to experience. But that doesn't mean that there hasn't been a shift. The approachable nature that Vanilla had was that WoW could play on such a wide variety of systems, and for the most part run well. That was rare for the dial up days and tech that EQ had on release. So fewer people could even play the game. Now I will agree that EQ had severe time sinks and punishments for death etc. I could write a novel on my time in EQ and what a real hardcore mmo was. I, however, distinctly remember playing Vanilla WoW - MoP and the game has changed. In the beginning WoW gave the players tools to explore the world and to engage in raiding and PvP. Some of the specs were broken. Well, most were. I remember blessing of kings being in the Ret talent tree, and I think consecration as well. Each expansion they have improved on areas but they have also gone from an MMO standpoint where the world was there to explore, to a standpoint that everyone should see everything, no matter the skill or commitment. And that does slip into the realm where it is far too "casual". Things should be rare in MMO's. Some rarity should come from skill, or time dedication, but it shouldn't be so easy that it feels like a console game.

The biggest change from EQ to WoW was that you could solo from 1-60. In EQ if you were not the right class you had to group from 13(?) on. That was EQ's main approachable downfall I feel. Wow has visibly changed from how it was for many years, where a lot of the veterans really placed their roots. So don't pretend that by saying it was casual, means that it has always been the same.

[Theendgamelv3]

A car with clowns D=.

[Raxis]

once I realized that Blizzard had sold out.

They no longer care about making a good game, just one that makes the biggest profit. Not that I blame them; if someone came to me with buckets of money I would do the same....still I miss the old WoW, good times were had.

[ThunderPussy]

once I realized that Blizzard had sold out.

They no longer care about making a good game, just one that makes the biggest profit. Not that I blame them; if someone came to me with buckets of money I would do the same....still I miss the old WoW, good times were had.

You talk like this company never made a game with the intention of making money....

You must have no clue why a company makes a game....

[Coombs]

You talk like this company never made a game with the intention of making money....

You must have no clue why a company makes a game....

You can clearly see sometimes when a company shifts from having a passion for making good games, to having a passion for selling 12 million copies of a shitty game.

[llubtoille]

As an alliance player, the effects of cata on azeroth had me lose a lot of interest in the world - ie. southshore, darkshore, ashenvale, westfall were given a rather hopeless vibe and generally destroyed what were varyingly beautiful places. What was familiar was mostly gone, while the replacement felt streamlined and kinda depressing.
Then towards the end of cata a friend I raided with moved overseas and couldn't play so raiding became less of an option, that pretty much broke the camels back for me.

[ThunderPussy]

You can clearly see sometimes when a company shifts from having a passion for making good games, to having a passion for selling 12 million copies of a shitty game.

\

You can clearly see when a company attempts to make money off of their new player base willing to spend said money. Since I still ONLY HAVE TO SPEND 15 DOLLARS A MONTH to enjoy the core part of the game I will move on with my life.

[Raziella]

At the beginning of Cata, when 25 man raiding declined and my guild broke up, having to write job applications for guilds and do phone interviews was what drove me away.
Especially when that would ultimately lead to paying to transfer servers, and spend time as a "trial" who was treated like crap.

Basically, the fact that people treat the game like a full time job, complete with performance reviews and interviews, instead of a GAME.

And that, invariably, when looking for a non-hardcore guild, I would find one that would just barely beat normals, and then IMMEDIATELY go into Heroic and beat their heads against the first boss for weeks on end while no one geared up.


I DO also agree that on the leveling side, the general hopeless feeling of the Alliance side, at least, is strangely a huge turn off.

[Coombs]

\

You can clearly see when a company attempts to make money off of their new player base willing to spend said money. Since I still ONLY HAVE TO SPEND 15 DOLLARS A MONTH to enjoy the core part of the game I will move on with my life.

Moving on with your life and how much you have to pay for a game has nothing to do with a companies motivation for producing a product.

[leviathonlx]

At the beginning of Cata, when 25 man raiding declined and my guild broke up, having to write job applications for guilds and do phone interviews was what drove me away.
Especially when that would ultimately lead to paying to transfer servers, and spend time as a "trial" who was treated like crap.

Basically, the fact that people treat the game like a full time job, complete with performance reviews and interviews, instead of a GAME.

And that, invariably, when looking for a non-hardcore guild, I would find one that would just barely beat normals, and then IMMEDIATELY go into Heroic and beat their heads against the first boss for weeks on end while no one geared up.


I DO also agree that on the leveling side, the general hopeless feeling of the Alliance side, at least, is strangely a huge turn off.

Yea I always loved the guilds that take weeks to down normal modes than want to spend 2 of the 3 raid nights smashing their head against the wall for a hard mode. Feels like every guild now days thinks they need to dive head first into hard modes the moment they can.

[Maxilian]

My computer sucks... so i can't play... i have more than one year without playing D:

[HeedmySpeed]

It's really astounding at how many people parrot the phrase.
"WoW has always been casual."

Just a nice big blanket and vague term without explaination other than other MMO's were harder.

Just because other MMOs were more hardcore doesn't mean WoW was not hardcore.
I do believe HWL wasn't obtainable if you had a 9-5 job?
I do believe it took longer to get your tier sets with 2 item drops per boss?
I do believe rogues had to use reagents for poisons?

There were a metric fuckton of hardcore elements to WoW back then there are today.

[Omniscient]

Increasingly bad PvP is what drove me away, since MoP came out I've been unable to find PvP enjoyable on my main and even alts. BGs, arena mostly, no longer fun. Raiding just isn't enough for me to justify playing, so it drove me away. Talking more max level than anything, but on the subject of PvP.. Low level PvP is terrible as well, so all levels of PvP in this game are just not fun anymore. Haven't played in well over 5 months, and probably won't be any longer especially of the Blizzards WoW store goes through with more than just cosmetic items for real money.

[Coombs]

It's really astounding at how many people parrot the phrase.
"WoW has always been casual."

Just a nice big blanket and vague term without explaination other than other MMO's were harder.

Just because other MMOs were more hardcore doesn't mean WoW was not hardcore.
I do believe HWL wasn't obtainable if you had a 9-5 job?
I do believe it took longer to get your tier sets with 2 item drops per boss?
I do believe rogues had to use reagents for poisons?

There were a metric fuckton of hardcore elements to WoW back then there are today.

Whoa whoa! Don't dismantle their only response so easily!

[ScottsdaleHokie]

Boredom, and the game became World of Queuecraft.

[painweaver]

The story writing is so terrible now, it's probably some of the worst in the industry atm, which is sad because it used to be epic. Also it's not about experiencing the "world" anymore. It's a race to level cap so you can grind dailies and have a bank full of purples and legendaries, i.e., they gave out so many carrots that they ran out of things to put on the end of the stick.

[Adamas102]

The already played out their two most interesting characters (Arthas and Illidan).

[Coombs]

The already played out their two most interesting characters (Arthas and Illidan).

Arthas was a let down unfortunately. Mainly just because of how his loot worked.