Negatitivy surrounding wow

[Teri]

These days? WOTLK is almost always topping meters as the best thing that ever happened to this game.

I consider TBC as the greatest thing ever since I was hardcore raiding through it, just because I played through it a 2nd time after 2.4 on a new account(moved from US to EU server), just made it easier, not better.

But I can see TBC was a horrible experience as well if you didn't have contacts or a guild to go through all the attunements, because Tier 4-5-6 was deeply locked away for a long time until 2.4. As well as Resist gear checks still existed, crafted with expensive or raid-exclusive materials.

(2.3 and Zul'aman gear/badges did help a bit, but still wouldn't be anywhere near Hyjal/Black Temple level of gear)




Wotlk wasn't the worst thing, as things like same-realm raids and dungeons existed, and had an end boss many wanted to finally see.

In hindsight it was a hybrid of TBC/Classic design going forward, albeit also continuing on more catch-up mechanics and vendor gear.

It also was an experiment as well on new game concepts like 10/25 raids, hard modes, and heroic modes all shown in different tiers.

I liked 10 man raiding in Cataclysm/MoP a lot more again as it didn't feel like an inferior difficulty, and you also were locked to only 1 raid clear a week again instead of 2-4 in wotlk.

[Ifeanychukwu]

The game is bad in its current state. It has nothing to do with old veterans that are just tired of the game or people that hate the game. People that have genuinely loved WoW for 10+ years are quitting the game because of the horrible decisions being made at Blizzard. I still have hope that they'll come to their senses and fix the game but much of the negative attitude surrounding the game is justified.

[Deleted]

I feel like there's this huge negative aura around wow right now and with all the people saying stuff like "it'll never be as great as vanilla" or "these new players will never understand" it makes trying wow for us new players much harder. At this point is it even worth it. Are new players ever going to experience a wow as "good as vanilla" or is it all just nostalgia and ignorance

Its not really about being as good as vanilla. As a game, vanilla sucked. As an experience, when it was launched, to most players, it was something new and fantastic. Currently, WoW is just going through a really badly designed expansion. It will recover from this, at least a bit. People dissing newer players are just jerks. What does it matter how long someone has played any game?

[Queen of Hamsters]

The game is bad in its current state. It has nothing to do with old veterans that are just tired of the game or people that hate the game. People that have genuinely loved WoW for 10+ years are quitting the game because of the horrible decisions being made at Blizzard. I still have hope that they'll come to their senses and fix the game but much of the negative attitude surrounding the game is justified.

Literally said about every single iteration of the game.

There are also players having played for 10+ years (not that that matters) not quitting and enjoying the game just fine.
100 million + accounts created (back in MoP), never more than 12 million players retained for an extended period of time.

If they don't knee-jerk abandon an expansion (like with WoD), it's pretty safe to bet that their data doesn't match the usual bellyaching online.
@woglofungi: You decide through experiencing it whether the game is good or bad TO YOU. If you'll listen to the community forums (official or fanmade), you'll end up being told to hate every single iteration and every single thing about it, since there's never a time where everyone's happy.

[Ickz]

I could care less what other people think about the game. I personally think BFA is complete and utter trash and the design direction caters towards younger people who don't mind mobile-like/skinner box/rng/unrewarding gameplay systems. It depresses me when I see people say they actually "like" how BFA plays, because, uh, yikes. Maybe I'm getting older and games simply aren't designed for people like me anymore - I hope that's not the case, because the future of gaming will be quite sad for myself then.

[Steelcryo]

Short answer: Yes WoW is great for new players imo.

Longer answer:

As a new player, current WoW is a great experience. Just as Vanilla was for all us old players. That's because the game is new, everythings a new experience and interesting. Once that wears off the game needs interesting things to keep that excitement of logging in going once players stop being excited just by the game existing. Unfortunately anyone who's been playing for a couple of expansions can see that a lot of the systems have taken a decline. Things that should have been great turn out badly because the devs either try and do too much (garrisons) or do too little (warfronts).

So while I think a lot of "Vanilla was the best time of the game" is nostalgia (I played since start of vanilla, a lot of things have improved drastically since then but admittedly some things have gone down hill) I also agree that recently the game doesn't seem to be as good as it once was. A lot of new content just isn't interesting and that's not because I've played too much and got bored, it's just flat out boring.

Take BfA for example, two of it's flagship content pieces were Warfront and Islands. For many both have been a huge disappointment. Warfronts should have been really fun but instead they're just not engaging. They were touted as these big things with RTS elements and huge armies and epic conflicts but half the players are afk, the other half are out fighting and one or two are getting resources. None of which are engaging or particularly fun activities. Frankly I think they should have been 5 man content that really required teamwork, communication and co-ordination to build an army and win.

Islands on the other hand were meant to be constantly unique experiences, random encounters and adventures against amazing new AI opponents. So far not a single island has felt any different to any other to me and the AI while definitely more fun to fight than normal mobs, just isn't enough to make Islands interesting.


So with that all said, from a new players perspective everything this expansion is good. Everything is fun, new, interesting content. For older players, even players that only played Legion, it's basically the same as Legion. AP grind, M+ and raids. The two pieces of content that was meant to make us ignore the fact the rest of the expansion is just a carry on of Legion flopped so I can understand why they think its bad. We don't want to spend another expansion farming AP and pushing M+ keys, we just spent a whole expansion doing that.

So yeah, you'll hear a lot of complaining from older players. That doesn't mean everyone dislikes it though and newer and brand new players should still find the game very fun to play.

[Cæli]

the core of the game is classic to wotlk, maybe pandaria, things on top doesn't hurt anything. who cares if bfa is worth nothing. it has some nice places so there's that.

[Seylene]

They are right to criticize it now it is arguably in the worst spot since WoD. And for many for many of the same reasons, the story stalled and the content was too quickly absorbed, leaving a huge lull. the Azerite farm did not bring the "enjoyment" that the legion artifact system did due to many reasons and they literally shoved a story that's only logical outcome is one of the factions destroyed in a game where the only rule is "One of the factions can never be destroyed." Now personally I am enjoying the heck out of whomping horde in the darkshore events but unless there is follow through even this one bright spot will just end in the same way as "Ashran was fun at one time." WoW is in dangerous waters atm I am sad to say.

[Deleted]

I could care less what other people think about the game. I personally think BFA is complete and utter trash and the design direction caters towards younger people who don't mind mobile-like/skinner box/rng/unrewarding gameplay systems. It depresses me when I see people say they actually "like" how BFA plays, because, uh, yikes. Maybe I'm getting older and games simply aren't designed for people like me anymore - I hope that's not the case, because the future of gaming will be quite sad for myself then.

I can easly tell you that young players are mostly not interested in simple, hollow and mindless games. Look at fortnite. It is very complex fps game and so many young players playing it just like we did with wow back in our days.

[Archmage Alodi]

If too many people dislike it, it probably sucks.

[snackfeat]

I feel sorry for anyone who only just started WoW now. It is a shell of what it used to be.

[Deletedaccount1]

Practically no one is starting to play WoW anymore. I think I met two people in Cata and MoP who just started playing and everyone they knew in-game thought it was really strange to start playing the game that late. People who haven't played the game before just view it as a relic and an expensive one at that.

[Deleted]

The negativity is justified.

The developers dont innovate anymore. Cutting costs, streamlining, analytics/statistics and _arbitrary_ timegating, horrible homogenized class design, etc etc etc.

The saddest part is that it is still very cost-effective and current design will continue

[Naiattavain]

yea blizzard would make tons of money if they just didn't nerf at will. designing and then nerfing is retarded.. the customers are expecting more always.

[Unholyground]

The game is becoming a mobile title by the expansion, and they keep stripping class identity back more and more. There is fun to be had if you dig but BfA content is not where it is right now. I started playing on a Wrath perfect server so I am good until they release classic.

[unbound]

I feel like there's this huge negative aura around wow right now and with all the people saying stuff like "it'll never be as great as vanilla" or "these new players will never understand" it makes trying wow for us new players much harder. At this point is it even worth it. Are new players ever going to experience a wow as "good as vanilla" or is it all just nostalgia and ignorance

Just to point out another option (I know these forums love false dilemmas), but you also have a lot of players that really love the game and are unhappy with the clear lack of effort the Blizz put into this expansion.

WoW was, in many ways, a different game back then. Some would say much better, others that it wasn't that great. Whether it was truly a better game than today is, like everything else, a matter of opinion. Their opinion isn't any better than yours, and vice versa. Same goes for any other area such as movies...you are perfectly free to enjoy a movie that others find pointless or stupid; it doesn't make them wrong and you right, it just means that you'll enjoy what you enjoy.

Now, on the other hand, if you want to talk specifically about the merits of a game (or movie or whatever), that quickly becomes a much more involved discussion than simply "nostalgia" vs "it was really great".

[ceall]

Mostly nostalgia and ignorance really. 80% I guess.
The other 20% come from bad development decisions.

Wow is a great game, when you don't play it alone.

Many people complaining are just non-social. They blame the game for having to participate in group content. In an MMO, group content is 95% of all content. If people want to play solo, they should play the Witcher or sth.

[Irian]

It's people opening their eyes to the realization that the game hasn't been an RPG since MoP.

The game took a tonal shift since WoD that many people noticed but a huge amount of the masses that play WoW didn't see until now, the transition from an MMORPG to a different perspective diablo-style game, with no more specific reward targeting, an intentional reduction in the value of professions, removal of party member reliance, and drastic regression of class complexity.
Demon hunters to me are the ultimate example of the transition between WoW before WoD and WoW after WoD. The demon hunter is flashy, has the necessary spells to have a kind of dps rotation, is a frontloaded burst-based melee DPS with none of the usual downsides and involves a lot of fancy flips and dashes but is overall a very bland and hollow experience with no nuance or complexity the other classes still have, even if just with the barest hint of a vestigial design that's faded in favor of pruning.

Overall WoW isn't an RPG anymore and the people who remained from the old times miss playing an MMORPG. We miss interacting with people, seeing that one jackass on your server in Shrine or Dalaran, seeing recognizable guilds, seeing friends out in the world, establishing connections with friends and logging in every week after reset and getting ready to get that last piece of badge/point gear.
The things that defined the identity of WoW and the way that you approach is has changed in both combat and rewards. To some it may be fine but to people who liked WoW for what it used to be have been just kind of clinging onto the memory of a game that's a shadow of what it used to be.

[IceMan1763]

I STILL REMEMBER the shitfest that was WOTLK lol

Your memory of Wrath isn't the same as everyone else's. The fact that 12 million + people were subscribed at one point would indicate that your opinion of it being a "shitfest" was probably the minority opinion.

I remember Wrath as, bar none, the best time for WOW. It did away with ridiculous and pointless grinds, made skill the most relevant player trait, not time, had far more deterministic loot, and made the game accessible to the masses to the point where Mr. T, Vern Troyer, and Ozzie Ozbourne were doing TV ads for it. Night elf mohawk, LOL .

Heroic dungeons became easy over the course of the xpac, yes, but most people just didn't care because they were really just for newly dinged alts anyway. The dungeons released along with ICC were, in fact, difficult for even well geared players at release. The raids were great, with Naxx being undertuned (or, more accurately, some classes being overtuned) but incredibly fun, Ulduar still being a much loved raid, and ICC also just being incredibly well done overall. TOC was decent for a filler raid. The raids were also difficult. Anyone who says different just wasn't pushing cutting edge content like Yogg 0 lights or Heroic ICC fights with low levels of the buff.

The serious players who were pushing that content have largely left the ridiculous and pointless grindfest this game has become and what we have left is people posting here about "how easy it was" who never pushed any type of serious progression and killed the bosses I'm talking about MONTHS after they were relevant, if at all.

Signed,

Yours truly, Death's Demise

[RoKPaNda]

I for one am anxiously awaiting WoW classic's release and the ensuing shitstorm when people realize what MMOs actually used to be, and why they're not that anymore.