WoW feels like a single-player game now

[Jester Joe]

I'm still waiting for someone to explain the empty open world of retail and tell me with good reasoning how that's good for an MMO. God this is gonna be good.

Is that the entire open world of retail? That's the one zone you need for flying.

If I go to any zone in classic I will see tons of people running around.

Are you really going to try to nitpick when your point is already flawed?

"I see more people when everyone is constrained to the ground and can't fly so everyone's condensed to the same elevation!". That's basically what you're claiming and if you can't see why that's already pretty odd to try to compare to a game where flight is well established, then I don't know what to say.

Along with the fact that Classic is a far smaller game than Retail is. So yeah, what a surprise, less places to go and only one altitude to do it at results in you seeing the player rather than them being 25 yards above you and not in your screen view.

If you played before Pathfinder was done, you would have also seen far more people around Retail, especially when Nazj and Mechagon hit.

[msdos]

Nitpick what?

How is asking me about the semantics of flying through a zone explaining to me the empty open world of retail and how that's good for an MMO?

Literally any zone you ride/fly/walk/crawl/any movement you use (since we're being pedantic about this now) in retail is empty, including Boralus.

Literally any zone of classic I walk/ride into, I will see people walking/running around.

Player count and number of zones and how I'm moving in the zone doesn't even matter, Boralus is empty lol. "If you played before.." Doesn't matter.

[ImpalerEU]

I have been playing for three months now and have not had a SINGLE social experience. Meanwhile I played Classic for a month and can't count how many people I met.

There's clearly something wrong with the design in retail and I think it all has to do with CRZ, sharding, and cross-realm everything. Why do I see random players from 20 different servers every time I log into Boralus? Especially considering I can't trade with them, can't join guilds, can't even add them to friends list, and any of us could be sharded out at any random moment and never see each other again. Why not prioritize sharding and grouping with people from the SAME realm so actual connections can form? This is a cornerstone of the MMO experience. I actually feel incentivized NOT to socialize with other players because it feels bittersweet knowing you'll never see them again.

It just seems like Blizzard sacrificed actual server communities to give us the illusion of an MMO just because they didn't want to merge dead servers because it would look bad to shareholders.

And honestly whichever genius at Blizzard came up with CRZ needs to be fired immediately and blacklisted from the entire industry. What an idiot.

That's why I finally parked my 12+ years old character on retail and retired him indefinitely. Thank God for classic, now I can finally enjoy my favorite game ever as I did when I first fell in love with the game and as it's supposed to be.

The social aspect isn't the only issue. Even class design feels cheaply made in retail. In classic, my Warlock feels and performs like a Warlock should. All classes are unique and necessary in their own ways. Professions are useful and mandatory, pots are not worthless, first Aid is necessary...etc

[ArenaDk]

Heeeey all. I just thought I mention this real quick :>

OP is afamouse troll from the EU wow forum. He reached the point of making so many bait threads that the community decided to ignore him and call out all his trys to use a alt instead of his mai :>

he doesnt really means what he says, so dont think about it to much.

[Mozu]

Honestly I keep reading this over and over again and I'm still not sure what you're trying to say here.

To play on a sports team, you have to go out of your way and sign up for one.

Like...yes, encountering social aspects requires being social. What are you trying to get at?

Sports have a main goal with a side-requirement of being social. Wow has a main goal with no such social requirements. I have done all content barring mythic through addons/queues.

You want the WoW equivalent, go raid, or find M+ groups who are looking for members. They require being social. That's the point.

Hard disagree here. They don't require being social. That's the point.

So you're a bit of an anti-social person in video games. That's fine, lots of people are. But don't blame the game for it, like the OP.

I can absolutely blame the game for it since it was the game that changed over time. It didn't used to be this way.

[Jester Joe]

Nitpick what?

How is asking me about the semantics of flying through a zone explaining to me the empty open world of retail and how that's good for an MMO?

Literally any zone you ride/fly/walk/crawl/any movement you use (since we're being pedantic about this now) in retail is empty, including Boralus.

Literally any zone of classic I walk/ride into, I will see people walking/running around.

Player count and number of zones and how I'm moving in the zone doesn't even matter, Boralus is empty lol. "If you played before.." Doesn't matter.

Yeah I really don't know what more to say here.

It doesn't matter if you're walking or on a ground mount at this point in retail, most players are flying around, so yes you'll never see them and things will look "empty".
If you're on a dead server, maybe Boralus looks empty to you. But this would also be true in Classic, so it's really a moot point.

Try rolling on any medium to high pop server, Boralus is never empty. Your false claims aren't proving a point here.

- - - Updated - - -

Sports have a main goal with a side-requirement of being social. Wow has a main goal with no such social requirements. I have done all content barring mythic through addons/queues.

Then that's on you, not the game.

You had the path that enables social interaction, and chose to ignore it. And you aren't "required" to be anymore social in a sport than you are in a raid. You still have to know your role, you still have to know what you're doing, what your job is, and then past that you could leave the field to not interact with any of your teammates.

If you are actively choosing to NOT socialize, you can hardly go "But the game doesn't require it!".

Hard disagree here. They don't require being social. That's the point.
I can absolutely blame the game for it since it was the game that changed over time. It didn't used to be this way.

Nothing has changed fundamentally. Raids are harder if anything and require more interactions/call outs. Any serious M+ group requires quick communication and planning ahead of time.

But if you're trying to claim raids "don't require being social", I'm not sure what more to say. Interacting with people is already a social situation. If you're going into a raid to be quiet, that's on you for not being social. That doesn't change that raids are social.

[Aucald]

"Game vs. Game" type threads don't tend to produce much in the way of constructive discussion or debate. Closing this.