Who lost its soul? Veteran Players or the Game?

[TheLucky1]

Many of the older players are salty/mad because they don't understand a simple concept.

It is normal to lose interest in something over time.
Even when you take pauses from time to time and the devs try to change it up every so often, in it's heart this is still the same game and the above stated is absolutely normal.

So instead of letting it go they are overly critical trying to find flaws everywhere and since it's anyways pretty meta to bash the big companys... yeah.

[ThrashMetalFtw]

thats literaly imposible,i loved the game in classic,but now i cant stand it,sure i got some nostalgia...but its not the same,not even close

its both really,the game has changed from the time we fell in love with it,and we cant recreate those feelings all these years later

So you just explained it yourself. You changed, Classic didn't.

[deenman]

So you just explained it yourself. You changed, Classic didn't.

well,to be fair classic did change

[Kehego]

well,to be fair classic did change

Not as much as you'd think. You still got the classic experience if you wanted it.

[deenman]

Not as much as you'd think. You still got the classic experience if you wanted it.

yeah but,in my original post i ment the game over the years changing,and me not feeling in classic as i did in vanila,thats why i said its both

[Big Thanks]

It's difficult to stay as enthusiastic about a game after 10-15 years than when you first start up with it. Very few can do that. It has nothing to do with soul or any crap like that. It's just human nature that things get old after a bit. Frankly, for most casual players, the game hasn't changed all that much since vanilla with one exception which I'll get to. I know people will react in horror to that but WoW is instantly recognizable, the world looks better but pretty much the same, there are more races and classes but all of the old ones are still there.

The one exception: classes and specs. If you learned the game one way and then come back to it some distant time later and everything is way different, a lot of people are going to poke at it and then say no, no thanks. So that's a hard thing. Leave classes/specs static and it would be insufferable after a few years. Change them all the time and a lot of people won't much enjoy their experience when they return.

Cost is another thing. So is getting older and just moving on to things like family, work and other stuff. These things are really important to most adults, much more important than setting aside a few nights a week to raid.

So I'm firmly on the side that we've all changed a lot more than the game. You can either deal with that or not. Games, as such, don't have soul. This game, specifically, has become somewhat tedious with all of the math and theory-crafting that goes on behind it. The game is way over-engineered and while easy to learn our asshole community demands that you understand more crap than any casual player is interested in knowing or understanding. So fuck them. Another run through Skyrim is more fun than putting up with that crap.

And boom, another player gone forever.

People generally play video games to relax. Blizzard has slowly shifted away from a relaxing experience to something quite different. Part of this is their preference, part of it is responding to players like themselves. This quite easily explains why people come back at the start of an expansion, level a character, see the sights and log out after a month or two not to return until the next expansion.

EDIT: A few last words about sense of wonder: Come to Arizona and see the Grand Canyon for the first time you're likely to be overwhelmed with "sense of wonder" about what you're looking at. Come see the Grand Canyon every day for 10 years, make a fucking job out it, and your sense of wonder index is going to be about zero. This is human nature. It's natural. It's stupid to imagine that after years and years of living in any world you're going to feel the same way about it as you did when you first saw it.

The only thing that is going to be attractive to most players about World of Warcraft after this many years is story. Blizzard is mostly failing on this front. Storylines are generally bombastic, obvious and rather stupid. The best moments in almost any of the last couple of expansions has been with 2nd-level story lines and characters. A lot of smaller stories is going to have a better chance of being engaging than what they're doing now. Story is very subjective and Blizzard has always assigned it to second or third place. That's a mistake in my view. Story is really now what the game needs to be about. Finding different ways of swinging a sword or casting a spell and the math behind it just isn't what a lot of people are interested in.

I like this new version of MoanaLisa better

When it comes to the story, i fall victim to the "bitter veteran player syndrome" and never read quest text
I would need to re-program my brain to read and pay attention to every single quest about the covenants and the current situation of shadowlands.
Will i do it?
This is the 3rd expansion i said to myself, "im so excited i will read all quest texts this time!"
This is also the 3rd expansion in a row i fail to do it.

I can do it perfectly in other Dungeon & Dragons games alike...and i even feel the dopamine in said games...
Not in WoW...
My brain is messed up...i cant do it for some reason, unless i force myself into it...which im not sure if will result in "fun" or "frustration".

[Laughingjack]

I mean the game was considered baby's first MMO by pretty much everyone in the MMO scene. It was incredibly accessible to a very wide range of players. Many never played a game before tried and WoW as their first game. So saying they tried to appeal to an even wider audience is asinine considering it was for everyone back in 2004. They did, however, make top end activities that required massive amounts of time investments and guild participation more accessible to those with out said time to invest or desire to participate in guilds. Same audience, more accessibility. But that is Blizzard in a nutshell, make games they like accessible and appealing to the masses.

You realize as you say this that the majority of the game has gotten easier right? Sure dungeon and raiding has gotten harder depending on the mode but the world itself is so neutered now that is it clear the bar was lowered.

I never really got the argument that wow was designed around casuals... its the same logic that accessibility is good. It all hangs on one article over a decade old that mentions it in passing and just like the accessibility is good argument the second its clarified people drop it.

Still lets say your right and wow was the super easy casual mmo... why did it keep getting easier?

[Holdodlig]

People who think themself as "veteran" are already lost. It's a game, not WW2. If you have to call yourself a veteran, then it's no longer a game to you and it's already gone too far.

[Kralljin]

While I am puzzled about how professions turned out, there were plenty of complaints how you "must bring class x" and asked for other classes to get unique abilities like Bloodlust. But nice questions, you got us here..we cannot link to a post where somebody asked for that specific change.

The issue here is, if you do not implement virtually anything on Player demand, you cannot behind "the community wanted this" as well.
The game's design has not been up for a popular vote where you can turn around say "you voted for this" after it turns out to be a shite decision.

At the end of the day, the devs hold absolute power over what goes into the game and the players have no power at all.
Blaming the community for anything of what has been implemented into the game is just shortsighted.

The devs set their priorities of how the game should look like, not the players.

players complained about too many buttons

I would seriously read the threads where this was actually a popular opinion Pre WoD.
Like really.

players thought all the stats on gear were confusing and didn’t know when an upgrade was an upgrade

Huh?
The earliest instances of gearing were far more simpler than what we have today.
Get Hitcapped, stack Crit / Spellpower / AP / Str / Agi, that's about it.

Now figure out whether a Haste / Vers belt is better than a Crit / Mastery one.

you would never get full hit,you got your defensive stats to the point where any hit would be a block,dodge or parry,yes druids couldnt do this

Dodge / Parry didn't become useless after being Crush immune, the difference between Blocking a hit and Dodge / Parrying it is still massive.

[Laughingjack]

People who think themself as "veteran" are already lost. It's a game, not WW2. If you have to call yourself a veteran, then it's no longer a game to you and it's already gone too far.

I mean that isn't what the word means... so no

[shadowlandsx]

here's my problem imho.. they keep trying to re-created the game then scrapping it ..then starting from 0 again ,, there have been so many changes over the past expansion its crazy.. you literally have to learn the game over and over and over and over again..some players are still stuck in draenor .. the expansion and the rules and skill are so different every single time.. the only consistency I see is there are always going to be roaches and beetles and spiders and naga and murlocs the game ..everything else is new all the time... new skill new trees new.. way to play your class adding systems on top of systems .. .and horde against the alliance but they even took that way now..

[Ghostile]

Making a good game costs money. Making and reusing cheap shitty repeatable "content" like mobile games have is much cheaper. Also, holding onto developers that actually have passion and want to make a good game costs more than just getting people who don't care and are there for the paycheck.

Surely if the content was shit, wow wouldn't be the bigger MMO on the market?

[Beefhammer]

You realize as you say this that the majority of the game has gotten easier right? Sure dungeon and raiding has gotten harder depending on the mode but the world itself is so neutered now that is it clear the bar was lowered.

I never really got the argument that wow was designed around casuals... its the same logic that accessibility is good. It all hangs on one article over a decade old that mentions it in passing and just like the accessibility is good argument the second its clarified people drop it.

Still lets say your right and wow was the super easy casual mmo... why did it keep getting easier?

Have you ever played an MMO pre WoW? If so you would understand. From the onset, leveling was made to be able to be done solo. EQ required grouping from around level 15 or so early on. It was near impossible to level alone to level cap. Right there was the first nod to casuals.

There was no death exp loss penalty. In EQ you could lose levels and lose access to your corpse because certain areas were level restricted. Meaning you had to lose your shit, relevel just to find your corpse. Second nod.

Rested exp bonus. Blizzard encouraged players to not play all the time with rested exp bonus. 3rd nod.

How about ! and ? above quest givers. In Older MMO you had to /hail /quest and whatnot to talk to NPCs and get quests. You also had to remember keywords and use them or you couldn't get incomplete quests. 4th nod.

Instanced dungeos and raids. No longer did groups and guilds have to share space and compete for boss kills. Each group had their own instance. 5th nod.

How about resetting mobs. No longer did you have to worry about forever lengthening trains of death. In WoW mobs de-aggro'd and rest after a certain distance. 6th nod.

I mean if you don't understand hope that clears things up. As for getting easier it's not really. Most people have access to raid gear now. Starting off with raid gear puts you lightyears ahead of a fresh boosted toon.

Knowledge of the game makes things seem easier as well. When WoW started most were new to MMOs and even vets of the genre didn't know they systems, synergies, nor how classes exactly worked. Took time. As that knowledge grew so did online resources. So we have way more knowledge than we had at the start so it all seems a bit easier now.

Dungeons and raids have definately gotten harder. Even some mobs, normal, rare, and elite have special attacks and slight mechanics which weren't really present in the early days outside of interrupting a spell or moving out of a heavily telegraphed slam.

Systems, spells, and abilities have become more complex as well. We just have as a player base, more personal knowledge about the game and more resources to gain knowledge than ever before.

I think you be conflating time with difficulty. Things do take less time, in part from our knowledge and they way the gsme is designed around rewarding short bursts. Just like may conflate things taking a long time meaning difficult in Vanilla. It's just not the case.

[Ghostile]

People who think themself as "veteran" are already lost. It's a game, not WW2. If you have to call yourself a veteran, then it's no longer a game to you and it's already gone too far.

You may want to check the definition of 'veteran'

[McNeil]

Its a combination of both. Obviously a lot of long time players will eventually get burned out for playing for so long, I think I'm in the same ship at the moment. But Blizzard has also changed the game considerably over time to the point that its nearly unrecognizable when compared to Classic. The gameplay has gotten a lot faster, the story is more about individual characters and less about world building, dungeons have gotten smaller and more linear where they are built around e-sports, raid bosses now have way more raid mechanics where one boss has about as many mechanics as every boss from Molten Core combined. Also leveling is now way faster and people focus more and more about min-maxing.

[Laughingjack]

Have you ever played an MMO pre WoW? If so you would understand. From the onset, leveling was made to be able to be done solo. EQ required grouping from around level 15 or so early on. It was near impossible to level alone to level cap. Right there was the first nod to casuals.

There was no death exp loss penalty. In EQ you could lose levels and lose access to your corpse because certain areas were level restricted. Meaning you had to lose your shit, relevel just to find your corpse. Second nod.

Rested exp bonus. Blizzard encouraged players to not play all the time with rested exp bonus. 3rd nod.

How about ! and ? above quest givers. In Older MMO you had to /hail /quest and whatnot to talk to NPCs and get quests. You also had to remember keywords and use them or you couldn't get incomplete quests. 4th nod.

Instanced dungeos and raids. No longer did groups and guilds have to share space and compete for boss kills. Each group had their own instance. 5th nod.

How about resetting mobs. No longer did you have to worry about forever lengthening trains of death. In WoW mobs de-aggro'd and rest after a certain distance. 6th nod.

I mean if you don't understand hope that clears things up. As for getting easier it's not really. Most people have access to raid gear now. Starting off with raid gear puts you lightyears ahead of a fresh boosted toon.

Knowledge of the game makes things seem easier as well. When WoW started most were new to MMOs and even vets of the genre didn't know they systems, synergies, nor how classes exactly worked. Took time. As that knowledge grew so did online resources. So we have way more knowledge than we had at the start so it all seems a bit easier now.

Dungeons and raids have definately gotten harder. Even some mobs, normal, rare, and elite have special attacks and slight mechanics which weren't really present in the early days outside of interrupting a spell or moving out of a heavily telegraphed slam.

Systems, spells, and abilities have become more complex as well. We just have as a player base, more personal knowledge about the game and more resources to gain knowledge than ever before.

I think you be conflating time with difficulty. Things do take less time, in part from our knowledge and they way the gsme is designed around rewarding short bursts. Just like may conflate things taking a long time meaning difficult in Vanilla. It's just not the case.

The game is easier from new ui elements... man why not stop when your ahead?

WoW had a more forgiving death system then most mmo's at the time but that is really the limit to its claim to fame as the casual mmo.

Hell casual wasn't even a term really till tbc. It used to be you either sucked at the game or your didn't.

[RemasteredClassic]

Game lost its soul, no doubt. They stopped focusing on fun, story, challenge and uniqueness and started introduced multiple difficulties to everything ruining it all. Attunements should be brought back in the form of epic quest lines to tell the story, get rid of rep grinds for unlocking content.

LFR, Normal, Heroic, Mythic, Mythic+....if anything needs a squish, it is THIS.

Should be story mode & normal mode for raids & dungeons. Keep all raids playable at the cap level of the game so people don't run out of raids to do. Don't render old raids useless. Create multi-boss encounters similar to the anniversary event.

Multiple difficulties remove meaning to the lower difficulty and leave no reason to do higher difficulties because you've already seen it. Gear grinding is POINTLESS and NO FUN. Nobody cares about mounts & titles anymore either because they have been flooded with them. Lost their meaning too.

[Ghostile]

Attunements should be brought back, get rid of rep grinds for unlocking content. .

Well ain't that a paradox.

The reasoning for multiple difficulties is simple. When faced with a challenge, people quit faster than they get better.

[Beefhammer]

The game is easier from new ui elements... man why not stop when your ahead?

WoW had a more forgiving death system then most mmo's at the time but that is really the limit to its claim to fame as the casual mmo.

Hell casual wasn't even a term really till tbc. It used to be you either sucked at the game or your didn't.

Ok you you just want to ignore facts to for your narrative. WoW was absolutely created be a casual MMO with a very broad sense of appeal. I've laid out why it was casual, and why it seems easier today. You can live in your own little world where facts don't matter. But the truth isn't was always an easy game.

[Liftinmammals]

I’d say both. By now if you’ve played WoW since its early days and are still at it then it’s time to let go and venture into leveling up in real life. I made the choice of letting go of gaming in May of 2019 and ever since then reality has become so much more intriguing and amazing than I ever thought. Having started this game at 15 and now being 28 I can tell you that getting away from video games and this game in particular has shifted my mindset into one of prosperity of life, community involvement, and has escalated my desire to become the man I’m supposed to be through the help of God’s shaping and molding of me.

If it’s one thing I’ve learned through the years of consistent video game usage is that it’s all a waste. The term “if you’re having fun then it’s not a waste” grew stale because we all inherently know we are wasting our time and our life with this stuff. Learn to grow food, learn to hunt, be involved in helping others, get outside and get sunlight, move your body, and become strong and well rounded humans. Not garbage sitting inside wasting your God given abilities that can be used to transform those around you in such an amazing way. Make the change.

You’re stronger than you know.