When You Realize the Sad Truth: WoW Players Don't Care About The World in WoW

[rhorle]

War mode did the game world absolutely no favors. The playerbase is tiny as it is. War mode splits the playerbase on every instance of the game world into 2 right off the top. So it makes it feel emptier than it should be. It shouldn't be a solo experience and that's what war mode does. War mode needs to be junked. Also, layers is an outright crime in classic. Buy enough servers or internet space to handle the damn load. You've got tons of cash.

War mode has zero to do with your complaint of the world feeling empty. War mode doesn't create a solo experience because you never would have seen those other players without it due to the PvP and PvE server splits. War mode simply allows any server to contribute to the PvP or PvE player pools. Your complaint is against shard technology. That is what limits the amount of players in one instance of the game world in order to reduce server load and increase performance.

[Kokolums]

War mode has zero to do with your complaint of the world feeling empty. War mode doesn't create a solo experience because you never would have seen those other players without it due to the PvP and PvE server splits. War mode simply allows any server to contribute to the PvP or PvE player pools. Your complaint is against shard technology. That is what limits the amount of players in one instance of the game world in order to reduce server load and increase performance.

EVERY server is now split tho. Before, the PVPers would clump on one server. The PVEers would clump on one server. Now everyone is split. It has everything to do with the issue. You can't even use the summon stones correctly a lot of the time as some in the party have war mode on and others have it off. You would THINK that they would make the summon stone area a common spot but NOOOOOOOOOOO they are too lazy to fix it.

[rhorle]

EVERY server is now split tho. Before, the PVPers would clump on one server. The PVEers would clump on one server. Now everyone is split. It has everything to do with the issue. You can't even use the summon stones correctly a lot of the time as some in the party have war mode on and others have it off. You would THINK that they would make the summon stone area a common spot but NOOOOOOOOOOO they are too lazy to fix it.

So? The people that wanted to PvP before still are split. The people that didn't want to PvP before are still split. Nothing has changed accept the pool of players to draw from and the ability for anyone on any server to opt in or out of world PvP. It has nothing to do with your complaint of the world feeling empty. That is 100% because of sharding and how Blizzard determines how many players to display in the shard and what area's have greater capacity.

[Soon-TM]

If you're not finished with all the achievements, collected all the gear/mounts/pets/etc-there's still content. if you choose not to do it, that's not Blizz's fault. For all the faults WoW has, lack of content really isn't one of them. It might not be what you're into, that's a different discussion.

By that logic, WoD didn't lack content either.

[jazen]

By that logic, WoD didn't lack content either.

It didn't lack content, it had content people decided they didn't want to do.

[Dartz1979]

The one thing i do care about the most is my lore characters the women in perteculer i need them to remain alive why? cause every male player needs some fan service.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Correction: Blizzard doesn't care about the world in WoW. If they did they would design their game in such a way that the players would want to stay in that world.

[LazuOG]

Wall of Text .

I honestly think the future of wow lies in uniting the two elements. By keeping them separate.

What I mean is, since wow and rpgs in general are based off pen and paper rp games like dnd, blizzard should utilize the "out of character" function that these games have.
Simply put, Blizzard should design a basic roleplay focussed game and have all the competitive content exist in it's own tuning bubble. There is no reasonal explanation for running the same dungeon x amount of time on higher difficulty, lore wise. I would love for them to make a balanced, social hub type experience for m+, mythic raids and PvP, where gear is less grindy to come by, spells are adjusted to work differently, and your character exists in a bubble far off the recent "world". That way they can design an enticing world system, with meaningful choices and all that jazz, without it affecting your "competitive power" at all. Heck, enable cross faction play for competitive for all I care.

I would really like that.

[Xires]

WoW IS a lobby MMO, my dude.

No it isn't. Not quite. And you can still play classic/classic TBC if you want an old school environment.
Blizzard catering to casuals also hurt the "MMO" aspect of the game as well. Because in order to make it easier you need to take out the "team work" part needed in much of the outside game.
Easy dungeons with auto que's.
4 versions of the same raid and ONE of them you don't even need to talk to anybody.

You aren't going to get that old school MMO back unless you play an old school MMO and even then it won't be exactly the same since it's been played and everything needed to be discovered...has already been discovered.

[Crimson Spears]

No it isn't. Not quite. And you can still play classic/classic TBC if you want an old school environment.
Blizzard catering to casuals also hurt the "MMO" aspect of the game as well. Because in order to make it easier you need to take out the "team work" part needed in much of the outside game.
Easy dungeons with auto que's.
4 versions of the same raid and ONE of them you don't even need to talk to anybody.

You aren't going to get that old school MMO back unless you play an old school MMO and even then it won't be exactly the same since it's been played and everything needed to be discovered...has already been discovered.

Do you play classic or tbc? The carry culture has taken route to the point its rare to find people leveling in the open world, hell its even weird to see people naturally form groups for dungeon at their current level.

The playerbase moved past the open world and given how strong a hold botting and gold selling has taken hold making any kind of challenging world content will lead to 20 man swarms chain farming it.

[ro9ue]

WoW players want to care about the world, but the developers aren't making it interesting. Look at a game like ESO for good outdoor world design.

[TrollHunter3000]

WoW IS a lobby MMO, my dude.

no it's not. It just gives people the option to treat it like that. That's why it's still successful

[cparle87]

WOD had great raids, reasonably good dungeons (although they become pointless soon) and "standard" pvp as pretty much every expansion, what it lacked was world content, and how well that went right?

I'd disagree with the dungeons statement since WoD was the xpac we got mythic dungeons so their gear was higher, we could bonus roll in them, and we still had the MoP/WoD era CMs to do.

[TrollHunter3000]

Nah, that's bullshit. Vanilla definitely promoted socialization. Actually, what Vanilla did was *require* socialization in that it literally forced people to interact with each other and that spawned further socialization. You wanted to join a dungeon group? You HAD to whisper someone and talk to them, or you HAD to create your own group, recruit in chat channels, and whisper back to people etc. who you wanted to invite.

Was it always fun? Of course not, but sometimes you need "pain points" to enjoy the "happy points" of WoW. It's the same concept of kids not really wanting to go to school because they'd rather just stay home and play games all day, but their parents literally force them to go to school anyway, and the kids end up making friends that way with the other kids forced to visit school, and the friendships start from there.

If you give humans the opportunity to complete their goals without ever having to talk to anyone, the vast majority of them will do so. That's why forcing people to interact with other is needed, and frankly not a bad thing at all. We must all suffer a bit to actualize ourselves and become purposeful beings.

yeah because whispering someone "inv" then clearing a dungeon without anyone talking then saying "ggthx" and leaving the group was some high level socialization lmao

[Boddhi]

I play wow every day, and since I've completed the raid and KSM months ago, it's all open world these days. Callings, anima, rares, mounts etc. I see lots of people doing different kinds of stuff as well. Your thread is just another case of drivel usually posted by people who don't even play the game. I see all the usual whiners clapping their hands in arousal to see another toxic thread as well. Just another day at mmo-c alternate reality.

Sums it up pretty well. I care for the world, I like doing the daily routine of farming for something. Whenever I ride through a zone I enjoy the looks n feels n music. I am sure many others do as well. It’s probably the OP who does not care that much about it any more, why else he would expect others to... some like do open world, some like to lobby only, some do both. The game has something for everybody. Whining and stating others do not care for that part the game actually excels in anymore and indirectly are responsible for the bad state it isn’t even in is just ridiculous.

[Luxeley]

There are a lot of Lore nerds who do care about the world/ story in WOW, a lot more than you think. However, they've become increasingly embittered since the inception of WOD and clunky/ spotty story telling. In turn their care for the world in WOW isn't what it used to be and I can't honestly blame if Blizzard going to show respect for their own story why should the fans?

As a knee jerk reaction, I thought your idea was completely moronic, but that is NOT the case. The underlying issue here isn't the lack of respect or affection for the world/ story or lore. Time gating and time synch content is the issue because as long as Blizzard embraces that business model your idea isn't going to happen.

[Lolites]

I'd disagree with the dungeons statement since WoD was the xpac we got mythic dungeons so their gear was higher, we could bonus roll in them, and we still had the MoP/WoD era CMs to do.

CM was "do once and never look back", and done by very small part of players
and mythic dungs were introduced in 6.2, which was kinda late, but lets say they were interesting, for heirloom trinkets if for nothing else, still doesnt change what i said much, what was lacking was world content, and we know how that went...

[Disxx]

I never understood this mandatory vs optional feeling thing ..are raids to you mandatory? What is mandatory in the game at the moment?
Having to do Torghast for ash? THAT is mandatory because you only have ONE way of doing something specific. But what if I tell you I completely ignored that part of SL?

Those things are not mandatory. But people make them. Currently, everything with the best result turns in "Must do". And everything else is ignored or even overlooked like it doesn't exist. Same time, some important parts of the game now are too trivial, like gold. You can get it so easy to sustain your weekly flasks/pot/food/repair needs, that you don't have to farm anything. Just do few daily quests, sell some drops, and you are done.

[cparle87]

CM was "do once and never look back", and done by very small part of players
and mythic dungs were introduced in 6.2, which was kinda late, but lets say they were interesting, for heirloom trinkets if for nothing else, still doesnt change what i said much, what was lacking was world content, and we know how that went...

Gotta disagree again. The only people who lacked for things to do were the "X I don't like isn't content" people. Which is sadly far too many. I've only ever played one toon, and there was more than enough world content to keep me busy. Most people just chose not to do it then did the intellectually dishonest thing and pretended and claimed to others that it didn't exist.

[GreenJesus]

For me the problem with shadowlands is that most of the zones I cant imagine people actually "living" there. The zones just feel so formulaic, cramped, and just "there". I just don't feel like they are places I can immerse myself in. Blizzard is incapable of designing zones like Grizzly Hills where you actually felt like that place is lived in.

Bastion is probably the most empty and "soulless lol" feeling zone blizzard has ever made.

If blizzard wants people to be engaged with the world, the world has to be engaging.