What kept you playing WoW in the past? What made it fun to play?

[NineSpine]

No it's because all the casuals started to quit back in January due to being treated like second class citizens and now there are barely any left.
Great for the key pushers, awful for the health of the game.

The funny thing is that if casuals had badge gear back you wouldn't have to suffer through dungeons with "the bads" because they would be out doing daily heroics, LFR and world quests to cap their badges and buy their piece of weekly heroic gear.

If the only way to get good gear is from m+ and raids you're literally forcing players to do them even if they aren't fit for the task.

The ultimate irony of WoW is that you could fix most of the game by just giving everyone a reasonable path to BiS gear, but that simple thing, which hurts high end players in no way, results in incredible screeching fits from the high end players.

[potis]

No it's because all the casuals started to quit back in January due to being treated like second class citizens and now there are barely any left.
Great for the key pushers, awful for the health of the game.

The funny thing is that if casuals had badge gear back you wouldn't have to suffer through dungeons with "the bads" because they would be out doing daily heroics, LFR and world quests to cap their badges and buy their piece of weekly heroic gear.

If the only way to get good gear is from m+ and raids you're literally forcing players to do them even if they aren't fit for the task.

What other people do in game doesnt affect me, i have my bubble of people that are good enough to do the irrelevant difficulty content without much hussle.

Having a discussion once more about a nostalgia system about badge gear, is also irrelevant, you can literally do a +5 in 30mins and get your "badge" weekly gear as you describe it, the only problem isnt the way you get it, its the fact its not the max ilvl , and you must get the max ilvl otherwise it doesnt matter, aka spoilt players, despite the fact you never got any relevant item for badge gear, neither a weapon, neither some decent trinket, or anything like that.

You never got "good gear" as you call it in the past, you got it delayed, same as it is exactly now, the only thing that changed is that now you cant do trivial content x 500 times, you literally have to do trivial content and actually turn your monitor on 1 time.

[Doffen]

Same as now, raids, social and fun. Though I am tired of the game, of WoW, not the expansion. Thats life. Sooo many other games to play.

If it was BfA now I would have unsubbed. Shame SL came after.

[Awfulist]

What has made me keep playing? Once was forgetting to cancel my sub and going "meh, may as well" another was "meh, nothing else to do" right now it's a "meh, nothing else to do" I have too much time invested to jump ship for another mmo. If I don't play WoW, I won't be playing anything at all, so again I sayith "meh, may as well"

[Myradin]

Both times have quite have largely been tied to being unable to raid. The first because I left one guild and the new guild fell apart, and the second because the guild I joined's raid times really didn't work out for me, and I didn't feel like going guild hunting since all my friends were in one guild.

I'm not sure how to bring the community ever since group finder was created. If anyone is playing BC Classic right now, any thoughts on what Blizz can do? More world events that bring people together?

Group finder isn't really the issue. FF14 is pretty much built around its group finder at this point, and there's a lot more of a sense of a community.

I'm not quite sure how it does it.

[Soon-TM]

WoW is boring without a guild.

Not only boring, but also nigh unplayable, especially for a DPS toon. Unless, I suppose, you are a superb player or engage in P2W schemes boosting.

[Andonais]

The unknown adventure and rpg feeling its all meta gamed out now, classes and customisation is tamed and restrained and homogenised into the triumvirate to balance more than class fantasy.

[Soon-TM]

Both times have quite have largely been tied to being unable to raid. The first because I left one guild and the new guild fell apart, and the second because the guild I joined's raid times really didn't work out for me, and I didn't feel like going guild hunting since all my friends were in one guild.



Group finder isn't really the issue. FF14 is pretty much built around its group finder at this point, and there's a lot more of a sense of a community.

I'm not quite sure how it does it.

Group finder would be OK if it was server-only. Alas, we can't have that, since there are so many dead servers that players there would be SoL, even with all that 'linked servers' BS.

[arucado3]

Allright ill go in to this, i'll explain why Wotlk and Mop, i didnt play legion so ill just point on these :

Wotlk:

- The game basically was completely new for me, so the sense of discovering and exploring the world was absolutely overwhelming, and everything that came along with it.
- The class design and gameplay was super fun and engaging.
- Lore was 10/10, ost, zone design etc.
- The community was awesome, being this probably the most important aspect of the game, it actually made the things you obtained ingame to mean something, even if they didn't.
- Achievement system was new, arena was fun as hell, everything was new as i pointed before, most people around you were noobs so that made everything fun.


In the other hand, MoP. I played mop with an insane amount of hours in my back, so i think this is more interesting to read , why it was so good (or... why it was so good for me):

- I was a teenager.
- Class design was the best ever made in the game, along with wotlk.
- The incentives to play were huge, example, the challenge mode gold of dungeons (were the first mythics) rewarded you with an awesome looking set designed for each class.
- Raids, maps and zones were cool.
- PVP COMMUNITY. This was the biggest in this expansion, specially in 5.4. The arena / rbg bracket was incredibly alive, and the rewards were awesome. Chasing the +2.2 (aka red blood enchant), the 2500 gladiator tabards, and the pvp titles were cool af. I had many many friends playing and the competition was huge. I even remember watching the blizzcon tournaments at the time.


For me, after Wotlk the game changed, and rather than immersion and discovery i focused on competitive PVP and PVE(in cataclysm), it was still fun, pretty much because of the community. I never played Legion but i have the impression that it was kinda like MoP in that sense. I quit in WoD because the community was completely obliterated (idk if it was becase of the garrison...), thing is, the game doesn't feel the same anymore...

[Dzonathan]

Honest question, what was different back then, before most of these systems and grinds came in to play?

There was no time gating beyond raid lockouts.
You wanted to see if you could grind out exalted reputations in a single day? Put on a tabard and go knock yourself out in Dungeon Finder.

There was deterministic gearing.
You wanted to deck yourself out in BiS pre-raid for the current tier? Hit Dungeon Finder and go knock yourself out until you farm all the emblems you need.

There was no bread crumbs feeding.
You wanted to min-max your character? You didn't had to chase stars in Korthia to tiny amounts of currency in order to buy a single random conduit after entire day (Ofcourse the BiS conduits for the spec you play most tend to get upgraded last after all the others you dont use get upgraded first. Totally a coincidence). Or a single gem socket after a week of grinding.

There were no developers on twitter who acted like they were my parents trying to teach me morality.
Instead we had Ghostcrawler who, while flawed, was willing to talk and justify game design decisions which made us more accepting of them.

[Adamas102]

Well, until SL I had enjoyed playing alts, being able to gear them to a comfortable ilvl through casual play, and having a good amount of cosmetics and mounts to collect.

SL has completely killed that. The way the zones are cut off from each other is one of several reasons why the leveling process this expansion has felt excruciating. WQ ilvl is abysmal this expansion and the anima grind is one of the least alt friendly systems this game has ever had.

[Relapses]

WQ ilvl is abysmal this expansion and the anima grind is one of the least alt friendly systems this game has ever had.

That's intentional. Blizzard wants you to raid or do M+ to get better quality gear.

[Echocho]

The ultimate irony of WoW is that you could fix most of the game by just giving everyone a reasonable path to BiS gear, but that simple thing, which hurts high end players in no way, results in incredible screeching fits from the high end players.

Yup. "Mine! MINE! Nobody else can have it!"

[Recovery]

I'm not sure how to bring the community ever since group finder was created. If anyone is playing BC Classic right now, any thoughts on what Blizz can do? More world events that bring people together?

This is the biggest killer.

Wow thought they were making the game more accessible by creating the LFG. However, what they did was take away any need to have a community amongst more casual players. If you're not riading mythic at least semi-seriously, there is no need to even be in a guild. For the majority of WoW players, id venture to say that there is no community. It may be easier to find groups, but there is no reason to keep me in the world anymore other than FOMO and forced grinds for player power, which i despise.

I miss the times where raid time would end and i would run around Org for 3 extra hours just chatting with the homies. This hasnt been the case in basically a decade.

Log in, hit up lfg, profit, log off.

[NineSpine]

This is the biggest killer.

Wow thought they were making the game more accessible by creating the LFG. However, what they did was take away any need to have a community amongst more casual players. If you're not riading mythic at least semi-seriously, there is no need to even be in a guild. For the majority of WoW players, id venture to say that there is no community. It may be easier to find groups, but there is no reason to keep me in the world anymore other than FOMO and forced grinds for player power, which i despise.

I miss the times where raid time would end and i would run around Org for 3 extra hours just chatting with the homies. This hasnt been the case in basically a decade.

Log in, hit up lfg, profit, log off.

I used to think this. Then I played FF14 and realized that you can have all of the modern convenience features of wow and still have a great community.

- - - Updated - - -

What other people do in game doesnt affect me, i have my bubble of people that are good enough to do the irrelevant difficulty content without much hussle.

Having a discussion once more about a nostalgia system about badge gear, is also irrelevant, you can literally do a +5 in 30mins and get your "badge" weekly gear as you describe it, the only problem isnt the way you get it, its the fact its not the max ilvl , and you must get the max ilvl otherwise it doesnt matter, aka spoilt players, despite the fact you never got any relevant item for badge gear, neither a weapon, neither some decent trinket, or anything like that.

You never got "good gear" as you call it in the past, you got it delayed, same as it is exactly now, the only thing that changed is that now you cant do trivial content x 500 times, you literally have to do trivial content and actually turn your monitor on 1 time.

If what other people do in game doesn't affect you, I'm sure you will not complain if they give everyone a path to BiS gear.

[Paperfox]

1. Like many other people, my main reason was playing with RL friends.
2. There was always something to do which was usually fun, and after spending an hour or so, I felt I got my toon something out of it.
3. Having paths to better gear, even for people like me who didn't do the big 3 activities. Even in BfA WQs would give you better gear. 5 item levels wasn't much but it was something.
4. There were multiple paths, if you didn't like a particular zone, you could avoid it. Buying honey at the AH was a viable method of getting the Alliance bee mount.

In SL they replaced fun with friction, reduced multiple paths into a single track. Added complexity, currencies on currencies, grinds, reps. It's almost like they didn't want us playing so they told us to go away as loud as they could.

[Soon-TM]

Yup. "Mine! MINE! Nobody else can have it!"

I read that and couldn't but think of good ol' 'You no get CANDLE!!'. Because that's how gear puritans look with their attitude

[Femininity]

The ultimate irony of WoW is that you could fix most of the game by just giving everyone a reasonable path to BiS gear, but that simple thing, which hurts high end players in no way, results in incredible screeching fits from the mediocre manchildren.

Obligatory FTFY

Some adult toddlers I played with had hang-ups about "casuals" having a similar relative character power level, but were in the minority. For the guilds I raided with, gearing was little more than a formality; just another hurdle on the path to boss kills. Gear is far more important to players who need a statistical advantage to overcome their skill discrepancy.

[Relapses]

Obligatory FTFY

Some adult toddlers I played with had hang-ups about "casuals" having a similar relative character power level, but were in the minority. For the guilds I raided with, gearing was little more than a formality; just another hurdle on the path to boss kills. Gear is far more important to players who need a statistical advantage to overcome their skill discrepancy.

Those unreasonable manchildren with this weird idea that the best gear at the game should come from the most difficult content. How dare there be commensurate rewards for commensurate content! Everybody should be equal in a video game!!!

[Zantos]

When I had options that were fun to do. During legion, it was fun to try and farm artifact appearances. Even more so on a druid since it changed their whole look for feral and guardian.

MoP final isle is a prime thing I did for countless hours. Easy place to maneuver, yet had no flying. Didn't need it. The zone itself wasn't annoyingly designed and had all kinds of secrets, puzzles and treasures.

They basically need things like that. Unique transmogs, pets, toys and hidden fun things that are optional and can be done solo. Oh, and to not design the areas like a hot mess. The more annoying it is to traverse (lots of enemies with daze. Hills just Everywhere), the better.