Love WoW/Hate WoW

[Ragedaug]

1) All my old buddies are basically gone or too flaky to really count on being there to build an experience around. I am not pulling in anyone that hasn't already subscribed or might have but have cancelled since. This game has a shrinking audience, not a growing one, and it has become less and less alluring over the years to skeptics. I wonder why...

The audience is bigger now then it was when you said it was it's funnest. The problem is what I put in bold. You either move games with your old friends or find new fun friends. They are out there for you to find if you care to do more then whine about them not being there.

2) I'm a younger man, mid-twenties and all that, I'm on the wrong side with that being the case--at least for my server. Alliance has proven to be often middle-aged folk, family people, and all that jazz. Horde tends to be more my age and it is well reflected in the differing personalities of the two factions. HOWEVER, it is costly to transfer(go-go gadget money-grabber!), what couple of friends I do have are Alliance obviously. Not to mention my heart belongs to this faction. It feels awkward being Horde.

Level a Horde Character from level 1. It will a) save you money and b) give you a new outlook on the game.

3) MoP is great in the sense it furthers the treadmill exponentially. It however fails to really bring anything beyond it. They've had many expansions now to evolve the game beyond just a mere emphasis on progression but it simply isn't happening.

I don't play MMO titles to get basically a larger experience of your basic online FPS these days. I play them to enjoy the world, interact with it, and have experiences unique to that universe. I want it to be more than me logging in, choosing a generic load-out, essentially looking like crap--like everyone else, and pushing my way through repetitive content with virtually no need for true social interaction. Like I said, I might as well play something that has more interesting game-play at least as many other titles in other genres offer a similar experience.

The treadmill has always been there. It was much worse in Vanilla & BC which you have stated were the most fun for you. Currently you don't have to do dailies, you don't have to raid and do high end PVP. You don't have to look like anyone else. Go have fun farming some transmog gear and look unique. There is plenty to do in game that isn't and doesn't have to be compulsory. Unless you are in a raiding guild, why would you feel compelled to do daily dailies? Why not have fun?


I'm going to be blunt, so you'll probably label me as rude as well, but from your complaints I'm hearing that you are throwing a big ol' pity party and trying to invite the rest of us to join you. Sorry, can't attend. Too busy having way too much fun with my RL friends and several new ones met in game while playing MoP.

[Phasma]

40 man raiding was done by the minority of players in Vanilla. So I don't suspect this has as big of an impact as you think. Even now with the very accessable raiding, less then 10% of the player base are raiding in a 10 man guild. So how does this affect the 90% of non-raiders? Also every server I've played on...even dead ones have level 25 900+ character guilds. If you want community all you need to do is find a large guild and you will find it.

There is a reason why they call it the vocal minority.

You must also take into consideration that the majority of players in Vanilla never reached level 60 (or it took them a long time; point is: leveling was "new" content 1-60, and leveling brings people together through group quests... hey, would you look at that? another thing that has been lost from the game). So if you look at it from a max-level point-of-view, it looks different. I am assuming that most level 60s took a shot at 40-man raiding at least once. If you didn't, I'm not sure what else you would be doing outside of farming BRD / LBRS / UBRS / Strat / Scholo for gear to get into raids or doing attunements. Battlegrounds came in a later patch and the only thing outside of the latter was unstructured World PvP or dueling.

My other point is that 25-man raiding (or large scale raiding in general) is no longer viable. Nobody cares about just being in a big guild; it is about participating in a big guild (the experience) and more importantly, the loot. You can't do that anymore. Everything is scaled down. 2v2, 3v3, 5v5 Arenas, 10v10 RBG, 10-man raiding, etc., MMO should not describe WoW at this point. The only thing keeping it from being a CORPG is the LFR, LFD, and CRZ features. You know, all those features that a lot of people hate (or I should say: all those features the vocal minority hates).

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

The audience is bigger now then it was when you said it was it's funnest. The problem is what I put in bold. You either move games with your old friends or find new fun friends. They are out there for you to find if you care to do more then whine about them not being there.


Level a Horde Character from level 1. It will a) save you money and b) give you a new outlook on the game.


The treadmill has always been there. It was much worse in Vanilla & BC which you have stated were the most fun for you. Currently you don't have to do dailies, you don't have to raid and do high end PVP. You don't have to look like anyone else. Go have fun farming some transmog gear and look unique. There is plenty to do in game that isn't and doesn't have to be compulsory. Unless you are in a raiding guild, why would you feel compelled to do daily dailies? Why not have fun?


I'm going to be blunt, so you'll probably label me as rude as well, but from your complaints I'm hearing that you are throwing a big ol' pity party and trying to invite the rest of us to join you. Sorry, can't attend. Too busy having way too much fun with my RL friends and several new ones met in game while playing MoP.

Firstly, you can't invite fanboys to a "party" that turns its nose up at the game they worship. It just doesn't work like that. I also know that the veracious fans of WoW tend to also be the most aggressive, meaning any negative post towards the title often ends with me beating them away with an enormous stick. Curiously enough, this is largely why the game doesn't evolve very much. How do you feel an adjustment or change needs to be made? You listen to your critics. What do you do when your critics are drowned out by millions of adoring fangirls? Nothing, you don't hear your critics nor pay them any heed as your throngs assault, viciously might I add, and with a grand display of ignorance, any opposition in forward thinking.

So please, you're not invited, stay away in fact. I put this post up for intelligent conversation, not for people who're clearly ignoring my points just to take weak jabs at me.

Now then, to hit back on the points you've made like a gracious, albeit annoyed host. My friends are gone and scattered to the four winds. They've spent too much time on here only to be deeply disappointed and don't want to go through it again. At best I'll get them on this or that game, each individual or small grouping having their own new title. Truth be told, there is no getting them back together. Definitely not on an MMO. So us simply "migrating" will never happen.

As for the subject of making new friends? If smartasses like you are all there is to befriend, I'd rather keep to myself. I mean for crying out loud you just casually tossed out the idea of me leveling again, despite all the work I've already done on the Alliance, as if it is just that easy and THAT ENJOYABLE(no it fricking isn't enjoyable for the 100th time) while ignoring the other reasons I'm not comfortable with simply jumping the fence. You seem to have this fascinating inability to sympathize with how someone might feel on a given subject. Simply leveling again is a great deal more investment for someone that's already on the edge.

Now as for the "treadmill", it has indeed always been there and always will be. Guess what I did while the kiddies got their rocks off in the raid content? I was out searching for a fight and making friends in a much more diverse and active community. For me, it was all about making a name, making those connections, and taking it to my acquired enemies. It added life to my experience that clearly Blizzard and its zombie-like fans have completely failed to take into account in future content releases. Hell, they've done everything in their power to destroy that for me. Every year seems a further distancing from community and those magical, organic moments that naturally come together.

Personalize my character with transmog you say? Transmog is an outright joke namely thanks to 90% of the horrendous looking gear in this game. Sorry, that's just the way it is. Until they stop skimping on the assets and give us better gear(see it on NPCs all the time they CAN do it) I'm really not that interested. Tired of looking encumbered to the point my toon is going to collapse from exhaustion. Bigger and bulkier does not equate to a more detailed and satisfying look for your character. I understand this can take up more resources but there is ALWAYS a way, they just don't really seem to care that much. We've yet to even consider the lack of personalizing your class...

Oh and yes, dailies are a necessity. Try making gold or any progress in the game without them. You can't build your entire endgame around dailies and then claim they're not really a need for players to accomplish. To me that response alone reveals you're pretty one-sided on this subject from the start. At least be honest. Give me a response when you have some kind of substance behind it and aren't just feeling up on Blizzard's leg--I'm not in the mood for it. If that's what I wanted, I'd be on the Blizzard forums.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind someone coming in here with a different view or opinion. However from the start, you come across as a fellow that could care less about my concerns/issues with this game and the direction its been going. You simply came into this thread to act like I have no validity in my standings because I'm taking pot shots at the game of your choice... and that's all it comes down to really. In the future if you want to be helpful and actually hold a conversation throw out ideas, experiences, and keep the down talking to yourself. That's all I got out of your post.

[mosely]

The treadmill has always been there. It was much worse in Vanilla & BC which you have stated were the most fun for you.

In previous expansions, Blizzard at least attempted to disguise the treadmills. Now, they attach neon lights to the treadmills, show you how to turn them on, and hope that you'll keep running on them until the next content patch.

My Skinner box is broken. Please advise.

[Deleted]

It doesn't help that with all the technical upgrades, I'm still not seeing an upgrade to what I feel is the most important detail--your own avatar and its customization. I don't like the painfully generic templates you get and I definitely don't like the fact that even the one or two choices you DO like look terrible to much of the world(and NPCs) around it

This I find interesting / amusing, I've been playing not quite since launch, but not too long after - I'd be more unsettled if my character DID change, even if he's an ugly lump of lackluster polygoncount, he's still the face I've had for what, 7 or 8 years now? I think blizzard are hard pressed to upgrade the quality without making it feel like you've woken up one morning, looked in the mirror and found a similar, but startlingly different face.

As for the main topic, you've been playing the game for years - it eventually lose it's shine. The novelty has long since worn off and you need to be deeply invested in either the social aspect or the mechanics of the game. Considering the social aspect has been completely butchered outside of guilds, I'm in a guild that thankfully has a relatively strong social network of friends - so I have that, but if I was unguilded I think I'd struggle to play - though that's partially because the mechanics I'm "deeply invested in" are the raiding ones, so are also dependent on a guild.

There are very few games that will last you as long as WoW has - the shine has simply worn off and you don't seem to have any features left in the game that you want to play, it's as simple as that.

[BenBos]

This I find interesting / amusing, I've been playing not quite since launch, but not too long after - I'd be more unsettled if my character DID change, even if he's an ugly lump of lackluster polygoncount, he's still the face I've had for what, 7 or 8 years now? I think blizzard are hard pressed to upgrade the quality without making it feel like you've woken up one morning, looked in the mirror and found a similar, but startlingly different face.

As for the main topic, you've been playing the game for years - it eventually lose it's shine. The novelty has long since worn off and you need to be deeply invested in either the social aspect or the mechanics of the game. Considering the social aspect has been completely butchered outside of guilds, I'm in a guild that thankfully has a relatively strong social network of friends - so I have that, but if I was unguilded I think I'd struggle to play - though that's partially because the mechanics I'm "deeply invested in" are the raiding ones, so are also dependent on a guild.

There are very few games that will last you as long as WoW has - the shine has simply worn off and you don't seem to have any features left in the game that you want to play, it's as simple as that.

The OP should read the above excellent post and think about it.

You are NOT the center of the universe OP. Your "cycle" is not mine or anyone else. Projecting your views on the game is just that: a personal experience expressed in some years of playing the game.

Then coming back and haul at other comments is really not smart. Talking about "fanboys" is rather stupid when you yourself was such a fan too.

I guess playing one game for 5 to 6 years is too much for X % of the people. Every person has his/her own interest cycle, but the most stupid thing to do is projecting this on other people, as a matter of fact there is one more thing that's even worse ..., projecting it on the current state of the game...

Somwhere there is now a NEW player coming to Azeroth... Today ... Let him/her enjoy the voyage into Azeroth like you did X years ago and don't be such a selfish bitch.

[superbotje]

Still enjoying it, but cut it down a lot.
I used to raid 4 days a week on my main and the other 3 days on alts.

Now (mostly because of the endless amount of dailies) i manage to fit in 2 or 3 raidfinders.
I didn't even manage to level an alt, cause when i'm done with dailies, mostly i don't feel like playing anymore.

I played Diablo III for a while, but got bored of the endless act3 farming, so i came back with MoP.
Didn't care for my main, so i decided to level up a monk. But then at lvl 34 I was still wielding a lvl 15 weapon, cause every dungeon the group had 4 or 5 monks, who all need on the same gear.
So i decided to level my main to get some JP for heirloom weapon. 85-90 i still hadn't gotten enough JP to buy it. So i got stuck playing my main, doing dailies, dailies and more dailies.

And now my monk is still 34

PS. got the weapon using another 85 alt doing old cata dungeons. (but don't feel like playing monk)

[Deleted]

close the door and hope your attention whoring won't hit the whall

let's all stop these kinds of post? getting annoying to see them on my MMO champ forum threads if you quit just quit and fuck off

have fun in gw2 so no offence to you OP in personal , just hate these kinds of thread have fun with what ever u do for the rest of your gaming life maybe you come back for 5.2 , maybe in 6.0 what ever

[Deleted]

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind someone coming in here with a different view or opinion. However from the start, you come across as a fellow that could care less about my concerns/issues with this game and the direction its been going. You simply came into this thread to act like I have no validity in my standings because I'm taking pot shots at the game of your choice... and that's all it comes down to really. In the future if you want to be helpful and actually hold a conversation throw out ideas, experiences, and keep the down talking to yourself. That's all I got out of your post.

He really didn't. He pointed out the friends issue and gave you advice how to move it forward if that's what you really want. He also gave you an idea how to breath some life back into the game with a horde alt. He then pointed out a bunch of things you can do solo and compared the current treadmill to that of Vanilla and TBC.

I'll start out by pointing out the fact that I'm in the same position as you. I only even read these threads in the hope that someone gives me a good reason to play again. I've been away from the game since before MoP hit and am waiting for the nod from the community which suggests the game has changed to suit me better. Maybe you should take a leaf out of my book and just stop looking for validation, stop whining about the things you don't like and stop adding to the spam with these kind of threads.

WoW isn't going anywhere for a few years yet... just go have some fun with some other game/woman/vehicle/drink/drugs/crayons/whatever, you can always return if/when it feels right. It's just a game remember, so if you feel the time you spent playing it is some sort of "investment" then you seriously need a reality check. All that time was wasted as soon as you decided to log into a computer game for hours on end, you can't get it back... so stop dwelling on the past and just pick a direction to move in for your own sake.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

He really didn't. He pointed out the friends issue and gave you advice how to move it forward if that's what you really want. He also gave you an idea how to breath some life back into the game with a horde alt. He then pointed out a bunch of things you can do solo and compared the current treadmill to that of Vanilla and TBC.

I'll start out by pointing out the fact that I'm in the same position as you. I only even read these threads in the hope that someone gives me a good reason to play again. I've been away from the game since before MoP hit and am waiting for the nod from the community which suggests the game has changed to suit me better. Maybe you should take a leaf out of my book and just stop looking for validation, stop whining about the things you don't like and stop adding to the spam with these kind of threads.

WoW isn't going anywhere for a few years yet... just go have some fun with some other game/woman/vehicle/drink/drugs/crayons/whatever, you can always return if/when it feels right. It's just a game remember, so if you feel the time you spent playing it is some sort of "investment" then you seriously need a reality check. All that time was wasted as soon as you decided to log into a computer game for hours on end, you can't get it back... so stop dwelling on the past and just pick a direction to move in for your own sake.

Then get nothing out of the game. Being a passive coward accomplishes nothing, not in this life or the next. You couldn't even acknowledge that the man's very first paragraph goes straight into insulting me so you clearly can't comprehend reading from the get-go to boot.

Continue waiting for something that will never come, partly due to your own laziness in arguing and making a case for the future of this game.

[Deleted]

Then get nothing out of the game. Being a passive coward accomplishes nothing, not in this life or the next. You couldn't even acknowledge that the man's very first paragraph goes straight into insulting me so you clearly can't comprehend reading from the get-go to boot.

Continue waiting for something that will never come, partly due to your own laziness in arguing and making a case for the future of this game.

Lolwut? Defensive much???

Lazyness?!?! lmao!!!!! You are absolutely clueless. Over the years I was a daily poster on the official WoW forum. I posted hundreds of ideas, suggestions and concerns and one thing you learn pretty quickly is that Blizzard don't give a shit what you think if it doesn't line up with their financial reports. The only way to have any effect on a game with so many blind subscribers is to man up and cancel your sub, stop paying for a game that isn't worth your money. The more people that do this, the harder Blizzard will listen to people's concerns. If you don't enjoy the game and yet you keep paying, you are a complete moron.

Several people have tried to offer you advice in this thread, yet you use the same bullshit, defensive/abusive response tactic every time you aren't willing to discuss their points, further enforcing the opinion that you are just a whiny little kid looking for validation.

[Deleted]

I've had several "I can't be arsed with this game anymore" episodes - the last one being for pretty much the whole of Cataclysm as to me that expac was total shite!

But, all I do is have a break, keep up to date with whats going on, and occasionally I might pop my head in and see whats going on. Then I normally get the urge to level an alt or something and the love comes back!!

The game is old - we're in the 8th anniversary celebration right now, so its bound to at some point not be as fun and as fresh as when it was new (if you started in vanilla for example). I agree the community has gone downhill somewhat, but you even say you don't have the same feeling about the game friends and stuff as you had before! - "Now, even with all of these new and neat features I kind of feel like it's all dead. I don't get that same tingling of pride nor do I enjoy my connections and friendships as I once did."

I would suggest taking a good break, hell take break until 5.2 - there's no raids this patch, totally ignore wow, play some other stuff (like CoD as you mentioned) and if you want to come back to wow, pop in say hai and see where you go with it!

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

I've had several "I can't be arsed with this game anymore" episodes - the last one being for pretty much the whole of Cataclysm as to me that expac was total shite!

But, all I do is have a break, keep up to date with whats going on, and occasionally I might pop my head in and see whats going on. Then I normally get the urge to level an alt or something and the love comes back!!

The game is old - we're in the 8th anniversary celebration right now, so its bound to at some point not be as fun and as fresh as when it was new (if you started in vanilla for example). I agree the community has gone downhill somewhat, but you even say you don't have the same feeling about the game friends and stuff as you had before! - "Now, even with all of these new and neat features I kind of feel like it's all dead. I don't get that same tingling of pride nor do I enjoy my connections and friendships as I once did."

I would suggest taking a good break, hell take break until 5.2 - there's no raids this patch, totally ignore wow, play some other stuff (like CoD as you mentioned) and if you want to come back to wow, pop in say hai and see where you go with it!

It's not only old, its just lacks imagination and inventiveness quite frankly. Its evolution is either backwards or in awkward, blundering steps that I rarely find beneficial to the game. What Blizzard has done is essentially turn this into a "quick fix", which an MMO is not nor should never be. It makes everything feel cheap and short lived rather than a drawn out experience that no other genre can deliver. Get on, farm some points, log off.

I love, LOVE the Warcraft universe. It's one of the things that kept me playing. I even buy the novels and books. I own the bloody Monopoly edition of WoW! In fact that attachment is so powerful I'm having a hard time staying away from the game. Currently I am unsubscribed but there will always be a part of me yearning to return to the world I fell so madly in love with. Maybe in time I can find a means by which to get that experience I want, with or without Blizzard helping it along. As for now, it's not there, and the game feels like a chore to play versus its even more difficult and grind worthy past.

Don't get me wrong. Blizzard is a great developer by and large. I like Diablo III and really think Starcraft II is great. Even if I like to say otherwise in one my rage-induced fits. It seems like though, as time goes on, they really should've never ventured into an outright MMO if the current direction was their intent from the get-go. Considering the shifting of developers in the birthing of this game, it may not have been.

I can only hope future content releases address the dwindling community experience and further evolve our personalization so the world, once again, becomes more of our own. Less emphasis on scattering people and streamlining things in other words, more emphasis on the player created experience.

...And yes, Cataclysm was by and large awful. Especially the endgame. I can drone on as to why but I'd rather not. I think out of all the expansions, Burning Crusade was my favorite. Granted nothing will likely ever replace the moments of glee I had in "Vanilla". It's hard to recreate organic movements and causes like we had then.

[Goatfish]

Well, you said it quite good yourself. Tiny bit options to customize characters aka talent trees was removed as also many other things (resistances, auras, keyring, etc.), so game eroded into some soulless gear treadmill, with MoP bringing it to new "heights" with bonus lottery tickets and dailies to unlock PvE vendors and introducing other gamebreaking features, which don't really improve game in any way (e.g., CRZ).

Instead of looking even at it's predecessor, EverQuest, to get fresh new ideas, WoW is trying to do everything in completely opposite way.

Tanks and healers have too low damage output? EverQuest introduced mercenaries. WoW introduced mandatory dailies (let's not derail thread here about how they are "optional", equip your blues and go fight Elegon normal with couple melee if you don't agree), so shield tanks and healers would feel even more miserable. EverQuest has AA, most of them make you to go through old content, Rift got a bit similar idea, in WoW it's always gear-treadmill, and each new tier makes everything else completely irrelevant.

Professions feel boring? EverQuest II offered professions as one of alternatives in progressing your chars. WoW? Aside from professions' passives, they are primitive and useless. World feels "empty" and unwanted? EQ introduced hotzones. WoW? Introduced CRZ... Old zones look inconvenient for new players? EQ introduced new leveling zones, leaving old world intact. WoW? Demolished all classic zones and most classic instances altogether...

WoW doesn't move anywhere good, and after reading some of blue posts, I can't really see any good perspective for the game. There is no hope for improvements unless current dev. team will get replaced. Can I say that I hate game? No. But I hate direction it decided to take starting from mid-Wrath, and then rapidly taking course in this downward direction in Cata and MoP. In MoP I am playing only due to couple friends, but I highly doubt that I will renew sub.

Hilariously enough, I tried to get some of my friends to go back and play some Everquest with me because after you get past the terrible graphics it really wasn't that terrible of a game. Just like Aion and Final Fantasy 11 weren't the most terrible of games, but impossible to really get people to go back and try.