To those who no longer subscribe to WoW and who played a long time....

[Kirse]

I may return to wow after a few exapansions have been released, when the game is drastically different. I quit for 4.5 yrs and returned and loved it again.

which game if you do not mind saying? Just curious.

You asked a different player, but thought I'd add that I've moved to Aion. It's free, and improves on many things that wow has to offer. Balance leaves some things to be desired, but it's a much younger game and that will improve over time. I feel like I did exploring WOW for the first time in Vanilla. Character customization and graphics are better, professions and gearing more detailed/complex, quest writing more interesting, characters grow wings, etc. I'm not at max level but have heard that there is more of a PVP focus in endgame (also pvp while flying), but there are also dungeons and raids. It's a little more grindy than wow is now, but the grinds are more interesting (closer to vanilla wow).

When I can afford it I'm trying Guild wars

---------- Post added 2012-12-14 at 11:03 AM ----------

If it went F2P.

I would definitely play if it was F2P. It's old enough that it may be time for this.

In order to make money, offer better transmog and vanity items items, xp boosts, etc like League of Legends. Perhaps offer 1-2 new BGs/dungeons/scenarios as long as the changes don't affect balance. Landscape skins (e.g., concrete instead of grass), extra dances/emotes, and mini games (such as a side-scroller mini wow) would be fun.

[puppypizza]

So, what would need to happen to come back and where/when did it go bad for you?

Either having the monthly fee reduced or eliminated ($600 just in fees is quite enough), or having the best storyline/appeal they've ever done. Pandaria just looks like a side-story kind of deal for the game. Keep you paying for 2 more years while they design something good.

My last good stretch of playing ended around the time Icecrown Citadel opened up for Wrath of the Lich King. The guild I was in was mostly real-life friends and their friends, and they were as casual as you could get. So no hope of ever raiding, and liked them too much to leave. I ended up quitting after running out of things to do (2 Quel-Delars, full tier 10 gear from vendors for 5 alts).

I came back for the Cataclysm launch, though stupidly bought a 3-month sub off the bat. Couldn't stay interested for more than a month. Being sent to all corners of the world for randomly-designed zones that didn't seem to have any coherence with the main world. I wish they didn't spend so much effort on the 1-60 experience, though that's just more of a selfish wish. I can understand why they did. Archaeology was such a let down. Underwhelming main story and villains. Did they just make Worgen so people could play as werewolves? They basically disappear from lore after their starter area, like Draenei. Running Grim Batol and Halls of Origination until my eyes bleed wasn't my idea of end-game fun, either. Too bad LFR didn't really start working until after I left, I might have given that a shot. But my item level was always a few points short when I got in with the Cata trials.

I tried the 10-day Panda trial last week, but honestly didn't see or do anything that made me want to pay for it. Pet battles felt underwhelming (and I had just finished playing through Pokemon White 2), the farming seems like a blatant timesink, and the story was just not enthralling at all. Yes, yes, man is the greatest monster of all, and it's up to the noble savages to show us the true way to peace.

Got stuck on a panda's quest for collecting 10 crocodile butts for half an hour, and then finding out the next quest was broken after looking it up, reminding me of why I hate WoW questing now. Totally threw me off my tempo since the other quests before it were more smooth. Plus, since they cap your trial chars' experience at 12,999,999 (1 point short of 86), I felt that I had to stop playing or else my character would get left way behind if I ever did suddenly decide to re-subscribe. Incidentally, this was around the point of the Jade Forest questline where you visit the big temple that I think turns into the 85-86 dungeon instance. Which is a shame, since things looked like they were about to finally get interesting. Oh well.

Tried it from the other side, starting a few new characters. But now I can't even quest without 20 other people from different servers taking all the kills, drops and nodes. Is this the "CRZ" I keep hearing so much about? Because frankly, it sucks. Whatever Blizzard did to streamline and fasttrack the quests in the 1-60 experience is almost completely nullified now. I feel bad for any complete newbies coming into this game without a guide or friend.

And if I never hear "Slooow dooown" again, it'll be too soon.

[Deleted]

Nothing, I don't have any trust left in Blizzard. Screw them.

[Tauren]

they would have to make it more like an rpg like it used to be.. wow has perfect animations and fun classes and just good zones and everything but its just the mechanics i dont like anymore. talent tree, rdf, cross realm. yea man whatever tho

theres probably tons of hardcore mmorpgs but they dont have what is awesome about wow. i dont want to play some japanesey or cheesy game

[Deleted]

Tried it from the other side, starting a few new characters. But now I can't even quest without 20 other people from different servers taking all the kills, drops and nodes. Is this the "CRZ" I keep hearing so much about? Because frankly, it sucks. Whatever Blizzard did to streamline and fasttrack the quests in the 1-60 experience is almost completely nullified now. I feel bad for any complete newbies coming into this game without a guide or friend.

And imagine how awful it would be for newbies to gear at max level if they come back 6 months into the xpac. There's so much gating everywhere they would be doomed.

And if I never hear "Slooow dooown" again, it'll be too soon.

So true. Can't stand hearing NPC say that.

[Eorayn]

I tried the 7 day free pass I got. Couldn’t bare to play it. After playing Guild Wars 2 since launch (and still loving it), I found World of Warcraft’s graphics and gameplay almost unplayable and horribly outdated. I probably won’t got back to World of Warcraft again, ever Sadly enough. I had some great times, both as a noob and a pro. Cataclysm stomped them down the drain, and turned me away from the game, forever. Draaaaaaaaaaama.

[trasmus]

Change your name to Chin and Stornsnout. It will fit your quotation much better.

[gamon500]

To those who no longer subscribe to WoW and who played a long time (but still peruse forums some times), say like 4 years plus, what would need to happen for you to come back to WoW? Real Life responsibilities aside.


So, what would need to happen to come back and where/when did it go bad for you?

I'll probably sub again at some point. I probably differ from most responding here in that I think that WoW has gotten consistently better over the years and MoP is the best expansion yet. I just don't know anyone who plays anymore, and I lost interest after doing some heroics with random people.

I'm focusing on single player games right now, and there are so many great ones that I probably won't go back to an MMO for a while. GW2 is fun, I'll probably play that as a single-player for a while.

The graphics in WoW are fine, animations are great; I don't know why people need hyper-real graphics to enjoy a game.

[quras]

To those who no longer subscribe to WoW and who played a long time (but still peruse forums some times), say like 4 years plus, what would need to happen for you to come back to WoW? Real Life responsibilities aside.


So, what would need to happen to come back and where/when did it go bad for you?

It's not just a simply question to come back to WOW when you know the money goes into supporting blizzard and many of there projects.

For me everything from the SC 2 to D3 have been screwed up in multiple ways by the blizzard team.

Gamers are getting less and less as far as game quality when it comes to blizzard.

If I'm to put a narrow filter on it and talk WOW only, I'd have to put some serious thought into it but off the top of my head; Portions of Cataclysm would have to vanish and a larger portion (if not all of) the development/design of MoP would have to vanish as if it never happened to make me even consider supporting blizzard again in any capacity.

[Itisamuh]

More PvP content (more frequently released and updated) better PvP balance (less CC, much weaker healing across the board, less CD based, less burst, etc) improved BGs and BG rules (balance maps, and let ties be ties, please) less of a gear grind (one set per season, from both arena and BGs, rather than two) gems and enchants available for honor (nothing ticks me off like overpriced crap on the AH) and free server transfers off crappy realms (or at least merged servers.)

[sharpy]

Without getting into a ton of petty detail, in order to return:

1) Blizzard would have to re-earn my trust as a gamer and a potential customer. At present, I think they're deceitful and excessively greedy, and don't care at all about the quality of the games they produce just how much money they can make from them. They need to address the community honestly about stuff like the bot problem and low-pop servers.

2) Return more RPG and sandbox aspects to the game. Go back to making a world that is fun, and stop telling people how they must play. This would be extremely difficult. Blizzard has gutted the game compared to what it was in BC and Vanilla. I'm not saying they have to return to that exactly, but they've removed so much over the years I don't see anyway they could possibly replace it without having their current playerbase revolt. Some people seem to think they're moving in this direction with MoP. I will wait and see. Maybe next expansion, IF they can address my first point, which I frankly doubt.

I might buy a different Warcraft game, if they ever released one, assuming it was better than D3. I do very much like the universe, when it's done well.

This if it's fun ill play it but it lost so much since it launched... But if they went back to the old ways (At least some does not have to be a blam this is how it is thing but they like doing that.) i would gladly resubscribe.

[Pfeff]

They would have to delete Pandas for me to return

[Kissme]

To those who no longer subscribe to WoW and who played a long time (but still peruse forums some times), say like 4 years plus, what would need to happen for you to come back to WoW? Real Life responsibilities aside.


So, what would need to happen to come back and where/when did it go bad for you?

What's funny is this is a pretty succinct summary of the survey Blizzard sent me a $5 amazon GC for filling out.

Quick Summary of game experience: Started in Vanilla, about 3-4 months after release. Was there for my guild's first Ragnaros kill in MC. Got up to Twin Emps in AQ40 and tried a few bosses in Naxx. Raided all of TBC, downed Vashj and Kael pre attunement removal, was in Sunwell prenerf. After the nerf patch in Sunwell we sped through to twins in one week, realized it was too easy and took until WotLK off. WotLK - cleared everything but 0 Lights, Heroic LK, and Heroic RS on 10, got a plagued proto. Missed a few more bosses on 25 heroic. Satisfaction with game began to decrease quickly after Ulduar (and thus with the beginning of retread raiding). Interest really waned with Cata, especially after they went back on making dungeons hard. Cleared about 50%-75% of hardmodes, quit raiding a few months into DS. Was there for every guild first kill from Vanilla Rag until early Cata.

Casual Pvper - Lt Commander in Vanilla, 1800ish dabbling in arenas. Stopped doing arenas in Wrath due to dislike of burst pvp, came back in early Cata, stopped late cata as burst and trinket/daggers once again made it overly bursty (and yes, I played a rogue main).

Why I left:

Several reasons. First off, the change from linear, tiered progression to retread progression through multiple difficulties. This had a negative effect on my journey through the world of warcraft because the challenge isn't there for anything but the hardmodes, yet by the time you get to the hardmodes you've already beaten the boss, thus reducing the satisfaction of beating said boss and increasing the grind feel of progression. I was happier by far when one of the rewards for beating a boss was getting to move on to a new boss. That reward is completely gone and so is the resultant satisfaction from beating a boss.

Secondly, due to various changes in the game and RL many of the players I played with have left the game and due to certain mechanics (LFD, LFR, cross realm battlegrounds) it is more and more difficult to get to know people on your server. This lack of need for community has also seemingly poisoned the community in my eyes, making the negative to positive social ratio of the game swing towards the negative. Basically friends left the game at a greater rate than I was making new friends in game, so I had less to hold me to the game. Combined with the way WoW was moving away from needing other people in an MMO, and there was little social inertia to keep me there.

Third, the ever increasing homogenization of classes, especially in pvp. Every class was gaining stuns and silences. Burst was becoming incredibly problematic (almost Vanilla like, the difference being that I had been playing the game long enough to want more from pvp than in Vanilla). PvP as a whole was becoming less and less satisfying because people were doing it for gear and points rather than for the fun and satisfaction of beating the other team. Battlegrounds were losing their variety as well, with all of them being time limited now. There were no more epic AV battles lasting for days, WSG couldn't stall between equal teams, Conquest Isle was AV light, Strand was at least interesting in concept, but the lack of general tactical knowledge and strategy of the player base was painful (rogues with 70% snares fighting battles rather han focussing on snaring engines, etc).

Finally, the sense of reward to effort was gone. This was tied to multiple things, but simply put, the difference between working your ass off for a goal (hardmode raiding, competitive PvP, difficult achievement chasing) and just slacking and waiting for nerfs/buffs was so minimal from a reward standpoint that it decreased the impetus to put in the effort. In addition the gear resets every tier rather than every expansion also decreased motivation to work through the content.


To come back to WoW:

I would need a return of the TBC raid progression model (which won't ever happen), something to happen increasing server community (which probably won't happen as the current design is for convenience at the expense of community), a reduction in burst and CC in PvP, and the return of some of my friends to the game (which probably won't happen). Not a good prognosis.

All of that being said, the current version of WoW is not a bad game, it's just not the game I loved and played for so long. The game I played is dead, the game that currently uses it's name is alive and healthy, but not a game I enjoy.

[Meatboll]

I don't think they could do anything to get me back. The game has changed too much from when I started playing. It doesn't feel like an RPG anymore

I never had a problem with the graphics, I always liked that blizzard and polymorph looked exactly the same as it did in WC3.

But, I've come to the conclusion that blizzard has no idea what they're doing. One week they buff combustion to compensate for a a change only to nerf it by 50% three days later. Taste for blood is fine in pvp, oh no wait we'll cap it at 3 stacks for pvp, no wait now its 1 stack.

Ultimately I think Ghostcrawler is bad for the game. I think all he knows how to do is make the numbers closer together, not how to make a game fun or interesting.

[Deleted]

WoW2. WoW(1) is done for me, I want something completely new gameplay wise in the same setting.

[Arkamedis]

mmm... i personally played wow for 8 years, but i think i just grew out of it. logging onto the game became a chore and i didnt enjoy it as much anymore. What could bring me back? nothing tbh, as i'm positive i've grown out of it like a old shirt lol. Fond memories, but nothing more than that these days.

[Mortai2]

Nothin'

Just like every other game that I've ever played in my 28 years of life, I eventually get tired of them and stop playing. WoW may be getting continuously patched with new content and whatnot, but the basic premise of the game stays the same. I had a great run (about 5 years on and off), had a blast at times (mostly during Wrath of the Lich King), but now that all my friends have stopped playing and the game has gotten a bit stale, there's nothing that will bring me back.

Ok, one exception - free to play. But that's only if it happens with Mists of Panderia...I won't be buying another expac :P

[theWocky]

I would assume RIFT based upon his signature.

Ja, I left WoW a few times in WotLK as I think I got bored of the genre and then in Cata, almost all of my buddies had left the game. When I took breaks, I played a LOT of other games and realized that with my pc setup, eye candy in a game is important to me, so when I saw Rift, I picked it up and well, I just can't go back to WoW. That said, WoW looks semi-ok on my PC setup, but the social aspect is gone for me, so I see no point playing.

Also, personally, I think the WoW lore has gone as far as it can go for me - with the Lich King dead. I did thoroughly enjoy leveling in Cata, but not the end of it. I just lost interest in it. Game doesn't feel like the WoW I remember.

[Spraxle]

I played WoW from January 19 2005 to August 2012. I knew I wasn't going to buy Mists so I let my sub slide before it launched. It helped that my friends no longer played. That was a big reason I quit, but really it was just not the same game. I raided pretty hardcore in Vanilla, some in BC, and again hardcore in Wrath, then some in Cata. Raiding went from fun and exciting to some sort of chore. And when I finally quit I wasn't raiding (wasn't even doing LFR) and rarely did dungeons, which was sad because I used to grind dungeons all day everyday in Vanilla. And you know what, I did that grind for FUN! I would help random people because I was helping my server. That leads me into another reason I had no problem quiting, the community was dead. Unless you were playing with a group of friends the game felt like it was just some sort of 4chan the game. The community is just one of those things they will never get back, and that's because of a couple factors.

If WoW was F2P I might try it out again, but the F2P won't fix the community or the overall easyness of the game. Oh well I've moved on I suppose and split my time between a couple F2P MMOs.

[starkey]

Instant max lvl and pvp gear so I can do BGs..... I just can't take the grind anymore and pve is boring for me and u cant really pvp unless you got decent gear unless u want to be face stomped

they have that already its called a private server.