Have I lost interest, or is it just WoW itself?

[r3dbtk]

Hey all, recently started playing again, and to sum up my problem, I'm struggling to figure out if I'm just burnt from WOW, or if it's the game itself. I'll explain (Wall of Text)

I'm 22 now, so 14 or so when I started playing vanilla. It was my first computer game. For a lack of better words...I was essentially mind-f*cked at how cool it was(I love medieval stuff..so this fit..at the time). I played all through vanilla/BC/WOTLK. Mid way through WOTLK is when I first started playing off/on. Once Cataclysm hit, I PVP'd at the start, and after about first season, I started to play off/on, more off if anything. I didnt look into WOW at all until MoP was a few months from release. Read about Monks and instantly jumped on the RAF boat. MoP launched, and well, we all saw how season 1 was (And I mained my warrior this expansions launch, even though they had broken burst damage, I still wasn't having that much fun), quit right at the end of December or so.

Now, when I say I played all through vanilla-WOTLK, that was me playing all the time(High school years) Raiding mainly, but also PVP'd a lot as well. Also, the difference between those 3 expansions and now in MoP is that I did play with 3-4 good IRL friends which was a pretty damn awesome time, but hopefully that isn't the real issue behind this lol. I didn't do Naxxramas in vanilla, or Black Temple/TK/SSC in BC simply because my guild couldnt progress that far. Classes varied throughout the 3 expansions:

Paladin(Vanilla maybe a year or so) & Rogue(rest of Vanilla) -- Shaman(BC) -- Mage for a bit of Naxx, then Frost Death Knight(tank&dps/Naxx-TOC i believe) and then I came back to play my Fury Warrior(end of WOTLK-ICC raid only) **Also might I add, over the 8 years I've played I managed to level every class to 85+ at this point, so my options were/are open along the way**

I've tried a bunch of MMOs since I started losing interest for WoW back in WOTLK. I've tried Aion/Rift/City of Heroes/DCUO..maybe I missed some, but the 2 main ones I enjoyed were DAoC and Warhammer Online(also both medieval --DAoC was great, had super high hopes for WAR but that flopped pretty hard)

Among the list of MMO's above, I noticed a common theme, I couldn't get into them like I did with WoW. I'm no "WOW FANBOY", I've just simply became so used to WoW, and trying to get that same feel for a whole different 'universe' was difficult. WoW has definitely had it's ups and downs, I'm just trying to figure out the issue. Rose colored glasses??.. Maybe it's me, maybe it's that I currently don't raid with a DEDICATED raiding guild(let alone dedicated spot), maybe it's the fact I don't play with friends I know in person...or maybe it's Blizzard's choice in the way WoW has changed a good amount over the last couple years, some good, some for the worse.


With that being said, is, or has anyone been in this dilemma? I currently play my Rogue, but I just started about 3 weeks ago. All I've been doing is BGs to get the Malevolent gear, 8 arena wins a week, and LFR's sometimes. I'm thinking the issue I'm having has a lot to do with not raiding. After going through LFR, and seeing the bosses on such a "tank&spank mode", I'm not sure if I really care about trying to get into the real deal. Am I wrong in having this idea? Are these raids and boss fights actually 'THAT' fun?? Mhmm..

Really unsure here, so helpfully some people can give me their 2 cents, would appreciate it!

[LeroyJenkins]

I'm 22 now, so 14 or so when I started playing vanilla. It was my first computer game. For a lack of better words...I was essentially mind-f*cked at how cool it was(I love medieval stuff..so this fit..at the time).

You just need a break mate. Take a month, and go play something else. Dust off the X360 or pick up a new hobby like Magic the Gather or Warhammer table top gaming. You sounds like you could use a break. After 8 years of playing WoW... ANYONE would need one.

[Deleted]

You just need a break mate. Take a month, and go play something else. Dust off the X360 or pick up a new hobby like Magic the Gather or Warhammer table top gaming. You sounds like you could use a break. After 8 years of playing WoW... ANYONE would need one.

Maybe that's why Blizz are making Hearthstone, if you like WoW things but are burned out by WoW itself, you could play Hearthstone in the meantine.
Pretty nice idea.

[Deleted]

Indeed basiclly what happens usually to me is I stop playing for a while then I see something cool happening in wow I come back, play it loads like a lot and i burn myself out and get bored the key is to to either stop for a while and come back or just play in time periods

[MoanaLisa]

It's well to keep in mind something that Morhaime or Pardo (can't remember which) said a year or so ago: There are more people who used to subscribe to World of Warcraft than are subscribed now. So you're either burnt out and need a longer time away from the game (noted that you said you had just started playing again) or you've moved on to something else.

There's no shame in either. Tastes change a lot from age 14 to 22.

You never made a promise to Blizzard to stay with the game forever and Blizzard never promised that you'd love the game for all eternity either.

[yjmark]

With that being said, is, or has anyone been in this dilemma? I currently play my Rogue, but I just started about 3 weeks ago. All I've been doing is BGs to get the Malevolent gear, 8 arena wins a week, and LFR's sometimes. I'm thinking the issue I'm having has a lot to do with not raiding. After going through LFR, and seeing the bosses on such a "tank&spank mode", I'm not sure if I really care about trying to get into the real deal. Am I wrong in having this idea? Are these raids and boss fights actually 'THAT' fun?? Mhmm..

Really unsure here, so helpfully some people can give me their 2 cents, would appreciate it!

Raids are no different now than they were in vanilla. Some mechanics have changed, but the overall experience has not. Still a bunch of folks getting together to try and down a raid boss. So if you do not feel the "want" to do normal mode raiding, then don't. If you don't really feel like doing anything in the game, then stop playing.

[MrSerious]

Hey all, recently started playing again, and to sum up my problem, I'm struggling to figure out if I'm just burnt from WOW, or if it's the game itself.)

it happens, I missed that first time feeling after a while with WoW, nothing felt new and interesting so I went and played GW2 and got that feeling back again. leveling a character from scratch, exploring a new place (and I have to admit its an amazing game world) With the amount of content they keep giving me for free there is always some place new to explore. Even after 6 months I am still discovering hidden places. MoP just didn't feel new enough for me to keep me interested.

it also helped that all my friends quit WoW and went to gw2 as well.

[Raidboss]

I can tell you for myself I've had a bit of this about a month ago and came to a conclusion recently. I started playing at the end of vanilla and was in the same guild from beginning of BC all the way up until just before Sunwell. I was a semi hardcore raider. I think we raided 4-5 hours a night 4 days out of the week. Outside of raids I was constantly playing pretty much any free moment in my house I was on WoW. It was great and I could always find something to do. I continued to play pretty much non-stop until the end of WoTLK. After the Lich King died I lost interest in raiding and decided to stop playing. Came back for a month or 2 in Cata and the left again until the end of Cata and have been playing since.

I was having an internal struggle because I wanted to raid and have that awesome guild feeling that you have when you raid with a group of people like a full time job. So I joined a raiding guild and raided for a few weeks. After a while I hit a wall and found that LFR was my raiding. Didn't have to be locked in to a schedule, come and go as I please, got gear, and I still get to see all the content. WoW as a game has evolved a ton over time and so have you. The time you can put in and the things you enjoy are most likely different like they are for me. Now I know what I want to do and make time for those things.

[Faroth]

It's probably a little of both.

I still occasionally get a slight nostalgia flashback remembering what it was like the first time I played WoW (not the game and mechanics, but the feel of it). Haven't had the same feeling with any other MMO since and prior to WoW, it was EverQuest for me. EverQuest is still probably the most fond memories for me in an MMO; it was the social aspect of that game and my guild.

I've been on a console kick lately, though I got the itch and got my mage to 90 this week (third character to max!). Planning on clearing my console backlog in the coming months and let WoW be more relaxed. RL schedules and players doing life stuff dissolved our regular raid so it's LFR for me this expansion (I'll regret that come Siege of Orgrimmar).

[Ytlayol]

I see no point in trying to get all deep into thought in which game you should play, if you enjoy it - play it, if you don't enjoy it - don't play it. WoW is no different than any other video game that has been created. Its sad to see people try to make it more than what it is.

[Osmeric]

MMOs depend on a psychological treadmill of rewards. If this reward mechanism begins to fail for you, then you will not only have a hard time retaining interest in WoW, but in all similar gear-treadmill MMOs. You may just have stripmined that game concept and used it up.

[BearGod-Siel]

Sorry for the wall of text but it's just experience and thoughts on my end.

I've had the same thing happen. I played wow from BC (from when SSC was current content) all the way to the start of the world pvp on the beach in mists.
I ended up quitting in November and haven't picked wow back up since. I just got completely bored with wow, all aspects just didn't interest me anymore. As far as raiding was, in BC I was barely gearing for raids as a prot pally but never did anything serious until BT, the guild I was in was decent but when Sunwell was out we couldn't handle the bosses and the furthest we got in BC was Mother. In WotLK I started getting a bit more serious in raiding, did 25m naxx a little late, a bit towards the end of ToC is when I joined one of my old server's top guilds and did everything from ToC to ICC and Ruby heroic. Once Cata came out I wasn't raiding as hard until Firelands and did heroics well into the end of the expansion. On Mists release I managed to raid for a while and barely starting heroic modes is when I just started losing interest.
As for pvp after Wrath it was just boring. I wasn't high ranking in pvp mostly did bgs, but it was just boring at one point. As for the misc things you can do in wow it didn't really keep my attention for long.

After I quit I really didn't feel like trying any other mmorpgs of any sort and just played LoL in my spare time. Recently however I've been feeling like playing an mmorpg but I didn't want to pay for it if I was gonna end up not liking it and at the same time I was thinking about wow and how I wanted to raid again but didn't want to put in the time for a hardcore guild due to other things going on in my life but I couldn't join a laid back guild because my inner "elitist" would come out. Anyways, aside from that looking at how WoW is now it just doesn't seem interesting to me, I recently picked Aion back up I have been enjoying it quite well aside from getting used to it after playing WoW for so many years.

I do believe in your case it is WoW more than anything since that is what you've played the longest and it was your first mmorpg so anything else you play feels like it doesn't live up to your WoWmolded expectations. As for those other games you played and didn't really enjoy it's just something you have to have a fresh look at. I say if WoW doesn't interest you anymore then just drop it cold right then and there. Give yourself a break from any mmorpg then try a different game with a fresh perspective.

It has worked for me since I tried Aion when it was released but I dropped it midway because it didn't feel fun to me and it had a lot of major problems at that time. When I came back to it I made a new account and everything and have been enjoying it since because of the new feel to it. The first and only thing I compared it to WoW was the responsiveness to any actions, it just felt all clunky and slow but I found out it was just a latency issue that the game had with my connection. Leatrix fixed that and now it feels smooth. Sure there are a couple things that could use some work in my opinion but I am still enjoying it. I want to hit up end game before I make my final decision but that will take some time.
As for all the other games I tried during my WoW time I always compared it to WoW since that was my main game at the time.

Hopefully you find a game that suits you well and you thoroughly enjoy, like I said try to take a break for a while and come back with an empty perspective.

[Deleted]

It's probably just you (and 3 million others).

[Ebonheart]

Well I don't think its a bad thing. Everyone takes breaks for a while when needed. I've been in your shoes too. WoW was my very first MMO, picked it a few years back. I, like am a big medieval fan, loved fantasy, knights, castles, dragons and everything that comes with it.

Its strange all these years, I feel like WoW never actually came close to any of them cause they just have so many different storylines. You have the medieval knight with Arthas, then you have some Sci Fi with the Burning Legion, and then the Titans. It feels like its all a bunch of crap stuffed into this one game. But this wasn't how I thought about it back then. I was blow away, and like you mind fucked to see something that big I could explore. I was taken in immediately.

Since then I've been forced to try or play with my friends on other MMOs but I couldn't. Its not that I don't like MMOs or hate the other games, my point of thinking is simply, why would I play another game when I have invested so much in WoW already. I am comfortable with what I know.

However, its a bit different when compared to the Elder Scrolls, cause I am a big Elder Scrolls fan. I find that the Elder Scrolls franchise resembles everything that I love about fantasy without it being unrealistic. So I know in my heart that I will be leaving WoW for TES when it comes out.

In fact I've just returned from my longest break in the game and all I've found myself doing is PVPing and PVPing at the lower levels cause how imbalanced it is and I find that to be fun. I think I've lost the whole drive to raid with the LFR and even the CRZ hasn't helped at all with the community so bitter and the trade chat trolls have only given birth to more.

[Theloq]

You have a snapshot in your head of what WoW is supposed to be like and how its supposed to make you feel. If the parameters of that changes so does your attachment to it. I think you've expressed that the time it was most fun for you was when it was fresh and with a bunch of friends. It is no longer fresh and seems you don't play with your friends anymore so you are going to naturally compare back to that time and it cant hold a candle to how it was for you then.

So basically you need to move on, or come to new terms of how this game can be for you. I've hada similar experience and now WoW I've turned WoW into a "something to do when I've got nothing else to do" thing. Luckily, Blizzard has started to cater to people that have moved in that direction.

[octoprism]

It's a combination of everything.

14-year-old you and 22-year-old you are not the same person. You have different opinions, different interests, different life experiences.

2005 and 2013 are not the same year. Worldly context is different. And no matter how detached you may or may not be from the world around you, it impacts the way you think and behave.

Your personal context for video games is different. When you started WOW, you had zero foundation of knowledge about this style of video game -- no one did. It was new. Eight years later, it's commonplace, and no matter what, things that exist now are compared to things that existed then. That comparison is completely different (2013 vs. 2005 -- and 2005 vs. 1997)

The game is very different. Blizzard has had to deal with the growth of the world around it. The changes to all its players, the influx of new, the shedding of old. It has altered the game based on what it thinks will make it the most marketable -- not necessarily the most FUN or the most CHALLENGING or the most EXCITING. Their goal is to make money through entertainment. Now with so many new elements (better maps, better quest routing, pet battles, LFR, LFD, etc., etc.), the game is not and cannot be the same thing it was eight years ago.

And because of this, it attracts different people -- which changes the community -- which changes the context -- which changes the way you perceive the world around you -- which changes the way you react to the game.

It's a hundred different variables. It's impossible to maintain a status quo -- in anything. People change. Technology changes. Politics change. Age changes. Priorities change.

(Absolutely no criticism is intended, so I hope no offense was taken. I, too, am a vastly different person and player than I was when I began playing WOW. I get it.)

[kunah]

Mostly likely it's you. After all these years grinding out countless season/tier sets,, it's gonna get old. But in fairness to blizz,, not sure how they could keep your interest after all these years. And not having any RL friends to play with doesn't help either. I don't think you/I will ever get that 'first time feeling' we had when we started the game. I was absolutely blown away/obsessed by this game 8 yrs ago and accept the fact that I will never have that wonder again.

Only interest I have anymore is leveling up a few alts at them beginning of an expansion. Can't get myself to grind out gear/rep/anything. But I still love the new zones and adventure.

[bohapjut]

It's not you it really is just WoW.