Is WoW Still Immersive?

[Deleted]

Whilst doing some shado-pan dailies on my monk the other day I realised I did not feel very immersed in the gameplay. I made the effort to start reading the quest text and instead of listening to music, turn on the in-game sound. This, as silly as it may sound, actually made me feel far more immersed in the gameplay as a whole. I think immersion is still a part of the game but Blizzard may have directed us away from that immersion in certain ways.
Below are some immersion makers as well as immersion breakers which I have come up with through research and personal experience:



Immersion Makers

• Reading Quest Text
• Playing the in-game sound instead of other music - this allows for good in-game atmosphere

• Playing the game with friends

Immersion Breakers

• Questing that holds your hand to the point where it becomes brainless (Questhelper)
• Lack of group questing - Isle of Thunder is an exception
• No encouragement to speak to other players (most of the endgame can be seen through LFD/LFR which requires no communication) - HC scenarios are a start however
• Dead realms. Results in a lack of server community, thus a loss of in-game immersion

So you may have noticed that I listed next to nothing other than HC scenarios and Isle of Thunder questing as recent content to encourage in-game socialising. It, as far as I can see, really does come down to the player to immerse themselves in the game.

Unfortunately it seems there is a lack of encouragement on Blizzards part to socialise with other players. In my opinion this is a huge factor in immersing oneself in the game. I think Blizzard may have dug themselves a hole with the LFR/LFD systems. Unfortunately the convenience of such features are now taken for granted by most players and I can see why - why would you ask a random person on your server to run a dungeon instead of the other one on a different realm?

Is it completely down to the player to immerse themselves in WoW now? Or can Blizzard implement more features that aid in-game immersion, or encouragement of it for that matter, as a whole?

[melodramocracy]

Risk free gameplay that provides no consequence to decision making on the part of the player does nothing for immersion.

No, this game is not immersive. Some of the environments are, but the best of those are ones that you're basically whisked through while leveling, or skip entirely.

[gamingmuscle]

Whilst doing some shado-pan dailies on my monk the other day I realised I did not feel very immersed in the gameplay. I made the effort to start reading the quest text and instead of listening to music, turn on the in-game sound. This, as silly as it may sound, actually made me feel far more immersed in the gameplay as a whole. I think immersion is still a part of the game but Blizzard may have directed us away from that immersion in certain ways.
Below are some immersion makers as well as immersion breakers which I have come up with through research and personal experience:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paHdhZTdAlc

Immersion Makers

• Reading Quest Text
• Playing the in-game sound instead of other music - this allows for good in-game atmosphere

• Playing the game with friends

Immersion Breakers

• Questing that holds your hand to the point where it becomes brainless (Questhelper)
• Lack of group questing - Isle of Thunder is an exception
• No encouragement to speak to other players (most of the endgame can be seen through LFD/LFR which requires no communication) - HC scenarios are a start however
• Dead realms. Results in a lack of server community, thus a loss of in-game immersion

So you may have noticed that I listed next to nothing other than HC scenarios and Isle of Thunder questing as recent content to encourage in-game socialising. It, as far as I can see, really does come down to the player to immerse themselves in the game.

Unfortunately it seems there is a lack of encouragement on Blizzards part to socialise with other players. In my opinion this is a huge factor in immersing oneself in the game. I think Blizzard may have dug themselves a hole with the LFR/LFD systems. Unfortunately the convenience of such features are now taken for granted by most players and I can see why - why would you ask a random person on your server to run a dungeon instead of the other one on a different realm?

Is it completely down to the player to immerse themselves in WoW now? Or can Blizzard implement more features that aid in-game immersion, or encouragement of it for that matter, as a whole?

I never found MMO very immersive. Why? The boar i just killed respawned 30 seconds later. That boss I killed is back again (dungeon/raid reseting)

[Deleted]

Yeah, definitely. Its still the best game ever made . You find new things to explore in every corner... =)

[Djuntas]

Risk free gameplay that provides no consequence to decision making on the part of the player does nothing for immersion.

No, this game is not immersive. Some of the environments are, but the best of those are ones that you're basically whisked through while leveling, or skip entirely.

This. WoW haven't been immersive for very long, not just MOP.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, definitely. Its still the best game ever made . You find new things to explore in every corner... =)

When do you ever do that? I guess one has to have played the game for 1 year or less not to have seen most things. Atleast I never see anything new inn the game since WOTLK times, just cause all I did was being out inn the world before WOTLK (okay not all the time, but quit abit).

[Deleted]

When do you ever do that? I guess one has to have played the game for 1 year or less not to have seen most things. Atleast I never see anything new inn the game since WOTLK times, just cause all I did was being out inn the world before WOTLK (okay not all the time, but quit abit).

What? Which game do you play (more then) one year? WoW and D3 that are enjoyable for over a year IMO....

so thats quite an amount of time ...everygame gets boring after some time but 1 year is LONG

[Terahertz]

Immersion Makers
-Reading Quest Text
-Playing the in-game sound instead of other music - this allows for good in-game atmosphere
-Playing the game with friends

1. I tried doing this in MoP up to kunlai summit. Thing is, I started to notice the trend of everything being the same. I literally noticed that an NPC would ask me to kill 10 of those, 10 of that and it was actually, no joke, the biggest immersive breaker out there. Jade Forest was fun and somewhat OK, Valley of four winds was fun with chen, krasarang wilds already got boring and the same, kunlai summit.. too much of the same bullshit. The level 88 zone was also really boring and dread wastes was literally kill X, collect X to help the klaxxi survive.
2. I find the music to be meh due to the combat sounds that sound really cheap.
3. If there's any immersion breaker that's bigger than quest text then it's playing the game with friends and out level them. Which is the only part that sounds somewhat fun to do with a friend. (except for raids and arenas, but nobody thinks about lore during raids or arenas).

WoW can't be immersive anymore IMO unless they add more voice over and simply get rid of the quest hubs.

[Klingensturm]

Very little, but nowhere near as immersive as it used to be. I miss the time where if you made stupid decisions you paid the price. I remember getting my Ashkandi for the first time and my guild treating me as a god. Nothing feels like an achievement anymore, in other words everything feels like a chore. Below are my "ratings of immersion" for each expansion.

Mists of Pandaria: 4.3
Cataclysm: 6.1
Wrath of the Lich King: 8.5
The Burning Crusade: 9.3
Vanilla: 8.9

The Burning Crusade/Wrath of the Lich King being my favorites.

[Gimlix]

Very little, but nowhere near as immersive as it used to be. I miss the time where if you made stupid decisions you paid the price. I remember getting my Ashkandi for the first time and my guild treating me as a god. Nothing feels like an achievement anymore, in other words everything feels like a chore. Below are my "ratings of immersion" for each expansion.

Mists of Pandaria: 4.3
Cataclysm: 6.1
Wrath of the Lich King: 8.9
The Burning Crusade: 9.2
Vanilla: 8.8

WOTLK should be below Vanilla score, Imo.

[Akka]

Risk free gameplay that provides no consequence to decision making on the part of the player does nothing for immersion.

No, this game is not immersive. Some of the environments are, but the best of those are ones that you're basically whisked through while leveling, or skip entirely.

This.

In fact, I'd say it's THE main problem in WoW (and has been for years). It's vastly overdesigned, it feels much too artificial. Everything feels formulaic and/or meta-gamey.
The illusion of being in a world is long gone, and everything always remind you you're "in a game".

[Itisamuh]

I never found MMO very immersive. Why? The boar i just killed respawned 30 seconds later. That boss I killed is back again (dungeon/raid reseting)

Pretty much this, though I feel SWTOR made an admirable attempt at bridging the immersion gap between a single player RPG and an MMO. But yeah, WoW has never been immersive in my eyes. The newer content, as in Cataclysm and MoP, has been better than it was before about it from a questing perspective, but WoW still lacks in comparison to single player games.

[Klingensturm]

WOTLK should be below Vanilla score, Imo.

I like them both about the same for different reasons, but I fixed the ratings.

[cFortyfive]

To me certainly not. Cheesy pop culture reference every two meters, queues everywhere, the way quests are set up...

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

It's immersive if you want it to be, it has always been like this.

[Faroth]

In my opinion, no it's not nearly as immersive as it used to be. A lot of the streamlined features that were for quality of life make the game feel more artificial and like an arcade game rather than a living world that your character is living in.

[Dormie]

People will say yes. Truth is its not even a 1/4 as immersive as it was pre dungeon finder. CRZ especially killed it. And IMO, being able to fly everywhere really killed any world immersion left.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

People will say yes. Truth is its not even a 1/4 as immersive as it was pre dungeon finder. CRZ especially killed it.

Look at it this way, was it really immersive sitting in trade waiting 1/2 hour - 1 hour for a tank, only to get to the dungeon and have the tank leave half way? Sure pre dungeon finder it was a little more immersive, while not by much, but some things need to be sacrifice for the game to get better.

[tgrosh]

Wait, when was it that WoW WAS immersive? I am confused on that part...

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

Well if more people are leaving then is it still getting better? Or is it alienating the playerbase.

We really don't know why people are leaving. Could it be the age of the game casues less people joining? Who knows.
The amount of levels for a new person could be off setting for them. There's really no telling the real reasons people are leaving, only assumptions.

[Arewn]

If anything, playing with other people BREAKS immersion. Having friends around distracts from the quests and environment. Having other players around that are doing quests breaks the pacing by throwing off re-spawn timers, amongst other things.

I really don't understand why you list "playing with friends" as making immersion, and "not encouraging player interaction" as breaking it. It's the exact opposite.
Unless you're role playing with those other people, human beings are going to detract from your immersion in the fantasy setting, not add to it.