WoW Lacks Excitement

[Millennía]

Not that I disagree with you but a lot of people like that structured plan and I for one won't hold that against them, it just isn't for me. If you do feel that you are forced in to a bucket list then I can only recommend that you take a break from the game for a few weeks because that it always nice but you could also approach the game from a different point of view. Your WoW "bucket list" can be whatever you want it to be. You can mix it up to suit what you want to do whether it be alts, dailies, dungeons, pet battles, LFR, achievements etc.

[Tart]

1) Okay, I'll agree there. Logging in is pretty much the first thing I do too.
2) I think I've done four heroic scenarios since they came out. Entirely optional.
3) I haven't done any heroic dungeons since I hit 90 on my first character.
4) I don't even know what this is, never done it before.
5) I think I've run LFR a total of 10 times in the past five months.
6) Obviously not, since I never did it the first time.

And your completely ignoring the amount of time people put into the game.

Are you extremely casual by any chance?.

[Deleted]

Notice the only thing getting the player out in the world is the barrens weekly quest. Everything else is queued for. Its just not exciting.

Yeah, I remember when you had to fly to the dungeon instead of just queueing up for it, was so exciting.
Wait it wasn't

[Noomz]

I was just thinking about this the other day, and I reflected on why WoW lacks excitement currently. Its not because the downtime between patch cycles, but it stems from a much greater problem than that.

WoW has become a bucket list. Now hear me out on this. The game is essentially played by creating a bucket list and following that list.

1) Login.

Goal: Cap valor asap and continue to do so on other characters

2) Daily Heroic Scenario
3) Daily Heroic Dungeon
4) Battlefield Barrens weekly
5) An LFR or two
6) Rinse and repeat.

Notice the only thing getting the player out in the world is the barrens weekly quest. Everything else is queued for. Its just not exciting. And after one week of the barrens quest, it gets old, especially when its done on other characters.

Where is the excitement of logging in, and then figuring out in game what you wanted to do for the day? There are no more goals that are actually worthy of time and effort other than heroic raiding, and even that becomes dull because you essentially fought the same boss with some ability bloat to create difficulty.

Now contrast that to an epic quest chain like the Onyxia quest line (for Alliance). There were several steps, and accomplishing each step just to gain access to that raid boss felt like you were gaining ground. You got gear along the way inevitably as you went through BRD and other dungeons. The player felt like a part of the quest. Or the quest chain that gave access to the Black Temple. Each step in the quest felt amazing because you saw how your accomplishments opened new parts of the game for you to explore. Now, the legendary quest chain is just another bucket list type quest chain. Its too carved out in stone, and feels generic.

TL;DR

WoW lacks excitement because the developers made the decision to create such a simple bucket list type system, with generic quests, and overly simple dungeon / raid design.

In other words, the game is great in the gameplay department, but lags behind in the excitement factor.

And people lack a sense of wonder.

[Tart]

Still world bosses.
The world PVP I remember from BC was people flying in to gank me while I farmed the trees above allerian stronghold.
This has been one of the best tiers of raiding ever. I also happen to like t14 so to me this expaninsion has been great raid wise.
Did not arena in BC or now so that I cant comment on.

Theres still alot of things but it doesnt mean they are good.

[rhorle]

All part of the bucket list aspect the game has turned into. Arguably this list of items you presented are menial at best, and are more of time wasters rather than actual content. Blizzard has done a great job training people to think that time consuming / wasting activities = content.

I don't disagree with you that those are things a player could potentially do, I just disagree with you that those are exciting things to do.

And what exactly can they offer that is actual content? I'll be waiting for your list that contains no quests, item hunts, farming, trade skills, pet battles and all the like. When you limit yourself arbitrarily to raiding/valor gain equals content then of course you will have a short boring list. But not because of Blizzard but because of the arbitrary self imposed limitations.

[Aqua]

Pft, I don't keep a list any more, I do what ah wan. Feels better.

I used to be 'that guy' who did absolutely everything... but... I can't keep that up and still enjoy the game.

[seam]

WoW is a long grind to the cap, then another long grind to gear up for your endgame. Then Endgame turns out to be just another long grind toward the anointed final boss.

Yeah, the game needs more excitement to keep players from getting bored with the constant grind.

Last week I was reading posts about people complaining that Blizzard added TOO MUCH to do 90, which they thought diminished the point of raiding/pvping.

And now I'm reading people saying there's not enough.

Lol I forgot how much I loved this community.

[vesseblah]

Bits of flavor? In some MMOs some of these things are the main pillar of the game.

Bits of flavor in context of whole MMORPG scene, as most of the games simply ignore all of those. And not even once those pillars were enough to keep the games afloat or interesting with the exception of Eve. That's the main thing and why Blizzard is ignoring those bits: none of those is interesting for the masses.

WoW might be the best MMO to you, but 300 million online gamers worldwide still are preferring not to play it...

Most of those 300 million online gamers (where did you pull that number from anyway?) play Farmville and casino games without giving a fuck about MMORPGs.

Theres still alot of things but it doesnt mean they are good.

Subjective. Also at least 7M people disagree with you.

[Ceece]

I tend to dabble in everything that WoW has to offer, and if I don't feel like logging in, I have other games I enjoy playing. The excitement is still there, but if you're continuing to do the same objectives over and over, then it will become your personal list of chores.

[MoanaLisa]

I think you are misunderstanding my position. Im not saying the game is not a good game, im saying it lacks excitement. The thrill of discovery is no longer there. It is one giant to-do list. From logging in, to doing your " cap valor / conquest" list, to doing LFR just to move an item level number up. The excitement of the game died with the "glory days" as you put it.

"Discovery" really only happens when a new expansion comes along or when some new zone/dungeon/scenario/raid/patch is launched. That lasts for a while but you can only make so many circles around an island before you've seen what there is to see.

My bucket list is about two dozen items long, is continually updated and is more like goals: get my gear to some level, finish up an achievement, farm up something for a profession, it really goes on and on and I keep it by my keyboard for when I play. I don't worry about capping valor every week, I don't worry about doing dailies every day and my self-determined goals/tasks/quests keep me busy and moving around in the world, either on my main or on an alt.

People need to find some creativity and not follow the herd that's always saying that this or that needs to be done. It helps to play other games as well.

Summing up: MoP has been nothing like the post at the top of the thread for me which is probably why I've enjoyed it so much. You make your own experience. Doing what others say is a dead end.

[Wazooty]

The world and the classes themselves have been boiled down to stats and ability buttons and cast bars. There's no wonder or excitement. You don't see your character as a character in the world anymore, you see it as their ability buttons, their rotation, their stats, etc.

[vesseblah]

The world and the classes themselves have been boiled down to stats and ability buttons and cast bars. There's no wonder or excitement. You don't see your character as a character in the world anymore, you see it as their ability buttons, their rotation, their stats, etc.

Everything you just said there could've been said about vanilla WoW when comparing it to previous games.

[Barrowwind]

I was just thinking about this the other day, and I reflected on why WoW lacks excitement currently. Its not because the downtime between patch cycles, but it stems from a much greater problem than that.

WoW has become a bucket list. Now hear me out on this. The game is essentially played by creating a bucket list and following that list.

1) Login.

Goal: Cap valor asap and continue to do so on other characters

2) Daily Heroic Scenario
3) Daily Heroic Dungeon
4) Battlefield Barrens weekly
5) An LFR or two
6) Rinse and repeat.

Notice the only thing getting the player out in the world is the barrens weekly quest. Everything else is queued for. Its just not exciting. And after one week of the barrens quest, it gets old, especially when its done on other characters.

Where is the excitement of logging in, and then figuring out in game what you wanted to do for the day? There are no more goals that are actually worthy of time and effort other than heroic raiding, and even that becomes dull because you essentially fought the same boss with some ability bloat to create difficulty.

Now contrast that to an epic quest chain like the Onyxia quest line (for Alliance). There were several steps, and accomplishing each step just to gain access to that raid boss felt like you were gaining ground. You got gear along the way inevitably as you went through BRD and other dungeons. The player felt like a part of the quest. Or the quest chain that gave access to the Black Temple. Each step in the quest felt amazing because you saw how your accomplishments opened new parts of the game for you to explore. Now, the legendary quest chain is just another bucket list type quest chain. Its too carved out in stone, and feels generic.

TL;DR

WoW lacks excitement because the developers made the decision to create such a simple bucket list type system, with generic quests, and overly simple dungeon / raid design.

In other words, the game is great in the gameplay department, but lags behind in the excitement factor.

Your sig is so ironic i didn't even read your post..

[Wazooty]

"Discovery" really only happens when a new expansion comes along or when some new zone/dungeon/scenario/raid/patch is launched. That lasts for a while but you can only make so many circles around an island before you've seen what there is to see.

My bucket list is about two dozen items long, is continually updated and is more like goals: get my gear to some level, finish up an achievement, farm up something for a profession, it really goes on and on and I keep it by my keyboard for when I play. I don't worry about capping valor every week, I don't worry about doing dailies every day and my self-determined goals/tasks/quests keep me busy and moving around in the world, either on my main or on an alt.

People need to find some creativity and not follow the herd that's always saying that this or that needs to be done. It helps to play other games as well.

Summing up: MoP has been nothing like the post at the top of the thread for me which is probably why I've enjoyed it so much. You make your own experience. Doing what others say is a dead end.

Every single piece of content is designed for EVERYONE to do. There's no creating your own experience. You are doing the same thing as everyone else. Even raids are just easier/harder versions of what everyone else is doing. When the new scenarios come out everyone is shuffled to the new spot to do the exact same thing as everyone else. When the new raid opens up everyone is shuffled to the same new dailies. Unless you think choosing to do a heroic scen instead of a heroic dungeon for that last handful of valor is what makes you "creative".

In vanilla there weren't things pointing you everywhere, and everything wasn't deemed "necesaary". You often found things by accident or by exploration and it felt awesome.

Now, everything is designed for everyone. Having quests and stuff that people aren't made aware of the moment they're implemented is "wasted design time".

- - - Updated - - -

Everything you just said there could've been said about vanilla WoW when comparing it to previous games.

We're not talking about previous games.

In vanilla things were raw and needed to be figured out. Quests werent designed for everyone to see. There weren't people in every major city making sure you did every bit of content in the game, you found it or heard about it through exploration or through other players. Nowadays any content that literally every player in the game isn't doing is a waste of design time.

[Draknalor186]

I still get excited when I get a new piece of gear/upgrade, or if I get a new transmog worthy item from doing older content.

this is my opinion aswell

[Tobizzhere]

choosing to ignore other features does not equal the game doesnt have any. choosing not to go looking for rares, choosing not to go looking for random BoA weapons scattered around, choosing not to work on professions, choosing not to go to the gear vendors (which btw, are not in the cities either) does not mean there isnt any other stuff in the game for people.

i think you feel that way after a few months of any patch. they can gate you if you like.. but really people dont want to be gated anymore. just realize at some point you are going to be waiting for that next patch so you can have "more stuff" to do.

Every single thing you mention was most likely done more than 6 months ago by most characters. How many times can you kill the same rares, I assume by looking for random BoA weapons i can only assume you mean Relic Hunter items.. also done months ago by most people, most pertinent professions are maxed, umm going to gear vendors? what ever do you mean by THAT? and how does doing any of those things add "excitement"

MoP is filled with tedious after tedious activities week in week out. Farming for food .. repeating world bosses on as many toons as possible for mounts which have a ridiculously low drop rate, WoW is filled with monotonous repetitive activity, and by its nature this game and most MMOs are repetitive with long term "grinding goals/achievements" in mind.

I love WoW but have become convinced that this love of WoW is left over from when it was still new and exciting to me. For me I started in BÇ and by now the bloom is off the rose on these repetitive activities. But that is me. The only reason i even bother to respond is the bizarre collections of reasons you chose to be considered as exciting in some way. it baffles me.

[vesseblah]

And what the 'masses' want is important why? What the masses want is really not important to me.

Masses pay the bills. Game development is not exactly cheap.

Some MMOs are highly enjoyed with communities that are very active and engaged even with only 500 subscribers, with the developers being just happy enough with that number of players.

And that is one gigantic pile of bullshit. Wanna point me towards any MMORPG that has less than 10000 subs and/or paying F2P customers released in last ten years? Or even less than 100K? The magic number seems to be around 100-200k today where publishers are pulling the plug and games are no longer profitable to maintain.

And no, private servers of UO does not count because those run on volunteer work, not by paid staff.

Especially not in an anti-social MMO as WoW where you have almost absolutely no reason at all to interact with other people.

If you choose to be antisocial it's your problem. I've had some great RP experiences in WoW but not many, and not recently. RP realms are there for a reason, because you might actually find some RP there... Especially if you're actively following the realm forums and attend to events.

EverQuest Next is a next-gen MMO which seems to wanting to focus on roleplay and player created content, and apparently the most anticipated MMO at the moment, so even big mainstream MMOs might end up focussing on some of the things which you claim are "uninteresting" to the masses.

EQN is doing something different for the sake of being different from WoW like GW2 did last year (and failed) and what TESO is trying this year (and probably will fail for the same reason as GW2). Lack of "holy trinity" simply will not work in MMORPGs because people will lose the last bit of distinction between classes, and WoW is blamed for homogenization when GW2 has one class that does dpstankheal.

Time will tell if the UGC works or not, but it did nothing for any of the previous attempts (STO, CO, Rift, Neverwinter etc). It's most anticipated MMO at the moment by EQ fanboys that got burned by EQ2 fiasco, but I personally have seen nothing yet that would hold interest of somebody like me who likes raids (unlike Wildstar which tops my list of most anticipated upcoming MMO).

300 million online worldwide PC gamers was the last estimated number I've read, not including browser-games such as farmville etc.

Not even close to anything I've seen... Got links?

In vanilla things were raw and needed to be figured out. Quests werent designed for everyone to see. There weren't people in every major city making sure you did every bit of content in the game, you found it or heard about it through exploration or through other players. Nowadays any content that literally every player in the game isn't doing is a waste of design time.

And none of that relates to buttons, classes, skills or any of the shit you talked about in your previous post.

[vesseblah]

Ah. It's very obvious how ... inexperienced you are with the MMO genre.

It's very obvious how you're grasping at straws...

The smallest mainstream example from the top of my head would be a Tale in the Desert, an MMO without any combat, but with a focus on architecture, art, building, crafting, politics and economy. It always had somewhere between 500 to 1500 subscribers and the next chapter is supposed to start early 2014. Honestly, it's but one of a large number of small MMOs like that with very tightknit communities.

Little reality check for you... With $14 monthly subscription fee and 500 subs that would mean $7000 per month gross profit and the web page has two names listed with a Ph.D title. After taxes and expenses there's no way in hell that game is financially self-sustaining operation, instead it's making huge losses and/or operating purely on donations/goodwill. It looks more like some classroom project or retirement hobby instead of serious business.

Sure you can make anything for niches of five people if you want to pay for it out of your own pocket and be happy about it, but it's not business anymore at that point. Blaming Blizzard for not catering to such niche groups like you did would be sane only in Narnia or some other make-believe world you're living in.

[rhorle]

Now, everything is designed for everyone. Having quests and stuff that people aren't made aware of the moment they're implemented is "wasted design time".

Except that Vanilla content was designed to be done by everyone and no one was creative by doing any of Vanilla content. The only thing that made Vanilla special was less accessible raids which excluded a majority of the player base. When new stuff was added in Vanilla people flocked to it. You seem to be expressing a distaste for new content and applying it only to Mists of Pandaria.

Every time something new comes out people will flock to it. Look at the Brawlers guild at release and look at it now. People were paying 50k+ gold for blood soaked invitations on the BMAH and now they sit there and don't go above their 1k minimum bid. Besides not every single piece of content is designed for everyone to do as the Warlock Green fire quest is only designed for Warlocks and they are far from the most popular class and according to recent developer comments have not seen a large increase in popularity from the redesign.

I also fail to see why you think content being accessible to anyone that plays is a bad thing. New raids, quests, items, scenarios, dungeons etc should all be something that anyone can do. Why would you want a new raid, quest, or other content to be restricted to X group? And who gets to define who are the elites of WoW? You? Your friends?