You are the one who changed, WoW is still the same or better - argument

[Kralljin]

My point here was that some content, which we have today, would still have been considered "content" back in the day.

And what gave the impression that i've questioned that?

The quantity of content isn't the problem for me, it's the design.

People in general are talking about Blizzard artificially inflating gametime buy adding some grind/gates.

So?
I didn't even mention timegating in my first post, but if you want my opinion on that, here we go:
If you want to make me grind, let me it at my own pace with a specified goal.
I put in the hours when i want, how long i want and be over with it when i reached X.

No "See you tomorrow".
No "New patch comes out, let's get back to grind that resource that i've already farmed during the previous patch in the same place at adjusted difficulty".

Well, they did not, but it is a time gate regardless and people were and still are ok with it.

Yes?
I didn't say timegating in any capacity are bad, i didn't even use the word timegating at all.

That is true, but it was more in a timegate that if you wanted an item from it, you only had one chance a day. Now you can have as many as you want.

Considering that you also need a keystone in the first place, the hurdle to just spam a dungeon is also bigger.

Nevermind that you can also be just efficient and say "I'm doing that one dungeon per day, so i earn badges while i still need that item", while others just spam heroics as much as they want because they want the badge rewards asap.

That's agency, plastering a general timegate over something is not.
Especially for rewards that cannot be effectively replaced, an Item is just an Item, if you don't get Suneater after a few Mechanar clears, you might just get lucky and get King's Defender in Karazhan.
Then you don't ever need to do Mechanar HC unless you want to.

If you don't do Torghast, you're not going to get (upgraded) legendaries, which will be a pain in the ass for the entirety for SL.

It had daily? Or 3 day cooldown on crafting primal nether/cloths/bars.

Only Cloth & Primal Might transmute had a CD and everything was BoE anyway, besides Primal Nether, which had a 100% droprate in Heroics.
But hey, if you badly needed one, you had up to 12 shots at them and then even could spam nhc 70 dungeons for the potential drop.

Also it was only important, besides maybe Stormherald (stun mace), because other loot was scarse. It won't be as powerful in Classic TBC, because raids will be much more widely cleared.

Except it can craft you armor & weapons that last into T6, such as:
-Dragonstrike
-Lionheart Executioner
-Frozen Shadowweave set

Craftables are going to be a huge deal in TBC again, considering it remains to be seen whether T5 might even be available in the first place and even if, not everybody will clear that place very quickly, nor get all of that loot within weeks.
They still will be relevant, i'm very certain of that.

What current craftables have time gates?

What is your obsession with timegating?
Craftables aren't any good outside of legendary tokens, that's a far bigger issue.

So if the reps were grindable in WoD (and it had grindable rep btw) would that constitute to being good content currently or would be declared "dead expansion"?

Except the Reputation in WoD primarily sold cosmetic items, not actual items that are relevant for progression minded players.
That little paragraph about WoW "not being a dress up game" seems rather ironic under the light that you've forgotten this.

WoD had mythic dungeons with good loot and more difficulty than TBC HCs. WoD also had chellenege dungeons.

Mythic dungeons weren't in until 6.2 and generally dropped worse loot than HFC, you didn't have any reason to enter Mythic dungeons outside of alts / catchup.

Challenge dungeons is something you're doing once and leave it, hardly the same.

TBC and WoD had separate gearing systems for PvE and PvP

...yes?
Normally people reply with some of argument and not state something that can be reached by logical deduction.

[Sanguinerd]

I changed sure, but WoW has too and right now I don't find it fun so I'm not playing.

Hell I enjoyed BFA more than this.

[zhero]

i definitely don't agree that using the same dungeons we ran while leveling up as end game content with increased difficulty scaling to be "better" or even close to as good as it used to ever be.

[erifwodahs]

i definitely don't agree that using the same dungeons we ran while leveling up as end game content with increased difficulty scaling to be "better" or even close to as good as it used to ever be.

Well, only time when we did not run same dungeons at max level was Vanilla.

[Aucald]

I still find MMO's, including Retail WoW, to be fun and enjoyable. I no longer have the time to commit to them that I once had, hence my demotion from hardcore raider back in the day (TBC, WotLK, Cata) to more a casual player of the game (e.g. mount collecting, low-tier Mythic+, LFR), but the game's still fun and I still put a lot of time into relatively speaking. I found my brief experience with Classic to actually be an interesting one, as back in '04-'05 I would've called Classic WoW perhaps one of the greatest video games of all time in terms of fun and overall investment. But going back to it upon it's re-release I found it rather clunky and just super slow, not nearly as fun as Retail in most aspects. My toolkit felt limited and patchwork, and the general action seemed to move at a crawl compared to what I'd become accustomed to. This isn't to say that Classic WoW is bad in any sense - if you prefer a slower and more strategic type of playstyle then I can imagine Classic is right up your alley, but in that vein I suppose I had changed. I much prefer the speed of Retail WoW, and the sense that my character has a variable toolkit I can use to handle multiple situations depending on my class. I would say that Retail is "easier" in that sense, but it feels more like an ease borne out of mechanical advantage than any kind of simplification of the game.

[zhero]

Well, only time when we did not run same dungeons at max level was Vanilla.

they may have introduced heroic dungeons in BC but they were far from being considered end game content.

[Masternap]

The video is kind of right, but my life actually didn't really change that much, and I still don't have fun anymore. I never played WoW with friends, I never had this "coming home after a hard day" experience. I always just sat around at home playing video games, just like I do now.

The one thing that changed is that the genre isn't new to me anymore. I know exactly what to expect, I understand the systems, and that makes it boring. Nothing that could come out would really keep my interest anymore. The novelty has worn off, the way the internet works has changed, and the genre is a shell of its former self because of it. It's not special anymore to be in a big world with other players, and never will be again.

Maybe once fully-realized VR games come out, MMORPGs can have a resurgence. Who knows?

[erifwodahs]

they may have introduced heroic dungeons in BC but they were far from being considered end game content.

Ok then... M+ Being end game content is only an addition to what we always had. It only compliments endgame. How "what used to be" is remotely better than M+? Dungeons did not exists at the endgame at all. Something existing can't be worse than something what doesn't as it only provides alternative means of game and does not remove anything.

[Morssoe]

Soon I will change too cause humor can not carry me through this shit anymore. Expansion after expansion hoping for great experience, instead I get shitty systems that they "learn" from and they just add new system that is somehow "different" so old logic won't apply here according to blizzard, and so the cycle repeats.

[unbound]

If you think a system or mechanic of the game was better in the past please feel free to point out WHAT was better and why.
And if you think if this old mechanic would bring the "good old times" back.

TBH, this argument is laughable at best.

M+ set to timers alone completely debunks the idea that the game hasn't changed. Blizz took something that didn't really rear it's ugly head until Wrath (the "Go Go Go" mentality) and completely embraced it starting with Legion.

Most classes don't work the same way they did in early expansions. Raids are not remotely the same (little trash, focus on over-the-top mechanic boss fights instead).

Blizz provides substantially less content than they did in early expansions. They provide only 1/2 the dungeons and about 1/3 of the raids that they used to.

FFS, you can buy gold in the game now via Blizz...something that they wrote in great detail about how important is was to *not* have gold sellers.

I could go on into smaller detail, but the above alone debunks the notion that the game hasn't changed. It has changed tremendously. Stop making disingenuous arguments.

[rogoth]

lmfao - right, the game took a "downturn in Cata/MoP" then the guy waited 5 years to off himself. Yep. Do you realize how incomprehensibly offensive it is to associate something as serious as suicide with something as flagrantly meaningless as whether or not a fucking video game is "good"? Please stop.

my point is here .< where you're looking >.

i'll make my point abundantly clear since you missed by a country mile previously: there is no data to suggest the poster you quoted is wrong, by the same token there is no data to suggest that they are correct either, and as i stated it's not considered a nice thing to insinuate, it's sadly a fact that the vast majority of suicides don't get reported, and even when they do, there's usually never a note left behind to explain the reasons behind it, so nobody knows, that's my point.

[Nerovar]

I can still play older versions of WoW and enjoy them. I can't enjoy retail. So you're wrong. I win.


People claiming the MMORPG genre is still as healthy as during WoW's peak or even that we're going through some kind of "golden age of MMORPGs" are really silly. This is just insane levels of cope.

[erifwodahs]

TBH, this argument is laughable at best.

M+ set to timers alone completely debunks the idea that the game hasn't changed. Blizz took something that didn't really rear it's ugly head until Wrath (the "Go Go Go" mentality) and completely embraced it starting with Legion.

Blizz provides substantially less content than they did in early expansions. They provide only 1/2 the dungeons and about 1/3 of the raids that they used to.
arguments.

I mean, classic proved that it's use who actually are "GO GO GO" and not the game?
Content amount is debatable. Legion had way more content than any other expansion, better quality too. More solo stuff than ever. Same with BfA, just it did not stick.

1/3 of the raids? Which expansion had 12 raids or 16-20 dungeons? WTF. You must be trolling.

[Ludvig]

I think he knows games today are harder mechanically.
Just try and play Sub Rogue today in Shadowlands

try playing feral druid in mop lol

[Cosmic Janitor]

Besides the blatant attempt at advertising some random youtuber, classic and 9.x.y are already the complete and all-encompassing anti thesis of the OP. I don't think much more needs to be said. Obviously everyone (hopefully) changes over time as well, but the game certainly did change too by the sheer fact that it tried to retain the changing demographic and adapt to the changing trends in the industry. If something that basic needs to be clarified you aren't ready to participate in the discussion.

[Malix Farwin]

This statement is incorrect. WoW has unequivocally changed. Yes the player base has as well but that doesn't mean the game hasn't either. If anything the evolution of the game has helped shaped players mindset today. P.S.: The video is definitely out of place here because its other the assumption people aren't enjoying other MMOs.

[Aydinx2]

I havent changed.

WoW has become a game designed for the unemployed or those without a social life.

That means that either one of those descriptions match you, or you're complaining on a forum dedicated to a videogame that you don't play.

[Martymark]

I played for the story, and that has been weakening since WOTLK, and flew right into the shitter in BFA.

[Osperand]

I have played Wow since Vanilla, i wasn't that keen on the game when it first came out I preferred some of the other games around at that time. I thought WoW got better each expansion and it's pinnacle for me was WoTLK. I was somehow able to juggle a job, wife and family and still raid 3 times a week. But gradually over the years the game has lost it's appeal, i have every single expansion but i will not be getting the next. This isn't WoW's fault, it is mine.

I have way too many expectations for this game as i have a ridiculous amount of time (and money) invested in it. It is very hard to walk away but each expansion i subscribe for shorter and shorter periods. I am already bored with this expansion and i detest the maw and torghast so i have 2 months left before my sub expires and i will be off.

I have had value for money, but i think the games subscription model will be phased out at some point as it is an expensive yearly cost for those who only play casual in my opinion. But hey, like i said, it isn't the games fault it is mine, i have way too many expectations which could never be realistically reached. I have started playing quite a few other games and i am having a blast again, but it WoW still floats your boat then sail on

[Otaka]

This is such nonsense. Everything related to player power can be achieved in just an hour or so each week so long as you've kept your character up to date, & other than that all you have to do is the content of your choice.

Disclaimer: im not talking about shadowlands but rather the 2 earlier expansions in which i still played. So hopefully shadowlands is better than those for raiders.

What you say is an illusion the game-design gives you. Content of choice, if youre lucky to be in a guild where you can raid casually and theres no pressure to minmax then you can do what you want while keeping up with the progress... but if youre even in a semi-hardcore guild then you will fall behind in character power if you dont grind every content in the game.
This was highly noticeable after legion introduced artifact power... if you arent doing every single WQ every single day along with other activities that give it, then youre going to fall behind the rest of your raid team.

In classic this isnt the case... you dont have to grind every piece of content in the game every day just to keep up, you can choose what you do and WHEN. Thats the key: When. There are only weekly resets and those are for raids aka the endgame content which rewards the most powerful gear.

Theres a reason why alot of dad-guilds are doing well in classic, they can allocate more time by themselves instead of being forced into blizzard's timegated scheduling.
You can grind your face off on weekends for as many hours as you like, and chill during workdays, cant do that on retail... world quests and dailies dont work like that.

You can only grind on retail aslong as the content is available, and like you said "an hour"... so its an hour a day or more. You have no decision to instead of doing 1 hour a day you could do 7 hours on a weekend to catch up. (having to do set amount per day feels more like a chore than a hobby)


So the op is wrong, WoW is not the same... not even close. The players AND the game has changed... the gameplay for raids is completely different, if you exclude the minmax culture which classic was never designed for, then the bosses in raids are far more simpler and easier to learn but also more cruel... in a way that recovering from wipes takes longer and is more of a pain in the rear while retail you just flop back from the entrance in less than 30 seconds ready to pull again.

World Buffs also destroy the design of classic raids and make them alot easier as a result since the mechanics are timebased rather than boss health based (unlike retail in which most of the boss phases are triggered by how low the health of the boss gets... correct me if im wrong) and thats why raiding casually is more challenging since you arent breaking the game by being too powerful.
Both versions of WoW were designed for two different eras of gamers, and it doesnt help classic at all that its an old game which means every piece of theorycrafted information is already known. If it was a newly released mmo in 2019 then it wouldnt be the same either, it would probably just flop instead... too unforgiving and grindy for gamers these days, people need that 10 minute satisfaction reward. :P