When did Modern WoW start?

[Sondrelk]

i can easily point to WoD as first exp where u can cover everything u want by pure solo content without the need to even /hi anyone, wrath didn't have that option, nor cata

Wrath was however the first expansion that conclusively cemented the idea that raiding was done for its own sake and nothing else.

In TBC you did world content so you could do dungeons so you could do raids so you could do more raids. The entier game was designed as somewhat ofa cohesive whole.
In WotLK with the removal of attunements the open world content languished, leading to the distinct separation of instanced vs. non-instanced content that the game struggled to reconcile until Legion.

Obviously no expansion is going to have all the problems. but whether weapon skills were a thing isnt as impactful on the game ass whether the designers want you to play the whole game, and not just half of it.

[Aphrel]

Not gonna comment on whether modern wow is bad or good. but as for when it started. It started small, then grew.

Flying mounts is probobly the 2nd biggest contributor to the feel of a lobbygame rather than an rpg after the groupfinder for dungeons.

Id say tbc was the first step with flying mounts aswell as a 2nd difficulty setting added to include more types of players into the dungeon content. And the arenas being a competetive pvp system with a ladder, that made battlegrounds completely irrelevant.

With wrath a couple more steps was added with automated dungeon finder, and raids also getting not two but 4 difficulty settings of the same raids, aswell as our first instance of rehashed content in naxx returning to be the stand in for the first raidteir of the expansion. At the same time the effort needed to grind various reputations and professions were significantly cut down.

We jokingly called it Wrath of the casual king, and i think its here that wow started to feel less like an rpg and more like a lobbygame.

[Ange]

with one of the earliest vanilla achievements there is pre-Patch 1.4.0 (2005-05-05), thats first few months of vanilla-EU.



I played and enjoyed different content over time and there was never a point where WoW changed much. Blizzards attempts to create NEW_PLAYER experiences could be counted as "Modern WoW" or WoW2.0 /3.0 whatever but nothing else changed that much.

The game got simply a bit more demanding, content got slightly more difficult but other things like grinds never really changed its simply not as punishing for seasonal players or content tourists as it was from time to time.

The game needs changes for regular players, there is no way around that or it would get boring - look at the current topics about the stretched content and thats just a few weeks/months extra and not years of the same content.

[TheTaurenChieftain]

If modern WoW was too casual, then where are all the casual players in the current WoW?

In my personal experience most of the casual friends already left the game during Wrath, whereas only all hardcore friends are still playing the game.

Current WoW is not in any way made for casual players. It is made for most of the hardcore players who stuck with the game till now. I don't understand the mentality that WoW has become too casual. It has become less casual.

[oplawlz]

with one of the earliest vanilla achievements there is pre-Patch 1.4.0 (2005-05-05), thats first few months of vanilla-EU.

Um, there were no achievments in vanilla, chief. Anything done in vanilla-tbc all got added at the same time when they were introduced in WotLK.

edit: oops, i misunderstood what you were saying, the mount from before they changed how riding skill worked. My mistake, carry on

[Chrno]

i can easily point to WoD as first exp where u can cover everything u want by pure solo content without the need to even /hi anyone, wrath didn't have that option, nor cata

That all started in wotlk. So youre proving my point. But like i said, it was gradual

[bloodkin]

with one of the earliest vanilla achievements there is pre-Patch 1.4.0 (2005-05-05), thats first few months of vanilla-EU.



I played and enjoyed different content over time and there was never a point where WoW changed much. Blizzards attempts to create NEW_PLAYER experiences could be counted as "Modern WoW" or WoW2.0 /3.0 whatever but nothing else changed that much.

The game got simply a bit more demanding, content got slightly more difficult but other things like grinds never really changed its simply not as punishing for seasonal players or content tourists as it was from time to time.

The game needs changes for regular players, there is no way around that or it would get boring - look at the current topics about the stretched content and thats just a few weeks/months extra and not years of the same content.

change is needed to keep it interesting, but we can certainly see changes in the direction and style in which wow was developed. The first phase consists of vanilla, BC and WotLK, with new changes seen already in WotLK. The game is primarily designed with player enjoyment as the drive behind player retention and financial growth/profit. Some truly hardcore grinds exist in the game (for achivs) but nothing in the way of mandatory for the game that isn't doable or interesting to do.

The second phase is the shortest, in which the design team shifted quite a lot and the game was changed in major ways, still retaining some older systems but already moving on to more modern MMO systems or defining them, I consider this to only contain Cata and MoP, with the tail end of MoP also showing significant signs of changes. The continual growth of wow seems to stall here, and it seems that blizz wanted to address this by changing gameplay philosophy, with the last real effort for player enjoyment of the content as the main drive behind growth/retention in MoP.

the last phase, is the one in which blizz seems to double down on certain systems and gameplay styles that no longer simply add enjoyment, but more importantly affect player metrics and maximize profits. Grinds and mechanics designed to increase engagement pop up here and the game is changed massively. The garrison in hindsight looks like it was designed to increase player metrics without increased socialization. Cutting content and reducing lore development time (by cutting corners in lore, such as going for alternate universe instead of something actually interesting and worked out) further reduces production costs significantly. However, it seems that blizz wasn't entirely satisfied with player metrics, so a different approach to increased grind/player metric system was designed in the form of the AP grind. Every xpac since has had such a system in place in one form or another (even in SL, in which it's the covenants). Increase in randomization in loot is further maximized to keep players busy.

It seems that blizz didn't trust the game to grow much after it started to lose players in droves in WoD, and designed the game to profit from hype surges from xpac releases and patch releases and subside on a core audience that stayed for the grind. Overall, I find this game design the least appealing and most disruptive to my enjoyment of the game, and I have been at least annoyed or dissatisfied about at least one or two major expansion features since WoD. No, wow is not dying or is going to die anytime soon, but it is undeniable that the game has changed dramatically and not for the better.

[God Save The King]

I consider WoW to exist in three main "ages" with distinct game design patterns in each.

Classic through Wrath of the Lich King
Cataclysm through Warlords of Draenor
Legion to the Present

The "Classic" era is noted by a focus on leveling, attunements, role playing mechanics, slower gameplay, and accomplishment coming from more mundane tasks. We see things like leveling in Classic taking 8-10 days played, and 60-70/70-80 taking several days each as well (this excludes really hardcore minmaxers). Once a player hits max level, there is a lot of repeated content to get gear/attunements. Dungeon clear times are very high in classic while the number of bosses are quite low, coupled with large loot tables and many useless items. This results in hundreds of dungeon clears to properly gear a raider in Pre-raid BiS. TBC required a high number of dungeon clears as well for heroic attunements before farming heroics for gear. WotLK relaxed the requirements a bit, but raiders would still routinely clear most heroics each day for weeks upon hitting 80. You can see the game design shifting towards the next era during WotLK.

The "Cataclysm" era focuses a lot more on accessibility by removing many pain points in the game, reworking several classes, drastically increasing leveling speed, revamping the world, and removing much of the "danger" from the old world. Classes felt very powerful while leveling even with mediocre gear and dungeons were fairly faceroll. At end-game, large changes to both PvE and PvP made both more accessible with the changes to arena teams and introduction of 10 man raiding. MoP continued this trend by baking in most talents into the classes and leaving the "big" talents in the new system. WoD made it even easier with more heirlooms, boosts, and experience potions.

The "Legion" era, or "modern" WoW, is pretty easily defined as "borrowed power". Artifact weapons, Heart of Azeroth, and now covenants. Different from before as each previous expansion granted us new powers, talents, ranks, etc. Now the new power we get while leveling leaves us at the end of the expansion. There is also the new design pattern of scaling, and the removal of most stats on gear, and the standardization of various old systems like weapon damage, hit/expertise, levels, etc.

Some people view "modern" WoW as starting in Cataclysm, but I think there's a pretty clear line between the Cataclysm and Legion eras of WoW.

[Super Kami Dende]

WoW's peak was TBC->MoP. Vanilla was meh, WoD onwards was meh.

[Ange]

However, it seems that blizz wasn't entirely satisfied with player metrics, so a different approach to increased grind/player metric system was designed in the form of the AP grind. Every xpac since has had such a system in place in one form or another (even in SL, in which it's the covenants). Increase in randomization in loot is further maximized to keep players busy.

WoD's progression for casual players was not ideal and LEGION/BFA/SL did lots of things better for the majority of the players.

I really dont mind the new system, the grinds are still just optional. The catch up system works great till the end of the expansions and its refreshing to see new players joining the game at the late stages of the expansion.

I never cared for the lore to be honest, just enjoyed the mechanical part of the game. The whole portal/zones/whatever in each expansion are fine for me as long as traveling time doesnt get to anoying. I complain just as everyone else about aquatic or simply stupid zones with obstacles for normal ground traveling that basicly demands flying because its just stupid.

I never cared that much about blizzards intentions with certain gaming modes or content type. I just do what I like and skip what I dont like. Never did a pet-battle in my ~48.000 gaming hours and many other things I did not care about. In the end the only thing that matters is that people can spend time with whatever part they like in the game. Keeping players busy is therefore really hard for me to see as a negative aspect of this or any other MMO, because what else would be the point to install or buy this game if there is nothing to do?

[Semihagez]

I am going to say WOTLK. That's when we get dual spec and heroic LFG. The levelling experience was also a lot more streamlined in WOTLK. But Cata would be high on the list as well since that's when LFR started and all the classic levelling content gets trivialized.

[bloodykiller86]

Fixed that for ya

theres always been a versin of Raider IO. back in the old days people would inspect your gear before joining a group. People act like people openly allowed terrible players into all groups when thats never really been the case except while leveling

[bloodkin]

WoD's progression for casual players was not ideal and LEGION/BFA/SL did lots of things better for the majority of the players.

I really dont mind the new system, the grinds are still just optional. The catch up system works great till the end of the expansions and its refreshing to see new players joining the game at the late stages of the expansion.

I never cared for the lore to be honest, just enjoyed the mechanical part of the game. The whole portal/zones/whatever in each expansion are fine for me as long as traveling time doesnt get to anoying. I complain just as everyone else about aquatic or simply stupid zones with obstacles for normal ground traveling that basicly demands flying because its just stupid.

I never cared that much about blizzards intentions with certain gaming modes or content type. I just do what I like and skip what I dont like. Never did a pet-battle in my ~48.000 gaming hours and many other things I did not care about. In the end the only thing that matters is that people can spend time with whatever part they like in the game. Keeping players busy is therefore really hard for me to see as a negative aspect of this or any other MMO, because what else would be the point to install or buy this game if there is nothing to do?

I agree that that in the modern iteration of wow there has been a movement to make improvements for casual players, and that the focus on the grinds has been reduced (mostly in SL). There have been a lot of fun and interesting systems in the game and many good things are still in the game. I still play on and off whenever I feel like I want to play, but to me, there are still a few systems that seem to be to be only implemented for data generation that would keep shareholders happy. True, the developers need to do this to keep the game financially viable, but it doesn't mean that I like it, or that it could negatively impact the game.

For the lore, I also didn't always care as much, as long as it made some sense, or one could make a reasonable explanation as to why something happens, but that seems to have thrown out of the window and isn't much of value to the developers anymore. To clarify, not all lore bits/stories in the game are bad, but the main storyline is no longer that enjoyable to me. Both the way that it is told and in the with the characters, which are mostly overtly dramatic yet somehow with unimaginative mary-sue-esque. Sure, individual storylines in covenants and other sub-plots are good and enjoyable, but blizz decided that wow needs this overarching storyline that just isn't interesting. I can understand that lore might not be relevant to you which is fine, but it does bother me.

The problem with grinding content such as AP for me is that it isn't very rewarding for the effort. By design, it gives the player the bare minimum for maximum effort input of the player. I don't mind the grind in an mmo, it is in the nature of the genre to have them and to make the player work for rewards, but developers need to keep the balance between the grind and rewards healthy, which wasn't the case in WoD, legion, and especially not in BfA. To me, both WoD and BfA are perfect examples of game design being ruined to please shareholders and higher-ups vs the players, were the players are more treated like the product than the game itself. I don't mind it if blizz makes a (very) good profit from wow, as long as the game stays enjoyable and isn't obviously designed to cater to an audience that isn't the player, looking at you, shareholders and ceo's. I also don't like to give my money to a company that can't spend it responsibly, I absolutely LOATHE the very notion that someone gets 200 million as a bonus, while hundreds of people in the same company are fired because of reasons (I am aware that they weren't working in wow, that is irrelevant). To me, that is little more than spineless parasitism of the work of their employees and shouldn't be allowed by law (unfortunately, blizz is based in the US, which has become plutocracy, which means that 'people' like him get a free pass).

[Dartz1979]

ill always be a casual i have no intentions of ever bequeefing any real life / responsiblities i just play my games all day and night,

[Exkrementor]

Wotlk

Just compare wotlk class design to tbc and shadowlands. Its way more shadowlands than it is tbc.

[HordeFanboy]

When did Modern WoW start?

Modern WoW or Retail WoW
Retail WoW or Modern WoW
Whatever you say.

Modern WoW era: 2015 to Present??

The Modern WoW Era:

WoW being an Esports, Arenas, Rated Battlegrounds, Transmogrification, Dungeon Finder Tool, Premade Groups Finder Tool, Raid Finder Tool, Cross Realms, The WoW Token, Pet Battles, Toy Box, Linked Auction Houses, The New Auction House Interface 2019-21?, Reagent Bank, Void Storage, 30-slot Hexweave Bags, Professions are still useless, No Social Interaction any more in PUGS, Toxic PUG Community, elitism in PUGS, Introduction of Mythic+, No Social Interaction any more at all in WoW, Gear is boring now, Sooo Many Ways To Get Gear, Guild Finder which still sucks, etc.

- started when everything started being dumbed down, being more casual friendly.

- Blizzard catering to the casuals.

- Making everything easy.

- When they added the pandas

Button bloat.
Too Many Abilities Now.
Blizzard removing Button Bloat.
When Blizzard started removing abilities because too many.

Example: Druid's Ability Symbiosis (back in the day)
The Druid would cast Symbiosis on a friendly target
The Druid would get an ability of their class
And the friendly target would get an ability of the Druid

"Yes! I got Cyclone!!!" as a melee rogue.

We are old now lol:

It is 2021. People are old now lol. Families/Kids/More Responsiblities in Life. We as a people have changed, gotten older, got married, had kids, are more familiar with the game, know how to play WoW now (from our noob days starting WoW for first time lol). We want Instant Gratification. We don't want to work for our gear. We just want our gear handed to us lol. Instant Gratification FTW. Kids and their Fortnites. Kids with their V-Bucks they can just buy it lol. They just want to buy it. Not have to work for anything. Kids and Young People Today don't want to work for anything any more. Instant Gratification FTW.


When did Modern WoW start?

Legion
/10chars

[dewd]

pretty sure most people agree cataclysm is where things started to change. vanilla and tbc were still clunky as fuck gameplay wise and wotlk improved a lot but still feels like it belongs to the pre cataclysm creations.

cant just be a coincidence that the game felt different after the acquisition by activision

[Soon-TM]

We don't want to work, we want to play, have fun, and be entertained, not work.

This concept, simple as it is, seems completely alien to some of Blizzard's staunchest defenders.

[ThatsOurEric]

WoW has had lots of highs and lows. The original WoW was terrible, BC improved it, and WoTLK improved
it further. Cata was low, MoP was high (then eventually became low), WoD was low, Legion was high, and
SL is...currently low, but was high.

[Kagthul]

Cataclysm. Its a clear departure from the design philosophies of the "Classic" Era, which were really only additions to the core Vanilla game.

Cata is where they threw out the old talent system, made it completely into queuecraft (and expanded it service wide with the abolition of Battlegroups), devalued crafting professions to uselessness, etc.

Cata is "Modern WoW".