What kept you playing WoW in the past? What made it fun to play?

[sargentos]

I know right now many have stopped playing WoW for many reasons. One of the biggest arguments I see is the endless systems Blizzard creates (domination shards, artifact power, etc), coupled with grinds like Korthia and Torghast, a storyline that doesn't seem well thought out, and a severe content drought.

However, back in Wrath, MoP, and even Legion (even with grinds) the game was a lot more active than these last 2 expansions. Honest question, what was different back then, before most of these systems and grinds came in to play? Was it more content, like the Mage Tower, Argent Tournament Grounds, Isle of Thunder, etc? Was it another way to get gear, such as valor and justice gear that lasted I think till MoP? Was it more alt-friendly back then (boa tokens sent to alts for rep during MoP, for example). Or was it you had more friends who played?

If Blizz eliminates or really reduces how many systems or grinds we get in 10.0 and actually listen to their player base, specifically what should they do to bring you back to play, or play more

***Edit
Love the feedback Any more specific solutions that could make the game better? One example- some mentioned badge gear is great in FF14 and could be something Blizz can reintroduce easily, without spending much development time on. Anyways, who knows, maybe there's that 1% chance some Devs will actually read some of these things. I just want to see the game get better.

[Echocho]

Valor gear. Being able to work towards the second best gear in the game over a long period of time fromm running daily heroics, LFR and some daily quests. As soon as Blizzard sayd fuck you to that playstyle I moved over to FFXIV where it's the norm.

[sargentos]

That's up there for me, probably #1. Gave you something to shoot for and a reason to log in.

[Soon-TM]

A mixture of a (more or less) passable story, interesting zones and alt friendliness. Guess what is lacking the first half of SL.

[Itori]

In the past it was the community, the gameplay was okay, and still is just okay, but the game was essentially a giant chatroom, it wasn’t about being world first, or maxing out your gear as quick as possible, the joy was just logging on for the time you had and enjoying the company. Its the reason people say it took months to hit 60-70

[MoanaLisa]

Progression. I used to raid back in Wrath and the first part of Cataclysm but life got complicated and I stopped doing that. There were still other things to do and it was fun, not incredibly difficult, relaxing even. The game was more deterministic then as well. You did enough of X and you knew you were going to get a version of Y that was a solid thing. So you could progress with friends or alone if need be. The game just worked.

I still play but wish that the stories were simpler, the systems more transparent and honestly, fewer choices. Everything in the game now seems to be a choice between relatively equal alternatives. There are exceptions of course (don't at me about covenants) but priority systems are murky for some classes, gear is no longer straightforward and you often have to make choices between A & B when neither one of them are precisely what you want. I don't mind RNG, it's what makes games like this work but there's too much of it now. The game is also now louder in a lot of ways. That's all about big/loud = epic. Fewer small moments and many of the best ones are in their cinematics. All in all less fun, less certainty, less likely to just chill. Sometimes I feel as if I'm walking around in an exposed Excel workbook.

The game has always been grindy. That's what MMO's are. But it used to be you knew precisely what you would get at the end of it and could decide if it was worth it. Now rewards are less clear and much easier to push off infinitely till later.

EDIT: I said this recently in another thread but I've never been able to shake the feeling that the move from rotations to priority systems and the eventual loss of a lot of long-time players were related. Cataclysm started a lot of that (although Cataclysm was a great idea for an expansion with a world of self-caused problems capped off by a ridiculous end raid). It's been up and down ever since, mostly down.

[Hyeonh]

When there was no F.O.M.O to burn everyone out and features that requires a lot of heavy grinding to unlock the ability to use. Really burned me out unlocking every allied races. Not to mention the unneeded layers of rng on top of rng. Liked it when the game was your own pace kind of deal.

[Miross]

An active guild/community
badges/Emblem knowing when i'm gonna get that set
being able to get BIS gear
being to somewhat custumize my character build Do i want more mana? should i try doing a half blood half frost build
not having to do tons of boring farm and chores to get my alt character in a playable state

[Mysterymask]

People...I don't know never found this games mechanics or system to be that...good but found a decent group of people on my server and kept playing with them. Once to they left I kinda stopped

[Shadowferal]

I can't pinpoint any one thing...but there was a lot of well written material that demanded exploring. When I topped out in level during MoP, I never entered the Dread Wastes even though I had a quest. Out of curiosity I did "amber is the color of my energy." And I couldn't stop. It was all so interesting and fun to explore.

[exochaft]

Without devolving into the nitty-gritty of every aspect of what went wrong:

1.) Social aspect of the game is just a shadow of what it once was, and that was a huge part of my enjoyment

2.) More deterministic options when it came to gearing rewards were great, but was dropped in favor of more layers of randomness.

3.) Despite my love for doing/completing the hardest raiding content, the mechanics and design of raids have moved way too far towards difficulty and away from accessibility/fun for everyone. Their decision to design raid content around the assumption players have boss encounter mods was probably the worst decision they made in this regard, but it's still one of many.

4.) Goals for players either being removed, bloated over time, or becoming more obscure/endless. This includes changes to how loot works, systems, 'seasonal' progression across the game, etc.

5.) The game not being an escape from the real world like it used to be, while it currently is reflecting or injecting the current social/political hot topics of the day.

6.) The game design actually reflecting the designers putting fun and the experience of the players first was great, while actually having a back-and-forth dialogue with the players that didn't spit in their faces. But now, this doesn't occur, where feedback is increasingly ignored and the devs are increasingly combative towards feedback that doesn't align with their narratives.

I could keep going with this list, but it'd start getting into overlapping issues as many of what I've stated above intertwine with each other to cause other systemic problems. It's not like a lot of these issue just happened in Shadowlands, as many have been present for many expansions. Some are the result of obtuse design, some are the result of experiments gone wrong but never purged, some are Blizz just being stubborn. Regardless, there's no indication that any of the above reasons will be addressed in the near future. I've never been one for hype driving my gaming decisions, as I generally buy 'hyped' game way after launch if I'm not currently enjoying the creator's previous content... and I don't think even a 10.0 sweeping overhaul could really bring me back in. Pretty much all of my friends in and out of the game no longer play WoW for various reasons, so Blizz has an insanely uphill battle to even get me to consider coming back since they don't even have peer pressure on their side.

[sargentos]

A mixture of a (more or less) passable story, interesting zones and alt friendliness. Guess what is lacking the first half of SL.

I'm not a big story/lore person, but in Wrath it seems like Blizz made you truly know who the big bad of the expac was, with the Lich King showing up in many quest areas and in a dungeon or two. You kinda knew what he was up to. Have they done anything like that in the last 2 expansions to make you invested? Doesn't seem like it.

[Shadowferal]

I'm not a big story/lore person, but in Wrath it seems like Blizz made you truly know who the big bad of the expac was, with the Lich King showing up in many quest areas and in a dungeon or two. You kinda knew what he was up to. Have they done anything like that in the last 2 expansions to make you invested? Doesn't seem like it.

Add the pre-expansion stuff and it felt like there was a genuine threat. But there was a kind of fun factor to the overall spookiness.

[sargentos]

In the past it was the community, the gameplay was okay, and still is just okay, but the game was essentially a giant chatroom, it wasn’t about being world first, or maxing out your gear as quick as possible, the joy was just logging on for the time you had and enjoying the company. Its the reason people say it took months to hit 60-70

I'm not sure how to bring the community ever since group finder was created. If anyone is playing BC Classic right now, any thoughts on what Blizz can do? More world events that bring people together?

[catalystical]

At the heart of it, it is loot and seeing meter numbers increase with said loot. Those are what I would call pull factors. And world content and LFR is where I get my loot and where I see my numbers. Story matters for the first week or two but after everything is revealed it's back to loot and numbers.

It's offset by push factors like ridiculous boss fights in LFR like G'huun and N'zoth. Another push factor is how lame and unrewarding world content rewards are. At least there are daily caches, but when the content is lame, I wouldn't be bothered to go for those caches either.

[sargentos]

When there was no F.O.M.O to burn everyone out and features that requires a lot of heavy grinding to unlock the ability to use. Really burned me out unlocking every allied races. Not to mention the unneeded layers of rng on top of rng. Liked it when the game was your own pace kind of deal.

As someone mentioned above, valor/justice gear and even honor gear was something I can play at my own pace and achieve. Maybe Blizz will add in more BOA items to make grinding for alts less terrible? I loved Legion, minus a couple things, one being Legiondaries.

- - - Updated - - -

Progression. I used to raid back in Wrath and the first part of Cataclysm but life got complicated and I stopped doing that. There were still other things to do and it was fun, not incredibly difficult, relaxing even. The game was more deterministic then as well. You did enough of X and you knew you were going to get a version of Y that was a solid thing. So you could progress with friends or alone if need be. The game just worked.

I still play but wish that the stories were simpler, the systems more transparent and honestly, fewer choices. Everything in the game now seems to be a choice between relatively equal alternatives. There are exceptions of course (don't at me about covenants) but priority systems are murky for some classes, gear is no longer straightforward and you often have to make choices between A & B when neither one of them are precisely what you want. I don't mind RNG, it's what makes games like this work but there's too much of it now. The game is also now louder in a lot of ways. That's all about big/loud = epic. Fewer small moments and many of the best ones are in their cinematics. All in all less fun, less certainty, less likely to just chill. Sometimes I feel as if I'm walking around in an exposed Excel workbook.

The game has always been grindy. That's what MMO's are. But it used to be you knew precisely what you would get at the end of it and could decide if it was worth it. Now rewards are less clear and much easier to push off infinitely till later.

EDIT: I said this recently in another thread but I've never been able to shake the feeling that the move from rotations to priority systems and the eventual loss of a lot of long-time players were related. Cataclysm started a lot of that (although Cataclysm was a great idea for an expansion with a world of self-caused problems capped off by a ridiculous end raid). It's been up and down ever since, mostly down.

Good points. If you apply it to gear, I remember when it wasn't hard to figure out what my best piece of gear was...now I have to use raidbots to tell me.

- - - Updated - - -

At the heart of it, it is loot and seeing meter numbers increase with said loot. Those are what I would call pull factors. And world content and LFR is where I get my loot and where I see my numbers. Story matters for the first week or two but after everything is revealed it's back to loot and numbers.

It's offset by push factors like ridiculous boss fights in LFR like G'huun and N'zoth. Another push factor is how lame and unrewarding world content rewards are. At least there are daily caches, but when the content is lame, I wouldn't be bothered to go for those caches either.

I forgot about World Quests. At least in Legion, you did them for the chance at a legendary. The last 2 expansions I simply despise doing them.

[Dread Pirate Phayde]

For me it was mainly the friends I had playing, and up until Wrath, there was still that sense of awe and wonder about the game for me, from Cata onward, I think the luster started wearing off for me, MoP renewed that sense a little for me, but WoD and after didn't really have it.

[druchii5]

Better story, a more grounded (i.e. less "cosmic") setting, and a more vibrant/motivated RP community.

[sargentos]

Without devolving into the nitty-gritty of every aspect of what went wrong:

1.) Social aspect of the game is just a shadow of what it once was, and that was a huge part of my enjoyment

2.) More deterministic options when it came to gearing rewards were great, but was dropped in favor of more layers of randomness.

3.) Despite my love for doing/completing the hardest raiding content, the mechanics and design of raids have moved way too far towards difficulty and away from accessibility/fun for everyone. Their decision to design raid content around the assumption players have boss encounter mods was probably the worst decision they made in this regard, but it's still one of many.

4.) Goals for players either being removed, bloated over time, or becoming more obscure/endless. This includes changes to how loot works, systems, 'seasonal' progression across the game, etc.

5.) The game not being an escape from the real world like it used to be, while it currently is reflecting or injecting the current social/political hot topics of the day.

6.) The game design actually reflecting the designers putting fun and the experience of the players first was great, while actually having a back-and-forth dialogue with the players that didn't spit in their faces. But now, this doesn't occur, where feedback is increasingly ignored and the devs are increasingly combative towards feedback that doesn't align with their narratives.

I could keep going with this list, but it'd start getting into overlapping issues as many of what I've stated above intertwine with each other to cause other systemic problems. It's not like a lot of these issue just happened in Shadowlands, as many have been present for many expansions. Some are the result of obtuse design, some are the result of experiments gone wrong but never purged, some are Blizz just being stubborn. Regardless, there's no indication that any of the above reasons will be addressed in the near future. I've never been one for hype driving my gaming decisions, as I generally buy 'hyped' game way after launch if I'm not currently enjoying the creator's previous content... and I don't think even a 10.0 sweeping overhaul could really bring me back in. Pretty much all of my friends in and out of the game no longer play WoW for various reasons, so Blizz has an insanely uphill battle to even get me to consider coming back since they don't even have peer pressure on their side.

Couldn't agree more. Maybe points 2, 4, 6 are still achievable if changes are implemented and player feedback taken...who knows? You'd think Blizz knows their back is against the wall with FF14 and other competition. I don't see why they can't go back and analyze why they had so many players back in Wrath and figure out why they were successful and implement some of those systems like valor gear.

[Dazmalak]

All my RL friends quit, then many of my online ones did. All for a variety of reasons over the years.

Adding icing to the cake for me was:
-Abyssmal story beats that got progressively more awful after WotLK, with only a few bright spots along the way.
-Really hammering in the have and have not mentality with the gear inflation and ilvl disparity.
-All content and rewards catering specifically to elite players. Casuals sit at the bottom, stay there, and get fucked.
-M+ and LFG fostering shitty behavior in game. No sense of community.

It effectively boils down to WoW becoming a game that was uber friendly to casuals to being truly friendly to no one, but definitely more friendly to their more competitive player base. The world became a hollow shell. It's honestly better off going to a lobby game where you just que for instances and raids.

I miss rpg elements, alternative gearing sources and less disparity in that gear, a sense of server community, the friends I made along the way, and a story and world that centered around the elements of Warcraft that made me love it to begin with.