WoW is now a lobby-based dungeon crawler

[Calfredd]

You guys don't even know Wow well enough.

Look who is talking.

[MrLachyG]

You guys don't even know Wow well enough. Darkmoon Faire arena.

you said obligated. at no point are you obligated to do that

[TomGreen]

It definitely lost a lot of its mmorpg feeling. Is it good or bad thing I'm not sure but I do feel myself playing this game less and less as time goes on. But what can you expect when the guy running the game only seems to care about dungeons and raids. Maybe Ion might be better off on an ARPG team or something.

[WowIsDead64]

Major problem for new players - no smooth difficulty transition. Exiles Reach is designed to be noob-friendly. But then only WOD continues to have similar noob-friendly design, where devs try not to overwhelm player by things like big mob packs, elites, navigation "puzzles", some "hard" quests like stealth actions, etc. Another thing, that is wrong - content should try to hook new player. And again only WOD and may be Legion are made properly. When content is "You just go somewhere, help noname characters to do meaningless things, while you constantly die due to exceeding difficulty, even player with 20 years of experience can't handle" - new player has high chance to just give up. Devs seem to design such content for players, who already have some online game/MMO experience. And things like Garrison and Class Hall campaign can hook player immediately.

[FelPlague]

You guys don't even know Wow well enough. Darkmoon Faire arena.

You haven't even touched the new expac.
Why the fuck are you "obligated" to log in to do the dark Moon faire every 3 hours?
What is making you "obligated" to do such?
A trinket that has no current use and am achievement that rewards nothing? Awwww man... So obligated to do it.

[WowIsDead64]

You haven't even touched the new expac.
Why the fuck are you "obligated" to log in to do the dark Moon faire every 3 hours?
What is making you "obligated" to do such?
A trinket that has no current use and am achievement that rewards nothing? Awwww man... So obligated to do it.

Same can be said about any content in this game, including current one.

That's, how real fun happens. It's spontaneous decision to collect and upgrade all heirlooms. First I didn't want to do it. But then it was self-induced decision. I needed more alts to do timewalking to grind heirlooms and I needed more heirlooms to level more alts. That's it. As simple, as that. Yeah, I've already grinded minimal amount of heirlooms, required for leveling any class. But now I just want to grind rest of them just for fun. Most of them are freely obtainable. Only around 5-6 of them are hard to get. And I have to deal with it, if I want to have them all. Even with s**tty PVP content.

[FelPlague]

Same can be said about any content in this game, including current one.

That's, how real fun happens. It's spontaneous decision to collect and upgrade all heirlooms. First I didn't want to do it. But then it was self-induced decision. I needed more alts to do timewalking to grind heirlooms and I needed more heirlooms to level more alts. That's it. As simple, as that. Yeah, I've already grinded minimal amount of heirlooms, required for leveling any class. But now I just want to grind rest of them just for fun. Most of them are freely obtainable. Only around 5-6 of them are hard to get. And I have to deal with it, if I want to have them all. Even with s**tty PVP content.

So you arnt obligated to, you are forcing yourself to do something you don't like for a reward you don't need and can't use because you hate the game and yourself.

[WowIsDead64]

So you arnt obligated to, you are forcing yourself to do something you don't like for a reward you don't need and can't use because you hate the game and yourself.

What is "being obligated" then? I want reward - I have to pay price, i.e. do content. All RPG games are about it. Some players assume, that extra player power to be able to complete M+/raids - is only mandatory reward in this game. They're wrong. It's double standard. Because I'm not obligated to collect all heirlooms, but all of a sudden I should be obligated to buy DF and play current content. Yeah?

Simple thing. I actually needed to level some alts, that hadn't been leveled to max level since WOD. Problem was - I had 45lvl heirlooms only. I bought them back in Legion for around 200k gold only to see them nerfed in BFA. First I didn't want to upgrade them, especially for gold, as 15 levels weren't that long. I leveled some characters withing them. But then I decided to upgrade them for timewalking badges, as gear was starting to fall behind too quickly and content was starting to be way to overtuned due to broken scaling. It was bearable, but not enjoyable. So, I decided to upgrade them. Decision to obtain and upgrade them all came in the process.

So, it's great combination of fun content and useful rewards. Decision to obtain that last hard ones - is just matter of some balance between difficulty of process and rewarding feeling, when having them all. If content is nasty, but easy enough - then I can decide to suffer a little bit from completing it. But if not - then I wouldn't even start. You should clearly understand it. I don't make decisions to do content according to "I JUST WANT THIS REWARD!!!". I weigh all pros and cons before doing anything. And I get really upset, if something goes wrong in process. But, you know, you can't succeed, if you don't even try.

[Zantera]

It's funny reading a thread like this because I still remember the days of Wotlk running laps around Dalaran waiting for anything to do (dungeons or raids) because there just wasn't anything else. And I know others had a similar experience in TBC with Shattrah, some might even have felt it in vanilla. Definitely makes me appreciate the game these days because there are a lot of things to do that just weren't in the game yet back then. Legion forward I haven't spent any time just waiting in the city for something to happen, I always log on with a clear objective in mind for what to do.

But yeah you also have those people who are like "I choose to only do 20% of the content in the game, that means there's no content in the game"

[Ashana Darkmoon]

It's funny reading a thread like this because I still remember the days of Wotlk running laps around Dalaran waiting for anything to do (dungeons or raids) because there just wasn't anything else. And I know others had a similar experience in TBC with Shattrah, some might even have felt it in vanilla. Definitely makes me appreciate the game these days because there are a lot of things to do that just weren't in the game yet back then. Legion forward I haven't spent any time just waiting in the city for something to happen, I always log on with a clear objective in mind for what to do.

But yeah you also have those people who are like "I choose to only do 20% of the content in the game, that means there's no content in the game"

100% lol

Defender of Dalaran meme. But it was true in Vanilla too

[chiddie]

The point of that gear is that it isn't for players like us that actually do group content. It's there for the legitimately casual players.

The casual player will find most of that stuff outdated too. I know because i was a casual player too, never found useful stuff from rep vendors above the honored status. By the time I hit revered my ilvl was always above the rep vendor gear.

[Berkilak]

The casual player will find most of that stuff outdated too. I know because i was a casual player too, never found useful stuff from rep vendors above the honored status. By the time I hit revered my ilvl was always above the rep vendor gear.

Eh, my wife made good use of the renown epics.

[Tojara]

It's funny reading a thread like this because I still remember the days of Wotlk running laps around Dalaran waiting for anything to do (dungeons or raids) because there just wasn't anything else. And I know others had a similar experience in TBC with Shattrah, some might even have felt it in vanilla. Definitely makes me appreciate the game these days because there are a lot of things to do that just weren't in the game yet back then. Legion forward I haven't spent any time just waiting in the city for something to happen, I always log on with a clear objective in mind for what to do.

But yeah you also have those people who are like "I choose to only do 20% of the content in the game, that means there's no content in the game"

Yeah I mean, you hit the nail on the head with this one. Only in Vanilla (when I really didn't know what an MMO was) did the game have any mystique, and I had zero idea where the game was going. Once it hit TBC and beyond I realized that most activities (even back in Vanilla) were generally useless to pursue and that the game revolved around core principals that have been in the game since 2004. As much as people cry and moan about world PvP and how that it helps to make the world feel 'alive', the game and more importantly the 'players' never really wanted that style of game. It's just completely proven by how players shifted away to majority servers, them instituting WM, and people going back to Classic fully ready for that wPvP experience only to leave if they aren't on the majority faction.

I still enjoy the game immensely, but I only play for a few months each patch before coming back for a new patch. Towards the end of an expansion I'll just stop playing for a good six months at this point. But the game since TBC has mostly been dungeons, raids and PvP. You know what, it's like that meme of the person looking at the world. It's almost always been like this.

Some people will do loops trying to make up things in their head that's mandatory for them, when it's not really mandatory at all. If you aren't having fun with a game, just don't play it. If you enjoy the core gameplay loop of this game, I would still recommend it for a few months every patch cycle with a long break before a new expansion. If you play on a schedule and still love mythic raiding, it's virtually the same game.

I shouldn't say 'useless' to pursue when talking about this game. If you absolutely love collecting achievements, pets, mounts, etc.. well more power to you.

[Marxman]

WoW has been a lobby-based Dungeon/Raid/BG game for like 15 years now. It hasn't been a true MMORPG since TBC... and that's fine. Lobby-based dungeon crawlers are fine.

[Powerogue]

Just because you hate all the content doesn't mean it stops existing.

[WowIsDead64]

First of all, if somebody is still interested. Here is Freemium addon, I've found almost accidentally, while trying to find addon, that would add anchor and precise coordinate controls to all frames the same way, Bartender4 do it for action bars. I still try to solve aspect ratio problem, Wow's UI suffers from. It's for players, who are in the same boat as me and hate having invasive adds in paid game. It auto-closes invasive full-screen ad, that appears after every loading screen.

Second. "Modern games are just excursions". That's what I've heard from some game developer, who've released some game, he thinks is good one. And it has made me thinking. Really. What is reason, why I don't hate challenge in games like Dead Cells, but at the same time I hate it in Wow? My answer is - because I focus on other things in Wow. Why it happens? It happens because players actually need just 1-2 game mechanics in games to have fun. What happens, when devs try to "sit on all chairs at the same time", i.e. to do, what they think would make their game successful - to provide as many different kinds of content as possible to hook as many players as they can? Yeah. Players become overwhelmed and have to choose. And sometimes some things become just annoying obstacles on their way to what they want.

Example? If I choose to focus on building my castle in Terraria, then mobs become just annoying obstacle on my way. That's why Journey mode exists there. Wow has many ways to hook players. And there are better ways to get fun, than grinding some "challenging" boars in outdoor content.

[God Save The King]

How? I'm legitimately curious.

Bit late to this, but the world was more or less the game in Classic. Even today in Classic with known paths, better build, 1.12 talents/power levels, more quest mobs, xp nerfs, and more, it takes about 4-5 days played for speedrunners and 6-7 days for most normal people to hit 60. Add another day played if you plan on doing professions.

Let's just say about 160 hours to cap. If you, you know, have work, school, life, responsibilities, that's probably around 2-3 months of actively using most of your freetime to play the game. Half a year if you have interests outside WoW. Possibly longer.

Back in the day, people were thrilled to hit cap in under 15 days played (anecdotal; friends/guildmates). My first toon, a paladin, was 60 after 9 days and 4 hours (have the old SS), and I played beta and had some knowledge of the game. That was fairly quick back then. It took people legitimately a year or more, casually playing 10-15 hours a week, to hit cap. There were of course people will better knowledge and more time that could rush endgame and raid much faster than the rest of us.

Even once you were 60, the endgame content was spread across the world. Blackrock Mountain between Ironforge and Stormwind for some raids/dungeons. A raid down in Strangethorn. A mini-raid in Dustwallow Marsh. Another down in Silithus. And a final up in Eastern Plaguelands (which also houses some important dungeons as well). A final important dungeon (for both gear and weekly raid buffs) was in Feralas. Farming herbs/ores/skins for endgame crafting was also spread across many high level zones on both continents. Items for buffs, such as Wintefell Firewater, jujus, roids, rum, grog, etc, were also found all over the world and needed farmed.

As a 60 in Classic, you either needed to traverse the world each week visiting various mob locations, dungeons, and buff sites to get full power, or farm gold and buy what was available on the AH and go collect what couldn't be bought.

In Modern WoW, the only world location that tends to matter for max level end-game toons is the current patch's new zone. Your world shrinks from a half dozen zones and dungeons/raids to a single zone with (usually) a single raid. Raids also tended to persist in value, as many raids Pre-Cata had BiS throughout the expansion (such as Thunderfury in Molten Core, DST in Gruul's Lair, Val'anyr in Ulduar).

[Ringthane]

WoW has always been a lobby-based dungeon crawler. Don't believe me?

How long did we have the world-wide LFG channel? Not very long. You either got in a guild and set up things that way, or sat in SW/Org looking for people. And when you were done, and wanted to show off your phat lewt, you went back to SW/Org and wandered around in front of the bank for a couple of hours a night.

Source? I've been playing this game since before AQ. I was there and I saw it with my own eyes.

[KayRule]

There is no world content worth a damn.

People just log into Valdrakken, queue up for M+, or raids, or arena/bgs, and then log out.

World quests? Why? The rewards are laughable.
New areas? Why? They're just catchup zones for alts and new players.
Seasonal events? Why? Who the fuck cares?
Pet battles? Why? Who the fuck cares?
Transmogs? Ok...for like 20 min it takes to run an old raid.
World treasures? Why? Who the fuck cares?

At this point, if Blizzard gets rid of the open world and just makes Stormwind and Orgrimmar just large player hubs with nothing beyond them, and just a place for people to socialize while waiting for queues, it would have very little impact on the game's content.

MMORPG my ass!!!!


Add world pvp events and/or world pvp large areas where pvp flagging is forced, with pvp quests and events.
Add housing and make players chase house improvements such as racially theme furniture, trophies, etc.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>now

what the fuck did I just wake up and it's 2010 again!?!?!?!

[Berkilak]

I suppose I can see where you're coming from. But I did play back then, too. But it boils down to "the world is big and it took long to level." I hardly think that scattering raid content counts as the world itself mattering. The entrance placement of instanced content doesn't make the world itself more engaging.

It was certainly more immersive, but mostly because we were exploring areas that I wanted to investigate from the RTS games. I wanted to go to the Dark Portal, to Blackrock Mountain, to the site of Mannoroth's demise. And I did. And then it was over. And this was value that I ascribed to the world rather than any sort of inherent value.

Back then, the world simply existed as a world first, gameplay arena second. A far second. Again, this has its merits. I felt that I was in a place that existed not because its existence was demanded by a questline, but simply because it exists naturally. But the flipside of that is that very, very little of the world actually mattered from an objective mechanical perspective.