WoW Interface has ruined the game.

[Boxxy]

Easy solution to everyones problems with expansions: have vanilla, TBC, WotLK, Cata servers. this will never happen simply because blizzard wants to progress. The facts are very obvious when reading OP's post, He/she is looking back to the days were the people who spent the most time on the game stood out among the crowd and had the things others could only hope to get through hours of grinding/farming/wiping etc. these days any casual can walk into a raid and get half way through no problem unlike in vanilla were youd have to farm the first few bosses for gear to progress or grind other dungeons for 40 people. either way the OP just wants to be noticed when hes in Org/SW instead of looking average in the gear almost everyone can get without wasting majority of there life.

[Jektar]

I've played since Vanilla. The only one of your complaints that I feel has any merit is the Dungeon Finder. I won't talk out of my arse like your good self and say that spending 45 minutes trying to find a group was fun, but I will say that I do miss the fact that there is no socialising in dungeons anymore. Dungeon Finder on it's own isn't really to blame, it's the fact that we can be grouped with people from other servers who we are never gonna meet again outside that dungeon. Why bother talking to someone if you're never gonna talk to them again in 30 minutes?

I don't mind the Dungeon Finder, it's a convenient feature, but I wish it was only for your server (Battlegrounds too, I miss having rivalries with people from the other faction.)

I agree to some point. You might find some rivalry thought in fighting for tol barad. And sometimes even saying hi in the random LFG will get people questioning you. But it's still a good tool imo just b/c on some of my alts if I can't find guildie(s) running something I can do quests/dailies until I find a group to get some gear.

[danawhitaker]

I really wish Blizzard would do to you what my gym teacher did in 6th grade when some of the girls in my class complained that we had easier benchmarks to meet for the Presidential fitness thing. He took the complainers, and made them try to live up to the standards they were complaining about.

If only Blizzard could nerf the game just for you, to your specifications, so that you could play it the way *you* think is fun. Me, personally, being a busy single mom, I appreciate the fact that the game isn't a 24/7 farmfest. I don't care about seeing the same scenery a million times on seven characters - flying mounts are great, and I don't even want to level up alts because I can't stand the thought of being stuck on foot or a ground mount again. I don't mind being able to buy mats or items instead of farm them. I don't mind the dungeon finder. I don't mind it being easier to find a group because I'm very limited in when I can run dungeons, even with my guild. I *like* being able to participate in endgame to the degree I am. I don't mind that it will be easier in the near future for like-minded players with similar play schedules to find my guild instead of standing around trade all day.

Oh yeah, and I *want* the portals back because I'm sick and tired of it taking me almost 10 minutes to get to Utgarde Pinnacle and another 7 minutes in travel time just to get to Sethekk Halls to farm mounts. That's almost 20 minutes out of my playtime *wasted* in flight.

I still want to have to kill bosses to get loot and earn badges. I don't want everything done for me. But most of the changes here benefit people who, six years ago, would *not* have been able to play this game to any reasonable semblance of satisfaction. I count myself among them. I appreciate the fact they've made things easier for *adults* with responsibilities to have fun too.

[Juliana]

I can understand where he is coming from, to an extent. When you go thru "tough times" with people, it forms a sort of common ground with those people. The more we seem to move to a less personal environment in the game it seems to strengthen the idea that common courtesy isn't necessary any longer. While some people don't care about the relationships they forge in the game, for others it is part of the driving force which makes them play. Playing in a community is much more enjoyable for me than playing some offline game involving strictly me and some computer driven NPCs.

[Karak]

Aestu, 91% of all of the achievements in WoW since 2008? God knows how much time spent on alts or other older pre BC mains. No wonder you are so bitter about the state of WoW. I'm not even trying to be a dick, but I think you need a new game. The game is fine for the majority of us who don't live at our keyboards, and that's who Blizz will tune to. Not only because we are the majority, but because the hardcore can never be appeased completely.

[Dedweight]

Cataclysm:
Go do a dungeon?
Press I, choose all the dungeons you wish to do, and wait until you get ported into the instance. Then kill the bosses their with little to no social contact with the other players, unless you wipe.

Learn a proffesion:
Buy matts on AH, talk to a guy and make lots of stuff.

Join a guild?
Use the Looking for guild feature. Find a guild that suits you, and /w the guildleader your raiding times achies and ilvl

Questing?
Press M, mount up flying mount, fly over to the point, kill 12 boars/gather 12 bombs/get 12 boar horns/press button, and fly back.

Reputation farm?
Equip a tabard

Get ready for raiding?
Go to the auction house and buy the flasks you need.

PvP?
Go to Durotar/Elwynn and try to kill those a little to far away from the gate. Wait until the mass comes looking for you.

Battlegrounds?
Press H, and choose your selections from a neat little menu.

Gear up?
First, kill bosses that drops loot you need, if you dont get it, you can buy it with Justice points instead, then keep killing those bosses, because they still give you valor, even though you have outgeared them heavily.

Everything today is being completed with UI features. This game should not be about panels and portals, but about the world we play in. You are almost never told to go somewhere, and if you are, you just fly above it all, not seeing shit. Sometimes, i feel like it might be a bad aprils fool joke, but its not. The LFD, Questhelper, LFG, JP/VP and flying mounts are all real.

As much as I enjoyed Vanilla and how a lot of the servers had it's own little community(not that it doesn't exist now but I do miss Guild Rivalries and Alliances). I do feel like I have to comment on the quoted section even though it's probably been beat to death a number of times already but...

Most EVERY single one of those 'cons' you have for Cata existed back in Vanilla.

For dungeons back then it was either group with people you know(which you can still do now) or spend +30 minutes in a major city looking for people(I think I'll take RDF).

Professions? If you had the gold you could power level every profession you could ever want without leaving a city save training from those obscure npcs.

Guilds? If your availability doesn't match the guilds raid schedule why would they waste their time with you? Achievements and ilvl? I can understand to an extent, if they're progressing through Heroic content they probably don't want to gear up another raider or teach them the basics of the fights until the content is on farm which not only saves them time but you time as well.

Reputation? I'd agree but I hate farming or grinding reputation but I do it if I have to(farming Thorium Brotherhood rep for Fire resist gear... ugh!). I'll take the Tabard and get the rep while I'm doing things I'd be doing anyway.

World PvP? I miss it but it does happen on occasion.

Battlegrounds? I don't PvP often but on my Horde toons I like being able to do Dailies while I'm waiting for the queue to pop and not have to worry about flying back to a major city just to queue and then fly back to where I was while hoping the queue doesn't pop while I'm in flight just so I can get more done before flying back to queue yet again.

Gearing Up? A number of items you get from bosses are better than what you can get from the JP/VP vendors so if you were intelligent you would still be farming that boss for the item you are looking for. Take my druid for example, I could just buy the PvP bracers for Honor and be content but I'd much rather have the feral bracers from Heroic SFK, if I had the honor I'd get the PvP bracers but the second I got the ones from SFK those bracers would be gone.

There's only a few functions of the UI that I question but none of those you listed I personally have issues with because they allow me to get more done in game without having to spend hours in one place and hope I have time to get everything I want to get done gets done.

[Seleney]

Or like it was originally, travel to the Battlemaster at the entrance of the battleground itself.

You beat me to this, I was gonna say the same thing. But yea, I remember trying to find WSG for the first time and there were like a billion people outside of the entrance trying to get in.....

[Karak]

I am not holding your achievements against you, but observing that the amount you've done seems to give more insight as to where your opinion comes from. Your personal experience doesn't include people 'hanging around' or 'exploring' anymore, because all aspects of the game are hardcore in some way? That's funny because I play with all of my friends, and we don't just log on to spam heroics or raid. We level alts. We PvP randomly. We do old content for fun. Sometimes we sit online and shit around on vent while not doing anything particular at all. Hell, I'm big into lore and sometimes I'll pull people into places and explain the lore and reasoning behind them.

Not everyone logs on to get their reward from playing. And at the same time, if you aren't logging on to accomplish SOMETHING, whether serious or not, why play? I don't think Blizzard has failed in any way regarding players being able to enjoy their experience and not have it feel like a grind. Killing 15 turkeys in under X minutes wasn't a grind, it was goofy and fun. 1 manning MC wasn't a grind, had no rewards whatsoever, and I did it anyway. I know a LOT of players that do this. My entire guild is made up of these players. I just don't see where you are coming from with your opinion.

PvP'ers get PvP gear for doing what they love..PvP.

Raiders, same corrolation.

Big into exploring? There's achievements as a reward.

Big into lore? There's books EVERYWHERE with all kinds of little fun tidbits.

The list goes on. I fail to see where WoW feels like a chore. It is what you make of it. I log onto WoW for 1 reason and 1 reason only: To have fun. If you are logging on and feeling like everything is a chore, you aren't enjoying it. Just because some people choose to play that way doesn't mean the system is flawed. IMO it's operator error. Blizzard isn't forcing you to do anything. You are forcing yourself.

[MrMuggles]

All these features are both good and bad, it speeds things up tremendously and blankets a large social aspect of the game. However we have lost a lot of the physical liveness inside the game. I compare it to real life, where facebook and other similar features has drastically reduced the necessity to meet, talk face to face or plan things ahead.
So while all these features seem good and enhance the gameplay on some aspects, do we really enjoy the game more than prior to them? Servers are no longer confident with themselves and individual people have hardly any knowledge of one another. Back in vanilla someone would be famous for their deeds and others hated, it opened for an interesting social conflict factor to the game, it is now gone.

The game is probably better now, but as I see it, all our new features have gradually killed the unconcrete player-to-player socialization.

[goneloco]

its funny how ppl complain about stuff like these.
did u forget that thx to these features u dont spend the majority of ur playtime jumping around outside ur bank (ally players, u remember those tiles in the floor outside IF bank?).

[Naft]

And what's the deal with these new coffee-makers? I used to love to wake up to the grinding and smell of fresh beans in the morning, now I can't since the machine is hardly making any sound at all and the beans are already done for me.

See how stupid that sounds? That would be the nostalgic me talking, even if I am sure there were these "advanced machines" when I was born. The thing is you have any choice whatsoever to take and make contact with these players if you so wish, but don't expect everyone else to use that attitude just because you're feeling a little nostalgic to how it used to be.

[Deleted]

Q...........Q?

Whats the big deal here?

The point here MR. Bieber is that the game is too damn easy, case closed

[Optimist]

Ever since Vanilla, Blizzard has made small changes, putting more and more infos and other things from the "world" and into your UI.

Think about that for a second. Is it good? Is it good in the long run?

I most certainly think not!

Insert long list of vanilla timesinks and compare them to the easier functions found in Cata

You sir, are crazy. Most of those things from vanilla were just pointless activities that were removed for good reasons. Nobody wantd to run into Scholo or BWL just to make up flasks for AQ/Naxx runs, and I most certainly didn't like having to play hide-and-seek with profession trainers around the world, just so I could learn a new recipe.

Some things are too easier now (In-game quest helper) but that doesnt mean everything else is bad because its easy.

[Deleted]

Best post ever!

Vanilla and TBC was much better than Wrath and Cata. I have played wow on and off since vanilla and it's not as fun now as it was then. The game is to big right now, the hole mystery in the game is gone, probably forever. And to many kids playing WoW because it's so easy now. The only thing good about Wow is the movement and fighting system. I think that RIFT is the only other game using this system whitch makes the game feel free. Thats why im thinking of change to RIFT. And we can leave the kids playing WoW!

[Aleksej89]

If you mean that the UI improvements are making WoW nicer to play and more enjoyable, then i agree with you.

I played WoW for over 5 years - Vanilla WoW was THE WORST period of WoW.

[Deleted]

luke skywalker killed the deathstar fun fact

[RüneRS]

If you join a raiding guild by showing your achieves to the guild leader, or by having achat via /2 , you'r doing it wrong

[Gootgot]

People who don't understand the OP are rly ignorant...

Even though i would never want to go back to the way it was in vanila, now, that doesn't mean i don't see your point.
The game has become a dynamic arcade...press which minigame you want to do and do it (AH, PvP, Raid, HC,).

No1 still reads quests because you can just see the link on minimap. No1 travels through the world anymore, finding gaps in the mountains to pass from zone to zone, you have portals, and 7 flight paths per zone.
You can't even see people outside of org/sw because every1 is flying.
The game is much faster.

etc etc.

It doesn't mean i want to go back to that time, but it's not a troll post, and all he is saying makes enough sense.


(world of warcraft is not a place it used to be, interactive fantasy land where you can do whatever you want. Now it's just a fun game)

[BloodGutter]

Threads like this make me lose faith in the human race, that is all.

[Lord Blackmore]

Sorry, OP, you're so far off the mark that you're in orbit around the sun.

More information in the UI doesn't make the game easier, it just maked it less tedious. I still have to do the same amount of work to level professions, farm, quest, etc as I did before. But the experience is far more enjoyable when you have either something from the default UI or addons.

Herbalism used to be a real pain in the butt in classic, for example. Lots of times herbs blended into the ground and it was hard to see the herb. When they made herbs sparkly, I didn't spend so much time hunting around in one spot. I still had to do all the work to level, I just didn't waste my time when I found one. And using gatherer has made the whole process a whole lot less tedious too.

No, OP, you're just wrong.

People who don't understand the OP are rly ignorant...

No, we're not "rly" ignorant. If the OP is so upset at how the "wow interface as ruined the game" then they are free to find some other entertainment, as you are. Nothing has been ruined. We just spend far less time doing useless crap. Like flying long distances or having to -run- from southshore to Scarlet Monastery because that was the closest flight path. Classic filled with boring time sinks like that and Blizzard did a good thing by getting rid of many of them.

Blizzard has made the game less tedious and we can spend more time doing fun things instead of spending time waiting to do fun things.