Current things I miss… (I still play, but haven’t logged on in a few days, if I do it’s for a few and I log off not doing anything)
~Gathering soul stones
~Making my poison
~Running forever because your under 30 or slow riding because your not 60
~Warlock mount took me 3 months to achieve ~gathering mats and gold
~Old talent trees
~Simplistic dailies
~Guild activity - most of my friends are gone
~Server reputations - no LFG and phasing
~Flying was end game gold. It took a pretty penny to do it for a casual player.
~Classes were unique and played a role.
~PvP armor and just PvP in general with less stuns/cc.
~World PvP, part of the PvP server meant being attacked or attacking. You carried your PvP armor with you to be safe.
~PvP armor was different from PvE armor
I played through until BFA and quit for a long time. Recently came back got my warlock to 120 and just couldn’t bring myself to level another character. I also don’t care about flight or new races as I don’t want to grind for them. It’s not fun and the repetitive nature of it bores me to death. This leaves me with little to actually do outside old content for mounts I have been trying to get the past 11 years and have yet to drop. My guild that I have been a part of since 3.3.4 is completely dead in the water as I am the only member to log in some now onto a year of inactivity.
I was hoping for classic but my excitement has worn off as I wait for it and may end my sub. If that happens I’m not sure I’ll be signing back up for $15 a month just to play a game that’s 14 years old. WOLTK was the last expansion I truest liked. The last few expansions I told myself “I invested so much into it I’ll see how it plays out and have faith”. I lost my faith in Blizzard and not sure if I can continue much longer.
The reasons you’re blaming WotlK should be directed at Cata and LFR, not Wrath and LFD.
It kinda feels like you’re throwing Wrath in there because you want an “Ah, never thought of that” moment. But it wasn’t Wrath. You don’t need to try to go against the grain here.
Wrath had LFD which assisted in grinding rep via tabards. It also assisted towards dailies. Dungeons were never the issue.
The community banded together in getting people access to raids in a way I haven’t seen before Wrath or since. The structure was set up so well, and I guarantee that the only people who didn’t get into a raid in Wrath are the people who limited theirselves by blaming elitists. And WG raid bosses were a great catch-up for people to get gear.
While there are definitely a lot of issues, to the point I’d argue that there’s no single point that could definitively qualify as the point things got worse. In my opinion, it’s actually the sum of small changes finally leading to a breaking point with BfA (WoD almost did it, but was propped up by solid gameplay).
However, I wouldn’t pinpoint the issues starting with WotLK… heck, you can probably go ALL the way back to Vanilla WoW with where the problems started.
To fire off a few problems:
Glorifying the endgame in general (started in Vanilla)
Allowing trolling & griefing behaviour to become acceptable (again, Vanilla)
Addition of flying in the first place (TBC), but it’s been far to long to put the cat back in the bag.
The poor management of LFD and LFR since their introduction (WotLK and Cata).
Starting to funnel players towards the endgame, instead of allowing them to reach it if they choose to do so, prioritizing the destination over the journey (can’t quite say when this started exactly).
Some very good points you make, I came here thinking I was going to find some serious flaws in your assessment of WOTLK but in all fairness you have a clear a concise picture of the expansions. I do think the game has become more campy and less important since the costumes and mogging started. I also thing the LF"x" system really cheapened the game play and excitement slash community.
I tried a LFR the other day and quit after the 1st boss the other night because players were rushing, not healing at times, not pulling adds off the group etc etc, and its clear people are just in it for the loot and screw the experience or mechanics. dps didn’t move out of floor badness etc.
People were saying the same things back in WotLK and Cataclysm. They just got drowned out by people that were wanting to play WoW as a single player game. That’s it.
And when I say single player game. I’m really saying, Solo player game. Naturally, they want other people around, but they don’t want to commit to a schedule. That’s ok. But the fabric of an MMORPG begins to unravel when the number of those players is greater than those seeking to work within a community.
People wanted easier professions. They wanted easier grouping for dungeons. They wanted loot hallways instead of a sprawling out dungeons that took > an hour. They wanted dailies that didn’t require a group. They wanted easy gold income and lots of toys, pets, mounts, titles, etc. All the trappings of an accomplished player without putting in the effort.
And every time Blizzard asked players why they were quitting they would essentially say things like, “Game takes too much time. Too hard.” So every element that barred progression got nerfed or removed. Attunements too much time and effort? Leveling pets too much time for hunters? Too many skills and abilities? Too much emphasis placed on character progression in general to advance (weapon skills, enchants, miscellaneous buffs, questlines, etc.) All those things had to be tweaked so Grandma could “raid” and get a full set of purples to feel good about herself.
While I certainly agree that WoW shifted from a traditional MMO to something way different now, I’m not sure if I blame WotLK. And I’m not sure if I blame it all on getting loot.
For many players it wasn’t all about loot. I’d be willing to say for many (myself included) it’s more about experiencing the story of wow as well and being a part of it. Including experience an entire expansion. For me, Gating the end game story behind raids that only the “dedicated” playerbase could access by treating raiding like a part time job is low.
People complain nowadays about how blizzard is ensuring subs by gating factions, achievements or progress. Well, they used to ensure subs by gating the end of the expansion behind raids. Which is better/worse? Depends on you as a player.
Truth is they actually got it right in some ways. You should never, ever punish the player base by putting endgame content/story behind grind walls and high tier raiding/instances. Especially since some
People who play “casual” actually play more consistently or more time, they just don’t have 3 hours in a row to raid. They may only have 1 hour here or there.
So while the game isn’t perfect, we ALL have access to the story now, and anyone can experience the expansion in its entirety, not just raid guilds/players.
But that’s just me. I’m in no way saying that the OP hasn’t made some awesome points. It’s true that the game is a watered down experience. But it also makes it accessible to any and all who want to experience it. So it’s a bit of a double edged sword.
But let’s be honest; end game content and gear is still in raids for those who wanna do it. It’s just a but easier for casuals to Pug up and do A LFR to experience it as wel.
Basically my understanding is the dev team looked at the cost of making raids and dungeons. They had initially assumed that people would have consistent groups of friends to play with, this assumption turned out to be very very wrong. Worse, in BC and classic you got guilds that started to police and charge for runs or just basically prevent people from doing content all together because they didn’t like them whatever. The response from the Devs was to A) make content easier, B) add LFD to prevent the toxic groups from controlling content. This provided a much better cost to benefit ratio than what they had seen in BC and classic.
A guy who says crap like this should at least try doing basic research. Just looking up the units of Warcraft 2 and 3 would have told you the series has had steampunk elements for a very long time.
I also see you made multiple posts sucking up to Blizzard over the removal of portals. You are an ignorant snob, and people like you are a far worse problem in the community than anyone who sometimes wears costumes could ever be.
Edit: Not to say that racists like the OP are generally capable of doing basic research, but if you’re going to act like you’re smarter than everyone else, you need to be able to do the bare minimum. If you can’t even handle that, then clearly you aren’t as smart as you think.
Wrath of lich king was by far better than any of this diablo wow inbred beast called BFA or legion.Why? because it still felt like a questing adventure.
The LFD tool saved me from having to rage over finding people to help me go to The Oculus. I will disagree with you there. I will disagree again in regards to the modern LFG tool, you still get the ability to message the people applying, not just blindly invite them.
They call you hero because it’s singular when you’re talking to one person, but the npcs know you don’t work alone. That’s why Illidan and all the other important figures addressed us in raids with a plural aspect. You are not “The Hero”, you are a hero.
I will agree with you that the real problem is the community. Too many people whine and cry about things that have really fundamentally changed end game accessibility. And they will rage quit after one wipe on a single boss or even at the beginning of a pvp match, so it will question you as to why they would want to go back to doing harder content to begin with.
Like spaceships, dimensional travel, and a sci-fi looking theme in places like Netherstorm?
Dwarven tanks and gnomish machinery has been around since Classic. There was hardly any deviation in Cataclysm.
you had time gating. All those Burning Crusade ‘hardcores’ with 20 hours a day to spend grinding and raiding found their skill level was mostly mediocre and wrath proved it by eliminating pointless time constraints like attunement. Another pointless time constraint was having to gear new players in older raids just to do current content. Catch up mechanisms got you ready for raiding and hardmodes in Wrath and heroic/mythic level raids are amongst the most difficult content in WoW. Anyone with Trial of the Grand Crusader 25 0 wipes is a certifiable pro when it comes to playing this game, any unemployed yokel in 2007 could get Champion of the Naaru if they had enough free time.
Whoever decided to steer the game towards accessibility is the one to blame for where this game has ended up and I’m willing to bet the house that it was Activision.
This is exactly why, Ghostcrawler, took so much heat back in the day. He was the face of the change. After reading some of his posts that followed over the years, I realize he did it against his will. He didn’t want those changes. Those things happened because, Bobby Kotick, wanted them.
Oh damn, hadn’t made it far enough into the rant to find the racism. And dunno to me, spewing hateful nonsense really brings into question the intellectual abilities of someone, I have doubts about their abilities to do basic research.
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