Im so confused by this. That definition you gave never existed. You seem to mention classic a lot, so im curious if you actually played vanilla. NOT CLASSIC (which is meta’d out the whazoo) but vanilla. With all its keyboard turners, its button clickers, its social guilds, the level 60s hanging around deadmines and randomly boosting players through purely because they were bored and not because they were selling a boost. The unoptimised vanilla where you could pretend to be a resto druid but secretly went full feral with a few resto spells and no one could armory you to check. And unless you were doing hardcore raiding, no one really even cared enough to look at the logs and find you didnt actually cast an innervate.
The casual playerbase in that game was HUGE (if only because the true meta gamers - the real hardcore - was so small).
Dont you remember the hardcore v casual bun fights on the forums at the time? It wasnt about time played metrics. It never was. It was about the content you did and the level you engaged in. Casuals werent serious. Wow was very serious business. Casuals were hindering progress, were too dumb to work out synergies, were too lazy, they were entitled spoiled babies who wanted everything handed to them.
As it was, thus it shall forever be.
You seem to struggle to understand what a casual player is or wants. So let me explain:
All that stuff youve hated or felt to be annoying or a chore or an egregious barrier to doing the things you want to do (raiding), is all the stuff i love.
I MISS, get this, taking 3 months to level to 60. I MISS taking two weeks to level to 70. Even wrath had a decent time to ding 80. I like doing pointless busy work like rep grinding pathfinder, or farming allied races or working on my legendary ring. I like that stuff. Im out and about in the world doing other stuff AND working on it at the same time. I didnt hate titanforging, i liked it. I dont mind broken specs or items, i like them. I dont really want a balance, homogenised game. I enjoy stupid stuff that makes me go ‘oooh! how did they do that!’ I found it hilarious when windfury procced off itself and two or three shammies could hold the entire alliance army at the bottleneck in frostwolf. Azerite power never bothered me in the slightest. I just playe my game at my own pace and the thing magically leveled up all by itself. In fact, i LIKED unlocking those rings. It was enormously satisfying. I like covenants being locked. My rogue is an ardenweald rogue. I DO feel the covenant fantasy despite being told ‘its ONE BUTTON, one button is not a fantasy!’
What else annoys you guys? I love lfr! It saved raiding. I think mythic plus was better in wod. Id like to have the alpha torghast, and no, i dont want stupid artificial barriers like timers or torments to make it ‘meaningful’. I like RNG. I like that legion went crazy with it. I couldnt care less if mythic plus 15s or 20s outgear raid gear. If raiding is so good, people will raid. If max gear is the incentive though… well, maybe it deserves to be abandoned.
Thats about it, no? What you want in the game, is usually not what i want. Or what you see as an outrageous burden is usually something fun for me.
“But ipps! you just want a broken game!”
You’re right. I do. I want the game i fell in love with in vanilla. Sue me.
“But ipps! Go play classic then!”
Its not the same. Players have optimised the fun out of it. Its been hard meta’d. (You have no idea the crushing disappointment i felt watching 4 aoe and a pally round up everything in scarlet monastery, burn it down, and repeat the process over and over and over again).
“Then go do your world stuff! Stop complaining!”
And now we come to the meat and potatoes of the issue.
What little content there is in world is heavily systematised, on rails, and so lacking in adventure and chaos, (because meta gamers would exploit it and/or complain about the ‘busy work’) that its hard to really engage with it any more.
Wheres my random lego’s dropping like in legion? No, no, thats unfair! We’ve made them targetable. Just run this same thing over and over again to collect soul ash and you can pick the one you like!
Okay… wheres my heart dropping into my stomach every time i see a horde player in the world? No no, ipps. Dont worry, you can just switch off warmode. Feel free to do your quest in a completely optimised and undisturbed manner. But i specifically rolled on a pvp server! Then turn it on, silly!
Fine! But wheres the joy of random loot drops? No no, dont worry dude, just get to this renown level and your anima pool from these callings you did will immediately boost your item level. We’ve made it so much simpler and efficient! You dont even need to go into the world for gear any more. Just do your callings and every week or two you’ll get a brand new reward! We’ve made it so much better for you!
I… suppose! Look, im struggling blizz. Wheres my pathfinder rep list so i can at least get to work on that? Again, ipps, my spacegoat! Chill! We’re not doing that this time. Its going to be much easier this time! Just work on that renown. Boof! Youre all set.
I think wittgenstein said it best:
“We have got onto slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the conditions are ideal, but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk so we need friction. Back to the rough ground !”
‘But ipps! If you want ‘the friction’, just go do arena, mythic plus or raid!’
And there’s the rub! The world game is unsatisfying, overly sanitised, dull and unengaging. The only content that IS engaging and the only game you should be playing in modern wow, (and the content around which all design decisions are being made), is the content ive never had much interest in. And thats why casual players are feeling more alienated by the game than usual. All the streamlining improvements have been heavily systematised to the exclusive benefit of players who dont want to engage with that content. What you love about the game (the real end game), is the stuff ive no real interest in. What you hated about the world game (the grind and the unfairness of rng) is what i love about it.