I played WoW Classic and TBC for about 1.75 years and then quit for many years.
I came back in WoD to play for about a year, then quit for 8 years.
Now I’m back in War Within.
So far the game has been great and I love it immensely!
However, there are a few things that I noticed have changed dramatically ever since I returned, compared to Classic, TBC, and WoD:
Most players no longer talk to each other. When you quest, everyone does their own thing. They rarely stop by to chat.
Almost nobody does group quests any more. Groups have become redundant except for instances and PvP.
PvE 5-men instances are just a quick rush to gather 10 to 20 mobs to AoE and farm fast, then rush straight to the bosses for exp farm.
PvP large BGs like AV and Ashran are just zerging the boss to farm honor and conquest points fast.
It seems to me that the social spirit of WoW has changed a lot. In the past, people grouped up to quest and do instances. They take time to deliberate and CC difficult mobs, then slowly take down one mob at a time. They also slowly strategize instead of rush. Then, PvP was truly loyal to its spirit: AV matches were true battles that everyone converged in the middle to battle and the battle lasted hours. People also talked to and knew each other well and befriended one another.
Now things have dramatically changed, and it’s the biggest culture shock that I’ve experienced.
When did WoW become like this? Does anyone notice this evolution too?
I remember when a 40 man raid MIGHT kill 1 boss before the weekly reset.
R14 PvP stuff took months of doing nothing but PvP to get in the top %.
just browse these forums at all the qq posts about how difficult WoW is now.
lol how do you think these players would have survived playing Vanilla.
jump in a Mythic and wipe the group…see how many actually stay…
It happen like this because servers no longer matter, and being social is kinda a waste of time.
You don’t need to build social bonds when you have group finder, and tokens system that lets you buy the best stuff without needing to make connections.
So why be social? It does nothing and gets you anything. It is a waste of time, since most people value time not being wasted.
Because posting / reading meaningless stuff on the forums is spending one’s time wisely.
How many posts do i make before i get that legendary drop from the forum boss?
A lot of it is because players changed and how efficiency became more relevant in a world where you always have something to do to get more power. When you only had to raid log anything else didn’t matter if efficient or not but nowadays if you do this you’ll probably lose some players because that’s something that a lot of people look forward. (insert meme the children yearn for the mines)
You can still find guilds and communities for all type of players and to have more social interactions which nowadays are mostly on discord. That’s something to consider that before wow was a place to hangout, now people don’t stay logged in just to hang out.
Also not sure a lot of people would want hour long AV and Ashran has been one of my favorite map because strategy is more prevalent there with multiple valid options. Rushing is only one of them and can fail terribly if the other team manage to defend.
The year is 2024. I don’t have to be logged into WoW to talk to people I want to talk to.
Nobody wants to wait for people to wrap up a quest.
Normal and Heroic instances are this way because the challenge was moved to higher difficulties (Mythic and Mythic+) due to well, accessibility reasons I guess.
I see you haven’t seen how Classic AV’s look because Drek or kek is kind of the norm and according to my sources it was the norm since pservers or something.
I am a wrath baby, but my husband played from the start.
He use to tell me about the glory days, when Raiding guilds use to send spies and leech people from guilds. How if you was one of the top raiding guilds you could control the server do whatever you wanted. Ninja loot, whatever. Who cares what people thought about you.
How he would force people who failed stuff on farm to farm for a repair bot as punishment, and how he would not allow any women in the guild because it would make all the guys act stupid.
How if you did not like someone, you could ruined the status of said person making it harder for them to get groups.
He looks at it so fondly, while I am making a disgusting face at the thought of a wow like that.
I agree with him and have witnessed on multiple occasions where the game “got worse” because some of those old rules were broken.
Best guild I ever ran in was run by an ex military guy. He did not put up with any BS. I was in PVP gear in Wrath as a PUG in one of his Ulduar raids. He recruited me because I was doing top damage and doing mechanics in all PVP gear (except I’d swap trinkets out).
Come to the raid, repaired with consumables on time…or else feel his wrath. Vanilla was the same way. There was an overal respect for everyones time and everyone there WANTED to be there.
Now, the first wipe on a raid finder raid and people leave. I always /cheer a player who comes along to work on the same mob as me, knowing full well they are doing it for selfish reasons. Yet, I NEVER see the same reciprocated when I help someone.
The community now, plain stinks and those old days, ya were a lot better. I was on Sargeras Horde and we had about 4 or 5 top guilds. I don’t know if I would like the idea of a single guild running the server. If we had ninja looters, they were exposed and run out of the game.
Ya, he use to tell me also about how rogues would always ask to join, and he would tell them reroll into a caster cause 360 cleaves or something.
He even said some did, and he would have to tell them guild is full now. I don’t know but something about the old days brings out a evil glint in his eye.
we have classic and all the people who pretend to love sLoW MeThOdIcAl gameplay and love the LeVeLiNg PrOcEsS all speed run the game sitting in dungeons all day and aoe down everthing in big packs, effectively playing classic as if it was retail.
Remove Group finder. (not lfg.)
Break addons like raiderio
make achievements can’t be linked or searched, and armory removed.
and have mythic + dungeons, and raiding be a guild thing. Oh and make servers matter again.
Now that players have other content, besides raids and dungeons. Lean heavier into guilds needing to do group content.
Mind you most players would hate that, but that is the only way for game to go back to being social, and still have the quality of life that others want.
Personally I’ve played every xpac since tbc except mop and wod and I don’t ever remember it being like you mentioned. I do remember speed running ramparts, I do remember people talking about as much as they do now (“yo, hello, ggs” etc), and I don’t remember people ever actually grouping for “group quests”
Ah yes punish people who don’t feel like being in a guild that’s a great idea.
You do realise we have software like discord now where people can hang out without needing to log into the game or even use battle.net right. Many raid statics are made out of people who’re in different guilds due to friend or whatever reasons but coordinate through other means.
The game doesn’t need to be social. If people want to be social they have the means to be that both in game and out of game now.
I personally hate mythics and “+” key stuff. ITs all confusing and to me just screams “we found a cheap way to make our content go further vs making more stuff to do”.
I really really really HATE mythics.
I dislike how classes play now as well, I did not forsee this when I bought this expansion, but I dont like the power up concept, if that makes any sense.
