I started playing 11/23/2004. I’ve never truly quit WoW.
I took a brief time off to deal with RL stuff in the 2nd half of Cata, and wanted to check out SWtOR for a few months in the 2nd half of Pandaria. and wasn’t actively playing then, but I always intended to return.
I “quit” when the announced flight would be gone for good in Warlords. I fully intended to be gone and not come back. My sub had a few weeks left on it so I continued to play, but I was gone when that ran out and the only thing that would have changed my mind is if they put flight back. Then they announced they’d be putting it back a couple weeks later and I resubscribed. So I never stopped playing then.
During this years Blizzcon, sadly, they announced another obnoxious time gate with flight, forcing us to wait until 8.2 to get a core game movement feature back and have it feel like they’ve finally bothered to finish that piece of the game. I could have been ok with 8.1, I’d have grumbled about it being too long a time gate, but I wouldn’t have unsubscribed. 8.2 I can’t stomach, that’s probably as far off as we’ve already had to wait, and that’s just crappy of them So I unsubscribed again.
I have some time left, but if flight isn’t back by the time my sub runs out, I’ll let it expire, and I don’t know if I’ll be back. Maybe, maybe not. I’m not going to continue to pay for an unfinished product if this is how they want to act on flight. And Blizzard hasn’t really seemed like Blizzard lately. Between trying to cut or drastically reduce flight, removing Master Loot, removing tier, the Azerite gear debacle… too many to keep listing, so many of their decisions have seemed to be a deliberate choice to degrade the game to save on development costs, and it’s like they are no longer a game company of gamer developers making games to be awesome for other gamers, and more like a company run by accountants and bean counters willing to cut corners and fun to save a little cash on the hope not enough players quit over it.
It’s both disturbing and highly disappointing to see happening to the company that has been my favorite game company of all time, and that without question produced my favorite game universe and game of all time. Makes me a bit sad. And in case you think I’m just parroting that from the recent Kotaku piece from Jason Schreier, I’m not:
I’ve been saying this for a while now, especially in relation to their take on flight in the more recent years.