How the wow community (mostly) died

Community General Discussion
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This is just my own observations this isn’t going to be a numbers or statistics thread more a examination on how wow slowly changed from vanillas tight knit community to what we have today.

While the causes are many I think the main culprit is the reduction of difficulty in the game. Now what do I mean by that? In older versions of wow you had a slowly and steady power curve you climbed up as your skill and play time allowed. It was a game with something for everyone even if very few got to see everything.

Compare that to now and well… there isn’t really much of anything to do. The concept of being challenged is restricted to the top rungs of the difficulty in the game. People are seen more as obstacles then aids when it comes to progression. We traded a journey where we set our own pace to a rather hollow and empty grind where the average player will out gear the difficulty they are at leaving a massive chasm between the content they should be running for upgrades and the skills they have.

All of this started in tbc… my favorite expansion with the sunwell badge vendor the npc that broke progression for the first time by allowing entry level content to reward top tier gear. From there we went to lfd where the idea slowly set in that autoqueue content must be fail proof. Then cross realm,lfr and more came along to eat away at the concept of a mid level skill area in the game.

All of that lead to where we are now with a near single player game that rains gear down on people for content that is afkable. When no one needs anyone no one really joins together. What is left of the community seems to be mostly mythic raiders, run sellers ,and a few pvpers. In a world where everyone is a hero… no one is.

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I don’t disagree with your points, but I would say the largest impact on community was the implementation of CRZ and the consequent removal of server identity.

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It played a major role but from my experience the lack of a journey hurt more then cross realm. It is like comparing a knife wound to a bullet wound though.

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Activision is killing Wow and Blizzard . Because of them the community is dying

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Community died with Cata and the LFD/CRZ tools. I know its taboo but go play on any ps from classic>wrath and the community is booming. I played on a small server in wrath and we had pugs 24/7. THat is where the community was.

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Businesses have a “life cycle”.

WoW is a really old game. It has probably seen its peak numbers, but I believe WoW will continue for years but not at extremely high subscription numbers.

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Idk folks in general seem to be more anti-social. I don’t know if this is because of the game or a societal issue anymore.

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I’m not sure if I agree. Things don’t need to be difficult to be fun, and if a game is fun people will play.

I personally think it has a lot more to do with the conundrum of balancing quality of life improvements with maintaining need for social interaction. Humans naturally take the path of least resistance, and as WoW has grown we’ve gotten to the point where there are so many easy ways to access content that we no longer have to interact to do it.

This isn’t strictly a WoW phenomenon either. Take texting vs. calling. Texting is easier and requires less personal interaction, and people naturally have gravitated towards that form of communication over an actual phone call. It doesn’t mean anyone thinks we should get rid of texting, or that texting is inherently bad, but we gravitate towards that ease.

Not sure how you can fix it. I don’t think anyone wants to get rid of LFD, for instance, but it’s hard to ignore that it eliminates certain forms of social interaction within the game.

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I don’t know what you are talking about.

At no point in WoW’s history has it had the varied difficulty levels for everyone that it has now.

M+ gives the potential for dungeons to easily be harder than anything that ever took place before M+.

Outside of the occasional rare older raid, I will take today’s raids in complexity and challenge any time.

And guess what? Both raiding and m+ dungeons have a slow “power curve” to reach the harder difficulties. Both fully are about “player skill” over “time involvement”. You can raid minimal times during the week, and run minimal dungeons for the week, and still complete hard content if you are good enough.

If you are doing content you can AFK through, then the problem is YOU. You are not doing things with a challenge.

I think I disagree with about every point you made, because they just aren’t grounded in reality.

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There isn’t a fix for it once the genie escapes the bottle there isn’t any putting it back. If blizzard tried with bfa it would be to much of a shock to the players system. I can’t imagine the player bases reaction to suddenly wiping in normal dungeons again.

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People want to play MMOs like they’re single player games. They don’t want to speak to anyone, just level to cap, kill some NPCs with a group or raid of four (or twenty-four) NPCs and log out.

They could not care less about the social aspect of the game. That’s probably doing a number on WoW.

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How would you propose gearing up a player who hits the level cap at a late stage in an expac where they are so far behind gearwise that guilds will not even help them attain the ilvl required?

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Start in dungeons,toss in some crafted items and rare drops then join a starter guild and start their own journey through the tiers.

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you can thank the removal of masterloot for introducing that problem. With ML in my guild we could bring in a new raider and within like a week or 2 have them geared to be able to run mythics with us. Now, not so much. Basically if you aren’t at the front lines from the get go, it will take you basically an entire tier to catch up.

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even if very few got to see everything.

I think I see the hole in your argument.

As for “community”, I disagree. There has always been a sense of that, then and now, just not in the way you would perceive it. I find it interesting that your beef is , yet again, with how others get gear, which has zero to do with “community”.

From there we went to lfd where the idea slowly set in that autoqueue content must be fail proof

LFD was a natural and inevitable evolution, one that other MMO’s now use as a matter of course. It is almost universal in concept and in execution. Most, if not virtually all MMO’s have the system now. The days of hours wasted yelling for groups is as outmoded as it is inefficient and an unnecessary timewaster that achieved NOTHING,.

How many MMO’s now require manual groups for all content?

Name me one.

It is like comparing a knife wound to a bullet wound though.

Well having seen and actually treated both, this is a very poor analogy. I have seen small stab wounds kill, and large bullet wounds survived.

All of that lead to where we are now with a near single player game that rains gear down on people for content that is afkable.

Huh?

If everyone afks then the bosses dont die and no one gets loot. This is…news?

In a world where everyone is a hero… no one is.

Oh I wouldnt say that at all. WOW has always been about us as heroes, from day one, always has been.

As for server identity, from speaking to people who were there back then, their idea of “server identity” was tied up with things like blacklists, name and shame, vendettas…hardly what i would call something worth keeping.

Start in dungeons,toss in some crafted items and rare drops then join a starter guild and start their own journey through the tiers.

Or in the old style, have to suck up to some egotist to see content. No thanks.

Basically if you aren’t at the front lines from the get go, it will take you basically an entire tier to catch up.

The current system doesnt work that way at all now…and the above comments on how to “catch up” wont work either.

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The issue Khel brings up existed with Master looter. So the lack of it didnt create or alter the problem. If there were not catch up mechanics, quite a lot of people would be so far behind the gear curve that guilds would bench them in a heartbeat, with or without master looter. It would be BC all over again with guilds poaching geared and attuned players, leaving the majority in the dust to quietly do jack all until they got bored. Back then people were content with just doing dungeons, but today, after being able to do any and all content… people wouldnt be content, they would unsub and play another game.

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I hear that tired old comment but there is no source saying that current or even any past changes were done to wow because Activision ordered it. None.

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I agree with some points as I’ve been thinking about LFD and LFR, as in, why the hell do they exist? M0 can be the new LFD and maybe remove LFR and have normal be the base raid now?

What we absolutely do not need to do is remove the queue system. That would be stupid regression, that system needs to stay. The days of spamming chat channels needs to stay dead and buried. There shouldn’t be any confusion here.

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There still is a journey, that never changes. It just takes a different route now. There are still server communities, CRZ in many ways fosters interaction, so I dont see an issue here.

CRZ and LFD also have one VERY specific purpose, which I see wasnt mentioned here…it helps to ensure access to content with a fluctuating playerbase. WOW is a dinosaur, the only one left standing more or less, LFD, LFR and CRZ have helped keep it running.

Think of it as evolution in action.

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I don’t think I agree with that. The old way groups formed was how the guilds and community was built. You formed contacts and even met friends as you filled up a friends list with people you can rely on.

If autoqueue content was just as hard as premade groups I would agree. The idea you can’t lose is what makes it harmful.

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