Bobby Kotick ripped the heart out of this game, and replaced it with a corporate pacemaker.
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I don’t really think time saving measures equate to the killing of exploration. I think ultimately what killed exploration was flight, with flight now you have to think about areas when you’re building them from the ground up we kind of just have all these mostly flat valleys now as opposed to old areas like Stranglethorn Vale which was an actual challenge to get through.
I can’t help but laugh when I see people complaining that the game is “solved” before you even play or various convenience aspects. That’s what the playerbase demanded lol. If you don’t like it, play something else because anytime they try to back track on any of it, they are met with extreme vitriol from players.
I had fun while playing classic but boy was it an entirely different experience. The community played it like retail, so all of the nostalgic adventure was pushed to the side for min/max play.
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I was expecting this. 
Maybe. It is all just opinions and anecdotal. The game is really big now, so it is what it is.
I hear Phase 2 was a hoot and a half for PvP servers.
This is why I continue to force myself into a lot of things completely blind. It’s more fun for me this way whether I end up eventually going to a guide or some other form of information or not.
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You can just not read it though.
Convenience is why the game is still #1 after 20 years. There aren’t a million people sitting on the dock in freeport in everquest waiting 40 minutes for a boat because most people don’t want that. The people who do don’t seem to understand they are an extremely niche audience looking for an extremely niche experience.
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Yeah you can.
And then in the game your experience is going to clash with and cause problems for other players.
Because whether you read it or not, the mentality that you did or should have is going to be present in the game.
I’m fine with being the guy that clashes, but it happens. 
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And this is why M+ is a cesspool.
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When I played Fallout, I wanted to do everything right. Building the village, investing in the talent tree …
At one point, I stopped playing the game, as it was too easy since I had everything perfect.
So yes, I agree with your point.
The new crafting system, I read up on it, to not make a mistake, I already know what I will get at one point, the suprise is not there. Luckily I never read up on dungeon or raid content, but there you won´t find a group if you dont … it´s a dilemma.
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I think you over estimate how many people are available to do so, at an adequate level
I’ve become almost exclusively a World PvPer when I’m not doing gathering or story related stuff for pretty much that reason alone. I don’t need to be well read on anything to PVP I just hit Rapid Fire and watch their health melt away.
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It doesn’t feel the same because gamers created what the game is now themselves, and are mad about it. People wanted tier lists and are now mad those tier lists are followed by people in 2s. People wanted content to rush through in short bursts and got M+ and are now mad about it taking an hour to get or create a group. It’s an endless cycle, you can’t make machines happy.
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I think the game has lasted so long because of the sunken cost fallacy more than anything else.
Also I wouldn’t say I’m a niche audience. Convenience has its place but when people have no reason to go out into the world, it makes the game feel emptier and less like a world. Phasing and sharding suck for these reasons too. Blizzard could take steps to make the game feel inhabited but they don’t. Like have one instance of each expansion for Chromie time where no matter what server you were on, you’d be zoned in with everyone who chose that expansion etc.
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So instead we get to instantly begin a raid and run through it in two hours but you really only get to do it once per week. That’s where the crappy feeling comes from.
Everything is so fast and convenient but comes with such a shallow, forced delay. Part of any ‘experience’ is the journey. The journey is what takes time. They’ve removed the journey. So now you can only do the ‘experience’. But only once per week.
The game is shallow. I don’t think it’s something that can be fixed at this point. But they make it worse when they do things like enable level scaling of all mobs and turn questing into this disgusting, repeating, daily chore that you feel like you have to do because if you don’t do it this week you’ll be a week behind without the ability to catch up.
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shrug
Show me a game that does end game pillars better and I would gladly switch.
People specifically asked for the journey in progression to be removed.
They still are, today.
I think part of the problem is PTR and Beta.
If a new expansion or a new patch comes out, there’s literally no mystery or excitement behind it because everyone already knows beforehand what the features will be, what the zones look like, how the raids work and how the story will play out. And even if you don’t want to know it’s hard to escape it. YT recommendations are plastered with videos about that stuff, the General forums and reddit are full of discussions and people are talking left and right about it in Discord.
And then if you don’t read guides before diving into content it’s pretty easy to mess up and stay behind for a while or get yelled at by other people.
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Some people got what they wanted. Agreed.
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