Very well said.
Season of discovery feels great. The gameplay is way better. Everything isn’t ezmode with mobile phone game psychological grind mechanics. The issue is like ten people are managing it so it doesn’t get th content it needs and it’s temporary so hard to get too invested.
Play some vanilla classic and you’ll notice it’s like night and day compared to retail. I didn’t think the difference was that big in my memory, but it def is.
Play Classic WoW!
This would only make sense if… honestly, they released the exact same reskinned raids with the same mechanics, same M+ dungeons, zones, etc etc… so your brain actually did acclimate and adapt to the same stimulus over time…otherwise? Not really how a brain works.
It doesn’t feel the same BECAUSE it’s the same stimulus over and over again, it’s so blandly formulaic and has been since Legion that we DO get bored of it and just stop engaging.
Even rats eventually get tired of the same maze.
Yeah, Age is DEFINITELY a factor.
I think also the initial luster for a lot of people has worn off, and it’s been off for almost two decades for some of us. New stuff definitely still feels shiny and all that, and I still have a great time when new content comes out.
But you’ll never experience your first time in Elwynn, Durotar, or Teldrassil (
) ever again. You’ll never go to Outland or Northrend for the first time again. Once you do those quests, you’ve experienced them. That feeling of discovering a new world is something you’ll only get close to experiencing again every two years or so, but your first weeks in an MMO are always magical in my experience.
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Yea. I tried playing some old games I used to love and idk what’s with the lethargy I feel. It’s like it can’t repcature the feeling I once had when it all felt new
https://psychology.tips/acclimation/
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I’ve played for 19 years, over 3 accounts: my original NA (long since lost), this NA, and my EU account. I used to have 4 subs at a time just for my 2 accounts, and the 2 for my kids. This game will never have its original shine, and that is fine. This anniversary event took me back to the DeadMines with the Defias and while fighting Mr. Smite, Captain Greenskin, and the great Edwin VanCleef, and reminded me of the first dungeon I ever step foot into at level 14. It was magical.
But it is just a fond memory, and now I step into new content with a Mechagnome mage, Earthen Pally, or a Worgen Druid… none of which existed back then, and as I look at Warbands, Delves, Story Mode Raiding, and more, I am reminded every new expansion is a new age in the game, and I will always have the memories. Nothing in this world will ever be as powerful as it’s memory. I love WoW and consider it to be the first REAL MMO I ever stepped into despite my time playing EQ. It doesn’t have to feel the way it did, but feeling SOMETHING is important.
I feel like the game is huge, there is a ton of different types of content. You’re right though. It will never feel the same once you become knowledgeable in a game. Never cut that journey short by always trying to min-max. Just enjoy the journey.
This is a broader topic than just WoW tbh. What you describe applies to gaming as a whole. People don’t approach GAMING the same way they used to. Part of it is, yes, getting older and gaining knowledge in how various games / genres work. That makes even new games get old more quickly because they’re almost definitely following a somewhat similar formula to something else you’ve played.
But it’s also just the internet.
It wasn’t always the culture to just automatically expect everyone to have looked up their optimal build and rotation and fight guides for all content before they even touch it. People played the game and figured it out themselves / with friends / by asking in-game, and very few would be upset by that. It’s one of the ways people met new friends in online games.
That era of gaming is dead.
I’m not saying guides and metas didn’t exist back then – they always will at the upper end. But it was MUCH less prevalent as an expectation for most areas of the game, and gaming in general.
Now, pretty much anything multiplayer, people just expect you to know everything immediately because the information exists on the internet somewhere, and pretty much always will unless it’s a small indie title that hasn’t blown up yet.
Sucks a lot of the initial explorative fun of a given game out of it (in a learning through playing kinda way, not necessarily physically exploring an area, since that doesn’t apply to every game).
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Going to have to disagree somewhat. This is mostly a WoW issue due to the PTR. Other games with raid content, FF14, Destiny 2, etc., generally don’t have this issue at the start because everyone has to go in blind. In those games, you generally don’t start seeing people making sure others know the fights until weeks later and even then, it’s usually groups that have already cleared either the entire thing or have had partial clears and want to make sure things go as smooth as possible. Even with those groups existing, there are a number of groups going as learning groups or blind runs.
I’m sorry but this is very much a WoW centric problem.
Disagree, the only reason why i say this is because a young cousin of mine started playing retail wow and did not like it, he played it for a while i dont remember what level he got to, so i got him to download classic and he really enjoys it.
Retail wow is great for some people but awful to others. Its not all about aging, sure it might be for some people but to say WOW doesnt feel like it use to is mostly age is just wrong.
My partner is the same, she is older and cant stand retail but will play hardcore wow or classic wow from now and again and she didnt even play wow back in the day she only played a bit of legion
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LOL well to be fair here, balance isn’t Bethesda’s forte. You can just pick your Specials and Perks at random and become nigh unkillable by lvl 20.
Yeah. 10 years ago, my leveling was sliw, abysmally slow. Today, it is not.
This is such a large issue because the balance is so bad. There are specs that are so underpowered that no one will bring them along on group content, and some that are guaranteed a spot no matter what. The meta is long here because there’s such a wide spread, and that’s entirely on Blizzard.
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So very true! Well said!
And they are the same people that once there is nothing to do and we’re months out from any more content that complain about that .
THotbot never really went away .
It was merged into wowhead . So all of it’s info is part of the wowhead database in regards to say older pre WoD expansions.
But … I don’t find the game getting smaller or less complicated. In fact it feels quite the opposite. The sheer quantity of trivia to absorb each expansion is a bit overwhelming at times.