In your opinion, what is it about WoW that keeps long term casuals attached? End game probably isn’t as much of a draw for that crowd, and yet there’s plenty in that group who have hung on for 5, 10, and even 15 years.
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yeah, that’s always been my biggest issue with action mmos.
This is just my opinion, but I think WoW maintains its casual community purely by the scale and ease of access.
Not many MMOs have a database like WoWhead, or a subreddit as big as WoWs or as many large streamers as WoW.
To the outside eye, WoW is a very active community. And to those who engage in that community outside just in game and forums have so many options to share and discuss the game, be it art, content creation, or general discussion.
In my opinion, it is the ability to play with as much difficulty as you want. There has always been the more challenging content, but even in the vanilla/BC days, there was plenty of character progression for casuals.
In vanilla and BC i pretty much had 1 main. I dabbled in alts, but there was always something for me to do with my main. I got into raiding and heroics. I wasnt cutting edge, but with my play schedule, i was able to find similar people and continually progress. It felt good. You get that dopamine hit when you get an item.
A lot of the game begins at max level each expac. But there is a way for players of all types to participate in it. That is one of WoW’s great strengths. You can be a video game novice and still have a great time playing WoW.
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Yeah that’s true. I used to be more “serious” in Vanilla/TBC/WotLK, but I was never really hardcore, and the game has remained interesting at each level of engagement. As long as you pace yourself you probably won’t run out of stuff to do, and even if you do there’s always alts.
For me, it’s the long term character development that keeps me on WoW vs. other genres. I enjoy an occasional MOBA, but the “restarting” every match is rough. Then I look at the play time I have on my druid and I don’t regret any of it - every moment has helped build toward achievements or some piece of gear (I still have my vanilla attunement pieces in bank).
Character building, the RPG “build your way” archetype is a big deal for me. After the resets of TBC and Wrath, I started to lose interest in the chase (endgame progression) and I’d say I’ve been 99% casual since Cata. Since then, systems like LFR, the MoP farm, WoD garrisons, and Legion order hall questlines have given me plenty of content to explore. … BfA, I’ve done a lot of islands, I guess…