Congratulations! After playing the World of Warcraft (WoW) 8.3 expansion for only two weeks, I can truly say without a doubt, ‘I hate what this game has become.’
Things I hate in 8.3:
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Timed events. They are nothing more than a dps check and favor melee classes that can survive while standing in a group of mobs. Quest ‘Stepping Through the Darkness’ adds FREQUENT loss of character control so that ranged dps classes that are required to remain stationary can do NO DAMAGE. The cost of the Vessel of Horrific Visions (10,000 Coalescing Visions) required to enter is too high and prevents experimenting to discover how complete these events. My frustration has reached the point that I loathe these timed events.
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Cloak ‘Ashjra’kamas, Shroud of Resolve’. Another item that is required to use and required to upgrade to progress. The only way to upgrade this item is to do the timed events, which I hate.
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Corrupted items. Any joy regarding getting an upgrade is tainted with the knowledge that using corrupted items hastens one’s death.
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Quest givers in Pandaria are spread over the entire zone and their quest areas are at the opposite ends of the zone. This results in a LOT of repeated flying from one end of the zone to the other; a waste of time that could be avoided by putting all of the quest givers in the same location. Multiply the time wasted by the number of characters a player may have to run here (I have six and know of others with more) and the total time wasted per day here becomes significant.
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Searching for quest items (e.g., chests, rare mobs, etc.) for dailies in Uldum and Pandaria. I have been searching for 30+ minutes for quest items and found exactly none. I see many players doing as I have (flying and searching), so I am not alone in this; comments in chat echo my frustrations. Too few quest mobs spread over too large an area, low respawn rates and low quest item drop rates make these quests take too long and are just not fun; they are tedious at best. Rare spawns are too rare; too much time wasted looking for them. Quest descriptions are obscure and mobs that drop quest items are not highlighted; if I wanted this kind of frustration I would play WoW Classic.
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Being slowed by the flying worms in Uldum and Pandaria. You’ve made flying not fun with this. Flying was once a safe place to get out of danger, relax and go afk for a bit; now, there are no safe places. In north Uldum, I’ve been hit by the worms while under an archway and flying one foot above the ground. In Pandaria, I’ve been hit by ground mobs and flew up, only to be hit by them and the worms simultaneously.
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Professions are a bad joke now, as evidenced by the ‘Seabreeze Saddle Blanket’ (a completely useless item made by tailors). Most professions are irrelevant to the game and many players ignore them and/or decline to use any beneficial products professions can produce because the benefits are miniscule. Crafting for profit is a thing of the past.
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Reporting problems to development is another bad joke. Problems I reported months ago are still problems that have not been addressed and I have received no feedback for my efforts. Reporting problems through customer support has been similarly frustrating and yielded no improvements. Telling me to ‘post my concerns on the forums’ is not helpful; I do not need to vent with other players. I do need to know that my concerns have been heard by Blizzard and forwarded on to people who can and will do something about them; feedback (positive or negative) from Blizzard regarding any action is required.
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User interface (UI) customization is dismal. For far too long, WoW has had insufficient abilities to move UI components; third party addons that are unsupported, poorly implemented, bug ridden and/or just don’t work (MoveAnything is a prime example) must be utilized to be able to move important UI objects. Blizzard needs to take ownership of this and provide the ability to move and resize ~every~ UI object; the limited and crippled abilities currently available are inadequate and have been a continual source of frustration to the point where I cannot raid because objects are not where I want them and are frequently piled on top of one another. This is a MAJOR source of contention and NEEDS to be addressed for me to play this game. Using a third party addon is not an option as customer support’s first advice when reporting any problem is to ‘disable all addons’. The user interface is a key component of this game and needs to be owned by Blizzard. Also, important features like threat/damage meters, map coordinates, etc. need to be standard features of the game that can be enabled or disabled at the player’s discretion.
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Crowd control in dungeons and raids is irrelevant. Currently, standard operating procedures (SOP) are to have the tank agro everything while the dps trots behind casting area of effect spells on what the tank is killing (there are minor exceptions, like killing the shadowmenders first in the Visions of Destiny raid, but after they die, SOP applies). This is true in every dungeon and raid I have run in the current expansion and it has become BORING; every dungeon run is just a race to the end using SOP. The BEST dungeon runs I’ve had in this expansion were after group members rage quit and the 2-3 of us left (no tanks, often no healers, too) had to figure out how to complete the run. Remove the timers from the high end dungeons and add some variety and complexity so that crowd control can become relevant and dungeon/raid runs can be interesting and fun again.
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Dazar’alor is way too big. Riding from the mission table at the pier to the portals in the Seal room or trainers took too long and getting flight didn’t help enough. Too late to fix now, but future main expansion hubs should NOT be designed like this (i.e., services spread out over too large an area). Boralus was designed much better.
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The Blizzard Shop. The first offerings of mounts, pets, etc. were for the benefit of charities; now, it’s a cash grab that preys upon the weak willed, completionists and wanna be elitists who often cannot afford these items but purchase them to their detriment. You should be ashamed of this practice.
The above is a short and incomplete list of complaints I have with World of Warcraft. This, with the prospect of continuing to pay money for WoW and its frustrations has led me to a conclusion: it’s just not worth it, so I will not be renewing my subscription. I may return for 9.0 if user interface customization is improved so that no UI addons are required; if not, bye!
For the designers and approvers of the 8.3 expansion:
I had some rather unkind comments for you here, but decided to remove them as they would probably result in this post being deleted. Instead, I will simply say you have botched the 8.3 expansion terribly. Continue on as you are and the game will come to a point where all groups will be composed of a druid healer and melee who charge, dash and flit from one mob encounter to the next using SOP; healers that cannot dash and ranged dps that cannot survive in melee will become as relevant as First Aid and Weapon Skills. Too subtle? Clarification: they will become as relevant as features that have been removed from the game.
By the way, I would have sent this post to you via the in-game ‘Submit Bug’ or ‘Submit Suggestion’ features under ‘Help’, but they are limited to only 500 characters and this post greatly exceeds that. I also tried to ‘Open a Ticket’, but it is either broken or disabled by you, so my only available option is to post it where everyone can read it, instead of just you. Perhaps this will be a good thing, as I am sure that others share many of my frustrations with the game. Collectively, we may be able to convince you that you have taken the game to a ‘not fun’ place.
P.S. I have been holding onto this post for a few days, thinking I might change my mind about the game. I played for a couple of hours today, but did not enjoy my time in game. I kept hearing B.B. King singing, ‘The thrill is gone.’
The thrill is gone
The thrill is gone away
The thrill is gone baby
The thrill is gone away
You know you done me wrong baby
And you’ll be sorry someday
<…>
You know I’m free, free now baby
I’m free from your spell
Oh I’m free, free, free now
I’m free from your spell
And now that it’s all over
All I can do is wish you well