Adding another voice to the ongoing issue with Retail, mainly stemming from the lackluster writing causing the entire world to lose the soul it once had.
Story:
Ever since Legion, I haven’t felt immersed in WoW’s world. I only find myself playing here and there when I have the time and desire, often lining up with big patches — and I’d have much more of both if the world felt good again to be a part of. The writing, the stakes, the characters, the SOUL — it’s all become tame and boring.
Metzen’s comeback got me looking forward to the saga, but so far it’s been miserable. TWW launch was okay, but that’s about it.
To the writers: either start reading actual popular fantasy like ASoIaF (GoT) and learn how to write for the audience your game has had for 30 years, or put in your two weeks, stop making WoW into something it isn’t meant to be.
The story has gone from developing an epic world and epic cast of characters to being a tool to patronize. This is embarrassing. This is not WoW. I’m playing a fantasy game to escape the Sh*thole that the real world is, not play a ‘‘wishful thinking’’ version of it.
Gameplay:
All these mid-patch pointless events don’t further the world or anything meaningful. They just add to the “sit AFK in Dornogal and queue up” model — or the “watch the clock, free loot piñata at 8PM!” routine. This isn’t engaging gameplay. It’s a glorified checklist. Or rather the opposite — because the checklist is slop content that rewards slop.
Count all the events from DF onward. It’s all pathetic, really. Just excuses to make certain parts of the world feel “alive” artificially because you fail to create meaningful gameplay loops where players actually engage with the world — instead of engaging with their mount in Dornogal while spamming queues and trade chat. A true display of what you now seem to stand for, fast releases, Quantity > Quality. Give me half the patches but twice the quality. Because clearly you cannot dish out this much, as it’s shown to never work, and requires rounds of nerfs/bugfixes every single time.
Gearing:
Currency-based gearing is terrible. I feel like I’m playing Lost Ark nowadays. Farming for cool and impactful gear used to be rewarding. Now you get all your BiS items easily — but have to keep repeating content to farm a number in your currency tab because your BiS gear is trash unless you put coins into the machine to make it shine a bit more.
Remix & Game-Altering Events:
Before Remix, I used to farm old content a lot. After Remix, I realized that farming old content was a waste of time all along. What used to take me thousands of hours now takes a few.
Remix was fun — don’t get me wrong — I enjoyed it. But it made me feel stupid for having played the game and farmed old stuff for years. Since MoP Remix, I haven’t touched old content at all, knowing that going forward I should just wait for the event, for almighty Blizzard to tell me: “Now is the time! Hurry, or you’ll have to waste 10x the time later!”. It’s cannibalized 50% of my usual gameplay as I now sit bored in the city when I’m done with power level stuff. ''ooh! I wanna do a Scythe Run!" → “Ah, nvm Legion Remix is coming, I shouldn’t waste my time… I Guess I’ll log off…” That’s what it’s become…
Leveling:
I don’t think I need to speak on this much. Whoever refuses to make this a priority that needs fixing should’ve been fired 20 years ago.
Leveling in WoW — and the new player experience — is, quite literally (for lack of better words), a war crime for which no legal penalty today is good enough.
Classic WoW:
This year was my first time trying Classic WoW as someone who started in 2014. As Retail has begun to lose my interest and investment in my favorite world.
I always laughed at “Classic Andys” and their “delusional nostalgia takes.” I can now say, after reaching level 60 in Classic, I was wrong.
The sheer immersion this game has is unrecognizable in modern WoW — players running around the world at all times, going to trainers to learn abilities, meaningful gear upgrades that last longer — so much about Classic reminded me of why I fell in love with the game in 2014. I want to spend time in that world… It’s literally that simple. A world I enjoyed until the end of Legion…
A lot of Classic is outdated and it pisses me off, while Retail has been overdesigned so much and added so much fomo items that never come back & slop content that it also pisses me off.
Playing Classic showed me that WoW at its best is neither Classic nor Retail — but somewhere in between.
Sincerely, - someone who would love to play this game way more than I find myself doing. If only it was as high quality as the price tag is high…
