I can see the huge appeal to sandbox games like original SWG where the players make their own content and have at times preferred it, but I also can see the appeal of a story driven game.
I liked FFXIV (even the early parts everyone else hated) but it was fun for me. WoW is not as linear as that was and I am enjoying SL so far.
I just hope the story ends up being worthwhile and I really am afraid its not going to be. If its a Sylvanas redemption arc, its not worth the story time; I don’t care how they spin it. And that is the drawback to a story driven MMORPG. If you don’t like the story, you will not like the game…
You want a single player RPG then.
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I’ve leveled in every expansion and even TBC wasn’t that long, a week if you were trying. Maybe 2 weeks if casual or going slow.
In a 2 year expansion that is…nothing.
And there was no content focused on leveling. It’s the same “go kill X mobs” or “go collect Y bear butts.” Maybe do a leveling dungeon in the meantime.
Need to separate looking at what the game objectively mechanically provided from the subjective experience one had playing it.
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Step in to SL. Been great so far minus some bugs but thats pretty normal at launch. Heaps better than BFA
FF14 has great writers though. Blizzard does not. SL main story was some of the most generic fantasy writing I have ever encountered. Mind you, I played a ton of Korean MMOs too.
No, just an MMO where I go on an epic adventure with epic characters. Which is what I’ve experienced with Shadowlands. If you want to do nothing in an MMO, you do you. Plenty of trivial quests in Vanilla areas.
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Not too mention the lack of lore in the outland quests. SL is full of lore during the questline and its awesome. They started it in wotlk with cinematics like the wrathgate. I loved the questing in SL and I’m glad it took next to no time to hit 60 because by 56 I was over it. Been playing this game for 14 years and honestly questing is my least favourite part which is why I hated classic. I burned out by 53. Classic raids are so easy there is no motivation for me to hit 60, why would I want to raid stuff people already figured out 16 years ago? Why I would want to spend hours grinding world buffs to clear MC in 45 minutes? Thats even if you make it to the raid without getting ganked by alliance players sitting outside org and in Felwood or camping world buff areas. Classic players are the most toxic humans on earth, they make the sewers under Dalaran look hygienic in comparison.
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How is this anymore on rails than most other questing in the game? The game has always been:
Get breadcrumb quest to go to quest hub
Get quests
Finish quests
Get breadcrumb to new area.
Repeat.
The fact that they add cutscenes to area and make the breadcrumb quest lead back to oribos doesnt make it any different, its just presented differently than before.
What made the game what it was was the community, and the progression of power, and accessibility to class ratio was great.
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I love Vanilla’s more open approach to questing but…
WoW is a sandbox MMO, Sandbox MMO’s at their core are fairly hand-holdy and more linear. Not entirely sure how you are just now finding out about this. If you want a more open sandbox experience, there are many other MMOs out there and upcoming that promise just that.
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In MMOs, you go on epic adventures with other players, not poorly written scripted NPCs. What you want would be way better served by a good single player RPG. Divinity Original Sin 2 is a great game, this is a great example of a good RPG.
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This. The world part went out the door a while ago. It’s a game now. It’s a good game, but it is just a game.
People don’t want the world part…I mean look at the zombie event. Players were screeching because they had to interact with the world.
People say they want some major open world experience but that’s far from the truth.
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How about getting above 140 ilvl and doing a mythic before you say there’s no epic adventures with players. These mythic are hard, there are mechanics that are brand new especially in 5 man dungeons. I bet if I took you in to Theatre of Pain you’d die every single fight even on trash. The story for SL campaign was well written, sure some were corny but majority was great. Actually felt like I was progressing towards something, which is entirely missed in classic. Classic doesn’t even have a main protagonist and you are claiming its story is better written than SL.
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Yep… I feel like I will be punished at 60 if I take my time doing the campaign and explore, kill races, do side quests and dungeons instead of just following the campaign to 60.
I’ll have to go back and do 2+ zones of campaign to unlock covenants at 60 which feels very out of sorts.
Questing and levelling should be designed around exploration and adventure Not just following a campaign as fast as possible
When Shadowlands launched, I was in a group with my brother and friends, and we all took a piece of the helm of damnation and opened the portal to Shadowlands. We all delved into the Maw together and fought to save the souls of Anduin and Jaina and others. We all were there when we witnessed some of the biggest characters of the franchise get taken away before escaping to Oribos. From there we spent hours leveling together in Bastion and then went our own ways for a bit when we each wanted to do side quests. But we met together for dungeons and more.
Sorry, but the narrative that just because epic NPC’s are around doesn’t mean you can’t go on epic adventures with other players is false. You can definitely do both. I also love Divinity 2 original sins which I also played as a group with my friends as in that game too we played together with the NPCs. It sounds like you’re treating WoW as a single player game and not taking advantage of the fact you don’t have to play the game solo.
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you’re so wrong… We never use dot have these on the rails campaign line… you could explore, adventure, do side quests, do the zones dungeon as it came up and not hit max level before seeing even half the zones and be punished at max because you have to go back and do the campaign to progress end-game.
You aren’t being punished for doing side quests. Who said once you hit 60 you had to do covenant straight away? Go keep questing for 3 weeks doing side quests like you did in classic for 3 months trying to hit max level lmao
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Um we are not talking about dungeons fool. We are talking about the leveling experience.
Yeah and that experience doesn’t matter at max level because its over. Leveling is literally the worst part of the game and always has been. Unlike you most people have lives they don’t want to spend living in game doing tedious side quests collecting boar guts for 3 months trying to hit max level.
Those players around you have zero impact on what is happening though in the MSQ. Good try though.