Unsubbed. Dark Iron unlock killed the game for me

Community General Discussion
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I just unsubbed. The unlock for Dark Iron killed it for me.

Not only did I have to get to 120, get exalted with 7th legion, and do the “prepared for war” questlines, I then had the Shadowforge, Molten Core and Fireland quests (those three would have been more than enough on their own as an unlock). But to add insult to injury: Motherlode? Motherlode…

I created my Dark Iron Character. And the thrill is gone. All I can think of is the arduous process to get the toon. The joy of discovering a new character etc is barely there, buried under the weight of the process… it’s what happens if the cost of something is too high.

So I’ve unsubbed. 11 days left. Let’s see if I change my mind, but right now I have no desire to keep unlocking Nightborne in Suramar, definitely no desire to unlock Highmountain Tauren, let alone Kul Tirans, Zandalaris and Orcs.

Going to look into a single player game like Skyrim or something. Where I can dive in and play a character I’d like to play, and the company are incentivised to make a great, playable game, not just to throw obstacles in my way to drag out a subscription endlessly.

What an absolute bummer. Such a great world, fantastic graphics, music and sound design. Good plots. Nice playing with people. A great experience otherwise.

You know what would keep me subbed? Replayability. REPLAYABILITY, not overly long obstacles dragged out and out.

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you need some more fire in your blood!

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I made a Shammy. I potentially like it a lot. It’s just a dull experience now though… :frowning:

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I’m sorry the unlock process killed it for you, but 7th Legion practically levels itself to exalted as of 8.1, and it wasn’t that difficult even beforehand… which part was arduous exactly?

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It is not uncommon for me to unsubscribe for a month or two after putting in a lot of work. I guess maybe it’s burn out. Usually after leveling up a fresh toon. I come back The the game recharged and ready to enjoy the game again.

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Are you legitimately new and decided on that race from the outset? I guess whether or not you actually are, I always figured the current Allied Race design had to feel terrible for any new players. Level up basically a throwaway toon over toon, do a multi-week endgame rep grind, do a questchain after that, then start over again and level from 20 to get back to that same endgame you burned yourself out on trying to unlock the character you wanted to play.

Not ideal.

It works for existing constantly-subbed players who already have everything capped and will be doing this stuff anyway, even if it’s still feels a bit too arbitrary, but it makes for an outright terrible experience to a new player, or returning players for that matter.

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yea, i made my DI got her to 26 then realized bleh, i wasn’t interested anymore. kinda crappy how allies are made to run a lot of instances for their unlocks (KT anyone?) yet I unlocked all mine by stomping around on my own time.

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It’s definitely burnout. Don’t give up on the game completely. Unsub. Play other games for a while. Give it about… 6-8 months. Then come back and sub for 1 month, try your Dark Iron again with rested eyes.
You’ll probably be refreshed by then and want to continue. If not, well, it only cost you another $15, right?

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Ok

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I think it’s terrible regardless of the player’s experience.

They didn’t even go through the original goals of requiring a quest chain to unlock Death Knights, an entire class that starts at a higher level, back when the game was more hardcore. They wanted people to have the freedom to play the class without jumping through hoops, and the only requirement was the (at the time, and still is) very reasonable one of reaching the level that they start at. And this was a center feature that people were very excited about, a perfect place to create artificial barriers.

Engaging and replayable content is what the game should be making, not a series of arbitrary time-gated treadmills just to unlock the privilege of unlocking the content that matters to you; especially not when that content is a skin color that requires you to spend $25, $60, or many additional hours of playing totally irrelevant content just to begin to enjoy.

I was in a similar boat to the OP. I was one of the first people to unlock Mag’har because man, I really wanted to play Mag’har. I hit every single WQ, including pet battle ones, every single day, hitting both of the 12 hour resets. Know what the highest one I’ve leveled is? 25, because the grind was so time-consuming and soul-crushing despite it all being things I was going to do anyway that the experience was soured. Recently unlocked Dark Iron that I was excited to play. My highest is 30. I think “7th Legion Grind” every time I scroll past my Dark Iron, and I approached that one way more casually, and Dark Iron wasn’t even my main focus.

Only reason the other allied races don’t bother me is because I had all of the requirements met anyway by the time they were released. I still hate the requirements and it really sucks trying to get people into the game when they see things like my Highmountain or the upcoming Zandalari and really want to play them, just to find out that they probably won’t until after a good month or two.

The last thing you want to be telling new players is that just to access a fancy looking model you need to play through weeks worth of content that is not even current, and then you have to do all of that leveling you just did again. :^)

(also in case it wasn’t clear, I’m not arguing with you, just expanding on your point)

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Thankyou Poju. Good advice.

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Dark Irons are scary anyway. I want to stab them and see if they bleed molten iron.

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This post is right on the money. The experience on the DI is directly spoiled by the exorbitant cost to get it.

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I’m in a similar position to you, but I’ve already got the Dark Iron unlocked. I have no interest whatsoever in the Kul Tirans and no desire to go through the massive slog that would be required to unlock Zandalari instead since I’ve not played Horde much this xpac.

Really not feeling the drive to play when the rewards are insignificant compared to the massive amount of stuff you have to power through to get them.

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I really wanted to unlock Kul Tirans and Nightborne, but now I’m imagining the same sort of disappointment.
In contrast I really enjoyed Void Elves, but somehow, their unlock process seemed to be less arduous?
I did rep grinds before for mounts. Got the Red flying cloud, the Wyrmcrest Accord’s drake, and the Camels… but this seems very different. Because the mounts are additions to the account for all toons. This unlocking is simply to play a character!

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Wait…you write this and state that they are the scary ones?? :ghost:

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It was. Well, all four of the Legion allied races were less arduous. Rep grind into scenario into unlock. They were straight-forward.

The most tedious of them was probably Highmountain, as they required a full max-level questline to unlock after reaching exalted. The second most was Nightborne, since they required exalted and a questline before you could even start their unlock. Most of that is also tied to flying, though, so it at least felt like double-duty.

The problem with Dark Irons (who are by far the hardest allied race thus far to unlock) is that they require a rep grind, followed by a mythic only dungeon clear [EDIT: Or not, I guess this was for Loremaster], followed by a long questline, followed by a scenario, and then followed by ANOTHER dungeon clear. It was excessively tedious and drawn out, and it didn’t need to be. Rep grind into scenario, that would have been fine.

I suspect Kul’Tirans and Zandalari will require a raid clear. However, that’s at least doable on LFR.

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Pretty much this.
Gear is handed to you like it’s candy now, but reskins of existing models are enormous time-sinks that you can’t even sit down and no-life through in a session or two. Having to do a time-gated and limited amount of content to eventually unlock the privilege to start leveling another alt is exhausting.

I’ve done the Insane grind and it was less soul-crushing than what we have in modern day, because I knew I could go at my own pace. I could spend an hour if I want to or dedicate an entire evening and I’d make proportionately the same progress.

Allied races? Skip a WQ or two and suddenly you just pushed your unlock forward a day. Don’t get to play some days but have entire days of free-time to game on the weekends? Time to find unrelated goals to check off your list because there literally isn’t enough content to keep you progressing toward your main goal at your own pace, and enjoy your allied races half-way through the expansion while everyone else is playing them next to you.

New to the game and are really excited about an allied race? Hahaha, good luck retaining that sub!

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I don’t bite, I mean I have Ferocious Bite and I Maim, and make you bleed. Okay I do bite.

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I don’t believe it is a Mythic dungeon. I stealthed through and solo’d the last boss on my rogue, and I doubt I’d have been able to do that on Mythic. Maybe it used to be?

Nonetheless I was pretty outraged when I saw I had to do a dungeon for it. Definitely made the already long and drawn-out experience more frustrating.

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