I never thought I would sit down and plan out the writing of this post. Especially since you need an active subscription to post here. I left the game very (very) early at the start of Dragonflight, and missed that whole expansion. I had also done the same at the start of Battle of Azeroth; I still cannot fly in those zones.
But I’m still in contact with my last WoW guild, with whom I played Shadowlands. I heard some things on the grapevine that have moved me to invest in a one-month subscription so I can post this. Hopefully it will be worthwhile in some way.
I cannot explain why, but I was simply never capable of outputting the same level of gameplay-- any role, any class, any character-- in group content, as most skilled players. In Legion, and again in Shadowlands, I managed to complete the dungeons and story-level raids with my guild. But I couldn’t PUG without inevitably being the target of a great deal of “failtard” vitriol, and just as often, being vote-kicked without warning. How in all of Azeroth I obtained the PUG pet from the appropriate achievement, I have no clue.
In truth, I played WoW strictly for the story. Blizzard tells an incomparable story. But Blizzard inevitably, and deliberately (Yes, I know exactly, the reasons why…) puts chunks of story content in the group content part of each expansion. Parts of the game that I simply could not, and cannot, keep up with. In Shadowlands, this was partially alleviated by making it possible to view the cinematics outside of the actual raids. But some valuable story content is during the actual game play, not in a “cut to…” scene. There was simply no way to view this without playing the content. YouTube was absolutely NOT sufficient; the video captures were inevitably sped up, the picture was zoomed well out for optimal game play during the fights, and players would often set the video to annoying background music. This is also true in earlier expansions. Add to this, I had missed the entire BFA expansion and was trying to catch up in between playing Shadowlands. This included trying to see those chunks of story in the BFA group content.
I was then exposed to an infuriating double standard from the player base: 1) I ask for help seeing this older group content and everyone would scream, “Stop wanting to be catered to.” 2) I would then say, fine, let’s all ask Blizzard for soloable versions of the group content, with appropriately toned down loot drops, and everyone would scream, “Learn 2 socialize.”
I do not want to be “catered to.” I am not anti social. I simply CANNOT, if the fate of the entire planet depended on it, play the game the same way most people would play Call of Duty. I am simply not a sufficient tank, not a sufficient healer, not a sufficient DPS to compete at high key keystone Dungeons or heroic raids. PERIOD. I stopped trying to “git gud,” because I’m not. I instead tried to find ways to see the story at my play level. And when much of the community was given proper explanations of my play level and style, they would often respond with “go play Chutes and Ladders” in a way that oozed ear-splitting screams of “Infinity infinities does not BEGIN to describe how INSULTED I am that you were ever even BORN!!!” (literally hundreds of exclamation points, ad nauseum)
That was at least some of why I left the game again very, very early during Dragonflight. Which brings us to: Why did I invest in a one-month subscription so I could post this?
I’ve heard that The War Within has follower modes, where you can play with a group of NPC’s, to finish story dungeons and the final bosses of the raids. This gives me hope that such a feature might eventually be expanded to older content, so I can finally see a great deal of what I missed. This would be enough that I might be interested in playing again-- for the story alone, not for the purpose of rushing to gear up and complete all the AOTC’s-- something I never succeeded in doing and quickly lost all interest in wanting to do. Playing at my own pace, without “wanting to be catered to,” and still able to socialize with the right people, in the right places and times-- not with people who think my ever having been born is the most colossal insult they’d ever been forced to bear, all because I can’t, even to save my life (or theirs), break 862 gazillion dps in a +50 keystone dungeon with one hand tied behind me.
If there’s anyone at all in the game who plays the game anywhere near similar to me, I ask you to also speak up. Maybe Blizzard might be willing to add some features to the rest of the game that frees us from the “catered to”/“socialize” double standard.
This post is not intended for “TL:DR” folks. I never joined Twitter/X because it was very likely invented especially for such like people.
For anyone who DID read: Thank you for your time.
Not much longer would you be mine