I don’t think it’s really up for debate that Blizzard has let the rest of their game languish while placing high priority on their endgame content pillars. They trivialized the leveling experience and have subsequently made it an unfulfilling mess that more or less serves as an arbitrary roadblock to the other content that “matters,” so to speak. Older zones are rife with bugs and issues that make it impossible to progress in, and the open world content in present day expansions serve as meaningless, automated garbage designed to do nothing more except fill the gaps between your waiting for queues to pop and/or your keys to fill up.
Like, it’s pretty clear where Blizzard’s priorities lie, and it’s pretty clear how far those priorities have shifted over the years lol
The fact that people have different tastes and different expectations does not discount the fact that Blizzard’s core design philosophy has inarguably shifted.
There are a lot of people who like playing Dynasty Warriors. That doesn’t change the fact that the game is a glorified button masher where you press X repeatedly to kill everything onscreen. This is a nonsensical deflection lol
I’m sure people are satisfied with the current state of WoW’s content, but I’m sure those same people probably wouldn’t mind if more thought and effort went into it
and as stated it’s TWENTY YEARS OLD, and the story is already been told and lore changed how many times? It’s like a movie that has 20 parts to it. After the first 2 or 3 movies the same old story played over and over you eventually stop watching for the story of it all. That’s what WoW is now. Most of the player base is here for Dungeons / Raids and the friends we made along the journey over the years.
It’s a matter of preference. Whichever aspect of the game you immerse youself in is the relevant content for you. I don’t do M+ content, so it’s not the relavant content for me. If you primarily play dungeons, raids and/or M+, that is what is relevant for you. It’s a win win either way.
Its cool that you’ve been able to stay a teenager the last 20 years but most of us age. Im in my mid 30s now and have a baby. I find a couple hours here and there each week to play. I don’t want to play something like classic where it takes me forever to get through the story. I played Classic on launch to enjoy the nostalgia. It took me a month to get to level 30 and that’s where I stopped.
The list of games I want to play increases way faster than I can play games these days. People like me dont want to spend months to get through the story of an MMO like wow.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. You raise a valid point about the shift in focus towards end-game content in recent expansions, which some players feel detracts from the traditional MMORPG experience of immersive questing and character development. It’s true that the game has evolved to cater more to players who enjoy high-level raiding and dungeon challenges, which can sometimes overshadow the earlier, story-driven content. However, it’s also important to recognize that Blizzard has made efforts to enhance storytelling and leveling experiences, as seen in recent expansions with richer narratives and improved questlines. While the game’s structure may feel different, it’s part of Blizzard’s attempt to cater to a diverse player base with varying interests.
I can go work on old quests any time i want. I prefer the way wow is now, where we get to endgame fast, and then still have story/lore quests to do that are not level related.
Now we can go more at our own speed when we want to partake of lore.
MMORPGs have, at some level, always been about competition. “He who logs out with the most stuff, wins.”
So many people revel in the memories of seeing the T3 geared tank with Thunderfury walking around Stormwind, or the guy who got the first Ashes of Alar, and let us not forget about the infamous High Warlord grind, the ultimate test of competition between players as it turns out was in the game from 2005. MMOs are, like the real world, a place where people can compare themselves with others.
None of this is the same thing as Blizzard deliberately designing their game as a sweaty score fest simulator lol. They’re just byproducts of online games.
There are a wide array of differences between a game designed to be competitive and a game that people just so happened to be competitive about. It blows my mind that people here don’t understand that lol
It is, it just wasn’t front and center that most players were aware of the competitive nature of these systems.
Scores are only competitive if you make them such. You don’t have to compare yourself with other people, rather you can use score as a metric for self improvement.
Absolutely not lol. Blizzard can’t control how people choose to engage their game. If people are being competitive about T3 gear sets, that’s not an act incentivized or influenced by Blizzard. That’s just the nature of the game. Blizzard isn’t pulling the strings in that circumstance.
M+, on the other hand, is 100% Blizzard saying “Hey, this is our version of e-sports. Spend each season climbing as high as you can, achieving the highest score you can achieve.”
Not the same thing. Really weird that you think they are lol
Look up what the term score means, and get back to me lol