You sound like my husband when he taught me to drive. He had been driving since the age of 12 because he grew up on a farm. I learned to drive at the age of 45 after growing up in the city, using mass transit my whole life. He literally said, “I just thought you’d pick this up faster, since you’re so smart.” I fired him and got a professional driving instructor and got my license in 45 days from getting my learner’s permit.
Sometimes you know so much that you forget how little you once knew.
And you bought candy at the corner store for a penny each 
Back in my day 
Because convenience is a commodity and video games are plenty.
If WoW won’t do the bare minimum to make players happy and comfortable while they are learning the game, some other game will, and then Blizzard loses money.
Back in the days of old, being confusing was the industry standard, so game companies didn’t have to worry about that. But these days there are plenty of games with good tutorials around.
Yup, so how can anyone with the knowledge of how to make a stream, not know how to watch any of the others to learn the game.
Somethings not adding up.
Blizzard has to try really hard to hook in and keep new players. Most probably don’t stay.
WoW is a slow burn of a game.
It’s just not popular to grind and grind and grind when you’ve got other games you can just jump into, not wait for a group, and just begin actually playing.
It’s why MMOs aren’t as popular as they used to be.
There’s much faster multiplayer options now.
Back in the day, 20 years ago, options were limited so everyone played WoW, and spoke about it with their friends, so it spread even further, etc.
That’s not the case anymore.
Also, PvP in WoW started to decline hard around the release of League of Legends, some time in Cataclysm.
Other games are just eating WoW’s lunch lol, used to be WoW would eat their lunch.
I would love to know how many actual new players wow gets in a year. Just seems like it has to be a very small number, especially if you’re looking at ones who stay around.
That’s why it’s so hard to get new players. There’s something about WoW design that just keeps new players from experiencing the game properly. Maybe it’s the fact that what defines the game is the idea of “oh, keep going and you might experience something you like later, but not now, now is dead boring mob killing”. People don’t have that kind of time.
Maybe it’s the fact wow is a mmo. Takes too much time to do anything here. People might be more oriented towards smaller games that are meant to provide a couple dozen hours of gameplay and that’s it. Makes sense, I guess.
I honestly prefer those types of games to WoW.
I only play WoW because after a while I run out of good single player games, but the experience is much better there than here.
I’d play a new Shantae or MegaMan X game over WoW any day.
Because people gave up after two minutes and asked for help. Nothing has changed except the number of candles on your birthday cake.
‘Back in my day, we had a quest to unlock our totems!’
‘Back in my day, we had to read the quest text for directions!’
‘Back in my day, gear mattered!’
Ah, the elderly. Retirement homes are like zoos no one wants to visit. Not all new players need coddling, old bull, so stop painting them with the same brush.
Yea, I tend to think they’re better too. Novelty is a big deal, imo. Shorter games experience is more concise. WoW has a lot grind mixed up with the narrative, and after you reach a certain point, the narrative ends and there is only progression.
Metroidvanias tend to be my favorite.
I guess I play WoW way more because I feel a bit tired of having to relearn everytime I try a new one. And I get a sense that I made these characters, too.
Not to mention it was much more useful as a social media stand-in back then. I don’t actually mind the direction it’s gone, personally – it’s cheap, easy entertainment between games that provide lifelong memories. Not a bad thing, just a sign of the changing times.
Yeah and it’s also the Star Wars fans fault the acolyte is unwatchable garbage.
Actually, this isn’t entirely true and the answer is actually the reverse. Because no, WASD isn’t “intrinsically” known because … most games now’a’days don’t actually rely on WASD.
A lot of computer games use WASD but… computer games aren’t the most common form people are introduced to gaming now’a’days. Phones, tablets, and to a much lesser extent some consoles like the Switch are the primary ways people play games.
There’s this concept called “gaming literacy” which basically refers to a person’s ability to intuitively (not intrinsically) understand how a game is supposed to be played. And the thing is that WoW is kinda different from a lot of games on today’s gaming market (which is both its greatest strength and weakness), so a button glowing isn’t really that much of a tell for most people.
Whilst you are definitely not the condescending type of “sits on a cloud shouting at people”, you are still up on a cloud shouting at people. Because people literally understand and play games differently today than what folks did just 10 years ago, even less so 20 years ago.
Games being easier or more difficult has no bearing on this at all. It is quite literally just that games are played massively differently today that the literacy skills we learned by trial and error, as well as often not knowing anything but brute forcing it to work anyway … That doesn’t work anymore. Which has changed how people literally learn how games control and play 'em differently.
You should have played Mario Kart for a few months before lol.
And driving by itself is very easy, doubly so with automatic gear shifts, which is usually the norm these days, as the hardest part by far was controlling and timing manual shifts.
On-topic, it’s a fact that the latest generations are dumber overall due to instant gratification on everything thanks to widespread internet and conditioning from mobile access.
WoW is not just a MMO, it’s a MMORPG.
RPG is a genre based on slow development of plot threads. It’s not for everyone.
Most players, even WoW players, just want to “get to the action”, and ignore the whole RPG aspect of the game: the narrative, slow progress etc.
You shouldn’t give your opinion on that since you don’t even like WoW combat, which is the core gameplay loop.
That’s the only way to truly learn anything.
hey wanna play eve online? It’s super easy.
What do you mean you can’t figure it out, it launched in 2003, surely it must be easy to understand and noob friendly by now.
You literally said yourself you played since vanilla. You most likely forgot what it was like to be new. Relax bro.
RPG simply means you are invoking a role. You are playing as a character. Nowhere does it say it has to be slow, that’s just your interpretation of a D&D style RPG where everything takes a long time.
that’s just your perspective, also this is not 2004 and you are not 12. who knows what people would have preferred if they had the same resources as now . wow was a game in uncharted territories. I see all these as an improvement to get more people in game instead of having a niche environment that only a small group of people like you would play. moreover , many people don’t have the time or patience to deal with advanced gameplay/puzzles and difficulty . I am 40yo and I play all my games on easy because I don’t want to spend all my time banging my head on one battle , I want to enjoy the game and move to the next one .
The new player experience needs to be smooth because you need to convince new players to keep playing the game.
When you decided to invest time into the game it was a modern game experience, now it is a comically aged one.
It’s not about making it easy it’s about making it feel worth investing the time and money into in a saturated market.
I’ll give my opinion whenever I want lol
I get what you mean - but I think he’s referring to interface queues that guide you to navigate that aspect.
100% gameplay is more complex, but viewing your bags, your map, quests, and as the OP was referring to - spell acquisition, definitely has new players in mind with the big flashing indicators.
I’m not sure why new players seem to have issues with it, but it seems that many people are thinking of gameplay difficulty rather than interface navigation.