World of Warcraft is Sad

Community General Discussion
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To start things off… I wanted 9.1 to be good. I wanted it to be fun; I wanted it to draw me back into the game that I love so much.

I logged in last night and did the battle for Ardenweald. Neat little scenario and I thought it was okay. Oddly, I dropped a bunch of frames on a 1080ti. The cinematics that aren’t pre-rendered look awful. There is a delay in sound from when Sylvanas lands on the ground and let’s not even talk about the lip syncing. Finishing the Scenario, I had to go back to Oribos.

Okay. Things look different. Cool?

I met Venari and accepted the new quest to discover Korthia. “Stay Close Maw Walker”.

Do I need to say more?

Overall, it’s the same stuff that 9.0 had but different. More time gating. More systems and nothing blatantly exciting. Korthia is small. It seems un-optimized, uninspired and it’s Just another zone for dailies/WQ and another rep to grind. It’s boring. It’s the reason I went to Classic and this isn’t a “gO pLaY cLaSsIc” thread. I just want to show some comparisons.

End game

TBC has reps to grind through dungeons. It has reps to grind through quests and it has reps to grind through lootable items. SL has rep you can grind by WQ, log off and come back tomorrow to earn some more.

TBC has heroic dungeons you have to UNLOCK. If I want to run a heroic, I will run the normal dungeon until I’m revered to buy the key. SL just lets you que up in the dungeon finder once you have the appropriate ilevel.

TBC has attunements. You can’t just go do that new raid when it unlocks. You have to do a quest chain to unlock the raids. You have to earn that raiding experience. SL just has it where, when the raid unlocks… There you go! Enjoy!

Flying? Earn enough gold in TBC and you can fly! SL? You gotta wait until patch .1 or .2, then you have to earn enough of our system in place. Then you can fly.

I can go on and on about the comparisons but the point is. TBC gives you a reason to play the game aside from time-gating content. If you don’t feel like dungeons, how about questing? If you don’t feel like questing, how about grinding out rep for a faction that has an item turn in? Don’t want to grind rep? Work on your attunement.

There are more things to do, then log on and just do WQ. It’s not just logging on to raid once a week. I have a question for blizzard and the sad part is, I already know the answer.

Why aren’t there more things to do in current content, aside from the time-gated junk?

The answer? It’s so you’ll play the game. Play the game and pay for it monthly. It’s to keep you here. Wasting your time.

Overall. I’m not impressed and it makes me realize that Retail WoW and WoW in general is sad. They keep changing TBC. Retail is a sit and wait mobile game day per day. It could be so much more. Blizzard is lucky that FF14 isn’t for everybody because if every WoW player like me could easily switch and enjoy that game. We would.

TL;DR: 9.1 is garbage, I wish Retail had more in common with TBC for the current content. You have more things you can do at your pace and nothing is super time-gated. I want to love WoW but the decisions of Blizzard are ruining the game.

88 Likes
2

Throw off the shackles of Endgame gearing and just go pure casual. SL becomes a lot more fun when you do, honestly.

Do TBCC’s endgame instead because they may have less mechanics, but the whole experience is still much more pleasant. And yes, I’m including attunements in this vs. the tedious unending grind sandwich to stay relevant in SL.

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I made a new character to play through every expansion. I’m getting every single achievement in one expansion before moving on. This has been infinitely more fun than anything SL has crapped out.

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My favorite part was how they made THIS week a dungeon event week as opposed to next when the new mythic season is up, LOL.

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I agree. Retail has become a pay to win incremental, pay to win, rpg game where you have to grind all day just to get even a slight piece of gear. There’s nothing to do in sl either, you can’t grind for anything worthwhile. Just gear, mounts, transmog, and toys. I honestly don’t get what blizz is even doing. This patch released and it feels like literally nothing to released.

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So… you hate systems, but you missed when the game had a bunch of different systems??? Some of what you said is valid, but that in particular doesn’t make sense to me.

So you prefer to grind for items for reputation, but you don’t like that there are more reputations to work on now than before because there isn’t an item drop? But at the same time, you like attunements and being gated from entering content, but you don’t like time gates?

You clearly just like TBC more. That’s ok. But the reasons you gave aren’t adding up.

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Attunements aren’t time gating. It’s doing content to access content. If I don’t do Attunement, that’s on me because I didn’t make the time to do it. If I can’t progress in the story because I have to wait until next week. That’s not on me.

There are more ways to earn reputation instead of WQ. That was my point. There are more systems in place so you can do content at your own pace instead of waiting. That’s what I like.

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I’ve been saying that since 8.0. I get it. Lesson learned. Wow is not and WILL NOT improve until there is a new direction. Can the current dev team give the game that new direction? I HIGHLY doubt it.

Shame because they’re doing MMO aspects MUCH MUCH better than wow right now. It’s a VERY story focused game so once you get through the story you can focus grind whatever you want. I love FFXIV.

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To be honest, the devs that actually cared about the game are gone. I think the major changes in complete lack of versatility to the game are likely a result of Activision just replacing as many as they can to watch their profit margin more than their game.

When there’s actual choice people definitely flock. I’ve been playing WoW so long I don’t want to see it die, but I still can’t disagree on this. They’ve let it go and fallen so behind on the trends in MMO’s that I think habit makes them more cash than anything.

I remember popping a movie on and going to grind mobs that would give you no more than 5 rep a piece. It was slow, but it was still an option. And you were making progress on something in a way that you got to pick.

I 100% hate the system in which it’s “go do your quests, kay you’re done see you tomorrow”. Lack of options makes it far too apparent they just want to milk it for as long as possible. I know some folks devour content so quickly it’s problematic, but they could find ways to keep those types occupied. Hell, just add more silly cosmetics and toss them in as rewards for achieves or something. You’ll keep 'em grinding and they’ll get something. lol

13 Likes
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I hear you loud and clear sister.

I only decided to log in and unlock maw mounting in Korthia the night of release for 45mins, because I’m so consumed with things to do in TBC.

After a lot of observation between both games (retail & classic) the conclusion I’ve come to is there is OG Blizzards WoW and Activisions WoW.

The developers OG Blizzards WoW was basic, but worked.

Activisions WoW is over-complicated and tries to work.

Both versions of WoW keep you playing, but with different approaches, most of which OP addresses.

It seems to me via this observation from Ion’s interviews the developers of Activisions WoW have huge shoes to fill since most of the OG team has left. They realise this, have their own vision and are trying from either pride or necessity (it’s pride…) To distance their version of the game from their predecessors.

I think they hate it, I think that launching classic wow kills them inside because what they thought was a laughable passing fascination of an old relic was like chucking us a bone.

But now, it’s become so popular they are having trouble wrapping their heads around WHY classic works and what they need to fix in retail before it ends and people bail on retail forever.

Just my 2c

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Contrary to what some shills say, we all did. Nobody wanted this to suck. We want a patch so good it makes Thunder Isle look like Nazjatar.

None of us want the game to suck, we yell into this void of horribleness because we care.

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Just coming to agree with all of this.

The best word I’d use for this patch is: Uninspired.

Also, that crazy FPS drop during the scenario was painful. Running a really high-end i7 rig with a 3070 here, and I was dropping to the mid 20s.

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Sorry but I prefer farming rares than repeating the same dungeon grind to get up a singular reps.

Yes there is time gated content over the idea of continuous grinding to have a distinct advantage. Players shouldn’t feel motivated to take time off work/other to get ahead.

There are more things to do, achievements, toys, mounts and if you haven’t already covenant development and appearances/items to get from that.

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WoW isn’t sad.

You are.

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15

This patch 9.1 stuff is really just stuff that should’ve been in patch 9.0 or immediately thereafter.

If they expect this tiny content band-aid to last 6+ months…

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Might be longer team is working from home so coordination efforts would take longer to get a finished result.

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They shouldn’t have to work from home anymore, unless the headquarters was blighted.

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Other games also have altered how they’re working due to the pandemic. And they’re still releasing things. ESO I think was just a few weeks behind schedule. Not six months. Just as an example. It’s possible to get it done, regardless of where they work.

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19

What do you count as worthwhile to grind for? What else is there to grind for outside of your list? You forgot to include pets and achievements, I guess.

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I agree that it’s possible to get done, but it’s better they go for a good core they’re satisfied with rather than release early. We can’t compare what impact restrictions have on any one company to another (be it restrictions due to people, difficulty of adding to a core game without breaking it, cost/return, loss in HR)

People are less satisfied and less forgiving of anything broken than ever before.