Failure, challenge, and the decline of WoW
- Thread starter RunningWolf
- Start date
bahah, I remember those days. I use to grief all day with my decently geared rogue and had bags full of tubers.
I played this game on and off for 5 years. I used to be addicted to it hardcore, but after a 6 month stint with no computer, I came back last week and I realized "I either really don't care for this game any more, or Cataclysm sucks." I'm not sure which one it is, but I'm just bored with it (as many of you are). I'm sure I won't completely stop playing, but I ran a random and I was just like "whelp, I'm done." That's never happened before. Sorry Blizzard, enjoy your billions of dollars. :\
i miss u Aki
I miss you too boss (no homo). What's going on in your world?
I played vanilla to BC.
Got bored about ~2 years ago and decided to give it another shot using the 10-day free trial or whatever. I got bored within 2 play sessions and quit again.
Got bored last November and decided to try it AGAIN. Picked it up, and haven't put it down since. Not sure what it was this time (Cataclysm came out 1 month after I joined).
I think there are certain things in your life that make you value your MMORPG time more or less. 2 years ago I was 24, working 50+ hrs/week, going to the gym 5-7 times per week, dating a lot, going out a lot... having a lot of fun.
When I recently picked it up again, I was in rehab for my rotator cuff, and I had just met my girlfriend. She turned out to be an uber nerd (totally unexpected), and we're about 13 months into our relationship, and she loves that I play WOW.
Since about April I've been raiding 3x/week for 9 hours total (plus some time on the weekend) while managing to work full-time and go to grad school 2x/week. It's like a hobby... no more and no less. Girlfriend still thinks it's cool that I play, because she can do her own thing (usually schoolwork or watching TV).
Anyway, point is, I think we all go through hot and cold streaks... but we're all gamers at heart. I often wonder to myself why sometimes I'm really into certain games, and sometimes I'm so uninterested I can't play them.
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AdreNaLiNe
Veteran XX
I think you guys are confused. There are gamers and there are social players.
The gamers aren't addicted to WoW, they're addicted to gaming. For example, when I quit WoW, I simply quit. I didn't have to keep logging on to socialize, etc. When I didn't do anything in the game, I simply left the game.
I play BF3 for multiple hours every night. Am i addicted to BF3? No. I'm just into gaming. The next good (subjective) game that comes out, I'm going to be playing it too.
I should add that in between WoW and BF3 (4 months) I spent time playing some Civ5 multiplayer, and caught up on TV shows. So it isn't the game that's addicting, it's just playing a game if it's available.
The gamers aren't addicted to WoW, they're addicted to gaming. For example, when I quit WoW, I simply quit. I didn't have to keep logging on to socialize, etc. When I didn't do anything in the game, I simply left the game.
I play BF3 for multiple hours every night. Am i addicted to BF3? No. I'm just into gaming. The next good (subjective) game that comes out, I'm going to be playing it too.
I should add that in between WoW and BF3 (4 months) I spent time playing some Civ5 multiplayer, and caught up on TV shows. So it isn't the game that's addicting, it's just playing a game if it's available.
AdreNaLiNe
Veteran XX
That's the plan right now. Playing BF3 currently.
totally agree with this.
I think the problems started with organized PVP.
Not world PVP, but Arena's and Battlegrounds.
I think that aspect of it changed the game too much.
People would just farm BG's for honor points to get gear.
I wish they would have setup separate realms for Arena and BG's only. Take all the PvP/resilience gear off of the regular realms.
So you want to do arenas and BG's, copy your character over to a PvP server where it would basically be just a capital city, and queue's for PvP.
Get rid of gold, and do a strictly honor point based economy on those servers.
Not world PVP, but Arena's and Battlegrounds.
I think that aspect of it changed the game too much.
People would just farm BG's for honor points to get gear.
I wish they would have setup separate realms for Arena and BG's only. Take all the PvP/resilience gear off of the regular realms.
So you want to do arenas and BG's, copy your character over to a PvP server where it would basically be just a capital city, and queue's for PvP.
Get rid of gold, and do a strictly honor point based economy on those servers.
Very much so, I always thought that's the way they should have handled it, eliminate completely the bullshit balancing they had to do in order to not make PVE gear/trinkets/procs/specs not melt faces in PVP
PVP would have remained the same in world, giving those that wanted to play that way the option, vs making ppl have to spec/respec carry multiple sets of gear (which fucking sucked for hybrids like palys... tank/dps/pvp sets eating up bag slots)
Had they done that I'd probably still be playing, but now they've lost close to 1 million subscribers I think I saw over the past 2 years. (drop in the bucket really)
PVP would have remained the same in world, giving those that wanted to play that way the option, vs making ppl have to spec/respec carry multiple sets of gear (which fucking sucked for hybrids like palys... tank/dps/pvp sets eating up bag slots)
Had they done that I'd probably still be playing, but now they've lost close to 1 million subscribers I think I saw over the past 2 years. (drop in the bucket really)
As much as I agree that resilience, and moreso PVP balancing changes that had a negative effect on PvE, have brought the game down, the introduction of resilience and arena also gave people who were either bad at PvE or didn't enjoy it another way to spend their time without unsubscribing.
The introduction of dungeon finders (and soon raid finder) have done more to slowly kill the game than resilience though in my opinion. As much as I like them because if I want to run a dungeon I don't have to try forming or joining a group, they've removed almost all accountability and community from the game. If people are terrible they're simply votekicked from a group only to fuck up in the next random they get. You don't get to know anyone from your own server outside trade channel (which I have disabled on all of my toons) or running Baradin Hold. In Vanilla and most of TBC I knew almost everyone that raided in horde guilds on Tichondrius, and 2/3 or more of the people raiding in alliance guilds. Nowadays I know maybe a dozen people outside the group(s) I raid with, but I'll admit I don't play as much now as I did a few years ago and I haven't used IRC since before TBC was released which was where I got to know a lot of people from the opposite faction.
The introduction of dungeon finders (and soon raid finder) have done more to slowly kill the game than resilience though in my opinion. As much as I like them because if I want to run a dungeon I don't have to try forming or joining a group, they've removed almost all accountability and community from the game. If people are terrible they're simply votekicked from a group only to fuck up in the next random they get. You don't get to know anyone from your own server outside trade channel (which I have disabled on all of my toons) or running Baradin Hold. In Vanilla and most of TBC I knew almost everyone that raided in horde guilds on Tichondrius, and 2/3 or more of the people raiding in alliance guilds. Nowadays I know maybe a dozen people outside the group(s) I raid with, but I'll admit I don't play as much now as I did a few years ago and I haven't used IRC since before TBC was released which was where I got to know a lot of people from the opposite faction.
That sounds like a really dumb idea.
My gut instinct is that the ideal PVP system would be one where Battlegrounds were never created, yet they did implement a better/more casual friendly honor reward system than the ranking one. The game has catered far too much to carebears with near total elimination of world PVP, though I guess that there is a huge demographic of PVE nerds that chew Blizzard's ear off every time they get ganked. Long gone are the days of the Southshore zerg or 5-man roaming the plaguelands. Battlegrounds are the only way to get honor at a reasonable rate. Flying mounts meant that anybody had the option to avoid PVP if they were disadvantaged. All the queue/teleport functions mean people just sit in a city and queue for whatever they want, so there aren't any more high-level player hubs like Blackrock Mountain etc.
I still think there should be arenas. World PVP should have been the casual option for honor, with arenas for more competetive/organized PVP. Unfortunately Blizzard has dumbed down travel in this game so you never really have to travel, and if you do you can just fly there without ever seeing another player.