Shadowlands got a boost ateast at start thanks to the covid ockdowns many countries thought was a good idea to enforce so most people did not spend much time traveling and had more time to play. Let’s not forget the cinematic, it was cool and people were hyped.
Then came dragonflight with the asked for let-us-just-be-simple-adventurers-again theme. (yes, there were many complaints of players being the chosen one during shadowlands). So a turn in another direction later, here we are. And no more covid.
Wow has always, well since TBC has had a checklist of mandatory content. This checklist got bigger and bigger until by Shadowlands it was unbareable (especially as the lore and areas were also so bad at that point)
The playerbase demanded an end to mandatory content. DF is that expansion. Unless you have a regular raid or M+ group… there is actually no reason to NEED to login. The playerbase now logs in when it wants… great!? BUT that means there are not peak times, no gathering of people, just a smaller base logging in ad-hoc…
turns out we needed a bit of a must do list to keep us in the game…
How do i know? Because i wasn’t playing for a majority of shadowlands, there was no grind for me, because i refused to do it, until they reduced it, and started to respect my time.
And because dragonflight reception is actually good, although the numbers seems low.
I have some IRL friends, who were interested in wow, but waited for it to come on console, and I told them now that this game is absolutely trash and they should never buy it, because it’s just manipulative perfumed trash in the end to get you to buy stuff from their store in one way or another. Be it crafted gear, trader’s post items, character services, etc. Leveling is probably also very badly designed with horrendous scaling on purpose I assume to incentivize boosting. Same goes for their LFG tool, which is designed to make you wait for 30+ minutes with their refusal to fix the balance. It’s all intended for their own benefit and to screw you over in some way. Imagine being so incapable at balancing a game mode against scripted NPC mobs that one comp completely dominates with no variation at all. Either their developpers are just incapable of mathematics, or they do it on purpose.
Who profits, if you wait 30-60 minutes in LFG with 445 ilvl to do a +20 you already cleared? Blizzard does, because it gets people to reroll class and to spend money on their trash game. Who profits that trader’s tender is very rare? Blizzard, because they can sell you their trash store items as a facade to actually sell you very limited currency out of a rotating store with gatcha mechanics tied to it. It’s all a scheme. Whenever someone asks me, if they should play wow, I give them the correct answer: NO.
DF might be better than Shadowlands but WoW is not a great MMO anymore. Raiding and M+ are decent… and that’s really about it.
-The game is filled with years old bugs that they simply don’t fix anymore.
-The story is all over the place and there just isn’t a point in picking up the game and trying to follow the story from start to finish. It’s an incoherent lore jumble.
-Bots are rampant. Gold selling is a booming irl business.
-ActiBlizz are as greedy, corrupt and monetization obsessed as ever. Nothing changed.
-Collecting is worthless. The game is endless FOMO. Which makes cosmetics worthless really because who really cares about grinding 50 hours for another +1 mount you’ll never use in what will always be an incomplete collection.
-Most players log on to raid/do weeklies and log off, meaning less people to chat and chill with, run content, share stories and so on outside of raid nights.
-Classes are a convoluted, complex mess. I don’t just mean the number of buttons, but the many little interactions abilities have, ways you can leak damage, knowledge you need of interrupts, routes, ability priorities, and the addons/sims you need to optimize.
There are a handful of fun activities, but it’s just not worth the sub. Mine runs out in 8 days, then I’ll be just another voice that will quietly vanish.
I’m just hoping for a new good MMO one day. A fresh start, fresh story, new characters, world and actual good quality. I think a lot of MMO players are waiting for that.
I really dont get this argument. Unless you spend your day 24/7 glued to the TV or some news outlet, the amount of genocide and murder you will experience is essentially zero.
If anything, dark, mature and violent themes sell like crazy.
Game of Thrones/ a Song of Ice and Fire is an IP in a dark setting full of murder and betrayal and violence and sexual themes. And it was a giant success, until they messed it up with bad writing.
Elden Ring was a giant gaming launch and its, again, about a dark fantasy setting full of violent and horrible things.
Baldurs Gate 3 just recently hit the market like a nuclear bomb. It too portrays the Forgotten Realms DnD setting in a bloody, violent, mature way. People love it.
War isn’t an end in itself. The goal of war is peace.
And we are currently at war with the incarnates… or had you not noticed them and their armies all over the Dragon Isles? Being at war doesn’t mean we need to have ‘genocide and murder’ (your ideas of good entertainment) shoved in our faces.
the main reason ppl play games is fun and back in Vanilla when it all started everything was designed whit that in mind and somewhere between then and now we lost just that because blizz had to have there Esport wat made everything super competitive (m+/dungeons and raids you cant play in a normal way) meaning the use of addons and its not what the majority of us put under fun and its taking its tol.
Dragonflight isn’t better for many mmo players out there, it’s better for people who suffered from various things in previous expansions. there’s literally no reason for anyone to stop playing their games to come back or start playing wow . Raiding & Dungeon experience is the best but that’s it
I’m a new player, began playing near the end of Shadowlands (which I hated but stuck around because I enjoyed doing BfA and WotLK stuff).
I have enjoyed Dragonflight so far but it’s very bloated and inaccessible. I spend nearly no time on the ground exploring and am flooded with rep grinds that are annoying and tedious. I still haven’t finished any factions because I just can’t be arsed anymore.
Quests and characters on DF are stupid and annoying and feel way too friendly and coddling.
It feels like I have to keep track of a billion things at once, in an environment that… yeah it’s cool but it’s not that interesting to explore.
I’d much rather the next expansion be a complete overhaul of Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms so that we can go back to populating the most important areas in the game without having to go outside of the main world.
I highly disagree with BfA but I didn’t play during the heydays of it. I love the content BfA offers, the setting, the environment and Boralus as a city, and I love the idea of an ocean-themed exp (the heart of azeroth thing can go kick rocks though)
because it isnt. m+ and raids are to hard. story is some emo stuff for the pink haired crossdresser playing the game. Openworld content is boring grind without any really good rewards.
they need to get to the foundation from Warcraft. That what made Wracraft what it is. or as Asmon said “big (hairy) sweaty characters with big swords hitting each other”
i hope Metzen can save the game
