How my fiancée opened my eyes about WoW being a terrible game *long post, much details*

Community General Discussion
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Hello, so i need to share my story about why i quit WoW. Yes i know, this again, another player crying about quiting WoW. But this time it’s liiittle bit different, because the “opening eyes” part was done by my fiancée who rated this game.

So, quick introduction to understand the backround.
Me: 26, Lore fan, books, comics, walking wiki, played WoW since 17, Played Lineage2, Tera, Aion, ElderScrolls Online, LotR online, never lasted more than two months (a year with Lineage), always returned for WoW.
My GF:25, Made her a gaming girl, started with Oblivion, Gothic 1-3, Skyrim, Assassins creed, Dragon Age, Mass Effect introduced her to blizzard with Overwatch, she loves Overwatch plays it roughly 4hours a day.
Prologue
So with me playing WoW, her playing Overwatch, we started to be a little separated, so there was an idea to play same games, i returned to Overwatch and sometimes play with her, but she and her teammates got alot better and i can’t keep up, so there was an idea to introduce her to WoW, since she likes RPG in general, and played W3 and read the book Arthas.
Playing WoW
So since she never have played MMO specificly, i introduced her to genre, told her what she can expect and what she can’t in compare of single player RPG, eg. Skyrim in which she spent like 120hours maybe more.
So, she created first character and first problem occured. “Why there is so little customization” “Well honey, it’s an old game and you can’t expect to have fur physics or…” “Am not talking about graphics, i love it, it surerly looks better than Gothic 2 and i love the game, am talking about character creation and its look”
And so, she explained to me, that if she’s gonna spend 30hours per week with a character, she needs to be realted with it, and since it can’t have a backround story (as you are creating the story), the relation should be done by the look. And i was like “well yeah, but there is more of an armor customization” and she replied Yeah cool, but in the end your character is a personification of you, not the armor, if you have shiny nice stuff and hollow stuff (GM edit) inside, it’s still hollow stuff (GM edit), i don’t need Fallout 4 like customization, but hey, you really don’t have much option in order to create first connection with your character because as a newbie, that’s the very first thing you are going to do"
First Steps
So, i explained her basic stuff and she started leveling, after lvl 19 she asked, "Okay, is this all am gonna do? Hard grind levels, hard grind profession, do quest like “kill 6/6, loot 8/8?” and i was like, no, as you continue further in game the more content and more fun opens to you, you got new dungeons to explore, “Well i don’t like exploring dungeons, there is nothing to explore, you can’t touch anything, there is no “mystery” waiting, it’s just you don’t grind enemies as single person but with group” and i was like, yeah but the dungeons got more hard “When?” she asked, “Well, have you seen me raiding? Or going Mythic +?” and she was like, “so i have to grind all the way to the end, to have actually a challenge and fun?” “Well yeah it’s like a reward” i replied, “So you as a newbie got introduce to boring mindless doing nothing and then after xy days you gotta do interesting stuff? Strange apporach” And i was like, “Well i can speed exp. you and you will be cap lvl until the end of this week” and she went like, “So the main point is to skip all the boring stuff as fast as possible, or survive it with my newbie approach? Why didn’t they just give you lvl 100, so you have time to learn your character and hop in 120, since, as you said, spells, rotation, talents they are very different when you’re exping so none of it matters”

After three days (am gonna speed things a little bit)
So, she disliked the game very much, but wanted to give it a try because of me, for me.
Anyway she came with interesting thoughts
No things to explore > cant collect interesting things, what you collect is useless garbae with no meaning
I see a cave and am not excited to go there because there will be another meaningless enemy with another meaningless loot
Am level 60 and dungeons aren’t still a challenge some of them looks good, some of them had interesting “two pages” of backround lore, but mostly i can’t remember any of them, just last two i went recently
What’s in the basket? How do you mean i can’t open it? Well, why it’s there? Immersion? Oh there are a few chests? I’ve never encountered a single thing to open in three days

Conclusion (again speeding things up)
After i saw her really pushing her play and i saw her bored as SNIP - GM doing it just because of me, i borrowed her my 120lvl alt
Finding optimal gear is fun challenge
Perfecting your rotaion, stats ect. = fun
Since you have no idea about upper two mechanics as a newbie, you gotta search them in guides
When you use the guides, you are basically left with no things to customize, you can either use meta, or discover your own things which won’t be as effective as meta
M+ fun challenge, raid progress amazing challenge
Day 47
So she played with my alt for over a month, did awesome Uldir progress, but ended with pug group, after she killed ghuun she said it wasn’t a real challenge and i was like, “yeah now everybody nows its mechanics, you gotta wait for a new raid and progress it, that’s a challenge” and she replied you basically this game is fun only at cap level, only at the start of the new patch, so what do YOU do here, sometimes 6hrs per day, when this game lasts for two or three weeks after new big patch?
And i explained her reputaion, equip grinding, mounts, pets (which she all knew and did) and she was like so you, again kill enemies who gave you meaningless loot wich you can sell for 2 golds to have a reputaion to buy a nice tabard. or to give you profession recepie, to make more money, to buy shiny mount. If you want to do raiding, you gotta do it fast, or it will be bored farming, but even though you put all your effort and loot AMAZINGA equip, it’s worthess because ilvl will rise after a few weeks so all that effort goes in vain

Epilogue
So, if any of you read the whole story, you might think my girlfriend is just yapping SNIP - GM , but remember, she’s a huge RPG fan (played more games that i wrote) she loved W3 and likes the lore in general and she tried hard to like this game for me. But in the end she told me you know, it reminds me those P2W mobile games, but in the end i don’t know whats worse spend your money on useless skins, or spend your time on useless grind, remember when you almost cried in ME2, full of emotions? When did you have such a strong reaction playing wow? When you killed difficult boss in raiding? It lasted you two hours, so you really spend 6hrs per day, doing useless grind, to have challenge for the two weeks of the new raid, to have 2 hour of satisfaction, after xyz hours of stress, since you are raid leader?

And, after this i really opened my eyes, and quit wow for good.

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That’s a shame, and a bit weird, because none of the other games you mention that she played offered that to any degree either? Not to an extent that mattered.

It sounds like you were just both focussed on Raiding, and that’s just part of the game, and certainly not playing an RPG to its full potential. If you focus on just one part of it, you’re -going- to get bored. Have you tried playing it as an actual RPG? A hecktonne of Raiders on my server do that, and find that the wind down and actually playing it as an RPG gives them some interest, and keeps it fresh. I mean sure, its an RP Server, but then, this is an RPG. AD has plenty of raiders, pvp’ers, and some who purely do it for the RPG elements, and its the people who mix and match two or all of those elements, who tend to have fun with the game -even- when there are periods of ‘Content Drought’.

Maybe that’s the problem? It is genre of game, Because I’m looking at the types of game you list there, and only Overwatch is a collaborative game, and even then…barely… Maybe its a genre problem? She just might not be into MMORPG’s, but just RPG’s. I mean, even Overwatch is essentially just an FPS MOBA, not an RPG.

She just might not be into Roleplaying Games, which is cool. Be a dull world if we were all the same, but you’re not detailing anything there, that is new, or bad, and isn’t just “I got to end content and got bored” to which you kind of think “Maybe don’t rush to End content, ignore other aspects of the game, then claim the game is rubbish because you’re only playing a third of it at maximum speed?” Because despite what some people think, especially the youth of today shakes walking stick This game is not all about End-Game Content or a mad rush to get there…

Try playing it like an RPG, its actually still pretty awesome.

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Sounds like she didn’t participate in the things that aren’t grindy, did she not try any achievments that does not include grinding? Like Field photographer or something, yes WoW can be grindy, but theres also a RP community that is plenty of fun.
Also secret areas to explore

The tombstone seems to be a tribute to an employee that died before WoWs release, I find that nice that theres a little memorial in the game.
Theres a lot of memorials actually

I mean, if you compare WoW to the Witcher or something, surely theres a difference, but WoW is also supposed to be played with people, I myself was a hardcore Assassins creed fan some years ago ( lost faith after Unity, last chance in Syndicate ), and yes I did love the exploration etc, but theres nothing bad with WoW tough, I never really grind, I do exactly what I want, if you just grind of course it gets boring, every game does.

If WoW isn’t her cup of tea, sure, but theres nothing “she can make you realize”, if you like it you like it, if you’re gonna see everything from a bad point of view, everything is bad, and really, in Overwatch you only fight, you do even more in WoW then just fighting all the time, so yes, WoW has a lot of bad with it, but I find that feedback to be kinda useless with how to judge the game, if she can play an even grindier game then WoW and then don’t even participate in the non grindy things?

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The time you wasted bashing out this post would have been better spent with your fiancée. You could have gone for a walk where she could have,

A. Explained that she was more than capable of posting her views herself and didn’t need you to voice her opinions.

B. Told you that it was pointless and irritating to post “Why I am leaving WoW” comments.

C. Encouraged you to delete the post altogether and go and do something useful instead.

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The time my other half pointed out flaws in “my” games, I gave a finger in the eye back :fu:

We plays games together, but don’t bash the game the other plays, and we respect other views without feeling like we have to think the same and leave :expressionless:

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She doesn’t like mounts? Pfft get out!

So she tried it with a negative attitude for 3 days, then played end game on a already geared character, doesn’t sound like she even tried to understand what wow is about.

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Collecting meaningless stuff, isn’t that was most hobbies are whether it is collecting stamps irl or mounts, toys or perhaps transmogs in this game?

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You are far too young to give up your freedom and get married, trust me going down that road will eat up all your free time you currently have for MMOs.

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Unless you marry a gamer.:grin:

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Providing you can afford a nanny until the kids are old enough to theory craft and be of use in high end keys!

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They are never too young to grind herbs :herb: for your flasks!

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So, in short: The game is not for her then.

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SWTOR is much better of a game when you look at it RPG-wise. It have dialogue wheel (just like dragon age and mass effect that your girl played) and dark/light choices~ not to mention that every quest dialogue is like interesting cinematic compared to WoW where even fan of this game is tired of reading at certain point and just skips all this “kill rats in my cellar” lore.

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But hey, hey! Don’t you just… mindlessly shoot at and kill things in Overwatch to get loot boxes? :thinking:

… really?

I mean personally I take satisfaction in the amount of time and effort I put into my character. There are a lot of ways to enjoy the game. If the only thing you do is raid and grind, that’s not the game’s problem.

Sounds like you be whipped, boi.

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To be fair, compared to any RPG made in the last 10 years, WoW’s RPG elements are on par with a game you’d find in your cereal box as a child so if you’ve played any RPGs in recent years and then try out WoW for the first time anyone would be disappointed.

Copy pasted caves with nothing in them, chests with generic loot you’d find on any surrounding trash mob, infinite breadcrumb quests so before you’ve even been close enough for that farm on your map to render in you’ve already had a quest to go there for the last 3 hours.

It’s still an enjoyable game, but it’s hardly the cutting edge of modern technology anymore, it’s “good enough”. It’s cozy and familiar.

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Okay, i try to to answer in one post so i don’t need to do bazilion answers.

Dorethien
I tried to show her “non-grinding” stuff, she made a few friends in my guild, did stuff with them, with me, i showed her achievments, funny quests, but she was so down for the game, that this didn’t change her attitude and about quests she said, “if you’d switch the number of “kill 8/8 loot 6/6” quests with the “non-standard” quests, game would be much more fun and also, it would be good to have these unusual, or lore or cinematic, or funny quests also in the beggining like in first 20 lvl, because the game needs to create an attention for a newbie.”

Fluxache - When i wrote the article, i got home from my job, my girlfriend is still at work, so there was no "better spent time with my fiancée instead of writing the post, and anyway, you shouldn’t dare to write complete strangers how to spend their time.
She didn’t want to post her views herself, because she doesn’t care, i posted it, because i thought it’s an interesting story
“Doing something useful” again…discussing at discuss forum isn’t useless, it’s your free time, don’t tell people what to do.

Moothilda It’s not like we need to have same views, think same, it’s like she gave me reponse about why she doesn’t like the game, and that reponse brought me out of my WoW bubble

Uldurin
It was fresh alt, it was indeed lvl 80% 119lvl. I get your point, but her point is, that until you get to endgame content, for a newbie the game is boring, because you mostly just do “kill 8/8 loot 6/6” and as you can’t know what to expect in mid-end / end game, you need external info, eg. friend, wowhead exct. which is also wrong, because the game itself should handle the balance of content for newbies.

Mion
Yeah, basically every game has it’s “mindless” parts, the difference is if a person sees it or not. Overwatch can’t be compared to WoW since it’s two different gendres, i would tell you what she likes about Overwatch but you would reply, “well obviously you can’t have these in an RPG” because, again, it’s pointless to compare those two games.

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If you enjoy the game, you should play it.

End of story.

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So, basically you got a person who loved playing with her friends in Overwatch grind boring stuff, then farm Uldir with total strangers, and you’re surprised that she didn’t like it?

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Just so you know, after that post i have a bit of a crush with you

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This ^^. I’m amazed that a game you enjoyed and chose to share is now worthless because of someone else’s view on the game.

I have always made up my own mind and drawn my own conclusions about games. My husband introduced me to WoW but he has long stopped playing it, because he no longer enjoyed it.

I hope you find something you can enjoy and are allowed to enjoy :stuck_out_tongue:. All the best in your gaming adventures.

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