When I was no-lifing to obtain R14 before the change, I was actually more “playing” than people do now.
We had a group of players no-lifing together, we HAD to team-up, we were forced to, we had to play BGs together, we were playing almost professionally, with Discord etc, yet we had so much fun on discord while playing, singing together, with background music. Laughing at what happens in game. You can imagine the discord when playing Warsong, or Arathi «4 of them incoming BS through the water! I’m gonna jump from LM slow-falling to BS I need another backup!» «I got 3 seconds left on the rez timer hold on to your IceBlock I’m comiiiiiiing!» etc etc, It was very intense, it was very… good. Actual good. Felt good. We were truly playing. «They are giving up retreating Stables, we won guys!» every single win was a relief, we felt, we had emotions. We were cheering. Because we weren’t the only ones, if we were doing it, other servers were doing it too, and there were competition. It was tough.
It was like a new family, spending hours together, people from different background. One was a father, one had its own bakery business, etc.
We would be playing on Discord when someone would pop up in the voice channels «Guys you need a tank?» And everyone «Heeey Jason late day today? Of course we do, finishing this bg you’re up next!» And people would come and go in the discord voice channels, we all became friends. Some people who already had R14 would even come back in the discord or give a hand when we needed.
That was playing. We were forced to team-play, we wouldn’t make enough honor otherwise. We had to. And it was good… Those were good times. So much good memories, so much laughs.
So no, don’t say people can “play” now.
Now what you get is people being able to achieve R14 playing solo. …and solo they play. Like zombies.
There is a reason why Classic Vanilla was good, and a massive amount of player came back to play it.
There is a reason why Retail sucks.