So, I returned to WoW

Community General Discussion
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WARNING: Long post - tl;dr at the bottom

Dear Adventurers, Soldiers and Heroes,

I initally started WoW late TBC and fell in love with the game during Wrath. I took a tremendous long time in leveling trough (old) Azeroth, the Outlands and finally - Northend.

There, I met a couple of fellow adventurers and together we took upon the challenges in the frozen north - until Ulduar, when we proofed to incompetent to continue…

After a while I quit and my desire to reroll completly died, when I saw the Cataclysm trailer (how dare they destroy my beloved darkshore!)

After that, I travelled back in time and spent the majority of my gaming years on… another technical infrastructure… playing the games version of 2006.

Then the Classic release was announced and I quit the… outsourced approach of this game… and began to wait patiently. Until the Hype was too strong and I tried BFA in order to kill the anticipation and break the torture of waiting. I heard a lot of bad things about this expansion. As an outsider, these were my major concerns:

  • Community unfriendly and not connected
  • Leveling content is obsolete
  • Not rewarding and not challenging

So, I’d like to share my personal experience after a couple hours played (on this toon).

Community

I met a couple of cool people during my LFD runs. The LFR runs were mostly rushed down tbh, but the ones who proofed to be chilled people, the connection was immediately there - like the good old days. I just needed to approach each group with the equal positivity, even if it wasn’t always returned the same way. Hence, for the low-lvls the community is actually quite alright.

Leveling content

I really enjoy leveling! The quests areas feel connected. Quests are actually written out a lot better then they were “back then” and the dynamic caps for each zone allow me to pursuit my characters own personal story. Of course, they are still the notorious “kill X boars”, “destroy Y” and “bring this there” quests but hey - this has always been that way. It’s an MMO in the end…

Not rewarding and not challenging

Actually, I still enjoyed getting that loot. It’s true, the dungeons are mostly not really challenging anymore in this level area. I crawled every dungeon and we wiped a whooping total of 2 times (Scarlett Halls to that Bladestorm dude and Strath - Keep when the whole City run after a DPS of ours). However, I agree that the bosses are not challenging at all. Healing is boring, since I do not have to do anything for 10sec+.

Conclusion / TLDR

BFA is much better than expected and I think many unhappy players are just burned out. Still looking forward to classic, but retail is a fine way to kill the time until then.

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You leveled through a new content (for you). Obviously, you are all giggles and rainbows.

It will pass, as you realize that the end game consists of the endless rep grind + gear loop regrind + extra iohazerit grind on top.

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Welcome back to the game and have fun .

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I’m curious to see – when Classic is released – if this is the result of modern WoW or modern gaming.
I’m inclined to believe that the WoW community isn’t more unfriendly or unconnected than other gaming communities today are. It feels as if gaming in general has just evolved to be less social and more anonymous in nature.
It’ll be interesting to see when Classic WoW is released if the player community will be like it was in the old days. I suspect not, but we’ll see.

Blizzard and the community seem to be in agreement about this. It’s just a matter of what to do about it, and when to do it. I personally think Blizzard will do a major overhaul to leveling with the next WoW expansion.
But yes, leveling isn’t very enjoyable or rewarding these days. It’s just a process you have to get through, and that doesn’t feel right.

Depends. The reward and challenge structure is different from Classic WoW, because you’re able to choose your difficulty setting. Again, I think that’s something that’s systemic of modern gaming – it’s not really a WoW thing.
My old Nintendo or Super Nintendo games were the bread-and-butter design. One difficulty, three lives, no continues. Oldschool! Today games let you pick the difficulty, you have infinite lives, and you got checkpoints and so on.
I don’t know…it’s just different.

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pfffffff filthy casuals

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I don’t understand why so many people disregard the Vanilla quests as boring or bland, not everything needs a flashy cutscene to tell the story.

“Back then” had most of my favorite quest lines. The entire Defias chain(probably my favorite quest line in all of WoW) starts as just some little bandit trouble and ends with Onyxia in the throne room.

All the little RP items that you deliver are actually quite interesting to read, zones felt connected through continent spanning quests and of course the “Scepter of the Shifting Sands”.

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Well there was a few really epic quests in vanilla but overall questing is better handled now than it used to.

Easier, sure but imo better. The story is coherent and the zones are much better with plenty of caves, things to find and details overall.

Drustvar feels more like a cursed forest than duskwood, and the quests don’t try to waste time sending you all over the map or sending you twice or trice at the same location for something you could have done the first time.

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Well, Duskwood isn’t cursed per se (Witches and stuff), it just has a bit of a Zombie and Werewolf problem.

Well there was a few really epic quests in vanilla but overall questing is better handled now than it used to.

Different strokes, but I completely prefer the old questing paths and storytelling. But I can see your point why alot of people would see it as “annoying”.

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Welcome back to the game :slight_smile:

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((It’s not a reply to you, Jito. I just want to highlight this piece))

I have had some conversations with people who I have played with over the years, and they all have a lot of theories about how gamers and gaming communities are today :slight_smile:

I sometimes feel I don’t have the same social experince I used to have ‘back in the day’ - But I somehow don’t get the feeling that my own kids, nieces and nephews and my younger brother who is 20 years younger than me, feels this way.

From what I see (and hear :roll_eyes:) they are all social, very active and very loyal to their fellow online friends… Just like we were :slight_smile:

My theory is that us ‘oldies’ simply haven’t been able to ajust to the new rules in the social aspect in gaming.

WoW community was always a gathering of some of the biggest :poop:-heads, but because the playerbase was so huge before it wasn’t noticed that much because an equal amount of friendly players was in the game.

And while it didn’t feel like hard work when we were younger, I must admit, even me, a chat spammer and social player sometimes feel so drained, that I just want to rewind and not be either friendly or social, and if half of a LFG group has one of those days, then it is very very hard work to keep the friendly social play to the level we all remember :slight_smile:

And with that I just want to say: Welcome back :partying_face:

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Bull’s eye, but that’s pretty much true for any mmo. The only solution imo is to rotate 2-3 different mmos, or just play single player games instead.

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Welcome back. The sky has been falling forever, but game’s still played and enjoyed by millions.

Enjoy the game, it’s fun. Sometimes too rewarding, sometimes not at all, and if ever you stop having fun take another break.

I came back in September. Have been having a whale of a time, and expect to have better time going forward as I’ve finally joined a guild that’s fun and games and serious at raiding. So get a good guild for your play style.

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Thank you for all the replys and the welcome back wishes! :slight_smile:

I’m glad to read so many different yet positive reactions and I agree with the majority of you.
Happy gaming!

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I should stop leaving and returning to the game without announcing it to everyone…
what a foolish thing I been doing

:face_vomiting:

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Welcome back! I’ve had a similar experience but I only quit for 4 months or so before returning with a new perspective. I agree that this expansion is less fun than Legion but it still has it’s merits and fun.

People that can only complain need to realise they can take a break until the next patch or raid, and that nothing is mandatory. The moment something feels forced and un-fun, why do it? Unless there’s a great reward at the end I would just skip.

I don’t know… WoW without the leveling experience wouldn’t be WoW anymore. If, for example, chars would start at max lvl instantly it would diminish the world and the value of a char in my opinion. There’s something calming about lvling a new char, even if that means abandoning it mid-way through. I have real fond memories about a lot of zones and would feel sad if they make lvling optional.

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That is wows biggest problem, content, they just fail miserably at providing enough of it.

I don’t care what people say about Activision, they were right when they wanted to launch a new xpac every year. “Repeatable” content just gets boring fast, even if it rises in difficulty, it is just like watching the same movie over and over again, only this time it is the directors cut.

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I’m pretty sure it about blizzard agreeing with the fact leveling is in a bad state and working toward making it a better experience.

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Interesting read here. The views on the community I get there are issues I think some if not all the tools that have allowed people to see content have had a massive part to play in how much the game has degraded over the years and to top it off there is no consequences with people’s behaviour in PUG’s or LFR because the chances of those people running into you again is extremely slim if not non existent and its sad to see the game going this way.

I myself do not do much in the way of end game content now because of the attitudes I have seen from strangers. I might be more inclined to do it with my guild when I feel confident again to do tanking but at the moment holding off.

I am also like you a person who came into the game late TBC have loved it ever since and will probably never unsub till it either runs out of steam or the plug gets pulled which would seem unlikely either scenario would happen.

Your right about burn out it does happen I have had to take breaks over Legion because my mental health was not too hot at the time. As for BfA quite happy sure it’s got issues but then all of the expansions have had in one way or the other it’s just the way it goes with WoW but I’d still not give it up ever.

Also going to add with the way you have written your post you sound like a nice person to know as well and it’s nice to see some constructive and positive commentary on these forums as well. Glad to see I am not the only decade old played still around! :grinning::slightly_smiling_face:

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Hm, if that is true than everyone on Nost was an old fart.

Which could be true, I certainly don’t ruin that hypothesis with my age.

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Blizzard had a perfectly fine leveling solution in place, where you could level your alt through dungeons by multiboxing, but they removed that option because they didn’t want people to level that fast without help. FYI if you don’t know you log into your 120, make a group and post it on the group finder thing, then you open anotherWoW window, log in on your alt, and request to join the group, log back and accept. you are now grouped with yourself, then you do Stockades (alliance) or Ragefire chasm (horde) from 1 to 60, by having the low level stand by the enterence and you speed through it on your high level one. it takes a couple of minutes before the other character actually logs out, so he gets the XP for everything until it logs out, then, when it logs out, you just log back in, rinse and repeat, doing this you can level from 1 to 60 in a few hours, then after 60 you pick the outland dungeon, then after 80 you pick the next one (the monestary one in pandaria), 90 you do draenor bonus objectives and voila, you are level 100.

But Blizzard put a stop to this, because they agre that leveling is pointless and obsolite

P.S. Sarcasm appears in this post.

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