The current state of WoW

Community General Discussion
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Hi folks,

With the recently Amazon’s release or the last month’s FFXIV pressure, we’ve seen a massive exode of WoW players to another options. Now, while this playerbase flux seems to be temporal and consequence of the hype, the reality is that alot of players are considering other mmorpgs as their main game to play.

I will throw this questions even tho we all know the answer:

How bad is WoW now?
When and in what aspect did WoW fail?
Will WoW ever recover from this?

While this seems to be a Blizzard’s problem, it is, infact, our problem as a community. So let’s talk about it.

There are few kinds of player categories in WoW aside of their skill, the casual ones/the hardcore ones, and the whales/hyped ones.
Usually, hardcores tend to be whales, while casuals tend to be hyped; of course there are many cases but, generally, this are the most common profiles.

The problem with WoW is that from several expansions ago, it is no longer retaining casuals, and it is squeezing whales to the limit. The game is just not funny for a person who is not investing certain time of hours just to be able to play the game, and for those who spend that much time, they don’t have a very fun game afteral.

An aspect that did came back with Classic remakes is the social aspect, or cohesion on the server. Maybe it’s an illusion, but not having merged servers or LFG tools or stuff like that, it makes feel the servers as isolated villages that needs to be sustained by their own instead of trading or interacting with big cities. This is possitive because it makes people have more weight in the community since every community is smaller. This has not survived to modern WoW and, i guess that every player feels anonymous in its own server, which is sad.

Researching few videos, posts, twitchs, and sources where people do give their opinion; most of the players agreed that what makes them log in every day in modern WoW is their guild / server friends.

Reassembling all this, leads us to a nonsense dev direction by Blizzard, where they are aiming for timegated content, weird class design and unwanted content that makes the game feel clunky, while social / casual players are leaving to another games that gives them the social aspect that they want with even more gameplay rewards.

It is early to say that those other options will die soon, but what is real is that WoW will not survive much more with only whale players.

WoW really needs to become more simple (in systems), more casual friendly, and don’t make me talk about how slow are devs in releasing new content (probably delay-forced by Activision).

But the main thing is, how can we, as a community, make Blizzard react to our beg to revive this game? My opinion is not the only one of course, but it is in the direction of the majority; and it feels that in this last 5 years, Blizzard is just listening to Ion.

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Not as bad as in BFA.

Yes.

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Whenever I read these kind of reflections, it always sounds like what people are asking for in a modernized WoW or a WoW 2 is effectively what Blizzard are turning Diablo IV into.

And that’s probably Blizzard’s angle. They would like you to play their new game.

So where does that put WoW? Well WoW can’t really compete by trying to be like Diablo IV. Simple, focused, fast, accessible, etc… Diablo IV wins on all those parameters, because it’s the essence of a Diablo game.
The essence of WoW is oldschool, classic MMORPG. So maybe it should just stick with that for those who are interested, and then leave the Diablo franchise to those who want the modern alternative?

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To be fair, having taken a break from the game… I really don’t see myself coming back. Even if the New World hype dies, I can still go to FFXIV. If FFXIV dies, I can play Diablo 2. If that doesn’t cut it - Warframe and The Division. Those don’t work? I have FFXV, FF7 Remake, Nioh, upcoming Elden Ring to play, then Horizon Forbitten West and God of War Ragnarok.

The gaming industry right now is amazing. A game being mediocre simply doesn’t cut it. It’s not even about the sub - I simply can’t justify spending the time to play WoW. WoW feels like a mobile game, and I’ll play it if it was on a phone. Just like I’ll play Diablo Immortal.

But WoW is not really an MMO. It’s a solo/co-op game where players run around you, but you never interact with them. Most of your time is spent doing chores that do not engage the brain at all - the combat isn’t challenging because, and the tasks you have to perform aren’t challenging or interesting.

Take New World - even when the game is all about chopping down trees, you still socialize with others, keep track of fort attacks, enemy factions pushing influence in your zones, some guild drama. It is never boring.

Meanwhile in WoW while doing world quests, you never talk to anyone, all general chats are always dead, there’s nothing going on. So it is boring content and the game offers literally nothing else to occupy your mind.

I always play WoW with some Opie & Anthony playing… but WoW is the background to the things I am listening to. Meanwhile, I never play FFXIV, Diablo 2 or New World with anything in the background. Because the games are engaging enough.

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“The current state of WoW” - Ded

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Current state of WoW? Isn’t it California?

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Well its hard when you give them feedback from alpha/beta testing, which you do for free, and they still igbore these obnoxious and obvious issues…release the game the way they think its best…and its poop.

Fixing it to the state of what was proposed by testers during beta take them usualy somewhere between an entire expansion and never.

Thats for me the most insulting part…they just poop on their customers…

Ye we arent developers…but a lot of ppl play this game over a decade…so they can clearly see gigantic issues even before theyre implemented…

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Oh look another new world and ffxiv promotion post on wow forums.

Didnt see one for a long time.

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It is not an advertise or troll thing, it is just pointing to a reality.

Don’t meme the problem. People leaving to other alternatives leads us to a potential dead game with noone to play with. What can we do as a community to fix this? That’s the core question.

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I don’t see where he promoted anything? He’s just stating that people are trying FFXIV and New World… I have tried both myself as well. I am not hugely into FFXIV (not that much into Asian/Japanese anime type theme) and I have been playing New World since launch but honestly I didn’t find it that great so far.

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Lol what? :smiley: This is such a no argument, you can talk to people in WoW as well. Also I put around 100 hrs in NW, never talked to anyone while chopping down trees. The whole dungeon experience was the same in WoW, say hi to party chat then just run to the next boss. The only difference that there are at least some challenge in WoW m+ dungeons.

Your post is a meme, “WoW is dead” is a meme since TBC. Shadowlands was the fastest selling expansion in the last decade, most likely sub count is above 1 million still.

Players get bored sometimes, they need new impulses, new games and new things to do. New World is quite cool and new, most likely the population will drastically decrease in the coming months but as of right now lots of players are hyped for it. That’s totally fine. Same people will come back when WoW will have a new patch / expansion.

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Nah, last game I bought in the past few years other than WoW that I enjoyed was FFXIV and Rimworld.

I ended up regretting buying outriders because the game runs as if I’m on a toaster. My computer is more than good enough to run it but it can’t. Couldn’t refund it because I spent so long trying to fix it.

New world? Can’t even get 60 fps in it, despite my computer being more than enough to run it. Refunded it due to this.

Dying Light I enjoyed while playing through it until the end but then the ending was just… Wth is even that. You’re playing through the game while co-op and then suddenly you’re forced into single-player for the ending. Makes me not want to even play dying light 2.

Wolcen was fun to start with but then I noticed caster’s barely scale at all compared to melee, started playing melee and then they nerfed melee to the ground and I stopped playing because caster’s still sucked.

Was planning to buy Tales of Arise or w/e it’s called but then I saw the DLC stuff and just noped out of it.

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So much analysis , if u don’t like the game just quit plain and simple .

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The fastest selling expansion in the last decade yet the least played after season 1. WoW is slowly becoming a fotm game, and thats the real problem.

WoW is dying since alot, it is a meme, but the problem isnt anymore. It is real. Go and look for LFG, arena, rbgs. Look at ladder competition, look at pve casual progression. Then you will see the problems and, how it is not so that meme.

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And how exactly do you know that?

I did rbgs in bfa and now as well, in bfa there was barely a group in lfg and in shlands there are a lot.

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I was planning on getting back into PvP in SL but after running into night fae moonkins or sub rogues just about every game I just decided that PvP is pretty much dead.

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Better than BFA but after bfa debacle, wow needed a good expansion rather than a below average one.

I’m also saying that cata and Wod were not that bad.

In making fun content. I mean, optional content is fun, like doing dailies in order to get a mount is more engaging than doi g korthia because my character progression is built around.

I know mmorpg = grind but I do think it’s time to end that since designing a game for teenagers living in underwear at their parents’ house or for neckbeards IS NOT the way to go.

SL is beyond salvation at this point so the expansion itself won’t recover.

That said, a new expansion is basically a new game so this Blizzard’s last shot to fix once and for all their issues. Among those, they have to stop creating parasite systems that only brought frustration to players rather than enjoyment. Then, they must allow raid logging because frankly, I and my mate are still enjoying raiding but we just hate the outside content which is being mandatory for raiding. It’s time to remove fun taxes.

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No, you cannot. General chat is dead, nobody uses it. There is very little socialization going on in WoW’s chats. Meanwhile in NW’s Global, we just talk all the time - sometime we trash talk, sometime we make jokes, other times we ask and answer questions. In /faction we strategize on how to develop our cities, where to attack.

In WoW, people rush to do the content they hate so they can put on the Dungeon Finder, put on a twitch stream on the 2nd monitor, watch that as main content while waiting for a mythic+ group to accept them.

In order to be able to socialize, you need people around wanting to be social. That simply doesn’t exist in WoW’s general and public chats. I’ve talked about why WoW is anti-social, this is a well studied subject in the MMO space. In order for an MMO to be social, you need some downtime which allows people to socialize. Time in which they can type in chat. In WoW you’re constantly doing something, constantly pressing buttons, and the combat itself is too quick so you CANNOT socialize without stopping everything you’re doing. But the game is constantly rushing you to go do your next chore.

In Vanilla, you can socialize while in combat most of the time, because combat is that slow. In NW you cannot socialize in combat, but you have plenty of other downtime to use for socialization - gathering, traversing the world. Waiting for groups in front of dungeons is particularly nice, because you start talking to people, you duel them and it’s all around nice.

WoW’s fast paced, anti-social design breeds toxicity. This is why pugging is miserable and people drop parties all the time - because the game itself is actively anti-social. Players are put in giant player pools, where individuals cannot possibly matter, every player might as well be an NPC and there would not be any difference. And who knows - maybe many players ARE NPCs, considering how they act.

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well i am having fun playing the game and imagine myself playing it for a long long time

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that is nothing new for a new game .even a mediocre game like bless unleashed had chat section very lively for 1 month .
new world after everyone reaches end game content then we will know how it is fairing .