Wow needs to bring back the RPG in MMORPG

WoW is not a proper RPG. Play Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2 and experience how real immersion and world building feels. WoW is just loot pinata with 99% useless items. Nothing matters. Nobody cares. Nobody interacts.

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I see.
Well, i could add that WOW (at least) is full of magic but no “magic”.
The imagination or roleplaying is completely gone when you get to M+ and the “nobody” harrasses you for any possible flaw(to his mind) no matter how good you try to be in the group.
Same in raiding.
So i am not sure if it is possible to change all that and become a roleplaying game where “Fantasy” lives.
Because i think the whole point of your topic is this more than anything.
Correct?

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Yeah pretty much.
I’m fine with the existence of M+ and raiding, but it’s possible for the game to cater to more than one demographic of player.

Over time Wow needs to be socially engineered to generally be a more pleasant place to hang around in, because ultimately that’s why MMORPG’s are so successful, it’s a platform for friends to gather and play together and fun together, For example I don’t have the same experience my brother had as a kid on Burning Crusade, because his core experience of the game was enhanced 10x by the fact he was playing with established friends.
The game is the same but the experience is radically different because people, humans, individuals, are a massive factor in how an MMORPG is experienced.

Player identity and social gaming should be at the very forefront of design philosophy when developing an MMORPG, and it’s something Wow has been neglecting for years, choosing instead to prioritise tedious systems and progression treadmills for the M+ and raiding players.
People don’t play with people because they enjoy their company any more, mythic+ and raiding is designed in such a way that you don’t want to compromise your progress at all, so you go for the person that’s most efficient, that knows their class etc.
Suddenly, the best candidate to aid you in your progress is most probably not your friend, it is not the person you like spending time with, it’s some stranger with a high M+ score or raider score.

And the lack of other content, as most would refer to as “casual” content, means there is nothing to just do with your friends because you want to play a game with your friends.

I’ve played Wow for 7 ish years and don’t know any one, because it’s core progression loop in the time I’ve been playing, and the introduction of phasing, has made it so no one wants to talk to you unless it’s to discuss mechanics in content.
Unless you’re on a specific server, like Argent Dawn EU, if you go up to a stranger and say “hi!” They’re just going to run past you and not give you a second thought.
This isn’t ALWAYS the case, I’m not saying everyone will always ignore you, but that is generally the kind of player etiquette and environment that this game has bred over a number of years.

The new professions look like they’re a start in trying to add a new sense of community in servers, as well as offering a new form of viable end game progression.
Now what they need to do is raise distinctions between servers, stop forced phasing, turn it into a menu where people can willingly teleport between those servers.
Add more emotes, character customisations and casual/clothing transmogs.
And just give us content, regular, high quality, and and FUN content.

I feel that’s ultimately why FFXIV’s social aspects feel way better, I’m not talking about social roleplaying, that’s not a thing I do, I’m not even talking about it’s story.

It’s simply lets itself be a platform for you and your friends to get together and do fun stuff, whether that is roleplay, whether that’s hanging around our FC (guild) house and just talking, whether that’s going and farming old raids or going and progging new raids, there’s a plethora of fun activities of various kinds to
do, and if we get bored? WE GO PLAY OTHER GAMES BECAUSE WE’RE FRIENDS.

As I said I played Wow for 7 years and don’t know any one, I met great friends I’d happily meet up with IRL 1 month into playing FF, and that isn’t due to the games story or endgame progression or player housing, it is completely and utterly because those people I saw that day looked cool and were visibly having fun, which is down to all the fun emotes and transmog options the game offers.

I do 110% believe reviving the active social element in Wow IS possible.
It’s going to take work, and it’s going to be a long road, but I think it’s essential to the long term health of the game.

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Very well said.I have nothing to add.My english aren’t so great "( not native).
I hope people with ideas will help the game move to that direction even if i don’t play anymore in the future.

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yeah it only a MMO now days …

wow was never a true mmo"rpg" and given how they feel about the theme and the setting this days it never will be one

Will never happen, blizz turned wow into a season game after mythic+.

I’d very much like to have WoW classic RPG back than anything else. It sure made me feel the world had much more depth to it.

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Question: was there an RPG element to wow and where did it go?
IMHO: Vanilla players did not only come from War3 and ancient MMOs, but also SP RPGs.
Vanilla defined player character via
a) other characters. While levelling, you had to meet other people to do hard quests, go to dungeon or simply to speed up/lighten up the process. Location chat was populated and frequently used therefore you would see the same people re-emerge in local chats
B) character development path. While levelling, you had to choose locations to do the quests in, choose and obtain some bop weapon, that would stay with you for 10 levels, design your char with a diverse talent system.
C) race could really influence, what zones you do, because getting to another starting location could take a lot of time and deaths
D) class would drastically influence your gameplay, as each had a different role in a party; different method of cleaning mobs (mobs could kill you then); different class quests and chores (such as pet feeding); different movement capabilities (stealth vs speed buffs Vs portals etc )
E) if you were majority, you would not probably reach 60, but rather play ALTs

Therefore, each of your characters was unique. Furthermore, you would not be a galaxy saviour, but rather a grunt, dealing with local problems.
Therefore, these petty squabbles you were occupied with, defined your character as well.

IN RETAIL
We all do the same 5 zones, all heal/tank/dd on the same char, we are all galactic saviours, we ride improbable mounts etc = army of clones wearing the same noname armour doing the same improbable and senseless thing across n*expansions =} complete absence of suspension of disbelief.

What can be done with this?
Welp, there are at least two obvious solutions:

A) introduce player hubs
I.e. places in world, that are developed by players, to the detriment and in opposition to other such hubs. Therefore, players are factionalised, therefore their characters are individualized. You are not just a paladin, you are a paladin supporting this specific hub and your fortune is tied to it and your actions.
B) roll back towards levelling
Meaning that instead of end-game progression with meaningless higher ilvl farming, where everyone wears the same equipment, you do level progression, where you stop getting stronger at max level and at most have options to get that or this tier, which will get you SITUATIONAL advantage in a certain environment and you don’t have to update it every patch, as it is always the bis

This is just the basic obvious things. There are multiple other issues, why WoW does not feel like an RPG
a) no player housing in retail
B) mounts/mogs made it into where stormwond looks like a zoo
C) characters can wear 0 clothes in northernd and feel themselves amazing
D) massacaring the whole of stormwond with your horde raid does not change one thing
E) the gigantic sword, the elves in the horde, the tanaan frogs/kul tiras bunnies etc etc

Etc etc etc
It’s all fixable, but is very unlikely to be fixed. Even player hubs, that you basically just need to copy over from teso or wherever, seem imrobable at this instance.

I would say, the best we will get is classic servers

you play the “role” of unnamed, pointless sidekick to the named characters, but in the story you are not really there and might aswell not exist or be replaced by insert random title eg maw walker, champion.
And this is only in the small parts of the game where you actually play “a story”.
Most of it is an action game with the main hub, now Oribos, being the lobby while you wait to get into matches: dungeons, raids.
You can do some errands for other people’s stories in between.

For the players you are just Class/Spec

PS: FF is boring

PPS: Writer for WoW can’t even write a decent story, much less one that makes you feel like someone

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