Decline World of Warcraft past WotLK

[Zeriel]

WOTLK WAS the decline. It's not "after".

 

[mediocrepoet]

WOTLK WAS the decline. It's not "after".

If you're replying to what I said earlier, I think we're largely saying the same thing.

 

[Zeriel]

WOTLK WAS the decline. It's not "after".

If you're replying to what I said earlier, I think we're largely saying the same thing.

Yeah sorry it's just an opinion I see a lot. People who started with WOTLK have no fucking clue what vanilla era veterans thought about it, apparently.

 

[Great Deceiver]

WOTLK WAS the decline. It's not "after".

If you're replying to what I said earlier, I think we're largely saying the same thing.

Yeah sorry it's just an opinion I see a lot. People who started with WOTLK have no fucking clue what vanilla era veterans thought about it, apparently.

Yeah, I played WoW from beta to WotLK and I agree that Lich King killed (or finished killing) everything that made vanilla an engaging experience. That, and the popularization of YouTube, datamining, interface addons that completely trivialized content, etc.

WoW went from being a mostly social game with a lot of people playing (very) sub-optimally but enjoying the content (the vistas, the encounters themselves, etc.) to one focused entirely on mechanics, where even the biggest scrublord was running a DPS meter at all times. The gameplay was never designed to sustain this level of scrutiny - it's mechanically very simple. So the hamster wheel buckled under its own pressure.

The group finder tools introduced in Wrath completely killed the fundamental social aspect of the game. Utterly killed it. That and the casualization of the instances themselves (something that started in BC - from sprawling designs with tricky pulls to linear corridors full of tank & spank bloat) meant that you no longer had an ecosystem that was different in every server, where you had a list of people who were pleasant to group with and wouldn't fuck up your run too much. The tradeoff was not having to spend some time shouting in LFG, but that was very minor. What players got in exchange was a bunch of mute spergs who ran through the motions 20x a day.

Leveling didn't use to be a shitty part of the game to get to the 'good stuff' for most players, because the hamster grindwheel school of design wasn't as popular then. No one in their right mind would look forward to fucking MC runs. The journey was a much more endearing aspect of the game when you didn't know everything in advance and the gameworld presented some actual challenge.

It was never nearly as hard as EQ, but vanilla WoW struck a delicate balance between poopsocking and popamole that was very endearing to me at the time. I'll always cherish those memories, but that's what they will always be - memories. "Basic" servers will never scratch a similar itch.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

datamining

I think people underestimate how much this kills online games and nowhere near enough is done to prevent it.

And yes, it can be prevented. EQ did it(accidentally) decades ago simply by storing most data server side and only given to the player when it's needed. Therefore, it's impossible to 'datamine' dialogue in EQ for example, because you only get the dialogue when you speak to the NPC. And because it uses a form of text parsing, there's no way to know what options are truly available. At best, you can capture what one player did and use that as a form of crowdsourcing, but that's not the same as datamining.

 

[Zeriel]

WOTLK WAS the decline. It's not "after".

If you're replying to what I said earlier, I think we're largely saying the same thing.

Yeah sorry it's just an opinion I see a lot. People who started with WOTLK have no fucking clue what vanilla era veterans thought about it, apparently.

Yeah, I played WoW from beta to WotLK and I agree that Lich King killed (or finished killing) everything that made vanilla an engaging experience. That, and the popularization of YouTube, datamining, interface addons that completely trivialized content, etc.

WoW went from being a mostly social game with a lot of people playing (very) sub-optimally but enjoying the content (the vistas, the encounters themselves, etc.) to one focused entirely on mechanics, where even the biggest scrublord was running a DPS meter at all times. The gameplay was never designed to sustain this level of scrutiny - it's mechanically very simple. So the hamster wheel buckled under its own pressure.

The group finder tools introduced in Wrath completely killed the fundamental social aspect of the game. Utterly killed it. That and the casualization of the instances themselves (something that started in BC - from sprawling designs with tricky pulls to linear corridors full of tank & spank bloat) meant that you no longer had an ecosystem that was different in every server, where you had a list of people who were pleasant to group with and wouldn't fuck up your run too much. The tradeoff was not having to spend some time shouting in LFG, but that was very minor. What players got in exchange was a bunch of mute spergs who ran through the motions 20x a day.

Leveling didn't use to be a shitty part of the game to get to the 'good stuff' for most players, because the hamster grindwheel school of design wasn't as popular then. No one in their right mind would look forward to fucking MC runs. The journey was a much more endearing aspect of the game when you didn't know everything in advance and the gameworld presented some actual challenge.

It was never nearly as hard as EQ, but vanilla WoW struck a delicate balance between poopsocking and popamole that was very endearing to me at the time. I'll always cherish those memories, but that's what they will always be - memories. "Basic" servers will never scratch a similar itch.

The funny thing to me is how this can be taken from multiple angles. Yes, everything you said is true, but also, from the perspective of someone who was as hardcore as a "normal" person could be in TBC (I did all raids, I was a gladiator in every season, with unoptimal arena comps like ret paladin), WOTLK to me represented the triumph of braindead design and balance. They destroyed everything that in TBC "sort of worked" (by accident). The game just became a laughfest. You could only chuckle and roll your eyes at 3.0 ret paladins & death knights, the state of arena, DKs deathcoiling people through the floor of the arena and pre-emptively ending matches through bugs.

Back in the day I could have written entire pages of commentary on how the dumbing down of threat in WOTLK destroyed tanking as an actually skill-based role, but now I just remember my disgust at the whole thing as a transient emotion.

I was also a guild leader in WOTLK launch, so this is not coming from the point of view of someone who just filed in as a random. I saw it from every angle, was playing nonstop at the time, and it was a total abomination despite the "cool factor" of finally seeing Northrend. I think most casuals were just fooled by that aforementioned cool factor and it being their new game.

Edit: I want to say after rereading your post that I agree with everything, outside of my close circle of vanilla friends it's rare to see someone accurately describe what made WoW special in vanilla, but it was exactly that "goldilocks" zone of distilling EQ down to an 8-hour-a-day-barely-reasonable casual golden zone of still being hardcore enough to be compelling while still being able to do and have a real life. They completely lost that balance around WOTLK and it turned into a joke.

I was playing EQ2 when WoW first came out, and the switch over was really pleasant at the time. But overtime it declined more and more. Funny how videogames can track moment to moment the decline we feel in every other aspect of the world.

 

[Cromwell]

he group finder tools introduced in Wrath completely killed the fundamental social aspect of the game.

as was said here about multiple games, movies etc. Everything is better or at least tolerable if you do it with other people you know. So however simple wow was you always had your people on your server which you probably knew, or you always met new ones. Take that away and every little annoyance will be way worse. The best thing in the short time I tried classic was while levelling meeting people on the road, getting waved at and buffed or someone stopped to help you kill a few mobs faster. I miss this kind of MMO experience to this day and whatever I played everything was very unpersonal and didnt reach the social aspect I had with wow years ago.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

You think you do but you don't

 

[Kem0sabe]

https://www.warcrafttavern.com/wotl...w-with-technical-game-designer-from-blizzard/

More shit systems from retail being implemented in wotlk classic

"Heroic+ Dungeons & 10 Man Raid Loot Changes​

First of all they will be implementing a system similar to retail’s M+ system that allows players to increase dungeon difficulty to increase loot and emblems. This additional loot will be the loot that normally comes from 10 man previous tier raids.

The loot that came from previous raid tier 10 mans will now drop the same loot (assuming in smaller quantity) as the 25 man version of the raid."

 

[J1M]

https://www.warcrafttavern.com/wotl...w-with-technical-game-designer-from-blizzard/

More shit systems from retail being implemented in wotlk classic

"Heroic+ Dungeons & 10 Man Raid Loot Changes​

First of all they will be implementing a system similar to retail’s M+ system that allows players to increase dungeon difficulty to increase loot and emblems. This additional loot will be the loot that normally comes from 10 man previous tier raids.

The loot that came from previous raid tier 10 mans will now drop the same loot (assuming in smaller quantity) as the 25 man version of the raid."

They really hate the idea of people having two patches of content that are valid. Doesn't make sense, but it's clearly a philosophy. Probably something retarded about funneling population to a critical mass.

 

[Myobi]

Is the exp buff going away tomorrow ?

 

[Late Bloomer]

Is the exp buff going away tomorrow ?

It should never have been there to begin with.

 

[Allwynd]

Vanilla was the best version of WoW for me. Expansions like TBC and WoTLK brought some QoL additions, but also many things I don't agree with, such as:

- new content was introduced as "new continents", meaning vertical progression, rather than horizontal, as in filling in the areas of Azeroth that are on the map, but not accessible in-game
- flying mounts are stupid and destroy immersion with the world, previously people had to learn zones, how to go the fastest between point A and B with minimum slowdown, but flying made it really dumbed-down - you just get on your flying mount and go from A to B in a straight line, like ignoring the world in the process, really stupid and made to cater to people who just don't want to be bothered with anything, people who shouldn't be playing games to begin with
- removal of faction-specific classes, like Horde-only Shaman and Alliance-only Paladin, one thing so stupid that competes with flying mounts in terms of stupidity and #1 addition to destroy an MMORPG.

I still play Vanilla to this day... on Turtle WoW.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Worse thing about WotLK is how they made gearing up a trivial challenge. Not even a week after hitting 80 and i'm already full ilevel200 epics with the exception of one trinket. Badges drop everywhere, you can get 140 of them just by questing in icecrown and storm peaks, heroics are easy, naxx 10 is even easier and as a resto shaman i have almost zero competition for drops. This is highly unsatisfying and now im left with a character whose only avenue to improve is 25 person raids, which i have zero interest in... so i guess its back to leveling an alt.

 

[Allwynd]

Worse thing about WotLK is how they made gearing up a trivial challenge. Not even a week after hitting 80 and i'm already full ilevel200 epics with the exception of one trinket. Badges drop everywhere, you can get 140 of them just by questing in icecrown and storm peaks, heroics are easy, naxx 10 is even easier and as a resto shaman i have almost zero competition for drops. This is highly unsatisfying and now im left with a character whose only avenue to improve is 25 person raids, which i have zero interest in... so i guess its back to leveling an alt.

That is also part of this dumbed-down vertical progression. The only way you can go is up and going up feels like working a day job. There is absolutely no freedom to do what you want or find your own ways to progress. Crafted gear is inferior to gear from dungeons, arenas and raids so that's out of the question. If you don't participate in PvP or PvE after you've reached the level cap, there is literally nothing else for you to do besides quit the game.

 

[whocares]

I will not eat the bugs. I will not live in a pod. I will not use 2FA.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I didn't think the WoW community could get worse. Apparently I was very wrong.

 

[Cyberarmy]

I didn't think the WoW community could get worse. Apparently I was very wrong.

That is general MMO or any online game community for you nowadays. Some niche, less played games has stable and better communties but that's it.

 

[Ravielsk]

Because the game might mostly be the same, but the people playing it are not and they ruin the whole thing.

This actually mimics my experience with private servers circa 2008-2009. Back then servers did not have the teams or the budget to actually script most of the things in game so the focus was entirely on endgame content. Leveling was broken with even most kill quests not working so they slapped a 10x modifier on it. Crafting did not work because that was too much work for a feature the dev did not like so everything went through vendors and BGs were joined via a console command.

The end result of this was that every guild I joined was either either extremely apathetic to even playing the game or a try hard retadotrons where the guild leader could not be fucked to speak in full sentences because in his mind its 2008 and everyone should know the Czech variant of WoW lingo. At one point I got into a guild where the only plan forward was to spam the Hellfire Peninsula dungeon(yes singular, only one) everyday in hopes of getting enough gear to maybe do Karazhan one day. When I suggested that maybe we should run other dungeons or maybe work on some of those attument quests to at least have those done(+some of the rep gear was nice) I was told that was too much work and a week later we tried Karazhan only to conclude that our mostly blue and green gear with the occasional purple bracelet(PVP at that) was not enough and went back to farming Hellfire Peninsula.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Call me a retarded masochist, but I've been playing a bunch of wow classic lately. And fuck me if it's not a clear indicator of the overall societal decline and a shit experience for everyone involved.

Because the game might mostly be the same, but the people playing it are not and they ruin the whole thing. I wouldn't even go as far as to call what they're doing playing, as 90% of the playerbase (who aren't bots, and there's a lot of bots) just reads guides and follows them to the letter to be the coolest, most optimised, min-maxed BiS cunts they can. Most of them are still shit at pressing buttons (how in the fuck can you be a rogue in full t4 TBC pvp gear and do 300 dps in Utgarde Keep?), but they have their guides, and by Jove, they'll stick to them! Even if the guide calls for paladins to wear agility leathers and for cat druids to spend 70% of their time dpsing as bears. It may look retarded and feel clumsy to play, but the robots determined that this is the most optimized way to play, so play this way they shall.

This leads to a situation where the whole illusion of this being a massive online world gets peeled away to reveal a series of mazes rats have to run in order to get treats to unlock bigger mazes and bigger treats. And the rats cheer for being enlightened thusly.

So we have turbo-autists rushing to level cap in a single evening. And the shit-autists who strive towards the same but can't cut it. So we have pugs doing leveling dungeons at 70+ inspecting people's gear and kicking those who don't have a bunch of TBC purples. As a healer with decent gear, I've lost count how many groups I told to eat shit and die after they kicked some poor sod for wearing greens.

And while the shit-autists are trudging along, the turbo-autists get level cap and great gear in no time (took me like 3 days of running heroics to get high-end gear that removes any challenge from the currently available content, and I'm a casul), and start selling boosts. Because this is what most of the game is about now. Boosting. Selling leveling services, dungeon carries, BG carries for gold. And don't tell Blizzard (you fool, Blizzard already knows and encourages this behavior), but then they flip that gold for real money (don't tell the autists, but flipping burgers would be more profitable).

This all translates into raiding, where most raids are using the GDKP system now. From looking up wtf this unholy abomination is, it was revealed to me that this is how chinks have been playing the game all along. But actually interfacing with the system as not a bugman makes one weep for humanity. Basically, raids are split between the turbo-autists who already have all the gear in the world and the "buyers" who essentially do nothing, just roll for loot. Only in order to roll for loot, they have to first win a mini gold auction among the other shitters, and that gold then gets distributed among the turbo-autists. This is how people raid these days.

Also, for some reason everybody feels they're entitled to loot now. So they do what's called HR, or hard reserve. Basically, these tards start groups with the caveat that if a certain thing drops, no one is allowed to roll for it. This ranges from mount-loving retards reserving mounts, to rats not being able to live without having their BiS trinket, to enchanters hoarding everything not on the BiS list for the other four tards in the party. The natural reaction of a normal person when seeing an offer to join such a group is to mock the fool in global chat. And you'd think after getting mocked enough, they would cease this retardation. But let me tell you, I stood alone in this mockery. All the other rats were willing and eager to join such groups. Why? Because the reserved thing wasn't on their BiS lists of course.

And how can I forget about server balance. Because rats know they can get treats for doing pvp activities, but they don't want to actually do any pvp that's not sanctioned by daddy Blizzard in a controlled environment, all pvp servers are either dead, or have 99-1 population splits between factions. How fun. Any and all complaints about this get shot down by the rats with such enlightened retorts like, "you can still do BGs, lol."

And if you think that it's only players that are retarded, the developers are right there with them. For no particular reason at all, they've decided to add lootboxes to wotlk. Yes, you read that right. Most leveling quests and endgame dungeons give you a lootbox now. Something that in no way existed in original wotlk. You open this lootbox and you get some crafting resources and a shitload of potions, elixirs and flasks. You want to be an alchemist? You've been an alchemist every other time you played wow? Well fuck you, buddy, says Blizzard. Everything you can make, everyone now gets for free in almost unlimited amounts. The high-end flasks that were the bread and butter of alchemists in the original wotlk go for about 10-15 gold on the AH now.

At some point I started to feel that this whole classic scam was actually a conspiracy to piss me off personally (yes, I am an alchemist, how did you guess?). And that made me think of Deus Ex and how playing it is a much more enjoyable experience. Which is what I shall be doing instead of playing this piece of shit now.

I know this was a tldr rant, but I was too pissed off to not get it off my chest. In fact, there probably were other things that pissed me off but I already forgot about. Oh yeah, like the fact that about 70% of people are now using twitch chat emotes as part of their vernacular. Fuck them, and fuck this.

The potion thing is really mind boggling decision, now have 170 mana potions and a bunch of high end elixirs.

I thought group dumfuckery was at an all time high at the end of the previous expansion, with gear checks, but i havent found that to be the case while pugging here. The vast majority of people i have grouped with using the LFG tool have been nice, most striking up conversations while waiting for the mandatory RP sessions a lot of the bosses get into. I always make sure to let them know they can add me and let me know if they need a healer, that makes life easier in the long run.

Due to my time diference to server, i mostly just pug and dont do any organize raiding or group content, so my tolerance level for that kind of shit is higher than most.

 

[whocares]

I will not eat the bugs. I will not live in a pod. I will not use 2FA.

 

[Kem0sabe]

I thought group dumfuckery was at an all time high at the end of the previous expansion, with gear checks, but i havent found that to be the case while pugging here. The vast majority of people i have grouped with using the LFG tool have been nice, most striking up conversations while waiting for the mandatory RP sessions a lot of the bosses get into. I always make sure to let them know they can add me and let me know if they need a healer, that makes life easier in the long run.

Due to my time diference to server, i mostly just pug and dont do any organize raiding or group content, so my tolerance level for that kind of shit is higher than most.

Around the end of tbc, very beginning of wotlk, I got inundated with offers to join various powerleveling dungeon-spamming groups, who then looked at me like I was an alien when I said no thanks, I'd rather level through questing.

I don't know if you were lucky or I was unlucky to run into all those gear checking lunatics. Those early dungeons are tuned for 68s in leveling tbc gear. Makes no sense for people to be picky about who goes there. Hell, I had a dungeon run closer to 80 where about 2 packs away from the final boss, the tank got so immensely buthurt that one of the dps had shit gear (even though he was doing maybe 20% less damage than the highest guy), he straight up put forward an ultimatum - either the dps goes, or he goes. We laughed him out of town and finished the run with some guild tank, but that's the kind of player this current game spawns.

And now I remembered another thing that annoyed me - the absolute majority of raid pugs wants you to use Discord. I was lucky to find groups for Naxx, VoA, whatever, where people were fine with just typing things in chat.

Start of the expansion indeed had a lot of those type of players, because they were all power leveling and wanted to chain pull the dungeons. That phase has passed I think, and most people doing heroics just want to upgrade their gear.

Speaking of heroics, I really hope heroic+ adds some challenge. While leveling I was worried I would be constantly out of mana as a resto shaman, but once I hit 80 and got some upgrades, I never have to drink, as long as the tank is up for it, it's pull after pull while keeping stone shield on tank, the odd riptide and chain heal on AOE damage, really boring as a healer.

I really didn't like mythic dungeons in retail, but now I see that they do have their place in a game like this for those people who don't enjoy raiding to have a challenge. Even adding timed events in dungeons makes them more fun, like the drake mount boss in CoS.

 

[whocares]

I will not eat the bugs. I will not live in a pod. I will not use 2FA.

 

[Allwynd]

That's cause in 2004 WoW was new and it was adventure, people were discovering and learning the game. Now everything is discovered and learned, people just compete to be the first to do it in the most fast and efficient way. I've always been a WoW noob, been playing on private servers since 2006 and I still haven't reached level 60. My highest level in Vanilla was 59 and I quit cause the PvE server I was playing on was merged with a PvP server and was going to be PvP. I still play like a noob, like I'm just discovering things, my goal is not to do dungeons or raids or battlegrounds, just level up and enjoy the story and the appearance of the zones. I've been through the majority of the quests and zones, but being through them again is still an enjoyment. I can't speak for others, but I've found this no-fret way to play MMORPGs and I've been enjoying them immensely. Not making hard to reach goals and then breaking under the pressure of not being able to achieve them. When you think about it, just being a regular adventure in an MMORPG, if that world was real, you would still be pretty rich and live the good life.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

WoW never did anything to protect against data mining so everything is figured out. Contrast to EQ where a lot of things are unknown years later, and EQ only protected itself by accident because internet was shit.
Hard to fault WoW for this as it's more of an unknown at the time, but it's something MMOs need to address going forward.