For me it was timezone difference and the death of our guild leader.
Back when I started playing it it was with a big group of friends that we've known each other on IRC for over 6 years (by then). The ones that were playing already were european so when we started joining the game one by one, we did it on the euro servers. Since we were playing together there were usually enough people online to do things with, and we accomodated our times to what most of us could do it (the little raiding we did was on sat/sunday night for euro, afternoon for US, for example). What made it work was our guild leader, a 60 years old retired comic book artist and one of the friendliest persons I've ever met, on or offline. Anytime any problem came up seemed that he had a way to fix it quickly and easily that left everyone happy.
He died in december 2007, we kept on playing but wasn't really the same. To make a long story short, by early 2008 most of my friends had left the game, the guild still existed but much fewer people online, and most of them were people I had met in WoW, most of the original group had left the game already, so I left for a while for Age of Conan... no need to tell you what a disaster that one was on release.
Came back to WoW a little later, some of the guild made alliances to keep raiding with other guild, but it became a bit too hardcore for my tastes (DPK systems, obligatory attendance or you'd be locked out of the group, things like that) so I usually kept out of it unless they really needed a second tank and couldn't find one. They had just introduced the daily quest system and the plateau sections so I still had things to so and was having fun by doing mostly solo questing, PUGs and some heroic dungeon guild runs.
November 2008, WotLK came out lots of new content, several of my friends came back to the game, so I kept playing since I felt I was still having fun, I got to the point where I had most of the heroic dungeons on farm mode mostly with PUGs, but I felt the dungeons weren't as much fun as the burning crusade ones, mainly, I felt, because they were just zerg dungeons, there was no need of crowd control and careful pulling as it was on burning crusade. So I decided to see what the raids were like, since they were being pugged all the time... and found a wall.
Basically in order to join a PUG for a raid you had to show the achievement that you had already cleared that raid, some people even wanted you to show that you had done it in heroic mode to join the normal mode. If I said it was my first time (or that I hadn't done that particular wing of naxx) and asked for strategies I was usually flamed as a noob and/or just kicked out of the raid. Joining a different guild wasn't really an option because of the time differences, being in Venezuela and playing on european servers, every guild, even the most casual ones, did everything in times when I was working, so I was just left doing wintergrasp from time to time (most of the times so late at night in the server that there were just a few of us), doing the WG raid and some dailies, so I just decided to call it quits since I wasn't really having much fun by then.
I've though to return sometimes, because I still feel it's a very good and fun game, but everytime I do I think that I'll end up in the same point than before, not being able to do anything because of time differences, and I've thought about buying an US version of the game but back then it would have costed me over $100 in game+expansions.
On the bright side, though... about the time I left WoW I met my girlfriend (well, found again, we had met 5 years earlier but just hadn't connected back then), which in 2009 became my wife, and in 2010 the mother of my first son.. so now I don't think I'd return to WoW even if I had the chance because I just don't have as much free continous gaming time as I used to. Right now I'm playing TSW after some brief runs in Age of Conan when it went F2P (it improved a LOT) and Rift, and waiting for Guild Wars 2, but taking my sweet time with all those..
TL;DR: played at different timezone, guild leader died, most of friends left, then elitist community and different timezones made it so that I ran out of things to do, left the game, got married, had a baby..
You really should have added lost job, can't afford subscriptions or internet anymore to the list. Just to be accurate and capture the 600k+ who left WoW in last 8 years or so. Why you chose to ignore them I don't know? Possibly just to be wrong? But Other is just not enough. Regardless what this poll shows, none of these is the real reason that people are leaving WoW.
I like a little truth in these polls, and not the clear bias towards some yet to be released flop to be.
1. Gear Grind : the reason WoW is the Number 1 MMO, and people dream of it. This is a lesson learned from their #1 Diablo days. Provide a varied and constant stream of exciting loot drops. Unfortunately for some this requires group play hence the Online and Multiplayer components of MMO. If a player can not, will not, or has developed a bad reputation in Multiplayer, they will complain about the Gear Grind. They will claim that gear detracts from the skill of end game. in fact what they are saying is that gear disables their single player game play. What they should do is head back to their 4 or 16 player co-op games on consoles.
2. Slow updates : Expansions are not updates. Updates are tweaks and refinements that WoW clearly does in a timely manner.
3. Subscription : This was meant to hide loss of jobs under the disguise of a soon to flop B2P/cash-shop game’s marketing. The divergent themes do not belong together. Though most would be too embarrassed to admit the dropped sub because they are too poor for it any more.
4. Innovative : The only thing that counts as innovative to these people is a turn to console FPS gaming play style. An innovation that in MMO history has clearly meant death, see SWG-CU, Tera, or any Action Combat MMOrpg. The lower case rpg represents the least standing of this innovation amongst MMORPGs.
5. Gameplay got boring : Again doesn’t play well with others. Prefers the less boring style of console fps aim and press one button rather than a key rotation out of 48 possible skills. Any competent gamer recognizes 111112111112 as either two macros casting a large number of skills, or a player that is either mentally or physically challenged and can only interact with their keyboard minimally. My key rotation form this past week was 12345Tab6Tab6, I found it sufficiently complex and entertaining.
Pardon any spelling errors
Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven Boy: Why can't I talk to Him? Mom: We don't talk to Priests. As if it could exist, without being payed for. F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing. Even telemarketers wouldn't think that. It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Originally posted by Konfess 2. Slow updates : Expansions are not updates. Updates are tweaks and refinements that WoW clearly does in a timely manner.
Don't you mean updates are not expansions?
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
My guild broke up, so I had no reason to keep playing. The game is fun, but I'm a raider, I can't raid without a good group(I refuse to PUG raids). If I could find a decent guild I'd join again without a second thought.
Playing Nothing waiting for The secret world Played WoW, DCU online, star wars: the old republic, city of heroes, city of villains, everquest, plenty more I'm probably forgetting or aren't worth noting.
i dont play very much anymore because they have nerfed the game itself into oblivion to attract hordes of instant gratification ... kids (for lack of a better word)
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity. I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
I came back after a year away and I am impressed with the community. It's strange since the community always bothered me before but it seems that mature people now outnumber the asshats. Happy to come back as a casual player.
Until the clone making machines are halted, we never really quit playing WoW. Innovative games are here and it's time for a change.
I love WoW, still have a subscription, but in less then a month that will stop. It saddens me to move on but I know I will stop in now and again just to see what started it all.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
I got sick of the classes and races. I played them all so many times it got real boring. The game became way to simplistic for me. To be honest, I never liked the gear grind. It was FUN while it kept my interest......
Proud MMORPG.com member since March 2004! Make PvE GREAT Again!
I left because I realised was playing out of habit not fun. 95% of content is redundant and game is aging badly and has nothing to offer apparat from raiding same bosses over and over. There comes a Time when you have to acknowledge a thing is ready for retirement.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
I don't think the poll can possibly cover all the reasons people quit WoW or do any of them justice.
For me I got tired of scheduled raiding late nights with people that I didn't care for so I just ran 5 mans and the occasional pug raid. I took some time off pug raiding and when I came back the pug raids began restricting pug members to people with hard mode achieves or certain gear scores so I stopped doing that. Content updates never came and I grew tired of doing the same 5 man content over and over again so I stopped doing that. I spent a great deal of time in the BGs but found arena gear was necessary to be competitive so I did 2v2 for gear. Blizzard decided that 2v2 wasn't hardcore enough to deserve PvP gear so I stopped paying them for a game that was no longer enjoyable.
I can't blame Blizzard for not liking their players or me not wanting to schedule my life around raids. They were slow to update the game so maybe if they had given me more 5 mans or updated the existing ones I would've lasted longer. In the end the PvP gear grind was the final straw. By this time I disliked everything about the game and had no reason to keep on playing it.
I voted for the 'Gameplay got boring' option but this was more due to the fact that i'd been playing for 5 years and simply had done everything that i wanted in the game.
Once i feel that ive reached my goals i lose all interest in forcing myself to continue to play. I may visit again for MoP but im currently undecided, If i see something that appeals to me then i'll have no issues with re-starting my Sub again.
I'm going to sound like an ass here, but English speaking continental Europeans ruined it for me. For starters all chat was spammed with language I did not understand, this is on a English speaking server. Most of the assholes spamming noob and repugnant memes were also of that demographic.. Back in 2006 Brits over populated the servers and I got on with people great, but yeah, the demographics changed, started seeing less English spoken and more douchebaggery.
Not that I have anything against continental Europeans, not in real life anyway, but on the internet, as a group, they have a massive attitude problem. Colour me racist, whatever.
That's blatantly racist I'm afraid. I found that it was mostly people that were clearly unhappy playing the game and were not having fun that were the most repugnant and that over time it was this section of the population that grew worse.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Expansion packs and patches changing gameplay. It's no longer the game I was enthralled with.
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
You missed the one option who is responsible for the road WoW is heading, namely the man in charge Ghostcrawler.
Ever since half the development team went to Titan the game went worse and worse.
Druid shapeshifting out of roots versus the famous precious of ghostcrawler the frostmage.
Warrior charge intercept taken away.
the 4 button rotation + Cata's MoP's talent systems getting dunmed down more and more.
All classes feel the same these days.
The lack of a good World PvP map design over and over.
Al the changes to classes....
Arena carrot on a stick ugh....
Battleground farming with bots and 8 year old CoD kids who dont fight for those objectives.
Boring Battleground designs
Random Raid finder with 8k dps scrubs
Random Dungeon with ninja looters the same CoD kids with no patience and big mouths
And one of the most gamebreaking thing in WoW at this point is the 60% / 70% low to death servers who wont receive the much needed assistance or server merges.
Blizzard ask 12.99 euro for a month sub + they have a cash shop + you need to pay to get off a death server 25 euro a char.
Blizzard equals greed for me, it has nothing to do with business but milking their loyal playerbase out till the last drop.
Veteran players like me who stayed with the game since launch dint even receive a simple mount......
Nah WoW is taking a road to kiddy garden, their new target are the CoD kids, check the panda's and pokemon stuff and you see what audiance they target.
I started playing shortly after release after several friends got me into it. I was heavily into Guild Wars at the time and had mixed feelings about World of Warcraft as a result. Nonetheless, I played a druid until 30 and received little assistance from my friends. I continued playing Guild Wars and then played Lord of the Rings online for several years. I came back to World of Warcraft a little while after Wrath of the Lich King; real life friends had pulled me in again.
So I played and I leveled 3 characters to 85 and then I got bored. The solo leveling, the persistent grind for everything, and the prospect of the new expansion all began to turn me off. Then I played Guild Wars 2. Then I couldn’t go back to the old combat system and didn’t have the patience for the same quests I’ve done time and time again.
It’s not that I don’t like the game. It’s great. It’s right up there with Guild Wars and Lord of the Rings Online (pre-Moria). Yet, after all these years, I am not sure I can play anymore. The Guild Wars series has always been my favorite and the sequel is quite possibly the most fun I’ve ever had in an MMO.
I hesitated on getting Cataclysm, I may get Mists of Pandaria in the near future. But that remains to be seen. What I do know is that it will take a back seat to Guild Wars 2 if and when I get into it.
I voted still playing, though I did take extended breaks. My last break was to go play SWTOR. Now I'm just doing the Ironman Challenge on my Orc Hunter.
After leaving the progression raiding scene, the game doesn't hold as much interest to me. It's a fun place to visit, but when you aren't raiding, doing the same 5-mans and dailies just isn't cutting it. Raiding was fun up til you had it on farm, because there is something to be said about downing aboss for the first time.
When they called ToC their most successful raid...
Raids stopped being about progression and became yet another boring gear grind. Dungeons stopped being about having fun and meeting new people and became yet another boring (silent, antisocial) gear grind. Guilds became smaller. The community stopped existing. Convenience killed most of it. All of that combined in various measures made the game pointless and boring for me.
I wouldn't go back because the game is too far gone to return to what I loved about it. But there's always the hope of Titan or private servers or Blizz releasing old versions of the game (for which I would return and pay a sub).
I played it for god knows how long. I think I have played WoW more than all my other games COMBINED! So yeah a game is bound to get boring after 100000k hours.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Guild got bored but we kept plugging away which meant no one really enjoyed the raiding.
So one night, guild got together, exchanged non-WoW contact info and half of us quit that night.
Remaining half took a 'break' and some went solo.
I still talk to some of them to this day (2 years after I quit WoW).
This was why I left too.
Worst of all, there was no reason to do anything that wasn't ICC. So you raided ICC, then you just shelved your character until the week long lockout was over because doing anything else was pointless.
I played for 3 or 4 years and was finally just "done". I don't know how much time I spent in battlegrounds and the pvp zones, but it was a lot. I finally found myself just logging in and running around the main city, doing a lot of nothing. I had exhausted all the stuff I wanted to do, so went and bought Half Life 2 on Steam because I had gotten Left 4 Dead 2 for Christmas and that pretty much sealed the deal.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Comments
For me it was timezone difference and the death of our guild leader.
Back when I started playing it it was with a big group of friends that we've known each other on IRC for over 6 years (by then). The ones that were playing already were european so when we started joining the game one by one, we did it on the euro servers. Since we were playing together there were usually enough people online to do things with, and we accomodated our times to what most of us could do it (the little raiding we did was on sat/sunday night for euro, afternoon for US, for example). What made it work was our guild leader, a 60 years old retired comic book artist and one of the friendliest persons I've ever met, on or offline. Anytime any problem came up seemed that he had a way to fix it quickly and easily that left everyone happy.
He died in december 2007, we kept on playing but wasn't really the same. To make a long story short, by early 2008 most of my friends had left the game, the guild still existed but much fewer people online, and most of them were people I had met in WoW, most of the original group had left the game already, so I left for a while for Age of Conan... no need to tell you what a disaster that one was on release.
Came back to WoW a little later, some of the guild made alliances to keep raiding with other guild, but it became a bit too hardcore for my tastes (DPK systems, obligatory attendance or you'd be locked out of the group, things like that) so I usually kept out of it unless they really needed a second tank and couldn't find one. They had just introduced the daily quest system and the plateau sections so I still had things to so and was having fun by doing mostly solo questing, PUGs and some heroic dungeon guild runs.
November 2008, WotLK came out lots of new content, several of my friends came back to the game, so I kept playing since I felt I was still having fun, I got to the point where I had most of the heroic dungeons on farm mode mostly with PUGs, but I felt the dungeons weren't as much fun as the burning crusade ones, mainly, I felt, because they were just zerg dungeons, there was no need of crowd control and careful pulling as it was on burning crusade. So I decided to see what the raids were like, since they were being pugged all the time... and found a wall.
Basically in order to join a PUG for a raid you had to show the achievement that you had already cleared that raid, some people even wanted you to show that you had done it in heroic mode to join the normal mode. If I said it was my first time (or that I hadn't done that particular wing of naxx) and asked for strategies I was usually flamed as a noob and/or just kicked out of the raid. Joining a different guild wasn't really an option because of the time differences, being in Venezuela and playing on european servers, every guild, even the most casual ones, did everything in times when I was working, so I was just left doing wintergrasp from time to time (most of the times so late at night in the server that there were just a few of us), doing the WG raid and some dailies, so I just decided to call it quits since I wasn't really having much fun by then.
I've though to return sometimes, because I still feel it's a very good and fun game, but everytime I do I think that I'll end up in the same point than before, not being able to do anything because of time differences, and I've thought about buying an US version of the game but back then it would have costed me over $100 in game+expansions.
On the bright side, though... about the time I left WoW I met my girlfriend (well, found again, we had met 5 years earlier but just hadn't connected back then), which in 2009 became my wife, and in 2010 the mother of my first son.. so now I don't think I'd return to WoW even if I had the chance because I just don't have as much free continous gaming time as I used to. Right now I'm playing TSW after some brief runs in Age of Conan when it went F2P (it improved a LOT) and Rift, and waiting for Guild Wars 2, but taking my sweet time with all those..
TL;DR: played at different timezone, guild leader died, most of friends left, then elitist community and different timezones made it so that I ran out of things to do, left the game, got married, had a baby..
What can men do against such reckless hate?
You really should have added lost job, can't afford subscriptions or internet anymore to the list. Just to be accurate and capture the 600k+ who left WoW in last 8 years or so. Why you chose to ignore them I don't know? Possibly just to be wrong? But Other is just not enough. Regardless what this poll shows, none of these is the real reason that people are leaving WoW.
I like a little truth in these polls, and not the clear bias towards some yet to be released flop to be.
1. Gear Grind : the reason WoW is the Number 1 MMO, and people dream of it. This is a lesson learned from their #1 Diablo days. Provide a varied and constant stream of exciting loot drops. Unfortunately for some this requires group play hence the Online and Multiplayer components of MMO. If a player can not, will not, or has developed a bad reputation in Multiplayer, they will complain about the Gear Grind. They will claim that gear detracts from the skill of end game. in fact what they are saying is that gear disables their single player game play. What they should do is head back to their 4 or 16 player co-op games on consoles.
2. Slow updates : Expansions are not updates. Updates are tweaks and refinements that WoW clearly does in a timely manner.
3. Subscription : This was meant to hide loss of jobs under the disguise of a soon to flop B2P/cash-shop game’s marketing. The divergent themes do not belong together. Though most would be too embarrassed to admit the dropped sub because they are too poor for it any more.
4. Innovative : The only thing that counts as innovative to these people is a turn to console FPS gaming play style. An innovation that in MMO history has clearly meant death, see SWG-CU, Tera, or any Action Combat MMOrpg. The lower case rpg represents the least standing of this innovation amongst MMORPGs.
5. Gameplay got boring : Again doesn’t play well with others. Prefers the less boring style of console fps aim and press one button rather than a key rotation out of 48 possible skills. Any competent gamer recognizes 111112111112 as either two macros casting a large number of skills, or a player that is either mentally or physically challenged and can only interact with their keyboard minimally. My key rotation form this past week was 12345Tab6Tab6, I found it sufficiently complex and entertaining.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Don't you mean updates are not expansions?
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
My guild broke up, so I had no reason to keep playing. The game is fun, but I'm a raider, I can't raid without a good group(I refuse to PUG raids). If I could find a decent guild I'd join again without a second thought.
Playing
Nothing
waiting for
The secret world
Played
WoW, DCU online, star wars: the old republic, city of heroes, city of villains, everquest, plenty more I'm probably forgetting or aren't worth noting.
i dont play very much anymore because they have nerfed the game itself into oblivion to attract hordes of instant gratification ... kids (for lack of a better word)
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
I came back after a year away and I am impressed with the community. It's strange since the community always bothered me before but it seems that mature people now outnumber the asshats. Happy to come back as a casual player.
Until the clone making machines are halted, we never really quit playing WoW. Innovative games are here and it's time for a change.
I love WoW, still have a subscription, but in less then a month that will stop. It saddens me to move on but I know I will stop in now and again just to see what started it all.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
I got sick of the classes and races. I played them all so many times it got real boring. The game became way to simplistic for me. To be honest, I never liked the gear grind. It was FUN while it kept my interest......
Proud MMORPG.com member since March 2004! Make PvE GREAT Again!
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Gear grind which lead to boredom, plus too many drama issues with immature people.
I don't think the poll can possibly cover all the reasons people quit WoW or do any of them justice.
For me I got tired of scheduled raiding late nights with people that I didn't care for so I just ran 5 mans and the occasional pug raid. I took some time off pug raiding and when I came back the pug raids began restricting pug members to people with hard mode achieves or certain gear scores so I stopped doing that. Content updates never came and I grew tired of doing the same 5 man content over and over again so I stopped doing that. I spent a great deal of time in the BGs but found arena gear was necessary to be competitive so I did 2v2 for gear. Blizzard decided that 2v2 wasn't hardcore enough to deserve PvP gear so I stopped paying them for a game that was no longer enjoyable.
I can't blame Blizzard for not liking their players or me not wanting to schedule my life around raids. They were slow to update the game so maybe if they had given me more 5 mans or updated the existing ones I would've lasted longer. In the end the PvP gear grind was the final straw. By this time I disliked everything about the game and had no reason to keep on playing it.
I found EQ2, and I ended up liking it far better.
Shiftyt
EQ2 is pretty cool, I just hated the weird looking combat.
I voted for the 'Gameplay got boring' option but this was more due to the fact that i'd been playing for 5 years and simply had done everything that i wanted in the game.
Once i feel that ive reached my goals i lose all interest in forcing myself to continue to play. I may visit again for MoP but im currently undecided, If i see something that appeals to me then i'll have no issues with re-starting my Sub again.
I'm going to sound like an ass here, but English speaking continental Europeans ruined it for me. For starters all chat was spammed with language I did not understand, this is on a English speaking server. Most of the assholes spamming noob and repugnant memes were also of that demographic.. Back in 2006 Brits over populated the servers and I got on with people great, but yeah, the demographics changed, started seeing less English spoken and more douchebaggery.
Not that I have anything against continental Europeans, not in real life anyway, but on the internet, as a group, they have a massive attitude problem. Colour me racist, whatever.
I only play with Americans now.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Voted "other"
Expansion packs and patches changing gameplay. It's no longer the game I was enthralled with.
You missed the one option who is responsible for the road WoW is heading, namely the man in charge Ghostcrawler.
Ever since half the development team went to Titan the game went worse and worse.
Druid shapeshifting out of roots versus the famous precious of ghostcrawler the frostmage.
Warrior charge intercept taken away.
the 4 button rotation + Cata's MoP's talent systems getting dunmed down more and more.
All classes feel the same these days.
The lack of a good World PvP map design over and over.
Al the changes to classes....
Arena carrot on a stick ugh....
Battleground farming with bots and 8 year old CoD kids who dont fight for those objectives.
Boring Battleground designs
Random Raid finder with 8k dps scrubs
Random Dungeon with ninja looters the same CoD kids with no patience and big mouths
And one of the most gamebreaking thing in WoW at this point is the 60% / 70% low to death servers who wont receive the much needed assistance or server merges.
Blizzard ask 12.99 euro for a month sub + they have a cash shop + you need to pay to get off a death server 25 euro a char.
Blizzard equals greed for me, it has nothing to do with business but milking their loyal playerbase out till the last drop.
Veteran players like me who stayed with the game since launch dint even receive a simple mount......
Nah WoW is taking a road to kiddy garden, their new target are the CoD kids, check the panda's and pokemon stuff and you see what audiance they target.
Game over for me and my wife.
Preface: I voted for sticking with Guild Wars 2.
I started playing shortly after release after several friends got me into it. I was heavily into Guild Wars at the time and had mixed feelings about World of Warcraft as a result. Nonetheless, I played a druid until 30 and received little assistance from my friends. I continued playing Guild Wars and then played Lord of the Rings online for several years. I came back to World of Warcraft a little while after Wrath of the Lich King; real life friends had pulled me in again.
So I played and I leveled 3 characters to 85 and then I got bored. The solo leveling, the persistent grind for everything, and the prospect of the new expansion all began to turn me off. Then I played Guild Wars 2. Then I couldn’t go back to the old combat system and didn’t have the patience for the same quests I’ve done time and time again.
It’s not that I don’t like the game. It’s great. It’s right up there with Guild Wars and Lord of the Rings Online (pre-Moria). Yet, after all these years, I am not sure I can play anymore. The Guild Wars series has always been my favorite and the sequel is quite possibly the most fun I’ve ever had in an MMO.
I hesitated on getting Cataclysm, I may get Mists of Pandaria in the near future. But that remains to be seen. What I do know is that it will take a back seat to Guild Wars 2 if and when I get into it.
I voted still playing, though I did take extended breaks. My last break was to go play SWTOR. Now I'm just doing the Ironman Challenge on my Orc Hunter.
After leaving the progression raiding scene, the game doesn't hold as much interest to me. It's a fun place to visit, but when you aren't raiding, doing the same 5-mans and dailies just isn't cutting it. Raiding was fun up til you had it on farm, because there is something to be said about downing aboss for the first time.
When they called ToC their most successful raid...
Raids stopped being about progression and became yet another boring gear grind. Dungeons stopped being about having fun and meeting new people and became yet another boring (silent, antisocial) gear grind. Guilds became smaller. The community stopped existing. Convenience killed most of it. All of that combined in various measures made the game pointless and boring for me.
I wouldn't go back because the game is too far gone to return to what I loved about it. But there's always the hope of Titan or private servers or Blizz releasing old versions of the game (for which I would return and pay a sub).
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
This was why I left too.
Worst of all, there was no reason to do anything that wasn't ICC. So you raided ICC, then you just shelved your character until the week long lockout was over because doing anything else was pointless.
I played for 3 or 4 years and was finally just "done". I don't know how much time I spent in battlegrounds and the pvp zones, but it was a lot. I finally found myself just logging in and running around the main city, doing a lot of nothing. I had exhausted all the stuff I wanted to do, so went and bought Half Life 2 on Steam because I had gotten Left 4 Dead 2 for Christmas and that pretty much sealed the deal.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.