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The true reason, people go back to WoW. Is it the game, or the community?
MMOExposed
Member RarePosts: 7,400
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'community'? They're all shills of course, can't be anything else because WoW iz EVUL!!!
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
It's because, for most, its the game where they have the most investment. Its hard to give up those 85s with tens of thousands of gold and shiny dragon mounts and armor, for a lowly lvl 35 in game X.
neither the game nor the community, its the competence that practically hands returners to Blizzard on a silver plate.
I suppose if the upcoming heavy weights (SWToR and GW2) are able to finally deliver a product that doesnt end in sour dissapointment for the first time since 2004, Blizzrad will see that players returning cannot be taken for granted anymore...
Folks go hunting for a new game because they get boarded. Then the find the grass on the other side is not as green, and go back.
Mainly its the been there done that get board of it in 2 months, then time to go back to something they know with a refreshed feeling of why did leave in the first place.
Just my 2 coppers worth.
For the first time, I've found myself going back to Rift instead of WoW. That's an impressive feat. Of course it will all be nil and void when SWTOR and GW2 launch. For me at least.
People go back because of the community!
One of the best ingame community ever.
Make us care MORE about our faction & world pvp!
Tell me OP; why are you making alle these threads, then you just leave, without any further activity?
Make us care MORE about our faction & world pvp!
Yup, that's pretty much it.
The game is decent, but the key thing is, the execution is exceptional, compared to most other MMOs.
The community (aside from my own guildies) is just not there. It is nothing like the classic SWG community was. All you have to do is monitor trade chat for 15 minutes to see how unattractive the community, such as it is, is.
If the upcoming heavyweights can get down the execution of the design at WoW's level, and foster a community that is not made up of people linking the Blessed Blade of the Windseeker, WoW's dominance might begin to wane.
We shall see.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
I believe there is a trend in mmo's developing where players have toons in many games and they are falling into a rotation. WoW has an expansion? Load up your WoW toon, try it out - very likely you will finish the content you are interested in before the next expansion. So.....you find out AoC goes f2p, so you load up your old AoC toon and give it a whirl....etc. etc.
I also think there is a huge segment of the mmo community that doesn't want to 'start over' again. I have a rl buddy that HATES switching games - he played EQ for a full year after us, EQ2 for another full year, etc. The only reason he ever switches is because he likes to play with his friends and he always trash talks us for making him start at square 1 all over again.
I don't think this personality type can easily be discounted, it is more about them then about the game they are playing - which isn't a judgment call, just an observation.
Hell, in addition to that, I go back to EQ every once in awhile, even though I definately don't last long there, I still have a warm place in my heart for Norrath. So, don't discount this personality either - more gamers were introduced to this genre through WoW than any other game, and we will never be able to take the first mmo thrill feel from them.
So, like almost everything in life, I don't think there is one easy or overriding answer, I believe a large number of variables have to be considered to answer your question, especially since we are talking about millions and millions of people.
Lol, the majority of the WoW community (imo) is terrible. People are either Douchebag Elitests, Lazy Casuals or R-tard Trolls. I'm not saying they're all like that, but most of the people I meet fall into one of those.
I can say I never went back to WoW. I stuck with it until I finished all I could in Northrend, then got tired of it and moved on. I have heard from friends that still play that the community went downhill, not that it wasn't on the way anyway. Needless to say, Cata wasn't enough for me to want to go back, nor will anything they try to create after that. If anything, I went back to LOTRO after several beta test rounds of other games.
Pretty much the last two years of me playing WoW were because my wife still wanted to play. She kept wanting to come back to the game because of the friends she had made on it, so it was more as a social thing than for gameplay. Of course she eventually just got so tired of the game herself and quit for good and just kept in contact through email and messangers.
The gameplay of WoW itself is okay, it's just become extremely repetitive though. WotLK and after, the game has turned into a never ending gear cycle where the next tier being release causes the current tier of gear to be downgraded and available from farming heroics. For me it kind of invalidated the point of raiding, because in a few months all of that repetitive raiding time is invalidated when the gear suddenly becomes easily available from heroics farming.
I always go back to WoW when I need to get my MMO fix. I've gone through god knows how many MMOs and I didn't like them, not enough to play them for more than a month anyway. So I go to WoW when I want to play an MMO. I recently started again cause I never tried Cata and I like it so far. It's much more fun now with so many talents, spells and class mechanics changed.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
simply because it's fun.
it works flawlessly. it's got everything. it's has a huge population. it's very accessible to everyone and appeals to just about anyone. it's as easy or as challenging as you want it to be. it can seriously laughs at it'self. it's subtly addicting.
but most of all it's fun. old, but fun.
It's a well-done game no doubt, and when you play others MMo you feel something is missing, is not polished, is not fun...
It just has the worst community i've ever seen in a MMO.
My addiction History:
>> EQ1 2000-2004 - Shaman/Bard/Wizard/Monk - nolife raid-whore
>> WoW 2004-2009 + Cataclysm for 2 months - hardcore casual
>> Current status : done with MMO, too old for that crap.
I've never seen so many gamers so desperate for a new home with no place to go. The game companies that just pushed their games out half done have cost themselves big money by not being there with open arms and a finished product.
Man Of Constant Sorrow
Human beings are creatures of habit.
I keep going back because of the content, and because so many of my RL friends and family still play it. It's tolerable only because I turn all of the channels off and deal only with Rl friends, family members and a few hand-picked internet friends.
never gone back, never will.
Exactly.
I have left WoW and returned to WoW multiple times and I assure you that I never returned because of the community. I think WoW has the shittiest community of any game I have ever played. So....I would say people return for various game related reasons, the above being one.
Incidentally....I think most people eventually burn out so completely that just the THOUGHT of returning causes nausea. I'm there.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
I don't think it has anything to do with giving up max level characters or amounts of gold. If that were the case then people simply would not leave in the first place. If those things were so precious why would those players even try out a new game?
On the flip side it is very very common for players to have max level characters with tons of currency in the new games they played only to return to WoW. In addition hundreds of thousands of players left their long established max level characters in other games to join wow and never to return to those other games.
Like Omega3 said earlier in this thead, there is just something that has been missing in most other mmos. That is why people continue to return to wow over and over again even when they are burned out from the gameplay well beyond a healthy limit.
There are a lot of people just waiting for a better game to come along and when it does they will leave in pretty large numbers. Thats just my opinion, but until that happens most will just keep going back or switch to other games.
I'm debating about going back to WoW or starting Rift but since I don't trully like either of them right now (waiting for GW2, Tor, TSW and some other stuff) I might go back to WoW cause that's where all of my friends are. I'm not really too fired up on playing any MMO that is out now so it eventually comes down to what my friends are playing. Btw that Cataclysm is still €35 on Bnet which means I need €50 to start playing again and I already used the Cata trial.
The last time I returned to World of Warcraft was because my girlfriend wanted to play a game together. She had played WoW before we met... we tried out a couple other games (eq2 and I forget the other one) then just went to WoW.
Even tho we both had level 80 characters we started over and played on a PvP server (her idea).
It was fun playing the game that way.. with someone you enjoy doing things with. We joined a guild and were raiding LIch King stuff when Cata came out. We both hit 85 and then had to much to do IRL..
If I go back to WoW again it will be becuase she wants to.
Tho at this point it would more likely be an upcoming game came out and we decided to try something else. Right now there is just to much going on in RL to really get into a game.
Even before I met her the only reason I stayed in a game much was when I found a group of people I enjoyed playing with. The general community has been crap in MMO's I've played for quite some time. The last game where I really enjoyed the general community was Nimue server in DAoC and before that.. Sonoma -> Ultima Online (the Interest Team I was on did content on Great Lakes and they had a good community as well). Guess I drifted there but it was at least somewhat related to the original question. SWG was probably the only game I played just for "the game". Tho Starsider had some great people its general community was.. meh.