Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Could this be why we return. My feelings on possibly why i do venture back...
DonY81
Member UncommonPosts: 398
1st off I know everyone doesn't return to WOW and people think that WOW is the devil. But I had a thought today and it went like this...
I was dabbling should I play Wildstar or should I play ESO tonight. Then it occurred to me I have been considering buying WOD for a few weeks and keep almost hitting the buy button then closing the browser. WOW has been around since I was 23 and I am now 33. A lot has changed in 10 years in my life and I would think that now I just possibly do not have the time nor the patience to sit down and dig deep into a brand new adventure whilst learning everything new.
Do we return or get that nostaligic feeling because WOW is something we know and are accustomed to in our gaming world. 1 thing is for sure its damn easy to pick up where you left off to a certain extent so does this make it more appealing to easily go back.
I tell you another game which has really got my attention recently and that's Hearthstone and I tell you why. Its just plain easy to pick up and put down. Ive bought ESo and Wildstar but on reflection this is probably a mistake as from the looks of above it seems that RL is infact different and I am far too busy to delve into a new adventure.
Could it be that WOW will be here for many moons purely down to the fact that its easy for older players to pick up and put down and could it be that many new games are getting a problem because people like myself could be struggling to be absorbed into a game which they once were.
I can understand to some that all this may seem confusing but to me its perfect logic. I will buy WOD and bloody enjoy it. On the flipside I possibly will cancel W* and end this chain of purchasing new games.
Hope this makes sense.
1 more thing I am also one of the players that preferred WOW back in the day and am less keen on what it has become over time. This doesn't rule out any of the above though.
Comments
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Why not play WoW now? EQ2 was supposed to be the biggest MMO ever when WoW launched but it ended up being terrible and that's pretty much been the story ever since.
The game didn't get so popular just because of Blizzard, the problem is every other company seems to have zero grasp on how to make an MMO. So WoW is winning by comparison.
Interesting thoughts but I dont think thats the reason in most cases.
The reason is that most (nearly all) MMOs since WOW have been borderline wow clones but not nearly as well done or with nearly as much content. If I was going to play any themepark game I would be foolish not to play WOW. Its better than ESO, Wildstar (from my brief experience anyhow- Could be wrong) , RIFT, SWTOR and almost everything else out there. For $15/month and a copy of WOW I can literally find myself in theme park heaven with more content and activities to do than I would have time for if I were unemployed and independently wealthy.
Most MMOs since WOW have merely been re-skinned WOW with less content, less polish and even more on rails. The few games which haave tried to break the mold have been amature attempts at sandbox games which are broken, buggy and turn into PVP arena gank-fests (as opposed to the sandboxes they claim to be) with shady developers to boot.
Frankly, nothing since WOW has been worth playing.
I enjoyed WOW. Its been years since I have played but I played from vanilla up to WOTLK. Even then the content was nothing short of amazing- Now there has been what, 4 more Xpacs or something?
So yeah- Games LOOK better now on the graphics end- But if you want a themepark game there is no reason to choose anything over WOW imho.
The sad part about this is, that really nothing since WoW kept my interest for longer then 3 months (TSW). Most games have been uninstalled by the end of the first or second month ever since.
WoW may feel childish, but who cares really if IT IS FUN and it entertains you?
Whenever a new MMO comes along i try it. Ever since i left Everquest. But since wow i always come back. It is usually Everquest i go back to tho... but just now i am thinking about resubbing to wow for the first time as well. Just nothing good around that can beat either of those games.
And that saddens me, since the trend goes away from these two games. No idea why every game tries to be different at all costs,... just do a great copy and add your own flavor. That would be enough to get a solid playerbase.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
There are many reasons to choose another game after 10 years. Its the boredom factor that you flooded with and despite you may recognize the quality, you just cant see the same things over and over.
Its like if you are married to a beautiful wife. After 10 years of marriage i can easily go with another woman even if she is not prettier than my wife
(sry girls just joking)
All Time Favorites: EQ1, WoW, EvE, GW1
Playing Now: WoW, ESO, GW2
Sure and I agree with the analagy.
If you eat Steak every day you sometimes want a cheap hamburger.
-But you always return to the Steak since its superior in the long run.
There should be better MMOs after 10 years. But there isnt. So I tire of Steak and see what else is on the menu but it doesnt take long to see that the Steak is superior to the hamburger.
If we ever get something which breaks the mold and is worth playing (i.e. done well) it will be a gamechanger. So long as the corporate culture just wants to clone WOW nothing will surpass it. Even at this point, a better polished wow clone will not have nearly the options or content to sway a large enough playerbase to fund enough Xpacs to actually 'catch up'.
Something new must be done (and done well) or we will be returning to WOW in another 20 years. =P
EDIT- I also have no idea how much truth there is in what I am about to say (its based on a rumor) but I also have heard that WOW is going to be eventually releasing a HD version with new textures and graphics upgrades to allow the pllayers to choose to play with next gen graphics. If true our great grandchildren will still be going back to wow in another century or so.
Ive never liked WoW but the one thing they do seem to get right is producing a game that works and works well. How many of these new games launch and even after months are still a buggy mess. Being able to log in and experience smooth combat (as even critics admit WoW has) and not encounter head smashing keyboard bugs goes a long way at the end of the day. Did Blizzard hire all the geniuses and other companies are left with the C or D team? They have figured this out but others have not.
Again, I dont like WoW and will not play it but they do get this right. At the very least gamers should expect a game that responds smoothly and has a limited amount of bugs and no game breaking quest bugs.
I find myself in the same situation as the OP. I played WOW off and on since its start. I would try another MMO that came out and after a while I would go back to WOW. How ever each time I went back I stayed a little bit less. I would either get bored or fed up with the community. I really did not like the arrogant players who would not want you in a group unless you met ungodly gear score requirements.
But I catch myself wanting to go back, but I know if I do the same thing will happen.
I remember playing FFXIV 1.0 from beta until it was released. I know everyone out there HATED it, but I loved it. It didn't matter to me how unpolished/unfinished it was. I had a great linkshell that always did content and always found a way to have fun. Then came ARR, the WoW clone. Yoshi even said it himself that he wanted people who played WoW to come play his game. They took a game that could've been different if only they actually worked on it and then made into another clone. I played that hardcore (if you can even call ARR hardcore) until the end to Turn 1 and stopped after that. I missed the old and didn't like the new and now I'm back to WoW, trying to get my cloak before WOD. My old friends wanted me back and with all the changes it looks like the game will be what I used to know and love again (hopefully).
Any WoW player that says they won't come back (myself included) always come back.
We always do.
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
I'm thinking it's time myself, to return to WoW in the upcoming expac. I've been away for 4 years and I've tried going back on two occasions but I couldn't get into it. I think part of the problem is the destruction of the skill trees, I understand why they did it but I think they chose the lazy route. Another is the PVP vs. PVE balancing act, the fine balancing act just seems to drive the game out of uniqueness.
So why go back after all of this time? Well my friends are there and I miss them. Many people throughout these forums complain about the lack of community in the new MMO's and I think the assessment is spot on. WoW lost some of the community feel when they went Simple Jack but it still exists, especially in a good guild. So for me WoW's biggest draw is simply the community itself, it's huge and the game promotes said community. Everyone else seems to be just focused on breaking one mold or another, and that's cool, innovation is critical but not at the expense of community.
To sum it up, I can deal with the simplicity of WoW as they provide a smooth MMO experience like no one else. And until someone does it better they will be there.
If you haven't played in two years, the game definitely wont be as you remember it. I played it continuously since 2007 after taking a half year break in 2006, and the game has changed to an extremely linear, streamlined leveling model. I think two years back was Cataclysm? If that's the case, then the major shake ups that you missed were the inclusion of Raid Finder (it literally burned guilds to the ground) and probably the World Bosses in Pandaria. You might like RF if you are coming back in after a long hiatus: it lets people see the raid content without having to spend a lot of time soul searching for a guild. For me it was one of the major reasons I left.
Yes, I left when Cata came live. I was pretty burned out from raiding back then and trying to balance gaming with RL stuff. (Everyone knows how that works
)
If you are correct, then it doesn't sound like I am missing much at all. It's just that when I start to think about WoW, I think Vanilla WoW and about how much fun It used to be and then I get the urge to re-sub.
Hahahaha- I missed all these changes.
I last played shortly after wotlk launched. Personally thought the DKs and the entire xpac was a step backward. I almost went back for cataclysm (or whatever) but never did. I know there are pets battles now (sounds really cool) and pandas (sounds kinda lame) and god knows what else- But you mean to tell me its changed to the point where older content is essentially gone? That I didnt know...
I still used to enjoy the vanilla raids even after BC released and essentially made regular drops on BC better than raid drops in vanillia. Was still fun and always tons to do. Hell, I remember having a blast grinding for rare vanity pet drops with a couple buddies and then making tons of gold. Just hanging out and BSing and occasionally fighting the horde who came upon us in our little out the way grinding spot.
And the Guild Drama- Like nothing I have ever seen. Some of the most hilarious shit I have ever seen happened in wow including a guildee I really respected falling "in love" with a girl who joined our guild (one of those who talks sexy and has everyone running around to get things for her) and ending up with like $1000 phone bill or something and having to join the Army because his parents threw him out. Hahahahahahha- That isnt the funny part though- Turns out she had been sending him pics that might have been her 10 years ago but their first actual meeting (on cam) made the poor dude realize he wasted $1000 of his parents money , got kicked out and had to join the army for...Someone who didnt look like her picture.
Only in WOW....Now that I think about it I might have to go back now too. Nothing else to play and at the very least there are lulz to be had.
LOL wow! You just brought back some old memories for me. Hah! Thank you for that, I got a good chuckle out of it.
Yeah, basically all the stuff from the Old World was removed and just about every major dungeon was redone to match the newer linear hallway mentality of dungeon design. The issue with the older quests is that the shift of player behavior from exploration and discovery to leveling efficiency left a lot of the quest content untapped, so in response the developers decided to change the leveling experience so that the time to completion gap was more on par with the later expansion quests (Probably should have done the opposite...). This meant there were no more "from one end of the continent to the other" style quests like the Linkin quest chain.
The trouble with WoW isn't that it is a bad game, it's that they designed it so that people grow bored with it incredibly fast. Because there are so few choices to make that truly matter when running through dungeons and doing quests the entire experience becomes a blur, and the only place where it slows down enough for the player to catch their breath is at the end game. Even then, the choices pretty much boil down into what style of time sinking grind does the player want to delve into until the developers get the next bucket of dizzying and frenetic quest completion onto the show room floor.
Edit: By the way, this is where the "WoW Clone" idea originates and why so many MMOs accused of being WoW clones seem to only last a few months. They are following World of Warcraft down it's quest bucket drudgery, but they don't have the well dug as deep or have the community built up around the game like an old tourist mining town to keep it afloat. People don't flock to World of Warcraft for what the devs are doing now, but for what the devs did in a previous decade before this all devolved into what it is now.
I am so good, I backstabbed your face!
Firstly I do apologize for the repugnant analogy but for me, I feel like a battered house wife that always seems to go back to her abusive husband. At first, WoW tells me "things have changed" and that they "are better now" and like a sucker I go back. And, for a while things ARE better, then a couple of months after I'm leaving WoW again only for the cycle to repeat next xpac.
Wildstar I think will be a good replacement for me, I am really digging their Warplots and PvP and I am really getting into housing. Presently I play FF14 which ill play until death do us part, Wildstar might be strong enough though to prevent that WoW itch.
I actually stopped playing FFXIV for similar reasons to WoW. They are two games born from the same mold, unfortunately.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.