Back when Warlords of Draenor was announced, I thought that this might be the expansion that might get me back into WoW, at least for a little while. In practice I ended up checking out MoP for a couple of months last year but still haven't bought WoD to this day. And if I'm being honest, I don't think I will any time soon.
Everything I read about it just sounds thoroughly underwhelming to me. I'm not against log-in rewards, but the way Blizzard implemented them with garrisons just sounds horrible. (What could be more against the spirit of the original World of Warcraft than sitting in a small base all day?) Professions, which I used to love, have finally been relegated to the realm of complete pointlessness. And while I've heard that the quests are supposed to be quite good, a couple of decent quests are just not enough for me to want to invest the time and money (full box price + sub) in what I know is only going to be a secondary MMO for me at this point.
I can't even say that I care very much about the story anymore. I don't know if Blizzard's storytelling genuinely got worse over time or not, but fact of the matter is that it all broke down for me in Cataclysm. Up until then I had always known what was going on around me in terms of lore, because I read all the quest text and actually listened to NPC dialogue. But then they started confining world-changing events to their novels and comics and I just didn't know what was going on anymore. Important NPCs seemed to have full personality transplants from one patch to the next; it was thoroughly confusing. Sure, I could look up summaries of what supposedly happened on YouTube, but that's hardly the same.
Cataclysm also killed my ability to connect to WoW via nostalgia. I know that you can never go back and truly relive those early days, but I think that I would absolutely be willing to pay Blizzard to be able to take the occasional trip down memory lane in the old newbie zones, even today. Thanks to Cataclysm's old world revamp however, I can't even do that anymore. The new questing experience isn't bad, and it made it fun to level a couple of alts purely for the novelty value of seeing the new storylines, but that experience was fairly short-lived. Now I just miss the dusty canyons of Thousand Needles and the lush meadows of Southshore.
It's really kind of sad because for all the flak that Cataclysm got for things like dungeon difficulty and lack of endgame content at launch, I never thought that it was a bad expansion. I had some good times there: fighting some genuinely challenging bosses, mucking about on Darkmoon Island and doing rated PvP. But looking at it now, I think the destruction of the world I used to love (that Cataclysm sold as a feature no less) severed my ties to Blizzard more thoroughly than anything else.
Of course, this being the year 2015, there are ways to get your WoW nostalgia fix even if Blizzard doesn't want to provide it...
To be continued...?
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Once again I agree with all of your points. Well said.
ReplyDeleteI also play on a private server now to indulge in WoW nostalgia, albeit on Nostalrius. Maybe I'll give Kronos a try as well. See you around ;)
Not heard from you in a while; hope all is well with the little family! Also, congratulations on being the first person to comment with: "I play on a private server too" - I was curious how long it would take for someone to say that. They seem to be a lot more mainstream these days than they used to be (which is why the whole thing came to my attention really...). If it sticks for even a little while, I'm planning to document my adventures here (and remind people why vanilla WoW really was awesome despite all its flaws).
DeleteMy family is thriving nicely. My wife and I have two children now – a girl and boy and they are quite a handful.
DeleteI had indeed dropped gaming altogether for almost an entire year partly because family life kept me very busy, partly because I was working hard to become a tenured professor and partly because I grew extremely dissatisfied with the direction of video gaming in general. I did, however, visit your SWTOR blog regularly. I just didn’t feel the urge to comment. You must surely know by now that I very much agree with virtually everything you say, and since I stopped playing, my contribution wouldn’t more be than “Amen to that!”. Maybe I’ll take up blogging again, who knows ... I still feel rather jaded when it comes to MMOs. Nostalrius did help a bit and I’m thinking about giving FFXIV a try. Not sure, really. My golf play got a lot better though and I’m more physically fit and that can’t be a bad thing – at least according to my wife ;)
Nice to hear things are going well then. :)
Delete"I can't even say that I care very much about the story anymore. I don't know if Blizzard's storytelling genuinely got worse over time or not, but fact of the matter is that it all broke down for me in Cataclysm. Up until then I had always known what was going on around me in terms of lore, because I read all the quest text and actually listened to NPC dialogue. But then they started confining world-changing events to their novels and comics and I just didn't know what was going on anymore. Important NPCs seemed to have full personality transplants from one patch to the next; it was thoroughly confusing. Sure, I could look up summaries of what supposedly happened on YouTube, but that's hardly the same."
ReplyDeleteAmen.
I'd also like to add that they never fixed the broken storyline from post-Cata Old World to Outland and Northrend.
Yeah, that attitude of not caring that the levelling-up story makes no sense whatsoever anymore sure hasn't helped either..
DeleteThe weird thing is, you'd have thought that they had to have noticed it when they committed to Cata. But now, their solution to this problem is the insta-90 and you can skip it all.
DeleteI have been really tempted to try a private vanilla wow server myself for a while now but haven't gotten the gumption up to actually take the plunge. The ones I have been looking at real closely are the Nostalrius and the Emerald Dream servers. With that said, I am really looking forward to hearing how your experiences are.
ReplyDeleteI can really recommend the Nostalrius server. The staff is dedicated, the server is stable and there are LOTS of players online. It is a PvP server, unfortunately.
DeleteAs far as the Nostalrius server goes I have heard nothing but good things about it. But, PVP server. That right there is the biggest reservation that I have with all these private servers. That is the big thing holding me back. I really just don't like PVP or getting ganked for no real good reason.
DeleteI don't think Blizzard's storytelling has gotten worse, it is just that it has never improved. With games such as SWTOR, Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, and The Elder Scrolls Online raising the bar significantly on story telling this is one area where Blizzard hasn't kept up.
ReplyDeleteThen again, Wow is more about rushing to the level cap and 'having the game start' at max level for the majority of players. That rush to endgame has hurt other MMOs that favor a more casual, enjoy the journey approach to leveling.
Lots to agree with in the OP and the comments here. I think Blizzard has lost direction (or has become lazy) since Cataclysm. That was too ambitious a project for them perhaps. The class design for the classes I played (Balance Druid, Resto Shaman and Prot Paladin) all seem to have lost their unique shine, replaced by gimmicky mechanics (eclipse) or just removed (most of the totems).
ReplyDeleteYou hinted at the biggest issue Shintar, that the 'World' of Warcraft is largely irrelevant now as they encourage/funnel/shove the players through the levelling content to feed the monster that is DungeonFinder/RaidFinder. The design philosophy of "make raiding easy enough and everyone will want to do it!" is simply wrong in my opinion.