The World (of Warcraft) in decline...
I've played WoW for 3-1/2 years. But in the past 3 months or so my play time has dropped off significantly. Why? Burnout would be my first guess, the realization of the futility of it all, is another guess.
For the first 2 years or so, I made and leveled my 80 Dwarf Hunter, and after my hunter got up around level 30 or so, I started making other characters. One of each class, eventually. Some do certain things better than others.
But my hunter was often accused of being a "huntard", and yeah, I did dumb things sometimes.
After I reached level 70, then level 80 after WotLK came out, I began noticing changes. More and more often, people didn't want to group up for mid level raids and dungeons, they only wanted to get to 70 or 80 (WotLK) and do end game stuff. Yes, the end game stuff is good, but there's lots to do when leveling.
Like the thrill and analysis of certain situations, such as being a level 32 hunter, knowing you can take out 2 level 35 mobs in one fight, but there's a 34 and 2 35s over there, and I need to go there, and I'm not quite sure I can handle it, and no one is answering my messages for assistance....
Stuff like that.
Now I've got 3 80s. A mildly geared hunter, a decently geared holy pally healer, and a mildly geared 80 warrior tank. And it always seems like people LOVE to charge into the newest hardest instances, which is fine, but they get pickier and pickier about your gear. I know that when taking a PUG group it's always harder, but they take it too far.
The Gear Score mod has been THE single most damaging piece of software to the game of WoW. Because people only see your number, and they fail to recognize experience. I've tried to get into many raids on my pally and hunter, only to be refused because someone else thought my gear score was too low. Even on my pally healer, when they were advertising for healers, yet they wouldn't let me join! Do you know how frustrating that is?:banghead:
Eventually I got a 10 man ICC group to let my 80 holy pally heal the run. The end result was that I was out-healing a shaman and priest who were 900 and 1400 higher in gear score than me.
I got compliments on how well my 4488 GS pally did in healing. I said thanks, and made a real point of telling the group how they must ignore gear score and focus on experience. Because without skills, gear score means NOTHING!
Then you've got these idiots who bail on the group after 1 wipe. It may be on the first boss or the last, but a small mistake is made, the group wipes, and 1 or 2 just bail. I hate that.
I used to be in a good raiding guild, but after a while, the guild leader didn't like my opinions anymore (can you imagine that?)
and I got booted.
Now when I want to go with a group for a run to get gear, they pull out their Gear Score mod, and say my gear isn't good enough. I say yes, I'm doing this raid to get better gear. They say no, go get better gear FIRST then come do the raid. I say NO, I'm in 200-226 gear, I want to skip all the 232 and 245 and 251 gear and just do this raid and get some 264 pieces and save myself a lot of time and effort. Instead of taking the gear one step at a time I want to fast forward to the newest best gear. No one seems to share my point of view on this.
Then you have the problem of new expansions coming out. Say for example that you DO have all the top end gear, you've done all the highest level raids, etc. You're pretty much all geared out.
THEN, a new expansion comes out. INSTANTLY, your high end new gear is transformed into barely acceptable gear, and if everyone in your raid is geared as well as you, you can barely squeak through some of the boss fights. The guild I used to heal for loved to do what they called "raid progression". I called it "run in and wipe 54 times and spend hundreds of gold on repair bills for no significant gain".
My plan became to do the runs a month or so later, when everyone else had done it a bunch of times and figured out the details, and then they could pretty much carry me through while I DPS'd or healed them, and I'd get better gear with far fewer wipes.
I remember doing Naxx, raid healing it. I was pretty darn good at it too. Then Ulduar came out and everyone was like "Naxx? What's Naxx? Forget Naxx! Let's go do Ulduar!!!!!". It was an instant change. One day Naxx was cool, the next day, it was old news. As was my gear.
When's the last time you went to Shattrath city, or anywhere in Outlands for that matter? It used to be EVERYTHING. Now Shattrath is a ghost town. Really. You ding 58, go to Outlands, level to 68, and head out to Northrend now.
So what's the plan? Go to many raids, eventually win enough rolls and wipe enough times to get geared up, then 3 months later a new expansion or a new raid encounter comes out, and you have to start all over? Nah, I've had enough of that.
And what about the number of players playing WoW? Blizzard used to announce it all the time when a new milestone was reached. 7 million, 8, 9, 10, 10.5, 11, 11.5 million, etc. It's been about 1-1/2 years since they hit 11.5 million, and I haven't heard a new announcement since then. Could it be that more and more people are like me, and have gotten tired of the BS, and are getting burned out and not playing as much anymore?
Could be.
I've had fun learning the Starcraft game, first with a couple weeks of practice in the original game, then in the SC2 Beta. It's a different type of challenge. The game is pretty well balanced, so it's not some super geared raid boss beating me, it's me against someone else, and my own skills make the difference. Plus, Starcraft is popular enough that I could eventually enter tournaments and play in competition if I get good enough. The only way that can happen in WoW is in arenas, and I don't have the patience for that. Plus I never liked arenas much, I used them to get gear for a while and that was that. Instead of having friends help me I'd just pay someone to help me get my 10 games a week and wait for the points to add up.
That's what I think. WoW had its time and it was good, but it's pretty much over with for me. I'll get the new Cataclysm expansion and level my 3 80s to 85, but not in as hardcore a way as I used to.
For the first 2 years or so, I made and leveled my 80 Dwarf Hunter, and after my hunter got up around level 30 or so, I started making other characters. One of each class, eventually. Some do certain things better than others.
But my hunter was often accused of being a "huntard", and yeah, I did dumb things sometimes.
After I reached level 70, then level 80 after WotLK came out, I began noticing changes. More and more often, people didn't want to group up for mid level raids and dungeons, they only wanted to get to 70 or 80 (WotLK) and do end game stuff. Yes, the end game stuff is good, but there's lots to do when leveling.
Like the thrill and analysis of certain situations, such as being a level 32 hunter, knowing you can take out 2 level 35 mobs in one fight, but there's a 34 and 2 35s over there, and I need to go there, and I'm not quite sure I can handle it, and no one is answering my messages for assistance....
Stuff like that.
Now I've got 3 80s. A mildly geared hunter, a decently geared holy pally healer, and a mildly geared 80 warrior tank. And it always seems like people LOVE to charge into the newest hardest instances, which is fine, but they get pickier and pickier about your gear. I know that when taking a PUG group it's always harder, but they take it too far.
The Gear Score mod has been THE single most damaging piece of software to the game of WoW. Because people only see your number, and they fail to recognize experience. I've tried to get into many raids on my pally and hunter, only to be refused because someone else thought my gear score was too low. Even on my pally healer, when they were advertising for healers, yet they wouldn't let me join! Do you know how frustrating that is?:banghead:
Eventually I got a 10 man ICC group to let my 80 holy pally heal the run. The end result was that I was out-healing a shaman and priest who were 900 and 1400 higher in gear score than me.
I got compliments on how well my 4488 GS pally did in healing. I said thanks, and made a real point of telling the group how they must ignore gear score and focus on experience. Because without skills, gear score means NOTHING!Then you've got these idiots who bail on the group after 1 wipe. It may be on the first boss or the last, but a small mistake is made, the group wipes, and 1 or 2 just bail. I hate that.
I used to be in a good raiding guild, but after a while, the guild leader didn't like my opinions anymore (can you imagine that?)
and I got booted.Now when I want to go with a group for a run to get gear, they pull out their Gear Score mod, and say my gear isn't good enough. I say yes, I'm doing this raid to get better gear. They say no, go get better gear FIRST then come do the raid. I say NO, I'm in 200-226 gear, I want to skip all the 232 and 245 and 251 gear and just do this raid and get some 264 pieces and save myself a lot of time and effort. Instead of taking the gear one step at a time I want to fast forward to the newest best gear. No one seems to share my point of view on this.
Then you have the problem of new expansions coming out. Say for example that you DO have all the top end gear, you've done all the highest level raids, etc. You're pretty much all geared out.
THEN, a new expansion comes out. INSTANTLY, your high end new gear is transformed into barely acceptable gear, and if everyone in your raid is geared as well as you, you can barely squeak through some of the boss fights. The guild I used to heal for loved to do what they called "raid progression". I called it "run in and wipe 54 times and spend hundreds of gold on repair bills for no significant gain".
My plan became to do the runs a month or so later, when everyone else had done it a bunch of times and figured out the details, and then they could pretty much carry me through while I DPS'd or healed them, and I'd get better gear with far fewer wipes.
I remember doing Naxx, raid healing it. I was pretty darn good at it too. Then Ulduar came out and everyone was like "Naxx? What's Naxx? Forget Naxx! Let's go do Ulduar!!!!!". It was an instant change. One day Naxx was cool, the next day, it was old news. As was my gear.
When's the last time you went to Shattrath city, or anywhere in Outlands for that matter? It used to be EVERYTHING. Now Shattrath is a ghost town. Really. You ding 58, go to Outlands, level to 68, and head out to Northrend now.
So what's the plan? Go to many raids, eventually win enough rolls and wipe enough times to get geared up, then 3 months later a new expansion or a new raid encounter comes out, and you have to start all over? Nah, I've had enough of that.
And what about the number of players playing WoW? Blizzard used to announce it all the time when a new milestone was reached. 7 million, 8, 9, 10, 10.5, 11, 11.5 million, etc. It's been about 1-1/2 years since they hit 11.5 million, and I haven't heard a new announcement since then. Could it be that more and more people are like me, and have gotten tired of the BS, and are getting burned out and not playing as much anymore?
Could be.
I've had fun learning the Starcraft game, first with a couple weeks of practice in the original game, then in the SC2 Beta. It's a different type of challenge. The game is pretty well balanced, so it's not some super geared raid boss beating me, it's me against someone else, and my own skills make the difference. Plus, Starcraft is popular enough that I could eventually enter tournaments and play in competition if I get good enough. The only way that can happen in WoW is in arenas, and I don't have the patience for that. Plus I never liked arenas much, I used them to get gear for a while and that was that. Instead of having friends help me I'd just pay someone to help me get my 10 games a week and wait for the points to add up.
That's what I think. WoW had its time and it was good, but it's pretty much over with for me. I'll get the new Cataclysm expansion and level my 3 80s to 85, but not in as hardcore a way as I used to.
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Comments
Gear Score is not what is killing WoW. It's the players who use it, the mindless drones who think it's the be all and end all, the only way to measure skill. They were the same people who asked for achievements, too. And before that, they were the ones who would armory you before inviting you. They're the ones who drool over Recount's wrong settings. Tools like that have positive and negative uses, and no one seems to focus on the positives. The Achievement system, as an example, can be used to track your progress and non-vital stats for fun.
As for raiding, I sort of see your point but raise you some. With TBC, T3 was still fairly good and heroic level gear wasn't all that different. T6 was more than capable for Naxxramas, and it's only if you've got the lower end of epics that you were really finding yourself upgrading them. I, personally, wasn't a fan of raiding. You had people who turned up and didn't do anything, who complained about their DPS or whatever, and when you finally give them tips and advice, they throw a paddy and start calling you elitist. Raiding is a social thing, and because of that you have to work together and put your all into it, yet so many players don't want to do that.
I was in a new guild on our server and the main tank really did my head in. Whilst he was good, he was incredibly lazy. I don't remember how old he was (think he was younger than me), but every few wipes it was constantly "Guys, I need some gold for repairs". I got so annoyed with him, and others, because they weren't following the golden rules of raiding - Come prepared. You can relax a bit in more established guilds with things like Fish Feasts flying around, but in a new guild you can't do that. You need to bring your own buff food, your own pots, flasks etc, yet so many people don't. How many 1-5% wipes have you had? How many could be avoided if someone actually played properly or used a flask? It sounds elitist, but it's not. Yeah, it's a game, but it's also about teamwork. Getting a boss down can be fun, but not if it's delayed by people not paying attention or by being lazy. The fun of it, IMHO, is getting the boss down. Loot should be secondary, although sadly it never is (I'll admit I've succumbed to "Loot Rage" a few times).
WotLK doesn't have the variety TBC did, either. There's fewer heroics (I think? Perhaps not), and a smaller spread of raids. With TBC you had the few single boss encounters (Magtheridon, as an example. I've forgotten the others) and a wide selection of raids. Don't feel like doing Black Temple? Go to Hyjal. Loot was spread over a few places so you always had a variety of raids to go to, and it was a bit more complex than WotLK's Don't-Stand-In-The-Bad-Stuff gameplay. To me, the lack of that helped kill WotLK for me.
Not sure about PvP, but I always thought it looked harder to get into than PvE, and I felt one of WoW's flaws was not separating the two unlike games like EverQuest 2 (I believe). It meant you ended up with so much going wrong with talents and classes, leaving everything in a little bit of a mess. A talent would get buffed for PvE and it'd then whack PvP out of control or vice versa, and if they'd kept them separate I think it would have saved a lot of trouble.
I agree with your points about levelling, and again, another reason as to why I quit. It was messed up beyond belief, IMHO. Areas weren't logical, you'd be happily wandering around and then a huge elite would appear out of nowhere and kill you, or you'd have to suicide run into a zone to get to an instance (I always felt Wailing Caverns, Blackfathom Deeps and Scarlet Monestary were the worst for those, although it was alleviated with the dungeon finder). My paladin had the D1 Warrior gloves all the way until Northrend, and I'm not joking.
It was such a pain in the backside to do a zone and finish it a few levels early, even with heirlooms, so you'd have to go to another zone and whiz through a load of greens before landing with a ton of red quests you can't do. And then when you finally get items from quests, they're often poorly itemized and offer no real benefit to you so you end up going levels without upgrading unless you use the auction house.
Talking of the dungeon finder, I think Blizzard really did a good move with it. Yeah, you get idiots on it, but I bet it's breathed life into the levelling experience (I enjoyed it a bit) and it gives you some rather useful gear at times. Good source of money, items, gear and (more importantly) dungeon experience with your character.
You are right about burnout though, and that's why I quit. I just got so bored of doing the same dailies again, the same quests again, the same zones etc. In a way I'm looking forward to Cataclysm, but I'm sure it'll just happen again and I'll find myself addicted once more. I probably had more to add but I forgot it all.
Tim,
That is the problem with you and players like you. You are not willing to put int he time and want to pityback on others to get you gear. It is players like you that ruin the game and make GS an addon that people look at.
Since wow has made gearing up so easy any player not showing any sort of push to get the almost free gear they can get is like a slap in the face. I know I run a guild on my server who is clearing hard Mode ICC content. If a toon like yours apped for the guild he would be laughed at and told to run 10m and get gear and exp. We don't carry kids with your theory on how you want to play the game. We all worked hard to get where we are at and so should you.
People don't like carrying other people who put in 1/2 the time of work and than steal the gear they have been working for. Its people who are sick of kids like you who make the add ons like GS.
On top of that don't you play on a free to play server that isn't so legal in the first place?
Also...
Welcome to MMO's and PVE raiding...
So basically you want access to top level guilds who clear content without wiping to get free loots. Once again your one of those drones that needs to stop playing the game and bitching about stuff.
Also, the dungeon finder tool does make it easier to find groups, but they are still PUGs, and most of the time they still use gear score to judge you.
I proved it with my Holy Paladin healer that gear score means nothing if one has the skills. But try to tell that to people who think gear score means everything. I liked healing, and learning the details. Knowing when to cast short heals, when you can afford to take the time to cast a long heal on someone, using instant heals, keeping Beacon of Light up on the tank at all times, etc.
Another thing I never really liked is how certain types of classes are judged. DPS players are fairly disposable and easy to replace. Tanks and healers get much more respect, especially if they are actually good at their job. Becuase 95% of the time when I get into any group, be it 5, 10, or 25 man, tank and healer positions take the longest to fill.
Gear means nothing without Skill
Skill means little without Gear.
They go hand in hand and you can't have one without the other and be a good player. I went into Ulduar 25M hard modes on my lock, and what I had was perhaps Naxx, HC gear and maybe some badge gear - nothing special at all. Yet I came within the top half of Damage Done on XT HM (Yay, nukefest! Or not) despite other people in the raid being better geared than me. This was with one of the top guilds on our server, too.
But it's important to be able to see your flaws - that is a necessary skill. Are you the one who runs into fire? Do you find yourself so engrossed in your rotation that you forget to move during extra mechanics (such as Hodir in Ulduar, I think). Or perhaps you're like me and trip over your rotation from time to time (stupid Affliction. Much prefer Destruction).
As for the above point about gear (that I missed). I do and don't agree with you. I think Blizz did a good job with making T9.232 available for the base badge as it's fairly well rounded gear. Bonuses are fine, stats are fine, gemming is fine. I don't agree that you should get any closer to the top gear than that because Icecrown needs to have something for you. It's the top current raid and they cannot invalidate the gear there until Cataclysm hits, when L85 gear becomes the best. Even then I'd wager T9 will remain the best badge gear.
Giving you T10 equivalent with Icecrown being current is a ridiculous prospect because it would just completely destroy the gearing up system. I like how it was pre-3.3 (perhaps pre-3.2 too) in that you had to progress through the raids, just as you did in TBC and I believe Vanilla. It's not right for you to be able to waltz into Icecrown as soon as you hit 80 - You've had no practise with your cookie cutter (or optimal) spec, you've not had the same practise with your rotation. Hitting 80 doesn't mean you're great at the game - I managed to go 76 levels in a terrible spec and terrible gear on my warlock, but as soon as that desire to learn, to better myself, to improve came - I flew through those last levels and within 2-3 weeks I was in Ulduar 25HM. Yeah, my gear was still a little rubbish, but with a little effort I'd made myself a capable player who could fight alongside some of the top players.
It always made me laugh to see people in 5/5 T9.232 though, because it just showed they weren't as capable as other players. They didn't look at the other vendors, at the iLevel of the other gear - For those not at that point, the vendor right next to the T9 vendor in the Argent ground thingy has 245 non-tier shoulders and a helm, and the highest bonus you get is 4/5 T9.232, so getting 5/5 is gimping yourself. I always thought the helm was unnecessary as Onyxia has a 232/245 helm for your spec, too.
+1% per slot on the toaster that you're using to run WoW.
And that's why I usually stop playing WoW after hitting level cap on an expansion.
I really like grouping with friends and occasional pugs through the levelling content. But at the end game, WoW turns into an e-peen competition between under-socialized asshats, by way of an incessant grindfest of repeat visits to the same dungeons because there's nothing else to do once you've run off the end of the content rails.
The one exception might be the holidays and achievement system, because I do get tempted to come back for weird crap like pet collection and world exploration.
But basically... WoW under level cap is a fun game for me, but WoW end game is not.
The More You Know! ≈★
Just thought putting some words here also.
I `ve being playing wow for like 3 years now. I have a lvl80 priest disc/shadow , a lvl80 pala dps/tank and some low (50-70) level characters.
I understand that all want to get the best gear that there is for there character Tim but do you think its fair, if i go e.g. to icc every week clearing all boses, runned through all the instances, all raid so i am able to heal or dps or tank in there, and after weeks of trying the item i want drops, and a low gear person that didnt put that effort comes and wins it.
I aggree that GS wouldnt be that much important except if you are healer or tank. 1 out of 5 healer having a low GS its not that big deal. But what if all 5 dont have that good gear, then wipes and wipes and wipes...... cause of healing eficiency.
Achievements also, my pala has a GS of around 5300 both in tank and dps gear, more than enough to go to icc, but i never get into pug groups (currently not in any guild) cause i dont have achievement. Dont complain about it though as i aggree. You dont have achivement means you dont know what you are facing. Means that you most probably wipe the whole raid. And i dont think that a pug will want to explain every sigle tactic to 1 person.
Ofcourse when a new expansion comes, your high end gear will become obsolite. This is why a new expansion comes out. Get new levels, new spells, new instances, new raids. If your gear was still good, that means that there is no reason to have those instances, or have 2-3 raids to pass so you could get to end game boss.
The only thing that makes this game boring this days, is that is kind of too easy. Remeber Black Temple?? How many guilds could make it, or even how long did it take to beat last boss. When icc came out, like 2 weeks after, people reached end game boss.
About PVP, PVP is great. There you actually show your skills on the character you have. Why? because the person you have against you is not a mob, it doesnt run by some sort of AI, so you can never predict his/her moves. You dont learn to memorize patterns, but you learn how to react and what to use in certain circumstances.
I will not disagree that some people spend just a ridiculous count of hours within game, but an equal amount play the game for fun and still put in the hours to raid. Do you feel that someone who cannot put in said hours is somehow a better person? Or somehow has done more on some level that means he should be deserving more so than someone who has been busting their butt as said above?
But no one ever said life was fair!
If I go, and I get it, by any means, the end result is that I have the new gear, and the end justifies the means.
Tushon - Kwitko is just ripping on me from an epic topic I made in the general chat section a while back about immigrants and the new Arizona law.
I think we take the game way too seriously. I mean c`mon, its just a game. You play to have fun and not fight over things, there are a lot more important thinks in life than looting an epic lvl264 item :P
I find my self a lot of times, talking and explaining e.t.c. about wow, but after a while i find my self asking. WHY??? The game in my opinion became too fan adicted. I am saying this cause a lot of things that i said before might sound differend from what i meant.
I left from the guilds i was in, and just play for fun. Do a random dungeon for badges and then play some PVP, nothing else, like 1H each day, max 2H.
Why i did this? Cause i see a lot of people on the net giving so much time to the game that they actually forget what is the real world.
I prefer to go out and get social rather that stay home and play from day to night (when i dont work :P) on the game.
People need to start realizing that this game actually destroys their life. Play less go out more.
But it was something to do for when I had no real plans to go anywhere or do anything that day, or when cash was short and I couldn't afford to go anywhere and staying home and playing for free all day was the only real option. I'm kind of over that now, and Starcraft 2 will be out soon!
Then clearly you're doing it wrong.
Fact, this is a false statement.
And why is this a false statement?
Wow is just a game, nothing in it or whatever comes around the game should be taken seriously. Its a fake world with fake characters with.. well everything fake. So where do you see the false statement.