why do real chores when virtual chores
I am literally in WoW classic killing boars for their snouts while reading this on the other monitor.
I honestly miss playing WoW. It was a fun game, especially if you had a group to raid with. If only I didn’t have to give Blizzard money to play it.
In 2004 (the launch year) the original WoW was an amazing time I lost and entire year of professional growth and productivity to. When the first expansion (Burning Crusade) came out, I was equally excited as as the original launch, but after seeing Green gear fall of simple mobs that was better than the epic Purple gear I spent weeks getting in 40 person raids, I could instantly forecast how the entire rest of the game would be forever: and endless grind with your hard won efforts simply trivialized in the first month of the next expansion. I stopped playing WoW about a month after, went back to school instead, and finished the college degree I had started 8 years earlier. Quitting WoW lead to my actions which launched my career to new heights.
I credit WoW with teaching me an incredible life lesson in my 20s to never get drawn into something like that again.
See, I very much liked the gear reset.
I didn’t start playing when the game first came out. By the time I hit level 60 people had been raiding for months, maybe even a year. Back then, a lot of raiding was about getting fire resist gear so that you could get a bit further in Molten Core. If you were behind, there was no real way to catch up unless you had people who were willing to do work on your behalf to get you the gear you needed.
The Burning Crusade launch basically reset everything, so people who hadn’t had a chance to do raids were on an even footing with people who had.
It was pretty amusing that heroes that were fighting the primal elements of nature were then having a difficult time with mutated boars. But, at least it was mutated boars on another planet. Eventually it was just “oh, you’re on a new island. I know you’ve previously killed a god on this same planet, but the birds on this particular island… they’re tough”. That was poorly explained, but the reason for the gear reset was clear.
To me, there were two big issues with WoW. One was that people constantly wanted new buttons to push, so classes just kept getting more and more complicated to the point that while a MOBA might have 6 ability buttons you use regularly, WoW might have 15ish, with another 20 that are situational.
The other one is just that the story keeps collapsing under its own weight. Increasingly it’s a personal story – it’s not that you’re an adventurer and participated in an event that saved the planet. You’re the individual person who saved the planet (and so is everybody else in the game). And then, because this expansion is over, you, the individual who saved the planet, has to go kill 20 boars on this newly discovered island where apparently boars are as tough as gods. Nobody on this island recognizes you as the hero who saved the planet, so you need to build your reputation up again, and eventually you get to fight the newest god who is destroying the planet.
To me, there were two big issues with WoW. One was that people constantly wanted new buttons to push, so classes just kept getting more and more complicated to the point that while a MOBA might have 6 ability buttons you use regularly, WoW might have 15ish, with another 20 that are situational.
We disagree on this point. I liked 20 situational ones. It made for finding edge cases where a spell or ability was critical and a game changer. While I normally played on an RP server, I would frequenly run around with my PvP flag on allowing myself to be attacked by other players. On a Warlock class, one of the “most useless” summoned pets was the Felhound. However, because almost no one used a Felhound, no one knew how they fought. It was extremely satisfying to be out in world doing a PvE question only be jumped by a casting player that suddenly lost them abilty to cast when the Felhound activated, or when the theif is walking up to you in stealth only to be outted by the felhoud that could see through it.
Not having the many obscure options was what prevented me from really getting into Guild Wars that only had 2 actions at a time when I played it.
The other one is just that the story keeps collapsing under its own weight. Increasingly it’s a personal story – it’s not that you’re an adventurer and participated in an event that saved the planet. You’re the individual person who saved the planet (and so is everybody else in the game). And then, because this expansion is over, you, the individual who saved the planet, has to go kill 20 boars on this newly discovered island where apparently boars are as tough as gods. Nobody on this island recognizes you as the hero who saved the planet, so you need to build your reputation up again, and eventually you get to fight the newest god who is destroying the planet.
This didn’t bother me either. With the 20 and 40 person raids, you were one of many that accomplished the goal. For the individual quests, it made sense to me that new lands wouldn’t know you or your exploits. Its not like there is regular newspapers or internet in game the NPCs read.
It sounds like we had different things we wanted from the game. I’m glad that the things that annoyed me were things that others found value in.
It was extremely satisfying to be out in world doing a PvE question only be jumped by a casting player that suddenly lost them abilty to cast when the Felhound activated, or when the theif is walking up to you in stealth only to be outted by the felhoud that could see through it.
Back when I played warlock, felhound was the PVP pet. Nothing else was useful for PVP except maybe the Succubus if you were really good at using its seduce ability and could avoid accidentally putting DOTs on whatever you were seducing. Even then, that was only really useful in one vs. many fights.
With the 20 and 40 person raids, you were one of many that accomplished the goal
That’s how it was back in the Molten Core and AQ raids. But, then the quests started talking about you as if you were special. For instance in Shadowlands, they started talking about you as being “The Deathwalker” or something. As in, you’re the one and only person who is able to enter the realm of the dead as a living being and then return. But… every other PC in the game is also “The Deathwalker”, and whenever you’re in those zones, you see plenty of other "The Deathwalker"s walking around near you, doing quests.
Now, games have aggressive monetization through battle passes and gotcha mechanics! Truly we have improved.
It was more because it was a virtual chatroom and community in an age where such things were not widespread
That, and nobody had documented how everything worked yet. And, there wasn’t a good way to communicate outside the game. And there was no group finder, etc. so the only way to work together was to chat.
In-game chat was essential to playing the game. It was essential to understanding the game. And it was somewhat self-policing, because if you got a bad reputation on your realm from chat, it would be harder to find groups.
These days most chat happens outside the game. Nobody chats in-game to understand the game. Nobody needs the community features of the game to do quests, group content, even raids. Realms are meaningless because most content is cross-realm, so you can’t get a bad reputation if you’re an asshole because you never see the same people again.
I don’t think there’s a way to go back to 2004. But, it still seems like Blizzard shot themselves in the foot multiple times when it comes to community features.
Also, I think this undersells how good the game looked.
Yes, you were hunting boar livers but you were doing it in this beautiful tropical jungle beside a giant waterfall. And then you’d peak behind the waterfall, discover a mermaid who was at the gate of a giant dungeon themed like a water park. And you completely forgot about the quest to go play in the water park for a couple of hours.
I’d say the bigger problem with WoW was the gradient of zones. You’d be hunting zebra-taurs on the high planes. And then you’d walk through a mountain pass, see a dinosaur, get all excited, and aggro a creature +30 your level.
Now that’s just not true.
Repeatable quests weren’t added until much later. You had to collect all sorts of organs with shitty drop rates from a variety of animals in different zones.
It was actually barely worth doing quests in the original game, because most of the XP was on the kills rather than quest hand-ins, and the rewards were mostly crap.
I picked it up recently with a group of friends on turtle wow (RIP, fuck blizzard), and while I really enjoyed the social aspect, the actual gameplay felt like a chore the whole way through. Plus, it felt like an obligation to keep up with my friends who somehow had much more time to throw at the game.
