I love WoW and have played it since mid 2006. But something isn't right anymore. It's an MMORPG. The MMO part has gone terribly wrong.
Sure, there's tons of people on, for raids. And then they all log off. In Vanilla WoW days, when the level cap was 60, and it took you nearly forever to get to 60, people were always out and about collecting bear asses or whatever inane quests they had to do to hopefully get one more tick closer to the next level. Very few people got to raid as the good raids were 40 man raids. And getting 40 people who know how to not stand in fire/voids/poison/poop and still manage to heal/deal damage/tank and not fight over loot/plug pull mid raid/not have a kid puking/a cat not spilling Mountain Dew on the keyboard for a good 3 hours was rare.
Enter the Burning Crusade expansion pack. I was a lowly level 49 when that hit. I immediately rolled a Horde character as I had tired of Alliance. And I spent many a night collecting bear asses for quests. I hit the new level cap (70) and started gearing up for raids. You had to earn reputation with factions back then to get into heroic level versions of dungeons in order to get gear and to get "keyed" for raids. So it became all about collecting bear asses not for leveling experience points but for reputation points. People spent time collecting resources to craft epic gear pieces, raiding, and in general sitting about and chatting.
Most people could raid because raids became 10 and 25 man raids. It's easier to find that many people with a clue. The raids were not easy, but you more people were making How To videos and it's easier to teach 10 or 25 people vs 40.
Life was good in Azeroth.
And then Blizzard did something stupid. They listened to people who complained the game was too hard. It took too long to level. The raids were hard too. While most guilds could do the initial 10 and 25 mans after months of attempts (and plenty of guild quits/guild break ups/screaming matches in Ventrillo), most could not do the harder 25 mans. People whined it wasn't "fair".
And they caved with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. WoTLK had much better lore story lines and better scenery than BC without a doubt. But it was easy. So so so easy. Leveling to 80 took a bit but once you were there...well you could do the first 10 man raid in your sleep. No one wiped on heroic dungeons anymore. The game became so easy it was lame.
Same with the newest expansion, Cataclysm. It's so easy it's actually painful. You zip through the levels. They even made it so new players can level from 0-85 in no time. The dungeons are easy. Raids are slightly harder than WoTLK.
And with no bear asses to collect for leveling or reputation (they did away with that in WoTLK), no one hangs around. Except on the RP servers. Roleplaying servers. Normally not my thing. I normally play on the PvP servers because it's fun to kill and be killed by other players while collecting those asses. But the RP servers are now the servers with life in them. People still hang out in the cities or zones and chit chat. I'm a terrible RPer. To make it fun I created a hunter who is also the slimiest of the slimy. He's a jerk. And I love him. I still suck at playing him though. Not the mechanics of the class, but the RP part.
I want my old WoW back. I want to see people doing more than raiding easy raids. I want to see people tearing their hair out over bear asses but having fun like they used to. The forums are now filled with people bemoaning how easy and empty the game is.
Well that's what happens when you take the fun out of the game and make it easy. Well done, Blizzard.
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