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Let’s Play World of Warcraft with Renfail as he chats about how he’s having a hard time understanding the hate some people seem to have for WOW when his experience has been nothing but positive. World of Warcraft in 2024 is a simply phenomenal MMORPG, so what’s up?
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Renfail can you checkout shards of Britannia and do a review
for me, its that most of the world is dead. youll never experience un'goro crater, silithis, black rock because there is no reason to go there. the wars that broke out in strangle thorn vale or south shore between alliance and horde was so much fun and now its dead. pvp used to be a big part of the fun and now its just meh. i miss when dungeons were a bit slower, having to sheep/sap bc pulling too much would get you wrecked.
i guess in a way its missing being part of an "adventure" and more like COD or OW where you just sign up for a "quick play" (bg, mythic, whatever) and while you wait you just afk in org or in this case valdraken. i would love to revisit old world content and do some "mythic" version of the quests at lvl 70 and relive those old great stories.
they dont need a new expansion, they just need to update older content, the stuff is there. each zone can be a dnd one shot with higher difficulty and rewards like transmogs or gold or whatever…mounts even.
idk, thats my thing i guess. maybe im just too old and jaded
I found myself get bored in world aspects, endgame is still good,but what I see in new mmos its that they don't have that fantasy feeling when you play it,for example gw2 is solid game but doesn't have that mmo fantasy. And ofc there is some boundaries when we pay for the game,pay subscription and have microtransacitons, those stuff kinda makes me mad and I makes me don't wanna play that game.
Game so good it's ruined lives throughout the history those old interviews were classic
I havent played WoW for years…. you've got me thinking about it again.
The hate – So many gamers played WoW that even games today use things like WoWs item colour system – Green/Blue/Purple because it needs no explanation. Then people leave because of reasons in the game, different over time for different people and this creates literally millions of gamers who now hate the game they once loved. There is no hatred so deep that stems from love.
I returned a while back on a levelling character. LFG'd for a normal dungeon. Messed up one mechanic and kicked immediately. If this is the case then before anyone can play they'll need to research every dungeon and know mechanics. Back in the day before LFG people talked and supported one another. I just don't see it anymore. This may not be "toxic" but it will sure turn off alot of people. Myself for one. This is why so many videos exist on playing MMORPG's solo.
I played from Vanilla to Cata and lost my love at the stage … But I did return for brief times on each expansion with friends.. And we all felt like the small changes had clouded our memory of the game .. oddly we would log in and head back to the places we loved and farmed for so many hours in Vanilla, BC etc..
We all returned for shadow lands and felt like we were being spoon fed story and content at a set pace .. there was no desire to go off and look for nooks and caves, farm herbs etc .. We had to stay in pace with the content at the stage, I dont know how this was at max level but the love of being able to set the pace of game play felt gone..
There was dread of doing a pug in the early instances in Shadow lands.
My perspective is similar to yours except that I think any reason to quit playing a game is perfectly valid because games aren't jobs, and I don't owe companies my eternal support. The big difference between me and the whiners is I don't imagine my reasons are universal, that my opinion is the only correct one, or that my feelings are the only ones that matter. (EDIT: I've quit playing games because I didn't enjoy the new "balance." I stopped listening to music / going to shows because I didn't care for a band's new direction. I don't spend a lot of time trying to convince others that my opinion is objective truth and I think gamers who hate post their opinions about games they used to love as "objective truth" are goofy AF.)
"Moon Guard", experienced in MMO's, & playing with a group of people you already know is your answer right there. Moon Guard is known for being friendly, knowing your class & what to do shields you from toxicity, and playing with buddies I'd hope would keep you free of toxicity. The community's not completely toxic by any means, I just the other day logged in for the 1st time in 5 1/2 years and a guy gave me a ton of free stuff & was super helpful. There are plenty of great people.
The more you get into the serious end-game content, or do a dungeon with randoms where someone makes a mistake, you will most likely start to see what people are referring to. I see screencaps of horrible interactions all the time on the WoW sub & have experienced plenty myself. People also do extremely greedy, shady psycho things for loot. I'd say you've been lucky, and who knows maybe it's died down over the years as people grow up but it's there.
Jaded vanilla veteran here. I have played & enjoyed every xpac but Shadowlands. That one sucked. They were pushing the time sink elements so hard that I only played 2 weeks and stopped until Dragonflight. I'm on a low pop server- it was high pop in vanilla, but there are decent people on it. Lots of bots, though. Still, if I could, I would move the guild and all my characters over to Moonguard – people are friendlier on the rp servers. About class nerfs, if you keep at least 4 classes leveled, even if you don't play them to peak, you will always have a performance toon no matter what gets nerfed.
TL:DR Game is fun, DF is better than SL, It's ok to stop being a jaded player.
One major reason why players are still jaded is they haven't moved on and still holding onto the version of wow that was mismanaged, misdirected, and given poor systems that made you grind with no meaning. This was also during the Blizzard trials. It's not fair how they threw Swifty under the bus with allegations and no proof, with gaslighting the community, and continued to push store product without content. Really shows the lack of leadership and taking no accountability, but the state of California handled it and now we move on to brighter pastures.
People can be impatience, WoW is so big that major changes will take time, ever since Holly Longdale announced coming to Blizzard I knew things were going in the right direction based on her Everquest background and now having Chirs Metzen back, I'm pretty excited for The War Within.
I can speak from experience and yes, there are plenty of toxic players and is partly why I stopped getting involved with M+ and solo shuffle content. I came back in 10.1 as a dedicated Rsham/Rdruid and healed for about 3 months before quitting, several time i've had people whisper me some pretty nasty stuff and its caused me to have no respect for the community, even if it was my own key, someone would be festive enough to call me names and talk about what they want to do with my mother. It doesn't happen often, but several minor cuts can lead to unstoppable bleeding. As much I enjoy more difficult content, I can't associate myself with people that can't handle a loss. You could go 6/6 and no one says a word, then go 1/6 and told to go off yourself.
But sure woe is me, that's not the point. Maybe Blizz needs to enforce their TOS more? or I need to find a new player group. Either way The War Within will be a fresh start
Changes in art direction (from dark to fluffy), story where they wrote themselves to the corner and forgot what had happened (people asking at the blizzcon and their replies were something like "really? can't remember"), pushing questionable agendas in shadowlands etc. Dragonflight is the first decent expansion since legion (going back for the talent tree vs having few talents from cata to shadowlands).
The hate:
First the community is broken up into what I call "sectors" some are from the old, the mid, the new, then within you have different types of players – such as casuals or those who are hardcore into getting things "right". Within all these also comes players who just like in the real world are:
Hateful. If you turn on news these days, go to social media, anything outside of 20 friends, and some family your going to get beat down by negativity – toxicity,etc. Its sad but true.
Game changes. When WoW has a vastly more superior version of the game (classic era/sod/wrath) that is more MMORPG then single player, even Single Player people like me can't deny they catered toward a crowd of people who didn't want to invest time in MMORPGs and instead play a live service Single Player game – within that lies the next thing:
Systems and currencies. There are just to many in retail. You have this badge, this rep, that thing to do, but rarely does any of it cause you to breath easy. Its a grind, much like it was in 2004, only solo, or in such a way you can't keep up without logging in for dozens of hours per week, with RL knocking at the door. Simply put minimize system changes – and currencies and you'll get more people out in the world be it with others or alone playing the game they enjoy. Don't add – subtract.
To much bad content – or just to much content to keep you away from things you like, or others. When your a veteran player who may love say Cata aka old world zones bur are forced to level up in new zones every single time, with no true rotation of zones except in the old world, there is going to be frustration, if players could go from westfall to ungoro, to duskwood, to silithus , etc all the way to 70 and keep rotating different story lines and zones of the old world, more veteran players would come back and say seeya later Dragonflight, we don't want you. And probably play more.
Spread out player base. We again have to much of many things, another would be zones. When you go seeing the world empty for hours on end – other times never, you start to wonder why not play Skyrim? Perhaps if Blizzard wanted you in empty player zones or busy ones, they'd also add some sort of interaction with NPC's outside of questing, to give it a living world feel.
Carry or not to carry: When every version of the game, but mostly retail relies on carrying others through content, its bad. They need to go back to basics where if you don't raid you accept a low amount of epics, if none, but still enjoy the game. A game such as wow shouldn't maximize its enjoyment on loot, that for games like Diablo, the world needs to be richer, make Alts fun, not repetitive.
Lastly from me. Story. The story in its current state is just bad. But to be fair vanilla WoW or classic barely has a story, its about the adventure. Perhaps go back to bringing a few characters to the forefront and leave real story telling to much richer IP's that do it right. Or at least bring in people who know Thrall for example well enough to write his dialogue without it being squeamish.
Ya know Tim, I have to say as one of the ones who has played WoW on and off since beta it is very difficult to stay up on all the changes that have been made over the years. As I just came back after being away since Mists of Pandaria it has been super difficult to get back into the swing of things which is one of the reasons I chose Risen as the guild I wanted to join. You guys have been super accepting and really great about answering questions and helping an OG guy get back on track.
I also want to say how nice it is to have been able to go on the weekend raids with you guys. I've had a blast and it has been super refreshing to just be able to go in and enjoy the content with no one being obnoxious when mistakes are made.
Keep up the awesome work pal.
NetRngr.
I think I see the most toxicity on Reddit and not in game. I have many gripes above wows design over the years but I still love the game.
I think m plus focus has pushed many people away from the game. Dungeons used to be relaxing content but m plus has really elevated the sweat level of the WoW community. Many love m plus but I think it’s been very dividing overall with old wow fans. Many people who stop playing retail end up just getting into classic anyway
Played WoW for almost a decade. Stopped last year. The main issue I had is how WoW got turned into an ESPORTS mmorpg. PvP and mythic+ is nothing more then an esports competition. They also gatekeep high end gear with insane mythic+ levels and Ranked PVP. Good luck trying to get best in slot just being casual. It’s not possible. The base game and maybe some random easy raids you’ll be able to gear. I moved on and WoW had a good run, especially when new players start. But trust me. If you enjoy hardcore esports, end game is for you.
I been playing WoW now for 15-16 years. During this time I have met many peeps online. Some are friendly, a few are somewhat rude, but most just play the game and mind their own business. Some of the expansions have been more fun than others, but my group has played them all. As far as belly aching goes, some peeps will gripe about anything to a point they are almost funny. My advice to the griefers is if you don't like Wow, find a game you like.
I think a lot of it is just internet talk, for one. The way people talk about games tends to be in a 'zero sum' sense, where everyone kind of expects you to pick a side. Call of Duty and Battlefield, Xbox and Playstation, Nintendo and Sega, WoW and Final Fantasy XIV. These are silly decisions because for many of us, they aren't necessarily choices that need to be made. The cost of two MMO subscriptions, or even two game consoles is not an insurmountable financial burden for many of us, if we have a desire to play both sides of these arguments. WoW and FFXIV, I might add, both feature the ability to play either game on a trial basis effectively for free.
For WoW particularly, I think there are also a lot of people out there who played a long time, saw a lot of good and bad, and are just ready for something new. I don't think that's something Blizzard, or really any developer can do much about, it's just human nature and something that anything that exists for 20 years is going to run into. There are people out there who say the same about Final Fantasy XIV. Less of them, as the game is only half as old, but they are a growing number, and similarly, say less about that game's quality as much as its age.
When it comes to nostalgia for old things, we form certain memories at certain times, and regardless of what's actually happening, we look back on those times as "Good". We all love the music we listened to as teenagers, and the movies and games we played then. We look back on a time when we had less responsibility, more friends, and honestly, less income to spend on entertainment. But also, looking back is wearing blinders in a way. Our brains remember the positive – this isn't willful ignorance, this is an evolved defense mechanism to protect our mental well being, evolved in a prehistoric time when memories of mortal peril and horrific events were more common in our lives.
Finally, WoW is an easy punching bag as an older game from a now troubled developer, whether it's due to Blizzard's abuse lawsuits, the Microsoft acquisition, and now the layoff situation. Personally, a game's developer or its real world situations are poor reasons to take shots at a game, but also that is simply how social media works. Everyone wants to score internet argument points, and I don't see that changing any time soon. Sometimes people hate something not because of the something, but because it makes the numbers go up on the internet.
I think it's a combination of things. For me it's just being jaded at this point though. I played private servers for a long time and always wanted to play on an official one until I finally managed to start earning money and bought Legion. Legion was great some of the ebst time I ever had playing any MMO. Great for group content, great for solo content, great for RP. There was always enough to do and the activities were relatively fun, dugneons weren't too hard they were very easy to learn and so you could very quickly start going into mythics etc. I also feel like the game was faster paced at the time, youd ealth mroe damage and enemies had less health.
And then progressively my enthusiasim for the game got chipped away one feature at a time. I already didn't care about the story or lore by Legion, I thought it was absolute nonesense. But I'm the kind of eprson that will think a game is amazing with the most abyssmal story if the core gameplay loop is a lot of fun.
BfA was one of the worst experiences I had in any MMO ever. This is not like a statement of objective quality or smth this is just how I felt. I hated that expansion when it was happening and I think the biggest reason I dislie it much more then Shadowlands is that I cared back then. The game got significantly slower, new systems introduced weren't interesting. This is where Blizzards cycle of borrowed power began I feel, we should've kept Artifact weapons not the Heart of Azeroth which was a much duller system. Class fantasy, one of the strongest features of Legion went away, a lot of classes felt a lot weaker. They changed leveling which was a singificant part of it as well, enemies got insanely bloated health pools.
Leveling alts is a problem still. If you're not a hardcore gamer and try a class like a rogue or another glass canon you willg et whooped on absic quests jsut because the enemies have so much HP and you don't do enough damage. Heirlooms stopped giving XP bonus' making the leveling significantly slower.
The world content design wasn't as interesting as well. And this is also when I think Blizz started overdesigning their dungeons, when Legion dungeons were really simple and easy BfA dungeons had a lot more mechanics to them. Sure that makes for more engaging gameplay but it also means that someone that's not that well versed in the game is gonna get lost in it and they're going to struggle. I used to do Mythic dungeons everyday on legion, I stopped doing dungeons completely during BfA cause I was jsut too intimidated by ruining someone's day and fucking up a dugneon that I didn't understand. There's a lot going into the hate of BfA but overall community wasn't in a healthy palce I feel and that reflected in the RP. When the game is not good the RPers leave cause they still play the game. Argent Dawn got really barren, Stormwind became a ghosttown it was kinda crazy.
This carries into Shadowlands which was BfA but worse, Shadowlands squeezed the last drops of investment out of me because I jsut thought it had the same problems tenfold. Game was incredibly sluggish, boring and I felt it didn't cater to me as a casual player anymore. I felt like I had nothing to do, everything was either boring or too ahrd and meant for the "good palyers". I didn't care for the aesthetic and they tarnished a reputation of several legacy characters by bringing them back to life and making them act like idiots.
I don't like Draognflight cause for me it has a significant "too little too late" energy. Is it better? Sure. Is it good? I don't think so. I think Dragonflight is incredibly boring, there's not much stuff to do, it's still sluggish and slow. But hey who am I to say right? I'm just a guy that played a bit too much WoW and now is having a cope seshion about it lol. I don't spend my days complaining on forums or smth. I unsubbed and moved on, I resub once in a while to check things out and the unsub again usually cause I am not grabbed anymore. I am commenting here mroe so cause I think it's interesting to think about – Maybe why I come off as rambling as I am jsut spouting my thought train rather then putting this in a structure of sorts.
Last thing is Blizzard themselves. I grew dissatisfied with the company. A lot of people attribute it to laziness or incompetance I jsut think Blizz can sometimes think they know better when they don't. Often then not they make a bad system people tell them it's bad and give new ideas, they don't execute on them – Everyone complains – And then finally Blizzard fixes the system two patches down the line. This was Azerite gear that became okay only at the end of BfA even tho they had ppl in beta telling them it wasn't good. I also cannot stand the blatant greed and disgusting corporate ways to squeeze every last penny out of the players. A game that you need to – Buy and pay subscription for SHOULD NOT have an in game store. That is ridiculous. Especially if what you are selling are -> Cheats to skip your leveling experience (which is why I think Blizz is making leveling alts boring and slow on purpose) for the price of a full AAA title. Nor do I think you should be selling mounts and transmog with unique effects and models whilst the rest of the game that I rmeind you – You pay monthly for – Serves you three recolours of the same bear skeleton they've been using since Vanilla.
Glad you're enjoying the game man. I wish I could, hope you don't become a jaded bitter man like me, waving his cane at kids walking on his lawn lmao
some games just have whiney players
What would I need to do to join your guild on Moonguard. Older, casual player. Just restarting after many, many years of being away.
another thing most people don't talk about is the way younger people view world of warcraft. Now i am a little younger than you guys and i have younger friends. Every time i tell them if they even want to try the wow free trial they physically don't want to play it. I think i know the reason for this. When most young people these days hear the name world of warcraft they just think about that old game that the old balding men play 24/7. They also think its a really toxic game, i guess thats the reason most young people dont even want to try it out. They think the game is filled with toxic old balding men who just want to play the game all day. But me personally i love the game 😀
I think you are downplaying how difficult it can be to find the right guild. And without a guild, the game is a very shallow. Agree with most everything else you said though, and am Glad you are enjoying the game!
I think you kind of underestimate how much WoW changes with every expansion. We're not just talking class balance here – Cataclysm back in the day literally wiped the two main continents clean and redid them in their entirety; all the quests, everything. And if you've been playing for several years, it does kind of wear on you after a while to see more and more stuff you love about the game go away.
Before the creation of Classic, Blizzard would often balk at the mere notion of classic servers because in their minds it made no sense that anyone would want to play an older version of the game, since everything they changed was clearly an improvement and nobody would want to play a worse game. Yet when they finally gave in and created Classic, it was a huge success – because it wasn't worse, it was just a different game that people had missed.
I haven't seen as much negativity around WoW since they started supporting multiple versions to cater to different tastes. Dragonflight is also a good expansion and seems to have set Blizzard on a path of bringing some genuine improvements to retail. But they definitely spent several years before that messing up a lot of things that people enjoyed, and I can't blame anyone for holding a grudge over that and not wanting to go back. Though I agree that there's no point in endlessly griping on forums about a game that you no longer enjoy; at some point you just gotta move on.
if the only players u really interact with are those u know, yeah ur not gonna see how other random players really are. but, ur also a pretty hard-core player, and good at what u do. its the casuals and solo players that get harassed. i started out hard-core back around 2009 and just burned out by the hours and guildmate drama by 2015. it was like a second job with a bunch of people that cant get along and i wasnt even getting paid. then i started playing casually and solo (lfg/r), and was really blindsided by the rudeness of other players. im a decent player, so it doesnt usually happen to me, but i watch it every week happen to others.
where more geared players used to be helpful and offer advice, now they just berate and kick u. even in LFR/G, these guys come in all mythic geared and are so entitled, they berate someone in timewalking gear for their low dps and then kick them from the place that was made specifically for them. they dont realize it, or dont care, but they need those casual and solo players, or u have no one for groups and the game dies out. idk how u get a world full of assholes to change their ways, but thats what needs to happen.
follower dungeons is a step in the right direction though. i love them and hope they extend to all the other dungeons and levels, even raids. right now, you cant experience the diff expansions really cuz u cant get groups for that series of raids/dungeons. u just have to out-level it and run it solo later. it would be really great, and go a long way to keep people like me subbed, if we could do that content at the appropriate levels, as we're leveling up. no one wants to do bfa dungeons for 30 levels.
Of course you don't see toxic people, since you are out of the competitive part of the game, leveling, doing quests, entering normal runes, you are not going to get toxicity now, enter the mythical 22+ onwards, in the raids heroic, of course, like a pug, you're going to see a lot of toxic people doing whatever they want xD
The reason I don't do retail anymore is because of the destruction of what warcraft used to be. To me it's like a large generic mobile game with the wow logo slapped onto it.
I started playing retail again recently, hadn’t played it since shadowlands came out because I was into classic. I personally like wow as a solo game at this point and retail is pretty great for that.
Why do people like you DO NOT hate the "how to train your dragonflight"?🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I have been playing Wow since OG kara dropped so just before the portal opened. Love this game. I have seen friends come and go over the years. Had my main in I dont even know how many guilds, which is a troll fire mage. Now I have soo many alts haha and still play when I get some free time. If you have been in any chat and not found good and bad people you are a unicorn. I dont know who these folks are that talk crap about wow players nor do i really care. Good to see new people and old returning to the green fields of Azeroth.
I think retail has limited a lot of damage that toxic players can cause on others. Classic however, still holds a lot of those possibilities for toxic players, so I think classic has WAY more noticeable toxic players on it.
I don't hate WoW. I'm just … checked out.
I started playing during Vanilla, took a break, came back during late Wrath of the Lich King, had the most fund during Cataclysm, and … a couple of expansions later I lost interest. It turned into homework, into chores.
I have almost never had a good Looking for Dungeon experience, but I've had a ton of traumatizing bad ones. Yeah, you can have great fun if you're in a good guild, but if you're not, you're borked.
When I'm done with Pathfinder WotR that I'm playing now, I might get back into Elder Scrolls Online, because I enjoy the lore and I have friend who plays it. But I don't think I'm going back to WoW.