Virgina, There is No Other WOW

I’m going to turn my reply to a comment submitted by RomaGoth into a post.

Roma said…

In a non-related question, what does one do when he has (2) level 70's in WoW, (1) level 60, and is ready for a change? I tried LOTRO a few weeks ago and enjoyed it but stuck with WoW for awhile longer. Now I am not sure anymore if I want to keep playing WoW at all. I have 2 pieces of the FSW set for my 'lock, and my hunter is maxed out in mining/skinning to help make me some money. But I really feel uninspired. It doesn't help when things like last night occur either (we wiped 4 times in Shadow Labs and finally gave up after 2nd wipe on Grandmaster Vorpil). Is this all there is at 70 if you don't really raid? Battlegrounds for welfare epics? Mind-numbing grinding for primals? More mind-numbing dailies? Uggh. It begins to make me wonder why we are always in such a hurry to level our toons. Nearly three 70's later, I am ready for something different. The thought of grinding primals, battlegrounds, or running the same instances over and over again just does not appeal to me anymore. I know the expansion is coming out later this year, but will it not be the same content, just in a different setting?  Sorry to hijack your blog, but I am having a really hard time right now deciding what to do. I will probably play LOTRO just for the different content, and I always liked the lore.
I completely understand why you quit WoW, Saylah. Funny thing is, you played it a lot longer than I did (2+ more years than me I presume).

I’ve been playing WOW since BETA.  I made my official adieu to World of Warcraft this past June.  I hadn’t really played WOW for months prior but I count the official end as when I canceled our last remaining subscription.

I think it’s hard when you outgrow a game that you love.  Sometimes I find myself missing our family’s board game obsession.  I don’t miss the games as much as how playing together as a family felt.  Two in college and the third heading off to the military, we are more fragmented by location now than we’ve ever been.  Leaving an MMO is like leaving a best friend because of all the social aspects of the game.  Even for a solo player like me, you can’t help but interact when you’re playing online with thousands of other people.  Then there's hitting level 10, getting your mount, your first cool spell or ability, getting your 51 point talent, first 5-man, first raid, first blue and first epic!!  For these things and more, departing a game like World of Warcraft is on a whole different scale for many players.  Why?  It’s very simple really, there is no other WOW to go to.

This isn’t about WOW being perfect, better than any other game or anything else along those lines.  It’s about WOW having combined things that were before, with things that weren’t and doing it in a way that resulted in massive appeal.  Blizzard concocted the perfect storm of that time.  For players who have loved WOW, it would be like un-doing chocolate or finding a substitute.  You can find another flavor you like as well.  You can find another flavor that will do.  But any chocolate lover will tell you that there is no substitute.  Outgrowing WOW is like giving up chocolate.  It can be done - people do it and move on to other things, but it’s not the same

The pace, leveling style freedom, larger than life villains and heroes, stylistic graphics and obsession inducing loot, just can’t be replicated. There’s a frantic pace, feeling and heightened experience of leveling in WOW, even if you’re not hurrying to the top.  The content and game mechanics support this pace and the over the top combat and boss encounters enforce the effect.  PVP, especially the original Battlegrounds, were just icing on the cake of this larger than life gaming experience.  How do you repeat that?  The obvious answer is that you don’t.

Back to Roma’s question of how do you move on when you’re done?  You’re not done with WOW until you’re ready for a different experience, pace, rule-set, encounters and economy, crafting, etc. – the whole ball of wax.  You can’t move on just because you’re tired of the WOW content.  You must be open to a different kind of game.  If not, you’ll wander around a new game leveling through the content, all the while wishing it was just this content in WOW.  I’ve been there and done it.

I successfully departed WOW and never thought of going back, not even for the upcoming expansion, because it didn't work for me anymore.  I’d just outgrown leveling quickly, not that I mind leveling being fast if there is a robust end-game, I just don’t HAVE to have that to like a game anymore.  I’d moved beyond my ability to look past the obvious time-sinks and treadmills WOW keeps you on at max level.  I couldn’t do the PVP gear resets each season or the PVE gear resets with the expansions or re-doing the vast majority of the content again and again, if you wanted to play a new class.  I know that this will exist in all other MMOs.  I just outgrew how WOW handled them and was ready for something different, however small those differences might really be in the end.

Reaching that milestone let me re-subscribe to EQ2 for like the fourth time and know that this time I’ll stay subscribed for a long time.  EQ2 won’t be my only MMO.  It doesn’t possess the pace and energy level to even be my main MMO.  However, I’ve graduated in my tastes that I can appreciate the difference and enjoy the aspects of EQ2 that favor my preferences.  In short, I’ve out grown my taste for tooth-rotting Sugar Daddies and replaced it with sugar-free Werthers Originals, which by the way, don’t taste at all sugar-free.  :-)

Does that mean if another really great tasting piece of chocolate comes along I’d decline?  Hell no, I’d be all over. It’s just that my tastes have broadened enough to enjoy other things too, like EQ2 and hopefully, Warhammer Online.  I don’t have any easy answers for people who feel like they are tired of WOW but find themselves unsatisfied with other games and keep going back.  I think when that happens it’s because you’re not really tired of WOW.  You want more WOW content and unfortunately, Blizzard is a bit slow on pushing that out there.  If you were really tired of WOW, you’d be gone without looking back or lamenting where you are and what you’re playing now.

If that’s the case try different mini games for yourself in WOW or whatever game has you by the nuts.  Twinking is an option. PVP only is another.  Multi-box if you’re up for paying for two accounts for a bit.  You can do it with two trial accounts.  Seeing how much money you can amass.  Or just go out in style – see how much money you can make purely playing the auction house like an Azeroth stockbroker. If you go bust, so what, you’re over it anyway – or so you say. :-)

Comments

[RomaGoth]

Thank you so much for your detailed response. As usual, you are extremely versed and very articulate.

I guess it is really for me to decide what I want out of a game, and/or if I want to play that game anymore at all.

I wanted to give a "good luck" to your child whom is joining the military. I served four years, and can appreciate the sacrifice our people in the military make every day.

[Saylah]

Thank you! You might consider taking a break for a couple of weeks from playing anything at all, then see how you feel. :-)

[Mashidin]

I'm personally slowly finding out what I've been missing in the games I've played and left in the past. This path is being shown to me by a little community called Casualties of WAR. I know its cheesey and cliche, but it really is the folks you play with that make the game. For quite some time I thought that it was game play that kept be bouncing from MMO to MMO, but this new forum-game experience has shown me a different view of my previous behavoirs.

Any game that I have spent long stretches in have involved me being semi active in a positive community. The corp i was formerly a part of in EVE was vocal, hilarious, unfocused, and bumbling noobs (like me) but a good time was had by all. I was in 2 great supergroups in CoV; one was a social thing that I made tons of friends in and one was an serious PvP ganking group. Both had their merits and draws for me and both kept me interested in the game for a couple of years.

I thought I had gotten bored of those games and so I left. But looking back, I see that my leaving occured shortly after the ties were broken with these groups. I no longer had a connection to the game except through game-provided goals. This leads me to the weird conclusion that I am, indeed, a social creature and not the focused herit I proudly thought I was.

Anyway, this discovery may have seemed like an accident but I honestly believe it came from following this great MMO blogging community and realizing that there are folks that think about the same things I do and view these games as not just entertainment, but as a pixelated eyeglass to view ones self.

I guess what I'm saying in my round-about, convoluted way is that I think I may have found a reason to, at the very least, slow my game-hopping for awhile. It doesn't seem to have much to do with the game, though WAR does seem like a fun game. And that I also like Sugar-Free Werthers Originals (metaphor and all).

-Mashidin

[Scott]

Likewise, I'm in Casualties of WAR and looking forward to finally gaming with most of the bloggers I read. Should be a good time, maybe even convince me that PvP is a viable focus for an RPG. Stranger things have happened...

I have to consider the "frantic pace" of leveling in WoW Saylah described. Blizzard has stated a number of times they consider raiding to be the core game of WoW. Is it any wonder they want to push you to level cap faster so you can raid? If you're not a raider, sorry, you'll just have to accept the "lesser" of other activities because you've chosen to not play the "core" game.

While I've just recently began looking forward to WAR, I'm also extremely glad that the CoW guild is casual, because I'm absolutely not leaving LOTRO. My small kinship is so fun and we get along so well, there's no way I'd leave. The lifetime membership allows me the freedom to take a sanity/burnout prevention break whenever I want to and I love the group content, the story-like adventures and the synergistic group dynamics of its somewhat hybridized classes. (Side note: I'm rather ticked that WAR isn't offering a lifetime deal!)

If you're debating which MMO to choose next, Roma, I'd sit down and have a discussion with yourself and find out what you're looking for. WoW had a lot of very well-done elements, but the bottom line is most people enjoyed the leveling and adventuring aspect but Blizzard built a raiding game. They also refuse to keep previous content interesting and relevant. LOTRO and Vanguard are both PvE-centric and are about the journey, the adventures, and providing a good balance of solo and group content well after level cap. Each *has* raids, but they're not *about* the raids. VG still has too many issues for me to devote to it as my primary game, but it does have a lot of hidden gems. Warhammer just might finally figure out how to intertwine PvE and PvP in a meaningful way so everyone can have fun and contribute to the cause in the way they prefer playing. Options are out there, but you need to decide what you want then inform yourself as to each game's focus, because elves and orcs aside, they're not all the same.

[Wolfshead]

Very nice article and comments! I too have been playing WoW since the beta back in 2004 and share many of the same sentiments. WoW has become too routine and too predictable to hold my interest any longer. The thrill of constant rewards, fast leveling and easy soloing to the level cap is long gone. It seems Blizzard is hard at work at devaluing the notion of status in their MMO with their philosophy of disposable content. I find that troubling.

The greatest weakness of WoW is the lack of community and the poor caliber of the people that play. I feel that both of those things are the two most important elements that in previous MMO's like EverQuest kept people coming back month after month. For the most part they are missing in WoW. The chickens of mass popularity are coming home to roost.

As for new content, it's not different enough to keep me subscribing. I've been playing the Lich King beta for a while and it's essentially more of the same. The same old quests, the same old mechanics. The repetitive nature of WoW is mind numbing. It's like watching reruns of Gilligan's Island -- you know they'll never make it off the island.

A month or so ago I posted my own farewell to WoW which is somewhat related to this article. I'm glad I'm not the only one who is saying farewell to an old friend.

http://www.wolfsheadonline.com/?p=128

[saylah]

@Mash - Welcome aboard CoW! I really think it's going to be a blast if half the people that have signed up play on a steady basis. While I agree that good people can make a good game better and bad people can make it feel worse, a great game was great out of the gate. I was in a wonderful casual guild before WOW that went into WOW together. Arguments over raid progression started a divide when BWL entered the picture. While I enjoyed that guild very much I still leveled solo so if that sucked I wouldn't have played WOW nearly as long regardless of the guild.

[saylah]

@ Scott - Sound advice. There are certainly lots of other MMOs to try. I'd even suggest trying some of the free ones as a diversion or as many of the trials that attract your attention. Personally, I'm not convinced that Roma is actually over WOW. :-) I think he's over where is end-game is but not over playing WOW and there's nothing wrong with that if it's the case. Just find a fun distraction until there's more.

[saylah]

@Wolfs - Since the initial beta I would NEVER EVER play a WOW beta if I intended to play that expansion. Doing so removes one of the opportunities to repeat the content before it feels long in the tooth. Much of it is already repetitive. There is no way in hell I'd touch the content before live.

The reasons you left WOW remind me of why I left my guild:
http://notadiary.typepad.com/mysticworlds/2006/05/the_meltdown_of.html

[Scott]

I'll agree whole-heartedly with Saylah on not touching a WoW beta. TBC closed beta pretty much was the final straw for me. Granted, I was playing every evening, I had 3 raiding characters, farming gold afterwards to pay for repairs and consumables for the next raid, then TBC beta during the day. All I saw in TBC was more of the same, and more faction to grind. It brought nothing new to the table other than altering the group mechanics a bit with smaller group raids. I did my beta duties as best I could, submitting feedback and bug reports daily. On launch day I logged in one last time, said goodbye to my guild and my raid group, sold everything on every character, gave the gold to my guild leader (a real-life friend) and deleted every character on every server, then canceled my account.

WotLK is just 10 more levels of the exact same content, and another attempt at world PvP. WoW is too big for them to change, and again: they feel their core game is raiding, they don't *want* to change that. It's not that WoW needs to change, it's that many players have outgrown WoW, need to accept it and move on. Credit goes to Moorgard for that one. :)

[Scott]

*sigh* I just got caught in TP's spam filter again Saylah...

/smack TypePad

[Wolfshead]

Thanks for the comments on my blog Saylah! I've just discovered Mystic Worlds and I'm really enjoying the perspective here. That article about your guild back in 2006 really hit home for me -- thanks for linking it.

Scott, I agree Moorgard's article was astute way to look at MMO's. My only concern was a lack of MMO's that a person who has graduated from an entry MMO like WoW can graduate to (which I covered in an article I did responding to Moorgard). Here's hoping that 38 Studios can create that MMO :)

Good points about the downside of participating in a beta. A kind reader gave me a beta slot so I could evaluate the new Deathknight hero class which I find problematic and fascinating all at once. The only other good thing about beta from a game designer's perspective is that I enjoy trying my hand at trying to influence the various devs on the beta forums. It's a rare opportunity to have their ear and to effect some change.

[Saylah]

@Wolfs - Thanks Wolfs, I will also be following your blog. It was an excellent read. From a game designer's perspective, I can definitely understand wanting to be in a BETA. As a player, I used to want to be in them as well for a sneak peak at the classes and perhaps provide some valuable feedback. The risk I'm finding however as a player, is that if the content was only enjoyable enough to do once, I've now given up that experience and excitement on a throw-away character. So these days, I'm more inclined to just wait for release. I'd make an exception for WAR because I'm very undecided about faction and class.

[Khan]

Another really great article, Saylah.

It's really sad about WoW's expansion philosophy: they ended up killing some of their most interesting content to cater their game more to raiding. I'm not opposed to raiding at all, but watching places like Scholo, Strath and Dire Maul bite the dust was sad. The really tragic thing, IMHO, is that newer players may have never set foot in those instances. Once they hit 58, it's off to Outland. Hours worth of fun stuff to do for 5-man groups went by the wayside. WoW was a great game for almost three years but I've moved on. (I'm having fun in LotRO now.)

I agree with your statement too: there isn't another WoW. All the current games (LotRO, WAR, AoC, Guild Wars, whatever) need to be met on their own terms, not WoW's terms.

[RomaGoth]

Thank you all for the positive comments and feedback, this is one of the reasons I love this blog so much.

So, am I over WoW yet? Not entirely. I still log on and mess around with making money by gathering stuff and doing dailies. As a matter of fact, I reached exalted with SSO with my hunter (now it is the warlock's turn). I have set goals for myself, such as making gold, getting my last piece of the FSW set for my 'lock, etc. But am I having fun? Yes and no. I have a good group that I run instances with, I am the guild leader of these people and we know each other in real life so it makes it more fun than a bunch of randomness. But, fun? Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. When I accomplish these objectives, then what? I will buy the WoTLK and play a death knight. But I already know I will not level any of my toons to 80. The grind yet again with more factions just does not appeal to me. So, I am enjoying what I have left in the tank for this game. I have been playing LOTRO as well and have a level 10 lore master, level 7 burglar, and level 7 captain so far. I must say that I love the real life graphics. The beginning sequences are much as I remember them from BETA, and I have always loved the lore from LOTR. I also do not feel the "gear up" pressure in this game like I do in WoW.

Once again, thanks to all of you for the great advice. This is what I would label as a slow move from WoW into LOTRO. I am usually a quick decision maker, but with this I guess I need some time to say goodbye first.

[RomaGoth]

Arrrghhh....got caught in the spam filter again.

/sigh

[Blacknimbus]

I sound like a broken record here, but I'd say give City of Heroes a try. Character creation is fantastic and it's easy to get a group. And while there are healing and tanking classes, you can run missions with all DPS if you like...it's just a little more challenging.

Oh, and debuffing and CC is more important that straight up healing in a group. That's a huge change.

They have a 14-day free trial... ;)

[Blacknimbus]

I should add that I haven't logged into WoW in about a month...most of my gaming time has been spent in CoH.

It's not something that can completely replace WoW...it's a lot smaller and not nearly as deep. But it's totally front loaded when it comes to spells and abilities. You don't have to run around with a pointed stick in your jammies for 10 levels before you get some cool attacks or defenses.

[Saylah]

Sorry for the spam filter. I get caught in there too! I will release you all post haste.

@Kahn - It is a bit sad that some of the really great content in WOW won't be seen by players who joined post TBC and that post WoTLK that content will be completely forgotten along with a chunk of TBC too. That's a rather odd formula they have going given their slowness for releasing content.

@Black - not a broken record at all; memory can be rather short these days and you don't know who saw the previous comment. For instance I wanted to mess around with something this past weekend but wasn't in the mood for EQ2 but didnt remember COH. DOH!

[Scott]

One thing I'm really impressed with Turbine is that they continually repurpose older content. So many levels-based games (WoW is a great example) never take you back "home" again. There's no reason to go back to where you started, despite that in so many stories, the point of being the hero is not so much that you save the world of strangers, but you return home and be celebrated as a hero, get the girl, whatever.

All the festivals in LOTRO take place in the starter zones. Many of the high-end crafting stations are in the starter zones. The Epic Book quests occasionally take us back to the starter zones for high-end content. End-game dungeons were added to two of the starter zones. So there's constantly various levels of characters running around any given area.

DDO has been reworking some of their content lately, and is getting ready to launch a complete revamp of character creation and an entirely new tutorial experience as well as a total revamp of some of the first quests in the game.

Compare to Blizzard just dropping all older content, and I'll take Turbine's attitude any day. Add to that Turbine's policy for regular free content updates, and I'm in.

[Genie]

Go ahead and try it. The video explains how, and WHY it works.

And it does work. Some of the keys were mixed up in the response, but atleast 1 worked every time :D