WoW [General Discussion]

[Eddie Teach]

Well the gameplay is not exactly ground breaking anymore either.

Honestly, I mostly play simpler games these days. I also got bored with WoW, but it's not because it was replaced with something more awesome. 

[Caliga]

Well the gameplay is not exactly ground breaking anymore either.

This, and yes the graphics are dated too.

[Berkut]

The gameplay was never groundbreaking.

[Valmy]

The gameplay was never groundbreaking.

I thought the use of instances was pretty groundbreaking. Or at least I never saw it before in DAOC of EQ. That made a huge difference in how the game was played. There were other things as well but it has been so long I cannot remember them.

[Eddie Teach]

Indeed, not nearly enough trains in WoW. 

[Jaron]

If you want a MMO with groundbreaking gameplay, you need FFXIV.

[Valmy]

Indeed, not nearly enough trains in WoW. 

Man. Those were the days. I loved trains so much I once asked the devs to introduce a spell that did 1 point of damage to every monster in the zone.

[Valmy]

If you want a MMO with groundbreaking gameplay, you need FFXIV.

Yeah I have heard good things about it.

[Martinus]

Well the gameplay is not exactly ground breaking anymore either.

This, and yes the graphics are dated too.

I think it holds up pretty well. Cataclysm refreshed some of the vanilla graphics and both MoP and WoD have very good graphics, imo. It's not Witcher 3, of course but with MMOs performance is very important and I can't think of many MMOs which have much better graphics (not just screenshots but actually animations with actual normal performance settings).

[Martinus]

The gameplay was never groundbreaking.

I thought the use of instances was pretty groundbreaking. Or at least I never saw it before in DAOC of EQ. That made a huge difference in how the game was played. There were other things as well but it has been so long I cannot remember them.

It has been groundbreaking in almost every way that is now considered a standard. And after 15 years since its release it is still the only MMORPG that has made it to the popular culture. It is not a small feat.

[Jaron]

I don't know what you could consider ground breaking but I'll say this: Wow has consistently set the standard for MMOs since 2005. If nothing else, they're the compass by which all other MMOs set their path.

Except FFXIV. But to be fair, they did have a horrible release and decided to start over.

[Martinus]

I think WoW's "problem" is that people do not realise what MMOs were like before WoW - I mean, first of all, WoW was the first MMO for a lot of people, so it is hard to compare. But stuff like hearthstones, flight paths, instances, leveling mainly through quests etc. were all introduced or perfected by WoW.

For example, people don't remember that before WoW you levelled mainly by grinding mobs, and quests (if they happened at all) were more like an occassional reward for reaching a certain level.

[Eddie Teach]

No question, WoW was a lot more convenient than the MMOs I played before it. Though I think they did maybe go a bit too far in that direction. Once you could hop on and get a free instance group whenever you wanted, running instances stopped being a big deal. Same with raid instances. As much as it sucked to have groups that kept losing people and took several hours to complete Shadow Lab or Wailing Caverns, those runs were at least memorable. Yet another 10 minute breeze through a dungeon because the rest of the group is raid geared and only doing their daily did not make for memorable or even particularly enjoyable experiences.

[Martinus]

No question, WoW was a lot more convenient than the MMOs I played before it. Though I think they did maybe go a bit too far in that direction. Once you could hop on and get a free instance group whenever you wanted, running instances stopped being a big deal. Same with raid instances. As much as it sucked to have groups that kept losing people and took several hours to complete Shadow Lab or Wailing Caverns, those runs were at least memorable. Yet another 10 minute breeze through a dungeon because the rest of the group is raid geared and only doing their daily did not make for memorable or even particularly enjoyable experiences.

I think they decided to cater to people with different life style choices - now WoW is mainly for casual players, with jobs and the like - I think they mentioned once that the average player age is around 30 or something. I don't mind it at all, as that's how I play the game now - for example for 40 minutes in the morning before work or half an hour after work - so being able to pop in and do a dungeon run is very helpful.

In fact, for me the biggest disadvantage of GW2 (which is my second favourite MMORPG - and the only post-WoW MMORPG that managed to actually hold me for more than a month) is that instances are so much more pain to arrange and play through.

[Eddie Teach]

More like people having kids- jobs don't prevent you from blocking out a couple hours to play.

For me, it's just not enough there anymore to justify the monthly fee. I have games that I play for 5-10 minutes a day, but they're free.