For the third time, I decided to give up World of Warcraft. Originally, I wasn’t too keen on the expansion given partly that I never received a beta key (despite the supposed thousands that were handed out) and just a few of the changes that I saw (namely the Silver Proving Grounds, more gated content, lack of flying, etc.). The raw truth though is that I need to get a job before I can go on playing this type of game. I already have done poorly on a few interviews, which has pushed me to take up more coding so I can exercise my mental muscles. However, that requires a great of time and the way Warlords of Draenor is structured, I feel that the amount I’m spending isn’t worth the effort at this time.
One huge change for myself was that my primary server (Saurfang) was physically moved to Australia. Yes, this is understandable considering that the server is targeted towards the Oceanic region. However, that has brought on a great deal of problems for myself, namely terrible lag. Already, I had been dealing with the inability to group up with people because of the timezone issues but I managed to deal with that through another friend’s guild in the US. But I just can’t afford to move all my toons over to another server at this point and I feel somewhat left out in all of this.
The technical problems have been a point of huge contention for me because I often have difficulty logging in at night and I foresee that if/when I get a new job, that time frame will become my only available option outside of weekends. Right now, I haven’t seen much done in terms of the connectivity issues and if you add the lag from my server being Oceanic, I don’t really see myself getting satisfactory game time in.
Another problem is that I simply don’t want to do the usual end game gear grind. Without a proper guild, it really sucks. I mean, queuing by yourself and waiting around for an hour are not my ideas of a productive means of time. Add to the fact that if you do less than optimal damage and are put together with some psychopaths, you will end up just rage quitting regardless. With the increased amount of mechanics/difficulty, I feel that the game has reverted to some degree back to the awful Cataclysm state.
Also, I just feel that the whole gear grind thing is pointless and unsatisfying. The game model has not changed since it’s inception although the way the rules work have altered slightly. But the core idea of doing this endless gear grind thing just to waste time and spend $15/month infuriate me. Once I get a new job, I don’t foresee myself having the time to dedicate to a scheduled gear grind. No game is worth that if you want a decent job.
The problem with gear grinding is that everything goes out of date. So no matter how much effort/time you spend, it’s all futile because the game will eventually invalidate it. I suppose that high end guilds don’t care because it’s all about competition and being the best. But if you’re in a high end guild, you probably can afford to sacrifice the time to make the situation worth it. I don’t really care about being part of a high end guild and don’t want to dedicate my free time just to feel out of date all the time.
The Molten Core thing probably ticked me off more than anything in seeing a 1 hour queue for a 3 hour raid. I feel that this situation wasn’t celebrating WoW’s 10 year anniversary but a sick inside joke just to amuse the developers in watching how many suckers still flock to this situation. The Mount at the end and general lack of loot to me aren’t worth 4 hours of my life with no guarantees and flaky servers.
Honestly, the only thing I was doing at the end of the day was just my little Garrison missions and the occasional group quest for crystals. Also, I tried leveling another toon or two but found myself bored/frustrated since everything grew repetitive immediately. I mean, if the Garrison is the only thing I found mildly interesting, why not just save money and do something productive that can earn me more money?
But let’s face facts. The only patch that matters is the last raid patch. Because at that point, Blizzard will eventually create a catch up mechanism like the Timeless Isle or new 5 man Heroics so returning players can do the usual end game raids. If that’s the case, why bother grinding out gear that will get outdated when you can wait until near the end to get all the catch up gear?
Also, the game is just riddled with so many issues and bugs. It feels like a pre-Alpha in terms of playability at times. Part of me believes that the only people that enjoy this game are streamers because they’re all battling for views. I truly hope that’s not the target audience. High end streamers have a huge advantage over a casual player like myself because they can easily form groups and bypass all the queues and mechanics with the help of their audience.
At any rate, I promised to give the expansion a try and as I suspected, it really did not live up to the hype. I think most people right now are happy because everything is new. But once the content patches slowly come out, people will go back to whining about the usual crap. The few things that I did like I can get through either a freebie game, making my own or just watching a stream for content. Will I re-subscribe? Hard to say. Quite honestly, I feel that the MMORPG genre just is a dead genre and that something new has to come about. People just don’t have the time to grind pointlessly and that the core ideas behind RPGs need to make a comeback.