I am just a casual player, but I can honestly say that I have been tempted to quit playing since Cata, as well. I have been a die-hard WoW player since 2006, and I do have a reason for not liking Cata. I think Blizzard made it too easy and less strategic. I liked it when I could build custom talent trees and when it took a whole lot longer to level so I could actually enjoy the game. I'm not entirely sure what could save WoW at this point, but I know that I can't be the only person who feels like the game just isn't enjoyable anymore; there is too much emphasis on item level (ilvl) and level capping. It seems as though I have to hit the cap as soon as I can so I can build ilvl to run raids because you can't get all of your tier gear without the raids. I'm not a raider and I HATE dailies. Leveling just goes way too fast now and I don't like to play the game anymore.
The truth is, Blizzard knew that anything after WotLK would just be a stalling tactic before Titan (whatever that ends up being). They moved all the best people over to the new project after BC, and the rest over after LK. Plus, who knows what sort of effect their acquisition has had on content direction...
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Someone said that The Burning Crusade's armor was mis-matched clown suits, yet on the PTR I see more people transmogrified into tier 6 than anything else.Also I can't think of the death of WoW as anything other than the death of MMO's period, because this one is undeniably the best.
I can tell you why I think Cataclysm failed. There are several facets to this tragic mistake on blizzard's part. First, The 25/10 man thing. A 10 man raid consists normally of 1-2 tanks, and 1-3 healers. This makes up anywhere from 20% to 50% of a raid. Now in a 25 man there are generally 2-3 tanks, and 2-5 healers. This makes up roughly 16% to 32% of a raid. Lets break up the roles now. There are 4 pure dps classes in the game, Hunters, Rogues, Mages, and Warlocks. These classes CANNOT do anything in a raid really but DPS. There are NO heal only or tank only classes. Paladins, Druids, DK's, and Warriors are our tank classes and all of them can double as DPS or heals. Our heal classes include Shamen, Druids, Priests, and Paladins. This Breaks down as follows:Role 1 Tank: DK, Druid, Pally, WarriorRole 2 Heals: Druid, Pally, Priest, ShamanRole 3 rDPS(ranged): Druid, Hunter, Mage, Priest, Shaman, WarlockRole 4 mDPS(melee): DK, Druid, Paladin, Rogue, Shaman, WarriorThis means that there are 20 possible roles to be used. Druids get 4, Pallys and Shamen 3 each (half our total spots with only 3 classes) DK's Warriors, and Priests get 2 slots each, leaving 4 slots for the last 4 pure dps classes. This breaks down to druids have a 20% chance of filling any given spot. Pallys and Shamen have 15% chance each of getting a given slot. DK's, Warriors, and Priests each get a 10% chance of filling a given spot. Finally, Pure DPS classes have about a 5% each chance of getting a spot in the raid. That comes to a total of 20% of the possible roles for 40% of the classes. Back to our original statement showing the raid makeup percentages. A greater percentage of slots is filled up in a raid by tanks and healers in a 10 man than in a 25 man. Blizzard taking away the benefits of having a 25 man raid has effectively killed the chances of a pure dps class getting into a raid compared to a dual specced tank/dps or heals dps. Often a raid will have 8-9/10 slots filled and looking for a tank/dps or heal/dps. This has caused many of the classes to have more difficulty in playing causing ppl to A) quit. B) change classes or C) play less. Additionally, some of the pure DPS classes do significantly less damage than the more utility classes. Who wants a lock when you can have a DK that smashes the damage meters or a Druid that can dps like a rogue, but heal on a different fight later in the dungeon. Many players who had a role in BC and WotLK now have no place to go and have had to turn to pugging or grinding achievements solo due to lack of a need for them anymore. commented on the uniqueness of classes as having gone down as well. I agree. For example, Having played a Warlock for years I often got into a raid ONLY because of the unique ability that locks have to drop a summoning stone. Now anyone can summon their raid if they have achieved the guild perk associated with summoning. Another issue that has been noted is lack of freshness. Part of this is that they (Blizzard) only released half an expansion with Cataclysm. I was TOTALLY done with ALL quests in the new areas on my first character when the expac came out in a week. I have yet to finish all of the Wrath of the LIch King content on ANY character. There just wasn't enough new content to keep many people entertained for longer than about a month. Our guild was running 3 10 mans and 1 25 man raid each week during WotLK. Had the content and raiding kept ppl entertained, we probably would still be doing this every week. However now we only run 1 10 man each week. We ended up with about 12dps slots that had nothing to do anymore since our heal/tank teams were all raiding weekly and the others were lucky to find a slot in a pug. Even PVP was lacking in freshness, as the new BG's that were implemented were a copy essentially of Warsong Gulch (Twin Peaks) and a simplified version of Arathi Basin (Battle for Gilneas). These retread battle grounds are still as fun as the original versions of them but there is no spark of imagination involved in them like there was with Strand of the Ancients and Isle of Conquest. Another issue that has been involved in the downfall of WoW is the increased difficulty to travel from area to area. Both BC and WotLK had a central hub that allowed individuals to interact in a central area located near the questing zones pertinent to the level of the characters. Additionally City to City travel was facilitated by the portals in the towns. Suddenly the fastest way to Stormwind from the Exodarr is a 10 minute flight/run/boat ride, while the fastest way to Thunder bluff is a painful Zeppelin ride or equally painful pathed flight. This is a giant step back in making the game fun , though it increases the amount of time I play. Thankfully the ports to main capitals is back in Dalaran finally but for me and many others the game is less fun when I have to spend more time traveling than i do at the location I was trying to get to.Another often cited reason for people quitting is the monthly cost. There has been no significant drops in the price of each months subscription and for the amount that I am paying I can get 2 months of netflix (Infinite entertainment if you don't care about movie quality) or for 2 months of game time I can get a different game. Another major issue is the Hardcore vs Casual gameplay disparity. This difference has been acknowledged by blizzard and has been attempted to be fixed multiple times so i will only briefly talk about it. Many people who play casually want to be able to access the perks and content that Hardcore players have access to. The Hardcore players then qq about not having their time gain them anything unique. In my opinion Cataclysm has actually done a good job of making this less of an issue but there are many who disagree and cite it as the reason they quit. Finally (and this will be my deciding factor in my continuing to play or not) is the issue of attrition in general. In any game if you play long enough, all of the people you know will quit. I have been playing Diablo 2 for over 10 years. When I started I had a tight knit group of people that I played with for years. Eventually these people all found other games or lost interest in gaming in general. In a MMO having other people to play with is imperative. If you don't have others to play with it ceases to be fun and you spend hours running around the ghostlands on your lvl 85 not actually doing anything or you fly in circles in the skies of Stormwind trying to decide what to do next or waiting in que for a dungeon and miss your chance to accept. I even gave out game cards for christmas 2 years running trying to keep some of my friends online so that I could at least do non PUG dungeons though raiding is pretty much a thing of the past now with the folks I know. Simply put, I still put in the time it would take to have a Godly character but I no longer have the resources for accessing the multiplayer aspect of WoW. Several of the guilds that I was involved with raiding in during WotLK no longer exist in any form due to this issue and I think that more than any one part of the game, the loss of players is contributing to the downward spiral of the game. The more ppl quit the less those that remain will be able to enjoy the game.Seriously.
I tried to read it....really, I did. Grats on having the biggest wall'o'text necro first post ever though, even though I, nor anyone else will probably ever read the whole thing.