World of Warcraft: Current Year

Qhue said:

The 'my two dads' energy was palpable...

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It was so beautiful how Ysale and Haucherfaunt came back to help save Estinien, while Nidhogg's soul faded away.

Also Asmongold seems to have quit WoW because only low geared alts were left to raid with him on Alliance.

Qhue said:

The 'my two dads' energy was palpable...

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There is a much deeper symbolism there....the disappearance of the Arthas spark is a metaphor for the final death of the game we remember.....Arthas...WoTLK....the glory years....are to be forgotten and fade away.

Serwol said:

There is a much deeper symbolism there....the disappearance of the Arthas spark is a metaphor for the final death of the game we remember.....Arthas...WoTLK....the glory years....are to be forgotten and fade away.

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Also the future of WoW which is Sylvanas taking all the speaking time.

Edit: Wow this thread is dead considering a new patch just came out!

Imagine playing WoW in late February/early March 2022, when you could be playing Elden Ring instead.

I'm dead serious - how could you justify playing WoW right now? Want to explore a vast, intricately crafted seamless game world, filled with complex and challenging boss encounters, tons of secrets to discover, a clear path of progression with dozens of different builds and playstyles to try? Elden Ring does all of those things a thousand times better than modern WoW, and doesn't require a subscription or putting up with dozens of other Blizzard-addled retards to do it.

Unless someone has a burning desire to watch the worst story on the planet unfold as we learn the shadowy fate of the Shadowlands and how the mean elf lady was secretly a good elf lady all along (but maybe she wasn't or was mind-controlled by a weird nipple-villain guy?), I can't imagine why anyone would choose to spend their gaming time on WoW right now. Hell, given their glacial patch cycles, this latest patch will probably still be the current WoW content a year from now.

I don't play neither WoW nor Elden Ring. That being said, not everyone is into the soul-like game, plus its a single-player game, very different imo.

that sounds like nipplevillian guy talk to me!

Fools, releasing Arthas's soul was step 18,374 in the Jailer's incredibly circuitous plot! You've doomed yourselves!

TheAylix said:

Imagine playing WoW in late February/early March 2022, when you could be playing Elden Ring instead.

I'm dead serious - how could you justify playing WoW right now? Want to explore a vast, intricately crafted seamless game world, filled with complex and challenging boss encounters, tons of secrets to discover, a clear path of progression with dozens of different builds and playstyles to try? Elden Ring does all of those things a thousand times better than modern WoW, and doesn't require a subscription or putting up with dozens of other Blizzard-addled retards to do it.

Unless someone has a burning desire to watch the worst story on the planet unfold as we learn the shadowy fate of the Shadowlands and how the mean elf lady was secretly a good elf lady all along (but maybe she wasn't or was mind-controlled by a weird nipple-villain guy?), I can't imagine why anyone would choose to spend their gaming time on WoW right now. Hell, given their glacial patch cycles, this latest patch will probably still be the current WoW content a year from now.

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dude both games have nothing in common, WoW is like a team RTS and Elden ring a single player ARPG. I don't get the constant hate about current day WoW. Yes, it is no longer a classic MMORPG, but it still provides a very challenging and unique gameplay experience. I'm not going to find the arena experience in elden ring, nor the raiding experience.

Razzes said:

dude both games have nothing in common, WoW is like a team RTS and Elden ring a single player ARPG. I don't get the constant hate about current day WoW. Yes, it is no longer a classic MMORPG, but it still provides a very challenging and unique gameplay experience. I'm not going to find the arena experience in elden ring, nor the raiding experience.

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Nothing in common? Go back and re-read my post a little more carefully, please.

To remind you: I included a nice, long sentence where I explicitly pointed a number of things that players regularly praised and enjoyed over the years about World of Warcraft that are also present in Elden Ring. Things like the huge, seamless game world, the sense of discovery and exploration, the challenging multi-phase boss encounters, the wide variety of builds and playstyles that shape your gameplay.

Here's a hot take: for most players, WoW is effectively as much a single-player game as Elden Ring is. You level up alone, you traverse the open world alone, you grind out your dailies alone, etc. Unless they have access to a dedicated, active, and reliable raid guild, the ordinary WoW player has been stuck solo-queuing for PVP, Dungeons, and Raids for over a dozen years now.

When I last played WoW during the release of Shadowlands, the game was virtually silent; even trade chat was dead on my old server - relegated to a bunch of bots and spammers selling boosts. The groups I managed to make, no one ever spoke nor did they respond to anything written in party chat. They might as well have been AI bots. The few players I saw in the world had no more of an impact on my gameplay than the phantoms I see running around in Elden Ring.

This is where the "constant hate about current day WoW" comes from - none of this had to happen. It was the result of deliberate design decisions by Blizzard. They incentivized the playerbase as a whole away from the Massively Multiplayer community aspect of MMOs, and the uniqueness of the game experience suffered for it.

Your critic is outdated. It should be clear for anyone that playing WoW for single player content and "leveling experience" is a complete waste of time, this has been true for a long time. You play nowadays to do M+/raiding or pvp with a community of players.

I have no idea if "none of this had to happen". I don't know what would be the future of WoW if they had chosen another path. But they have committed long ago.

Razzes said:

Your critic is outdated. It should be clear for anyone that playing WoW for single player content and "leveling experience" is a complete waste of time, this has been true for a long time. You play nowadays to do M+/raiding or pvp with a community of players.

I have no idea if "none of this had to happen". I don't know what would be the future of WoW if they had chosen another path. But they have committed long ago.

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I'll admit i haven't looked at the latest numbers in well over a couple years now, but I assume it still mostly holds true. The number of people who engage in high level raiding is vanishingly small. The tremendous bulk played only as far as leveling and maybe lfr.

You didn't specify what level of M+/PVP you mean, so there is weasel room there, but at the low general populace level- those are easily puggable- akin to a moderately challenging single player game with some optional content that involves other people.

Unless the general population has shrunk soo much that only the die hards are left, your position is self defeating.

die hards? You're wrong, normal and heroic raiding can be done by very casual guild. Typically, they will take the whole season to maybe get "ahead of the curve" (heroic clear), raiding 1 day/week using the inflation of gear/power overtime. They will also engage in M+ around 10-15. If you're not doing any of that, you should have quitted WoW ages ago.

I play both elden ring and WoW, and they have barely anything in common gameplay wise. I don't get how that comparison has any relevance.

Razzes said:

dude both games have nothing in common, WoW is like a team RTS and Elden ring a single player ARPG. I don't get the constant hate about current day WoW. Yes, it is no longer a classic MMORPG, but it still provides a very challenging and unique gameplay experience. I'm not going to find the arena experience in elden ring, nor the raiding experience.

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So does Age of Conan. And nobody is playing that. Where's that leave WoW.

People are voting Lost Ark more and more, like it or not. The WoW raid meta is arguably in decline.

Never said lost ark wasn't competing with WoW. That would be a comparison that make sense (WoW vs lost ark)

Razzes said:

die hards? You're wrong, normal and heroic raiding can be done by very casual guild. Typically, they will take the whole season to maybe get "ahead of the curve" (heroic clear), raiding 1 day/week using the inflation of gear/power overtime. They will also engage in M+ around 10-15. If you're not doing any of that, you should have quitted WoW ages ago.

I play both elden ring and WoW, and they have barely anything in common gameplay wise. I don't get how that comparison has any relevance.

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Define casual. How long are they spending raiding each week and how much prep time grinding systems?

The mid tier raids in FF14 (Extreme Trials) are harder than anything I did in WoW (Hardcore Raider in Vanilla and Burning Crusade). Practice, first clear and farm groups are easily accessible whenever you want to play. There's zero trash and death teleports you back in front of the boss. That's as casual as you can get.

Just because you are not P2W poopsockers doesn't mean that you don't raid hardcore.