World of Warcraft: Current Year

I personally think WoW was better when you were just a grunt. On the Alliance human side for example you were just a regular person fighting for your king to protect the lands. It deviated so far from that now it's stupid. Same with the orcs on Horde side. I believe it was WoD where all of a sudden Thrall is fighting next to you and you're in all kinds of scenes where he's basically treating you as an equal. It's dumb.

As for people saying Forever will lose a lot of people because of content. The whole point of Forever is to be slow and casual. It's a good thing if the morons who are sweaty leave the server. Hardly a downside.

TJT said:

People will be sweaty here too. Make no mistake.

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This is true, as all MMOs have their sweats. But not having gear resets every 6 - 9 months means the Weekend Dad Warriors won't see whatever progression they have made in that time get completely wiped out. And will be far more likely to stick around.

Kaines said:

This is true, as all MMOs have their sweats. But not having gear resets every 6 - 9 months means the Weekend Dad Warriors won't see whatever progression they have made in that time get completely wiped out. And will be far more likely to stick around.

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And they've hinted (shown some) at gear being less about +stats and more about unique effects and set bonuses. Meaning, ideally, that older gear is still relevant in new content.

Kaines said:

This is true, as all MMOs have their sweats. But not having gear resets every 6 - 9 months means the Weekend Dad Warriors won't see whatever progression they have made in that time get completely wiped out. And will be far more likely to stick around.

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The way that I played WoW after Wrath was basically:

1. Buy new expansion
2. Play new expansion to level cap with the free month
3. Ask myself: am I having a really good time?
4. If Yes (MoP, Legion), subscribe for another month, then go back to 3 and ask again. Repeat as needed
5. If No, (Cata, WoD), unsubscribe and wait for next expansion
6. If BFA, get into the Friends and Family Alpha and unsubscribe when it goes live because it's so fucking bad
7. If Shadowlands, uninstall the game entirely and quit retail WoW for good

For a game with a subscription model, Blizzard has gotten very little subscription money from me over the last 18 years. Everything always resets, all progress is gone, so there's no point to putting forth any effort unless I'm really, really having a good time with the current content. Which, in retail WoW, has been few and far between for most of the last two decades.

WoW: Forever might change that. There's something very relaxing and cozy about goofing off in Classic WoW after work. I've had a blast during the beta so far, just running around and checking things out. If Blizzard can work out the horizontal progression model, this may be a game I keep a running subscription just so I can pop back in whenever I want to unwind. Like a Netflix subscription, almost - I don't watch much tv at all, but if I want to re-watch Breaking Bad, I can do it whenever I want.