Wednesday, June 5, 2013

If You Quit What Would You Say?

I had this long post written and I started to trail off my own topic so I deleted it.  One thing led to another and then I noticed that it was not just one thing I was writing about.  It was many things, many little things, I was writing about.  Then it refreshed a memory to me of something a friend that quit in cataclysm said to me a couple of weeks ago when I was complaining to him about some of the things in the game.  Why don't you just quit, you saw this all coming years ago.

In truth I do not know why I do not quit.  I like the people in my guild maybe.  I don't feel like finding a new hobby to pass my free time.  I've actually enjoyed writing about it even when I wasn't enjoying playing it.  There might be as many little reasons why I have not quit as there are reasons I should.

When you quit blizzard asks you why you have decided to quit playing the game.  Presumably to gather some information about what might need to be changed.  I am not exactly sure they read the things, if anything I have learned in my time playing the game it is that you can never trust blizzard to do the things you expect of them.

If you were going to quit and could only pick one thing to say is the reason for quitting, what would that one thing be?

Here is a list of some of my (and others) biggest pet peeves in game, all things that could push people over the edge.

1) Community:  Toxic
- The term toxic community has become the common way of saying rude, disruptive and disrespectful players.  It is a common hot point and even more so recently.  Unless you live under a rock in game it is impossible to escape this part of it.

2) Community:  Lack of.
- Small servers, less reason to group, no pugs, people feeling tied to a guild, many reasons why the world just seems a lot smaller today.  It isn't just about the server size.

3) Content:  Mandatory.
- So much content has a compulsory feeling.  I needed reputation to get original valor gear.  Need to raid to get current valor gear.  Need to do quests to get coins. Need to do reputation to get patterns.  Etc.  So many people have complained about content feeling mandatory and whether you or I agree means nothing.  If it felt that way to them, that is how they feel.  You can not argue feelings.

4) Content:  Can't keep up.
- Some people feel the need to do everything and blizzard flooding us with new content on many levels means the people that feel the need to do them all can get overwhelmed.  This could be considered a good problem actually but for some it is a breaking point.

5) PvP: Balance.
- No matter what blizzard does this is a no win situation.  Even if they balanced everything perfect people will always feel it is not balanced if their class is not OP and they will quit over it.

6) PvP: World PvP.
- Lack of it is a major point for some players.  World PvP has been a sticking point for many for a long time with no real solutions seeming to be added to try and get people out in the world fighting any more.

7) PvP: World PvP balance.
Thanks to gear changes, when out in the world raid geared PvE players have an advantage over lower geared PvP players that the lower geared PvP players do not need to deal with as much in instanced PvP thanks to capping gear in the instance making them feel the area they should have the advantage in while in the world, they don't.

8) Loot: Random Number Generator.
- They said they put in some bad luck protection against bad luck steaks.  Some say it works, some says it doesn't.  Lose enough and it starts to be a reason worth saying I give up.

9) Loot: Drop rates.
- Worse than bad luck with loot is bad luck with quest item drops.  My 2 runestones in 6 weeks is my current number 1 pet peeve.  People in my guild that started after me have 8 already and from my feeling getting that cloak ASAP is mandatory for a raider so shitty drop rates sucks.  If I quit today, this would be the reason I choose after getting none again yesterday.

10) Raiding: LFR.
- From the long waits to the bad groups to the people in them, quite often there is nothing good to be said about the LFR.

11) Raiding: Normals.
- Many normal mode guilds complain it is too hard and blizzard sees it, admits it and does nothing about it.  Nothing can make people feel like quitting more than than someone who basically says, yes I know it is a problem but I am not going to fix it.

12) CRZ: Everything about it.
- The CRZ sucks, no matter which end of the fence you are on with your feelings.  You can not trade people, invite them to guild, do current raids, or many other things you should be able to do.  This means that love it or hate it, CRZ sucks.

13) Leveling: Too fast.
- Some altaholics like myself liked the longer leveling as it gave us something to do when we were taking a break from our max level characters but now you get to max level too fast so you really can not enjoy a serious leveling session like you used to, for those types of people at least.

14) Leveling: Too slow.
- For every person that says it is too fast there are probably two that say it is too slow.  Welcome to the xbox generation where everything is all about instant gratification.  They will never win with this one as you see, some like it one way and some like it another and people will quit over both.

15) Dungeons: 5-mans
- No new five man dungeons really hit many in a sore spot.  Enough of a reason to quit?  For some it sure is.

I am sure there are 100s of reasons people could quit but these are the ones that pop into mind at the moment as I write this.  If you could choose only one reason to say you quit, what would it be?

If I were to quit today it would be over drop rates because of the titan runestones.  But even if I say that is the reason there would be so much more to it than just that.  It would extend to the fact that gear plays such a huge role in the game now and that cloak actually means something. So the drop rates being bad are keeping me from being better.  So even in that one reason there is so much more to it on many levels.

Maybe the reason I would quit should be something I did not even list.  The gear being so important issue.  Yeah, that would be it.  I do not like the design that gear is such a huge factor in ones ability.  I liked it when I could be in gear a tier or two behind and still kick ass and be number one because skill could compensate for some gear.  Now, it does not work that way any more.  No amount of skill can compensate for not having that 600 cloak, and other gear, the game apparently wants to keep from me.

What would be your one reason if you could choose only one?  You can choose something that I did not mention as I know there are many other reasons people would quit.  If there were only one thing that blizzard could hear your thoughts on, what would it be?

32 comments:

  1. I have a fairly thick skin, and I am a PVPer so most of the points do not apply. I also am actually pretty happy with PVP in 5.3, and am not irked quite as much by the fact that high-level PVE gear dominates top PVP gear in the world (well, yeah, that's not pleasant, but I can live with it).

    If I could add my own point, it would be this:

    16) Bad lore.

    Fairly benign, I know. I can play this game without caring one bit about lore like many others, that's a "nice to have" for me, not a matter of life or death. But, well, I feel sorry for what they do to the story these days (last two expansions)...

    If I had to choose from your points, I'd choose:

    12) CRZ: Everything about it.

    Sometimes I like CRZs, but sometimes I really don't (various reasons) and I can't turn them off. If I could turn them off, that would have been settled.

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    1. You are one of the few that can live with it. Reading the forums you would think it was the end of the world for PvPers. As you know I do not PvP much.

      Have to bring my rogue and his lifetime 1 honor kill into some battlegrounds this weekend. He finally got up to that part of the legendary.

      Oddly enough, you choosing CRZ is one of the last thing I would have guessed a PvPer would choose. Most people love the fact they can now gank lowbies from many different servers. I would say that actually proves you are a better person than them.

      Delete
  2. A lot of these things don't touch me much I guess.
    1, 2 - Community - guild fills all my social needs and, for what I interact with the community, I haven't had many bad experiences.
    3,4 - Content - I guess it's luck on my side that made it so that I didn't have to do a lot of the mandatory things
    5,6,7 - PvP - I don't pvp as much as I used to and my pvp realm is basically horde-only though we did have one of those encounter in the Vale - you know the kind, it starts from 1v2 and it reaches guild-size proportions. We lost to the alliance, but I blame it on our healers who refused to come since, get this, they were waiting for us in ToT to start the raid.
    8,9 - I've probably the lowest iLvl in my raid due to RNG and we seem to see the same loot form bosses every week, but I have enough gear to not feel like I'm holding them back
    10,11 - I love raiding and this tier has been a very good one for my class
    12 - CRZ - I just.. don't get out much? :) Mostly raid on my time.
    13,14 - I level... like slow. And I don't mind.
    15 - I like 5man a lot; lack of them is sad but hey, I have my raids.

    I'm not sure if I really have it all that good, or just my type of personality. I actually don't find WoW a compelling enough game in itself as a solo experience and what drives me is the feelings I get when I do stuff with (including just talking to) my raid team. The reason I'd quit wow would probably not be game-related. I tend to get very emotionally-attached to my raid team and as such...

    I actually quit WoW for a while when I had an accident. I had to pick that reason and I kept choosing other other... and in the end I wrote 'I lost a friend'. That's not something Blizz could've changed so I suppose that was pretty useless of me.

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    1. Those types of PvP moments are the ones I live for. I might not be a PvPer but I love when things like that break out. The epic tram fights that went on for hours. I could do them all day every day, it was great fun. And that is coming from someone that does not PvP.

      I am not holding my group back either as I can keep up but no drops, as in zero, in ToT with a coin whenever I have one sucks.

      You seem to be mostly like me in many of the things. I usually have most of my interactions with guild. I tend to keep my interactions with others to an absolute minimum.

      One huge difference is I had, and still have to, do those mandatory things to keep whichever I am not playing as close to best geared as I can when not using them. Valor gear or LFR gear are the only way to do that, so it is mandatory.

      The last time I saw a pug for anything on my server that got more than one boss down was DS, last time before that was ICC. There is no such thing as a pug so gearing that way is out of the question.

      I also like the solo game. I like to level and like to take my time, even if I do speed through it. I fish while leveling which is unheard of. I also like to solo old content to press how far I can make it. Stuck in BWD T11, can only solo 2 bosses there so far but I love the challenge.

      Personal reasons they can do nothing about. But I am sure there is something they can still gather from that data. It helps to know the percentage of people you lost to no fault of your own when trying to fix things.

      Delete
  3. Warning - I go a wee bit negative here.

    You and others like you need to stop blaming Blizzard because you feel that getting the cloak ASAP is MANDATORY. Perfectionism/completionism/whateverthehellionism it is that you guys have going on, it's not something that Blizzard can fix and it's not something they should be designing around. Do you want them to bring back daily quest caps for anyone clicking the "I have OCD [ ]" box? Players need to manage their own issues, not blame Blizzard for not catering to them if that would even be possible (it isn't, not really). Yes, your feelings are valid, but only to you and the vocal minority who share those feelings. They have nothing to do with the game itself.

    (3,4,8,9 above are all related to this)

    Disclosure - I'm not writing from a position of ignorance here. /secrethandshake

    If I quit WoW today and gave a reason, it would be because I've been playing the game for 6 years or so and I've simply had enough. It wouldn't be for any gameplay reason... it wouldn't be because of WTFKungFuPandas... it wouldn't be because I'm still not exalted with the new raid rep faction... it wouldn't be because I've already completed the 5.3 content on 4 toons and have run out of things to do...

    It would happen after a few weeks where I just find myself really not logging in much, to the point where my $15 a month is getting me less value than going and watching one movie in the theatre (no popcorn, no drink... just the movie). And $15 to watch IM3 in theatre isn't a hell of a lot of value, either, so that's a very low bar.

    I'm not there yet. I'm closer than I've ever been, sure, but it'll likely be a while before that happens. And when it does, it'll be a decision I make based on ME, not based on WoW, WoW really has nothing to do with it. I've gone through a similar process when I've decided to stop playing particular sports, or to stop watching a TV show mid-season, or to stop playing other video games, or to stop sauteeing onions since I can't seem to do it without spraying oil EVERYWHERE (seriously, I give up). Same deal, WoW isn't special, it's a way I spend my time and it'll be treated exactly the same way when the time comes to stop playing.

    Your reason for quitting would be a low Runestone drop rate for you?! Give your head a shake, man. Yes, you then flip your reason to gear but that's an even worse reason, the game has always had significant gear progression, at least since I started playing it. If you were topping meters in 2 tier old gear, the guys you were running with sucked or were in even worse gear.

    Comparing the worst vs best normal-mode gear available between two tiers from Wrath and today, both hunter gear:

    T8 chest: 90 Agility
    T9 chest: 120 Agility (+33%)

    T14 chest: 1063 Agility
    T15 chest: 1318 Agility (+24%)

    So... yeah. It's the same game that it's always been. THAT sameness would be an actually valid reason to quit if it's no longer worth $15 a month for you. But Runestones? Or gear?

    C'mon.

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    1. Yes, I always say I want to get things done as quick as I can. Doesn't mean it is a bad thing. If more people actually tried to do better the LFR wouldn't be such a nightmare sometimes.

      Food for thought there. Don't put down the people doing the right thing for trying. Aim the negative comments at the people that deserve them because they never try.

      And yes, blizzard can do something about it. They can even out drop rates so one person does not end up with 8 in 3 weeks and another with 2 in 6 weeks.

      I would not quit over it but I would mention horrible drop rates as one of the things that turned me off to the game. That is what this is about.

      You say you would quit if you stopped logging in. It would be for your own decisions. How is that any difference from someone that stopped logging in because they thought PvP was not balanced and then made the decision to quit.

      You completely missed the entire question. If you stop logging in that usually means there is something you did not like. You stopped logging in because you were not enjoying the game. Focus on that.

      Maybe you did not log in because you felt there was nothing to do. You did not log in because your guild fell apart and you only played because you were friends with them. You did not log in because you got frustrated with drop rates, or losing RBGs, or being stuck on horridon, or whatever reason.

      Then you make the decision to quit.

      I too would quit for my own reasons but unless those reasons where like a real life change. Could not afford it, got sick or had an injury that made it impossible to play, etc. Something like that. It would be because I stopped logging in for one reason or another. In the end I would quit because it was my decision. Not because of those things. They did not make me quit, my decision did.

      So saying it would be because of a decision you made is not an answer. If even I did quit over something as stupid as runestones, it would still be a decision I made. Something would have to have made you want to make that decision. Just think about it. What would make you log in less. That would be your answer.

      Try again, I know you can do it and give a real answer. I'll even rephrase it for you because you take things quite literally.

      What non real life things in game would make you desire to log into WoW less often?

      Delete
    2. Part 2 of reply:

      Apparently either I was a hell of a lot better than I give myself credit for in wrath or you are having some memory issues. I'm going to roll with you having memory issues because I am not very good.

      It was quite easy to out perform someone while in lesser gear, even as far as two tiers ago in wrath.

      The idea that 33% in wrath was more than 24% now, tier to tier, inflation is correct when looking at the numbers but not when looking at how the numbers effect performance.

      I ran my character through female dwarf and gave myself some upgrades from my item level now at 515 (have no raid drops yet, only one trinket good for me dropped and I lost the roll, no hunter mail, ever, but my rogue has tier and I barely play him, go figure) to heroic gear. Same tier. Not even last tier.

      The differnece is of course even less than the 24% you are saying yet now I am capable of a maximum potentail of 132K DPS and in heroic gear I would be capable of a maximum potentail of 218K. So even if smaller in percentage the effect of those stats weights heavy into potential. I could do my rotation perfectly and the other person in the heroic gear can let a monkey sit in his chair and still possibley beat me because of gear.

      In wrath things were more skill based. Not saying perfect, that is where all this stat explosion started, but skill still mattered more than gear. I never met anyone that could beat me in wrath and I did not do heroics at all back then really so the people I was beating were in heroic gear in the # 1 guild on the server, no slouches for sure.

      The reason being was that I was maximizing my potentail and they were playing at 70% potental. So I could do better if I worked hard enough. Now, thanks to the way stats on gear work, the better the gear the better you do. Even if I was perfect in every single way someone in heroic gear could perform at 70% and still beat me by a long shot.

      From 132K to 218K in the same exact tier. And I did not even reforge when I did the test for higher gear. It might even be more. The 33% in wrath did not give a 50% increase to performance but the less than 24% in mists gives a 50% increase in potential.

      Please, do not look at the percent on gear, look at how the gear interacts with the abilities.

      So gear matters this expanion more than ever before. Anyone that says anything else is just disillusioned.

      Delete
  4. For me the one reason is CRZ. Not because the idea of CRZ itself is necessarily bad, but because it has been implemented in such an absolutely dreadful manner. It takes problems already existent in the game and exacerbates them.

    A toxic community: I would say CRZ almost encourages bad behavior and when you couple that with a lackluster reporting and enforcement system, it’s a reason to quit.

    Questing: CRZ takes what is inherently a single player activity packs you in like sardines and tells you to compete for quest mobs/objectives. The frustration that comes about is a reason to quit.

    Crafting: The idea of gathering/crafting while you quest was already shoddy just due to the leveling curve in WOW but CRZ actually manages to make this issue worse. It makes the gathering of resources that much harder due to increased competition and, depending on your server’s population, you have another issue of resources disappearing from your server entirely. Yes this is another reason why someone would quit.

    This doesn’t even mention the bugs that came along with CRZ that have yet to be fixed. The same bugs that a year later on the live servers are still there. A whole post can be made on just the bugs and the various in game effects they have had on the world environment. These issues, as of yet unresolved, are totally a reason to quit.

    So my one reason is CRZ. It takes a lot of small issues and blows them way out of proportion to what they would be without it.

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    1. I think you pretty much nailed many of the problems there.

      I can't help buy agree emphatically with the fact that CRZ encourages the toxic community. I've seen it while out there and see it on the forums. They are not from my server, I can do whatever I want to screw with them. It is actually like a sport now to screw with people from other servers because they can't do anything to you. You can't even report the person from another server from what I recall, unless they fixed that in the last few patches.

      While leveling a few characters in the new world of CRZ I can attest to that. It takes me longer to go back and catch up gathering skills then it does to actually level. My monk made it to 90 in 2 days 6 hours played. I am sure that well over 1 day of that was gathering alone and doing nothing else in areas I out leveled already.

      People mentioned all these things when they tested it on the beta. People told them the bugs, they told them the problems, they told them everything. I was one of those people telling them.

      They decided to ignore all of us and release it anyway. The only thing worse then having problems like this is knowing the problems where there and just ignoring them and releasing it anyway.

      As I said, love CRZ or hate CRZ, CRZ still sucks.

      Delete
  5. I quit because it feels like Blizzard is trying to keep me paying by holding me hostage through gating everything behind so many grinds.

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    1. I see that coming up in a lot of posts on the forums. While it never really bothered me personally on my main I do understand how you feel on my alts. I play often enough that on my main I never felt the gate but on alts it really made me not want to play them at all.

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  6. I did quit. About a month into Mists. Never got to 90 even. Left it at 87 or 88 on my mage and less on my others.

    For me, the simplest reason came down to time. Wow had been going on for years (vanilla) and other interests have taken over my life.

    Actually at times I miss it enough to want to play again, but the time commitment is too much to get anywhere meaningful.

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    1. The time commitment is extravagant. Forget grind times - levelling and dailies and such - simply waiting for LFR queues will waste 45minutes a pop. That's 3 hours of dead time for the Throne of Thunder wings alone. That's a huge ask for someone with real world responsibilities!

      Delete
    2. I actually play a lot myself and I have been saying the same thing. Even with as much as I play, too often I think, I feel as if I can not keep up to the level of play I would like to be at. So it has a major impact on everyone. Even the people that do have a lot of time. Time is huge.

      @Josef

      I spend more time doing 1 section of the LFR sometimes than I do actually raiding. That says a lot.

      Now think of trying to keep a few characters in gear and up to date if you are not raiding with them with those massive queue times and you are looking at a full time job.

      Delete
  7. The weekend before last, I actually did quit. My reasons are as follows :

    LFR is toxic and not at all fun. The ease of the encounters themselves make it a chore to endure and the filth who run with you make you want to wash afterwards. Unfortunately I was an assassination rogue by preference but, according to DBM, I had rolled 46 times on dagger dropping bosses and I was still a combat rogue. I remember getting excited for 5.3 so I could set my loot spec to assassination, but after the next few runs were unsuccessful I realised just how little I was enjoying LFR.

    Couple that with the collapse of my guild at the end of Cataclysm and the death of my server (Ysondre US is a ghost town now) and I no longer had the social connection that I had enjoyed. I'm Wrath I could get regular raid pugs and knew guys on my server, and in Cataclysm I was a member of a regular raid team (getting as far as Firelands on heroic), and now in Mists that connection was gone. I felt so very disconnected.

    There are other personal reasons. The game had become a vortex that sucked up all my available time. I was no longer prioritising important things like my fitness, so it had to go.

    It's very sad. Mists is so much better than Cataclysm! I love pet battles and that is unexpected. I think the pvp changes are fantastic in 5.3

    But any form of non guild multiplayer end game content? Battlegrounds, LFR, dungeons? They're just not fun. I played Wow for fun. It stopped being fun. I stopped playing.

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    1. I too love mists and am sad to see how it is eaten people alive in the game so to speak. Your LFR assessment is dead on. It is a horrible experience you wait to long to do and then see yourself roll over and over and over with no return for enduring that hell. It can push anyone to the edge.

      It is good to hear from the people that actually did quit. It makes me question have a more accurate answer. Not just people saying "I think I would leave because" but I did leave because.

      You ended it with the best answer anyone could give.

      You quit because you stopped having fun. Thankfully you also explained why you felt you were not having fun.

      If only blizzard would read this and understand some of the issues facing the game. Mists is a great expansion. The problems are all easily addressed if they want to fix it. But is it too late or will people like yourself continue to leave.

      I am glad you will be getting your life back however. I spend way to much time on it myself. I often think there are other things I should be doing as well. Perhaps my awakening will come some day too. For now however, I still do have fun on those days I am not in the LFR queue. But perhaps that too will change if my guild ever crumbles. That is the last thing holding me there. Those people.

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  8. I don't know why I would quit as I have never considered quitting. Trying to think about it though and I can't think of anything in game that would do it. I dislike some of their decisions, there's many things that I wish they'd handle differently, but it's not enough to stop me from playing.

    I suppose I would quit playing if all of my friends stopped playing. That's why I quit swtor the first time, I was playing that as a solo game, and it just couldn't hold my attention. So if Warcraft became a solo game then I might quit. I liked swtor well enough but without people it just felt pointless, then with their bad f2p conversion that just tipped it over.

    All the other things is just stuff. Drop rates, crz, levelling, balance, pvp, tuning etc. it's just details that surround the core. Some drop rates have always been bad, I accept this, it's part of playing the game. Sometimes things are tuned badly, it happens, we move on. It's just details and while they matter they don't impact on what's important. I like warcraft because I get to play with my friends and it's a pretty fun game, there's bits I like and bits I don't like. Blizz can't please everybody at once, we're too different.

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    1. I think that is part of the reason I came back to wow after I tested the rift waters. I liked rift and while I was not a fan of the art I was a fan of the game. If I had people with me that played it I would have probably quit wow.

      Why made me want to find another game at that time? The Zuls. I became burnt out having only 2 dungeons to "random" into and seeing how the majority of the player base could not do them. It made playing unfun.

      Perhaps now that rift is going free to play I can drag a few people over there with me and really quit wow the next time it starts to bother me.

      Delete
  9. I quit back in Vanilla because the solo game required too much grinding and I didn't have any real friends that played to keep me engaged. (I was in a guild but didn't build any lasting relationships there).

    I came back towards the end of Wrath. WoW was very popular so I decided to give it another try.

    Now, I don't quit because I haven't really found something better to play. I tried SWTOR and it was fun but I didn't have any friends playing it and I had so much investment in WoW, so I stopped. I'm looking forward to ESO and it may be a WoW killer for me.

    I used to log in almost everyday. But that's dwindling down.

    I keep my main raid ready but I don't have a raid team. I could find one but I just don't feel like going through the effort.

    I leveled my DK up and got him LFR ready but that hasn't increased my desire to log on. Not sure I want to deal with the Toxic community as a tank and I don't need another DPS... that's what my hunter is for.

    The LFR grind is getting old.

    Brawler's Guild got old, especially since there is no actual progression from it other than achievements. Waiting in a queue to get my ass handed to me because of RNG is not what I consider fun...

    Pet Battles never interested me.

    I have almost 13000 achievement points already. However, I'd like to complete more of them but I spend too much time grinding valor and doing LFR to do fun things like achievements.

    I have over 1M gold but nothing really useful to buy with it. There were heroic bracers on the BMAH over the weekend. I tracked it and bid during the last moments to see if I could win. I figured I'd spend up to 30k on it... I have the gold, so something to do right? There was another hunter going after it but his iLvL was only 478... should have been spending his money on more valuable upgrades. Anyway, apparently if there are last minute bids, the auction gets extended, so I bid just before the timer expired and should have won. It was about 23k then. The other hunter then outbid me, so I waited a minute or two and bid again. Repeated a couple times til the bid got to 30k. Then he increased it to 50k... The auction should have been over 10 minutes ago and I was quite annoyed at that point. What's the purpose of an expiration if the damn thing doesn't expire?? If the idiot wants to drop 50k on bracers, he can have them... I went to bed after that...

    In an MMO, fun is primarily dependent on who you play with, and if you aren't having fun playing with the people around you, then you'll quit. The reason at that point will be a multitude of things, many of which are just fundamental problems of the MMO genre that people put up with so they can play with their friends.

    TL;DR, it all boils down to community.

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    1. Have you ever gifted someone with a mount or a pet?

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    2. Perhaps you could give rift a try. I am considering giving it a second shot when it goes free to play and I can drag some people over to it with me.

      Seems you are saying the same a lot of people are. It is the players that are keeping you playing. Not the game.

      Delete
    3. Yeah, if ESO doesn't work out, I may try a F2P: Rift or SWTOR, etc. If it's F2P, maybe I can take it less seriously and take time to "smell the roses" instead of just constantly keeping up with the grind.

      Delete
    4. I took the smell the roses route in rift and still have multiple characters so I can have all profession. lol

      I know, I am bad. When you play a certain way that is just how you play. It can not be changed. But I never stressed leveling and none are max level yet. But then again I only play for a week here and there every 4 or 5 months.

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  10. Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader:

    I haven't quit but I log in so sporadically I may as well have quit. After I reached 90 on my new monk, things to do just did not hold my interest as much. I leveled as fast as I could, from opening MoP and seeing the new 11th spot on the character creation screen and proceeding straight to the new monk until hitting 90. I was the second level 90 monk in the guild, with the other having started after me and finishing the run before me.

    I am not through with WoW, but logging in every day is no longer a priority, not by any consideration. Sometimes a week or more goes by between logging in. This is considerably less than the 6 to 20 hours I would put in daily. (Effectively I am retired, so the time is and was available.)

    Before Christmas, I decided that my time was better spent with my family as my wife was putting up a brave front of good cheer while our son was down at Parris Island. One family thing after another led this extension of family time up to current days.

    My thing favored above all is and has been the solo play aspect. I don't like having to ask for help solving a problem while leveling. Yes, that has meant leaving quests till I overpowered the objective, but it also meant being creative and persistent in trying to solve a problem at the appropriate level in most cases. I enjoy the rush of satisfaction that comes from beating a difficult quest on my own at the appropriate level. I also enjoy the feeling of "revenge" going back to knock out a grey quest that I could not finish at the right level.

    Dungeons and raids are fun, but when running dungeons daily became a mandatory thing in wrath due to the LFD, I began to lose interest in them. And please, no one say that they weren't mandatory because they were if you wanted to be able to keep up with the gear issue. The LFR has only exacerbated that problem. I dislike that change and the feeling of dislike has only grown. While most folks in the game consider me a likeable person and probably a "people person", in truth I am not. I can maintain a good front on it but both the LFD and even more so the LFR pushed my limits on maintaining a good persona. (continues)

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    1. That mandatory feeling has left a bad taste in many mouths. Some argue it is not mandatory but it is if you want to keep up.

      I had figured you would like this expansion because you did not need to do dungeons to valor cap, you could do quests and get it. That was a nice change.

      But then this patch came where the gear was blocked behind a reputation you needed to raid to get, and even if you did stay active, that would have been the nail in the coffin for you so to speak being you do not use the random tool.

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  11. Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader: (continued)

    So aside from guild groupings, I pretty much gave up on the looking for tools. I have no regrets on that. Probably the biggest reason was being type cast as a healer, which I concede is the role I play best and like well enough but I prefer DPS. Yet my DPS was not up to the standards I knew it should be. Why? Because of my age, an older body slowing down with arthritis? Perhaps my multitasking was no longer as good? At any rate, I didn't feel as good a contributor to either a dungeon group or a raid as I should be. If I can't perform up to the standard I expect, I needed to step aside from both dungeons and raids in the guild.

    This leaves me with a limited to leveling and reputation field of play. PvP can be startling refreshing if indulged in rarely but it quickly grows old when done more often. Or so it is for me, and again, that leaves little else for me to do.

    So now I log in once in a while, do some quests and log out. My responsibilities as
    Guild Leader are not an issue anymore, so I don't have to worry about that. I turned it over to a good person to take care of seeing our guild survive and thrive, thereby ending my duty in that regards. I enjoy my very limited time in game, and I fully recognize it may again become something I do daily, but for now it isn't.

    I hope this answers both why I have effectively quit and why I don't completely sever my ties with the game.

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    1. Yes it does. I don't know many with your long history in this game and gaming in general but I would guess there are a great deal of "old school" player that the game has just passed by.

      Someone once said it and I believe I have here as well a few times. Maybe it isn't so much the game changing but society and the people that play it changing and the game just trying to keep pace with those changes. It is us not changing that makes it different.

      I feel as if the game is changing around me all the time as well and wish sometimes I could do the part time thing as you do now but it is not in me. I am an all or nothing person.

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    2. Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader:

      As you know, WoW has never truly been as perfect as I would have liked it to be. The directions of "improvements" have run in both directions, forward and backwards. For me, the Looking For tools have been a totally backwards direction.

      Truthfully, I think for the game deciding raiding was to be the end game content for everyone was a mistake. An easy path to take that cut off any other real PvE choices for end game.

      The decision to make gear the way to level was another mistake that leads to the Monty Haul type of play where gear is constantly replaced and where rare means common as dirt and unique means I only get one per slot, which is far from unique.

      So yes, in many ways, the game turned corners that I was not able to enjoy. That is not to say that it didn't remain fun in many other ways, but most of those ways related back to either the solo play or the group play inside a fun guild.

      That is directly related to the social aspect in both cases. In the former, having guild chat (and on some servers Trade and General chat) makes solo play feel like a community even as you don't need the other players to play. For the latter, solid guild participation makes for fun social events. Without good people, those two would not be any fun at all.

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    3. I agree with you on their idea to make raiding end game was for everyone was a bad idea. Making it more accessible to everyone that wanted to was fine, but they went to far with it so that everyone, even if they do not want to, has to.

      Making gear the way of progression was a mistake too. I said that in a reply to someone yesterday. Gear is everything now. The stats matter so much that it is insane. The difference between a normal mode item level to a heroic item level in the same tier is a 50% increase in potential. Insane. It makes it so gear is all that matters and I hate that personally.

      I do think the LF systems, as much as I dislike them, were a step in the right direction however. The new players want that, need that, and it comes down to you and I just not moving forward with the game. Old men with old ideas as some would say.

      The people aspect can not be underplayed. It is huge and it is where the game is taking the largest hit lately in my opinion. The community is trash and gets worse by the day. Some players we know do not even have trade or general on because they can just not deal with it any more. I often find myself telling guild members to not talk in the LFRs when we do it as a guild because it just feeds the trolls and makes it worse. The community is so bad it makes you want to play the game solo. And that is bad for an MMO.

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  12. Off topic. But wondering. Do you think you'd accept if someone came to you and asked you to be part of a proper progression raiding guild on your hunter? Do you think you'd enjoy it, to just focus on that - research fights, increase dps in harsher conditions... and we all know raids only drop Protector token... would you enjoy that? would you be able to step off being raid leader and just go with the flow and enjoy 'just playing'? Your only outside-raid 'mandatory' worry would be, what, getting 50 silver coins a week and maybe getting vp capped.
    Or is it too far the road where you don't think it would be fun anymore? Where only your friends keep you on?

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    1. There are multiple questions there and honestly they are all hard to answer. The way I write I might as well make this a post. But here goes.

      "would you be able to step off being raid leader and just go with the flow and enjoy 'just playing'?"

      Trick question I believe. Would I want to, absolutely. I would love to just go in there and do what my job is, to kill stuff. But the world "able" there is really an accurate word to ask with. While I would want to, would I be able to. I've been lead so long sitting back and taking orders would take some getting used to. I am sure I could do it however.

      "Do you think you'd accept if someone came to you and asked you to be part of a proper progression raiding guild on your hunter?"

      It is something I have thought about many times over the years. Usually I think about three things.

      1) Do I have what it takes?

      I believe so. I read every stitch of information on my class from trivial to theorycrafting. I watch multiple videos and read multiple strategies for every fight. I have only missed 2 raids in the last 5 years. I take being the best I can be really seriously even if I am not raiding with this character at the time. I not only study what I can do on fights but what others can do, not because I am a raid leader but because if I know what others are doing it helps me do better at what I can do.

      I come prepared, so much so that not only do I have my own flasks, potions, food, but I have extras for others, even ones that are not my class. I go so far when being prepared that I have the gems and enchants in my bag for the items I know can drop off the bosses we are doing that night should I get lucky enough to win something.

      I could go on and on. When it comes to all those little things, they are no big deal. I feel every person should be like that. It might sound like a lot right there but it really isn't. Keeping up on your character should be something you enjoy and I like playing a hunter so it is no big deal for me.

      2) Can I deal with the pressure?

      That depends on the group. More hours raiding, no big deal. Criticism and advice, I welcome. But I have to actually like the people. I am not a social person but that does not mean I will raid with anyone to get the bosses down. I have to like the people.

      Part two is the skill issue. I do not have the experience in heroic raiding so I would not think I am up to the task for a very progressed guild. While I consider myself a good player I would still have a lot to learn and I think I would be more suited for a group starting heroics than a guild already deep into them. Not saying I could not jump in and adapt. Not saying I would not be willing to try. Just trying to accurately assess my own abilities.

      3) Can I be happy there?

      If I left my guild the raid teams would fall apart. That is what keeps me from leaving really. I do not want to leave them like that. Even with a lack of progression I have grown to like these people and enjoy my time playing with them. Would I like more progress, yes. Do I think they are capable of a lot more than we are doing if only I could get them raiding more, yes. But they are my people and I like them.

      I think it would be more, would I be happy knowing I left one group to die to join another and I am not sure I would. That is the only reason I have not moved up to a more progressed guild yet.

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    2. If I ever had the opportunity to move up to a more progressed group I think I would want to play with them first before I made any decisions. I want progress but I am not going to move anywhere unless I like the people there. I would want to be happy there and for that to be true I would have to know the people before I moved.

      The last thing I would want is to move into a guild with a group of people that call each other fag every two seconds and insult each other every chance they get. I want a team, not just a bunch of people working together, there is a huge difference.

      "we all know raids only drop Protector token"

      There are protector tokens? You lie. I think you spelt vanquisher wrong.

      "dps in harsher conditions"

      Had to pull this one out directly because I would really love that. I rarely get the chance to get better because I don't play as much as I want to on my hunter. I would love that.

      Do you know those mobs for the one quest for the argent tournament that you needed to kill three guys while mounted. They have this shield which means you could not just DPS them down, you had to be mounted.

      I would spend hours, yes hours, fighting them because they move around like crazy and it was the perfect way for me to practice DPS on the move. And those bats would respawn fast so I had target switching, pet management, attacking on the move, it was a great way to really get better.

      I create my own harsh conditions so I can practice. So yes, I would love to be put into a position where I could learn to be better. I say I play within 10%-30% of my maximum potential most of the time. I can get better, a lot better, but I do not have the chance to do so when I am stuck tanking or on doing bosses I've done a million times already. I personally would not be happy until I could get to less than 10% of my potential at all times.

      So it is a hard question you asked. One I can not really give an answer for certain about. I have thought about it however. A lot.

      I think I would just rather get one of my other 90 hunters geared and run with it. So I do not need to move from where I am.

      That would be ideal. But the gearing up process all over again? Not very attractive. Got a tauren hunter sitting around doing nothing. ;)

      I really should make a post about this. Great idea for a topic.

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