I... quit WoW today

[VodkaKnight]

I stopped playing because I'd played enough to realize it was dying. I know that gets thrown around a lot, but it is. PVP is unbalanced, with one class dominating, and the others just in tiers beneath it, and it's just a new class each patch. PVE is easy as hell, given the second you pick a talent at level 10, you get a oneshot kill, regardless of talent or role. RP is full of Game of Thrones ripoffs, and other assorted dribble.
It's too easy overall, as you can get from level 1 to level 20 in a few hours. The usual MMO grind is ridiculous with 90 levels now. Most starting areas haven't been updated since the time they got introduced, with the Draenei one STILL the same as it was years ago. The Orc one is especially annoying, given it hasn't been updated since Classic.
After a year of playing, I worked through enough content, and wondered WHAT I enjoyed. Nothing, just a time-filling void.
Dead space.
So I quit.

 

[Nalikill]

After 6 years, I'm leaving. Can't say that I won't miss my pretty phoenix, all that cooperation and drama but... I mean, what they are doing to the game... well, I do not support it.

Here's my reasons:
I've been paying my subscription fee for years, and since Cata, a lot of the content we were getting was rehashed, remade, et cetera.
I've been paying my subscription fee for years and they kept holding back more or less awesome content for money. A lot of times I've saved up money on buying food (I did not starve, but I bought less, or worse quality food for example), just to be with my friends
now they announce that they are slowly implementing microtransactions on top of the subscription model, further locking people, like me out of content that should be part of the game (and cosmetic armor for money? srsly)
the new things they implement seldom work, so patch by patch we see classes struggle just to keep up, or get a complete redesigen in an even more ridiculous way.

I'm not having fun anymore, and all the stuff they publish convinces me that they lost their soul as a company. I don't think it's a coincidence that they are losing subscribers, I've lost all of my IRL friends. Also, I've found that all these things, plus, looking back at it, the time I've wasted that I could've used more productively, have made me regret playing at all in the first place. So, I think I'm not touching an MMO ever again in my life.

What do you think? I'm not planning to start a flame-war, hate-thread, or anything, I'm just interested in your opinions or similar stories.

Did the same thing recently.

I'm going to take a blind guess and ask: Was your main a warrior?

 

[Risingblade]

No point in playing if you aren't having fun, and if you'll miss your friends just ask them to add you FB assuming you guys have one.

 

[Keiichi Morisato]

glad to see you are now with us in the "real" world. I recommend you try out some JRPG's, who knows you might be surprised, there are some awesome WRPG's as well too. but I really only know JRPG's. try the tales series if you have some tolerance for anime clichés, the gameplay is fantastic.

 

[Nico4]

I used to play WoW when I were 14 years old, starting a year after the game came out. It wasn't my first MMO (Final Fantasy XI takes that honor). I liked it, and I was experiencing something that can be called "The original" WOW for a little bit... ya know, back when it could take a day to defeat a boss and what not. I wasn't too into it though, because as much as I had lots of moments, questing, exploring (my favorite aspect) and raiding with my guild, I weren't that into it, like some people were. Some people in my class were talking about it almost endlessly; they were huge fans.

I guess I stopped, because at one point in December, 2006, my internet started acting up. Like, it would only stay online for one or two days a week, then be offline for the rest, and it continued until sometime in February, 2007 (until my PC more or less had to be rebooted completely), and which meant that I just played less and less of it, even when my connection was fixed, and I got The Bruning Crusade. So playing less of it, coupled with the fact, that the guild I was playing in suddenly started to disolve, and the people I played with (made a very good Danish friend through it) suddenly stopped playing it, I too gave it up. I had a very brief resurgance when I won the Wrath of the Litch King through a contest, but that only lasted 3 weeks, or something, before I once again moved away.

Since then, I've played one or two MMO's, like Guild Wars 1 & 2, Final Fantasy XIV (both the original and the beta for the new version, which I'm actually rather keen on) and DC Universe Online (and out of all those, I stayed with GW2 the most, for around 2 months or something). MMO's aren't a bad thing according to me, but I simply move from game to game at times (be it new games or old games, I wow to finish), so many times, and my sechudle (I'm an university student, so I always have tons of homework to read) prevents me from enjoying an MMO fully, and honestly I don't mind it. I rather play a game where I'm not dependant on a constant online connection, or other players, to enjoy the game.

 

[Loop Stricken]

No they're not.
The only things that you can buy on the store are all cosmetic

Cosmetic or not you do know that that is still a micro transaction right? Many games that have micro transactions sell cosmetic items.

Well yes but that's splitting hairs. When people think microtransactions they generally thing of the company selling power or shortcuts, which isn't the case here.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

WoW needs some massive improvements before I even look at it again.

 

[Nexxis]

If a game is affecting you negatively and you're not having fun, then it's time for you to leave it behind. It's at least good that you realized it and put an end to it. Some people keep playing to a point where it effects their mental and emotional health, not to mention their wallet.
I started in Wrath and left at the start of Cata because I wasn't having fun and I felt like I wasn't getting my money's worth.

 

[Fijiman]

It's good to hear that you know you had a problem with the game. I hope that you can avoid going back to the game if possible and that we see more of you on the site.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

I quit WoW near the 2nd year of Wrath of the Lich king due to friends arguing with one another and their expectations got out of hand with the guild.

Then around about two months ago a close friend gathered me and the old gang together again and here we are getting ready to gear up for the latest patch and finally kick Garrosh Hellscream where it hurts most.

Still I'm more or less glad I never had to grind for the Cata gear since my friends told me it was an awful expansion, I however am enjoying the hell out of Mists of Pandaria though along with my nice Jade serpent while listening to Lowalker Cho (The voice actor of Scar from the Lion King in case anyone was wondering).

In the end I don't know how long I'll be playing the game for sure but I have no problems paying £8 a month for their sub since that amount is small and I don't feel like I'm losing out or anything.

Bit of a shame how some people view WoW these days though, almost like it went out and murdered someone you loved.

 

[Jessta]

I got mad and quit when I saw they started making it more and more of a norm to sell vanity pets and mounts because having cool looking pets and mounts was what I considered to be the measuring stick of success in that game, I liked that you kind of had to work towards them and when you saw someone riding a white chocobo you would think oh man that must have done that one BC raid like a hundred times for that. I got annoyed when I walked into Orgrimar and I saw like 10-20 guys on specteral pegasus things that felt like they were way more flashy than the rewards for playing the game.

I also didn't like the account security, I have never known a game to have account security as bad as world of warcraft.
I quit WoW for a couple of years and tried to come back using the scroll of Resurrection, I found out that after about six months of inactivity and no subscription someone logged into my account and sold all my stuff.
I quit the game again after a couple of months and after about a month of being unsubscribed from the game I was hacked and lost all my shit, again. In order to get all my hard earned items back I had to log back into WoW, in order to do that I had to buy a new months subscription, if I didn't do that in the first month after I was hacked my stuff would be gone for good. If I wanted to have that keep from happening again I had to buy a device from Blizzard just to keep my password safe. I know the problem wasn't on my end because; It happened several months after I stopped playing Wow. My email and bank accounts passwords weren't taken so it couldn't have been a keylogger since I would log into those regularly. I use a separate computer for browsing or running any programs I'm not sure are safe. they logged in and sold all my items without renewing the subscription. Plus they deleted all the items in my characters bank, even the vanity items that weren't worth anything like my old tabard which seems like a lot of trouble for a gold farmer to do. He even deleted the items on my 50 characters under level 20 which just seems like way to much work.

Also 15 dollars a month and at this rate another 50 dollars per expansion a year to keep playing a game that's running a 10 year old engine isn't really worth it. Like yeah someone pointed out 15 dollars doesn't put a huge dent in your 'quality of life' area but working a low paying job while going to school I can only really afford 20, maybe 50 (if I either save of decide to cut out two or three meals) dollars a month on luxuries like this and it can't really compete with games that have no monthly or annual fees and are running on newer better engines like Guild wars 2.

Plus there's the whole timesink, world of warcraft is like, 90% skinners box almost everything except for the world design and exploration is a grind and they don't really take great advantage of the whole exploration thing, since the original game there's been less and less hidden quests, the flying mounts mean that mining and herbalism no longer grant that sense of exploration, archaeology is a nice idea for it but it doesn't feel very rewarding especially since it usually comes down to seeing where the next spot is, flying up to the top of the stratosphere hitting auto fly and going to do something else for 10 minutes until you get there.

Plus daily, and weekly quests are the stupid things I've fucking heard of it is LITERALLY doing the same quest over and over, it's like... Grinding Squared.

 

[FrozenCones]

You cant leave, she wont let you.

 

[MercurySteam]

A lot of times I've saved up money on buying food (I did not starve, but I bought less, or worse quality food for example), just to be with my friends

Right there. Once something starts harming your quality of life in a negative way, it's time to move on. A game shouldn't come before your health...even a little bit.

Yeah I agree. As soon as it affects whats necessities you buy then it's time to stop and consider. I sometimes skimp on luxuries when saving for games but never vital stuff.

 

[Mersadeon]

[...]
I really hope you didn't quit after factions. The game was of course great at that point, but i'd feel really bad for you if you quit and never got to try out Nightfall or Eye of the North. [..]

In fact, I did! But not because I didn't like it, back then I was pretty poor and just couldn't afford Eye of the North or Nightfall. Although I really, really wanted Eye of the North back in the day.

I remember, a friend of mine got around that by buying Prophecies, installing it, and bringing it back, telling them he didn't have a DVD drive (which not every PC had back then). He got his full money back, and the game works without a disk.

Then, he tried to do the same when Factions came out. That fool went to the same shop. He got the same cashier. He wasn't banned, since they couldn't outright prove anything, but they never took anything from him again without a damn good explanation.

(And no, I don't pity him.)

 

[LetalisK]

1. Blizzard hauled most of the lead design staff off WoW a long time ago to work on Titan...everyone that didn't leave and subsequently get hired by Arena Net and Carbine, that is. So what you're seeing is the result of years of cumulative brain drain. The foundation is still strong, but the iteration on that foundation has been progressively more erratic.

I think that might be an overstatement. The only movement of note among the leadership that I can think of was Jeff Kaplan, with the other leadership roles remaining fairly consistent from BC-MoP with only Lead Level Design for MoP introducing an unfamiliar name.[footnote]NM, he was on the staff during WotLK and Cata.[/footnote] The level and game design teams themselves feature many of the same names over and over, with the level design team for MoP having the most drastic absence of names from BC, despite having actually grown substantially since BC. It went from 7 of the original 9 working on the game from BC to Cata to 4 in MoP. I wouldn't be surprised if they were moved over to Titan, but that's still not that long ago, nor do I have any way of confirming that.

 

[Saltyk]

I recall how easy it was for some classes and specs when I played. As a mage, I played as a Fire mage and found that my DPS could be great if I worked at it. I could pull off great damage, but it also ate mana fast. It was rewarding to pull off the damage, though.

On a whim, I set my secondary to Arcane and literally specced it while running a dungeon with some guild mates. Yes, I was moving, fighting, and speccing. And it was easy. Too easy. I could pull the same damage as Fire with hardly an effort. It was 3 buttons. 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 1... That might be off, but it was damn close to what I was doing.

And honestly, it was nowhere near as rewarding as the Fire mage. More efficient, though.

Just thought I'd drop a bit of my own experience from the game.

I quit WoW awhile ago. Before Mists of Pandaria came out, I believe. Got to the endgame content...and didn't like the endless grind for better gear. Not to mention the odds of getting gear without other classes diving in for it. Though I did make a ton of friends and had a blast while I was there.

Now, I've moved onto FF14: ARR. Looking forward to riding a chocobo and summoning Primals to wipe the floor with my enemies. Especially since I've gotten the PS3 version (and by extension the PS4 version, as well) and the interface is just pure awesomeness compared to that of FF11.

But the main thing is what you said: you no longer had fun, and that's what counts at the end of the day. That, and surviving onto the next day. And hygiene.

Color me curious. How is FF14? I've heard some good things about it, but I'm thinking I'll wait to even think about it until the PS4 comes out and. Largely a money concern, but also not sure I wanna jump into a new MMO.

 

[Aeonknight]

About the only thing I take beef with is when people think that "the last X amount of years could've been spent doing something more productive."

Fuck that noise.

Life isn't all about productivity. Hell that's not just MMO's, that's gaming in general. It's one big "waste of time", but if it brings you joy then it's worth every minute. If the only thing that mattered was "productivity", we'd literally work ourselves to the grave. I'll pass on that, thanks.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

You cant leave, she wont let you.

This is a bit off-topic, but I've always liked Dr. Weir's line after that one. Y'know, the one where Miller tells him to pack his stuff or he'll be walking home, and then he replies "I am home" and backs up into the shadows. I've always wanted the shot to last just a couple moments longer, so that you can see Miller and Weir stand there, awkwardly staring at each other before Weir finally scampers off down that long corridor as a very perplexed Miller watches.

 

[beez]

I'm going to take a blind guess and ask: Was your main a warrior?

WW monk, actually

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Cosmetic armor, mounts, etc. Who cares? They're not integral to the game, you aren't locked out of the content available by drop, just the extra cosmetic shit that isn't important. You don't pay extra to raid, to get dungeons or pvp content. There is no advantage gained beyond a cosmetic one and seems a bit trite to nit pick about.
Hell, their patches release a lot of content already compared to 3 measly head items.
I would understand if it was beyond the subscription payment you had to pay extra for every patch as well, that would be a horrible thing.
Also, how long have you been playing? Classes have ALWAYS struggled to keep up, every patch. Something breaks, something gets nerf'd, something gets buffed and the dps meters read different numbers. EVERY PATCH. I remember when paladins were so broken no one wanted to play one. Then they became impossible to kill pvp. Rogues went through multiple phases of "oh thats bullshit" on both sides of the nerf/buff fenceline. DK's went OP, dialed up to 11, back down a slight bit, then switched tanking trees and have since become hard as fuck to kill in some situations...
Its a dynamic fluid game, and they are constantly improving on it, but not all improvements will work long term and not all breaks can be fixed on the fly. It happens.
Still I understand if you're burned out on the game. Its a time sink and you can only stand so much of something. I may be on it til the bitter end, clinging to my toons and maybe having a wake for them after the servers switch off.
Change is difficult to deal with.