A short, unfortunate return to WoW.

I mentioned that I tried WoW again at the insistence of some friends on mine from work.  I leveled a druid up (very quickly thanks to the recruit a friend system) and found myself completely disgusted with the game in its current form.  Short list of things that I hated:

• Server community is dead.  No one knows anyone, everyone queues in Dalaran for instances, BGs and arenas.
• Gear score has made the community even worse than before.  Elitism abounds, much of it unfounded.
• Everything is easy mode and homogenized.  Crowd control is a dirty word that no one ever uses anymore in PvE.  AoE pulls are the norm.  Strategy is gone.
• World PvP is non-existant for the most part.

WoW is in a horrible state right now, in my opinion, and I don’t think Cataclysm can fix it.  I found a picture on Keen’s forums that summed up how lacking in atmosphere, community and exploration WoW is right now:

I miss the big, sprawling dungeons that had atmosphere and encouraged exploration.  You could get lost in BRD or UBRS and it was awesome.  The dungeons are now a joke and designed for quick, easy runs instead of immersion.  Fine for some people but not for me.  Having explored the alpha leak of Cataclysm, I can say it gets worse.  Single hallways are the norm there.  Sadly old WoW is dead.

The Catacalysm will truly be the end for this old Hunter.

I played WoW since release and other than a month layoff before the release of TBC and WotLK, I have played it constantly up until about 7 months ago.  But, my time with WoW is at an end.  It is still an excellent game and I do not begrudge those who still enjoy it.  It still has some amazing art direction, some of the coolest boss fights in the business  and, except major patch days, a solid game engine.  But, alas, it is over for me.

I spent my last couple of weeks in WoW roaming all of my old haunts; Blackrock Mountain, Silithus, Hillsbrad Foothills and Stranglethorn Vale.  There was no one there, I saw no players except for the occasional lone leveler or gatherer but it brought back a lot of good memories.  Memories of intense PvP fights, 40 man raids, trying to get into Blackrock Mountain on a Horde dominated server.  All these memories dredged up.

Nostalgia.

The announcement of the Cataclysm expansion really drove it home for me; those days are gone and they are never coming back.  The game has changed and moved on and I am left wandering where it went.  I don’t blame Blizzard, they followed the money and there is certainly more players who enjoy WoW as it is now to WoW as it was then.  But, no matter the reason, WoW is gone for me.

Cataclysm even makes it worse somehow.  At least now I can still go back and visit those old areas, though there is no one there and little to do, they are still there.  After Cataclysm most of that area will be gone or irrevocably changed.

It is almost like an old child hood home.  If it isn’t torn down you can go back and visit, maybe even walk the halls.  The halls may be empty, the posters may be gone but it is still your home.  Then they tear it down and there is nothing to even visit anymore.  It’s gone.

Yeah, this may sound like a weeping sentimentalist post but I do it to illustrate why I will not be playing WoW after Cataclysm.  Why I did not cheer the expansion news like most of the other WoW fans did.  WoW was the most fun, for me, pre-TBC and Cataclysm will only take what I liked most about WoW and turn it into what I like least.

I will miss it but I hope the current fans enjoy themselves.  WoW will continue to be a juggernaut for the forseeable future and for very good reason.