World of Warcraft – I Thought I Missed You

With the upcoming 10th anniversary of World of Warcraft coming up this month as well as this week’s release of the new expansion, Warlords of Draenor, it seemed like a good time to make a return to Azeroth after years away. My subscription had officially ended back in 2011, though I did spend a small stint in the beta for Mists of Pandaria back in 2012. However, I haven’t really kept up with the never-ending string of changes in WoW during my absence. So how has it been? Have I been bitten by the nostalgia bug and convinced to buy the WoD expansion and dive back into the thick of things now that my hunter is level 90? Not quite.

Despite the recent facelift to character models (I remember Everquest doing the same thing when they released Shadows of Luclin), World of Warcraft is a 10-year-old game and it shows. Logging back in and finding my level 85 hunter standing right where I had left him back in 2011 was a bit odd. What was really odd was realizing just how blocky everything still looks. I don’t really know what I was expecting, but perhaps my memory had been colored by the stylized images that I regularly see when playing Hearthstone. Still, it’s just the graphics and my initial reaction after all of the recent games I’ve been playing was a bit skewed. Did Night Elves always walk so weird or were there more changes where exaggerated shoulder movements were added? And where the hell did half of my powers go?!?

Sadly, it didn’t get any better once I ventured out into Pandaria to begin my extremely short journey from level 85 to 90. After sorting through my inventory, my bank, and my skills to figure out what I was actually doing, I was ready to take on some quests. Then the realization sank in that WoW still doesn’t have voice acting in quests. There is a bit of voice over when cutscenes are running, but that’s just not a very frequent occurrence. It was an exceptional thing in Star Wars: The Old Republic, but it’s rather commonplace in modern MMORPGs. I really tried reading through the quests, but after my first poop quest I just got tired and started skimming for my objectives and moved on. Lore is great, but a lot of these quests felt like an excuse to force more grinding to me. While not every quest is a grind, there are enough that the more unique content feels rather underdone.

Where World of Warcraft does manage to excel is phased content, at least as a single-player experience. I love getting to have the feeling that my actions have a lasting impact on the game world. It’s simulated very well in WoW and feels good even though I know what’s going on. It’s not something that you’re likely to see in many of the F2P games that are absolutely flooding the PC MMO market. But as cool as it is, phased content really can’t carry the whole game and warrant paying a monthly subscription for me. It’s a temporarily interesting attempt to make WoW feel like an epic single-player title. Once that illusion fades I’m left me wondering why I’m not just playing an actual single-player game.

Back in 2004, my MMO options were basically Ultima Online, Everquest, or Star Wars Galaxies. Right around the same time, I got into betas for Guild Wars and World of Warcraft. Compared to the three existing choices that I knew of, both were damn appealing options and while I eventually bought them, I spent nearly all of my time in WoW. It was freaking MMO ambrosia! (Of course, cable internet up to 3 Mbps also seemed super awesome at the time.) But now, 10 years later, it’s so uninteresting to me that I can’t possibly justify paying monthly for the privilege of playing it. It’s like a really colorful-looking confection that just tastes of dust and regret when I bite into it. As it turns out, I’m not the only one that feels this way. Subscriptions have been steadily declining for years now and it’s not hard to see why. WoW is no longer competing with a small handfull of aging games; it’s the aging game fighting to stay relevant.

OMGZ I will burn my hands to a crisp petting this little thing.

I don’t hate WoW and I’m certainly not advocating that it be shut down. I’m simply not the target for it anymore. I don’t have that social network in place in-game to keep me coming back and to add a dimension to play that the game could never create on its own. WoW exists as a goal-oriented framework that is woefully incomplete without that social aspect to compel players to return and interact day after day. No longer having a guild or friends that still play, it’s pretty clear to me that WoW as a game has very little to offer me as a player.

I’m not gonna lie, part of my motivation for choosing this particular time to resubscribe was to catch the end of the Halloween event and also be around when the 10th anniversary gifts are handed out. I may not be playing, but I’ll know that sitting in my pet collection is an adorable-as-fuck Molten Corgi. There are a number of nostalgic events happening in the near future as well as yesterday’s release of the new expansion. However, my stay in Azeroth is quickly drawing to an end. I’ll keep my interactions with that universe to Hearthstone (where I still get to have Hunter’s Mark) and Heroes of the Storm. I feel like 10 years was a good run and now maybe it’s time to go F2P, sell fans a bunch of weird hats, and focus on making a kick ass showing of Overwatch.