i miss when WoW was just a game.
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- čas přidán 27. 04. 2024
- World of Warcraft used to just be a game to me, something to get lost in and wander around purposefully for fun, to enjoy myself. Nowadays I find myself more concerned with my or others' performance in raids, dungeons, and any facet of the game really.
I'm experiencing a personally longing for the simpler days of exploration for the sake of seeing something new, not being rewarded extrinsically.
Let me know if you feel the same.
Take care! - Hry
Wow, I'm absolutely blown away by the response to this video. I'm humbled and affirmed to see that so many people feel so similarly to me. Thank you all for your comments! Please keep them coming, I'm loving the stories.
What memories or gaming moments of just playing around do you have?
I'm even more buoyed and inspired by all of the stories you have shared in the comments, the vulnerable emotions you've expressed, and the personal solutions you've given and had success with to combat the feelings I have been having.
There seem to be two schools of thought, and I agree with both of them.
On one hand, I can point the finger at Blizzard, as this is the way they've designed things as time has gone on. But they've only designed it this way because I consume the content this way more than I did before. So really it's an indirect finger pointing at myself.
On the other hand, I can point the finger directly at myself. I can combat my own feelings of "not being good enough" or "missing out" or "wasting my time", and return to true and pure "play". If I can get over that internal battle, I can recapture the magic and love and wonder and awe that is presented right in front of me.
So I've been working on doing just that. I am doing some deep exploration in WoW right now, for no other purpose than to have fun. And I'm going to share that here on this channel moving forward.
Join along if you'd like, and thank you all again for your comments!
Great Video! I still spend hours in Mulgore every time I play, fishing and picking flowers with my Druid while listening to the zone music. I love it and it always raises the question "Why do I grind dailys in Dragonflight to get +1 iLvl on my already very nice gear..
Great video, subbed!
I rediscovered a good bit of WoW magic by focusing on internal RP (not with anyone, just in my head) with new alts. Level 50 is where they're safe to tuck into cold-storage (delete, in case I want to un-delete later) and so far I can level a charcter past that point by fully completing two zones. A new alt gets a bit of a backstory, nothing too deep, and I try to find their motivation on which zone to complete, and why. Maybe a profession is involved somehow, or an unusual talent build. No focusing on any kind of efficiency, just immersion.
E.g. My Zandalari arms warrior, whose talent setup centered on bleeds, and practically zero use of Execute. She quested through all of Zandalar and Nazmir, protecting her kingdom from the blood troll threat, trying to serve her king though he remained stubbornly in denial of the depth of the corruption around him.
I've leveled several new characters like that, no heirloom gear, no flying mounts (even through the later Cata zones (Hyjal etc.)), no dungeon groups. I don't know how many total zones there are in current WoW, but if each alt dings 50 before being done with two...that's a LOT of new toons I can make without ever revisiting an area! It's been a very refreshing change of pace.
I really look forward to that series of exploration with you! ^-^ Fun and exploration for its own sake is exactly why most of us fell in love with games in the first place, and I think it's the perfect time for us all to rediscover joy and wonder.
Beautiful video, I subscribed :D
I 100% agree with you and this is why I still play classic wow beside retail. I like both. I like the flashy rewards but I do need these slower paced feelings too
That quest felt like it was speaking directly to me, about the game.
Used to love this place. Left long ago. Im back now and everything feels different and im sad.
Best line of the video: "I want to feel like I'm part of the world again, not the champion of Azeroth"
The "champion" or "hero" title comes from NPCs we (allegedly) know fairly well. It's fun to do quests for characters who don't know or care who we are. "Oh, you're the savior of Azeroth? That's cute. Are you gonna go fetch me some frog eggs or not??"
"Hey, you there. Yeah you, you who's defeated Old Gods, the Lich King, "Demons", Titans, you who's saved the world over, and over, and over... Yeah, no champion title for you. No recognition from members of the world who have seen your efforts, who know your value... You're just "a part of the world... an adventurer. Just another *dude* ""
@@goalgoldI wish you were able to write your thoughts out better, because some good points are in there, but it’s bogged down by your personality lol… uhh, no insult to your personality intended 🫠
The reason I don't want to be the champion of Azeroth is because that requires more of a suspension of disbelief and is therefore less immersive than the more plausible reality of being one of millions of inhabitants of this world. Every time some quest NPC showers me with the highest praise and acts like I alone am the salvation the whole world has been waiting for, I just can't help thinking "Yeah all I did was click on all the things, pick up all the poo, pillage all the boars and murlocs, just like I was told to do and just like millions of other people did." The whole thing just smacks of participation-trophy generation entitlement mentality.
It becomes meaningless after a while being handed everything for nothing and that sucks the joy out of any experience. That is not to say that I don't feel any sense of accomplishment for some of the things I have achieved in wow. Downing difficult raid bosses or soloing dungeons in current content or timing high M+ keys all feel like I have done something impressive. Getting the Battlemaster title definitely was an accomplishment and knowing that only 0.5% of players have achieved that makes me feel like some sort of champion, just not the champion of the entire universe.
I do not require nor desire to have smoke blown up my ass about how great I am when it means absolutely nothing and my true greatness is actually completely overlooked by these NPCs. Its all just a bit too much and I really wish Blizz would dial it back a bit on the whole telling me how awesome I am. I know I'm awesome. I don't need to be told that by someone who doesn't know. If they could just alter course slightly in this regard I really think it would help their game tremendously.
It's still a weak argument. The major factions in dragon flight that recognize you as champion know you from other adventures. The maruuk, tuskarr and loamm treat you like a tool, does that add anything that deep? Every story in wow puts you as the observer even when you get acknowledged. Y'all just romanticizing the past instead of enjoying the now. I'd argue Old timers wanting to turn back the clock is a testament to how good the wow world is and how is hard to ignore or leave behind
The best quest in dragonflight was the one where you just sit next to a dude, looking out over a cliff, and listen to his story
Agreed
And then you remember that costs $15/month
That was such a great quest
@@minotaur818 If you cant afford it, dont play it.
I dont care to put $15/month + you have so many ways, to pay only with gold.
Gotta stop with these dumb statements., brokass
@@minotaur818 Dude is so broke, he can't even afford $15/month
Flash news: You dont need to put your money for sub.
Can't afford it ? Don't play it.
Dude my dad is in his 60s and when he heard classic was coming back he asked me to buy him a subscription for his bday. Both of us played during vanilla and Burning crusade times and he said he wanted to "revive" his character. Last i checked he was level 58. He doesnt party up, he doesnt use discord, he doesnt watch youtube videos; all he does is explore, do quests, mines, smiths and will run lower level dungeons solo. I always ask him if he's bored yet every time he just says "Nope". One day I told him hes literally playing the way a youtuber would for a "challenge video" and he just laughed. He genuinely has a ton of fun from just killing mobs and questing. If you see a lone human warrior named "Gutwrencher", say hi 😊
Wholesome :D
Now _that's_ the way to play. Thanks for sharing that. 😊
“Gutwrencher” that’s so cool!
Haha, that's me, I'm just levelling my 8th character since rejoining the game, it is such a massive world now with absolutely tons of quirky content, personally I think Rotan is just choosing to play the game that way. I lol'd last night when I came across the "human seeds quest" for the undead storyline.
Haha yup, exact same thing for my 70yo mother 😁👍
My favorite memory from WoW was sitting in some remote corner of the map, listening to the rain, the waves and the calming music. I wasn’t doing anything, just appreciating the moment in a place that nobody would ever visit.
That's why I level up fishing on all of my characters. I main a Dwarf Hunter and I pretty much explore every area possible within my level range.
I love doing this too. In Outland, I like to find some really remote "asteroid" floating in the air and just sit there, admiring the sky artwork.
Even better with the flying mounts I would spend alot of time in the sheep farm above stormwind because it was peaceful.
I think I recall the older devs saying the main character from original Wow was the world itself rather than the player. Something along the lines of that.
Yes, they did.
And it still is if you choose to play that way.
@@bluebyyoufu I agree. I am a college student and don't have time to eg raid but I still have lots of fun playing just by going through the world and doing side quests and finishing storylines. I think people forget you can play the game however you want lol.
@@bluebyyoufusorry I can't choose with linear quests and cutscenes everytime on "the story"
nah bro go do some m+ and grind that rio with toxic people 24/7
I don't remember when it started (I played up until Cataclysm), but I do remember starting to feel a little weird that the game started stroking my ego.
The best moment I had in this game was when I was fishing with my blood elf in Durotar, near the ships who goes to Stranglethorn Valley. A druid Tauren came near, make a campfire and sitted at my side, starting to fish too. We talked a lot about random stuff of life, when he got sapped. I could see for a moment an ally rogue who did it. Looking the horizon up on a cliff, we saw an army from alliance marching to Orgrimmar for invade. We run like crazy to the city and start to screech in the global mapa warning for the invasion and horde players popped like hell from all directions. The fight was so amazing than horde pushed and trapped all allys inside the bank - and all started with two guys fishing far from the city and talking about life. I wish to live that moments again, was so fun!
Oh man the faction raids were awesome. We were able to sneak into to Ogrimar and cause absolute chaos
I've never witnessed something like this and it must've been so epic 🥹
What an awesome story, thanks for sharing.
This is the kind of stuff MMO's were created for!
City raids are awesome lol. I've been in many.
It's beyond incredible how immersive early WoW was.. No quest helper yet. You actually needed to read the quests and then find your way around this huge new world.
I often feel that a part of my soul will always remain in Teldrassil, start for the night elfs. Spent countless hours walking around simply exploring this dreamy forest with its colourful landscapes. The sound track still makes me feel a special kind of peace that I can't put into words. Feels like I can always go back there and all is fine. Slaying the first creatures, seeing the first mounted guards, giant trees walking around, getting lost and killed countless times in the endless cave of the Furbolgs. Needing a group to finish the cave and meeting my first buddies. Collecting a shit load of herbs for which I didn't have any use for a long time. Walking back and forth between Darnassus and some quest locations. Some people hated it equally to Ashenvalen, as the paths between quests were very long and one advances very slowly. For me it just felt like one giant world that no one actually really knows yet. Just going around in walking speed sooo much added to the experience. Taking that first ferry to a new location.. Great journey indeed.
Epic open PvP in Stranglethorn Vale, Southshore, X-roads, Blackrock massacre.. Attacking cities with hundreds of other players..
Immense questline to finally be able to raid Onyxia's lair together with 40!! other people. Could go on for hours recounting epic Vanilla moments..
Part of WoWs original feeling died for me with the first flying mounts.. It killed open PvP + one flies so fast.. you don't pay attention anymore to surroundings as much. Moving around started to feel more like getting from A to B.. The slow pace made classic WoW so great.. No teleportation to a Dungeon unless a warlock + 2 would go there. Everyone riding around. It filled the world with people that later got empty as everyone just teleports..
Congrats to anyone that actually read all of this!
I feel the same way about teldrassil. It’s definitely an immersion dragon I’ve been chasing in games ever since. Trying to make a NE Druid in Hardcore was a nice, consistent, traumatic return to teldrassil.
On your point of flying. I loved flight form in druid for the ability to wpvp - drop out of the sky in bear form and charge from the heavens, but I agree that it shrinks the world massively.
It makes me think TBC should have had more (any?) aerial threats around Outland. Certain areas that force you to ground.
"Epic open PvP in Stranglethorn Vale, Southshore, X-roads, Blackrock massacre.. Attacking cities with hundreds of other players..
Immense questline to finally be able to raid Onyxia's lair together with 40!! other people. Could go on for hours recounting epic Vanilla moments.."
I miss all of that. Vanilla was truly the best time. BC was good too. Flying mounts made PvP more fun at the beginning. But then it just became about who could do aerial moves better. I used to point the camera straight up as I mounted after getting back to my corpse so I could fly straight up fast and get away to regroup. Fun times. But the best PvP was world PvP when it happened organically.
As it is now the game feels like a shopping mall. Where you just choose which designer items you want and teleport to the area to get them. There is no sense of community anymore. Its just rush rush rush.
Hey there! Thank you for you comment! I'm looking to make a follow-up video showcasing these comments with in-game footage to match, as a celebration of our favorite memories in WoW as a community. Are you open to me featuring this comment?
It's like reading my early experience. WoW at the start had a soul. Tedrassil forest and the soundtrack felt like I was teleported to some magical land. I remember eventually taking the boat across to... Dark shore(??) and being overwhelmed by feeling of dread how dark and depressing it was in compare to Tedrassil. And I knew that I was not a "little elf" anymore and I had to face the darker places. But then I got to Ashenvale and was yet again greeted by magic and wonder. This game's world was so amazing!
Ahhh Teldrassil… the dream land
This is why we love starting new characters. I love a new character until somewhere in the 20s - 30s when it starts to feel like a job.
It dosnt feel like a job
Just the way you are playing you yourself make it a job.
Literally my favorite WoW memory was in early Burning Crusade. I woke up super early before work and couldn't get back to sleep, so I hopped on my Forsaken priest alt to grind my tailoring a bit with all the materials I'd farmed on my main the day before. I was in Thunderbluff, near the bank. The server was mostly empty at that hour. My priest checked the mail, collected the materials from my main, and started fashioning bolts of cloth. As I did, the sun began to rise over Mulgore and the city, washing it all in an orange light only visible that time of day.
I stopped making cloth for a minute and just looked out over the grasslands, breathtaken. I walked from the bank to the plateau's edge, took a seat, and kept crafting.
It wasn't the raids, or the plot, or even my own character's personal story; it was that time I was playing as a zombie, knitting, watching the sun rise over verdant green fields. That's the memory that stuck with me more than any other.
Awesome!!! Some of my personal most cherished memories of playing WoW WotLK was just riding through the Barrens mounting my raptor, listening to the album Killers by Iron Maiden... Probably was out looking for some poor animals' fangs or killing kobolds? But ironically what stood the test of time the most... Are those tireless rides all through that desert, which seemed like a waste of time then but now has such a lovely feeling when you just remember it!
Ps.: also shout out to that random guy Floyd Pinkus on Outland. The only NPC whose name I remember til today!
@@Complicaadd0rock ~ been through Tanaris on a mount with no name ~
This is beautiful
Still mad they yanked the TBC era servers away again from us a second time. Cancelled SUB again, most likely for good.
At least I got to play TBC again from scratch a second time, and it was an absolute blast from beginning to end
This was a beautiful sentiment
I miss when I could join up with a raid and just do the raid. Now it's like "LFM for ICC. Need 2 DPS and 1 Heals. Meet in Dal for gear check." and then when you get there and pass the gear check they check your achievements, and double check your stats on some random-assed website. And then, if you pass the application process you can join the raid after they spend another hour and a half checking people's shit. I shouldn't have to go through a job interview to play a 20 year old game.
All of this checking just to play a game lmao the min maxing people ruined wow
So true, I miss when the raid leaders didn’t give a fuck . Yes there wipes but there were kicks, and drama . Everyone wants to just fucking one shot everything after maximum preparation, boring.
Yep.
Get 40 random people, charge in, have fun.
Die, almost certainly. Cool. Maybe one day you actually beat it and it's a victory of true proportions.
You forget to read excel before raid :-D
The gear and achievement checking was a thing back in original Wotlk also.
In 2006, I failed my first year at university because of World of Warcraft. At the time, I was studying architecture, and while exploring continents, cities, and game environments, I wanted to one day create video games myself. I still dream about it, but instead of architecture, I work as a 3d artist in the game industry. I haven't played WoW since 2007-2008, I still miss playing it and that feeling.
There are two things I remember vividly from my early TBC days.
1st story was when I met a random druid and a shammy - we all were just vibing in travel forms in Stranglethorn Vale and randomly started chatting up. We then discovered that all of us are new to the game so maybe we should start a party. We chatted for like 3 hours after that and then each week we would do "DISCOVERY" time which consisted of us going in our travel forms to various locations and mostly trying to enjoy the views with strategy planning so we all survive.
The 2nd was me and my guild of casual players (my two buddies were also there) were doing parties in bootybay Inn getting smashed and talking on team speak about our plans for the week both in game and irl.
Man I wish I have this back. I hope all of you folks are doing great wherever your journey took you! :)
I agree. I do miss when people played the game for fun rather than treating it like a job. I stopped playing warcraft around the time I noticed people started caring more about gear score than actually enjoying the game. Being just and adventurer trying to survive in the world while exploring it would be great.
Then play it that way. Find people likeminded.
@@matthijsstellaard9905 Do you know how rare those people are?
@@matthijsstellaard9905 If you can point me in the direction of those people, I'd be more than happy to do so.
@@Sanguivore join us on classic hc servers :)
@@millathecat6612 I just may consider it! I’ve been thinking of introducing my younger brother to WoW, and I gotta admit that much of that magic lies in the older versions.
I used to RP walk in and around Stormwind all the time back in vanilla, I would walk around Ironforge and check out all the rooms too :) I would spend hours "playing the game" and get nothing done in terms of progression just enjoying the new things and cool places
Because it was something new… never seen before… now IF is there for 18 years… I’m pretty sure you’ve already seen all the rooms.
I remember coming home from my college lessons and just fishing for a hour to relax in Mists of Pandaria.
@@martin9202 I like to do the exact same things around the Dragon Isles too :D
There are a lot of interesting things and hidden easter eggs
you act like that's hard to do in dragonflight. I get nothing done in wow by spending hours slaughtering the auctiion house in stormwind now. feels great. no one is forcing you to do content you don't care about. no one is stopping you from making your own fun. I see so many statements like this, "I miss x,y, and z" when x y and z are still available and you're no longer interested in doing them. you don't miss it. if you did you would still do it.
Played hunter in vanilla and I spent so much time in Duskwood just 'playing' the game like you said.
As an adult, I always struggled to sit down and play World of Warcraft again, even in it's Classic Vanilla incarnation across the different private servers I've nudged over the years. Though I have stuck to Turtle WoW these days, I realize from this video that my anxiety to play probably comes from all this min-maxing, end-game, time-efficient ideologies that took my inner child hostage.
Maybe I can rediscover that simplicity, let down my expectations, and go on a simple adventure again. Oh, the joy I can imagine. I forgot that's why I play video games - to have fun. Not stress over a fantasy.
You described the exact experience that made me fall in love with WoW back when I was trying out the game on a Cata private server. I did most of the stuff you did in terms of exploring, and I got accidentally teleported to the Blasted Lands as a lvl15ish nelf rogue. Since I had no idea what a heartstone was I ended up stealthing my way north towards the "nearest" low level alliance zone I could find on the map. That zone was Dun'Morog, of course. And since I didn't actually know the maps and paths, I ended up going trough the Swamp of Sorrows, Burning Steppes, Searing Gorge and Badlands, slowly and methodically stealthing my way around skull level mobs that would often spot me anyways
That was the story of how I as a Night Elf noob found my way to Ironforge and then Stormwind. The next day the one kid at school who did play WoW told me about heartstones lol
That little adventure was so much fun
I can't remember most of my time raiding or doing mythic+, but I do remember my silly adventures discovering the world, getting lost and stuck, doing random stuff and leveling with the boys
did the same :D
i remember getting my first riding wolf and just spend days riding around and explore the world
Same. My Black Hawkstrider will always be my favorite mount and that I still use whenever I decide to give wow “another chance”
Recently I've returned to WoW after 10 years of absence. Back then, I've played together with my ex, we rushed forward, clicking through quests without reading them, getting achievements and running through dungeons as fast as we could. No fun. This time, I'm taking it slow, nothing and no one is chasing me, when I got to Stormwind, I ran around the town for 2 hours, looking everywhere, chatting with NPC's, when I came across a tombstone in the cemetery, I've opened up the wiki to read who the character was. Now I'm in Stranglethorn, I've transmogrified my costume, to look like a jungle explorer, I'm running around all goofy, fighting raptors and catching pets, I can't recall the last time I've had so much fun with a game (probably The Witcher 3 in 2015). WoW is phenomenal, but only, when you don't let it FOMO you, and just relax.
I came to the comments to say basically the exact same thing. I've spent the past year working on Loremaster and making an alt for each section/expac I complete so that I can at least use Chromie time to quest through each area until I'm level 60. And it's the best time I've had in WoW in... a very, very long time. Since MoP actually, when I quit because I realised I spent 90% of my time AFKing in the city hub, so I've been gone from WoW about as long as you have too. All my friends quit so it's just me now. And man is it relaxing to just play it solo. I don't care about raiding anymore. I just want to relax. And there's a lot of ways to do it honestly, but a lot of people get really bogged down with progression and raiding that they don't see it.
@@enchantedecho57 Yeah! And now Darkmoon Faire is back, and I'm having a blast :D It's funny, it's jolly, I was flying through the fiery rings, and now I have fiery wings :D
This is the way.
Wow.. this is like the best comment I've read so far about World of Warcraft. All my friends stopped playing with me because I decided to read the quest texts. I did like 5 quests when they did 10 in the same time. But it is so much more fun. Get 10 leather? Sounds lame but I know why I need to get them and the quest after I need some salt because I know they need the salt for the leather. Everything makes so much more sense now. When I see an npc standing somewhere alone, having a unique name I Google them and read the comments about this npc, why he's there,what's his lore etc.
Wow became for me what driving my bike is : I'm not driving my bike to get to the destination. I drive my bike to drive. Arriving is just the topping of the cake.
Sounds like a huge waste of time
I hope we have this experience again someday, but I wonder if it’s just the culture now. I wish everyone could experience what it’s like when the community focuses on fun. In the early days it was like everyone was enamored with just how COOL it was to even be part of that world. I’m glad we got to be a part of it!
The time when internet was young and the world still told people they could be anything they wanted to when growing up. Just it was just 20 years ago now. But its so far gone its hard to remember. People used to let their kids run the streets till dark. Many didnt lock their doors. It was a simpler time. Now greed and shitty humans have ruined everything for everybody except the ultra rich. Life has becomes mostly a joke. A college degree doesnt even find you work anymore. The culture of humanity is dying and its reflected in games because "art imitates life"-Aristotle.
Something I’ve discovered about myself with gaming is that a huge part of me enjoyment comes from learning the games.
Unfortunately, most games work pretty much the same in terms of core mechanics. This means that since I’ve been gaming for the better part of 90% of my life, I already know what’s going to happen in a game before it does simply based on they way things are functioning.
The beginning of mmos when everyone doesnt know the sweaty meta to everything is always the best time
I remember back in 2005 how getting a mount was a thing.
Guildies would borrow gold for you to get your first mount at level 40 and it was pretty damn hard to have 90g at that time.
Even harder to get an epic mount costing 900g. I was lucky enough to drop a Krol Blade at level 50 something and sell it for something like 1k gold (it was the best BOE weapon in the game). Used the money to buy my swift raptor. It was such a huge achievement. Definitely felt more imersive than nowadays.
Yes!!!!
Yep, that first mount was so hard to get. Back then I was using Thottbot no addons to level and I finally made it to level 40 and I had no money. I farmed rock elementals and sold the items to a vendor in the Badlands until I had enough gold to get my first mount. There was such a sense of accomplishment when I got that first mount. So many alt chars, so much time wasted doing random stuff not knowing how to level, etc. It took a long time for me first get to 40 and then to get the gold for the training and mount.
he was out there selling greys to vendors for his lvl 40 mount hahahahha some heroes just wont wear anything at all right?!😂
Ooof, I remember how I was around level 40, standing around Orgrimmar offering to boost people through dungeons for some gold. When I was about 5 - 10 gold pieces away a higher level player rode up to me, handed me the rest of the gold and told me to enjoy having a mount. I think it was an undead rogue or something similar. I was over the moon finally getting to ride around on my badass Raptor which I truly treasured. So when I needed to head back to Tanaris to level up, did I take the flight path? Hell no, I took my raptor all the way.
Reminded me of the time an epic staff called staff of Jordan I believe? dropped for me on STV, and I had sold it to someone I quested with for 2G or so, only to later discover it was worth so much more.. Ah but I'm glad if he made use of it at any case :D
One of the most notable things ive seen mentioned recently is that WoW was, whilst a game, and an accessible one for its time with many positive qualities, was also many peoples first real "social media", and that impact on people is something that can never be recreated.
Spot on.
Barrens chat babyyyy
EverQuest
@@oldsaddad7274 Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
Now you join a group, people just plow through whatever dungeon, don't speak at all, finish, que for the next one, like why are yall playing this mmo and not talking to each other? Not talking to the other humans behind their characters? Socially stunted even in the game now!
When my wife and I first started seeing each other, she got me into WOW. That was almost 20 years ago. She was at an advanced level and I was a newbie. She played with raid friends she'd known for several years, I was solo. The game fascinated me. Not because I was particularly good at it, but because it was in fact a "World of Wonder". Heck; I even enjoyed the "Warcraft" movie (it was what it was) because it provided some lore but also some interesting exposition on the nature and aspirations of the orcs. So yeah, I agree. The "wonders" shouldn't be just speed bumps on the way to a record run to L70.
I remember walking through Mulgore just visiting the little huts all over the place.
I would also always make a point to find a bed in an inn and having my character actual sleep in the bed prior to logging out
This video really spoke to me.
Some years ago I started a guild with the sole purpose of playing the game like a game and not a job. I had no addons and I encouraged a lot of new players to do the same. I just wanted to meet people and have a good time. If you are reading this and you are a new wow players just chill and play the game HOWEVER YOU WANT. Wanna be a fire mage, be a fire mage, want to run around dun morough killing leper gnomes, please DO THAT. Don't let your happiness and wonder be squashed by the elitism and cynicism of this player base. You are playing the game just right!
Ah, where were you years ago my friend! I'd have joined instantly. I've never used addons nor never will. I stopped doing dungeons and raids early on because folks were way too uptight about it and very nasty quite often. It's a game/hobby that I'd played to have fun! Not worry about perfect builds or grinding for epic gear that became junk when the next expansion came out. Keep it up!
Sadly, guilds like yours don't last long. I did the same but my guildies always fell prey to feeling inadequate when they ran with other people or they just gave into temptation since playing without any conveniences is pretty tough once you are used to them. In the end, my guildies had all gone against the basic concept of the guild by OCDing on BIS, best spec, and meters so I disbanded so they could play the way they had chosen. Hopefully, you had a better outcome.
@@ashphoenix406 I believe mine would have met a similar end. I could see the effects you mentioned already taking place. They were starting to get more focused on meters and downloading their own addons.
In the end, I can't make people play the game I want them to play. If you want to play with meters and be the best go be the best, but don't be a douche when people don't meet your expectations in a video game. People in my opinion just use it as an excuse to feel better about themselves and I think that is one of the main reasons new players don't try wow. The player base can be a bit too toxic.
Competitiveness destroyed games.
Its okay for some types of games like arcade games but for rpgs its the death sentence
I think of a stereo typical wow pvp main, grossly toxic and hyper competitive.
@@lucasgough288 And how does that affect the overall game? The majority of WoW players never PVPed and Blizzard never gave it more attention than the one new BG or arena they add each expansion.
Games are born from competition. You think chess has survived thousands of years despite its competitiveness? You think "the superbowl" or the world cup, or Wimbledon, or State of Origin are popular because the players are "just enjoying themselves... taking it easy..."?
@@SupachargedGamingnah it’s an rpg. Intended to enjoy yourself in an adventure based game. It’s you vs the game and the competitive portion is an afterthought.
My entire world of Warcraft experience was like this. I played a rogue. I felt like a cat skulking around the world, hiding from higher level players, trying to find rare mobs and rare little trinkets and things while exploring the continents. It was amazing. My friends were on my ass all the time for not leveling enough but I just wanted to lollygag and find stuff I thought looked cool.
I started in BC back in the day as a blood elf and I will forever hold that feeling of wonder and amazement when I first saw Silvermoon in my heart. The sights, the music... it was perfection. I'm not really an explorer at heart, I take no joy in snooping around for the sake of it. But then and there I had a sense of discovery, that I found something that had meaning. Wandering around the city, seeing the elven ambassador showing the horde ambassadors around, it felt like a real, living city. I felt a sense of home that I never had in meatspace.
There was also this discreetly hidden place near Shatttrath, a small lake and a few trees atop a small peak. You could only fly there, so it was very much out of the way for both means of travel, since it wasn't even near anything of significance and it blended in nicely with the area. It was a nice place to take people to for more private conversations which, as you said, had to happen in chat rather than over voice. I think that the lack of voice chat allowed more people to open up, since you needed only type out your thoughts, without anyone hearing your voice that could identify you as anything.
I also fondly remember the old Warlock quest to get your epic mount (the burning horse). It was a fair bit of work and I had to ask my guildmates for help at the end but it was quite the ride and finally riding around on the new, extremely cool looking mount meant so much more than most other mounts I ever picked up later on.
Throws me into a legitimate depressive spiral when I contemplate the old times playing wow.
Sitting in my room, South Park on the TV.
Running through hillsbrad, killing yetis with my older brother. Both of us completely unaware of how to progress or do anything meaningful. And suddenly a blue pole-arm drops, we both lose it.
Fast forward to my first ever raid on my hunter. Saturday morning ZG. Struggle to log into vent, met with a bunch of older guys laughing and joking. Step into the raid absolutely dumbfounded at the scope of the place.
Clear 2-3 bosses before we start perma wiping on the tiger boss or whichever.
Didn’t matter, everyone was vibing, and we all went out and messed around outside Org dueling after the raid. No insta raid logging, no anger really.
It was legit a game, but man it’s crazy HOW integral it was in my childhood.
And honestly, it’s probably never going to be close to what it was.
Really sad, gotta move on I suppose, just having a hard time not constantly falling back into these nostalgic depressive stints.
SOD was a good idea, I enjoy the fact that the dev team seems to be trying, but it just feels like wotlk or even slightly retail to me.
Idk man, vanilla WoW was just a great time.
Play "Turtle WoW" with me. Its the best.
@@Shokisan1 You are associating a period in your life with a game. What was good was carefree life you had back then.
You have to try and chase new experiences instead. As tough and sad as it is to realize, you can't recapture the good old days. It's impossible. But you can try to make new good old days. But the thing is that you don't know when they're happening until it's past. I'm similar to you I think. Very Nostalgic and can get depressed about it. But my only advice is to look back and treasure the memories but also allow yourself to make new good memories.
@@Kings_Crossing bro you are 100% dead on.
I have a family now, we’re having a great time, I just definitely need to refocus every time I get in these stints.
Life seems like it has phases, go figure. That phase of my life was great, and instead of dwelling and being depressed I have to focus on new experiences like you said.
I’d bet my life on the fact that 20 years from now (if I make it that long) I’ll be looking back at this current time with nostalgia as well.
Off to go hit the gym actually. Have a good day bro.
@@maxpowers4436 you replied to the wrong person. Turtle wow is going on now. It's the best. No more nostalgia. I'm living the dream.
"Just like playing pretend, when you were a kid."
From Vanilla to Cataclysm I played on Venture Company RPPVP server, and had an undead warlock named Dymentia.
For ALL of that time, raiding, battleground and arena ALL took a backseat to *World PVP* on our server. Alliance and Horde each had a half dozen or so guilds that claimed a faction settlement as the "home base" and opposing factions guilds would start killing NPC guards at that base when they wanted a fight. I was in and our base was Tarren Mill. We were dedicated to protecting lowbies, and would camp Southshore for HOURS if a high level Alliance started harassing levelers. We also organized large scale world world PVP events, like fighting over Stromgarde ruins or the Thandol Span, and letting the other side reset so we could have several "matches." Our main rival was in Darkshore, and someone got a temporary ban cause we figured out how to get on the roofs and cast spells down on em where they couldn't reach us lmao.
It was so fun, and my best memories of WoW, and it was the most meaningless, pointless stuff with regards to progression.
I’ve played with you at one time, I was Primaries a blood elf pally
Exactly but now you a adult you will never waste your time away at pointless stuff...
Not knowing is a blessing as a child.
But doing that as an adult changes the blessing into ignorance
@@Oldmanflyfishing Sick dude yeah I remember that name! Long time lmao
@@Desperado070 I guess, I'm now leveling an Alliance Warlock on a private Vanilla server at 1x, despite being able to level at 3x, cause I want the experience since I never played an alliance character. For some people it's about the journey, not the destination.
All that being said when classic launched, I was in a sweaty raiding guild and was the Warlock tank in AQ who spent endless hours farming the Shadow resist gear. Some people can enjoy both.
I was in Thelsamar Commonwealth on Venture Co. I wasn't even a big PvPer or even level 70, but I was always taken along to world PvP and just messing around.
Besides for the RP communities it doesn't feel like players make their own content in WoW anymore.
Man, this is so nostalgic. I think a lot of people relate to you. I remember me and my friends in 2004 buying a copy of the game, then we sat around a round table in some cafe and decided what class and race each of us would be, almost in an rp manner. Good times
This was a great articulation of a feeling, that struck a chord with so many of us.
Azeroth in the middle and late 2000s was our generations Woodstock. What a moment
honestly 2019-2020 classic was the closest i got to that feeling again. I’m now nostalgic about 2004 vanilla and 2019 vanilla classic 😭😭
Vanilla wow is terrible. Tbc and wrath classic were both superior. No chNges = terrible
@@cococock2418 i disagree, 40 man raids, world bosses, the servers had to be extremely more interactive to clear content. The scale of social interactions were much larger.
@@cococock2418 Where are your official TBC and Wrath servers? Meanwhile Vanilla has Era, SoD and Hardcore. GG
@@cococock2418 VAnilla wow was great, sure it ran worst than classic but the experience was so much better. Everyone starting at zero with no knowledge of the game whatsoever is a unique experience.
This. I was enjoying it so much but now it's back to Cata zones and if I wanted that I'd play retail.
This is why my motto is, "I'm here for a good time." I always keep that in mind whenever I'm playing, and I start thinking about what's "optimal" or whatever. I go with what makes me happy and what's fun to me, because that's what's important.
Yeah I've been doing that, makes it so much better
I remember playing games and becoming so immersed that I chose to walk/run/platform everywhere instead of fast traveling. I actually enjoyed the journey of navigating to a destination, aggro dodging troublesome enemies, using possibly glitched shortcuts, and memorizing the world's layout from a surface perspective instead of just the top-down perspective of a world map.
This is probably also why I loved the 3D Zelda and Metroid games.
I played WoW very briefly with a group who pulled me in with pirates with Battle for Azeroth. No prior experience.
I played on an rp server where my group would take me on guided tours through areas where I hadn’t unlocked flying yet, role playing a little even though I didn’t know the lore super well and we’d tour abandoned areas, playing quests no one does anymore searching for the gear for transmog that I wanted for my characters. I never engaged much with the current gameplay because the most fun I had was exploring the vast landscapes in a group or honestly just alone. I could really see what drew people to the game and world. There was no engaging content besides my curiosity of “ooh what’s that”.
What turned me away was the actual gameplay, I caught myself logging in to do my dailies to grind for a title and I realized “wait I’m not having fun” and stopped playing.
I will however, treasure the time where my curiosity would drive me to strange areas with no other players and I’d sit on a hill and just steep in the atmosphere.
That being said; I’ve never experienced a more newbie hostile game and I’m glad for the little community I found who were all happy to explain what mechanics I should care about and patiently explain it was my job as the rogue to unlock doors.
Frankly… this is a framing problem caused by min maxing and optimizing. We don’t play games anymore and engage in an open ended learning process with slowly and steady growth. We watch videos, hold ourselves to high standards, and grind ourselves into burnout. Impo play some indie games and stop looking at guides, you’ll start having fun again ❤
Could not agree more. Comes down to our own choices. I stopped playing games that only offer the grind years ago and went for more relaxed, usually indie, games and started to enjoy gaming again. There is enough grinding in life as it is.
This is so true, I stopped using guides and games are so much more fun when you're not minmaxing everything to death.
Eh, I think modern retail WoW next to Wotlk is a stark difference and no amount of framing will change that objective reality. Each xpac they push the levelling journey to be a little faster, and when you remove all that you end up with a slow paced RPG.
I think if someone doesn’t like the modern pacing, they should pick up a private server, or maybe they’re just done with the game.
@@TRDiscordian I literally said go play some indie games as in, don’t play wow. Wow for me is only enjoyable to push keys or raid prog, if I don’t hook into min maxing and optimizing there is no game. I totally agree there is very little creative play in modern wow.
@@jamesgphillips91 you said “frankly this is a framing problem” and I disagreed with you. I agree with this comment of course, it’s exactly what modern wow is lol.
Thank you for reminding me of the old days when I played a hunter, because all my friends said that was the easiest to play when learning the game, everything you said in this video, reminded me how special that first experience was. I specifically remembered when I was handing in the nesingwary quest in outlands, and this druid appeared and changed forms and flew away. I had to quickly /w him because I wanted to know how he did that. Since that day I've mained druid. The good old days we're the best 😢
I think you raise a good point here. I would still design a game with progression, etc, but also want to keep in mind allowing the player to just... play the game. Well done.
No one is stopping you from 'just playing the game' lmao
@@FangTehWolf you clearly didn't understand the video.
@@aarondcmedia9585 The video is pointless.
@@FangTehWolf I am not surprised you'd think that.
@@aarondcmedia9585 Yeah, I find video essays about people complaining they can't experience things for the first time again, and a bunch of impressionable perma-shut-ins thinking it's gospel, silly.
"smaller more meaningful bite sized stories" - you hit the nail on the head here. When it comes to WoW, I've been thinking for quite some time that "less is more" or that a smaller world with more intimate questing and player interaction is far more engaging than the humongous theme park we have to play in now. Bigger sounds good on paper, but in reality, I feel its almost safe to say OBJECTIVELY that people have more fun when they're in a smaller more recognizable, familiar and intimate world.
I used to know the ins and outs of every zone and I can recall so many moments and interactions in that smaller more familiar world. The world felt very "live in" as you put it. Now it feels like I'm just passing through an overcrowded high traffic airport where nobody pays attention to anyone or anything.
I remember when I left Valley of Trial for the first time on my troll hunter and discovered the sea. I spent hours just swimming around those sunken ships trying to find treasure.
This is one of my strongest core memories. Swimming around echo isles collecting tiger pelts. Rushed home from school and i knew my 2006 wow fresh install would have been done updating and ready to play. Played for 7 hours that day.
@@farhanbaig404 those were the days man. I remember doing the tiger quest and stumbling on the trolls who were in the scary ruins. Felt like Indiana Jones
My memories of such are bound to Silverpine Forest. Cursed, gloomy mystic woods. Ravaged villages, crushed fortifications, with a magic bubble in the middle of the map. That was so fantastic, even if most of my discoveries were simply dead ends. No rush, no git-gut. Pure adventure to post-apocalyptic Azeroth.
To "play" vanilla now in a guild I must have 2-3 spreadsheets, raid schedule, voice comm, optimized build and gear. The PvP scene has always been minmaxed to a degree, but now it's critical due to almost 20 years of datamining, research and calculation.
I guess, the main issue here is, we can't slow down information spread. There always will be few, who invest their time to figure out what's "optimal" even before an update releases. And they share the info publicly. Ppl get used to listen their FOMO urges, so the info became a trend in a day.
Overall atmosphere has changed since 2004. Players don't want to get fun anymore. Consumers want to be "successful" in the game.
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The long trek between cities, listening to the ambient sounds and experiencing the weather change as you’re excited to come across whatever is next around the corner is a feeling I’ll never forget. I agree, slow it down moving forward. I want to plan each pull in a dungeon, and I want to travel the world to make my gear!
I loved wow in 2006 when it felt like a new world. I loved playing the talents I wanted to based on what seemed interesting.
I spent most of my time trying to get to the set pieces you could only see on FPs (ironforge airport for example)
I will never forget stumbling upon Goldshire for the first time and thinking that this has to be a place that not everyone knows about because of how big the world was!
It’s very hard for me to capture those feelings in any game now. I’ve played too many games where I can pretty much turn my brain off and just solve every puzzle, beat every boss without much effort.
The closest I’ve come to feeling this again was my first play through of Breath of the Wild in 2017. I want to be able to capture those feelings again.
Recently I was talking to some friends about when I used to play wow back in the day. And after years I realised that I was like a friendly NPC of the early to mid game zones. I liked the starting areas so much that usually I got stuck at around lvl 30-40. All that because I liked chatting with new players, helping with their group quests, showing them the way to the quest that they needed to do since there was no map tracking back then. And eventually all these new players would surpass me at lvls and I would still be back there, the friendly NPC, helping out the new guys, chatting, and protecting them from the attacking alliance since we were on a PvP server.
WoW has some really nice places to sit and chat, and trade items and food! ❤
That time when you'd go into a retail game store, seeing the wall plastered with World of Warcraft boxes. I'd flip open the front thingy of the game's box and be all bewildered seeing a dwarf with a flaming sword fighting a yeti.
Game was exclusive to credit card users back then, so naturally I was living off of several 30 day 'trial' accounts. Went to play on a bunch of private servers, but despite all the shortcomings (bugs, missing content, etc.) compared to retail WoW, those were some of the best days of my childhood. Ended up settling for a small tight-knit Blizzlike Vanilla server, only for us to get a DMCA roundhouse kick in the face a few months later.
By the time I _really_ joined retail, everyone was running AQ, whilst I was still a level 14 Night Elf Druid dancing as a bear and begging for gold in Goldshire. The kid in me actually thought that there was gold to be found in a place called 'Goldshire', but all I got was at most 50~ silver 'for my trouble'. At least my *[Lesser Wizard's Robe]* made me feel all epic and whatnot.
It may be naïve to think like this, but truth be told, I blame the disappearance of 'games just being games' like these on the stakeholders and corporate greed. The ancient 'fear of missing out' method has been upgraded over the years to include crap like in-game stores, exclusive mounts/pets/collectables, game pre-orders, character boosters and battle passes, to name a few. It's not about making a game to simply be a game for the sake of being a game. No, it's about making the most buck for the least amount of effort, a classic _quantity over quality_ scenario.
Logging back into World of Warcraft after being away for a while gave me a bombardment of in-game mails, telling me that content has been removed and/or changed. Campaign missions are shoved down your throat to throw you directly into the new expansion content, after which you can toss away your old (yet fancy) gear for common rags, transmog aside. Dailies and weeklies are fun if you do them once, not for a gazillionth time. LFG and LFR made it easier to find groups for certain dungeons/raids, but if you've never found the location of said dungeons/raids on your adventures by simply exploring, it's a little disappointing to not understand the story/lore behind the dungeon when you enter it. It's comparable to reading a book for the first time, but instead of starting at page 1, you start at page 200, and the book happens to be the Silmarillion. Ain't that tough luck?
Either way, enough ranting from me. I'll try out the next expansion to see if it's any different and hope it'll prove me wrong. But I'll probably end up fishing anyways, like I always do.
And that flaming sword I mentioned earlier? Yeah.. never got it. Too busy begging for 'gold' in Goldshire.
My big engrossment experience in WoW was when my very first character, a Tauren Druid named Blawan, got to the Barrens. Mulgore was nice, don't get me wrong but the race intro said that the Barrens was my people's ancestral home and it looked like the African serengeti how cool was that?! I remember doing my bear form quest and being so engrossed, challenging and fighting the lions for no reason just to prove I was the biggest and baddest apex predator of the plains. I remember after getting cat form stalking and chasing the the herds of gazelle critters and hunting the giraffes like the King of the Jungle I was.
Then my brother took sole ownership of our shared account when he joined a raiding guild in TBC, and rolled something else when I got an account of my own but I'll never forget those original memories.
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The lack of immersion really hurts modern MMO’s for me. It’s possibly my top priority and too often throughout wow’s history, systems masqueraded as ‘convenience’ only served to isolate players from one another and disincentivize interaction. Immersion destroyed.
There was a beautiful moment in time during the hardcore mod days (prior to Official hardcore) where that feeling was very strong. Life felt fleeting. Gold and gear was scarce. Some quests were so intimidating. Seeking community and camaraderie was paramount.
Then again, I’m one of the weird mmo players that has always been more of a fan of leveling, open world pvp threats, tangible progression and environmental immersion. The meta-chasing end game i-level grind has always killed it for me.
Its not a game anymore its a checklist. For example quests. I used to chose which quests to do and which zone to level in. Now quests are linear, 3 at a time, and i have to finish all 3 to get the next 3.
Well said. "Its not a game anymore its a checklist" what a powerful statement.
Sadly the case for many games these days.
Checklist... How have I never called it that? Absolute perfect description.
We can thank money hungry corporations who realised games make money. Much more money than they could imagine.
No game is done with love and dedication anymore, it's just a copy of eachother and everyone is racing to get the most $$$ before shutting down and opening with new clone.
I'm sorry that you are this nostalgia stricken but it's literally the same on old vanilla, tbc, wotlk etc, you have to start levelling from camp X to get quests for camp Y just to get starting quests for zone X and then repeat over and over until max level, after cataclysm they added the board to cities that tell you which zones you can start in that are appropriate for your level and it gives you multiple choices too, stop gaslighting yourself bro
Part of the problem is how we've been trained to play games and derive enjoyment from how well we play them as opposed to just playing them.
Gearscore, ranking, parses its all a competition now and its all most of the players today focus on.
Not "most" just the people you associate with. You are likely competitive (so am I). There are a LOT, and I mean a LOT of people in both retail and classic who don't care about any of that. They are the people who often suck at raiding, grey parse, do stupid stuff in dungeons, only use text chat, are in a leveling guild at max level, and just generally play the game however they feel at the time. They are often reviled by the "community" as noobs, bad players, casuals, etc, but they are still the silent majority.
@@ethanwilliams1880 thanks for the insightful "well ackshullly" post.
Shoulda listened to pops when he'd come shut your game off. The problem us being a gamer. Not a person that enjoys games, but a person that LIVES games.
The problem 100% is always the player, and saying anything else is an excuse to not be responsible for your own actions.
I disagree I played classic wow and got the exact experience everyone described, game has good top down rp design. Especially when I did hc. I’m getting to the point where others were at now w sod, but that’s sod. All the stuff they added doesn’t have top down rp design, if anything it’s so much worse cuz now I can’t not go on wowhead. Either way I think just blanketly saying ppl don’t play games like this anymore is wrong. Ppl do want games like this and will play them it just takes a lot to make them so it’s not really worth for companies
@@joe8133 No you misunderstand me. I am saying that gamers on average do not play to enjoy they play to enjoy how they perform.
Been reading LoTR a lot as of late and its reminding me of why I loved WoW so much growing up and why I keep coming back to it. Wouldnt be surprised by how much the game was inspired by those books and movies. Really just getting to immerse myself in a fantasy world was all I wanted as a kid.
This is why Breath of the Wild is a masterpiece to me. If you've played you know that the story/quest lines are extremely open and secondary. Most of the game is a out exploring, taking pictures, talking to people, climbing mountains...it's Skyrim but with Zelda and I absolutely loved it. It had been years since I actually got addicted to a game and lost myself in its universe!
I will never forget the feeling of joy and awe I had when I first played WoW as a Blood Elf priest. The music, the Blood Elf forest, the buildings, the bestiary...Everything was magical to me and I spent countless hours just exploring every bit of the map I could. I also didn't manage to get very far in leveling up, but I wouldn't trade that for the fun I had playing it my way and taking things slow. Good times
im 40 man and i was a priest since 2004 -2015 stoped and returned in private server in lockdown covid 2020 started 21y in colege still i like wow but i get u playin with zoomers feel sad gogog kill bb ty come come bb no social no explorin all tutorials youtube gogo kill then get bored w8 next patch expa etc its adrenaline junkie game and pay to play i miss tbc
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@@RotanWarcraft Of course yeah !
I will always love my Blood Elf Warlock more than anything else available.
it used to be so easy to get lost in WoW and I loved it!
I used to adore World of Warcraft, and to that merit why I loved Classic WoW before it reached Cata, because WoW at one point felt like my own Lord of the Rings. When I was a kid and watched those movies (like most of us absolute nerds) I thought to myself, "I wish I could have my life/an adventure of my own in my own fantasy world." When I first played World of Warcraft as a kid I never felt anything even like it in my life. The idea that I could make a character that played a unique part of the world by just existing and one day my actions could change everything for another player was unique, and the fact that I could just *log in* and talk to hundreds of new people and make friends without even having to see the face or hear the voice of another soul was mind blowing to me. World of Warcraft used to be a game about making your own stories through adventures.
Now I very rarely/almost never hear anyone talk about "Wow, I went on a world quest today and I found this in it and a whole book talking about this and then I managed to solo the boss mob at the end to get my first blue item" like it was the best experience of their life. Maybe less to do with your feeling of WoW just being simple, but I feel like it is in a similar ballpark. WoW used to be so much less streamlined and I think in doing so used to feel more like a video game and adventure than it does now. Where once every class was so unique that even leveling was a unique experience, traveling the world, and even multiple quests were unique to your class and felt like when you had to do certain quests to get some of your abilities that your character was a real person. Now every class can self heal (which what does it matter you auto regen health so fast that even Clerics can level just as fast as Warriors), class quests almost don't exist, and every class with the exception of a few I swear can tank, heal, and DPS with so little difference between them so it feels like why bother playing anything other than the highest tier class in game at the moment?
Now? Now it feels like there is not pre max level in WoW. Why bother? I recently got a sub (haven't played since Leigon because I waited to see of WoA was good and it wasn't and haven't played it since) because my older sister wanted some of that good good WoW nostalgia and to see if the game has changed for the better. I got to max level in about 3ish days if that and then it felt like "welp, back to the endgame raid grind." No talking in chat unless it was to complain, no people introducing themselves, no heart or soul. Just the equivalent of office workers at a desk just trying to get a job done and that to me is why WoW no longer feels like a game to me anymore. Where characters once all felt unique now are just another passing NPC for all I could know. Where once every class felt unique, and my character brought something unique to the table that no other character could provide, now feels so streamlined that unless you play the highest tier class and specializations your just wasting you and everyone else's time. Where the world had to be enjoyed and adventured through *before* you were allowed the endgame content, with getting to level 60 taking ages now is so streamlined that either you can quickly grind it past or just pay real world money to pass it and get to the "good content."
My last tidbit I'll say to show my point best I can; remember when questing used to be difficult so you would talk to people yourself and ask if anyone would like to join you? Questing used to be a fun part of the game that, unless you were really good at the game, were best advised to get a group together to do. Wake up, get on with your lads/make new friends, grab your arrows, bullets, food (and drink if you were a spellcaster), and grab up any you thought interesting or you found cool on fourms/WoW Head.
Let me ask you, when was the last time you partied up for a WoW quest of your own will, and not because "the story" made you? How many quest "recommending" a group have you solo'd in recent memory, because when I recently replayed with my older sister that happened to be all of them I came across.
Man I really feel you. I remember playing wow as a teenager in 2006. All this gaming nights just to explore and be carried by the music of each territory… it was just a feeling of excitement and calm. That was good memories
I remember that when I saw Teldrassil for the very first time, and the music started in the background, I felt so emotionally overwhelmed that I nearly started weeping in front of the monitor... it's one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments.
You are absolutely correct. I'm a game director and dev and the design and entertainment standards have changed quite a bit in the last 20 years. Many developers and publishers are so worried about players dropping due to frustration or empty zones, that everything started to be on rails, with redundant communication of what to do and tons of progression systems to "fit every player" and not give you a single breath. Then the game starts to play you, rather than you playing the game.
As a response, many players are jumping into citybuilders, metroidvanias, roguelikes and the indie scene... etc, which is our bet.
I mostly play WoW but sometimes I just want to log off and build/decorate a home in The Sims. And I don't fall for buying a bunch of xpac and "stuff" packs. I DL a lot of player-created content. I find it relaxing. No goals, no "resets," no "hitting the cap" to take advantage of every minute. Just . . . creative play. I hate the very fast-paced content drops in WoW. To me THAT makes the game feel like a job. I HATE the new FOMO elements they are putting in. (I gave up on Plunderstorm after finding out how not-at-all-fun it was).
I was at a bar several years back, chatting it up with someone who ended up being a long-time dev for a certain AAA studio. He lamented that there was this constant pressure to design around players not dropping, and he asked what game I was throwing myself into these days. When I told him it was Death Stranding, he genuinely thought I was trolling him. When he asked how t f I could possibly enjoy a game where I’m delivering packages 90% of the time, I told him flat out that it felt amazing to play a game that felt totally off the rails and unpredictable.
City builders are great not gonna lie, gamers are often creative and those types of games allow you to just do whatever you want and that's a game people like, doing what you want, instead of the game forcing you in a path, a build, a meta etc.
That explains so much!
You summarized what a lot of us are feeling, I am a burnt out wow raider that is sick of the grind. Thank you very much for presenting this.
I resonate with alot of the points made in this video, and it is where I suggest a game that has all these things, but that most people turn away.
Oldschool Runescape.
It is not for everyone, with it being click-based and the graphics and such. But it is definitely one where everything is slowed down, there's an enormous amount of people that just hang out, there's plenty of little places to explore, and the progression respects your time. There's basically never a feeling of "i have just wasted my time doing this thing that I was supposed to do, because everything is useless next patch". You are not the chosen hero, champion of the entire world. You are just some random person that most quest npcs take a gamble on if they can trust. You become a hero in some instances, but you are never the universal savior of literally everything (and npcs actually call you by your name).
I miss when MMORPGs were supposed to be these big living virtual worlds where the environment was the game itself and you could just get immersed without any particular goal or objective, when meeting other players was exciting, when 'quests' were more of an extra something, instead of the detailed questchains that lead you by hand the entire time from start to finish of a zone, leaving very little to do or explore on your own.
Nowadays its all just a hamster wheel of following questlines and grinding "new content" and "endgame". Endgame was supposed to be a little extra for those who already finished the main course, but nowadays its like the opposite. And all of it is instanced as well, rather than being part of the world...
Before WoW it was usual to level up mainly by grinding mobs for hours, many games didnt even have "instances" like dungeons, big group/raid bosses were just hanging out in the open or in actual caves. WoW marked a big shift towards leveling via completing quests and having instanced dungeons/raids (and then matchmaking) and the world became just a backdrop with little gameplay to offer on its own unless a quest ask you to do something.
Warhammer Online had the right idea with Public Quests, sadly that game went through development hell and was doomed.
I have so many fond memories of Vanilla... spent a whole Sunday afternoon in BRD with 4 friends, clearing the whole dungeon for the fun of it. Yeah we wiped, we overpulled, somebody fell into the lava near the MC atunement. but it was so much fun. When we found out about the children of Goldshire, some guild friends and I would check in on them multiple times a day, followed them around and we were asking ourselves what this was all about. I was in on of the better guilds on our realm, everybody full T2 and we'd still run Strat almost every day with random players who felt so proud that "the big guys" would run a dungeon with them.... good times! thanks for this video
I remember playing on a trial account back in Wrath and I made a friend that brought me to SW. She navigated the city like it was nothing, but to me, it was a sprawling maze of towering buildings. Still fascinates me that I can walk through the city blindfolded now, but was absolutely bewildered as a kid.
I had completely forgotten about getting lost in cities. Thank you for reminding me about how insanely big they seemed the first few times (or how confusing they stayed in case of undercity, there is such a thing as too much symmetry)
This reminds me why i fell in love with EverQuest back in 2000 and played that daily for many years.
One thing that i remember and forever remember in this game is when "Dueling" another faction 1 vs 1 while leveling. He is a druid and I'm a shaman that time, with no option to chat with one another, we just attack and heal for like 1 hour or so until we both exhaust and sit besides each other. No one was died from that duel because we both have healing skill. After that we just doing emotes like laugh, hug, and finally "emotely" saying goodbye to each other. What a game WOW was back then.
A next-gen Warcraft game featuring a fully fleshed out Azeroth that was realistically populated and genuinely felt lived in, with a gameplay and story focus on a smaller scale, would be incredible.
Sadly it wouldn't work the same way. You would have guides 1 week later explaining you how to perfectly play the game (i wouldn't be surprise if it would even be out before the game is released). You could decide to ignore it but you woudn't be able to stop others from min-maxing.
I see it as a sort of RDO version of WoW.
That would be great.
@nuclease2739 play wow, but never look up anything, the game gets 10x better.
Bold of you to think modern Blizzard will listen to any of this
@@kevinleewilliams5119 i agree, i was lucky enough to play vanilla wow back in the days. Best gaming experience i've ever had.
I love that this sentiment is so shared among us players. Each of us has a vivid memory of the “first good old days” in World of Warcraft, especially those of us who, like me, had the opportunity to start this adventure with our friends, and none of us knew anything about the game. We used to say things to each other like, “Watch out! Don't cut through the woods, because there are bandits and it's not safe. Better to follow the road when possible.” Or, “I was in that mine earlier, it took me a long time to get out, but I found a chest with this *press Z* sword in it.” It was a time when every lack in the game was filled by our imagination, and when our PC was not an agglomeration of statistics and percentages, but our very avatar within a parallel and incredible world. Those of us who played WoW back in the days when all this was possible really have something that the new generations cannot have.
beautifully put :) felt the same. I remember the time I didn't understand the word "Mail" and I thought it describes any type of armor I can not wear xD like a "ban"
Man when I first played wow that nelf starter zone just hit so different. The music, the zone itselt, so many people running around, just pure escapism
Damn.. This right here. This guy gets it 1000%. I can't express this enough of how bad I miss just being and living in the world. Not playing competitively or seriously / sweaty at all. Not rushing to the highest level, getting max tier gear. God don't even get me started with how the story has become what it is.. I used to like gathering friends together at inns in Silvermoon, and just chatting in game about stuff. I miss getting on my Mechano-hog mount, and just taking a drive across the land, finding neat out-of-place buildings or NPC's that were there for little eastereggs, or hidden quests. I miss a simple, yet beautiful territory like how the game felt eons ago. I'm in literal tears because of how bad I miss not just WoW but the entire gaming industry actually having heart. This generation just doesn't get it, and gets bored way too easily, man..
Sorry, but you have to blame some of this on the demanding players constantly complaining about not having this and that. Does anyone remember how wow used to be? You can go to any MMO forum and see this type of post, we need to have this or This content is too easy. You are so not alone my friend. I started playing mmo's in 2001 and those first-generation games were amazing. But in 2004 wow took the genre mainstream and it hasn't been the same since.
wow is fine
They simply made the game for the .05% of the playerbase. They make it for the hardcore progression guilds. Blizzard forgot about the casual playerbase, the Dad, the guys and gals that work 3 jobs!
@@tipsymallard6952 not even that, i was a mythic raiding 5 years ago, prolly 4, coming back to dragonflight has been a headache and now I experience homophobia when trying to play this game out of nowhere.
Legit the vocal playerbase is the worst
@@tipsymallard6952 It's actually the opposite, they've completely made it for the casuals, its basically a single player game now that's easy as shit to gear in and level.
Developers in that same golden age of gaming had a different mindset, they created games with precisely what you describe in mind, just for fun. It struck me when I watched the recent Half Life doc where they brought the old dev team in for interviews. When they describe the reason for quite a few things that ended up being iconic, the reason is like "because we thought it'd be cool/fun". And that type of mentality can be found in so many old behind the scenes dvd's, clips and stuff. From games like WoW, Halo, you name it. The developers were passionate about making a fun, cool game. And that's literally why they added certain things to the game. They didn't think about the things connected to gaming today like social media, monetization, pandering to "the message", keeping players interest, etc. But it's important to remember that often it's not the devs, but rather the business suits breathing down their neck about making the games a certain way and in a certain time.
That's why Elden ring was such a success, and the first game in probably near 10 years that captured me in that long lost sense of fascination and exploration. That game feels like it was made for people to have fun and explore in. And I am seeing a trend of AAA games such as Elden ring being massively popular while the cookie cutter AAA games keep underselling. So lets hope gaming can turn around yet. Indie gaming is popping off in a way that's very cool though. I have much more fun, interesting although shorter experiences with indie games than big titles.
Hell yeah man so true!
I agree with Elden Ring man, i had the exact same exp with the game..
The only other game i remember like that before was Subnautica for me.
I literally don't remember any other games like that in the last 10 years man.. what a shame.
@@pun15h3r. What did you think of Subnautica 2 man?
The irony in praising Elden Ring for this when it tossed From's formerly tight level design out the window in favor of an oversized, barren open world full of copy-pasted fluff dungeons and "bosses" that were necessarily reduced to joke status because of the lack of a proper overarching progression curve.
@@lime148 I think the level design of the older games can still be found within Elden Rings legacy dungeons. Meaning places like Raya Lucaria, Stormveil castle, Volcano Manor, Leyndell, Haligtree etc. The massive open world obviously can't be structured like the dark souls 1 map. But I would argue they did a decent job trying. Like how you can enter siofra in 1 zone and come up in a few other zones. And how there are zones stacked on top like in Leyndell. The little copy paste dungeons don't invalidate everything else, they serve a purpose to add exploration content like most open world game dungeons. The dungeons in Skyrim, witcher, AC etc arent all unique in architecture either. I don't think they need to be.
I can't believe I'm the first commentator to bring this up, but roleplay servers back in the day of old school WoW we're a dream (at least, to a 16 year old.) I swear I spent more time hanging out with friends in the ruins of Gilneas and the empty gathering spots of Draenor than I did actually raiding. I miss those days.
I used to roleplay tons back in the day as well. Especially with my guild in Silvermoon City. I recently visited the zone on the same server as all those years ago... Not a single player was there. Made me quite sad...
@FlameJackstar Ppl only RP in Orgrimmar nowadays. Really confusing to me.
the world of WOW has always been my favorite part of this game, most of my memories about WOW are just me traveling through the maps, killing mobs, leveling, idling and wandering around.
I was recruited by a friend in MoP. We mostly sat in Orgrimmar and did Dungeons for leveling fast. I dropped my undead warrior at like lvl 72 for a worgen DK. I liked that a little better, but after the first zone went back to Dungeons and kinda quit after the first month.
When Classic came out, 4 friends and I started playing together. Always quested together, ran everywhere, explored. No heavy roleplaying, but we would do things like all spit on every gnome we come across. And we looked for beatiful places to take group pictures at. We only ever got to lvl 32 before most of us dropped the game, but I still remember it as one of my best times in a MMORPG.
Slow, meaningful progression with world exploration beats optimized powerleveling to get to "the point where the game actually starts" faster any day. Sometimes I look at the screenshots we took and what a great adventure it was.
I hear you man. It's too bad when friends just stop playing. Nothing you can do. Life moves on unfortunately.
@@K4113B4113 I was one of the people who just stopped playing. I still play games with these friends, just not WoW. This wasn't about friends fading out, but rather how the leveling journey of classic WoW was a great time! :D
I've seen hundreds of these types of videos talking about nostalgia and why games aren't fun anymore etc. But your short video about the subject, and WoW in particular, is the only one that I feel speaks to me. The way you spoke about looking around in the rooms and seeing new areas by accident, in-game chatting with people at locations you decided were a good place to meet up. It's exacly how I played back in the day. Some nights we wouldn't even level but just hang out in this world we were in. I also played Anarchy Online like that, we'd sit in bars and listen to the in-game music and chat. It's like we used to play like we were actually a part of the world, you'd actually look at the in-game props, furniture, architecture etc and take it all in. Now all that just feels like it's a backdrop for levelling and content. Thanks for the video!
2019-2021 Classic WoW was my best time playing. I started in 2011 but it was absolutely magical stepping into Classic and staying engaged all the way until Kel’thuzad fell. I will never forget the items, people and stories that were shared.
Been playing since Cata, dropped the game around Legion, then came back for Shadowlands hoping to experience that same joy and nostalgia from all of those years of playing. I did not experience that same feeling, and after beating the Shadowlands campaign I gave up entirely and left it alone. Last month my friend convinced me to make a new character with him on the Cata Classic, and I was shocked with how much fun I was having! I haven't put so many hours into WoW in such a long time, truly immersing myself and levelling in the different zones, having to grind so much harder for things like gold, professions, and overall everything that comes super easy to you in current WoW. It really goes to show how much the game has evolved, some changes for better and others for worse.
You can still have childlike fun in WoW. It's a mindset to chill when playing and enjoy the little things and then pay for HC curve clears 👍😂
It's those HC curve clears and the FOMO that comes with them (and the gear dif) that really messes this up for people. Unfortunately, most gamers are slaves to FOMO and feeling powerful, so with how grindy it can be to do those things in retail, they don't find any time to do anything else.
I'm just beginning to embrace that. I'm not a competative person and certainly not quick to grasp all the new stuff constantly being thrown into game. Thank you for explaining that I am not alone, not a failure. The artwork and the music will stay at my top 'joy givers' for me.
I agree. I’ve been keeping a journal of my adventures in SoD so far and I’ve had a blast, making so many new friends and exploring the world trying to find new stuff. I spent 3 hours the other day questing through Searing Gorge with some random guy I found and we’re now friends. I’m gonna probably have just as much nostalgia for these moments as I do for Wow back in the day.
When I got my Guild Wars 2 friends that love exploring the open world to finally try WoW was when Classic came out, and having them explore a world they had never been in reignited my passion to play to explore everything despite knowing things, and I'd simply tag along to what they found interesting so as to not try to hold them through a linear path. I think WoW should just continue to make expansive zones, and in some ways they've made it a reality; the last time I truly got lost in a map exploring all its secrets and areas off the beaten path was actually Drustvar, as there was a lot of background lore and information you had to go out of your way to find.
that's what i learned during initial classic launch. I remember really hyping the start of all of that and even convinced my wife(who played b4) to start with me. We did start, but I quickly got frustrated as we could not play a lot so i just started playing by myself. After trying to accomplish all of the stuff i wanted from the game and ultimately failing as I am a 9/5 clerk i ended up in a guild which could not help me with attune, with a spec that required a lot minmaxing, and a character that needed a couple more weeks constantly farming brd to be considered preraid. And then Dire Maul got released. I felt like I failed at the "race" for content, but that lead me to understanding that i shouldn't have started racing in the first place. Now i reconsidered the way i play games and mmos and feel so much better about my gaming experience
When I was a young teen, Quest 64 had just come out and my parents and siblings went somewhere for the summer and left me behind to finish some summer school. I remember playing the game through without any interruptions from anyone in a perfectly quiet house (rare moment in my life) and enjoying those same random rooms and getting lost in the world. I played many other 'better' games for the 64 such as Ocarina of Time and Mario 64, but this one always has a special place in my hear for the exact same reasons you did and just having that time alone to get sucked into the world. Great segue into the theme of the video!
You're not alone, sir. Well said.
I wondered lately wether I actually still play games or just work through to-do lists presented to me by them. You're giving me hope that it's not me, it's the game. And I felt it everytime I wanted to sit down in a game and couldn't, or when I checked the controls if there's a slow walk option. I didn't realize it was me trying to play around.
I am an older gamer (39yo) and I love the Monster Hunter series, I have started with World and then played Rise. So when I finished those games I went ahead and wanted to see how it all began so I got an emulator and started the first Monster Hunter on the PS2. And boy, the clunkiness, no direction, finding out spots where to mine, where to gather herbs etc. are everything I crave now. I can't go back to modern monster hunter any more. It's not nostalgia I am missing. I miss lack of game design, lack of quality of life. Old games feel genuine because they mimic how reality actually is. When you explore a forest, an abandoned room there are no indicators to go there, there are no arrows and points of interests. You just walk around, slowly, take in the new sights and explore without purpose. This is lost in modern games, it's not toned down, it's GONE. It's all about achievements, progress, and "endgame". They are still games, but they have condensed them down too much.
Low level questing in Teldrassil (back in BC) for the very first time while listening to this magical music in the background. Literally my best WoW moment, when the game felt fresh.
i have started doing mythic+ for the first time after avoiding it for years because of nervousness around groups and not wanting to "play a lobby game". i find it fun, but i really do miss when the main focus of the game was to explore
sometimes i like to just jump into classic so i can hear the old sound effects and music. i also like to immerse myself into the world and explore. i can still do it in retail, but its just not the same. and i mainly play retail. your points are spot on and i feel the same way about the game. i dont hate retail, but i really miss what it used to be.
I remember my wife and my brother and I scaling the mountains just west of Iron Forge's gates, actually getting over them, and coming down to find a seaside shack that I don't think you could get to any other way. Just a hidden gem lying there for crazy people to find.
It was at the initial launch, it took a very long time with lots of falling and trying again, but it was pretty magical.
Now though, it feels like WoW and every other game has crushed the patience it took to enjoy that kind of experience, and it sometimes feels like it won't come back. 😢
Walljumping up the mountain of ironforge just to see the little details added. There was so much to explore without pressure. If you do this now, there will be a few ppl crying... we have nothing to do. I miss the old times
Edit: i remember in tbc when i thought: how awesome would it be to fly on a dragon with a friend to that mountain and just adore the view..
Man this hits home.. starting right before lich first discovering wow was something I can never feel again playing an mmorpg. The expansive world of opportunities and class creation and not a worry in the world about post game content just focusing on having dun with friends and finding cool new zones that look completely different. I play wow off snd on now but obviously doesn’t have that same excitement. But I do appreciate them bringing classic in snd season of discovery putting a new flavor with the classic vibe still. Sorry that’s a lot but thanks for the vid! lol
I was undead warlock, my friend was orc warrior. In those days we didn't know Azeroth that well; it seemed like a huge, unexplored world. And then, one day, my orc friend flew on an airship to the Undercity area to meet with me, and we needed to get to some very distant point on the map (I don’t remember where and why) we got ready and just walked. By foot. We hide from Alliance patrols along the way, escaped from high-level monsters, and died from arrows. It seemed to me that this journey took forever, but we finally got there. it was a real adventure. no flying mounts, no teleports. just a pure, journey through this world. Miss those days, atmosphere. I have a feeling, that modern Wow lost that unique flow and atmosphere. Becomes too fast, too “heroic”. Or maybe I just grow old
i'll never forget my first time going to Ironforge. i was a horde rogue and me and my rogue friends wanted to go gank. when i got in there i found myself instead wondering around looking at every room and corridor that i could. it was so amazing! i've only played horde since 2006 and Ironforge is still my favorite city in the game.
Thank you for your thoughts my dude! It's so nice knowing other people think like myself.
Pandaria had a lot of these slow moments in which you just contemplate and perhaps talk to someone (that is, during leveling). That's why it's one of my favorite expansions ever
There is a reason I always just play level 1-20 characters all the time still (especially since its still free to do so)
The most fun I had when playing WoW was being way under leveled for the zone and just explored it. Being in the Badlands at level 20 doing absolutely nothing but checking things out was thrilling.
Went back to SoD a few weeks ago, it was fun but the level of eliteism just kinda kills it. Even when I play to just have fun and level I'm usually met with friends/other players who are just keen to suck out all the fun. Making a mistaken pull in level 15 dungeon and big deal, demanding time and effort when I'm just there to enjoy my time playing.
Great video, WoW as a kid was truly a blessing.
I have been playing WoW since 2005 original vanilla. You hit the nail on the head with this one.
I played WoW back in 2009/2010 and joined a guild called Hunter Trainer. Not a lot of guild members but one guy was on a lot who went by Draythonara. We'd use guild chat all the time or just message each other and mess around in different areas around the map. It was kinda ridiculous but having a friend in game like that made it a lot of fun. When I try to go back, especially on those same characters, it's not the same when you're just alone in the game. I haven't played in a long time but it's so fun to just have guild meetings in the garden of Stormwind and talking about different builds with people. I wish I could find that feeling again.
Stumbling into the Burning Steppes from northern Redridge is such a vibe that I'm sure everyone can relate to 😂
In my case it was stepping into the Plaguelands from Tirisfal, and then being torn apart by a "Level ??" bear.
I created an entire leveling challenge in retail WoW just to experience WoW as a game again. I was blown away at the immersive potential and enjoyment that WoW's core audience and developers have forgotten about.
You should post your leveling challenge! :D
@@Sanguivore Search up "Hero’s Journey: A WoW Leveling Challenge" and you'll find it on the forums
I.. don't think the core audience has forgotten it. I think people in youtube comment sections are generally also people who eskew that enjoyment to read guides and enjoy performing well or knowing things. The core audience just playing an RP game are busy playing the RP game.
I totally feel this video. Flying kills the discovery requirement and the impact of walking into a new zone initially intended by the OG devs. I was in alpha/beta in 2003/2004, played vanilla through BC, quit in 2008, and came back in 2020. I officially stopped playing in 2023 for all the reasons you listed, but mostly because I realized I can never relive those moments of awe like I did 20 years ago. I wouldn't say I like mythics and raids, but I wanted to explore and hang out in old zones because it reminded me of better times. Thanks for this video!
You should try SoD, it's the most fun I've had in the game in a long time. I think flying is fine, I think a lot of the desire to explore stems from - ironically - boredom, or just having not much to do. Retail has this problem where every gear progression track is an endless grinding treadmill that you won't finish till near the end of the season or raid tier, and then will have to start all over again next patch. Couple that with utterly boring gear that has the exact same stat allotment as the other gear, where even secondary stats barely matter these days, and the utter lack of ANYTHING to do other than daily chores out in the open world, and you get what you've been feeling, imo. I think daily quests (old as they are), are absolutely toxic to the game (though tbf I played through most of BfA, so that's probably why I feel this).
@ethanwilliams1880 I feel you on the treadmill referring to gear. Plus, being casual now, I don't fully understand all the new systems for leveling up gear. Hell, I don't even understand professions. It's also not clear what is good enchants to buy without going to icy veins or a youtube video.
Blizzard just needs to make a straightforward product again with common sense progression. Make more than 6 dungeons that only gets more difficult, but not more interesting.
People for some reason have bought into the Blizzard lie about flying being bad for the game when it certainly wasn't a problem in TBC or Wrath.
If you want to have that old feeling of exploration and fun, play Project 1999 if you've never played EverQuest before. Gave me the same old experience and taught me about the direction games should go in.
@Jorvalt it's bad for the game because Azeroth flying is what forced their hand into destroying the old world, and frankly what they replaced it with has never been better than the original.
This clip almost made me cry. I remember how in love I was with the game and the universe as a kid. I would explore so much. Every nook and cranny, looking for interesting or cozy places. I even had a few buildings that I used to let my character rest or sleep in between missions or when I logged out. And wandering around trying to do stuff yourself without guides was just fun. I remember spending time with friends I made in-game just fishing while text chatting. Nowadays it seems like nobody wants to just “hang out”. It’s just quest grind raid farm quest grind and so on. I loved it so damn much. Just me and a vast world to explore. No pressure, just the drive of my curiosity.
I still play the game for fun. It's a choice. You don't HAVE to progress. I still do progression but I also still just fly around doing loops especially now with dragon riding every where. I still explore zones that I haven't been to in a while. Like having fun is literally a choice.
This is a great point. I have tried many times to come back to retail and enjoy myself the way I once did. Perhaps the newest version of the game is no longer enjoyable to me. It's a difficult fact for me to face
You can hardly call it exploring when the map is just given to you.
@@poisonated7467 there are tons of caves and Easter eggs that I've simply never found. Every time I decide to randomly explore I still find something new and I've played a very very long time. Is it the same as a brand new game? No. That doesn't mean it isn't fun just the same.
@@alyssumn3884 It does mean that. That's just micro-exploration. Exploring the little things inside the larger things. Macro-exploration in modern MMORPGs and RPGs is dead. Whens the last time you asked yourself questions like these:
I wonder, what's at the end of this road? What's over that mountain? What's over that river? What's beyond this forest? Is there anything on the other side of this ocean? These questions can simply be answered by pressing 'M' instead of forcing you to explore, have an adventure, and journey to those places to learn what the answer to those questions are.
So, yes, it does mean you're having less fun than you could be. Not only would you get to explore the big picture, but the smaller things inside the bigger things.
@@poisonated7467 I ask myself "I wonder what's in that cave? It's there an under water tunnel/cave here? I wonder what this random item I can pick up does? Does that book have anything that might be lore related? Exploration means many things to many people. It isn't just about finding every nook and cranny it's about finding every detail placed in said nook and cranny. Clearly these are things you don't find fun. That doesn't mean to a lot of the population they aren't. It's literally just your opinion man. As mine is mine. As the OP's is the OP's