They wanted the game to reflect the world we live in today. Bad move.Maybe it should reflect Azeroth and Warcraft instead, if you know what I mean. Speaking as a non US citizen of the world with common sense and 2 brain cells.
lmao df failed on the same fronts sl did but instead of burrowed power you can write aug evoker & exodia comp. and many other things like bad m+ dungeons, boring together/family/friendship theme, bad raids, bad balancing, no seasonal affixes, legendaries, rare loot, bad afk and fill the bar outdoor content, characters being ruined like wrathion & chromie, no solo content like torghast.. and tbh I dont see how df had more content then sl (the outdoor events dont count they suck)over time people will learn that it was just blind hate on some expansions. cata > wrath of the overrated king, they will discover it now.
I had really high expectations for SL and what didn't work for me:- the maw was terrible (hard for some alt specs, maw 'walker' and mandatory weekly or covenant story quests) coupled with- torghast system overall and it being mandatory to farm over and over- the maw 2.0 & korthia - here I unsubbed for 3 months...- unbalanced covenant powers making some mandatory to take that covenant- high anima cost for everything and not having discount for alts- many stuff requiring moving from one map to other with a high amount of time flying between them (art was amazing but quickly i did not pay attention to it anymore)and the logical/storyteling falacies:- from 9.1, after all 4 covenants being aware of thee jailer plans, it made nonsense to me being so non-inclusive to each other... for me it would be the point of building a borrowed talent tree, somewhat they are tying to do now with 'hero trees'- Sylanas was so off-character that I imagined Arthas' soul took her place when she died and got ressed way back... (and would be nice to recover her soul plot imo)- Arthas end (WHAT WAS THAT?)- the Jailer (don't need comments about this)- i never understood the existence of maldraxxus...good points in SL:- Art... many 'bravos' to art team! You people rock! You're the only reason I came back to SL, even with high anima cost and time demanding, to farm mogs (I had many stuff to farm elsewhere but I like the SL look more...)- Revendreth and Bastion look (related to above anyway...)- Castle Nathria Raid- the 'lessons learned' and put a bit in practice in ZM (plus loved robot pet-helper)- Captain Grim videos about how bad SL stuff are
WoW has stopped being an MMORPG a very long time ago. WoW today is more like Warframe than anyone here wants to admit or ever realized. I will explain.Warframe is all about content irrelevant of story. The story is just a theme for the gameplay of Warframe where the units reflect that theme/fantasy. The story is separate from the gameplay almost entirely. Yes, you have story released but that story is not integrated in the gameplay and I will give you an example of what integrating story into gameplay means.The simplier example is Mount Hijal zone. The zone changes with your progression of the story. The NPCs are moved, and updated to current events. The story moves with you. The progression of the story is felt in the open world, shapes the open world, and its NPCs. The far more complex and a sacrilage to anyone that loves RPG should have popped in your minds on their own without me pointing it out. I will explain in steps to understand why it is a sacrilege to RPG.Mag'har means Uncorrupted Orc. Warlock is a corrupted mage/magic user, using corrupting power and manipulating souls that are ancestors, ancestors that are precious, so much so that is a religion. Having Warlock among the classes available to Mag'har Orc is not only a sacrilege, it is stupid too because the 2 fantasies do not mesh well at all. Next, you have LIGHTFORGE Draenei, to make it simple - read the description of the race. Not only this race should have been just a customization for the default Draenei and not have access to Warlock. In an RPG the addition of the Eredar among the Draenei ranks means Civil War when Lightforge Draenei is within the same alliance. That would have been and should have been part of the addition of the Eredar but Blizzard does not treat WoW as an RPG that is MMO. It is just an MMO. Let me not get started with the Night Elves. So, to give you an idea what introducing races class combination should have looked like. In-game events, stories, quests, possible zone-changing events that update the world to add the race/class combination to make sense. That is what an RPG that is MMO would do. It would be an RPG but with the caveat of being online with people cooperating in it but that is not the case with WoW.Anyway, by all the evidence. WoW is no longer an MMORPG. It is just an MMO.P.S: I point out this to the people that are so desperate clinging to the story. You will never be satisfied with WoW because the story is not inherently part of the gameplay. It does not change anything to the open world, it does not change the attitude of other important NPCs. You will be forever disappointed with it.
My personal problem is, that they went too far away from their loyal paying customers and tried to grasp the new generation of teenage gamers.Which are totally different types of players.Old players want stability. New players do not care about their characters, prefer resets.Old players want overly complicated stuff. New players want it clean and simple.Old players want to grind the crap out of the game. New players want quick rewarding play.Old players loved the old talent trees. New players do not care.Old players liked to be treated as one from the crowd by the game. New players like the Hero & every prominent NPC from game accompanying them.Old players want functional items. New players like cosmetics.Blizzard went too far away. With some DF aspects, they try to return a bit back, but they just went too far.
Promoting genocide as "morally grey" was a tremendous misstep during a time period when people were furious with real-life events.Sylvanas was ruined as a character but her "fanbase" and their toxic simping/cult mentality should never have been drawn into the events of BFA. If the NE were going to suffer what happened it should have come at the hands of a third party (even a completely fake Sylvanas who is clearly shown to be fake) so that actual player-characters (Horde players) were not actively involved in a war crime/atrocity. Horde DRUIDS taking part in the attack on Teldrassil was absurdity at its height.After it happened, the best solution was to execute Sylvanas as swiftly and utterly violently as possible, absolutely slap down her gross, entitled, and often-racist fans, and just wipe the slate clean. Instead we got to sit through years of BS, including a special-snowflake storyline for the "sylvanas loyalists" (aka war criminals/genocidal players) culminating in the nonsense of Shadowlands and Sylvanas' grotesque redemption.