Blizzard gave me a free WoD upgrade and some game time. Decided to give it a try
Hi guys - so here's a bit of back story : I was a big player during Wotlk - Tanked and healed all the content and stopped playing shortly after the post-cata nerf.
Anyway the other day I noticed my account had gotten a free upgrade to WoD along with a week game time. I figured what the hell let's give it a try.
If I could describe it in one word: Depressing.
I logged into one of 85s - mounted up, flew to my favorite spot in Stormwind and just sat there. My guild, one of the higher ranking guilds on Icecrown; completely empty except me. Trade chat was completely dead. Not a single word spoken the whole 20 mins I was logged on. I didn't even see another player.
So I ended up just turning the game off. I think I might just have to start a new character on a new server or something. I do like some of the changes - I think account bound mounts is cool for people like me who like to run many toons. I like the way it helps new players by giving a broad summary of how to play thier role in the spellbook. And I like how polished it is. The maps especially look really nice.
But that's about it. . It's overwhelming because it feels like I missed so much and nobody is on my server so what's the point of playing. I think if I do decide to re sub I'll just have to start over on a new server fresh.
On the flip side I'm having a blast here. The global chat is booming and it's funny leveling in starter zones seeing all the dead bodies of players. It feels ALIVE. And it's Wotlk - the game I know.
I'm not sure why I posted this. Just wanted to give my 2 cents on my recent experience with both current retail wow and this server.
I fired up WOD a few days ago too, just to check it again. I had the same experience in the WOD areas. No chat. No people except in the "do your garrison daily" area and those are just people popping in from other servers in groups that kill "x" amount of Orcs for the daily and vanish. It's basically single player where other rude jerks pop in now and then to disrupt whatever you are doing...kill the rare you were trying to form a group for, etc.
My biggest problem thoough, is the whole character, mechanics, whatever, feel slow, sluggish, and disconnected from the controls now. My hunter for example. Send pet...pet waits, rotates in place slowly to face the target....then runs to it and begins attacking. I target another nearby enemy, hit send pet.....nothing....hit send pet again...nothing.....again!!!, pet finally stops attacking and robotically rotates to the new target, pauses, then goes after it. By this time it has traveled 40 yards and has been hitting me for 8 seconds and is not near the pet where it was, so there is a long slow chase to get to it. Just terrible! I used to target, tap send, done! Right now.
And the icing on the cake! Almost no one is playing yet 3 of the 5 times I logged into my dead, empty server I got a realms are full, you are number <4 message and had to wait 20 seconds or so. I firmly believe that is a deliberate delay to give the illusion Wow is still just full of players. Either that or they shut down all but a skeleton crew login server.
Then there are the garrison facebook games that are forced upon you. The taking of my flying that I paid thousands upon thousands of gold to get over time. The LFG tool is nothing more than a realm hopping tool folks use to get to your realm and immediately drop group and take whatever you were forming a group for.
OK so first up, you play on a low pop realm, but not just a single realm a low pop connected realm which is just.. why?
Second, you're basing your entire judgement on the activity on your realm? Take a hop over to Stormrage check out how many people are online, how active trade is, how many people are running around Stormshield/Tannan.
I'm currently sat on a Medium/High realm and trade chat is always busy, people are always around, starting drama in trade chat gives me thrills. I log over to a high pop realm and it's a lot busier still, people chatting in LFG channel like it's global chat here.
Go try another server, level up and just see what you think of the game as a whole, from PvP to PvE. HFC has some nice fights and Mythic is actually fun.
As for the micro transactions, they are completely optional, no-one is forcing you to use it.
The feeling that the game is dead is due to how Blizzard handled the subscribers decay. When they peaked active players back in 2010 they had a number of realms compatible to their playerbase size. This is no longer the case and they haven't reduced and merged realms, even tho crossrealm zones and instances was a great idea it doesn't fully solve this issue.
The new content has great visual quality, PvE is fun and there are challenging mechanics. They really did put a lot of effort into making the game better, and it is. But it just feels boring after a while.
I just made my first toon on Lordaeron (Lock) and I love it. Much more social and the challenge is there so much more, it really gets people to rely on one another more.