The idea for this reset was to level to 70 and do all the dungeons on Dragonflight beta. But main quest bugs, the lfg tool bugged out at some point and some other things had me run out of time. Got to 70 and have done 5 out of 8 dungeons, but want to see if the story quest(s) gets fixed next reset so I can get a more informed opinion on the whole thing.
So instead I will write a post I was gonna do months ago when a bunch of youtubers did a video with the same question. Why do I still play WoW? With all the negativity and complaining and problems and such I tend to bring up, thinking about positive reasons was a good idea I thought. And it's a fairly straightfoward 3 reasons.
Reason 1: The Core Gameplay
When World of Warcraft came out, I was hooked on Diablo 2 and playing every crpg and console rpg I could get my hands on (and FIFA/PES, but this is perhaps not the blog to talk about that...). WoW crushed all of the other games, because of the gameplay loop. And it has for the most part kept thing about it for the last 20 years for me. How everything feels to play has never really dipped, at the core. A lot of stuff you interact with, the character progression and all that have - but NEVER the core. It has the perfect spot of not being very demanding (like say playing an RTS or a faster fighting game) but interactive enough so it doesn't get me restless like a lot of crpgs do (like for example Pathfinder: Kingmaker or Divinity: Original Sin).
As an aside, a bonus is that I have now played it for its lifespan. The gameplay is very familiar. It's... an escapism of sorts to be guaranteed to do something I know, especially when real life can be all over the place and I am lost on a stormy sea with no clue anymore, sitting down to do something I *know* is like meditating. I saw a youtube video once of a guy that had done a full Castlevania 1 on NES playthrough every day for the last 25 years or something, it was something of a grounding routine? Was so relatable. And possibly a bit scary, but could be worse poisons to have :)
Reason 2: Content that suits the gameplay well
In Vanilla and TBC I raided and raided/did arena. From Wrath until BFA I did mostly random bgs with some dungeons and very casual arena. After I came back in BFA season 2, mythic plus is what has kept me around without a single long break. It's just a really nice place to get the most out of the other thing I like, the core gameplay.
And this goes for the failures as much as the wins. Getting gear, achievements and score is a side dish, a bonus rather than the reason to go play m+ for me. Getting KSM on Esmënet was nice, but it's never a goal that makes me say "I will go on break now".
But just pugging low keys as I am prone to do, and see what happens when people do mistakes is also interesting. And look at details to see what buttons they pushed after. Like a Blood Death Knight casting 11 Marrowrends for an entire Upper Karazhan, when I wondered how someone with that ilevel could be close to dead the entire run.
Or play with really good ones and see what they do, as in the yard semi-pug - and see what dps people can do with the routes I do.
Reason 3: Playing with friends
This I guess everyone that plays WoW would have on their list. During vanilla I played on a million servers because all my RL friends played on different ones, and at some point no RL friends played any more. But I have constantly gotten online ones. Some come and go as friends online and offline do, some for over a decade, but there is always someone I get along with it seems. When TH crashed for me, and I felt real bad for how it all ended and that I had made the bed/burned the bridges/dug the grave of what I had been doing for years with people I liked, and just joined a guild with a name I liked, I found new people I enjoyed playing with. As I am an introvert, I guess having non-serious human relations where the only substance is organising a few keystone runs without any pressure is a really big thing. And to be there when others get something they are after, like their KSMs or getting new best dungeon runs or whatever.
In hindsight (again), I wish I had taken more screenshots simply when I was grouped with people in the past and saved it somewhere. Like the vanilla/tbc raid groups, the arena teams, the dungeon spams, the random bg spams and all that stuff. But I guess the last huzzah of an era and what it changed to will have to do this time....
The worst part about this last one is that I am at times really hard to deal with. I am conflict shy, and instead of bringing things up that might result in an argument, it lingers until I boil over. I have not been good at giving people my bad opinions so they can choose, but instead I have chosen for them. Not for all the relations that have soured, but some of the ones that really mattered I guess.
But this is also a plus point for WoW - social mistakes doesn't really matter much I guess. It's a better place to do fuckups and learn than other places :)
But in the end, reason 1 is the most important. The moment that part is changed, that is the moment WoW loses all appeal to me.
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