When I first bought WoW, I felt so much awe and excitement. Each hour of gaming was entertainment, an alternative to sitting in front of the TV or going out.

Now though, I feel WoW is becoming more of a job than entertainment. Going to a 5-man, level 70 dungeon? Sit up and pay attention dude, or one mistake will wipe your group! What, you didn't bring any potions or misc buffs in case of emergencies? Shame on you!

Oh, you haven't attune yourself to Karazhan yet? You slacker! Oops, your spec is weak for this dungeon, maybe next time when we have a different group makeup!

I don't know man... what happened to the days when you play WoW to have a few hours of fun? It seems to be demanding a lot more for you to enjoy... Ever since the concept of "reputation grind", I feel it's becoming imperative that you have to "work" before having "fun". And what's fun now? 2-shotting some guy with your uber items before he can even react?

The ridiculous gear and itemization made the game less fun, IMHO. If you don't have great gear, you won't have a great time.

/shrug

Sometimes I feel the game is trapped in a vicious cycle. Ok, lets give the players more powerful items. But wait, we need to make the new encounters more and more difficult so not everyone can get it. But you will also need those powerful items for future, more difficult dungeons!

It looks like an unending cycle. I'm not sure how random PuGs will be able to clear bosses like Murmur in Shadow Labrinyth or the Druid boss in The Botanica. Sometimes I just miss the old days, where you get off work, shoutout in /LFG, get a few pugs, go into a dungeon and kill a boss in a regular tank & spank for some regular loot in maybe just over an hour.

Now it seems everything needs "pre-planning" and careful coordination. "OK guys tank will stand here, mage aoe the small add spawns, melee need to move back every 30 seconds, healers cast HoTs on the MT during time-stop etc etc etc..."

It's just so... troublesome.

Meh.

Haha, I thought e-peen flexing players only exist in America, I didn't know there are lame ass people saying QQ and L2P here too in Malaysia. It was not a QQ post, it was just a post saying how jaded the game is becoming to me.

FYI I'm in a raiding guild that was 7th on server to clear Molten Core and 5th to clear Blackwing Lair, back in the days when we were limited to 5 debuffs on the bosses. You're also talking to a Warlord on the old PvP grind, so don't talk about about "no effort for gear". We have downed Twin Emperors and our Naxx adventure was cut short by the new PvP honor token system.

Did I ask for zomg epixxx? Did I say I couldn't clear the dungeons? Did you miss the part where I say random PuGs would have a hard time doing overly complicated bosses? Did you ever run those dungeons with non-guildies? If you haven't, do you even want to? When's the last time you pressed the "I" button for the Looking For Group menu?

Yep, tank & spank is boring. But sometimes, I just miss them, the feeling of casualness where you can waltz into a dungeon for 45 minutes of -not- being on your toes. If I wanted hard mode challenge, there's always Heroic Mode as well as raiding, AND the rewards there are better than normal mode (haha, some at least, look at the crappy itemization).

I'm sometimes puzzled, why put boss mechanics that would seem more suitable for Hard Mode in normal dungeons that would put off casual players who just got off work, for example? It's as if Blizz ran out of ideas when they finally implemented Heroic Mode, so their idea was to add tons of HP, tons of attack damage and lots of AoE / cleave / fear into the mobs in Heroic Mode. As it is, Heroic Mode now just feels like a "numbers" game.

This post has been edited by ray123: Feb 16 2007, 01:04 PM

Yeah I'm waiting for Warhammer Online. Yes, I'm on a PvP server (Gorgonnash). No, not looking for sympathy. Just wondering if there are people who feels the same, getting burnt out and asking if casuals are finding the game tougher, which I believe so. If you're were regular in this forum for the past 6 months or so you would probably heard of Band of Hawks recruiting.

As for the e-peen, it wasn't flexing but just explaining so that you would know I'm not one of the casual qq-more-easy-lewts-pls. I'm (was) a 40-man raider and a hardcore PvPer, even though I had someone helping me with the last legs of the grind when I was bogged down in RL work. So I know one has to "work" to get epic loot.

I did took 8 months off before TBC arrived. Leveling in TBC made the game wonderful again. But you know the feeling of Molten Bore? I think many are getting that feeling again in the level 70 dungeons.

My point was that the current level 70 5-mans now aren't really meant for casuals. As a former raider, I see more emphasis on "raiding" style preparations to do them, eschewing the casual "pick up and go" from Azeroth. Yeah, I can clear them, but sometimes I'm amazed at the amount of "work" needed and I wonder if PuGs and casual players are able to do the same.

Let's be honest, once you get your quests and the loot you really want from say, Shadow Labyrinth, you will never want to go there again. In comparison, before TBC one can go DM again and again even though you have better loot, simply because you can go and have fun and be done with the place in less than 40 minutes (DM Tribute).

I just thought of it... many of the dungeons now feel like Sunken Temple. What a pain in the ass. How many of you guys skipped ST entirely, or just did one run and never went back? Heh.

Do I feel achievement at clearing these new dungeons? Not really. Do I worry for the PuGs and the future this playstyle holds? Yes, because if even a self-professed hardcore player like myself feels worked out, how would casual players feel? I used to recommend WoW to my friends, but now I doubt I can persuade them when I'm not really convinced of the end-game myself.

Oh well. Maybe once I get to Karazhan I will see differently. To be honest, some of the outdoor 5-man quests are more fun than the dungeons, like Zuluhed the Whacked and Vhel'kur the ghost dragon.