After having spent a fair deal of time in Azeroth, I've come to one conclusion: World of Warcraft is a mediocre game.
Class balance has NEVER been entirely sound. As of now, there are nearly double the number of Paladins and Death Knights on any given server in comparison to every other class. Since its release, this "Flavor of the Month" phenomenon has been constant. At least for me, this takes away from the feeling of picking a class to genuinely bond and become committed to as you delve deeper into everything they have to offer.
Tied into my first point, leveling has become less of a journey and more of a task. No longer is it a monumental achievement to reach 80, but rather you just "join the group", literally. What sense is there in restricting so much content and enjoyment from the player until they've shelled out roughly 8 - 12 days of their lives? Of course, money is the answer, but isn't that a bittersweet realization? 8 days equates to 192 hours, which translates into $1392 at minimum wage. I'm not poor nor do I needlessly tighten my belt, but that's a fair chunk of change to be charged just to get to the real game. And what's the deal with gear? Does it really make sense to base so much of your total experience on whether you've obtained a certain status based on hours played?
Probably the largest grief I have with the entire way things are set up is in how much drudgery there is to go through in comparison to the moments that really make the game worth playing. Kill 10 boars. Kill 10 magi. Bring me 8 Cheetah livers. Bring me a bunch of pages to a manual I happened to loose because I can't afford paperclips... Come on! So much of what Blizzard has in the game is bland. Sure, there are those truly great times when you conquer a new dungeon or drop a boss after having spent the day planning a raid, but are those moments really worth it?
Then there's the community. It's become increasingly difficult to find decent guilds that aren't plagued with "12 year old syndrome". In general, people tend to be rude, obnoxious, and impatient. You can always argue that this varies depending on any given server, level bracket, etc. but this is what I've experienced more often than not.
In summary, the game is severely imbalanced from patch to patch, time consuming and "expensive", and has one of the worst communities who's only rival would be pug's on Xbox Live. With all this, I guess you still get to wear your epixs in Ironforge though...
Class balance has NEVER been entirely sound. As of now, there are nearly double the number of Paladins and Death Knights on any given server in comparison to every other class. Since its release, this "Flavor of the Month" phenomenon has been constant. At least for me, this takes away from the feeling of picking a class to genuinely bond and become committed to as you delve deeper into everything they have to offer.
Tied into my first point, leveling has become less of a journey and more of a task. No longer is it a monumental achievement to reach 80, but rather you just "join the group", literally. What sense is there in restricting so much content and enjoyment from the player until they've shelled out roughly 8 - 12 days of their lives? Of course, money is the answer, but isn't that a bittersweet realization? 8 days equates to 192 hours, which translates into $1392 at minimum wage. I'm not poor nor do I needlessly tighten my belt, but that's a fair chunk of change to be charged just to get to the real game. And what's the deal with gear? Does it really make sense to base so much of your total experience on whether you've obtained a certain status based on hours played?
Probably the largest grief I have with the entire way things are set up is in how much drudgery there is to go through in comparison to the moments that really make the game worth playing. Kill 10 boars. Kill 10 magi. Bring me 8 Cheetah livers. Bring me a bunch of pages to a manual I happened to loose because I can't afford paperclips... Come on! So much of what Blizzard has in the game is bland. Sure, there are those truly great times when you conquer a new dungeon or drop a boss after having spent the day planning a raid, but are those moments really worth it?
Then there's the community. It's become increasingly difficult to find decent guilds that aren't plagued with "12 year old syndrome". In general, people tend to be rude, obnoxious, and impatient. You can always argue that this varies depending on any given server, level bracket, etc. but this is what I've experienced more often than not.
In summary, the game is severely imbalanced from patch to patch, time consuming and "expensive", and has one of the worst communities who's only rival would be pug's on Xbox Live. With all this, I guess you still get to wear your epixs in Ironforge though...
