Thoughts on the state of WoW - what's wrong

Hi there,

I've taken a week off WoW due to my computer being damaged, which has been an interesting experience for me. A year ago I would've missed WoW terribly, but actually this week off WoW has been fairly enjoyable for me, and has given me a chance to think about how things are in WoW. I apologise for any typos as I'm currently writing this on an iPhone which is very irritating.

I've also had a good look at Rift in the time I've been away, which despite it's teething problems looks incredibly fresh and interesting. 

I'm personally very frustrated with the state of WoW. I'm irritated with the style over substance mentality from Blizzard that's been seeping further and further into the game since late WotLK. The total ease of use that WoW offers now also aggravates me so much, to the point where I'm hand-held in every respect, and nothing's challenging. The only challenge WoW gives is tougher bosses, with larger health pools, shorter CDs and higher damage, and perhaps a different skin. Gear is boring now, both visually and as an object itself. I used to raid because gear was hard to get - not everyone got it - that was the point - it was an item of prestige and only for the lucky or dedicated few: it made a noticeable difference but wasn't necessary to compete on any level and was just an aid to awesomeness both socially and in terms of performance. Now everyone and their dog has epics, despite the fact that Blizz said gear was going to be harder to get, especially said epics. Making them so easy to get just overrides the point of them, and their purpose. Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation summed it up pretty nicely when he said something along the lines of:

'I asked some of my guild mates what they used their 'hard-earned' raiding gear for, to which the best they could come up with was: "to raid with!"'

Instant gratification is a bad thing - it teaches us that we can all get whatever we want which isn't always true, and not only creates an aura of hyper-competitivity, but also highlights the issue of fairness, ie. "It's not fair that he got that drop, I need it just as much, derp."