Retail is Dying...Private is growing!

Blizzard...Please Hear me out!

I've been playing World of Warcraft up until Wrath of the Litch King, since then I've been playing a diluted version of World of Warcraft from Cata to Mists (still retail of course, I've never used private realms as personally i think it insults the point of WoW). The point I'm getting at is that after a lot of new implementations, World of Warcraft has simply faded away to become another child-friendly click any button and win all the prizes kind of MMO like the rest of them, I would normally be afraid of giving proper criticism to a game I have loved and played since it's initial launch but I've simply lost the will to log in anymore.

Now I'm sure you've had thousands if not a few million threads like this, complaining and moaning that this is here, that's taken away etc...what I want to focus on is my experience and that of other players i know personally and why a game we all spent a lot of time, money and dedication to has just died to the casual gamer who can't think.

So let's begin.

Cross-Realm - The reason I'm starting with this is it has been the main decider for the leaving of many people I know and has personally destroyed my experience and enjoyment of the game.

When I first started playing, obviously I knew nobody, the first Realm I joined was Emerald Dream back in Vanilla and it took me months and I mean months of learning, exploring, meeting other gamers, gathering gold doing really hard and challenging quests, walking everywhere!! Nowadays all I have to do is create a new character...rush through easy as hell quests to get to level 15...not explore at all and just get boosted level by level by level...

Learning Dungeons is a thing of the past, I don't need to be careful anymore I just need to sit behind someone and face-roll skills, I can't explore the map gathering certain materials or items to complete a quest inside a dungeon because you just grab the quest inside and let everyone else do the work for you...

There is NO communication apart from abuse if the group wipes which is hardly ever as the gear and stats are just stupidly over-vamped and getting a dungeon group together is no time at all, which I must admit is an up-step from waiting minutes to hours for one, but there is no involvement anymore! A month ago, I went to a Looking for Raid group with my Priest as a Healer...I had just gained gear enough to walk in...no enchants, upgrades or gems, just got in, put myself on follow to one of the DPS and watched as content I didn't have a clue about was getting done fast and easy without the need of a main group component and I ended up walking away with a few Epics for my efforts.

Cross-Realm has taken away the challenge and the proper team work that the game use to provide, I no longer have to find a group or build a team with players from my realm that i can learn the content, create strategies and have a laugh with, all i need to do is click a button, join other realm players and sit in silence as it's all done for me. An argument can be made that it is the player's choice if they want to chat or play as a proper team or not...but before ANY CROSS-REALM, that was World of Warcraft...finding players, creating a relationship with them and building a foundation to develop your character in the game!

^^^^^ that pretty much just summed up everything I'm wanting to talk about.

Loot/Dungeon/Raid Difficulty - The other big killer in the game is this...Dungeons are far too easy, Raids are stupidly easy and loot...well All my characters have more than 1 epic for each slot, compared to maybe 4 years ago when i struggled to get half my gear epic before content! Now there are probably a thousand arguements as to why the above is the way it is...but the only one that I can think of is that Casual gamers...the ones who don't actually care about the game enough to want to work for their rewards have complained so much that they don't get end game content or loot because it's too hard or it takes too long...THAT WAS THE POINT AND THAT WAS THE FUN!! I had a full 10 man group of players I knew outside of wow, they all confirm and complain to this day that the best thing and reason they played wow, was that the content provided a challenge, we had to work together, create a strategy and follow it to a T, realize what could be improved and what we overlooked! and after studying a fight for hours and finally finishing it...the relief, the joy, the reward was so worth it we'd celebrate, we'd work harder to get faster at it, get better, try out different methods, help those who couldn't quite get it, that, was World of Warcraft, now as I have said above, I can sit and just watch as the gear that will overpower me to the heavens is pretty much given to me.

Lastly...Health and Damage...Too high on both aspects, in Vanilla...if a level 60 came to a level 20 area and took on more than maybe 3-4 of them, the 60 would have a bloody hard time walking away without either suffering quite a health blow or dying if the lower players where skilled enough...now, if a max level jumps out in a low level territory...you may as well just suicide because you have no hope in hell...standing there with 2-3k health dealing 400-600 damage of even slightly making a level 90 with 500k health and 150-160k damage flinch!

All of the above sounds like a major moan and cry about the game, but what I'm trying to say, is I miss the game I fell in love with, I no longer feel like I'm lost in a world and that's the case for a lot of players I know, who have moved to a Private Realm in order to play with people who still love the OLD World of Warcraft.

I don't play it anymore, but I stil keep my account payed and open in hope that the game will revert as I LOVE the lore and know that there is still a hell of a lot WoW has to offer...but if it's anything like it currently is in terms of Game play, then It'll be a upsetting waste to it's predecessors.

Yours Truly
Devoted Player