We often take breaks from WoW. We stopped to play Champions Online when it released, we've stopped to play other games or just to stop for a while. The main reason we aren't still active in Champions isn't because the game isn't good, it's that we don't have a lot of other friends who play it.
I also tend usually quit around the end of the year when I'm madly trying to finish knitting all of the Christmas projects I should have started in August and not November.
This time around, we find ourselves drifting from WoW for a couple of reasons: the state of world PvP (our favorite thing) is dismal if you're not a raider (our least favorite thing), the response of the devs to such issues is flippant at best, and Wild Star.
Everyone claims that each new game release will be a WoW killer. Wild Star isn't that. And I don't think it needs to be. But the game is gorgeous, the NPCs in the world are challenging, the professions trees are interesting, and the adventure of a new game has really sparked more fun in gaming for us.
The problem isn't that Wild Star is going to be a World of Warcraft killer, it's that WoW is slowly killing itself. The new expansion isn't going to be out for at least 4 months and that is really optimistic at best. The changes being made in the context of my favorite part of the game, PvP, all bring us back to the problems that were evident in vanilla WoW: casters have no mobility, crowd control is useless against players, etc.
Because there was so very much crowd control from a few classes, they've basically done everything that they can to hose cc. Because a few healers were very mobile and some casters were constantly running and casting, they're turning all casters back into turrets. PvP looks like it's going to be all about just standing and hoping to out gear your opponent again, which I find very discouraging.
After spending the last few months in my max level PvP gear earned through the conquest system being gunned down by raiders in a legendary cloak that was more or less handed to them the first week it was available, I'm not encouraged. And I'd be okay with that, kind of, if I felt like it were going to get better. But it just doesn't feel like that's going to be the case.
I get it, juggling PvE vs PvP is hard. And end game PvE players want to, and should be, rewarded for their work. But so should PvP players. Also, there's the balance between the random/casual PvP player in battlegrounds for honor and rated battlegrounds or arenas for conquest. Although even then, WoW forces a specific type of play onto PvP players that they do not for raiders: if I want to cap my conquest points for a week, I must play in a rated battle ground. Forget that I don't enjoy them. Forget that I'd prefer to play arenas with my 2 partners who are also my friends (one of them is my husband). No, if I want to cap my conquest, I either need to play enough games (far more than just 10 wins if experience of other highly rated players is to be believed) to get my rating higher or I have to play in a rated BG. There is no comparable experience for raiders: they can cap valor in raids every week. No one forces them to do dailies, there's no requirement to do heroic dungeons or scenarios.
Again, I get it that PvP is complex: something that may balance a priest in 3s may make her overpowered in rated battle grounds. Something that makes a paladin less brutal in RBGs may totally hose her in arenas. Something that saves a monk in the world from being ganked may make her unkillable in a 2s match. I do understand. And I could be okay with the balance that is created by WoW's developers if they were more transparent about why they make certain changes.
Unfortunately what I'm seeing is more and more homogenization of the classes, particularly in the case of healers. I really really adored the new playstyle of the mistweaver monk. I LOVED fistweaving and learning to be able to hit and heal. It certainly wasn't for everyone, but those people could play priests or pallies or shamans if they wanted more standing and healing, and that's okay. That's the beauty of a game that offers 11 classes. They should all feel and play differently. But, particularly with healing, that concept is being lost. Racials are being changed. Profession bonuses are being removed (instead of just giving a similar buff for every profession to people). I just feel that the more I see and read, more of the richness of the game is being removed.
So, I play Wild Star. It's a game that is new enough and has enough depth out of the gate to feel like that richness has been returned to me. Will I deactivate my wow account? Probably not this week. But if, come the expansion, Wild Star still has a grip on me like it does now, I suspect our three WoW account household will likely drop to 2 or fewer that are active. And that makes me sad a bit for WoW and how much fun and joy it brought me for the last 7 years, but sometimes you just outgrow one another, I guess.
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