Why does this game provoke such nostalgia when I leave it?

[Humble Apostle]

hey folks, I've played WoW off and on for going on 2 years now. I've gone through great times, rough times, and times when the mention of the game made me shudder a bit.

I love Blizzard, and I love WoW. But sometimes I wish I could just leave it alone and play some other game without its siren call floating through the misty cloud I call my thoughts, demanding that I return and cast just one more lightning bolt, swing one more runesword, or bubble hearth one more time.

Anyone else have this "trouble" or perhaps realize why WoW above all other games seems to draw people back?

I can't for the life of me figure it out.

[Tyraenna]

I am not sure what it is about WoW that continues to bring people back.

In all liklihood it is that they make GOOD content, even if the amount of that content is sub-optimal.  So when you do leave the game, you remember enjoying it, and when something new finally goes into it, you return for a while.  That would be my guess.

There are definitely things about the game that are bad and long overdue to be fixed, such as taking up my valuable pack space with umpteen quest items, but most of that stuff while frustrating, is "overlookable" for me.

I do have to say one thing though ... I don't love Blizzard.  Blizzard is slow and they do not seem to care about their player base the way I have seen SOE (who has much more experience in the MMO industry) care.  I like their game, and granted the company is doing a lot of things right (especially marketing) since they are raking in the dough, but I do not really ... respect them.

Tyr

[Humble Apostle]

While I could agree with you there as far as Blizzard's policy has been in the past, having participated in the Beta for Wrath, you get to see a new side of Blizzard as far as player interaction. When you remove the utter imbeciles of the game who pester Blizzard nonstop with inane questions and comments, the devs are quite alot of fun to talk to.

Then again, it could just be Ghostcrawler

I respect Blizzard for the fact that they have yet to make a game I didn't enjoy immensely, and they DO take their time with getting things out.

Oye I sound like a Blizzard Fanboy don't I?

[Brasse]

It's easy to level and advance. It is a lot less effort to "relearn" than other games.

Still, it's the lack of content that kills WoW for me... and when I do log in, it's to see high level people GRINDING "achievements" which is the last thing that I want to do, ever. Repetitive shite for the sake of a checkbox/title/item is not my style. LoTRO has it as well and I suspect both WoW and WAR looked at it and said Whoa, we need us some of that grind - that'll keep people busy.

So yes, it is very easy and appealing to return too, but the glow fades fast and I can never play it for more than a few weeks at a time. There is still only one path to level and I am really tired of the same ol quests/zones. It was great the first time. Others love it for the same reason. Like donning comfy, ratty old shoes, they can't wait to walk the same ten miles in them, over and over and over.

Not a WoW-hater, just confused by the fanbois.
;-)#

[Bearmug]

Well, I quit wow, played EVE, CoX, Lotro, EQ, EQ2 and few other betas and free games and... they were fun for a while. But each had something that annoyed me, like EVEs grindiness, Lotros utter lack of replayability etc

WoW has (no matter what Brasse says ) multiple areas for each level range, many different ways of playing a class, constant (although slow) improvements (prot warrior can actually level normally now, yay) and I got so many friends there.

And.... out of all, I guess the last part is most important.

Also, while it is true that in wow there are a lot of idiots, there are also a lot of nice people, and sometimes it is worth looking

[Tyraenna]

Good points, Bear.  My in-game friend tend to be the same throughout any game I play, so I am tied to WoW for that reason and NOT tied to it for the same one.  We have a good group of folks in our guild in WOW, but there are a bunch of other good online friends who play other things.  When new games come out, many of us tend to at least try them together.

I do not enjoy leveling and releveling in WoW.  I have 1 level 80 and 2 level 70s, and a 62 shaman I intend to play as an alt all the way to 80.  I agree with Bhinder, there is not quite enough variety in the content for me.  I do however, enjoy the instances and can do those repeatedly for some reason.  Maybe because I actually enjoy the company I am doing the instances with (guildies) more so than being excited by the dungeons - they are great the first few times, but after that I am there for the comaraderie.

I do like the talent tree concepts, although my main is a priest, and I have only ever really loved discipline, through so many of the changes.  Plus other games also had this sort of thing, EQ and EQ2's alternate advancement systems were just as nice in my opinion.

Tyr

[Perragin]

A lot of the games appeal lie in it's ease to advance and learn. Each class can be played 3 different ways and you can solo the etire way if you so choose. That is where EQ2 lost it for me. Solo play never seemed an option after a certain point. I really wanted to love that game but could just never make it stick. If Blizz ever decides to spend it's BILLIONS on cranking out content faster the will have their hooks in a lot of folks for a very long time and not just in repetative spurts.

[Humble Apostle]

My worst problem with WoW is more of a personal issue. I'm an altoholic, to the point where I don't notice how good I've got it until I've had a chance to step back.

While leveling my elemental shaman, I was top DPS everywhere I went. Never got beaten, never came close. I was a maniac, and I could do it without provoking aggro provided I had Blessing of Salv. It got to the point where lesser geared tanks DEMANDED I get the buff

After waiting for forever in a previous guild to start raiding, I finally got to do Kara as my shammy with my new wonderful guild. I got top dps for most of the night, with some people passing me a bit later on. I lucked out and got a .001% elemental shaman ring and I had a great time. I raided once after that and went back to leveling alts.

If I had realized what I had, I probably would have beaten Illidan *sigh*

[Azymyth]

Unlike most MMOs, WoW's content is highly accessible to the vast majority of its player base instead of just the hardcore raider. Naxx I hear is pretty PuG-able (I still don't know yet since I'm in a guild of casual friends and I'm reluctant to leave them for a raiding guild) so even the person that's only on a few hours a night will get the chance to see things they couldn''t in vanilla WoW.

Achievements are the sort of double edged sword of WoW. They give incentives to revisit old raid content like Molten Core and AQ but as Brasse mentioned, can be rather tedius. Going for the Bloodsail Admiral title when you're 80 for instance is pure torture. My Warrior won't be getting it. I'm happy with her Explorer title, heh.

I agree that content can seem to come out slowly but I respect Blizzard for their desire to cater to the people that actually matter the most in MMOs: the casuals.  I guess what keeps me coming back is I know there will always be something I can do in the game on my own that won't require me to be in a group or be absurdly overleveled to solo safely regardless of my class.

[Bearmug]

Unlike most MMOs, WoW's content is highly accessible to the vast majority of its player base instead of just the hardcore raider. Naxx I hear is pretty PuG-able (I still don't know yet since I'm in a guild of casual friends and I'm reluctant to leave them for a raiding guild) so even the person that's only on a few hours a night will get the chance to see things they couldn''t in vanilla WoW.

Naxx is a new development in Blizz raiding philosophy: a real entry level raid. Which means, it is easily puggable (well, not counting having a REALLY hopeless raid). It also means that people that can actually play in groups (and don't need to be a hardcore raiding guild) can do Naxx in one day, and real raid guilds went thru it like a hot curry thru a very short grandmother (bonus points for recognising the quote ). We are relatively casual raiders and ran out of content over a month ago. Then we came to 3 drakes Sartharion and we're wiping on it for weeks already .

I am also an altoholic, and enjoy doing low level instances (without boosts), and trying out quests with a different class to see how much easier/harder it is. Or, for example, seeing how long it takes to get from 150 riding to 300+mount+cold weather flying skill (70 to 80 + 1 day 5 hours, questing and vendoring greys/whites exclusively, no ah).