After 7 months of FFXIV Journey i went back to WoW..

[Illmaeran]

For me, WoW lost its magic the moment Arthas was killed. Having played all of the Warcraft RTS games over the years, the continuation of that story in an interactive world where I could play with friends was what made the game for me. The world was still magical, the characters were still engaging, the lore was consistent, and the quest/in-game story writing was still solid. Once Cataclysm dropped and RP and PVP lost their luster, the game died to me and I only went back to try it before Classic released.

I've got XIV in 2014 and haven't looked back since. Even though I've taken breaks for RL reasons, no other MMO has stayed in my heart the way XIV has. It's the game I've always come back to for All The Reasons. I've never actually wanted to be in the world, as in actually reside in it as my character, in any game other than this one and is 100% a result of the quality of the world building, story writing, and character mechanics. Hydaelyn is a place of wonder and beauty just begging to be explored.

[Ferra]

I want to expand on my earlier post, 'cause I want to make it clear: I LOVED WoW. I loved the races, the world(s), the characters and storylines they were bringing with them. The apex of my enjoyment was Wrath: Beautiful environments, engaging story with plenty of twists and turns (They took out the Wrathgate cutscene which I'm still not over...)and all of it came to a lovely conclusion with the death of Arthas, one of the biggest ongoing storyline arcs since Warcraft 3. I was playing with friends, was getting into RP...It was great. I was excited for Cataclysm: Since Arthas is done we'll have new narratives to enjoy! Which we did...Especially if it involved Thrall who turned into a Gary Sue.

I stuck with the good and bad, and I started to notice changes. Pieces of narrative were cut, retconned or flat out missing. The novels were required to get a full understanding of the story. I love reading: I write for a hobby, but a video game is a form of media where you can tell a story not just with words, but with visuals. Characters go through sudden arcs, motivations become unclear, and very unsatisfying ends to various plotlines. It all came to a head with BfA and SL. Various races getting nothing to do for EXPANSIONS. Dwarves? (Magni doesn't count) Draenei? Night Elves? (While getting nothing to do they are used as fodder to build the stories of others) So many races have such interesting backgrounds that just aren't built on, at all.

The game became a grind of a ton of different systems. I felt like I logged on just to subject myself to a bunch of daily and weekly chores that were both boring and had no real satisfying payoff. It drained my will to do anything else after doing all the WQs and running the daily activities day in day out for hours. All that's left is doing M+ or raids with a toxic PvE community if friends weren't available, doing PvP with an equally toxic community, or RPing which is what I ended up doing exclusively because I was fed up with it. And then the scandal hit.

Anyone who made WoW as engaging as it was back in Wrath left long ago. All that remained was a shattered narrative while I was spoonfed content over long droughts of grinding all these currencies and systems. I left and planning on leaving for good as they prioritize turning portraits of women into bowls of fruit.

I'm almost into Stormblood in regards to the MSQ. I've been taking my time, doing all the Trials and Raids I can find, running Hard dungeons, dabbling in the Gold Saucer and trying out Chocobo Racing...I can plan out what I feel like doing at any given time. I can focus on completing various logs or just sit around and RP. The community has been far, far more friendly than WoW's: I've only encountered a few toxic folks and that behavior is discouraged all around. RPing has been an absolute blast and I've loved building various stories with Ferra and her punching ways!

Azeroth can rot to it's core. I'm gonna hang out in Eorzea, it's pretty nice there.

[Theodric]

Especially if it involved Thrall who turned into a Gary Sue.

I don't disagree, though given how G'raha has been written of late I don't think FFXIV is immune to the same writing issues that came to plague WoW.

We're already seeing dead characters being brought back to life, too, because the writers regretted killing them off - which, again, proved to be a common and rather comical trend with WoW.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I don't disagree, though given how G'raha has been written of late I don't think FFXIV is immune to the same writing issues that came to plague WoW.

We're already seeing dead characters being brought back to life, too, because the writers regretted killing them off - which, again, proved to be a common and rather comical trend with WoW.

Yeah i agree. Was also sad to see them just kind of ignoring their own lore and plot points they’ve set up in favor of keeping characters alive again, like Graha. It’s kind of a big middle finger to people who engage in the lore and are really interested in it only for it to be short-lived and trounced upon because a character HAS to live. Seems to only be a problem with the protagonists too…

[Darksummoner]

Some of the posts in this thread are difficult for me to comprehend. I played WoW in late 04 at the very start of vanilla. I played for 16 years. I came to Final Fantasy in June with the idea that I would just try it and probably wouldn't like it. Then it became Ill just play this until they fix WoW (and yes WoW is very broken). But honestly every single experience I have in Final Fantasy is superior in every way to what I went through in WoW. The statement that it feels like getting out of an abusive relationship and into a good one is overrused in this case but thats really what it feels like. They can "fix" every single issue I had with WoW and I dont care anymore. Their ship has sailed and failed for me, after playing the game for the majority of my time on earth.

Ion Hazzikostas (wow main developer) can sit down with me take notes on every single change I would make to WoW and implement them all today and I wouldn't care. To me, Final Fantasy does absolutely everything better. The art, the character models, the dungeons, the raids, the story telling, the music, the leveling, the one character all jobs, the community, the golden saucer, the option to play on PS5, the RP. Every-single-thing suits my playstyle in what I want from an MMO better. The ground up foundation of everything I think an MMO should be, is just better and I feel dumb daily for ever having played WoW as long as I did. Should have left in WoD and never looked back.

If someone is still enjoying WoW im happy for you I really am. But I truly dont get it.

So I am literally right there with you. Except I played the game for 17 years. But Blizzard could make changes that I want and I wouldn't go back. The way Blizzard has been treating it's player base is just unforgettable and sickening honestly. I just no longer want any part of the "Abusive relationship" any more. I LOVE playing FFXIV and I feel damn honored that the community of FF has excepted me to stay within Eorzea. Blizzard, with their greedy ways, can kiss my ass. I AM DONE WITH THEM.

[Kolsykol]

Snip.

I grew up playing Blizzard games, I played every single one of them actively.

Blizzard in recent years tho have gotten so bad for so many reasons simultaneously that I got so disgusted that I actually deleted my Blizzard account altogether and threw away my collectors editions and merch.
That's how little faith I have in what Blizzard is today and that they'll ever get better, the way that even the devs have handled the situation is just further evidence of that and that they still have very extreme levels of narcissism at the office.
Especially with their behaviour online.

Like I said there has been so much it's not just the one thing it's everything added together that made me feel this way.
But the last straw was when one dev ( male, they're ALWAYS men speaking on womens behalf... ) came out and tried to defend the whole thing with the insane levels of censorship and turning women into fruits by saying that it was requested at the office by the devs.
And I very calmly raised the pretty common sense point that no one would ever want to be '' that person '' at the office to question any of this especially not now, so imma stay a bit skeptical to that.
And I was blocked...

First of all why tf are they even making public statements with the comments open if they're going to block anyone for even mildly questioning their claim?
But also wow, great to be treated that way as a customer who has spent more on Blizzard products than on probably pretty much any other entertainment goods.

It's really annoying too how this narrative is spun by them that it's all '' angry Gamers '' who is upset about it or questioning it and like I said it's pretty much exclusively men saying that and defending it, meanwhile I look in the comments and what personalities in the community and women for other games ( like Zepla for FFXIV, who used to play WoW ) are saying and they all find it to be extremely patronizing.
The other thing that's really annoying about it too is that it makes women look like pearl clutchers and buzzkills, these dudes aren't he ones that have to deal with the consequences long term ultimately, it's women who get framed as the ruiners of fun when in reality it was probably not even women who made these decisions to begin with...

But yeah I can't think of another game studio that I actively find disgusting.
There's game developers and studios I don't like, but not on the same level.
The saddest thing is that I didn't feel bad at all about deleting my account and throwing the collectors edition and merch away, it actually felt like a burden was lifted off of my shoulders.


This isn't even getting into the multitude of people ( especially the writers... ) who spend all day on Twitter going on weird racist rants about '' white people '' with Blizzard in their bio.
Like why would I want to support a company with people working there who publically hate me?
I have no idea why in the hell Western game developers are allowed to behave the way that they do, it wouldn't be allowed in basically any other industry.
Everything through the years is just coming back to me again now there's just so much of it, I feel like every week I hear about some Blizz dev causing drama online.

Snip.

For what it's worth I actually did go back and play Classic and got a Priest to 60 and Raided a little.
And it was a ton of fun I enjoyed my time a lot.

On some level I actually do want to still play Classic on the side and TBC, but at this point I feel like it's a moral issue and like I'd be supporting awful people ( even with the abusers having left/ being fired ).
Outside of Classic the Blizzard games I have the most urge to play are WC3 ( not Reforged ) and HOTS which should say something...
Granted I actually think that HOTS is a lot of fun and underrated, it was just abandoned...
And I actually liked D3 a lot in spite of all the hate it got.
I always used to go back and play every Season but nah.

I also don't like how they handled Diablo 2 Resurrected, I just dunno wtf they thought they were doing with some of the character models they intentionally made them inaccurate ( especially the Assassins gear... My fav char -_- ) even tho they got overwhelmingly negative feedback.
And they haven't even added ladder yet and it has been a buggy mess, so many Reforged flashbacks ( luckily I got a refund on that ).

But yeah...
What a fall from grace...
But at some point enough is enough you gotta have some self-respect too.

[Aelin_Ashryver]

So.. basically nostalgia won? Well whatever makes ya happy!
Personally cannot stand wow in the least. Which is a shame because I really like the idea of playing a feral druid!

[TristanX]

Maybe Dreamhaven will be the new Blizzard. Blizzard co-founder and ex-CEO created this studio.

[Reinha]

WoW will always have a place in my memories especially because I met my husband back in Wrath. It used to be a good game. Although I took a break in WoD, I would say I enjoyed it until somewhere in Legion. Looking back I probably should have quit for the last time when they deleted MoP content and took out flying, because that is when they started to take out the fun.

The idea behind removing content was to give people something to brag about, for being there and having done it. But in order to flaunt those items, you have to be logged in the game and play it. Why would I play a game that keeps losing its content? That's like being in a crumbling house. If I had fun doing something I can never experience it again on an alt. Also it is literally a way to spite new players. Neener neener, you weren't playing before, sucks to be you! In FFXIV I can still go get old relics, do old challenges like solo PotD or HoH or do synced dungeons and raids. There is a huge wave of new players going through all the old content and liking it, because it's still there and it's still valid. Diadem did get removed a bunch of times but at least the rewards were brought back for those who want them.

The burning of the tree was the last straw for me. When a player base is so hugely motivated by nostalgia, why would you possibly 1) change the map, 2) change the character models and 3) destroy the city and starting zone of an entire race on a whim? I consider Wrath, MoP and Legion the better expansions partially because they didn't involve ruining some part of the game I was attached to. In the end I was playing a character that didn't feel like my own in a world that was disjointed, and the story revolved around one NPC I never really cared about. Night elves lost their home and had their faction leader turned into a soft idiot, and apparently didn't even get racial armor out of this ordeal.

It's astonishing how they were able to turn that mammoth of a game into a joke. It's an embarrassment. Their latest stupid ideas like covering up more women and turning them into fruits is just the cherry on top. I'll agree with others saying how it doesn't matter what changes are made from now on. It could be restored back to Wrath state and I just wouldn't care enough to go back. Even Wrath doesn't compare with current FFXIV, if I'm being honest. Too much time has passed and too many advancements have been made. Imagine being restricted to one class on your main character, for example.

[Reap00]

I haven't played WoW in 10 years. It had by far the most toxic gaming community I ever experienced. People that play that game are ridiculously disrespectful to other players. It isn't worth my time especially considering the trash company that runs the game these days doesn't care about the player experience at all.