Off Topic Discussion Megathread

[Theodric]

I think there's plenty of ways to strike a balance between 'tedious' and 'engaging'. At the time of its initial release, WoW was actually a lot less tedious compared to its competitors and had done away with concepts such as losing equipment and items upon death.

We're also seeing a surge in the number of pseudo-MMO's such as Monster Hunter World and Elden Ring. Which, certainly, can be played entirely as single player experiences if people so wish but have the potential to have players team up with friends and strangers alike.

I'm cautiously optimistic about what we might see in terms of MMO's in the future - it'll probably take a while until there's another 'lightning in the bottle' moment but as trends and tastes shift in their typical cyclical manner I'm sure we'll see something with a lot of depth that is also enjoyable to play.

If it wasn't for the awkward combat system, I'd be playing ESO instead of FFXIV. Both it and WoW are more to my liking in terms of the sort of factions, playable races and story elements - so it's a real shame that WoW opted to go so far off of the rails.

[Kolsykol]

I think there's plenty of ways to strike a balance between 'tedious' and 'engaging'. At the time of its initial release, WoW was actually a lot less tedious compared to its competitors and had done away with concepts such as losing equipment and items upon death.

This is true it has moved even further since then I'd say.
But it's true that WoW was essentially the '' casual MMO '' in comparison and it was designed to be that.
I think ultimately MMO's have become more engaging and less casual, but also less tedious.

WoW raids in Classic are a complete joke, bosses barely have any mechanics sometimes bosses in dungeons and raids just don't have any at all.
But I would say it's tedious.
It's hard for me to really judge it fairly tho because it was such a massive part of my childhood that I have some very strong nostalgia goggles on when I think back to it and when I played Classic.
To me I still enjoyed the gameplay but I don't think someone who has never played it would really think it's that great.

Like to me maybe it's worth spending a ton of time putting a group together for BRD and then spend all the time traveling there and the time it takes to complete it, it's A LOT of time.
Is it worth it to someone who never played Vanilla tho and Classic was their first experience with WoW vanilla?
Eh...
I am honestly not sure, perhaps as a one time experience?
I just dunno if new players really would look at it and feel the same about it as I did, I don't think so.

At some point the tedium just takes over and gets in the way too much and I think WoW Classic crosses that line still for most people even if it's not as bad as even older MMO's.