Level cap increase every 1-2 years.

[Bruknar]

Two weeks after launch, there was no possible way your druid had done every new quest, plus gotten all of your reps to exalted, plus got your guild to level 25, plus bought all of the guild rewards, plus got exalted with Tol Barad through all of the dailies, and then cleared all of the available raids. People over-exaggerate the lack of content from Cata, and it's largely moot at this point. Patches are coming slower, but for people on an XIV message board, it's quite ironic to hear complaints over WoW's slow patches.

I was going off the top of my head, but after looking at my armory, I got the game on the 8th of December, on the 16th I got Loremaster of Cataclysm and on the 31st I got Exalted with Tol Barad, which was the last Cataclysm related achievement I got before quitting a few days later. At that point I was already playing sporadically, which I kept doing mostly fishing in Dalaran till the 8th of January. So I achieved what I wanted out of Cataclysm in 3 weeks essentially. I'm exalted with Therazane, and I'm at least Revered with every other Cata reputation except Earthen Ring. I am not in a guild, nor do I care for guild levels or guild rewards.

I'm not complaining about the slow patches, if anything WoW is actually fairly fast at putting out content compared to XI or XIV. I complain at launching new expansions that completely obsolete older content with barely enough content to keep players busy for a month. And what's left once you've gone through most of that content? Grinding! Grinding for rep, grinding for gear, grinding for gold. The difference in my mind is that all that rep you're grinding for? Yeah in a year it'll have been a complete waste of time outside of that little star in your achievement book.

The 600,000 didn't leave because of a level cap increase.

Maybe not all of them. But more have for that reason than because of getting PKed on PvP servers I'm pretty sure. Not much can be done about stupid players who refuse to learn the mechanics, but all games have those. It's true Druid healing was hurt pretty bad when the expansion launched, but I simply switched to a Feral build and enjoyed the content that way. Heroics were still manageable, and actually enjoyable because they were somewhat challenging.

This list of sky gear keeps becoming longer and longer. I'm wondering here, how many items were out post-sky that were NEARLY just as good as those items, but those might have had +1 - +3 better stats? Min-maxers are not the majority of the MMO community, that's easy enough to see in WoW, who holds the majority of said community.

There were a lot of items that were just as good, or maybe slightly better depending on the situation. Were they easier to obtain though? Not really. Sky was accessible, fairly easy, not all that time consumming, and it dropped gear that could build a solid basis for pretty much any job in the game. Min-maxers had other options they could choose to pursue if they wished, sure. But for the average guy without 5 nights a week to put on a game, Sky was a wonderful end game activity that let them acquire gear that could greatly improve any "stock" AH character. Nyzul Isle in my mind was a continuiation of that mindset. Give solid gear that may not be the "best", but was fairly easily attainable for people with busy schedules and of any skill level. Not compare it to Salvage. Or Limbus vs Dynamis. Most truly "hardcore" option had a less time consumming one that was available that still dropped worthwhile gear. The game might have been very casual unfriendly when it launched, but by the launch of WoTG it was much better balanced with plenty of great rewards for every type of player. All that without wasting any of its older content.

Seriously? This is just not true once you hit the 50's after ToAU. The ONLY reason people didn't TP burn colibris was because they were either over camped or you were in a mage-heavy party. Older camps might not have been obsolete, but they weren't far from it. Mages -were- obsolete come ToAU. "We don't need a WHM, we have a BRD." "We don't need a RDM, we have a BRD." "We don't need a BLM, we're doing TP burns, lolSC." "We don't need a SMN, we're doing TP burns, and we have a BRD."

You say I over-exaggerate the lack of content, but you're doing just that here. I knew plenty of people who hated colibris with a passion and would do anything to go to any camp but that one. I often went to Onzozo to kill Toramas, or Gustav Tunnel to exp on Goblins. Sure it was a bit slower, but it was a hell of lot more fun. Mages weren't obsolete comes TOAU either, except for BLM in leveling situations, and well SMN pretty much always was until those Astral Burns started. But I learned more soloing my BLM to 75 than I would have in party situations. My WHM never had any issues getting invites as I leveled, and RDM most definitely never had to wait for an invite. You're talking like a BRD could pull, main heal, haste and keep buffs up all on its own.

1) Feeling as though your hardwork has been invalidated when the next expansion hits. 2) Completely screwing over half of the necessary classes for endgame on the actual way TO endgame and forcing players to run 6+ year old content if they want any chance to compete in a min-max environment.

I'd see it more as :
1) Feeling as though your hard work has been invalidated when the next expansion hits, and all older content is now completely obsolete and mostly pointless to run, whether you're a veteran player who's had the chance to enjoy it before, or a new player, for whom there's nothing really to do but grind to the new cap if you want to experience any kind of challenging content.

As for 2, I'm not even sure what you mean? Screwing over half the classes? You mean the mages being hurt by TOAU? I don't see how that's relevant. It had nothing to do with the level cap being raised or not. Classes are constantly changing and being tweaked trying to strike the right balance, no matter the game. That's more poor design decisions in designing TOAU. Abyssea has done the same, classes that were irrelevant before, like MNK, are now incredibly popular. Things change. It's the same in WoW or any other MMO.

I'd put 2 more along the lines of : 2) Gives new opportunity to acquire gear, enjoy new missions and storylines all while leaving the old content intact and available should you wish to play through it again. Also gives new players content to actually enjoy besides grinding on their way to the cap.

Keep in mind XI had lots of quests and milestones to hit for a new player, tons of content to enjoy and unlock on their way to 75. Does WoW have anything like that? As far as I can remember, everything is simply handed to you in exchange for a bit of gold... Even class quests that would unlock abilities have been done away with and you can just buy the ability straight up. What is there to do on the way to 85 outside of raising your professions? Grind reputation? It's just another time sink, and the reputation rewards of older content are obsolete as well. That's probably my biggest issue with the whole thing.

As I've said, every MMO has its min-maxers. FFXI treated it as a lifestyle. In WoW, I gem and enchant my gear, and I reforge now in Cata. I also might have a haste set or a mastery set, depending on the fight and my spec. When you spend more time actually changing armor than you do playing the game, that's a big problem to me.

I actually agree with you here. I thought gear swapping was getting over the top. That's one thing I think they should, and could do differently and better. There will always be min-maxers, no matter what they go for. As you said those people exist in WoW too, FFXI just seemed to encourage it more with gear swaps being so easy to perform. I'm confident they can avoid failing into that trap again though.

[Shipp]

As for 2, I'm not even sure what you mean? Screwing over half the classes? You mean the mages being hurt by TOAU? I don't see how that's relevant. It had nothing to do with the level cap being raised or not. Classes are constantly changing and being tweaked trying to strike the right balance, no matter the game. That's more poor design decisions in designing TOAU. Abyssea has done the same, classes that were irrelevant before, like MNK, are now incredibly popular. Things change. It's the same in WoW or any other MMO.

I just want to touch on this before I go to bed, I'll probably respond in full tonight. WoW doesn't eliminate the usefulness of certain classes. SMNs mainhealed quite often long before astralburns, and astralburns used to actually mean SMNs going to KRT to fight bones or going to sky for pots. RDMs had it the easiest out of the colored mages (besides BLU) to get into lolcolibri parties, but it was still shafted somewhat, unless there were no bards around. My WHM was at cap long before ToAU, and I only leveled with friends when I needed to recap come ToAU because everyone was TP burning and wanted a healer who could refresh/ballad themselves.

I agree with a few points you made though, so I should respond tonight when I get up.