World of Warcraft died because the developers only catered to casuals and world prog

[SieyaM]

Everquest was far harder and more unforgiving than WoW, but it never had that toxic angle to it. We all struggled together. Even early WoW felt that way. Eventually, it became an ordeal of dealing with the ego of other players and they felt entitled to abuse everyone else. Blizzard just fed into it and encouraged the behavior.

I was playing EverQuest when WoW launched and I remember most everyone that played thinking WoW was just EQ for people the couldn't hack it in game. I mean WoW had already drawn maps and quest markers, talk about handing it to the players. Also who remembers having to travel by boat, not loading in fast enough and getting dropped into the ocean when it crossed a zone line? The atmosphere of EQ though was more of a group effort and led more to helping others get up to speed and knowledgeable rather than the environment WoW seems to have leaned into where it is all about proving yourself better than others.

[Roflcopter]

I was playing EverQuest when WoW launched and I remember most everyone that played thinking WoW was just EQ for people the couldn't hack it in game. I mean WoW had already drawn maps and quest markers, talk about handing it to the players. Also who remembers having to travel by boat, not loading in fast enough and getting dropped into the ocean when it crossed a zone line? The atmosphere of EQ though was more of a group effort and led more to helping others get up to speed and knowledgeable rather than the environment WoW seems to have leaned into where it is all about proving yourself better than others.

Wow has morphed to the expectation that everyone has mastered the content even before it is released. I mean they made a meme of expecting the heroic achievement for an invite to a day 1 normal raid, but that isn’t far from the truth.

[Shougun]

I was playing EverQuest when WoW launched and I remember most everyone that played thinking WoW was just EQ for people the couldn't hack it in game. I mean WoW had already drawn maps and quest markers, talk about handing it to the players. Also who remembers having to travel by boat, not loading in fast enough and getting dropped into the ocean when it crossed a zone line? The atmosphere of EQ though was more of a group effort and led more to helping others get up to speed and knowledgeable rather than the environment WoW seems to have leaned into where it is all about proving yourself better than others.

Not EQ but I remember missing a boat in FFXI and arriving to the party location like 30 minutes late because of it. . . . . Part of my brain is like "what good times" and the other part is trying to beat it up "YOU FOOL!". lol. I personally like the idea of trying to bridge the ease with the old-school-cool discovery and role play concepts. Like I think traveling is an important aspect of gameplay, but at no point would I be wanting people having to constantly do double digit marches on repeat. There has to be systems on systems to ensure an active cadence, and I do appreciate the drop in and drop out nature too (which I can understand is a preference and not a be all end all opinion).

Where you might say you're constantly putting up large problems but then also offering QoL / solutions to them not too long afterwards to quell them before they go from novel to absolutely irritating. Just since it's a recent example, say in Elden Ring they have loads of teleports but the mount is so fast and so fun that honestly you don't really need to use it all that often unless the journey is a huge distance. One thing I feel FFXIV could have done better is making 'movement' itself more fun, but that's time for another post lol.

Never had it happen to me at level 75, but there was a time in that dang jungle where I deleveled a few times..... I couldn't let my party wipe when someone linked but benediction was always pull the entire zone on you button lol.