Wasn't there an item dropping in Serpentshrine Cavern that allows guilds to pull along newer members, attuning them from the inside so to say? I thought it was a BoP scroll dropping off one of the earlier bosses, that could be cast on a guildie to attune them...

Not sure though. I respect your decision - for me WoW doesn't have the pulling force it used to have anymore either, but I blame the fact that it was my first MMORPG, and that I have way more to do IRL now than I used to (job, university, relationship - all the things I neglected for far too long).
 

Well I absolutely agree with you on catching up. I've been railing about the screwed up attunement setup in TBC since it became clear what it was, and it was the main reason for my own burnout. So yeah they added backflagging, but for that you have to kill Vashj. How messed up is that? What do guilds do who have everything down but Vashj? Well they are strictly forced to farm Karazhan and Gruul for the sole purpose of attuning guildies who took a break or new hirees.

Unfortunately I got nothing but hackled by the hardcore who minimize the attunement situation. Oddly, Black Temple has one of the friendliest attunement chaining of them all, basically requiring just the first kill of Hyjal. But how is that helping those semi-casual guilds who are forced through a punishing attunement gauntlet very early on? Not at all.

Tuning, attunements and low-man squeezes/Karazhan (5-, 10-man prereqs) are the factors that made raiding painful for the semi-casual raiders. Only one of those 3 got addressed in 2.1.
 

"As far as I know WoW characters never get deleted, so I can resubscribe if the next expansion is better than the horrible Burning Crusade."

Horrible? Yeah, yeah. You got to 70 in a month. Remember? You ruined your own game. And your guild has helped ruin it for you too. Ny playing in your style. Rush, rush, rush. Don't blame the game. Blame yourself. Point that finger straight into your own face.

Let me remind you what you said in February:

"If you have been playing World of Warcraft for a while and reached level 60, I can only recommend buying the Burning Crusade expansion. 500 hours of new content for under $40 comes down to less than 8 cents per hour of entertainment, which is a very good deal, even if you end up finishing it in 3 to 6 months. Very well done is the fact that the expansion lifts everybody on the same level, you don't need raid epics to start playing in the new zones, and you'll quickly acquire gear as good as the previous raid epics. This makes BC accessible to every level 60, casual or hardcore. If you liked World of Warcraft, you will like the Burning Crusade. If you didn't like WoW in the first place, the expansion won't change that. And if you are just starting to play WoW, you simply won't need the expansion yet, just the basic set is sufficient for quite a long while.

"On the positive side, The Burning Crusade adds more of the same to World of Warcraft. On the negative side, it just adds more of the same."

You were level 70 in a month. If you could have managed it in a week, you would have done that tool.

On the plus side maybe you learned something about taking LotRO on a more measured basis. Ha. No way. You were going to master Farming to the max as quickly as you could. Then they changed stuff around. The disappointment!

If you return to WoW, whatever. Hope you enjoy it. If you don't, who cares? I don't. Neither do you apparently. Great. I'm interested in hearing what you've got to say about LotRO, until you turn on it I guess. Your blog, your perogative.
 

Logged in after 18 months (free 10 day trial) and Ironforge looked almost abandoned.

Went to Outpost and watched some weird scripted battle - at the giant portal thingy.

Tried creating a tentacle chin and a blood elf, but I just can't get into the new races.

None of my friends were to be found, which doesn't surprise me.

I probably will not even bother logging back on.
 

*-*-*-*-*-*

" If you return to WoW, whatever. Hope you enjoy it. If you don't, who cares? I don't. Neither do you apparently. Great. I'm interested in hearing what you've got to say about LotRO, until you turn on it I guess. Your blog, your perogative.

*-*-*-*

Woot! another anonymous poster makes the world a better place! Phew... how long before this goes all Godwin on us!

Anyway, apologies for not adding anything positive to this discussion!
 

I will not be renewing my subscription as as july 3rd.

Game jsut doesnt have anything enjoyable for me. Plus my server has more lag than usual lately.

Was good while it lasted, but as far as TBC Goes... personally would have rather spend that money on some new ps3 games instead.
 

Right. Because a raid guild never ever farms the lower instances while working on a new one.

Seriously, Tobold, now you're just grasping at straws. Did your guild stop doing Molten Core when you started attempting Razorgore? You need to farm the lower tier to arm up for the current tier.

Your guild will still do the T4 instances while working on SSC. And if they actually beat Vashj before you decide to tag along, they can spend one of those tokens to attune you.

Assuming, of course, that they want to attune someone who chose not to help them get to that point.
 

By policy, characters of closed account are guaranteed to be kept for at least 6 months.

But I'm sure (as any other previous game as done the same) that this is a rule to let blizzard to cleanup databes if needed. But they won't apply it until needed.

If ever they will decide to delete character of very old unused accounts.... I'm sure they will let you know in advance, telling you to resubscribe for 1 month at least and prevent deletion. Anyway this move usually is more a choice to try to force people back.

Anyway.....
I won't worry for your characters. They will be safe, even with your closed account :)
 

I think the perfect MMO that will solve all your desires is one that evokes early facism taking hold of the elven populations where they will fall under the sway of a charismatic green ruler and pick fights with everyone.

Does that count as Godwinization?

Or just Goblinization?
 

The beef is legit. If you jump off the treadmill, even for a few weeks, it can be a major pain to catch your guild. They can always backtrack, but you'll feel obligated to jump back on the treadmill after your guild helps you catch up - and feel even worse if you jump back off again.

How about this:

60 man instances
no keys
no attunement
no faction requirements
no timesinks

Is that too much to ask?
 

Good for you Tobold! My girlfriend and I canceled our accounts last month. We weren't into the end-game time consuming raid aspect. We're taking it nice and easy with LotRO and enjoying it much more than WoW. The lifetime subscription makes the pacing much more enjoyable.
 

Huh, I appear to be the anomaly here. I rolled a Warrior on the Aussie server (to play more with my sister and her kids) and got him into his 40s, but my sis and kids never logged on (usually they were at school & work while I was playing, go figure) and I missed my old Guild buddies so I went back to my former server and pulled an old Gnome Warrior out of retirement. He dinged 58 this afternoon and is now able to take on the challenges of HF Penn. and the Outlands. Meanwhile my Guild is just starting to work on raiding Kazahkstan and my Hunter is still only lvl 68, but I'm not really feeling left behind because when either my Hunter or my Warrior hit 70 and I start working on Kazak attunement I know my Guildmates will help me out. You get close like that when you stick with a Guild for 2 years.
 

Capn John Said:
Meanwhile my Guild is just starting to work on raiding Kazahkstan...
Sounds like my kinda raid. Do we get to attune with Borat or defeat him as the end boss?
 

However... Well done Sir!

I quit my subscription a month ago and have about a month left. Not played now in 2 weeks and don't miss it at all.

I could spew pages and dissect the game for what is wrong for me... but you have read it all before.

I love the game... the history, the game engine per se, the lush intros, the legacy of warcraft as an RTS... but it is dead and devoid of any understanding of what the largest paying segment of the customer base needs.

This is the end of WoW... this is where the rot starts. I give the game 2 months. Bliz know there is a rot and will counter that as soon as they can with a announcement of some patch update championing everything they can that affects casual players of all types.

Thing is... it is too late.

I would prefer this not to be the case but it has to change now or lose more paying players.

Watch the subscription figures shrink and warcraft die!
 

I sympathize with you and can understand your decision.

I just dinged 68 with my druid, in a mana-tombs PUG, and came to the realization that I will most likely NEVER see the raid content without adjustments by Blizzard. I'm in a very small, friendly guild that will most likely never put a complete raid together.

In pre-TBC days, guilds like mine would often form "small guild alliances" to take on the raid dungeons. Now, the smaller size, more unforgiving nature, and all the silly attunement crap has made that unlikely. I can't play semi-seriously anymore and expect to find a group that's looking for a few more for a raid. That makes me unhappy.

Blizzard needs to wake up to the fact that World of Warcraft is just a GAME. Ultimately, it's meaningless entertainment. I shouldn't have to make a career out of it to see all the content.
 

When expansion 2 is announced at Blizzcon, it will be interesting to see if there's any mid level non instanced content. You know, the stuff that should have been in expansion 1.
 

@GG

Meanwhile my Guild is just starting to work on raiding Kazahkstan...
Sounds like my kinda raid. Do we get to attune with Borat or defeat him as the end boss?

I started calling it Kazahkstan as a joke, and it stuck, and now I have to really stop to catch myself if I want to call it by its proper name...if I could only remember what that was ;)

I see Borat more in the role as being the end Boss that needs defeating :)
 

Probably a good decision. Not posting on WOW might kill the subscriptions to this blog seriously, but I think they might soar again when you start dissecting WAR in your own way. I feel the same thing for WOW but decided to go casual. It is leveling alts, outdoor reputation (Consortium, Skyguard, Netherdrake, Ogri'lar), 4 man instances and especially PvP Arena now for me. Toss in the once in a time Karazhan / Zul'Aman (when launched) raid and I am a pretty happy person.

Still, I somewhat miss the old raiding fun of MC/BWL/AQ and hope we see a softer curve in the next expansion. WOW stays no. 1 for me most likely until Star Trek Online. LOTRO is a nice time-sink in between. I enjoy that game and go even more casual there.
 

cancelled? unbelieveable..
 

"is better than the horrible Burning Crusade"

Well call BC horrible, is not really doing it justice.

While the Raid Content may be "horrible", the BC itself is far from that in my viewpoint.

Our Raid was breaking off long before BC was out.

So i enjoyed the non-Raiding Content of BC. Actually my Main is still questing in Netherstorm.
What makes BC not horrible?
Flying mounts, new PvP, new very nice Environments, alot of "comfort" functions (which were introduced mostly in 2.0, but i count that to BC as well)

I can't say about the Raiding content, but what i saw of the solo/group content was really nice.

Including very nice Instances.

I can only agree on one point, if you don't play it anymore ,cancel your account. It's not necessary to keep it on, just for the sake of past experiences...

There will be better stuff then WoW in the future (until now i didn't see anything nearly as good).

I'm also sure that Blizz has noticed the people who left WoW ,and will react. Apart of that i saw alot of Newbies coming into WoW lately....it seems to be still very attractive...

As one poster said before me, if you play BC thru in 1 month, you did ruin the game for yourself. Don't blame Blizzard.
 

Amidst all the people saying they quit WoW, I would like to say I have no intention of quitting.

I was lv 60 when BC came out, and yet I am still questing, going to Heroics, going to Kara maybe once a fortnight, been to Gruul's Lair once, haven't done any Ogrilar/Sky thingy stuff yet (too busy), have been to MC, ZG recently, and hope to go to Naxx sometime in the next few months.
I haven't even looked at attunements for SSC or whatever, and don't feel any pressure to do so.
Despite all this, I play probably 4 hours a night, so am hardly casual, even if my approach is.
BC content is lasting me a lot longer than a lot of you. Maybe I am the sort of player BC was aimed at.
 

I also cancelled my WoW subscription recently. There's so much to do and see in LOTRO and i it's kind of refreshing compared to running over the same old azeroth again and again.
 

I've been following your disillusionment with WoW for a good while now it's been great to read your thoughts along the way.

There are so many blogs (see Raph koster's blog, GigaOm) talking about WoW's 'decline' in a very detached way so it's a breath of fresh air to see the point of view of somebody who is a player as well as a commentator.

I've used you as a bit of a case study in response to the posts by those blogs mentioned above, hope you don't mind!
 

Yes, I leveled my first character to 70 in a month. Then it took me another two month to explore the non-raid end-game content and level a second character to 70, thereby doing nearly all the quests that the Burning Crusade offers. So the time it took me to "finish" TBC was about 3 months. Which I consider to be:

a) Not a bad investment for the money I spent on it, less than $100 if you consider the price of the box plus the monthly fees for three months of fun is cheap.

b) Not enough content to keep me playing another 9 months until next expansion comes out.

So when I call TBC "horrible", that comment is directed at the end-game of it, which is a lot harsher than the old WoW end-game. The leveling-up part of TBC is okay, if a bit short. I don't know anyone playing so little that he'd need a year to level up to 70.

On WoW's "decline", I don't expect WoW to die anytime soon. I just think it has peaked. But even if the number of subscribers drops to half of current over the next 5 years, that is still enough to justify making a new expansion every year. Look at the original Everquest, which is still profitable with 150,000 subscribers and still bringing out expansions. WoW will still be around for a long time, and will still be the number one for some time. It will take hits when the next big games come out, but I'm not convinced yet that WAR will beat WoW in subscriber numbers, not even if you just count the USA and Europe.
 

The sooner this raid-centric abomination withers and dies the better. Bring back real mmorpgs with communities/crafting/housing/roleplay/events and all the other social aspects of the genre.
 

I read a comment some days ago where one of the Blizzard Gurus mentioned that they plan WOW for 10 years "useful life" now. I think original plan was 5 years life.
 

Wow...qutting wow. I have never even considered that. There has been spans of a few weeks I'd go with out playing due to bordem, but I wouldn't cancel. Well....I unsubscribed once after my first month of wow. I didn't think it was for me...I just hadn't played it enough to get hooked. They ask you why you want to unsubscribe? Hopefully Tobold left them a detailed messege.

As for calling TBC horrible, I think thats a bit much...but correcting TBC end game is horrible seems right on the money. I'm in the same boat as probably 80% of wow players. I'm not going to attune myself to anything, its boring and not worth it. I worked by butt off to get to 70 with in 3 weeks. I worked my butt off to get attuned to Karazhan. I spent many nights up way to late raiding Karazhan only to wipe due to disconnects, people afk or not paying attention, etc... etc... After a month of that my guild posts messeges like "SSC attunment starting, everyone needs to honored w/ cerion exp to get the SSC attunment quest". A few weeks later, when only a handfull of people are working on SSC attunement we get this....if you aren't attuned to SSC then you won't get invites to Karazhan or grull. A Karahzan group actually needed a tank the other day and they wouldn't take this guy in our guild who was ready to go to Karazhan but wasn't attuned to SSC. They waited 50 miunutes to get a tank, then disbanned.

At that point I was like "f**k this. I'm not doing it, hell no." I stopped raiding with my guild. I'm not allowed to raid at all until I get SSC attuned. On the up side I don't feel singled out because well over 50% of the guild isn't attuned. They just hit 25 members attuned the other week. Blame this on bad guild leadership but the fact that a guild actually has something stupid like this in place goes to show how much attunments aren't desired in a game. If the attunement was a couple of fun quests then everyone would have it. The fact is that the attunment doesn't even start until you grind honor with a faction. Thats the biggest piece of crap ever. Grinding sucks and should never ever be required for anything in a game. If people want to grind gold or exp, fine, let them, but lets not make it a requirement to just start a long chain of quests to get attuned to something. As you can tell I'm pretty fustraded w/ current end game, but good thing I have alts.
 

I can't resist posting this. Tobald, they thought of you when they wrote it:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/05/08

Sammy
 

If it wasn't for PvP I probably already would have quit. Even that gets stale but at least I never 'fall behind'. I can play at my own pace and if I get in a bad PUG it's over fast. I put in X time and I know I'll get Y reward definitely. It's relaxed and I don't feel this pressure to get stuff done hanging over me.

I came close to quitting a few times after TBC came out due to the onerous keying/rep process. I never even considered quitting WoW 1.0 even after playing from day one. Every time I almost quit it was for the same reason, I felt like I was falling so far behind in keying/rep I'd never conceivably catch up to my guildmates. It was like a dark cloud of pressure hanging over me and I couldn't take it anymore. Then I'd play an alt or PvP and say to hell with the grinds. Then I'd come back with a more relaxed attitude. Then the pressure would build up again.

The content is too linear and too unforgiving. If you have a core of players moving at a certain speed in a guild, they are like pace cars. The rest of the guild needs to keep up or they are discarded/become useless (undergeared/not keyed). There is no way to make up a lap.

It's like the cartoon character on the treadmill. It speeds up and you are forced to try harder and harder to keep up with it or risk flying off and smashing into the wall. I guess more and more people are hitting the wall....
 

As a result of the BC “end game,” I too have left WoW. I didn’t think BC was terrible until the end game. From level sixty all the way to seventy, Burning Crusade was wonderful. New zones, new abilities, interesting quests, etc. The instances were short runs and the bosses were challenging. At seventy, I got a flying mount and basically just logged in to fly places for two weeks. The only time my toon was on the ground was when I first logged in or if I was afk. Then I took a look at all the stuff I’d have to do to keep up with raiding in my guild and I lost interest.

I don’t think WoW is dying but I think it’s numbers have probably peaked. There are two new races but no new classes. Even with the new races, after level 20 they get thrown into the same secondary zones as the rest of their faction (I created a Bloodelf … the starting zone is amazing but the Barrens is still the Barrens). The new PvE content, while good, ends up seeming a little too much like the old content … with all the stuff you hated about the old content magnified by twenty. Getting Argent Dawn rep sucked, but it was completely optional (except for some goodies or crafting patterns). I only ground the Timbermaw rep until I got to the “I-still-hate-your-guts-but-I-won’t-kill-you” level. I’m still at that level a year later.

As a result of the stuff above, I have left WoW. I’m not sure I’ll be going back even with another expansion. There’s too much else going on in my life and too many other games I’d like to try. Currently, I’m a LoTRO player but I’m also keeping an eye out for something decent with a sci-fi motif. That or a mod to add rocket pods to my horse. :)
 

I call shenanigans.

SSC attunement is trivial. If your guild is starting to work its way into SSC, it's clearly still running Karazhan, and you only need a Nightbane kill from there (which is halfway through the instance). And I'm sure they're still downing Gruul too. Hell, my guild has 5 bosses down in Black Temple and we will hit Gruul every week, and only recently stopped running Karazhan.

If you aren't interested in raiding, that's fine, not everyone's into it. But don't blame an extremely simple attunement process or BC's raidgame in general (which is quite well tuned right now, and at least as good as MC/BWL/AQ40 ever were). Karazhan is inventive, and absolutely full of bosses with great drops. SSC trash isn't super painful any more and Vashj is a great fight. TK is a gorgeous zone, and Kael'thas is one of the best fights the game has ever seen. Hyjal trash waves are annoying, but they're being returned tomorrow. And BT is just spectacular.

You do a disservice to the game, your readers, and any developers who might be taking your feedback seriously to blame your canceling on something that simply doesn't make any sense.
 

If you don't like raiding I can understand you leaving. But I think you brought a lot of your complaints on yourself. Reading your blog for the past few months is all anyone needs to know about how much time you've invested in WoW. So the fact that you are getting left behind is of your own making.

However, raiding is not all there is to WoW. You can make money playing the AH or crafting. You can PVP. You can quest. Or any of a handful of other things as well. That being said, yes, it is clear that either PVP or raiding is the games "end-game" content.

Sorry to see you go, but you do have to admit that you let your guild get ahead of you.
 

Its your choice at the end of the day, but the reasons you left WOW are pretty strange. Couldn't keep up with your guild?

Maybe try and find a more casual guild, or a RP guild. My main has a boring life, always grinding and raiding, but the fun I have with my alts.

I know its so 2006, but get all your friends to create new characters and go raid hogger.
 

Blog posts don't hurt either, so I for one really appreciate spelling out your message to Blizzard.
 

I canceled my account because I was tired of the fundamental gameplay mechanics of WoW, and because most of the people I knew in game quit, so both the gameplay and social motivations collapsed at the same time.

But from your last two posts I don't really understand why you cancelled your account, Tobold. Blizz has dramatically retuned the raid game so it's easier, requires no farming, has legit item rewards, and allows (limited) backflagging. Now if you're no longer feeling the guild love, don't want to start all over 2 years later, and you'd rather check out lotro and whatever beta you're in, that's sensible... but it's not the dev's fault.

What *currently implemented* design decisions would you have the WoW devs fix? It would seem from my outsider perspective that they did everything possible to address player complaints in 2.1. Maybe they took too long doing it, but they really did try. I, like a lot of other posters, think you haven't been playing enough to see it. Again, there are certainly legit reasons you're quitting but I don't think you're being totally honest with yourself what they are.
 

"Sending a message to Blizzard: World of Warcraft cancelled"

'bout time. WoW is so..... 2006ish.

Wow Tobold, you sure attract a lot of venom when you say the least little bad thing about WoW.

In TBC, Blizzard made raiding much harder, a lot more work and much less rewarding (void crystal anyone?).
 

"Right now I'm hoping that Blizzard gets the message that if they make content mainly for the elite, the masses are going to stop paying. Money talks louder than blog posts."

So what do you want? TBC made is possible to *solo* from 60 to 70 and never set foot in an instance. Crafting will yield epic-level gear, and with the introduction of 10-man raids, even Kara can be PuG'd with minimal effort.

You want a guild that will run you through Gruul and Black Temple the way it appears they have run you through the rest of the game? You want to be able to solo your way to the best items in WoW without having to work in a raid setting? You want Blizzard to reinvent the end-game that 8,499,999 people are content with because you aren't going to pay $15/month anymore?

If you don't like the game anymore, then just walk away. Your suicide note is just a plea for attention by someone trying to slash his wrists with an electric razor.

Your opinion doesn't hold any more water because you vomited it on some free blog hosting service. Actually, now that you've quit WoW, maybe you can afford to host your own pretentious domain on GoDaddy so I can not care about why you're no longer playing a game without reading the stupid banner adds.

I think a few people still play City of Heroes... while you're waiting for Blizzard to build their game around you, maybe you can play dress-up over there unless that's too "elite" for ya.
 

I cancelled my account about 2 months ago and now I am back just because I missed my friends.

On another note: Tobold, did you know that you can still copy and play your characters on the Test Realm even though you're not paying Blizzard anymore? ;)
 

I love how people are telling Tobold the reason why he quit wasn't valid because they happen to have another experience in the game. Newsflash: Everyone's experience in game is different.

The fact that others are echoing his view should show you it is valid. Just because a few of you love the new raiding scene and/or can't comprehend the feeling of being behind the majority of your guild and how overwhelming it feels when you think of how much work it'll be to catch up doesn't mean it's not valid.
 

The sooner this raid-centric abomination withers and dies the better. Bring back real mmorpgs with communities/crafting/housing/roleplay/events and all the other social aspects of the genre.

I agree with this anon poster...
 

Hey Tobold,

I understand your frustration with Blizzard, but I think your comment about Guild MoTD is unfair:

As the attunement for Serpentshrine requires killing raid bosses in Karazhan and Gruul's lair, it is impossible to get attuned once the guild has moved on to Serpentshrine

Your guild is still running Karazhan and Gruul weekly, and if you wanted to get attuned you could. I totally respect your decision, and it's a pity, but please don't try and shift the blame to your guild.

Black
 

The fact that others are echoing his view should show you it is valid. Just because a few of you love the new raiding scene and/or can't comprehend the feeling of being behind the majority of your guild and how overwhelming it feels when you think of how much work it'll be to catch up doesn't mean it's not valid.

The reason it's not valid is simply because it's incorrect. If your guild is starting work on SSC, it's NOT a lot of work to get attuned. It's half a Kara run and a Gruul run (both of which his guild is undoubtedly running every single week), along with one boss in heroic Slave Pens. All he has to do is type "hey I still need Nightbane and Gruul for SSC attunement, can you try to make sure I'm in for those bosses this week" in gchat and boom, problem solved.

Saying "I'll never catch up to my guild again" is patently ridiculous, and makes it clear that there are actually OTHER reasons for his quitting beyond what he's posting.

If he just doesn't want to raid, cool. No big deal, lots of people don't like raiding. But don't act like the game design has somehow screwed you over when anyone with a clue can see that it hasn't.
 

Good luck in LOTRO... the single worst game ever created by anyone ever for any reason. Ugly, Clunky, thoroughly non-enjoyable. Truly, the MMO for the lazy moron who cannot commit to more than 10 minutes a day of gameplay. Oh, wait we used to call those console-players... my bad.

Go back to Super Mario and quit breathing my air.
 

So, Tobold, I hope you've learned your lesson. You have NO REASON WHATSOEVER TO DISLIKE WOW. To ensure you reenter the brigade of right-thinking individuals, please deliver your credit card information to any one of the anonymous commenters, who will reinstate your subscription and ensure you spend sufficient time in-game so that you relearn to appreciate the inherent and eternal superiority of WOW. No dissent allowed. By the way, everything bad that happens to you is your fault as well ;)
 

If your guild won't go back to SSC/Gruul to help you get attuned, it's probably not a guild that you want to be raiding with anyway. Not helping with the 5-man portions is one thing, but not helping you with the raid parts is just shitty.

And I highly doubt any SSC/TK guild will be stopping farming Kara/Gruul/Mag until they have all of SSC/TK on farm status, at which point they can attune you with the scroll. You still farmed MC while learning BWL, right?

tl;dr- don't whine at Blizzard because you/your guild sucks.
 

Can't say much on this myself since I stopped playing due to gaming boredom, but just a heads-up that you're on WoW Insider:

http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/06/18/tobold-cancels-his-account-until-next-expansion/#comments

*hugs*
 

Its not just one MOTD that causes you to quit. Its a build up of many things usually.

The end game raiding is a job. I don't want to do it.

Personally, I am doing 5 mans with friends.

I started to grind 5K gold for the netherdrake mount. Then decided "hey I don't need it". I have 4800G and log into wow for 4 hours once per week.

Dungeon Runners fits my casual self at this time.
 

Look Rosemary... Tobold is claiming there's no way he can ever catch up to his guild. But if they're just starting SSC, there's no way they're not doing Kara/Gruul. By now it's almost certainly on farm. So it's not that hard to grab a spot, especially as a priest.

He's claiming that the content is *still* "mainly for the elite" although they nerfed the entry-level raid encounters pretty hard; things are pretty close to the way they were pre-expansion from what I hear.

It sounds like Tobold's guild relationships have melted down and he's absolutely sick to death of the endless treadmill of raiding and he wants to check out new game mechanics. Ok fine, I quit for those same reasons. But I didn't "send a message" to the Blizzard devs, just said "had fun, finally got bored, see you in WoW 2, hope you include some new mechanics!" Asking WoW to be something totally different than it has been over the last 2.5 years, claiming the devs didn't listen at all... well, it just seems a little petulant.
 

A few of the above "anonymous" posts are quite ironic.

Alright, 8 million players... and some anonymous person finds a blog about a WoW player that is quitting just to say:

"go play console games, noob. HA PWNED UR FACE LIKE PANCAKES! ::jumps back into BlackTemple 4:30 am raid::"(LOL non-verbatum)

Get real. WoW isnt the lustrous pearl it was previously and as far as gameplay value... compare for example a pogo-stick and a skateboard. Fun for a while, but eventually you play on bigger and better things. Design the endgame in a way that doesnt make people question their effort/time, is what devs need to re-analyze imo tbh amright ysimright ohrly yslry.

I have no doubt there are people who enjoy the pancakes out of end game raiding, but then again I also have no doubt that their "sacrifices" to do that dont stem much further than their parents smelly basement. Blizzard doing a new expansion that basically equates to the koreanMMO standard of more timesinks and grind was not what people were expecting.

This was a poor decision and a decision gives many people a good reason to play something else. Why anyone would start farming anything once they hit 70, its game over you win I guess. They add 2 new races, but no new classes... failure imo (well, unless of course your only playing those new races to lvl 20 LAWL AMRITEE!!111)

Hope you enjoyed,

..you olympic quality anonymous primate fecal tossers.

Champion Name-Calling Troll
~Tenmohican
 

Man, some of you trolls need to work on your reading comprehension. Of course me having fallen behind my guild is not my only reason for leaving WoW, I just said it was the last straw that broke the camel's back, the event that kicked me over the edge.

And of course it is *technically* possible to get back into raiding. Either by just begging my old guild and leeching from their experience with Kara/Gruul to get a free ride to attunement. Or by guild-quitting and joining a guild that just happens to be where I am in the attunement chain. Neither of which is really a pleasant experience. Unless my guild is really, really short on priests, which I doubt, why should I expect them to go out of their way and rework their raid schedule just to help me catch up?

Of course it is "my fault" for having taken a holiday from WoW that I have fallen behind. I'm just questioning a game design in which you can't take a holiday without falling behind and needing a whole guild's help to catch up.

Finally I'd like to say that if you think that "one single player leaves one game" is a newsworthy headline, and deserves the sort of hate spilling that you can read in some of the above comments, maybe you should question whether your relationship to this game is still mentally healthy, or already bordering on obsession.
 

Tobold,

Like the wise men say:

Less QQ, more pew pew.

I look forward to your productive/constructive posts again.
 

Tobold, really I think one of the most intriguing blog topics is the amount of anger rather simple stuff can draw.

Anyone who has followed your blog knows how WoW has turned out for you and knows the developments and the motivation, and if they have an open and flexible mind, can let you have your perspective without getting railed up just because WoW doesn't work out for someone.

I for one am just dumbfounded why people get so angry so easily and so often, just because people don't have a view or preference that matches theirs or if they see a personal criticism as something that threatens their own views somehow... but maybe that's too big a topic to actually understand.
 

@Kinless

This is Tobold's blog where he talks about MMO related topics, among other things. He wrote a matter of fact account stating he cancelled his WoW account and why. There was no QQ. The only QQ I'm seeing is posts like yours.

I for one enjoyed the read as Tobold's experiences mirror mine in some ways. If you want a fanboy site that only talks about how great WoW is then continue to write that on your own or look elsewhere.

Seriously, all this venom over Tobold's documented decline in interest in WoW is ridiculous.
 

The fanboi venom thing cracks me up too. Some people seem to identify so much with their chosen product (game, beer, laundry detergent, [insert thing no one in their right mind actually gets upset about]) that simply not liking it is perceived as a personal attack.

Whatevah.

The funny thing is, in this case, it's a video game. If the game isn't fun for someone, they won't play it. If you think it's fun, then by all means, keep playing. And it's a video game: nothing in it is real and should Blizz decide to pull the plug, it's all gone anyway.
 

Khan you just touched on something there... imagine the day WoW does get turned off. There will likely be a lot of suicides... I kid, I kid.
 

TK/SSC attunements are being removed from the game today. LOL. Should have just waited another day.
 

haha Tobold, I think you just showed the "elite" who Blizzard really cares about ;)

Well done
 

Don't think there's a risk of a massive WoW exodus.
 

Don't think you have the right graph.
 

Left Wow too this month.
Switched to EVE Online, way more relaxing. You can play it even if u have 15 mins. WoW ask u too much time. And i'm sick to grind the new expansions are out.