World of Warcraft: Why Play Now?
An article about why would someone play World of Warcraft almost 18 years after its release and after the disaster of the release of Shadowlands.
Introduction
Almost 18 years after its release and after the unique creative decisions for The Shadowlands expansion, why have all my friends returned to the heavily criticized World of Warcraft: The Shadowlands?
Adventure, Friends and Nostalgia.
At midpoint of 2020 I found myself re-subscribing to World of Warcraft during the Battle of Azeroth expansion on the brink of the release of The Shadowlands expansion. What started off as a return to the nostalgia of my childhood, having fun in PVP arenas with my friends and occasional mythic dungeons, quickly lead to the grind of dailies and raid team banter and seriousness.
Growing up the most fun I had playing World of Warcraft was the excitement of the adventures with my friends; doing quests, exploring unknown areas, trying to run from Darnassus to Stormwind to quest together and later (when feeling competitive) PVP arenas with the buddies.
The fond memories of discovering this new world with friends and the lore of it was exciting, fresh and joyous. My excitement when The Burning Crusade and The Wrath of the Lich King expansions came out was almost as exciting for me as the Halo 2 midnight release.
What happened to World of Warcraft after the Wrath of the Lich King?
The first two expansions were the most fun I had playing WoW. I played Cataclysm a little bit, but with my friends dropping out of the game and my busy school schedule playing WoW lost some of its priority, and then Mists of Panderia came out and I quit for years. I felt they were grasping at straws and trying to do something new to appeal to the audience. For me, however, it broke the immersion. I quit very soon after buying the expansion and wouldn't return till the end of The Battle of Azeroth (3 expansions later).
In my absence, I didn't hear good things about the condition that World of Warcraft was in. Complaints were rampant about the mechanics, the dialogue, the lack of creativity and direction the lore and game was going. The introduction of new classes, races and locations wasn’t enough to bring WoW out of the depths it had plunged itself into.
I have to say, I love World of Warcraft and at the same time there have been some downsides to this wonderful land of adventure.
The Shadowlands
Once The Shadowlands released I found myself on a heroic and mythic raid team. All the years WoW has been around still couldn’t change one thing; the toxicity of very serious players. I found the new expansion to be tedious, grindy, a bit confusing and at the same time certain aspects were quite fun and beautiful. The dailies in the Maw were my bane and yet Torghast I found to be very fun! After some long raid nights and growing tired of the various grinds to stay on top of my class, the fun started to disappear and turn into a chore.
When a game turns into a chore, it loses the vital aspects of what makes it a game doesn’t it?
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After a while of this I quit the raid team, ended my subscription and put WoW away for good (this time I really meant it). I found myself playing other MMOs and hearing whispers about the condition of Wow.
Hearing about the big reveal of The Jailer, the big bad guy in The Shadowlands, furthered my resolve to never return. I won’t spoil anything here, but believe me, it was enough to make me face palm and groan.
Oops, I did it again.
A year and a half passes by and the thought of returning to WoW hadn’t crossed my mind. I would see my friend’s online status as ‘Playing World of Warcraft’ and knowing that they weren’t tasteless in their games, I wondered “why in the world are they playing again?”.
So, I asked them about it and they said that “along with the new customization options, patches, direction of the game and playing with friends only, it is actually a lot of fun!”. I hesitated and was quite speculative, but hearing their excitement in Discord chat and the laughter and support playing with friends brought them, gave me the nostalgia of what fun I had in The Burning Crusade and The Wrath of the Lich King playing with friends.
My other hesitant friends and my girlfriend discussed it amongst ourselves and decided to give it another go. Here I found myself downloading and re-subscribing to WoW…again…I couldn’t believe what I was doing and I was sure it was going to be a nightmare.
What happened after I started again?
I started my resubscription to WoW by looking at all the new customization options (they were new to me at least). I found that my beloved Night Elves had way more customization options and so did many of the other races, I loved it. My Night Elf Rogue no longer looked so cartoony.
I followed this by starting a new character with my girlfriend and questing together. The nostalgic memories of questing with dear friends finally returned and didn’t feel like such a grind and chore to level as in previous expansions. I found myself actually enjoying leveling with her. Fun Fact — I haven’t enjoyed leveling since The Burning Crusade.
Then I found out that cross faction and cross server dungeon parties were now a thing. I ended up hopping on my old raid Undead Warlock and joining my Alliance friends for some Mythic Keystone Dungeons and found myself loving it. Doing objectives while being surrounded by friends, who are supportive, funny and joyous, brought me back to what I loved about playing WoW with friends.
I felt that there was so much content added, or that I missed, from the time my focus was on raiding in The Shadowlands when it first released. Now that I have gone back with a ‘this is for doing with friends only’ attitude, it has given WoW a new and fresh feeling for me.
I am surprised I have been enjoying it honestly.
So, why should I return/play now?
Now, I am not saying that everyone should return to WoW or to start playing if you never have before.
What I will say is this — If you have fun supportive friends to play with, love MMOs or were a past WoW player, and have a nostalgia for WoW as it once was (or doing adventures in a huge world with friends), then I think you could very much so enjoy returning to WoW in 2022.
Adventure, Friends and Nostalgia — These are the 3 words I would say are key in your potential return, or first attempt, to World of Warcraft. If you have all 3 of these I think you will have a good time playing.
