Wow. This post is perfect, and describes just the way I feel about WoW these days - I played closed beta and played it from years upon release at Nov. 2004. The game isn't the same now. The exploration, banding together with friends, tightly knit server communities, and difficulty is just gone. While some heroic raids are difficult, overall the game is a complete joke - I remember doing UBRS with friends back at level 60 and it was genuinely memorable and tough as a freshly geared 60 in greens. We had to pay attention, but still had fun chatting on ventrilo - and the dungeons took a while but it was worth it because it was so memorable and fun. Now, aside from heroic raids nothing is difficult - it's just a mad rush to max level while barely paying attention - just a complete rush to max level, but they completely forgot what made MMOs so enjoyable in the first place - not max level, but the JOURNEY TO GET THERE. That is why I loved Vanilla/TBC so much. The journey was so memorable. You had to depend on friends that you were tightly knit with. It wasn't a mad rush to get all purples - everyone had fun because there was an outlet for every tier of player. Not just a mad rush to get max level and get purples in every slot.
Now the game is completely anonymous and unless you do heroic raids, you can just sit in orgrimmar and queue garbage nonstop. Dungeon? Que it up. 10 minute pump and dump forgettable instance. Yawn. Pvp? Que it up. No exploration. Minimal interaction except with anonymous scumbags who troll you. The game is so different now, and I hate it. You can play the entire game from your main city by queueing unless you do heroic raids. You don't even need a guild for normal raids because they're so easy.
Apparently, people don't want to take the time to find groups. Whatever. To me this was one of the most fun things about vanilla and TBC - you had to establish yourself as someone friendly and skilled, and you earned a reputation on your server - and people would want to group with you. And you made friends in this process. Heck, I still talk to some guys that I met back in Vanilla WoW, and this is how I met them (and ended up guilding with them, although we've all long since quit). If you were a jerk or a ninja looter, people knew - you earned a reputation. Now it's just anonymous garbage. Don't need to group. Don't need to socialize. Queue from orgrimmar or stormwind and do a 10 minute completely forgettable instance.
I know some prefer this method of playing. I've heard it all before. "I can only play 30 minutes a day" blah blah blah. WoW's continual catering to a dumbed down, casual, anonymous game that doesn't require socializing and is just a mad rush for purples killed all MMOs for me. I know some prefer this way, that's great, folks are welcome to that opinion and I don't feel like arguing about it, but to me the game just isn't the same. I *want* to explore. I want to socialize. I want to take the time to find dungeons instead of anonymously queueing from Org. I want that sense of adventure. I want max level to take a LONG time so I can savor the journey, as we did in EQ - I remember getting tells server wide at max level in EQ. It was great. WoW killed ALL of that. To me MMOs are completely dead, and I won't miss them. Which is too bad because early WoW, EQ and UO were such compelling games to me. That feeling is just long gone now. And apparently i'm not the only one since WoW's sub numbers are continually dropping and every pay to play MMO has failed. MMOs are long in the tooth. Call it a day, someone please re-establish something NEW in this genre - otherwise I am not interested in a game that takes 2 days for max level. Give me a memorable journey, a LONG role playing game, something to SAVOR instead of a pump and dump mad rush for purples.