<story><title>Forgotten Corners of World of Warcraft</title><url>http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/forgotten-wonders-of-the-digital-world-world-of-warcraft</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>prawks</author><text>&amp;gt; unless you&amp;#x27;re really into just having fun - which the game mostly does not encourage&lt;p&gt;This is the exact reason why, no matter how many times I tried over the years to play this game with friends, I could never stay attached for longer than a few hours. There seems to be less and less emphasis put on enjoying the experience of exploration and being in a space in modern online games, and more emphasis on rote activities for the sake of progress.&lt;p&gt;And thus I return to single-player games, which I certainly do not mind. There is a seemingly never-ending stream of creative ideas coming out of that space.</text></item><item><author>FlannelPancake</author><text>I think you&amp;#x27;re clearly correct about the game beginning at max level, but I don&amp;#x27;t think heirlooms or exp boosts changed anything. Even in vanilla, there were accepted &amp;quot;do this to level as quickly as possible&amp;quot; routes. No one really hung around silithus pre-AQ, with the small exception of people who chose to level there (and there were much better zones to do that).&lt;p&gt;WoW and mmos in general just don&amp;#x27;t encourage exploration very much. It doesn&amp;#x27;t contribute to making your avatar any better. So unless you&amp;#x27;re really into just having fun - which the game mostly does not encourage in lieu of running dungeons and getting gear and etc, a lot of these zones have just ALWAYS been abandoned, save for some event bringing people to them.&lt;p&gt;The reason the population is 15-20 in these zones as opposed to 60+ is because there are better ways to level nowadays, not that anyone cared to visit these zones in the first place and heirlooms ruined that.&lt;p&gt;That being said, I realize you&amp;#x27;re not blaming this entirely on heirlooms and exp boosts, I just wanted to clarify on that specific part of what you said.</text></item><item><author>minimaxir</author><text>I recently reactivated my old WoW account and purchased Warlords of Draenor out of curiosity, and ended up getting my Orc Death Knight to the new level cap of 100. This article only scratches the surface on &lt;i&gt;why&lt;/i&gt; the old worlds are abandoned.&lt;p&gt;As with most modern MMOs, the endgame begins at max level. In order to help players level faster, Blizzard added a heirlooms mechanic in the second expansion (Wrath of the Lich King) to allow low levels to have above-curve gear while leveling, with a 30% EXP boost. The third expansion (Cataclysm) revamped Azeroth, making new questing much easier and straightforward, and therefore less time is spent in the old world. The fifth expansion adds Dungeon Finder, which is a faster way to level than normal questing. So there is not much incentive to explore until you hit 90 and can go to Draenor. And then once you hit Draenor, you have access to Garrisons, which is a FarmVille-like mechanic which has the easiest financial ROI in the game, making even &lt;i&gt;less&lt;/i&gt; of a reason to just explore period. I did not renew my subscription.&lt;p&gt;Guild Wars 2 had a great solution to this; all zones have content, which the player downscales to. Unfortunately, Tyria (the world of Guild Wars 2) is not as robust as Azeroth.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>IgorPartola</author><text>This is the opposite of my experience playing multiplayer Minecraft. There are no goals here, other than ones you set yourself. You simply log in, hang out with people, and mess around. Here are some things I&amp;#x27;ve done that were the highlights of my time on this one particular server (semi-vanilla PvE):&lt;p&gt;I helped a fellow player build an iron farm when he didn&amp;#x27;t know how.&lt;p&gt;Helped another player try to debug his auto-brewer setup.&lt;p&gt;Built a vending machine so new players can get cheap food. Got a full set of diamond armor as payment one time.&lt;p&gt;Exchanged Christmas gifts.&lt;p&gt;Helped a new player find a place to live. Upon arrival, we stood at the top of a cliff and admired the view. Then, he noticed a lone chicken and immediately named him &amp;quot;Colin&amp;quot;. When the night came the chicken got out, and we both went leaping down the mountain after him. We lost half of our gear, but Colin was safe and sound in the end.&lt;p&gt;Had a pool party. A player was living in the extreme hills biome. Upon visiting him, I remarked that it&amp;#x27;d be fun to jump off the cliff and try to make it into a tiny pool of water. So that&amp;#x27;s exactly what we did. Invited other people, and spent about two hours climbing up the mountain, then jumping off.&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t get me wrong, it&amp;#x27;s not like this all the time, but if you find a good server with good players, it can be a really fun experience.</text></comment>
<story><title>Forgotten Corners of World of Warcraft</title><url>http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/forgotten-wonders-of-the-digital-world-world-of-warcraft</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>prawks</author><text>&amp;gt; unless you&amp;#x27;re really into just having fun - which the game mostly does not encourage&lt;p&gt;This is the exact reason why, no matter how many times I tried over the years to play this game with friends, I could never stay attached for longer than a few hours. There seems to be less and less emphasis put on enjoying the experience of exploration and being in a space in modern online games, and more emphasis on rote activities for the sake of progress.&lt;p&gt;And thus I return to single-player games, which I certainly do not mind. There is a seemingly never-ending stream of creative ideas coming out of that space.</text></item><item><author>FlannelPancake</author><text>I think you&amp;#x27;re clearly correct about the game beginning at max level, but I don&amp;#x27;t think heirlooms or exp boosts changed anything. Even in vanilla, there were accepted &amp;quot;do this to level as quickly as possible&amp;quot; routes. No one really hung around silithus pre-AQ, with the small exception of people who chose to level there (and there were much better zones to do that).&lt;p&gt;WoW and mmos in general just don&amp;#x27;t encourage exploration very much. It doesn&amp;#x27;t contribute to making your avatar any better. So unless you&amp;#x27;re really into just having fun - which the game mostly does not encourage in lieu of running dungeons and getting gear and etc, a lot of these zones have just ALWAYS been abandoned, save for some event bringing people to them.&lt;p&gt;The reason the population is 15-20 in these zones as opposed to 60+ is because there are better ways to level nowadays, not that anyone cared to visit these zones in the first place and heirlooms ruined that.&lt;p&gt;That being said, I realize you&amp;#x27;re not blaming this entirely on heirlooms and exp boosts, I just wanted to clarify on that specific part of what you said.</text></item><item><author>minimaxir</author><text>I recently reactivated my old WoW account and purchased Warlords of Draenor out of curiosity, and ended up getting my Orc Death Knight to the new level cap of 100. This article only scratches the surface on &lt;i&gt;why&lt;/i&gt; the old worlds are abandoned.&lt;p&gt;As with most modern MMOs, the endgame begins at max level. In order to help players level faster, Blizzard added a heirlooms mechanic in the second expansion (Wrath of the Lich King) to allow low levels to have above-curve gear while leveling, with a 30% EXP boost. The third expansion (Cataclysm) revamped Azeroth, making new questing much easier and straightforward, and therefore less time is spent in the old world. The fifth expansion adds Dungeon Finder, which is a faster way to level than normal questing. So there is not much incentive to explore until you hit 90 and can go to Draenor. And then once you hit Draenor, you have access to Garrisons, which is a FarmVille-like mechanic which has the easiest financial ROI in the game, making even &lt;i&gt;less&lt;/i&gt; of a reason to just explore period. I did not renew my subscription.&lt;p&gt;Guild Wars 2 had a great solution to this; all zones have content, which the player downscales to. Unfortunately, Tyria (the world of Guild Wars 2) is not as robust as Azeroth.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Ocerge</author><text>This exact reason is why EverQuest grabbed me so much harder than any other MMO since.  Another huge reason is the danger factor.  In WoW, there is effectively no punishment at all if you die, so there&amp;#x27;s no fear of exploring new places.  In EQ, there are (or at least were) steep penalties if you die in the wrong place.  Ignoring the fact that you lose XP that could amount to hours of lost progress, you may compound your woes with continued deaths trying to get the loot that remained with your corpse.  The fear-factor had me addicted, and made accomplishments that much more rewarding.</text></comment>