The Good Old Days (Part One)

Something has changed in the World of Warcraft. It is a change that is not for the better.

In my first weeks in World of Warcraft I was running Deadmines and never got booted from a group. I was obviously new. I was obviously bad at my class. In one run I "needed" on everything that dropped. At the end of that run one of the guys asked my to give him some green healing pants that my warrior had "needed". Fortunately I'm curteous and gave them over without question. I didn't even know what they were for. I thought I was just having a really good run with all of my winnings.

In my first Ulduman run I received my first tanking lessons from a priest. I was wielding my high damage two-hander and the priest asked if I had a sword and board. I was like, "Uh, what?"

The healer calmly explained to me that I was the only one in the group capable of tanking and that I needed a sword and shield. I smartly replied, "But I do more damage with my two-hander and can't wear a shield with it."

She calmly explained nuances of tanking.

So I began doing far less damage with the sword and shield, just as I had predicted, and we wiped again. The healer then told me I needed to taunt the boss. "But taunt dosen't do anything but make the boss focus on me, he'll hit me."

I don't know how long that run took, but I didn't get booted and no one left.

My first 5-man run in Utguard Keep was taking too long and we wiped twice on the first boss and everyone left the group. I think I did ok tanking for the first time with all the new character abilities and no one said I sucked. The main complaint was that it was taking too long.

I am all for solo content, but by making solo content so swift and easy, and then aligning the group content to also be swift and easy, Blizzard has created an environment of instant gratification. If players are not rewarded instantly then they drop from group.

Give me a group of people who actually want to play the game please. I'm not asking for things to be hardcore, but the instant gratification is making the player base spoiled. I wish I could be part of the solution but I've proven to myself that I am actually part of the problem and can be as spoiled as the rest of them.

The game just wasn't like this in the past. Sure there have always been ninjas and guild thieves, but the average player was not spoiled.