The War Within: WoW’s latest expansion
I play World of Warcraft for 19 years now. Ok, I missed a few expansions, meaning that I have not played them thoroughly and I am considered now a casual player.
Early Days
Back in the day, I did the whole nine yards; I was level 60, full epic, raiding three (3) times a week and fully enjoying the online sensation, as cartman mentioned in the dedicated episode of Southpark.
I made lots of friends in the way, most of them vanished after the hype ended, but there are the sacred few.
Burning Crusade came, along with the Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm. I played all of them, and really enjoyed them.
But with each expansion, the original game was losing something, the essence that made it unique.
Deterioration
First, it was the flying mounts, but they worked only on Outlands. Then the spells and their usages changed. Now, you had to stun less, decurse/cleanse less. Healing were becoming easier. 40-man/20-man raids became 25-man/10-man etc.
Instances became linear with 2–3 bosses. You could get epics from everywhere. The last thing that changed and really broke my experience was group finder. You could go even to “light” versions of raids with just a few clicks. And you were teleported…
