A Player and No Longer a Fan

What a difference a month makes.

I've been playing World of Warcraft for over eleven years.  I have been subscribed the entire time and never really stopped playing.  I like many features of the game.  I like many mechanics of the game. I like various changes they've made. (Though, I usually don't like it when they take something away.) Over the years, my main has cleared the hard if not hardest raids before they were an easier instance.

I played some Hearthstone, Starcraft, and Diablo and have tried Heroes. A few months ago, I would have called myself a fan of Blizzard. I was also trying to get tickets and fly across the country to Blizzcon.

I'm now thinking I'm glad I didn't get tickets.  It still would be neat and an experience to go. But I'm less interested and that would creep in. I'd feel like an observer instead of someone participating. I will still play, but my interest is fading.  I don't think I can call myself a fan. I'm just a player now.

Sure it's normal that the interest fades when the content is old and done.  And there are many contributing factors.  Garrisons are great and terrible.  6.1 is what 6.0 should have been. The raids are old. The zones are empty because everyone is in their garrison. But all that is a bit beside the point. It's something else.

It feels like there is a lack of respect to the players.  The idea that all that raid farming and hard won achievements yield mounts that flop around on the ground is ... garbage. Our flying mount rewards have turned to garbage.

I think Ion's justifications around not allowing flying are flawed. But the wow fan blowback on this is strong.

If you're curious about this, look into:

• http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/17908690989 (Over 17,000 sometimes heart-felt comments about flying future in many capped threads)
• https://twitter.com/hashtag/BringBackFlying
• https://twitter.com/hashtag/LetUsFly
• https://twitter.com/hashtag/NoFlyNoSub