Quote Originally Posted by EaTCarbS View Post
Appealing to the lowest common denominator is probably a reason most original players left the game. I remember when getting gear was actually an accomplishment, compared to getting a full set in a week with WOD.
I don't think appealing to the commons was the issue. Heck, part of the reason WoW took off was because they dropped the "you must group to level" aspect that was common place in MMOs before that. Even Raidfinder is just entry level "you saw the boss of the expansion die, now quit or run the real raids". I'd blame the general decline on 2 aspects: long content droughts and the inability to pick up where you left off. Content droughts are pretty self explanatory. Going more than a year with no new content while paying 15$ a month is unacceptable. The big one for me though is that I can't pick up where I left off. Quit during cataclysm before downing Deathwing? Well you're not going to kill him at a level appropriate point now. Go level through the current content and grab your welfare epics from the catch up zone? Suddenly handling the last raid boss feels like a chore you forgot to do than the climax of an expansion.

Want to just level a new character and see the world again? Well 1-60 got replaced with chronologically disjointed mess that makes no sense, and was pushed to make even less sense as you out level and out power zones halfway through them, requiring players to pace themselves and do grey quests if they want to see the world, heirloom their way through dungeons if they want to skip it, or pay 60$ for a level boost.

The appeal of Vanilla is that convenience didn't kill conflict. I would say that's the number 1 lesson the current dev team needs to consider, although at this point I kind of wonder if they even have that much of an interest in the game. Really feels like they're developing the game because that's their job and they're not going to stop developing for their former flagship series, but no one has a clear vision of how to go forward. I mean we didn't have this problem until after wrath, when Outland and Northrend had been explored and we'd dealt with the remaining conflict of Warcraft 3.