I disagree. I say

"Hey! It's a new expansion! Time to learn a new game again!!"

*pumped*

How does a game stay just as fun over nearly 8 years? By changing things up from time to time.

Oh, I know, Mike, I'm still a fan, just, as an "info hub" guild officer type, while representing iteration for the sake of improvement, it also represents more clarification for those adapting that don't read patch notes or get interested in these "nut and bolt" issues.

I totally don't understand when people hate any change to the game. Without these changes each expansion, the game would be so completely boring. Change is what keeps an old game like WOW feeling fresh.

If Blizz never changed a thing each expansion and just added more levels I would have left a long time ago.

I can't wait for mists.

There's a big difference between tinkering with a class and reworking a class until it's unrecognizable, like retadins.

I really had no idea what to do with my retadin during Cata so I got him to 85 and parked him. Now he only comes out for holidays and the Faire.

I agree with omedon666. It's understandable to do some tweaking with a class or a spec here and there, but a complete redesign every expansion gets "not fun". If you like learning your class all over again, you could always change your spec... ???

There have definitely been some great quality of life improvements. I don't miss the old soul shards. I don't miss 2-minute seals. I love that my rogue can use one-handed axes. I really love choosing a spec at level 10.

I guess for me, the fun in Warcraft is interacting with the world rather than theorycrafting and min/maxing every step of the way. Mists will be my third expansion, and I'm feeling like an old, old dude. Instead of energized and excited, I'm a little bit worried that Mists will be the expansion where I won't be able to program my VCR. No wait... I won't be able to install Windows 98 on my 386. No, dammit, what do I mean... I won't be able to reddit on my Facebook?

I'm with omedon666 on this one too.

Not that I'm against any change or improvements, and many are great. But it really can get tiring to relearn entire systems all the time, and knowing that what you do learn can and will change at any time.

And as others said, some classes have gone through *multiple* complete redesigns. I find that in particular really tiring and frustrating, because you may have rolled a class specifically because you enjoyed its playstyle... and then Blizzard takes it away. Will you still like the feel afterwards? Well, maybe not.

Here's some food for thought:

About seven months ago, I decided to recheck out the game that really got me into the MMO Scene, Ragnarok Online.

It was, at the time, a very fun game and I had experienced only a small portion (the grind was difficult, to say the least) and I wanted to come back as an older, more experienced individual....

I was unpleasantly surprised that the core mechanics presented were wholly untouched, with the only improvements towards easier leveling and more content.

Yet, the entire combat system felt like the same old piece of crap that I left for WoW so many years ago. Things were not implemented that had been there for 6-8 years, the system was still flawed, and overall, the game felt stagnate.

I'm sure the player base of RO would vehemently defend it, but compared to WoW, the constant change really does prevent stagnation. It's why we come back with each new patch, each new expansion, and still play: You will not be bored.

@Ragen

But isn't it the content that keeps you from being bored? I *always* felt like there was something to do in BC and in LK. I still go to Outland and Northrend all the time. In contrast, Cataclysm has been very stale and boring, and that has nothing to do with the mechanics of playing the classes. I love the warlock changes, especially. It's great!

If the change is a quality of life improvement, hey, great. But a lot of times, I feel like they're not really sure what they want to do, other than make the classes more complicated. "Easy to learn, hard to master," that's the design goal, right? With a customer base of 10 million, yeah, they're not going to make everyone happy. But sometimes I think they forget that "fun" is a design goal, too. And one of the things that's fun is to have class mechanics that are reliably the same so you can always pick up and go out and play.

What if mages had to keep a shield up and generated mana by getting hit, like warriors generated rage? Well, okay, that would be different and maybe fun. You'd learn a whole new playstyle and learn how to be good and effective in that manner. Oops, next expansion, now mages have a mana-focus bar and have to cast spells the same way hunters use their abilities. Well, okay, so you're a ranged DPS like a hunter, only casting spells instead of firing arrows or bullets, and you have no pet. No biggie, off you go. Oh wait. Another expansion looms on the horizon. You're back to mana, but now you have a secondary resource called Mage Eclipse that flip-flops between doing more arcane damage or more frostfire damage. You're totally gimped if you don't manage that resource correctly, so have fun with that.

At what point do you look at an expansion and say, "Can I just go out and cast spells and play the stupid game?"

Yeah. omedon shouldn't get downranked. This is a little ridiculous. I am all for making things better and I do feel most of the time they change things for the better. However, some of these changes seem to just complicate things. It's great if you play mainly one class and can just concentrate on your own little piece of turf. But when you play all 10 classes it makes it 10 times harder to figure things out. Even little things like art changes on your spells (paladin) takes a long time to get used to. Not at all happy that paladins are losing the stam part of their buff and not sure why tanking druids have a crit buff. But I'm sure it will all work out.

I will be the first to admit that I probably shouldn't have been such a negative nancy without further explaining my stance, but I was on my phone at the time.

Now then, from home...

Wow is a game that demands (on the "difficult to master" end of the spectrum) the cultivation of a skill set. Those investing timewise and interest-wise in the game, make this decision for themselves as to whether or not the game is worth such an investment as this cultivation entails.

Every time the game shifts direction, that investment is somewhat invalidated. Over the course of a few alterations, the skillset thusly cultivated is entirely useless.

I'm an old dude like Hob. I was proud of myself when my skillset had filled itself out many years, and classes ago. I even adapted a few times, enthusiastically looking forward to changes.

Now, there are other games competing, successfully, for my time, and my full-on investment in WoW, given its betrayal in the past, is looking less and less like a mountain I want to climb again. There comes a point where I want to rest on the earned laurels of "I know what I'm doing" and enjoy the world, and the game as a whole. I can't reach this with the same efficient investment when the progress I made before is invalidated constantly.

Do I respect the iterative process? Absolutely. Are Blizzard entitled to my returning over and over again to re-invest, and then have that investment of learning and effort invalidated? No, they are not.

This is different from the "why should I raid for epics when epics will end up on everyone" fiasco, because that's just gear progress, the core of how these games work. The core systems that we invest in learning have had years to coalesce, and I think those old farts like Hob and I have earned the right, after watching the drawing board get wiped and re-written on so many times, to be mildly annoyed that my ascension to "I know what I'm doing" is not raised like a gear progression, but completely re-written with an expectation to be re-learned before I can get back to, as Hob puts it, playing the stupid game.

Oftentimes, it's not even a "quick refresher" (admittedly, in the case we are discussing, this is peanuts next to some of the crazy 180's they've taken with design), but often with WoW, it's a complete "you were good, now you know nothing" betrayal.

That, (and feeling like I have to teach/inform all of my less interested in details but still desiring to not feel like noobs friends/guildies) is what annoys me. Yes, this buff issue is a minor infraction, but it all adds up.

Now get off my lawn. :P

On the one hand, I personally love it every time when the game changes. It gives me something to look forward to, and gives me more stuff to read up on - I love learning new things in general so this "relearn the game every expansion" thing appeals to me quite a bit.

On the other hand, I can understand how if I was a bit more pressed for time and/or was an officer in a raiding guild and had to explain it to others (I gave up organized raiding halfway through FL, and LFR was pretty much the nail in the coffin), I would find it annoying.

To each their own.

Its a balance, sometimes I feel they change to much to soon. Sometimes just a new spell would be enough to completely change a class.

I agree that changes in game content and mechanics bring a breath of fresh air.

What I HATE about expansion and patches are changes to CORE abilities people have learned to love.

Example:

Mages: They used to have a POM+PYRO sepc, fun as hell, loved it. A patch came and they trashed it. WTF?

DKs: used to have a instant hungering cold, fun as hel, loved it. A patch came and made it a FRIKKIN CAST?!?!?!?! WTF?

So, I'm in favor of new content and mechanics, but please blizz, if you're going to change abilities, either scrap them and make something totally new or leave them like they are with minor tweaks (is this even possible?) but don't turn an ability people loved into something people can't even bare to see on their action bar.