Leaving WOW, Part 4

Today we wrap up my mini series on reasons for leaving WOW.

Too much repetition
I expect and tolerate a certain amount of repetition in MMOs. Grind is par for the course. Single player games have 20-80 hours of content. MMOs have hundreds if not thousands of hours of content. Inevitably there will be some repetition involved.

The Burning Crusade was a decent expansion but it didn't break enough new ground. After a few weeks it felt like been there done that. Some of the new zones and mobs were amazing. But isn't that the same wolf I saw when I started a tauren six months ago?

I like having multiple quests to choose from, but why do I get essentially the same quest every 15 or 20 levels? Repeat that for every alt. This hit me when I was collecting quests in one of the new Outland zones. I was instructed to hunt wolves for meat. WTF. Talk about deja vu. I can't tell you how many times I've had this type quest. One day I got the exact same quest (different zone, different level of beast) for my level 67 hunter and one of my lowbie alts. Besides, in December I was hunting fire giants and demons, but now I'm making wolf jerky because you want a snack. Whatever, dude.

Ultimately this is my biggest worry about going back to WOW. Every other reason I left can be avoided if I don't raid and progress at an easy pace. Will I get bored and frustrated with the same old quests? WOW is an amazing game, and I miss playing it.

P.S. Bloggers I admire have posted about the next WOW expansion. I hope Blizzard has some big announcements saved up. I'm not impressed at all. More of the same. Wee.

P.S.S. This is a shot in the dark... but I wonder if Blizzard is releasing a lackluster expansion because they're diverting their best software development teams to work on their next generation of MMO. One can hope.