Another lost level 60

[Bolty]

There needs to be more casual content in the game.  A game that places progression solely on items is severely limited in long-term content to begin with.  The "casual" content in the game offers very little new items to "progress" a character.[right][snapback]78184[/snapback][/right]

There are basically four things you can do once you reach level 60 with a character and have completed most of the quests that you want to do:

1) Play an alt.
2) Keep running the high-end instances and then raids to get phatter and phatter lewt.
3) Help others get to 60, a.k.a. just kinda hang out in a glorified chat room.
4) Play PvP. Battlegrounds will be a huge help in this, allowing for real, enjoyable PvP instead of semi-PvP that we have now.

If 1, 2, and 3 hold no interest for you, and it's clear they don't from your post, then the smart thing to do is exactly what you're doing - cancel the account and wait for Battlegrounds to come.

More detail:

Option 1) Playing alts is something that appeals to some players and horrifies others. Unlike in Diablo II, you can't just create another character and get it to level 50 in 1-3 days of play, so that has something to do with why it horrifies some people. Alts suck time away from your main character, and for those who like to play one character and identify with that character as their extension in the virtual world, this option is not a possibilty. With alts, you counter the boredom of repeating some quests that you've done before with playing a class you haven't tried before or know little about. The classes play so differently in WoW that it can be like a whole new game. If you don't like repeating quests, play the other side (Horde, Alliance) for a fresh perspective on the world. There are enough quests in WoW such that two, maybe three characters on each faction can play from level 20-60 without repeating quests.

Option 2) This is a time-consuming endeavor that personally doesn't appeal to me but I can understand why it does to some. I think the problem with the never-ending quest to find phatter lewt is that it IS never-ending. There will always be something cooler to find, and as the game progresses it will require more and more time to get that cooler item. Having 2, 3, 4 characters that can run level 60 stuff is more appealing to me than having 1 ultra-decked-out uber character. But MMORPGs REQUIRE this to be a time-consuming process. Casual players simply cannot be allowed to get this loot, because casual players will not stay in a game. You are leaving because there isn't enough content at the high end to keep you satisfied, but that's the point. If they made uber loot easy to get, the hardcore 8-hours-a-day players would leave, and those players form the addicted subscriber base that MMORPGs are built on. Casual players find themselves at level 60 being unable to get the best stuff in the game and quit. If Hardcore players at level 60 found that the best stuff in the game was too easy to get (and thus there would be nothing to make them stand out from the casual player), they would quit. Since casual players will eventually quit anyway, Blizzard has no choice but to cater to the hardcore crowd and try to find some way to keep a casual player happy...

Option 3) This works for the more social player who forms bonds with other players in-game. I'm not this type of player (gee, isn't that obvious from my recent rant), so I don't have much to comment on this. The problem with social players from Blizzard's perspective is that they only tend to hang around in a MMORPG until the next big MMORPG comes out and all their friends are moving to the new one.

Option 4) This is what may save WoW for the casual player, and what you might want to come back for when it comes out. If options 1-3 are out for you, the ability to jump on for an hour for some exciting fast-paced Capture the Flag combat sounds incredibly appealing. There's only one catch: that dedicated uber-item teams of players who have been doing Option 2 for months now and have a high amount of practice wind up dominating play so much that pickup or casual-forming groups just get obliterated by them. This could happen over time - we can only see and find out. The first week or two of Battlegrounds will be made up of groups for which half the players have no clue what they're doing, so it should be interesting. :)

-Bolty