> people can come together and basically "solve" the game they play There is a very fine line between "providing resources" and ruining a game for me. WoW isn'

> people can come together and basically "solve" the game they play There is a very fine line between "providing resources" and ruining a game for me. WoW isn't a lot of fun for me anymore (I haven't played even many years now) because of exactly the reason you list. It felt like the only "right way" to play the game or the only way to be competitive was to find and learn a specific build/play style. That sucks all the fun out of the game for me. I've run into this with Factorio as well. When I first played it I didn't look up much info at all and I had a blast. On later play-throughs I got deep into online blueprints or "best practices" and in very little time the game lost it's appeal for me. I'm not talking about belt balancer books but malls, research factories, and the like. When I realized why I wasn't having fun I vowed to only use the most basic online blueprints and that has helped a lot. It's a hard path to walk between "This game is inscrutable and I need help!" and "Well now I'm just a glorified computer following a detailed walkthrough, not playing a game". I have to stop myself from meta-gaming too much or it ruins the game for me (though it's a useful tool to use to quit a game that I'm too deep into).