I noticed this very clearly with World of Warcraft Classic…I’d played the original WoW for a bit when it first came out in 2004, and had a lot fun with it but d

I noticed this very clearly with World of Warcraft Classic…I’d played the original WoW for a bit when it first came out in 2004, and had a lot fun with it but didn’t really have time for it with school and stuff. During the original March 2020 lockdowns I picked up Classic and had a great time enjoying a style of game that doesn’t seem to really exist anymore. Until I got to higher levels and started to realize everyone was just micro-optimizing the hell out of everything, and kind of aggressive about it (people actually private messaged me mocking the fact that I played a Human instead of Gnome because Gnomes were mathematically a tiny bit better). There was none of the mystery or excitement from the first time around, just widespread obsession with getting “best in slot” gear and the perfect combination of other tricks to make everything easy. I still had a lot of fun mostly staying away from this attitude where possible, but when a significant number of players in a multiplayer game are operating like that it bleeds into many areas of the game, even if you try to avoid it.