Why bother making a "main product" at all

My guess is legally protecting themselves against potential new laws and regulations, so they have more time to make changes or continue making money if these practices get outlawed.

Why is this exclusive to the mobile market?

It's not; it exists in computer and console gaming too, just to a lesser extent. As to why, my guess here is that mobile has a lower barrier to entry, and they're always accessible where a computer or console might not be. There's probably some sort of "cultural" aspect here too, where it's already prevalent in mobile so people are more accepting of it, but computer/console gamers had their own culture where this didn't exist for many decades and so won't be as accepting.

Late to the party, but I'm mostly playing on Warmane's servers. Currently switching between Icecrown for the population and quicker levelling, and Icecrown which is much harder and slower with 1x rates.

I started on WoW Hardcore for the permadeath, and Kronos for the full Vanilla experience, but they're much less populated so they don't "feel" as much like MMOs, but rather RPGs where you can talk to and join others if you organise to meet up... which is fine of course, and I enjoy them, but I'm preferring the MMO experience right now.

See if something went so far as to significantly change the questing, levelling, dungeons, raids, BGs, etc, I wouldn't really consider it WoW any more; it'd be a different game in the WoW engine. I think that's why some people say that WoW Retail and Classic are completely different games now; they feel so different that they kinda are.

But yeah, depends on interpretation and definitions of course. To me, if only the speed of levelling is different, then it's still WoW, just not "Blizzlike" any more. Where's the line there? I don't know exactly, but the 7x exp/drop/rep rates in one of the private servers I'm playing on feels vastly different to the 1x. So 3x would probably still be non-Blizzlike to me, but the game would be close enough to Vanilla that I'd still call it "World of Warcraft".

It's funny though, one of my casual gamer friends will play multiple different games of the same genre (eg. Diablo 2, Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, and Torchlight 2), and say they're all basically the same. I'm sure people who are more casual probably wouldn't notice the difference between Whitemane and Blizz Classic.

Good follow up explainer, cheers.

Personally, I wouldn't consider something Blizzlike if it has several factors that change the experience, but I guess the definition depends on the individual.

I haven't played on Whitemane yet, as I'm currently after an experience closer to the original Vanilla -> TBC -> WotLK progression, but Whitemane does look pretty good as a Cataclysm+ prog server. It doesn't look Blizzlike, which could be a pro or con depending on your personal preference, but it does look like it has a decent population. Quick clarification though; the highest XP rate is 3x, not 4.5x.

Might check this out sometime over the next few months, as I can't seem to find any other Cataclysm servers with population higher than like 200 lol.

I guess that's just how F2P goes in games where most content is P2P.

GW2 has actually had remarkably little powercreep compared to other games, but even so, there's still enough that players without a glider, mounts, elite specs, etc will struggle to keep up.

I wish there was a way for players to reduce their own power in OW in exchange for slightly increased rewards, even if those rewards were account bound. Most players would go for this (I think) and it would reduce how much stuff gets obliterated in seconds without making players feel like they got nerfed.

I have a separate account specifically for self-imposed challenges and semi-RP. I often end up running around in white gear; you know the worst gear you can get, the trash you buy from vendors?

Goddamn does it make the game tough. But goddamn does that difficulty make the game so much fun, much like how OP is describing it.

I wish there was an in-built mode that supported this kind of play.

Haha fair enough.

I agree with what you're saying, but why do you bold so many words?

There is a Pathfinder: Abomination Vaults ARPG coming out eventually that is focused more on cooperation (similar mechanics to fields/finishers from GW2) as well.

Oh wow this looks really close what I'm looking for, thanks!

Grim Dawn is tons of fun, and I've played it with friends a bit... and then another 750+ hours myself 😁. Good suggestion, but the reason I'm coming across as quite picky with ARPGs is because their co-op is more "playing near each other" rather than "co-operating to succeed together".

I actually started a DOS2 run with my friend, and it's really fun. I'm trying to get him to continue it with me, but he's in a pickle with his work at the moment and so hasn't had the time or energy. My only gripe with it is its turn-based nature (that's just a me thing though; I strongly prefer real time).

I find it interesting to say GW2 doesn’t have rotation heavy combat if you say you’ve played it to death. Definitely rotations at high-end play if you’re doing raid/strike CM’s. Or if you’re playing WvW or PvP seriously, they may not be “rotations” exactly, but close enough.

I've been playing GW2 for 1700+ hours and I've never purposefully learned a rotation. If I play a build for a long time, I often end up naturally happening across sequences of skills that could be considered rotations I guess, but I never feel forced into it. I haven't done a lot of Raids or Strikes, and this is partly the reason: I don't want to feel forced into a very specific build and executing a very specific rotation. I've been running some super casual Raid groups and we've been having a blast! But I don't think anyone is focusing that hard on rotations; I'm certainly not. As for WvW/PvP; I feel like rotations are even less of a thing here? I guess yeah, you want to execute your damage combo quickly, but the gameplay in competitive modes feels wayyy more tactical and reactive than PvE.

Combat in GW2 (and ESO to some degree) also feels incredibly dynamic right from the start, whereas in games like WoW it just felt like combat was targetting an enemy and pressing 123 til it died... for the first 50-100 hours. I'm sure these types of MMOs get more fun later in the game; I did enjoy a variety of these classic MMOs for 5-10 hours, and I played WoW endgame on private servers many years ago and it was quite a lot of fun. But these days, I just can't bring myself to get through them, and I certainly can't convince anyone I know to try them with me.

The main thing is, their levelling experiences just don't compare to GW2, and ESO to some extent, in terms of that action/tactical gameplay. I'm looking for games that allow us to just jump right in and be challenged right from the start, and while GW2/ESO aren't typically difficult from early on, there are still plenty of situations where you can find challenges given how quickly you level in GW2 and how the world is de-levelled in ESO. All that being said, I'd actually LOVE to give WoW another shot again, but due to my previous experiences, I don't want to spend so much money on something just to try something that I haven't enjoyed in the past. That's why I have a preference for games with a solid F2P or "free trial" experience.

Anyway, that was a lot of words. I do appreciate your and other people's suggestions here. I was considering putting all this info in my post description, but it would've blown out way too much 😅

I love PoE, but sadly, it's also not one that most of my friends are into.

Huh, I heard differently.

Still, worth giving it a shot considering that free trial. Thanks!

I absolutely loved D2, and had a bit of fun with D3. I guess I wouldn't classify them as part of what I'm looking for though, because they're more about "playing near each other" rather than "working together".

Unless D4 is different in this way? I do hope to try it one day, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't interest my friend group, sadly.

Thanks, I've been meaning to give this a shot. My issue with MMOs (other than GW2 and ESO) is that they seem very... rotation-oriented. Apologies, I thought "action combat" was a term used to describe non-rotation combat.

I'll update my post to reflect this. FFXIV is still on my radar to check out though, as I've heard good things about it.

That's basically what the Pixel 7 Pro is over the Pixel 7; it's just that it also comes with other extras, like another camera.

Not sure why they only managed 14% extra battery in the 7 series though. It's the smallest jump from their smaller model vs the larger one except for the 6 series. Combine it with the more power hungry display on the Pro, and the already-inefficient chipset on both devices, and you just don't get the battery life that competitors get.

There's definitely pros and cons. It looks like there will be some fun stuff, and GW2 is still cheaper than every single other MMO on the market (WoW and ESO+ cost 6x as much as GW2 per year), but it does feel like a lot of content, especially OW, is slowly being invalidated by crazy new mechanics and power creep. I mean, we'll soon be able to mount up in combat? Death was already pretty meaningless lol; now you'll never die unless you're actively trying to.

The combat and exploration is still the best of any MMO on the market though, so yeah, it surprises me how extremely negative some people are about what's coming.

It isn't necessary any more, which is why all Pixels since the 4a have had small bezels all the way around. You literally got the last Pixel with a thick forehead.

As to why they're not all perfectly symmetrical on all phones... I've seen a few answers:

• Cost; it's expensive to shrink the bezel that the display connector is under
• Design style
• Shrinking all as much as possible, which typically leads to the side bezels being thinner than the top and bottom