This game has so much game it detracts from the game. Now, I'm not a game developer, nor an avid consumer of this product, so you may find it prudent to keep the title in mind as/if you read what I blow out my mouthhole. I havent played this game seriously in roughly 5-6 years, and never really enjoyed the tap loop gameplay to begin with. What made me spend thousands of hours here though, were the nifty people you got to chat with from all over. That was rekindled the past weekend with Friendfest, which was a great time all around. However, during the course of those 48 hours, the people involved generally didn't care to converse about the app itself except for some vague comments about it's current state and how great the ol' days were. This brings me to my point- the game has so much game, I get overwhelmed just looking at my own account profile. I look around at just the massive amount of THINGS that exist- furniture, charms, pets, trading, daily legend lore, weekly events, 80 varients of the same Epic Battle, ally markets, quests, hundreds of lands, different builds and effects, lands, equipment, alchemy, special wars, special pvp events, showcase, collection, 100 different items that I have no idea what they do but are still in my inventory I guess, and probably more. In a mobile game. When I think about a modern day mobile game, I think of something I can hop on for 5-10 minutes while on the bus, on lunchbreak, or whilst dropping build on the porcelin throne. It feels very much like the game wants you to sit down with your phone and play for 30 minutes at a time. I can barely get through Mr. Meesaks telling me about the corrupt everglade of Kutherpaulie and how slaying Zuuthmeraak the Haunted 6 times will cleanse my soul of the Winderwild Scourge in the amount of time I want to allocate to a login. When people who have played this game for nigh on a decade talk about how the most fun times were when the gameplay loop was hit person- do quest- hit other person- talk in CC until can hit person again, maybe they're on to something. It was simple, and most of your time online involved your clan and the people you chose to talk to online. Without clan-hopping for better growth efficiency, comraderie and collusion was far more abundant. Long story short, I'm of the mind that the more in-game mechanic stuff they gave the player to invest and spend time with, the less time was spent chatting with the cool cats of clan chat. This game has done alot to stay relevent over the years, I'm aware, but I can't help but wonder if there wasn't a different direction they could have taken it, all that time ago.