World of Wacraft

[jurble]

I just miss the days when my gear put me effectively 20 levels above casual players. Those were the days, one shotting people in BG's... You don't know how much fun it is, until you've tried it.

[Kymeera]

People really need to take off the rose colored glasses. Raiding in vanilla WoW was an absolute nightmare. I remember Tuesday being Molten Core night and having 50+ people online. The rest of the week's progression nights were lucky to pull 30. Half your raid consisted of brain dead morons who you dragged along because you needed bodies to fill your 40 man raid. If you had a healing talent tree, that's what you did in raids. The other talent trees were for PvP or were completely useless. Also, so much of the content was utterly wasted. How many guilds worldwide actually cleared the original Naxx? How many even cleared AQ40? I was also in the top ranked guilds on my faction, and the turnover rate was pretty much the same as it is now.

TLDR: Stop blaming poor progress on the current design. The problems now were present back in the good ol' days. Making raids harder isn't going to suddenly force people who have little interest in raiding to buckle down and become model raiders.

[Shryke]

But see, the welfare loot system is making guilds pointless. Most players don't even bother with guilds anymore, they just pug everything. The importance of the guild in WoW has massively decreased. Whereas in Vanilla, you needed a guild to get anything done, in WotLK, if you're okay with just doing 6 bosses in ICC, then you won't join a guild. And the problem I see is that, the vast majority of the players are okay with just doing 6 bosses in ICC. Raid attendance across servers has dropped for guilds. A majority of progression guilds have attendance issues at this point. All top guilds on my server have recruitment open continuously, whereas in Vanilla, openings in top guilds were something that happened once in a blue moon. This one of the major topics right now on the Cata Alpha forums, the decline of the guild. There are guilds out there that have no attendance problems, where everyone shows up, but they're hardcore progression guilds.

Casual progression guilds at this point have it terrible, the player they appeal - the dude who wants loot, but doesn't want to spend his entire life playing WoW decides to just pug in WotLK, as opposed to Vanilla where he would be reliant upon a guild, and here's the big one: reliant upon that guild's good graces. He'd have to show up, because he knew if he missed too many raids, he wouldn't get jack shit. These days, if someone shows up on a Tuesday, and doesn't come around ever again, you kick them, but they just go back to pugging, don't bat an eye. Therefore, it's harder for casual progression guilds to get reliable players. Or, if the raid fills, and they don't get in, they just go pug, instead of keeping themselves free for progression on the next few days. You kick them, and they just keep pugging. These are the kinds of players that need to be forced to raid. They have the time, and they might have the skill, but the current system lets them get by on just pugging.

No, it really doesn't let them get by on pugging. That's the thing. Pugs are lucky to get 6/12 in ICC. That's a GOOD pug. And that's a 10 man pug. 25 man pugs are even worse. And it's not like it's just ICC. Most 25 TOC pugs couldn't do Valks.

PUGs are shit and most people AREN'T satisfied doing them, but they are stuck with them because they can't get into a decent raiding group for whatever reason (skill, gear, attendance, opportunity, etc) The people who are puging and don't mind are the people who wouldn't be in a raiding guild anyway.

I mean, what it really sounds like is you are pissed that a large chunk of the playerbase isn't forced to shit it hates doing to get anywhere in the game now. Do you not see how fucked up that attitude is?

All those people lining up for MC? They just wanted free epics and they suffered through raiding to get them. On progression night? They were GONE.

And the real problem with Guilds these days is Cataclysm. Everyone wants the next expansion and alot of people have just quit because there's not much to do anymore. If you aren't really into downing the Lich King, there's not much point in playing anymore.

And seriously, anyone getting teary eyed for raiding from either TBC or, god forbid, Vanilla either wasn't there or doesn't remember it anymore.

Getting people to show up for progression has ALWAYS been a pain in the ass once it gets remotely difficult. The only difference now is that it's easier to replace the people who quit.

[Shryke]

I agree with your premises but not your conclusions. Most pugs on my realms don't get past Saurfang, and are mocked and poorly thought of. 6/12 takes a bit more skill, god help you if you want to pug anything past that. And if you're only doing 6/12 that's not considered "good."

Personally I would like raiding to be even more accessible -- not in terms of difficulty, but in terms of time commitment. I would like to see more raids like ICC -- I like ICC a lot -- but I would have preferred that each wing be on a separate lockout. My group doesn't really need much of anything from the first wing anymore (except that fucking shield), but we still have to do it to get to the stuff that's progression for us, and given how long it takes to raid all of ICC two nights a week is a bare minimum and three is more likely. Three nights out of every seven is a long time to commit every single week for a video game. I get that they want to gate stuff, and that's fine, but they can do it like they did the ICC 5-mans -- have to clear the first wing to get to the plague wing, etc. You aren't required to go in odrer now and you wouldn't have to be -- you could have to clear the first wing to do plague, blood and frost wings, and have to have cleared all four to get to the Lich King, or whatever. It wouldn't be hard to implement. I admit I am a bit concerned about what it would do as far as the raid feeling epic, but I think accessibility ought to trump it.

Yeah. Thankfully, this is the direction they are going. I like having a bunch of smaller raids. It means puging stuff is less of a problem when I need to do it and it makes progression easier.

I mean, right now we've got to spend a day or two or raiding just to START our Lich King attempts. That's alot of raiding time basically wasted.

And I'm sure you'll see guilds gaining strength again once the expansion lands. We are in the dead time between the end of WOTLK and the start of Cata. Guilds dying ALWAYS happens at times like this. It's probably just extra worse because so many people are eager for Cataclysm and it's major changes. There's so many things coming that make playing now kinda pointless.

Shit, usually I'd be leveling alts or something now but with Cataclysm, there's no point. I barely play outside of raiding. I'm doing random shit like collecting Blacksmithing recipes and grinding rep to kill time these days.

[jurble]

All those people lining up for MC? They just wanted free epics and they suffered through raiding to get them. On progression night? They were GONE.

What? No way, Rag days always had attendance. We had Saturday raids back then where 80 people would show up for Rag. Such a thing would be inconceivable nowadays.

[Shryke]

What? No way, Rag days always had attendance. We had Saturday raids back then where 80 people would show up for Rag. Such a thing would be inconceivable nowadays.

And Vael days? Nef days? AQ40 days?

Please.

[jurble]

BWL and AQ40 also had fine attendance, we got Nef and C'thun down, attendance held up into Naxx actually. I focused on Rag because Rag's the boss we literally spent months on. Obviously, C'thun and Emps took a while too, but I wasn't really paying attention, I was on 24/7 honor grind leave.

[Shryke]

BWL and AQ40 also had fine attendance, we got Nef and C'thun down, attendance held up into Naxx actually. I focused on Rag because Rag's the boss we literally spent months on.

Congratulations, your experience in no way matches most of the raiding player base.

[Inigima]

I mean, what it really sounds like is you are pissed that a large chunk of the playerbase isn't forced to shit it hates doing to get anywhere in the game now. Do you not see how fucked up that attitude is?

Mostly what it sounds like is he is pissed that he doesn't get to shit all over people just because he has a better Sword of Assfucking than they do, which is not an attitude I have a lot of patience for. Good players should be pleased by gear baselining, because it makes skill differences obvious.

[jurble]

Congratulations, your experience in no way matches most of the raiding player base.

Attendance wasn't a problem, in fact, we had no shortage of players - my guild was on of two raiding guilds left during AQ40 and Naxx Horde-side. People had to show up, and go to raids, else minus DKP, and no loot.

[Foreverlad]

Attendance wasn't a problem, in fact, we had no shortage of players - my guild was on of two raiding guilds left during AQ40 and Naxx Horde-side. People had to show up, and go to raids, else minus DKP, and no loot.

I have no doubt raid attendance in your guild was high. Fact is, over half of the Vanilla population were lucky if they saw Molten Core. I used to recruit dozens of players simply because we ran ZG weekly lol. Guilds that could manage through BWL, AQ40 and get into Naxx were quite rare. Hell, most of the playerbase couldn't scrounge up the 30-60g they needed to pay for the Naxx's attunement (seeing as they weren't exalted with A.D.)

The changes Blizzard have made are, IMHO great ones. Depending on server size, each tier of content was more difficult to recruit for. Guild poaching was commonplace because there were only 100-200 players who knew how to do their research and spec/strategize properly. Any 'new' player required a lot of attention.

Sure, with greater accessibility, the chance for teaming up with more idiots increases, but that same percentage of idiots was always there, the difference is, there's much better chance of finding that diamond-in-the-rough player who's already geared up, than ever before.

[jurble]

Hell, most of the playerbase couldn't scrounge up the 30-60g they needed to pay for the Naxx's attunement (seeing as they weren't exalted with A.D.)

Man, I had no money in Vanilla. I didn't even have an epic mount until I hit rank 11, and got epic riding for free. And then I got each racial mount for like 9g each or something. Man, that was awesome. People were grinding their race-reps to exalted just to get a mount, and I got them all cheap just from pvping (killing alliance was enough compensation to me, everything else was a bonus.)

[Foreverlad]

Man, I had no money in Vanilla. I didn't even have an epic mount until I hit rank 11, and got epic riding for free. And then I got each racial mount for like 9g each or something. Man, that was awesome. People were grinding their race-reps to exalted just to get a mount, and I got them all cheap just from pvping (killing alliance was enough compensation to me, everything else was a bonus.)

I remember the day they announced that players would need the requisite riding skill to use the PvP mounts. Talk about pissed off players lol. I was lucky in that I had a love of gold collecting from level 10 or so on. Riding skill and mounts were never an issue for me. While others at my level were questing in Tanaris, I was showing up after 9pm to fish stonescale eels. 300g a night, if I stuck with it.

[jurble]

Oh man, pvp riding mounts were 90g. Nostalgia hit me, and I decided to look back at my old guild forums, and there's a thread there of me asking for gold donations, and people subsequently posting how much gold they sent me. /tear. I remember I was only able to afford my rank 12/13 gear because some dude who decided to quit the game just gave me all his gold. There was honestly no way to make gold while on the honor grind. If you had time to make gold, you were probably 3 dudes on one account.

[Migey]

@ Shryke

I was there in vanilla, and i would love it back.

That said, i know it wont happen, and isnt a good idea. It was so insanely hardcore that less then 1% of the playerbase actually got to see the endgame, and i was lucky enough to be part of that 1%. And that only happened because i had a friend as an officer in the best guild on the server. I did start pulling my own weight after a month though :P

That said, i know how frustrating it is to have to raid for days to actually start progressing. Thats one reason im looking foward to Cata, and miss TBC. Lots of raids, but without too many bosses was awesome. And even the ones that had alot of bosses... well. They were good enough i didn't care. Am i the ONLY one who misses kara?

I simply feel that so many raiding oppourtunities were missed in WotLK, wheras none were missed in TBC.

And i think that the right attitude to guilds is coming back in Cata, and who knows? we might start seeing some hardcore PvP guilds. One thing i dont i dont like is that they dont give 25man enough benefits over 10 man in cata. I know there are some, but they are not worth the effort for most. I strongly suspect that 25man raiding will die out in cata.

[Poobah]

@Shrike & Ini : Your dreams of casual everything are my nightmares. Why not just have a vendor where you can buy whatever epics you want for free?

And three nights a week is not a lot. I think it honestly depends on your guild experiences here. My guild was in a terminal decline because we were bored out of our skulls. We would clear the entire of ICC 25 HM in about 3 hours, then wipe on LK for a bit and then have way less signups for other nights because people just get bored and frustrated with wiping for ages when they know that's the only activity left for the rest of the week. Since a few people emo-summer-quit and we had to pull things together we started mixing in raiding TotGC, Ulduar with Yogg-0 and weirder achievements and all kinds of stuff and attendance is going way back up. Because... shock fucking horror some people actually enjoy raiding. There's absolutely none of those precious epic pixels that so many people obsess all their goddamn lives over in it for us to do those raids, but they mix the experience up and give us something to do inbetween LK25HC progress.

Even so we only raid for about 3-4 hours a night 3 days a week at most. And in that time we can clear the entire of Wrath 25 man content, with the exception of Arthas on hardmode. That's not actually a lot of raiding.

My old guild which was very very shit raided a lot more. They had real pretensions to being hardcore and progressing and actually turned the atmosphere to total hell there because of that. If I were still in that guild I'd probably be agreeing with the both of you. But now I get to do what I actually wanted all along, my guild is nice and has a good atmosphere and doesn't really give a fuck about purple or even orange pixels except insofar as they help us get on with what we enjoy which is raiding.

If you really want to raid less then maybe the problem is either your guild or that you actually don't enjoy raiding. I know it feels like an obligatory part of WoW but if it doesn't interest you then don't bother.

And Ini, I don't feel like responding to your post in full, but the downfall of the guild as a mandatory organisation is a disaster. What is a guild more than a group of friends who play together? And honestly, if I weren't in a guild I wouldn't raid because pugging is like dragging myself over broken glass with all the gearscore talking recount linking fuckwads that play this game. Being with my guild, my friends, chatting on vent or whatever while we raid is as much a part of the fun as doing the bosses. I have no clue why you yearn to a) expose more people to these aforementioned fuckwads and B) give these fuckwads more EPIX 6000 GEARSCORE OMGZ to epeen about by making content even more blatantly puggable than it already is, which is really a lot. It really isn't that hard to get into raiding as it is:

Do some 5 mans and some pugs.

Get some badges and some free 5-man welfare epics.

Actually learn to play your class, you can do this via the internet.

Join a guild that doesn't contain imature fuckwads. Enjoy.

[Jon Sprunk]

I miss Molten Core (/tear). The first time we downed Rags was probably the high point for me. I've had to take a break recently, but I'm eager to see what Cataclysm brings.

[Kymeera]

Have any of you who want WoW to be as hardcore as possible played EQ? That was a game with really huge carrots and really huge sticks. When I say sticks I mean nail studded bats laden with tetanus that the devs would sodomize you with. As there was no instanced content all raid mobs were shared on a server, and typically had a one week respawn timer. This meant that only the truly hardcore would keep current with content. You had to be ready at any time to log in if you wanted to stay #1. Yes, there were 3am phone calls to log in for contested mobs. You wanted hardcore, right?

Not in the server's top guild? Well get ready to be shit on! Whoever was above you didn't want you catching up to them and vying for content, so it was common to cockblock other guilds by blowing keying encounters (1 week lockout!), griefing, and monopolizing content. Also, any guild that wasn't #1 just became a feeder guild because nobody wanted to put up with that shit.

Have a group of friends that you want to start up a raiding guild with? Enjoy your content from 3 years ago, because that's where you need to start. Good luck pulling in any decent players who aren't looking to gear up as quickly as possible and then bail for the next tier of guild. You will never catch up to the top guild because of heavy gear/keying requirements, cockblocking by top guilds, and major attrition. FYI, my guild was always an expansion or two behind in content. It is not fun to be trapped in content from 1-2 years ago.

There's a reason EQ only topped out at 400,000 active accounts, and why it began its death spiral long before WoW released. Even the people in top guilds look back on it with fondness, but also a lot of contempt for all the shit the devs forced you to eat to progress. The general consensus is that nobody would go through it again. It was an interesting experiment, but nothing that punishing would survive as anything more than a niche game in today's market, if that.

[Poobah]

EQ? Pfft, casual.

Play Ultima Online as it was at release.

[Kymeera]

EQ? Pfft, casual.

Play Ultima Online as it was at release.

I didn't get to play it at release, but I tried it for a few months back in...'99 maybe? It was fun for sandbox type play, and the trade skills were great. I GMed a few skills by setting up an overnight macro, which seems incredibly silly now that I look back on it.

I still stand by my point. Gamers now won't put up with the shit that they would 10 or 15 years ago. I'd rather put a bullet in my head than revisit staring at Raster of Guk's spawn point for 20+ hours so I can complete the first major step of my epic weapon quest.