I mostly agree but I would say MMO gamers up to that point were the RPG fans. It was WoW bringing in masses of people who weren't RPG enthusiasts that changed the demographic landscape forever.
That's what I meant. WoW didn't bring in the masses until after vanilla.
yea, that's not what happened tho.
before WoW servers were like 4k people at peak. after WoW, it went into higher fields. way. higher.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
before WoW servers were like 4k people at peak. after WoW, it went into higher fields. way. higher.
At patch 1.8 time they had something like 3.5 million players and when burning crusade launched they were at over 8 million. The ratio of RPG fans to general MMO players was a lot higher in vanilla, that's my point.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
This is bad for me I wanted to skip the classic but after reading your thread I got into a dilemma to sub or not when before I was sure not to. I already have FF14 FF11 sub active ><
Stay with your FFXIV sub, Classic nostalgia will pass quickly.
Just because I'm a gamer doesn't mean I drive a Honda.
This was both good and bad. I was in a 20 minute line-up to kill the head bandit of the human starter area. People actually stood in line and didn't try to be asshats cutting in. Groups of 5 were formed on the spot to make the line go faster. Needing to wait was a PITA but the community behavior was outstanding.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here it is:
Kudos to all those people as I would be quite annoyed having to wait for so long for quite a few quests.
Poor game design imo. Then again I think WoW quests are a major contributor to what killed the genre.
This was both good and bad. I was in a 20 minute line-up to kill the head bandit of the human starter area. People actually stood in line and didn't try to be asshats cutting in. Groups of 5 were formed on the spot to make the line go faster. Needing to wait was a PITA but the community behavior was outstanding.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here it is:
Kudos to all those people as I would be quite annoyed having to wait for so long for quite a few quests.
Poor game design imo. Then again I think WoW quests are a major contributor to what killed the genre.
I don't like quest-based leveling, especially when it is whe way to go because it is more efficient in order to level up like in WoW and 99% of the MMOs influenced by it.
I would prefer a Mix of open world group grind/boss hunting and random world events. Quests being optional.
before WoW servers were like 4k people at peak. after WoW, it went into higher fields. way. higher.
At patch 1.8 time they had something like 3.5 million players and when burning crusade launched they were at over 8 million. The ratio of RPG fans to general MMO players was a lot higher in vanilla, that's my point.
Its very hard to say other than "things changed at some point".
The numbers themselves - almost certainly - don't tell us anything "helpful".
What we no wknow is that after c. 10 years WoW had 100M accounts. The implication being that on average WoW was losing 10M people a year. So the 3.5M people at patch 1.8 could have been a totally different set of people from when the game launched. And the 8M people when BC launched could have been different again.
Now obviously they won't have been 100% different but 10M a year (on average) means that a lot of people who played vanilla never made it to BC.
I agree that WoW - probably - appealed more to rpg gamers when it first launched. And at some point it started to pull others in. Other rpgers as well as non-rpgers. And that will have brought with it change. When was the turning point though - throw in different servers, different countries ..... probably sooner than we might think.
I also wonder whether another factor was the influence of people who came from other games - EQ1, AC, DAoC, UO maybe even AO etc. These will probably have made up a big % of the earliest adopters and they will already have been familiar with how things worked, "organising stuff", the mindset etc.
And that will have been swamped even sooner that the rpg element.
This was both good and bad. I was in a 20 minute line-up to kill the head bandit of the human starter area. People actually stood in line and didn't try to be asshats cutting in. Groups of 5 were formed on the spot to make the line go faster. Needing to wait was a PITA but the community behavior was outstanding.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here it is:
Kudos to all those people as I would be quite annoyed having to wait for so long for quite a few quests.
Poor game design imo. Then again I think WoW quests are a major contributor to what killed the genre.
They should have considered adding certain commodities from the modern wow in classic. Having to wait for a specific kill camped by a ton of people is as you said poor design. Same for looting imo.
For many of us who entered WoW in the early days, it was a virtual world, not a game, so discussions of game design seem unimportant. Among my other favorites were Matrix Online, City of Heroes, and Tabula Rasa, all rich in intellectual content. Did you notice how WoW Classic describes the classes when you are selecting? Here is the really profound description of priests, which matches my view of religious leaders in the real world: "Priests guide the spiritual destiny of their people. Through their unique insight into the mind, they are able to shape an individual's beliefs, whether to inspire or to terrify, soothe or dominate, heal or harm. Just as the heart can hold both darkness and light, priests wield powers of creation and devastation by channeling the potent forces underlying faith." Poetic and true! Compare the gamer description of priests in Retail: "Priests are well-rounded healers with a variety of tools. However, they can also sacrifice their healing to deal damage with Shadow magic."
I've never played WoW pre-TBC (was playing other games), so excuse my ignorance here.
What exactly is there to do at Classic endgame? Get to lvl 60, then what?
There’s a ton of content at Classic end game. While there are other things to do, the main types of content are Dungeons, Raiding and Battlegrounds.
There is a large quantity of dungeons at 60, and all of them are very large, so even one dungeon is a big feature. Raids are even bigger and usually take 20-40 people. There are two years worth of raiding content in Classic, although they are making it available slowly instead of all of it immediately at launch.
Battlegrounds are also not in at launch, but will eventually consist of Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley. The Honor system and the various PvP reputation systems provide players item progression paths through PvP rather than PvE.
Some of the other end game options include material gathering, crafting, world bosses, various events or world PvP for the lulz.
Stopped reading at "rolled on a PVE RP server.... "
You don't go to Baskin Robbins and ask for the low fat frozen yogurt
I might depending on the flavor but normally it's just Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia for me.
Played on PvP servers most of my time in WOW. Got the War Bear and the T-shirt. This time around? Fuck that shit.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
This was both good and bad. I was in a 20 minute line-up to kill the head bandit of the human starter area. People actually stood in line and didn't try to be asshats cutting in. Groups of 5 were formed on the spot to make the line go faster. Needing to wait was a PITA but the community behavior was outstanding.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here it is:
Kudos to all those people as I would be quite annoyed having to wait for so long for quite a few quests.
uh uh uh, is that on a pvp server? colour me tempted
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
I joined an RP normal EU server. I find the population there generally more tolerant about stuff and often people have lively general chat. All in good fun with what is happening in game and nothing about real life. Fantastic really to see that.
Every time I go back to WoW fearing I will not get groups and what not I roll healers but of late I have simply lost the taste for healing. I rolled an orc warlock this time and I intend to just take it easy and if I get groups then it's fine and if not it's okay too. I am rolling a holy pally on the other side but may not play it. Awfully slow levelling and after killing Defias for like an hour not a single bag drop and my orc gets one on the second mottled boar she kills and another one on a scorpion, well the boar and scorpion sure like to travel it seems.
I joined an RP normal EU server. I find the population there generally more tolerant about stuff and often people have lively general chat. All in good fun with what is happening in game and nothing about real life. Fantastic really to see that.
Every time I go back to WoW fearing I will not get groups and what not I roll healers but of late I have simply lost the taste for healing. I rolled an orc warlock this time and I intend to just take it easy and if I get groups then it's fine and if not it's okay too. I am rolling a holy pally on the other side but may not play it. Awfully slow levelling and after killing Defias for like an hour not a single bag drop and my orc gets one on the second mottled boar she kills and another one on a scorpion, well the boar and scorpion sure like to travel it seems.
Should have gone Undead Warlock, there is a certain satisfaction in defeating your enemies, standing over their corpses and then eating them. RPPVP ftw!
I joined an RP normal EU server. I find the population there generally more tolerant about stuff and often people have lively general chat. All in good fun with what is happening in game and nothing about real life. Fantastic really to see that.
Every time I go back to WoW fearing I will not get groups and what not I roll healers but of late I have simply lost the taste for healing. I rolled an orc warlock this time and I intend to just take it easy and if I get groups then it's fine and if not it's okay too. I am rolling a holy pally on the other side but may not play it. Awfully slow levelling and after killing Defias for like an hour not a single bag drop and my orc gets one on the second mottled boar she kills and another one on a scorpion, well the boar and scorpion sure like to travel it seems.
Should have gone Undead Warlock, there is a certain satisfaction in defeating your enemies, standing over their corpses and then eating them. RPPVP ftw!
No I don't PvP except in BGs and even then I wouldn't do that. It kind of turns my stomach that image of my beloved character crouched over a corpse eating it.
I've never played WoW pre-TBC (was playing other games), so excuse my ignorance here.
What exactly is there to do at Classic endgame? Get to lvl 60, then what?
Truthfully? The Classic endgame was good because the community did tons of events, RP stuff and organized mass world PvP battles.. or alliance city sieges.
Back then the RPG fans were the majority, instead of the MMO fans. It wasn't about chasing loot, it was about having fun for the sake of having fun.
I worry Classic will get boring very quickly if they can't, or don't, get as organized as they used to be.
Reaching for a new, bigger player base has been what has changed MMO's more than any other factor. When RPers became a minority there was a huge change, then when solo players became the majority just as big a change, followed by the casual easy mode that the whole of gaming came under the spell off. This had more of an effect than even F2P and cash shops.
MMO's made for players who were mostly Rping, grouping and did not want a bite sized entertainment experience were simply made in a different way.
I've been having a great time. The server is lively, people are talking to each other, helping each other complete quests and dungeons, making new friends and revisiting old ones. Spending way more time playing than is responsible, but I'm cool with it. It's nice to be pulled into a game like this again.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
I miss the dungeons difficulty of the private servers but the community is soooo much better then the Pservers it makes up for it. Having a blast so far
I have 3 toons and they are all around 16. I am playing very slowly helping people and just talking to people and being friendly or a nuisance depending on their point of view. If anyone asks for help I will be one of the very first to offer my assistance. I think this makes playing the game so much better. Yes occasionally the people I help know nothing about strategy and get me killed by rushing ahead but I think this is all part of their learning experience. We all started somewhere. Many new players who have never played WoW are playing.
My Orc Warlock is alone on the Horde side getting no assistance with crafting items unlike my Paladin and Hunter on the Alliance side who seems to always get drops that benefit the other classes. I promised myself although this has been so very hard to do, not to roll a Shaman or Druid on the Horde side until I get the other three to level 30+. I do love the lovely Cow eyes I can make with the Tauren Female and the awful milk jokes I can crack.
It's strange but every trip and I am making a lot of trips back and forth due to limited bag space and the lack of banks and so on does not bother me. I just enjoy the scenery as I slowly trot back and hand in quests and take others and I have no urgency in my actions. Just plain enjoying the pace of the game and I am not the only one as the server I am on that is often shown as medium in terms of population has people all over. I think people accept the pace and they themselves also slow down and don't play the game at breakneck speed to prove something because it is fixed at level 60. It won't go higher than that and this may have some effect on the perception of time and playing slowly to enjoy everything.
I'm so tempted to make a Troll Hunter just to make the dangerous trudge to Teldrassil to get the Strigid Owl for the heck of it. I mean why not just do everything you can to make the experience interesting. If not for the bow bonus I would make her use a gun even and take engineering to boot like my Paladin.
Comments
before WoW servers were like 4k people at peak. after WoW, it went into higher fields. way. higher.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
You don't go to Baskin Robbins and ask for the low fat frozen yogurt
Aloha Mr Hand !
Lets see your Battle Stations /r/battlestations
Battle Station
I would prefer a Mix of open world group grind/boss hunting and random world events. Quests being optional.
The numbers themselves - almost certainly - don't tell us anything "helpful".
What we no wknow is that after c. 10 years WoW had 100M accounts. The implication being that on average WoW was losing 10M people a year. So the 3.5M people at patch 1.8 could have been a totally different set of people from when the game launched. And the 8M people when BC launched could have been different again.
Now obviously they won't have been 100% different but 10M a year (on average) means that a lot of people who played vanilla never made it to BC.
I agree that WoW - probably - appealed more to rpg gamers when it first launched. And at some point it started to pull others in. Other rpgers as well as non-rpgers. And that will have brought with it change. When was the turning point though - throw in different servers, different countries ..... probably sooner than we might think.
I also wonder whether another factor was the influence of people who came from other games - EQ1, AC, DAoC, UO maybe even AO etc. These will probably have made up a big % of the earliest adopters and they will already have been familiar with how things worked, "organising stuff", the mindset etc.
And that will have been swamped even sooner that the rpg element.
There is a large quantity of dungeons at 60, and all of them are very large, so even one dungeon is a big feature. Raids are even bigger and usually take 20-40 people. There are two years worth of raiding content in Classic, although they are making it available slowly instead of all of it immediately at launch.
Battlegrounds are also not in at launch, but will eventually consist of Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley. The Honor system and the various PvP reputation systems provide players item progression paths through PvP rather than PvE.
Some of the other end game options include material gathering, crafting, world bosses, various events or world PvP for the lulz.
Played on PvP servers most of my time in WOW. Got the War Bear and the T-shirt. This time around? Fuck that shit.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Flamelash _EU
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Every time I go back to WoW fearing I will not get groups and what not I roll healers but of late I have simply lost the taste for healing. I rolled an orc warlock this time and I intend to just take it easy and if I get groups then it's fine and if not it's okay too. I am rolling a holy pally on the other side but may not play it. Awfully slow levelling and after killing Defias for like an hour not a single bag drop and my orc gets one on the second mottled boar she kills and another one on a scorpion, well the boar and scorpion sure like to travel it seems.
MMO's made for players who were mostly Rping, grouping and did not want a bite sized entertainment experience were simply made in a different way.
Taking my sweet time, not rushing anything.
Very relaxing.
Shame there aren't more games like this anymore.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
My Orc Warlock is alone on the Horde side getting no assistance with crafting items unlike my Paladin and Hunter on the Alliance side who seems to always get drops that benefit the other classes. I promised myself although this has been so very hard to do, not to roll a Shaman or Druid on the Horde side until I get the other three to level 30+. I do love the lovely Cow eyes I can make with the Tauren Female and the awful milk jokes I can crack.
It's strange but every trip and I am making a lot of trips back and forth due to limited bag space and the lack of banks and so on does not bother me. I just enjoy the scenery as I slowly trot back and hand in quests and take others and I have no urgency in my actions. Just plain enjoying the pace of the game and I am not the only one as the server I am on that is often shown as medium in terms of population has people all over. I think people accept the pace and they themselves also slow down and don't play the game at breakneck speed to prove something because it is fixed at level 60. It won't go higher than that and this may have some effect on the perception of time and playing slowly to enjoy everything.
I'm so tempted to make a Troll Hunter just to make the dangerous trudge to Teldrassil to get the Strigid Owl for the heck of it. I mean why not just do everything you can to make the experience interesting. If not for the bow bonus I would make her use a gun even and take engineering to boot like my Paladin.