Vanilla was fine, and most of the issues with #nochanges had to do with the fact that it wasn’t actually #nochanges. For example people abusing layering to farm lotus and hoard gold or sell it for real money.
#somechanges in TBC has been an utter disaster though. Only a raidlogger imported directly from retail would say otherwise.
On paper, TBC should be more fun than vanilla already was. In practice, very few people in my guild are logging on anymore and a bunch of them have quit in the past few weeks.
P.S. Bots are even worse in TBC than they were in vanilla and Blizzard is complicit in it. They sell 58 boosts for $$, let the bots run for a few weeks to turn a profit, then they ban the botter. Because the bans are delayed and botting remains profitable, the botter purchases new subscriptions and new 58 boosts and starts botting again with Blizzard pocketing the subscription fees AND boost fees. After the bots run long enough to turn a profit, Blizzard does another ban wave. Rinse and repeat.
This multiplies the amount that Blizzard profits from botting because: 1. they got not only a new subscription fee after each ban, they get a 58 boost fee which is worth more than the subscription itself, and 2. because the botters are starting at 58 they spend less time leveling and more time farming so they will still be profitable if Blizzard bans after a few weeks. Even though the botter is spending more to stay in the game, they start profiting sooner because of reduced leveling time leveling, so Blizzard can maintain a frequency of bans which is enough to put up the appearance of doing something and maximize their profit from subscription/boost sales, while at the same time allowing the botters to remain profitable and keep them coming back again and again.
The garbage #somechanges 58 boost was not only an excuse by Blizzard to cash in on a bunch of retail raidloggers, it’s also an excuse by Blizzard to directly profit from botters instead of showing them zero tolerance.
And the 58 boost also exacerbated the problem of meta lemmings and faction stacking on Horde, which made queue times horrible and has short sighted players calling for even more changes.
It’s disgusting that this is happening, and anybody who doesn’t see it is a fool.
Depends on the time of day. I’ve done /who on some of these locations. At times, there’s nobody. At other times, I’ve seen a few level 58 Mages in SV or couple of 58 Rogues in SP.
Have yet to see any Rogues in BRD or anyone running BRD regularly, for that matter.
One particular odd behavior I’ve noted (and also seen displayed on YouTube videos showcasing Bots) is characters who run a few feet out of SP and do /sleep near the cages. Why they do this is beyond my understanding.
But as far as Westfall’s economy, I don’t know of anything in particular that’s being inflated. At least nothing on the level we saw with items like Black Lotus in WoW Classic.
I do suspect there might be some shenanigans with the prices of Large Prismatic Shards given the prevalence of Slave Pen boosting.
Yeah and everybody is farming primals right now. I can’t even get a half hour alone at Skald in Blade’s Edge until a hunter/mage/or boomkin shows up to flatten the place. Back in the original release of tbc I used to go there in the evening and have it uncontested for hours.
you’re right. it’s also 3rd world gold farmers clogging up the open world. I’m on one of the largest NA servers and the vast majority of players farming in the open world don’t speak English. I’ve done every quest in some zones without encountering a single english speaking player
This issue pales in comparison to the blight that is the /spit emote clearly… Blizz are spending their time on the big issues, not this ‘bot’ nonsense…
Get Good. Players who complain about lack of gold tend to suck at the game and have bad strategies for making gold. You’re not being screwed by bots. You’re literally making bad decisions on how to make gold.
Also, since you’re making the claim. What is your evidence that bots are bad for the economy? WHAT if the economy would be worst if there were no bots? It’s just as likely. Resources on the auction house would be more costly, making your purhcasing power lower. Sure, you can sell stuff for more, but you’d also have to pay more.
Here is the reality of what we’re talking about. You’re speculating that bots are bad for the economy. When in reality, bots may actually benefit the economy by lowering costs of resources on the AH.
And why pray tell is that a safe bet? Are you trying to insinuate that Primals were some unknown quantity in TBC? That the average player in TBC was so ignorant of the game that they didn’t know that professions existed?
The way you people think of the average player from back in the day is pretty funny to be honest. You’re talking about some of the most obvious and blatant gold farms, and some of the most consistent because people contentiously need Primals throughout TBC. It didn’t fluctuate like this back in the day. The prices didn’t drop like they have so far. The farming spots were contested back then as well…
Also out of genuine curiosity I logged into a couple of the servers from people in this thread saying they were doing /who and seeing zero players everywhere, and so I did the same, and got the same results, oddly, even for common areas that should have had players of all variety… So yeah, I dunno. Maybe you guys are just on dead servers. Herod isn’t a dead server. Our towns are packed full of players, and when I do /who I see a lot of very suspicious looking accounts. So all I can really say is, who knows. Maybe some servers aren’t as bad as others. I guess I shouldn’t try to claim that every economy is being ruined by bots-- but mine sure is.
They were highly contested back in the day. I don’t really know what else to say. I was on a low to medium pop server back then, Firetree, Alliance side, I played a Gnomish Warlock named Gnomish. Every spot I’d go to was contested, even Elemental Plateau, which I personally think is one of the not so great areas…
I’d prefer it that way because of stuff that has a fixed item price such as the Epic Flyer and respec costs. It’s very discouraging to have to spend 100g just to make a bit of gold between raids.
It’s easy to say I’m bad at farming gold, but before the bots tanked the economy I had no issues with it. I was able to make a good enough hourly rate, I farmed out my epic flyer, I farmed out a few epic BOE craftables to help start off in Kara… I’ve gone through a lot of gold so far, and I started a couple weeks after TBCs launch, and didn’t boost, so I never even got to take advantage of the first months “boosted” economy. ( Not saying that because of boosts, but just because the first month of any expansion is always the most lucrative. )
I’d rather have to pay more for stuff and sell stuff for higher prices. It would make respeccing less frustrating and it would make obtaining an epic flyer on my alt significantly easier. Speaking of alts, get off yours. I have a feeling you’re posting from an alt because your “Get Good.” jab would get thrown right back at you incredibly fast if you posted from your main…
this is why i leveled alts, gave them different professions and played them, they cost gold to gear up, but overall i’ve made a fortune leveling 3 toons to 70. Professions are what makes you gold in tbc. And dailies, just wait for the dailies in phase 2 if you’re really bad at this.
Also to the naysayers looking on their servers with a very lazy /who, it doesn’t matter if blizzard does a big purge NOW, and bans tens of thousands of bots, it doesn’t matter as its already far too late, if they’re allowed to operate and sell gold en masse for weeks and weeks and weeks like they’ve been doing, the economy is already in ruins, things get ‘better’ but the damage is done already, the economics of tbc are already in an apocalyptic state.
I can go out to any primal farming spot right now and find several bots.
Every mana thistle node as well.
You seem to be of the mind that the problem is “just” one thing. No. In addition to people having more knowledge in TBC-C, there are also a metric crap ton of bots every where
There’s a druid bot on my server that lives underwater in Nagrand farming water elementals. So yes, they do exist and bring primals into the game. I’ve reported 12 days in a row now, not that I expect anything to happen but it’s the least I can do.
Even BAN wave won’t help. Bots will start again with 58lvl chars. Most boosts are sold to botters. They even banned multiboxing to “prevent” botting they said. So what we have now? Bots still exist… They banned multiboxing to have even more bots i guess. I’m kinda new to wow, but i never seen so rigged mmo game…