Not in vanilla maybe but in classic it was fairly common.
I don’t know, the vanilla game, more than any other version, is made to reward time invested and knowledge of the game. (Rewards are gated behind grinds or low frequency drops rather than behind mechanical skill check, at least compared to later versions.)
Yes and the vanilla version is 20 years old. That’s why they adjust things.
It would be common if these are the types of players you play with. The vast majority of the player base would of had no where near this amount of gold.
Literally crying
Call me Maradona because I’m running rings
If you really think about the implications of this statement, what you’re saying reflects player mentality as a whole in the past few years, perhaps even longer than that. Trying to get the player base to approach the game the same way like they did in 2004 is never going to happen simply because people are different now. You can’t really stop optimization if players choose to do that, even with conventionally draconian stances like banning addons or, in some peoples’ eyes, GDKPs.
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Era would like a word.
The playerbase is nothing like Anniversary. They actually like the game and socialize.
That audience still exists.
I don’t know what Era is like so I can’t speak for that but if you look at 2019 classic, SoD, and anniversary, I do think that the amount of people who approach the game from a min/max perspective is significantly higher nowadays, primarily because the resources to do so are far more robust. Of course there is and will always be an audience that doesn’t min/max.
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Doing all that to not even be in the top 50 clears in the game is brain damaged. In Molten Core/Onyxia no less, which are basically target dummies compared to the rest of the content.
WoW players have always had a weird thing where they want to copy the best players in the game except they still stand in fire, die in stupid ways, mess up their rotation etc. It is only worth it to go the extra mile(s) for all the consumes and try hard things if you have people who can really use it to maximum effect. Everyone should play how they want to of course, but if you choose to get every possible buff in the game it is going to be expensive in some way. Gold buying is scummy behavior that ruins the game, but it makes me chuckle to think people are paying real money to parse in Molten Core… ridiculous.
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This is every game.
A lot of people have more fun being as powerful as they can be in a game.
WoW
Path of Exile
Destiny
Call of Duty
Battlefield
Diablo
Souls/Elden Ring
I mean, even single player games like Cyberpunk have people following build guides and copying good players.
People would have been doing this years ago but we didn’t have all the information at our fingertips like we do now.
In 2004 when WoW first released it would have been the exact same as it is now if we had all the information.
The players didn’t change. The internet and how much information we have access to is what changed.
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this 
instead of fussing over the cost of every single consumable, how about just, learn the fights, your rotation, use a few cheap consumables, and have fun.
Agreed. But extend it a step further and you get to what I said. We didn’t have all the information at our fingertips like we do now so there were proportionally less people that were able to min/max. This obviously impacts player behavior as a whole.
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You quoted 50% of the sentence and missed 100% of the point.
I’ll be kind and say that you are right about players copying the best. People seem to miss that the best players in those games would still be better than most with suboptimal gear (or whatever) because so much about performance isn’t those things.
We technically did. A lot of what we know about the game came from elitistjerks dot com which was where all the theorycrafting among the top players was discussed and a lot of it is has stood the test of time and been proven 100% correct by modern theorycrafter types. If you cared enough to go read it was there and public.
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Of course it’s higher and to some degree players even back in Vanilla would have played different than they did if today’s resources existed, but it would have been nothing like this. Players actually played…just to have fun. I know, because I was one of them. That was the objective. It was just a video game.
That’s the difference in the mentality of the playerbase. It’s how they approach a game. To some it’s just, “I’m going to chill out and hang out with friends, and have some fun.” And to others it’s about maximizing every single second they play. Using Rested xp to dictate every step they take. Every breath is made for efficiency.
But that is learned behavior. That is a culture. That is a byproduct. It’s human nature. You can call it fruit nature. It’s scientific fact that a few rotten apples spoil the bunch. You want to know the biggest problem? Megaservers. There is NO server community on a Megaserver. And the toxic sweatlords take over the server. Either you become one yourself…or quit.
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this… it is a lie to pretend that players in 2004-6 were anything like today the culture was different (and better)
Sure, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t going to find joy in doing that.
I mess around with sampling/hip hop beats, and while I will never be as good as some of my favorite producers, it is still very enjoyable to me to try to replicate what they do.
Hockey players in their teens try to replicate NHL players. They buy the same equipment as them, study their videos, etc. Are they as good as them? No, but that’s obvious.
This is not some WoW only thing. But what is a WoW only thing, is bad players looking down on stuff like this.
“Players want to min/max in an MMO where we obtain loot to get more powerful and see numbers flying above the enemies heads.” Like yeah, no kidding. Obviously.
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I agree with all of this. In addition, no player has to do any of this. You can choose to actually just enjoy the game; it sounds like based on what you said on Era people recognize that.
Not sure I agree with the megaserver part here but I think I understand your point and it’s true as well. If you have enough people partake in poop socking activities then it impacts everyone. Go look at the auction house prices on nightslayer compared to dreamscythe. It’s a night and day difference.
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These are just two different types of players who enjoy an MMO in different ways.
The problem is people like you looking down on 1 side and insulting them.
You talk about building a community and socializing but all you do is insult people who min max a game because you don’t min max the game.
Idk similar resources are way more accessible now and honestly more accurate (sorry EJ enjoyers). That alone reduces the barrier to entry and allows more people to optimize.
We were min maxing Counter Strike 1.6 in the 90s.
We didn’t have access to any information really. You just had to watch the way good players played after you died, and see how they aim, their movement, positioning, etc, and then try to put that into your own game.
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