…and that’s exactly what we got (initially anyway), but gaming has changed since 2005 and it seems to me that the min-max, win at all cost mentality of the modern day gamer just doesn’t fit within the game design of vanilla wow.
Pretty much everything negative about Classic has been a result of the implementation of this mindset:
Faction imbalance
Premades / AFK bots
Farming bots / Black Lotus camping
Bracket padding / cross faction collusion
Trivialized content / dead levelling zones
The list goes on, and I don’t think the players are to blame because if you aren’t doing these things, you are falling behind and in todays era of gaming, falling behind is the absolute worst thing that could happen
if you’re not clearing BWL in 90 minutes having all the world buffs, DM buffs, onyxia buff, all the flasks and potions - you’re objectively playing wrong, duh.
a large portion of the problems were created by acitivision. The blame rests with them for the most part. They gave us layering and a shoddy amount of servers/opened servers too late or didn’t open any at all. They gave us 1.12 which is nerfed content anyways. They gave us BG’s in later form where zerging is functional and group queueing is a thing. They gave us cross faction bg’s when it ruins the fun of same server rivalries.
They gave us content rushed out faster than it was in vanilla because “the players base” was getting bored. They gave paid server transfers instead of server merges(a problem they created in the first place). They allowed blatant abuse of in game mechanics via layering in dungeons to go unpunished. They fed streamers loot(do you know the likely hood of receiving both bindings in your first ever mc run…much less than zero).
On top of that they have ruined twinking bracket bgs…and after all this and probably a few things im forgetting…they will most likely bring wow tokens to classic. We didnt ruin classic…activision did.
It’s the mindset of everything needs to be given I blame retail and dailies that gave gear blue or purple as rewards u can literally lvl a character in retail in 2 days and have it ready to raid in another 2 or 3 days because of dailies and the mythic key system.
Sounds like PVP/PVP server problems. Other than the black lotus camping, I’m not seeing any of those other problems on my PVE server. I play for fun, and there are plenty on my server doing the same.
I just think it must be tough to design certain aspects of games anymore. A lot of things that are commonplace now would have been considered “cheating yourself”, if not outright cheating, in another time.
Yes to a point. The problem is people are too caught up in min/maxing and trying to game everything to be the best. That mentality was much smaller in 2005. As a result, thanks to the #nochangers spouting their garbage about how “hard” vanilla was, we have what we see today since they shouted down anyone who suggested that we get a WoW Reforged that felt the same way 2005-era WoW did but without the cruft of bad design choices that plagues Vanilla.
But yes, you are mostly correct. Stuff like premades/AFK to game honor, camping rare spawns/Devilsaur Mafia type of crap, carries to speed level are results of people thinking everything is a competition rather than just having fun instead of trying to eke 110% out of everything they play.
While it certainly is possible that the min/max mentality is new and to blame, I’d contend the min/max mentality has always been there.
It’s surprising how similar the vanilla vs classic contrast maps onto how people talk about a game’s beta phase vs launch.
I think given enough time every game (at any time) will end up being min maxed because that’s what people do. We simply didn’t see it in classic to such an extent because there wasn’t that much time and players in general weren’t as familiar with theorycrafting.
If you knew how to design a fun game that couldn’t be minmaxed you would be really rich since that’s the million dollar question no?
A lot of modern gamers don’t want to put in the time investment part of an MMO game. That is why so many modern games are “streamlined” and allow you to spend real cash on items in game and to even skip certain portions of the game. When I played EQ and WoW back in the early 2000’s, people that bought gold or other peoples accounts were shunned and made fun of. This new generation of gamers seem to be completely ok with spending cash for in game purchases probably due to the amount of mobile games practically throwing this stuff in your face every 10 minutes.
Granted WoW classic at this point does not have in game purchases of this style, but I think the general behavior of a lot of players is related to these newer games. Players want to rush through the content as quickly as possible and pretty much be able to complete everything in the game relatively easily and without having to socialize to put a team/group together for the content.
It’s a 15 year old game. How to gear up and get into MC is no mystery. Raid boss mechanics are infinitely easier in BWL than raid finder raids in BfA. At some point most players here have leveled almost every class. The original feeling of playing this game can never be recreated, because we’ve all seen it and we’ve all done it.
It’s not that there’s a new mentality, it’s that some people have been playing vanilla for 15 years. Or that other people have stuck with WoW all that time and have seen the story, have seen the bosses, did all the 5 mans.
The problem is that so many of you are looking for an experience that you can only get from a new MMORPG. Classic is about the nostalgia. If you want a game where people take their time, enjoy the journey, are more focused on teamwork than taking on the hardest content in the game, the only place you’re going to find that is in a newer MMO. If you thought ZG was fun and want to raid it again as a level 60, THAT is what Classic accomplishes.
The modern day mindset hasn’t changed. WoW just attracts a different group of people today than it did 15 years ago. That mentality you want still exists, Classic just isn’t the game for it. Not everyone can be content with the same static game for so long. Lots of people want to experience something new.
In Retail, yes. In Classic, no. If you don’t do these things, you are not falling behind in Classic, and that’s what the min-max, win at all cost community is salty about. They’re furious that all their efforts to no-life the game results in half hour raid clears. The fact that normal players who play the game for fun still take three hours to clear the raids does nothing to ease their anguish. In fact, that infuriates them more because if they had their way, those players shouldn’t be able to clear the raid at all! How dare they actually take down bosses when they’re not putting in 40 hours of work, research, and preparation weekly?!?
The problem in Classic is clearly a player problem, because everyone I know who doesn’t treat the game like a second (or even primary) job is enjoying the heck out of it. You wouldn’t know it because they’re too busy playing in their free time to read these forums, let alone post on them.
It’s not new. What is relatively new, is the requirement to min/max. I say relatively because it’s been there about eight years now, since Cataclysm. However, prior to that, min/maxing was an option that made the game super easy, not the minimum cover charge for raid entry that it’s been since Cataclysm. That’s why it’s a shock to go back to Vanilla and realize that the game used to be designed for casual players rather than esports enthusiasts.
Plus, one player’s good thing is another’s misery. I personally love to have quest areas all to myself, my wife, and a handful of guildies. Others prefer the world to “feel alive,” and they enjoy finding new players to group with.