I think there is like one guild on the US servers that is actively trying to speed clear faster than guilds in other countries doing the same. To my knowledge these speed clear guilds that exist are trying to beat the Chinese guilds, who have a lockdown on speed clears - obviously their ‘buy-a-boon’ giving them an unfair advantage.
The rest of the guilds are a lot more, dare I say, relaxed. The Naxx clearing guilds are doing it in like 4 hours or taking two days to do it depending on wipes. They aren’t trying for the sub 1.5 hr speed clears.
Chronoboons weren’t about helping raid progression per say, they were implemented more to allow people to play the game instead of boon-logging and decrease purge-griefing as well. Most people don’t make tickets/forum post because they wiped, but will largely do so when griefed.
The side effect was the influence on raid progression. Yes, allowing guild to save them when struggling. Or to allow for power speed clearing timed stuff too. These have enhanced the game, not detracted from it.
A bigger side effect became how they help Classic Era endure. It’s not about parses for the rest of the guilds here. We use them when we’re SHORT ON PEOPLE and lack sufficient numbers to down an encounter. It’s not just my guild, other guilds that want to survive have adopted the Invest-in-People philosophy now. It takes A LOT to finally give up on a player.
Players that were readily discarded in other incarnations of the game, are now worked with on levels largely not seen before to help them. It’s a whole different ballgame now. This is a good thing.
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World buffs dropped regularly during original Vanilla WoW. During Classic Vanilla they dropped like clockwork - this is why the meme ‘late’ was born. During Classic Era WoW we’re lucky to get them multiple times A WEEK. On my previous cluster, we dropped them 1/month.
In order to drop world buffs now, players have to actively level alts.
Classic Era is not SoM.
Classic Era is not Retail.
Classic Era is not Classic the Burning Crusade (at release or now).
There never were bots here.
There never were boosters here.
There never were campers here.
There is no super economy here to buy discount BoE’s and enchants to power up.
Classic Era is the most brutal environment to level up a character in the history of WoW.
Right now that is the principle way we are acquiring world buffs, mainly alts, rarely new players.
Blizzard planned for people to get this buff regularly as other people leveled up and played thru the game/raided. That is why there is no limitation on receiving the buff. You aren’t flagged for it and can never receive it again. Nor is it player_only buff. It hits everyone in range. This is all intentional.
What they didn’t plan on was the game to be ‘self contained’ and expansion-LESS like Classic Era is.
Blizzard was in direct competition with Everquest, released 5 years before WoW. By the time of WoW’s release in Nov 2004, Everquest had released 8 expansions.
Yes. You read that correctly. The game Blizzard was trying to out-do had already release EIGHT EXPANSIONS by the time WoW was on shelves.
At the time of Wow’s release, I was an active game developer working on a CRP title in direct competition with Diablo and the forthcoming Diablo II. We were very aware of what their Blizz’s intentions were with WoW at release.
Not just from a developer point of view, but even investors knew WoW as emulating Everquests model. Because of course they were, EQ was literally blowing up the scene and making ‘mad money’ for the time. It was the first real MMO to explode on such a level.
You didn’t do that, people didn’t want to give you development money.
CASE IN POINT
This is why the CRPG I was working on was planned and released as ‘episodic’. Original game release and then 5 expansions.