WoW subscriptions

[Joe O'Malley]

I was curious if one of the gaming illuminati out there had been following WoW subscriptions since Will of the Lich King came out.

I had read somewhere that Blizzard had a big profit reduction fourth quarter last year. I wondered how that was carrying forward.

I've been a player of WoW since it came out, but lately have been feeling pretty meh. Lots of the differentiation is gone. We don't have a lot of customized appearance stuff any more. The leveling was very easy, and my guild cleared everything on 10-and 25 man the first week except for 2 and 3-drake Sart.

Now I look at the patch notes for Ulduar and it just doesn't seem appealing. Riding around in buggies that scale with my gear? It seems to me that WoW has become more of a twitch-fest than a strategic game teaming game.

On my server (and apparently others) a lot of raiders are dropping off. So I was curious what the overall public response to these changes has been? Has it in fact increased appeal to casual players, or has it "dumbed down" the game too much and caused players to start leaving in significant numbers?

Caveat-I'm not subscribing anything to the profit drop in Q4 last year. With the economy tanking LOTS of people, I suspect, have gone throguh their credit card statements and canceled services they don't use. The gym they haven't seen in a year, the game they haven't played for six months, all that stuff probably got cut from a lot of households. I'm not sure at all that a drop in Q4 earnings would have been reflective of the actual player base versus the inactive base.

[Jag]

On my server (and apparently others) a lot of raiders are dropping off. So I was curious what the overall public response to these changes has been? Has it in fact increased appeal to casual players, or has it "dumbed down" the game too much and caused players to start leaving in significant numbers?

The raider base is dropping because the entire endgame can be farmed, in one night, on hard mode. So that's roughly 4 hours of 'endgame' and nothing to do until the next week. This is where we find ourselves.

Maybe Uldar will be different. I suspect it will since Blizz acknowledged that Wrath was too easy. So many raiders will come back, some won't.

[RobotPants]

We don't have a lot of customized appearance stuff any more.

What?

[intruder]

What?

Armor sets suck dick in WoTLK.
Blues and epix look the same. My rogue looks like a goddamn undead viking. The only way to see if it's a warrior or deathknight in epix is the glowing eyes of the dk character and / or the rune bar on their portrait.
My lock looks like a S&M freak with those helmets that look like leather masks (so ugly that I disabled show helm).
In vanilla you saw when some guild had downed bosses in MC, BWL, AQ40, ZG and Naxx by THE LOOKS of their armor while idling in Org. In WoTLK you see tier items mostly at shoulders for certain classes (priest, lock, mage). Others like rogues even lack that. Only item for rogue is helmet which gives us glowing eyes. Rest looks like items out of heroics or lvl 80 quest rewards.

Ulduar boss models save the end boss + locations are ripped out of WoTLK existing textures (Freya = Sholozar basin quest giver = Maiden of Grief in HOS = Maiden in Kara...), Ulduar architecture = HOS = HOL = Stormpeaks questing area. Vehicles in Udluar = WG vehicles = SoA vehicles...

Recycling is fine and dandy but for once I would like to see some new models and textures. Did they fire all the art department at Blizzard and replaced them with monkeys that do CTRL + C, CTRL + V the whole day?

[RobotPants]

That's all well and good, but none of that has anything to do with "customization". Plus, saying that there's no new art in WotLK is just nuts. Yes, they do reuse tons of stuff in the expansion, but it's all new and only reused from within itself. Well, T7 is a recolor of T3, but that's probably the overall best looking gear in the game. Other than that, pretty much everything is new.

[mystery]

Will of the Lich King

Will of the Lich King is the lesser known expansion with the new classes "Probate Officer" and "Witness".

[Soapyfrog]

Our guild is just struggling through the first bosses in Naxx 10 man. I'd say Blizzard fricking nailed Northrend, difficulty-wise.

The "raiders" should leave the game and not look back. I hear EQ2 is still running.

[Gunmetal]

Recycling is fine and dandy but for once I would like to see some new models and textures. Did they fire all the art department at Blizzard and replaced them with monkeys that do CTRL + C, CTRL + V the whole day?

Yes, I long for the days of unique models for raid dungeons. I remember the first time I saw Lucifron and Gehennas and Shazzrah! And who could forget Sulfuron Harbringer or Major Domo!

I didn't think Blizzard could top it, but then we fought Razorgore. And then Vaelstrasz, Ebonroc, Flamegor and Firemaw.

I also wish they hadn't fired the art department at Blizzard and replaced them with monkeys that do CTRL + C, CTRL + V the whole day!

[Athryn]

They reused Tier 3 because a lot of people requested that they do so, actually.

So that's roughly 4 hours of 'endgame' and nothing to do until the next week. This is where we find ourselves.

Maybe if you're a bunch of hyped up on caffiene junkies that don't stop to pee and/or constantly crack the whip to keep your raid group in line. I know, my guild probably sucks because we "only" have 2D down, but when you have a group of older adults raiding, people actually like to stop and stretch their legs and swap players in and out for bosses. So it takes us 4 days to clear our content. ^_^

[intruder]

They reused Tier 3 because a lot of people requested that they do so, actually.

Ok fine but did people love Maiden in Karazhan so much that she had to be put into Halls of Stone and now into Ulduar?!? Come to think of I think it's the same model from back in Ulduman as well (The one that comes when you combine the scepter and stick it into the little village model! Same model in 4 dungeons (2 of them raid dungeons). How about putting a pink box in from now on and slapping the female boss name on it?

[Menzo]

QQ moar?

If you don't like it, quit playing. Why do you care if other people like it?

Sounds to me like you've already decided to quit playing and just want some sort of outside approval to do so.

Here it is: you are approved to stop playing WoW. Until Ulduar. Then you have to play for another month, at which time you will complain that your ultra-hardcore guild has finished all the content and you don't understand why anyone else wants to play now.

[Athryn]

Ok fine but did people love Maiden in Karazhan so much that she had to be put into Halls of Stone and now into Ulduar?!? Come to think of I think it's the same model from back in Ulduman as well (The one that comes when you combine the scepter and stick it into the little village model! Same model in 4 dungeons (2 of them raid dungeons). How about putting a pink box in from now on and slapping the female boss name on it?

You forgot Myzrael (http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=2755).

Freya (http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/february/ulduar/ss4.jpg) is not the same model, nor is it the same model as her avatar. (http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=27801)

I would crack a comment about not getting out enough to be able to tell the difference between female models, but that would be immature and petty of me.

[Supertanker]

I've only managed to make it into Naxx twice now. Blizz needs to slow down on the content releases; there is no way to keep up at this pace. If Ulduar requires at least T7-type gear, it is just going to block people from seeing it when they haven't had time to gear up.

[Tankero]

What? You do realize that Naxx, both 10 and 25 man... are pretty much puggable? You can walk in there with heroic-level gear, slap on some consumables from the AH, and clear the place in three hours.

Most middling to low-grade raiding guilds have been done with Naxx for the better part of a month, the only REAL challenge is OS 3d.

The first step, of course, is to get up on the lingo.

[RobotPants]

intruder, instead of listing the ones they've repeated, why don't you list the ones they haven't and see which list is bigger?

[Balasarius]

Hrm. Well, I have 2 80's, both in (mostly) T7 (alt) or T7.5 (main). We've cleared Naxx25 a few times, but have yet to kill Maly25 because vehicle combat is lame.

I've gotten a little bored of the game. I agree that the gear is too similar looking.

I think their content delivery is about right. Still amazed that Arthas won't be in the game until June or later.

[TheJare]

List of things I haven't killed yet on either of my two chars:

- Sarth with any drake(s) up
- Malygos
- Thaddius and above in 25man naxx

I'd love to be able to tell the "bored" raiders that it sucks to be them when I still have tons of stuff left to do in WotlK. However, my guild is having lots of unrest from lack of progress, and I'm sure it will vaporize when Ulduar comes out and most of the experienced players leave. In fact, it will vaporize when these experienced players realize what's going to happen.

[Soapyfrog]

So what game are all the "raiders" moving to, so I can avoid it like the plague?

[AndrewM]

I have yet to step into Naxx. I go through periodic bouts of severe burnout, plus I'm not in a real guild, so I'm going to have to PUG it, or try to fill a dead space in my friend's guild runs. I think my gear is decent shape now, thanks to the purchase of some absurd BoE items plus running some heroics. (Side note: it is a real pain to run heroics now.) My remaining barrier is that I need to read up on all the boss fights, plus take some notes. I've never raided before, so I feel like I should be prepared.

[Jon_Danger]

The raider base is dropping because the entire endgame can be farmed, in one night, on hard mode. So that's roughly 4 hours of 'endgame' and nothing to do until the next week. This is where we find ourselves.

Maybe Uldar will be different. I suspect it will since Blizz acknowledged that Wrath was too easy. So many raiders will come back, some won't.

I still pine for the good old days of getting in 2-3 chromagg attempts per night, while racing with the other guilds to finish up BWL and move to AQ.

Fun stuff, very challenging, and one hell of a time commitment but fun.

[intruder]

So what game are all the "raiders" moving to, so I can avoid it like the plague?

I hear "Aion: Tower of Eternity" mentioned a lot. Others plan to focus on Diablo 3 once it comes out.

For me there will be no other MMORPG apart from a Blizzard one so if WoW stops or there is no raiders / new content anymore I will restrict my online gaming activities to UT or TF2 like before and play single player again mainly until a new Blizzard MMO will come out.

[Supertanker]

What? You do realize that Naxx, both 10 and 25 man... are pretty much puggable? You can walk in there with heroic-level gear, slap on some consumables from the AH, and clear the place in three hours.

LFM Naxx 10, must be geared and know fights, link achievements.

Aside from those, I never see much pugging of anything. When my resto druid hit 80, it took five days in LFG to find a normal level 80 instance group. So now with my one UP run under the belt, ready for heroics, right?

[KMartin]

LFM Naxx 10, must be geared and know fights, link achievements.

Aside from those, I never see much pugging of anything. When my resto druid hit 80, it took five days in LFG to find a normal level 80 instance group. So now with my one UP run under the belt, ready for heroics, right?

On my server they pug 10N, 25N, Sarth and Malygos.

[AndrewM]

Aside from those, I never see much pugging of anything. When my resto druid hit 80, it took five days in LFG to find a normal level 80 instance group. So now with my one UP run under the belt, ready for heroics, right?

Normal level 80 instances are probably the hardest thing to find groups for, as people don't do them that many times before they move along to heroics. At this point, you are probably going to have to gear up for heroics using a combination of crafted gear, BoE drops bought on the AH, and rep gear. All of that can be acquired via solo play. Then you will have to find heroic groups, which in my experience can be tough, but you are a healer, not DPS, so if you are open to doing whatever you should be able to find groups easily.

[Athryn]

LFM Naxx 10, must be geared and know fights, link achievements.

Aside from those, I never see much pugging of anything. When my resto druid hit 80, it took five days in LFG to find a normal level 80 instance group. So now with my one UP run under the belt, ready for heroics, right?

Most people skip right to heroics, that's why. Which I think was a flaw, personally. Heck, I skipped straight to heroics from fresh 80 on my main, and that wasn't long after wrath was released. I know a lot of people hate the artificial barriers, but sometimes I do see how they're necessary.

[Jag]

Maybe if you're a bunch of hyped up on caffiene junkies that don't stop to pee and/or constantly crack the whip to keep your raid group in line. I know, my guild probably sucks because we "only" have 2D down, but when you have a group of older adults raiding, people actually like to stop and stretch their legs and swap players in and out for bosses. So it takes us 4 days to clear our content. ^_^

Sorry didn't mean to come off as elitist. We are actually an older, casual guild who just has a very strong player base that likes to fly through content. We've been around since WoW launch and also play other online games as a small community.

I'm 40, 2 kids/wife and a professional putting in long work hours. I only raid 4-5 hours a week but its enough to down every boss in Naxx, OS +3, Eye and Vault in one 4 hour session (my legs do get creaky though). Sometimes we do wipe on 3D and it will roll over to another night.

We used to be more hardcore, but went casual for Wrath. We also swap out people who need drops, but we do it on the fly. We employ the RADBAD loot method which speeds up runs. (Roll And Don't Be A Dick).

Edit: to be fair, we spent many nights doing nothing but wiping on 3D until we got it down to a 1-2 shot kill. That is the more hardcore facet of our guild.

[intruder]

intruder, instead of listing the ones they've repeated, why don't you list the ones they haven't and see which list is bigger?

Do you mean boss fights (abilities) or boss models?
WoTLK unique boss models (not existing outside the instance):
- CoT: Mal'Ganis
- UK: King
- AN: Gatekeeper
- HOL: Loken

From the top of my head that is all. Gatekeeper model might exist in some Scourge place in Northrend or Ghostlands.
The rest is based on models existing outside (though bigger in size) or straight out of the old Naxx.

[intruder]

On my server they pug 10N, 25N, Sarth and Malygos.

And VoA10 / VoA25 I assume.

Same on mine. EoE10 is mostly tank / healer only though.

[copet]

I've been a player of WoW since it came out, but lately have been feeling pretty meh.

You are only JUST feeling meh? I don't know how people do it ;)

[idrisz]

Do you mean boss fights (abilities) or boss models?
WoTLK unique boss models (not existing outside the instance):
- CoT: Mal'Ganis
- UK: King
- AN: Gatekeeper
- HOL: Loken

From the top of my head that is all. Gatekeeper model might exist in some Scourge place in Northrend or Ghostlands.
The rest is based on models existing outside (though bigger in size) or straight out of the old Naxx.

Pretty sure
Dreadlord model is just copying from the boss in Strat.

King is standard viking with some fluff added.

Gatekeeper is all the over the place in icecrown, not mention they reused the same model again for first boss in Old kingdom.

Loken on other hand is unique, but it's really nothing to gawk at.

[Athryn]

Loken on other hand is unique, but it's really nothing to gawk at.

there are 2 other NPCs that share his skin, the one titan that walks around in Dragonblight (who jumps over the break in the road ... cracks me up every time) and the Battlemaster in Wintergrasp. :p

[idrisz]

there are 2 other NPCs that share his skin, the one titan that walks around in Dragonblight (who jumps over the break in the road ... cracks me up every time) and the Battlemaster in Wintergrasp. :p

really? I never seen the battlemaster in wintergrasp(don't really do any pvp here).

[Skipper]

Joe, my guild falls into the category you are talking about with raiding. Although raiding is split into two nights (it's more like 5-6 hours of content) we still have fun the other nights. 10-man raids, alt raids, leveling, PvP, etc. I don't think anyone is worried we will be bored for the next six months. It's an MMO, there will be ebb and flow of content as things are released and then moved into patch schedule.

[Johan A]

So what game are all the "raiders" moving to, so I can avoid it like the plague?

Its called 'real life'.

I am a member of a really casual guild.. We never cleared sunwell, and only raid 2 nights a week.. We one or two-shotted every single boss in naxx at first visit, and only Malygos and Sartharion with 3d took more than an evening to get down.

Now WoW only have a raidlevel that can be pugged with retarded monkeys semi-afk. I mean, I play a main tank, and i can basically watch a video in another window when raiding.

[Athryn]

You might consider yourselves casual, but that's definitely not the average experience.

[Soapyfrog]

Yeah I know casual, and "never clearing Sunwell" is not casual. Casual is not quite clearing Karazahn before the 3.0 patch dropped, and never doing any 25 man content except pugs.

[RobotPants]

Its called 'real life'.

I am a member of a really casual guild.. We never cleared sunwell, and only raid 2 nights a week.. We one or two-shotted every single boss in naxx at first visit, and only Malygos and Sartharion with 3d took more than an evening to get down.

Now WoW only have a raidlevel that can be pugged with retarded monkeys semi-afk. I mean, I play a main tank, and i can basically watch a video in another window when raiding.

Go go hyperbole!

[Joe O'Malley]

Oh, my poor thread. How they have frayed you :-)

The original question was whether anyone knew any numbers for subscribers, and if they were rising or falling. Everything I mentioned after that was just a set of observances I'd made. I'll clarify those a bit. You've already read the main question, tho, so feel free to TLDR the rest.

-Yup, I'm one of those people who normally loves to raid. But I only raid 2-3 times a week. I have an alt in a guild that hasn't cleared naxx-10 yet. My main is in a guild that cleared all raid content (except 3-d OS, which took a few weeks) for 10 and 25-person raids the first week, in two days of raiding. Hardcore raiders aren't all jerks. They DO tend to be rather type-A, though. And raiding 2-3 times a week, I dunno how hard-core I really would be considered. Type-A, well, I'll give ya that one.

-Yup, I only got bored recently with WRATH of the Lich King. I've been bored before. Before BC came out I was a bit tired of the grind. Before Sunwell I was bored, and I was bored for a couple months before LK, mostly because my lock got nerfed all to hell before the expansion. The thing that gets my attention is that LK has only been out for three months, and I'm really not feeling that old eagerness for the Ulduar release. I am not a big fan of the more homogenous design philosophy that Blizzard has adopted, where all DPS classes do the same damage and where you don't really need anyone of a specific class to get through content (possible exception for 25-man Razuvius if you are going for immortal). I liked it when everyone was different, even if it made raid balancing harder. Now it's just a question of getting the DPS up, nothing else matters. Yawn. It's also less strategic and feels more like a video game. If I wanted to play Super Mario, I'd have bought THAT game. All this running and jumping and twitchy play, feh.

-A lot of sidetracking has happened over my comment about differentiation. One of the pleasures I have in WoW is that my wife plays casually. We've been leveling in Azeroth lately. It's very interesting and varied and pretty, with forests, marshes, plains, swamps, deserts, you name it. No real underwater adventuring, but hey, that's probably next expansion. Elves and their architecture are very distinctive. Every race is like that, except for the gnomes, who use dwarf architecture. Dranae and blood elves brought their own unique looks with them for BC. But what we see in LK is just transplanted architecture from Azeroth for the player bases. There should be tons of old Nerubian architecture around. But we see the same orc-and-human buildup for most (not all, to be fair. Especially in Icecrown, which is all very LotR) stuff. In terms of character art, they didn't even differentiate the female taunken models from female tauren. So far as terrain goes, some of it is pretty neat, but just as BC had too much dreary wasteland for me Northrend is too dreary and ice-filled. Yes, It's polar. It's cold. Bring on more temperate zones, sez I. if I wanted to see dreary in the middle of winter I just need to look out a window. Wanna impress me? Have WoW have seasons, and make them OPPOSITE the season I'm having. So I can have a nice sunny summer in the middle of winter or a cold, crisp winter day when I'm sweltering in July.

-Differentiation: It was kind of a pain schlepping down to the altar in Shadowmoon every four days to make my cloth, but it was a unique thing. And tailoring in BC rocked. Now they have peanut-buttered the value of most gear for different classes, and none of it is really worth making at all if you have access to raiding or regular heroics. It also does not appeal to me when Blizz takes combos that were painful to develop but needed for the endgame, like tailoring/enchanting and then changes it so you really should swap professions. A little consistency would be nice.

Heh. Anyone reading this would think I hated WoW. You'd be dead wrong. but most of the joy I get from it nowadays, like always, is in the people I play with. Seeing all the old locks flee their class and the healers taking over (affliction locking these days is basically the same game as being a healer. Most of the old raiding locks on my server have moved to other classes), seeing people give up with crafting because it's obsolete because of easily-obtained superior PvE gear, seeing people lose interest because Blizz saw fit to introduce radical gameplay changes to their classes, these things reduce the fun I have by hurting the base of people I play with. I wish Blizz would build on what they had instead of re-inventing it. It didn't work for Star Wars online. I'm not sure why they think it would work here.

[RobotPants]

Dude, if you only wanted subscription numbers, you derailed your own thread in the OP and even further in that post right there. :)

On the subject of crafted gear, it's far better now than it was. You say it's all obsoltete due to the fact that you can get better stuff in raids. Well, yeah, but that's always been the case. But with the way it's set up now, you can gear yourself for those raids far more easily and then get upgrades on the runs if you get the chance. So instead of wearing crappy gear until you get some lucky rolls, you can actually be competetive.

[Swordchucks]

I'm pretty sure that some people don't know what "casual" means. If your guild is clearing Naxx25 in under 3 hours... you're not casual. You might not be "total leet hardcore!1!", but you're not casual.

The existing content IS getting progressively easier, but I'd wager that the bulk of 80s haven't finished with the raid content yet.

[Athryn]

Oh, my poor thread. How they have frayed you :-)

The original question was whether anyone knew any numbers for subscribers, and if they were rising or falling.

They haven't released anything since they topped 11 million last autumn. My own anecdotal experience has seen a lot of people coming back, rather than quitting. I only know of one person in my guild who canceled their account since Wrath came out, and it was for financial reasons, not play reasons.


Your posts really just sound like you're looking for validation/support in quitting Wow. Go ahead, do it, it's just a game. You don't need anyone to hold your hand and tell you that it's ok to quit, if you're bored and/or not having fun, go play other games, there are a ton of them out there.

[Creole Ned]

Anecdotal evidence for subscription numbers is meaningless. My example (multiple guildmates quitting in the last month) easily cancels out Athryn's "more are coming back".

The last official numbers put the game at 11.5 million players as of December 23, 2008 (http://www.blizzard.com/us/press/081121.html). My guess is that it is growing and continuing to grow. Blizzard will no doubt be trumpeting 12 million+ players before 2009 is out. When will the game actually start contracting and see a net loss of players? I couldn't say, but I suspect it will be years from now at the earliest.

[Pogo]

I'm pretty sure that some people don't know what "casual" means. If your guild is clearing Naxx25 in under 3 hours... you're not casual. You might not be "total leet hardcore!1!", but you're not casual.

OH DOOD my guild tootally clered Hyjal, SSC, and Black temple and it only took like 5 hours a week total WoW raiding is totally casual man.

[Jag]

I think Wrath helped usher in a new type of raider that isn't defined by a simple perjorative statement. I'll take a shot, but don't eviscerate me for these definitions. I'm being somewhat tongue in cheek with it:

Casual: Someone who plays for fun, doesn't spend hours and hours raiding or worries about a 1 dps upgrade. Anyone can come play! Spec and gear my be questionable.

Hardcore: Someone who researches strats, theorycrafts, min/maxes gear/specs and spends hours raiding over many nights. Uses poopsocks and caffeine straws to assist in raiding. Only the most proven, dedicated are allowed to raid.

Casualcore: Someone who researches strats, mix/maxes gear/specs but doesn't spend much time raiding. Very selective who they raid with to ensure shorter raid times.

[AaronSofaer]

I'm pretty sure that some people don't know what "casual" means. If your guild is clearing Naxx25 in under 3 hours... you're not casual. You might not be "total leet hardcore!1!", but you're not casual.


Really? I think that someone who raids 5 hours a week is casual, regardless of his skill level. If a Guild clears all PvE content on Heroic in 5 hours split across two nights, and then doesn't raid till the next week, that seems like a very casual raiding schedule to me.

Heck, I have friends that do that, and they don't even bring consumables to raids, and they go AFK during trash if they have to, and there aren't attendance requirements.

How is that not casual?

[mystery]

How is that not casual?

Hey, if you Raid at all, in my mind, you're not casual.

I play maybe 1-2 hours a day. And by "play", I mean: Log in for 10-15 minutes, run a few quests or check my auctions, log off.

I'm a casual player. What you describe is someone that's way beyond me in time commitment.

[Athryn]

Time played doesn't correlate to level of hardcoredness. Attitude towards the content that you're doing does. Many people refuse to acknowledge themselves as being hardcore because they view the word as a pejorative.

It is ok to be hardcore, guys, it's not necessarily a bad thing. It mainly means that you like to raid. :p

[fuzzyslug]

But I only raid 2-3 times a week.

I'm sorry "only" and "raid 2-3 times a week" are words that are not allowed together.

[Pogo]

Time played doesn't correlate to level of hardcoredness.

I think the adjective encompassing both sides would be catassedness.

[Johan A]

I'm pretty sure that some people don't know what "casual" means. If your guild is clearing Naxx25 in under 3 hours... you're not casual. You might not be "total leet hardcore!1!", but you're not casual.

The existing content IS getting progressively easier, but I'd wager that the bulk of 80s haven't finished with the raid content yet.

Is casual "lack of skill" or is casual "not playing much"?

I still maintain that casual is "not playing much", and if you play 1 or maybe 2 evenings in a week on average, then you are a casual player. In my mind, if you log in to wow every day, you are a rather hardcore addict.

[intruder]

Is casual "lack of skill" or is casual "not playing much"?

I still maintain that casual is "not playing much", and if you play 1 or maybe 2 evenings in a week on average, then you are a casual player. In my mind, if you log in to wow every day, you are a rather hardcore addict.

Hm well we raid 2 times a week from like 21:00 to 0:00 or less and clear all 10 man content. So I guess we are casual NOW (we clared up to Huhu in AQ40 and a lot of my guild did SWP before expansion).

However we lack people so we started to play with what is online and that was 8 people this week mainly.
So we cleared Naxx with 8 and got the achievement "Dedicated Few".
We also cleared 4H with 8 because no people even if it's not part of the achievement. We also did Sath with 8 and got "Less is more" and were close to do it for Malygos yesterday but we ran out of time so we got an additional DPSer from a guild with friends of us and did it.
In that regard I think we are pretty hardcore since most do these achievements decked out in 25 man gear.

Personally I'm playing a combat sword rogue which is said to lack dps and will get buffed in 3.1 yet I manage to be in the top 5 in 25 man PUGs and usually neck to neck with our 2 hunters in 10 man. Yesterday I was top dps on Kel again.
I would say I'm hardcore in that since my class is not as easy-mode as it was before.

So I guess I'm casual-hardcore then?

[Hunty]

So I guess I'm casual-hardcore then?

I don't know if you're being sarcastic mate, but two and a half paragraphs of epeen that jargon-heavy is about as a hardcore as it gets, in my experience. It's more about attitude than some arbitrary hours played per week stat.

I stopped playing WoW before WotLK came out, because the time investment was too severe - I was healing in 10-man and early 25 man raids and it was taking 2-3 hours twice a week, plus the organising before and after. I found it pretty exhausting, to be honest. I spent ages priming and optimising my gear and strategies, so I was hardcore in that sense I suppose, but ultimately it felt like work. So I stopped in favour of stuff I can just leave whenever I want without feeling like I let anybody down - I don't like the feeling of being beholden to people on the internet over a game.

[intruder]

I don't know if you're being sarcastic mate, but two and a half paragraphs of epeen that jargon-heavy is about as a hardcore as it gets, in my experience. It's more about attitude than some arbitrary hours played per week stat.

I was serious with my question.
However the part in bold is the essence it all boils down and quite frankly I have no idea since WoTLK.
Before hardcore attitude asked for a lot of time spent playing +skill / dedication to go the extra mile.

[Hunty]

Before hardcore attitude asked for a lot of time spent playing +skill / dedication to go the extra mile.

Well, I think there are elements of those to some extent, but most of what you need to have a 'hardcore attitude', does, from my experience, boil down to arrogance and self-interest - if you'll excuse the sweeping generalisation. Not really talking about anyone in particular here, just a lot of the people I came across from the upper echelons of the raiding game when I used to play.

[JM]

My guild appears to be dying, although we've gone through patches like this before.

As a guild we managed to get Illidan down before The Big Nerf, but never got very far in Sunwell post-nerf and didn't have a prayer before that. In WOTLK, Naxx was trivial after a month, and there's the one encounter that's still tough but everything else has been on farm for a long time. The guild is beginning to come apart at the seams and it seems to me that a lot of people are playing because they feel obliged to, not because they're truly enjoying it.

As for me, I've never been a consistently hardcore raider and have often taken long breaks from the game, but WOTLK killed WoW for me. In TBC, I levelled with a group of close friends and experienced all the instances and most of the content. In WOTLK, because I had to work I was "behind the curve" from the start and practically solo'd my way to 80, which felt like an incredible grind. By the time I got to 80 I'd seen 3 instances (all early 70s stuff) and my guild had already split into premade groups for Naxx runs. I played for a couple of weeks just questing and attempting to earn gold (which even with dailies didn't seem any quicker than at 70), and swiftly got bored. So, I quit.

Now I play a bit of WAR and mostly play non-MMOs; I keep an eye on WoW in the same way that I do with EVE, but there's nothing on the horizon to drag me back. It's partly because of it being "same old, same old" and partly because the social aspect has shrunk for me. I've played it for years and I guess it was always going to come to an end - I'm just amazed that more people don't feel the same way.

[intruder]

Well, I think there are elements of those to some extent, but most of what you need to have a 'hardcore attitude', does, from my experience, boil down to arrogance and self-interest - if you'll excuse the sweeping generalisation. Not really talking about anyone in particular here, just a lot of the people I came across from the upper echelons of the raiding game when I used to play.

I agree that this was / is correct concerning a lot of the top crop of raiders.
However our guild managed to stay free of this attitude so far and I hope you can imagine how much fun it is to go to bosses with these people.
For that I thank Blizzard for 10 man raiding because I can hardly see that happen with 25 people.
We can group loot roll everything and besides 2-3 accidents (someone rolled for off-spec because he thought main has it already) everyone is happy. Even in those cases offers to ask GMs to give the loot to the main specc person were made and politely rejected since everyone knows shit can happen. No one is looking to get a minor upgrade if he / she knows someone else could benefit much more from it yet we managed to have mostly everything from Naxx and are ready to step into Ulduar.

It's unbelieveable how much time you can save by not having to use master loot...

[Joe O'Malley]

Okays, a couple more responses:

1) I'm not loking to quit the game, so don't need validation. I AM thinking of changing my focus to be a bit more casual, though. This super gung-ho "best of the best of the best" crapola that is always spouted to egg people on is old for me now. It has a distinctly silly ring to it when it's repeated constantly throughout a raid. I also don't see it applied when I'm driving around in a cartoon tank that uses my own stats to dertermine how tough it is. I can only seem to take that so seriously at the moment. That may change once I'm in the driver's seat, tho.

2) Casual vs. hardcore. I think hardcore is more of a mentaility than a playtime requirement. Ya, my guild is only raiding around 4 hours a week now, but that's all the raiding they CAN do. There's nowhere else to (profitably) raid once we've cleared everything. People will organize 10-man runs for people who want them, but those aren't on the guild raiding schedule now. It doesn't make them casual because they only raid 4 hours a week right now. Likewise, I've known very serious-minded folks in more casual guilds who are always on their game. Their guild might not be progression-oriented, but they certainly are.

3) Yes, I surrender on the original purpose of this thread, mainly because I keep derailing it myself :-)

[Gordon Cameron]

If you don't like it, quit playing. Why do you care if other people like it?

This is a gaming discussion board. It doesn't seem to me inappropriate to use it to discuss why one doesn't like a given game or why one would like to see it changed.

[Swordchucks]

Perhaps "casual" is a poor word choice. When I think casual, I think of someone who consistently players a bit here and there (actual hours is relatively irrelevant) without having a heavy focus on in-game progression. A casual player is there to have fun and enjoy the ride as they go and probably doesn't have their eye on "winning the game" as it were. Wrath has made raiding open to these people in the form of 10-man raids (for the most part), but they're likely not good at it because of a less focused attitude and insufficient dedication. They'll get there, just more slowly.

I guess the opposite of this is "progression oriented". When I think of this type of person, I think of someone that has some (in-game) goal in mind with their play and takes steps to reach it. This usually translates to more play time than the casual person (but not always... the casual could spend six hours a day RPing or something).

Now, when I see someone claiming that they are "casual" at the same time that they are clearing all of the 25-man content in a few hours, I don't think their definition of casual matches up with mine. At the least, the attitude taken to getting to that point in progression was not casual.

If you've got a perfect storm of casual people that also happen to be inherently skilled and talented and can blow through raids like they're not even there, more power to you. It's just not what I'm used to seeing.

[Joe O'Malley]

Perhaps "casual" is a poor word choice. When I think casual, I think of someone who consistently players a bit here and there (actual hours is relatively irrelevant) without having a heavy focus on in-game progression. A casual player is there to have fun and enjoy the ride as they go and probably doesn't have their eye on "winning the game" as it were. Wrath has made raiding open to these people in the form of 10-man raids (for the most part), but they're likely not good at it because of a less focused attitude and insufficient dedication. They'll get there, just more slowly.

I guess the opposite of this is "progression oriented". When I think of this type of person, I think of someone that has some (in-game) goal in mind with their play and takes steps to reach it. This usually translates to more play time than the casual person (but not always... the casual could spend six hours a day RPing or something).

Now, when I see someone claiming that they are "casual" at the same time that they are clearing all of the 25-man content in a few hours, I don't think their definition of casual matches up with mine. At the least, the attitude taken to getting to that point in progression was not casual.

If you've got a perfect storm of casual people that also happen to be inherently skilled and talented and can blow through raids like they're not even there, more power to you. It's just not what I'm used to seeing.


That's not bad. I have known a bunch of people that play WAY more than I do, but no one would ever call them "hardcore." These folks log on to chat with friends, farm, and generally tool around. WoW is about as stressful or intense to them as playing online blackjack with funny money. They may not have the tip-top gear, but they are often pretty fabulously wealthy. Some of these guys have 50k+ gold. I'm lucky to remain solvent between trying to skill up, repair and replensih raid consumables some weeks, just because I run about 4 dailies a day (most days) and raid a night or two per week.

Someone (sorry, didn't catch the name) mentioned crafting in BC was outmoded by raid gear. That was true for a while, but then when the crafted gear that used hearts of Darkness came out it was better than anything right through BT. Seeing as most guilds never even finished BT (or only after the last big patch where the classes got buffed and the bosses got nerfed) that was pretty serious gear you could make. There are a couple of exceptions in LK, but mostly there just doesn't seem to be a compelling argument right now for maxxing out crafting skillz. We'll see if that changes with the new patch.

[jpinard]

Can anyone explain some of this elite stuff to me? I play when I can with my Mom. What is all this tier stuff, and why does someone need to "keep up" when Blizzard releases new content? It seems like the only real benefit is for PvP, otherwise... why spend all that time just do keep doing the same content ad infinitum?

[Griddle]

Can anyone explain some of this elite stuff to me? I play when I can with my Mom. What is all this tier stuff, and why does someone need to "keep up" when Blizzard releases new content? It seems like the only real benefit is for PvP, otherwise... why spend all that time just do keep doing the same content ad infinitum?

Tier refers to armor sets from raid dungeons, and keeping up refers to folks that rush up to maximum level so they can go into said raid dungeons and kill the same dudes over and over every week so they can get the good armor and stuff. Holy run-on sentence batman. The folks left behind to level at their own pace miss out on killing the bosses first, this bothers some folks.

[Soapyfrog]

Yes, and will "kill the game" according to people I know.

[AaronSofaer]

What is all this tier stuff,

It refers to the different sets of armor. Tier 4 was Karazhan/Magtheridon/Gruul, T5 was Serpentshire Cavern/Tempest Keep, T6 was Mount Hyjal/Black Temple, T6.5 was Sunwell, T7 is Naxx 10man, and T7.5 is Naxx 25man.

It also refers to the general item level found in those dungeons; Torch of Holy Fire, a drop from Naxx 25man, might be described as a "T7.5 weapon", despite not actually being a Tier armor piece.

Actual Tier armor pieces have set bonuses. Sometimes useful ones (or very useful ones).


and why does someone need to "keep up" when Blizzard releases new content?

In a general sense, if you are behind the curve on gear more than a tier or half a tier, it will make it harder to find groups for content you have not already seen. When Ulduar comes out, those who have not gotten gear from at least Naxx 10man will probably be unable to find groups that will take them to Ulduar, whether 10man or 25man.

In consequence, it is important for people who like seeing the different fights, killing the different bosses, and suchlike to keep their gear at a high enough level to pull their weight in the next set of dungeons. This does not necessarily mean farming instances for months; one or two runs might get someone the key gear pieces they need, and they can get the rest from solo or 5-man play. Or they could get unlucky with drops and get nothing but Emblems, which are tokens that can be turned in for various pieces of gear.

It seems like the only real benefit is for PvP

Very few people use significant amounts of PvE gear in PvP, aside from weapons, unless they are plate wearers or Rogues. (Most DKs I know run with 2- or 3-piece Valorous, but certainly no Priests do).


, otherwise... why spend all that time just do keep doing the same content ad infinitum?

Because we enjoy it in and of itself. If I didn't have fun raiding, I wouldn't log in to raid.

[Marcin]

why spend all that time just do keep doing the same content ad infinitum?

I think you may be hitting close to the crux of the whole hardcore vs. casual thing here. :P

[Adam B]

Someday -- someday! -- we'll have a WoW thread that doesn't turn normal QT3ers into spastic WoW forum monkeys. And the trolls will stay out of the thread, since it doesn't concern them. And we'll have a real discussion, instead of one that's been rehashed every month or so since goddam EQ came out.

It will be a glorious day.

[Athryn]

Someday -- someday! -- we'll have a WoW thread that doesn't turn normal QT3ers into spastic WoW forum monkeys. And the trolls will stay out of the thread, since it doesn't concern them. And we'll have a real discussion, instead of one that's been rehashed every month or so since goddam EQ came out.

It will be a glorious day.

Marcin actually plays Wow.

[Adam B]

When did I say he was the one trolling?

[Aeon221]

Can anyone explain some of this elite stuff to me? I play when I can with my Mom. What is all this tier stuff, and why does someone need to "keep up" when Blizzard releases new content? It seems like the only real benefit is for PvP, otherwise... why spend all that time just do keep doing the same content ad infinitum?

Your mom plays WoW?

I'm guessing you're in your thirties or early forties (own home, little kids coming over to play, frog bop, married... I have a weird memory, don't ask), which would make her, what, sixty five? Seventy?

How does she manage?

[Steel_Wind]

I think you may be hitting close to the crux of the whole hardcore vs. casual thing here. :P

Nah. It's not so easy to run that down as a dividing line right now.

Whatever the case, I think it is fair to say that the design decisions Blizzard has made in terms of the ease and accessibility of end game raiding are now having consequences in many guilds.

Some of those consequences may be beneficial and are adding users. That's not my experience, but I accept that may be happening. Wonderful for Blizzard. Go get em. Fill yer boots.

But quite clearly, some of those consequences are not beneficial. The game is at the stage in my own guild where we a lot of people - healers, in particular - who just don't care enough to bother with showing up to 25 mans now. They are done playing.

We have 3D OS left to do and 25 man Maly has never been put down all the way. Naxx in every shape and form has been farmed well past the point of boredom.

A large percentage of my guild simply does not care anymore. 30%, now closing in on 40% of the main raiders in the guild just are not showing up or playing at all.

The problem? They are bored. That's it; that's all.

Ulduar will bring some of them back, and some of them won't be. The whole cycle will beign anew when Ulduar is on farm, too.

One thing that does annoy me in all of this is the idea that 10 man and 25 man raids using essentially the same graphic content is really somehow "different" in ways that engage the player meaningfully. That adding some difficulty level to a boss fight adds greatly in replayability.

It doesn't.

Sure, it's better than having no option for it at all. I agree entirely on that point. So, it probably does not hurt....much.

But this "extra" 25 man content and multiple diffculty levels is not the same as adding a whole new raid and it's not even remotely close.

Anyways, I don't really care. All I know is that I like the people in my guild and have for the past 12 months. But the game is now at the point where its no fun for me anymore. That's not my guild's fault; it's not my fault.

It's Blizzard's fault. There may well be more money in it for them given their current design. But the paucity of end-game content that came with WotLK? I'm at now at the point where I am done with WoW.

My wife - a guild officer and hardcore WoW player for 3.5 years straight quit playing in early January for the same reason. So yes, there are real consequences to the design decisions Blizzard has made. They may well be better for them in terms of overall numbers, but to suggest there are not hardcore players who have turned away from the game because of Blizzard's raid design in WotlK is a big... glurk http://www.lowchensaustralia.com/names/ostrich.gif

[Joe M.]

How does she manage?

Have you played WoW lately?

Oh, and I actually like the more casual-friendly stuff. I spend maybe 5 hours per week raiding, and have way more time to devote to other games. For a few years it felt like I did nothing gaming-wise other than grind out raid instances or farm stuff for grinding out raid instances, which was fine, but to this day I'm still rediscovering "new" games from that "lost period".

[Joe O'Malley]

Pshaw. It's not that complicated. It's just like most other games, where you try to get that next skill up, reach that next age, get that next level. The thing with a game like WoW is that there is of necessity a level cap. Once you max out your level really the only way to get more powerful is with gear upgrades. The best gear, historically, is in places where you need a lot of friends to raid successfully. And when I say "raid successfully" it doesn't mean you clean the place out. Most guilds will try to clear out a raid instance (or dungeon, if you will) as quickly as possible, but generally only advance one boss or two at a time, sometimes with weeks between successful progression between bosses. Once they clear one dungeon, then they move on to the next harder dungeon, using the gear they grabbed while raiding the first place to make them strong enough for the new content.

"The grind" is the awful, tedious repeat adventuring that forms the backbone of most of these games. daily quests for reputation with different factions, or quests that are just boring. I personally don't know anyone who thinks it is particularly fun to go find 10 boxes of stuff to complete a quest, for instance. some of it is pretty cool, at least in my eyes. I like the storyline stuff. There's never enough of it, but I do like it.

[Joe O'Malley]

Nah. It's not so easy to run that down as a dividing line right now.

Whatever the case, I think it is fair to say that the design decisions Blizzard has made in terms of the ease and accessibility of end game raiding are now having consequences in many guilds.

Some of those consequences may be beneficial and are adding users. That's not my experience, but I accept that may be happening. Wonderful for Blizzard. Go get em. Fill yer boots.

But quite clearly, some of those consequences are not beneficial. The game is at the stage in my own guild where we a lot of people - healers, in particular - who just don't care enough to bother with showing up to 25 mans now. They are done playing.

We have 3D OS left to do and 25 man Maly has never been put down all the way. Naxx in every shape and form has been farmed well past the point of boredom.

A large percentage of my guild simply does not care anymore. 30%, now closing in on 40% of the main raiders in the guild just are not showing up or playing at all.

The problem? They are bored. That's it; that's all.

Ulduar will bring some of them back, and some of them won't be. The whole cycle will beign anew when Ulduar is on farm, too.

One thing that does annoy me in all of this is the idea that 10 man and 25 man raids using essentially the same graphic content is really somehow "different" in ways that engage the player meaningfully. That adding some difficulty level to a boss fight adds greatly in replayability.

It doesn't.

Sure, it's better than having no option for it at all. I agree entirely on that point. So, it probably does not hurt....much.

But this "extra" 25 man content and multiple diffculty levels is not the same as adding a whole new raid and it's not even remotely close.


Y'know, if they can make everythign 10-and-25 person capable, how much more work would it be to make them also be 40-man capable? I kind of miss the old "army" approach.

[Swordchucks]

Whatever the case, I think it is fair to say that the design decisions Blizzard has made in terms of the ease and accessibility of end game raiding are now having consequences in many guilds.

There are actually a whole bunch of decisions wrapped up into one that led to this situation and they go back to the flaws in TBC.

Back in TBC, anyone could hit level 70, just by cruising along. At 70, you then found yourself kind of lost. There was no clear "fresh 70" to "raiding 70" progression path open to most players. Without an already-geared guild that was willing to carry you through some content, you had to grind up several factions, obtain crafting materials, and run regular instances to get gear so that you could survive in Kara. That took what seemed like forever.

Once you'd done all of that, you could take on the first half of Karazhan for some 10-man loot. Around about Curator (half way), the difficulty level of the place took a dramatic spike. At this point, the progression curve led you to doing heroic instances for more rep, drops, and badges. You went and did that for a bit and now you were ready to finish up Kara.

Finally, you were ready for some real raid content... and many guilds couldn't make the jump from 1-2 10-man groups to a 25-man group.

So... they "fixed" that. In Wrath, you level up, running normal instances a little along the way. You hit 80, grab some cheap crafted gear, run a few level 80 regular instances, then start hitting the heroics. Several heroics later, you go run Naxx10 for a while, and you do fine. Contrary to what people espouse, there really are some skill checks in Naxx25. Just because it seems easy to veteran raiders doesn't mean that the majority of people attempting it can succeed at it.

The real problem isn't the accessability... it's that once you're done with Naxx, there's nowhere else to go. For whatever reason, they made the decision that Wrath would launch with only one tier of content instead of two (like TBC did). I've heard it mentioned that it was because they didn't want incidents with bugs like they had in TBC near launch in the higher tier content (which naturally didn't get as heavily tested in the beta). It's also possible that pushing Wrath out the door in time to compete with WAR caused it to be pushed back.

Whatever the case, what I hear about Ulduar seems to indicate that it's going to be a lot more challenging than Naxx. That's good. There are going to be a lot of people that won't be able to make the jump in terms of gear or skill. That's also fine. It's just that it would have changed the situation dramatically to have had Uldar in there at launch.

[Marcin]

Nah. It's not so easy to run that down as a dividing line right now.

No, but the willingness to put in the repetition needed to advance to the next bracket o' repetition (be it raiding, PvP'ing, crafting, or achievements) is certainly one type of separator.

I think Blizz's goal is to turn the highest percentage of their casuals into the hardcore (i.e. willing to put in the time), and they're doing quite well. I wasn't willing to gear up for anything in BC and waited until it got nerfed pre-Wrath to make regular visits to places like Kara, BT and ... actually I think that's it. I never even visited any of the time travel places.

But in Wrath I've already been to 3 heroics after hitting the level cap 2 or 3 weeks ago, and I expect the trend to continue as they're fast, fun, and were easy to gear up. At this point I don't see myself unsubscribing, as I am not seeing the wall in front of me as endgame raiding used to be.

[MonkeyPunky]

why spend all that time just do keep doing the same content ad infinitum?

I think you may be hitting close to the crux of the whole hardcore vs. casual thing here. :P

I think WoW from 1 -80 is like the campaign in Call of Duty4/WaW and endgame raiding is like playing the multiplayer matches.

Some people play the campaign, play some of the matches and are done. Others may have no interest in the campaign and just want to jump right into the multiplayer.

[AndrewM]

Some people play the campaign, play some of the matches and are done. Others may have no interest in the campaign and just want to jump right into the multiplayer.

Good analogy! But the difference is that in WoW, you have to do 100 hours of "the campaign" to be able to play "multiplayer".

[Griddle]

This, being my first MMO, seems that with this patch, more so than the others, the spreadsheet is showing through a lot more. As in, must reach this number in the DPS column to be able to kill boss X, withough X DPS, the raid will not beat enrage timer Y. Therefore gear level Z must be achieved. Maybe I'm just thinking about it too much.

[RobotPants]

I think you are. If anything, Wrath in general is far, far more relaxed in terms of gear requirements than pretty much everything prior. There are obviously comfort levels that guilds running raids like to reach, but that's not to say it's all that strict compared to pre-Wrath endgame.

[Griddle]

What I meant is that when I started playing, it was all "Woo, i hit things and they fall down, I'm doing it right!!!". Now, it's more "Must hit level cap, get Ilevel gear to run X dungeon to get more gear to run dungeon Y." The formula is showing through a bit more since I'm learning more.

[Aeon221]

Have you played WoW lately?

Oh, and I actually like the more casual-friendly stuff. I spend maybe 5 hours per week raiding, and have way more time to devote to other games. For a few years it felt like I did nothing gaming-wise other than grind out raid instances or farm stuff for grinding out raid instances, which was fine, but to this day I'm still rediscovering "new" games from that "lost period".

No, but I have seen screenshots. Looks more like a space ship than a video game.

[TheTrunkDr]

This, being my first MMO, seems that with this patch, more so than the others, the spreadsheet is showing through a lot more. As in, must reach this number in the DPS column to be able to kill boss X, withough X DPS, the raid will not beat enrage timer Y. Therefore gear level Z must be achieved. Maybe I'm just thinking about it too much.
It's about a billion times better than classic as anyone who was raiding the early 40 man content can attest. Months and months spent in MC only to be cockblocked 20 minutes into BWL requiring several more trips to MC. Vael was probably the biggest gear check ever as it was literally the only factor in that encounter, well, other than pure randomness on who got BA and when.

[Adam B]

It's about a billion times better than classic as anyone who was raiding the early 40 man content can attest. Months and months spent in MC only to be cockblocked 20 minutes into BWL requiring several more trips to MC. Vael was probably the biggest gear check ever as it was literally the only factor in that encounter, well, other than pure randomness on who got BA and when.

Good lord, ain't that the truth.

[Lum]

From everything I'm hearing from testers and seeing on MMO champion, Ulduar won't just be a step up from current WOTLK raiding, it will be a massive difficulty jump - some of the encounters will be pretty severe gear checks, from the sound of things (I don't think anyone will be whining that Hodir is too easy...)

[Athryn]

From everything I'm hearing from testers and seeing on MMO champion, Ulduar won't just be a step up from current WOTLK raiding, it will be a massive difficulty jump - some of the encounters will be pretty severe gear checks, from the sound of things.

Yeah but the first boss encounter thing sounds like a riot. I hate Malygos, but I lurves me some Wintergrasp.

You can load yourself into the catapult and shoot over the wall!

[Mark Asher]

My wife - a guild officer and hardcore WoW player for 3.5 years straight quit playing in early January for the same reason. So yes, there are real consequences to the design decisions Blizzard has made. They may well be better for them in terms of overall numbers, but to suggest there are not hardcore players who have turned away from the game because of Blizzard's raid design

I'm not sure about this, but I believe Blizzard looked at data that showed the majority of players didn't do much raiding, so the idea of making raid content more accessible is probably a sound one.

There are always going to be hardcore players who don't like seeing the game made easier for the bulk of the players, but who do you cater to? The small percentage or the larger percentage? I recently talked to a long time EQ player who lamented the removal of 72 man raids, the addition of corpse summoners (meaning no more corpse runs), etc. He wanted the game to be harder, and EQ was a lot harsher than WoW ever was.

[Steel_Wind]

There are always going to be hardcore players who don't like seeing the game made easier for the bulk of the players, but who do you cater to?

That's not it. That's not the problem. The problem isn't that the content the game shipped with is "too easy"...though I do think they went a little too far on the ease and accessbility factor.

The problem is as Swordchucks comments above:

The real problem isn't the accessability... it's that once you're done with Naxx, there's nowhere else to go. For whatever reason, they made the decision that Wrath would launch with only one tier of content instead of two (like TBC did).

That's the problem. That's why hardcore players are quitting the game. Right there.

I'll bet you a sack of loonies the churn results for players of WoW have seen a relatively sharp increase in loss of hardcore players in the first quarter of 2009. What I am seeing in my own guild and server can't be an isolated incident.

Those churn numbers may still be overall positive for Blizzard. If that's the result, I won't disagree with it. I won't even bang the drum and predict dire overall consequences for Blizzard.

But when you are losing hardcore longtime players who were addicted to your game...you did *something* that is having consequences.

[Swordchucks]

But when you are losing hardcore longtime players who were addicted to your game...you did *something* that is having consequences.

I wonder about those consequences, though. Back around the end of TBC, you used to hear numbers about percentages of players that had done xyz, and the T5+ raiding stuff was always a very small percent (5% or so). If you're churning out a lot of that 5%... I don't know what the consequence is in real terms.

If you trade one hardcore player for a series of casual players amounting to the same subscription money... you probably come out ahead in financial terms. Casual players tend not to use as much in the way of resources (instance servers, etc.) as hardcore players.

Is there some sort of attitude shift that comes about with this that is a problem? I honestly don't know.

[intruder]

I wonder about those consequences, though. Back around the end of TBC, you used to hear numbers about percentages of players that had done xyz, and the T5+ raiding stuff was always a very small percent (5% or so). If you're churning out a lot of that 5%... I don't know what the consequence is in real terms.

If you trade one hardcore player for a series of casual players amounting to the same subscription money... you probably come out ahead in financial terms. Casual players tend not to use as much in the way of resources (instance servers, etc.) as hardcore players.

Is there some sort of attitude shift that comes about with this that is a problem? I honestly don't know.


The theory is that once the hardcore jump ship the "lesser" people have no one to look up to and strife to get better so they one day can idle in IF decked out in epix, too and people whispering them where they got "Helm of Awesomeness +1". So they too will leave the game in the long run.

This idea is out of the hardcore forums of various guilds bitching about easy-mode. Personally I have no idea whether this is true or not but it sounds at least possible.

[RobotPants]

But when you are losing hardcore longtime players who were addicted to your game...you did *something* that is having consequences.

Not that I disagree with the bulk of what you're saying, but don't you think it's possible that these long-time players are just getting burned out? I mean, Blizzard has made some pretty dramatic changes to the game since release, but it's still WoW at its core. I don't think it's too far-fetched to assume that no matter how different and new it becomes, some people just aren't as excited to log in anymore simply due to the fact that they've wringed as much enjoyment out of it as they can. Particularly with the really progression-minded folk out there, I can see the somewhat toned-down endgame we've got currently adding to the lack of desire. I mean, if the only reason you've been logging in for the past few years is to make your character better, what happens when that's no longer possible?

[Swordchucks]

The theory is that once the hardcore jump ship the "lesser" people have no one to look up to...

That... smacks of too much ego on the part of the "hardcore", to be honest. I have also heard that argument used (quite a lot) and it doesn't really seem likely to me. Maybe it does hold for a few people... but I don't necessarily feel it is a major factor.

From a purely business standpoint, I don't know that Blizzard loses out if the very top end raiders decide to leave. I guess the question really is "how important is that top end raider set to retaining the other 95% of the customer base?" I don't have the answer, but I suspect the answer isn't "very".

[AndrewM]

But when you are losing hardcore longtime players who were addicted to your game...you did *something* that is having consequences.

But are they going to lose them permanently? I'd bet that a large percentage of people who quit the game because they are bored from having all the current content on farm will come back once the new raids come out. If THE EASIEST RAID IN HISTORY!!! kept people occupied for 3-4 months, something with a bit more kick will probably keep them occupied another 3-4 months. If Blizzard can keep the content coming out every 8 months, they are still getting a decent amount of money out of the hardcore (who, as others have pointed out, likely constitute an infinitesimal portion of the player base anyways).

[Joe O'Malley]

Idle hands breed mischief. With all the LK content on farm status for the hardcores there seem to be two main camps. The "I'm not interested anymore so I'm leaving" camp is one of them. The other is the "We have to get super sharp for when Ulduar comes out." My guild is the latter. It makes for a much more drill-sergeant atmosphere.

[Fugitive]

Man, I never even made it out of Howling Fjord before burning out on WoW again. It was mostly for social reasons, though -- I had a lot of catching up to do to friends who'd been level 70 and highly-geared for ages, and by the time I finally got through all of the old-world and TBC content, it still felt like they were so far away and that by the time I got to 80 there'd still be a ton of raiding separating us and I'd be too late because they were on the verge of being done with it themselves.

I didn't realize that the WotLK raiding was actually so 'flat', but I'm not sure if it's enough to send me back at this point.

[Jag]

I actually started to burn out a little and considered taking a small break. But we just started working on Heroic Glory of the Raider which gives you a 310% speed black protodrake mount (which is going away next patch). I figured what the hell, may as well try for it since i'm not doing anything else.

The game is amazing like that, at least for me. Just when I think I'm done, I find something else challenging to do.

[Kid Socrates]

I can understand burnout, because I'm in it myself. I don't raid, but I've run some of the five-man instances. I'm into WoW for the lore, so I'm one of those dorks who rages over the portrayal of Illidan and Kael'thas in Burning Crusade. But because of that interest, I really want to see all of the instances, because there's some really neat stuff in there, ranging from architecture to quests to monster design to general HOLY SHIT moments.

But once I run it once, I don't really have any desire to go back and do it again. Doing every-other-day runs of Blackrock Depths back in vanilla WoW killed that desire for me. The occasional instance I run reminds me why I don't do it more -- the general noise and chaos puts me off of the game.

My guild, which is more a family-style guild than a progression guild, is still ready to take on Ulduar. I don't know if it's because everything's easier or they've been concentrating on it since Wrath launched, but I remember there was a huge rush for everyone to hit 80 so they could start raiding.

[Anaxagoras]

The theory is that once the hardcore jump ship the "lesser" people have no one to look up to

I agree with Swordchucks... this idea is an ego trip by the hardcore. It's bullshit. They want to feel like they're important, and so this is the story they tell themselves.

As one of the lesser people, I can honestly say that me & my friends have *never* ooh-ed and aah-ed over some high-end raider's gear. We just shrug our shoulders and say "I bet heroic Shattered Halls is pretty easy for him." And then we go back to trying to beat heroic SH. And trying. And trying.

[Creole Ned]

WoW, like any healthy MMO, always has players exiting the game and entering. Any new player who enters can go on to become one of the hardcore that might be quitting now. The whole game world is new to them.

The changes in the game made for WOTLK will have close to zero effect on the game's overall population, casual or hardcore. There may be a dip in the hardcore population at present as people get bored and move on (temporarily or permanently) but there won't be a vacuum -- other players will soon enough fill any gaps.

I will eat my words if Blizzard fails to issue a press release in 2009 touting 12 million+ players.

[Jag]

I agree with Swordchucks... this idea is an ego trip by the hardcore. It's bullshit. They want to feel like they're important, and so this is the story they tell themselves.

As one of the lesser people, I can honestly say that me & my friends have *never* ooh-ed and aah-ed over some high-end raider's gear. We just shrug our shoulders and say "I bet heroic Shattered Halls is pretty easy for him." And then we go back to trying to beat heroic SH. And trying. And trying.

Maybe this is the case for some catasses, but not all 'hardcore' players are like this. I log in to raid and log out when its over. I've never sat around on my top geared player for show. The only time I spend in the cities is on my level 1 bank alt (who is dressed pretty snazzy).

[Steel_Wind]

WoW, like any healthy MMO, always has players exiting the game and entering.


Correct. The exit of one customer and their replacement by another customer is called "churn". When it is accompanied by installation fees or other financial sweeteners which increase revenue apart from stable ongoing subscription fees, churn can create additional net revenues for the seller, even though the underlying number of subscribers does not change at all.

The phone company and cable companies, for example, rely upon these installation fees for a significant part of their ongoing revenue.

When WoW sells a new package of game software, treat it as an installation fee. It amounts to the same thing.

The degree of churn, however, can become a serious problem, depending upon the underlying cause, as fluctuating churn is inherently unstable. When it goes awry, it can go awry FAST.

The suggestion that all MMOs have churn is correct. The suggestion tht all MMOs have a high percentage of churn is not correct.


The changes in the game made for WOTLK will have close to zero effect on the game's overall population, causal or hardcore.


I doubt that. Moreover, unless you are working within a select branch of the accounting department at Activision/Blizzard, there is no way for you to know that in any manner. I suspect that a majority of Blizzard's current employees don't even have a clue what the current 1st quarter 09 churn rate on WoW is either.

In other words, you are stating as a fact something which you simply don't know at all.


I will eat my words if Blizzard fails to issue a press release in 2009 touting 12 million+ players.

I expect they will too. Just to be clear, should that event come to pass, that does not prove the truth of anything you said above.

If Blizzard is content to lose established players in favor of newer non-established players because of their game design, then that's fine for them. If they view their changes as being, in the short to medium term - more profitable - then that's fine too. That may well be true and I'm not saying it isn't.

As for long term - they might be better off with a higher churn rate for all I know. I don't pretend to know what is in their best interest as I don't have access to that detailed accounting data. The critical information necessary to judge the subscriber impact needs to be viewed over many months (and probably years) before the impact, if any, of these design decisions may be assessed. I think it is fair to assume that this data will be jealously guarded by Acti/Blizzard as highly confidential market information.

That does not mean, however, that these decisions have no effect upon their short, medium and longterm business. And it certainly does not mean that there is no effect upon the players of the game, either.

My expectation is that, in the short to medium run, hardcore players who leave WoW due to boredom because of Blizzard's design choices will become potential subscribers for another MMO to make their own.

If the chance that an existing stable WoW player may be enticed away by a competitor is, in part, dependent upon that competitor first achieving a critical mass of players before the stable customer can be enticed away by the competitor, then matters are different. I put it to you that a higher degree of churn for WoW - however stable it may appear to be currently - is courting eventual disaster as it seeds the base of potential customers for its competitors.

Whether EA, in particular, can capitalize on that availability remains to be seen.

Note: if a particular player would never try any MMO on the market except WoW as his or her first MMO, but current MMO players and WoW subscribers are open to trying another MMO, then the suggestion that departing players has no long tem impact upon the fortunes of Blizzard is utterly false, even if the churn rates are stable or currently in Blizzard's favor.

Alienating hardcore players by reason of WoW's game design potentially benefits WoW's competitors, even if it does not adversely affect Blizzard's bottom line in the short to medium run.

I'm not saying that's going to happen, but it it one possible deleterious outcome that can transpire even though everything else appears to be positive on an overall basis for WoW and Acti/Blizz.

[Athryn]

Maybe this is the case for some catasses, but not all 'hardcore' players are like this. I log in to raid and log out when its over. I've never sat around on my top geared player for show. The only time I spend in the cities is on my level 1 bank alt (who is dressed pretty snazzy).

It's only the case for attention whores. They also like to get on their Mammoth mounts with winterfall firewater and sit on mailboxes and flightmasters. ;p

[Adam B]

It's only the case for attention whores. They also like to get on their Mammoth mounts with winterfall firewater and sit on mailboxes and flightmasters. ;p

Let's not forget clogging the Naxx summoning stone with as many drakes as possible.

[Athryn]

Let's not forget clogging the Naxx summoning stone with as many drakes as possible.

And train sets! Man, the #1 thing I am waiting for in 3.1 is the train wrecking toy.

[Adam B]

And train sets! Man, the #1 thing I am waiting for in 3.1 is the train wrecking toy.

I let it be known after the first time, in no uncertain terms, that the first offense punishment for train sets was to be gkicked. Good god.

[Jag]

I let it be known after the first time, in no uncertain terms, that the first offense punishment for train sets was to be gkicked. Good god.

AND, SO IT CAME TO PASS, That BLIZZARD (BUBE) heard the cries of its faithful and PROCLAIMED that TRAINS shall no longer menace the good citizens of Azeroth. AND on the 7th day of the 7th month released:

Wind-Up Train Wrecker (http://ptr.wowhead.com/?item=45057)
(with video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuekDT6oBe0&fmt=22))

And there was much rejoicing.

(seriously its little stuff like this that keeps the game fun. Go try the free foam swords on the PTR)

[Adam B]

The train wrecker is so awesome.

The damn train is one of those things, like EVERY GODDAMN THING about gnomes or the ear drill that is the new imp voiceovers (caant we allllll just get alooooooooong?? son of a bitch is like Snarf but worse) where the Blizzard sense of humor is a complete fail for me personally.

[Creole Ned]

In other words, you are stating as a fact something which you simply don't know at all.

No, I'm stating an opinion without being pedantic and prefacing everything with "I think that..." or "In my opinion..." or "It is my considered view that..."

And yeah, I'm making guesses. I'm a guy on the Internet, not a shareholder of ActivisionBlizzard. Big whoop-de-doo.

[Creole Ned]

The train wrecker is so awesome.

The damn train is one of those things, like EVERY GODDAMN THING about gnomes or the ear drill that is the new imp voiceovers (caant we allllll just get alooooooooong?? son of a bitch is like Snarf but worse) where the Blizzard sense of humor is a complete fail for me personally.
I muted the voice files for all of the warlock pets. Much better!

Strangely, I never did hear the toy train (my sub just lapsed a few days ago) but I know it's nearly driven RobotPants mad. It seems to follow him around.

[Adam B]

I muted the voice files for all of the warlock pets. Much better!

Strangely, I never did hear the toy train (my sub just lapsed a few days ago) but I know it's nearly driven RobotPants mad. It seems to follow him around.

My haxoring skill is limited and rusty. Is there an easy way to do this? I'd be so much happier.

[Creole Ned]

They are silenced WAV files I got from a site I've lost track of. They were placed in this folder structure:

World of Warcraft\Sound\Creature\VoidWalkerVO (or ImpVO)

A Google search should turn it up (I've been looking) but I can always mail the WAVs to you if need be.

[Adam B]

Oh, that easy? If you have a null wav file you wouldn't mind sharing (google for "null wav" or "null.wav" is a nightmare) I'd be much obliged.

[AndrewM]

Oh, that easy? If you have a null wav file you wouldn't mind sharing (google for "null wav" or "null.wav" is a nightmare) I'd be much obliged.

You could probably make one with sound recorder by unplugging your mic...

[Adam B]

Lies. I don't hold with this kind of mad file generation from whole cloth. Smacks of witchery.

Also, I don't want line noise, I want an actual null file. Which I assume is floating around somewhere; my google-fu is just unequal to the task.

[Gedd]

You could probably make one with sound recorder by unplugging your mic...

Or just using Audacity.

Creating a null file is easy...it's knowing the folder structure and file names you need to create to silence the offending sound. I played around with this a bit a few months ago. The gun sounds were always super-loud on my system compared to the other sound effects, but I didn't really notice because my hunter always used a bow.

Well WotLK seems to throw guns like candy at hunters, so it got annoying again. Pulled the files out of the mpqs, loaded them into Audacity and dropped the volume on all of them. Now it's much, much better without completely muting them.

[Adam B]

Didn't think of that. I'll mess around this weekend, and hopefully I'll have a vastly improved raiding experience.

If it all goes well, this'll be the best thing to happen to raiding since I muted half of the idiots I run 25s with on Vent.*



*It's going to be really amusing when the raid leader figures out I have his best friend and wife both muted and ignored. It's their own fault though, really, for being such relentless tools.**

**Why do I raid with these people that I clearly despise? Who even knows.

[TriggerHappy]

I have half our guild's raid team muted on vent, also. I'm an officer, too, I have a feeling people would be upset with me if they knew.

[Jag]

I don't think I could actually play with idiots on vent. Our vent is very cool and polite. We actually had one guy who was getting on vent while drunk and acting like an idiot. We shot that down fast.

[RobotPants]

The files I use that Ned found a while back are replacement sounds. They're still Imp and Succubus sounds, but they're just noises instead of the stupid phrases they say. I'll find the folder they need to go in when I get home if you haven't found them by then. All you'd reall have to do is open any sound editing program and make some blank wavs and name them the same as the actual sound files in WoW. I'm sure these are all probably on Curse or Wowinterface as mods. The one called "Quiet that horse!" replaces the stupid screaming summon sound for the DK mounts and replaces it with a nice rolling thunder sound. Makes life much more better.

[MarchHare]

There's this one really, really, annoying fucktard in my guild, but I haven't been able to successfully mute him on vent.

The problem with muting him is that I think the channel is clear and try to say something only to have it come out as a garbled mess because I'm speaking at the same time as he is. I'm sure hearing that garbled mess is preferable to most of the people in the raid than suffering through this idiot's drunken ramblings, but I'm often the raid leader and I can't afford to have a critical time-sensitive instruction misunderstood. :(

[TriggerHappy]

The few times I've been raid leader I've made it clear up front that idle chat should go in /gu chat or even /raid, and vent should be for strategy/tactics/status updates/fight explanation only.

Playing Eve with Goonswarm spoiled me. Great comm discipline.

[RobotPants]

There's this one really, really, annoying fucktard in my guild, but I haven't been able to successfully mute him on vent.

The problem with muting him is that I think the channel is clear and try to say something only to have it come out as a garbled mess because I'm speaking at the same time as he is. I'm sure hearing that garbled mess is preferable to most of the people in the raid than suffering through this idiot's drunken ramblings, but I'm often the raid leader and I can't afford to have a critical time-sensitive instruction misunderstood. :(

Hmm, who could that be? ;)

[Athryn]

There's this one really, really, annoying fucktard in my guild, but I haven't been able to successfully mute him on vent.

The problem with muting him is that I think the channel is clear and try to say something only to have it come out as a garbled mess because I'm speaking at the same time as he is. I'm sure hearing that garbled mess is preferable to most of the people in the raid than suffering through this idiot's drunken ramblings, but I'm often the raid leader and I can't afford to have a critical time-sensitive instruction misunderstood. :(

Lemme guess, his name rhymes with ham? :P

If it is who I think it is, I apologize. It's partially my fault that he's on the server in the first place.

[Swordchucks]

Lemme guess, his name rhymes with ham?

I thought he'd calmed down a lot... If he's still being a problem, Someone can Have a Word (and by someone, I mean me and by have a word, I mean yell at). There's some behavior lately that's been getting on my nerves to the point where I've been ready to /gkick folks (long term members, too!) in the middle of raids for being disruptive*. Yes, I know you've done this before... but some people haven't. STOP MAKING THE DAMN MAMMOTH SOUND DURING THE EXPLANATION. *ahem* Sorry about that.

The funny part about Mr. Ham is that the other day he said something about how "Athryn has me on ignore" and that he didn't understand why.

Well, at least I thought it was funny.

* It's less about what they're specifically doing and more about the lack of respect and maturity involved.

[Adam Altmann]

There's this one really, really, annoying fucktard in my guild, but I haven't been able to successfully mute him on vent.

The problem with muting him is that I think the channel is clear and try to say something only to have it come out as a garbled mess because I'm speaking at the same time as he is. I'm sure hearing that garbled mess is preferable to most of the people in the raid than suffering through this idiot's drunken ramblings, but I'm often the raid leader and I can't afford to have a critical time-sensitive instruction misunderstood. :(

The odd thing is, if you tell him to shut the hell up he does a good job of it. He hasn't seemed to figure out what behavior triggers "Shut the hell up." though. Strange dude.

I personally want to kick every raidmember that "rofl"s during explanations. I hate that shit so much. You and Spectt have far more patience with it than I do.

[Gunmetal]

I personally want to kick every raidmember that "rofl"s during explanations. I hate that shit so much. You and Spectt have far more patience with it than I do.

He has a lot of experience with it :b

[Swordchucks]

I personally want to kick every raidmember that "rofl"s during explanations. I hate that shit so much. You and Spectt have far more patience with it than I do.

People are doing a lot of stuff in raids that they really shouldn't be. I'm about to the point of venting some NERDRAGE! on people. The primary crimes are disruption during explanations, not following raid leader directions (most commonly when they're told not to AoE), and an unhealthy amount of loot drama.

[MarchHare]

The odd thing is, if you tell him to shut the hell up he does a good job of it. He hasn't seemed to figure out what behavior triggers "Shut the hell up." though. Strange dude.


And he apparently doesn't realize that the "shut the hell up" instruction applies for the remainder of the raid and all future raids, not just for the next 10 minutes...

I still crack up everytime I think of this conversation:

Him: "AH SHITBALLS, I CAN'T LISTEN TO MP3S AND HAVE VENT RUNNING AT THE SAME TIME!"
You: (perfectly deadpan) "You can logoff vent then, I don't mind."

:D


I personally want to kick every raidmember that "rofl"s during explanations. I hate that shit so much. You and Spectt have far more patience with it than I do.


I can't speak for Spectt's background (although I suspect having a teenage daughter has something to do with his level of patience), but I cut my teeth leading 40-man raids at level 60 where over half the raid consisted of immature drama queens (Edit: Gunmetal knows what I'm talking about...). What we have to deal with now is NOTHING in comparison. :)


There's some behavior lately that's been getting on my nerves to the point where I've been ready to /gkick folks (long term members, too!) in the middle of raids for being disruptive*. Yes, I know you've done this before... but some people haven't. STOP MAKING THE DAMN MAMMOTH SOUND DURING THE EXPLANATION. *ahem* Sorry about that.


That was driving me crazy too -- I'm glad I wasn't the only one who was annoyed by it. I understand that 24 people in the raid have already done the encounter many times before, but the one new guy needs to hear what to do. If someone doesn't need to listen to the strategy, they should just alt-tab and browse a forum or something instead of being disruptive.

[Adam B]

That's okay. Last Naxx-25 raid I was on wiped on Gothik (yeah, seriously) because the raid leader and his idiot wife -- both healers -- weren't paying attention when I gave out healing assignments, so I was left to keep dead side up by myself with mediocre DPS.

That was amusing. And by amusing, I mean dear god I hate these people.

[Skorin]

People are doing a lot of stuff in raids that they really shouldn't be. I'm about to the point of venting some NERDRAGE! on people. The primary crimes are disruption during explanations, not following raid leader directions (most commonly when they're told not to AoE), and an unhealthy amount of loot drama.

Loot drama = /gkick, IN MY HUMBLE OPINION.

[MarchHare]

Loot drama = /gkick, IN MY HUMBLE OPINION.

What's the deal with loot drama? Other than one situation a few months ago involving someone who is no longer with the guild, I can't recall any loot drama, let alone "an unhealthy amount" of it. Is this something that's been happening behind the scenes, or was I just absent for the raids where this came up?

[Swordchucks]

There has been some over dps plate at various points. I recall a Naxx25 in particular where there was some.

Of course, I'm so used to having zero drama that having any is pretty jarring.

[RobotPants]

This thread is at least helping me figure out a few Qt3 aliases in DB. :)

[Adam Altmann]

This thread is at least helping me figure out a few Qt3 aliases in DB. :)

We usually add Qt3 usernames to a character's notes in the guild interface, so you can see who's who in-game.

[Swordchucks]

Some people apparently don't know the joys of GuildFu (or similar addons), though and don't ever see the notes. We've been having so much alt activity lately that it's essential (we list mains in the guild notes, too).

I'm backwards, since I joined the guild before I really got into reading QT3, of course.

[Adam Altmann]

Some people apparently don't know the joys of GuildFu (or similar addons), though and don't ever see the notes. We've been having so much alt activity lately that it's essential (we list mains in the guild notes, too).

I'm backwards, since I joined the guild before I really got into reading QT3, of course.

There's a button on the guild interface that will show you the notes; Qt3 usernames are there, and if you don't have that it's generally your crafting skills or something. You don't need an addon to see that stuff.

[Swordchucks]

I'm aware it's on the guild pane, but it's kind of a hassle to access and it's hard to read. An addon that presents it in a cleaner format is definitely preferable.

[RobotPants]

I'll have to get an add-on because the guild pane is horrible.

[Pogo]

Loot drama = /gkick, IN MY HUMBLE OPINION.

Yes..

[jpinard]

Your mom plays WoW?

I'm guessing you're in your thirties or early forties (own home, little kids coming over to play, frog bop, married... I have a weird memory, don't ask), which would make her, what, sixty five? Seventy?

How does she manage?

She does. She's in her late 60's and my Uncle plays as well. She does very well, but then again she played Morriwind, Oblivion, Neverwinter Nights, and Baldur's Gate. The elite dungeon stuff in WoW however is very unforgiving and can be a real challlenge at times. We have basically played through much of the game together so I've been able to teach her along the way.

[Pogo]

My coworker's husband and his mom play WoW. I tried to show her some tricks to playing her level 70 rogue before WotLK came out. I asked her how she spent her combo points, and she asked "What's a combo point?"

[pyrhic]

lol, reminds me way back of this guy i inspected on the zep between uc and org - he was a mid 40s hunter with a rainbow of colors equiped - blue, green white and, yes, gray....of course, the magical of which were not even well suited to his toon...

[Pogo]

Yeah she knew one move... Sinister Strike. Her opener was to stealth and backstab...

I don't know about anyone else, but using two moves from level 1 through level 70 would drive me insane.

[AndrewM]

lol, reminds me way back of this guy i inspected on the zep between uc and org - he was a mid 40s hunter with a rainbow of colors equiped - blue, green white and, yes, gray....of course, the magical of which were not even well suited to his toon...

When I was doing Refer-a-friend on my Paladin, I was often wearing grey gear, because I wasn't getting many mail quest rewards.

[Pogo]

You could buy green-quality crafted armor for every slot for a couple of silver.

[AndrewM]

You could buy green-quality crafted armor for every slot for a couple of silver.

A couple of silver? What am I, made of money?

[thinkingork]

Supposedly the most amazing match in professional WoW arena,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7duX4QpVaAQ

p.s. wow, the UI and shoutcast have improved alot from last time I watched it

[Pogo]

Supposedly the most amazing match in professional WoW arena,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7duX4QpVaAQ

p.s. wow, the UI and shoutcast have improved alot from last time I watched it

That was a pretty incredible comeback. At level 70, I've seen a lot of opposing teams get cocky, only for the underdog to pull several cooldowns out of his ass and take back the match.

[Sebmojo]

Yeah I know casual, and "never clearing Sunwell" is not casual. Casual is not quite clearing Karazahn before the 3.0 patch dropped, and never doing any 25 man content except pugs.

/puts up hand. Been playing pretty solidly since launch, the only raid i've ever done is a massively overpowered lvl 70 stomp of AQ 40. Never been to Kara.

[AaronSofaer]

Supposedly the most amazing match in professional WoW arena,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7duX4QpVaAQ

p.s. wow, the UI and shoutcast have improved alot from last time I watched it


That was a fantastic arena match. Makes me wish WoW had observer mode in the same way that Guild Wars did, so I could watch that Live and in-game! I could stand to learn a lot from that Priest.

[Pogo]

That was a fantastic arena match. Makes me wish WoW had observer mode in the same way that Guild Wars did, so I could watch that Live and in-game! I could stand to learn a lot from that Priest.

Regeneration, regeneration, and more regeneration, although by the looks of it now, mages have been given a stupidly retarded amount of ways to regenerate mana. At level 70 that mage would have been dead much, much sooner.

One of the reasons I no longer play WoW, right there.

[thinkingork]

All they need is a better camera angle. Honestly , half of the time I can't see what's happening. Maybe they can hire a professional sport cameraman next time , haha.

Other than that, I think the shoutcasting and UI are top edge. I would watch something like this on TV.

[TheJare]

Deciding a tie based on damage done is stupid and insulting to healers.

[AndrewM]

That was a fantastic arena match. Makes me wish WoW had observer mode in the same way that Guild Wars did, so I could watch that Live and in-game! I could stand to learn a lot from that Priest.

It would be really nice if there was a way to record demos which could be replayed at slow speed, paused, and so forth. For PvP, it would let people study strategies of skilled players. For PvE, it would allow a guild to do detailed analysis of player performance in a spatial context (as opposed to WWS which gives a much more limited view of what has happened). Probably too much of a headache to implement.

[André Costa]

Hmm, who could that be? ;)

I bet it was that Skorin guy ... damn annoying that one! >.>

[Pogo]

All they need is a better camera angle. Honestly , half of the time I can't see what's happening. Maybe they can hire a professional sport cameraman next time , haha.

Other than that, I think the shoutcasting and UI are top edge. I would watch something like this on TV.

It was ok, but I think the class icons should have changed to represent CC somehow. It was really tough finding out who was who, or which player the camera was locking onto exactly. It took a couple seconds to figure it out, and in a WoW arena those several seconds have like 10 things going on.

[AaronSofaer]

Gladius has class icons changing to CC marks, which is really useful.

[Tankero]

Arenas were the last thing keeping me in the game. Still, I'm just not good enough. The hidden rating means every loss is a 20 point drop from 1500 all the way down to 1300, where each loss is just 15.

Finding partners is hard enough, finding /competent/ partners who aren't in a 1900+ team already is nigh impossible.

I've just about had it with WoW as a whole.

But yeah, Gladius is great. It even has a little icon that lets you know whether an opponent has used his trinket and the cooldown on it.

[AaronSofaer]

Arenas were the last thing keeping me in the game. Still, I'm just not good enough. The hidden rating means every loss is a 20 point drop from 1500 all the way down to 1300, where each loss is just 15.


Whaat? I guess if you were playing with really good players and got your hidden rating up to 2k, then made a new team with bad players and are losing to people in the 1500s, that would make sense...

You shouldn't be dropping to the 1300s due to lopsided PR/TR matchups unless you get really unlucky (playing only low-rated teams and lots of hard counter-comps) or have bad partners with a high personal hidden rating.

[Spect]

I can't speak for Spectt's background (although I suspect having a teenage daughter has something to do with his level of patience), but I cut my teeth leading 40-man raids at level 60 where over half the raid consisted of immature drama queens (Edit: Gunmetal knows what I'm talking about...). What we have to deal with now is NOTHING in comparison. :)


It's not my patience that I employ in these situations. I just learned a long time ago to take it to /tells. So with this particular individual, when he's been on a raid that I'm leading, as soon as he starts up in vent I just shoot him a /tell to STFU or he's getting booted from the raid. It generally works.

I attribute the level of bullshittery in raids to sheer boredom. We're content-locked and some people are on their 50th Naxx run. I'm not condoning it, as I'm sure you'll recall the famous 25-man Sarth/Naxx night that almost made me give up leading raids for good, but I can at least understand why it's happening.

I so look forward to Ulduaar and the end of this current boredom.