My take on the 58 boost (41yo oldschool wow player)

WoW Classic Cataclysm Classic Discussion
369

@Lorran: This is an interesting view on things and very much the polar opposite of what several other people have told me. Several people firmly believe that the absolute majority of the TBCC players will consist of those people, who are NOT interested in retail NOR heavily invested in Classic specifically, but rather TBCC specifically. They also claim that TBCC launch will be significantly larger than Classic launch was. Whether those people are actually correct in either or both, is not that easy to say. Suffice to say, by the best estimate I could make at the time of Classic launch was that Classic in EU region reached about 880 000 players and of those only about 80 000 or less also played retail. By now, my estimate on the latter number is less than 20 000 and former below 200 000.

If certain estimates turn out to be even roughly correct, things will probably look something like this in EU once TBCC pre-patch and launch have both happened:

Retail only: 1 000 000+
Classic only: about 50 000
TBCC only: 800 000+ (of whom about 120 000 currently actively play Classic)
R+C, R+T, C+T or R+C+T: total of all four combinations: less than 60 000

370

This notion that there’s a bunch of people out there who absolutely loathe Vanilla because
 some reason, but adore TBC because
 some reason?

I’ve yet to see any meaningful evidence of this. I’ve read a whole bunch of posts (all from retailers) claiming that this is the case, but not a single one is able to give a specific example of why Classic is ‘rubbish’ but TBC is ‘brilliant’. When pushed they invariably revert to muttering about how things don’t take as long in TBC, because there is “less travel involved”.

This is a 100% retail player mindset. ‘faster = better’, ‘Destination is all that matters, journey is irrelevant’.

What they really mean when they say this is that they feel that the levellig process from 58-60 will be quicker, meaning they can rush to level cap faster in order to play the ‘real game’. Consequently they really do view TBC as nothing more than a ‘bunch of new raids’.

I’d be fascinated to actually meet this hypothetical player who truly believes that killing a bunch of boars in Wesftall is horrendous, but killing a bunch of Worgs in Terrokar is epic.

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371

Initially I was supportive of this one time boost. But after chewing on it a bit I have changed my mind.
All the players who only play a single character will just buy the boost and the rest of us leveling chars will have fewer people to play with in Azeroth.

TBC already has xp catchups that effectively removes any need to grind mobs and you can get by with questing/dungeons. It’s not fast by any means, but it’s a significant improvement.

And judging by a rather large portion of the posts in this forum there is already a huge crowd that appears to want to be raid-logging as soon as humanly possible.
And we don’t need any more of those.

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372

I can’t see how raid logging can be much of a thing in TBC; having said that, maybe they’ll find a way? I don’t think world buffs will be part of the meta, but likely the most try-hard min/maxers will discover some convoluted, esoteric formula that causes them to gain a minor boost if they jump through the right hoops? Who knows? Personally I hate the meta, it represents exactly the kind of straightjacketed system slavery that I despise, but that’s just me.

I think a big problem as far as boosters are concerned is that not only will they turn Azeroth into a ghost town, they will ultimately turn Outland into a ghost town as well.

A character that you haven’t put much effort into is a character you can never really be invested in. I suspect that once a lot of these retail tourists who boost to 58, rush to level cap and are then confronted with the huge, time-consuming, complex, and often brutal attunements required to start raiding they’ll say “to hell with this” and go back to retail in droves.

So many of these people claim they ‘don’t have time to level’, so why would they have time to do the long, convoluted raid attunements?

If these people were maybe a more invested in their characters they’d be more inclined to stick with the process, but boosted characters are basically disposable characters.

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373

@Lorran: I think that there is a sort of a disconnect in the conversations and the main problem lies within the assumption that there are only two different mindsets (effectively, retail and Classic). From my point of view, there are at least six (and the number could easily be argued to be even much higher, because boosts are not the only point of difference, as a major example one could name thoughts on “Fresh” realms of various kinds) and some of them are more contrasting than others. There are people, who want both boosts and “Fresh”, some want only one of the two and some neither.

In my opinion, dividing opinions into just two camps is going to lead to an unrecoverable disaster in terms of polite conversation. I am very grateful that your responses to me have been very civil even when we do not agree on certain things. If you have followed certain threads closely, you are well aware that certain posters have intentionally and rather 
blatantly
 chosen to act
 otherwise. :frowning: Some of them also seem to have entirely forgotten that despite my green text, I am just a player among several millions of other WoW players. Since I own exactly zero Activision Blizzard stocks, I actually have less say than the stockholders do.

I am one of the extremely few people that I am aware of myself, who fully intend to split three ways (retail, Classic and TBCC) as soon we can. And yes, I am well aware that anecdotal “evidence” can lead one astray, but I have actually read hundreds, possibly even thousands of TBCC related posts by now and not really encountered views that mirror mine, when it comes to splitting three ways. Even outside the forum, the general feeling I get is
 different. It feels like it is almost impossible to find anyone, who would think that playing all three different variants can constitute “fun”. And I say “fun”, because fun does not mean the same things to all people (and there are quite likely some people, who derive different types of “fun” from the different versions available now / later).

Judging by some things I have read / heard, the majority of the raid-loggers do not play as of yet, so I fear your wish is going to fail miserably. Not because I am a mean, green troll, but rather because the forums do not represent the players who are not here as of yet (and many of them will not post even after they arrive).

And I think I have now created yet another “wall of text”, which means it is time to take a small break from typing. :smiley:

374

Forgive me Trelw, but I think you are throwing me a red herring.

Let me explain.

Certainly there are factions, or ‘camps’ if you prefer, and WoW Classic, if observed holistically, is certainly not some kind of bipolar us and them scenario.

But I still think that the picture of fractured, differentiated camps all with wildly varying motives and objectives is not very accurate. Let’s take the ongoing debate over fresh servers as an example.

At first glance it may seem that the people who support fresh servers all do so for numerous, complex reasons; but if you actually break down all the various posts in favour of fresh servers you’ll quickly notice that there are actually only two broad ‘camps’, or schools of thought.

Camp A sees fresh servers basically as Arcadia. They are separatists who envision a complete break from mainstream circles, and the chance to start again on a new server untainted by the meta. There will be no out-of-control, inflated economy, no boosting culture, no private server influenced min/max culture. People, if starting on a level playing field will be more tempted to observe rules of decency and sportsmanlike behaviour.

Camp B basically sees fresh servers as a kind of ladder, not dissimilar to Diablo’s ladder system. Upon this ladder they have the chance to once-again compete, to race against their fellows for server firsts, Scarab Lord Titles, Grand Highmarshal ranks and all the rest.

Clearly the two camps are diametrically opposed, yet they share the same broad objective. In this at least they have achieved harmony, despite being the WoW equivalent of Schrödinger’s cat!

There is no real ‘anti fresh’ camp, as it’s widely accepted that fresh servers will not really harm anything if released.

The pro and anti-boost camps have not achieved this kind of harmony, and once again there are basically two broad camps. Sure there are minor disagreements within the two camps, but both have barricaded their position, and will not budge. They share no objectives with each other. Camp A can be summed up as ‘Journey before destination’, camp B can be summed up as ‘Destination is all that matters’

I could write about why ‘destination is all that matters’ is an ultimately destructive ideology until the cows come home, but the fact that the two sides talk around each other, rather than two each other will make it a wasted effort, save for purposes of preaching to the choir.

So, to sum up with an analogy, we’re in a country divided into two states. Freshtopia has a bunch of hardline communists and a bunch of hard nose capitalists, but all are patriotic and love their state. Boostasia is gripped by civil war. One side wishes to have closer ties with the mother land of Retailaria, the other fans the fires of revolution and wants nothing to do with Retailaria.

Viva le revolution comrade!

People like you may perhaps be described as stateless, or possibly people with diplomatic immunity.

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375

I am one of these players who adores TBC but is extremely bored by Classic. I don’t want to buy boost because I want to rush to max level and do raids only. I want to buy boost and go directly to Outland.

You want reasons why I think TBC is much better game than Classic? Ok.

  1. Questing is much more polished and smoother than Classic, I don’t have to switch zones and going back again 3 times.

  2. Dungeons are very good in TBC, mob density is better, these dungeons are smaller, give reputations etc.

  3. Classes are much more polished too, you can actually play a class which doesn’t use 1-2 buttons as a top rotation. And ofc they are much more balanced (ye hunters and warlocks are ahead but its nothing like Classic where some classes literally double others dmg).

  4. Much better and harder endgame content. HC dungeons, raids where bosses actually have some mechanics (sorry, except of Naxx raids in Classic are complete joke).

  5. Rated PvP, yes, rated PvP :slight_smile: arenas are coming.

Is it enough?

376

Questing is ‘smoother’, meaning faster.
Dungeons smaller, meaning faster
Classes ‘more polished’, OK I’ll give you that one.

The rest of your post is about end game.

So basically, all of your reasons except the one about classes boil down to ‘it’s faster for me to get to end game’.

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377

‘classes more polished’ since legion just means homogenized and streamlined.

Actual peak class design was wotlk - cata

Classic toolkits are good but due to bad spell balancing, most classes default to 1 button spam.

TBC was improved classic but still flawed over-simplistic rotations e.g. shadow bolt spam, mouse scroll macro BM hunter etc


MoP classes had too many spells to the point it was OVER complicated and all classes had everything, homogenizing them.

WoD prune was actually decent. Legion revamps took it too far and turned class > spec into spec > class

378

I see my thread is still going on. Just as a reminder, my goal with it was (is) to get the debate going (in a civil manner). It’s not about “I am right, you are wrong” but to basicly speak your mind and give incentives why you agree or disagree. I told you MY honest thoughs on it. Everyone is entitled to have their own opinions.

Been quite busy with IRL. Being 41yo with 2 kids family, fiance and all the other usual daily things, does that to a man ^^

It’s good to see that more people are leaving the insults out. Honest as I am I did get a 2 days account forum silence: “you included a quote from another player that used an inappropriate word. While we get that this was a quote, it’s best not to include such in your own posts in future.”

I still remain sceptical about how this boost will impact the game. It way look good on paper, just like people felt about the instant group and teleporting to dungeon as one example (when insted the running between AH and bank, pressing a button began, end patch of Wotlk).

Have a good day folks!

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379

You are alive, how nice.

I am one of the good people to keep this alive.
Because all kinds of arguments are being used (yes, the same as ever). No good more bots ect.
More fo the same crap arguments.

Boost is for us people who want TBC and do not care for leveling again in normal classic for whatever reason.
More people will play TBC with boost then without and also more money for BLizzard.

Onlu thing i can care to ask is that blizzard make the boost a default service which we can use multiple times.

Last time, dont want boost? Then simply do not use it. What is so hard about this simply thing. It is not forced on anyone.

380

Bad arguments again

381

Let the insults flow my short friend - you are wrong - CS:GO skins have a value outside of the game. Even if you never sell a skin, it still has a value.

Pixel gold in Classic does not, it about the size of your virtual weener. Unless you start to stray outside of the ToS.

382

Where is the insult you are referring to?

Everything in every online game has a value. Actually gold “pixels” in WoW has more value than “knife pixels” in CS:GO because you can actually increase the power of your character with them.

Also, nice attempt trying to dodge the other examples I provided.

These forums are becoming more of an attraction every day :slight_smile:

383

So in short, having a debate about the boost is one thing, you either agree or disagree and give your honest civil statements, but when you know you’re dealing with someone who want(ed) “all cash shop services and retail features” for TBC


I stop there and I rest my case. Once again thanks for the heads up Majesty.

EDIT:

This. +1

Once again it’s what may come that I fear. You give (allow) them a finger and eventually they will take your hand. Things will be normalized and the moment you add something that wasn’t there in the first place (boost in tbc 2007), more things can be added with “well we got X now so why can’t we get Y and/or Z” on and on.

Already have I seen people asking for race change, faction change (both added in Wotlk 2009) and other things that wasn’t in TBC back in the days.

We arleady have a game that allows pay2win and pay2skip. If people love that, by all means don’t let me hinder them. I’m glad people found something they really like, it’s called Retail. We don’t need Classic turning into it as well.

It’s enough already as it is, having a game with two different approaches and this endless “Classic vs Retail war”. If people like C, play it, if you prefer R, play that.

Bottom line, we in the Classic community (afaik) don’t sit on Retail forums and telling them they should remove cash shop, pet battles, mount collections, achievements and all that with “so I can play it”.

384

I agree with the boost! U dont decide for half
Of
Player basemto be like you!

Period!

Bots will be there with or without the boost.

Ur classic achievemnts are nothing in tbc.

385

That’s kind of true I guess, in that TBC renders most Classic end game content obsolete. Still I personally think that worthwhile achievement in Classic (i.e. Grand High Marshal, clearing Naxx, taming Broken Tooth etc.) are still worth something for the effort that was put into them. TBC will just add new achievements on top of the old, that’s all.

We’re not talking about the kind of achievements that were added in WotLK, we’re simply talking about achieving something worthwhile in the game.

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386

Would been enough with just “I agree with the boost” to make your point/stand.

It kinda amazes me that in a (my) thread with all those hundreds of replies, not once have I seen like “Respecfully I disagree with you on many points here, I like the boost for X and/or Y reasons but you are entitled to have your opinion”.

Things like that. Anyway point taken. I (and many others) feel different. Peroid.

387

Boost is mandatory; short of not implementing a fresh TBC server for those of us who have had no interest in playing Classic, it’s the only way to ensure TBC players can take part in, y’know - TBC content - at the same time as those who transfer.

Alternative would simply be to implement a fresh TBC realm (like even one or two, I don’t know why this isn’t an option?), but short of that? Boost is needed 100%.

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388

Mandatory? For the love of god! It’s not a race!

Why does everyone assume that it’s a race, and that everyone must compete to complete everything in the fastest, most speedrunny time possible?

If you’re expecting a medal for ‘speed skillz’ then you’re in for a world of disappointment.

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