The very sad state of the WoW Classic pug scene

WoW Classic Mists of Pandaria Classic Discussion
1

Tuesday evening, I decided to try and get a regular ToGC pug going for my tank alt with no mumbo jumbo. On one of the largest realm in Europe, by the way.

I put myself in the LFG tool and simultaneously browsed both LFG and Trade chats. I saw many raid advertisements fly by. But they were all GDKP or semi GDKP (Orb/Trophy/BoE/Other Gbid in some combination). This went on for a while, and I figured, if I want a good old SR run with no pay to win shenanigans, I will have to take the matter into my own hands.

So I decided to try it out. But the tumbleweed was strong, and the only ones to break the silence were the undergeared people without any experience whatsoever. When my partner came home from the evening shift at work and I still hadn’t get something rolling I just decided to call it quits and go watch some Netflix show in the living room instead. Atleast that’s not a total waste of time.

The state of this game is so messed up and sad. During all of my years playing this game, it has never felt this bad to me. And it really saddens me, because in essence I really like this game and what it has (or had to) offer.

People like to blame Blizzard for a lot of things. And I also think that better decisions could have been made during WoW Classic from a development point of view. But this one is 100% on the community. If you still believe the GDKP madness has not butchered the pug scene, you’re either a gold buyer, delusional or just refuse to see the issues because you’re exploiting a total melt down of a situation yourself.

I’m really on the verge of just quitting everything in this game except for the weekly raids with my guild and the odd heroic dungeon on my alt. It just isn’t worth it for legit players that don’t break ToS (or promote ToS breaking behaviour) anymore. I feel like I have banged my head against this wall for too long now, and I just can’t deal with it anymore.

Is it really such a crazy thought today to play a game just for enjoyment instead of always having to maximize your personal benefits and profits in every possible activity?

16 Likes
2

Most raids on Mirage Raceway are casual dad gamer raids with SR and most have caught up and are doing 5/5 hc.
There are some GDKPs but they are rarely advertised in chat due to having strong signups.

I’m not saying what your experiencing isn’t an issue, but on “the dad server”, its the opposite.
Guilds always recruiting too :slight_smile:

3 Likes
3

The current landscape developed due to increased efficiency of GDKP runs for maximizing chars and time investment. Plus everything other than GDKP run has worse reputation with the masses.

You will have to move to more laidback server.

1 Like
4

SR is just retarded waste of time as you have to outroll 10 people on an item that have minor chance to drop by itself.
Playing with loot council scam cliques aka guilds is even worse.
The game would be absolutely dead without gdkp.

1 Like
5

Atleast that gives me a slim chance to win something. Entering a GDKP gives me zero since I can’t afford 10k gold per Trophy, or 40k per weapon.

I have no interest in either buying gold or accepting large chunks of botted and illegally bought gold. This is against ToS and I have seen first hand how the mass botting has destroyed the game. By exploiting this, you’re also supporting things such as battlegrounds being unplayable, hacks in arenas, flybots picking every single node at spawn, etc etc.

3 Likes
6

Then i assume you never buy the cheapest consumeables on the auction house? Infact you shouldnt even be near an AH at all.
Since everything on AH is affected by bots.

I understand your PoV, but i think its gonna change in icc. ToC is extremely pug/casual friendly, no major mechanics (if you compare to Mimi HM etc).
Its not uncommon to get cloaks in pugs.

I suspect alot of the gdkps will struggle in icc, i dont see gdkps clearing LK/prof/Prince/queen heroic (considering some even struggle with toc normal atm).

1 Like
7

I do think there are several differences here though.

  • Buying items from the auction house is not against Blizzard ToS. Buying illegal gold and botting are.
  • The auction house is an intended part of the game that Blizzard themselfes implemented. GDKP is not, it’s a playermade concept and not officially supported by Blizzard in any shape or form.
  • The mass botting in the open world is making it significantly more difficult, if not impossible, for players to farm their consumables at a reasonable rate. It’s either do or don’t. You can raid without doing a GDKP.
  • The proportions. I’d argue buying a stack of spell power flasks for 80g from the auction house (that may or not be from botting sources) is not in the slightest comparable to buying millions of botted gold from dodgy third party websites, or actively accepting this million gold cut even though you know deep inside that this is most likely not gold that a live human farmed.
1 Like
8

Do you unironically believe thats how the average gdkp looks like?

Nvm, you probably do. Its so funny when people who havent entered a single gdkp in their live try to sound like they know whats going on.

2 Likes
9

Yes, but you also said this

If you are against accepting botted gold (which ofc is a valiant stand), you should also be against the low prices on AH?
consumeables, herbs, ores. Im guessing the only thing that isnt tainted by botting is world epic drops (dont think you can reliably farm that)

Have blizzard officially supported any of the loot systems in the game? DKP? loot council? SR?

I have only done one kind of farming(profession wise), and thats mining, but i cant say i feel like its that bad. Dont get me wrong, i know there are alot of botters, but i get a decent chunk of ore while flying around in my icecrown route.

This isnt ofc proof of anything, but personal experience.

Both you and i can agree that the botters gold are deeply imbedded into most servers economy by now. Whether its directly or indirectly, everything is affected by it.

But what about millions of gold bought from blizzards own token(i know, “no one” buys from blizzards own token. But you can never be 100% sure)?
Is it then okay?

There are people who never bought gold, but who host GDKP’s on multiple chars a week (and then takes 20% cut for hosting). They have done this since TBC.
Yes, botters make the gold-cuts super high, but even without botters you would still have GDKP but the prices would also be lower.

I guess my overall point is, i got the impression that you refused to accept goldcuts since it most likely was from a third party site. But you cant buy cheap cons on AH and then complain about botters at the same time, they go hand in hand.

2 Likes
10

I mean, I know people who participate in GDKP. I know several guildies do. People usually tell me they’re not even bothered to join something that can’t guarantee a 10k cut at bare minimum. And just at that minimum value, my quick estimate is that items are bought for atleast 300k gold that run. That estimate is probably in the lower end, in reality it’s probably even more since my estimate is dividing the cut between 1 organiser and 24 regulars.

I have also seen several GDKP’s that have publicly stated their statistics. And it’s in the millions every single time.

Yes, I know people are running Naxx 25 GDKP with 300 minimum bid. But that’s not what we are discussing here.

1 Like
11

In his defense, some groups try to sell off trophies for 3-5k (which is f’ing stupld)

And its not uncommon for 25 hc weps to go for 40k, we had axe go for 110k a few weeks back (its not common on that particular axe, but you get the idea)

1 Like
12

Yes, but as I wrote, on megaservers you’re kinda out of options since the open world farming is owned by the botting factory. As for raiding, there are alternatives to GDKP.

Nope. But they have officially supported auction house trading, since they put that in the game.

Since the seller in that case is the company providing the game for us, yes it is legal and according to the rules. Morally okay is another question. Although I would argue that a person supporting RMT would be stupid to buy WoW tokens since the cash to gold ratio is way worse.

GDKP without RMT is fine to me. If everyone had a chance, regardless of how many dollars you have to spend on in game currencies.

This. Actually most semi GDKP trade pugs I see have a starting bid of 10k per token. Which is kinda dumb since that’s a bare minimum of 50k for a full set.

1 Like
13

Thanks for confirming my guess.

Yeah, the top 1%. Even the 20+ runs per week gdkps on gehennas are struggling to get 10k pots every raid (only talking about 50/50 cloak runs, the others get way less).

“Its not uncommon” aka its not the norm. So funny how gdkp haters cant stop with their sensationalism. Cant wait for you to mention the 3 million ring.

Whats a “semi GDKP” run? You were talking about trophies, those arent even selling for 3k right now. If you meant regalias, those are highly contested since you only get enough for 1 person per week. Ofc those are going for a lot.

1 Like
14

Hmmm, I expect on tuesday evening most of the population would already be locked. Or at least I would, leaving raids for the last possible moment is a good way to not get to raid in that reset. I did two 10man SRs and one 25man SR earlier in the week on my alt in addition to the regular guild 25man.

1 Like
15

The one im mining on is on Gehennas. But like i said, i only done mining, no idea how skinning/herb is.

You can also make gold other ways, dont HAVE to farm profs.

This doesnt make sense to me, we were talking about GDKP not being a officially supported loot system. But none of the other loot systems are supported, but why arent they a bad thing then?

GDKP has been in the game since OG wotlk, if blizzard didnt like it they would have made measures to get rid of it.

My point was, you dont know where the gold is coming from in those GDKP’s. Could be from blizzards store, could be from classic vanilla DM:N buff runs.
I have never bought gold, but i’ve played the game since classic vanilla(gold actually mattered in vanilla though). But its impossible to play the game without gaining gold, consumeables costs less than what i get from toc in raw gold for instance.

You can play around the system though, you can be a fake buyer, you could be a tank/healer and not worry about needing a budget.
Im not saying this is a perfect system, far from it, but its the one thats currently meta. Its also something blizz wont do anything about (gdkp).

Im not defending GDKP or its prices, but getting gold is quite easy.

You made it sound like 40k for a weapon never happens, which it does.

When did i say i hated GDKP’s? Would be pretty hypocritical of me to hate GDKP’s, and then do multiple each week.

Seen the meme or vod, but no idea how real it is. For all i know it can be people just trading gold for the PR. I have NEVER seen those prices on the gdkps i attend anyway.

1 Like
16

Forget about that, the stuff after the first sentence was meant for Babastiltz.

1 Like
17

Do you unironically believe the guy paying 198k for a KT sword at lvl 60 is just a DM:Enjoyer on and not a gold buyer using botted gold?

3 Likes
18

What I mean by semi GDKP is raids that promote themselfes with SR, but also specifies that BoE/Orb/Trophies etc are Gbid. This in particular is a load of bull since it’s obvious this is them leeching gold out of puggers. Also very common on my server, it’s hard to find a good old SR run only without any of this.

It was a response to the difference between participating in GDKP vs buying items from the auction house. Not a comparison between different playermade loot systems.

This will get you blacklisted in no time since the people who run GDKP’s are organised and communicating with each other.

19

My point remains the same, both of them are infested with botted gold. Im guessing you dont mind the low prices on cons, or anything else on the AH?

This is an emtpy threat, there are LOADS of gdkps who dont really pay attention the blacklists.

I think you give the gdkp host’s to much credit. Some are organized, some arent.

1 Like
20

I’m kind of neutral on the auction house prices since they don’t really affect my gameplay for the better, or for the worse. Raid consumables in WotLK were never out of reach for the average player to begin with, from what I can remember. Regardless if you farmed them yourself in the open world or if you bought them from others.

GDKP really does affect my gameplay though, hence it’s a bigger deal.