Hi, I’m new to wow.
What is the purpose of designing a game to work in a way that allows high leveled players to freely kill low leveled players?
I didn’t play wow back in the day so I don’t know why this is considered fun or good game design.
There are some special servers with rule sets that are different from mainstream. Choose a realm with server type ‘normal’ to play the game as it was designed.
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It’s called PvP and if you don’t like it I suggest you move to a PvE realm.
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The purpose of griefing and ganking is simple: fun.
Vanilla was designed with player freedom in mind, where players governed their own servers and what not. If players didn’t like the lowbie griefer, they’d go to the places he/she camped and would sort them out.
Which basicly is a myth. It didn’t work like that in WoW anymore than it did in UO.
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So my servers little devilsaur mafia was a myth? My guild corpse camping somebody that was griefing our levelling socials is a myth?
Yes. You’re wildly exaggerating the situation based on what your specific group was doing. Partly because you ignore how large the game was, and partly because you overestimate the effect of whatever you were doing.
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So you’re thereby saying that nothing I witnessed actually happened and that everything is a myth?
Look, I know what you’re saying. That the actions of a few are nothing in the big picture; but not everything is the big picture. The OP was talking about being griefed, something that is very small and has absolutely no effect on his server’s community what-so-ever.
But him being griefed does have an affect on him, and it is his role to find some way to deal with it. Hense, player freedom; a double edged sword.
Some players enjoy feeling power over others.
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Specially hidden behind a computer screen where they don’t risk more “direct” retaliation for behaving like the antisocial bullies they are 
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It’s about freedom. But it comes at a price. Thete is no universal solution:
- You are put on the safe rails and your game resemble a movie in which you pretend to be playing or
- You are given total freedom and deal with others abusing theirs.
There are games all across this spectrum with both versions of wow being: retail leaning toward rails variant and classic with more middle of the spectrum aproach.
It’s purpose is to annoy enemy players enough they leave the realm or at least to halt their progress.
There are some people who get pleasure out of hurting people who are unable to retaliate, or making their lives miserable - simply because they can.
Fortunately there is an outlet for these kinds of people, they are called PvP servers.
If you roll a character on one, you are giving tacit consent to the kinds of people mentioned above to treat you as their personal chew toy.
It’s rather like some scrawny wimpy, bespectacled kid walking into the smoking area where all the big, hard romper-stomping bullies hang out when they’re slacking off with a “kick me in the nuts” sign hung around his neck.
We might feel a bit sorry for the kid; but ultimately he is reaping the consequences of his actions.
Everyone can avoid the ‘romper-stompers’ entirely by not rolling on a PvP server.
Some of the wimpy, speccy kids eventually stick it out and develop the means to fight back and defend themselves, some don’t.
But those who survive the griefers probably feel more of a sense of achievement than those who prefer to play in peace on a PvE realm.
The game also allows a 2 or more low level players to take out a higher level player
The general Idea is that its a sandbox
Wether or not it is good game design doesnt matter, this is how it was (and still is in retail, just realised this is one of the most unchanged features) so it is how it should be for classic
Most gankers gank alone, keep this in mind and adapt to it
it goes like this,
back in the oldie times of 2004 when vanilla was released, MMO players were a minority of minorities, most of us enjoyed the social interactions the mega multi player genre gave us, and this often lead to a shard sense of community.
as a result, there was little need to put systems in place to prevent griefing, because the community itself usually ostracized the griefers. treating them as a sad subset of the player base at best and ex-communicating them at worse. the community was also much more tight knit, which meant any serious griefing on the part of a player would cause,very quickly, a reaction from the heavies of the other side, who were usually much more organized, better geared, and far better skilled at hunting the culprits and teaching them the error of their ways.
this is not to say there was no griefing in 2004, just that it wasn’t a common occurrence and was looked down upon by most of the community.
fast forward to 2019, the server is full of, for the lack of better term, people representing the rear end of the anatomy, who think beating on someone who cannot possibly defend themselves is a good idea, for the most part they are to be treated with pity, they are the losers who will cower in fear at the thought of actually fighting something that has even a remote chance of winning. but sadly their behavior became the new norm because most of them are unable to self regulate themselves.
in short, griefing is usually the means such poor individuals prop their fragile little egos, treat them with the mixture of pity and scorn they deserve and move on (or roll on a pve server where they have to at least try to get creative to grief)
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I doubt you have the slightest idea of what a sandbox is.
WoW is definitely a theme park MMORPG.
UO was a sandbox.
Retail yes, it is a theme park MMO
This however is the classic forums, Classic is more open world then theme park
You can always argue that any game is not truely x genre
Classic is a theme park MMO too. Definitely.
Just PvP wise, if it was really a open world sandbox, you would be able to attack your own faction too.
PvE wise, having the content all scripted and hidden in instances is a theme park feature, not a sandbox.
Classic UO (1996), a true sandbox, and Classic WoW (Vanilla 2004), a theme park, are so different it’s not even funny.
I dont know UO, but I disagree with the Idea that classic is a themepark mmo Just because you cant attack your own faction which themetically makes sense
I may remember falsely but I can remember something along the lines of activating pvp on a PVP server making it FFA
What purpose other than griefing does one have in classic wow?
Cause the endgame has been cleared 15 years ago and have been cleared in private servers for straight 15 years.
True endgame is duels, griefing and wsg premade vs premade.
Most players have been playing the game on private servers for years, completed the raids over and over.
Griefing is only thing left.