This is a bit of a rant post, but I seriously don’t get it.
Like most people’s guilds, mine died in Phase 1 and most people, including myself took a break. I came back to try season 2 but most didn’t.
One of the major things that was really off putting for myself and other players I know was this ridiculous “min max” attitude of many players. In Phase 1 they would do things like exclude certain classes from groups for content that’s been out for TWENTY YEARS because it wasn’t “optimal”. They would ask for gearscore for dungeons that have been out for TWENTY YEARS and that pretty much EVERYONE playing has completed a thousand times in greens. They would DEMAND people be over levelled for said twenty year old dungeons because it wasn’t optimal to take someone lower. Despite runes making everyone more powerful than they would have been if this was a regular classic server. For examples demanding people be minimum level 13/14 for RFC when it can quite easily be completed with a party of level 11/12s and has been for TWENTY YEARS. Similarly demanding minimum levels of 19/20 for dungeons like Deadmines or Wailing Caverns when they can easily be done (and have been FOR TWO DECADES) with parties of level 16/17s.
For Blackfathom deeps they demanded gearscore and pre-BIS even though having pre-BIS in some cases meant you didn’t meet the gearscore requirements (???).
As I had my guild we just did the content ourselves but I found the playerbase on SoD very rude compared to Classic wow or OG 2005-10 WoW or even private servers and unlike classic servers there is very little social interaction etc. It didn’t feel classic at all.
It is like everyone is “racing” to something. To be the first to level cap or to have the best gear or to best DPS in twenty year old dungeons. It was BIZARRE. We could not help but think who cares? Who cares about this, it is a video game? A version of a video game where it was marketed as “slower pace” but seemed to be the opposite ?
Now I came back for season 2 and I try to convince some guildies to come back too. They ask me if it is still full of “sweats” and what can I say really? I did RFD fine at level 25 in a pug, as of course you are able too in classic and especially in SoD with some BFD gear. But then trying to get a group again it’s kick kick, people saying “kick the rogue he’s under levelled”, “sorry mate you need to be level 29”. ??? I literally did it no problem. As we have done for literally, decades.
You try to group with other players for group quests and they say “I can’t sorry bro I need to max my xp”… I have found one guy I could group with since I came back to do quests. The rest people are just rude and just want to zoom through the levelling experience to max their xp. I’ll literally be trying to kill the elite dwarves in hillsbrad, see a guy doing the same, offer to group with them and they’ll refuse saying to “stay the expletive out the way I need the xp” and then watch them literally die moments later. It’s absurd.
So what to tell guildies ? I will level to 40 but I suspect without my guild it may not be so fun, we will see, I keep an open mind.
I don’t think Blizzard can do anything about this, the playerbase seems to have changed. I think even a different playerbase from the ERA servers which suffer from this to a far lesser extent. But what I just don’t understand is why? Why do people treat the game like a job or to be the “best”. There is no money to be made, no one is esporting classic wow. There is no “first” to be had, the content has been done before. I simply do not get it !!