so we’ve come from a lot of people to some people. I don’t see why a feature should be implemented that is only really ‘‘NEEDED’’ by a equally small % as those who are adamantly opposed to it. It seems to me there is no net positive with the boost but rather merely choosing which demographic blizz prefers. And ofc they prefer the demographic who will chalk up 50 quid for a boost in a game version that wasn’t supposed to have these kind of services in it. I’ve said this quite clearly from the start, the choice for blizzard is obvious, they should definitely keep the boost because they’ll make more money 100% but for players, it’s not a clear positive. It’s as much of a win as it is a loss therefore for players, not a good decision. (why make an addition that only benefits blizz)
The names of existing private servers are very easily accessible to find out so I’d love ‘these people’ you speak of to list what these servers are and where all these ‘‘50% increase’’ of players are. The fact is they don’t exist. Classic brought in millions of subs and I can tell you there aren’t another groups of millions worth half of that original increase playing on tbc private servers rn. Simple as.
Well I’d agree with you because I think any group that is going to need the boost to be level 58-60 in time for TBC Launch is very small. I think most people who will use the boost will already have chars and just want a free extra alt tbh which is NOT why the boost was justified by blizz. I don’t want them to add it, but if I was looking to make more money as blizz, I definitely would.
@Parrydodger: Not a 50% increase, but consist of 50+% of experienced players. In other words, if for example 50 000 people more come for EU launch (which is nowhere near 50% of EU population), over 25 000 of them are experienced (either in retail or non-official realms (or even both)).
And now I really need some sleep, I am starting to see gray spots floating and my forehead aches. Good night!
Because the other one isn’t free.
It takes time. Time isn’t free.
If someone makes 10$ an hour, and invests 7*24h into leveling a character (That’s 168 WAKING hours mind you), that person effectively invested 1680$ into leveling that character. The more you earn per hour, the more costly that little alt character gets.
Compare that to the 25-60$ the boost will be sold for.
I am comparing time investments. Money is simply a metric to make a point that time isn’t free, but a valuable commodity.
It’s not a new Meta. Meta is “Most efficient Tactic available”. The tactic is “have an alt”. How you get that alt, is irrelevant.
Carrying 20 tons of sand 20 meters to the left by hand with no tools would take me a lot of time and dedication. And no one in the world would congratulate me for it, or see it as anything other than a waste of time.
It doesn’t matter if the thesis held true in some other case.
In order to use slippery slope as an argument, one has to prove that the specific events relevant to the case at hand are causally linked so that A => B => C => D.
By that definition, the boost is completely acceptable.
It doesn’t interfere with the games mechanics in any way, it has a negligible impact on the ingame economy, and, as I demonstrated before, doesn’t change the Meta.
Bad players will ruin runs no matter if they are boosted or not. “XYZ boosted his character” is not indicative of XYZ being a bad player. I have been playing Warlock for almost 16 years now. If I decided to use my boost to level another Warlock (because, why not? ) I would most likely be a lot better on this char, than many of the fotm rerollers who are now Mage-Boosting or powerleveling one.
Hold on a second…wasn’t one of your original arguments that the boost makes the game LESS accessible to newer players?
So which one is it? It cannot be both, the arguments are mutually exclusive.
No, it’s not.
Its an extremely simple and straightforward game, no matter at which level.
WoW was designed to be simple and accessible, that was it’s major selling point in the MMO World, and the reason for its success.
Noone has to level up a character to learn how to play it.
Also, the entire discussion is academic at this point anyway.
Blizzard announced the boost at their most famous and most public community event. I guess chances that they just “take it back”, are next to zero
Are you seriously comparing playing a game to working? One is a pleasure you’re supposed to look forward to, the other is a necessity you do to live.
Not to mention it’s assuming that the guy is playing instead of working.
And not to mention that it’s sad that we have reached the point where people think it’s perfectly fine to advance their game progression with money. Guess that’s micro-transactions conditioning for you.
You don’t have time to play? Don’t freaking play, don’t ask for ways to use your real-life money because your time is too precious to be wasted on a video-game playing, but somehow your money spent to get instant rewards isn’t.
i agree with your points, sadly its most likely inevitable at this point.
i would have prefarred it to be behind a level cap of 70 tho at the very least in the same way death knights where (supposedly) intended to be back in the days. making it an option for people who do not wish to level an alt
making it little different from the dungeon boosting.
in my eyes atleast your first charecter should be earned, a character you build a bond to because you went through all those struggles with not something you can throw even more money at to solve inconveniences.
You’re treating this as if “playing” was an activity similar to “working”. In wish case, according to your own logic, you are losing loads of money by playing the game.
Not when “having their fun in a different way” means “Using wallet to progress”.
Laziness. Spoiling. Aversion towards players who want to put in effort the get what they want.
That’s a retail mentality that people want to bring on Classic. And to that, I say go to retail because I want to play Classic, and not Classic with retail-like mechanics.
No I don’t. Read my post again: I am applying a value-metric to counter the argument that leveling a character the old fashioned way is supposedly “free”.
Yeah and that doesn’t make any sense because “play-time” and “salary” are unrelated except if you are playing on your work time. You’re comparing the uncomparable. That money you “lose by playing”, you wouldn’t earn it if you don’t play.
By your logic, you lose money if you do an activity that doesn’t earn you money. Meaning that sleeping, eating, driving, walking in the street, is a waste of money.
I mean… it literally is. Free means it doesn’t cost money…
definition of free (google): without cost or payment.
definition of cost: (of an object or action) require the payment of (a specified sum of money) before it can be acquired or done.
example of cost: “each issue of the magazine costs £1”
definition of payment: the action or process of paying someone or something or of being paid.
example of payment: “ask for a discount for payment by cash”
definition of payment 2: an amount paid or payable.
example of payment 2: “a compensation payment of £2500”
I get where you’re coming from but time does not directly equal money even though if you worked those hours you played, you’d have that amount of money, levelling with that time isn’t necessarily instead of working. Your argument only works on the assumption that someone is working to spend on wow. (in a vacuum)
ik what you’re comparing but for the reasons I previously explained, I think it is a comparison founded on faulty logic.
This is a matter of semantics. Whether you call it a meta or not the same problem exists, doesn’t matter what you call it. I called it a meta and I think it is the correct term but if you want to call it something different it doesn’t actually counter how the ‘thing’ is a problem.
It would depend on why you carried the sand. Also, even though people wouldn’t praise you for carrying the sand, everyone that knew you carried the sand would understand the factual reality of how long it would have taken to carry that sand and how strong you would have to have been in order to carry it.
But who decides what suffices as proof and what does not? I would argue that blizzard implementing one microtransaction without significant backlash ‘‘gets their foot in the door’’ to add more. The precedent establishes the future. Sometimes, logical decision making isn’t based on precedented data, sometimes it’s based on a risk anaylsis. What are the chances that this thing could happen? And the risk doesn’t always have to be more likely than the alternative outcome in order for the risk to be too high to take it.
No because the boost does not contribute to
The more it contributes to these systems, the more acceptable it is. I would also like to clarify a part of my previous definition. When I say ‘‘the meta’’ I meant more like gameplay systems like raiding and pvp etc… through content because the boost does impact the meta but negatively.
True but due to my personal views on the boost (I don’t think it should be in the game), I am much more willing to help someone who’s bad even though they played legitimately vs someone who boosted since if it were up to me, they wouldn’t even be the level on that char that they would need to be in order to have joined my group in the first place.
Secondly, the boost will increase the rate in which you encounter these bad players. Do the existing bad player base at level 58-60 + bad players at level 58-60 due to the boost = total amount of bad players at TBCC launch. Levelling acts as a filter to these low attention span players and gets most of them to quit before they can ever reach the max level.
*to new players who can’t afford the boost
The majority of users who will need the boost in order to have a char ready for TBCC launch will be new players (not necessarily the majority of people who will use the boost as a whole, I think that group will be people just looking for an ez extra alt) but there will be other new players who aren’t as financially comfortable IRL who would have felt competitive enough to play without the boost but no longer do feel so with the boost in the game. It isn’t the same new players being discussed.
to you, someone who’s probably played for a while
if so then why is the levelling so ‘‘exclusive’’ to you
so why is the levelling a problem, clearly the game was designed to be and so is accessible!
No, it doesn’t.
Free means it doesn’t require the expenditure of resources.
Time is a resource.
That’s true. The purpose of this example wasn’t to directly equate time to money, but to demonstrate that time and money are both resources and are, to a certain extend, fungible (interchangeable) towards each other. Hence I see little difference in expending time to level a character, or expending money to have it boosted.
I may have clutched the wording “Meta” to tightly there.
I get where you are coming from, and agree to a certain extend. Correct me if I misunderstand: You are making the argument that people will feel compelled to boost a character for the purpose of doing XYZ, because it will be the most efficient way of getting a character to do XYZ, and XYZ will be seen as non-optional among their peers/guild/friends, yes?
While that is true, a lot of people already have that character. Having one more will be convenient, but not have that much of an impact.
That matters much less to me, then the memory of me carrying all that sand, and the great time I had doing so.
If, at some point in the future, people can no longer tell whether I carried the sand, or rented a truck to get it carried, that doesn’t change anything about my experience, memories or enjoyment.
Formal Logic does =)
No, it doesn’t. Precedent allows for predictions given similar starting conditions, but does not prove a certain outcome.
And given that the starting conditions are dissimilar (TBC classic != A Retail Addon), the prediction is most likely wrong.
That’s your decision to make, but doesn’t change the argument. Bad players happen, good players happen, boosted characters don’t change that.
Not really, no.
There is no accurate prediction on the quality of players who will use the boost.
Let me rephrase that:
Leveling doesn’t teach you how to play your character. Take the warlock as example: You level with a mixture of affliction and/or Demonology, making heavy use of Fear, multiple dots, and use your demon to control mobs, by tanking, seduction-stunning, etc.
Is that how a Warlock plays in Classic Dungeons or Raids?
No, not even close. In Fact, if I started fear-juggling mobs in, say, UBRS, I would likely be kicked from the group. If I started Dotting up Patchwerk, my Raid would tell me to stop wasting Debuff-Slots.
Leveling taught me nothing about how my class should be played in the Endgame.
Ok but you haven’t justified why they are not that different because I would argue they are very different due to how those resources are acquired. Time is literally a fundamental element of reality we all experience whereas money is a currency that has to be obtained actively through working within the roles of our social structures. Everyone has time not everyone has money. If money is directly equivalent to time, then surely there should be an IRL money alternative to every single thing in the game that costs gold as gold is a fake virtual currency that really just represents time investment.
Yes except what I think was a typo where the non-optional route would be ZYX not XYZ because in this example, XYZ is boosting and ZYX would be levelling traditionally.
But that wasn’t even BLIZZARD’S justification of the boost. They quite clearly stated that it was so that everyone could play TBC and participate in TBC even if they didn’t play classic or are new to wow. They have said so EXPLICITLY (check blue reply to thread on 58 boost on US forums). Therefore, it shouldn’t matter about whether people want it for a ez extra alt, that wasn’t why it was justified. Even those justifications I think fall short but there are definitely no grounds to stand on if we accept that the boost is really about people getting an unneeded extra alt. There is little to no justification there.
Only if a truck exists in this world to carry the sand. But what about if trucks (in wow would be the boost) didn’t exist? Well then everyone would know FOR SURE that you carried the sand yourself.
The problem with this example is that it takes place in real life where every action isn’t part of some connected ecosystem where all people present and doing so within the confines of a game in which everyone is there to compete and interact with each other for the purposes of entertainment. The example is so abstract that I’m even struggling to articulate how it is that they aren’t comparable. I will appeal to your common sense in that a game world is very different to real life right?
problem is logic isn’t so common these days. People think so differently more so than ever nowadays.
I would argue that actually classic realms are very much tied to retail because it is the same game company designing them and blizzard has proven that their no.1 priority is providing a convenient experience across all their games and making as much money as possible. Adding things like wow tokens in the future would accomplish that exact goal and would cross no boundaries that the boost does not already do. Your right that it isn’t a fact yet but as I said, many things are prevented on likelihoods. If someone googles ‘‘how to make a bomb’’, there’s no proof they’ll actually make a bomb but what do you think are the chances that they at least intend to make a bomb?
But my reason for feeling that way is all of the reasons I listed in the OP, many of which I think are founded in reason and fact.
existing player who boosts = the same player (no increase in player population)
new player who boosts = new player (increase in player population)
the more people in the game, the more people on each server. The more people on each server, the more players you will interact with, especially in the outlands zones (because the boost aims people towards that content).
Existing players boosting do not increase the high level player population, new players boosting does.
if you know that’s the meta for lock levelling. New players don’t know this.
you’re doing this off a pre-established knowledge basis. New players are learning what those spells do in the first place, how long they take the cast and how powerful/weak they are, what types of mobs they work on, what interactions they have with other spells like on druid, damaging mob with roots will break the roots. THAT’S THE LEARNING.
I mean I can disprove your claim that ‘‘no one learns’’ because I only need an example of 1 person to disprove it. My sister was new to classic wow (I introduced her) and she learnt about the daze effect from getting hit with aspect of the cheetah and pack on so she learnt to swap it out when fighting. That’s just 1 example of something she’s learnt and she’s only level 22. Anecdotes don’t make good arguments but when you make the claim that ‘‘no one’’ does, then an anecdotes suffices because ‘‘no one’’ literally means not even 1 person which is easy to disprove.
Not the point
I never said it taught them everything they’ll ever need to know but it definitely teaches them an important amount.
And it isn’t even just class spells. What about all the other elements of the game. Those get slowly introduced to you as well…
Oh no, I’ve been asking for whites and greys to be 'moggable like since day one - I’ve not gotten this to date
Time gating - or max level gating is just so annoying. It takes all the fun out of levelling in Retail. Sigh.
Wrong. I play every class but Warrior and Rogue. And I do NOT want TBCC! I want Classic, and I’m ogoing to stay in Classic Era servers with almost all my characters.
Then stay on classic and stop bothering people. Despite lvling a character on classic i quit because i despise the meta there and i dont feel like playing warrior or mage to do some good dps and have fun. Frankly i have no opinion about this as classic is already a boost fiesta. Instead of buying gold from chinese farmers to buy boosts and sitting afk people now can pay blizz to just play from lvl 58. There is really no difference here.
He robbed from a shop, so it’s OK for me to rob from a post office.
He stands on the lumber mill in Alterac Valley, so it’s OK for me to honour leech.
He abuses line of sight in arena, so it’s OK for me to win trade.
Two wrongs make a right is a logical fallacy, and it’s one you are perpetuating by stating that it’s OK for you to exploit the game with pay-to-win boosts because other people exploit the game with dungeon boosts.
) I would most likely be a lot better on this char, than many of the fotm rerollers who are now Mage-Boosting or powerleveling one.
