tbh, for me, it feels like the MMORPG is missing in MMORPGs. The games don’t emphasise the online aspect either. There’s always avenues for solo play or at the very least, smaller and smaller groups as new games come out. In classic wow you had 40 mans, then it went to 25 and then 10 and now we have dungeons that give equal if not better loot than raids do so that 5 mans can be competitive.
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People will find this is the first step into monitising Classic, in an effort to slowly transform the players there into Retail ones. Why on earth wouldn’t they? It’s a business and this method is extremely effective because people don’t notice gradual change and it’s only later on does it dawn. Then it’s too far gone.
Madseason is absolutely correct in what he says. He’s right when he says it really isn’t hard to see the glittering dollar signs in the eyes of the managers. The time is absolutely correct, because players are at their weakest in the hype for TBC “Yes! I want to get into the 60-70 content right now!”
Classic is pretty much doomed now because players aren’t standing up to this initial stage-- so when the next thing happens they’ll let it pass, and the next, and the next. The timer for the deathknell of this game has begun.
The price of the boost is ENTIRELY irrelevant, game-skips are now purchasable in some OFFICIAL form (Yea dodgy websites have always existed to buy toons, but I think people’ll find official purchases are a very different thing because it becomes an official part of the game).
Bots were all over the place in Vanilla, so was purchasing game accounts-- and we’ll see how buy-from-Blizzard instead will be a completely different beast. Besides why people think making things worse is acceptable?
It’s not just about being clueless in playing a specific class-- it’s clueless about the game in general, and that includes everything like the economy, threat awareness, very importantly the community of the server, and other things.
There’s nothing that can be done about illicit services like purchasing accounts, but there is something we can do to stop official boosts and services-- so again why do we want to make it worse, likely more than twice as bad? Also again do you REALLY think Blizzard will stop here now they’ll managed to get their foot in the door to all that lovely lovely loot? It really wouldn’t take many years from now to convert the Classic community into good Retail players.
Why is it that the modern world of gaming accepts these ‘Confection MMORPGs’ where it’s possible to just buy game-skips in games? and where the whole game is just a front for a slimey cash shop preying on people’s weakness (I’ve in the past bought mounts - not for years though - so I don’t pretend to be a strong defender of the cause). Buying a game is a pass to play it how it was designed, and in a levelling RPG that means you start at level 1. A game is not a buffet so it doesn’t entitle players to pick what they like and leave what they don’t.
It would be like buying a ticket to a concert and demanding the band play a specific song at a specific time. “Well I PAID for this ticket so I should be able to get what I want when I want!”. Media is a completely optional transaction which is why it isn’t immoral that the goods aren’t made entirely for every consumer. I’ve wasted money on many things I decided I didn’t like, and for the most part that’s my damn fault not the companies-- ad I don’t demand they change the product to fit my tastes.
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I personally much prefer 25 man raids though. 40 is too messy to setup etc. And retail has up to 30 man raids right? Don’t see an issue here. I do agree that nowadays they’re focusing a bit too much on solo content, which should never be even close to a priority in an MMO.
I also prefer 25 but it shows the slow decline. I’m aware retails raids can scale up to 30 but they do not require it. The minimum amount of people you need to do all the way up to heroic is 10. And M+ makes dungeons an endgame progression path and that only requires 5 people.
I would say there’s actually a crucial difference between a solo player and a single-player player.
The modern game feels more like it’s trying to be a single-player game in everything but raids and Mythic+ (even then one could argue players feel more like clever NPCs when it’s done using group finder listings).
There’s just no time, for one, to have a community because EVERYTHING is so comically rushed with the go-go-go mentality and design.
For the new game the boost makes sense - I don’t like it but the game is so far away from my preference that… whatever, it’s gone for me anyway. Cutting out levelling is insane for a Classic realm.
Madseason was right again (it’s an excellent video). The kinds of people who buy the boost are highly likely not to stay; or if it’s a current player buying a boost they’ll likely not value the character and it’ll end up rotting in character select limbo.
The primary use will be for gold farmers and robots to buy the account and instantly get to Outlands, and then proceed to more than double the botting and farming problems and ruin the economy further.
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And yet Shadowlands is decidedly more solo unfriendly than BFA. It is now impossible to get gear competitive in the endgame without doing content that requires non autoQ groups.
Whilst this doesn’t make SL as group intensive as classic, it suggests blizzard are trying their hand at pushing some core MMO staples back in (such as you having to group to get decent gear, gear being rarer, choices being non casual) these are frequently the source of disagreement in retail. There are those who welcome the direction and then those who don’t like these classic-esque elementS.
I would disagree retail is necessarily less social. I’d argue classic is necessarily more social. Retail can be played socially or not, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be social. I play retail in the same way I did vanilla largely, I run in guilds, groups of friends and communities and I am not “alone” in the game. Some are though, because the game doesn’t force them to be social like classic does in ways.
The end result is the same, however.
That’s because shadowlands took one small step in the right direction but it’s still a highly soloable game for an MMO when you compare it to games that came out back in the early 2000s.
Absolutely, small steps. I’m an old school Everquest player so I know what a “old school” MMORPG feels like.
I don’t mind the directional changes of SL at all. I honestly fail to understand why some people must meta the fabric of the game to pieces and destroy the RPG. So cov abilities aren’t balanced and non fluid swap. So what? Why do we need to be optimal all the time? We already accept limitations with our class choice so to scream at covenants as “preventing Optimal” is dumb. If I want to be king of aoe, I must be a mage. I can’t change into a mage on a whim. So why should I be able to swap to my best aoe cov ability on a whim?
Such ideas are anathema however.
Well tbh, a system like covenants has never been in wow before and it was never needed. Imo, it is unnecessary baggage that is frustrating to players.
Well until they rebrand the genre of the game, people who complain about heavy-handed MMO implentation in an MMO really aren’t the kind of people I’m going to listen to.
I honestly don’t raid, do dungeons, PvP or anything in Retail-- the difference with me however is I don’t demand the game bend to how I play. Pathetically all I seem to do in fact is do some levelling for about 10 minutes, realise how empty and soulless the experience is to me, and then alt+f4. Classic is my primary game now.
When I make suggestions I stress to have them as options. For example I’d love to see challenging dungeons without the dreaded timer, but alongside the timed mode not replacing it.
I dislike Mythic+ and the way even remotely challenging content is complicated in the sense it requires absolute attention. Even classes I think are over-designed as you mash buttons on almost every GCD which to me damages the old relaxed style of having time to actually chat and consider strategy rather than always being on your toes with twitch reactions. That’s the way the game is now, and I don’t expect it to change-- people seem to like the complexity of rotations and not the strategy of controlling the encounters (hence the screams against AE caps and such, people just want to burn down 30 mobs at once and do big DPS).
You have to admit though even in guilds it’s become FAR more a matter of raid-logging and only grouping up for profit and not pure fun.
Well, yes modern isn’t at all designed with social interaction in mind outside of Mythic content (and even then as I alluded it is so consuming on the brain it’s impossible to be social during), and humans just default to the path of least resistance (the easiest route for things is not always the most fun or rewarding).
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Unfortunately for us, they are the ones blizzard listens to.
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Just look at that TBC store page monstrosity on Wowhead.
I don’t care if you only see it in Retail, though it has a TBC skin so that ain’t confirmed. What matters is they are buttering up people to play Classic as if its Retail, and oh how they are doing a grand job at that looking at the forums these days.
Store mount and boost on the same page. How long before store mounts migrate over to Classic games? “Look Retail minded players who like buying your way through the game as if its a buffet-- go and play Classic and infect that.”
Already we are clearly fighting a losing war against OTHER PLAYERS. Even a year ago that would be completely unthininkable. Imagine what things will be like in another year.
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You’re right. If cash shop services of any kind, let along pay-to-win boosts had been announced during the Classic pre-launch period there would have been an absolute mutiny.
I naively believed that most people would react with hostility to the news of pay-to-win in TBC Classic, but instead we’re seeing an influx of retailers who are evangelical about pay-to-win.
I failed to take into account Blizzard’s efforts to convince retailers into TBC, coupled with the limitations of retail itself, which furiously rushes players into endgame at breakneck speed, which is then swiftly consumed, leaving them with little to do.
They see TBC Classic merely as a ‘bunch of new raids’, and all other content, levelling, exploration, RPG mechanics etc. are simply a pointless waste of time to them as all they care about is rushing to level cap and beating the content as quickly as possible. Naturally pay-to-win boosts appeal to people with this retail mindset. They don’t see the game as an MMORPG, but merely as a multiplayer boss fighting game, and nothing else matters. Levelling bores them, anything that slows down their furious, breakneck rush to end game bores them. Years of retail conditioned them into this kind of mindset, and now they’re eager to bring it into TBC.
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People see pay to win diffrently. You can argue boost is pay to win or pay to skip.
If they announce pay to win or pay to skip in tbc content and not vanilla content im sure it would be a bigger outcry.
I will definitely be buying into the boost, why? Because the leveling process in classic, while entertaining and has its moments heavily favours certain classes over others. I will be definitely using my boost intelligently to bring up a class that would otherwise take me 100% extra time to do compared to the classes i’ve already levelled.
Will I be leaving straight away? Unlikely, I plan to level a blood elf with friends through classic as well.
Such sweeping and wide accusations are why blizzard do not listen to the absolute purist camp in classic. I know for a fact several of my friends will be trying TBCC out because Classic does have undeniably very unfriendly and wonky systems in an otherwise fun game. They were put off by those and since TBCC alleviates those problems they feel its time to join in.
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I’ve plenty of level 60’s, (I’ve about 7 on just one realm) I want to play other race/class combos in the future without doing the old, dull, levelling content. I’ll buy the boost, I’ll buy second accounts to boost again on if I need too. I’ve never played retail, nor do I want to.
Insta lvl 58 is not pay-to-win, you don’t win anything, in fact my boosted level 58 char would have less gold, worse professions and worse gear than any levelled char. It’s not Pay to win, it’s pay for convenience. Now all I need is the WoW token so I can gear all my chars up 
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Its good lvl boost is gona work only on new accs.
Hear hear! Because hardly anyone knows what an “economy” means on classic or retail, except on retail, the presence of the token has effectively stopped botting and put some sort of price control on things.
I’d argue that Blizzard listens to no one, there are so many changes that were done in-game through the years that pretty much ALL the community was against (like the GCD changes off the top of my head).
At “best” they are going to listen to the cows that are ripe for the milking, the “I play MMORPGS to get rewards with money” crew.
Sadly it hasn’t done those things, but here is where we are.
Blizzard have mismanaged the economy from day one, inflation is massive. Mages earning 9k per day doing 500 pulls in Mara and clearly selling the gold, 50+ Rogues on my server 24 hours a day 7 days a week unguilded in BRD. GDKP runs laundering the money everywhere with even BWL trinkets selling for 10k gold the Token starts to make sense.
Unless you play A LOT and grind all that time, you’re likely very far behind being able to be competitive in search for a raid spot in the coming expansion because who will the raid leader take as the raid sizes are shrunk, the poor guy with a few dungeon blues and HC epics? Or the guy wearing the full crafting set that is BiS till end of T5?