Accessibility VS Prestige

[Rusken]

What even is prestigious about anything in WoW anymore? Maybe it's just me but that feeling of awe when inspecting people in their BWL/AQ40/Naxx gear has been lost probably since Wrath, and even though the mythic raids we have these days are mechanically far more complicated and difficult than any fights back then were, seeing someone in their full mythic t19 or 20 just makes me think "Oh, god.. You still have the time and drive to raid?"

Not even PvP is really prestigious anymore, I was still impressed in Mists and Warlords when I would see someone with Elite Gladiator gear, but now there is no PvP gear and the only notable rewards are received after a season is long over.

The only things to me that still hold prestige are the difficult to obtain, time limited titles, mounts etc. Things like Vanilla PvP titles (YES I check achievement dates on people with RBG titles), Scarab Lord is probably still the most impressive thing in the game, I'm also still always impressed whenever I see Benediction/Anathema, or Rhok'delar. The BC titles, Hand of A'dal and the other Naaru one, Black and Plagued Proto-Drakes from Naxx achievements, Green Warlock Fire from Mists, surviving WoD and now challenge appearances in Legion. As well as any Gladiator title, or any title given to the first group to kill whatever boss on whatever difficulty (my favourite being "Death's Demise" from Yogg+0)

These days WoW needs accessibility to survive and Blizz have done superbly well to keep it alive. Gamers have changed, no one coming into WoW in 2017 is still going to be playing in 2 years time if they see someone in the best gear and just think "Oh, I don't have 40 hours a week to play this game I can literally never reach that level."

[Vaelorian]

It's hard for me to think about the topic because I can't really relate to the "prestige" part. I don't really get it. As a busy, adult person, the idea of feeling "special" or whatever because of some little thing you got in a video game, even thinking about it - if that's what "prestige" means ... I don't know, it just strikes me as so very much "out there", or perhaps out of touch, idk.

The other guy that responded to you about some fatass in his parents basement makes a good point in a politically incorrect manner.

Personally, I cared most for prestige when I was in the following situation:
1. just came out of a rough breakup, which took far too long to recover from
2. living alone for a few years with loads of time for wow

I really loved every special stuff that was in WoW. I wanted it badly. Not just for myself but also for the guild that I made. Every thing I and the guild gained that was special put us and me on the server map. Wether it was special enchants that did not drop for everyone yet or special mounts or titles even... everything was welcome.
I truly felt better about myself whenever (and this happened regularly) someone came up to me and told me they I was awesome. Be it skillwise or gearwise. Looking back, I find myself a little pathetic for actually revelling in that feeling. But my selfesteem was so low, this slowly but surely made me recover.

So prestige matters. That said.... nowadays I find it far less important to me personally. Still why should you not want prestige in WoW? Young people can look up to or rather.. aspire to get X Y Z (which is hard) it is good to sometimes keep dreaming attaining a goal but never do it. Equally the feeling of obtaining a really challenging goal that took effort and took a while... when you obtain that, the feeling is amazing. Why would people not want something like that?

[Marrilaife]

The only things to me that still hold prestige are the difficult to obtain, time limited titles, mounts etc. Things like Vanilla PvP titles (YES I check achievement dates on people with RBG titles), Scarab Lord is probably still the most impressive thing in the game, I'm also still always impressed whenever I see Benediction/Anathema, or Rhok'delar. The BC titles, Hand of A'dal and the other Naaru one, Black and Plagued Proto-Drakes from Naxx achievements, Green Warlock Fire from Mists, surviving WoD and now challenge appearances in Legion. As well as any Gladiator title, or any title given to the first group to kill whatever boss on whatever difficulty (my favourite being "Death's Demise" from Yogg+0)

For me these don't hold any prestige at all after meeting a few players with "Scarab Lord" or "Death's Demise" and seeing they're very mediocre players, often with big egos not matching their skill, because they think their titles make them "special".

Scarab Lord accounts were widely sold and traded back in the day, on the server I started playing it was widely known the mage carrying Scarab Lord sold his account to someone else. Death's Demise and other WOTLK titles were often obtained on dead servers like Steamwheedle Cartel - EU, back then when there were tons of servers, new ones being opened regularly, playerbase was growing and no one ever thought about merges, very few of these titles were obtained under hard competition because only a handful of servers were high pop with big raiding scene, many servers had 1-2 semi-serious guilds tops. I knew a mage with Atiesh who got kicked from a 1,5k world ranked guild (so not even that "pro") because he couldn't even switch to adds during the fight (he refused to do so because "muh logs"). Such an awe-inspiring player right?

I personally own Benediction which I facerolled my way to near the end of WOTLK. It doesn't hold any prestige to me. I had it transmogged when my priest didn't use a dagger, but mostly because it matched my transmog and is a memento of old times. I don't think I impressed anyone by wearing it.

MOP & WOD cm mogs hold even less "prestige" because boosts through cm were prolific, some more active boost teams probably had hundreds if not thousands of customers over the course of the corresponding expansion, and there were multiple of these per each high pop server (you could do it cross realm if yours didn't have 1).

Warlock green fire is obtainable to this day, and is pure faceroll. The only thing removed is "of the Black Harvest" title for completing it in MOP, but even then it was fairly forgiving in SOO gear (it was a challenge around ~500 ilvl while you could easily get 550+ by the end of MOP). I went back there recently on my second warlock and the only part where you have to pay some attention is the gauntlet inside BT, still everyone can get it, so it's not even counting as time-limited content.

[Mlz]

you would get it if you were unemplyed fatass living in your parent basement and chugging hotpockets and soda drinks

then in game prestige would make you fullfilled

sadly you are just normal functioning adoult so you dont get it

Or, wait for it... people who like being competitive and enjoy challenge irl, also like it in-game (and in other aspects of their lives)? Maybe it's actually the other way around - you have so little in real life that you feel you're entitled for everything in a game that you, of course, pay for?

[Pull My Finger]

Still why should you not want prestige in WoW? Young people can look up to or rather.. aspire to get X Y Z (which is hard) it is good to sometimes keep dreaming attaining a goal but never do it. Equally the feeling of obtaining a really challenging goal that took effort and took a while... when you obtain that, the feeling is amazing. Why would people not want something like that?

It's a really difficult topic. I find it very hard to relate to. I very much get the point about difficult challenges, effort etc. The two main things in my life are composing music and martial arts. Normal people can't even begin to imagine how difficult it is to obtain a black belt in a legit martial art, and what it says about your personality, what kind of journey that is. Same thing goes for becoming able to compose a complex piece of music that is truly brilliant and inspires others. So I definitely do get that part of the equation. But in a way, perhaps it's precisely why it strikes me so much that someone would expect something even distantly related to that from a video game. It's just so absurd.

I love WoW. I enjoy it for how full of imagination it is, the wonderful attention to detail, the music, the imagery, just how it plays, how much fun it can be. It's just such a beautiful form of entertainment. But that's what it is. There's no kind of true growth, complexity or expression in it. And thus no reason or area to be "proud of" in any way, unless your priorities are completely detached from reality and real life. It's crazy to interpret such things into it. It's like comparing a pebble to the Moon.

[Deleted]

Accessibility
Believes in a Utopian world where everyone must be equal

note: I did my best to not be offensive. Keep it civil and say which party do you agree more with if you so desire.

Yeah.... not at all.

[melzas]

Stuff that is easy to get in WoW usually holds no value for me. Take shop blizz store mounts and pets - I have zero interst in them even though I can afford them easily, simply because it's to easy to get them. I would rather not raid at all if I don't have the time for commitement than run LFR more than once to see the raid. The only pvp I'm interested in is ranked arena. I need challenge or competition to enjoy WoW (or any online game for that matter) in the long run.

Non-competitive stuff like questing or LFR are nice but there is no reason to repeat them, and prestige comes from rivalry.

[Queen of Hamsters]

One does not exclude the other.

People shouldn't play MMORPG's that move forward if they can't handle missing out if they don't play.

[Daffan]

Exactly, item level is only useful to do Heroic and Mythic raiding. Useless for anything else
Chances are you dont even need item level.

Yup. I don't personally. What Blizzard gives me for just logging in and hitting felboars in invasions at random intervals has been enough + M+ welfare cache + rng legendaries. Feels awful tho, spend more time on the forums then in-game before 7.2.5 and ToS.

One day I might get back in the Mythic cycle, now that my schedule is much better.

[RoKPaNda]

Accessibility, honestly. There is no prestige in WoW, shit you don't even get acknowledgement from Blizzard for being the first group in the world to down their content. Limited time exclusive rewards are fine, don't need anything beyond that. Besides if you want to epeen flex Achievements have dates.

[Deadite]

The only answer is both. If they swing too far one way or the other they will alienate loads of players.

[Heladys]

It's not one or the other, it's about balance.

[Makorus]

Prestige should absolutely exist, and people who do "easier content" i.e. Normal/Heroic should get less "cool" cosmetic rewards than normal ones and more than right now. A title for CE/AotC would be a good start. Then again, they started with giving guaranteed Alpha access to people killing Mythic Archimonde, so that was cool.

I also think the change to LFR in WoD was the right move.

[Deleted]

With WoW, though, Blizzard wants you playing and invested in the game as much as possible because whether you are no-skill or great-skill you still might want to pay for appearance changes, faction changes, store mounts, WoW token, straight-up sub, or whatever else they can sell you. So Blizzard has to give something to both groups of players constantly to keep them invested in the game and coughing up that cash. That's why there needs to be a little bit of prestige and a whole lot of accessibility to appeal to both groups according to their relative population. If anything, Blizzard caters too far to the minority that needs prestige to stay invested.

If Blizzard "wants you playing and invested in the game as much as possible", then Prestige rewards is the way to go!
Like i said before, at first, when you pick up the game is all fun and games and you only play to have fun.
BUT after that initial phase of having fun is over people always look for "ego rewards" OR quit the game entirely. This is true to all games!

People are willing to stay invested in the game for Months...a Year even, just to be able to get that "ego reward" sometimes.

I could give examples of other games doing this but why should i if it's clearly almost every single one of them. MOBAS, FPS, Looters, Fighters, every single "online multiplayer" game preys on this need we have for "ego rewards".

WoW needs this because item level is garbage and gives no one prestige. It's a useless number without any kind of "cool factor".

[Wingspan]

Or, wait for it... people who like being competitive and enjoy challenge irl, also like it in-game (and in other aspects of their lives)? Maybe it's actually the other way around - you have so little in real life that you feel you're entitled for everything in a game that you, of course, pay for?

While the person you quoted was a bit more abrasive than necessary, hit point was reasonably sound.

If you are honestly the type of person that enjoys RL challenges, then sitting at a computer game as a major pastime (which is usually done indoors and with extremely little physical movement) is probably not something you are going to do.

Computer games are a really strange place to look for prestige. Fun, yes, but prestige... Well, let me put it this way, I finished the original Zork trilogy when it was "relevant", so how much prestige does that earn me? The answer: about as much prestige as you will keep for anything that you will ever do in WoW.

[Halyon]

Both. It can be done, and it's entirely fair, regardless if I like it or not. Obviously, if there's something prestige I really want, but can't get for whatever reason, ofc I'll feel that it's unfair and I'll be salty about it, but if there's no drive to try either, it'll also put other people off (and myself for many things).

So...both.

[Deleted]

Computer games are a really strange place to look for prestige. Fun, yes, but prestige... Well, let me put it this way, I finished the original Zork trilogy when it was "relevant", so how much prestige does that earn me? The answer: about as much prestige as you will keep for anything that you will ever do in WoW.

Games are strange place for prestige?
League of Legends, Overwatch, Tekken, Street Fighter, HotS, Hearthstone, almost every single online game is based on prestige ranks.
And its the main reason why people continue playing this games (for some people)

[Wingspan]

Games are strange place for prestige?
League of Legends, Overwatch, Tekken, Street Fighter, HotS, Hearthstone, almost every single online game is based on prestige ranks.

Then let them keep the prestige there where people "think" it means something and ease back on it a bit in RPGs. Games like WoW do not require anywhere near as much of it because competition is not the only goal of the game.


To be fair, I don't think WoW does a horrible job at this... But they definitely should not strive to move towards more prestige.

[Deleted]

Then let them keep the prestige there where people "think" it means something and ease back on it a bit in RPGs. Games like WoW do not require anywhere near as much of it because competition is not the only goal of the game.


To be fair, I don't think WoW does a horrible job at this... But they definitely should not strive to move towards more prestige.

On RPG's it should be even worse than in those games xD
Because they are replicas of real worlds.

Seriously, the main reason why i'm not eager to play WoW is because there is nothing in the game to thrive for.
Transmog: I am already beautiful, i need nothing else
Raids: I've seen them all
ilevel: Why should i want item level if i dont care about Heroic and Mythic raiding (like most players)

Basically there is no "epic quest" for me anymore to achieve prestige of any kind. It's a bland experience where everyone play just for fun...and when the initial fun ends...people quit.

And i'm not asking to only give prestige to Heroic and Mythic raiders. No. There should be prestige for Normal raiders also and everything in between. Prestige to every kind of player who decides to specializes is SOMETHING.
Only "no prestige" for people who do nothing.

[Wingspan]

On RPG's it should be even worse than in those games xD
Because they are replicas of real worlds.

But people don't tend to play them because of that... otherwise, "getting a job and making a living" games would be all the rage.

Seriously, the main reason why i'm not eager to play WoW is because there is nothing in the game to thrive for.
Transmog: I am already beautiful, i need nothing else
Raids: I've seen them all
ilevel: Why should i want item level if i dont care about Heroic and Mythic raiding (like most players)

There is always something to strive for in WoW... always. Apparently you have limited yourself to only wanting to strive for things that others will respect or be jealous of, which will only lead to sadness (as apparently it has).

Basically there is no "epic quest" for me anymore to achieve prestige of any kind. It's a bland experience where everyone play just for fun...and when the initial fun ends...people quit.

That stuff that I bolded is the BEST possible thing for the game... the absolute BEST. Because it encourages creators to the design the game for fun over any other priorities (which should be the goal).

And i'm not asking to only give prestige to Heroic and Mythic raiders. No. There should be prestige for Normal raiders also and everything in between. Prestige to every kind of player who decides to specializes is SOMETHING.
Only "no prestige" for people who do nothing.

This is exactly why I endorse making everything available to everyone, but allowing those who work harder to get rewards faster and those who work minimal to get them slower. The key is not to get carried away with it and start thinking that any of it matters, because then you start putting unreasonable time restraints on things.