Where have all the hardcore players gone?

[Ryme]

They've moved on to PvP which has the hardcore philosophy they crave: Bring the skilled class, not the skilled player; titles and mounts only achievable when they matter; the "content" is never nerfed (as it's impossible to do so).

Other than that, I know a lot of hardcore players who moved on to RIFT. It's doing some very exciting end game pve things, very exciting.

[Vinni]

It's easy to think that as content is easier, it should be easier for players to become 'hardcore' or 'masters of their class' (so to speak). Another way of thinking is that the harder it is to achieve something, the more certain people will strive for it because of it's difficulty and challenge. If something is easy then lots of people won't bother going for it and would rather seek a challenge elsewhere. It's the reason hardmode raids exist, to please those not satisfied with the regular normal mode.

That's jsut my 2 cents on the matter.

[Quilava]

Still here.

Warning: Elaborate -Azshira

[laserguns]

We used to raid on Sunday afternoons in 2006, have an hour for dinner than go back to raiding, in a kind of crappy semi-hardcore guild. People won't do that anymore unless they're going for realm firsts or something. We've all grown up, become more casual.

Raiding is less demanding on time now too. In Vanilla you had to wait ages for 40 people to individually buff each other and readycheck, and you'd get about 50% of the wipes due to the tank just dying, which doesn't happen any more.

[Tyro]

Yet, all we get are casual baddies who don't give a fuck about pvp or pve progression and couldn't progress if they even tried despite blizzard making it so easy a 5 year old can rape pvp. Don't believe me? My niece is six and I bought her gladiator last season.

The "hardcore" players clear the raids when they're released, then go and do something else until the next raid is up. Or they sell boosts and make lots of gold or whatever.

[Quilava]

The "hardcore" players clear the raids when they're released, then go and do something else until the next raid is up. Or they sell boosts and make lots of gold or whatever.

Sounds about right.

[Kapaya]

Wasn't Paragon created in Ulduar with a merge of two guilds?

[Kebren]

I think its a combination of two things.

The first is that Blizzard is shifting their priorities away from hardcore raid content and towards more of what the average player wants. I don't blame them for doing this. It doesn't make sense to produce raid content for the top 1% of the player base. They simply get more milage out of quests, 5 mans, LFR and battlegrounds.

Second, I think it because the requirements for hardcore raiding have gone up considerably since Vanilla and BC. The top hardcore guilds put in 12+ hour days 7 days a week during progression. The top guilds do 4+ DS clears a week to stay competitive. They farm legendaries on as many toons as possible to prepare for the next tier. They plan alt runs with mains mixed in to maximize gear distributions. You just didn't see that level of commitment during Vanilla.

Premonition recently called it quits and one of the reasons they cited is that they just couldn't keep up with the time commitment. They took a week long break during holidays and it took them out of the running for T13. I don't really know what Blizzard can do to fix it much either. They add bosses like Algalon with 1 hour limits and limited attempts in ToC and ICC and guilds just started creating alt runs to get more attempts.

[Arothand]

Probably they realized that what they do in a game means nothing to the real world, and a game isn't really worth spending all week, multiple hours a day, banging your head against.

[Tekkommo]

Before they are nerfed, Heroic content is harder than vanilla and tbc.

[Adam Jensen]

Pfft, your six year old niece is a gladiator?

My 97 year old grandmother has Azhiemers and downed Heroic Deathwing with KIN Raiders. Lets see your niece top that!

[bignumbers]

dont get me wrong kids are a hell of alot smarter then we were back in the day but gladiator? i highly doubt a 6yr old could get glad

[starkey]

Maybe the 6 yr old gladiator was true, some pvpers have the attitude and mentality of a 6yrold

[Akka]

So Why? Why do players not care about progression anymore? Vanilla we lived breathed and shit progression, ditto BC but now all of a sudden all the core players are absent and they're replaced with this puddle of people who don't know their dicks from their assholes?

You answer your own question : Vanilla and TBC had progression - you had content, it was up to you to go and see it, or not. If you didn't do anything, you wouldn't see anything and wouldn't have anything.
LK and Cata (and MoP is designed the same way, so MoP too) don't have progression : even if you do nothing, the content will be brought up to you in time. The only thing you can achieve is getting it some weeks ahead or not. That's hardly progression.

No surprise here, if you remove progression, you won't interest people interested in progression.

Oh, and to all the idiots talking about "growing up" : maybe it'll be a shock to you, but the entire world isn't a copy-paste of you. Many people were actually already adults with a work and a family when the game was released, and as such they didn't need to "grow up out of being hardcore". Try to see beyond your own navel, thanks, being "hardcore" is not about being a kid (nor it is about spending godawful amount of time or even being good) it's only about being involved and passionate.

[cyqu]

<snip>

the only guilds who still exist that existed in vanilla are paragon and blood legion, the rest are gone to bigger and better things (and 70% of blood legion is new members since then).

obviously you never played in vanilla, or probably even BC. but there are still lots of hardcore guilds play from those times. and paragon wasn't created till the last couple weeks of BC.

Post constructively, we don't need to bash each other, snipped first part -Azshira

[quikbunny]

Lost the last ounce of credibility when you lied about your niece getting Gladiator.

The hardcores are still around, I no longer raid but I'm a social in my servers top guild (world rank 60 or something) and they just don't bother with the game outside of selling DS boosts, etc. Why does it bother you anyway? Not like having hardcore raiders makes the game any better or worse, how exactly does it effect the way you play?

[mindbomb]

I can only assume they come and go much like the subscribers that concern themselves with the level of play of all other subscribers.

Some subscribers become above average at a game like WoW. They invest their soul into it and when the same content becomes available to many others your unique ability to achieve something before other people becomes diluted. This only leaves the true progression raiders at the very beginning of expansions and patches with any valid achievement or status. You will see them Mop launch. Maybe its your neice, ask her where they are.

So, my question to you is: What planet have you been living on? Probably Azeroth. The real world is FULL of different skill sets and skill levels. Different levels of competence and status. It is pretty evident you may consider yourself a great WoW player (considering the rocket science bit) but your skills at making convincing arguments are pretty low. One example statement such as “of a sudden ALL the core players are absent” kind of gives you a bad grade on journalism, but at least you are good at WoW.

In essence, since Blizzard made the content easier, the OP cannot fathom A), how can anyone not clear raid a, b, or c or get Glad. B) cannot fathom how someone does not even care about said content. C) how someone would NOT put forth maximum effort for a game. D) cannot fathom how someone could take a break or quit.

Speaking of Glad, by looking at how competitive ladders work, one can easily deduce that since only the .5% of each battlegroup can even get the title each season, this leaves (simple math) 99.5% of battlegroup players out. My guess is you have also posted on Arena Junkies being that this concept escapes you. According to you 99.5% of all other players are “casual baddies”.

It’s the simplest form of chest beating derived from the core, primate urge to dominate competition. Dressing it up as “OMG, hardcores are leaving” is more weak tea. Also, you got a little loss aversion going on.

BTW, your niece could beat me in PVP. You could write “Gladiator” with a sharpie on her Burger King crown. Ooooo ahhhhh, what has Blizzard done??!?!?!!?

[ShadowCrafter]

I'm sorry but i find it really hard to believe that your niece actually achieved that.

Speaking of Nieces, my 8 year old niece cleared all 8 bosses in LFR without dying. lol

Look hardcore players loved burning crusade and I know a lot of semi - hardcore players who were sitting on the fence to see if blizzard would go back to that model but obviously they have come to realise there is no turning back.

Infact if blizzard had to make content a challenge again they would probably lose more subs as the playerbase has changed a lot, I think a lot of people would be overwhelmed. After playing WOLTK i actually started sucking at other games because all I did was play wow and thought I was pro gamer because I was clearing HC modes. No No No it was embarrassing how bad I became at other games as a result of wow being so dumbed down. If you think raiding in wow is a challenge, then don't even attempt current rift raiding content.

[Bombkirby]

The amount of whining on the forums on regular basis means they're all mostly still here. Once the forums go silent, that's it. They're gone.

[Glurp]

Paragon didn't exist in vanilla. Some of them raided together but it wasn't known as Paragon.