Where have all the hardcore players gone?

[mrwingtipshoes]

I'm not saying that's what Blizzard should do for the company, but that's what they used to do, and that's why there's a decline in hardcore player mentality.

Is this a bad thing?

Truly hardcore players are not the problem. World first players tend to be nice, down to earth people who keep to themselves. The problem are the server first guilds on backwater servers, a king among shit still bathes in shit. These "PseudoHardcore" players who seem to think they are any good are a huge problem and cause huge rifts in the community. I'll be honest, most of them I've run into are NOT that good, either they are carried by a guild or they are surrounded by bone heads with same attitudes who defend each other regardless of how terrible they are.

[vizzle]

Is this a bad thing?

Truly hardcore players are not the problem. World first players tend to be nice, down to earth people who keep to themselves. The problem are the server first guilds on backwater servers, a king among shit still bathes in shit. These "PseudoHardcore" players who seem to think they are any good are a huge problem and cause huge rifts in the community. I'll be honest, most of them I've run into are NOT that good, either they are carried by a guild or they are surrounded by bone heads with same attitudes who defend each other regardless of how terrible they are.

How many times do you want me to say "I'm not saying that's what Blizzard should do"? I'm merely answering the OP's question as to why the hardcore mentality has declined.

[vindicatorx]

the thing about hardcore players they either don't publicly bitch about things and when they do it's usually very well known because they make it very public when they do.

[Hypro]

My personal opinion (which could be wrong) all the original hardcore players finished high school, college, got jobs and families and now either not playing or casually raiding due to time restrains.

This. People have grown up and have families and jobs to do so the "Hardcore" players have become "casual" players since they have better thing sin life

[Ethes]

OP, if you want to have serious awnsers to your question you should show a little more respect and formulate a well structured question. Plus the obvious lies aren't going to do you much good.

For an actual awnser to your question please define what you call hardcore. Hardcore can be defined as "raiding more than x hours a week" "a certain level of progression" or in a whole different way. For the 2nd way of defining hardcore, there are actually a lot more of those people than there used to be. More people than ever have cleared the latest content on the most difficult level which would actually mean that there are more hardcore players than before.

So if you wish an actual awnser to your question, please be more specific!

Otherwise, please lock this thread as it looks like trolling and is unnecessairily rude.

[mrwingtipshoes]

How many times do you want me to say "I'm not saying that's what Blizzard should do"? I'm merely answering the OP's question as to why the hardcore mentality has declined.

Wasn't asking you, poor choice of quotation on my part. too tired to message board, clearly.

[Kakera]

Paragon didn't exist in Vanilla. Blood Legion has like 2 or 3 main raiders that raided with them during vanilla, hardly 30% remaining. Man, for someone that claims to be HC you sure don't have your facts straight.

Anyway. It's always been like this at the top level. Players come and go, guilds change and evolve. There are very few people that can sustain raiding at that level for more than a year. It's stressful, and extremely detrimental to your life depending on your RL situation. To put it bluntly, it just isn't worth it for most people now a days. Unless you are top world 10 there's no reason to push as hard as possible. The remaining top world 20-50 generally do not raid more than 4-5 days a week anymore. It's always been about trying to keep up with your progression rivals in terms of hours spent. Not many guilds raid 6-7 days. Only a handful remaining raid 4-5 days. It's just a matter of it not being worth it in their eyes to push harder.

[WarpKnight]

Your 6 year old niece got gladiator? Pah, thats nothing! My mother's cat got Heroic Ragnaros pre-nerf!

Anyway, on topic. I believe the hardcore players are gone because half the game is gone, removed in the name of simplicity and ease of access. So much depth in the game has been simply cut out as though it were just excess fat on the meat.

[Kakera]

Your 6 year old niece got gladiator? Pah, thats nothing! My mother's cat got Heroic Ragnaros pre-nerf!

Anyway, on topic. I believe the hardcore players are gone because half the game is gone, removed in the name of simplicity and ease of access. So much depth in the game has been simply cut out as though it were just excess fat on the meat.

It's more than that. Encounters are truthfully as dynamic as ever in T14 and the new talent system regardless of what any scrub will tell you is extremely dynamic. You must make swaps every fight and really think about your choices depending on circumstances. It's not so simple anymore to really set yourself the pack. You need to work for it.

I think more than anything it's because of catering to 10 man. A lot of people that have had enough with hardcore raiding step back and do 10s because they don't have the time anymore. Those people then bring their friends from those top guilds along and casual it up because it's not worth it to them to raid those 4-6 days during progression anymore. People grow up. The issue is that because it's so difficult to replace those people with new blood and a lack of interest in going hardcore to the 25 man progression path, guilds keep disbanding or having to go 10 man as a result of not having the players to do fights.

[Resentful]

I got bored of the game, It's that simple.

[rebecca191]

Should have said your 6 year old niece killed Heroic Deathwing, that would be believable with how absurdly nerfed DS is.

[Deleted]

We usually clear each tier of content for 3 months or until every member has their mount then go our separate ways.

[Soulstrike]

Same. Also, my deathknight was part of the world first Cthun kill in classic.

my Blood elf mage was realm first Cthun kill in classic as well XD

@ OP hardcore players they are still out there you just dont see much at this time due to end of an expansion.

there will be loads who are willing to go for realm first stuff

[Crowey]

The "hardcores" I'd say have mostly moved on. We are in a different generation of gaming. Growing up, for me at least, staying up for 12+ hours playing a game was something that all of my friends did, and in online games I was just drawn to that crowd also (played Final Fantasy XI, ridiculous hours were needed to do the end game), but games these days aren't made that way anymore. The days of hours and hours consecutively are gone for the most part, because games simply aren't designed with this in mind. It isn't just something in World of Warcraft, although I'd say the shift in the way WoW is meant to be played is a good example.

Oh, how I miss those 5 AM calls, and taking cat naps between Nidhogg spawn windows. Also spike flail drama on killing ifrit.

[Pull My Finger]

Where have all the hardcore players gone?

Perhaps they grew up.

[Deja Thoris]

I'm struggling to find the point to your post OP.

You do seem unreasonably angry about a game containing goblins and dragons and thats quite funny so 2/10 I guess.

[Deleted]

I realize with wow becoming so easy you can play it with your penis (It's only a few patches away unfortunately I can see the youtube videos now) that it's scaring many of the old core players away. In fact, 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).

But with all the negative changes there's millions of good ones too. Classes are extremely balanced now (People QQ about fire mages being OP in pvp still but let's face it, they're killable),

But with these nerfs and balances shouldn't it create MORE good core players and not more bad ones? An easier game should mean that it's easier for people to grasp it and excel at it.

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 achieved gladiator last season.

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?

Now, before you say "roll horde! They're totally different!", no they aren't. Horde is exactly the same amount of casual people who could care less if people down heroic ragnaros pre nerf or not. Or the guilds who have accomplished the impossible and killed twins and c'thun, illidan, heroic lich king, yogg, agalon ... etc.


And then we have all of the "Hardcore wannabe's" don't believe me play on illidan for more than 15 minutes. Blizzard has made the content so where are the players? Come on people down some freaking content or at least get a 2200 rating... it isn't rocket science.

It is not possible for every arena player to get 2200 rating.

The rest of your post is just flamebait ofc, but I thought i'd inject a happy fact in there for grins.

[Seriss]

I realize with wow becoming so easy you can play it with your penis (It's only a few patches away unfortunately I can see the youtube videos now) that it's scaring many of the old core players away. In fact, 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).

Someone who is predicting such a future for WoW difficulty clearly has not been playing the beta. If it goes live remotely as it is now, the "it's all so easy" crowd will be in for a "woah, this is way too hard" surprise. And then we'll talk.

[Srg56]

blablablaBS

You had me going until the niece part. Requesting lock.

[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.