Where have all the hardcore players gone?

[Freedom]

If the game is so easy and anyone can beat the hardest content when it comes out do we really NEED hardcore players to sell us mount runs or do theorycrafting for the unwashed masses? Just like do we really NEED professional football players? If people have fun playing the game/sport I personally do not see the requirement for elite players of either one.

Sure, that fancy mount that you know you can never get being ridden by someone else makes the game more interesting at times, but even without that you still have the core gameplay mechanics, questing, raiding with other people you see frequently online, playing some battlegrounds etc - you don't need Peyton Manning to play football to enjoy a skirmish you play with some friends or even random strangers.

[anaxie]

Why should people care about progression when even Blizzard doesn't care about it? The game isn't being catered to the top 1% anymore, so the top 1% feels less desire.

16 heroic bosses 1% of the playerbase will finish 16/16H before the new tier launches 5-6 months in. How am i NOT being catered to?

Exactly like T11, Glorious!

---------- Post added 2012-09-20 at 04:02 AM ----------

this. a thousand times this..

I never got the culture of people online who say the game is easy.. each tier has been harder then the previous one if you do content on heroic WHEN it comes out... 4 months later with better gear and nerfs is not the same fight

Do you even raid? T11>T12>T13 difficulty in that order. TBC was like SWP>T5>Prenerf T4>T6 Wotlk Yogg0/LKH>Ulduar>ICC>TOGC>Naxx

---------- Post added 2012-09-20 at 04:10 AM ----------

Actually, that's the exact opposite for hardcore gamers.
There is less and less deep games, due to ever increasing budgets and ever more casual audience.

It's true just look how dumbed down TES series has become since Morrowind. Now it is a console game becoming a bigger cesspit each generation. Ohwell atleast PC gamers can mod to fix that problem and make it into a true gamers game.

I hear they are re-releasing baldurs gate 1/2 with upgraded software but leaving the entire core of the game alone just a graphics touch up. I can only dream...

---------- Post added 2012-09-20 at 04:15 AM ----------

The TRULY hard core players complete the content then unsub. They are currently finishing with beta testing/ptr and are ready for the next expansion to start the cylce over again.

Unsub? why would they unsub? The post progression cycle of raiding is dominating the rank leader boards so everyone knows who is top dog at each spec.

---------- Post added 2012-09-20 at 04:19 AM ----------

They are still here, and the playerbase has improved.

In vanilla top end guils took weeks to kill bosses with less mechanics than Morchok. In today's wow, hardcores kill in one days bosses harder than those in vanilla.

So the playerbase has improved, but so did the challenge. Yes, we dont need to farm fire, or nature, or shadow resist gear, but the real challenge is still there, and those that play from vanilla has already said that the two most challenging bosses in WoW's history have been LK 25 H (which actually WASN'T defeated without nerfs or equipment earned with nerfs) and Ragnaros Heroic.

LKH was only hard because the knee jerk mega buffed his HP after 11/12 got completely destroyed after the gating finally unlocked the whole instance after 3 months of waiting. The only reason the HP jump was tough was because you needed insane gear and insane aoe to kill valks before your raid members got thrown off.

Once you killed Valkrys you killed the fight.

Ragnaros was 100% legit until the Rofl nerfs, Here is hoping Sha of Fear is comparable since it has a heroic only phase.

---------- Post added 2012-09-20 at 04:24 AM ----------

I suggest the hardcore playstyle has burnout problems. Eventually, the reward doesn't match the effort, and they either go casual or stop playing.

Thankfully cata solved that problem of burnout by merging lockouts.

[rebecca191]

16 heroic bosses 1% of the playerbase will finish 16/16H before the new tier launches 5-6 months in. How am i NOT being catered to?

Exactly like T11, Glorious!

Yeah, and look what happened after T11.
Just saying....

Then again I think T11 is overrated and only looks as good as it does because the rest of the expansion was complete crap. The only boss I really loved was Sinestra.

[Skippy88]

I like to from time to time go to warcraftrealms.com to see where my ex-guildies from vanilla/BC went to. At the time most in the guild were just starting to get into raiding but I know many of them after our guild disbanded went on to hardcore players. Here are the stats on my one guild totally 289 players and yes this will include some alts skewing the data but I think it's still helpful:

Only 41 are lvl 85.
8 have a character between lvl 81 and 84
63 have a lvl 80
24 have a character between lvl 71 and 79
153 are lvl 70 or below

As you can see most stopped playing in BC. Only about 20% have even continued to play into Cata. It will be interesting to see if they play MOP. The two hardcode players I knew stopped playing during WOTLK due to family commitments. They have stopped playing MMO's entirely.

[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.

Ladys and Gentlemen, I give you, your buffoon. Total mince.

[BLSTMASTER]

Thought this was something to be posted here...
Nihilum is coming back and Kungen is back as well. (Not sure how many of the original nihilum members are coming though, they are recruiting atm)