Why is there a huge bias against players who began after BC?

[Kissme]

First off I'm going to admit that I began in mid-Wrath (August of 2009). I know some people are automatically going to not listen to anything I say now, but you're just validating my point.


Why is there this bias by a decent amount of veteran players (specifically those who began in Classic/BC) against anyone who began in Wrath/Cata/MoP? I seriously don't understand it. Going on to any sort of forum and saying that you began playing after BC is pretty much an invitation to be harassed and screamed at by the other people there. I've had numerous issues different times with elitist pricks who act all high and mighty JUST because they've been playing since BC or Classic.


I really don't get it.

The amount of players that still play from that time period is only really known by blizzard, but a lot of people claim to be from that time frame because it's viewed as the golden age of the game for various reasons.

Because it was the golden age, and game design and philosophy in WoW changed significantly since that time, anyone who isn't from the golden age can't know how good the game was, because they never experienced it's theoretical peak, therefore they don't have a good comparative foundation upon which to base their opinions.

That's the logic at least.

The fact of the matter is that the direction of the game changed significantly over the course of Wrath (noteably post Ulduar) and that there is a resultant conflict between the old elite and new elite. The fact that everyone can now at least see all the encounters is a notable change in direction. You used to have several plateaus where players would brick wall and never progress beyond. That has changed with the new multi difficulty within the tiers. Progression was much slower due to the brick walls and progression stalls (spending days and weeks on bosses was not uncommon) whereas under the current model LFR and normal modes offer much faster progression (it's rare to stall on normal mode progression for raiders of even average competence, and LFR lacks any semblence of progression as not clearing it is the exception).

Also, because of the percieved prestige of being in the game during Vanilla/TBC there are people that will belittle those without that experience due to their own needs for recognition. Some of these didn't even do any of the content that made the older expansions so revered, but they use their play time to validate themselves without understanding what it was about those periods of time that led to their value.

All of that aside, I feel there has been a noticeable degradation in both the quality of the players and the quality of the community in the game as it aged. Tools of convenience sapped the community of accountability and this had a negative effect on the community and the skills of the playerbase - at least in my opinion. While some of the newer encounters are more complex than most, if not all, of the older encounters, the actual players progressing through those difficult encounters is the same subset that conquered the difficult encounters of old (or at least their spiritual successors).

Long story short - there are lots of reasons for the elitism you percieve, but a great deal of the elitism percieved is merely a reflection of the insecurities of those doing the percieving combined with the insecurities of those being percieved.

I forget who it is, but someone has a great sig. Something about Blizzard's greatest success/failure being their ability to convince half their player base that the other half are unskilled whiners. That same logic applies here. Playing in Vanilla/TBC doesn't make you good, but playing after Vanilla/TBC also doesn't mean you aren't bad.

[MasterHamster]

Because there's an unjustified love for BC, so everyone who started in Wrath or later hasn't experienced the times when WoW was "hardcore", despite already being one of the most casual MMO on the market at that time. When was the term "welfare epics" coined? oh.

/Jan 06

[Kissme]

You confuse time investment with difficulty. People do it all the time when trying to remember back then. T4-Sunwell was not difficult. The raids themselves were rather simple compared to today and a tad more difficult than Vanilla. The issue was gearing up a raid group to get into T5 took time and many of the top guilds stole members. People left in droves so they could see the new content instead of helping out their guild get geared up enough to move on. Thus leaving guilds in the dust only to have to recruit more and farm Kara over and over to move on. It was a vicious cycle, that took a very ong time to get ahead if you were not a top guild. Nothing difficult about it just immensely time consuming.

It depends on how you define difficulty. While not overly complex, a lot of the encounters were also extremely unforgiving. Archimode, Illidan, Vashj, Kael, RoS, Leothras, Hydross (or whatever the name of the stupid aggro dropping, dual natured elemental in SSC was), Felmyst, etc all had mechanics that were easy, but failure was severely penalized (fail to use your feather or get out of fire fast enough? hey chain wipe the raid. Fail to dps hard enough? Hey, the cast goes off and one shots the tank or the creature reaches the person and they die. Mess up your spacing to toss batons? Yep, you fail the encounter.). While the overall difficulty of encounters is probably higher as the game ages, there are still only a few defining encounters per expansion (Cata had Nef, Sinestra, Rag Heroic, and Heroic Spine; Wrath had LK, Yogg, Mimiron, OS3D, Alganon; TBC had Vashj, Kael, Archi, Illidan, most of Sunwell; Vanilla had Vael, Nef, Twin Emps, C'thun, and Naxx 40).

Yes, recruitment and progression resets due to recruitment were an issue, but time alone didn't dictate success in TBC. I know guilds that raided twice as much as my guild did in that time period and were behind us in progression. And speaking as someone that had to recruit and act as a guild officer - Wrath and Cata saw higher turnover and raider bleeding than TBC or Vanilla as a high end casual guild. Convenience tools had sapped the shared feeling of communal investment and combined with server transfers guild hopping became far easier. If you got a bad rep as a guild hopper/loot whore on one server, you could just jump somewhere else, whereas prior to that if you had a bad rep on your server (rep which was easier to form and easier to spread as your server interacted primarily with only other players on the same server) you effectively screwed yourself out of any possibility of success in raiding because no one would take you based on your rep.

[Itisamuh]

The same happens in Halo, and probably just about anything else. The seniority rule. If you played the first, anyone who started with 2 is inferior. The people who started with 2 think those that started with 3 are inferior, and so on. I have no idea what the mindset is behind this, other than thinking these newer players missed the good times. But if that were the case, I would think older players would pity them, rather than scorn them. Might as well ignore it.

[Deleted]

Pseudo elitism based on when they started. More often then not these people who are acting like that have very little else to show for all the time they invested. Just take a look at the official forums where people with classic PvP titles (more often then not very low ranked ones) are acting as if they were the one true elite. When it's blatant to anyone that they never achieved a damn thing in all their time in WoW.

It's mostly 4-7k achievment heroes who haven't downed a single raid boss while he was still up to date, didn't do well in PvP at any point and in general haven't DONE anything worthwhile. So what else are they supposed to brag with and trash talk people aside from when someone started the game?

[Toxigen]

T4-Sunwell was not difficult.

Pre-nerf M'uru says hello.

We put in over 250 wipes as a top 50 U.S. guild.

small edit: they nerfed all of Sunwell too because folks that could farm Black Temple found it "too hard."

[ipaq]

Pseudo elitism based on when they started. More often then not these people who are acting like that have very little else to show for all the time they invested. Just take a look at the official forums where people with classic PvP titles (more often then not very low ranked ones) are acting as if they were the one true elite. When it's blatant to anyone that they never achieved a damn thing in all their time in WoW.

It's mostly 4-7k achievment heroes who haven't downed a single raid boss while he was still up to date, didn't do well in PvP at any point and in general haven't DONE anything worthwhile. So what else are they supposed to brag with and trash talk people aside from when someone started the game?

Or post BC babies crying about being roflstomped by a veteran on a forum.

[shise]

You basically missed the best part of the game if you didn't play, at least, TBC.

But, out of that, I don't think there's a reason for such thing tbh. Many new players have already played MORE than some vanilla players who quitted by the end of tbc.

[Deleted]

i think you can compare it to ''respect your elders''
like 60 yr old says he has much more life ''expirience'' than say 14 year old

mehh i don't know :P

[Orangetai420]

I see a lot of people say this stuff, and I can get it, but I think what a lot of people don't appreciate is that there is a reason these changes were made, why LFD was made, why LFR was made, and so forth. It was far less to do with convenience and far more to do with the fact that the overwhelming majority of the content was flat out not being done by all that many people. That INCLUDES the dungeons, the backbone for a majority of the game outside of questing. Just because you lived in your own convenient social bubble back when things were different in WoW, doesn't mean that everyone else did. Living in a bubble within WoW is a big problem. A lot of people see the forest before the trees, and don't understand why these things had to be done, because the problems never affected them, as they were part of a minority type of gamer in the game.
You pretty much can't design content around 15% or so of players. You just can't. It's stupid. Either they make it more accessible, or they put all of their design toward things like quests. This issue is probably only an issue to really, really large MMOs. Something with a small player base probably never really had to deal with these things.

That's what made the content so special! The game still had some magic too it, it hadn't been beaten to death. I understand the argument about not being in the social bubble, I've been there when my main was a dps character. I'm not saying it was perfect, your server had a lot to do with it. I'm just saying the game is far too accessible now to have any sort of wonder or awe past the first couple weeks of a content launch. The game needed changes back in BC, some of them got made (hunter deadzone like many have mentioned) other things got changed (or added) that weren't broken/necessary.

[madethisfor1post]

I started back in closed beta and BC-players are the lowest on the totem pole for peoples opinions I'd consider valid.

[Deleted]

Or post BC babies crying about being roflstomped by a veteran on a forum.

A veteran at being a baddie? Because that's what most of these people have. They have nothing whatsoever to prove that they were actually good at any point in their WoW history. Just having played at time X doesn't mean you can take in the success of other people for yourself.

[potis]

Because up until end-BC/WoTLK, World of Warcraft was still a RPG, and patches were a mystery, most things were new and everything was fresh.

What i mean by that:

Serious datamining and release info and PTR appeared around 2.4 if i am not mistaken? I am pretty sure i remember it correctly.. Aka Sunwell, everything before that, when it got implemented in the game you had to find it in the patch notes and then figure it out yourself, not read MMO-Champion a month before and know everything, every single ability, every single item that will get added in the game in the next month.

As example..I remember when Ogri'la was implemented:

Small lore patch note, tells you where they are, you go find them.

There was no data-mining and 2 months of PTR telling you exactly what dropped where, exactly how to finish something, and exactly how to do the awesome solo event there, which i still remember cause frankly it was really good, at least everyone i know found it really good, but it took me a few days to discover it, while i was there doing dailies simple because there was no mention of it.

People are biased against newer people because you havent experienced the RPG World of Warcraft, what you have experienced after WoTLK is the Automated-World Of Warcraft.

That doesnt mean the additions like LFG/LFR were bad or are bad, most of additions to make the players life easier were good, but at the same time bad.

World of Warcraft has completely lost its RPG feeling to anyone that has played it before WoTLK, thats all therefor we have a different opinion of what WoW was, and what WoW is.

In my eyes there is not a single RPG element left anymore apart from quests, and the game is pretty much fully automated which now that i am hitting 26 soon and i am not 17-21 anymore is very welcome but at the same time i only wish for one thing.

For Blizzard to close down the PTR, lock down their damn files and stop the datamining, make every major patch feel fresh, knowing everything a month before they are released is not fun.

"You can choose not to read them you know, dont visit MMO-Champ" i have tons of gamer friends, someone else will, someone will post a link, this and that this and that.

Even when i quit the game for longgg periods of time i know exactly what is going on because as a game every friend i have has played at some point, its a decent discussion, someone still plays it, someone else still reads about it, info everywhere.

Thats it really, you are being treated differently because if you havent played before the whole PTR/WoTLK period you havent experienced World of Warcraft as a RPG, as something to discover and something generally time consuming that wasnt a chore because every patch was a welcome addition, waiting for you discover stuff, nowdays any serious player knows exactly what to do the moment the patch hits to not waste time.

[Porcell]

First off I'm going to admit that I began in mid-Wrath (August of 2009). I know some people are automatically going to not listen to anything I say now, but you're just validating my point.

Why is there this bias by a decent amount of veteran players (specifically those who began in Classic/BC) against anyone who began in Wrath/Cata/MoP? I seriously don't understand it. Going on to any sort of forum and saying that you began playing after BC is pretty much an invitation to be harassed and screamed at by the other people there. I've had numerous issues different times with elitist pricks who act all high and mighty JUST because they've been playing since BC or Classic.

I really don't get it.

I think any bias is just in your head.

Honestly, people don't really give a shit when you started playing. The game is completely different from when it was in BC or even Wraith. No one cares. People can post paragraph after paragraph trying to discuss this great bias and injustice, but in reality it just doesn't exist.

Again, no one really cares.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

The same happens in Halo, and probably just about anything else. The seniority rule. If you played the first, anyone who started with 2 is inferior. The people who started with 2 think those that started with 3 are inferior, and so on. I have no idea what the mindset is behind this, other than thinking these newer players missed the good times. But if that were the case, I would think older players would pity them, rather than scorn them. Might as well ignore it.

You're confusing age with maturity. You can find a 15 year old that is polite and a 40 year old that is a complete jackass, is just a matter of the maturity of the person. The immature ones are often labeled as a specific part of the playerbase in terms of when they started when their maturity in question isn't actually relevant to when they started playing.

[Markluzz]

It's because the majority of the playerbase started in classic or bc so they think if somebody didn't start when they started they are no good.

[Aquamonkey]

It's because the majority of the playerbase started in classic or bc so they think if somebody didn't start when they started they are no good.

I don't believe this is true. "I don't know what the exact number is off-hand, but the total number of subscribers we've had is easily more than double - maybe closer to triple - the current subscriber base." -Rob Pardo. That was Nov 2009 when WoW had 11.5M subs during WotLK. So by the end of Wrath, 12-24M subs had already quit.

[Kissme]

Because up until end-BC/WoTLK, World of Warcraft was still a RPG, and patches were a mystery, most things were new and everything was fresh.

What i mean by that:

Serious datamining and release info and PTR appeared around 2.4 if i am not mistaken? I am pretty sure i remember it correctly.. Aka Sunwell, everything before that, when it got implemented in the game you had to find it in the patch notes and then figure it out yourself, not read MMO-Champion a month before and know everything, every single ability, every single item that will get added in the game in the next month.

As example..I remember when Ogri'la was implemented:

Small lore patch note, tells you where they are, you go find them.

There was no data-mining and 2 months of PTR telling you exactly what dropped where, exactly how to finish something, and exactly how to do the awesome solo event there, which i still remember cause frankly it was really good, at least everyone i know found it really good, but it took me a few days to discover it, while i was there doing dailies simple because there was no mention of it.

People are biased against newer people because you havent experienced the RPG World of Warcraft, what you have experienced after WoTLK is the Automated-World Of Warcraft.

That doesnt mean the additions like LFG/LFR were bad or are bad, most of additions to make the players life easier were good, but at the same time bad.

World of Warcraft has completely lost its RPG feeling to anyone that has played it before WoTLK, thats all therefor we have a different opinion of what WoW was, and what WoW is.

In my eyes there is not a single RPG element left anymore apart from quests, and the game is pretty much fully automated which now that i am hitting 26 soon and i am not 17-21 anymore is very welcome but at the same time i only wish for one thing.

For Blizzard to close down the PTR, lock down their damn files and stop the datamining, make every major patch feel fresh, knowing everything a month before they are released is not fun.

"You can choose not to read them you know, dont visit MMO-Champ" i have tons of gamer friends, someone else will, someone will post a link, this and that this and that.

Even when i quit the game for longgg periods of time i know exactly what is going on because as a game every friend i have has played at some point, its a decent discussion, someone still plays it, someone else still reads about it, info everywhere.

Thats it really, you are being treated differently because if you havent played before the whole PTR/WoTLK period you havent experienced World of Warcraft as a RPG, as something to discover and something generally time consuming that wasnt a chore because every patch was a welcome addition, waiting for you discover stuff, nowdays any serious player knows exactly what to do the moment the patch hits to not waste time.

Great post.

Just to elaborate, I remember levelling in TBC. There were still writeups being done of bosses, but because we were levelling fast enough, we actually were doing dungeons before bosses had writeups easily found online. So they were new and fresh, we had to find out what their abilities were and come up with strategies based on what our group found. It gave it that sense of exploration you are describing.

I, however, would argue that it's not the RPG feeling that's gone from WoW, but more the MMO feeling that has eroded. LFD, LFR, server transfers - these things make the community and group interactions that used to be required to experience parts of the game's content relatively optional. You can now do dungeons and raid bosses without knowing the people you're doing them with. Even pugging content back in the Vanilla/TBC required you to know members in the pug groups, or allowed you to develop a repoire with those people you grouped with. The expectation now is that you'll never play with those people again.

WoW isn't better or worse now than it was in past expansions, but it's a different game now then it was then. People trying to compare the two fail because the experiences are inherently different. It's apples and oranges.

[SamR]

A lot of people who like to brag about playing in vanilla/TBC post skewed or inaccurate info about what it was like back then anyway.

[Hotsforyou]

I love the raiding mechanics nowadays. My 2 major complaints are the community destroying LFR and LFG. If they got rid of those i would love the game much more than i do now.