How to counter retail-mentality in classic?

[Gaidax]

Retail mentality? I think it's the other way round, back when I was 17 I had no clue what a good game design is or what good gameplay was, because pretty much everything on the market was simplistic shit filled with "leveling - the game" kind of trash where people would hammer at mobs 24/7 in games that were basically digital hamsterwheels to level 99 and some such.

Vanilla was refreshing experience back then because you could actually get to 60 in a reasonable time (by then standards) and then actually do something there at that point.

That does not change the fact that class design, game mechanics and raiding were so basic and shit that I have no doubt any sort of retail player would quit in a heartbeat and not because of the horrors of leveling to 60 or participating in raids, but because this shit is so basic and so boring that it holds no candle to retail experience.

I think as a whole gaming community has evolved past this nonsense like "leveling - the game" or "pressing one button 500 times - the game".

[Snookiwooki]

Why would you think that? People managed to handle the original just fine, and people haven't fundamentally changed in the last decade (or the last millennium, for that matter). In fact, I had multiple people I knew IRL who never played anything before or after vanilla WoW, but enjoyed it. There is something about vanilla WoW that just connects with people at a deep level. But of course there is a lot more to a success of a game than just the design, whether WoW Classic works out or not, nobody knows. All we can do is try, and the best bet is to try the way it was originally (people can already play the modern version if they want).

And I don't understand what you mean by "more modern game". There was a huge variety of games when vanilla came out, there is a huge variety of games now.

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Based on what? I hear this stated a lot as if it was a fact, but never heard a convincing argument why. I never raided in vanilla, but I did all TBC raids and the old vanilla raiders in my guild never said vanilla was somehow significantly easier than TBC—in fact they often bitched about how intense Naxx60 was. I stopped raiding in Cata, and I didn't see the top end raiding get fundamentally more difficult from TBC to Cata (outside the obvious Naxx80, etc.).

One thing that I did see, however, was the quality of the recruits dropping while their perception of their skills rocketed. In Cata you'd get hunters tell you you're insane if you asked them to kite a pile of adds while DPSing the boss, even though in TBC that was a basic raiding hunter skill—all the while the hunter was absolutely sure that he was greatly more skilled than those TBC hunters that did those "easy" TBC raids.

Classic raids only started to get a little hard by AQ40, we 15 manned MC and 10 manned Onyxia with T2 gear, nearly all the early difficulties we due to lack of knowledge of both the raids/bosses and the class you were playing. I raided to halfway Naxx and I can say that for the first two tiers we probably had at least 30% of the raid performing well below average - try that in a modern day Mythic raid. It was incrediably good fun but nobody should pretend MC, BWL, Ony, ZG, AQ20, Azuregos, Kazzak were difficult or even close to current Mythic raiding difficulty.

Raiding was more exclusive in Classic due to time, the hassle of running and maintaining a 40man raiding roster and the lack of "catch-up" gearing avenues.

[digichi]

it is what it is. Ppl who have been longing for official vanilla servers have been playing private ones, they know what they're getting. Yes, there are ppl who will get bored and not go past lvl 10. Yes, there are people who will gold grind who previously didnt, or raid if they previously didnt, or PvP if they previously didn't (basically play the game in a way which they didn't get to experience the first time round.)

There are cool things about this too, like unviable specs getting special treatment from players who want to prove they can be playable if enough effort is put in. Those kind of videos are fun to watch, for the ppl who enjoy theorycrafting to the extreme. Ppl will indulge in the whole world PvP thing, probably making raid groups and ganking groups... And a thing that will be awesome will be playing Vanilla WoW without intense lag/constant disconnecting/yelling at ppl to get off the phone.. Thats gonna be a massive change, and it will likely let a lot of guilds full clear naxx when it comes out.

Im looking forward to the game without the 'gogogo' mentality (that started in wotlk around 2010 and applied itself to a lot of games, not just WoW.) I dont have to clear 110 levels, its only 60. I can take my time, put together a dungeon group here and there, waddle towards max, take time to drink/eat after pulls, make sure one mob doesn't aggro another.. My experience from priv servers is that the community is EXTREMELY chill, open, and friendly- because they're playing the game they WANT to, and know that patience is a large part of it (especially in groups.)

[Deleted]

Yes, people will play the way it suits them and the non dedicated will fall off, of course.

But I fear that the dedicated ones, the ones ready to play countless hours and to do all that vanilla required you to do, will be too few.

Back in Vanilla, most people wanted to go far, to achieve success and dedicated themselves, just like people do with retail now. Since this will only be an optional game and since retail remain as the prolly more prestigious and more success driven game, this will make Classic server have less quality than vanilla.

I think getting World first in BFA will be more wanted than getting World first Naxx in Classic, and that's trouble, cause we won't see the same passion, dedication and drive in players towards classic as they had in vanilla.

TLR; I want Classic to be seen as Vanilla and for the players to be as dedicated as they were in 2004, to give Classic more quality and to get a better vanilla-experience.

Pretty much. It's to be expected to only have a few dedicated to it, and even out of those it will not be for long periods. There's no prestige really in getting "world firsts" on the classic server. And also it's to be expected for the content to be chewed on right off the bat. If a guild manages to get those 40 players with the current raiding experience and even more so if some have vanilla raiding experience, all raiding content will just get obliterated.

[MMKing]

My biggest fear is that we will have thousands of people running around questing, oblivious to the fact that every single player around them could be one of the most important players to them on their server. Blizzard has devolved the leveling experience from a journey, where you meet potential friends along the way, to a freeway where every other player should be treated as an NPC.

In classic wow, the leveling process is a way to add people to your friend list. Join guilds, chat with people and form friendships and acquaintances. In legion, that process is handled almost exclusively at some guild recruitment page, where once invited to a guild, you form friendship with 20+ people you never met before. In classic, guild recruitment begins at level 1, with players tending to their server reputation by playing well and generally acting friendly towards other players. Toxic players tend to very rarely end up in good guilds.

I fear the concept will be difficult to grasp for some people.

[Akka]

I'm not quite sure what your point is here. I see that there are three main groups of players:

1) People who are currently playing WoW are, by definition, not the market for WoW Classic—they are largely happy with the way WoW evolved, or they would've quit by now. WoW Classic is explicitly not aimed at them, and they will continue to find the best experience in modern WoW.

2) People who are are currently playing on private servers. They know exactly what vanilla WoW is about and what they will get from WoW Classic. For them the main draws will be stability, reliability and quality of official vs. private servers. I expect they will be split between the servers. This group does not in general want changes (or they wouldn't be jumping through all the hoops to play on private servers).

3) People who played in vanilla and quit long time ago, and people who have never played WoW but know it from pop culture. They are players that have little interest in modern WoW (or they would be playing it), so it makes no sense to introduce modern changes for them in WoW Classic. They will either like it and play it, or not like it and quit. The best strategy is to just let WoW Classic be true to vanilla WoW and see what happens.

I think the second group is large enough to make it worth it to keep the servers alive, but the success will really be up to the last group. Nobody knows if they are successful attracting that group, but that's the risk you take in business. But it's clear that the business case is to have minimal changes to WoW Classic, since there is no significant customer group for "vanilla but with modern changes".

I think you're forgotting a rather large group of potential players :

4) People who joined WoW after Vanilla ended, and would like to know what all the hype is about.

They are drawn from either the group 1 or people who stopped to play in-between, and their reactions will be all over the place - some will think "oh crap, that was just shit, it was all about THAT ?", other will think "gawd that was awesome, they were right it's incredible !" and everything in-between.

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Coming from a retail-player:

Look, I'm really just gonna dabble in Vanilla Servers to check out how stuff used to work. As long as I don't read endless tirades about everyone who enjoys retail being a subhuman being deserving of death and torture, chances are nobody's even going to notice me.

And if you stick with this mentality and don't try to change what Classic was to include current WoW mechanisms and design philosophy, I'm going to welcome you with open arms.

[Gavll]

I think it's way more important to counter private server toxicity in Classic. That's one thing that's definitely not like was in vanilla or even in Legion for that matter and what ultimately made me stay the hell away from them.

You must be playing on the wrong servers. The one I play on has chat moderators, so you actually get banned for being a complete shitbag. Also, most people are friendly and always talk in random dungeons.

I think the retail 'atmosphere' is more toxic. Admittedly, there is no atmosphere on retail but still..

[Deleted]

I play Legion and will be playing BfA - because I have played Classic since end of 2005, and I don't need more of that. And if I would play on a Classic server, then I know exactly what to expect and will take it or leave it.

Beside that, I expect some people to throw a fit on the forums, as usual, and the larger group just to silently leave Classic servers and either return to the current expansion, or leave WoW for good.

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[SNIP] And if you stick with this mentality and don't try to change what Classic was to include current WoW mechanisms and design philosophy, I'm going to welcome you with open arms.

I don't understand why people want to have Classic servers but with modern features. I would expect devs to remove bugs and to add battle.net functions, and probably set some things to be like the last patch before TBC (Example: I don't know anymore when summoning stones have been added to dungeons, if they have been added somewhere in the lifetime of Classic, then it would not hurt to have them at launch of Classic servers).

But I would expect the majority of WoW to be the same as it was, like having to respec if you want to play a different spec. I would even expect to have the same shitty itemization - because Classic would not be Classic with steamlined gear.

[Unholyground]

Really the only thing I hated was the respec cost not being static, I leveled a Paladin to 60 on a private server last year and it was pretty cool, I knew what to expect though and it was enjoyable especially as prot.

[Projectmars]

We pretty much do, playing the same game for a decade has that effect.. Among others..

Except it isn't WoW.

[Deleted]

Toxicity is mostly an issue on private servers because:

1. Rules are often more lax on private servers compared to blizzard servers
2. Less GMs to police the populace
3. Free accounts meaning anyone can create as many accounts as they want.

How could be anything more lax than Blizzards classic PvP rules, which were basically "grow a pair". You could /spit /sap a player for hours and if the opened a ticket because the couldn't even log out, the GMs response was "have you tried alt+F4, I´m sure it works". There were no rules about harassment on PvP realms.

You just have to look at the first part of your post to find an perfect example of classic toxicity and elitism. Its the best part about classic, when you are in one of the top guilds (which I was). Just shit on everyone, lot of fun. Lets see how Classic works out for you, if we can recreate the classic community.

[Projectmars]

How could be anything more lax than Blizzards classic PvP rules, which were basically "grow a pair". You could /spit /sap a player for hours and if the opened a ticket because the couldn't even log out, the GMs response was "have you tried alt+F4, I´m sure it works". There were no rules about harassment on PvP realms.

You just have to look at the first part of your post to find an perfect example of classic toxicity and elitism. Its the best part about classic, when you are in one of the top guilds (which I was). Just shit on everyone, lot of fun. Lets see how Classic works out for you, if we can recreate the classic community.

EVE Online, where you can literally scam people out of everything they own or into a position of power in an Alliance... and then proceed to just dissolve the entire thing and create a new one with the same name so the people in the old one can't use it.

why is that game 100x more fun to read about than it is to play?

[wholol]

I'm not quite sure what your point is here. I see that there are three main groups of players:

1) People who are currently playing WoW are, by definition, not the market for WoW Classic—they are largely happy with the way WoW evolved, or they would've quit by now. WoW Classic is explicitly not aimed at them, and they will continue to find the best experience in modern WoW.

2) People who are are currently playing on private servers. They know exactly what vanilla WoW is about and what they will get from WoW Classic. For them the main draws will be stability, reliability and quality of official vs. private servers. I expect they will be split between the servers. This group does not in general want changes (or they wouldn't be jumping through all the hoops to play on private servers).

3) People who played in vanilla and quit long time ago, and people who have never played WoW but know it from pop culture. They are players that have little interest in modern WoW (or they would be playing it), so it makes no sense to introduce modern changes for them in WoW Classic. They will either like it and play it, or not like it and quit. The best strategy is to just let WoW Classic be true to vanilla WoW and see what happens.

I think the second group is large enough to make it worth it to keep the servers alive, but the success will really be up to the last group. Nobody knows if they are successful attracting that group, but that's the risk you take in business. But it's clear that the business case is to have minimal changes to WoW Classic, since there is no significant customer group for "vanilla but with modern changes".

There's actually a 4th group, the people from the first group who are going to try it coz classic is hyped and end up quitting shortly after due to how harsh it turns out to be for them.

Although I generally agree with what gaidax is saying, the retail version is so much more evolved and polished , but there is one thing that vanilla/classic ( private) has that retail doesn't anymore and that is a sense of adventure in the a harsh environment along with the actual iteration of world pvp ( and not staged or forced world pvp ).

[Super Kami Dende]

It wasn't. Retail moved to a piece of garbage for special needs kids.

Considering Vanilla is braindead easy. It's not like that changed for anyone that wants Vanilla back.

[In Ogres We Trust]

Well, don't say that, because it's different for all. Some people treat games like they ARE their life and with growing esport etc, some people live off playing games, so for them it really is their life in a sense.

You can't decide how serious people can take a game. In your mind, it's "just a game" but for others it's dead serious and maybe the most important thing in their life and that is FINE!

You should not bring in a "there is more in life and lots of real problems" philosophy here, you have no right to judge people and what they value in life.


Personally, gaming is my biggest interest and by default, it becomes a very important part of my life. Since I spend so much time on it, I want it to be quality time, that's why I get very involved in everything surrounding games, and this game in particular.

Yes, those people are called LOSERS.

[Archon14]

In classic wow, the leveling process is a way to add people to your friend list. Join guilds, chat with people and form friendships and acquaintances.

Indeed, I've met plenty of people and had a great time with them exclusively through leveling. Bumping in a random person while doing a quest and then end up chatting with them for months is one of the highlights of my wow experience when I was 12 years old.

And while the game today has certainly lost that charm for most people, I'd also say that the original experience stayed for an expansion or two before it started to slowly fade out.

[tikcol]

except it isn't wow.

beg your pardon? VANILLA WOW ISN'T WOW?


TRIGGERED

[Projectmars]

beg your pardon? VANILLA WOW ISN'T WOW?


TRIGGERED

Pirate Servers aren't Vanilla WoW.

[HuxNeva]

Pirate Servers aren't Vanilla WoW.

Private servers otoh come pretty close

[tikcol]

Pirate Servers aren't Vanilla WoW.

Well Projectmars, you're incredibly wrong and I'm doleful that you couldn't appreciate some of the best vanilla private servers in the last decade.

Sorry.