A few issues will need to be addressed with TBC

[Mosha]

ofc its good for blizzard because if they FORCE your friends to level (as opposed to your friends choosing to do something that doesn't insinuate they were under duress when they made that choice and ofc it was something they wanted to do in the first place meaning they weren't forced into anything they didn't already want to do

Ok dude, I'm just saying you gotta drop this before you look any dumber. There is a definition of forced that just means it is a necessity in order to do something else. The fact that you are thinking I'm using the physical definition of forced and you keep sticking to it just makes you look stupid. You gotta drop it, thanks.

then thats an extra month subscription for them.

If someone doesn't want to level to try tbc, they just wont pay at all. That's money lost. That's fairly obvious lol. Well....maybe I assume too much from others intelligence.

you taking a month to level is a month of subscription time, we can get into the whys and why nots of levelling and whether it should be a part of mmo gaming the whole philosophy of why X or Y is this way, but if you don't want to level chars why play mmos.

This line of thinking is irrelevant. Blizzard sent out a survey that told us they are thinking of letting us do this. Making this irrelevant. If blizzard is thinking about making this a reality, then your thought of "THE GAME ISN"T MADE FOR THIS" is just no longer relevant. Period. End of that discussion.

See this is what is making this conversation such a bore to me at least. You have no reason to dislike it. Every single thing you have said can be summed up to "You shouldn't be able to get a free character because I think you shouldn't". That's literally it. That isn't an argument that's a really weak opinion.

[Kralljin]

This isn't good for blizzard in terms of money, it's obviously not good for newer players who want to get into tbc asap, and it could also be harmful if populations for tbc don't start off with a big boom.

The money argument is a bit overused, fixing world buffs or the Ranking system would have been better in terms of money for Blizzard, because these two things most likely burned out a lot of players a lot quicker, or even the dungeon boosting meta you have described, yet Blizzard didn't fix it because of their adherence to the 1.12 client.

That aside, once TBC is announced, they could easily use this to promote people to level a character specifically for TBC, after all, between the TBC announcement and its release, you will have months, which is more than enough time to level a character.
If those people are unsubbed, they can resub to level one.

It doesn't effect anyone outside of newbies just catching up, that's all they are doing. The newbies aren't passing you, they aren't even at a remotely close place than you with your epic mounts and full t3 (at that point). But it will just put them at a place where they don't have to spend weeks leveling to 'play' the game they want.

I fundamentally disagree with this argument because of the you are literally stating the reason: Catching up.
The older versions of WoW represented a time where having a sub didn't mean you were entitled to anything but access to the servers.

You want gear? Go get it, don't wait until the next Patch hands raid gear from the previous patch from World quests.
You want to see Raid / Boss X? Join a Raid / Guild.
You want a level 60 character? Level one.

The concept "it doesn't affect you" is rather poor in an MMO, if others get something for free you've put work in, it feels bad, that's just normal.
It has no purpose than to cater to an audience that will most likely drop TBC rather quickly anyway because Classic and TBC are not that fundamentally different.

The only way i could myself agreeing to Pre made characters if they are on their own servers (which includes no Crossrealms BG's) and you couldn't transfer off this server for months after release.

[Mosha]

either you have friends that take months to level, or you have no friends and buy boosts

You understand it still takes time to boost correct?

[Heathy]

but not weeks or month correct?

you only look dumb saying you want to play a game but only if it caves to your demands, to me that means you don't want to play said game.

I would totally play X game but only if... this means you don't want to play that game.

Kralljin put it quite succinctly exactly how I feel, ppl put in effort, you get to pull a character out of thin air, its not in spirit with what the game is trying to emulate. have a server with pre-mades sure, keep them out of the servers which progress from classic to tbc. its like these classic+ ideas all over again, we should do classic but bigger and better and pre mades and heroics and 9 more tiers and this and that. let it be everything everyone wants i'm sure that will be a great game if there was a singular vision maybe. otherwise it only needs to be a recreation of what it was. that is the experience ppl want to see again. or at least the experience ppl have been whining about for so long. any change is only going to be a deviation from what it was actually like.

its not classic tbc with premades, its retail tbc. the idea is to be playing the version of the game that still values the time commitment. not arbitrarily skipping ahead in casual land, past the parts of the game you don't like. just like classic, tbc only needs to be a recreation of what it was, that is the experience ppl want to see again, whether a second time or the first time, turning tbc into tbc+ with extra bells and whistles and retail character boosts isn't tbc. or a recreation of the past era. ppl need to stop assuming that this is a rerun where we need to 'do things better' but in this case 'better' is just 'less time sync' 'skipping parts of the game I don't enjoy'. not within the spirit of the time. the spirit of the game being that this period of the game did have emphasis on the time commitment. but it really circles back to that whole ' you think you do but you don't ' quote, ppl think they want something but really they don't. if you did want to play tbc you would just play it, as it was, without premades, thinking it needs premades is the point at which you accept that you don't care about the game itself, only your own self interest.

[Mosha]

The money argument is a bit overused, fixing world buffs or the Ranking system would have been better in terms of money for Blizzard, because these two things most likely burned out a lot of players a lot quicker, or even the dungeon boosting meta you have described, yet Blizzard didn't fix it because of their adherence to the 1.12 client.

You aren't wrong, but these things aren't mutually exclusive. Blizzard could have saved/made more money by doing the things you suggested, that doesn't mean they won't or shouldn't do a different thing because it would also save/make them more money.

That aside, once TBC is announced, they could easily use this to promote people to level a character specifically for TBC, after all, between the TBC announcement and its release, you will have months, which is more than enough time to level a character.
If those people are unsubbed, they can resub to level one.

I understand that, I'm just saying a lot of people just simply don't WANT to. And the boost to 58 will attract WAY WAY more people and it will make a good population for tbc. Christ there were more copies sold for warlords than mists even though the population from mists>dwindled down a LOT because they first introduced that boosted character.

It's beneficial to a lot of people to get back into TBC, and it really harms no one.

I fundamentally disagree with this argument because of the you are literally stating the reason: Catching up.
The older versions of WoW represented a time where having a sub didn't mean you were entitled to anything but access to the servers.

I honestly don't know why you guys think I'm acting like these people are entitled to anything. I'm saying we should use this as a reason to come and try tbc not because these random people are 'entitled' to a thing. It's really weird language you are using right now tbh.

You want gear? Go get it, don't wait until the next Patch hands raid gear from the previous patch from World quests.
You want to see Raid / Boss X? Join a Raid / Guild.
You want a level 60 character? Level one.

Yes, I get that logic for raiding etc and all that. But blizzard themselves suggested this is something they were thinking about. And comparing leveling to anything else in the game at this point is sort of silly. How leveling works for most is just sitting at the start of a dungeon and watching netflix. You know it, I know it, we all know it let's not act like this isn't the thing everyone does now.

The concept "it doesn't affect you" is rather poor in an MMO, if others get something for free you've put work in, it feels bad, that's just normal.
It has no purpose than to cater to an audience that will most likely drop TBC rather quickly anyway because Classic and TBC are not that fundamentally different.

I completely agree, but just not through leveling. Like if someone got a certain mount, gear, title, arena rating, for nothing it is different. But someone gets a fresh character 2 levels behind your with essentially nothing to his name so he can play with his friends after a couple days of leveling.... Who honestly gives a flying fuck about that honestly.

It has no purpose than to cater to an audience that will most likely drop TBC rather quickly anyway because Classic and TBC are not that fundamentally different.

Then it literally has no effect on you at all. If your mindset is that these people are going to leave anyway then what does it matter? But on the brightside if this boost gets people hooked, the only thing it means is that your server has a more healthy population.

You could even take it a step further, you could make a free boost on certain servers that are imbalanced and only allow these boosts on the faction that is suffering so it could help server imbalance at the same time. I'm not married to that idea I'm just saying.

The only way i could myself agreeing to Pre made characters if they are on their own servers (which includes no Crossrealms BG's) and you couldn't transfer off this server for months after release.

I completely agree, except for the bgs part. They won't effect bgs at all beside allowing for more bgs to happen and lessen the qs. More people quing for bgs the better idk why you would want to remove them from other bgs.

- - - Updated - - -

but not weeks or month correct?

I know this is going to sound crazy to you, but no everyone plays like you probably do. Sometimes an hour or two a day is all they got. It could still take months. Crazy thought I know, people do other things.

you only look dumb saying you want to play a game but only if it caves to your demands, to me that means you don't want to play said game.

Just to let you know, I'm not in this boat, I have my 60 priest and 60 druid ready for tbc with enough money for both their epic flying, I have no problem with whatever happens personally I am advocating for others.

But to respond, that doesn't make you look dumb at all. Maybe to a no lifer it makes you look dumb.

Let's just say you really loved bioshock 2 but hated bioshock 1 and in order to play 2 again you had to beat 1, you probably are just going to say fuck it I'll try another game.

Well that's how it FEELS to a lot of people. I get that it's an mmo, I already went through all the hoops I needed to, but I actually like vanilla. To some, they hate it and this is just going to make them not want to play at all.

That isn't 'stupid' it's 'stupid' to assume someone who might only have lets say 2 hour a week to play is going to be all super ready to spend weeks/months sitting in front of a dungeon getting boosted by a friend or random for the time they have to play video games in order to get to the portion of the game they like. Now THAT'S stupid if you think someone is going to do that.

its not in spirit with what the game is trying to emulate.

Do you think dungeon boosts are in spirit of what the game is trying to emulate? World buffs? Layering? Right click report abuse? Leaving bots up for months? Changing black lotus spawns because of the community?

Knock it off with the 'spirit' bullshit. The spirit of the game can only be achieved personally, no matter how much you want to spirit of the game to be played it can only be achieved by yourself, no one else is going to do or think the same things are the 'spirit' of the game.

[Heathy]

but you are being entitled your entire argument is basically 'I don't want to level through classic so give me premades or i'm going to spit out my pacifier and unsub'. this isn't a basis for an honest argument, and to assume it affects no one, it affects everyone who wants to level up, you give ppl the option to create 58s and there will be only 58s. there would be no reason to create level 1s at all. even in the newer versions of the game, you only get 1 free character boost. without us even bothering to discuss the reason why ppl wanted to play the classic period over the modern in the first place. a lot of ppl do like the levelling, its one of the things that ppl were complaining was sorely lacking in the retail game, and that the levelling was more involved and or longer lasting than any singular expansion.

'i already did it so i don't want to do it again' don't then. i don't care what you want and don't want. its simply a matter of you're willing to play the game or you aren't.

the game is whatever the players make it. but there is an element of effort poured into the game, that is shat on by things like pre-mades. the idea that the guy behind that toon levelled it up and has some idea of how to play. that there is some prestige in taking days or weeks to get a character from a to b. and its not simply cheated in because of some level of entitlement. I can't be arsed to level up so give me a character is all these walls of text say to me. the tone or the point hasn't changed no matter how many strawman arguments and generalisation or anecdotes you throw into it.

[Mosha]

but you are being entitled your entire argument is basically 'I don't want to level through classic so give me premades or i'm going to spit out my pacifier and unsub'.

If this is what you are getting from what I'm saying then there is no point in talking to you because you are too stupid to understand what I'm telling you. I'm not going to respond to anything else that you say that is a clearly misinformed comment that you are making up in your head because you didn't read what I wrote.

there would be no reason to create level 1s at all. even in the newer versions of the game, you only get 1 free character boost.

I have been saying, and I have said multiple fucking times....only one per account for a specific amount of time. Give it...a month or two. If you aren't going to understand or read what I'm saying, then just shut your mouth, thanks.

ithout us even bothering to discuss the reason why ppl wanted to play the classic period over the modern in the first place. a lot of ppl do like the levelling, its one of the things that ppl were complaining was sorely lacking in the retail game, and that the levelling was more involved and or longer lasting than any singular expansion.

You are able to level if you want, no one is stopping you. And with one boost you will have to level one anyway if you want an alt. This at least allows you to have ONE character at end level right away so you can play with friends who are already there or to at least stay on parish with others, and you can level an alt on the side once you get to that point.

'i already did it so i don't want to do it again' don't then. i don't care what you want and don't want. its simply a matter of you're willing to play the game or you aren't.

the game is whatever the players make it.

Your opinions truly are terrible my friend lol. You literally read everything I wrote, compeltely misunderstood them or just didn't read them at all, and you summed it up to this. I would be embarassed to be you right no

[Heathy]

oof finally got you on ignore, now I don't have to read any of this circular nonsense. carry on folks.

I can't read your posts any more btw, not that I want to but your argument is circular and you're blowing it up into some sort of crusade or agenda. its simple that you want pre made characters so you can skip levelling up. this wasn't part of the game. there is a level of disingenuousness i'm not willing to even entertain. your argument is simple, and yet you think its some grandiose thing when it is not this complex. you're talking in circles about unsubstantiated nonsense. its all generalisations and strawman arguments with you that are barely tangentially relevant and mostly besides the point. 'its ok you can still level if you want to' 'have blizzard hard code in some restrictions' you mean write a whole system to handle premades for tbc there was no built in character boost ui elements or anything back then, PTR premades were done through the old as fuck website not to mention there is no code in place to determine these restrictions based on countless variables that would have to be balanced around these characters to avoid exploits that didn't matter in a PTR environment vs a live one. 'what about layering' as if that has anything at all to do with spawning level 58s into the game from nowhere.

my opinions are what they are (i'm in favour of the game just being the same way it was, so it provides the closest recreation as possible), at least i'm not resorting to some level of ad hominem just because I have nothing else to say, i'm also not on some sort of crusade to speed up the process of classic turning into retail either, i've already said all I can say, now i'm just repeating it again and again, you only pick and choose what to reply to quote me and others out of context, leaving out the context or making up your own to fit some narrative, so its pointless. you berated me earlier for basing something on an anecdote and yet your entire argument consists of 'me and my friends' as if you are the entire player base. 'me and my friends' what was that about anecdotes? you're allowed to base your argument entirely on anecdotal evidence but no one else is allowed to do the same? DOUBLE STANDARD ALERT!!!! I think i've taken a relatively unbiased approach to this but its obvious you are pushing some sort of agenda. it took you a while to even mention you had a 60 ready to go (probably bullshit like you having friends that are tangible and not imaginary), but there it is, its convenient that its you that 'doesn't need a boost' 'i'm totally arguing for the game' but its your friends that are inept and can't be bothered to play it. 'totally arguing out the kindness of my heart for them no bias'. full of shit you are. you seem to have a high level of conviction about 'saving the game' which is the talk of nutjobs and ppl who predict the rapture. the game doesn't need pre-emptively saving, it likely has a competent marketing director, you don't have pretend you know whats best for the game when its only what is best for you and your self interest, its a game. it'll last as long as it lasts. it doesn't need extra bells an whistles to succeed, ppl will either play it or they won't. ppl are either interested in playing it, or they aren't. there is no middle fucking ground where you might play it but only if.......

each server will run its course and if blizzard wants to keep setting up fresh start servers each time one server reaches peak saturation and drop off, thats upto them. I don't think anything, especially not boosted characters, is going to prolong the inevitable. in most cases you'll only shorten the run time of any specific server by having ppl skip the levelling period. if ppl don't have to level, they'll ultimately take less time to reach the point at which they stop playing. not to mention any new players who would be brought in because of free boosted characters would also turn away those who don't want to play a casualized version of tbc with boosted characters. every person you get to jump in as a tourist because they get a free char (ppl who likely won't end up staying if they only wanted to play it because of the boosted characters), is one person lost who wanted it to be an authentic recreation. with a net gain of zero. and a server population that drops off faster than one without premades but ppl who actually wanted to play the game as it was.

but ofc this is too much of a concise argument even if I thought you could argue your point you'd rather attack my character over making any other point besides you not wanting to level up (oh sorry wait, your 'friends' assuming they exist, don't want to level up). its my fault your friends don't like levelling in this game is it? to me this is all a you (or them) problem. you have a problem with the game, I generally don't. I don't have a list of ultimatums for playing tbc. bringing retail character boosts into the game before cataclysm would only turn me away from the whole thing, in most cases we would just be speeding up the rate at which classic turned into what the modern game is today. when the entire fucking point was to move away from that and play the game as it was before all of its casualization. why do you think that ppl who are playing this period of the game want the game to be more casual and not that we're playing this period because its less casual. if most ppl were fine with character boosts and skipping ahead to the most relevant point, we'd all be playing retail.

I think i know what ppl mean by zoomers now, the ppl who feel they are entitled to whatever it is, now, with no effort involved. its not even just funny that you think this is somehow paramount to some level of success (its not), but that you feel entitled to it based on the fact that you've 'done it before'. this isn't before, this is the new now there is no before not in anyway that is related to the currently running game. no game should be bent to anyones will in order for them to feel the desire to play it. if that is the case then you don't have any desire to play it unless it bends to your will. meaning you don't care about the game, only about self interest. only about it being catered to you. at the expense of anyone else. you think my opinion is terrible I think you're a patronizing, arrogant, self entitled piece of shit, and will say anything to justify what you want, you've spent most of your time berating my character (and the mental capacity of anyone who disagrees with you) rather than providing any counter argument at all, the mis-direction doesn't make you look clever either it just bores me and i tend to ignore it which means i've not read the majority of what you've written as the bulk of it is irrelevant. how do you like them apples?

[Mosha]

oof finally got you on ignore, now I don't have to read any of this circular nonsense. carry on folks.

One can only hope he actually read my last comment to see how dumb he was sounding because he wasn't reading a single thing I said. But he probably didn't

[varren]

They are going to have to do something about the racials, or Alliance population is going to completely collapse

[Kralljin]

You aren't wrong, but these things aren't mutually exclusive. Blizzard could have saved/made more money by doing the things you suggested, that doesn't mean they won't or shouldn't do a different thing because it would also save/make them more money.

Fixing world buffs would cost them money, like...how much?
How long would it take someone to code "Remove Buff X,Y,Z" upon zoning into a raid? I somehow doubt it would take them that long.

Or imagine them nerfing the XP in lowlevel dungeons when a level 60 character is present, there would have been plenty of ways to break dungeon boosting.

They probably spent more time on finding out whether Nightfall is bugged on their Classic client than it would take them to fix those things if they wanted to.

I understand that, I'm just saying a lot of people just simply don't WANT to.

Then sucks for them.
Leveling has always been a part of WoW, whether they like it or not.

Christ there were more copies sold for warlords than mists even though the population from mists>dwindled down a LOT because they first introduced that boosted character.

Attributing that solely to the character boost is a massive stretch.
MoP had a massive issue with its theme, which turned off a lot of people, WoD had a massive marketing campaign that couldn't be further away from MoP thematically.

It's beneficial to a lot of people to get back into TBC, and it really harms no one.

That can be said about virtually any catchup, yet i'll tell you that one of the primary reasons why i've lost interest in Retail is because of continous catch up.

Not to mention that it raises the massive question whether these Pre made characters are a one time thing or permanent.
"Oh, i'd so love to play alts, but i have to level them through Classic...Blizzard please?".

I honestly don't know why you guys think I'm acting like these people are entitled to anything. I'm saying we should use this as a reason to come and try tbc not because these random people are 'entitled' to a thing. It's really weird language you are using right now tbh.

Because it is, people that believe because they like TBC and not Classic earns them a free pass just to skip it, is entitlement.

Yes, I get that logic for raiding etc and all that. But blizzard themselves suggested this is something they were thinking about.

They also thought about having servers from scratch, yet i somehow believe that isn't going to happen.

Because they put the idea out there, doesn't mean they should do it, at the end of the day, i voice my disagreement with this idea, nothing more.

And comparing leveling to anything else in the game at this point is sort of silly. How leveling works for most is just sitting at the start of a dungeon and watching netflix. You know it, I know it, we all know it let's not act like this isn't the thing everyone does now.

People who don't have a max level character rarely have the gold to pay for boosts, because they obviously don't have a character to farm said gold.
At best, they can ask a friend to boost their character, which is a different story anyway.

Who honestly gives a flying fuck about that honestly.

I do, i said it already, part of the magic of the older WoW expansions is that the game doesn't invalidate the accomplishments of other players just for the sake of attracting new ones.
Play the game until you're 58, people have more than enough time to level one casually, if not, then that's on you.

They won't effect bgs at all beside allowing for more bgs to happen and lessen the qs. More people quing for bgs the better idk why you would want to remove them from other bgs.

No, if someone chooses to level a character from scratch, they are months behind people who used a Pre made, hence they are at a disadvantage.
As Arena points are weekly capped (A cap that is based on rating no less), being months behind makes a tremendous difference, especially when there is no soft gear reset between seasons / patches.

Then it literally has no effect on you at all.

You can say the same thing about the catchup mechanics on Retail.

If your mindset is that these people are going to leave anyway then what does it matter? But on the brightside if this boost gets people hooked, the only thing it means is that your server has a more healthy population.

People with low retention rates aren't good for a healthy server population, rather they skew the picture even further about server population.
Especially if those people are on one server (an idea to which you agreed) is very dangerous because once those people realize that TBC isn't that 180° from the Classic the couldn't be arsed to play, the population implodes.

[Mosha]

Fixing world buffs would cost them money, like...how much?
How long would it take someone to code "Remove Buff X,Y,Z" upon zoning into a raid? I somehow doubt it would take them that long.

Or imagine them nerfing the XP in lowlevel dungeons when a level 60 character is present, there would have been plenty of ways to break dungeon boosting.

I don't get it I said I agree with you, they should have done these things 100%.

Then sucks for them.
Leveling has always been a part of WoW, whether they like it or not.

This isn't about me wanting to give people a free break dude, this is about me wanting the game to stay healthy because I love it, so you bring in players because of this because otherwise they just won't play. Saying "Yeah too bad if you don't want to then just don't play" is exactly right. They just won't play. But if we could add something like this and do something like make it for a specific server only that, like you said, can't be transferred off of for a set amount of time would be good for everyone in the long run if it means people stay because of it. Just saying, if populations dwindle things like arena will suffer A LOT.

Attributing that solely to the character boost is a massive stretch.
MoP had a massive issue with its theme, which turned off a lot of people, WoD had a massive marketing campaign that couldn't be further away from MoP thematically.

I'm not just attributing it to this, I'm saying it helped for SURE. The reason I know it helped for sure because that's what me and a lot of my friends talked about because a lot of them skipped mop because of how bad it was but came back because they could just start at an 'equalish' spot.

That can be said about virtually any catchup, yet i'll tell you that one of the primary reasons why i've lost interest in Retail is because of continous catch up.

Not to mention that it raises the massive question whether these Pre made characters are a one time thing or permanent.
"Oh, i'd so love to play alts, but i have to level them through Classic...Blizzard please?".

I am pushing the idea that it needs to be a time specific, and limited to one account thing. I'm not saying cut leveling off completely for the rest of eternity. I'm saying do it for one character per account so people can get in and play tbc right away if they want to. If tbc hooks them then they can spend their free time leveling alts. But if they get burnt out before they have a chance to try the new expansion that won't be good for blizzard or populations.

And I personally wouldn't compare a one time boost to 58 to the catch up mechanics that happened in wows history. But that's just my opinion.

Because it is, people that believe because they like TBC and not Classic earns them a free pass just to skip it, is entitlement.

Listen to me man. I am not in this boat and I am asking for it. I gain literally nothing from this boost personally because all my characters I want are 60 and are set for tbc. I'm not saying "These people deserve this because of...." whatever you are suggesting I'm saying. I'm saying we should give it to these people who don't like classic because it will be better for them and us in the long run. Just because you ask to give someone something doesn't mean I think they are entitled to it, I just think it would be beneficial. I personally don't think homeless people are 'entitled' to shelters, does that mean I think we shouldn't have them in place for them? Of course not.

Now if someone were hear who doesn't play classic and they were saying "Give this to me now or I'm not playing, I have payed for wow for 15 years and I already leveled back in tbc so I deserve this boost", then yes that person would be acting like they are entitled. I am not pushing this type of behavior or thought behind it though. I'm looking at this as an overall health of the game thing.

They also thought about having servers from scratch, yet i somehow believe that isn't going to happen.

Because they put the idea out there, doesn't mean they should do it, at the end of the day, i voice my disagreement with this idea, nothing more.

I think you missed the point I was getting at but that's fine I'll just agree to disagree on this one I suppose.

People who don't have a max level character rarely have the gold to pay for boosts, because they obviously don't have a character to farm said gold.
At best, they can ask a friend to boost their character, which is a different story anyway.

I think you missed the point on this one too. The point I was making is that leveling is not really a 'corner stone' of the game anymore. People just try to bust right through it as quick as possible and forget they ever had to do it. Most people who are going to step foot in tbc have already done all of these things and it's just basically asking weeks or months of their time to level under the specific reason of 'just because'. Most people today just boost, christ some even go so far as to just buy gold illegally just to get the gold to boost or bot it up. There isn't a lot of people out there just leveling like it is 'meant' to be because most people understand how this game works.

I'm just saying if someone really wants tbc, and just tbc, I see no harm in getting them there as quick as possible. You and I both know there is no real 'benefit' from leveling a character up to 58 yourself as to just having one given to you outside of just saving time.

I do, i said it already, part of the magic of the older WoW expansions is that the game doesn't invalidate the accomplishments of other players just for the sake of attracting new ones.
Play the game until you're 58, people have more than enough time to level one casually, if not, then that's on you.

Look man, this isn't about me saying these people deserve this because of their time restraints or whatever. I don't really know how many times I have to say this until you read it, or at least understand it slightly.

Your saying "They can just do this or leave" is exactly what will happen. They will leave. Think about world buffs or the exploits you were talking about. I can use your logic with this very same thing. "People can either just do it or they can leave" well guess what, people left, including me because I do not enjoy this type of gameplay at all. And this hurts the population. Christ there are servers right now who have been BEGGING for merges for MONTHS and MONTHS now because of the mentality of what you said is true. People will just fucking leave. If we can do something that has no effect on you at all negatively that could possibly help out some populations in the long run why wouldn't you want it to happen?

No, if someone chooses to level a character from scratch, they are months behind people who used a Pre made, hence they are at a disadvantage.
As Arena points are weekly capped (A cap that is based on rating no less), being months behind makes a tremendous difference, especially when there is no soft gear reset between seasons / patches.

Wait I don't understand your logic here. Are you saying you should keep the BGs separate because if someone who is brand new decides to level from scratch they are going to be behind compared to the premades? Dude.... they are going to be WAY WAY WAY more behind than someone who has a level 60 right now. If anything this will introduce a population to their bgs where they are CLOSER to more people than if there wasn't. I guess I just don't understand this logic too much.

You can say the same thing about the catchup mechanics on Retail.

Not even remotely but okay if you think so. There is a mega difference between allowing someone entrance to the version of the game they want quicker, and handing them pieces of gear they would have otherwise had to display some essence of skill or understanding of the game in order to accomplish.

If I get free mythic gear without doing anything, that means I just got put on par with someone who had to at the very least had to be decent at the game in order to accomplish this.

Anyone and I mean ANYONE can level a character to end level, it is not skillful in the least bit. I leveled my character to 60 when I was 12 years old, but there was absolutely no way I would have been able to pull my weight in a raid like naxxramas. Giving me a free 60 would have just saved me time, giving me free gear from naxx would have been saying fuck you to everyone who was good enough to do it. Big difference.

People with low retention rates aren't good for a healthy server population, rather they skew the picture even further about server population.
Especially if those people are on one server (an idea to which you agreed) is very dangerous because once those people realize that TBC isn't that 180° from the Classic the couldn't be arsed to play, the population implodes.

And this is why layering is a thing. This boost will be better because it will hold more peoples attention if they are allowed into the version of the game they like quicker. If people come back for tbc, realize they have to go through weeks or months of leveling to even set foot in the version of the game they came back for, it's going to have this implosion be quicker and worse. But if you allow them to at least have one character in their they might actually get to a point where they clear a raid or two before deciding if they want to stay or not.

[Nak88]

They are going to have to do something about the racials, or Alliance population is going to completely collapse

If they didn't collapse back in Retail TBC 2006, they won't in 2020.

[satella]

If they didn't collapse back in Retail TBC 2006, they won't in 2020.

That is not a good argument. The racials weren't changed until 2.3.0, and by then, switching factions would've been entirely too late.

With what we know now, Horde is by far the better faction on PvP servers. Also, shamans being so incredibly powerful in PvE, will favor Horde, as they will have 3 races, all very good in PvP, against the Draenei, which is by far the worst PvP race. This means Horde will have an easier time in PvE as well.

Why would you choose Alliance if you're at all serious about PvE or PvP? When all the best talent switches over to Horde, the rest will follow.

[Kralljin]

this is about me wanting the game to stay healthy because I love it, so you bring in players because of this because otherwise they just won't play.

You're trying to keep the game healthy with people who wouldn't even invest the time to level a character, that's where your error lies.
That's the issue, it's a mentality problem.

I'm not just attributing it to this, I'm saying it helped for SURE. The reason I know it helped for sure because that's what me and a lot of my friends talked about because a lot of them skipped mop because of how bad it was but came back because they could just start at an 'equalish' spot.

Of course it helps, but not everything that increases the population right off the bat naturally leads to a better experience for the game.

It would have "helped" back in 07 sure as shit as well, but Blizzard refused to do it anyway.

And I personally wouldn't compare a one time boost to 58 to the catch up mechanics that happened in wows history. But that's just my opinion.

We can also compare to the current level boosting, which i don't think fits into the older philosophy of the game either.

I personally don't think homeless people are 'entitled' to shelters, does that mean I think we shouldn't have them in place for them? Of course not.

Comparing homeless people to people who do not want to level a character.

Yeah, i think can spot the difference on my own.

I am not pushing this type of behavior or thought behind it though.

You're not pushing it, just promoting it.

I think you missed the point on this one too. The point I was making is that leveling is not really a 'corner stone' of the game anymore.

It was back then and this should preserved to some extent, not like you get a free level 60 right now on Classic.

You and I both know there is no real 'benefit' from leveling a character up to 58 yourself as to just having one given to you outside of just saving time.

Why not just boost them to 70 straight away? Fuck leveling, right?
Or offer any person who logs in a fresh 60 right now, some servers need new people, after all.

No one ever said it's about the benefit, it's about sticking to the original spirit of the game while keeping it playable, handing out Pre made characters is a bridge too far for me.

Your saying "They can just do this or leave" is exactly what will happen. They will leave. Think about world buffs or the exploits you were talking about.

You do realize You're putting something that has been part of this game since its inception on the same level as elements that have been quite frankly a massive oversight on the developers part?

The sole reason they are still in is because Blizzard didn't discover the abuse in 05 / 06 and fixed it back then, requiring a 58 character on your account to experience TBC was not a oversight.

You're taking the admission that not everything was perfect in Classic and should've been fixed way too far.

Wait I don't understand your logic here. Are you saying you should keep the BGs separate because if someone who is brand new decides to level from scratch they are going to be behind compared to the premades? Dude.... they are going to be WAY WAY WAY more behind than someone who has a level 60 right now. If anything this will introduce a population to their bgs where they are CLOSER to more people than if there wasn't. I guess I just don't understand this logic too much.

Huh?
I don't get your logic.

Person A levels a character from scratch, invest weeks of time into leveling, hits 70, can finally start gearing.
Person B uses a Pre made, hits 70 within days, gets Arena points from Week one.

Person B has a natural advantage over Person A because he has acquired more Arena points, and A will struggle to keep up as there is no catchup for Arena points, unless he has a way higher rating than B over multiple months.

If I get free mythic gear without doing anything, that means I just got put on par with someone who had to at the very least had to be decent at the game in order to accomplish this.

Bringing in the "skill" argument is pretty pointless, because nothing in Classic really takes skill, just time.
Gear from Classic will be largely invalidated in TBC anyway, it's about time investment, nothing more.

The argument also works for Retail, when people are too lazy to raid (even Normal), they can just wait until the next tier and then get gear from world quest.

Anyone and I mean ANYONE can level a character to end level, it is not skillful in the least bit.

I never claimed it's about skill, it's about time invested, raiding is also a time investment first and foremost.

realize they have to go through weeks or months of leveling to even set foot in the version of the game they came back for, it's going to have this implosion be quicker and worse.

I think people will be able to put 1+1 together that they need a level 58 character in order to play TBC.
It's not like Blizzard somehow promised people pre made characters for TBC.

Those people who couldn't be arsed to play a character in Classic before hand, wouldn't be part of the endgame anyway, so that "implosion" won't really happen because most people will figure out before TBC whether they want to level a character beforehand.
Even if, those people won't be quitting once they actually reached the endgame and affects the broader population.

But this implosion is in full force if you allow pre mades once people realize TBC isn't the dreamland they've been promised.

[Mosha]

You're trying to keep the game healthy with people who wouldn't even invest the time to level a character, that's where your error lies.

There's no error here. If someone doesn't want to do something, they just simply will not do it. If you give them what they want right away (TBC) then they will be more likely to stay and possibly even level a new character down the road. There is absolutely no error here. I just don't think you people grasp this thought very well because you have probably never left wow ever in your life.

Of course it helps, but not everything that increases the population right off the bat naturally leads to a better experience for the game.

It would have "helped" back in 07 sure as shit as well, but Blizzard refused to do it anyway.

I didnt just mention right off the bat, half my point is sustaining more of those subs as well.

Comparing homeless people to people who do not want to level a character.

Yeah, i think can spot the difference on my own.

Lol well you can spot the difference but apparently you can't spot the message I was trying to give you. I'm telling you just because you think it's beneficial to give someone something doesn't mean you think they are entitled to it. Not sure how you missed that one bud lol

It was back then and this should preserved to some extent, not like you get a free level 60 right now on Classic.

It is not even preserved as of RIGHT NOW, and if you think it is you are delusional.

You're not pushing it, just promoting it.

*sigh* must be a day or ignorance lol.

Listen, just because two people can want a similar thing, doesn't mean you are instantly promoting each others reasoning.

If you say "I don't want people to have free 58s because I think they should level" and someone else says "I don't want people to have free 58s because I don't think any new players should play tbc, classic players only should be able to play tbc", you aren't 'promoting' that other persons behavior. You just have different reasoning to a similar answer.

Why not just boost them to 70 straight away? Fuck leveling, right?

Because tbc starts at 58, I thought that would have been an obvious answer...

it's about sticking to the original spirit of the game while keeping it playable, handing out Pre made characters is a bridge too far for me.

I'm just going to say if this is a part of your defense for this you need to drop it, because I can tie SO much things that happen today that are 'okay' that are against the spirit of the game. This is not a defense.

You do realize You're putting something that has been part of this game since its inception on the same level as elements that have been quite frankly a massive oversight on the developers part?

The sole reason they are still in is because Blizzard didn't discover the abuse in 05 / 06 and fixed it back then, requiring a 58 character on your account to experience TBC was not a oversight.

You're taking the admission that not everything was perfect in Classic and should've been fixed way too far.

Just going to play devil's advocate here, because even though I do personally agree with you that leveling USE to be a cornerstone to the game....I could very easily push this logic back on you.

World buffs COULD have been seen as an oversight to the game that devs didn't notice back in 2005...just as easily...as they saw making people level their characters manually to the end of the expansion. Since WoD, every single expansion we have gotten a free character boost with the expansion in order to play with our friends quicker. Whose to say this wasn't an oversight that they just never thought of and if 2007s blizz knew what 2015 blizz did maybe they would have added it as well. Just saying you are getting into REALLY subjective arguments here that are never safe.

Huh?
I don't get your logic.

Person A levels a character from scratch, invest weeks of time into leveling, hits 70, can finally start gearing.
Person B uses a Pre made, hits 70 within days, gets Arena points from Week one.

Person A has a natural advantage over Person B because he has acquired more Arena points, and B will struggle to keep up as there is no catchup for Arena points, unless he has a way higher rating than A over multiple months.

You messed up your example here but I get what you're saying. Let me explain.

Person A (for whatever reason) decides he prefers to level manually (even with a boost) and wait until the day of release.


With no boosters in the bgs, let's say there are 10 people who played classic and him. The 10 people will be miles and miles ahead of him, their best pvp gear at 70 is mostly going to be level 60 gear for the first couple weeks until they get rating. These guys push way ahead and by the time person A is 70 he has to play against all these people.


With the boosters in the bgs, even if he decides to manually level the DAY of tbc release (which doesn't make too much sense). Now he is still queing with/against those 10 classic players and also the 10 boosters. The 10 boosters will be ahead, no doubt, but they aren't going to be as ahead as the classic players (unless they get crazy high arena rating). A lot of their gear is still going to be the questing greens that the nonbooster got as well and not just full on t3/rank 14 gear.

He is still behind, just not as far behind as ONLY playing with classic only players.

Bringing in the "skill" argument is pretty pointless, because nothing in Classic really takes skill, just time.
Gear from Classic will be largely invalidated in TBC anyway, it's about time investment, nothing more.

I didn't mention classic gear because of this, I was talking about what would be considered current gear of that time. It takes way more skill, preparation, and even knowledge to get gear from kara, mags lair, and arena gear. It takes absolutely none to level. Which is the point I was making.

I think people will be able to put 1+1 together that they need a level 58 character in order to play TBC.
It's not like Blizzard somehow promised people pre made characters for TBC.

I'm not saying they won't and I am not saying blizzard did. I'm saying I think it would be a good idea for all if they did stick to a suggestion they gave us.

Those people who couldn't be arsed to play a character in Classic before hand, wouldn't be part of the endgame anyway, so that "implosion" won't really happen because most people will figure out before TBC whether they want to level a character beforehand.
Even if, those people won't be quitting once they actually reached the endgame and affects the broader population.

But this implosion is in full force if you allow pre mades once people realize TBC isn't the dreamland they've been promised.

The 'implosion' isn't even really an issue at this point so I am not sure why you keep bringing it up. As much as all of us hated it, layering is 100% going to be used. And whether or not you want to believe it, layering is the sole reason servers are still alive to this day. This 'implosion' argument is nonsense. There could be a boom on a single server of 1mil+ people on a single server that all drop off in a month when tbc launches and you won't even know a thing about it because of layering.

I just want to go back to this thought right here and really just make my whole point out of it.

Of course it helps

You admit that it would help out classic wow. You said it yourself. And the only REAL argument you have is that "People just need to do it because they need to do it". Well you have to understand that some people have already done this 100000 times over, and they are just simply burnt out of doing it. Some people might just want to level through tbc, and then just spam arenas until wotlk comes out, but if they are forced to spend weeks or months leveling they would just rather not.

I'm not saying "Just give it to them because they deserve it", that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that I know and you even admitted to knowing this could very much help in terms of population and money for blizzard. And if it doesn't really effect you or anyone around you then why does it even matter to you? Outside of you just having this gatekeeper mentality of "Just do it because I said you're suppose to do it".

[Kralljin]

There's no error here. If someone doesn't want to do something, they just simply will not do it.

Then they won't, if people aren't willing to put a modicum of time into it, then i suggest they shouldn't play a version of the game that puts a heavy emphasis on time investment.
People also didn't get a level boost because Classic leveling takes too long because "i just want to see the endgame" and leveling a character from 1-60 in Classic takes about as long as 1-70 in TBC because of all the class changes and XP nerfs.

Lol well you can spot the difference but apparently you can't spot the message I was trying to give you. I'm telling you just because you think it's beneficial to give someone something doesn't mean you think they are entitled to it. Not sure how you missed that one bud lol

Because making comparisons with serious real life issues and video games leaves out a lot of nuance, hence putting those things onto the same level is downright dishonest.

Being homeless cannot be fixed by doing something a few hours for every week for a handful of months, getting a character to 58 is indeed possible.

It is not even preserved as of RIGHT NOW, and if you think it is you are delusional.

You'd really believe because Blizzard have fixed some things that they instantly abandoned any adherence to the original client?

The very fact that World buffs are still a thing proves that Classic has generally made the decision in favour of authenticity, you can throw "muh AV & Black Lotus" all around you want, that doesn't change the fact that in the grand scheme of things they have adhered to that client only implemented fixes when they saw it as absolutely necessary.

And Pre made characters are anything but "absolutely necessary".

You just have different reasoning to a similar answer.

Whether you believe people are entitled to anything or not is irrelevant when you give them what they want despite being 100% capable of solving this "problem" by themselves.

Because tbc starts at 58, I thought that would have been an obvious answer...

TBC starts at level one for Draenei and Blood elves, they added new low level zones and quests.
So no, that statement is false.

I'm just going to say if this is a part of your defense for this you need to drop it, because I can tie SO much things that happen today that are 'okay' that are against the spirit of the game. This is not a defense.

Difference is that none of those are even on the scale of Pre mades, it's just that you somehow rationalize that because Blizzard made changes to Classic they should suddenly add pre made characters.

World buffs COULD have been seen as an oversight to the game that devs didn't notice back in 2005...just as easily...as they saw making people level their characters manually to the end of the expansion. Since WoD, every single expansion we have gotten a free character boost with the expansion in order to play with our friends quicker. Whose to say this wasn't an oversight that they just never thought of and if 2007s blizz knew what 2015 blizz did maybe they would have added it as well. Just saying you are getting into REALLY subjective arguments here that are never safe.

Take a step back on what sort of argument you are currently raising.

You believe that in any expansion between TBC and MoP, it has never crossed Blizzards mind to add some form leveling boost for new / returning players?
You are literally grasping at straws, Blizzard knew what they were doing, because buying the base game was even a requirement to play TBC.
Not to mention that Blizzard actually nerfed the XP requirements in TBC and even added new lowlevel content so people had an easier time to level up.

Heck, even to play Wotlk, you had to own TBC, a reminder they even slapped onto the box art, they also enforced that DK's had to go through Outland, so that people couldn't use DK as an easy way to access Northrend.
(And mind you, you needed at least one 55 character to create a DK)

Just for comparison, the world buffs were an invention of some quest designers (as explained by Kevin Jordan, former Vanilla WoW dev) that added them because they thought it was cool.

This no "Devil's Advocate" anymore, this is straight dishonesty to even suggest that Blizzard didn't come up with this idea for 5(!) Expansions, when Blizzard has put that much effort into precisely not doing that for years.

With no boosters in the bgs, let's say there are 10 people who played classic and him. The 10 people will be miles and miles ahead of him, their best pvp gear at 70 is mostly going to be level 60 gear for the first couple weeks until they get rating.

What sort of example is this?
Most Naxx gear is equivalent to 70's blues, "miles and miles" my ass.

With the boosters in the bgs, even if he decides to manually level the DAY of tbc release (which doesn't make too much sense). Now he is still queing with/against those 10 classic players and also the 10 boosters. The 10 boosters will be ahead, no doubt, but they aren't going to be as ahead as the classic players (unless they get crazy high arena rating). A lot of their gear is still going to be the questing greens that the nonbooster got as well and not just full on t3/rank 14 gear.

...wat.
It's okay that boosted characters are ahead of people who level their characters manually because they lose to people who have cleared & farmed Naxx?
What is this logic here?
What does the guy who has put in the work and leveled their characters manually get out of this?

I didn't mention classic gear because of this, I was talking about what would be considered current gear of that time. It takes way more skill, preparation, and even knowledge to get gear from kara, mags lair, and arena gear. It takes absolutely none to level. Which is the point I was making.

Except skill isn't relevant to this discussion, it's about leveling a character, the time invested, not the skill it takes to obtain on 70.

The 'implosion' isn't even really an issue at this point so I am not sure why you keep bringing it up. As much as all of us hated it, layering is 100% going to be used. And whether or not you want to believe it, layering is the sole reason servers are still alive to this day. This 'implosion' argument is nonsense. There could be a boom on a single server of 1mil+ people on a single server that all drop off in a month when tbc launches and you won't even know a thing about it because of layering.

What does layering have to do with this?
If people quit en masse on a server, layering won't save the server, because there are no people there to fill the layers.

The only argument here is if Blizzard decides to turn it into a few Mega Servers with a ton of layers at launch, which is going to cause a bunch of other issues (among other things, outdoor farming).
Layering will happen, but has nothing to do with this discussion unless you want to argue for Mega servers - which in the context of this discussion are solely there to compensate those people who take pre mades and then decide to quit a few weeks later.

Thanks for nothing, i'd say.

You admit that it would help out classic wow.

Obviously you would take this statement out of context just for the sake saying "I'M RIGHT".
The very point is that giving what helps players isn't necessarily good for the game in the long run, that's the point, but the part that elaborates this has been snipped away.
And going by how your post continues, you didn't even process it.

[Funkyjunky]

I am not that worried about racials, but if they strictly use 2.4.3 itemization instead of a more progressive system - it will be even more broke than 1.12 vanilla.

[Khain]

What I'm hoping for:

- 2.4.3 class balance
- Racial balance review
- Unerfed raid and dungeon content
- Seal of Blood and Vengeance for both factions
- Natural server transition to TBC and option to copy to a classic only realm.
- Phase system with no t5 and hyjal content at the start of TBC

[Mosha]

Then they won't, if people aren't willing to put a modicum of time into it, then i suggest they shouldn't play a version of the game that puts a heavy emphasis on time investment.
People also didn't get a level boost because Classic leveling takes too long because "i just want to see the endgame" and leveling a character from 1-60 in Classic takes about as long as 1-70 in TBC because of all the class changes and XP nerfs.

I understand that's what you think, I've mentioned a million times over why I think it wouldn't hurt to add it ffs are you even reading any of this.

Because making comparisons with serious real life issues and video games leaves out a lot of nuance, hence putting those things onto the same level is downright dishonest.

Being homeless cannot be fixed by doing something a few hours for every week for a handful of months, getting a character to 58 is indeed possible.

You can not be fucking serious dude lol....are you seriously this dense... the comparison was to show you a point, not to actually compare these two things like they are 1:1 for the love of god am I commenting to a schizo.

Okay so this whole entire post is just filled with terrible arguments that even contradict yourself so I'm just going to poke fun at one of them then put you on ignore because you are clearly a troll.

Whether you believe people are entitled to anything or not is irrelevant when you give them what they want despite being 100% capable of solving this "problem" by themselves.

Hmm weren't we just asking for things like world buffs removed among other changes to classic to make it better? You can 100% solve these issues by yourself as well, so why do you even ask for them? I don't really think you are batting 1000 in the thinking department if you catch my drift.

Think it's best to just put you on ignore and let you eat some crayons elsewhere.