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  1. #101
    The Patient Tumadre80's Avatar
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    I began playing as soon as TBC was released. I made a Blood Elf Paladin, I still remember how much hate Paladins on the Horde side got, I would get whispers that were like, "Go back to the Alliance you scum" and that's the censored version!
    Back in my day, we killed bosses 400 times a day...uphill both ways...in the snow...and we fucking liked it. In related news, I hear that uninstalling WoW completely from your hard drive and then reinstalling it resets your RNG numbers. -septor

  2. #102
    The Lightbringer Hottage's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nakkí View Post
    Still here! Phew, 9 years.. It's been a long journey.
    What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

    Played in closed beta, and got live game on day 2 (ordered from Amazon, too lazy to go to midnight opening).

    Seen the game change and evolve over the years, and the player base change and devolve.
    Dragonflight: Grand Marshal Hottage
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  3. #103
    Quote Originally Posted by Matash View Post
    Remember running shattered halls?:-) Most of those i met in early cata, in stonecore, did not B-)
    Shattered Halls: the maker or breaker of wanna-be tanks (before MgT came along). Especially warriors.

  4. #104
    Warchief Akraen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinity Divinity View Post

    And as a source for buffs.

    Coming from EQ and vanilla WoW, I guess I have this concept that a guild is something you don't join lightly. You should meet people, get to know them, make sure the guild is for you. In essence, be as critical of the guild you're joining as the guild is going to be of you as an applicant.

    This means that I don't end up joining many guilds. I'll roam around guildless a lot of the time in MMOs, and for some reason random people just seem to be confused/offended by it. I've had whole arguments with people that seemed legitimately upset at me for not joining any random guild. It's weird.
    I keep beating into the heads of my raiders that Natural Order is a guild that raids, not a raiding guild. We're working on Heroic Thok right now, so we're not too bad, either.

    We have bi-annual real life guild parties, which people fly from all over to attend. We do events, games (manhunt, a bounty hunter game in random zones with prizes; screenshot quests; drunk tightrope walking in Howling fjord; hi-low rolls), some in the guild do roleplay, others are artists, and others don't do much of anything but love being somewhere that it all happens.

    I've tried over the past 7+ years to keep my guild atmosphere just like this. So it's there... just a lot of guilds aren't that way and I think the good people out there need to know that there are homes for people who don't want to be drones hitting raid queues. A big chunk of it is up to guild leadership, I embrace a large non-raider group of members who are reasonable and respect the raid group. Many of them donate and help the raid group as well.

    There are good guilds out there still running strong.

    I've ignored PuGging tools since they first came out. Only finally got my stupid perky pug this xpac, because I wanted to finish the achievement.

  5. #105
    I guess so, I've been playing since Vanilla off and on, but I never felt like the minority. Sometimes games have to change to attract more players, nothing wrong with that.

  6. #106
    Immortal Fahrenheit's Avatar
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    I created my first character in May of 2005 (still my main and only max level character) and I played up until Nov. of 2012. I took a one year sabbatical and just came back this past week. Off hand, I know 3 people that I played with in Classic WoW that are still around, although all four of us raided, none of us do now, with the exception of LFR.
    Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh. You touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding.
    You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it.

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  7. #107
    I haven't subbed since last year so pretty much a year now, but last I did I checked my original vanilla guild roster....50 or 60 characters all with 4-6+ years last seen times. I would say yes. I knew dozens of people playing wow when it was launched in 2004. Now I think its more like 1 or 2. that sub every few months to see whats going on.

  8. #108
    Quote Originally Posted by Zoneseek View Post
    I haven't subbed since last year so pretty much a year now, but last I did I checked my original vanilla guild roster....50 or 60 characters all with 4-6+ years last seen times. I would say yes. I knew dozens of people playing wow when it was launched in 2004. Now I think its more like 1 or 2. that sub every few months to see whats going on.
    It makes you kinda sad, at the same time it makes you want to quit and join them.

    I just recently re-subbed because of WoD. If WoD doesn't lure me in long enough I might just leave for good. Not because the game is bad, I just think most people get tired of the same game and my breaks from this game are getting longer and longer.

  9. #109
    Quote Originally Posted by Akraen View Post
    I keep beating into the heads of my raiders that Natural Order is a guild that raids, not a raiding guild. We're working on Heroic Thok right now, so we're not too bad, either.

    We have bi-annual real life guild parties, which people fly from all over to attend. We do events, games (manhunt, a bounty hunter game in random zones with prizes; screenshot quests; drunk tightrope walking in Howling fjord; hi-low rolls), some in the guild do roleplay, others are artists, and others don't do much of anything but love being somewhere that it all happens.

    I've tried over the past 7+ years to keep my guild atmosphere just like this. So it's there... just a lot of guilds aren't that way and I think the good people out there need to know that there are homes for people who don't want to be drones hitting raid queues. A big chunk of it is up to guild leadership, I embrace a large non-raider group of members who are reasonable and respect the raid group. Many of them donate and help the raid group as well.

    There are good guilds out there still running strong.

    I've ignored PuGging tools since they first came out. Only finally got my stupid perky pug this xpac, because I wanted to finish the achievement.
    *Annoying gnome voice* Can I join your geeeeld?!
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  10. #110
    Quote Originally Posted by Mormolyce View Post
    That doesn't make sense, early WoW wasn't art compared to today's mechanical. Old WoW was just a clumsy machine that wasn't built very well.
    TL;DR: Old WoW was indeed a clumsy machine that had it's own personality- like a DeLorean or a '60's VW Bug. New WoW is sleek and pragmatic- a Honda Accord. Useful, laudable, but not really lovable.

    I guess it depends on your definition of art. I class it as art because it seemed like there was a vision behind it, reasoning behind the rules, and they tried to keep a cause-and-effect thing in place that at least allowed for some suspension of disbelief. Remember when bleed effects and poisons didn't work on undead or elementals? It may not have been perfect game balance, but it made sense. Those were rules put in place by someone who had a vision for how their creation should be, and who cared about it. Remember having to visit a trainer to change your talents? It wasn't convenient, but it made at least a little sense. More than changing talents on the fly in the middle of nowhere. How is that supposed to work, anyways? You may not think it matters, but it does.

    Here's the thing: all the little conveniences they've built in (like changing talents on the fly) that don't have some sort of in-game reasoning to them eat away at the world they've built (the idea that just because some things aren't realistic- e.g. keeping a saddled elephant in your bags- means you can throw away all realism without consequence is just... idiotic? Naive? Shitty logic? Lazy game design?). And whether people realize it or not, the more that stuff like that happens the less people respect or care about that world/game. It's just part of how we are. People want free stuff, they want easy stuff, but they rarely respect or value it and almost never do they become invested in it. Have you ever played a game for a hundred hours, then found a cheat code and used it and lost interest overnight? A good game developer, an artist (because it is an art), understands that the inconveniences of a game are its soul. They are what give it flavor and personality. WoW has lost most of it's personality. Conveniences can be good, they can be awesome, but they have to be done by someone who knows what they're doing when it comes to game design and who has a overall vision and really cares about the game; they have to be done just so, or they ultimately cheapen the game. Even high-fantasy settings have to have their rules.

    It's hard to convey the differences I see between then and now; but if you've ever read a book by a talented author who was very invested in their creation and then read one by an author who's just being paid to write 350 pages no more no less, you can see the difference. Except this isn't about how a story is created, it's about how the game is designed and where the inspiration (or lack of it) comes from. One design had a vision behind it, a place where they wanted it to go and a feel for each class. The other design is just juggling numbers and time-sink tricks, trying to maintain a maximum number of subscriptions, and it sort of lacks a soul (as silly as that sounds).

    Wow, that's a wall of text. It's amazing the shit you can do when you're putting off homework.

  11. #111
    I was just logging in all the alts I can remember to care about last night so they could get the "9th anniversary" achievement. I sat there looking at my level 64 warlock who has the Knight-Lieutenant rank and though, "Well, I guess there's proof I've been here since Beta".

    Then I logged him out.

  12. #112
    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinity Divinity View Post

    And as a source for buffs.

    Coming from EQ and vanilla WoW, I guess I have this concept that a guild is something you don't join lightly. You should meet people, get to know them, make sure the guild is for you. In essence, be as critical of the guild you're joining as the guild is going to be of you as an applicant.

    This means that I don't end up joining many guilds. I'll roam around guildless a lot of the time in MMOs, and for some reason random people just seem to be confused/offended by it. I've had whole arguments with people that seemed legitimately upset at me for not joining any random guild. It's weird.
    Yeah I really don't get why guilds are how they are.

    Why don't most people want to communicate anymore? What's happened to the MMORPG community that they'd rather stay silent and solo unless forced into talking?


    Vanilla/TBC/WOTLK wasn't particularly world class at every moment, but it was such a great time because of the people you met and played with. You had a laugh with mates and it made the content so much better. Now everybody just sits there silent, happy to play the game solo.

    I log in now, I appreciate the game and the lore, but I just can't get into raiding properly again, or stick to a guild, because it's just silence most of the time.

    I'd love to see a massive campaign headed by Blizzard to try and get people back talking.

    Blizzard makes the content, the community makes the experience.

  13. #113
    No, apparently everyone and their mother raided in vanilla so they are more skilled and remember how good everything was.

  14. #114
    Most of the people I hang out with/see in game have been playing since Vanilla or TBC. /shrug

  15. #115
    Quote Originally Posted by Verdugo View Post
    No, apparently everyone and their mother raided in vanilla so they are more skilled and remember how good everything was.
    Thats because the only way to get decent gear was to raid. Even if it was just MC/AQ20/ZG when Naxx was the tip top.(Personally I never cleared that tier 3 content like AQ40/Naxx in vanilla just because all the drama in raiding guilds and being server first.) Sure you could pvp but unless you got HWL you had shit blues that got rolled by raiders.

    at the gentleman who asked if it was dunemaul EU, sorry it was dunemaul American =\

  16. #116
    Quote Originally Posted by wych View Post
    Yeah I really don't get why guilds are how they are.

    Why don't most people want to communicate anymore? What's happened to the MMORPG community that they'd rather stay silent and solo unless forced into talking?


    Vanilla/TBC/WOTLK wasn't particularly world class at every moment, but it was such a great time because of the people you met and played with. You had a laugh with mates and it made the content so much better. Now everybody just sits there silent, happy to play the game solo.

    I log in now, I appreciate the game and the lore, but I just can't get into raiding properly again, or stick to a guild, because it's just silence most of the time.

    I'd love to see a massive campaign headed by Blizzard to try and get people back talking.

    Blizzard makes the content, the community makes the experience.
    Why bother communicate with people when you dont have to? Earlier (Vanilla/TBC/Early WLK) when people communicated with everyone, and everyone knew everyone on their server, there was a reason to know a lot of people, a real advantage. You had to have in game friends to get shit done. Doing dungeons with only random people was a lot harder and had a much higher risk of just wiping endlessly than doing a dungeon with a couple of people you already knew. I remember reading forums before LFD was released and some people foresaw that the server communities would collapse because of LFD, and I think they were right. It makes running dungeons a much faster experience, but it also made running dungeons a really boring as well.

  17. #117
    Moderator Aucald's Avatar
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    Don't have the hard numbers to back up my experience, but it would certainly seem so. From what I've seen veteran WoW players (of which I count myself, having played since Classic) have mostly moved on to other games or simply away from WoW. Of the ones still in WoW they seem not to be "hardcore" players anymore, whether they once were or not - opting for more casual play style compared to people who joined in later expansions. Most people who boast that they played in Classic, at least in my experience, usually tend not to have and claim it because they believe it somehow inflates their credibility.

    The vast majority of people who played in Classic, even those who raided competitively, had no idea what they were doing in most cases (I know I didn't) - there wasn't the plethora of resources and info out there at your fingertips like there is today. You probably learned how to play your class from a friend or guildmate who was, in all truth, probably as clueless as you were. Rotations/Priorities consisted of one or two abilities spammed as often as mana/energy/rage allowed. In raids a core group of maybe 20 or so people with slightly more knowledge tended to carry the day, and the rest were either there to soak damage, stand in specific places, or provide a very specific buff or utility and weren't counted on for much else. Of course a lot of this had to do with rougher and less-developed systems we were stuck with at the time - classes pigeonholed into very specific roles, classes that were simply mechanically at a disadvantage by design (I was a Warlock myself, and I'm sure my Warlock brethren remember those strange, powerless days), and encounters that depended mostly on external factors (high resistances, specific gear, specific abilities, etc.)

    What I guess I'm trying to say is that, in my eyes, I guess it doesn't really matter how many of us are left - WoW is not the game it once was and it belongs to the new blood or those of the old guard that rolled with the punches and stuck around. We're all pretty much just folks now.
    "We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see." ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

  18. #118
    Legendary! Gothicshark's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zdrasti View Post
    This sentence is self contradictory. The rest of your post goes on to make up numbers, which would be great for testing your hypothesis, if your hypothesis could be tested -- which it cannot.
    1. Easy to test. Can use information gained from a scan of the Armory if I was bothered to write the program. Sure it wouldn't be 100% accurate because it would be data based on Characters and not accounts, but it would give us ratios, which would infer the ratios of subscriptions.
    2. The numbers are based on a standard bell curve, which is a fairly accurate estimation of how things work with humans.
    3. My post is not at all contradictory, however my language skills fail at times. However my knowledge of sociology and psychology comes from years of study since I was a Psych major.

    p.s. as for #1 how do you think the following sites gather their data.
    http://www.warcraftrealms.com/realmstats.php
    http://wow.realmpop.com/

  19. #119
    Blademaster WolfHugs's Avatar
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    I started at the end of Burning Crusade. Not sure if I count as "original" though.

  20. #120
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    Well, My Mage was level 47 when BC shipped, So im Kind of a veteran haha.

    while its true that the game lacks that "feel" when you first start playing, its still got its charm.

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