Classic Community - what happened?

[Jimmyw]

Who cares. Its not the community. Its a small minority who Are very toxic and vocal. Do a /spit on me all you fucking want lol. Lets duel over it. Bring it on. I bought the deluxe because I like the mount. Im not really using it atm, but I like it. Didnt boost a char yet either.
I see so many players level 58 in communal gear and it makes me very happy. New players and old returning ones. A bigger more lively community is awesome. And thats what we got.

So ignore the minority who tales time out of their day to import a weak aura only to spit on people. Its childish and you would NOT wanna hang around those people anyway. Trust me on that One

[Farora]

You are blaming the community for being angry at Blizzard for being greedy and diminishing the -CLASSIC- characteristic of Wow classic with pay to win crap?

[Robeso]

Me and my girlfriend had a great time levelling and raiding in classic, then one day she handed in Onyxias head on cooldown. Apparently there was a discord server for world buffs and she popped it 15 min too early. The amount of hate she got ingame and people looking her up on Discord and flaming her made her quit Wow :/

[shise]

100% sure you couldn't buy store mounts and level boosts 15 years ago.

Sure you could, not officially tho.

Just like people are doing with GDKP, they are buying equipment with RL money. How isn´t that far worse than a mount texture?

[Farora]

Sure you could, not officially tho.

Just like people are doing with GDKP, they are buying equipment with RL money. How isn´t that far worse than a mount texture?

Yeah and why can people buy gold in classic? Because Blizzard never banned bots...

[Uurdz]

We all read the threads, many of us had input in the threads - talking about how horrible the community is in modern gaming and how amazing the classic community would be. It was all sunshine and roses, everyone helped each other, and it was entirely inclusive. Any spec, any class, any skill level - all playing together in perfect harmony. It was about the journey, not the destination, and everyone would take their time and enjoy the ride. We were all told that none of that nasty "modern gamer" attitude would be welcomed in Classic, and at the first sign of a negative player, they would be blacklisted by the strong classic server community.

What happened? Just look at this forum: look at the pure vitriol over a silly mount, the hatred for anyone paying for a boost, the disgust for those buying runs through dungeon, and for those selling runs through dungeons. The mob mentality over anything and everything that could possibly create division within the community - why is this community hell bent on destroying itself over such frivolous things? Where has all this negativity come from?

This forum isn't (if it ever was) a accurate measurement for the Community.
Your points about "all sunshine and roses" is not true either. This forum in particular has had a historical anti-classic theme and there has been numerous people on both sides who make strong and emotional posts related to their opinions about the 'truth' or 'silent majority' etc.

Nasty 'modern gamer' attitudes will always exist but the consequences for them are more evident in classic server communities. MEGASERVERS increase the degree of anonymity while smaller "dead" servers have the more authentic community experience.

You won't find that kind of accountability on this forum though as threads which cause division and conflict are often left open or only closed after pages of debate.

The commentary you raise about vitriol re: boosts and paid mounts shouldn't come as a surprise. The #nochanges crowd might not have all agreed on an absolute #nochanges but they certainly did disagree only many topics - boosted characters and paid mounts being 2 examples of agreement. As for your comment on buying runs through dungeons? I don't think this is a widely held view/frustration but it would sit in the same camp as those for/against buying gold from 3rd parties.

Lastly you ask where the negativity has come from? Well the answer to that one is fairly obvious. This forum thrives on negativity. Threads like yours which seek to get a rise out of posters with hyperbole and polarising opinions will inevitably grow and be hot topics. My response to you is case-in-point.

[NatePsy]

It's funny how some of the Classic Community turn a blind eye to character boosts in the form of dungeon runs for gold, but the moment character boosts like fresh 58's exist it's suddenly diminishing the Classic experience. Lets not kid ourselves, both forms of boosting diminishes the experience because it foregoes having fun as a community and playing the content, in favor of selling these runs for gold because "screw the Classic experience, gimme gold I'm greedy".

[Tojara]

I think the perception of the community was skewed from the very start. Many people thought it was going to be a certain way, but unfortunately with the passage of time the mentality of the live game passes forward even with a re-release of an old game. Essentially the WoW community really isn't all that different. Whether you stopped playing along time ago, or you play(ed) Shadowlands/BFA (etc), it's all virtually the same type of players approaching the game. You can't make people forget the natural progression of the game, even when you revisit it.

If you want that feeling you literally have to surround yourself with people and friends that feel the same way about the game as you do. That, or you just play it as a single player game with maybe a couple friends like people did years ago (some people still play the game like this on live BTW). It's the same thing people tell those who complain about not being included in M+ on live, get some friends, find like minded people, or make your own group. Classic era games aren't nearly as competitive, but a lot of the player base approaches it this way.

As far as boosts and the mounts go, I still think it's better than the alternative and I've detailed it in other posts throughout the Classic forums. I don't think it really turns away many people at all, while it certainly allows people who want to play TBC to be able to skip the drudgery they might attach to the Classic leveling experience.

If you could do a full reset and mind wipe the player base I'd agree, but unfortunately we can't.

I don't think it's really a surprise to anybody that there's vitriol towards people who uses boosts or buy the deluxe edition, because it's the same people who essentially optimize the fun out of the game anyway. These are the same people who claim that you should level a certain way, or be forced to level naturally, all the while using optimized leveling strategies that have been present in live for years now. It's all about the journey not the destination, except for me, I just want to get to the destination while preaching about how the game use to be.

Community or Blizzard endorsed makes little difference to me. While it's within the confines of how the game can be played, do people not think that sitting AFK in dungeons and paying mass amounts of gold doesn't hurt the game as well? GDKP is rampant on pretty much every server and that's pretty far from how the game use to be played as well. I've seen people flamed and threatened over dropping world buffs at the wrong time because they weren't aware there was a private server somewhere. While there absolutely was hidden communities and cartels surrounding PvP over 15 years ago, it wasn't nearly as rampant, nor were mass amount of players farming/creating characters to artificially increase the pool of players for ranks either.

There are a few wholesome things about Classic though. It's not uncommon to get random buffs from people passing by or getting helped by people when you're leveling if it looks like you pulled too many mobs. Meanwhile herb/ore etiquette went straight to shit to where I've had countless mages/hunters ice block or feign on top of nodes to interrupt me just so they could jack it lol.

[shise]

Yeah and why can people buy gold in classic? Because Blizzard never banned bots...

Yeah. There is a huge demand, so banning players is not an option atm and it would consume huge resources (every suspect of buying gold would need to be researched deeply, even borderline legally, because technically, you could buy gold for someone you hate, so that they get banned when they pick it up from the mailbox...

Also, a large portion of the classic player base is buying gold. It has been made clear over the forums all over. (Won´t go into detail there, anyone can research it...)

So obviously they won´t ban such a chunk of subs. This is playing on Activision´s favor tho, eventually they will "have no other choice" and "for the best", introduce the classic wow token with WotLK classic.
Keep that thought in mind and you´ll see in a year´s time or so when they call it

[Nnyco]

They always been like that, all that "friendlyness" was just a fake smile to make em look better because deep down everyone knew how toxic classic community is.

[Jackstraw]

WoW community is toxic, who would have thought.
Don't you remember the people being kicked from raids, lfrs and dungeon finders because of the store helm?
Don't you remember That Retarded Horse?

Also there is a reason those things were frowned upon: it diminished the sense of achieving something in game. Sure, there were more prestigious things, but it showed a trend and that trend was not to be supported by any means. The community did not just push back, straight up rejected such things.

Because yeah at the end of the day it doesn't change anything, the more you grow and the more financially independent you get, the more you appreciate the commodity that is exchanging some half an hour of your wage to save hours of farming, be it leveling if you're really into endgame or gold. But this does damage the game, the game has a price tag AND a sub and the service is not that premium anymore.

I'd like to touch briefly on the RAF - boost thing: the RAF made you and a new player or friend play together. It was a genius idea that gave a bonus to someone who was not accustomed to WoW and made him progress fast enough to make WoW engaging, and made a veteran level faster to get to play with a new toon. Yeah you got a mount, but the newcomer had to like the game enough to commit to the sub.

How is it the same with a level boost that removes yet another social aspect from an MMO.

At this point however WoW is getting filled with rmts, the pushback has been lost and what's left of the overall community is some shade of what it was. We have some greats and some characters, but that's that. The game is as such, and you either like it or you don't.

[shise]

Yeah and why can people buy gold in classic? Because Blizzard never banned bots...

They don´t want to. It is perfect so that they can introduce the classic wow token, and drive art of that money home.

[Delever]

WoW community is toxic, who would have thought.
Don't you remember the people being kicked from raids, lfrs and dungeon finders because of the store helm?
Don't you remember That Retarded Horse?

Also there is a reason those things were frowned upon: it diminished the sense of achieving something in game. Sure, there were more prestigious things, but it showed a trend and that trend was not to be supported by any means. The community did not just push back, straight up rejected such things.

Because yeah at the end of the day it doesn't change anything, the more you grow and the more financially independent you get, the more you appreciate the commodity that is exchanging some half an hour of your wage to save hours of farming, be it leveling if you're really into endgame or gold. But this does damage the game, the game has a price tag AND a sub and the service is not that premium anymore.

I'd like to touch briefly on the RAF - boost thing: the RAF made you and a new player or friend play together. It was a genius idea that gave a bonus to someone who was not accustomed to WoW and made him progress fast enough to make WoW engaging, and made a veteran level faster to get to play with a new toon. Yeah you got a mount, but the newcomer had to like the game enough to commit to the sub.

How is it the same with a level boost that removes yet another social aspect from an MMO.

At this point however WoW is getting filled with rmts, the pushback has been lost and what's left of the overall community is some shade of what it was. We have some greats and some characters, but that's that. The game is as such, and you either like it or you don't.

Too much logic in this man. People here equating the old RAF to the boost are absolutely out of their mind. And often times they correlate the 2 because "RAF could be exploited by buying a second account yourself and doin this". Yeah ok that is not how this was intended to work though and there is also no way to work around that.

[Jewelofthesea]

We're in a different era of the Internet. Information is readily available, why would you play a particular way if it's extremely suboptimal and you won't get into any sort of content?

I personally hate that the endgame is now the destination, I saw a video about how to hit 70 as fast as you can and get as much gear as you can in the first lockout and I think I made a face.

- - - Updated - - -

Too much logic in this man. People here equating the old RAF to the boost are absolutely out of their mind. And often times they correlate the 2 because "RAF could be exploited by buying a second account yourself and doin this". Yeah ok that is not how this was intended to work though and there is also no way to work around that.

While the old RAF wasn't exactly a boost, people used it as such with the free levels for every 2 the friend earned, and the extra exp. I know tons of people that recruited themselves just to get the rewards, so it was basically boosts and rewards but with extra steps for a LOT of people unfortunately.

[Kumorii]

Too much logic in this man. People here equating the old RAF to the boost are absolutely out of their mind. And often times they correlate the 2 because "RAF could be exploited by buying a second account yourself and doin this". Yeah ok that is not how this was intended to work though and there is also no way to work around that.

I wager that the fact that people did "abuse" it used it in a way it wasn't intended for, lead to boost being available.
And the likeness compared to boost is that you can spend extra money to skip leveling, which you can with both.

[Delever]

We're in a different era of the Internet. Information is readily available, why would you play a particular way if it's extremely suboptimal and you won't get into any sort of content?

I personally hate that the endgame is now the destination, I saw a video about how to hit 70 as fast as you can and get as much gear as you can in the first lockout and I think I made a face.

- - - Updated - - -



While the old RAF wasn't exactly a boost, people used it as such with the free levels for every 2 the friend earned, and the extra exp. I know tons of people that recruited themselves just to get the rewards, so it was basically boosts and rewards but with extra steps for a LOT of people unfortunately.

Yeah ok sure but this was not intended and there is also no way to make sure this does not get exploited. People were comparing it to boosts also claiming that its also p2w because you have to pay box price and sub. Like how is that equivalent when everybody has to pay that to even play the game?

[Prag]

For anyone interested in having his/her blood boil from this Asmongold hot take about the /spit situation (that started with him)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBgN54205jA&t=7m55s

Im not a Asmon hater by the way.
I watch his streams casually and i totally expect to have my blood boil by his hot takes OR sometimes agree with him.
Is like a surprise box

If im not in the mood to have my blood boil...i just dont watch the stream

This hot take...is incredibly bad IMO.

“People who spent real money on a video game”

From the guy that earns real money playing video games.

Lmaooooooo

[Indigenously Abled]

I won't use the boost, at least not to begin with. Doesn't matter to me if someone else does. If someone's paid-for levels make yours feel less important, maybe take a moment to question why you even care.

[Demithio]

What I find funny is that, if Blizzard would have stuck to the original formula, none of this would be going on. No need for "classic" servers, or players fantasizing about the olden days being rehashed (which you really cant do - its not 2007 anymore). Or this community vs that community. So much turmoil has been created by Blizzard's very own bonehead-idiot design ideas through the years. It became a breeding ground for the undesirables.

[arkanon]

I won't use the boost, at least not to begin with. Doesn't matter to me if someone else does. If someone's paid-for levels make yours feel less important, maybe take a moment to question why you even care.

This is my thought process as well. If they had introduced something entirely new we had never seen before, I could understand the freak-outs. But this isnt new, we have seen it before, and we will see it again.