Badges getting messed up

[MagamiAKO]

Dumptruk:

Except the first group of players goes out and makes UI mods. And these UI mods they create to make their raiding easier get distributed. There become enough of them to the point that a whole site is dedicated to it. In fact,a number of sites. WoWinterface, Curse. Then you throw in the fact that these guys are so hardcore that they live, eat, breathe wow. They want to share what they know with others. MMO-Champion is born. EJ's forums increase in attendance. Then you've got the guys that outside of WoW make videos about WoW, create their own stories. Hype is created. Lots and lots of hype.

Do you think any of this would have been created by your typical "I have only enough time to play 1 hour a night between work and family?" types of people? Absolutely not. But these people would probably not have started WoW in the first place or stuck with it so long without watching the videos created by others, and then downloading the UI mods created by yet other people.

Once the "top" falls apart. Once they move on to other games, the "bottom rung" moves on.

In other markets, the people I described here as the more hardcore are known as "early adopters". People use Macs because of "early adopters" drumming up support. Early adopters are what caused Windows Vista to fail in the marketplace.

These people that you say "have no life" really do provide a valuable resource to what it is you're doing, no matter what you do. Alienating them otherwise is a dumb idea.

[Tiredhealer]

I am at a loss why anyone would worry about someones else gear or even how he got it. Someone getting badge gear in no way decreases your ability to play or your ability to get your gear. It doesn't change the game mechanics or force you to do anything. It harms you in no way. I would understand if someone could show me how it cost another player anything.

In PvP gear I can see some logic because of the direct impact on your movement up the ladder. This would only come into play if all classes were balanced and the current overpowered characters weren't winning just because of their class. Since this is never the case, even this seems a little stupid for and excuse to wish ill on another player. A blizz poster already said gear had little to do with the arena ladder. The top players still dominated when everyone was given equal gear in a tournament. Player skill and class power accounts for much more than gear.

I guess what I am saying is that it would be better for everyone to spend time on their own gear and not worry so much about the other players. In reality it's not our business how someone else plays the game.

[cube]

While I agree that the very dedicated players add a ton of value to the game, I disagree that they are the larger part of this game's success. Like it or not, this game is filled with casual players of all levels of involvement. Capturing these players and keeping them (along with the hardcore players) has been the key to Blizzard's success.

I am in a situation similar to guy #2 in dumptruk's post. I have played since wow's launch but have never raided. I am the GM of a small "family and friends" guild that can usually get 5 together to do heroics but do not have the numbers to run a 10 man raid. In my situation, 5-man heroics are as far as we go. We are all geared in the best heroics and emblems have to offer. Some of us are still very invested in the game and would like to keep playing but without new 5-man gear or content, a few of us are thinking about leaving. We might be in a small minority here so players like us might not be missed, but consider this: How many hardcore players would actually cancel their accounts if players like us were given the chance to play for gear that is no longer the top tier? Wouldn't it make sense for Blizzard to throw us a bone, no matter how minor? I would even take a thrown-together, unbalanced valorous 5-man mode (+30% dmg, +30% hp mobs or something).

I guess all of us (casual and hardcore) just need to have the carrot moved a little further in front of our noses.

[anyaka21]

I still think it would be a good idea to be able to upgrade your badges. If you can go down on a 1:1 basis, you should be able to go up. 5:1 or 10:1 ratios would be fine. Otherwise, most raiders will soon have 500 badges with absolutely no use.

Thus I think it should include BC, thus 10 BoJ's = 1 EoC, 10 Eoc = 1 EoV, 10 EoV = new one

Thus it's not likely to for people to farm 25naxx or even 10 uludar to get essentially 1 25uludar badge. And even if they do, it would take months to get any gear. If you think about it from a 10:1 basis, a 25naxx and 10ulu would be about 3 badges, thus for any decent loot, it would take 1 month to get roughly 10-12, thus 6 months to get 60ish. Thus it really would make a huge difference, and it keeps what you've done and earned from rotting forever.

[Dumptruk]

MagamiAKO:

It's no doubt the hardcore players drive the external communities of World of Warcraft. I would venture in the ballpark of about 100% of people in forums, talking about changes to the game, what's to come, rumors of new content, or what Chris Metzen had for lunch that day, are personally invested on numerous levels of the game. They've gone on, and like you said, made mods for the game, contributed to dps spreadsheets, made a PvP video and discussed what Blizzard should do to keep all players interested in playing WoW(c wut I did thar).

But if you summed up all mod authors, warcraftmovie editors, wow blog writers, forum contributors, you're looking at a still very small number compared to it's total subscribers. I would argue that a smaller group of very committed players does not have the power to hook, line, and sinker the hordes of casual gamers that WoW has. Ultimately, the interest for new players is gameplay itself, while the hardcore community amplifies a game that people are already excited about. I think this community is a byproduct of keeping the game fun for players of all types, not the other way around.

I think it's in Blizzard's best interest to keep everyone entertained and they've repeatedly faced the reality that they can't make everyone happy. What do they stand to gain or lose with certain decisions? Will giving "casuals" a reason to play kill the competitive nature of hardcore raiders? Will guy #2 finally suck it up, and join the ranks of numerous raiders that forgot the very essence of what drew them to WoW, but are now driven by procuring epics, and standing AFK on rare mounts in town? I think it's safe to say feeding casual players to the dogs is out of the question, as is squelching Game-Fuel-soaked cinders of the hardcore, but Blizzard has to make a tough decision to (at least) disappoint one group or the other sometimes. In this case, the mild disappointment of "welfare valorous" is trumped by the lack of in-game purpose for those that have nothing left to do (save raiding).

[RWeber]

But if you summed up all mod authors, warcraftmovie editors, wow blog writers, forum contributors, you're looking at a still very small number compared to it's total subscribers. I would argue that a smaller group of very committed players does not have the power to hook, line, and sinker the hordes of casual gamers that WoW has. Ultimately, the interest for new players is gameplay itself, while the hardcore community amplifies a game that people are already excited about. I think this community is a byproduct of keeping the game fun for players of all types, not the other way around.

Early adopters are always a very small minority compared to the total number of users when the product has reached maturity. That doesn't change the fact that they're absolutely crucial in the success of the game. Now that WoW has probably reached and passed the high point in its product cycle Blizzard could very well stop trying to please the early adopters and just cater to the majority without major impact on their revenues -- that is in fact what they've done with the WotLK, which has practically no worthwhile content for people who have been raiding for years.

However, let's think about the next great MMO. Imagine a technically similar competing game comes out at the same time when Blizzard gets their next generation MMO ready to go on sale. Competitor with equally good gameplay, depth of lore and amount of content, backed by a company with equal name recognition to Blizzard's. Now if the hardcore community all for some reason went to play the competitor, what would the casuals do? They'd have a choice of one game with addons to make their playing easier, guides to help them with every aspect of the game, websites and forums with people talking about and analyzing the game, and experienced people organizing and leading guilds. On the other hand they'd have Blizzard's new MMO with only the standard UI, few if any guides to help them play, no websites, and guilds led by inexperienced people who spend an hour per day playing. Which game would be more likely to win the market?

[Dumptruk]

You make a very good point, I would probably follow the hardcores in your scenario, but many (most?) of the casuals that make up a large part of WoW's player base are a bit different from you and me. I suspect that the circles of casual players we know are different. Most of the casual players I know just discovered thottbot, don't read anything but the official forums (if any at all) and have very few mods. These players are likely to switch only when they've run out of things to do in Wow, hence my original point. I am not trying to downplay the hardcore contribution, I just think it is lost on the "one hour per night" casual.

We have come to equate hardcore, raider, and early adopter in this discussion and I don't think they are the same. I know many early adopters that have never been hardcore and I know a few hardcore (in terms of time played, researching their class, and reading up on lore) that don't raid.

[MagamiAKO]

Well, when I mentioned "early adopters" in my initial post I was attempting to reach out beyond and make a comparison to other markets. You don't really have "hardcore" "casual" in other markets at least generally defined. So to make it easier for some people to understand (who may at some point have worked retail, sales, etc.) I chose to compare the two.

You're correct that "early adopters" aren't necessarily "hardcore", but they share a lot of the same qualities. Early adopters of a game tend to also be the types of people that early adopt hardware. And vice versa. The people that went out and bought an xbox 360 on day 1 because they were terribly excited probably have a larger game collection than those that just casually decided to buy it because "everyone else" has one. While this isn't backed by anything other than my opinion, I generally believe it to be true in most circumstances (though of course, it's not true in all. But hey, that goes for all of the generalizations we're making on these posts).

As was stated above, the "hardcore" players (and by hardcore I mean people who put more effort into their liking of the game than your "average" log-into-the-game-1-hour-per-night-maybe-watch-a-video players) drive the community. Many game developers do realize this. The types of people that fall into these categories vary widely per market and even from game to game. A person who has a lot of casual games on their cell phone may not consider themselves an "early adopter", but if they download the latest and greatest bejeweled because they love the game--that's usually a qualification right there.

WoW was built from the community. And the community that built this game was not the community that logs on 1 hour per night to do a little farming and some dailies and maybe some PVP. While they all pay $15/month, the upwards expansion of the game's subscriber base was largely bolstered by community oriented websites. I don't necessarily claim to have exact breakdowns of how much each thing contributed to WoW's success, but judging from other products I've seen and have been involved in (I'm an early adopter type of person) this is usually the trend.

There's a huge support base in WoW. Most of that comes from other players and forums. WoW's website, for example, doesn't have a breakdown of rating caps. But wowwiki does. EJ's forum does. All of these things put together by people who "have no lives" so to speak.

All in all, it's unfortunate but what was said is true. At this point Blizzard doesn't have to cater to those players with WoW itself. Some sites (such as mmo-champion) and curse are large enough now that while they were focused primarily around WoW, they don't need it to survive. WoW doesn't need them to survive, either.

I certainly don't believe that how encounters are designed is the result of lack of creativity, lack of talent, or lack of focus. I certainly think as a whole they know exactly what they are doing and where they're targetting these dungeons. It's just difficult for them to find a happy medium because everyone "wants wants wants". Though I think honestly they should err on the side of the more "hardcore" players. This doesn't necessarily mean make 20 attunement quests required and 20K gold to get into a dungeon--but it does mean that they should look at what those players want and try to offer it more.

I think the 10-man and 25-man split is a good attempt at that. But I think how they executed it with regard to gear scaling has been a huge problem. I think there are a lot of technical things that they should have done differently. And by relegating everyone to "roles" they've made some terribly bad decisions aimed at the hardcore players. I'm a solid resto druid. I've played the game for years and I know a lot about healing with my class. But now I"m just "another healer". It would be nice to be known as a must-have resto druid when you're picking players to go on raids. And I think the same goes for other classes as well. Those people that DPS, they don't just want to be "another DPS", but want to be well known for how well they play their class.

So I think there need to be some changes in that regard. Then there are loot issues that I documented a few times and don't feel like going into now that should be addressed.

Other than that I think they can make this kind of "dual progression" thing work. But only if they intend it to be that way...

[davesurfer]

Are you finished QQing? Thanks.

If you'd read the whole topic you'd see that the crap you quoted was in reference to someone getting into a good guild, and correct me if I'm wrong but most good guilds don't recruit on the power of /roll.

Did you read the whole thread? Guessing not or you wouldn't have posted this. Why is it always the ones who attack people are the ones guilty of the actions they jump on people for? If you did read, you would see it wasn't a QQ.

Reminds me of PUGs where the worst DPS calls everyone in the group a noob