Culture shock coming from WoW

[Malkavius]

Originally Posted by Swish [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This is exactly why I quit WoW. I was horde side on a server with an alliance to horde ratio of 3:1. Needless to say the horde side knew each other well because we'd know who we were in terms of PvP experience together and stuff like that. So you do your dailies and they suddenly add this bullshit where battlegroups or whatever they called them (put your server in a pool of 9-10?)...totally killed the community.

Battlegrounds were suddenly full of idiots who didn't know the basics (we always taught anyone new about not zerging in Arathi Basin etc), and generally speaking the "community" we knew was gone, because people would auto queue for instances, and work with people of other servers they wouldn't see again...so why bother talking to them?

I wasn't much of a forum user but I did go and protest why Blizzard wanted to kill communities in the name of faster pvp (we had instant BG queues anyway, and often alliance would come over to beg us to queue up)/instance queues. Where are you now, World of Warcraft? Where are you now? [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

To be fair I think the sight of kung fu panda would have had me laughing my way to the unsub button anyway but you can see why vanilla WoW has such a following still.

I think cross server queues were due to many of the low and even medium population servers having ridiculous wait times. Coming from one I actually enjoyed the quick dungeon runs. But grew to detest the style the game went with. Essentially every MMO Even live eq has you farming shit to buy gear. Which really kills the immersion.

[Izmael]

I tried WoW for the first time in 2014, got a Warlock to level 30-ish (never grouped or spoke to anyone during that time), then started using that Dungeon Finder thing that teleports you into dungeons with strangers etc.

Did 2 or 3 dungeon runs, realized how badly WoW sucked, uninstalled the game and never looked back.

[Rygar]

Gotta give credit where credit is due, WoW is an amazing game, I started right before Lich King came out.

The classes were all awesome, warriors just didn't have a taunt and kick button you know? Shaman having totems ruled. Ability to choose dps, tank, or healer in your skill tree was awesome and added depth to each class.

Map in game was sweet and needed, we all pull up wiki maps anyways.

Learning complicated raid encounters that didn't just involve cheal chains and tons of melee dps is where it was at.

Careful attention to economy by devs was a big bonus, it was very well done.

Achievement system was amazing and I miss it, was fun to try the challenges that were laid out there.

Where WoW jumped the shark is when they started catering to cry baby 13 year olds that wanted easy mode. All of a sudden spells and abilities started requiring no reagents, trade skills that forced you to form items in certain locations could let you form anywhere. Exp loss and repairing was nerfed.

Somewhere in Lich King they added an instance where you could get like 4 epic drops in about 20 mins, used to be a chance at one after a long heroic instance.

You could also solo exp any class to max in about a month once you learned the quest chains.

They wanted to get subscriptions so bad it was like a play to win game, but they did a ton right.

[Samoht]

Originally Posted by Rygar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Somewhere in Lich King they added an instance where you could get like 4 epic drops in about 20 mins, used to be a chance at one after a long heroic instance.

We refer to that as the Purple is the new Green era implying that epic quality gear was available at an uncommon drop rate. That followed the Green is the new Purple era from The Burning Crusade where mudflation caused the lowest quality uncommon items to be better than the best epics from the classic period.

[Malkavius]

Originally Posted by Rygar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Gotta give credit where credit is due, WoW is an amazing game, I started right before Lich King came out.

The classes were all awesome, warriors just didn't have a taunt and kick button you know? Shaman having totems ruled. Ability to choose dps, tank, or healer in your skill tree was awesome and added depth to each class.

Map in game was sweet and needed, we all pull up wiki maps anyways.

Learning complicated raid encounters that didn't just involve cheal chains and tons of melee dps is where it was at.

Careful attention to economy by devs was a big bonus, it was very well done.

Achievement system was amazing and I miss it, was fun to try the challenges that were laid out there.

Where WoW jumped the shark is when they started catering to cry baby 13 year olds that wanted easy mode. All of a sudden spells and abilities started requiring no reagents, trade skills that forced you to form items in certain locations could let you form anywhere. Exp loss and repairing was nerfed.

Somewhere in Lich King they added an instance where you could get like 4 epic drops in about 20 mins, used to be a chance at one after a long heroic instance.

You could also solo exp any class to max in about a month once you learned the quest chains.

They wanted to get subscriptions so bad it was like a play to win game, but they did a ton right.

Homogenization is one of the reasons most MMO's are crap now. Being anything you want on the fly defeats the purpose of choosing a class. The achievement system is just a medal that you can masturbate to in the dark. No one has ever looked at another player's "achievement" and thought "Wow I wish I could poop sock for 50000 hours to get that stupid title".

Also you say repairing nerf was a bad thing. It was a stupid mechanic in the first damn place. It just fucked over tanks royally and served no purpose other than to give the illusion of immersion.

[Lhancelot]

I am kind of surprised that even on the p99 forums WOWbabies have come out of the woodwork.

Reminds me of how in the old days on other MMOs, like WAR the WOWbabies would all start blabbering about WOW in the chat channels non-stop.

That game seems to have warped the psyche of a large number of it's players. Maybe they were young and their brains easily impressionable?

It just seems that game left some huge imprint in younger gamers minds to the point when the word WOW is mentioned they can't help but talk about it and nothing else.

I tried WOW at least 3 times, and never could stick with it past a month or so. I appreciated it's art and design, I just found it had less soul than other games.

[HippoNipple]

noob

[turbosilk]

Originally Posted by Sancta [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

vanilla wow was very close to EQ in terms of philosophy yup

now, not at all

I agree that vanilla wow was a great game and had a friendly collaborative environment where you needed teamwork similar to p99. But the improvements which reduced the need for people to socialize and get help from others wrecked wow like it wrecked eq.

[Rygar]

Make no mistake, I'm not defending current WoW, they definitely lost their way. I agree with OP about lack of community. I'm just saying don't talk like all of WoW is dumb and p99 is superior in all facets.

The truth is somewhere in the middle.

And to whoever said achievements were for stroking in the dark? LOL! Not sure how you could say that, it was actually something that added challenges to an easy game and were fun to try with your friends.

It's like saying try to clear Plane of Fear with 6 rangers in 2 hours. Who wouldn't have a good time trying that?

If anything EQ pixels is what people stroke it to.

[jackd104]

Wow didn't start off that way, but did evolve to that in the first few years. I quit wow when I returned after a hiatus and had to relearn how to play my character. The 'leets had zero patience for that and I was kicked from groups left and right. I think a big factor as that the demographic on p99 skews older and more mature. I, for one, actually relish when I meet a new player and can help them be successful with this hobby that I enjoy myself