Poll of the Day > So whats the appeal of WoW Classic?

(+) Yeah! (+)

My friend got me to get a 1 month sub and it's not super awful, but really frustrating questing with friends the same way every MMO is which seems antithetical to the genre, every other quest requires you to get 7(actually had one that required 16) items but the drop rate on the enemies is 15% or something stupid so we're just sitting here killing evil Gnomes for 20 min. It takes an eternity to level up after 10 and seems like it would take an entire month of game time to max a character, and I'm starting to understand why WoW players were said to have no-life.

I don't get it. I assume most of the replys are gonna be something like "oh you just had to be there when it came out" or some other dumb shit.

Cruddy_horse posted...

I assume most of the replys are gonna be something like "oh you just had to be there when it came out"

i mean, that is true, but it doesn't mean it's fun to play now or that you'll enjoy it if you don't have any history with it. it's not for everyone and it's not meant to be, retail wow is still there

---

U had to be there to understand

Signed, ex-WoW tryhard and elite player

---

Mostly nostalgia and people that conflate tedium with difficulty. Things were generally a lot more streamlined in subsequent expansions, which many players frowned upon as "casualization" because it made the game more accessible, but I personally welcomed the shift toward being less of a chore to play and not taking as long to unlock playstyle-defining abilities.

Granted, I say this as somebody who got bored and quit in WotLK, which was like 5-6 expansions ago, so I can't really comment on how well more recent changes worked. Regardless, Vanilla just wasn't that fun. It kept me entertained for long enough, but it's not an experience I'm particularly interested in reliving.

---

Nostalgia bait. Not really much else to it.
There's a reason why there are still Blizzard loyalists to this day.

---

It's crappy old WoW instead of shitty new WoW.

WoW Classic is a game that literally cannot be played ever again. Like, literally-literally. Before the classic servers came out a prior expansion (Cataclysm) redid the entire original world. Everything got changed and remade and that's not to mention the changes to core systems. If you go to Westfall now, not only is not the same Westfall that was in classic, but the game plays fundamentally different from how it was back then. Even if you hunted down the original WoW disks and installed from there, you'd still need to log online to actually play WoW and doing so would plop you in the modern version.

For a lot of people (especially old-timers) there's nostalgia behind it, but there's also history and the opportunity to play a game that's... basically entirely different... from what is there currently.

---

Blind nostalgia and fanboyism.

---

Yawn, I would take the tedious mechanics over rampant participation trophies and personalized loot that retail hands out

because it will lead to wrath classic
---

My friend is trying to convince me its better because instead of an Dungeon Finder you instead have to ask people in chat like some beggar asking for coins.

Also because I have to spend 19(3/4ths what I've earned in Total) silver to learn a skill that increases my healing by 20hp

Also because I have to spend 5 irl minutes running to my corpse because an enemy aggro'd from across a field and triple teamed me.

This game is ass, even for 2000's standards. How the fuck did Blizzard con everyone into playing this game?

Like I wanna say it's interesting to step back and experience something I've never experienced, but I can say I'd rather not experience Torture either.

there wasn't really any game like it when it came out. it's not the first MMO, but it's the one pretty much everyone knows about. it is the MMO, for better or worse. it was a paradigm shift that shaped a lot of games that came after it. which, of course, does not mean it is good or fun to play

that said your friend is being silly, quality of life upgrades are not a bad thing. i played classic for a bit when TBC came out because i played it first when TBC was new so it was fun to revisit, but not really something i'd play as my main game because of those QoL upgrades in other games like ffxiv and even retail wow

---

idk about regular classic, but tbcc got the initial dungeon finder a couple weeks ago.
---

Unbridled9 posted...

WoW Classic is a game that literally cannot be played ever again. Like, literally-literally. Before the classic servers came out a prior expansion (Cataclysm) redid the entire original world. Everything got changed and remade and that's not to mention the changes to core systems. If you go to Westfall now, not only is not the same Westfall that was in classic, but the game plays fundamentally different from how it was back then. Even if you hunted down the original WoW disks and installed from there, you'd still need to log online to actually play WoW and doing so would plop you in the modern version.

For a lot of people (especially old-timers) there's nostalgia behind it, but there's also history and the opportunity to play a game that's... basically entirely different... from what is there currently.

I mean even if Cata never happened, you can't play Classic like you used to. Overtime they have changed the leveling experience greatly. Just because Westfall would still look like Westfall assuming we remove the Cata expansion from existence doesn't mean you are playing Classic on retail.

Monopoman posted...

I mean even if Cata never happened, you can't play Classic like you used to. Overtime they have changed the leveling experience greatly. Just because Westfall would still look like Westfall assuming we remove the Cata expansion from existence doesn't mean you are playing Classic on retail.

Assuming the core gameplay never changed you could, at least, go back and visit it. Just because you're running Deadmines (classic) at level 80 with ICC gear doesn't mean it's, somehow, NOT still Deadmines (classic). But I literally can't go to that dungeon anymore in WoW. The Deadmines that's there now is a completely different dungeon that just happens to share a similar name, theme, and layout. Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you, some of the dungeons really needed an update/overhaul and the new leveling experience is flat-out superior. But what once existed simply can't be done at all, visited at all, or anything at all on retail WoW.

---

For the time, Vanilla WoW was a major QoL upgrade over other MMO's on the market and was therefore significantly more accessible. The concept of instancing the vast majority of bosses was a huge deal compared to previous MMO's where you had to compete with other people for the most important spawns for advancing your character, and progress was much faster than most others. It was already a casual-friendly MMO, which really speaks volumes about how casual-unfriendly most other ones were.

And then they improved on it further, and people that found other MMO's to be just a little too hardcore but liked the balance WoW struck got upset about it and nostalgic for Vanilla. That nostalgia drove people to private Vanilla servers, which Blizzard stamped out as they found them, until eventually they decided to capitalize on it with Classic.

---

You know how sometimes you want to go back and play an old game you loved, like Super Metroid or Chrono Trigger? Well you can't do that with an MMO. But you could with WoW Classic.

---

World PvP
PUGs
(possibly other things)

I'm sure someone will say how crummy PUGs are (if I'm using the term right), but it's a case of something being less convenient and less effective, yet ending up with a significantly more genuine and rugged experience.

in modern WoW they streamlined instances to the point that you didn't know who you were playing with, you didn't know where the dungeon was even located, and you didn't even know the context of why you were there or who you were fighting. people would leave and new people would join midfight and you wouldn't even notice or care. and then you level so fast anyway it doesn't even matter if you succeed and you're overlevelled before you even finish.

everything about world PvP and PUGs was a million times more interesting than BGs and whatever the auto-grouping system was called.

---

Sahuagin posted...

everything about world PvP and PUGs was a million times more interesting than BGs and whatever the auto-grouping system was called.

World pvp is not a sustainable mechanic. It requires a narrow range of player density to operate well, on top of a narrow range of faction balance.

If player density and faction balance end up falling in that sweet spot without any external interventions, then it's great. You have the ability to develop a server reputation and you will recognize the same players from repeat interaction over time.

But in most cases, it doesn't fall in that range, and intervention is needed. Server merges and phasing/sharding can correct player density issues and it does it well. But it eliminates the "single shared world" aspect that makes the experience in the first place. Other players become nothing more than friendly or hostile npcs that you'll never interact with again.

---

World PVP was fucking trash. It was just a "who has more friends" contest. Some guy kills you, you get butthurt, you bring a friend to help you kill him, he brings more friends, yada yada.

---

Zareth posted...

World PVP was fucking trash. It was just a "who has more friends" contest. Some guy kills you, you get butthurt, you bring a friend to help you kill him, he brings more friends, yada yada.

it depends what you're looking for, and it's not always perfect, but it's the dynamic-ness of the situations. it has so much endless variety. getting ganked by high-level alts or whatever is maybe not great, but even then it's still dynamic and interesting. every last encounter has its own memorable situation depending on the classes of the players, the specific terrain of the location, the nearby mobs, etc.etc. and how determined each player is to stand their ground. it's so varied that it's almost emergent in the best cases.

(there are a lot of people though that shouldn't even be on a PvP server in the first place and just hate spontaneous PvP despite playing on a PvP server for whatever reason.)

it's hard to type out but there are so many memorable spontaneous PvP battles that I've had, not all of which I won, and yeah some of which were basically stalemated, or some that were just getting ganked, but they're all extremely unique and varied.

---

Sahuagin posted...

(there are a lot of people though that shouldn't even be on a PvP server in the first place and just hate spontaneous PvP despite playing on a PvP server for whatever reason.)

Generally, that's because they like the idea of world PvP, but don't want to be systematically harassed by some bored higher-level player or twink. People also sometimes just want to be left to whatever PvE thing they're attempting to do, even if they generally like PvP.

---

99% of world pvp is just ganking
---

adjl posted...

Generally, that's because they like the idea of world PvP, but don't want to be systematically harassed by some bored higher-level player or twink. People also sometimes just want to be left to whatever PvE thing they're attempting to do, even if they generally like PvP.

well that's what a PvE server is. otherwise what you said reads as "they like PvP-server world PvP but hate PvP-server world PvP". "harassed by" doesn't enter into it; if that's what you call it then you're signing up for the wrong thing.

Krazy_Kirby posted...

99% of world pvp is just ganking

not even kind of (depends on server), but still, getting ganked is part of the challenge. you're never in a position where you're stuck, you can always go somewhere else, sneak around and find a way, wait them out, etc.

---

wow has terrible world pvp compared to other games like warhammer, but nostalgia makes anything seem rosy

---

Some things didn't age well but it was about a time in gaming where there was no instant gratification around every corner. You had to earn your keep.

---

Sahuagin posted...

well that's what a PvE server is.

Except not, because there's virtually no world PvP on PvE servers because of the opt-in approach.

Sahuagin posted...

"harassed by" doesn't enter into it; if that's what you call it then you're signing up for the wrong thing.

That was the vast majority of my PvP experience on PvP servers: Some bored person camping the corpses of whoever he could find, usually with enough of a level and/or gear advantage that the only chance of getting out of it was rezzing at the graveyard and going somewhere else (and incurring a pretty substantial penalty in the process), hoping somebody stronger came along who decided to care (pretty rare), or begging for help in the local channel. "Harassed by" is a perfectly accurate description of that.

Like Clench said, a good world PvP experience depends on a careful balance of players: Too few (my experience, for the most part), and the occasional bored ganker just makes everyone's leveling experience miserable because the area doesn't end up being enough of a battleground for stronger players to have genuine competition. Too many, and it's just a mess and you never feel like you're personally making any difference in the fight. I like the idea of organic, large-scale PvP, but more often than not, what actually ended up happening just made the game more tedious, not more enjoyable.

---

So I ended up playing Retail today and I actually quite enjoyed it, no tedious "gather X" quests, I don't have to pay to unlock my skills and I can easily select what role I want for my class rather than just worry I'm gonna mess up my character in the long run. And I get to play as a cool werewolf race.

I can understand why people like Classic more, it has more difficulty rather than just 1 shotting most mobs and it seems less reliant on ability spam but maybe that's just the classes I played. I wish there was a balance of the two versions, maybe once another expansion or two comes out it'll make classic more fun for me idk.

There's a certain old charm to classic but that quickly goes away once you get an hour or so in.

adjl posted...

Except not, because there's virtually no world PvP on PvE servers because of the opt-in approach.

That was the vast majority of my PvP experience on PvP servers: Some bored person camping the corpses of whoever he could find, usually with enough of a level and/or gear advantage that the only chance of getting out of it was rezzing at the graveyard and going somewhere else (and incurring a pretty substantial penalty in the process), hoping somebody stronger came along who decided to care (pretty rare), or begging for help in the local channel. "Harassed by" is a perfectly accurate description of that.

what are you even asking for? you want dynamic raw PvP, except only when convenient and only if you're in the mood (hint-hint: PvE server). you want to be vulnerable, but not in a way that ever inconveniences you. you're specifically choosing the brutal option and then complaining when it's actually brutal.

it's not "harassed by" because you are intentionally choosing complete and total PvP vulnerability. that's the whole point. that's what you signed up for. if you don't want complete and total PvP vulnerability, don't play on a PvP server. I've been ganked countless times, and camped countless times, and I overcame it in some way or another pretty much every single time, rarely if ever by resing at the graveyard.

Like Clench said, a good world PvP experience depends on a careful balance of players

that's definitely true. you need people on both sides levelling in conflicting areas, and I do agree to some extent that less ganking is better than more ganking. but some ganking is fine. I *want* to be afraid of the other faction. and another thing I'm forgetting is that if there's a high-level guy ganking people, well then there's a PvP chat channel and there's *other players* that would be happy to show up and take care of him.

Too few (my experience, for the most part), and the occasional bored ganker just makes everyone's leveling experience miserable because the area doesn't end up being enough of a battleground for stronger players to have genuine competition.

"the occasional bored ganker" is enough to ruin it for you? who cares? zones are huge and you can only see another player within like 50-100 yards anyway, it's relatively easy to avoid them (if you're willing to try).

Too many, and it's just a mess and you never feel like you're personally making any difference in the fight. I like the idea of organic, large-scale PvP, but more often than not, what actually ended up happening just made the game more tedious, not more enjoyable.

the large-scale stuff (thinking of Tarren Mill and Southshore? IIRC? when they added honor.) is ok, but I do see why they put that into BGs. that's not exactly what I'm talking about when saying world PvP is good, (though I do like those zone-wide PvP goals like capping the three areas in Hellfire Peninsula, or whatever it is in Zangarmarsh. Those can lead to very fun and interesting situations.)

FYI it's totally possible to play on a PvE server and keep yourself flagged for PvP at all times. I even try to stay PvP flagged in cities and noob zones. it doesn't happen very often (in cities, or as often in regular pvp zones), but every now and then it will allow for some kind of out-of-the-blue PvP encounter, which is what you want.

(wait, I can't remember but for some reason I'm particularly familiar with doing this... did they even get rid of PvP servers altogether or something...? I very vaguely recall that being the case... what a shitload of fuck if that is the case...)

---

Sahuagin posted...

(wait, I can't remember but for some reason I'm particularly familiar with doing this... did they even get rid of PvP servers altogether or something...? I very vaguely recall that being the case... what a shitload of fuck if that is the case...)

if you're asking whether you can do that in retail still, you can't since bfa, where they added war mode

nowadays, you flag for pvp in capital cities and you're sharded into instances full of people who have the same flag status as you. you can unflag anywhere but have to return to orgrimmar or something to flag back up. pvp servers are effectively pointless, but there is an actual pretty big merit to flagging now; you can essentially use pvp talents in pve combat as long as you're tagged, and some are incredibly potent for open world combat. you also get a percentage more experience (and at cap more rewards but it's pretty tiny)

fighting is extremely infrequent still on these because for the most part the pvp instances are barren because levelling zones are barren and people generally keep to themselves because they just want the pve power boost. getting ganked while levelling sucks ass because guards are totally impotent to someone at level cap and the other guy has max flying speed whereas you probably don't, so you either have to wait till they get bored, unflag, or log off to go get your main to discover you weren't put in the right shard anyways

---

agesboy posted...

if you're asking whether you can do that in retail still, you can't since bfa, where they added war mode

I think I remember the last time I played that I looked for a PvP server to start on and realized that there literally were none anymore. I had to play on a PvE and just flag for PvP everywhere I went. It sucked.

the sharding thing sounds weird and I can't remember if I played with that or not, but I feel like I've heard of it before.

I loved how before there was like a dynamic "war" of sorts going on on each PvP server. some servers were imbalanced, and some were not. and on an imbalanced server you could either be on the strong side or the weak side. it can be frustrating in some ways, but nevertheless it's *interesting*. by engaging in PvP and by levelling you were contributing to your side's gradual domination of the server. you can be ganked on your way up, but it's not like it's hard to level, and the stronger you get the more you are contributing to the ongoing struggle, it's awesome (it was awesome).

---

sharding has existed for a pretty long time in wow but it was only really for congested servers. they had to shard classic pretty hard on release because some servers were actually unplayable otherwise

Sahuagin posted...

I loved how before there was like a dynamic "war" of sorts going on on each PvP server. some servers were imbalanced, and some were not. and on an imbalanced server you could either be on the strong side or the weak side. it can be frustrating in some ways, but nevertheless it's *interesting*. by engaging in PvP and by levelling you were contributing to your side's gradual domination of the server. you can be ganked on your way up, but it's not like it's hard to level, and the stronger you get the more you are contributing to the ongoing struggle, it's awesome (it was awesome).

I like the idea of this but in practice i've discovered i only actually enjoy it when there's incentives beyond bragging rights or ease of griefing

it's why I think warhammer, guild wars 2 (ok it's not *really* open world pvp but it's adjacent), and eve have fantastic open world pvp; the rewards are similar to or greater than pve, so i have enough incentive to spend way too many hours on it

---

Sahuagin posted...

what are you even asking for? you want dynamic raw PvP, except only when convenient and only if you're in the mood (hint-hint: PvE server). you want to be vulnerable, but not in a way that ever inconveniences you. you're specifically choosing the brutal option and then complaining when it's actually brutal.

More vulnerability that works out to an actual entertaining challenge, as opposed to just being an inconvenient waste of time. PvE servers let me decide when I want people to be able to attack me, but I completely lose the ability to decide when I want to attack other people, meaning the option might as well not exist. PvP servers offer a more dynamic system, but in practice there generally weren't enough people around for it to actually be all that dynamic.

Sahuagin posted...

. and another thing I'm forgetting is that if there's a high-level guy ganking people, well then there's a PvP chat channel and there's *other players* that would be happy to show up and take care of him.

It's an option, but begging other bored people for help isn't fun, in my mind.

Sahuagin posted...

"the occasional bored ganker" is enough to ruin it for you? who cares?

Obviously, I care, since I found it more bothersome than entertaining. While I wouldn't say it "ruins it," it can result in a completely wasted session, depending on how long one has to play. That's pretty definitely a negative thing, and I just didn't have enough genuinely enjoyable PvP experiences to balance that out.

Sahuagin posted...

I *want* to be afraid of the other faction.

I want there to be unpredictable risks based on what the other faction does, mixing things up compared to what PvE can offer. Those risks should be fair, though, not just random roadblocks that I genuinely can't do anything to overcome except corpse hop my way away and go somewhere else. To make a PvE analogy, if players could randomly have max-level enemies spawn on their heads in levelling zones, that wouldn't be fun. That's just an unavoidable corpse run that wastes their time. Having those enemies wander around such that you can avoid them if you pay attention (if I'm remembering the name right, this describes the Fel Reaver in one of the BC zones) is interesting, but max-level players aren't nearly as easy to see coming and are much harder to escape (because max-level players have better mounts and movement options).

Basically, being on edge because the world is never as safe as it would seem based on the local mobs is fun. Being on edge because there's a constant risk of being one-shot by an invisible rogue twice your level isn't. My PvP server experience was dominated by the latter to enough of an extent that I wasn't able to enjoy the former, so I generally stuck to PvE servers.

---

you're still basically just saying you want danger without consequences. actually it's like you want "fun" to be handed to you on a platter despite this being about real-time world player vs player combat. (actually it even sounds like what you're saying is you want to be able to attack people that you can beat, but not be attacked by people that can beat you; a lot of what you're saying just sounds like "it's only fun if I'm winning". (and yes, I understand: evenly matched challenges are generally better than unevenly matched ones; the problem is your narrow vision of "/cry I was ganked and now I can't play wah" which is a completely unnecessary and unproductive reaction)).

again, I've been ganked countless times and camped countless times, and that has never once prevented me from playing or continuing my character. something always changes and they can't monitor the whole map. it's always possible to get away or wait it out. (it's really one of those "quitters never win; winners never quit" situations. you have to be determined and optimistic. if you get attacked and give up instantly, well yeah you lose, /slowclap. your ease of frustration is why you lose, and if that's your attitude *then you're in the wrong place*.)

and again it's not like it's hard to level. the game was already WAY too easy, and then they made it like 10x easier. the worst thing a ganker can do, in the worst possible case, is prevent you from completing one or two quests at this precise time. you can always get away, you can always do something else just as productive somewhere else. you can always wait them out. you can always get *other players* (this is a *multiplayer game*) to assist. there are always tons of options, even in the worst of the worst cases.

(another way to think of this: good PvP only works if both sides are "bloodthirsty" towards the other. (both sides). if you're pro-PvP, then you *want* the opposing faction to pose as much of a threat as possible, and you want your side to counter it. even if the rest of your side is not contributing, and it's just you alone VS the gankers, that should just give you all the more incentive to grow stronger and contribute to your side on that server. that's the whole point.)

(basically, your attitude is anti-PvP, and is what leads to PvP servers where the players are too timid to attack each other.)

adjl posted...

so I generally stuck to PvE servers.

from your descriptions that's exactly where you should be

---

(another thought: remember that this is a dynamic system. the game puts some rules in place, but ultimately the PvPing is completely organic. that dynamic/organic -ness is what can make it great, but it's not like a normal single-player game where you're playing a pre-packaged experience. because it's so dynamic, to get the best out of it requires some effort from the player. you have to be willing to endure the times that it doesn't work out as well to find the times that it does work out fantastically. you have to contribute to the system to make it work because that's what the system IS in this case; it's player interaction.)

incidentally, here's some great WoW classic PvP from a very long time ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORh0Akf56dc

---

Sahuagin posted...

actually it even sounds like what you're saying is you want to be able to attack people that you can beat, but not be attacked by people that can beat you; a lot of what you're saying just sounds like "it's only fun if I'm winning".

More accurately, I want it to be limited to fights that are statistically possible to win. Losing fights that I could have won had I gitten gud is motivation to git gud. Obviously I'm not going to win every fight, and whining about being legitimately beaten is just lame. Losing fights with absolutely no chance of victory, however, is just a waste of time, and the knowledge that I will eventually become powerful enough to eliminate that risk doesn't change how much of a waste it is.

Sahuagin posted...

again, I've been ganked countless times and camped countless times, and that has never once prevented me from playing or continuing my character. something always changes and they can't monitor the whole map. it's always possible to get away or wait it out.

Sure, it never completely shuts you down, but if you've only got an hour to play, spending 20-30 minutes of that corpse hopping is just frustrating (heck, even a single 5-minute corpse run is bothersome in that situation), especially when the only reason it's happening is because somebody who's bored is choosing to harass you despite getting absolutely nothing out of it. It's just a pointless waste of time.

Again, I enjoyed the occasional instance of actually fighting with a real opponent for control of an area where I wanted to quest/farm/whatever. That was great fun, and would have been even better with a few more people getting involved in the skirmish (though that was exceedingly rare). That didn't happen enough to offset the pointless waste of time that was getting ganked, though, so overall, not a particularly entertaining experience.

---

adjl posted...

I want it to be limited to fights that are statistically possible to win

well then that's not world/mmorpg pvp. that's limited pvp. (or it's not global-pvp, it's local-pvp.)

adjl posted...

Losing fights with absolutely no chance of victory, however, is just a waste of time

you're engaging in the server-wide conflict. you're a victim of the other side, sure, but you're in a weak position and that's the consequence of being weak. whether it's a "waste of time" or not, it's not "just" a waste of time, it's a consequence and a situation to work your way out of. it's a challenge, even if it's a different challenge.

adjl posted...

if you've only got an hour to play, spending 20-30 minutes of that corpse hopping is just frustrating

it's not necessarily frustrating, that's your subjective opinion. there's not really any escaping the fact that if you didn't like that, then you don't belong there, because that's what you signed up for.

adjl posted...

Again, I enjoyed the occasional instance of actually fighting with a real opponent for control of an area where I wanted to quest/farm/whatever. That was great fun, and would have been even better with a few more people getting involved in the skirmish (though that was exceedingly rare). That didn't happen enough to offset the pointless waste of time that was getting ganked, though, so overall, not a particularly entertaining experience.

I guess you're seeing the picture much narrower than me. you want local-pvp without global-pvp. I would actually want *more* global-pvp. if there are gankers on the opposing side at a certain level, then there should be corresponding counter-gankers on your side to deal with them, and in the near future you'll be one of those counter-gankers (assuming you actually want to PvP which it sounds like you don't actually). if you don't have the stamina or time to participate in the global-scale struggle then what are you _doing_ there?

adjl posted...

not a particularly entertaining experience

you're still acting like it's the game's job to "entertain" you when what we're talking about is dynamic player interaction and global player versus player combat, rather than a pre-packaged hand-holding experience. this is the brutal PvP server. embrace the brutality or go somewhere else.

(though note: despite calling it "brutal", it's actually not really that big a deal. it's not even as brutal as it could or maybe should be. it's a cake-walk. it's *already* super hand-holdy.)

---

(I don't know if this analogy works... but maybe it's like signing up for the military and then complaining when you get shot? it's not about being fair, you're signing up for a large-scale conflict that you're only a small part of. if things don't go your way, you will get steamrolled and there will be nothing you can do about it. but that's the brutality and reality of the situation. (I suppose IRL, you would choose NOT to be in that situation if it were at all possible but also that's when we're dealing with real life-and-death; and that's just the cold reality of life. but here in the game, it's an analogous situation. it's not that you should expect to be ganked, specifically or necessarily. it's that that is the RISK that is involved. it's (maybe) a crummy consequence, but that elevates the situation and stakes. and we WANT the stakes high. that's the point of the server you joined.))

---

Sahuagin posted...

it's not necessarily frustrating, that's your subjective opinion. there's not really any escaping the fact that if you didn't like that, then you don't belong there, because that's what you signed up for.

but corpse hopping and whatnot are not actually necessary, though? you seem to be acting like wow's style of open world pvp is the only real open world pvp, and if you dislike wow open world pvp you clearly dislike open world pvp in general, but that's not the case. there's nuance in specific mechanics, and it's totally fine to want some things changed in games you play

Sahuagin posted...

you're still acting like it's the game's job to "entertain" you when what we're talking about is dynamic player interaction and global player versus player combat, rather than a pre-packaged hand-holding experience. this is the brutal PvP server. embrace the brutality or go somewhere else.

it's absolutely the game's job to mold the rules so that when both sides compete, both sides are entertained. the primary function of a game is to have fun. annoying mechanics aren't a necessary feature. your obsession with the word "brutality" (which wow is not lol, there's almost no penalty for death, just mild annoyance and time wasting) does not handwave away bad balance

---

sahuagin what youre saying sounds great but its almost never that dramatic for the average player. usually its just a bunch of people hanging around lower-level areas specifically to grief or killing quest NPCs so you have to wait for them to respawn. youre painting a picture of an all out struggle but most people are just turning in quests and stuff (I played on a pvp server from vanilla until wrath)

also most people just do pvp through battlegrounds and arenas and thats the main way to progress in pvp, world pvp was never the focus in wow specifically, which is why its optional

---

agesboy posted...

but corpse hopping and whatnot are not actually necessary, though? you seem to be acting like wow's style of open world pvp is the only real open world pvp, and if you dislike wow open world pvp you clearly dislike open world pvp in general, but that's not the case. there's nuance in specific mechanics, and it's totally fine to want some things changed in games you play

yes I'm only taking from my own experiences with (older) WoW specifically. if you have suggestions for better ways of doing it that's great. I don't really play mmorpgs or even multiplayer games much, but do have tons of great memories of WoW PvP.

Kanatteru posted...

sahuagin what youre saying sounds great but its almost never that dramatic for the average player. usually its just a bunch of people hanging around lower-level areas specifically to grief or killing quest NPCs so you have to wait for them to respawn. youre painting a picture of an all out struggle but most people are just turning in quests and stuff (I played on a pvp server from vanilla until wrath)

yes, a lot of people play on pvp servers without having any actual desire to engage in the pvp, that's kind of the problem. I think a lot of people aren't able to appreciate the "dynamicness" of the situations that emerge and just boil it down to annoyance at being attacked and being prevented from levelling. even when you're being ganked, the situation is so utterly *unique*. the terrain, the classes involved, the zone style, the skills of the players, the nearby mobs, etc. (a big one is the terrain.) the situations are so unique, it's almost emergent. you can simplify it down to "a rogue ganked me", or you can remember that you were on top of a hill, and there were two other guys nearby watching and afraid, and eventually that guy on your side showed up and had a battle with him and it went this way or that way, and the lower levels did this thing or that thing. it's so complex and dynamic it's hard to type out. every single encounter is nuanced at such a fine level of detail. it's some of the best gaming experiences I've ever had.

also most people just do pvp through battlegrounds and arenas and thats the main way to progress in pvp, world pvp was never the focus in wow specifically, which is why its optional

BGs didn't used to exist. they have some but not all of the uniqueness of the world stuff. it loses a lot of "dynamicness" by being so samey and also it's way too disconnected from the "real" game world.

---

yeah idk man i guess you remember that more fondly than i do because it just never was like that on my server

also BGs were added in 1.5 so idk what youre considering the cutoff really

---

Kanatteru posted...

it just never was like that on my server

you must be able to remember *some* world PvP encounters. if you can, notice how they're each completely unique. even the times you were ganked or lost miserably (including times you were the aggressor and embarrassed yourself by failing spectacularly).

(this is the problem is that if you let yourself color it all with nothing but frustration at being attacked then you lose the organicness of the situations. you have to enjoy the situation despite how well you're actually doing.)

(note that this dynamicness/organicness thing applies to PUGs as well. I have equally fond memories of trying and failing to best the BRD instance and we never did do it at level 60. sometimes we'd have a great warrior and make it a long way only to fail in the 'torch' room. once or twice we had a great rogue who stealthed his whole way through that room. every attempt was so different because the party was always different, and we all had to work together in different ways depending on what we had.)

(another thing can be that it may strongly depend on the classes you play. maybe it's easy for me to remember loving PvP playing as a rogue, mage, druid, shaman, and shadow priest, whereas a pally, non-pvp specced warrior/priest, etc. might not. but then, it IS a PvP server, so... spec for PvP... (I also would not like any of this quite as much if it weren't for being Forsaken. being able to play as undead makes a huge difference, although I wasn't _always_ forsaken.))

(the core problem to me is: people playing on PvP servers without actually wanting to engage in PvP (which includes risk/consequences of being weak or in the wrong place at the wrong time).)

---

Sahuagin posted...

you must be able to remember *some* world PvP encounters. if you can, notice how they're each completely unique. even the times you were ganked or lost miserably (including times you were the aggressor and embarrassed yourself by failing spectacularly).

i remember getting ganked by a level 100 in legion who would just sit at the level 20~ quest hub i wanted to level in and oneshot every NPC so nobody could make any progress

there were only like 4 people total in the zone so it's not like there was any counterplay to be had other than wait for him to get bored doing nothing

it was as organic as manure

---

Because old WoW required effort and didn't handhold you. You actually had to interact and team up with other people as opposed to just queuing on the group finder. Not to mention finding out where to go next based on the quest description instead of just going to the blue zone in your map is more immersive.

---

agesboy posted...

in legion

yeah I never played that far, this thread is about WoW classic, right? I played up to Cataclysm, tried Warlords of Draenor and hated it, but wished that I had played Mists of Panderia when it was out (I think that was marketed poorly because it's *awesome* but I never knew how good it was.)

agesboy posted...

it was as organic as manure

well this is definitely an optimism vs pessimism thing...

---

Sahuagin posted...

you're engaging in the server-wide conflict. you're a victim of the other side, sure, but you're in a weak position and that's the consequence of being weak. whether it's a "waste of time" or not, it's not "just" a waste of time, it's a consequence and a situation to work your way out of. it's a challenge, even if it's a different challenge.

That consequence is just a waste of time, though. It takes regular game progression and makes it take longer for absolutely no reason. Making game progression take longer because I'm having fun fighting other people? That's cool, I'm trading efficiency for fun. Making game progression take longer because I keep getting one-shot by some bored dude? That's boring, because I'm trading efficiency for absolutely nothing.

Sahuagin posted...

it's not necessarily frustrating, that's your subjective opinion.

You're saying you genuinely enjoyed not actually getting to play the game in the time you had available because somebody decided they were bored enough to stop you from doing so?

Sahuagin posted...

I guess you're seeing the picture much narrower than me. you want local-pvp without global-pvp. I would actually want *more* global-pvp. if there are gankers on the opposing side at a certain level, then there should be corresponding counter-gankers on your side to deal with them, and in the near future you'll be one of those counter-gankers (assuming you actually want to PvP which it sounds like you don't actually).

That's where the issue of ideal populations comes in: I'd love more global PvP in which people would actually travel to hotspots to participate in skirmishes and deal with gankers. That just didn't happen on any of my servers, though. PvP was mostly limited to "hey look somebody from the opposite faction is also questing here I'll fight them" and "I just got one-shot by a level 60 camping a level 20 zone." There just wasn't the population density to support battles that would actually last longer than it took to ride a gryphon there (another major limiting factor: nobody wants to spend 15 minutes travelling to deal with a ganker that may or may not still be there when they arrive), so it was very rare to see anyone do that.

Sahuagin posted...

you're still acting like it's the game's job to "entertain" you

Yes, yes it is. That is why games exist, after all.

Sahuagin posted...

when what we're talking about is dynamic player interaction and global player versus player combat, rather than a pre-packaged hand-holding experience.

The other players didn't do a particularly good job of entertaining me either.

More than that, though, a well-designed PvP system guides that dynamic player interaction in such a way that it becomes fun. There's no reason the game couldn't have restricted high-level gankers to prevent them from wasting everyone else's time. In fact, that would probably actually have made for better world PvP, because people's experiences on PvP servers wouldn't be soured by gankers they have literally zero chance of beating. There could also have been some sort of bounty system to reward those that tracked down griefers that made a habit of killing lower-level players or quest NPC's, making that actually be a risky endeavour.

That last point touches on one of the biggest issues WoW's world PvP had, actually: There was virtually no reward for participating in it. In a genre that's built entirely around gradually rewarding people for the things they do, you can't expect an entire gameplay paradigm to sustain itself purely by the fun of participating. People are going to prefer to do other things that actually accomplish something, and get annoyed when people that are trying to PvP for PvP's sake interfere with that.

Sahuagin posted...

this is the brutal PvP server. embrace the brutality or go somewhere else.

I really wouldn't call it "brutality." Nothing about it is particularly hard. It's just tedious and annoying. I'm not sure why "I put up with being bored for longer than you were willing to" is supposed to be some kind of badge of honour (arguably, that's MMO progress in a nutshell, but I think we can identify a difference between enjoying the game's actual gameplay), but this definitely isn't a matter of throwing yourself against failure until you learn enough from those failures to overcome them (a la Dark Souls and the like). It's a matter of putting up with arbitrary, capricious losses that waste your time until eventually you don't have to worry about that anymore. Your growth is gated by game mechanics, rather than any actual personal accomplishment, and that means there's substantially less satisfaction involved in achieving that growth.

---