If you are anything like me, if you see a low level character running around, you instantly assume it’s an alt. Oh, now there are heirloom items that are a dead giveaway, but even the characters without said items still convince me. They don’t have to say anything. They just instantly register in my head as “alt”.
You can’t blame me, really. And I’ll bet a large portion of you do the exact same thing. And there’s nothing wrong with that– you just sort of get into that mindset.
Back in the day when I was leveling Tawyn, my first character, people assumed I was an alt as well. I’d get people telling me about what they were doing in Eastern Plaguelands, sprinkled with phrases like “as you know…” and I’d nod my head and smile even though I’d never stepped foot in Eastern Plaguelands because I was level 40. It amused me that people assumed this about me, but it never bothered me, because I felt terribly new to the game.
Things first started to change when I did have a max level character, and my alt, the druid Tamaryn, was level 50ish and healing BRD. This was about, oh, a year ago. I was in a group for BRD and it didn’t take long before the truth came out that not only was I was the only person there who had been in the instance before, but I was the only alt. All four other people were people’s first characters, discovering WoW for the first time and seeing this amazing, sprawling dungeon that is Blackrock Depths for the first time. Suddenly I felt very… old.
Things would, of course, continue to change as Wrath of the Lich King came out not long after that. Months went by and as they did, I found myself more and more in that position I’d been in when I was healing BRD. Suddenly, people didn’t understand when I said “This fight is like Romulo and Julianne” or “This fight is like Gruul”. Suddenly, people didn’t laugh at my “HOLY FIRE ON TAWYN” jokes anymore when we got to the chick that looks like Maiden in Halls of Stone. Because suddenly I wasn’t the token WoW newbie anymore. Suddenly I was a veteran who had done raids “back n’ the day” that other people hadn’t.
I’ve had people on Twitter were tell me they’d never tried Beast Mastery before because it had never been raid viable in the time that they’ve played the game. Now, Beast Mastery didn’t stop being “viable” (quotes because I could go off on a giant tangent on this, but I won’t) until a good chunk of time after people were clearing Naxx. There are people who started playing after that? I mean, it’s obvious when you put it like that and think about it– of course there are new players– but this absolutely blew my mind.
You may be wondering where I’m going with this little ramble. I suppose where I’m going is a sort of– ponder that has been on my mind for a while. I don’t like to think it’s a rant or a QQ, just a ponder.
Namely, I can’t help but think that where the game is at this point, WoW newbies are being rushed into content too fast. And I’m not talking about a “skill” thing here, so much as I’m talking about a “skipped content” thing.
We have all this shiny new badge gear and shiny new heroics that drop stuff that has completely obsoleted Naxx, OS, Malygos, and a good chunk of Ulduar. Now I don’t know, maybe this is just the servers I play on, but nobody runs Naxx anymore. Ever. Remember back in Burning Crusade, those of you who were there– people were running Karazhan up until the night before Wrath of the Lich King launched. And yet Naxx is already dead. I’ve tried putting characters in LFG for Naxx and there’s nothing. People aren’t even doing badge farms of it, because everyone has all the Conquest badge gear by now. There are nights where I’ll do a /who Naxxramas just to doublecheck and make sure I’m not crazy, but I’m not– “0 players found.”
And so I find myself wondering– in Blizz’s bold attempt to get “everyone to see content” in this expansion, did they forget about the people who are just hitting 80?
Or the people like me who were late in the “join a raiding guild” game, and who are now toting around level 232 and 245 gear and yet have never cleared Naxx25?
No, I’m serious. I’ve never cleared more than two wings of Naxx25. And at this rate, I don’t know if I ever will. And I love Naxx.
The badge gear and the stepping stool into higher content is great for those of us who will finally get to “see it all” or for our alts, but not everyone is an alt, and not everyone got to 80 the same time that everyone else did. And I worry that those people are missing some really great content because as soon as they hit 80, it’s “get the badge gear and get into ToC”. You know?
The impending “weekly raid quests” are a step in the right direction, but think about it, how many people are going to stick around for a Naxx full clear after killing Anub’rekhan or Patchwerk? Yeah.
Aaaaanyways, I guess that is just what’s been on my mind lately. As I was saying, this isn’t a rant or a QQ or anything. This isn’t something I’m particularly angry or emo about, nor is it something that would make me ragequit. No, this is just food for thought. Something that’s been on my mind that I’d like to toss out there into the “thinking ring”. I’d love to hear your thoughts as well (or hear that your servers are awesomer than mine and are still doing Naxx >_>)… I’d especially love to hear from you newer people; do you feel rushed into endgame, or am I just completely nuts? (It’s okay if I’m completely nuts; it wouldn’t surprise me =P)
But even if you disagree with me or come to a different conclusion, what I suppose I ultimately want you to take away from this is to look around and realize that some of those newbies running around actually aren’t alts. Feels weird, doesn’t it…?
i agree. its funny, after being inspired by you to start my first hunter months ago, i finally got her to 80 and have started gearing her up. its nice to get all maxxed ot and geared, but i remember all the things i did with my main that i wont do with my hunter and its kind of sad.
now dont get me wrong, i havent been playing forever (i actually started a week before xmas last year, hardly a lifetime) but still, its weird to see how things have turned…
Yeah, I would totally feel ya if I was still playing WoW.
The WoW of our current days is tailored to the scrubs. Everyone wants instant gratification. No one wants to experience the lore or do any attunements or any of that exciting stuff.
Aion on the other hand… you need to experience 200% of the game to be 100%. Haha.
The big guilds with open recruitment, who still have characters just reaching 80, still run Naxx. But it’s rarely a pug thing, which explains the silence in LFG. =\
There’s like at least two Naxx25 PuGs a night on Cenarion Circle. >_>;
I have no idea why people WOULDN’T run it – it’s fast if the raiders are competent, it’s a massive pile of Emblems of Conquest (which even if you have all the EoC gear, you still need epic gems), it still has useful items like Grim Toll, and if you don’t wipe, it’s a massive pile of gold, too.
*shrug*
It does bum me out that Naxx didn’t become this expansion’s Kara. With BC, even tho MgT came out with its uber loot and you could get amazing gear from badges…people still farmed Kara for fun and badges and to gear up alts. All 4 of my Alliance 70s did their tours of duty in Kara. It became a fun weekly time to hang out with friends to chat and clear content that was accessible to everyone (the retired raiders and newbie 70s alike.)
I am that newbie – I tanked BRD a little while ago and someone asked “so what are all of your mains?” and I had to say “um, this actually *is* my main” and hoped that they wouldn’t be thinking “oh great, I’m playing with a n00b.”
People are being rushed to End Game Content, and they haven’t Earned their way there. I’m not talking about key progression that became an eternal c*ckblock in Everquest for upper end content. I’m talking about skill acquirement and such. When I say “This fight is like XXX” referring to a fight in an old 5man instance and I get “Oh, I never did that.” answers it tends to make me angry. Bypass all the learning experiences (and some of the best segments of the game) and now you have tards flooding the upper end demanding to be let into places they have no hope of surviving. They become dependent and a drag upon those who have fought their way up and know what the hell they’re doing. Education is one thing, but these keyboard drooling vegetables don’t want to learn, they just want the loot and to move on to the next “Big Thing”.
I’m pretty convinced that the Headless Horseman has the same voice as Barnes (the Karazhan Stage Manager), but none of the guildies who were in my group had any idea what I was talking about. I keep waiting for the “And now, on with the show!” at the end of all of the Horseman’s speeches.
@Minos: I think it’s the Reverb they used that makes it sound like Barnes. 😉 But yeah… I keep waiting for that last line before I “start” working on him.
This. Yes.
I *am* new to the game, and I’m leveling super slowly (by choice). But it seems that no one who writes/blogs about WoW considers the true newbie. Many guides and most commentary assume a lot of familiarity with events in dungeons and Wrathgate etc that I won’t see for months and months.
Even Wow Insider — the ‘guide’ to All Hallows? Totally doesn’t mention level requirements at all. Like everyone’s an 80 and can go anywhere they want.
I tried for the Trick or Treat all over Kalimdor achievement, but my level 30 warrior and her 30 partner just can’t figure out how to get to Winterspring…we found the rest of the innkeepers, though! 😀
So, while I love many bloggers (/blows kisses to Pike), it does get a little odd, to be so far behind the info. And I totally won’t group with anyone but my partner, because I’m nowhere near the level of play an ‘alt’ would be.
I come at this from two directions. Personally, I’m relieved that Naxx is obsolete, from the perspective of my priest alt. I leveled a disc/holy priest to 80 (instead of my TBC prot warrior geared in BT/Hyjal/Sunwell gear) because we were short on healing alts for alt runs and ToC-10mans. I dinged 80, went straight to ToC-5man normal, ran it 5 times in one night to get all the ilvl 200 epic cloth, then went straight to ToC-5 heroic over several days to get all the 219 gear, then straight into ToC-10 and Onyxia. If I had to run Naxx, I would never have bothered.
Naxx is a great instance, altho a lot of people will note it is simply recycled from vanilla. But having full-cleared in 12 or 14 times, and partially cleared every week between mid november and the release of Ulduar, I have very little interest in going back it. I did try a pug once, but it wiped 4 times in spider wing and fell apart. How do you wipe in spider??!?!! I promise is wasn’t the healing. 😉
I do agree with some posters about the new 80s that are missing some cool content. But again, I’m actually glad they can skip that content in the gearup and be on par with Uld/Toc quickly. Our guild has had to consistently recruit new dps to cover RL-based attrition, and the fresh influx of geared 80s gives us more options without having to invest the time in gearing someone up with Naxx runs.
The obvious downside is some of them don’t understand the concept of fire. But we have three new guild members in the last couple months who started playing literally 6 months ago. Their learning curve was very steep, but each of them has demonstrated a capacity to play. We’ve also had try-outs and kicked people mid run for failing to provide decent DPS for their gear level. Most recently was an arms warrior I knew back in vanilla who was 15th on the meters all night long, despite having excellent gear.
TBH, I think Malygos and Sartharion are better indicators of a players ability. Too many people can hide in Naxx. Sarth and Maly exposes the weak-minded slow-reacting fire-standers.
The game lately has become “We only wanna run ToC” whether 5 man or 10 man with most raiding guilds doing 25 man on one night. You get to 80 now and the easiest way to gear up is to find a 5 man ToC regular farm group, those seem to be pretty much always running these days. I am already sick of ToC in all its flavors, and nobody ever wants to do anything else.
Also, while I think skipping Naxx is fine, I am disappointed with the leveling curve at 1-60, because people level much faster than the developing storyline in that zone. Personally, I think those stories are as interesting as any raid content at 80. For example, I recently finished the Westfall Defias story line on a rogue alt, but he was lvl 21 by the time he got to Deadmines, way beyond the lvl necessary for that zone. Duskwood also has a couple nice story arcs, but who’s going to finish them after hitting level 32?
I often ponder things along these lines myself. I was away from the game (involuntarily) for a span of about four months earlier this year, starting the day before 3.1 hit. And so I missed Ulduar when it was “new”, and Trial of the Crusader had been out for a little while by the time I was able to come back.
I had cleared Naxx-10 a handful of times back when that was the “current” endgame, and I’ve seen all but four bosses in Naxx-25. (Thaddius, Horsemen, Sapph, and KT). To come back to the game and see that the Emblem distribution had changed in such a fashion was, to say the least, unexpected.
While it’s certainly nice for someone like I; to be able to catch up in terms of gear if not content seen, I can’t help but feel a bit sorry fo those who are just now reaching 80 for the first time. While I haven’t seen any of Ulduar (sometimes I wonder if I ever will, since it’s close to being obsolete itself), everything that I’ve heard of it tells me that it isn’t forgiving in the slightest to people who have never Raided before. Naxx, I believe, is a good stepping stone for new people to get their feet wet as far as behavng in a Raid setting.
To have a new 80 gear up through Emblems of Conquest (and Triumph, albeit at a much slower pace) in Heroics and then have Ulduar-onward as the only Raids that they can realistically find groups for (depending on server, it seems), it makes me wonder if Blizzard is both helping and hurting new players bu changing five-man Heroic Emblems while making early Raid content largely without purpose.
I agree with you. It does seem to be a huge rush from 1 to 80, only to hit an endless drill of heroics or raids.
I’m not a total newbie – my Hunter’s a well-geared 80 – but I started playing shortly before Wrath launched. I’ve never done all of Kara, and have only soloed Scholo and Strat. I’ve never done the BC raids, nor, really, any of its heroic dungeons.
My mage alt, who dinged 76 last night from Trick-or-Treating, didn’t have any of the northern Outlands FPs. She didn’t have the Light’s Hope Chapel one either, despite having her Argent Dawn Commission.
Partly it’s the fault of the game design itself, with its stopping points at 60, 70 and now 80. Blizz tries to give us max-levels stuff to keep us busy while they’re trying to create the next max level. Hopefully Cataclysm will smooth that out somewhat.
I agree with the idea that everyone seems to rush toons through to the end game. My hunter is a 67 at the moment, and everyone assumes that I either have an 80 already (I don’t) or that I am in a headlong rush to get her to 80 (I’m not). When I wanted to do instances at 59 – they all said – “No – go to Outlands – the gear you’ll get in that instance isn’t worth having.” What about enjoying the trip? What about experiencing the game? While I play with friends that are casual about leveling, and understand that I’m settiing my own pace, I still feel the pressure to “hit 80 ASAP so we can start !!!!!” When I feel like I’m playing just to level, and not to PLAY, then I log onto an alt until I get my perspective back.
And I have to agree with what Tracey said above – too often the bloggers and any other WoW articles assume that you’ve hit 80, that you’ve raided since day one, etc. Makes a newbie feel that much more pressure.
That said – I really enjoy your blog! Check it every day just to see what’s going on. Keep up the good work Pike!
I do think Blizz made a real mess of things when they flipped the badges to conquests.
Quite aside from the fact the only runs to Naxx 25 are now Grim Toll/badge hunts* it hurts two groups of people.
The first are the new players, a 20k tank or a a 1.5k dps are bad jokes by todays standards. In addition stack enough crazy gear into (now seriously undertuned) heroics, and you end up with new players picking up habits that are going to hurt them when they do hit content they need that gear for.
The second are old players who stepped out of the game for a bit. I’ve a mate who used to be a heavy duty raider. After his guild blew apart just before 3.1, he took a break from the game. He’s back now and has 40/50 hours of grinding heroics before his gear will be back up to the level where he can raid again. Imagine that, Pre 3.1 Sarth3D and now he has 2 full days of emblem grinding to be able to raid again.
It kind of makes me wonder who the EoC change really helped.
For the record, I’ve been in Kara more than Naxx the last few months – it’s still an amazing instance for feel and interest.
*Seriously, last time I was in Naxx 25 nobody rolled on anything until Grim Toll showed up – at which point every phys dps rolled on it. Talk about the one item raid.
I don’t have much interest in Naxx, but I am actually trying to gear up my 4 80s through normal heroics, which are really a joke. One extra boss and an extra gimmick or more damage from the regular bosses. There is hardly any sweat broken if everyone knows the fights before hand.
I hate TOC, never been in it, don’t want to go in it, yet I still hate it because it has drained the life out of all of the other heroics. I also despise forced mounted combat.Sometimes it takes me an hour to get a PUG for a DPS character. I run my tank with real life friends, but tanks have no issues getting invites. It’s the danger of the group that is at issue for the tank (ex. verbal tank abuse, forgetting to watch threat meters, etc.).
To be honest it seems like if you are not doing the flavor of the patch dungeon, or geared enough to do said dungeon, you are left behind. Way behind.
I struggled with this for a long time before getting into the guild. I was very conscious of the progression – finish Icecrown/Storm Peaks quests, do the level 80 dungeons and gear up, then do the heroic dungeons and gear up, THEN do Naxx-10, THEN do Naxx-25 and some of the other 10-mans. AND ONLY THEN would I even consider setting foot into Ulduar.
But I was doing this on my warrior right around the time Patch 3.2 dropped, and nobody was running Naxx. Any guild I applied to was very clear about this, and they were not willing to carry my ilvl-200 butt through to get caught up. So my dream of enforced personal raid progression died, and so did my interest in my warrior, when it comes down to it.
Now it seems like, from a goal-oriented perspective, Naxx-25 just isn’t as efficient as doing heroics for the Conq badges, if you still need them. Managing a group of 25 people who, for whatever reason, still need/want Conq badges (some may be new, others may be alts, some may just be trying to buy gems and stuff for the AH) is a lot more stressful than just finding a solid 5-man group and facerolling the dungeons.
And we never had that with Burning Crusade because the gear check gap between heroic dungeons and Kara was about a mile wide. There was no overlap – you were either farming heroics for your first measly purple drops and badges, or you were a Raider. And each level of progression required getting kitted out to the fullest just to move on. Blizzard was pretty clear at the Blizzcon right before Wrath dropped that they didn’t want to have that. I guess this is the consequence.
So really, at this point it’s just about finding enough like-minded people who want to see content for content’s sake, even if it’s not the most efficient way to gear up. But we’re out there. I haven’t cleared Naxx-25 yet either.
My problem is that I’m a WoW newbie in an old-school raiding guild with people who have been playing since beta. They get annoyed at me because I haven’t done all the older instances, like the ones in Burning Crusade. Well, it’s not like I had to do them, and it’s not like anyone was going to do them with me, so why would I do them? The only time that people NOW are going back to do older instances is if they are going for achievements. I still rarely see people in Outland at ALL, let alone looking for a group for instances.
I can understand the frustration of people who have been playing for a while, like my guildmates, but really, what do you want ME to do about my situation? I’m geared for Ulduar and ToCr, but I’m told that the content is “beyond me” that that I shouldn’t even try. Why? Because I haven’t been around for long enough and I don’t know the fights. How am I supposed to know the fights without… uhm… doing them? When I finally got into a PuG for Ulduar 10 and Naxx 25, we didn’t clear either of them. I was consistently one of the few left standing after the tanks couldn’t hold aggro and people couldn’t follow the raid leader’s directions, i.e. don’t stand in the poison (geez, folks, download GTFO) and run away from the group if you have x debuff. So I haven’t been playing for forever, but I can listen to directions. I ask my guildmates for advice before getting new gear/gems, so they know I’m invested in my gear. All of my gear is enchanted with the best enchants. But! They still won’t let me come to anything… and now they’re moving on to ToCr 25 and other stuff that I know I can’t do. So they’re missing out on someone who is willing to come to every damned raid, because they wouldn’t give me the time of day the first time.
How about… you just explain how the fight works, instead of trying to be all, “oh, it’s just like…”? More and more you’re going to get people who haven’t done the older fights, and won’t know. Just figure out how to be not-lazy and explain it properly. It’s not the player’s fault they don’t know the fights. If they know the fight and still suck, then THAT is a reason to “wtf” over their skills.
The other day I ran a naxx 10 group (hard to find) with my alt warrior as dps and the OT warrior had item level 226 gear of an average and he had never done naxx at all :S Sounds nuts but I’m like huh-what?! When the OT stayed with the MT and died in Anub’s swarms after fighting the MT for boss aggro I knew something was REALLY wrong
I’m right there with xenylamine@20. Feel free to ignore what I write, as long as you read that one. 🙂
@Indigo Haze #7: well, you may get angry that people have “skipped” content, but as someone who has freshly dinged an 80, the reason is because you mostly can’t find people to do that content with you without putting a ridiculous amount of effort in.
I didn’t skip BRD or ST because I wanted to skip them. I skipped them, because at the times I could play, people didn’t happen to be running them. Now, I could go back and run them now, but learning an encounter solo, above the intended level isn’t the same thing as doing it when you would’ve been level appropriate.
I agree that this has an impact on how easy it is to explain an encounter. However, while some people skipped those instances because they didn’t want to learn, some people — such as xenylamine and myself — just took the main path presented as an option.
Frankly, I’m somewhat disillusioned about running instances pre-70-ish for my alts — *because* of people who often have 80s. Newbies don’t usually expect to be run through dungeons; it’s generally people who have 80 mains who complain about trying to get other level appropriate people, and say, “I think I get someone from my guild to run us.”
If I’m going to get run through, it’s just about the loot, not about learning how to deal with various encounter mechanisms — and maybe I just haven’t played enough gear dependent characters high enough (other than my main, a druid, the only char I have 50+ is the DK I did the starter chain with), but I’ve never found it a problem to do level appropriate stuff with gear from quests (I sold almost all the BoEs I got); therefore, the most important thing to get out of an instance is the understanding of encounter mechanisms — at least until 80, when one needs to start gearing up for raids, and the gear and knowledge are of approximately equal worth 🙂
I actually don’t think there’s that much of a rush for a real newbie unless they are trying to rush it. It took me almost a year to get from 1-60 in vanilla WoW. I didn’t use mods, I didn’t check Thottbot (no Wowhead yet) unless I got really stumped (I found Mankirk’s wife on my own–I’m stubborn), so for the true novice I think they’ll have the time to go see everything they want to.
After they hit 80 though, I think it can be a bit baffling. We have a couple 80s in my guild who don’t really raid or are new to raiding in WotLK and don’t have a clear concept of which raids need to be done in which order or who difficult certain fights are.
One guy never finished a 10-man raid (except for a pug OS) before coming with us but ran heroics like a madman to gear himself up. He was new to WoW and wanted to give it his best. He finished ToC 10 before Naxx or Ulduar or Malygos, which was okay because he’s a good player, asked for spec and gemming help, and because of all his heroic upgrades he didn’t have to be carried.
But he does miss that he skipped over content so he still pugs to go back and do the older stuff like Naxx and Maly that as a guild we no longer run because it’s old content.
In a way his enthusiasm is refreshing, but I can’t keep pace with him. He’s raiding or running 5-mans so much I feel like a grandma chasing after that toddler. 🙂
I try to blog about “n00bs” simply because I am still very much one of them. I started Balthazario in early May, and I’m now sitting at level 72.
To some commentors that say “we should earn it”, I have a question for you:
How long SHOULD it take for us to get levelled up?
FYI, Pre level 70, I could gain a level every 2 days of playing, as long as I was doing progression related stuff. (ie, not farming stuff for gold, or levelling my smithing, fishing, first aid or cooking) I play a goodly amount per week, and it’s taken me *5* months to get to where I am.
With the slower progression 70+, it will take about 1 week to gain a level. (barring grinding through the Battlegrounds for exp) If I’m lucky, I’ll ding 80 sometime around Thanksgiving (USA).
I am sorry that I don’t know that this XYZ fight is just like the old ABC fight, but I don’t want to spend TWO YEARS levelling up my toon. Blizzard has focused the “fun” part of the game at level 80. As a lowly level 72, I can’t even complete the headless Horseman quest.
But how about this: treat the new XYZ fight as the training fight for the new guys, and not just bitch that they new guys don’t know the old one? Back in the “days of yore”, fight ABC was YOUR training fight. Can you let the new guys learn without being so uptight and judgemental. You know, have fun?
For you “old timers”, YOU got “endgame content” at level 60, then at level 70, and now again at level 80. The process has taken many of you 2-3+ years, but you’ve spent those 2-3 years at max level. You spent your time going from 60-80, all the while participating in end game raids, dungeon progression and the like.
We don’t have that luxury. We have to bust our butts for MONTHS to progress, and yet we get the “you didn’t EARN this” elitist attitude from many players.
Quit being snarky with us. We’re here to have fun with the game, as it’s presented by Blizzard. We are stuck playing by its rules.
People bitch all the time about there not being enough content. There is tons, but Blizzard encourages everyone to blow past it all. I don’t believe that more than 10% of raiders cleared Uld-25, or even 10, before ToC and the badge reset. Why does Blizzard keep rushing us? I thought that the BC model was almost perfect… maybe just barely on the too-hard side… raid content that practically everyone had to spend weeks or months on just to beat, before they could start farming it. In my opinion, raids should not be winnable by pugs!
@ xenylamine and SlikRX/Balthazario –
I must confess that I don’t know if your rants are directed at me/my post or at other people, however, to play it safe, I’m going to assume it was directed at me, and answer it directly.
This post was IN NO WAY trying to suggest that newer players didn’t earn anything or shouldn’t raid because of a lack of experience in other raids. Not in the slightest. That is the OPPOSITE point of what I was trying to make here. I most certainly do not look down on newer players, heck, I’ve only been playing since Burning Crusade myself and am still a giant newbie in the eyes of many.
My little example I tossed in about the growing realization that many people no longer know the fights I knew myself was 100% NOT supposed to be some sort of whine or complaint. It was supposed to represent a moment of realization that a changing of the guard had occurred. This is something that has happened to anyone that has played for a long time and will happen eventually to all the new players, in the next expansion. It will happen to everyone at some point if it hasn’t already. It’s a weird moment of surreality that I wished to express; nothing more. I most certainly do NOT explain fights in terms of “It’s like this old fight, sucks to be you if you don’t know it” (as if I’d ever be allowed to explain fights anyway, haha… =P)
As for the idea of getting to see new raids and this whole discussion that has cropped up regarding skill and/or “earning it”, etc.: My post was 100% purely focused on the idea of seeing a dungeon for the aesthetics of it. This post has nothing to do with skill or with how long it took someone to get to 80 or any of that. This post has to do with my slight sadness at the idea that some people might not get to experience the beautiful design and architecture that is Naxx because they can’t find a group. That’s all.
I know a lot of you have a lot of strong feelings on this subject; and some of you have brought up the idea of “skill” in the comments; however, I would like to stress that while you are certainly free to discuss that in these comments if you wish, that was NOT the point of my post and it’s not something I’d ever touch on this blog with a ten foot pole =P
So, there you have it. I must apologize if anyone took my post the wrong way and saw it as some sort of “bash against noobs”; believe me, that is NOT AT ALL what was intended by this post.
And if I overreacted in this comment and your guys’ comments were not directed at me, then I apologize for that as well! =P (Mostly I wanted to take the opportunity to use your comments as a springboard to clear up some potential misconceptions, sorreh!)
*********** WARNING ***********
“Cranky elitist jerk” commentary ahead. You were warned.
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@Xbalanque – You went with the path presented. Why was that the only path? I understand there’s an issue with the “old content” being empty. I’ve had 5 max level characters at various points, working on yet another one. The current one and the more recent of the 5 have largely soloed from start to finish. Occasionally I could find someone interested in doing an instance, but very few and far between.
Now, who am I supposed to be pissed at in this case? You? Hardly. You’ve had to deal with the lack of availability. Blizzard? Damn right. Why are they making it easy to bypass all the early stuff where people are supposed to LEARN things? Why are they bent on making it possible for people who don’t want to commit their time to get into the top end areas and fsck it up for the rest of the world? At this point running in a PuG is a repair bill waiting to happen and an exercise in frustration. Sure I can beat my (quite admittedly) thick skull against that wall, I can quit the game completely (which has come close to happening and why I have 4 different MMO-type games installed right now) or I can do nothing outside what my “trusted circle of friends” works on. Why should it come down to this?
@SlikRX/Balthazario “As long as it takes”. Why should you be “rewarded” with a shallower XP curve that lets you blow through everything in a few weeks when the rest of us “old timers” worked through and discovered 80% of the crap you see spewed on forums and other sites? We worked to find out the who/what/where on quests, spawns, instances, etc, etc. Then the “new” people come in and get handed a double fist-full of “cheap and easy”. Now there are people who haven’t really spent time learning the subtleties of their class demanding to participate in things that the lack of understanding is going to wind up being a problem. I can count on one hand the number of Rogues who understand the phrase “Caster Lock” that I have ran into. However back in the original release of WoW it was pretty much a requirement for Rogues to understand the concept and be able to apply it to join the guild I was in. It was a technique that allowed some guilds to progress through BWL when it was new. It’s a technique that would allow a Rogue leveling up to solo Elite Casters that are 3 levels above them (quite a nice source of XP). Oh, wait… Elite Mobs have been removed from the game world. Guess that’s only needed for raids now. But the new people coming up haven’t had a chance to work on that set of skills… Hrm…
Look at the comment from Jeursey. Bitch about lack of content? Why make it so all the existing content is largely skippable? This mad rush to the end so you can sit in LFG and /2 for a few hours a night and MAYBE get a run or 2 done somewhere?
Should it take 2 years? Didn’t take me 2 years with Vanilla WoW to max out 2 Characters and have 4 more at 40+. And that’s with the commitment of being in a progression raid guild for a while. BC? Hell, I leveled a Shaman to max from start in about 3 months. WotLK? Warrior went from 18 (been stagnant since BC) to 80 in about 3 months. This isn’t Everquest. It didn’t take that long to level to start with, and now it’s taking even less time. But the “end result” is a bunch of soloing centric people who have NO idea how a group dynamic should work or what their full potential actually is. Seriously… I’ve had Rogues and Hunters that I’ve out DPS’ed as a Prot Warrior wonder why I’m bent out of shape about their sub 2k DPS (one hunter was only a 3 digit number….)
I need to stop ranting for a bit. I’m starting to go in circles. *grabs can and hobbles away from keyboard muttering*
Honey, if you feel old, then I’m ancient. (Playing since 2005.)
(Ironically, I still haven’t been to Naxx yet. I’m not much of a raider, anyway. I prefer grinding rep – you could blame Pokemon for teaching me how to enjoy grinding.)
@Watermist Working on “the Insane” yet? Got a co-worker that’s trying for it… I have no idea how many times he’s slaughtered Ogers in DM, but it’s gotta be close to a 6 digit number at this point.
And yeah, I was in Beta. 😉 “Old Fart” does apply. I’ll avoid launching into a “I remember when there was no rest XP” rant as best I can though.
I dunno about other people, but I know for a lot of us in the guild who were the first set of toons to level up when Wrath came out and start raiding, the idea of never having to see naxx again is not bad whatsoever. Unlike Karazhan (beginning raiding in BC, woo) which was a fairly short instance (straight line, okay ammount of trash) Naxx was long and clunky and visually it still looked like a vanilla wow instance. And we spent WAY too much time in it (I remember you, Thaddius pug 25s…I remember you….). Honestly I don’t mind going back once or twice for nostalgia’s sake or achivements, but running people through that every week for gear would make me want to stab myself in the eyesocket with a rusty screwdriver.
Hey Pike, I’m pretty sure that xenylamine and SlikRX/Balthazario were not responding to you. SlikRX/Balthazario says “To some commentors …” as the preface to their comment; xenylamine is responding to his raiding guild. My take on reading their comments is that they were gratefull to you for providing them an outlet to vent a bit.
@ Verace – Eh, I’m pretty sure they were also, however, I always want to play it safe ya know? If anything it gave me a great chance to dispel any potential issues in the future.
@ Grey – I can understand stuff getting old (although that problem never seemed to plague me >_>), but it saddens me that some people may never get to see some stuff at all! I’m a dork though.
I completely agree with the missed content that seems to go on now. I went back and leveled a new hunter to 80 and love! I try to run some o these raids like OS or Naxx and have found nothing! It’s very frustrating. Granted I personnally have experienced those already, but my new hunter hasn’t. It makes me sad. ><
The last time I had an Alt the level cap was still 60. I haven’t played for a few years and just started up a new account a couple of months ago. Right now I just have a 61 Tauren Hunter and I’m finding the changes quite extreme – every quest and instance feels new and often not in a good way. Maybe as I get into the 70s and meet stuff I’ve never met before it will improve but I find I’m taking a week or two off betweeen each game card just to get my interest levels back up. I doubt that is the effect that Blizzard was aiming for.
Hi, Pike, I’ve been following your blog for a few months (love all your hunter advice and RP-related posts!) and I’m finally de-lurking, since this is a really relevant issue for me. I started playing in late May 2009 and my main has now been 80 for about a month. Currently, I’m very close to out-gearing my boyfriend — and he’s been playing 8 months longer than I have. I’ve done one 10-man ToC and multiple 25-man VoA runs, even got thrown into Hodir on one occasion, yet (to my dismay) I have never seen the inside of Naxx. No one in my guild is interested in running it, and I’m reluctant to PUG since, well, I have no experience with any of the fights. I’d dearly love to run some pre-Wrath raids, like ZA and Kara, but no one seems interested in running the old content anymore. I definitely agree that new players are pushed into new content too quickly, and it makes me wish I’d gotten into WoW a lot sooner.
Personally, on Greymane, I actually see Naxx10/25 man badge runs, meaning people are still doing it, just sadly, only for badges. :/ I also see lots of VoA and Uld as well, sadly, not so many good ToC10/25 pugs… Participated in one before I did it with my guild, and the OT had at least 6k less HP than I did in my tanking gear… We failed hard on the first guy. o_o; (I actually find ToC slightly difficult for my guild, which makes me sad. We’d get to Icehowl and I would be dead by now, and one person would move the wrong way and down we went. xD)
As for the newbie thing, I’ve been seeing a TON of them… I don’t really mind though. Wish more that you could do the experience of old man instances and still have fun talking about stuff everyone understands.
@Pike
Oh I agree entirely, everyone should have to go through that hell at least once, kinda like BRD or Maraudon(though I like Mara so that doesn’t count). You have to do it just for the expirience.
Man. The problem with Naxx is that pugs hit the Patchwerk/Thaddius wall and fall apart. I’ve been trying to run Naxx on my mage just cause it’s been forever since I was in Naxx and I’d like to get her a better wand. Thaddius in particular is a huge stumbling block because of how quickly your raid will wipe if someone screws up. And people in pugs these days tend to have an exceptionally low tolerance for wiping. Probably why there’s such a heavy trend towards pugs doing just Ony and ToC; little trash, fairly simple fights that aren’t wipes if you loose the firestanders right away. It’s also probably why there’s a trend towards pug leads requiring certain Gear Scores of the people joining. I don’t get the phenomenon myself, but it’s spreading like wildfire.
@Theaah: I’ve seen the “wipe and run” worse on Ony and ToC groups than I have on Naxx runs. Which sadly feeds back to the “new people expect the old people to carry them” point…
@Tracy – See if you can’t find a bored high-level warlock with a couple of friends to summon you up there. Otherwise you’ll have to do a bit of a rep grind on furbolgs in the very north of Felwood to make it through the tunnel to Winterspring. Good luck! 🙂
As for the actual post, the disparity between my game experience and that of others has become very obvious to me as well lately. I started playing in December of 2005, and it took me about 9 months to level up to 60. I didn’t really put in time with alts or anything either, it just took me that long. I ran some dungeons at-level, but even then it was hard sometimes to find a group. I remember once, after I hit 60, a group of people from my guild decided to do a full clear of BRD. It took us FIVE HOURS.
I have to admit though that I’m guilty of being one of those “we’ll get someone to run us through X low-level dungeon” people. For me, it’s just that I’ve DONE that, I’ve put in the time running just about everything at-level (except Gnomer, and I never will, either). I’d rather just get the quests done and move on. It’s not even a need to rush to 80, it’s more that I enjoy questing, and I’d rather run my way around a zone killing and finding things than plunk around an instance that I’ve already seen many times.
That said, I do appreciate the value of instancing at-level to people who are just starting the game. There are so many things to learn, challenges to meet, they can bring a lot to the overall experience of playing.
To be honest, I can’t help but wince when I go into HoS with my guild leader’s wife, and hubby says, “This is like Maiden in Kara” and I get back, “I’ve never done Kara”. It really makes it no surprise that they’re not very progressed in the current raids. It’s because they’re still learning the skills and techniques that I’ve already seen in past dungeons.
This makes me think… perhaps I ought to be a bit more forgiving of them then, and less impatient when we wipe on Flame Leviathan. It’s one thing to read the strategy and watch the movie, it’s another to actually sit there and try to figure things out. It takes me back to the days when my old guild was starting SSC. We wiped a zillion times on The Lurker Below. But we were learning, and that was the freaking point!
Thanks Pike 🙂
We’re still on Ulduar and EoE. We’ve been known to go into Naxx for “15 quick easy Badges,” but that is about it. If we are doing any thing else, it would be OS or Arch. Those are quick, easy, and someone will get something nice. However, even for those, people will jump on an alt of some sort.
I agree with your overall post. I often find myself wondering if that is really a new player. Sure, they are there. But, I usually assume that they aren’t new. Its a big world, and unless they implement something that has the raids leveling with the raiders, there will be no reason to go into any of the old content, except for nostalgia.
I wonder if that is even possible… Can they make it so that raid encounters increase in degree of difficulty (and resulting rewards), based upon character level?
Z
Hmm.. I never look at all lowbies as alts. Of course the BOA gear is a dead giveaway that this particular lowbie is indeed an alt. 🙂 I started playing last year and yes at times people thought I was playing an alt. 🙂 I’ve met a lot of new toons since that time who are experiencing content for the first time, and I agree it can be tough for them. At times, It was tough for me too.
Running some of the ‘old content’ can be frustrating for them since it can be tough getting a group at level. I organized a lot of PUGs with my first toon. Met a lot of people that way and after a while had a steady group of in-game buddies to run instances and some older raids with.
I got to tell ya…Im one of those players who love the run of the game. I dont have a DK because it starts at 58. I like “playing” my toon. I like to experience all of the game.
I do sometimes wonder whether the lowlevels I see running around ARE in fact new characters or simply alts of people, especially now, so long after Warcraft’s been out. It hits me at random times, really – I suppose when I’m nostalgic. I remember running around fairly clueless about everything and pretty much “doin it rong” but enjoying myself – so, I wonder if they’re doing the same thing and if they need any help.
I know there’s a first time for everything, but I assume that people who ask for info about a quest person/objective/location, etc. in trade is new, ’cause WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD DO THAT?!
Oh man . . . so much I want to say that all amounts to, exactly. My experience exactly. Except that it sounds like you started a few months ahead of me and in a few months I’ll be where you are. At the moment, I’m running Heroics and playing WG to get geared up to run ToC raids that I feel like I’ll never get to see. I do want to run Naxx, OS, EoE on my new level 80 kitty durid. I’ve sat in LFG all night while I did rep quests, periodically checking /who for raids maybe forming up. Nothing. So what am I going to do when IC comes out? Run the new 5 mans to replace my ToC gear? Get all geared up in time for raiding guilds to start asking me to “pst with achievement” if I want a spot in their run?
I guess what I need to do is find a casual raiding guild. I hear they exist. But none of the more vocal guilds want to admit to being anything but hard core.
I’ll probably just end up playing a new alt.
Pike, my comment was not aimed at you AT ALL. If you felt it was, I appologize that I wasn’t clearer.
Your post was tought provoking and well written. It posed a lot of intersting questions, and I really don’t even know how to adress them.
My response was aimed at folks here in the comments that imply that I haven’t earned my way through the game yet. Indigo Haze is one such.
I made a long n00b rant over on my blog about it, since this got me a tad worked up.
basically, many of them feel that if I haven’t had to grin each and every boss, and walk/joh each and every mile across Azeroth and beyond, that I could not POSSIBLY have a clue how to play my toon.
Really?
As others here posted out, much of the newer content is essentially vanilla-recycled. If that’s the case, why bother learning the SAME FIght twice? Why not just play the newer, updated version?
And to be more “to the point”: if Blizzard kept the levelling speed the same, VERY FEW NEW PLAYERS WOULD BOTHER.
I will be very blunt and say that the old vanilla game was broken. Plain and simple. The only folks that would do 840 repetitions of the same quest, just for rep, are the truly hardcore. While the Winterspring Trainers are an extreme example, it does point out just how mind numbingly slow and BORING the old game was.
If I had been playing the original, I would have bailed after my first three months. I could not STAND not progressing.If the progress
Yes, it weeded out almost all casual players. (and players like myself, who aren’t “casual” and aren’t really hard core either) And for the hardcore, that’s a good thing. At least short term.
The bummer is that, from a business perspective, hardcore gamers aren’t really all that profitable. (compare the sales numbers for the “hardcore-ish” XBOX 360 and the “casual” Nintendo Wii) Simply put, if WoW were to have a chance to continue, let alone grow, there needed to be more people playing AND PAYING.
So, as a result, Blizzard made the decision that it was more important to create a game that encouraged more people to play, and continue playing, than to worry about angering the truly hardcore.
So, while you get slightly ADD folks like myself, that really DO get into the hows & whys of the game, you also get the truly casual players which I believe are the source of *most* of the “damned n00bs”* comments. (I could be wrong there)
Also, I bet there’s just a *little* bit of “dammit, I had to slog for three weeks just to get one level, why don’t these new guys have to suffer just like I did?!?!?! Back in MY day, we…” and you know the rest.
But seriously, if you play a toon for 5 frikkin months to go from 1-80, and if you STILL don’t have a clue, slogging around for another 5-10 months won’t help things. Well, they will quit, but they won’t learn much more.
*cheers!
@ SlikRX/Balthazario – No worries, I figured yours wasn’t directed at me, since you had the whole “some of the commenters” thing in your comment. I just wanted to use your comment as a springboard to make sure nobody took anything the wrong way. I apologize for any comment awkwardness and hope to see ya around in the future ^_^
Oh, and more “on topic”.
If you want to see how many people are truly new, and how many are just alts, jsut start up a new toon of your own. Even if it’s just going to be your own guild.bank toon. Try getting charter signatures and see how many people are cluelss, and how many say something like “nah, this is my alt”.
FOr me (on Velen, US) it was about 50/50 for folks in the starter area. Half the people I ran into were truly new, and the other half were just getting an alt. I think the ratio would be higher for new folks if you go to someplace out in the boondocks (like the Drae starting area) where there’s no close major city/auction house. Those places will have only new folks and people looking to level/play an alt. You certainly wouldn’t start a Drae if you wanted a bank toon; too long of a hike/boat to get to Darnassus.