WOW Classic

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GORDON
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Post by GORDON »

I remember when we used to close Delucia.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
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Cakedaddy
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Post by Cakedaddy »

That's what turns me off of most MMOs. There's no reward. It's just about the grind. Granted, that can be fun, but it usually gets boring for me pretty quickly.

That's another thing that seems to be missing (from the very few I've played). You don't establish known enemies. It's just faceless/nameless factions. I remember targeting specific people and making their lives miserable. There were hundreds of players in the game, but I only cared about the 5-15 we were warring and spent pretty much every minute in the game trying to ruin their day and destroy their guild. We could actually win a war. Most MMOs now, there is no winning or losing.
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Post by Leisher »

Cakedaddy wrote: Most MMOs now, there is no winning or losing.
It's a double edged sword for the developers.

You either have actual risk vs reward and lose your audience pretty quickly that can't compete OR you eliminate the risk vs reward and lose the audience slowly as they get sick of grinding.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
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Stranger
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Post by Stranger »

Cakedaddy wrote: That's what turns me off of most MMOs. There's no reward. It's just about the grind.
this is going back 15 years, so it doesn't do all the hand holding that today's MMO's do. The most recent ones i played you were at max level in maybe 20-30 hours of game play and really had no difficulty getting through it. This game will kill you fast with just one or two everyday creatures, and your penalty is time and money. Also, there's a sense of adventure you've gotta walk everywhere you go (you do get flight paths that help bridge that gap, but then it becomes a financial burden).
Cakedaddy wrote: That's another thing that seems to be missing (from the very few I've played). You don't establish known enemies
yeah, i know what you mean. i'm sure this is probably a little more prevalent in a guild v guild setting where your guilds are trying to get the epic drop from a world boss that spawns maybe once every 3-5 days. I'm sure you'd run into guilds that are trying to do the same.
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Stranger
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Post by Stranger »

200 hours to get to level 43 of 60 and i'm still loving it and seeing new places i've not adventured into yet. I've been through about 80% of the different locations but really only played in about 50% of them.

Been involved in some fun PvP action, where 40 or so Alliance overran a small town i was in at the time. The 20 of us under-leveled Horde and the town's guards couldn't hold them off so Grom'gol became a ghost town, all the NPC's were wiped.. So questing there wasn't an option anymore.

The dungeons are my favorite content so far. Getting a group of 5 together and making your plan of attack has been fun. I've yet to run into any toxic situations or people and most are actually happy for you when you get the drop you want. Looting is a little different when you're in a group situation. When a green or higher rarity drop you have the option to "need" or "greed" roll on that item. Basically if 2 of you "need" the item and the rest "greed" then the two that picked "need" will get to roll a d100 to see who actually gets the item. If you all pick "greed" then all roll and highest roll win.

So if your a warrior and a cloth armor drops then you roll "greed" and let the mages and supports get those items. This is an honor system and there's the chance that someone can ninja loot if everyone picks "greed" then the last one "need" rolls on something they don't really need, but i've yet to run into someone like that. Before i really knew how the system worked i know that i "need" rolled on items that i absolutely didn't need and probably deserved to be ridiculed for it but didn't. The community is really helpful and generally want to see you get your drops, which is cool.
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Post by Stranger »

I'm beginning to think that hitting level 60 in this game might be one of my greatest gaming achievements ever. I'm currently at level 46 so that means i went up 3 levels in the past 10 days. Also, the honor system for PvP is getting implemented on Tuesday the 12th, so now there is incentive for people to actually go out and kill others which will make questing a bit more difficult.

I remember the grind to get to level 30 in LOL was pretty significant. You had to play tons of games to be able even go into ranked games, i also remember buying XP boosts because it felt like it was so long.

Borderlands 2, never got to max level but thats cause i got bored playing solo all the time. i believe i had something like 130 or so hours on that game and was at level 58?? So not even close to WOW Classic.

Archeage was a pretty fast leveling experience as i remember it, and pretty much all the other MMO's ive played in recent memory.
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GORDON
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Post by GORDON »

IIRC back when WoW was still a thing, people were speedrunning level 60 in like 3 days.
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Post by Stranger »

GORDON wrote: IIRC back when WoW was still a thing, people were speedrunning level 60 in like 3 days.
Oh yeah, they can and are doing it. But its my first time playing it so i don't know the most efficient way of running it. Plus there are many hours i've spent just roaming around basically being unproductive.
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GORDON
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Post by GORDON »

Wasn't criticizing. Just saying "damn."
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Post by Stranger »

GORDON wrote: Wasn't criticizing. Just saying "damn."
I don’t know how they do it, they’re basically no lifers. From what I’ve read on WOW Reddit, most people seem to fall in the 8-10 days played so just over 200 hours. I’m looking at over 300 easy.
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Post by Stranger »

Still not max level yet, i hit 55 earlier this week though. The last 5 levels should go pretty fast as now i can start running the max level dungeons and getting good XP and gear for it.

Tuesday, two of the PvP battlegrounds were released. This is significant because about a month ago the PvP honor system was released and the only way to earn honor was in open world. This meant you had people camping flight paths, entrances to dungeons and rolling mobs of maybe 20 or more people running around in big gank squads. This made some parts of the world basically shut down to people that were just trying to level up. A lot of people (i'm assuming millenials) left the game because they didn't like this, but i persisted through trying to get into a zone, get the quest done and get the fuck outta there. I thought it was fun, but there were times when i was basically not going to be able to level in certain areas. This is exactly how original WoW was released, so people are getting the full Vanilla experience. And as someone that never played the game before i really enjoy all the things that make this game so tough.

So now with battlegrounds released some of that mob mentality has went away. People can que into an instance that pits teams of 40v40 or 10v10 against each other and earn their honor in that way. This frees up the open world to still be able to quest but you can PvP too. Open world is better left for little 2v2, 3v3 skirmishes that pop up when you've got two opposing factions questing in the same area, makes it way more fun in my opinion.

I've gotta say, do yourself a favor and pay for a one month subscription for this game. Depending on how much you play you can probably get to level 20 without a problem and really the game is just beginning at that point. I've gamed with most of you here and i'm pretty sure you all would have some sort of enjoyment of the game. Even if its not the full loot system that we all crave, it got to be so big because of its vanilla origins. Even the people that play in current retail version love this version the most.
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Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

I want to try it. I will eventually find time.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
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Cakedaddy
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Post by Cakedaddy »

Other than griefing, was there a point to the roaming hoards killing enemy faction members? Any point to fighting the 2v2, 3v3 fights that pop up? Is it just to kick them out of the area or keep them from leveling? Did you change any overall 'thing' about the game by slowing their progress?
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Post by Stranger »

Cakedaddy wrote: Other than griefing, was there a point to the roaming hoards killing enemy faction members?
Up until a few days ago the only way to earn honor was by world PvP, so the easiest and safest way of doing that was to run around in big groups and slaughter anyone you came across (within 10 levels to earn honor). But then you'd have to split them honor points among your whole group so there was a trade off. The big groups tended to draw the attention of other big groups though and huge fights would ensue. They were fun and total chaos, but if you were a solo trying to level it could make life a bitch.

Any point to fighting the 2v2, 3v3 fights that pop up? Is it just to kick them out of the area or keep them from leveling?
Well, yeah.. honor points. the honor system is kind of hard to explain and i don't completely understand the whole system yet. But basically its a way to compare your your efforts in PvP, when compared to every other player in your server. As you go up ranks you earn titles and gear. Other reasons to open world PvP are for reputation status or to keep them from farming mobs that have highly coveted drops that sell for big bucks on the auction house.
Cakedaddy wrote: Did you change any overall 'thing' about the game by slowing their progress?
No, not really. The world goes on and doesn't dynamically change because of anything you do. Slowing or pushing them out of a zone so you can get your drops, XP, gold, reputation or honor is really what its all about. You're there to get yours and if someone else is trying to do the same then this is a hindrance to you. And when you die you've gotta make the long walk back to your corpse to rez or rez at the graveyard and take a 75% penalty to all your stats for 10 minutes, so time is your penalty.
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Post by Stranger »

My recent unhealthy habit of playing WoW Classic lead me to listening to listening to a podcast called Countdown to Classic. Now if you don't play the game then i'm sure you'd have no interest in hearing it, but on occasion he interviews big gaming industry folk, always from the MMO genre and they are always very interesting.

The latest episode (#128) Josh interviews Raph Koster, former lead designer and creative director of Ultima Online and Starwars Galaxies. He sheds some great insight on UO's production, Richard Garriot and the killing of Lord British, and just the past, present and future of MMO's. Its really fascinating to hear and i'm sure most of you UO players will really enjoy it.

https://countdowntoclassic.com/2019/12/ ... #more-2128

The interview doesn't start until 37:00 but it runs about 2-2 1/2 hours so its really in depth.

If you like that one there is another 3 part interview with Mark Jacobs from Warhammer online and Dark Age of Camelot that is also a really good listen. Those interviews are in episodes 123-125 towards the end of each one.
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GORDON
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Post by GORDON »

I remember the first 5 minutes I played UO. Standing at the Brit bank, scared to death to pick up a fish steam someone dropped on the ground, for fear of being attacked as a thief.
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Post by Stranger »

Finally did it yesterday. After almost 400 hours of game time i've finally hit level cap of 60! I've still yet to even walk into 2 zones nor have i played 4 of the end game 5 man dungeons yet. This isn't even counting the few 40 man raids that are available, there is so much content in this game.

I believe first month is currently half off until Jan 7th. Good way to dip your toes into it and see if you like it or not.
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Post by Stranger »

Now that i'm max level and have built up enough confidence and gear to be able to try some 40 man raids i can go into detail on them a little more.

As of right now there are two end game 40 man dungeons to raid, Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair. Molten Core is a longer dungeon with 10 bosses to fight, the last being Ragnaros the toughest fight. This raid takes about 90 mins if your really good but probably averages about 2-3 hours for most groups.

Onyxia's Lair is just a huge Black dragon and pretty much the only fight you have in that dungeon. This fight alone with 40 people takes about 30 minutes to fight. Its the longest single fight in the game right now and there are 3 stages the dragon goes through, each stage tougher than the previous.

These dungeons and boss fights take a lot of strategy and making sure everyone is doing their roll is paramount, if one person makes a wrong step it can easily lead to a full party wipe. Usually only guilds with dedicated raiding members run these things together so that they can be the most efficient but there is always a guild that may have only 25-30 members on and looking for PUG's to fill the last few spots. That's where I've been jumping in at. Everyone or most everyone needs to get into a Discord channel so the raid leader can give instructions through the fight. I usually just log in, mute my mic and listen to the lead. Usually PUG's get screwed on gear drops because the guild wants the good shit going their way, but usually they will let you roll on class specific drops that they don't need. I've actually gotten lucky so far though and have gotten three Tier 1 drops in two runs of Molten Core.

So usually there are two ways that groups split up gear when running raids, Loot council and DKP (dragon kill points). Loot council is basically a group a raid leaders that decide on who gets what drop. They basically give all the best shit to the most dedicated, hardcore raiders, themselves or their friends. This sucks for PUG's joining up with a guild as they will most likely never give you anything unless its something nobody needs and they're feeling nice. DKP is like a currency system and is way more common. Basically guilds will give its members DKP for showing up on raid night, and points for every boss they are present for when killed. Then when an item drops that you want you can bid on that item in a silent auction with the DKP you've accrued. This is fair to all and if you want or need just one particular item you can save up your DKP for that special item your looking for.

I'm still not in a dedicated guild because i tell them i can't commit to the days and times these guilds raid at. Usually the raids are once a week because once you have raided MC or Onyxia you can't do it again until it resets the next week. I do get recruited all the time though and joining a DKP guild would actually work fine for me because i can still get points for the nights i do play and not feel like im getting screwed out of something. I'm still putting out the invites to anyone that's mildly interested in playing. Just warning you, it will suck you in, i can see why some people lost their family's from this game. LOL
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Post by Leisher »

I am still interested and reading your breakdowns.

Still haven't found the right time to launch something I'll be paying for monthly.
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GORDON
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Post by GORDON »

We could have used Stranger in UO.
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