WoW revenue down 54% in seven months

[Tohtori]

There were some items in ZG that really didn't get obsolete until Naxx, depending on class&build.

 

[smackababy]

There were some items that never went obsolete in ZG (that tiger mount baby!!!)

 

[Chiropteran]

Impossible? Where did I say it was?

Dude, is your memory really that bad? You said it, right here:

If you think guilds blew threw ZG that weren't already having MC on farm status, you are sadly mistaken.

We didn't step foot in MC, as a guild, before fully clearing ZG no problem, including the optional bosses even.

You were clearly far more casual than I.

Agreed.

So you used one of the intended catch-up mechanics and now you're all entirely against them? Let me ask then, if ZG was never in place - would you have gotten into MC? Just curious.

I did raid Molten Core before ZG, but it was in a poor guild and it wasn't much fun so I stopped.

As far as "catch-up" mechanisms, I have been perfectly clear and this doesn't contradict my stance at all. An *easier* raid that drops generally *worse* gear is fine. The problem is when the catch-up mechanic is not just easier, it's so trivial that it is virtually impossible to fail (LFR) *and* it simultaneously drops items that are just plain superior to the previous raid's drops (LFR).

ZG doesn't fit into that problem category, so all is good.

Did you jump guilds? How did your ZG Guild make it into MC? Did you partner up with another guild?

Recruitment. We had a bit less than 20 when we started ZG, filled remaining spots with applicants. When the ZG raid was continually getting filled and we had people who had to sit, every run, we transitioned into MC using the same system- core of guild members and fill out the extra spots with applicants. It helped that the guild had a lot of hardcore PvPers who liked to raid on the side but were okay with sitting out if we didn't have room.

It's amazing how contradictive your stance has been through all this. You openly said you don't like catch up mechanisms, but clearly you used ZG as a spring board to get into MC.

Nope. ZG epics and blues, while nice, did not make Molten Core gear obsolete. We still had to gear up in MC before we could finish BWL, for example. We did kill Nef before AQ release.

Try doing MC correctly,

I'm confused why you are so pro-LFR welfare epics, while being so against using ZG as intended. It seems like you are being a bit hypocritical.

 

[Phanuel]

I remember running ZG weekly during Naxx progression just for the buff so we could get our 1 good attempt in on Loatheb.

We probably ran AQ20 6-7 times total as the gear wasn't enough of a motivation being a hardcore 40 man raid guild. Ossirian the Unscarred though is still a memorable fight.

 

[railven]

Dude, is your memory really that bad? You said it, right here:

We didn't step foot in MC, as a guild, before fully clearing ZG no problem, including the optional bosses even.

Next time use the full context of my statement, not just pick and choose:

Think logically? Here is the logic: ZG wasn't a catch up mechanism. If you think guilds blew threw ZG that weren't already having MC on farm status, you are sadly mistaken. Most guilds that moved on to BWL didn't bother back tracking. Most guilds that did ZG didn't have the roster for MC. There was no progression. Unless you moved to a bigger guild that was already beyond that point you were stuck.

Which was a response to this:

This whole thread of discussion started when you wrote something like "what happens if you are stuck and can't progress in molten core?". A guild that has finished farming molten core and moved on to BWL obviously isn't stuck in molten core, try to think logically.

Agreed.

I did raid Molten Core before ZG, but it was in a poor guild and it wasn't much fun so I stopped.

As far as "catch-up" mechanisms, I have been perfectly clear and this doesn't contradict my stance at all. An *easier* raid that drops generally *worse* gear is fine. The problem is when the catch-up mechanic is not just easier, it's so trivial that it is virtually impossible to fail (LFR) *and* it simultaneously drops items that are just plain superior to the previous raid's drops (LFR).

Are we focusing on the same raid tier? LFR gear from Tier 13 SHOULD be higher/better than LFR gear from Tier 12. That is normal progression.

That is the progression for an LFR'er. They have the same progression guidelines as any raider.

LFR Progression requires you to do all the LFRs. You can't dig LVL90 and jump into SoO. You have to do ALL OF THEM.

I'm not sure if you knew this. Same for a raider who is gearing up to do SoO normal. They can't just jump into SoO. They have to either get ran through old content with their guild for gear up or do all the LFRs in order and get gear ups.

ZG doesn't fit into that problem category, so all is good.

Because back then they didn't have catch-up mechanics. Those were only introduced in WOTLK. In Vanilla/TBC outside of being carried to gear up, you had no way of catching up to current tier. You had to do every single painstaking step, which was stupid and I'm glad it's gone.

Recruitment. We had a bit less than 20 when we started ZG, filled remaining spots with applicants. When the ZG raid was continually getting filled and we had people who had to sit, every run, we transitioned into MC using the same system- core of guild members and fill out the extra spots with applicants. It helped that the guild had a lot of hardcore PvPers who liked to raid on the side but were okay with sitting out if we didn't have room.

And this adds to your "catch up" process. Another mechanism that they started to add are raid wide nerfs. Imagine if they just hit MC with a 20% nerf like they did to Firelands, how many more people would magically start making headway instantly making something like ZG not as necessary. That would act more as a catchup because now they are actually progressing through Tier 1 and hopefully move into Tier 2, versus stop all progress in Tier 1, go do something below Tier 1 and THEN return to Tier 1 hopefully now being able to progress.

Nope. ZG epics and blues, while nice, did not make Molten Core gear obsolete. We still had to gear up in MC before we could finish BWL, for example. We did kill Nef before AQ release.

No one said it made it obsolete. It was the other way around..

I'm confused why you are so pro-LFR welfare epics, while being so against using ZG as intended. It seems like you are being a bit hypocritical.

I'm not against ZG and never said I had issues with it. But it wasn't a proper catch-up mechanism. Perhaps the issue in our view is, you aren't a GM and you probably don't have people asking to be on a raid roster.

This is Old WoW, say I'm at current end game level of raiding (so Naxx40):
As a GM I have to get 39 people together and run this guy through AQ40. This could be feasible, but it is a giant task. If I can't do that, can I get 19 to run him through AQ20? And then hope he isn't too much of a handicap in Naxx40? Where is my catch up mechanism? He won't gear up in one run through, so we got to invest time on him. Can he pug any older raid content? How long will it take this person to catch up?

New WoW, say again I'm currently at end game (so SoO):
Okay, you hit 90 you want to raid with us, in one week we will run you through MV10/HOF10/TOES10/ToT10 (all of these raids will take about 4 hours with our skill level and gear.) Before then through your own efforts you will farm JP/VP (ask the guild, there are always people running 5-mans/3-man heroic scenarios) and run LFRs. You will be required to get an ilvl of 490 (this is very doable, shoot I got ilvl502 in 4 days). We will judge your performance through the run through. You will know our decision before the next raiding week.

This is why I don't mind LFR and all the catch up mechanism. I'm not waiting months for someone or wasting my member's time. It's all in your face if this person jumps ships or decides not to raid.

 

[KaOTiK]

This is Old WoW, say I'm at current end game level of raiding (so Naxx40):
As a GM I have to get 39 people together and run this guy through AQ40. This could be feasible, but it is a giant task. If I can't do that, can I get 19 to run him through AQ20? And then hope he isn't too much of a handicap in Naxx40? Where is my catch up mechanism? He won't gear up in one run through, so we got to invest time on him. Can he pug any older raid content? How long will it take this person to catch up?

We always brought them along in our alt raids till they were geared enough to not be a total carry
Though we rarely recruited people so undergeared unless there was a special reason.

 

[DooKey]

There were some items that never went obsolete in ZG (that tiger mount baby!!!)

Saw it drop twice and lost both rolls!

 

[railven]

We always brought them along in our alt raids till they were geared enough to not be a total carry
Though we rarely recruited people so undergeared unless there was a special reason.

This is a great concept that I saw come more into play during TBC.

My first guild in Vanilla didn't have time for alts, my second guild in vanilla was definitely more laid back. Progression was definitely slower, but shoot I had free time to play with my friends so I wasn't complaining.

My example was more so if a new person wanted to raid (when the functions of a catch up would greatly benefit.) If they were already geared, just run them through the trials.

One thing I will openly say - I'm glad I wasn't a GM during Vanilla/TBC. Just being an officer was enough to make me hate having a roster of 100+ players.

 

[blackened23]

I remember running ZG weekly during Naxx progression just for the buff so we could get our 1 good attempt in on Loatheb.

We probably ran AQ20 6-7 times total as the gear wasn't enough of a motivation being a hardcore 40 man raid guild. Ossirian the Unscarred though is still a memorable fight.

Also, the ZG enchants. Only the Sapphiron enchants were better in vanilla, at least I think it was sapphiron? Something like that.

Ah the good ole days. Naxx 40 was actually an incredible tough instance (the second half, anyway), very few guilds completed it. Only four on Illidan-US completed it, one of which was blood legion. Despite the grueling schedule for Naxx, I think Naxx was one of the best designed instances ever - when they re-released it for WOTLK I didn't like it at all because it was incredibly easy. And I don't like re-hashed stuff either, which blizzard apparently loves to do these days. (I quit WoW long ago).

 

[smackababy]

Saw it drop twice and lost both rolls!

At 80, I just soloed it until I got it on my hunter, DK, and pally. >_>

 

[Chiropteran]

No one said it made it obsolete. It was the other way around..

Good, now you understand. ZG doesn't make Molten Core obsolete, which is why I felt it was a great way to add a raid to help players catch up.

LFR does make the prior tier obsolete. This is a bad thing IMO. I guess, in your opinion, old content should just be skipped, though you never really explained WHY you feel this way.

I mean, you still have to level to max level, no way to skip that.

You can't skip to the end of a quest chain just because it's an older quest.

But when raids become old, suddenly they are completely trashed and mechanics are added to skip them entirely, why? Why not let players skip leveling & questing too, what makes raids special?

 

[Chiropteran]

This is Old WoW, say I'm at current end game level of raiding (so Naxx40):
As a GM I have to get 39 people together and run this guy through AQ40. This could be feasible, but it is a giant task. If I can't do that, can I get 19 to run him through AQ20? And then hope he isn't too much of a handicap in Naxx40? Where is my catch up mechanism? He won't gear up in one run through, so we got to invest time on him. Can he pug any older raid content? How long will it take this person to catch up?

Why the hell would you carry the guy and gear him up? You recruit members will gear sufficient for the raids you run.

This is like complaining in MoP that you need to power level your level 30 recruit before he is high enough level to take into dungeons and then raids. It's a nonsense argument. The real answer is you recruit people who you actually can use, not people who are under-geared and can't even fit into the raids you are doing.

If you can't do that, it's a problem with your guild, not the game.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

At 80, I just soloed it until I got it on my hunter, DK, and pally. >_>

I soloed it a bunch of times on my DK. I got the raptor if I remember right but never the tiger : (

 

[railven]

Good, now you understand. ZG doesn't make Molten Core obsolete, which is why I felt it was a great way to add a raid to help players catch up.

LFR does make the prior tier obsolete. This is a bad thing IMO. I guess, in your opinion, old content should just be skipped, though you never really explained WHY you feel this way.

I mean, you still have to level to max level, no way to skip that.

You can't skip to the end of a quest chain just because it's an older quest.

But when raids become old, suddenly they are completely trashed and mechanics are added to skip them entirely, why? Why not let players skip leveling & questing too, what makes raids special?

I'm not even going to go any further with this, just answer this question:

Do you still play WoW? Have you used the MoP LFR?

Why the hell would you carry the guy and gear him up? You recruit members will gear sufficient for the raids you run.

This is like complaining in MoP that you need to power level your level 30 recruit before he is high enough level to take into dungeons and then raids. It's a nonsense argument. The real answer is you recruit people who you actually can use, not people who are under-geared and can't even fit into the raids you are doing.

If you can't do that, it's a problem with your guild, not the game.

My example was for a new person, ie someone who just got into WoW and wanted to raid. You can poach or post on forums that you are recruiting, but you still would get new members. Your solution (WoW's old system) doesn't encourage creating new raiders, that is a bad handicap that has affect guilds later down the road as burn out progressed. Flip the page to WOTLK and WoW saw the biggest surge of raiding. WOTLK introduced catch up mechanism.

In Old WoW the burden to gear a new member fell on the guild, in new WoW the burden is on them.

If you can't make this distinction from my example, yet again - you aren't reading my responses.

 

[blackened23]

I don't know what kind of guilds you were in back then, but basically you guilded with like minded and similarly geared players. Meaning that there were no guilds that were helping anyone catch up, at least not guilds that were any good. Naxxramas guilds that were close to completion did not recruit people in bad gear just to gear them up, at least no good guilds did this.

The guild I was in at the time was a top 20 US guild (not bragging, this is rather meaningless since it's just a video game) and among good guilds you only recruited like geared candidates. You didn't recruit people that had gear from 2 tiers ago, basically. This actually worked well: people didn't have an "entitlement syndrome" back then to where they would get mad if they couldn't see the last boss. BWL level guilds were active and happy. Naxx guilds were active and happy. And there were BWL guilds who could kill the "easy" bosses in naxx, and they were happy. Back then, I don't recall any of the entitlement garbage where players expected to be handed purples for doing nothing and expected to see every boss without putting any effort in. You just guilded with similarly progressed guilds and that was that, and guilds were very active doing this. The gear discrepancy wasn't as big then as it is now - the difference in gear now between tiers renders older tiers useless. That was NOT the case in vanilla, 1 tier old gear was still useful. Heck, the healing trinket and helm (caster) from Nefarion were some of the best drops in the game for a long time even post naxx.

The players performed for the guild, not vice versa. The guilds (good ones) didn't go out of their way to gear up some guy they didn't know, it didn't work that way. You just guilded with other folks that were similarly progressed.

Of course, now everyone is entitled and if they can't see the latest tier or the final boss they'll whine incessantly about it. Part of the reason I hate WoW is that the entire game has been dumbed down for the masses, and much of the good parts of the experience (exploring the land) has been relegated to sitting in queue in your home city. It's pretty dumb. I play MMOs to roleplay with friends. I don't play MMOs to sit in queue while afk in orgrimmar.

Whatever though. I've heard all the counter arguments a million times and don't care, the game is old and is dying. I say good riddance, we need a new MMO that is groundbreaking. If not, it's time for the genre to die (and it appears this is indeed happening).

 

[Soccerman06]

My epeen meter is going off... what I miss?

 

[styrafoam]

My epeen meter is going off... what I miss?

A lot of people had a wide variety of experiences in the first few years of WOW, then we got out the calendars and started poking each other in the chest. Some were upset that raiding was streamlined and saw it as ruining the game. Others thought that the simplification of the process allowed more people to experience more content. Most people don't remember what the avg DPS for a given expansion was. Pretty much everyone agreed that paid transfers were a server killer. A couple other random tangents.

 

[AViking]

A lot of people had a wide variety of experiences in the first few years of WOW, then we got out the calendars and started poking each other in the chest. Some were upset that raiding was streamlined and saw it as ruining the game. Others thought that the simplification of the process allowed more people to experience more content. Most people don't remember what the avg DPS for a given expansion was. Pretty much everyone agreed that paid transfers were a server killer. A couple other random tangents.

lol

Pretty much.

 

[Soccerman06]

A lot of people had a wide variety of experiences in the first few years of WOW, then we got out the calendars and started poking each other in the chest. Some were upset that raiding was streamlined and saw it as ruining the game. Others thought that the simplification of the process allowed more people to experience more content. Most people don't remember what the avg DPS for a given expansion was. Pretty much everyone agreed that paid transfers were a server killer. A couple other random tangents.

For warlock:

Vanilla: 700-1000dps for Naxx
TBC: 2500-3000dps for Sunwell
WOTLK: 10-15k for ICC

Those were my personal numbers depending on boss and spec. I quit shortly after we killed Heroic Arthas (in BL), so no cat or pandaland numbers. Personally Ill miss the 40man naxx raids, but I dont have the time or energy to devote to being a hardcore raider nowdays. Honestly TBC was the most fun I had, tough and hard to get attuned to at the start but made easier after a few months. You guys have no idea what hard is, only those who played EQ end game at release understand what brutal was. Theres a reason why wow went and made raids easier over time, to let the masses experience the fights themselves, which was good so more people > more money > more development > more stuff. TBC marked the death of real raiding in WoW (before 3.0) but it partially came back in WOTLK with hard modes. blah blah blah it did more good than bad for the community as a whole, but sucked for the end game raiders because we felt less exclusive.

I caught up now?

 

[AViking]

Before people use your numbers though as a benchmark it's probably worth stressing that those numbers were top of the line. Not sure what guild you were in but I'd guess top 50 easily. Plus obligatory nerf warlocks. Warlocks put everyone to shame.

 

[AViking]

Thinking back I topped out at 2050 dps on our Brutallus kills and our locks were doing about 2300-2400 dps on that fight so you were doing 20% more dps than our decent guild in whatever top of the line guild you were in.

 

[railven]

I don't know what kind of guilds you were in back then, but basically you guilded with like minded and similarly geared players. Meaning that there were no guilds that were helping anyone catch up, at least not guilds that were any good. Naxxramas guilds that were close to completion did not recruit people in bad gear just to gear them up, at least no good guilds did this.

The guild I was in at the time was a top 20 US guild (not bragging, this is rather meaningless since it's just a video game) and among good guilds you only recruited like geared candidates. You didn't recruit people that had gear from 2 tiers ago, basically. This actually worked well: people didn't have an "entitlement syndrome" back then to where they would get mad if they couldn't see the last boss. BWL level guilds were active and happy. Naxx guilds were active and happy. And there were BWL guilds who could kill the "easy" bosses in naxx, and they were happy. Back then, I don't recall any of the entitlement garbage where players expected to be handed purples for doing nothing and expected to see every boss without putting any effort in. You just guilded with similarly progressed guilds and that was that, and guilds were very active doing this. The gear discrepancy wasn't as big then as it is now - the difference in gear now between tiers renders older tiers useless. That was NOT the case in vanilla, 1 tier old gear was still useful. Heck, the healing trinket and helm (caster) from Nefarion were some of the best drops in the game for a long time even post naxx.

The players performed for the guild, not vice versa. The guilds (good ones) didn't go out of their way to gear up some guy they didn't know, it didn't work that way. You just guilded with other folks that were similarly progressed.

Exactly. If you weren't early on the raiding scene, the chances of you catching up were ridiculously against you.

Of course, now everyone is entitled and if they can't see the latest tier or the final boss they'll whine incessantly about it. Part of the reason I hate WoW is that the entire game has been dumbed down for the masses, and much of the good parts of the experience (exploring the land) has been relegated to sitting in queue in your home city. It's pretty dumb. I play MMOs to roleplay with friends. I don't play MMOs to sit in queue while afk in orgrimmar.

Whatever though. I've heard all the counter arguments a million times and don't care, the game is old and is dying. I say good riddance, we need a new MMO that is groundbreaking. If not, it's time for the genre to die (and it appears this is indeed happening).

Ironically this also entitlement, just in the other direction. But I won't go down this road.

For warlock:

Vanilla: 700-1000dps for Naxx
TBC: 2500-3000dps for Sunwell
WOTLK: 10-15k for ICC

Those were my personal numbers depending on boss and spec. I quit shortly after we killed Heroic Arthas (in BL), so no cat or pandaland numbers. Personally Ill miss the 40man naxx raids, but I dont have the time or energy to devote to being a hardcore raider nowdays. Honestly TBC was the most fun I had, tough and hard to get attuned to at the start but made easier after a few months. You guys have no idea what hard is, only those who played EQ end game at release understand what brutal was. Theres a reason why wow went and made raids easier over time, to let the masses experience the fights themselves, which was good so more people > more money > more development > more stuff. TBC marked the death of real raiding in WoW (before 3.0) but it partially came back in WOTLK with hard modes. blah blah blah it did more good than bad for the community as a whole, but sucked for the end game raiders because we felt less exclusive.

I caught up now?

I agree, and with the underlined portion - that is the only reason I can even sum up why old school raiders feel this way.

My initial post in this thread was sarcastic how I'm glad I longer have to raid 20+ hours but can still hang with the elites, and I still hang by that ideology. This is a game at the end of the day, unless you are sponsored and paid to represent, the end results don't really matter to anyone but yourself.

 

[blackened23]

Thinking back I topped out at 2050 dps on our Brutallus kills and our locks were doing about 2300-2400 dps on that fight so you were doing 20% more dps than our decent guild in whatever top of the line guild you were in.

Yeah, Sunwell was definitely the shaman and warlock instance. 4-5 warlocks for pre-nerf M'uru kills was not unheard of! Especially with the stacking ISB buff. (at least I think that's what it was.)

I really loved that instance, by the way. Fun and challenging while it was relevant.

 

[blackened23]

Exactly. If you weren't early on the raiding scene, the chances of you catching up were ridiculously against you.

You didn't need to "catch up". The gear discrepancy among tiers that exists now did not exist then - you could happily get BWL level gear and be 100% utterly fine back then. Now? If you're 1 tier behind, your character is rather useless. That was NOT the case back then, the item level differences between tiers didn't render prior tier gear to be terrible. You were still competitive in BWL/AQ40 level gear even AFTER naxxramas was patched in.

That's the key difference from back then, and that is why no catchup was needed. Everyone was happy regardless of their progression. Yet that is just unthinkable now, because the whiners will whine and of course Blizzard will cave in and dumb the game down even further.

Besides which, Naxxramas had "gateway" bosses that were very easy despite the instance as a whole being very difficult. Nearly every BWL guild could kill 3-4 Naxx bosses.

 

[Anubis]

Thinking back I topped out at 2050 dps on our Brutallus kills and our locks were doing about 2300-2400 dps on that fight so you were doing 20% more dps than our decent guild in whatever top of the line guild you were in.

+ we (locks) only had to push 1 button

rogues with glaves and hunters also pulled silly numbers on that fight. however a lot of it was dependent on group comp (drum stacking) and who got burned.

to the comments on gearing, the ilvl inflation has been going on for some time, when the game started out there was a lot of overlap where items from MC were still very good compaired to those from BWL, it was not a total regearing, actually some were good well into AQ and Naxx.
TBC had some overlap mostly weps and trinkets, and after that it all went to crap. in Wrath pmuch only certian trinkets carried over tier to tier. in Cata that may not have held true, i quit after Tier 1
Panda land seems like everything gets replaced with each new raid tier