Well, first of all "Hello."

I am more a, let's say, passive MMORPG user and I prefer to only read, instead of typing.

But, something I have experienced in the last 5 days on the German Server Destromath, made me write this post to ask, if this became a common thing across other WoW server, too.

8 months ago, I stopped playing. After 25 Naxx and 10 Naxx and 10/25 Arch and Obs and 25/Naxx again, I was exhausted. The game just didn't give me anymore, what I needed. Everything became such a rush. Leveling from 70 to 80 was a only race and I got the feeling, that the time other player once had to help out the community became less and less.

In these 8 months, I spent some time again in EQ2, even looked back in my old EQ1 account, then RoM, after this of course AION to end up in Fallen Earth for a while. Never had my eyes completely off WoW, though.

I liked Fallen Earth very much - In Sector 1 you never really had the feeling to miss anything, if you do slow. Because more or less, it all looked the same and was the same straight forward game. If you know what I mean. Community was/is extremely helpful and fun.

So, 5 days ago, it hit me and I went back to reactivate me Ele Shaman. My old guild somehow wasn't there anymore and I admitted to myself, I needed to get back into game first. So the very first day, I spent with dungeon achievements in the classic world to get used to me my Shaman again.

After this, I went ot Dalaran to find a group. First of all, what I noticed was, that every LFM had a "gear check" with "achievements" at the end.

Of course, no one wanted me to come to Uld, or Kolloseum or all lately released new dungeons with a crappy T7.5 mixed with T8 gear. Although, when it also came to "gear check" for Obsi,10/25 Naxx and I still got rejected in a not very nice/kind way, I had my doubts.

One of them replied, I would be now on his ignore list, because I even only asked him to join, one time. What was I thinking!

"Well", I thought, "Then let's do daily HC and farm emblems." And this is were it really became rediciously sad. Every group I joined, rushed through the instances, didn't even loot up the mobs.

Players repeatedly were flamed in group, kicked after the instance and put on ignore, because they dared to loot some mobs or just looked what was dropping.

I got put on ignore several times, because I dared to ask if I can join raids or even HC groups with my "crap" T7.5/T8 gear. Yesterday I spoke, to 3 WoW returner. They all experienced the same issue. They all were frustrated with the community. For me would be a reason to not play WoW again.

One of my former guild member, now raiding the highest raid instance, told me, that if you do not have the rigth gear, you better don't even ask, or they put you on ignore forever.

Sorry, but what crap community is this now? Really!

Don't tell me this became common in WoW..

Regards

-Bloober

Sorry you had such a bad experience. But I think that this is how it is these days. Blizzard structured WoW so that it is all about levels and gear and ranks and achievements and status. It brings out the worst in people.

I remember when I started playing MMOs, back with the original Asheron's Call. People stuck with the same guild for years and guildmates of all different levels grouped up and ran quests together. The game was about fun and community.

I think in the early years most MMO players were old-school roleplayers. They believed in having a great experience along with others. But WoW opened MMOs up to the XBox and Diablo generation. For most of them it's about getting in the other guys face and showing that you are cool. It's sad really.

My wife and I still play WoW. But it's just something we do together for fun. We've given up on the community pretty much.

I played WOW in the early days,i mean before their was battle grounds and 60 was top level. The community was a lot better because most of them were from the old classic mmorpg like EQ1,AC,UO,DAOC and so on.

After comintg from EQ1, WOW was a new fresh idea and full of fellow mature polite mmorpg gamers not greedy kids who are up themselves because they have the latest gear.Their are still mmorpg with a great community still out their, Vanguard being one and LOTRO ,plus eve and a few others.

I think SWTOR will have the same sort of community.

I quit about the same time you did, and just came back a few weeks ago.

I was top of the line geared when I left, so I was in the exact same position as you. Except I had a healer in worse gear than my Melee dps DK.  So I would think, since when I left, there was 91802719027841902784190278404 DKs, I would have had it worse.

I had no problems getting into Heroic groups.  But I did have my guild that was raiding, and took me along on alt 10man runs to get geared.  In the past few weeks, I went from lolbad, to Great.  Heroic bosses drop badges that lets you buy naxx+ level gear.  Now, I saw and still see tons of  "LFM blah blah, Gearscore X+", or "Link achievement".  Yeah, it does kind of suck.  I had my guild to help me out, so going solo would be much much worse trying to gear up, I'm sure.  I bet if you looked to join a guild, you might have done better.

Let's turn that around really quick.  You are leading a raid, and want people to join it.  Do you want people who know what they are doing, that have the gear to beat the encounter? Or do you want joe blow with gear two raid levels below the encounter?  Even better for you, you are doing 25man naxx way back when.  Do you invite a 80 who just hit 80 10 minutes ago with greens/a few blues for many spots?

There are so many bad players in any game, even with good gear.  But someone with gear/achievements to show they did it, are less likely to be terrible.  I also still know a lot of the people playing, having become friends.   So I got invites to raids they hosted even with my bad gear.  They took me over better geared players, because they KNOW I'm not a terrible like someone who might have had better gear them me could be.

I know in my raid, I do not want a green geared player, or someone who does not care to enchant their gear, or know to get the hit cap, or puts in gems that have no real help for their class.

Past that, it sounds like you have a terrible server.  I never see or hear or even myself, block or ignore or even make fun of people with bad gear/achievements. I have never in the ton of pug Heroics I run with both of my classes, seen anyone not loot, or yell at each other for looting, or put people on ignore.  I've seen and also made fun of people who have decent gear, but enchant/gem/spec badly, and are uninvited from the raid, but they don't get blocked.

Considering how often a raid needs more than 1 shaman, I'm surprised this happened to you.  Really sucks hun!

A little harsh judging the millions that play WoW on a few players on one of the 500+ wow servers.

Heroic's are mostly run by people wanting badges, the loot is not good enough for them to really stop and compare the loot.

Heres a tip, there is a little know script command in wow that will compare gear between your equipped and the gear you mouse over when looting etc.  also shows you how your stats will change.

/script SetCVar("alwaysCompareItems", 1) 

type it into your chat log every time you start WoW, or make a macro .. it does this....

i agree with the OP.

i've recently just reactivated my account and started a new character. i wasn't in a rush to get to 80, just doing all my quests and exploring the terrority. i like it better this way. it's hard to get groups for lower instances, but i'll live without them.

the community leaves a lot to be desired. when i first log in with my character (and i activated the new penguin pet), i got a whisper from a guy 'you look stuped (sic)'. i just laughed it off. that fella can't even spell stupid properly!

my advice is to find a casual guild and just enjoy the game. or play fallen earth....which rocks, by the way.

Wow, that's horrible.  So games went from being about skill...to gear based.  Kinda sad really.  Unfortunately I see the same thing happening in LotRO, where in order to get good drops, you have to raid, in order to raid, you have to be geared.  Sad, really.  But the real snarky part is the ignore thing.  Seems there seems to be quite a few Divas in WoW these days.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

----> Blaming a community in ANY mmorpg (and certainly in by far the most played mmorpg) is ALWAYS a very weak argument. And it shows more about the poster than about the society.

 

Shurely?

I quit WoW a few years back mostly because of the bad attitude in the community.

http://www.stormscale.org/viewtopic.php?t=14971

"FUCK OFF FROM STORMSCALE YOU PIECE OF SHIT JEW SINCE YOU PVP FAGGOTS STARTED POURING TO THE REALM MAKING IT THE GAY BAR OF EU SERVERS IT HAS LAGGED LIKE SHIT AND IS QUEUED EVERY NIGHT AND IS FULL OF FUCKING BAD PLAYERS "

I only need to go back to this forum and find a gem like this (it took me less then a minute) and I no longer feel the urge to play again.

I don't see a reason to why one should have bare with these things, no reason at all. One have to get into to inner circle of the club get accepted, need to learn to "speak the language", bullshit!

@Coffe thanks for this hint, very helpful.

@all - Thank you all, even Zorndorf, with his typical "I analyse all down to the bone. Who cares if I am right or wrong"

Again, I am only talking about only the server "Destromath" and I only write my experience from a player of the first hour of WoW, returning after a 8 months break. Nothing else. I am interested if this is happening on other as well, or if I only have been unlucky for teh last 5 days.

Of course you do HC to upgrade gear to be in the position to go into higher raid content. Thats what I already did. I got my 10/25 Naxx loot. But, even this seems not to be enough anymore.

Kind regards

-Bloober

 Honestly this is how it works.  You go to a game with massive amounts of people, you're bound to get more nerdy/kiddy aholes.  Fact is that WoW makes people crazy.  I literally had to tortilla slap my best bud to get him to go out side and smell the fresh air because of that game.  I played EQ1, EQ2, AoC, LotRO, WAR, and Aion and I've never seen a more crazy playerbase in any of those compared to WoW.  Just for the sake of the thread I am going to call it the "WoW effect".

You also have to remember that WoW has most of the younger crowd who are more impatient, where games like EQ2 have a higher adult to kid ratio.  I'm in the 18-24 area myself, but I hate the massive amount of kids and 18-45 year olds who act like children that I see in games..namely WoW.

This is the reason why I left WoW and won't come back. But that was like two years ago.

You know whats funny, with so many peope claiming to hate wow on this site, its just 24/7 wow threads on this site.  Do most of you that claim to hate it secretly play it?      I actually bet my house that the idiots on this site that claim to hate it and then put everyone that plays irt down, actually do play wow.

I tried to come back to play with some RL friends that are still playing and noticed exactly what the OP went through. A "gear check" for groups..... I don't think I have ever canceled a game so fast after resubscribing after I saw  that crap.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by dragowulf

 Honestly this is how it works.  You go to a game with massive amounts of people, you're bound to get more nerdy/kiddy aholes.  Fact is that WoW makes people crazy.  I literally had to tortilla slap my best bud to get him to go out side and smell the fresh air because of that game.  I played EQ1, EQ2, AoC, LotRO, WAR, and Aion and I've never seen a more crazy playerbase in any of those compared to WoW.  Just for the sake of the thread I am going to call it the "WoW effect".

You also have to remember that WoW has most of the younger crowd who are more impatient, where games like EQ2 have a higher adult to kid ratio.  I'm in the 18-24 area myself, but I hate the massive amount of kids and 18-45 year olds who act like children that I see in games..namely WoW.

 

http://www.wow.com/2009/04/09/nielsen-wow-is-most-played-core-game-by-25-54-females/

Sorry but WOW is most played core  game by 25-54 females.

A social survey with 1.8 M US citizens proves you wrong.

And yes US does not equal NA.

And yes Nielsen is a social study buro based on scientific sampling.

And yes WOW shows a rather nice stratification of society.

And yes people claiming otherwise don't have proof and are really mostly douchebags who are /ignored by those millions who play happily in game ... AND PAY for it.

 "I am in the 18-24 aera myself". So silly to even state this. My son of 16 would even laugh with it.

 

Thanks for proving his point Zorndorf!  Made me smile :)
 

Gents.

I didn't say, I hate WoW. The game is great and I like it. My post is just a result from an observation, which I would like to discuss and find out, if it is only on the German server Destromath.

The meaning of an MMORPG for is, and please correct me if I am wrong (which I am sure you will), based on a purely and solid social aspect. Like:

a) Interacting with each other
b) To play together, dive into adventures and find time to help others.
c) To play with an avatar of a real person and to understand how the person behind the avatar influences his behavior.
d) To live and breathe the lore.

..and so on..

Now currently, I have the feeling, that the social is in depression and the we experience the boom of "gear and achievement." I am not my avatar anymore, I am just a number against a benchmark.

And this, this is such a problem already in the real world, where we all are just numbers against a benchmark: Performance aggregation

Regards
-Bloobers

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Originally posted by Demz2

You know whats funny, with so many peope claiming to hate wow on this site, its just 24/7 wow threads on this site.  Do most of you that claim to hate it secretly play it?      I actually bet my house that the idiots on this site that claim to hate it and then put everyone that plays irt down, actually do play wow.

---

---

Originally posted by bloobers

Gents.
I didn't say, I hate WoW. The game is great and I like it. My post is just a result from an observation, which I would like to discuss and find out, if it is only on the German server Destromath.
The meaning of an MMORPG for is, and please correct me if I am wrong (which I am sure you will), based on a purely and solid social aspect. Like:
a) Interacting with each other
b) To play together, dive into adventures and find time to help others.
c) To play with an avatar of a real person and to understand how the person behind the avatar influences his behavior.
d) To live and breathe the lore.
..and so on..
Now currently, I have the feeling, that the social is in depression and the we experience the boom of "gear and achievement." I am not my avatar anymore, I am just a number against a benchmark.
And this, this is such a problem already in the real world, where we all are just numbers against a benchmark: Performance aggregation
Regards
-Bloobers

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I have yet to find a game that uses raids as the end game content that does not have this problem. 

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Horusra

I have yet to find a game that uses raids as the end game content that does not have this problem. 

 

In fact, Wotlk made it  far more easy to join hi end game content without much hastle and elitism.

Old WOW you had those Raiders in SW leaning on the market and displaying their "Tier" set and looking to everyone down who didn't raid.

In old WOW and TBC first 12 months you had those dreadful "attunements" to even enter the simplest Raid content... and you HAD to redo it all with every alt you played....

At least in Wotlk you can play the end game with even 2 or 3 classes you like to play without resorting to very long attunement processes.

The only "limit" is now a rather simple achievement :  do it once and you can enter every time. And like I said, I have yet to see a discussion about DPS in the heroic dungeons, because everyone KNOWS they are done to assemble gear for alts.

... and a good player with bad gear is always btter than a bad player with good gear...

I did Heroics with tanks that had 23K health without any problems ... while 40K+ guys gave me an headache as a healer.

 

 

But you play on al'akir don't you? I had no problems at all on that server (been playing there since 2005) but this summer i leveled a horde warlock on sarufang (sp?) and saw the same things as the OP mentioned. Well i was never put on ignored but kicked from groups all the time before we started a dungeon just because of gear.

You don't need good gear for running any normal group content in wow (heroics and the normal raids), we accept anything when doing pug raids and it works fine. I agree with you 100% that a good player is more important then gear.

So to answer the OP, yes i think this is a server issue.

WoW has always been about gear, but now it is just worse with achivements etc.

I too have noticed how things are just rushed through. I came back recently and was told"people" don't mark targets in 5 instances anymore.

I asked why not? 

No need, was the answer i got, the Tank aggros everything and others just dps.

So all the CC tactics gone, this is the one thing i enjoyed about 5 man instances, the strategy employed to defeat a 5 man regardless of the gear our party members were wearing.

It is a shame but it seems this is what people want. Everything turning in to a Raid, even the 5 man, where the objective is not the expereince of going through the dungeon but the loot that it provides.

I cannot see any other reason for Raids, where all DPS chars need to do is click "fireball" over and over, how uttlery boring is that, I would prefer spending my time pricking my eyes with a tooth pick if i am that bored. I have done one 25 man raid and will never do one again.

Maybe with the new cross realm dungoen grouping you will have to take waht you are given, instead of only accepting people with gear that will make the run as easier as possible!!!

If those players are going to put you on ignore, then you are better off. I would put them on ignore also. In fact, I think I will start putting players who LFM with gear checks on ignore. Not everyone is like this, I hope you understand. There are still plenty of decent helpful people playing this game. It seems like a good chunk have become obsessed with gear, but there are still alot of players who play for other reasons such as socialization and roleplaying. Just have to find the right group of folks.