Originally posted by Pappy13

Originally posted by skydragonren

Thanks Skydragonren, I appreciate that.  Now, I'm about to say something you again might not agree with, so don't lose any respect for me, OK? :)

I'm gonna defend Zorn just a little bit and ask people to lay off him now.  Zorn did get a little crazy in this thread, but he has good reason.   You see Zorn has been defending WoW for awhile now in these forums.  In the beginning he was pretty reasonable with his arguments, but over time he's seen more and more attacks that have ranged from over the top to absurd and the in process he's become a bit jaded.

 

there's a big difference between defending a game, and accusing people of things they never did. maybe he's just overly paranoid but that doesn't give him an excuse for seeing things in a post that just aren't there. so far he's accused 2 different people of fraud, conspiracy (to gaming ) and of hacking wow. he has basically tried to interregate them through 17 pages to get them to confess something that is frankly none of his business in the first place.
 

the very least he could do now is appologise for offending these people who were doing nothing more than stating their opinions (especially to vetarnias who had to confess his poverty in not being able to afford the game in the past). although, having known people like zorndorf my whole life, he probably won't appologise for anything and will try and "forget" it ever happened.  

and if we're honest, the only argument he has given to why wow is the greatest game ever is that it has the highest population of any mmo around.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Tx for the resume.

You must agree now that a LOT of WotLK features are NOT the same "old stuff".

Phasing (discussed a LOT on the internet now), Phasing in future project is a revolution - like instances were years ago - .

WoW didn't do it first, they " borrowed" it from LOTR and even lame Runescape has had something like this for awhile.
The RTS elements from WC3 taken over in their MMO (catapults, destructable buildings we all know from WC3),

We also know from Shadowbane and WAR way before WOTLK, and numerous other random Asian mmorpgs have these elements scatterted about. No cookie for originality there.
Daily open world PvP quest - including the lucrative grinding grounds for this.

Wait ..... no, wow will emulate world pvp with a quest? Thats almost as good as the real world pvp wow used to have. Or that UO had or WAR still has or that any number of anonymous mmorgs have had or still have over the inception of mmorpgs. .... lol Lucrative grinding grounds .. lol nice.
Achievements which delivers no longer "gear grinding" in GRADING Raids but

Thats BS, also Achivements are irrelevent for the most part.

far more awards group skills and choice of play other than "do the gear up thing" and just grind.

And more BS.

And don't forget: the very good developped higher talent trees for every class. 61 deep now and still possible to uncover nice new things about the other classes you fight with and aganst.

I think " could have been very good and grossly underdeveloped" would be more accurate.

So saying 'the same old thing does NOT do WotLK design justice.

No but saying "same old thing gone completely wrong" sort of does.

And I think being honest :  the vertical world design itself (Brack calls it that way), is very new.

Yeh Whatever, still waiting on that ( Real ) graphical overhaul Brack, my tauren Druid still looks like crap.

 

I think you got the falling achivement ,on your head  IRL somewhere Zorn.

Damn a few WoW fanbois outnumbered on their own forums.  The 11.5 million is questionable at this point.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by midillusion

Originally posted by Pappy13

 

there's a big difference between defending a game, and accusing people of things they never did. maybe he's just overly paranoid but that doesn't give him an excuse for seeing things in a post that just aren't there. so far he's accused 2 different people of fraud, conspiracy (to gaming ) and of hacking wow. he has basically tried to interregate them through 17 pages to get them to confess something that is frankly none of his business in the first place.
 

the very least he could do now is appologise for offending these people who were doing nothing more than stating their opinions (especially to vetarnias who had to confess his poverty in not being able to afford the game in the past). although, having known people like zorndorf my whole life, he probably won't appologise for anything and will try and "forget" it ever happened.  

and if we're honest, the only argument he has given to why wow is the greatest game ever is that it has the highest population of any mmo around.

I didn't offend ANYBODY. Nice to know I'm not anybody, but then I was not expecting otherwise from you. You can always reread my posts. I never tackle the man. I always question the reasoning behind the things a man says.

Things DID not fit in. That was clear from the start. Anybody who plays a game for 6 weeks and then comes up with conclusions of Raiding, PvP, PVE and "giving advice to some other players about gold and long term planning" has to be taken with a BIG grain of sold.... at level 46. Are you seriously suggesting that once I started playing I did not start reading on such matters as "gold and long term planning"?  Murdyll and his friends, not to mention people in the guild I joined, told me a lot themselves.  The excellent wiki provided the rest.  And as far as giving advice goes, aren't the costs of mounts, since I'm assuming that you are referring to that, rather well-known, even though as a paladin I got mine as a freebie (which is rather unfair to other classes, by the way)? I mean, players turning 30 even get a mail telling them that they can get a mount (with even the cost mentioned, if I recall), just in case they'd somehow miss that.  (Unless of course WoW is best played wearing blinders so that you can concentrate on killing those six whatevers or gathering those twenty whocares -- in which case it's pretty much a single-player game played in parallel, as I said.)  

Just reread the OP. Twice if necessary. Raiding content? I suggest you reread it as well.  The raiding comment you highlighted in a previous post was from the quote by Jonathan Blow. And if you want to get into pointless details, the words "raid", "raider" or "raiding" came three times in my text: One was from the Blow quote.  The second was referring to guild recruitment spam in cities -- and it's damn accurate, based on how I've seen "Naxx" and "Nexus" in particular mentioned to no end.  But I suspect you're intending to nitpick on the third, where I referred to "a fellow raider" in reference to the Sentry Cloak and twinks -- as though there were any chance to get a level-19 item in level-60+ instances (I believe I once said lowbies were useless?).  We were, in fact, in Gnomeregan. And I couldn't care less whether it's called a raid or a dungeon, because when I use the word "raider", I use it in a general sense, as a "dungeon raider", for lack of a better expression coming to mind.  So if you want to nitpick on a point of terminology, I'm just too tired to argue with you, so there you go, your first victory. Enjoy it because it's the last one you'll get from me. And while we're on the subject, ever wondered why there aren't raids below level 60?  What's the point of the first 59 levels then, if not a grind to get to an endgame that others have said is also nonexistent?   Did he do that ? So I saw this and thought well well, let's ask some questions. You've been well-welling your way through these forums (and yes, other sections too) for months.  When are you finally going to be held to account?

And the only things I see are very agressive answers to some very obvious questions. Not as aggressive as yours, I assure you.  Just reread your very first post following my OP, and you'll see what I mean.  My posts don't have this strange leitmotif surrounding the word "vomit". And if obvious questions means those below, wouldn't anyone get annoyed?

So I asked questions: Why play 50 dollars for a battlechest? In other words, you are STILL nitpicking over a difference of ten dollars, even though my initial mention of the amount was just based on memory and approximative at best -- which I'm sure anyone on these forums except you surmised.  Okay, I will subscribe for a minute to your theory that only US dollars mean anything, Mr. Euro.  We're still talking about ten bucks.  You still haven't answered this: Why would I lie about something as insignificant as ten dollars?  But since I insist that as a Canadian I am entitled to giving figures in Canadian Monopoly Money dollars because that's what I know I'm paying, I'd rather have you bickering over the munificent sum of $4.86, which is even more pathetic. And let's issue a gentle reminder here: I only produced my proof of purchase because you directly claimed that I had never paid for the game (see post #142).  Why won't you repeat that accusation now?  Or at least remind people that you once made that accusation?  Oh, but I forget: It's not convenient anymore, and it proves The Great Zorndorfo wrong, so let's just make it vanish.... Why this general conclusion tone because you haven't played 95% of the game? Why the need of a "comrade" who played together but not really "together" It's like I just typed all these words for nothing, you just ignore them.  Murdyll and others often helped me in dungeons despite the level discrepancy.  But it's still one large conspiracy to you, isn't it? Why didn't he play before? So it's the same reasoning again -- but this time aimed at Murdyll as well if I understand?  While we're at it, why didn't entire nomadic African tribes play the game before? Why didn't they level together IF they were playing together. I've addressed that question before.  Scroll up. because the ONLY reason the lvl 78 was brought in was ... to have more credence to his arguments(?)... And why shouldn't I? We're chatting on a regular basis. He played the game even longer that I have.  He saw the flaws.  He read your posts about me. He wanted to comment. It seems that the only reason why he shouldn't have been allowed to post, according to you, is because he was in agreement with me.  Had he been a WoW supporter, oh, fine, guy, go right ahead....

So ...the thing is ... you only read what suits you. You don't read the agressive tone the OP had against me . I was asking VERY obvious questions from aplayer's view. "What you see, yet cannot see over is as good as infinite." -Thomas Carlyle.

And why shouldn't I ask questions if there  are rather odd statements for a lvl 46 player who couldn't see all the things he wrote about.

And yes a lot of the arguments still baffle me. Like the "new" player of Wow who in less than 2 months seems to have an epic flyer at lvl 78. It COULD be possible to do all this as a new player and gubble up that gold in riding lessons also, but that character presented on the armory has too much shown as an alt character. I told you already (post #159, last paragraph): In addition to whatever Murdyll himself had as money, he had two friends to help him buy the epic flying mount, myself included.  I already told you how I made over 2000 Gold, all legally, and that I gave the sum to him.  Seem you just jumped right over that part.  How convenient.

But by all means, produce any "evidence" you might have, instead on falling back on that old "any WoW player would know" argument.  Cards on the table, Zorndorf.

I have far too many Wow years behind me to not see the difference between a main first played character and an alt. I'm trying to follow your implacable logic here.  I post my original comments in January, openly claiming I had left at level 46.  Some posts are made, thread goes dormant for a few weeks. I stop paying attention to the WoW forums to focus on the Darkfall and PotBS sections.  I come back here, see that new posts are made.  I comment on them, which devolves into this entire argument. Then my friend who is level 78 comes here and posts, and now you're accusing him of being my alt?  

If that summary is accurate, ask yourself this: If that is indeed the case, why didn't I state in my original post that I had levelled up to 78, thereby giving more weight to ALL my arguments, instead of falling back on a level 46 "alt" to make my points?  Try to answer that one. Unless of course you're saying that the level 78 is the alt of someone else -- in which case the important words would be SOMEONE ELSE, a direct refutation of your original accusation that Murdyll was my alt.  Whose alt then is a completely moot question as long as it isn't mine. And I assure you, that level 78 is Murdyll's main character and his highest in level.

Asking questions about people hating the game I love is obvious. Ah yes, "hating".

The agressive tone of answers did not come from me. Let the record stand to let readers judge for themselves.

---------

The usual guy defending Wow in the Wow forum is not taking this as a personal attack, but the agression of the OP against fans who ask obvious questions - because some of the lvl 46 arguments didn't seem to fit - says a LOT to me. This isn't the WoW forum, in that it has no affiliation with World of Warcraft or Actiblizzard.  Furthermore, you are not a moderator here.  You do not get to dictate who can and who cannot post in the WoW section of this forum.  If anything, you have already stated that you distrust MMORPG for being a bastion of WoW hate, exemplified in your mind by that *utterly meaningless* internet poll about the best MMO of 2008 which LOTRO won against the wishes of 11.5 million. You have in the past accused MMORPG readers in general of being elitists, and have bickered over WoW being #21 here. I'll just say this old piece of advice: If you're not happy with the moderating on these forums that lets people critical of the game like me post here, start your own forums.

 

Originally posted by Zorndorf

I'll stop the discussion right here.

Because every time the OP posts he puts himself even into more trouble.

Now his friend (virgin player of Wow) could do the 2 months epic flyer tric because he "loaned the money" from two more friends.

Including YOU, who and I quote " had gathered myself 2000(!) Gold" ...  This all .... in 6 weeks time as a leveling LVL 46(!)?

EVERY Wow player will no doubt have BIG question marks over this latest statement. Pappy?

Anyway must be hard to the friends of your lvl 78 friend he didn't pay back.....

Perhaps ... they all stopped and are posting on mmorpg.com now.

PS. This IS a Wow forum btw and I'd like Wow forums to be used to discuss constructive things about the game.

And I'd like to keep it that way. Enough of those "mountain climbers of Mount Everest saying the mountain is dull and no challenge" with 800 meters climbing experience... because "friends and other suspect litterature" say it also.

Have a nice day and play some other game... Instead of getting into more troublesome "excuses" to fill in the holes of the "theories".

 

We're not the ones developing holed "theories". I paid back the one other friend I borrowed gold from, and as Vetarnias had already had enough of the game by this time, I didn't have a reason to pay back his 2000g. As you seem to think you represent EVERY WoW player, you should realise that the remaining gold I needed to raise can be easily achieved by quest grinding in Northrend, and by successful use of the Auction House (As a Leatherworker/Skinner I managed to find a fair few Arctic Furs, and also made a tidy sum by selling the LW-made boots during Winter Veil)

Also, I feel I should point out that despite it's flaws, I still found WoW to be an enjoyable game. I just have a tendency to get bored of games fairly fast, and I guess WoW didn't get it's addictive claws into me. Once again, you're seeing a conspiracy that doesn't exist. Just lighten up.

Originally posted by Vetarnias

I picked up World of Warcraft (Battle Chest edition) in late November, and did not buy the Wrath of the Lich King expansion because it was indicated to me that it was completely useless below level 55. It was just as well that I did not buy it, because I only made it to level 46 before I tired of the game. Perhaps my less than positive view of WoW is a result of my blasé attitude, as these past twelve months I gravitated from (to limit the list to subscription-based games) Pirates of the Burning Sea (five months), to Age of Conan (six weeks), to Warhammer Online (a week), and finally to Blizzard's cash cow in late November. Six weeks later, I've had enough of World of Warcraft.

I don't think I have seen a game that led to such polarized views, with WoW fans on one side who hope that their game will last forever (it won't), and the haters on the other side who apparently not only despise the philosophy of the game but also its impact on the industry, where WoW clones have become the norm. While I am skeptical of gamers who would turn the clock back to the "good old days" of pre-Trammel UO, I think they are right when they claim that WoW is a poor example of an MMO, closer as it is to a single-player game which many people play simultaneously than to a genuine MMORPG in the traditional sense of the word.

The game world, for instance, is very polished but has no depth; whatever you do in it will have no impact upon the dynamics of said game universe. As I played on a PvP server, I always found it ironic that we should have "contested" areas which would never in fact switch from one side to the other. The player's part in this? Kill a few NPC's and enemy players, but nothing more -- Tarren Mill and Southshore will always remain Horde and Alliance towns, respectively, regardless of how many enemy players overrun them on a regular basis. This gets old, very quickly -- and the static world changes absolutely nothing on an unbalanced PvP server.

Not to mention that the open-world PvP in those so-called contested areas is a misnomer. When it's not a level- or number-based gankfest, the PvP is back to the same annoying "tactics" I have come to expect in every game out there -- kiting, running in circles, stealth and waiting until the opponent is half-dead from NPC encounters comes to mind. In other words, I find that PvP in gaming has deteriorated into a series of clichés, with WoW leading the way not because it has given birth to such tactics, but because it has made them notorious.

This wouldn't be so bad if the game did not also force me to play a certain way instead of being genuinely free to build my class as I see fit. I played a Blood Elf paladin, and when it comes to "pallys" the word was out that "Retribution" was the best build available. And the word being out was, for once, correct: Just reading the description of the various "skills", it was apparent that the Retribution build was vastly superior to the other two, with its various bonuses to offense and other perks (including faster mount speed). But there was a hitch: I did not want to play a Retribution paladin. I have always been a sword-and-shield type of player, preferring to go for tanking and relying on priests and ranged attackers for support -- and the build for it was Protection, not Retribution (which instead gives advantages to two-handed weapons). However, due to the genuine superiority of the Retribution build, I was placing myself at a disadvantage simply for not selecting it.

I would even be prepared to disregard this if it weren't for the ludicrous level imbalances in the game. It so happens that I can hit an enemy NPC five levels above me with great difficulty, and that one higher by a margin of six levels or more almost always means certain death. Even equipment is ludicrously unbalanced. The basic defense bonus for a level-80 cape, for instance, is higher than for a level-5 chest armor, and that's not even taking into account the bonus it gives to other statistics; just try to imagine this in real life. All in all, I will say that as far as treadmill games are concerned, this is the worst I have played; not to mention that with new levels added on top by each expansion, it makes the exercise even more painful. But what a brilliant idea Blizzard had to make this game both level- and gear-based; when you've finally reached 60, then 70, then 80, begins the quest for epic gear in dungeons. And by the time you've obtained the best gear you could ever get, well, the next expansion will probably be out to make you step on the treadmill again before you could relish being king of the (pointless) hill.

This is so transparent as to be infuriating; on a PvP server, it all but forces you to buy every new expansion or be condemned to loser status. I can't say I even have a choice when it comes to deciding whether I want the expansions or not -- because a 10-level difference or more inevitably means certain death. (To add insult to injury, you can't even see how much of an unbalanced gank that is if the other player is much higher than you.) Add on top of this an unhealthy dose of ego-stroking instant-gratification, supplemented by the unhealthy amount of derision for low-level players built into the game thanks to the level treadmill (or as I like to put it, "your gear is the best in the world... until next level, where it's obsolete and where you suck if you keep it"), and you get a highly questionable game. Worse still, even professions such as fishing and cooking have been pegged to level progression -- even if you wanted to be an artisan fisherman, you couldn't do it without first levelling to 45. Maybe I would just like to cast my line without being sent on a run-of-the-mill "Kill X This, Fetch Y that" quest.

Jonathan Blow, the maker of Braid (which I haven't played), made headlines when he called World of Warcraft "unethical". There was much whining in some circles about his comment, but he's right. In his words: "When you play World of Warcraft -- and what I'm about to say is a generalization, since different players enjoy different things, obviously -- a lot of the appeal of playing World of Warcraft is not in the core gameplay mechanic, because it's boring, a lot of the time. Sometimes when you're on a really good raid with a team and you're getting teamwork going and that's a close call, that can be exciting, but if you graph out what players are doing over the average 12-hour play session or whatever... That's obviously hyperbole, but if you're looking at what activities they're actually performing, there's not that much good gameplay in there. I think what keeps them in there is, at first, the level ding, because it's very addictive to get that. "Okay, I've got more gold. Whatever." And eventually, they've made this huge time investment and they've got a character there and they know what that level ding feels like and the next one is pretty far off, but they can get there! And it's not any better, because this is like number 67. It's got to be better than 66!"

In other words: The most boring journey possible to reach your destination, the last level until the next expansion. But what destination are we talking about anyway? Well, in one word: nowhere. You just start to grind for gear instead of levels on the endless treadmill of WoW. Just hang around your average city, and you will see those guilds recruiting, asking specifically for level-80's, and sometimes for specific classes. And if you get in, it becomes a job. You *must* be available to do the raid at this or that time. Sometimes they even ask that you be properly geared before they let you in, starting a vicious elitist circle that never really ends.

Once more in the words of Jonathan Blow: "World of Warcraft says: You are a schlub who has nothing better to do than sit around performing repetitive, mindless actions. Skill and shrewdness do not count for much; what matters is how much time you sink in. You don't need to do anything exceptional, because to feel good you just need to run the treadmill like everyone else." When people complain about WoW only requiring time of its players, not skill, this is what they are talking about. Someone once commented on an ad for WoW that went "Come join 8 million heroes!" by asking, "Suddenly every single player is automatically a hero?" A valid concern. What makes a hero? Logging in? And if everyone's a hero, what sort of game does that lead to? Well, a game where nobody can have an impact upon the world, because everyone must have the opportunity to be as heroic as the next guy -- if you wish, a single-player game played in parallel, not an MMO. It's not only hypocritical -- equality of outcome is impossible -- it's also contrary to the general philosophy of a level- and gear-based game where some are more heroic than others by virtue of having put in more grind-hours to get to a higher point.

I talked above how instant gratification permeated every aspect of the game, and it's reflected in the type of players the game is attracting: many "serious" people who treat it as a second job, but many kids who come in and behave like spoiled brats. I was constantly being begged for money, and one case in particular stands out in my mind. I was extremely well to do (as a result of selling vast quantities of one item, at 1 gold apiece or so, which most people probably knew that anyone could obtain by killing level-5 monsters wouldn't be bothered to do -- in other words, my fortune came from other players' laziness), and in later stages, when being asked for money, I sometimes gave one gold or two to lowbies to help them along. One such player, level 23ish, asked me for 20 gold, which in a moment of complete indifference I gave him, with the piece of advice that he should keep the amount to buy a mount at level 30.

The next time I heard from him, he had spent all the money I had given him, long before level 30. Worse still, he candidly admitted that he had obtained no less than 450 gold just by begging -- and he had spent it all. His answer when I asked him whether he thought begging was honourable? "Yes..." And what could have a level-25 player have spent 450 gold on, may you ask? He showed me an uncommon-quality level-24 cape, which he said he had bought for 100 gold. He had been ripped off, I told him. Then he showed me his sword, a rare-quality level 19 item he said he had bought for 90 gold. In that case, I knew that it was that twinking business which was ripping off every bona fide levelling player looking for better gear that was to blame, not the begging player's gullibility.

I learned about the twinking business by accident. I had once obtained a level-19 Sentry Cloak in a dungeon, which a fellow raider told me was worth 180 gold on the auctionhouse. Not knowing about twinks, I asked him what could possibly justify such a price. Twinks... An entire industry of alts dedicated to the purpose of not levelling, with their entire gear bought at high prices by their high-level owners, thus proving the gear-is-king mantra and the unethical conduct of players themselves. I sold that Sentry Cloak for 180 gold, because I knew that if I put in a price which I judged reasonable, one of the numerous auctionhouse stalkers (such as those selling back cheap recipes at outrageous prices) would grab it and immediately repost it at a more fitting price. The level-19 players looking for the best gear to level up based on what they could afford, well, they never had a chance.

On top of that, there is the pointless economy which is entirely dedicated to levelling up crafting skills at the expense of rewarding craftsmanship resulting from such levelling-up in the first place. On the server I played, a stack of 20 bars of mithril could fetch 30 gold, while any piece of armor made of a dozen mithril bars would barely fetch 5 gold because it would have to compete with open world loot, while being inferior to some bind-on-pickup equipment from quests and dungeons. Not to mention that all the items you were forced to craft would end up flooding the market because there is no way to get rid of them at a decent price. Then hurdles would be placed for those seeking to level up by requiring increasingly arcane ingredients for which no justification could possibly be satisfactory in otherwise straightforward recipes; perhaps it was essential to place those pearls and moonstones on that shining silver breastplate, but why did higher blacksmithing recipes invariably require ichors of this, breezes of that? What does it have to do with the craft of blacksmithing? Isn't magical stuff what enchanters should be doing? (I won't even discuss armorsmith recipes producing items which only other armorsmiths can wear; what a way to nip demand in the bud.) End result: Crafters hawk their skill in major cities in a desperate attempt to level up without having to go grind for all those ichors and breezes -- or grind for the money to buy them.

I have already written far more than I should have, because I know this will either be laughed off, met with a few "can I have your stuff?", or issued a few reminders that 11 million players can't be wrong. Let's just hope that the MMO industry can survive the WoW juggernaut; unfortunately, when every new game, including niche titles such as Pirates of the Burning Sea, get compared to WoW to demonstrate they're not doing well, it is to be feared that the genre has been killed off.

Who knows, maybe Blizzard's "More of the Same" approach to expansions will kill the game in the same fashion as adding new floors to a skyscraper might ruin its appearance or weaken its foundations. But I certainly hope that enough players will tire of the obvious WoW treadmill to ask for different types of games without having to leave it to Blizzard to wreck their own game with their greed.

VERY well said. I totally agree with every word of this thoughtful and well written post. The maximum level I have ever reached in the game also happens to be level 46 oddly enough. This was several years ago. The endless repetition and boredom made it too painful to continue. Recently I tried again......basicly because I was mmo hopping just like the OP (lets face it all of them are a load of shit really). I got to level 28 with a Warlock and then just couldnt be bothered with the tedium again. Why did I think it would be different? lol. I guess its just because like many I have this craving to play a character in a persistent online world and yet unfortunately all of them are just braindead crap that are designed for retards.

The fact that the gameworld is COMPLETELY unchangeable by the players actions is also a massive turn off for me......but then every PvE themepark mmo is like this unfortunately. I'm currently playing wanky old Vanguard and as usual with these games I was enjoying it at first but now I have hit the same brick wall I always hit with these games. Its the utter futility of it all. There I am grinding my way through one monotonous quest after another, every one of which is basicly the same as the last one except for a different piece of text attached to it. I might have to kill mosnters or click on objects that look different but its all the bloody same all the way through. I look around at all the other players doing exactly the same stuff as me like a swarm of mindless addicted robots. No effort or thought is required at all in any of these games. Like the OP said these mmos simply require your time. It doesnt matter if you are 5 years old or 50......you will all have exactly the same experience regardless.

Also because of the way these games are designed I feel absolutely no desire to talk to any of the players for the purposes of playing the game. There is no reason to other than to have company to help stave of the boredom......and I'm just not interested in typing "L16 Warr LFG" just to get some random guy say "Yeah sure what quest you doing?" and who then turns out to be a complete wanker anyway. I generally just grind away on my own while chatting to people in the general chat channel in an attempt to persuade myself that I am having fun. I was fortunate however in this game because early in the game I encountered an interesting player who challenged me to a duel. We ended up becoming travelling companions due the amusing in-character banter we got into. This made the game more amusing for a while. However because this game (like all of them) is nothing more than a badly programmed single player game in multiplayer co-op mode with poor controls (compared to an actual single player game) that resets itself instantly once you complete a quest or kill a monster (eg npc villain dies and then 1 minute later he is back again ready for the next player to kill him again) even our amusing banter can no longer mask what is an incredibly shit game.

Sorry I'm talking about Vanguard here when the post is about WoW. However it all applies to both games as they both follow the same simple format. People go on so much about how these games have so much lore but really.......who fucking cares when its all wasted on a shit game that cant actually express that lore? Great so the devs have spent ages typing a story into a database and then feeding it to the players via quest text that they cant even interact with and can only read like a badly written online book. Where is the gameplay? Oh yeah thats right mmos dont need to have gameplay in them because they're "roleplaying" games. Sorry but I'm sure I remember playing some pretty good rpgs in the past where I could actually DO things so why is it that all the online ones happen to be complete bullshit?

Why is it that mmos have to be so static and lifeless? Why cant devs realise that porting single player games onto the internet is bollocks? Having thousands of people playing a single player game is stupid. If its online then players should have objectives that can be achieved. Instead because these single player games cant actually be effected (worlds frozen in time) we end up with players doing the only thing the game allows......level grinding. Upgrading their own avatar in other words.

Ahh well. I still hold out hope that mmos will one day actually be REAL massively multiplayer gaming environments where players actions actually matter and people actually have real choices that mean something and perhaps require a certain level of thought. Or maybe my standards are just too high and I'm just being too optimistic. Perhaps devs will always churn single player co-op online games for the addicted braindead hordes as its certainly what most people seem to expext and they are obviously a lot more simple to make. CCP seems to be the only games company that can make an mmo that actually takes advantage of the online aspect.

zorndorf, whether you meant to offend them or not, they were offended by the things you wrote. if you hurt someone in the street by accidentally knocking them over, you don't just walk on, you appologise to them. the same thing applies here.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

I'll stop the discussion right here.

Because every time the OP posts he puts himself even into more trouble.

Now his friend (virgin player of Wow) could do the 2 months epic flyer tric because he "loaned the money" from two more friends.

WRONG. I never used the word "loan" or "lend", because  I GAVE Murdyll the gold.  Since you won't bother checking what I wrote two days ago about this (post #159, posted on the 24th, which you will note has not been edited after I posted it), I'll just repost it here.  I'll even underline the appropriate words for your convenience:

"Murdyll could afford an epic flying mount because I gave him the money to buy it, over 2000 gold of my own. Before you go off saying I'm a filthy gold buyer, I actually ground for hours to accumulate that sum. How? During the Christmas holidays (aka Winter Veil), eggs and gingerbread cookies were in high demand to complete a seasonal quest. So I went outside of Silvermoon City and killed dragonhawk hatchlings for hours and hours and hours. The small eggs usually sold at 1 gold apiece. That gives you an idea of how long that took, but I did it honestly. No bot, no gold buying. And since I had no real use for this kind of money at level 46, I donated it all to Murdyll, and he apparently had someone else to help him buy the epic mount as well.."

Including YOU, who and I quote " had gathered myself 2000(!) Gold" ...  This all .... in 6 weeks time as a leveling LVL 46(!)?

Didn't I say that one of my main interests was the economy? I gathered all that over Winter Veil by selling small eggs harvested from level 5-6 creatures (you know, just outside of Silvermoon City?). I decided that I was to make the same repetitive action over and over again, I'd sooner make it to earn some money on the auction house instead of just grinding mobs to level up which is just as boring and even more time-consuming. I even preferred to waste time fishing than grinding mobs for levelling up -- and if you don't believe me, just check the Armory.

Or are you in fact suggesting that I'm a liar and botted my way through? Again the same accusations that you've been throwing at me from the start -- which stopped being about game mechanics or anything else a long time ago.

Or is it jealousy fuelling your own arguments, perhaps because you DON'T have an epic flying mount?

EVERY Wow player will no doubt have BIG question marks over this latest statement. Pappy?

Anyway must be hard to the friends of your lvl 78 friend he didn't pay back.....

Just read above, will you? At no point was I expecting him to pay me back. So now you're saying, after you claimed that Murdyll was my alt, after you said that he colluded with me to post on here, that Murdyll and I are no longer on speaking terms because of your made-up debt of 2000 gold?

Perhaps ... they all stopped and are posting on mmorpg.com now.

 

PS. This IS a Wow forum btw and I'd like Wow forums to be used to discuss constructive things about the game.

Then you should definitely stroll over to the Pirates of the Burning Sea forum section. The nays have it three to one there, but we get along rather well in our small group, when we bother posting. I'm not saying it's always pleasant, but at least there's no wholesale effort to cleanse it of all traces of negativity, as you are doing with "your" forums.  And for a final time, if you're intent on making this kind of argument, keep off the Warhammer Online forum section.  Otherwise, it's just the pot calling the kettle black, y'know?  In particular, I will always cherish that thread you started there calling WAR a "joke" and a "laughing stock" in the EU less than three months after release -- not even fulfilling your own criterion for claiming to be a player of a game (six months to a year).

And I'd like to keep it that way. Enough of those "mountain climbers of Mount Everest saying the mountain is dull and no challenge" with 800 meters climbing experience... because "friends and other suspect litterature" say it also.

Have a nice day and play some other game... Instead of getting into more troublesome "excuses" to fill in the holes of the "theories".

 Enjoy wasting your dwindling years on a video game, nobody's stopping you. I myself would prefer to be doing something else, though.

And if I may add: I have been patient.  I have answered all that Zorndorf has ever bothered to ask.  But it is all falling on deaf ears, and instead he has taken to questioning my integrity as a gamer:

• First, by suggesting that I did not pay for the game, then claiming I had misled the board by posting an amount of money in Canadian dollars;
• Second, by accusing me of using alt accounts on this forum to justify my own points.
• Third, by suggesting I in fact used a bot in the game, or bought gold, or whatever because I'm not too sure what he is accusing me of here.
• And overall, by disregarding every point I have made, either to answer his accusations or to offer clarifications.

And after I bothered to point out what I said earlier, he not only distorted what I said but also started to look for cracks between what he had forced me to repeat and what I had said the first time (same thing with Murdyll).  He also repeatedly refused to apologize where he had been proved wrong, and instead persevered in his quest to defame me in this thread by just moving on to something else.

His reasoning, in other words, has been intellectually dishonest from the beginning (though one could be tempted to drop the word "intellectual" from the phrase).

So I reiterate my earlier request:

That Zorndorf be banned for what he has posted here, and for the rest of his posting history, which I urge the MMORPG moderators to read for themselves.

As I pointed out before, this is not an attack against World of Warcraft or its players, or other posters here.  It is a conclusion which I am forced to reach in regard to this particular individual.  The World of Warcraft community will lose nothing from cutting loose such arrogant and vindictive bullies from their midst, and may in fact gain a much healthier debating climate amongst themselves.  Let the Zorndorfs of the world find somewhere else to fan the flames of hatred against WoW -- which, unfortunately, has been his SOLE contribution to these forums.

Regardless of the technology, phasing is only an illusion. You still have no impact on the game world, there's just more special effects added to playing out the story Blizzard wants you to play out. By the end of the game, everyone's experienced the same thing.

the only way to break out of the "static" world is to do what Anet did with Guildwars, and instance everything apart from the towns and outposts. the problem with that is that in the PvE, you have to follow the campaign in order to see the parts of the game.

Originally posted by midillusion

the only way to break out of the "static" world is to do what Anet did with Guildwars, and instance everything apart from the towns and outposts. the problem with that is that in the PvE, you have to follow the campaign in order to see the parts of the game.

The problem with over-instancing, though, is that it might just turn a game into a single-player (or small group) experience. It begins to be a problem if you want to add meaningful RvR on top of it.

I'm always tempted to discuss Pirates of the Burning Sea as an example.  Everything except cities and the open sea map in that game was instanced -- missions, open-sea battles, port battles.  In the case of that game, instancing was brought in to solve another problem, that of a miniscule map that took 45 minutes at most to sail across. 

The small map ruined other aspects of the game (such as, for instance, being a long-distance trader), and the instancing for PvP basically ensured the formation of "gank squads", groups of 6 players that would often play tricks by keeping a few of their members in the closest port, appearing to be a much smaller group than they were. Once the other side had attacked them, thinking they were two or three ships, the rest of the group would jump in the instance. (And I'll just mention in passing PotBS's very brief attempt to solve ganking by giving the defenders -- and the defenders only -- the possibility of having 9 ships to the attackers' 6; that became known as the "supergank".)

I'm just thinking of the many squandered possibilities as a result of that instancing.  PotBS could have been a great game without it.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by midillusion

the only way to break out of the "static" world is to do what Anet did with Guildwars, and instance everything apart from the towns and outposts. the problem with that is that in the PvE, you have to follow the campaign in order to see the parts of the game.

http://www.massively.com/2009/02/23/mmogology-phasing-phwns-the-phuture/

Yes but if you read the article (and had the in game experience) you know that there are NO loading screens involved and the game gets to another time dimension for those doing the quests... at the same "coordinates".

Like the man in the article said: quite an evolution. LotRO only had one instanced (loading) introduction scene at level 5. but this stuff happens in mid game and numurous times in the end game.

You "conquer" the territory on the Lich King, step by step and what used to be an enemy base is now a friendly base with even new constructed buildings and HQ etc ... (but only for the guys doing the chained adventures).

See it like point A <<<> B >>>>>< C >>>>>< D, but each point has at least two different "dimensions".

Of course it shows Blizzard is experimenting with it. And the techniques are NOT that easy (taking care of player interactions etc)...

The next patch 3.1 is already on the PTR and it involves the whole server to build a Colloseum - step by step. That colloseum in itself will be the feature on the 3.2 content patch (they say it is a place to hold tournaments for the Crusaders etc ...).

So the game is no longer static - per se -.

Exactly like, oh say... A single-player game with a co-op aspect?

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Murdyll

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by midillusion

the only way to break out of the "static" world is to do what Anet did with Guildwars, and instance everything apart from the towns and outposts. the problem with that is that in the PvE, you have to follow the campaign in order to see the parts of the game.

http://www.massively.com/2009/02/23/mmogology-phasing-phwns-the-phuture/

Yes but if you read the article (and had the in game experience) you know that there are NO loading screens involved and the game gets to another time dimension for those doing the quests... at the same "coordinates".

Like the man in the article said: quite an evolution. LotRO only had one instanced (loading) introduction scene at level 5. but this stuff happens in mid game and numurous times in the end game.

You "conquer" the territory on the Lich King, step by step and what used to be an enemy base is now a friendly base with even new constructed buildings and HQ etc ... (but only for the guys doing the chained adventures).

See it like point A <<<> B >>>>>< C >>>>>< D, but each point has at least two different "dimensions".

Of course it shows Blizzard is experimenting with it. And the techniques are NOT that easy (taking care of player interactions etc)...

The next patch 3.1 is already on the PTR and it involves the whole server to build a Colloseum - step by step. That colloseum in itself will be the feature on the 3.2 content patch (they say it is a place to hold tournaments for the Crusaders etc ...).

So the game is no longer static - per se -.

Exactly like, oh say... A single-player game with a co-op aspect?

 

Yep, but with the advantage that around you are players instead of NPC potatoes.

So you choose: be the hero between potatoes or between players who co-op with you and conquer territory on the enemy IN the gaming world without resorting to the "old meaning of instances".

 

 

But those that give you quests, that you fight, that you inevitably reign victorious over, THEY'RE still potatoes. That huge quest chain ending in the Angrathar cinematic? Where were you during the cinematic? Watching. Watching while Blizzard's carefully planted potatoes did their thing. It's just a seamless method of instancing.

What you're basically saying is that if you had a single player game with a large enough co-op server, you'd get World of Warcraft.

Originally posted by Vetarnias

Originally posted by midillusion

the only way to break out of the "static" world is to do what Anet did with Guildwars, and instance everything apart from the towns and outposts. the problem with that is that in the PvE, you have to follow the campaign in order to see the parts of the game.

The problem with over-instancing, though, is that it might just turn a game into a single-player (or small group) experience. It begins to be a problem if you want to add meaningful RvR on top of it.

that's the problem Guild wars has now. the PvE areas (the towns, etc) are almost deserted. Anet added in henchmen which are basically AI companions so you can do the whole PvE campaign all on your own. thats why almost everyone just does PvP.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Vetarnias

Originally posted by midillusion

the only way to break out of the "static" world is to do what Anet did with Guildwars, and instance everything apart from the towns and outposts. the problem with that is that in the PvE, you have to follow the campaign in order to see the parts of the game.

The problem with over-instancing, though, is that it might just turn a game into a single-player (or small group) experience. It begins to be a problem if you want to add meaningful RvR on top of it.

I'm always tempted to discuss Pirates of the Burning Sea as an example.  Everything except cities and the open sea map in that game was instanced -- missions, open-sea battles, port battles.  In the case of that game, instancing was brought in to solve another problem, that of a miniscule map that took 45 minutes at most to sail across. 

The small map ruined other aspects of the game (such as, for instance, being a long-distance trader), and the instancing for PvP basically ensured the formation of "gank squads", groups of 6 players that would often play tricks by keeping a few of their members in the closest port, appearing to be a much smaller group than they were. Once the other side had attacked them, thinking they were two or three ships, the rest of the group would jump in the instance. (And I'll just mention in passing PotBS's very brief attempt to solve ganking by giving the defenders -- and the defenders only -- the possibility of having 9 ships to the attackers' 6; that became known as the "supergank".)

I'm just thinking of the many squandered possibilities as a result of that instancing.  PotBS could have been a great game without it.

 

It shows you didn't experience phasing.

This is the WORLD map that changes, not some instance. And NO loading screens either.

Indeed hard to grasp perhaps for a lvl 46, but the enemy base CHANGES to a base YOU control in WotLK ' s world quests.

Advancing step by step into the territory of the Lich King. Making changes to the WORLD you adventure in, NOT to the guy who didn't do the quest line !

BEFORE commenting read the url first.

 

My post was specifically referring PotBS and made no mention of WoW or even "phasing". To me, your definition of phasing just sounded like a larger instance; we are not talking about a physically cohesive world where everyone on any given server shares the same reality at the same time.

Regardless of the name it's given, I think it's a step back from "sandbox" MMO's which I would prefer, where the world is the same for everybody, and where player actions have an impact on the entirety of the world, i.e. the entire server, and which aren't limited to a series of predetermined scenarios.

What Blizzard is giving you is an impression of change. All sandbox games will have parameters, true, but in the case of WoW, whether you call it "instancing" or "phasing", Blizzard remains fully in charge of what happens in its world, whether it's outcome A, B, C or D.  And that doesn't interest me.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

I'll stop the discussion right here.

Because every time the OP posts he puts himself even into more trouble.

Now his friend (virgin player of Wow) could do the 2 months epic flyer tric because he "loaned the money" from two more friends.

Including YOU, who and I quote " had gathered myself 2000(!) Gold" ...  This all .... in 6 weeks time as a leveling LVL 46(!)?

EVERY Wow player will no doubt have BIG question marks over this latest statement. Pappy? 

I must say I agree with Zorn here that it does seem a bit odd that you would have 2000 gold to give away in 6 weeks while leveling up to 46.  I'm not saying it's necessarily impossible, but it seems pretty unlikely.

However I must say that I think gaining enough gold for an epic mount is quite easy these days if you know what you are doing and here's where I think the argument that the economy is screwed is simply wrong.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with the economy at all.  The economy is the way it is because gold is simply very easy to come by if you are willing to do a little work.  And why is gold so easy to come by in the first place?  Well I'll tell you, it wasn't always like that.  In the beginning having a couple hundred gold meant you were rich.  I can remember scraping together the gold to get my very first riding mount and it being difficult.  So what happened?

What happened were gold sellers.  Gold sellers realized that WoW was a gold mine pardon the pun.  They started making a killing off of WoW and Blizzard noticed.  Blizzard didn't like the idea that someone else might be profitting from their hard work, so they went to work combatting the gold sellers.  And what's the best way to stop people from buying gold?  Simply make gold easier to come by in game.  But just making gold easier to come by in game would also destroy the economy unless there were some ways added to remove that gold as well.  But you don't just want the price of everything to go up, rather you want the price of luxury items to go up while the cost of your average items stays the same.  Hence Epic flying mounts were created.  5000 gold was intended to be a very high amount from the start because you see you don't need an epic flying mount to play the game, it's a luxury and as such it's taxed accordingly.  The same is true of very valuable low level items that the twinks all want.  They are luxury items.  You don't need them to play the game, you only need them if you want to gain an advantage in PvP.  But anyone can go out to the auction house and find a ton of decent equipment for as little as 1 or 2 gold.  Equipment that is good enough to get you through you current level and on to the next level.  So the average price of equipment is quite low, it's only the luxury items that are expensive.  That's a healthy economy.  That's exactly how it should be.

Now I agree with you that crafting is/was borked in WoW, but not because of the reasons you have suggested.  I couldn't care less that 90% of what you make is fairly worthless and only used to level up your profession, because that's not where the payoff is.  The payoff comes when you level up enough to be able to make something useful and obtain a pattern for that item.  And the fact that the ingredients to making many of the items that you get for free (you learn just by choosing the profession) is more expensive than the item can be sold for only applies to those items.  The truly useful items which usually require a dropped pattern are usually more expensive than the ingriedients themselves and sometimes far more expensive.  This makes some sense.  If everything that you could make simply by learning the profession were valuable, then there would simply be no need for dropped items, because everyone would be running around in crafted items because everyone would have the pattern.  The idea is that only by going out and obtaining those sought after patterns do you find your profession to be something of use.  And the only reason that mithril bars and the like are so expensive is because people are lazy.  People don't want to go out and find the resources on their own, they would rather buy the resources off the AH.  That's fine.  That's called supply and demand.  If the demand is large enough, the price will go up, but only to a certain point.  At some point the prices get too high and people go out and find the resources rather than pay the high price.

Where they screwed the pooch for professions in my opinion is bind on pick-up patterns.  Now you are forcing Mages to pick tailoring as a profession because what good does it do for a mage to be able to make a superior mail item that's bind on pickup?  It's worthless.  That was a huge mistake on Blizzards part and I've told them about it on a number of occasions.  Bind on pick-up patterns are the stupidest thing that Blizzard has done with WoW.  The other big problem was that they made it impossible for enchanters to sell their stuff on the AH.  That problem was fixed recently after much complaining on the forums about it.  Personally I didn't really have a big problem with not being able to sell my enchants on the AH, but I wanted to be able to enchant my own alts gear.  I have 10 toons and 1 enchanter.  He should be able to enchant all the stuff for all of my toons and now he can, but in the past he couldn't.  That was an oversite on Blizz's part as well.  It's been fixed, but it took them 4 years to fix it which was the 2nd biggest problem I had with the game.

Well I have to say 2000 gold pre level 46 is far from impossible. There are two ways I would make gold level 30+ one was Mithril farming and the other was Elemental farming. Now on average depending on server, you figure what about 5 goldish per elemental and extreme lows to high on the mithril usually 28 to much higher on  weekends. Now if he does nothing but farm all week and sells on Friday/Saturday at roughly 50 gold per stack of 10 then sells some mithril and wool it's not impossible.

Originally posted by Mwaji

Well I have to say 2000 gold pre level 46 is far from impossible. There are two ways I would make gold level 30+ one was Mithril farming and the other was Elemental farming. Now on average depending on server, you figure what about 5 goldish per elemental and extreme lows to high on the mithril usually 28 to much higher on  weekends. Now if he does nothing but farm all week and sells on Friday/Saturday at roughly 50 gold per stack of 10 then sells some mithril and wool it's not impossible.

Now please tell me where that leaves time to actually level up?  Sure if you spent 6 weeks doing nothing but farming and selling on the AH and didn't spend a dime of it, then 2000 gold is a piece of cake.  But that's not what he said he did.  He said he spent 6 weeks leveling up to 46 and made 2000 gold in the process.  That's not quite the same thing.

Edit:  I just went back and read thru again as to how he said he made the 2000 gold and it does seem plausible.  He must have spent a good long time farming eggs.  According to him he was selling the eggs for around a gold a piece.  I don't know what's more surprising, that he actually took the time to farm 2000 eggs or that people bought all 2000 of them off the AH since I believe you only needed 5 for the winter Veil quest.

But all of this is really not important anyway and getting away from the whole point of the thread in the first place.  I only responded to what Zorn had said since he did ask for my opinion on it and I tended to agree with him on that, but it really has very little to do with the original topic.  I think both Zorn and Vetarnias need to take a deep breath, agree to disagree and let it go now.  It's going nowhere fast and not winning either of them any points anymore.

Originally posted by Pappy13

Originally posted by Mwaji

Well I have to say 2000 gold pre level 46 is far from impossible. There are two ways I would make gold level 30+ one was Mithril farming and the other was Elemental farming. Now on average depending on server, you figure what about 5 goldish per elemental and extreme lows to high on the mithril usually 28 to much higher on  weekends. Now if he does nothing but farm all week and sells on Friday/Saturday at roughly 50 gold per stack of 10 then sells some mithril and wool it's not impossible.

 

Now please tell me where that leaves time to actually level up?  Sure if you spent 6 weeks doing nothing but farming and selling on the AH and didn't spent a dime of it, then 2000 gold is a piece of cake.  But that's not what he said he did.  He said he spent 6 weeks leveling up to 46 and made 2000 gold in the process.  That's not quite the same thing.

Well assuming your saving your gold and not AH buying EQ you can farm linen and wool and low level ore while you level to about 20+ You can start on Mithril after youve trained up the mining to do it you can gather mithril by doing the 20+ quests in Stonetalon since its one of a few places to gather Mithril ore that low level. You can then start on the STV quests which leads you to ...............drumbeat, more mithril deposits, do this while getting ganked and doing the kill the stupid critter quests over there, in a few levels you can hit the Elementals in STV and kill them til your hearts content.  Then theres another mithril area in Arathi Highlands near the pirates quests. And on your way back to town,..... you kill the elementals. Also spending a few hours a day or so after leveling to farm will do wonders for your gold intake.

It takes 6 weeks if you suck.

Quck edit: the STV elementals have a better drop rate, theres just more of them.

Originally posted by Mwaji

Originally posted by Pappy13

Originally posted by Mwaji

Well I have to say 2000 gold pre level 46 is far from impossible. There are two ways I would make gold level 30+ one was Mithril farming and the other was Elemental farming. Now on average depending on server, you figure what about 5 goldish per elemental and extreme lows to high on the mithril usually 28 to much higher on  weekends. Now if he does nothing but farm all week and sells on Friday/Saturday at roughly 50 gold per stack of 10 then sells some mithril and wool it's not impossible.

 

Now please tell me where that leaves time to actually level up?  Sure if you spent 6 weeks doing nothing but farming and selling on the AH and didn't spent a dime of it, then 2000 gold is a piece of cake.  But that's not what he said he did.  He said he spent 6 weeks leveling up to 46 and made 2000 gold in the process.  That's not quite the same thing.

 

Well assuming your saving your gold and not AH buying EQ you can farm linen and wool and low level ore while you level to about 20+ You can start on Mithril after youve trained up the mining to do it you can gather mithril by doing the 20+ quests in Stonetalon since its one of a few places to gather Mithril ore that low level. You can then start on the STV quests which leads you to ...............drumbeat, more mithril deposits, do this while getting ganked and doing the kill the stupid critter quests over there, in a few levels you can hit the Elementals in STV and kill them til your hearts content.  Then theres another mithril area in Arathi Highlands near the pirates quests. And on your way back to town,..... you kill the elementals. Also spending a few hours a day or so after leveling to farm will do wonders for your gold intake.

It takes 6 weeks if you suck.

Quck edit: the STV elementals have a better drop rate, theres just more of them.

Look, I'm not denying it can be done, what I'm saying is that someone who's brand new to the game doesn't have the knowledge to do it.  The average person just starting out barely brings in enough gold by just questing and selling stuff on the AH to cover the cost of purchasing all your skills and buying a riding mount.  They don't know what to farm or how much they should sell it for on the AH.  Without getting someone to tell you exactly how to do it, you wouldn't know.  Someone who's played the game for a while would know, but someone who's played for 6 weeks wouldn't.  Certainly they could find out how to make that much gold and do it, but typically that's not what someone does when first playing a game.  They are just learning how to play and having fun, not farming for mats.  Typically doing things like farming for mats only happens after you have a reason to need some gold.  Why would someone even need 2000 gold in the first place?

So to get back to the point, it's a little odd that someone would have 2000 gold to donate to someone else after having spent only 6 weeks playing the game.  If you disagree that's fine.  We agree to disagree.

By the way, "spending a few hours a day after leveling to farm" is also one the best possible ways to avoid having any fun in the game whatsoever.  If I would have done this I would have hated the game after 6 weeks too.  Why would anyone inflict that kind of torture on themselves?  You want 2000 gold?  Just wait till you hit max level and continue to do quests just like you did when you were leveling up.  Once you hit max level instead of getting XP you get gold instead.  In 6 weeks of questing (far more fun than farming for mats) you'll have enough gold for your Epic flying mount.