[WoW] Thinking on coming back, how much has it changed?

[Draegan]

Here's a quick question. How many time have you resubbed to WOW after quitting for a few months or more and have found that no one you used to play with is playing anymore?

Does this make your playing experience worse, better, the same, or you just don't care?

I'm considering coming back to zero social structure so I'd have to come back to a blank slate and rebuild a friends list.

[Josh]

Roll on the new Latin American realms they are about to release!

I plan on it. I can't speak spanish but from what I can tell there are going to be a lot of English speaking players on them too.

[Draegan]

I don't understand the love of rolling on a new server. I'll take my established economy and population. If I were to come back I'd play some old toons, or if I did reroll a new toon, I'd play on a server where an old main can send me 18 slot bags.

[Sharmai]

Originally Posted by Draegan

Here's a quick question. How many time have you resubbed to WOW after quitting for a few months or more and have found that no one you used to play with is playing anymore?

Does this make your playing experience worse, better, the same, or you just don't care?

3 times.. And it makes it worse..
Only because I'm pretty much down to my last 3 characters to level to 70 and they are 3 classes I don't like playing.

I would like to raid to improve my shaman, druid, or even my hunter but no guilds raid Monday - Thursday anywhere... Some have a raid day on one of those days but usually fri-sun is grull/mag etc. etc. etc.

Also its really hard to find GOOD players. People who excel at their class. I told a MrT group once that i could solo the second phase of the last boss if everyone died (i was low geared enhance shaman) and thats the only reason he took me in the group because he wanted to embarass me at the end. Everyone wiped on the second phase but me and I soloed him just like I said. its not hard...

I once duoed the second boss of BF with a well geared 65 hunter because the rest of the group died on the last pull. Me (frost mage then) and the hunter just kited, sheeped, novaed, pet tanked, second nova with my pet, our asses off till all the mobs died. THEN killed the boss. Because if you know how to play your class its not that fucking hard.

I was once in an all melee group with no tank just me (shaman), two rogues, hunter, ret paladin and we did mana tombs with zero issues because the rogues fucking CC'ed the hunter trapped, the paladin stunned and I watched my fucking aggro. BECAUSE ITS NOT THAT FUCKING HARD.

/rant off

Sorry its just finding groups like that is 1-100 and finding a guild who has players on that level is fucking impossible. Every guild wants players already geared and I'm trying to tell people I don't fucking need to have purples before I do kara because I fucking know how to play my goddamn characters..

[Draegan]

My thoughts exactly. I'm too dull brained this morning to articulate it. However I've always been looking for a guild that has good payers, doesn't require you to be purpled up, that's well run, and doesn't raid on the weekends. But I don't think they exist for new apps.

Ah well, perhaps the expansion reset will allow people to catch up to the beginning cycle or raiding or something.

[Arbuste]

The problem is that there is very little you can bring a raid by being a "very good player." You are either a brain damaged liability or you are able to follow simple directions and step out of AEs (many/most people are.)
As long as you are not totally stupid, only gear matters.
And even if you are great at playing your class, if you're wearing green/blue gear, you're not going to dish out anywhere close the required DPS. Or healing, or whatever.

It's obviously not a good thing, but WoW now offers many ways to gear up by yourself. There's a lot of grinding involved, but you gotta know what you want.

The expansion definitely will allow everybody to start on (mostly) equal ground again.

[Vinen]

Originally Posted by Arbuste

The problem is that there is very little you can bring a raid by being a "very good player." You are either a brain damaged liability or you are able to follow simple directions and step out of AEs (many/most people are.)
As long as you are not totally stupid, only gear matters.
And even if you are great at playing your class, if you're wearing green/blue gear, you're not going to dish out anywhere close the required DPS. Or healing, or whatever.

This is my biggest issue with wow. I hate enrage timers more then any other aspect of the raiding game.

[Genjiro]

Originally Posted by Draegan

Here's a quick question. How many time have you resubbed to WOW after quitting for a few months or more and have found that no one you used to play with is playing anymore?

Does this make your playing experience worse, better, the same, or you just don't care?

I'm considering coming back to zero social structure so I'd have to come back to a blank slate and rebuild a friends list.

Yea, it's tough going back after a long time away.

I just resubbed a few weeks ago and have been leveling up my very 1st toon I stopped playing when I got WoW (hunter) to make a lock and warrior (huge mistake). No guild right now, don't know anyone on the server from my old days on Spinebreaker, and really have had an enjoyable time despite all that. I went into it with the idea to just goof off and solo, so it's been good.

I played with some of the Ascension guys in VG and then we went to WoW when VG showed it was going to be terrible, but I was pretty put off from that experience since they seem to quit every game either in beta or within a month. Ever since EQ2 I've had a near impossible time finding top guilds who are low on drama and high on stability. Anyways, my hunter is getting close to 70 and I might just say fuck it, and look for a top druid on my server to run 2s with (that combo is sick if played well). I was talking to an old friend from LoS who I might try and get something going with for WotLK since you can do the 10 man raids and we would have a tight crew, and he is skilled/low drama/reliable.

tl;dr--> It's tough to get back in a good guild now in WoW unless you know people willing to gear you up and let you tag along for non bleeding edge stuff, but yea since the game essentially resets every expansion, that might be the best time to look.

[Sharmai]

I healed a kara with 900 heals in blues and greens when nobody thought I could do it. At the end of the instance I had more effective healing and less overhealing then a 1800+ heals shaman and they were surprised...

Grid + Grid Clique + proper setup = zzzZZzZ heal meter ownage
L2 chain heal + healing wave the MT. L2 time heals. Not hard.

Omen + bigwigs/world boss mods = ezmode. Hell I actually loaded up all those mods 20 minutes before the raid for the first time. Because its not hard!

[Sharmai]

Originally Posted by Arbuste

The problem is that there is very little you can bring a raid by being a "very good player." You are either a brain damaged liability or you are able to follow simple directions and step out of AEs (many/most people are.)
As long as you are not totally stupid, only gear matters.
And even if you are great at playing your class, if you're wearing green/blue gear, you're not going to dish out anywhere close the required DPS. Or healing, or whatever.

It's obviously not a good thing. The expansion definitely will allow everybody to start on (mostly) equal ground again.

Not really. This only matters at the end game instances where content has yet to be nerfed. Kara, mag, grul anything I would call "low end raiding" just requires decent instance blues + geared tank. Oh and of course players with 6+ brain cells.

[Genjiro]

Originally Posted by Sharmai

Not really. This only matters at the end game instances where content has yet to be nerfed. Kara, mag, grul anything I would call "low end raiding" just requires decent instance blues + geared tank. Oh and of course players with 6+ brain cells.

Yea, and those zones were originally too tough for most everyone to complete early in TBC and had to be nerfed to the state they are in today. So, it depends on what you want to accomplish. The average Joes who can dodge AoE but aren't great players will get you to point B somewhere along the way, but if you want to be trying content before there are walkthroughs on it, that's altogether different.

[Arbuste]

Originally Posted by Sharmai

Not really. This only matters at the end game instances where content has yet to be nerfed. Kara, mag, grul anything I would call "low end raiding" just requires decent instance blues + geared tank. Oh and of course players with 6+ brain cells.

And, again, there are hundreds of thousands players with those "6+ brain cells." And most of them got some purple gear already.

Even at the low end, guilds are serious about raiding and progression. They usually fail because of a lack of organization, time, dedication or skills. It's possible they are not there exclusively to help you gear up your 7th twink.

[Sharmai]

Originally Posted by Arbuste

And, again, there are hundreds of thousands players with those "6+ brain cells." And most of them got some purple gear already.

Even at the low end, guilds are serious about raiding and progression. They usually fail because of a lack of organization, time, dedication or skills. It's possible they are not there exclusively to help you gear up your 7th twink.

See: Welfare Epics. There's a difference between players who geared up from blues -> Kara because they had more then 6+ brain cells and players who geared up from mindlessly grinding BG after BG and now overgear Kara.

Originally Posted by Genjiro

Yea, and those zones were originally too tough for most everyone to complete early in TBC and had to be nerfed to the state they are in today. So, it depends on what you want to accomplish. The average Joes who can dodge AoE but aren't great players will get you to point B somewhere along the way, but if you want to be trying content before there are walkthroughs on it, that's altogether different.

I agree with you. I'm not talking about raiding Sunwell with pug's or racing along bleeding edge content on EJ dps cycles. That takes more then just skill it takes a level of dedication I simply don't have anymore. That said its nothing remotely close whats required for beginner raiding.

[Loot]

Originally Posted by Sharmai

See: Welfare Epics. There's a difference between players who geared up from blues -> Kara because they had more then 6+ brain cells and players who geared up from mindlessly grinding BG after BG and now overgear Kara.

I don't really get what that has to do with your point, though. Finding a guild of non-worthless people working on Kara/early 25mans is almost impossible at this stage of the game because anyone still raiding that shit is probably either a horrible guild full of s1/2 wearing PvErs or uber-casuals who don't recruit anyway. The fact that you iron-manned Mana Tombs or whatever doesn't really matter. There are so many people with better gear (not even the PvP shit) that these guilds have to choose from anyway. Why hold out for really skilled people when you don't need them and it's a waste of time to gear them up?

[Genjiro]

Originally Posted by Sharmai

I agree with you. I'm not talking about raiding Sunwell with pug's or racing along bleeding edge content on EJ dps cycles. That takes more then just skill it takes a level of dedication I simply don't have anymore. That said its nothing remotely close whats required for beginner raiding.

Yea I was agreeing with you and sort of responding to the post you responded to at the same time which wasn't all that clear.