Nor was there a ting stopping the level 60s from starting over on a new server. Nor was there a chance they could have tried it if they too had been low-level. It was the existence of the power imbalance that enabled them to easily kill newcomers and it was their sense of territoriality that helped them feel entitled to try.
More to the point, I haven’t seen any evidence that "blizzard failed to control the server population. There does seem to have been a slowdown; the cause was assumed to be population, but I never saw that confirmed. Meanwhile, that assumption was enough for the night riders to round up and kill them foreigners who is the source of our woes.
38yo (plus one day), been playing since September. My brothers game me WoW as a parting gift when I got sent to Costa Rica. I was a GM/writer/editor in an English-language MUD for 8 years and I’ve been playing RPGs for almost 20 years, so they figured it would be a good way to fill the time between waking up and going to work, rainy weekends, etc.
EU version. So I can’t play on US servers. That’s bad. I’m actually over here so I’d like to be able to play on a server that’s over here.
EU version. So I have three languages to choose from (last month Blizz announced they’ll finally add Spanish, YAY!). That’s good. I speak one well, have slight notions of another, should be practicing the third… I went with #3 and play in a French RPG server. RPG because it means less SMS. You see, I’m the player who says “I am sorry but I did not understand what you just said, could you please speak either Common or Dwarf?” when someone spouts “LFG2RBRN, cmoncmon gogogo U n00bz!”
I’m an “explorer” kind of player, so to me being able to go to so many places is Good. Being able to make and discard tons of alts is also Good.
In those 8 years as GM/writer/editor, my main gripe was that our world wasn’t as “coherent” as I would have liked. I wrote little things in my areas that connected them to others… I don’t just mean physically, but ambassadors from other nations, mentions of other nations in books you found lying about, stuff like that. Other people put in areas that could have been in that world or anywhere else, they were completely “stand alone”. So one of the things that had me grinning from ear to ear the first few weeks was all the ways in which WoW’s places, people and stories are linked together. I don’t grin that wide but I’m still smiling.
My main is a mere 47 (I did say compulsive alt-maker, didn’t I?) so I haven’t been there yet, but I understand that once you Win The Game (because in my view that’s what getting to 60 is) things can become quite a grind. Just set your own targets; I see all these “guides” about “how to become a megaalchemist in 3 hours” but they all assume that 1) you are level 60, 2) you have somehow been able to get hold of all the components needed. To me, the time spent getting those components should be added to the 3 hours All my chars are leveling their trades as they go.
Some objectives other than “getting to 60”: leveling up your trades. Doing all the quests in area XYZ. Getting the complete maps (hey, I just discovered Orgrimar! Uh, why is that big orc looking at me funny?.. [now in ghost form] So, uh, no paladins in the Horde, I guess?). Enjoying the once-a-year content. Getting stuff from the Faire. Getting military grades. Doing stuff for your Guild; the guild to which my main belongs is formed by pretty mature players (of widely varying age), it’s very laid back, with very little obligations… I’ve seen all kinds of Guilds, with all kinds of objectives, including some where you could get kicked out for missing a meeting.
Once I get to level 15 or so, my quest log tends to be full or almost full. This means I have 16-20 objectives calling me. 16-20 in each alt!
The worst things:
depending on where you want to play, you have to get one version or another. For example, to me a US version would have been more useful, at least while I’m Over Here. On the other hand, we have quite a few Quebecois in the French servers. Cracks me up when Blizzard says they “don’t want overseas playing because that means more lag” - my apparent lag isn’t really linked to my pingtime until the pingtime gets real high. Ironforge spam kills me a lot more than the Atlantic Ocean, thank you very much.
morons. Honey, those exist everywhere. Morons of different kinds flock together in different servers. You don’t run into the same behaviors in a PvP server or a RPG server. Poke around for a bit until you find a server where the stuff you hear over General doesn’t grate you raw within minutes of being there (the starting areas and the cities have dumber chat than other places)
grinding. People complain about end-game grinding, but I also see people who grind xp like crazy to get to that end-game as fast as possible, so I guess they like grinding. Me, when I get bored with a “get me 150 spider legs” quest, I just hop into another alt for a while.
lisacurl, I wonder that you think of this bit of politics. The whole thing still makes my head hurt when I think of it.
As far as the newbie ganking goes, they may have known it was population. The article mentions server queues and wait times, which ATM is something all servers are experiencing at peak hours–that is to say, the server becomes full and then anyone logging on has to wait for someone to log off to open up space. My own server usually has one of a half hour or so late at night. This has the potential of completely screwing up raids, since it’s harder for people to log on on time, and if someone gets dropped they may wind up in queue (though the server saves your spot for about 5 minutes, something I’ve used to my advantage at times when I need to reboot or mess with add-ons), so I can certainly see why they’d want to discourage people rolling toons on their server if that was the case.
If it helps, there is a sizeable Doper contingent in City of Heroes/Villains. If you feel interested in that, I’m sure someone has a spare 14-day code.
Thanks for confirming that on the newbie ganking. Server overpopulation is what causes queue and wait times, and that’s controlled by Blizzard. There was a hue and outcry when they closed some servers to new accounts a while back, but it seemed to put a bandaid on the problem at least. I’m not by any means saying the high level players were right for doing what they did – if in fact they did so, for more than one night, in an organized manner, with more than a few people participating – as I said in my earlier post. Yeah, people can be colossal jerks in WoW. I’ve found that genuinely helpful and friendly people outnumber the jerks handily so far.
With regard to the incident you describe, I think it’s certainly a really great example of level 60 hubris in the wild. They honestly thought they could declare amnesty for all Alliance visitors to Orgrimmar just because they wanted it that way, so Alliance could farm linen and they could get AQ that much quicker. Whoa. That’s an amazing sense of entitlement and, hmm, what’s the description I’m looking for here? Delusions of grandeur? Sense of control where in fact one has none? Sometimes I think that people forget that not everyone is playing the same game that they are. Some of us newbs who just started playing were only aware of the AQ war effort in the most tangential sense. Sure, I turned some stuff in, but only because I got cool stuff in return, not because I was going to open a new instance for a bunch of level 60s. I may appreciate it in six months time, but hell, I’m just getting a feel for things now.
All my chars are leveling their trades as they go.