US Community Vs The Bracket

Conq

Guest
Here are my post stream thoughts and a few question from my conversation with @Hunnybuns, @Nicozy, and @Asterias who I had an extremely thought-provoking conversation with on Twitch.tv/fearthebuns

There is a lot of crushed hopes and mixed feelings in Legion, i'm not all too concerned with the reality of things because i'm sort of a "it is what it is" and "make the best out of it that you can" sort of person, I think it will be what we make of it, and I certainly have no say in what the community itself makes it. That being said the "we" - the community is more important to me than the bracket, the relationships, and opinions of each other we have are what makes this community what it is, to me the bracket is just something we do with those relationships, and we can always do something(s) else if 19s doesn't suit us in legion, and i'm sure some of us will. Even if the playstyle of current 19s dies I'd like to see the greater part of the community stick together, i'm hopeful for that at the least.

I guess i'm just wondering a few - perhaps personal things - yet this is a community, we've all known each other or of each other for some time now, so why not?

  • What is your concern for in Legion - The community, the bracket or the playstyle (maybe something else)?
  • Which of these things is more important to you in general - and why?
  • Do you think the community we have can exist without the bracket/playstyle as it is currently - why or why not?
  • If everything is RIP do you have any ideas of what game you may try, or move onto?
  • Would you like to see the 19 community stay intact regardless of the state of the bracket in Legion?

Anyway I think these questions strike at the heart of the "legion issue" and that discussing them as a community is very important, even if some of these questions seem like a given to you - others may have a different perspective, so try and be opened minded to people's various perspectives, it's important people be honest with each other.
 
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I'm going to give the game a few months to see how I feel about it.

I really only care that the bracket stays intact and that twinks have some sort of identity. I don't feel like I've been apart of the community anymore for a very long time.. just been living the hermit dream, so I don't give a fuck about that.

If the brackets are shit, you can find me on OW.
 
Cynical post, don't read if you're excited for Legion


I think unless legion happens to be amazing (which judging from watching people on beta as well as talking to friends who have beta, it won't be) the majority of good pvpers will probably stop playing the game, in twink brackets and max level

twinking - every bracket will get pops again which is cool, but you'll be queueing into games where 90% of the players are half naked and have no idea what's going on. if you like farming bad players that's great for you, and some brackets may see a boost in twinking "activity", but if you're a semi-competitive player you're kind of SOL unless wargames are scheduled. I personally can't stand pug games where players aren't (for the most part) on even ground, so I probably won't even be stepping foot into a legion pug on my twinks outside of very rare occasions.

max level - blizzard keeps continually removing abilities from all classes because they think people want a game that is easier to understand and play, which is the exact opposite of what most long time WoW players want. end-game pvp feels like more of the same, and nothing ever changes outside of one balance change per year, maybe two if something is really out of hand. it's clear to see that they're content with letting pvp slowly fade away.

But really I think it just boils down to WoW losing its luster for a lot of players. The playerbase is getting older, and the game just isn't as exciting anymore. Even leading into the TC this year, you could tell the hype was just not there. It was forced. Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun, but I just wasn't nearly as interested as I could have been. A lot of twinks have been playing the game for nearly a decade and it's only reasonable to assume that at some point, they're going to grow tired of the game and move on.

At this point I feel as though it's completely in Blizzard's hands. No amount of sticking together as a "community" is going to save the game from dying.

I don't really have high hopes for legion, but I'll probably give it a shot and if it's bad, I'm gone for good. I'm assuming a lot of other players out there feel the same
 
anatomyx said:
Cynical post, don't read if you're excited for Legion


I think unless legion happens to be amazing (which judging from watching people on beta as well as talking to friends who have beta, it won't be) the majority of good pvpers will probably stop playing the game, in twink brackets and max level

twinking - every bracket will get pops again which is cool, but you'll be queueing into games where 90% of the players are half naked and have no idea what's going on. if you like farming bad players that's great for you, and some brackets may see a boost in twinking "activity", but if you're a semi-competitive player you're kind of SOL unless wargames are scheduled. I personally can't stand pug games where players aren't (for the most part) on even ground, so I probably won't even be stepping foot into a legion pug on my twinks outside of very rare occasions.

max level - blizzard keeps continually removing abilities from all classes because they think people want a game that is easier to understand and play, which is the exact opposite of what most long time WoW players want. end-game pvp feels like more of the same, and nothing ever changes outside of one balance change per year, maybe two if something is really out of hand. it's clear to see that they're content with letting pvp slowly fade away.

But really I think it just boils down to WoW losing its luster for a lot of players. The playerbase is getting older, and the game just isn't as exciting anymore. Even leading into the TC this year, you could tell the hype was just not there. It was forced. Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun, but I just wasn't nearly as interested as I could have been. A lot of twinks have been playing the game for nearly a decade and it's only reasonable to assume that at some point, they're going to grow tired of the game and move on.

At this point I feel as though it's completely in Blizzard's hands. No amount of sticking together as a "community" is going to save the game from dying.

I don't really have high hopes for legion, but I'll probably give it a shot and if it's bad, I'm gone for good. I'm assuming a lot of other players out there feel the same
Click to expand...

Well put
 
anatomyx said:
Cynical post, don't read if you're excited for Legion


I think unless legion happens to be amazing (which judging from watching people on beta as well as talking to friends who have beta, it won't be) the majority of good pvpers will probably stop playing the game, in twink brackets and max level

twinking - every bracket will get pops again which is cool, but you'll be queueing into games where 90% of the players are half naked and have no idea what's going on. if you like farming bad players that's great for you, and some brackets may see a boost in twinking "activity", but if you're a semi-competitive player you're kind of SOL unless wargames are scheduled. I personally can't stand pug games where players aren't (for the most part) on even ground, so I probably won't even be stepping foot into a legion pug on my twinks outside of very rare occasions.

max level - blizzard keeps continually removing abilities from all classes because they think people want a game that is easier to understand and play, which is the exact opposite of what most long time WoW players want. end-game pvp feels like more of the same, and nothing ever changes outside of one balance change per year, maybe two if something is really out of hand. it's clear to see that they're content with letting pvp slowly fade away.

But really I think it just boils down to WoW losing its luster for a lot of players. The playerbase is getting older, and the game just isn't as exciting anymore. Even leading into the TC this year, you could tell the hype was just not there. It was forced. Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun, but I just wasn't nearly as interested as I could have been. A lot of twinks have been playing the game for nearly a decade and it's only reasonable to assume that at some point, they're going to grow tired of the game and move on.

At this point I feel as though it's completely in Blizzard's hands. No amount of sticking together as a "community" is going to save the game from dying.

I don't really have high hopes for legion, but I'll probably give it a shot and if it's bad, I'm gone for good. I'm assuming a lot of other players out there feel the same
Click to expand...
Revive cata cc and spells at 19 and holy shit we may have something. Legion may look kinda fun but they gave some classes cc and other classes it was removed, I hope it is just decent with the healing and damage numbers to be fun to play.
 
@Hunnybuns made what I consider his strongest point at the very end of the cast. People associate twinking with gear. That's how the vast majority of us got into twinking. Someone came into a battleground, destroyed oppoonents, saved teammates, and got our attention. We armory'd them and thus began our adventures.

Everyone's bellyaching over the loss of gear advantage in Legion. Everyone thinks this will be the end of twinking as we know it. There's truth to that. But I think people misunderstand another purpose of twink gear.

Even though it's only a 2% advantage, twinks are still gonna pursue BiS items. Mist-Covered Goggles, fishing trinkets and AGMs, bizarro white gear, etc. WoW remains a gear-based game in the minds of its players. When interested newbie players get obliterated in a merged battleground and armory the obliterators, they'll see this gear. Yes, it was skill that defeated the newbies and not the 2% gear, but that's not the point. The point is seeing this gear and wondering, why? Why choose this gear?

The vast majority of people who played WoW, including XP-off players, never deeply understood how the stats on gear worked. We never understood the impact of weapon speed, haste break points, hit cap, effective health, or a whole host of other stat-based concepts. We simply looked at a few armories and copied them. The gear worked for some really good players who figured out the math, so why not copy their armories? That was the smart thing to do, and most players did it.

That's the second purpose of twink gear. It shows we belong to a group of players with a similar interest. Consider this: if you're a old-school 19, the fishing hat is a trophy of yours. It's a badge of belonging. It brands you as a 19 twink. The same goes for the Shadowfang, and several other notable pieces of gear for 19s. Every bracket has these iconic pieces of gear. Because all twinks get boosted stats from their gear, gear is just as much about branding by virtue of a few common, shared pieces of iconic gear.

This will not change in Legion.

I know a lot of us hate how homogenized the gear will get for legion. Everyone's gonna wear the same thing. For XP-off promotion in Legion, I think that's a good thing, because it creates a stronger branding for XP-off players in a sea of non-twinks. It marks you as someone who belongs to a loosely organized group of players with a common interest and shared knowledge.

The gear doesn't really make you better, and especially not in Legion. But better players find and wear this gear. If you're a newer player and want to get better, you too will find and wear this gear as your first step to becoming better. You will emulate your forebears, just as we emulated ours in years gone past.

That brings us to the "problem" of crappy games due to a flood of crappy leveling players in battlegrounds. I hate to break it to everyone, but overall we twinks are not that good. Sure, we got enough players from multiple XP-off brackets to come together to form six teams (ranging from decent to outstanding) for this year's twink cup. A far greater number of players (including longtime players) simply do XP-off battlegrounds and skirmishes, and we're not that much better than levelers. And yes, that includes 19s. If I can walk into a 19 battleground as a mediocre player after not playing the game for a year and make a significant impact on games for an evening, those are not quality games. I'm glad people were having fun (I hope?). Were 19 PuGs better than other brackets a couple of months ago when I stopped in for an evening? I'll grant that. Were they better to the point that merging with XP-on would make game quality plummet? Not even close. Maybe I just saw an uncharacteristic evening, but that's not what I heard from others whose experience mirrored my own.

Years ago, seeing someone kick ass in a battleground created two steps of discovery. One, we discovered that better gear made a big impact. Two, we discovered that better skills made a much bigger impact. Even with funding, it took some work to get BiS gear; it took a lot more work to get better, and most of us didn't do much of that work. I'm not chastising anyone here -- I'm just saying most twinks were more into gearing up than improving PvP skills. Drayner used to talk about the "fishing hat curse", so named because the fishing hat was typically the last item a 19 needed, and when they finally got it, suddenly their play time would precipitously drop on that character. Yes, that came from the Drayner who started TwinkInfo all those years ago -- that's how far back this pattern goes.

PuGs always play differently than premades. We get our start in PuGs, but if we want to step up, it has to happen in premades.

This will not change in Legion.

Let's clear up another misconception, between promotion and retention. Promotion is getting exposure for something. Retention is keeping attracted players interested. Funding twinks is about promotion, not retention. From the earliest libram collectors to the latest GG19 efforts, twink funding was always about promotion. Funded players almost never stay, because giving people gear is not enough. They need a reason to invest themselves in the bracket after the promotion brings them in. Funding promotes. Forums promote. Websites promote. None of these retain.

Playing with people who make it worth their while to spend time playing, is the top reason for retention.

Would you play WoW if you didn't know anyone you wanted to play with on a regular basis? Maybe you would play for a time, but not for long. People playing XP-off do so because they found other people with whom they want to play. Or they don't, and leave the game (again).

This will not change in Legion.

So what will change? Not much. And that, I feel, is the real problem.

I don't have the insight to know how things will play out in Legion. But I do know that @anatomyx made a very strong point that WoW fatigue continues to fester. Many of us are no longer inspired by what WoW has to offer. If I'm going to have fun with friends in an online game, I'm not convinced WoW is the place I want to do that. It took more than competitive PvP to attract and retain me in XP-off. I left for several reasons, but overall I left because the fun I had and the people with whom I shared that fun, dwindled too far. I'll try the prepatch for a month, but I'll be surprised if I stay after that.
 
Kirise said:
@Hunnybuns made what I consider his strongest point at the very end of the cast. People associate twinking with gear. That's how the vast majority of us got into twinking. Someone came into a battleground, destroyed oppoonents, saved teammates, and got our attention. We armory'd them and thus began our adventures.

Everyone's bellyaching over the loss of gear advantage in Legion. Everyone thinks this will be the end of twinking as we know it. There's truth to that. But I think people misunderstand another purpose of twink gear.

Even though it's only a 2% advantage, twinks are still gonna pursue BiS items. Mist-Covered Goggles, fishing trinkets and AGMs, bizarro white gear, etc. WoW remains a gear-based game in the minds of its players. When interested newbie players get obliterated in a merged battleground and armory the obliterators, they'll see this gear. Yes, it was skill that defeated the newbies and not the 2% gear, but that's not the point. The point is seeing this gear and wondering, why? Why choose this gear?

The vast majority of people who played WoW, including XP-off players, never deeply understood how the stats on gear worked. We never understood the impact of weapon speed, haste break points, hit cap, effective health, or a whole host of other stat-based concepts. We simply looked at a few armories and copied them. The gear worked for some really good players who figured out the math, so why not copy their armories? That was the smart thing to do, and most players did it.

That's the second purpose of twink gear. It shows we belong to a group of players with a similar interest. Consider this: if you're a old-school 19, the fishing hat is a trophy of yours. It's a badge of belonging. It brands you as a 19 twink. The same goes for the Shadowfang, and several other notable pieces of gear for 19s. Every bracket has these iconic pieces of gear. Because all twinks get boosted stats from their gear, gear is just as much about branding by virtue of a few common, shared pieces of iconic gear.

This will not change in Legion.

I know a lot of us hate how homogenized the gear will get for legion. Everyone's gonna wear the same thing. For XP-off promotion in Legion, I think that's a good thing, because it creates a stronger branding for XP-off players in a sea of non-twinks. It marks you as someone who belongs to a loosely organized group of players with a common interest and shared knowledge.

The gear doesn't really make you better, and especially not in Legion. But better players find and wear this gear. If you're a newer player and want to get better, you too will find and wear this gear as your first step to becoming better. You will emulate your forebears, just as we emulated ours in years gone past.

That brings us to the "problem" of crappy games due to a flood of crappy leveling players in battlegrounds. I hate to break it to everyone, but overall we twinks are not that good. Sure, we got enough players from multiple XP-off brackets to come together to form six teams (ranging from decent to outstanding) for this year's twink cup. A far greater number of players (including longtime players) simply do XP-off battlegrounds and skirmishes, and we're not that much better than levelers. And yes, that includes 19s. If I can walk into a 19 battleground as a mediocre player after not playing the game for a year and make a significant impact on games for an evening, those are not quality games. I'm glad people were having fun (I hope?). Were 19 PuGs better than other brackets a couple of months ago when I stopped in for an evening? I'll grant that. Were they better to the point that merging with XP-on would make game quality plummet? Not even close. Maybe I just saw an uncharacteristic evening, but that's not what I heard from others whose experience mirrored my own.

Years ago, seeing someone kick ass in a battleground created two steps of discovery. One, we discovered that better gear made a big impact. Two, we discovered that better skills made a much bigger impact. Even with funding, it took some work to get BiS gear; it took a lot more work to get better, and most of us didn't do much of that work. I'm not chastising anyone here -- I'm just saying most twinks were more into gearing up than improving PvP skills. Drayner used to talk about the "fishing hat curse", so named because the fishing hat was typically the last item a 19 needed, and when they finally got it, suddenly their play time would precipitously drop on that character. Yes, that came from the Drayner who started TwinkInfo all those years ago -- that's how far back this pattern goes.

PuGs always play differently than premades. We get our start in PuGs, but if we want to step up, it has to happen in premades.

This will not change in Legion.

Let's clear up another misconception, between promotion and retention. Promotion is getting exposure for something. Retention is keeping attracted players interested. Funding twinks is about promotion, not retention. From the earliest libram collectors to the latest GG19 efforts, twink funding was always about promotion. Funded players almost never stay, because giving people gear is not enough. They need a reason to invest themselves in the bracket after the promotion brings them in. Funding promotes. Forums promote. Websites promote. None of these retain.

Playing with people who make it worth their while to spend time playing, is the top reason for retention.

Would you play WoW if you didn't know anyone you wanted to play with on a regular basis? Maybe you would play for a time, but not for long. People playing XP-off do so because they found other people with whom they want to play. Or they don't, and leave the game (again).

This will not change in Legion.

So what will change? Not much. And that, I feel, is the real problem.

I don't have the insight to know how things will play out in Legion. But I do know that @anatomyx made a very strong point that WoW fatigue continues to fester. Many of us are no longer inspired by what WoW has to offer. If I'm going to have fun with friends in an online game, I'm not convinced WoW is the place I want to do that. It took more than competitive PvP to attract and retain me in XP-off. I left for several reasons, but overall I left because the fun I had and the people with whom I shared that fun, dwindled too far. I'll try the prepatch for a month, but I'll be surprised if I stay after that.
Click to expand...

Well said.
Also, if that were any longer I would think you were Mocha in disguise.
 
Anatomyz summed it up pretty well.

When WoD came out a bunch of people wanted to check out the 99 bracket. The wargames/arenas that were played with 10-15 people was still some of the best 'twinking' pvp I've ever enjoyed. I'm just saying that even in such an odd place/bracket, we were still able to make our own enjoyment.

People will find ways to create a community, whether it be wargames or whatnot. I don't think that'll change. I may not be too fussed about the 19 bracket in terms of gameplay, but I won't argue the community here is fantastic and incredibly strong. As long as there's things like the NWL/TC or some sort of variant, I think you'll have a bracket.
 
We will always find a way to enjoy ourselves I'm not "super" happy about the merge and the way gear is going to be but I will probably still enjoy myself with constant pops
 
Kirise said:
@Hunnybuns made what I consider his strongest point at the very end of the cast. People associate twinking with gear. That's how the vast majority of us got into twinking. Someone came into a battleground, destroyed oppoonents, saved teammates, and got our attention. We armory'd them and thus began our adventures.

Everyone's bellyaching over the loss of gear advantage in Legion. Everyone thinks this will be the end of twinking as we know it. There's truth to that. But I think people misunderstand another purpose of twink gear.

Even though it's only a 2% advantage, twinks are still gonna pursue BiS items. Mist-Covered Goggles, fishing trinkets and AGMs, bizarro white gear, etc. WoW remains a gear-based game in the minds of its players. When interested newbie players get obliterated in a merged battleground and armory the obliterators, they'll see this gear. Yes, it was skill that defeated the newbies and not the 2% gear, but that's not the point. The point is seeing this gear and wondering, why? Why choose this gear?

The vast majority of people who played WoW, including XP-off players, never deeply understood how the stats on gear worked. We never understood the impact of weapon speed, haste break points, hit cap, effective health, or a whole host of other stat-based concepts. We simply looked at a few armories and copied them. The gear worked for some really good players who figured out the math, so why not copy their armories? That was the smart thing to do, and most players did it.

That's the second purpose of twink gear. It shows we belong to a group of players with a similar interest. Consider this: if you're a old-school 19, the fishing hat is a trophy of yours. It's a badge of belonging. It brands you as a 19 twink. The same goes for the Shadowfang, and several other notable pieces of gear for 19s. Every bracket has these iconic pieces of gear. Because all twinks get boosted stats from their gear, gear is just as much about branding by virtue of a few common, shared pieces of iconic gear.

This will not change in Legion.

I know a lot of us hate how homogenized the gear will get for legion. Everyone's gonna wear the same thing. For XP-off promotion in Legion, I think that's a good thing, because it creates a stronger branding for XP-off players in a sea of non-twinks. It marks you as someone who belongs to a loosely organized group of players with a common interest and shared knowledge.

The gear doesn't really make you better, and especially not in Legion. But better players find and wear this gear. If you're a newer player and want to get better, you too will find and wear this gear as your first step to becoming better. You will emulate your forebears, just as we emulated ours in years gone past.

That brings us to the "problem" of crappy games due to a flood of crappy leveling players in battlegrounds. I hate to break it to everyone, but overall we twinks are not that good. Sure, we got enough players from multiple XP-off brackets to come together to form six teams (ranging from decent to outstanding) for this year's twink cup. A far greater number of players (including longtime players) simply do XP-off battlegrounds and skirmishes, and we're not that much better than levelers. And yes, that includes 19s. If I can walk into a 19 battleground as a mediocre player after not playing the game for a year and make a significant impact on games for an evening, those are not quality games. I'm glad people were having fun (I hope?). Were 19 PuGs better than other brackets a couple of months ago when I stopped in for an evening? I'll grant that. Were they better to the point that merging with XP-on would make game quality plummet? Not even close. Maybe I just saw an uncharacteristic evening, but that's not what I heard from others whose experience mirrored my own.

Years ago, seeing someone kick ass in a battleground created two steps of discovery. One, we discovered that better gear made a big impact. Two, we discovered that better skills made a much bigger impact. Even with funding, it took some work to get BiS gear; it took a lot more work to get better, and most of us didn't do much of that work. I'm not chastising anyone here -- I'm just saying most twinks were more into gearing up than improving PvP skills. Drayner used to talk about the "fishing hat curse", so named because the fishing hat was typically the last item a 19 needed, and when they finally got it, suddenly their play time would precipitously drop on that character. Yes, that came from the Drayner who started TwinkInfo all those years ago -- that's how far back this pattern goes.

PuGs always play differently than premades. We get our start in PuGs, but if we want to step up, it has to happen in premades.

This will not change in Legion.

Let's clear up another misconception, between promotion and retention. Promotion is getting exposure for something. Retention is keeping attracted players interested. Funding twinks is about promotion, not retention. From the earliest libram collectors to the latest GG19 efforts, twink funding was always about promotion. Funded players almost never stay, because giving people gear is not enough. They need a reason to invest themselves in the bracket after the promotion brings them in. Funding promotes. Forums promote. Websites promote. None of these retain.

Playing with people who make it worth their while to spend time playing, is the top reason for retention.

Would you play WoW if you didn't know anyone you wanted to play with on a regular basis? Maybe you would play for a time, but not for long. People playing XP-off do so because they found other people with whom they want to play. Or they don't, and leave the game (again).

This will not change in Legion.

So what will change? Not much. And that, I feel, is the real problem.

I don't have the insight to know how things will play out in Legion. But I do know that @anatomyx made a very strong point that WoW fatigue continues to fester. Many of us are no longer inspired by what WoW has to offer. If I'm going to have fun with friends in an online game, I'm not convinced WoW is the place I want to do that. It took more than competitive PvP to attract and retain me in XP-off. I left for several reasons, but overall I left because the fun I had and the people with whom I shared that fun, dwindled too far. I'll try the prepatch for a month, but I'll be surprised if I stay after that.
Click to expand...

Great post, you always got that wisdom. All i can say is that what is about to happen with the release of Legion is also how all this got started. When twinking started in vanilla it really came about at the release of bg's and people wanting to just pvp without a need to constantly grind end game gear. They wanted a char that you could go put on best possible gear you could get and go pvp and not look back at needing more gear. There wasnt a really good way in the start to find what was bIs and most people that did have a jump on everyone else used log out gear when armory came about cause they didnt want people stealing their hard work. Im just looking forward to a regular pop, i feel that really killed things for the 39's. and where the hell is yoube?
 
Sun said:
Great post, you always got that wisdom. All i can say is that what is about to happen with the release of Legion is also how all this got started. When twinking started in vanilla it really came about at the release of bg's and people wanting to just pvp without a need to constantly grind end game gear. They wanted a char that you could go put on best possible gear you could get and go pvp and not look back at needing more gear. There wasnt a really good way in the start to find what was bIs and most people that did have a jump on everyone else used log out gear when armory came about cause they didnt want people stealing their hard work. Im just looking forward to a regular pop, i feel that really killed things for the 39's. and where the hell is yoube?
Click to expand...

You're right. That's a really well put point.

I started twinking because the grind to HWL was just too much. To obtain that gear required too much of my time and I needed another outlet for PvP, without being forced to get gear from PvE.
 
Commenting on whoever said the quality of PuGs will hardly plummet, I disagree. We XPoff players ARE better at WSG than levelers I've hardly seen a leveler who can do the jumps.

In response to the thread, we simply Have to see how legion goes.
 
19s and 29s will always pop.

Don't know why you guys listen to the trolls so much...
 
The OP knows what I intend to do. If that does not come to fruition, I will just go about what I am doing now and lurk in the shadows anomalously, just the way I like it.
 
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