World of Tens (then 20s, then 30s and so on)

[Awkwyrd]

The Nost controversy has gotten me thinking about what kind of server I'd like to see Blizzard implement. I believe I would want something progression-oriented but not a legacy server. I would play a Vanilla server to check it out but my idea would be the game as it is today just without the shortcuts. The way I see it there are four major shortcuts: random groups, heirlooms, character services, and carries.

The first three are easy to eliminate if you are setting up a server. Turn off the Looking For tool. You want a group? Find players willing to run your dungeon and run out there. Having trouble? Talk to people. Join or start a guild. Fill your friends list with competent players. Getting rid of heirlooms is just as simple. Just don't let people spawn them on the progression server. Levelling will still be pretty forgiving. Just not faceroll. Getting gear will matter. And character services. Don't let people transfer their geared toons from regular servers. Don't let people buy gold in the form of tokens to pay for gear/enchants. Put everyone on the same level.

I think that alone would really help the community on the progression server. People would have to develop relationships and work together. But from there it gets tougher because the hardest shortcut to deal with is carries. Grouping with higher level and/or better geared players will always be an advantage. You can't eliminate it entirely nor would I want to. I want to give people a reason to play together. My goal would be to limit it so that one or two players can't shepherd incompetents through content. Having better players should help but everyone should have to contribute as well or the group should fail.

My idea for eliminating carries is to just eliminate higher level characters. Set the server up to have level ranges every ten levels. In order to progress to the next level range your toon has to conquer the content from your current range. Each level range would be like a different realm and as you progress you move through them. That is, if you are in the 20-30 range there aren't and level 60s to carry you because there aren't any 60s at all. Everyone you can interact with is in your level range.

So you decide to join up and you roll a level 1. You level up to 10. It doesn't take all that long even without heirlooms but then you are capped. You are in a world of tens. In order to move on you have to progress through the instances for that level. An NPC in SW/Org will have a quest chain. You'll have to conquer in turn Ragefire Chasm (there will be a portal somewhere for alliance to get in), Deadmines, Wailing Caverns, and finally Shadowfang Keep (level minimum dropped to 10). Once you finally kill Lord Godfrey you turn in the final quest and your toon is transported to the world of twenties.

Then you level up to the cap again, this time 20, and start gearing up for the next set of challenges: Stockade (with port for horde), Gnomergan (horde already have a port), Scarlet Halls, and finally Scarlet Monastary. You conquer and move on to the world of thirties. And so on. At 60 you start having to run the raids as well.

This concept wouldn't have the nostalgia of the Vanilla WoW experience but I think it would be a good compromise with what we have now with characters but removing the social-killing aspects of LFG/LFR and heirlooms (removing the need to cooperate to succeed). Personally I'm not sure how much time I would spend progressing. Since I enjoy lowbies I would probably spend most of my time on geared out 10s and 20s. World PvP would be more interesting since there wouldn't be skull-level players to gank you and more people would be travelling in groups. No shortcuts means no easy queuing for BGs. Want to run WSG? Run out to Ashenvale/Northern Barrens and go into the entrance. If you get attacked along the way, more fun for you.

I think people would want to play on my progression server. I mean, obviously it's never going to happen but I do like the idea. Let me know what you think.

 

[Gokku]

The Nost controversy has gotten me thinking about what kind of server I'd like to see Blizzard implement. I believe I would want something progression-oriented but not a legacy server. I would play a Vanilla server to check it out but my idea would be the game as it is today just without the shortcuts. The way I see it there are four major shortcuts: random groups, heirlooms, character services, and carries.

The first three are easy to eliminate if you are setting up a server. Turn off the Looking For tool. You want a group? Find players willing to run your dungeon and run out there. Having trouble? Talk to people. Join or start a guild. Fill your friends list with competent players. Getting rid of heirlooms is just as simple. Just don't let people spawn them on the progression server. Levelling will still be pretty forgiving. Just not faceroll. Getting gear will matter. And character services. Don't let people transfer their geared toons from regular servers. Don't let people buy gold in the form of tokens to pay for gear/enchants. Put everyone on the same level.

I think that alone would really help the community on the progression server. People would have to develop relationships and work together. But from there it gets tougher because the hardest shortcut to deal with is carries. Grouping with higher level and/or better geared players will always be an advantage. You can't eliminate it entirely nor would I want to. I want to give people a reason to play together. My goal would be to limit it so that one or two players can't shepherd incompetents through content. Having better players should help but everyone should have to contribute as well or the group should fail.

My idea for eliminating carries is to just eliminate higher level characters. Set the server up to have level ranges every ten levels. In order to progress to the next level range your toon has to conquer the content from your current range. Each level range would be like a different realm and as you progress you move through them. That is, if you are in the 20-30 range there aren't and level 60s to carry you because there aren't any 60s at all. Everyone you can interact with is in your level range.

So you decide to join up and you roll a level 1. You level up to 10. It doesn't take all that long even without heirlooms but then you are capped. You are in a world of tens. In order to move on you have to progress through the instances for that level. An NPC in SW/Org will have a quest chain. You'll have to conquer in turn Ragefire Chasm (there will be a portal somewhere for alliance to get in), Deadmines, Wailing Caverns, and finally Shadowfang Keep (level minimum dropped to 10). Once you finally kill Lord Godfrey you turn in the final quest and your toon is transported to the world of twenties.

Then you level up to the cap again, this time 20, and start gearing up for the next set of challenges: Stockade (with port for horde), Gnomergan (horde already have a port), Scarlet Halls, and finally Scarlet Monastary. You conquer and move on to the world of thirties. And so on. At 60 you start having to run the raids as well.

This concept wouldn't have the nostalgia of the Vanilla WoW experience but I think it would be a good compromise with what we have now with characters but removing the social-killing aspects of LFG/LFR and heirlooms (removing the need to cooperate to succeed). Personally I'm not sure how much time I would spend progressing. Since I enjoy lowbies I would probably spend most of my time on geared out 10s and 20s. World PvP would be more interesting since there wouldn't be skull-level players to gank you and more people would be travelling in groups. No shortcuts means no easy queuing for BGs. Want to run WSG? Run out to Ashenvale/Northern Barrens and go into the entrance. If you get attacked along the way, more fun for you.

I think people would want to play on my progression server. I mean, obviously it's never going to happen but I do like the idea. Let me know what you think.

Sounds fun but there's always cheaters if you take out tokens people still sell gold on many private servers there's gold sellers I think the purchase of gold is something you can't get around

 

[Awkwyrd]

Oh yeah. I agree that you can't ever get rid of that sort of thing. It would be harder on the gold farmers since they would have to get real groups and not let bots get carried through dungeons and rbgs to level up. And the economy would be smaller so there would be less gold to sell. But that just means they could charge more for it. I was just looking to address changes Blizzard itself has made to the game that I think have reduced the sense of community.

Another I didn't mention was CRZ. Since characters would be divided by level range all the players they can interact with would essentially be on the same server. So everyone you see out in the world you can see again. I was chasing a paladin a bit ago in Hillsbrad Foothills and he just changed realms and was gone. So not fun.

 

[Bestworld]

These ideas of a utopia is getting old now. With that said though, you have some honest, general ideas, which I do believe will have supporters behind it.

 

[Awkwyrd]

I don't see it as any kind of Vanilla content. I would play a legacy server though I don't expect Blizzard to produce any anytime soon. I was a Wrath baby and would resub for a chance for the Vanilla experience. I'd love to go back. This is my idea for a way to make the game better going forward.

I believe there are lots of better things in the game now. Being able to power through stuff is fun. It makes you feel powerful. I remember leveling as a tank spec before leveling was completely trivialized and feeling good about being able to ignore the quest recommendation that I bring a friend or two to help. This couple I was in a noob guild with were always a couple levels below me and I remember more than once (dare I say, a couple times) being asked to go back and help them complete a quest I had soloed. It feels good. It's fun.

It's fun but it's also single player. The unintended consequence is that it reduced social activity. ISTM that this is the big issue with WoW. A lot of decent ideas in and of themselves turned out to diminish the community. I'd like to go without these "conveniences" but keep what else is good about the game. Quick but not completely trivial levelling punctuated by choke points where players must work together to progress through instances before being able to level further. In a world pvp environment where you aren't being farmed by skull level opponents (but it might be a good idea to group up for safety sometimes). I think it would help players learn their class. I think it would foster a community like there was when I was leveling in Wrath. And I think it would be fun.