Kaxle
OG
I actually agree with a lot of your points @Chey but want to elaborate on some of my perspectives
While I don't think the example you gave is realistic and is kind of an apples to oranges comparison I personally don't fault you for playing your old 70s and completely understand. My hostility is reserved for the window lickers mentioned a few quotes up
That isn't quite what I said, I mentioned the 21-29 bracket specifically. I think its sick yall were able to maintain an active raiding scene back in the day, I'm actually kinda jealous of the russian 20s who raid AQ almost every week, but it doesn't go against my point.
On the forums? Maybe only like 6 lmao but that isn't a fair representation of population. If you go into BGs you'll still see a bunch of them they just aren't aware or don't care to join to join the Xpoff community at large. Hell most of them aren't even aware they can fully level their professions now.
My opinion on this has actually changed over the years. In BFA or earlier I would have absolutely agreed with you. When I started playing my F2Ps again regularly in BFA I was shocked and kinda disgusted that VETs had become so prevalent since the last time I was active in the bracket and community, for more than a week or two at a time, enchanted 20s were ridiculed and somewhat ostracized even if they were "only doing it to combat the 24s." But in SL? I don't think I really agree with that anymore with how much F2P restrictions have opened up the gear levels end up being pretty equivalent between them an a VET. Its was unfortunate for levelers though but with us being at the bottom of the bracket so long as they are in heirlooms with a weapon enchant it more or less evened out by the time they hit lvl25
This is certainly true of a lot of 20s that joined in BFA/SL and why I don't fault a lot them, and new twinks looking to join a bracket, for going 29 as much as I don't like the idea of it. Hell the only reason I even made my first VET was because trying to sell the F2P playstyle to my end game friends was too hard, was only able to get one of them to make a F2P alongside their VET, so I made a VET in order to join their guild. So when I say I get why they do it its not just lip service to try and play nice, I do genuinely understand why the people with no history/attachment to the 20s community would roll a 29 currently. I just wish they would make some effort to understand why some people ask them to roll a 20 instead and not just reply with "just sub lmao"
Ah here is a fun one. I'm actually in favor of some level of the dreaded gatekeeping *gasp* as I don't think the vast majority of current 20s are able to control themselves with glitches and end up getting cool things like the korraks summon glitch patched out. Following that same example a glitch that had previously been used only by F2P to get mogs/achieves/mounts ended up getting abused to the point of blizzard having to go in and hotfix it because a bunch of window lickers got wind of ilvl85 gear and decided they absolutely must have it to one shot levelers harder. While the person I quoted in my original post may have made it in jest there are a bunch of people who have that kind of mentality unironically and wet themselves with excitement in their glue fueled haze at the thought of destroying opponents who can't fight back and do often try to hide behind the "compete" excuse as you mentioned. The overlap between those people and the ones who reroll to 24/29, historically, tends to be a circle which is the main reason why older 20s are so openly toxic and hostile to 29 rerollers.
When I talk about 20s building their community from nothing I am generally referencing back to the beginnings so stuff like the Aerie Peak and Kargath scenes which I do absolutely look at with rose colored glasses as early F2P was probably my favorite time in twinking. While modern 20s may not resemble those times exactly its still where the current scene grew from and still has its roots there and explains why its completely separate from the 21-29 community. Hell even if you want to exclude ancient history just look at communities built by the Teldies and the skirmish ladder or even more recently theres the Twinkies that have exploded with funding and community events over the last month or so. Those kind of things take effort to build and aren't there just because someone can log in and press find match. If it wasn't for the community the Teldies built up I wouldn't be playing any VETs and would be content to just log into my F2P and press that find match button without interacting with the bracket at large.
My ideal scenario is Blizz treating 20 similar to an xpac capped bracket. Let the F2Ps, VETs, and xpoff 20s all queue into their own isolated bracket like they do the 50s but without the levelers.
While I don't think the example you gave is realistic and is kind of an apples to oranges comparison I personally don't fault you for playing your old 70s and completely understand. My hostility is reserved for the window lickers mentioned a few quotes up
They'll be so much more valuable in that bracket.