Boosting Rule Adjustments

[Cryptyy]

Just ban multiboxing and paid boosting services, Not being allowed to help a lower level friends is a crazy rule and this needs to be rethought.

[Kestrel]

To those that would argue that this not how Turtle WoW was, I would ask what you think their intention was with their changes around boosting EXP. From our perspective their intention was clear, and if given more time I am certain they would have patched the loop holes that they missed that allowed boosting to continue. We of course are open to trying to patch those holes ourselves from a systemic standpoint, but don't think allowing boosting to continue in the meantime is good for us or the community. If this is a deal breaker for you, we'd rather you know now than 3 months from now when we push changes that get rid of your preferred boosting method.

The situation that led to this change being made when it was, revolved around our ongoing fight against RMT. While investigating some RMT allegations, it became apparent to us that RMT boosting is something that we will never be able to adequately detect and act on. The entire Dev team was on the same page when the discussion happened and that is why the change happened in the way that it did with little fanfare.

TWoW never explicitly banned boosting. They did make it tougher to do so through a few key changes, but they never outright banned the activity. In the interest of preserving the TWoW experience, I think that this change will negatively impact a lot of people and actively hampers how some people want and/or choose to play. You don't need to be boosted to play and have fun, you don't need to go through the 1-60 leveling experience to play and have fun; But in either case there are people out there who choose to play in either way because that's how they get enjoyment from the game. This was not something that impacted the in-game economy in TWoW and I don't think allowing it to continue is going to have any ramifications, especially considering that TWoW was alive for so many years without the issues you are describing actually plaguing it in any meaningful capacity.

Concerning RMT, the logic behind tying this decision to RMT boosting seems flawed from my perspective. If you can't tell when people are RMT boosting, then you're not able to tell when they aren't -- and I foresee both a ton of work in your futures and a lot of misfired punishments for players who, possibly from a GM perspective, appear to be boosting.

Again, I think this is a negative change.

I believe they never banned boosting because they did not have the moderation capacity to do so. Perhaps it was instead that they (with more foresight than I) foresaw this difficult community discussion and felt it better to work around mechanically than to have a conversation with the community. Either way it is clear they indented to manage/get rid of boosting through the implementation of modified EXP mechanics.

I disagree with your statements about the effect boosting does or doesn't have on the world. While I don't think it productive to stick on this point as I won't likely change your mind, your same arguments could be used to justify straight level 60 character boosts through in game stores or even sold via gold. At least with things like Heirloom items or exp potions players still have to engage with the content and the world (we have no plans to add these either).

The logic behind this change is not centered on stopping RMT. This is simply the catalyst that initiated this discussion internally and why it was made the way it was. With a blanket ban on boosting there is no need to differentiate who is RMT boosting vs who is helping a friend vs who is doing it themselves. That is a happy side effect, but not the reason that we choose to ban boosting.

[Kestrel]

Just ban multiboxing and paid boosting services, Not being allowed to help a lower level friends is a crazy rule and this needs to be rethought.

Multiboxing is already restricted, paid boosting services are already banned, and you are allowed to help lower level friends. Please read.

[Mrsneed]

I believe they never banned boosting because they did not have the moderation capacity to do so.

I strongly disagree with this. TWoW made more than 8 figures and they actively paid GMs and moderation staff allowing them to have a sizable and expandable team. Capacity was never a concern.

Perhaps it was instead that they (with more foresight than I) foresaw this difficult community discussion and felt it better to work around mechanically than to have a conversation with the community. Either way it is clear they indented to manage/get rid of boosting through the implementation of modified EXP mechanics.

I don't think the picture of TWoW paints this as clearly as you are making it sound. What would have been clear is them outright prohibiting it within the 8 years of operation. History shows that they changed the way some mechanics worked in-game which is fundamentally different than what you're trying to do here now. The justification does not match the history or lived experiences.

I disagree with your statements about the effect boosting does or doesn't have on the world. While I don't think it productive to stick on this point as I won't likely change your mind, your same arguments could be used to justify straight level 60 character boosts through in game stores or even sold via gold. At least with things like Heirloom items or exp potions players still have to engage with the content and the world (we have no plans to add these either).

Boosting a friend or guildie or someone you just met in-game because you want to help out or w/e is not even close to the same thing as buying a boost to 60 for gold/money, or exp potions, or w/e it is that servers like Ascension peddle. In my case, our friend group would always boost each other on TWoW and we treated it as a social activity. Human interaction and teamwork was required for boosting to work -- a tag team effort. Equating this to exchanging money for a level 60 character is dishonest.

On the subject of this change, no one had any issues with the previous server rules (gdkp, RMT boosting, etc) prior to this change-up. Switching the experience up now feels somewhat vindictive -- as if someone on the team didn't like this part of TWoW and is now using the opportunity to make their own desired change to a very significant and core component of the historical experience.

Again, I think this is a negative change and I strongly urge you to reconsider this because it significantly affects everyone.

[Gildark]

Kestrel I understand where the concern is coming from and I partially agree on some points, though personally I don't think it's a good change. But it's your server who am I to argue. What I would like to ask is if there would be room for a little compromise.

Outside of the scum RMTing, this really negativly effects the majority of dedicated end game minded players, both currently existing and still leveling. One of the main motivations for genuine players to boost were to create alts that could craft particular items needed throughout our journey, whether for a quest or more generally paying for items such as consumables. There's also reasoning for summoning alts or filling in raid slots for needed roles but that's not the issue I want to discuss at the moment.

Now to the compromise. What are your thoughts on removing or at least lowering the cap on reaching max professions? To say it's currently level 35 but what if we could lower it to at least level 20. Even that much of a difference doesn't seem like a lot but would save so much time for people who have lives or even just don't want to go through the motions of grinding that far again and again and again.

Also to note, so many people prioritized doing this already before this announcement while some like myself pushed it off in lieu of other priorities not knowing this change would ever be a thing. It almost feels like a ladder pull at this point putting half if not more at a massive disadvantage.

[Lulzy]

The reason I support boosting is because the reality is the MMO player base, and most specifically the Classic WoW player base, are a demographic that on average doesn't have a lot of time to play. It is easy to be outraged by boosting alts when the only thing you have to do all day is play video games. But for the large portion of the player base who have to go to work, have other hobbies, and other commitments just become extremely limited in what they can do in a game that might take them multiple months just to level one character to 60 based on available playtime.

[Holydruid]

First of all sorry about my previous reaction. But this really triggers me for multiple reason.
I've had 2 alts boosted on TWOW, to help other guilds as a raid leader progress through MC and Naxx.
I would never do this if boosting is banned, because i cba leveling over and over and over and over for days.

But let's actually look at the logic here of everything you said, because there isn't much of it.


"We're in beta, communication-wise."
That's not an excuse for the decision itself, it's a deflection.
The issue isn't how you announced it, it's what you announced.
You can communicate a bad decision perfectly and it's still a bad decision.


"Boosting is an attempt to skip content."
Sure, sometimes. But you're treating "a guild leader gearing up a newer player" and "an RMT seller power-leveling accounts for cash" as the same phenomenon because they use the same mechanic.
They're not the same thing. One is a community sustaining itself, the other is a business exploiting your economy. Banning the mechanic because you can't tell the difference is a failure of enforcement, not a principled stance, and you're making the whole population pay for a detection problem that's actually yours to solve.


"We can't adequately detect RMT boosting."
This is the actual reason, buried two-thirds of the way down.
Everything above it, the nostalgia about wing clip and soul shard bags, the "core part of the game" framing, is a values argument bolted onto what is really an admission: we can't catch the cheaters, so we're banning the behavior for everyone. That's not protecting the leveling experience. That's outsourcing your anti-cheat problem to your player base and calling it philosophy.


"A level 60 should be one someone actually got to 60 on."
Then say that's the goal, and build a policy around that, an achievement flag, a "self-found" tag, whatever. Instead you banned a mechanic that a huge chunk of your population was using for reasons that have nothing to do with faking achievement: alt professions, guild support, helping friends, keeping the economy liquid on a low-pop server. You're not preserving the meaning of level 60, you're just making everyone slower, including the people who never cared about the "achievement" in the first place.


"General assistance is fine, AOE farming for others isn't."
Where's the line? A 60 clearing a dungeon so a 20 can loot it, assistance or boosting? A 60 killing mobs next to a 20 so they get kill credit, assistance or boosting? You just told us you can't reliably detect RMT boosting. What makes you confident you can adjudicate this distinction fairly and consistently across hundreds of reports? You've replaced one unenforceable line with another unenforceable line, and this one will be enforced by whichever GM is on duty and how they feel about it that day.


"We'd rather you know now than 3 months from now."
That's not a policy justification, that's a warning shot. It reads as "the ban will only get stricter, plan accordingly" which is a fine thing to say honestly, but dress it up as such. Don't wrap a threat in a customer-service tone.


"We are all on the same team, most of the community wants this."
Says who? Where's the survey, the poll, the data? You just spent three paragraphs saying you underestimated how many people boost or plan to. That's the opposite of evidence for consensus, that's evidence you don't actually know where your community stands, and you're asserting a majority you haven't demonstrated.


"TurtleWoW's intent was clearly to ban this too, we're just closing loopholes they'd have closed."
This is speculation presented as certainty about someone else's unstated intentions, used to borrow legitimacy for your own decision. If you want to make this call, make it as your call for your server's population and needs, don't launder it through a guess about what another team would've done.


The core problem: you had a real, narrow issue, RMT, and you solved it with the broadest possible tool, at the cost of the legitimate uses that were actually holding smaller guilds and the economy together. If the detection problem is the real issue, that's what should've been on the table for community input, not a blanket ban justified after the fact with nostalgia about leveling being "sacred."

[Lilithianone]

I need help with understanding specific situations -

1] I need to level the second character for dual boxing without any interaction with my main character, if it is significantly lower level.

2] I can help single character with a quest, if it is not inside a dungeon. I cant run a group of lower level characters through a dungeon.

Please confirm that these statements are true or false. Thank you.

[Elise]

I'll add my two cents into it. As a guild leader of 400+ characters, I can tell you the general feeling in our community today has been one of dejection. People don't boost their first or second characters, usually, they boost their 3rd or more character. The way in which this released also had people feeling extremely disrespected in terms of just hearing it in world chat as "well tough shit, this is how it is now", and when you unexpectedly received enormous backlash for such a short sighted decision, you just doubled down and are trying to nicely say "well tough shit, this is how it is now". It hasn't left people feeling warm fuzzies about the future or the style of ownership from this team. Let me give you some quotes from some of my friends and comrades, and how they've felt about it today.

"dumb ass change"
"i think the change itself is kinda whatever but the method of announcing it and the responses to those giving feedback has been appalling"
"allegedly a "majority of the server" wants the change and the people that dont are a 'loud minority' "
"Welp I guess I'm gonna start raidlogging"
"idk this feels like 'you dont want this change but i do so we are gonna do it anyway' "
"yea that's basically how i read it too. "We heard you guys don't like it. Too bad, we're doing it anyway""
"“Play the game the way I tell you to or else” - the devs probably "

"Ugh.....these devs, mods, and GMs are kinda killing my desire to put much effort into this shit. f**k"
in response to this: "truth man"
as well as "honestly kinda same"

"its giving me brwow vibes "you WILL be in the open world and you WILL like it - none of this locking yourself in dungeons nonsense""



Also, regarding RMT, you guys do know that this will do absolutely nothing to stop the activity right? It will just raise the price of those services. There will always be dumb suckers willing to pay for power gain in video games.

Take a poll or something for such major changes to the spirit of Twow, you'll find that most people don't want RMT or paid boosting activities. Self boosting or boosting your friends though, was a social activity. This will actively reduce the amount of healers and alt characters available for high end content on what is effectively still a fairly small server, as well.

[Unsullied]

I think you need to listen to the community on this one Kestrel. No one asked for this addition to the rules and the vast majority of the community are expecting you to hold the values of turtlewow and keep the rules as similar as possible to that. This is a major change of rules that most people won't agree with, which is why you are being ratio'd. You will definitely lose server population over implementing this. To say that this is something turtlewow would have done if they had the manpower or means to is insane. They had been moderating for over 7 years.