Boosting Rule Adjustments

[Shaksa]

All I've seen on this thread was like three people crying foul and defending boosting as if their life depended on it. Much more people supported the ban. Someone was referring to the Discord server? Pig's message about boosting been banned has overwhelming support in reactions. Make a poll or something, let's see how the support measures for real.

That could be more true than anyone realizes. Maybe their livelyhood literally does depend on it through RMT one way or another. Or their identity as a person is so intertwined with this very specific way of playing the game that taking that away from them is like taking away a huge part of their personality. Either of these cases could help explain the reactions they have shown.

As for the poll, polling on the forum is somewhat ironic, since those in favor of boosting are more likely to have multiple accounts and thus multiple votes.

[Yotca]

All I've seen on this thread was like three people crying foul and defending boosting as if their life depended on it. Much more people supported the ban. Someone was referring to the Discord server? Pig's message about boosting been banned has overwhelming support in reactions. Make a poll or something, let's see how the support measures for real.

That could be more true than anyone realizes. Maybe their livelyhood literally does depend on it through RMT one way or another. Or their identity as a person is so intertwined with this very specific way of playing the game that taking that away from them is like taking away a huge part of their personality. Either of these cases could help explain the reactions they have shown.

As for the poll, polling on the forum is somewhat ironic, since those in favor of boosting are more likely to have multiple accounts and thus multiple votes.

There's a discord poll where you can't have multiple accounts or votes and its 80/20 in favor of boosting and mobtag stays.

You specifically said you level characters to 60 and then start again. That makes you an outsider to the entire economy and ecosystem created by people who put in the time and effort to play the game as a community instead of being what you are, which is essentially an Elden ring player on an MMORPG.

Guess what, it's a massively multiplayer online role playing game, where we role play as adventurers/mercenaries who form large guilds to take on dragons and monsters as in many fantasy stories. And in those fantasy stories the actual adventurers or mercenaries are few and far between but the craftsmen, merchants, gatherers and small hands that are there to aid and equip them are legion.

Ring a bell yet? We're actually more immersed in the role playing than you are.

Yet here you are so terribly out of arguments and so apparently dumb, that you've resorted to accusing anyone who disagrees with you as someone who sells gold for a living, all while you actually have never played the game as it was intended by the OG devs originally which is raiding. Do you even realise what you look like?

[Beckett]

It's been several times now that the anti-boosting crowd has dropped the civility act and just started flinging baseless accusations of people "boosting" with forum accounts. Including at least twice by your pederast-community discord's admin. I'm pretty sure Kestrel would've said something if a bunch of people with the same geolocation were supporting each others arguments

There's a discord poll where you can't have multiple accounts or votes and its 80/20 in favor of boosting and mobtag stays.

Ah yes "the loud minority"

Every accusation was a confession from this GM/discord team.

[Kestrel]

Kestrel tongue in cheek isn't the right way to go about this all while ignoring very serious points:

• Server economy especially for small populations is very dependent on leveling alts for the CD materials, that was the case on all Blizz servers and was the case on Twow -- you can disagree as you stated but you'd be wrong -- supply & demand isn't rocket science
• Turtle increased arcane crystal/black lotus drop rate via the survival trinkets for a reason -- both to fight RMT and allow players with less game time to be able to afford these materials
• A smaller portion of the player base will be coming much later than the rest due to trust issues with the server, vacations -- insert reason -- etc and they will be "solo" leveling due to lack of people to run dungeons/quests with which is why boosting friends/guildmates is a thing ; basically whoever missed the train is left out hanging in the rain
• On a PvP server staying lower level longer means being food for that much longer especially when a larger part of the server population is 60
• Most of us care about end game raiding and end game PvP -- having to play the "shit version" of the game for much longer simply isn't the fun people come here for

Those points are all addressed in other responses. The response you quote was to a post that brought up none of the points you did so I am not sure your point. When given a low effort post people will receive a low effort response unfortunately.

First — that's mendacious — you believing you addressed points while you disregarded and sidelined them doesn't constitute an elucidation; I argue for a living, Kestrel.

Second, most people on this forum and in the game aren't brats you can dismiss with a wave of the hand and a smug comment — just in this thread, that's several similar replies — a good deal of us have children and some might even be closer to your age than ours.
Acting that way doesn't help with how the dev/GM team handled the transfer situation or this one and the resulting mess.
Dismissive replies don't work in any situation — ever.

Third, going forward: poll things in game and per server. As much as you'd like to believe this is yours and the dev/GM team's project, it's still based on Turtle WoW and will die without the support, trust and input from the community. It's ours as a community as much it's yours.
Moreso if you maintain donation shop points as a functionality; we're the reason Turtle thrived for 7 years and could have endured longer.

I genuinely appreciate the time and effort you and others are putting in and I think many thousands who don't post here share the same feelings, but cogent, articulate, polished replies that elaborate and remove any sort of ambiguity is what's expected. The proof is in the pudding — the sheer amount of replies saying they perused all then 9-13-15 pages and found no solid answer to work with or legitimate explanations as to why such decisions were being made other than: "we felt like it" should be sufficient evidence.
As another person commented, this is silly.

If you and the team have ambitions as grand as claimed, accept the backlash for the mishandling without attempts to downplay or minimize the shit storm and trivializing replies and reactions, all while skirting from actual clarification as I've seen in several situations already, be it transfer communication fuck up or this one.

Your most recent answer shows exactly what I'm describing; a healthy enough output via alts for all players to be able to purchase moderately priced craft mats doesn't equate to your near unlimited supply answer — you'd also quickly realize that there isn't enough felcloth for that specific interaction, because the effort required to produce mooncloth via having to actually level an alt and it's professions is where the drawback is and reducing the cooldown makes that effort near irrelevant. No one other than yourself has claimed it would be healthy for the server. The reductio per absurdum weighs on you, not Holydruid, and the sophistry to add that it's a balancing act when that's precisely what he's arguing for all while you purposely misconstrue his claims is downright ridiculous.
You're also seriously underestimating who purchases lower level materials to level said professions on those alts and allows the minority of lower leveled characters to sell their peacebloom, light leather etc at prices that would be considered steep when servers release, which in turn is what allows them to near seamlessly integrate into the existing economy. Hint: it's lvl 60's leveling professions on their lvl 35 alts mainly.

You can only erect wonders from a solid socle and in this context it's trust and humility, so start by accepting that on this server many people know more about what's healthy or balanced than you or the team members and in certain cases by quite a bit; I could out theorycraft your entire dev team regardless of the class for instance as shown here.
I raided in one of the best guilds on the planet <Method> from Vanilla to the end of WotLk and interacted with GM's on nearly every topic — shared guild factory alts were very much an obligation back then because so few people had crafting professions and very few people had reached level 60. The sheer amount of players that will be clearing what is a nearly fully solved game on Octowow despite attempts to change certain things is much more than you imagine and the required materials for that huge mass of players is why factory alts are a necessity.

https://web.archive.org/web/20090227035 ... y_mp3/p30/

Accepting you're not always right and can make mistakes you have to make amends for is truly very simple once you realise that you being wrong or right on an issue doesn't make you a bad or good person, but how you react to being wrong or right does.

The thing about arguing for a living is I'd imagine no matter the role it is primarily arguing with others who at least are at a similar level of skill, good faith and/or standards. I'm not going to respond to
"The path of least resistance extends beyond the server. As soon as someone puts out a western TWOW copy WITHOUT a retarded ruleset, this place is going to be a ghost town. Hell I'm already seeing people bite the ping bullet and jump ship to Capy."
with a well thought out response it is simply not worth the time.

Of course I don't think most people on the forum and in game are brats. You know that I don't think that as well and you see it if you want to admit it or not. But that does not mean that none of them are. Dismissive replies can be necessary not everything is worthy of a discussion.

The start of this topic was a post explaining "why such decisions were being made". It was more than "we felt like it" it was that we did not understand how large of a percent of our community was planning to do this. That was made very clear.

As for enforcement specifics, it was unclear as we needed to iron out the details, and assumed it would be a not big deal to the vast majority and there would be no issues ironing out the details later. Then we ironed them out and are still working on best ways to communicate that beyond this forum post (as they have already been made clear here at least). Perhaps another announcement or in game announcement is also needed but we primarily want to rework the entire rules section as it is a bit dense right now. Players have been told repeatedly in many instances beyond this thread to just do what they want within reason and they will be warned if they are doing something they shouldn't be.

I have no issue accepting the backlash from the mishandling that is the core of this forum thread. But low effort, aggressive, bad faith, and/or fear mongering posts are not something I will be taking seriously. Can't afford to do that on the internet. I don't think answer the communities question of how/why "did this happen" is minimizing it but you can interpret that how you'd like. (idk what you mean by transfer communication fuck up so not sure how to respond to that, you mean the issue we had with name transfers?)

Like I said several times the economic conversation is a long one. I never said or sugested that more alts is the same as no CD on mooncloth, I said that their argument that cheaper goods = better economy is just plain wrong using that comparison as an example. I felt I was very clear but I guess not.

I claimed that economic health is something we had in mind when making the change and that it would be good. If we need to justify all our economic decisions publicly we would end up never getting development done. I personally consider a server to be more health economically when there is more player to player activity. More alts means less player to player activity. That is a clear improvement from that standpoint. Like I said this is a long conversation and one that is not best had here but if ya really can't make another thread that is fine I guess I think the other questions have mostly died down.

Is the Latin really necessary? He said that he defines a good economy by the mats necessary for everyone to make their gear, there was no talk of balance in his statements only that cheaper = better even when pushed they maintained that. If the balance is something you agree with, then where does it lie? Am I correct in stating that you think that we should go out of our way to make it easier for players to get the best materials needed to clear this nearly fully solved game and that is the reason you find this change bad for the economy? Or are you saying that to
convince me that it doesn't matter?

I accepted I am not always right and I can make mistakes years and years ago, long before joining OctoWoW. The very first post in this thread says so very clearly. It is concerning that you either do not realize that or did not read it.

I had a hard time separating the quote from the points you raise in your first post. If you want a response for them separate from the context of the quote, and rehashed from other posts, I can try to elaborate further below.

1.) Supply and Demand will balance out, invisible hand and all that jazz. Supply drops because of this exploit fix then the market will find an equilibrium.
2.) Yes, and we are not opposed to doing similar changes beyond even what turtle did, not sure what that has to do with boosting exploits though. This is a side tangent of the economic discussions that I just don't think belongs here and I don't even think we would disagree that much on most of it.
3.) I don't doubt that will happen and be something that many want. I don't think that is great but I am not the only voice of course. They won't be using exploits to do it though anymore as we patched it out.
4.) Yeah that is another argument to do double exp on the PvP server, would you suggest the same on the Normal realm to alleviate the issues you have with us patching up this exploit? Many of those that choose to play here want a 1x server.
5.) I don't doubt that, I also think catering to that audience is how retail became what it did. We are not opposed to more/better end game content of course we will be making some our own once we get enough experience with easier content.

[Kestrel]

Here's a comparison: when I was a kid, I had the game Final Fantasy Tactics on the PS1. Loved that game, but grinding for job points to unlock all the jobs and their abilities was a tedious, repetitive experience, similar to leveling in classic wow, and it made replaying the game to try different team combinations significantly less appealing because it would take more time to get the job points than I would get time enjoying/testing any given build. There was an error in the game code that allowed you to speed this process up by getting infinite job points on certain jobs, that could be used to unlock some of the grindier abilities.

This single feature enabled me to replay the game 100s of times as opposed to just 5 or 10. This also didn't make the game any worse for anyone who wanted to experience the "intended grind experience".

On Twow, classic wow, and many other classic mmos, we boosted alts and friends so they could catch up to us or have alts to craft on, and the economy was fine and the community was great. I just don't see how this change is good for the community, it feels more like a philosophical difference, that, once enforced, is just pissing people off who otherwise would game here while having almost 0 negative impact on anything on the server. This change is selfish, and doesn't respect our time as players.

I do think this is a great illustration of that perspective and a very valid one. I just don't think that a 1x server sounds like what you are looking for though in that case. Perhaps the real desire here is for a 4th server (way down the line after enough growth has happened) that is a bit more free/exploratory with higher exp rates and lower CD's on crafting and stuff like that. Not sure if that registers as along the same lines or not?

[Kestrel]

Lowering the crafting cooldowns wouldn't fully fix it. It's not really about the CD number by itself, it's about how many people are actually crafting the stuff at all. Cutting mooncloth's cooldown in half means each crafter makes more, sure, but it only matters if enough people are willing to sit there tailoring every couple days for months on end. Shortening the CD helps a bit, but the bigger issue is that alts let more people casually contribute to that supply without having to relevel a whole new main just to cover one profession. Take that away and you've still got fewer people willing to bother, even with a shorter CD. Example.. I have enchanting and mining, so i am depended on alts or others people. But for the rare materials we will need for T3 Naxx. People will focus on their own tier first. S

As for what I'd call a healthy economy, since you're asking straight up: supply keeps up with demand well enough that gear doesn't cost a fortune for a normal raider, not just the guys who play 8 hours a day or RMT. And it shouldn't be hard for regular players to become a supplier of stuff people need, so it's not just a handful of crafters controlling the market. By that definition, cutting down the number of people who can realistically craft this stuff and driving prices up is moving away from healthy, not toward it. That's regardless of whether you think that tradeoff is fine.

You might not agree with that definition, that's a real difference in values and that's fair. But I'd rather just say it out loud like this instead of "healthy economy" getting thrown around in the original post without either of us actually knowing what it meant.

Halving the CD (in theory) would double the output server wide. Removing boosting (lets say for the sake of the conversation) cuts the amount of tailors by half. That in theory events out. The point I am making that by your definition if we allow boosting and also halve the moon cloth CD that is only a good thing as it "makes the economy healthier" and I firmly disagree.

Why stop at halving it? Why not a 1 hour cooldown? Then everyone can get whatever they need nice and cheap. There is a balancing act, and the answer is not "cheaper = better".

Okay that's fair, and you're right that "cheaper = healthier" isn't a real definition if it justifies a 1 hour CD and everyone swimming in mats. That would break progression entirely, gear needs to actually cost effort and time, otherwise there's no point having it be a goal at all. So let me actually fix that instead of pretending I didn't need to.

I think the difference isn't cheap vs expensive, it's about who gets to participate in supplying it. A CD change affects every tailor equally, it's a dial you control precisely and can tune up or down as needed. Banning boosting doesn't tune a dial, it just cuts a chunk of the population out of being viable crafters at all, specifically the more casual players who'd have run an alt for it but won't relevel a whole new main just for one profession. So even if the math nets out to a similar total output on paper, it's not the same thing, one is "everyone makes a bit more," the other is "fewer people are making anything at all, so the ones still doing it have more leverage over price." That's a market getting more concentrated, not more balanced, even if raw supply numbers land in the same place.

So I'll actually answer straight: a healthy economy isn't just "cheap," it's supply staying tied to effort and time in a way that still lets a wide range of players participate in providing it, not just the ones willing to fully relevel a main from scratch. Scarcity's fine and even good for the game, I'm not arguing for a 1 hour CD. I'm arguing that concentrating who's allowed to supply it into a smaller group is a different kind of problem than making it more or less scarce.

Glad we agree on that and I think that gives us a good place to start. and I do agree it would be cutting out participants in the market in that example. I think the disconnect that we have on the issue is that I see more people with a max level tailor alt and that looks to me like more people who no longer need a tailor friend to craft/DE the bolts they've been catching, or the spare cloth they have. If we define a healthy economy based more on player to player interactions/transactions having people forced to be more pigeon holed into their specific professions and dependent on others feels like a net positive. Of course I don't expect you to agree with that definition of a healthy economy but that is mine.

You are right though it could concentrate the supply to a smaller group of players. I don't rule out that as being a possible issue down the line, and perhaps the solution would be like others suggested to lower the max crafting skill require level 25 rather than 35. Happy to have a conversation about that I just don't think boosting is a healthy way to provide that diversity in supply.

[Kestrel]

All I've seen on this thread was like three people crying foul and defending boosting as if their life depended on it. Much more people supported the ban. Someone was referring to the Discord server? Pig's message about boosting been banned has overwhelming support in reactions. Make a poll or something, let's see how the support measures for real.

there is already a poll and it clearly shows people want boosting. like 75% lol

I don't doubt it may end up close to that (for the open world boosting poll) but I also would give it a while. The recent forum activity has been pretty dominated by people outraged at this who jumped on here to vote and make their voice heard (and I am genuinely glad they did, more people on the forums the better).

Side note, we are looking at ways to integrate our forum polls in game as well someday.

[Delaiwen]

I believe that alt characters without any special modes should be allowed to level up quickly through their main characters. I've already spent too much time leveling up and experienced all the joy of leveling. Unless you have more content than Turtle World of Warcraft, if it's prohibited, I'll only have two max-level characters at most. I'm almost 40 years old and need a lot of time to work, earn money, and support my family, so I don't have much time to slowly level up.

[Tokinc]

To me, I agree on all your points in the original post.

I love to farm solo, and I love to try/test stuff with 2-3 characters on each own account.
I love the idea to 3man, or 5man dungeons, with yourself. (Its very stressful, and often on HC, results in either partial wipe or full wipes).

I did it many places, private-servers, and classic many times. I simply love the idea, to gear up multiple chars, with yourself. So I hope boosting will NOT mean cases where I 2man or 3man RFC, or WC or SFK.

Its not about 'speeding' up leveling, or reaching highlvl first, its a exploration and gameplay I really fancy.
I did alot of solo'ing as well, got my SGC on HC Warrrior, maybe as the first ever in history, on Classic, with 6 pieces of valor gear, 2x crusader enchant (instead of lifesteal) also testet 2x Julie's Daggers etc. Self healing warrior, especially with Twow/Octo game item changes with the fury-healing changes, and also the "damage delt returned as healing" is the really big fun for me.

I hope to stay and be able to do this, with 2-3 accounts, (not pvping, not 'cheating' my way to gear.. its actually fun and tough challenge).

/Mawe | Maw

[Yotca]

Here's a comparison: when I was a kid, I had the game Final Fantasy Tactics on the PS1. Loved that game, but grinding for job points to unlock all the jobs and their abilities was a tedious, repetitive experience, similar to leveling in classic wow, and it made replaying the game to try different team combinations significantly less appealing because it would take more time to get the job points than I would get time enjoying/testing any given build. There was an error in the game code that allowed you to speed this process up by getting infinite job points on certain jobs, that could be used to unlock some of the grindier abilities.

This single feature enabled me to replay the game 100s of times as opposed to just 5 or 10. This also didn't make the game any worse for anyone who wanted to experience the "intended grind experience".

On Twow, classic wow, and many other classic mmos, we boosted alts and friends so they could catch up to us or have alts to craft on, and the economy was fine and the community was great. I just don't see how this change is good for the community, it feels more like a philosophical difference, that, once enforced, is just pissing people off who otherwise would game here while having almost 0 negative impact on anything on the server. This change is selfish, and doesn't respect our time as players.

I do think this is a great illustration of that perspective and a very valid one. I just don't think that a 1x server sounds like what you are looking for though in that case. Perhaps the real desire here is for a 4th server (way down the line after enough growth has happened) that is a bit more free/exploratory with higher exp rates and lower CD's on crafting and stuff like that. Not sure if that registers as along the same lines or not?

I think I need to clarify that many of us replying are from the PvP server — I recognize many names — and even speaking for the PvE players, I'd say most of us were probably fine with things as they were before these "rule changes" which is why so much pushback came through.

The x2 xp on Tel'Abim was to prevent people who spent very little time sleeping from acquiring too much and too long of a level advantage, because they can and will prevent you from accessing certain zones by ganking and camping.
Dungeons become the only safe parts of the map and leveling fast evens the playing field rapidly.
Player time differs widly and don't forget that as dedicated as much of the player base is... it's one of the oldest on average in the gaming world and that changes many things.

Allowing players to reach lvl 60 faster was also so they could enjoy the balance as intended instead of having to deal with... rogues for example —who are arguably from instant attacks and early access to core cooldown skills, the strongest PvP class and the strongest PvE dps until much later levels— for most classes, the real game starts much later and aren't viable until then.
It also helped to catch up with the PvE server without having delayed releases or updates which is exactly what's wanted from competitive players and PvP players are that by nature.


No one so far has asked for lower cooldowns or even that the xp rates be x2 for the PvP like Tel'Abim.
Although I'm pretty certain a lot of people would take that, because for PvPers there's only increasing issues from being sub 60 for long, moreso when gear starts to be a deciding factor.

Overall, it's the communication or lack of, that people have complained about, especially regarding existing mechanics. I'm sure you'll find people very open once you introduce entirely new things.

On the topic of previous fuck ups and communication, I was alluding to the whole PvE/HC to PvP transfer mess. Just from players I know and talk to daily, there's over a dozen who leveled to 60 what they thought would be an "alt" that they could transfer later. We had multiple confirmations from different GM's that it would be possible which is why people did it and were ready for conditions like no gold or even naked.
So... when that didn't happen people were pissed but most took it on the chin as many of their friends and guildmates were only going to join the PvP server anyways. But... when you added the rule changes to summoning/multiboxing and boosting/mob tagging rule changes on top of that already lost and disrespected time, you can understand how many players felt.

Except basket cases, no one is expecting handouts and I don't think many players would be willing to play on a server with insanely low cooldowns — part of the game is the grind — we still appreciate delayed gratification and setting longtime goals, or we'd be playing another game.

For many of us these characters aren't our mains; they're our 50th rerolls since 2004 and mobtag/boosting has always been a core mechanic to alleviate what would otherwise be exhausting.

Either way thank you for taking the time to answer, Kestrel.