Tims wrote: Mon Jul 06, 2026 12:56 am
Hi! First time using the forums, but wanted to give some feedback as it was recommended by an in-game GM. I really hope this post comes off as civil as it really is meant to be. Also, shoutout to Valette in game who really did try their best to answer a lot of these questions, so kudos to them! I know this will probably be really longwinded, but I'll try to keep it concise.
1. Max efficiency players are just not going to interact with the game the way this rule change I think probably hopes they will. Currently, we have:
-Rested xp is nerfed (compared to what it was at one point on turtle adding ~25% to leveling time)
-Dungeon xp is nerfed overall
This does not encourage people to group for dungeons if they are trying to get to 60 ASAP. Grouping for quests also does not feel great with the group xp penalty and that is if people even leave a city to group for said quests.
2. War Mode is just going to be the fastest way to level now. It already rivaled mob tagging once you hit ~50. This is I guess good in some ways as it makes these q's more frequent, but poorly geared alts sitting in bgs never leaving a city does not feel like the emergent gameplay this is trying to push. This meta will also do nothing to the world feeling full/alive which I am going out on a limb and assuming is the "core experience" that is desired. The new war mode change also makes this feel very bad as I believe you cannot turn it on and off at will like you could on Turtle so characters made before this change, with boosting in mind, are now stuck.
3. General rollout (I know you mentioned this is still in Beta for the team which I can appreciate!). It seems like the change was initially targeted at preventing RMT/Account selling based on what GM Pig posted in World Chat (I'm operating on a screenshot in the fan discord so I apologize if this is a mischaracterization, Pig). This post seems to pivot the change to a more "defensible" PR stance of protecting game integrity. I'm not saying it cannot be both! But, it does feel a bit disingenuous that this was more of a footnote compared to the gameplay concerns. Blizzard has made several, similar, baby out with the bathwater decisions in recent years that have shot them in the foot trying to do that same exact thing when fighting RMT. This becomes a slippery slope towards breaking other parts of the game like gold farming etc. because it leads to RMT issues.
4. Rule clarification on the website needs to happen for people coming to Octo/currently playing here. Boosting has several, conflicting definitions within the rule set. "Boosting services are considered paid or tipped runs where a notably higher leveled character will complete a dungeon for lower leveled character(s) in exchange for compensation." This makes it sound like boosting/boosting services are paid/tipped (especially when combined with the GDKP rule). It could be pretty easy to misreading the following to also require a pay component "Using a high level character to rapidly acquire EXP on any lower level character. General assistance is not considered boosting but a level 60 AOE farming for other lower level characters is and it is forbidden." Comingling the definition for "Boosting" to be not paid services and paid services is really easy to misunderstand. I realize the rest of the rules are a copy/paste from twow's original ruleset, but I think a rewrite that more directly fits Octowow is needed.
5. More concise language in the rule would also be appreciated. What is a higher level character? +/- 5 like in hardcore? Honor range? Same BG bracket? Why is AoE farming specifically mentioned, but not mob tagging? This does not read like "for example", but as a specific ban. After chatting with Valette I realize that is not the case, but again that is not clear.
6. Why not just ban if from the beginning? Surely, boosting in its current state was a well-known thing on Twow. If the team truly felt that Twow as a whole would have not wanted this given a longr life why not ban it from the beginning? Especially, when there are played that started early who will likely have alts that were leveled like this. Breaking it now feels more like missing out on an "Abuse Early" gameplay loop.
As someone who has hopped to a few different servers since Turtle died I am fairly burnt from the level experience. I realize that is 100% not the teams problem, but I wouldn't be surprised if others are in the same boat. It also feels a bit worse when "rebuilding" the Turtle characters that were lost which is why I think this was, seemingly, taken a lot worse then maybe the Dev team though it would. The fun part of MMOs, to me, is playing how you want and gameplay loops having massive changes abruptly that restricts what I find enjoyable is kind of a bummer. Especially when folks who enjoy the journey more already have loads of options to change their gameplay and slow it down.
I really appreciate anyone that took the time to read this post. I know it is heinously long and please forgive any poor formatting/grammar. Nursing that 4th of July hangover
Ultimately, the teams decision, but wanted to add my two cents.
First off, thank you for making the effort to not only jump into the forums and share your opinion, but also to type up your thoughts in an organized and calm manner <3 I will try to answer these best I can but please do follow up if I miss anything or trigger any follow up questions.
1.) This is a concern of mine and something that we will be keeping an eye on as it develops. Turtle was in an interesting spot in terms of them actively trying to balance this out when they shut down, which leaves it to us to find a more suitable long term strategy. One of the things we absolutely want to solve is the issue of grouping being overly penalizing when trying to level.
2.) The change to prevent warmode being able to be turned on/off was to make it functional as an actual leveling challenge, rather than a clone of retail WoW's war mode feature. If it does get to a point where the predominant method of rushing to 60 is to spam BG's 1-60 then we will likely be making changes to adjust that.
3.) The change was not made to target RMT sales, but rather made because RMT investigations brought to our attention that this was occurring already on the server. Once we realized, we had a quick internal discussion, and mistakenly took no internal pushback as an indication this would not be a contentious change.
The core of this decision is around how boosting affects the server as a whole, and the gameplay experience of everyone. In the same way that instant 60 boosted characters degrade the leveling experience for those that never intend to buy a boost, we feel that the endorsement of this type of in game level boosting also degrades that experience for everyone.
We do a lot to try to prevent RMT from occurring on our server, and also do not plan to make any gameplay or game design decisions around the preventions of RMT. We feel that the fight against RMT is one that is best fought with enforcement and killing the demand through public action and consequences.
4.) I absolutely agree. I think that our rules section is a bit wordy and difficult to parse through as is, and also our modifications have not made that any better. The fact that they are a copy paste with a few (non obvious) modifications only makes it harder to parse through.
We are working on some bigger changes to the website to (hopefully) better communicate the differences between what people experienced on Turtle WoW (or other turtle like servers) and what they can expect here on OctoWoW. We will be including a section on the updated or changed rules as well.
5.) This is something we need to work on to get the rule to a more easily understood place. Judging by some of the discussions we have seen around this rulechange, many clearly misunderstand what is, and is not, allowed. The intent of this rule change is to prevent level 60's characters from clearing dungeons or large swaths of mobs to funnel experience to a lower level toon. One thing to keep in mind on our server, if you are doing something you shouldn't but it is reasonable that you did not know or realize, you will not be penalized on a first infraction.
6.) This is probably the best point here IMO. You are right and it is something we should have changed first thing upon starting this server. When we started this server, we had hundreds of decisions to make, and this one fell through the cracks.
I empathies with being burnt out on the leveling experience, it is something I think we all experience at one point or another. I am sure that the recent movements in the private server community only compound that as it feels like nowhere is safe.
Our long term goal is to provide people a place that they can be certain their progress will last. One of the things that I personally felt with Turtle WoW, and drew me so deeply into it, was that I had faith it would always be around for me. I did not feel like I needed to do it all ASAP. It will take time, but I hope our server can be that for others. With this change I employ players to sit with that, there is no rush, OctoWoW and the characters you create here will always be here <3
