The paradigm, that is the evolution of World of Warcraft, can be summed up in one word: Vendorstrike.

Stashed in a lonely corner, in the dark recesses of the Molten Core, resides the Flamewaker lord, Sulfuron Harbinger. Harbinger would be designated as the raid boss to drop the Tier One shoulders for raiders wily enough to best the Flamewaker lord and his minions. (Granted, this didn’t take much “wile” as raiders soon discovered) In order to “flesh out” his loot table, it was decided that an epic pole arm would be added as a potential drop. The item, named “Shadowstrike” was added as a stat-less epic capable of transforming into its mirror, “Thunderstrike”. Though the weapon had some miniscule bling factor, ultimately it fell far short of its non epic brethren available in game. To add insult to injury, the item had an unusually frequent drop rate.

Much to the chagrin of raiders, the item was nicknamed “Vendorstrike”, due to the fact that it simply was better served as gold for repair bills. In order to understand how this item is reflective of WoW evolution, one has to look at the process in its entirety.

Vanilla WoW, or WoW before the release of the Burning Crusade, was largely based around the premise of swing a sword, sling a spell, and go be famous for legendary deeds.

As the newest member of the MMORPG community versus the likes of EQ and SWG, WoW would have to offer players a unique experience paired with a reason to maintain a sense of longevity. Initially, the majority of a player’s Vanilla time was going to be consumed by leveling and multi-facet interaction. This interaction might take place within the confines of guild establishment, role play, or simply a supply and demand AH existence.

Players could also participate in player versus player combat by rolling on a PvP server, or engage in group world combat with parties who wished to participate. The latter, being largely a hit and miss system, was based on attendance and interest in general.

End game raiding for the casual participant was limited at best. Players were left with the ability to run one of three instances: Stratholme, Scholomance, or Blackrock Spire. These instances allowed for small groups to gather items unobtainable outside of instanced content and served as a stepping stone for the final element of Vanilla WoW: 40-man Endgame raiding.

40-man end game raiding was introduced to bring the epic feel into available content for the level 60 player. This was done with Onyxia, a battle versus the stereotypical zomg dragon, situated outside of Theramore. The prize gem, the Molten Core, would be located deep in the heart of the Blackrock Depths. These two instances would serve as focal points for end game achievement.

There were scripted events.

There were massive explosions.

There were players and creatures ripped asunder.

In the end, however, was the reason to challenge these paragons: the Epic item.

While world drops could be discovered on the rare occasion, or even a select few crafted, the raid epic was a prestige token, showing the advancement the end game player had made in achievement. Players could haul their loot around for all to see and make spectacle of. The further players progressed into content the greater their rewards would be. This left but one pinnacle to attain: the legendary item.

Thunderfury and Sulfuras became the apexes of end game mastery. Players toting these items around became the stuff of whispers and awe. For the time being, players in possession of either of these items attained their promised “stuff of legend”, if only on their own servers for a while.

**

In order to flesh out some of the aspects of player interaction, Player versus player battlegrounds were added. Now players could experience the struggle between the Horde and Alliance in a visceral and frantic manner. Players who excelled in PvP combat would be rewarded with Rank, Title, and Honor. Spoils would also be rewarded to those who could obtain a high enough rank, and a select few, could even obtain a new series of hard to reach epic rewards.

For the time being, a Grand Marshall was grand indeed. Often, considered by their peers to be the very best in skill, the GM could now post his accolades for onlookers to appreciate. When a player was faced with a GM in PvP combat, they knew what they were getting into. Frequently, this did not end well for the other player. Here, there was still a sense of magic in something as grand as facing a master of their trade. It mattered little, that this trade might have been killing.

Once players had gotten their fill of the Molten Core, Blizzard implemented Blackwing’s Lair. Here players could fight the dragon armies of Nefarian and potentially acquire more of their coveted raid epics. Here is where we see the slow curve of change begin to convex.

The dynamics between encounters in the Molten Core and those in Blackwing’s Lair scaled rather significantly. This may have been due to the fact that raiders had become used to a cookie-cutter model for raid encounters and were alarmed when faced with dynamic content. This also was likely due to the fact that there was a lack of transitional content to prepare raiders for the oncoming assault. Either being the case, this did significantly impact a number of guilds. The advent of the “gatekeeper encounter” such a Vaelestrasz, became a make or break point for unorganized or loosely organized player communities.

I think this may be the labeled birth of what many consider the “hard core” raider and the division between that class and the casual player.

Players now had access to yet another tier of development unobtainable by single players. The risk versus the reward seemed for the moment to be balanced. This was until players found themselves without content to push forward in, and the raider turned his sights to available outlets to pass the time.

The hard core raider now pushed into PvP.

The commonality of players being steam rolled by players in significantly better gear became the standard instead of the exception. For the casual player, this was a travesty. For the hard core raider, this was the just rewards of raiding. Here these groups get some of their first tastes of bitter rivalry for one another.

Faced with a stagnant player base, Blizzard decides to open up another 5 man instance for the more casual player: the Dire Maul. World bosses, over the course of time, have also been introduced for players to cut their teeth on. This gave both parties a small taste of things to come as devs began to refocus on the game’s evolution.

Added to Stranglethorn Vale, the Zul’Gurub instance would allow for more casual and smaller groups to enjoy raid content with an epic feel. Players now had a chance to face the god, Hakkar, and steal away his loot for their own. This could be done by purchasing rewards with reputation, tokens, or besting the raid encounters themselves. While this did add some difficulty for larger organizations to manage a small allotment for content, most found the ability to work with a smaller instance and group refreshing.

This would be repeated with the release of Ahn’Qiraj. AQ would be broken down into both 20 and 40 man instances, allowing for players both casual and hard core to get the best of both worlds. Once again, players would find the scaling in the latter part of the larger instance too difficult, and often found they were unable to complete the instance. Those familiar with C’thun can sympathize.

The last bastion of 40-man raiding before the release of the Burning Crusade was Naxxramas. From a raiding standpoint, the instance itself was intense, exciting, and challenging. Raid bosses in the zone were progressively harder (not you Grobulus, go back to bed) as the group moved forward, and the rewards were impressive. Once again, players now had a chance to obtain a legendary staff, and a potentially future legendary sword. However, the more casual player was left out in the cold with the addition of no new content for their community.

The rise of the hard core raider was now at its zenith. Unfortunately, when one is at the top, there’s nowhere left to go but down.

With the impending release of the Burning Crusade on the horizon, Blizzard decides to implement a “preset” amongst the player community. The player versus player reward system was revamped, and more casual players now had access to gear previously unobtainable. This would bring the more casual player in line with the hard core raider by the time BC was released. This reset was the prequel to a much larger reset (thus “preset”) that would take place in the BC. This is also the beginning of the term “Welfare Epics” which players now see used to represent honor purchased Arena gear.

The hard core raider was infuriated.

The casual player was elated.

Both were brought closer into proximity.

In the end, however, significant change still waited ahead for both.

With the release of the Burning Crusade, Blizzard once again created the interim distraction of leveling for all players. The time consumption of reputation, skill, and level grinding once again became the focus of the average player. For the time being, the spectacle of a new world held many enthralled.

At level 70, all players would have a plethora of instances to frequent. These areas were now shorter then their endgame predecessors and provided a sense of speed with accomplishment. Casual and hard core player alike would also have the ability to run heroic instances, or “5 man raids” with existing content once the appropriate reputation level was reached. The beginning instance of Karazhan was also opened, allowing raiders to explore the basics of what the BC brought to raiding. The biggest transition for raiders, however, laid in the fact that their available second tier raid content now only allowed half of their normal roster.

Many organizations made adjustments for this before the release of the BC, and many also simply dwindled out due to the constraints they were faced with. Either way, guilds no longer operated on a grand scale in order to maintain end game raiding. This created a population of released and disenfranchised players along with a larger group of more casual subscribers unable to maintain membership in one of these organizations. This shift in focus is one of the reasons directly responsible for a larger more casual gaming community.

By the end of 2007, the BC had met a number of guilds at its endpoint – Illidan Stormrage. The road to this achievement was not initially the easiest of paths. The trials of the Naaru, the downing of Vashj and Kael’thas, and the requirements to see many people to this point created a gateway bottleneck for many trying to reach this achievement. This legendary task was well, difficult.

However, with smaller groups having easier access to the content and the larger portion of the community being within this peer group successive changes were made with each pass, easing this pathway.

This has been the norm as far as progression goes; Difficulty, Fine Tuning, and eventually Ease of Completion. This concept is not new to the WoW community.

I think much of the uproar stems from the fact that there is a sense of invalidation.

No player, or person for that matter, wants to feel like what ever they have placed a personal value on has been invalidated. For someone to be told that their opinion or concerns do not matter is a serious slight indeed.

The hard core raider who has dedicated a significant portion of time or energy to this game feels invalidated when it appears his hard work is for nothing. Should my rewards be so easily obtainable when I had to fight for mine?

The more casual player feels invalidated when they serve as a majority of the player community yet content and rewards are not geared to the bread and butter of the subscriber base.

Whose money is more important? Where is the justifiable validity?

It is simultaneously in both and in neither.

What players do not understand is that they are inextricably linked to one another: the hard core and the casual.

For the casual, the hard core player (believe it or not) has served as your WoW billboard for more then 3 years now. It is by their accomplishments that we have measured our own success in game, time and time again. At one point or another, you’ve seen some player with a new item and thought, “I want that” or’ “That looks REALLY cool”. These players have served as a driving force for interest in this game and the hopes to achieve ones goals. One needs milestones and heroes to look to for inspiration when founding our own dreams of success.

For the hard core, there is no raiding; there is no “hard core” without the casual. One can only inform their significant other, room mate, or mother of the fact that they have laid some “uber pwnage” on a boss so many times before your self lauded praise falls on deaf ears.

What good would it do to hit 90 home runs in a single baseball season if you played in empty stadiums?

The appalling disrespect these two communities hurl at one another seems fueled solely by ignorance and myth. It is only through a better understanding of the true devices that move this metagame forward that we can actually hope to implement positive change towards a device more akin to what we look for in an ideal MMORPG.

One can ***!% about the PTR or the ZOMG Warlocks until the cows come home. In the end though, you might as well be welding screen doors onto submarines, as the latter is probably more effective.

To prevent yourself or your organization from becoming "stranded on the mudflats of an obsolete ideology" (David Lodge), you must become a champion of change.

2.4 is going to be another preset, as it’s likely the last patch before WotLK. Once again, both communities are going to be brought more in line with one another before its release. I think the larger issue is that people are concerned with the wrong storm clouds. Players need to escape this near sighted notion and realized that. We hope that those working in development have taken hindsight into consideration and are working on smarter solutions to these jointly experienced problems. In the mean time, we as a player community need to examine these quandaries with the depth they require and provide jointly beneficial solutions to all WoW subscribers.

In the end everything leading up to here is Vendorstrike. It was created with a grand vision and implemented before it could best be put to the rigorous testing millions of people would experience. In the end, those responsible would realize the mistake and attempt to fine tune it. Sometimes, fine tuning isn’t enough and Vendorstrike simply becomes a “Nexusstrike”. Either way, a legitimate attempt at a change for the better of the player was made, if only in an unsuccessful manner.

One must realize that without failure, one obviously isn’t trying to improve on ones success. Blizzard is no different. Let’s get some real and organized feedback on what we have available to test and move WotLK into the waters we call MMO Paradise.

2 Cents.

Wrong forums. Simply for the fact that nobody who reads R&D has the attention span to read such a thing.

The new thing is crying about how casuals are ruining the game for Risen. Let's cry about that hokay?

Interesting read. Tagging for later perusal.

I think the solution here is to release a new type of armor color with every patch and expansion.

In all seriousness, decent post.

Reading through it, just as a response to your second post, there wasn't a lot of respect for the "skill" of grand marshalls or high warlords. It wasn't about skill, it was about being online 24/7 and constantly in battlegrounds. High-ranking players usually had a couple of people playing their accounts and alternative for sleep. Or, they let the one guy tap a city boss and have a raid kill it, so all that massive honor went to one player.

Just be careful to not look through rose-tinted glasses. Will continue reading.

Sweet merciful tldr Hey Zeus!

Im all too familiar with the mindless farms required for GM in the later days, often people working in chorus to accomplish the task, only to take turns assisting someone else in the endeavor. The original GMs, those first few pioneers to reach it are the ones I am referring to.

Notice appreciated as often the rhetoric is lost when typing too quikcly without quantifying material.

100% agree with your last (5th) post.

Reminds me of the episode of South Park with war-hungry rednecks vs the group in town who wanted peace in Iraq. The all-wise Stan Marsh points out that the two groups need each other and define each other. The war-mongerers need the peace-lovers so our country doesn't look like a bunch of bigots. The peace-lovers need the war-mongerers to rise up and defend the country when needed, because peace-lovers certainly won't.

Raiders and casuals just want the gap to be there, so they can distinguish themselves. And the preset thing? Totally right.

Was originally going to skip the read, but you caught me with the Vendorstrike story! Well written, coheisve, and you make countless valid points throughout. Two gold stars.

A well thought out post. I have to say though, I've never bought into the raider billboard (the measuring up part) myself. The most I experienced was a bit of frustration and futility trying to kill them in BG's. Most of the time, they were simply an outlet for an endless stream of Black Dragonscale goods ;). I wouldn't speak for casuals as a group though. I'm sure some did. Minority as it is, the raiding community is quite large, and there are many kinds of raiders. The community of non-raiders is far larger even by the most generous count of raiders, and likewise comes in many flavors.

I think any time you get a population you number in the millions, it's going to be hard to characterize them in anything but the broadest terms. I think it is safe to say that all of us enjoy playing (or at least I hope so!), and that we a really want more of our own corner to play in, be that pvp, raiding, 5-mans, 10-mans, or even quests that are interesting and engaging. I don't think any of us really begrudges the other for that.

I agree with OP more or less. Good points and good post.

I am casual with an 8-5 job and a girlfriend so I no longer have a ton of time to dedicate to WoW, but if there are no hardcore players to look up to then what is there left to achieve?

But I'd sure like to get myself a nice legendary or at least finish all the post-BC (hardcore raids) and BC raids before (or even after) WotLK comes out. If only just for fun/lore.

I must say, there certainly was an epic feeling being on my POS pally mount in the midst of the 50's.

Riding my way valiantly towards Frostwolf to take on Drek'thar.

Out of the middle of no-where Ciren (I think that was his name) busts past me on the Black War Panther. His Grand Marshal Claymore gleaming in the sun, and his golden armor shining so brightly.

I watch him from atop a hill, he dismounts, and proceeds to walk all over the defending horde at the graveyard. He captures and holds the thing, by himself.

That right there was a certain "epic" moment in this game for me.


It's feelings like that that I miss in this game. I went from Casual gamer, running 5 mans and pvp'ing my face off, to becoming a hardcore raider pre-bc.

There are plenty of moments I feel have been lost in translation in this game. When my guild was downing bosses in SSC for the first time, there were no cheers, there was no bustly excitement in the last 1%.
Back in the day when we pushed so hard on Huhuran, we did get excited in anticipation, and when we finally downed that progression block. We cheered ecstatically.

Feelings like that have been lost. Epic has lost it's meaning, and has become the new rare.

As much as people want to argue about Casual VS Raider, games like this need their heroes. Unfortunately everyone is a hero now-a-days.

tldr

JFC TL;DR you pos scrub.

Nice post

very nice post...great read (even if it was really long :P )