Level 90... Now What?!

I recently created a Resto/Feral Druid on Frostwolf. Grinded a bit, eventually noticed how rare mid-level RDFs are, and ended up deciding to lose a few days to bring it to 90. Scraped some gold together, started getting a few items, got myself to Pandaria, now I'm left with little to do.

I can already imagine some of you going "heh, duh! do BG, you noob!". Point is: BGs are simply not fun! Anyone joining a random battleground w/ less than optimal gear is destined to either ram their fists through a wall in despair while they rage-quit and leave the realm forever; or endure countless defeats until they manage to collect enough honor/other currencies to get a somewhat decent set of armor. The relatively small community also tips the balance of these fights. There is no middle ground: people's iLvL is either **** all or 550+.

I wouldn't want this to be seen as yet another "let's bash the staff's skulls in" kind of post. I actually really enjoy playing on Warmane, but wanted to try something other than WotLK. Pandaria seems a nice expansion, especially for those who can't min-max specs and stats due to limited amounts of free time. Yet the server only offers a bare-bones experience. Most key areas, quests, and dungeons are either missing completely or only partially working. The storyline missions for the Alliance, for instance, stop right after you are ported to the new island. I wouldn't even have felt compelled to explore the rest of this map if it weren't for the gear vendors.

Maybe I went on a bit of a tangent, but the point I'm trying to make is this: what do you guys do for progression/gold/entertainment? The PvE scene seems, well, rather deserted and PvP just feels, at this point, like a waste of time. I never really cared for achievements or completionist's stuff such as mounts either. Question, then: am I missing some part of the game that was added between 3.3.5 and 5.4.8?

First of all, Welcome to MoP. I am happy that people still join the realm even now that the population is pretty low.

As you mentioned it yourself you face people with full gear or naked at bgs, the reason being that most of the players who play now are either new like you or people who still have faith to warmane (like me...) and still play there just for fun or gear alts. I don't have any suggestions for you to do bgs except than just queueing.

About the achievements, I have 6k achievements points and there are people with 8-9k AP and lots of achievements work well tho cataclysm ones are not at a really good state. What you can do except By and Achievements is probably leveling proffs, farming gold, mounts and probably doing Rdf (tho it is hard to find a party for that). Also timeless isle is not bad for gearing.

Hope I could have helped you. If you have any questions, feel free to send me Pm.
Have fun.

Buy some PvP gear set from AH and start doing BGs.
That's what I did at least.

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Originally Posted by BlueAo

Buy some PvP gear set from AH and start doing BGs.
That's what I did at least.

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That's too painful a process for most of your players. A player in full crafted malevolent gear is an absolute joke in a Frostwolf bg. I think it's time Warmane recognized that and made the entry price in tears and frustration less steep. And I say that as a 550 player- we need new blood in this realm.

Fixing the conquest catchup to the way it's supposed to work in 5.4.8 is the solution, imo.

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Originally Posted by Treba

That's too painful a process for most of your players. A player in full crafted malevolent gear is an absolute joke in a Frostwolf bg. I think it's time Warmane recognized that and made the entry price in tears and frustration less steep. And I say that as a 550 player- we need new blood in this realm.

Fixing the conquest catchup to the way it's supposed to work in 5.4.8 is the solution, imo.

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1 problem tho, who is gonna donate for pvp gear?

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Originally Posted by Treba

Fixing the conquest catchup to the way it's supposed to work in 5.4.8 is the solution, imo.

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YES please. It's been said before, this is the main reason why there are no new players joining.

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Originally Posted by Kryptikz

1 problem tho, who is gonna donate for pvp gear?

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Yeah, actually my own previously-stated suggestion is to split the baby on this issue. For example, let them catchup for say, 12,000 of the conquest cap, but no further.

I actually think that makes financial sense for Warmane. If they give customers a "taste" of the good gear and being competitive, some of them will fall in love with their specs and MoP pvp. Some of them will put together some money to donate for a piece or two (or more) of gear because they can't wait to become full prideful. That's how I'd handle this matter, from a cold business perspective. They won't get a dime out of the many players who get into a bg with their crafted "pvp" gear and get absolutely demolished.

I once "sponsored" a guy who was very enthusiastic about this server - I gave him gold to level, get crafted gear, etc. But he quit a couple of days after he started doing bgs, since it was just too painful. That's a very typical experience for a Frostwolf player, and I doubt that most of them ever return at all.

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Originally Posted by BlueAo

Buy some PvP gear set from AH and start doing BGs.
That's what I did at least.

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Maybe devs should stop refusing to fix a conquest catch up mechanic ,cause now a fresh alt, even with some crafted is just a meat for anything with grev gear +. It's just a discourage to play a fresh alt.

Wow, I wasn't expecting such a high volume of responses. That goes to show how much you guys really care about the server.
At this point, I'd like to share my own opinions. Perhaps, the new guy's perspective will help both the community and the development team understand what could be changed or added.

On Leveling and Soloing
Whether you play on a low rate server or a 10/15x PvP realm, most of WoW comes down to leveling and questing, at least until you get to 75 or 80. On Frostwolf, specifically, I found this process to be both tedious and extremely time-consuming. I noticed a nice number of new/alt low level characters roaming the streets of Stormwind and Ironforge (I play ally) but the majority of these simply don't seem to make it to the cap.

Normally, you would go area to area, picking up any mission you can find for that bit of gold and xp.
Problem is there are still plenty of quests that won't work as intended. I never had trouble with grinding, even played on the 1x WotLK realm here back in the day, but spending time to seek out and collect specific items, only to have the related NPC refuse to let you turn them in adds to the frustration.

Low level dungeoning (yep, that's a word now, deal with it) would also be a valid alternative.
At level 30/40, clearing an instance on Frostwolf awards a few levels and some pretty good gear; this is perfect for those who don't have a large group of friends backing them up. When discussing dgns, though, population comes into play. I don't mean to blame anybody, but the fact that the server barely reaches 2k ppl during peak hours clearly has its effects. At least for the blue guys, finding a good party through the RDF system is extremely rare. My horde toon, a 58 something priest, doesn't seem to have an easier time either.

Perhaps, the community could address this issue: two faction-wide academy guilds, one for the horde and one for the alliance should be created. These would welcome new players, show them the ropes, and help them through the first 60 or so levels. It's a lot less common for someone who spent a few days getting to level 60 or 70 to quit out of the blue.

On Gear, The Economy, And The AH
Some of you mentioned visiting the Auction House and getting geared up. That would normally be the most obvious solution, if it weren't for the fact that most PvP gear is extremely pricy. Would you blame anyone for setting a high price on something they've spent hours coming up with? Hell, no, you wouldn't! I actually appreciate the fact that nobody's flooding the market with sets. Problem, though, is that a new guy who hasn't invested copious amounts of time farming gold will not be able to come up with the cash needed for these purchases.

Now: I may be wrong here, but as far as I recall profession-related items (i.e. jewelcrafting goods, mats, and stuff like runes) would be the easiest way to make money. What I wonder, though, is if the realm's economy is active and strong enough to support new players. I've seen people mindlessly giving away thousands of gold pieces, which makes me think there's no shortage of the shiny things, but are these same guys also putting items up for sale and using the AH? From what I witnessed, the majority of low-rated PvP gear (at least as far as leather and cloth are concerned) is produced and sold by a single guy.

I don't really have a solution to this. When the population increases, markets should also stabilize and flourish.

On Bugs, Fixes, and the Novelties of Mists of Pandaria
Ever wondered why most players would decide to transfer from a WotLK/Cata server to a MoP one? New skills and the revamped specs/traits system are definitely one of the reasons, but there's more to MoP than a few panels and colorful icons. World of Warcraft relies on a huge amount of lore. Exception made, perhaps, for games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, Warcraft is the only franchise that has physical books explaining how things came to be what they are.

Frostwolf is definitely a PvP server. There isn't much of a choice, actually: most Pandaria content is way too far from being functional to actually even be considered part of the realm. At the same time, though, Frostwolf is also one of the only two English-speaking MoP servers currently available. People may join for the PvP, but everybody would enjoy the chance to visit new zones and read more about the world and the server. This is especially true for those who never played on retail.

As a barrier against people going "I want to see you fixing things" I'm going to say - rather write - the following words: I know how hard scripting can be. I've been a geek all my life, learned the bases of programming, eventually decided to move to a more creative profession. Nevertheless, I'd like to make one point clear: in an effort to drag more people in, the staff is working on another legacy server. I don't know the status of the files they're going to use for its creation, but I doubt they'll be flawless. Fixing things is likely going to require manpower and resources that could be dedicated to better the realms we currently have.

My Personal Conclusion
The tone I'm using in what has quickly turned into a fully-fledged article may sound authoritative at best; at times getting downright mocking. Still, I would like to make the fact that these are nothing else than my personal thoughts clear.

Warmane is the go-to site for WotLK WoW. One of its servers recently broke its own stability record, being online for more than 7 days at an average 12000 players. This is great; it show just how much dedication and love the team is putting into their project. The guys at Frostwolf could use some of that love too.

I'm not trying to teach anybody how to make money but, perhaps, dedicating your entire resource pool to the maintenance of your existing servers, instead of risking to end up with a series of half-arsed realms, would galvanize the community and even attract more people?

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Originally Posted by Kempachu

Maybe devs should stop refusing to fix a conquest catch up mechanic ,cause now a fresh alt, even with some crafted is just a meat for anything with grev gear +. It's just a discourage to play a fresh alt.

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Devs are not refusing to fix anything, stop talking nonsense, Please.

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Originally Posted by BlueAo

Devs are not refusing to fix anything, stop talking nonsense, Please.

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So that means you're aware this "bug" kills balance in pvp and chases away part of our community? And are you actively working on a fix for this problem?

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Originally Posted by BlueAo

Devs are not refusing to fix anything, stop talking nonsense, Please.

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Understand them, though. If this problem has been around for a while and considering how discouraging it is to play on Frostwolf at the moment, they'd probably appreciate a statement or some other sort of "yo, we got you covered, guys!"

After all, MMORPG require extensive amounts of time and effort. Nobody would want to see all of that hard work go to waste 'cause the community simply isn't there..

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Originally Posted by Alecossy

Understand them, though. If this problem has been around for a while and considering how discouraging it is to play on Frostwolf at the moment, they'd probably appreciate a statement or some other sort of "yo, we got you covered, guys!"

After all, MMORPG require extensive amounts of time and effort. Nobody would want to see all of that hard work go to waste 'cause the community simply isn't there..

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Just read the discussion here. He makes it pretty clear that they're not interested in implementing it, which is the sad part.

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Originally Posted by Treba

Fixing the conquest catchup to the way it's supposed to work in 5.4.8 is the solution, imo.

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As someone with four 550s, one 530, one 522 and a batch of lowbies waiting to get gear I am heavily in favor of this. I have a friend with one 550 whom I could barely manage to keep around over the pain that is gearing up here on this server. Also got another friend to start playing here recently, and he just dinged 90, so the struggle is still ahead of him.

The problem is that crafted pvp gear makes barely any difference vs. Prideful or even Grievous (compared to just using greenies / leveling gear), we're talking not even a couple hundred dps for some specs. Unless you can craft it yourself or get it at a relatively cheap price, trying to get your hands on timeless gear is more viable (albeit time-consuming).

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Originally Posted by BlueAo

Devs are not refusing to fix anything, stop talking nonsense, Please.

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Originally Posted by BlueAo

Because there is no reason for one, and it was not introduced for alts.

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And this ? You're aware about this thing and still refusing... It isnt nosense, it was introduced for a purpose, like every other xpac catch up mech at the end of xpac.