Blackrock TBC crossrealm fiesta

[verksm]

The Merging with Blackrock Bgs and Arena would kill the PVP activity on Onyxia. No dedicated PVP player would want to start the season at a disadvantage, and hundreds if not thousands of PVP players, would just switch from Onyxia to Blackrock, in order not to get left behind.

If cross-realm Arenas and Battlegrounds are introduced, making them opt-in only (similar to Mercenary mode) would be the most beneficial approach. This would allow players to choose whether or not they want to compete against players from the other realm, minimizing any potential negative impact.

tbc does not have thousands of pvp players :D it is the lowest percentage of the population. scared pve players are so upset other people will be able to play with pve gear too so they try desperately to fight it its funny

[Emperor666]

All this doomsaying of people who will quit the game if this or that change is coming is probably the most ridiculous part about this whole discussion. Its like teenagers threatening to sudoku if their parents wont get them an iphone for christmas. Nobody is taking anything away from players that prefer to play on Onyxia.

[pootang6969]

tbc does not have thousands of pvp players :D it is the lowest percentage of the population. scared pve players are so upset other people will be able to play with pve gear too so they try desperately to fight it its funny

This really is what it comes down to. At least we know the dev's arn't falling for the tears.

[jmsvanbuskirk]

You do realize that both Blackrock and Onyxia players need to farm BGs to get the same PvP gear, correct? You want to reduce the amount of total PvP on the server by making these BG-farmable items available for badges? You are suggesting something that would reduce the amount of total PvP on Onyxia, even for players on Onyxia that like the game mode.

You missed the point. It would serve you well to understand the other perspective instead of bloating this thread defending your own.

Players on Onyxia have to play the actual game like leveling, professions, farming gold, clearing content to achieve the optimal pvp experience. Blackrock players do not. They just hit the queue button. Can you understand why that offends people? Are you open to differing opinions?

[jmsvanbuskirk]

I think I can safely speak for [blackrock players] when I say that we don't care at all what perks/changes/incentives are provided to Onyxia players. The sole thing we want is an active PVP scene, and the ability to farm your gear without relying on ~24 other people for raiding.

The argument that Blackrock players can "half heartedly afk bgs" doesn't make any sense - you can do the exact same thing on Onyxia. Also if you look at the current prices of gear on their PTR, it is very obvious that a Blackrock player is going to have to invest more time /played than an Onyxia player in order to get the base level of gear that they want. The starter gear on the PTR is very lackluster (not saying that is a problem) and an Onyxia player, with their 1+ week head start should very easily have better gear than that.

The complaints that Blackrock will cannibalize the Onyxia population is also pretty weak imo. At most I would say about 10% of the hypothetical Blackrock playerbase would be willing to play on Onyxia

That isn't World of Warcraft. In this game you level a character, learn professions, trade with others and farm gold, team up with players to beat content. That's what Onyxia players will be doing. And then we do all that to compete with players that didn't do any of that. That's why people are upset. I hope you can understand that.

[Blakeatron]

You missed the point. It would serve you well to understand the other perspective instead of bloating this thread defending your own.

Players on Onyxia have to play the actual game like leveling, professions, farming gold, clearing content to achieve the optimal pvp experience. Blackrock players do not. They just hit the queue button. Can you understand why that offends people? Are you open to differing opinions?

Please read through my post here that will explain how this is not the case due to flushes gating the acquisition of relevant PvE gear.

https://forum.warmane.com/showthread...469290&page=21

After you've read through that, let me know what you think and we can have a discussion on where you see Blackrock players having any sort of advantage.

[Lagmasta]

My advice to long-term Onyxia members is to completely ignore any response that Blackrock advocates give to you when they are trying to refute/change your points. We do not need to be here to fight against Blackrock advocates, but to show Warmane that we do not want what they are telling us we want (I say that loosely, as I do think Warmane is listening and considering what we say). Warmane will, at the end of the day, do as they please/ see as best. From their perspective.

People have a tough time expressing themselves without letting pride / ego / emotions get in the way. On both sides (Blackrock advocates / Separate realm advocates). Please cool off before posting (both sides). It will only cause Warmane to listen to us less and less over time.

I assume people will try and quote me and misrepresent what I say. However; I am going to say it nonetheless and encourage Warmane staff to read without allowing future comments from Blackrock advocates to influence what I meant.



Onyxia has a chance to be a realm that replicates, yes, *replicates*, what the original WoW experience was like back in original release. I was under the premise that this was largely the community you were trying to attract when you announced the realm. Many players on this realm speak highly of the people they play with. They are making friends and enemies alike. We remember who we see in Battlegrounds (and come TBC, we hoped the same for arena as well), and could pick a fight (or flee!) from these same people in the open world. The in-BG interactions felt meaningful, beyond winning and losing, or gaining rank. Our characters were meaningful. The community actually matters to people. We want the server to succeed on its own. We will take the good with the bad (AQ patch anyone?), and move on, as long as it is Onyxia together.

Of course. there is a player for each of those sentiments that it does not apply to. Some people don't care about the community, who they see in BGs, their characters, the journey, etc. I am not speaking for those people.

"We are confident that we can deliver a high-quality realm that will satisfy all kinds of players"

Warmane has made it clear from the beginning that they want to build a realm for all kinds of players. Who are those players?
- Raiders (we've had good and bad days :) - But KT is dead! )
- Levelers (what can I say, its still fun)
- Profession grinders (x1 was great for this!)
- Role Players (The Booty bay boat belongs to <Bloodlust>!)
- Casual Pvpers (20 rogues attacking Stormwind - take that, humans!)
- Hardcore Pvpers (My hunter fully consumed to 11k health in WSG)
- Twinks (We can still stop our exp - thank you!)
- More, that I'm sure I forgot

I believe that pretty much every kind of player that is in this list, I have already met in-game, and is HAPPY with Onyxia as it is. The realm currently, right now, supports the sentiment that Warmane is attempting to foster. Yes, numbers are low, but I have seen very few quitting over a low pop. There is nothing to gain from PvP right now... There is nothing to gain from doing old raids right now... TBC is around the corner... very soon. And these people quitting are going to return come TBC launch. They know it's coming.

I know there are some obvious "downsides", such as things like the cash shop availability (not blizz-like), or increased leveling speed (not blizz-like); for example. However; we as players understand, that we have to (at certain points) be willing to live with sacrifices. This is not a Blizzard hosted realm with a $15 a month fee to play. Even with money as a (semi?)-motivator, Warmane still seems to have done a fair job of building these models based on the sentiment of fostering a realm for everyone. There is not a kind of player that could not log onto Onyxia, right now, and have fun doing what they would like to do in-game (obviously, the content they would want to do would need to be in vanilla, as something such as Arenas are not even introduced in the full capacity until TBC).

There is a cash shop, but it is always a tier behind the current tier. Some people disdain this sort of "Pay2Win", but Warmane needs a way to support the work / realm, and this method of shop is a happy medium. I think many players who are here for a Journey (leveling OR max level Journey) do not mind this. We respect that Warmane decided to implement the shop a tier behind, and also AFTER a new tier has well-begun. The entire Onyxia community shares this "burden" (I don't see it that way, but I define it that way to try and intentionally make this a negative thing) together. One realm sharing a "burden".
Leveling was originally set to x5 (beta, I think), but was changed to x3 after Warmane listened to player feedback that the leveling process is too important for the community. We NEED it in order to get better at the game (new players), and meet new friends (any player). A balance was set at x3, with profs and skills remaining at x1 for longevity (economy, time in game, profession importance, etc.). We respect Warmane's decision to attempt to find a balance for all kinds of players. These kinds of decisions affect all of Onyxia together. Our community is still affected as a single realm.



Blackrock changes this concept.

What about this statement makes people think that there will be an eventual merge of some kind (or that it will even be necessary, or considered):
"We are confident that we can deliver a high-quality realm..."
can deliver a high-quality realm
a high-quality realm
a realm
ONE realm

We never thought that we would be forced to have players of a different type of gameplay / community able to play with us. Now, if we play Onyxia, we will have to PvP with people that we will never see, if we choose to PvP. We will only see them in BGs or Arenas. We don't get to know them. We never can. We have to leave Onyxia in order to play alongside them. Suddenly, a chunk (I don't know what percentage and neither does anyone else non Warmane staff) of people will not matter in the Onyxia story, at all.
Will Blackrock players be able to donate for Scarab Lord Mount? Did we grind for our guildees for nothing? It is terrifying to see a Scarab lord mount up, fully geared and consumed, with many HKs, 2v1ing or 3v1ing people in Arathi Basin. Obviously, people with skill would do this even without a special mount at all. But it is the story.... the community, that matters. Not the rating of the person who won the 3v1. Who cares about that. The people are what matter, not the intangible reward of winning at a video game. Those people that got 3v1d by someone like that are GOING to remember it, and it's going to draw people closer / to play more. We all know the rules of the realm, and we all share it together (for good or for bad). Everyone goes through the same experiences and is on the exact same playing field at all times. THIS will bond people together.

WoW is about relationships with people. You cannot do anything without others. We want our characters to matter, because we want the people that we play alongside to matter. This is a broad statement that can be taken many ways. Please understand - we want our characters to stay in an isolated environment and continue our Journey as a single server until the END.

We do not want to interact with instantly created characters. At all. It takes awhile to build your character out. People will get to know you while you are doing that (boosted, purchased, traded, or not). We want there to be a story on Onyxia. I think many of us were under the impression that Warmane felt the same (A high-quality realm - ONE realm, ONE story, ONE community).

We cannot help Warmane in any way if we do not advocate for stopping this change. We would only be doing a disservice to Warmane, and to Onyxia, if we don't speak against this. Onyxia should be an isolated environment until the end of it's life (WOLK END).

Again, people will take small portions of what I am saying out of context in order to fuel their own arguments. I am not saying that we will or will not want the population of Blackrock to supplement our PvP scene. I do not know that. Some people are patient and will wait 10 min for a queue. Some people are impatient and will complain about low population if a queue takes 120 seconds. I have seen both happen, equally. I do not think it wise of separate realm advocates to use this, or anything related to systems of any kind, as an argumentized point.

[jmsvanbuskirk]

Threats to quit because of changes that aren't in someone's specific best interest have been happening across the entire 20-year course of WoW's history. They never actually quit. Everyone comes back, has fun, and the cycle resets next expansion or big patch.

It matters because they're my friends I've played with over the past year. Regardless of differing opinions, those feelings are important. That's why this issue even matters to me because my gameplay experience won't be as fun when they leave.

[jmsvanbuskirk]

Please read through my post here that will explain how this is not the case due to flushes gating the acquisition of relevant PvE gear.

https://forum.warmane.com/showthread...469290&page=21

After you've read through that, let me know what you think and we can have a discussion on where you see Blackrock players having any sort of advantage.

We're not talking about advantage. We're talking about the gameplay experience. Gameplay variables are being introduced that allow players to skip content and compete with players who are actually playing the full measure of the game. There is no fairness granted between gear availability that will eliminate that variable.

[Blakeatron]

We're not talking about advantage. We're talking about the gameplay experience. Gameplay variables are being introduced that allow players to skip content and compete with players who are actually playing the full measure of the game. There is no fairness granted between gear availability that will eliminate that variable.

We can agree to disagree on this, then. Totally fine for us to have different opinions on how important that is in terms of the effects on the experience of players. If you do think of any specific disadvantages that should be addressed, I'm more than happy to have a conversation with you. The devs said they're monitoring that stuff as well which is great.

[Sunch]

Both announcements made in July (https://forum.warmane.com/showthread.php?t=458716) and October 2023 (https://forum.warmane.com/showthread.php?t=461207) stated that "Onyxia is based on/inspired by our previous realm, Frostmourne". As for someone who's played every Warmane project, this was expected. Here's me asking about Blackrock seasonal in July 2023 - https://forum.warmane.com/showthread...=1#post3189387.

WoW PvE and PvP are two different games. Arena players have a different perspective. It's not even always about having no time, it's about having absolutely 0 interest in grinding to the point where they just either don't play entirely or account share. They don't even view BGs as "real PvP", it's just another chore that happens to be PvP. Saying that 70% of Onyxia's PvE players are also PvP is wild. If that were the case, I can assure you that no one would've even thought of this Blackrock TBC idea. Warmane team can speculate more than us based on previous TBC projects and Frostmourne realms.

The main essence of Blackrock TBC is PvP-oriented progression through solely PvP. The idea of the people playing there having everything EASIER is WRONG. If anything, they will be at a huge DISADVANTAGE in terms of gear in the beginning. They have to farm everything too. NOTHING will be for free, except for starting green/blue gear, most of which doesn't even require you to be level 70. If you haven't played Blackrock seasonal before, then you don't know what you're talking about. For a casual BG/Arena play this change won't have a negative impact on Onyxia.

To be honest, WoW arena should've been made into a completely separate game by Blizzard, but that never happened. However, Warmane does a great job of bringing people from two communities together. You can advocate for "letting you show how healthy the PvP player base is" all you want, but the reality is: more arena players = more active PvP scene, period. Please, consider reading this carefully again to clear up confusion: https://forum.warmane.com/showthread...=1#post3229329.

[Sunite]

I feel like you guys genuinely believe that if 1000 players were about to join Blackrock, and it wasn't available, those same 1000 players would join Onyxia and engage in 5mans/BGs/raids/etc.

It's closer to like 100 (if that) of the 1000 would join Onyxia. So yes, Blackrock existing is going to cannibalize the tiniest % of players that you guys could have had... so sorry!!!

Can I have your crystal ball one day or link to the data source?

Also nice numbers, 1k PvPers should be more then enough to healthy standalone PvP realm.

[verksm]

Both announcements made in July (https://forum.warmane.com/showthread.php?t=458716) and October 2023 (https://forum.warmane.com/showthread.php?t=461207) stated that "Onyxia is based on/inspired by our previous realm, Frostmourne". As for someone who's played every Warmane project, this was expected. Here's me asking about Blackrock seasonal in July 2023 - https://forum.warmane.com/showthread...=1#post3189387.

WoW PvE and PvP are two different games. Arena players have a different perspective. It's not even always about having no time, it's about having absolutely 0 interest in grinding to the point where they just either don't play entirely or account share. They don't even view BGs as "real PvP", it's just another chore that happens to be PvP. Saying that 70% of Onyxia's PvE players are also PvP is wild. If that were the case, I can assure you that no one would've even thought of this Blackrock TBC idea. Warmane team can speculate more than us based on previous TBC projects and Frostmourne realms.

The main essence of Blackrock TBC is PvP-oriented progression through solely PvP. The idea of the people playing there having everything EASIER is WRONG. If anything, they will be at a huge DISADVANTAGE in terms of gear in the beginning. They have to farm everything too. NOTHING will be for free, except for starting green/blue gear, most of which doesn't even require you to be level 70. If you haven't played Blackrock seasonal before, then you don't know what you're talking about. For a casual BG/Arena play this change won't have a negative impact on Onyxia.

To be honest, WoW arena should've been made into a completely separate game by Blizzard, but that never happened. However, Warmane does a great job of bringing people from two communities together. You can advocate for "letting you show how healthy the PvP player base is" all you want, but the reality is: more arena players = more active PvP scene, period. Please, consider reading this carefully again to clear up confusion: https://forum.warmane.com/showthread...=1#post3229329.

if onyxia is based on frostmourne then blackrock merge should be included as frostmourne had exactly the same features

[Sunch]

Yep, that's exactly what I meant.

[alexjones]

Can I have your crystal ball one day or link to the data source?

Also nice numbers, 1k PvPers should be more then enough to healthy standalone PvP realm.

made the numbers up literally off the top of my head, but of you are welcome to gargle my crystal balls any time brother