Update 5/23/23: Yes I have heard they have now added the WoW token. I guess the only thing to say is learn from history or you are doomed to repeat it, or if you don't like history, just close your eyes and yell slippery slope fallacy :)
I feel that for sure, boosting isn't something I want either but one good thing is \a lot of people who didn't play Classic Vanilla but wanted a TBC remake will be more inclined to join with a boost instead of being WAY behind the level curve thus having a nice surge in population for end game raids/dungs/quests etc. At the end of the day if it makes the world feel more alive I'm all for it seeing how the game is based on it's players/population to thrive.
In counter to your point: I have a 60 and wouldn't play at all if I couldn't boost. My friends already picked a server and it's not the one I played on. I'm not doing that again, it took 3 months and it wasn't that fun the first time. Just looking to play 70 arenas a bit. Blizzard is catering to players like me who don't have that free time because we work a lot. Because we work a lot, we don't care about spending a few dollars to save that 3 months of time. They'll make millions off of people like me and I don't really care because I get to play the game.
I will never understand how using a Goblin for the 100 level boost wasn't immediately seen by everyone on the planet as a huge "WE'RE DOING THIS BECAUSE WE'RE GREEDY" move
@@madseasonshow You'll always be my hero and one of my biggest motivators for sticking with wow in the current era. Thank you for all the wonderful content and thoughts you share with the community as well as your hard work. I hope you're well during these strange times brother.
I agree in that they dont need to be asking for more money, but that 15$ isnt specifically for you to play "a old ass video game" as it lets you play vanilla, TBC classic and retail (its up to you to choose which you want to play or maybe even all 3 for the same price)
Some players can't even pay just 15$ anymore, they removed the 30 game time option. Keep in mind that 30 day game time and 30 day sub are different, the sub is still available but why even bother doing this?
@@AgressivePigeon the only reason i can see is them hoping people forget to cancel by being forced to subscribe rather than just buying increments of game time
@@devinem24 Yup, same idea here. That and having somebody subbed longer boosts their "active" player numbers short term. But come on, flat out removing a option is just saying "we want your money, but we want more of it"
The oddest part, I think, is that if the argument is centered on someone not being able to play with their friends who are level 60 and going strong. I commonly experience my friends restarting with a new char at level 1 with me or the other way around, me restarting at level 1 to play with a friend from level 1 to 60
The comment on the Classic "stagnation" is also very true. I think a lot of the people that brush off Classic levelling as an annoying chore that just stops them from getting to the "meat" of the game (the endgame), just have a very strong retail mentality. As someone who's spent a long time playing on private servers, this is how I see the Classic servers: A permanent image of said expansion. It's not going away and you'll always know that when you log in you'll be playing That expansion. I feel that so many people are used to just re-subbing to retail for a new expac and putting in as much effort as they can for the next year or so since they know it won't last forever and it's now or never to experience it. Levelling, even re-levelling, in this old WoW setting is definitely a big part of the game with its own stories to be made. While you may miss out on a phase or two if you're super busy irl, you can rest assured that you can start playing when you're ready and you'll have all the time in the world to experience all the content that it has to offer. How do you think private servers work? If some WoTLK private server launched like 6 years ago does it mean it's dead with no community since everyone's done everything? Not necessarily. People play the expansion cause it satisfies them/they enjoy it. It's a very different experience from retail if that's the only type of WoW you're used to. And these Classic servers work almost the same way. Regarding my opinion on it - I think boosting is a bad decision. But as MadSeason points out, this isn't really an excuse for me, or people who think like me, to just take shots at people with a different opinion. Personally, if I'd be taking any shots they are at Blizzard. As pointed out in the video - botting and cheating are a big issue and were some of the main aspects that led to great disappointment for me regarding Classic. It's completely unbelievable to me, a regular player, to walk in Hillsbrad Foothils for 3 minutes and spot at least 8 bots without even searching for them specifically. Blizzard has handled all of this horribly and I worry for the potential damage this boost may cause in this regard. But yea all in all, amazing video man! Tough topic for sure, but I think you brought up all of the proper concerns very well and it was very entertaining too!
Classic has no "meat" in the end game, its got a raid... Its endgame is really not much . I look at classic as its own entity, 90% of that journey is just making it to max level. To me endgame is simply being better at pvp and getting a couple raid items, thats it. Classic isnt magical, it isnt better, its jsut what it is.
The problem is TBC is directly responsible for creating the mindset that endgame is all that matters by making EVERYTHING revolve around being 60-70 and all pre-TBC content irrelevant.
@@SeruraRenge11 That's just not accurate. People aren't rewarded enough while leveling to make it better than raiding. Success when leveling is being done with leveling.
The journey of levelling was always the best. The random encounters, ambushes, getting sidetracked & random events that you run into alone or with friends. All the best memories were doing that
@@madseasonshow @Madseasonshow @KevinJordan We need you guys. One by one we're so little. Please make something, where everyone can make their voices heard as a big community. Call streamers, influencers, make polls, communities. I want to play and experience the Classic TBC with my friends..
I'm one of the few people that prefer leveling to the end game. I think rewards are more evenly distributed during leveling and so I can feel the power spikes. End game you just get new gear, but while leveling you have so much to make you feel stronger. Even something as simple as a larger bag feels great.
@@cosmincosmin8338 i hate leveling to 0 to 70 once again. Got the same at you, like 20 lvled up characters. But i preffer to level once again and the game experience to be good, rather than agree with the game being ruined by boost, for my own convience.
@@cosmincosmin8338 I'm calling BS on that, if you leveled 20 characters Cleary you enjoy leveling, if you really hate leveling that much then I don't see how you could level 20 characters, lets assume you can play 8 hours a day and it takes 160 hours (lowballing it) to level a character to 60, 20 * 160 is 3200 hours of leveling which is over 130 days of playtime, but if you only play 8 hours a day then we can multiply the amount of time it took you by three (24/8 = 3) and it would take almost 400 days of 8 hours a day leveling non stop, the boosts wouldn't even skip that much time since its one time only. Besides what is even the point in you leveling more characters? you can have around 10 characters on a realm, and I'm not even sure why you would, I might understand leveling to 35 for professions but to level to 60 on characters you likely don't have the time to gear just doesn't make sense to me, if you really have leveled 20 characters then you have to enjoy it, otherwise your playing the game for literally no reason. unless you mean that you have leveled characters, but not to max level in which case I'm gonna tell you that leveling is some of the most fun in the game, if you really thing raid logging or dungeon grinding is fun then your mistaken, sure getting new gear is nice, but the process of getting it isn't.
People have lost what it means to actually play a game like wow. Its leaked into other games too. Everyone just wants to play the endgame and theyll burn out in a couple weeks. I hate the state of gaming in general. It used to have such meaning to it.
The "leveling is dead and boring anyway" people are the ones that got the game to where it is now... where the only thing you can do is grind end-game content all day long, to the point they even gated the zone story campaigns behind it now.
@@aFoolsMartyr If that’s the case the game never would have taken off in the first place. Of course the players’ gameplay experience is subjective, but the game feels more meaningful when end-game is earned.
@@CyVinci the game took of when leveling was still meaningful and took a while. You're acting as if that never changed. I've always loved leveling. But now it is just boring, too easy and much too fast. It's bad and it's Blizzard's fault.
They should have "NO Boost" servers (no transfers of boosted char either) and then compare data overtime. See which has a thriving economy/community vs boosted servers.
the simple reason for them not doing it: they already know how it would turn out. They already know that their way of changing the game is ruining it. They just don't care because it's bringing in loads of money for them.
They are implementing this for WOTLK classic, for some new servers. But the lock is removed after 90 days. You can't do a DK on the server unless you have a level 55 character, for instance. And you are unable to server transfer to the server. Sadly it's only a 90 day lock, so in the end it wouldn't matter. Perm. would have been better.
Something I see not anyone mention is that the reason bots keep expanding is because there is a player base that feeds into them and buys the gold. No business could make 0 profit and continue to run. That's how supply and demand works. If bots are at an "all time high", that suggests that the amount of players buying gold from said bots, is also at an all time high. If there were no demand for gold, the bot companies then arent able to sustain the business. That's how you fix the bot issue. So the key here isnt blizz "making it easier to bot", but that a large enough portion of the player base has brought it on all of us. I also think the in game "boosting" or "power leveling" directly feeds into the bot issue as well. Yes there are some people who have an alt they can afford to boost from playing. But I know 4 people who haven't played classic and wanted to get ready for BC. They saw the power leveling services and how much more efficient it is than leveling. So what did they do? You guessed it, bought gold and used that gold to boost a character. But its "ok" because it an "in game transaction". Well maybe for the 60 who's boosting, but not all of their customers got gold the old fashion way.
@@bucketfridge13 yes you are right on point! We have done it to ourselves. I think between the old school players with less time and more money, and the newer gen younger players used to a pay to win mentality, we have slowly created a market that has got us where we are today. What I have the most trouble wrapping my head around is how ineffective blizzards actions have been when it comes to exposing and banning bots. I got bored a couple of months ago and set a timer and stood outside DMT to report bots. I got 52 reports in that time and later got 2 pages of thank you messages from blizz in the mail for getting the bots banned. I’m just some dummy with a report button, so when I think of the tools bliz should have that should make it so easy to identify and remove the bots, I just don’t understand what is so difficult about it. I feel like if they were really on top of things we shouldn’t be able to /who a dungeon and see it full of guildless bots nearly any time of day. So again I go back to my first thought. Somehow, someway, money :/
@@lilruss713 This is a bit of a nihilistic view, but I actually think Blizz doesnt care that much. It's because of what you said, money. Bot accounts gotta pay to get the current expac, and their monthly payments. Sub numbers are sub numbers to the executives. They then give you this idea that do care and are working on it. But then there's hardly been any changes. It reminds me of Professional sports leagues that pretend to care about testing for PEDs, and tell you they test them. But we all know they dont care about it at all.
@@bucketfridge13 yeah they very well may look at it as an added expense that will also lower their sub count. Where’s the integrity and love for the game? I know a lot of people blame activision. It reminds me of the call of duty franchise being squeezed for every last drop of profit. They might just be a convenient excuse though. I’m sure they don’t care who we blame as long as we keep giving them our money.
@@bucketfridge13 - you really think they care about bot subscriptions if that leads to their actual playerbase leaving the game due to those bots ruining the game?
This long ass but needed video has truly opened my eyes on many aspects of the game and of you as a pillar of the Classic community. This video has helped me decide on my new game plan for TBC and it's honestly increased my respect for you a great deal. The amount of research, level headed opinions you state and the great skits/visuals you've put into this is mind blowing. Please keep it up and stay true to the path that will lead to a greater Classic/TBC/WOTLK experience!!!
So happy that you made this video brother! I could not agree more! Leveling is one of the main facets of Classic WoW and Classic TBC! You eloquently shared your opinion, and made it clear that bypassing this part of the experience will have major effects on the game we love! 10/10
Wondering if anyone has discussed Recruit-a-friend with you yet? I'm sure you know, but it was a paid service introduced in Burning Crusade that introduced the Swift Zhevra and a XP boost for you and a friend. Sort of the lesser of two evils but if I had to choose between the two, I would rather have something that was introduced into the game back during vanilla TBC, than adding entirely new service.
Was on the fence, but decided I was okay with the boost. After expanding on these issues you have convinced me. I was even planning on buying one, but now I wont touch it at all. Thanks for caring about the game.
It is unfortunately money first for blizzard gameplay later. Nintendo i think is the only really creative company out there anymore when it comes to making games. Nintendo also takes a ton of risks as well, with the potential to actually lose money in fact. That is pretty daring. Money is important, but gameplay comes first, then story, then look at those sales. And i mean it isn't like nintendo is scraping by, and they have microtransactions, but they are all optional. Now, i am not huge on microtransactions, but it is nice to squeeze a bit more money and content into the games release. The problem with level boosts to me is that it devalues everything sacred to the rpg mmo market. Progression and time and character investment are absolutely important. And with the paid lvl boost, you are skipping all of that, which is not how wow should be played. But it is what it is i guess. At least it is playable.
For me personally, the most fun part of classic was the leveling experience, it felt like a real true and hard journey and i always quit the game shortly after, when i felt like i had "nothing" more to do.
I had fun leveling my char from 0-60 aswell, seeing how my char improves and getting stronger was one of the best experiences since vanilla again. Also I liked how "brave" the community was in the first days if we could've been online ofc. :P (Login queue was like the hell on earth)
I've tried explaining this to people. Having it restricted to 1 per account in some ways makes it even worse because as you point out, it makes it even MORE expensive to boost, creating a bigger advantage for those who are more wealthy irl
@@thicnos3196 more like those who are more sweaty haha. I couldn't imagine paying for more than one account and like multiboxxing or whatever. People are truly pathetic.
@@thicnos3196 Yeah if money isnt an issue for you, why wouldnt you boost one of every class? Hell, on each faction too? Alot of people have that kind of money. Ive met many people throughout the years that spend hundreds a month buying gold and subs on multiple accounts.
Mad, I gotta say, i've been playing classic since launch, still playing, with no characters even close to level cap. And I love it. Leveling is the game, in my opinion.
@@craigferge4702 I don't think there's anything wrong with that, I just think the reason the game is melting is that the things to do outside of raiding and dungeons are pretty lack luster. If it's a game all about instances and spamming repetitive content, why not just have a call of duty lobby rather than an open world?
Imagine not being able to detect bots in an environment where the server acts as supervisor and has all control and knowledge about any event in the world. I'm pretty damn sure that detecting fly, teleport and speedhacks is not an impossible task for a multi billion dollar company which can hire a few experts in statistics, game security and software engineering...
@@Ch40zz Very true. Just last month someone showed me a screenshot of his account which had over 8 bans, but they still allow him create another subscription on the same account. 8 fricken bans on the same account for botting. No perma no nothing, just resub and you're good. Absolutely disgusting.
Also RAF back in TBC. 1. 300% xp 2.For every two levels of experience your friend earns, they can grant one level of experience to one of your lower-level characters. So for every two characters you and, again, “your friend”, leveled up to 60, you got a free 60 .
I am such a huge fan of yours. I watched your classic videos, and they made me come back and re-learn so much of this wonderful game. I didn't think I could become a bigger fan, but I was actually wrong. Don't ever stop making videos dude, you're a hero
maybe they could remove the boost, bring back the recruit friend system that was originally in tbc, where you would get a certain % lvl increase for being in the same group as that friend? in my opinion recruit a friend system would seem more attractive to new players, where using 60$ boost+Sub$ on a game they havent played does not.
I agree that that is a more healthy way of playing the game however if that friend doesn't feel like leveling a new character that newbie is still going to play alone so it doesn't solve the issue blizzard is trying to remedy. I personally don't think there is an issue at all and new players should just level a character like we did then alone or maybe that friend could give him a hand or make sure there is a spot for him in the guild when he completes the experience and helps him gear up these are all things we did back in the day and there's nothing wrong with that. I would go so far as to say if they are unwilling to commit the time to level a character they are not going to play TBC at any significant level so the boost in that sense is pointless.
The content they worked to recreate in the case of tbc is tbc and people still have to level through that content. Anyways, we all know endgame is what everyone cares about anyway unless you are an extreme casual or worse.
My understanding is: You pay for a game so you can play said game, right. Theeeen you go and pay more to skip playing the game you just paid for? Wot fucking even?
@@Velumbra - but what if they don't care for the 1-60 leveling experience and just want to check out tbc? If all I want to do is play tbc i would rather not pay a sub and waste my time having to go 1-60 just so i can start to actually play what I really want.
@@Krisso22 If you’ve already experienced the leveling content and spent 100+ hours going through it, possibly multiple times, is it really so hard to understand being tired of it?
Glad to see you talk about this issue Madseasonshow, you probably made the best case about the 58 boost by far compared to other people (including me lol)
@@robertp457 Yeah, sadly, Madseason has been transitioning slowly from a "succesor to Hayven Games" to "Alexensual 2.0" Still yeah, his points are for the most part valid, and just a tad exaggerated on the "this is what is gonna happen" part... I'm just tired that everytime he uploads a new video is about classic drama stuff... i miss his original content so much.
@@WeedStriker Oh yeah, he hasnt turned into that. my point is he is migrating from a channel focused in actual content to a channel focused in drama and argument. Just check his last 3 videos, all about TBC, and each addresses some sort of controversy.
Glad that this video is getting some recognition: we need blizzard to hear this and give us at least a few fresh 1-70 tbc server when the prepatch comes out.
even just creating one would instantly show them how out of touch they are, just like with classic launch. I have trouble believing they are this incompetent, its got to be corporate greed. They dont care until they realise they are losing money, then they just try to min-max profits all over again. Must be hard for the real game developers to work in such a space.
ONE realm without a boost and we'll see it FLOODED with players... Just like when they launched classic, if they give us a chance to show them they're wrong we'll do so in droves.
I’d like a fresh 1-70 server. I missed out on the classic launch and just felt too far behind to keep playing. It’d be awesome to experience a fresh launch with other players again
Hello. I am that new player everyone making excuses is talking about. I am now level 34 and enjoying the heck out of tbc classic. Boosts are for Boomers
@@Chaogod1233 A cash shop to pay servers for a free game is already a bit more acceptable. And they don't try to pass it as a necessary change to adapt the game to modern players, or to help new players, or any other bullcrap.
Same here, I never even thought about the idea that 1 boost is available to EVERYONE, not just a fresh account. I have a Pally, Druid, Mage, and Rogue, oh I want a Hunter now, $40 later, easy save of time. That's when the slippery slope starts.
Your videos give me old internet vibes and it makes me happy, love the format, the gifs and memes. It always puts a smile on my face and I enjoy it, nostalgic to an extent. Either way love the content, even the voice and everything about it. Much love!
Someone needs to before real RPGs go the way of the dodo. We need a 2nd #nochanges movement essentially, not advocating zero changes but the same principle. We have got to dictate terms to Activision-Blizzard because they have different interests than we. Their job is to maximize profits and the quality of the game is secondary to that, (obvious cliche sorry) that's why we're here.
@@catclaws1847 You have to pay if you want to keep your char in Classic and TBC. And leveling boost will be like 50 bucks + it makes it easy for botters. It ruins the economy. A freakin microtransaction for like 50 bucks and people say it is hardly cashing in.......2021 in a nutshell, what happened to gaming.....
@@Lykandras Again you can only use it once i repeat you can only buy this boost ONE time.. . And Bots have already shot the economy lol the bulk of the player base has admitted to buying gold. It doesn't even come with professions or riding but lets be honest the vast majority of the player base will just drop 20 dollars for 1000 gold rather then spending a week farming it which keeps the bots in business but lets blame boosts amirite? The level boost helps bots how? It literally takes bots one day to boost to level 60 through dungeons.
It takes botters way longer to level, dungeon lockouts exist. The economy is already bad as you said, so your solution is making it worse? Blizz should start implementing anti-botting software and properly ban gold sellers. But instead they invent WoW-tokens for 20€ to "battle" them. What a joke. How long until they lift the restriction of one boost per account? In retail it is 60€ for boosts and 25€for freakin mounts. That is the point we reached over the years. It is insanity. And people wonder why half the playerbase left retail. Professions arent worth a damn anymore and goldfarming sucks in retail, but hey just pay Blizz if you need gold. Compare how strong professions are in TBC to retail. What a joke!!! The game suffers for microtransactions. And people like YOU are the reason Blizz gets away with it. Sheeple.
A year later and this video couldn’t be more true. The level boost disfigured and mangled the true vanilla experience. We knew it at the time, we all did. You were right, Mad.
It was such a shame to see classic transform into retail, but much faster this time around. All the while the shills were insisting it would be fine, but here we are with a mangled ruined version.
When i saw the length of the video, I thought that Madseason really did a musical Ballad and already made a 1hour version ahead of the time for listening on repeat.
As a full time worker, husband, and father of 3, leveling in Classic was my favorite part of the game. I am the definition of ultra casual, taking 9 months to level to 60, and I absolutely despise the idea of paid boosts in TBC. During my travels, I came across plenty of bots in the open world more times than I can remember. TBC will be a total bot fest at endgame especially for grinding rep and attunements. I'm not sure if I will even play it and I've looked forward to re living TBC for over a decade. When Blizzard claims character boosts are for the casuals, they certainly aren't talking about me.
Same, joined Classic as a filthy casual just to prepare for a sweatfest in re-rolling main in TBC, bots didn't sour the experience as much as the players refusal to actually play the game. I didn't hesitate for a second to pull the plug and unsub after the boost announcement.
Same! It took me about 3 months to get to level 40 on my shaman. I had to quit because of school starting again, but I absolutely loved my time leveling my character. I would not want to skip it at all, and I wouldn’t want anyone I have the chance of playing with to skip it either. If everyone else takes the boost, my experience is ruined too. I guess when I come back I’ll be playing those permanent 60 servers.
Blizzard needs to focus on the MMO and RPG aspect of their game. Allowing bots and exploiters to run rampart and now introduce pay to win garbage IS WHAT MAKES PEOPLE WANT TO SKIP LEVELLING in the first place. People flock to fresh servers because they haven't been ruined by bots and boosters and all the nonesense that arises when the server management fails to support the realm. Its where they can actually interact with each other rather than raid logging and buying gold to GDKP gear. Idiots are obsessed with instant gratification and activation-blizzard are more than happy to accommodate this.
Yeah I think the boost would better suit players that want to race through the end game. As a PvP player its actually great to me since I don't really need to do all of the pve stuff to do my thing and I'd get a free alt to play with. But I guess playing tbc arena with 2 toons is not really being a casual.
Honestly leveling in classic when it launched, was one of the best times I had in the game ever, I didn't play classic back in a day, just broken private TBC server and I felt like a kid playing classic, it was amazing. I cannot really justify the boost, as leveling in this game is such a big and great part of it, that omitting it is simply a crime imo.
@@stefans.466 It's still world of warcraft, not world of outland. It's not a new game, it's an expansion, and you shouldn't be able to skip everything except the expansion. Or at least, that's what Madseason said in this video, if you watched it at all
I agree I enjoy the leveling experience. I wish instead of introducing payed $58 boost they would just nerf pally and mage AOE and straight up mess with boosting.
The argument that you just want new content is somehow invalid for me, as in that case you should just play retail. I want quality of life changes in the game, not straight up cheating and literally aiding botters in the edevour. I wanted to level new character now, but decided to wait for the pre-patch, as right now honestly with all the boosters it would be cancer.
Man you're pretty spot on with a lot of this stuff. I tried to play classic before tbc but the grind was a bit too much for me. This new expansion made leveling a lot easier but I see literally no one in the starting zones even though my server is full
I was excited to get a nice 4th max level toon, without funding the dirty third world bot horde(i refused to pay for boosts for all of classic), but madseason is in the right here, if u dont wanna do the grind, you dont deserve it. Simple as that.
@@Vihara2 This is a remake, on a game that came out 14 years ago, where you don't actually need to be hardcore to get to the end of most content. Spare a thought for those who this conveniences. Does it actually inconvenience anyone?
@@mathias483 I did, I like Madseason so I always watch them. When I say 'inconvenience' I am talking about on a deeper level. With all the problems in Classic WoW, the mountains of gold people have from either GDKP, committing to the gold making lifestyle (world buff summons, boosts, or straight up buying it) I think a 58 boost is the least of their problems as this just saves time it doesn't damage the economy. Someone can level 1-58 in about a month. All this does is circumvent that. My main issue with this boost is that if it is $60 (about £45 for me) then that is quite extortionate in my opinion. But then I guess, I make £15 an hour, so this would probably be worth my time. But I already have 2 60s, so. I can definitely think of two friends who would do this though. I also think, an interesting side effect of this, is giving people the chance to level a character they otherwise would find boring to get to 58, I for one, can't stand levelling a rogue below 20, or a warlock, I just do not find it fun. This could add classes such as tanks/heals as a 2nd char for many people who have only just found the time to squeeze in for one character. Regardless, I don't think this change is gamebreaking, and I think it pales in comparison to other problems with the game, so I don't think it's an issue. As I stated prior - this is not a new game. This is a remake for nostalgia. Blizzard is already making money capitalising on that, so this move should not be unexpected in the slightest. Regardless, they are a business. But their business does also depend on the fun of their customers as a baseline. So I suppose the most important question we all should be asking is "Does this make the game less fun for X amount of players, while making it fun for Y amount of players?" where Y > X. My guess is yes, it does make it more fun for a significant amount of people, and the X playerbase will either not care, not leave, or forget about it 3 months into TBC.
@@garyc2630 There's a lot to unpack here, and I do understand some of your sentiments but you can't boil it down to a simple linear equation. There are many factors that could influence fun. Madseason is bringing up the argument that you can't look at this as a simple issue. Ultimately, he is linking the correlation that these paid shortcuts have an everlasting negative effect on the game. These changes that the game is evidently not built for, will have an impact on everyone's fun because the paid boost service may lead to larger issues that could diminish the gameplay experience for everyone. It may pale in comparison to other issues with the game, but it may also play an integral part of these other problems. In Burning Crusade there was a paid service, recruit a friend or something along the likes. It sped up the levelling experience for you and one other and I think introduced the Zhevra mount. Just bring that back.
38:40 I've felt this for a long time about WoW, maybe it was since my brief dip into Pandaria. It felt like everything was overloaded towards the endgame that there was no real love put into the leveling experience. If endgame is the real game, then what the fuck is leveling? My favorite memories in all MMOs were made fucking around with friends leveling up. It feels like they drained the meat and bones out of the "RPG experience" and instead wheel out the dried lifeless husk of the RPG moniker just to make it dance and assure everyone that the RPG elements are indeed alive and well.
the reality is that the people who level with friends aren't typically the ones raiding, doing PvP, or even M+ - the moment they hit 50 and stop progressing their character they feel like it's just useless quests for gear. Yeah, the game is a gear grind, but it's billed as a role playing game. New players feel lied to. In a way, the "we can't say we're an RPG if we don't have choice" is very true, they probably feel like they're losing a lot of players because of a lack of agency - but to give this agency they have to pull support from Raids, M+, or PvP which will and has been met with amazing hostility every time its happened
In fairness, MOP came out just after Cata, and the Cata endgame unfortunately suffered because of how much time they spent revamping the old world and all the Azeroth/EK leveling experience. I think the amount of time they spent on the endgame was due in part to that backlash from Cata, and MOP raiding and endgame was some of the most solid we've ever had.
"Why is it that your first response is to give up?" EXACTLY - I got downvoted into oblivion on reddit because I proposed a community effort to start a petition for Blizzard to do something about the botting issue. I got chewed apart by so many people who were saying there's no point and it wouldn't do anything. I think thats a shitty way to look at it. I bet if there was a community effort to pressure Blizzard to do something about the bots, it could be done. Better to try than to just give up.
but what is the incentive for them not to? you can apply this to loot boxes and shit too from other games, but yet money always wins in the end. Blizzard knows and doesn't care cause it still pays. you can try making an effort to bring people together to solve this issue but the majority of consumers can give 2 shits about these sorts of things.yall cried so hard about the China shit and still coming back to the game lol.
I said they should make a "shadow" server for bots rather than ban them. The only way you get access to the server is by being sent to it via blizzard. To the bot account, it looks like they are in a normal server, the server name doesn't change to them but when they click login they are flagged and sent to the "shadow" server. And the only people in there are other bots, they cant interact or trade with real players, if the owner doesn't notice, they keep paying for the accounts but get nothing in return. Blizzard gets paid, we get rid of bots and the owners of the bots get pissed.
@@gohan7104 gamers really need to figure this out. People out here really acting like blizzard took game design into consideration for any part of the decision 😆 game design plays into it but the actual measurement is "% of subscriptions that will leave"
The faster leveling from 20 to 60, many added quests (dustwallow, ashenvale, etc), and lvl 30 mounts added in original TBC should have been enough to get new players caught up.
Just got done questing in Red Mesa helping my tribe and am on a journey to prove myself as a hunter and made it to Bloodhoof Village. Definitely can't beat the immersion and good vibes of leveling naturally that's for sure. I feel like Level Boost takes all the fun out of it. "It's about the journey, not the destination". Walk with the Earth Mother...
Your insight into the nitty gritty aspects of wow is second to nobody I've seen! Thank you for the continued support of the community! Top quality content
@@elkehendriks5132 yeah me too. I played alot first 8 months then i quit because it was too much. Just resubed, leveling on a new server just doing chill stuff.
This is a good tip regardless of stance on boosts. A lot of classic guilds have been super "get all world buffs or kicked" and "get all consumes or kicked" like they're super needed. My guild had like half of the people doing this and we steamrolled raids in an hour and some change. Enjoy the experience. The truth of it is that with modern knowledge sharing and skill levels the content isn't going to be thst difficult. Now, BC is probably going to be more difficult than vanilla of course but the principal applies. Enjoy the game. If you like farming gold and consumes, do it and you'll pump higher numbers or survive certain things better, but if you prefer not to, you'll probably be more than fine.
This guy thinks "don't have time to play' means having time to join to a guild and playing with people... Clearly he doesn't have kids, work, studies and responsabilities to do in his house yet. People that "don't have time" only play 1 o 2 hours a week and if they want to play tbc they should play tbc not vanilla before tbc, logic is simple...
At this point Blizzards strategy is to get away with greed as long as possible, then you give the playerbase a little bit of positive change, then just milk it again. Repeat until infinity. As long as people subscribe for every new promised wonderland, Blizzard has nothing to fear.
As much as I don't care about people boosting I just feel like this whole discussion at least for me comes down to that a sub service game shouldn't even have a real money shop in the first place.
BC had never had it back in the day, simple as that. i dont know why these people supposedly LOVE playing the game so much but they HATE levelling up ? wtf. that is part of the game... always has been... its an MMO. if the boost was only for people without a high level too to 'catch up' to BC content then why is blizz offering the 58 boost to anyone, even if they have a 60 or multiple already ? hmmm
Great video. You do really care for the health of the game and I want to endlessly thank you for it, MadSeason. Many people choose not to fight and I'm hoping this video serves as a huge red flag for the community and Blizzard to avoid adding the level boost. It will ruin the integrity of the game in so many aspects. Let's hope this video blows up.
People who buy boosts are like people who buy steroids when they start lifting. "Well gee, all my friends are ripped, I want to lift as much as them!!" "I want a way to skip the grind of lifting so I can lift with my friends."
You've really hit the nail on the head with this video, what a commitment to have made on such a controversial topic. I'd recently been considering using the boost myself and this has really made me reconsider doing so. Have been thoroughly enjoying my leveling experience and the random encounters with other people in the world and value the experience as a way to truly learn each class. Have been binging your videos to satisfy my wow addiction while at work, thanks for creating excellent content, keep it up :)
Hey man, if you read replies ignore that asshole. You're a better person for being open to changing your mind and making what you think is a better and more informed decision. The whole point of a cash shop is manipulative temptation, there's no thoughtcrime in considering using it. I agree with Madseason, so I'm glad you were swayed, but I also agree that people shouldn't be shamed for the thought or act of boosting in itself. It's all about context.
Watching this while I’m currently boosting a character. And it’s making me realize I’m contributing to the problem I complain about. Really opened my eyes up
@@caronbaptiste8628 @CARON BAPTISTE You don't only learn your class rotation during levelling. You learn how to pull and not pull mobs, how to kite, CC etc. You also learn the utility abilities of your class. It definitely makes a difference. If you think player skill or game knowledge doesn't make a difference, you are simply an idiot, I'm afraid. Go try LFR and watch how many people asspull everything and don't know they class' abilities.
@@caronbaptiste8628 this is a common misconception. in essence, fewer buttons doesn't equal easier. resource generation is so different and without the feel for it and the effects of spell batching, you're just smashing buttons. even when you know the rotation, try to perform something like feral druid optimally. or retribution paladin with its seal-weaving. it's not happening if you dont get the feel for the game itself first. i play both versions and trust me, even if it's easier technically, don't mistake that for easy or even comparable as a gameplay experience.
This is my 3rd viewing and each time I gain a new appreciation for your skill as a writer. I don't agree with everything you've said, but you've cemented yourself as one of the best wow creators of all time, and I'll be here every upload.
Hi Madseason, thank you for all the amazing content you have created, over time you have been my support and company through many lonely grinding nights in classic and tbc, I was a late starter to wow but kinda haven’t stopped playing since receiving the ‘’wow bug’’, imo your amazing videos really did help me get the wow bug and I’m so upset your quitting, but it’s for the best I hope you manage to fill your out time with the most important things in life like family and irl friends, azeroth and the the outlands has lost a true warrior content creator and an amazing person, good luck with the future and lots of love Liam and family xx
Even if new players are the target audience, they are the exact ones who should not be boosting. Imagine playing WoW for the first time and being launched to end game... leveling your first character is so important and one of the best parts of the game.
Yeah, especially since classes dont play themself in Classic and BC. You genuinely learn the nuances of your class leveling up. Imagine a genuine new player boosted trying to land hunter traps in BC. "Use misdirecting shot." "OK!" *Casts Misdirect on tank, doesnt even lay a trap, runs up to the pull spamming the trap button all chatting its not working not realizing you have to feign to get out of combat to lay a trap as a hunter*
@@bunnieskitties293 thats nothing a regular WoW player can't manage. And if you cant or dont know you'll get everything you need to know wrapped up in 3min of google. Like I mained a lock in TBC and retail lock is a million times harder to play actually. Then my current main is an arms warr and I never played that back in the day, but its actually pretty similar. You need macros for literally every skill because you need to swap weapons/stance for everything but once you set that up its no different you just press your stuff normally.
"If you don't like how the game is going, then just leave!" *People proceeds to leave* "Omg, why is it so hard to find anyone to do anything with these days?! And why would Blizzard reduce their development costs even further?! It's all the whiners' fault!"
One of the things that i still can't get over about people who advocate for boosts and who use the "i don't have time to level" argument, is that they often try to use the argument that people who oppose boosting are "selfish" because they are "gatekeeping" the game from people who "don't have time". It's like alright then, you're the one who is claiming that the game has to be adapted to fit your specific tastes regardless if that negatively impacts the experience for others, but somehow it's the people who sugges that you just do what everyone else does and adapt your own playstyle to the game who are apparently "selfish". Yeah okay, that totally makes sense. And even when you get past that, they still try to argue that boosting doesn't negatively impact the game experience for others and that it isn't a big deal. That you can just "not buy boosts" and remain completely unaffected. It's like "mate, just say that you want to be able to boost and that you don't give a shit if it ruins the game for others. Just come out and say it and be done with it." If they just did that then i could sort of respect it, because at least that way we all gain new footing from which to work and find a way forward. Instead we have to have this disingenuous fucking back-and-forth about whether or not boosting is bad for the game where nobody listens to anybody and everyone calls everyone else an idiot. And all the while Blizzard is laughing all the way to the bank with all the money they rake in from selling ingame services.
Me: "1h? holy shit, no way I am watching that, maybe I'll just watch for lil bit" Me 1 hour later: "nice, now let's see what baldmanreacts thinks about this" every F-ing time....
I think the idea of people not having time to play and level has always been not an actual issue except for people who want to rush to the end. I'm a single dad and definitely don't get as much time as I used to and would like but I enjoy the game all the same. If I only got to do a couple quests and not even one full level in a day? So what? I still got to play the game I enjoy.
WoW Classic needs something like what oldschool runescape got. Some changes, but those changes are voted on by the community and are made in the spirit of classic.
exactly. Let the majority make a vote. You can never please EVERYONE, but atleast appeal to the ones who share common interests and actually care about your game
OSRS also has bonds which completely ruin gold farming, there's no method in the game that makes more gold per hour than buying a bond even if you work at minimum wage.
As someone who quit WoW after the first release and "end" of BC (almost 15y ago) and seeing Asmons and your videos about the state of WoW now; it's really quite a ride.
I played WoW a month after launch and quit probably in 2007. It blows my mind that real people (and some of my friends) STILL play after nearly 20 years. People are insane.
Update 5/23/23: Yes I have heard they have now added the WoW token. I guess the only thing to say is learn from history or you are doomed to repeat it, or if you don't like history, just close your eyes and yell slippery slope fallacy :)
I feel that for sure, boosting isn't something I want either but one good thing is \a lot of people who didn't play Classic Vanilla but wanted a TBC remake will be more inclined to join with a boost instead of being WAY behind the level curve thus having a nice surge in population for end game raids/dungs/quests etc. At the end of the day if it makes the world feel more alive I'm all for it seeing how the game is based on it's players/population to thrive.
Holy fucking shit a comment as long as the video itself.
With all of that, im happy that i dropped all of nuBlizzard altogether and went back to Morrowind
In counter to your point: I have a 60 and wouldn't play at all if I couldn't boost. My friends already picked a server and it's not the one I played on. I'm not doing that again, it took 3 months and it wasn't that fun the first time. Just looking to play 70 arenas a bit.
Blizzard is catering to players like me who don't have that free time because we work a lot. Because we work a lot, we don't care about spending a few dollars to save that 3 months of time. They'll make millions off of people like me and I don't really care because I get to play the game.
Why pay a Mage to cast Blizzard when you can just pay Blizzard to cast a Mage?
Nice!
QFTW!
Lol
#deep
Or better yet, why pay a mage to level you with Blizzard when you can pay Blizzard to level your mage?
Who's here to rewatch this as the wow token is added to call out "Madseasonshow was right"
He simply paid attention for the last 15 years. I was stupid to believe I would get to play the game my dad had always hyped up.
@@curtreyes00 Indeed, he just paid attention to what was going on
Kind of sad tbh, I loved that game. Maybe they will get it right in Classic Classic XD
This is the exact reason I havent bought Diablo 4.... Blizzard are going to add similar things to that game over time.
Especially since classic era has gotten wwyy more populated
if anyone was wondering what the binary says at 25:32 like me it says "subscribe", nice touch MadSeason.
I will never understand how using a Goblin for the 100 level boost wasn't immediately seen by everyone on the planet as a huge "WE'RE DOING THIS BECAUSE WE'RE GREEDY" move
nice one😂
It’s So, So fitting. Lmao and blizzard so out of touch they can’t comprehend the irony of it
made it worth returning the xpacs before that killed off the player base.
@@skivvy3565 Meanwhile at Blizzard: "Players are so stupid they won't comprehend the irony of this." xD
RuneScape did the same thing goblins running a roulette wheel when you log in for a spin for free stuff everyday
Madseason, we need you. Our monotone super hero.
Did I live long enough to see myself become the villain yet? XD
@@madseasonshow please dont. Anduin and You are all I have left... oh wait...
@The Path That Rocks Marthaaaaaaaa
@@madseasonshow haha your comments have more power in it, then your voice in your videos.
@@madseasonshow You'll always be my hero and one of my biggest motivators for sticking with wow in the current era. Thank you for all the wonderful content and thoughts you share with the community as well as your hard work. I hope you're well during these strange times brother.
When paying $15 per month isn't enough milking out for a old ass video game
I agree in that they dont need to be asking for more money, but that 15$ isnt specifically for you to play "a old ass video game" as it lets you play vanilla, TBC classic and retail (its up to you to choose which you want to play or maybe even all 3 for the same price)
Some players can't even pay just 15$ anymore, they removed the 30 game time option. Keep in mind that 30 day game time and 30 day sub are different, the sub is still available but why even bother doing this?
@@AgressivePigeon the only reason i can see is them hoping people forget to cancel by being forced to subscribe rather than just buying increments of game time
@@devinem24 Yup, same idea here. That and having somebody subbed longer boosts their "active" player numbers short term. But come on, flat out removing a option is just saying "we want your money, but we want more of it"
At one point madseasonshow says there's a way to get a cheaper subscription. Anyone know the way? Wouldn't mind farting around in classic
Did... Did he just use emotion when he talked to his dog?!
A bigger deal to me than the WoW news honestly
MadSeason used "Emotion"... IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE!
I straight-up thought it was someone else talking for a second.
@@Garnilator 1:13 idk if theres more but doggo there
Real voice reveal :O
The oddest part, I think, is that if the argument is centered on someone not being able to play with their friends who are level 60 and going strong.
I commonly experience my friends restarting with a new char at level 1 with me or the other way around, me restarting at level 1 to play with a friend from level 1 to 60
The comment on the Classic "stagnation" is also very true.
I think a lot of the people that brush off Classic levelling as an annoying chore that just stops them from getting to the "meat" of the game (the endgame), just have a very strong retail mentality.
As someone who's spent a long time playing on private servers, this is how I see the Classic servers: A permanent image of said expansion. It's not going away and you'll always know that when you log in you'll be playing That expansion. I feel that so many people are used to just re-subbing to retail for a new expac and putting in as much effort as they can for the next year or so since they know it won't last forever and it's now or never to experience it.
Levelling, even re-levelling, in this old WoW setting is definitely a big part of the game with its own stories to be made. While you may miss out on a phase or two if you're super busy irl, you can rest assured that you can start playing when you're ready and you'll have all the time in the world to experience all the content that it has to offer.
How do you think private servers work? If some WoTLK private server launched like 6 years ago does it mean it's dead with no community since everyone's done everything? Not necessarily. People play the expansion cause it satisfies them/they enjoy it. It's a very different experience from retail if that's the only type of WoW you're used to. And these Classic servers work almost the same way.
Regarding my opinion on it - I think boosting is a bad decision. But as MadSeason points out, this isn't really an excuse for me, or people who think like me, to just take shots at people with a different opinion. Personally, if I'd be taking any shots they are at Blizzard. As pointed out in the video - botting and cheating are a big issue and were some of the main aspects that led to great disappointment for me regarding Classic. It's completely unbelievable to me, a regular player, to walk in Hillsbrad Foothils for 3 minutes and spot at least 8 bots without even searching for them specifically. Blizzard has handled all of this horribly and I worry for the potential damage this boost may cause in this regard.
But yea all in all, amazing video man! Tough topic for sure, but I think you brought up all of the proper concerns very well and it was very entertaining too!
Classic has no "meat" in the end game, its got a raid... Its endgame is really not much . I look at classic as its own entity, 90% of that journey is just making it to max level. To me endgame is simply being better at pvp and getting a couple raid items, thats it. Classic isnt magical, it isnt better, its jsut what it is.
The problem is TBC is directly responsible for creating the mindset that endgame is all that matters by making EVERYTHING revolve around being 60-70 and all pre-TBC content irrelevant.
IMO - it's not ALL the leveling that people dislike, it's the FIRST character leveling.
@@SeruraRenge11 In your opinion that is a problem. Most people wouild disagree, its not a problem
@@SeruraRenge11 That's just not accurate. People aren't rewarded enough while leveling to make it better than raiding. Success when leveling is being done with leveling.
The journey of levelling was always the best. The random encounters, ambushes, getting sidetracked & random events that you run into alone or with friends. All the best memories were doing that
Glorious expressions of passion, wisdom and critical thinking. We don't deserve you ChadSeason!
Thank YOU for creating one of the best games of all time(except for shamans)
@@madseasonshow @Madseasonshow @KevinJordan We need you guys. One by one we're so little. Please make something, where everyone can make their voices heard as a big community. Call streamers, influencers, make polls, communities.
I want to play and experience the Classic TBC with my friends..
you were the hero we needed, not the one we deserved.
Kevin Jordan just exclaimed "ChadSeason". This is proof we are in the perfect timeline
Critical my ass, it’s just 1h of pure emotional bias
only 2 years later and wow token is here. as predicted
I'm one of the few people that prefer leveling to the end game. I think rewards are more evenly distributed during leveling and so I can feel the power spikes. End game you just get new gear, but while leveling you have so much to make you feel stronger. Even something as simple as a larger bag feels great.
how many charcaters have you leveled? Me over 20 so maybe i wanna take the boost. I wanna have this option.
@@cosmincosmin8338 i hate leveling to 0 to 70 once again. Got the same at you, like 20 lvled up characters. But i preffer to level once again and the game experience to be good, rather than agree with the game being ruined by boost, for my own convience.
@@cosmincosmin8338 if you have levelled over 20 characters then why on earth are you planning on leveling more?
@@cosmincosmin8338 I'm calling BS on that, if you leveled 20 characters Cleary you enjoy leveling, if you really hate leveling that much then I don't see how you could level 20 characters, lets assume you can play 8 hours a day and it takes 160 hours (lowballing it) to level a character to 60, 20 * 160 is 3200 hours of leveling which is over 130 days of playtime, but if you only play 8 hours a day then we can multiply the amount of time it took you by three (24/8 = 3) and it would take almost 400 days of 8 hours a day leveling non stop, the boosts wouldn't even skip that much time since its one time only. Besides what is even the point in you leveling more characters? you can have around 10 characters on a realm, and I'm not even sure why you would, I might understand leveling to 35 for professions but to level to 60 on characters you likely don't have the time to gear just doesn't make sense to me, if you really have leveled 20 characters then you have to enjoy it, otherwise your playing the game for literally no reason. unless you mean that you have leveled characters, but not to max level in which case I'm gonna tell you that leveling is some of the most fun in the game, if you really thing raid logging or dungeon grinding is fun then your mistaken, sure getting new gear is nice, but the process of getting it isn't.
damn, been a while since i wrote a wall of text like that lmao, probably many errors in there
People have lost what it means to actually play a game like wow. Its leaked into other games too. Everyone just wants to play the endgame and theyll burn out in a couple weeks. I hate the state of gaming in general. It used to have such meaning to it.
"The bot revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the WoW Classic experience"- 30:30
@Andrew Stevenson yeah that’s why my RP realm has mythic raiders..
@@AnAfinityForKarma mythic bots*
@@JumpingJacksism That literally means nothing, what did you think when you wrote that.. Lol
@@JumpingJacksism If you're insinuating that bots can do mythic level raiding, you're cracked out.
The "leveling is dead and boring anyway" people are the ones that got the game to where it is now... where the only thing you can do is grind end-game content all day long, to the point they even gated the zone story campaigns behind it now.
What? Leveling IS dead and boring. It's Blizzard's fault.
@@aFoolsMartyr If that’s the case the game never would have taken off in the first place. Of course the players’ gameplay experience is subjective, but the game feels more meaningful when end-game is earned.
@@CyVinci the game took of when leveling was still meaningful and took a while. You're acting as if that never changed. I've always loved leveling. But now it is just boring, too easy and much too fast. It's bad and it's Blizzard's fault.
FYI this boost comes with a new warpstalker mount for TBC Classic. Just keeps getting better.
Going through a particularly rough patch of my life right now and your monotone, calm voice has been helping me get through each day. Thank you.
I hope you're better now a month later friend :)
awwwwww
They should have "NO Boost" servers (no transfers of boosted char either) and then compare data overtime. See which has a thriving economy/community vs boosted servers.
The results would be obvious, they would never do it (although I'd like it)
the simple reason for them not doing it: they already know how it would turn out. They already know that their way of changing the game is ruining it. They just don't care because it's bringing in loads of money for them.
They don’t have the player base to even try that out.
They are implementing this for WOTLK classic, for some new servers. But the lock is removed after 90 days. You can't do a DK on the server unless you have a level 55 character, for instance. And you are unable to server transfer to the server. Sadly it's only a 90 day lock, so in the end it wouldn't matter. Perm. would have been better.
There aren’t enough servers to have an adequate sample size to control for other variables that affect server economy and long-term health
When things don’t add up, often enough the answer tends to be money
Something I see not anyone mention is that the reason bots keep expanding is because there is a player base that feeds into them and buys the gold. No business could make 0 profit and continue to run. That's how supply and demand works. If bots are at an "all time high", that suggests that the amount of players buying gold from said bots, is also at an all time high. If there were no demand for gold, the bot companies then arent able to sustain the business. That's how you fix the bot issue. So the key here isnt blizz "making it easier to bot", but that a large enough portion of the player base has brought it on all of us.
I also think the in game "boosting" or "power leveling" directly feeds into the bot issue as well. Yes there are some people who have an alt they can afford to boost from playing. But I know 4 people who haven't played classic and wanted to get ready for BC. They saw the power leveling services and how much more efficient it is than leveling. So what did they do? You guessed it, bought gold and used that gold to boost a character. But its "ok" because it an "in game transaction". Well maybe for the 60 who's boosting, but not all of their customers got gold the old fashion way.
@@bucketfridge13 yes you are right on point! We have done it to ourselves. I think between the old school players with less time and more money, and the newer gen younger players used to a pay to win mentality, we have slowly created a market that has got us where we are today.
What I have the most trouble wrapping my head around is how ineffective blizzards actions have been when it comes to exposing and banning bots. I got bored a couple of months ago and set a timer and stood outside DMT to report bots. I got 52 reports in that time and later got 2 pages of thank you messages from blizz in the mail for getting the bots banned. I’m just some dummy with a report button, so when I think of the tools bliz should have that should make it so easy to identify and remove the bots, I just don’t understand what is so difficult about it. I feel like if they were really on top of things we shouldn’t be able to /who a dungeon and see it full of guildless bots nearly any time of day. So again I go back to my first thought. Somehow, someway, money :/
@@lilruss713 This is a bit of a nihilistic view, but I actually think Blizz doesnt care that much. It's because of what you said, money. Bot accounts gotta pay to get the current expac, and their monthly payments. Sub numbers are sub numbers to the executives.
They then give you this idea that do care and are working on it. But then there's hardly been any changes. It reminds me of Professional sports leagues that pretend to care about testing for PEDs, and tell you they test them. But we all know they dont care about it at all.
@@bucketfridge13 yeah they very well may look at it as an added expense that will also lower their sub count. Where’s the integrity and love for the game? I know a lot of people blame activision. It reminds me of the call of duty franchise being squeezed for every last drop of profit. They might just be a convenient excuse though. I’m sure they don’t care who we blame as long as we keep giving them our money.
@@bucketfridge13 - you really think they care about bot subscriptions if that leads to their actual playerbase leaving the game due to those bots ruining the game?
This long ass but needed video has truly opened my eyes on many aspects of the game and of you as a pillar of the Classic community. This video has helped me decide on my new game plan for TBC and it's honestly increased my respect for you a great deal. The amount of research, level headed opinions you state and the great skits/visuals you've put into this is mind blowing. Please keep it up and stay true to the path that will lead to a greater Classic/TBC/WOTLK experience!!!
and here we are today
So happy that you made this video brother! I could not agree more! Leveling is one of the main facets of Classic WoW and Classic TBC! You eloquently shared your opinion, and made it clear that bypassing this part of the experience will have major effects on the game we love!
10/10
Wondering if anyone has discussed Recruit-a-friend with you yet? I'm sure you know, but it was a paid service introduced in Burning Crusade that introduced the Swift Zhevra and a XP boost for you and a friend. Sort of the lesser of two evils but if I had to choose between the two, I would rather have something that was introduced into the game back during vanilla TBC, than adding entirely new service.
let just hope the classic community support him and other content creator
@@esven37 Yup, we actually got reported for doing this for a friend lol. They thought we were "hackers"
Was on the fence, but decided I was okay with the boost. After expanding on these issues you have convinced me. I was even planning on buying one, but now I wont touch it at all. Thanks for caring about the game.
"Gameplay first" You hit the homerun there, Madseason.
It is unfortunately money first for blizzard gameplay later. Nintendo i think is the only really creative company out there anymore when it comes to making games. Nintendo also takes a ton of risks as well, with the potential to actually lose money in fact. That is pretty daring. Money is important, but gameplay comes first, then story, then look at those sales. And i mean it isn't like nintendo is scraping by, and they have microtransactions, but they are all optional.
Now, i am not huge on microtransactions, but it is nice to squeeze a bit more money and content into the games release. The problem with level boosts to me is that it devalues everything sacred to the rpg mmo market. Progression and time and character investment are absolutely important. And with the paid lvl boost, you are skipping all of that, which is not how wow should be played. But it is what it is i guess. At least it is playable.
@@qunt100 How about Square Enix and Final Fantasy XIV?
@@fernandozavaletabustos205Dead game with a cash shop filled with micros. Lmao
Still coming back to this video after tbc release with a tear in my eye....
For me personally, the most fun part of classic was the leveling experience, it felt like a real true and hard journey and i always quit the game shortly after, when i felt like i had "nothing" more to do.
Silly casual.
You aren’t done leveling till you have one of each class on both factions.
I got so burnt out from leveling to 60 that it made me not want to complete all the raiding scene
I had fun leveling my char from 0-60 aswell, seeing how my char improves and getting stronger was one of the best experiences since vanilla again.
Also I liked how "brave" the community was in the first days if we could've been online ofc. :P (Login queue was like the hell on earth)
@@KeineAhnungGRP haha yeah, had to wait like 3 hours
I didn’t even got to max level and i felt accomplished back then🤣
"It's only usable once" well that way if you want more boosts you have to buy more accounts and pay more subscriptions you see ;)
I've tried explaining this to people. Having it restricted to 1 per account in some ways makes it even worse because as you point out, it makes it even MORE expensive to boost, creating a bigger advantage for those who are more wealthy irl
@@thicnos3196 more like those who are more sweaty haha. I couldn't imagine paying for more than one account and like multiboxxing or whatever. People are truly pathetic.
@@chriscollins1097 yeah, but people do be crazy regardless, there are still people who sweat in fucking runescape, this is not out of focus at all
@@thicnos3196 Yeah if money isnt an issue for you, why wouldnt you boost one of every class? Hell, on each faction too? Alot of people have that kind of money. Ive met many people throughout the years that spend hundreds a month buying gold and subs on multiple accounts.
Man, you were 100% right. Everything you warned about happened.
RIP Classic.
Mad,
I gotta say, i've been playing classic since launch, still playing, with no characters even close to level cap. And I love it. Leveling is the game, in my opinion.
You do know your not forced to level boost right?...
@@Goong1.618 and?
@@alexmaiden260 I think you have angered a blizzdrone
I just enjoy dungeons and mainly raids, i hate leveling so i rush through it. To each their own
@@craigferge4702 I don't think there's anything wrong with that, I just think the reason the game is melting is that the things to do outside of raiding and dungeons are pretty lack luster. If it's a game all about instances and spamming repetitive content, why not just have a call of duty lobby rather than an open world?
Imagine not being able to detect bots in an environment where the server acts as supervisor and has all control and knowledge about any event in the world.
I'm pretty damn sure that detecting fly, teleport and speedhacks is not an impossible task for a multi billion dollar company which can hire a few experts in statistics, game security and software engineering...
small indie company btw
That's what game masters used to be for :/
Oh trust me, they do catch speedhacks. My TBC account is still banned for doing that dumb shit. Go ahead and call me whatever you want, I deserve it.
@@stevenoest Seems like back then they actually cared about the game - unlike today...
@@Ch40zz Very true. Just last month someone showed me a screenshot of his account which had over 8 bans, but they still allow him create another subscription on the same account. 8 fricken bans on the same account for botting. No perma no nothing, just resub and you're good. Absolutely disgusting.
Glad to see Blizz making the same decisions that ruined WoW all over again! Brav-fuckin-O Blizz.. 👏👏👏
You guys need to cancel your accounts. Find something else to play in the meantime. Boycott that shit no paid services....
Also RAF back in TBC.
1. 300% xp
2.For every two levels of experience your friend earns, they can grant one level of experience to one of your lower-level characters. So for every two characters you and, again, “your friend”, leveled up to 60, you got a free 60 .
Strixx man you guys are just making shit up. YOU AINT FOOLIN NOBODY
@@Hairybuffalo No, this was ORIGINALLY IN TBC! Go look it up..
@@Hairybuffalo it definitely existed. It's how i got a ton of lvl 60s backin the day. Mightve been WOTLK RAF though
i hope Blizzard see's this BANGER of a video
I guess they wont have the time/money to watch it at all, lol
small indie company can't afford to watch it
hope she sees this bro. But really, they do not give a fuck it's free $$.
Unfortunately everyone in blizzard knows it, and I bet they understood majority of these problems years ago, which makes this situation sadder
My guess is that everyone who would have has prob already left Blizzard.
I am such a huge fan of yours. I watched your classic videos, and they made me come back and re-learn so much of this wonderful game. I didn't think I could become a bigger fan, but I was actually wrong. Don't ever stop making videos dude, you're a hero
maybe they could remove the boost, bring back the recruit friend system that was originally in tbc, where you would get a certain % lvl increase for being in the same group as that friend? in my opinion recruit a friend system would seem more attractive to new players, where using 60$ boost+Sub$ on a game they havent played does not.
I agree that that is a more healthy way of playing the game however if that friend doesn't feel like leveling a new character that newbie is still going to play alone so it doesn't solve the issue blizzard is trying to remedy. I personally don't think there is an issue at all and new players should just level a character like we did then alone or maybe that friend could give him a hand or make sure there is a spot for him in the guild when he completes the experience and helps him gear up these are all things we did back in the day and there's nothing wrong with that. I would go so far as to say if they are unwilling to commit the time to level a character they are not going to play TBC at any significant level so the boost in that sense is pointless.
Well put Madseason, Did not expect to watch the whole hour in one sitting.
Your videos are great!
for anyone who had the same question i did, the part 3 header's binary translated into ascii says "subscribe" lmao
This video ages like a fine vine
'we made the game you want to play, now pay us to skip the content we worked hard to recreate'
The content they worked to recreate in the case of tbc is tbc and people still have to level through that content. Anyways, we all know endgame is what everyone cares about anyway unless you are an extreme casual or worse.
My understanding is:
You pay for a game so you can play said game, right.
Theeeen you go and pay more to skip playing the game you just paid for?
Wot fucking even?
@@Velumbra - but what if they don't care for the 1-60 leveling experience and just want to check out tbc? If all I want to do is play tbc i would rather not pay a sub and waste my time having to go 1-60 just so i can start to actually play what I really want.
@@xZero9Ox a game is a waste of time in itself. A good one at that, not wanting to 'waste' time in an mmo is a weird concept to me
@@Krisso22 If you’ve already experienced the leveling content and spent 100+ hours going through it, possibly multiple times, is it really so hard to understand being tired of it?
Glad to see you talk about this issue Madseasonshow, you probably made the best case about the 58 boost by far compared to other people (including me lol)
Most of his points were exaggerated, though.
@@robertp457 Yeah, sadly, Madseason has been transitioning slowly from a "succesor to Hayven Games" to "Alexensual 2.0"
Still yeah, his points are for the most part valid, and just a tad exaggerated on the "this is what is gonna happen" part...
I'm just tired that everytime he uploads a new video is about classic drama stuff... i miss his original content so much.
@@josejuanandrade4439 He is FAR from being Alex 2.0 Madseason at least makes good points without insulting devs, players and being a crybaby about it.
@@josejuanandrade4439 complaining about madseason exaggerating by exaggerating yourself. Oh the irony
@@WeedStriker Oh yeah, he hasnt turned into that. my point is he is migrating from a channel focused in actual content to a channel focused in drama and argument. Just check his last 3 videos, all about TBC, and each addresses some sort of controversy.
Glad that this video is getting some recognition: we need blizzard to hear this and give us at least a few fresh 1-70 tbc server when the prepatch comes out.
even just creating one would instantly show them how out of touch they are, just like with classic launch. I have trouble believing they are this incompetent, its got to be corporate greed. They dont care until they realise they are losing money, then they just try to min-max profits all over again. Must be hard for the real game developers to work in such a space.
ONE realm without a boost and we'll see it FLOODED with players... Just like when they launched classic, if they give us a chance to show them they're wrong we'll do so in droves.
@@thegamesforreal1673 hard agree
I’d like a fresh 1-70 server. I missed out on the classic launch and just felt too far behind to keep playing. It’d be awesome to experience a fresh launch with other players again
@@Layman927 too far behind? I created a character on classic two weeks ago and there are players to quest with in every single zone.
Hello. I am that new player everyone making excuses is talking about. I am now level 34 and enjoying the heck out of tbc classic. Boosts are for Boomers
Just to update, level 45 now still having a blast, finding tons of dungeon groups too despite the boost
5:00 "now we get into the meat and potatoes of this video"
Me: checks the video length
"Oh shit. That's alot of meat and potatoes."
I feel at some point if the shenanigans continue people will just return to "private" servers.
Some of us never left lol
You mean the same private servers that offer boosting services?
Melan Choly LOL literally true
@@Chaogod1233 these guys are so petty lmao
@@Chaogod1233 A cash shop to pay servers for a free game is already a bit more acceptable. And they don't try to pass it as a necessary change to adapt the game to modern players, or to help new players, or any other bullcrap.
i thought the 58 boost didnt sound too bad but after watching this, yea, its a terrible idea, and there definitely needs to be fresh servers for TBC
This is perfect for botters mount gear lets go bot
Same here, I never even thought about the idea that 1 boost is available to EVERYONE, not just a fresh account. I have a Pally, Druid, Mage, and Rogue, oh I want a Hunter now, $40 later, easy save of time. That's when the slippery slope starts.
Your videos give me old internet vibes and it makes me happy, love the format, the gifs and memes. It always puts a smile on my face and I enjoy it, nostalgic to an extent. Either way love the content, even the voice and everything about it. Much love!
"I'm gonna buy this Grindfest and then pay so I don't have to grind and get to the late game grind faster"
as long as blizz gets their money...
@@setmason1510 Blizz? You mean Bobby's pockets.
yo dawg I heard u like grinds so we got you some grinds so you can grind while you grind
You know todays good when MadSeason drops another classic video
it completes my fucking day
And it's an hour long to boot
This aged as fine wine.
And here we are, 2 years later, it got even worse... WoW Token in WOTLK...
Madseason aabsolutely shredding Blizz for an hour, love it
Someone needs to before real RPGs go the way of the dodo.
We need a 2nd #nochanges movement essentially, not advocating zero changes but the same principle. We have got to dictate terms to Activision-Blizzard because they have different interests than we.
Their job is to maximize profits and the quality of the game is secondary to that, (obvious cliche sorry) that's why we're here.
Last time they saw how popular clasic is, now they want to cash in.
And fucking ruining it in the process
You can only boost one character to level 58 on your account. It's hardly cashing in if you ask me.
@@catclaws1847 You have to pay if you want to keep your char in Classic and TBC. And leveling boost will be like 50 bucks + it makes it easy for botters. It ruins the economy. A freakin microtransaction for like 50 bucks and people say it is hardly cashing in.......2021 in a nutshell, what happened to gaming.....
@@Lykandras Again you can only use it once i repeat you can only buy this boost ONE time.. . And Bots have already shot the economy lol the bulk of the player base has admitted to buying gold. It doesn't even come with professions or riding but lets be honest the vast majority of the player base will just drop 20 dollars for 1000 gold rather then spending a week farming it which keeps the bots in business but lets blame boosts amirite? The level boost helps bots how? It literally takes bots one day to boost to level 60 through dungeons.
It takes botters way longer to level, dungeon lockouts exist. The economy is already bad as you said, so your solution is making it worse? Blizz should start implementing anti-botting software and properly ban gold sellers. But instead they invent WoW-tokens for 20€ to "battle" them. What a joke. How long until they lift the restriction of one boost per account? In retail it is 60€ for boosts and 25€for freakin mounts. That is the point we reached over the years. It is insanity. And people wonder why half the playerbase left retail. Professions arent worth a damn anymore and goldfarming sucks in retail, but hey just pay Blizz if you need gold. Compare how strong professions are in TBC to retail. What a joke!!! The game suffers for microtransactions. And people like YOU are the reason Blizz gets away with it. Sheeple.
Man, that's a really, really, REALLY good video !
A year later and this video couldn’t be more true. The level boost disfigured and mangled the true vanilla experience.
We knew it at the time, we all did. You were right, Mad.
Right!
It was such a shame to see classic transform into retail, but much faster this time around. All the while the shills were insisting it would be fine, but here we are with a mangled ruined version.
Late to the convoy, but r u saying vanilla (0-60) has already been ruined?@@Lesquille
When i saw the length of the video, I thought that Madseason really did a musical Ballad and already made a 1hour version ahead of the time for listening on repeat.
i thought that too
As a full time worker, husband, and father of 3, leveling in Classic was my favorite part of the game. I am the definition of ultra casual, taking 9 months to level to 60, and I absolutely despise the idea of paid boosts in TBC. During my travels, I came across plenty of bots in the open world more times than I can remember. TBC will be a total bot fest at endgame especially for grinding rep and attunements. I'm not sure if I will even play it and I've looked forward to re living TBC for over a decade. When Blizzard claims character boosts are for the casuals, they certainly aren't talking about me.
Same, joined Classic as a filthy casual just to prepare for a sweatfest in re-rolling main in TBC, bots didn't sour the experience as much as the players refusal to actually play the game. I didn't hesitate for a second to pull the plug and unsub after the boost announcement.
Love u guys. Spittin fax, this character boost is gunna be fucked
Same! It took me about 3 months to get to level 40 on my shaman. I had to quit because of school starting again, but I absolutely loved my time leveling my character. I would not want to skip it at all, and I wouldn’t want anyone I have the chance of playing with to skip it either. If everyone else takes the boost, my experience is ruined too. I guess when I come back I’ll be playing those permanent 60 servers.
Blizzard needs to focus on the MMO and RPG aspect of their game. Allowing bots and exploiters to run rampart and now introduce pay to win garbage IS WHAT MAKES PEOPLE WANT TO SKIP LEVELLING in the first place.
People flock to fresh servers because they haven't been ruined by bots and boosters and all the nonesense that arises when the server management fails to support the realm. Its where they can actually interact with each other rather than raid logging and buying gold to GDKP gear. Idiots are obsessed with instant gratification and activation-blizzard are more than happy to accommodate this.
Yeah I think the boost would better suit players that want to race through the end game. As a PvP player its actually great to me since I don't really need to do all of the pve stuff to do my thing and I'd get a free alt to play with. But I guess playing tbc arena with 2 toons is not really being a casual.
Honestly leveling in classic when it launched, was one of the best times I had in the game ever, I didn't play classic back in a day, just broken private TBC server and I felt like a kid playing classic, it was amazing.
I cannot really justify the boost, as leveling in this game is such a big and great part of it, that omitting it is simply a crime imo.
But the leveling XP in TBC is in outland. And the Boost is to 58.
@@stefans.466 It's still world of warcraft, not world of outland. It's not a new game, it's an expansion, and you shouldn't be able to skip everything except the expansion. Or at least, that's what Madseason said in this video, if you watched it at all
@@jeroenverschaeve3090 technically it’s world of Warcraft the burning crusade
I agree I enjoy the leveling experience. I wish instead of introducing payed $58 boost they would just nerf pally and mage AOE and straight up mess with boosting.
The argument that you just want new content is somehow invalid for me, as in that case you should just play retail. I want quality of life changes in the game, not straight up cheating and literally aiding botters in the edevour.
I wanted to level new character now, but decided to wait for the pre-patch, as right now honestly with all the boosters it would be cancer.
Man you're pretty spot on with a lot of this stuff. I tried to play classic before tbc but the grind was a bit too much for me. This new expansion made leveling a lot easier but I see literally no one in the starting zones even though my server is full
This video genuinely changed me from pro-boost to anti-boost.
I was excited to get a nice 4th max level toon, without funding the dirty third world bot horde(i refused to pay for boosts for all of classic), but madseason is in the right here, if u dont wanna do the grind, you dont deserve it. Simple as that.
@@Vihara2 This is a remake, on a game that came out 14 years ago, where you don't actually need to be hardcore to get to the end of most content.
Spare a thought for those who this conveniences. Does it actually inconvenience anyone?
@@garyc2630 "Does it actually inconvenience anyone?" Did you not watch the video?
@@mathias483 I did, I like Madseason so I always watch them.
When I say 'inconvenience' I am talking about on a deeper level. With all the problems in Classic WoW, the mountains of gold people have from either GDKP, committing to the gold making lifestyle (world buff summons, boosts, or straight up buying it) I think a 58 boost is the least of their problems as this just saves time it doesn't damage the economy. Someone can level 1-58 in about a month. All this does is circumvent that.
My main issue with this boost is that if it is $60 (about £45 for me) then that is quite extortionate in my opinion. But then I guess, I make £15 an hour, so this would probably be worth my time. But I already have 2 60s, so.
I can definitely think of two friends who would do this though.
I also think, an interesting side effect of this, is giving people the chance to level a character they otherwise would find boring to get to 58, I for one, can't stand levelling a rogue below 20, or a warlock, I just do not find it fun. This could add classes such as tanks/heals as a 2nd char for many people who have only just found the time to squeeze in for one character.
Regardless, I don't think this change is gamebreaking, and I think it pales in comparison to other problems with the game, so I don't think it's an issue.
As I stated prior - this is not a new game. This is a remake for nostalgia. Blizzard is already making money capitalising on that, so this move should not be unexpected in the slightest. Regardless, they are a business. But their business does also depend on the fun of their customers as a baseline. So I suppose the most important question we all should be asking is "Does this make the game less fun for X amount of players, while making it fun for Y amount of players?" where Y > X.
My guess is yes, it does make it more fun for a significant amount of people, and the X playerbase will either not care, not leave, or forget about it 3 months into TBC.
@@garyc2630 There's a lot to unpack here, and I do understand some of your sentiments but you can't boil it down to a simple linear equation. There are many factors that could influence fun. Madseason is bringing up the argument that you can't look at this as a simple issue. Ultimately, he is linking the correlation that these paid shortcuts have an everlasting negative effect on the game. These changes that the game is evidently not built for, will have an impact on everyone's fun because the paid boost service may lead to larger issues that could diminish the gameplay experience for everyone. It may pale in comparison to other issues with the game, but it may also play an integral part of these other problems.
In Burning Crusade there was a paid service, recruit a friend or something along the likes. It sped up the levelling experience for you and one other and I think introduced the Zhevra mount. Just bring that back.
Will probably rewatch this 18 times while trying to fall asleep
Its comforting to know someone shares my nightly routine
Bo Sann they mean they’ll watch this video before going to sleep, trying 18 times before they finish the vid
Thats at least 18 hours so you prepping for going to sleep the next night a day early nice
The hero we need but do not deserve!
green gang
I'm sure Blizzard will put off short-term profits and listen to the player base.
This man predicted the classic apocalypse. Please protect him from Bobby.
38:40 I've felt this for a long time about WoW, maybe it was since my brief dip into Pandaria. It felt like everything was overloaded towards the endgame that there was no real love put into the leveling experience. If endgame is the real game, then what the fuck is leveling? My favorite memories in all MMOs were made fucking around with friends leveling up. It feels like they drained the meat and bones out of the "RPG experience" and instead wheel out the dried lifeless husk of the RPG moniker just to make it dance and assure everyone that the RPG elements are indeed alive and well.
the reality is that the people who level with friends aren't typically the ones raiding, doing PvP, or even M+ - the moment they hit 50 and stop progressing their character they feel like it's just useless quests for gear.
Yeah, the game is a gear grind, but it's billed as a role playing game. New players feel lied to. In a way, the "we can't say we're an RPG if we don't have choice" is very true, they probably feel like they're losing a lot of players because of a lack of agency - but to give this agency they have to pull support from Raids, M+, or PvP which will and has been met with amazing hostility every time its happened
In fairness, MOP came out just after Cata, and the Cata endgame unfortunately suffered because of how much time they spent revamping the old world and all the Azeroth/EK leveling experience. I think the amount of time they spent on the endgame was due in part to that backlash from Cata, and MOP raiding and endgame was some of the most solid we've ever had.
It’s simple. I see an hour long MadSeasonShow video and I sit and watch it all in one sitting
"Why is it that your first response is to give up?" EXACTLY - I got downvoted into oblivion on reddit because I proposed a community effort to start a petition for Blizzard to do something about the botting issue. I got chewed apart by so many people who were saying there's no point and it wouldn't do anything. I think thats a shitty way to look at it. I bet if there was a community effort to pressure Blizzard to do something about the bots, it could be done. Better to try than to just give up.
but what is the incentive for them not to? you can apply this to loot boxes and shit too from other games, but yet money always wins in the end. Blizzard knows and doesn't care cause it still pays.
you can try making an effort to bring people together to solve this issue but the majority of consumers can give 2 shits about these sorts of things.yall cried so hard about the China shit and still coming back to the game lol.
I said they should make a "shadow" server for bots rather than ban them. The only way you get access to the server is by being sent to it via blizzard. To the bot account, it looks like they are in a normal server, the server name doesn't change to them but when they click login they are flagged and sent to the "shadow" server. And the only people in there are other bots, they cant interact or trade with real players, if the owner doesn't notice, they keep paying for the accounts but get nothing in return. Blizzard gets paid, we get rid of bots and the owners of the bots get pissed.
I have made the same error as you unfortunately. Remember that reddit is for memes
@@gohan7104 gamers really need to figure this out. People out here really acting like blizzard took game design into consideration for any part of the decision 😆 game design plays into it but the actual measurement is "% of subscriptions that will leave"
Keep in mind these are the same people that mocked the classic community for pushing for classic realms. The "wall of no" people.
This video sadly aged well :(
Yeah, I'm surprised he managed to guess that the boost would be $40
Aged well? It's not even 2 months old lol. The expression "aged well" means quite a bit more than that LMAO
@@easy6336 LMAO XD
@@easy6336 he's referring to the price announcements for TBC smart ass.
@@easy6336 mad
The faster leveling from 20 to 60, many added quests (dustwallow, ashenvale, etc), and lvl 30 mounts added in original TBC should have been enough to get new players caught up.
Seriously. I don’t understand this argument, like if you don’t want to play the game then don’t play it? I don’t get it man
Just got done questing in Red Mesa helping my tribe and am on a journey to prove myself as a hunter and made it to Bloodhoof Village. Definitely can't beat the immersion and good vibes of leveling naturally that's for sure. I feel like Level Boost takes all the fun out of it.
"It's about the journey, not the destination".
Walk with the Earth Mother...
I wish that you could just choose a server, where all players start from the begining
Nice taric picture bud
That server would be one of the emptiest
@@madtitan4892 nope, I would immediately start on a fresh TBC server. The economy of classic servers is fully fucked
@@madtitan4892 i would like fresh too
@@Hysonktu it will be just as fucked in no time thanks to bots
Your insight into the nitty gritty aspects of wow is second to nobody I've seen! Thank you for the continued support of the community! Top quality content
You completely changed my mind on the level boost situation.
Best tip for people who "dont have time to play": dont play with the minmax people. Join a casual guild and take your time.
nah I want to play BC content, not vanilla content, cant wait for the boost :)
I'm doing that atm :) having fun with a chill guild and taking my time leveling. Such a good experience!
@@elkehendriks5132 yeah me too. I played alot first 8 months then i quit because it was too much. Just resubed, leveling on a new server just doing chill stuff.
This is a good tip regardless of stance on boosts. A lot of classic guilds have been super "get all world buffs or kicked" and "get all consumes or kicked" like they're super needed. My guild had like half of the people doing this and we steamrolled raids in an hour and some change. Enjoy the experience. The truth of it is that with modern knowledge sharing and skill levels the content isn't going to be thst difficult. Now, BC is probably going to be more difficult than vanilla of course but the principal applies. Enjoy the game. If you like farming gold and consumes, do it and you'll pump higher numbers or survive certain things better, but if you prefer not to, you'll probably be more than fine.
This guy thinks "don't have time to play' means having time to join to a guild and playing with people... Clearly he doesn't have kids, work, studies and responsabilities to do in his house yet. People that "don't have time" only play 1 o 2 hours a week and if they want to play tbc they should play tbc not vanilla before tbc, logic is simple...
"How to kill your Golden Goose, part 999". - A book series by ActivisionBlizzard.
At this point Blizzards strategy is to get away with greed as long as possible, then you give the playerbase a little bit of positive change, then just milk it again. Repeat until infinity. As long as people subscribe for every new promised wonderland, Blizzard has nothing to fear.
@@TheDool sounds like how you catch a big fish. Reel, line, reel, line, repeat
I know nothing about WoW but this video came on and I stayed for how nice the narration is.
If you want to play with your friends when BC comes out. Lvl now and you will be 60 way before release.
As much as I don't care about people boosting I just feel like this whole discussion at least for me comes down to that a sub service game shouldn't even have a real money shop in the first place.
Prenium within prenium
Premiumception
Ah,love to pay for the latest exp,a suscription and some extras for ingame currency,cosmetics and so on
BC had never had it back in the day, simple as that. i dont know why these people supposedly LOVE playing the game so much but they HATE levelling up ? wtf. that is part of the game... always has been... its an MMO. if the boost was only for people without a high level too to 'catch up' to BC content then why is blizz offering the 58 boost to anyone, even if they have a 60 or multiple already ? hmmm
@@Afflictamine for botters when they get ban
Madseason are your almonds activated right now?
>mfw unactivated almonds
>not activating your almonds
ngmi
Holy shit the biologist also plays wow, you truly are my favorite youtuber
can someone explain the almond reference or joke to me pls
@@hugo5918 The amygdala is an area of the brain that deals with emotion, it's also the Latin word for almond.
As far as I'm concerned, the boost is the end of classic. It won't die until the end of wrath though.
Great video. You do really care for the health of the game and I want to endlessly thank you for it, MadSeason. Many people choose not to fight and I'm hoping this video serves as a huge red flag for the community and Blizzard to avoid adding the level boost. It will ruin the integrity of the game in so many aspects. Let's hope this video blows up.
you took no prisoners on this one, good job man
People who buy boosts are like people who buy steroids when they start lifting.
"Well gee, all my friends are ripped, I want to lift as much as them!!"
"I want a way to skip the grind of lifting so I can lift with my friends."
You've really hit the nail on the head with this video, what a commitment to have made on such a controversial topic. I'd recently been considering using the boost myself and this has really made me reconsider doing so. Have been thoroughly enjoying my leveling experience and the random encounters with other people in the world and value the experience as a way to truly learn each class. Have been binging your videos to satisfy my wow addiction while at work, thanks for creating excellent content, keep it up :)
Hey man, if you read replies ignore that asshole. You're a better person for being open to changing your mind and making what you think is a better and more informed decision. The whole point of a cash shop is manipulative temptation, there's no thoughtcrime in considering using it. I agree with Madseason, so I'm glad you were swayed, but I also agree that people shouldn't be shamed for the thought or act of boosting in itself. It's all about context.
This ^^^
Watching this while I’m currently boosting a character. And it’s making me realize I’m contributing to the problem I complain about. Really opened my eyes up
I for one cant wait to call every bad player a "boosted animal"
Vanilla and tbc gameplay classes are so easy that you wont see the difference
@@caronbaptiste8628
@CARON BAPTISTE You don't only learn your class rotation during levelling. You learn how to pull and not pull mobs, how to kite, CC etc. You also learn the utility abilities of your class.
It definitely makes a difference. If you think player skill or game knowledge doesn't make a difference, you are simply an idiot, I'm afraid. Go try LFR and watch how many people asspull everything and don't know they class' abilities.
@@caronbaptiste8628 this is a common misconception. in essence, fewer buttons doesn't equal easier. resource generation is so different and without the feel for it and the effects of spell batching, you're just smashing buttons.
even when you know the rotation, try to perform something like feral druid optimally. or retribution paladin with its seal-weaving. it's not happening if you dont get the feel for the game itself first.
i play both versions and trust me, even if it's easier technically, don't mistake that for easy or even comparable as a gameplay experience.
"Boosted Andy"
@@serhangul4786 and waiting for your tank to pull is any different with different classes ? You are an idiot. Tbc will be raid so easely
This is my 3rd viewing and each time I gain a new appreciation for your skill as a writer. I don't agree with everything you've said, but you've cemented yourself as one of the best wow creators of all time, and I'll be here every upload.
Hi Madseason, thank you for all the amazing content you have created, over time you have been my support and company through many lonely grinding nights in classic and tbc, I was a late starter to wow but kinda haven’t stopped playing since receiving the ‘’wow bug’’, imo your amazing videos really did help me get the wow bug and I’m so upset your quitting, but it’s for the best I hope you manage to fill your out time with the most important things in life like family and irl friends, azeroth and the the outlands has lost a true warrior content creator and an amazing person, good luck with the future and lots of love Liam and family xx
23:38 Hi, I have never once paid anyone to run something with me.
Even if new players are the target audience, they are the exact ones who should not be boosting. Imagine playing WoW for the first time and being launched to end game... leveling your first character is so important and one of the best parts of the game.
It was the best parts 15 years ago my friend. A lot has changed in the past 15 years. Instant gratification was never so present as it is today.
Yeah, especially since classes dont play themself in Classic and BC. You genuinely learn the nuances of your class leveling up. Imagine a genuine new player boosted trying to land hunter traps in BC. "Use misdirecting shot." "OK!" *Casts Misdirect on tank, doesnt even lay a trap, runs up to the pull spamming the trap button all chatting its not working not realizing you have to feign to get out of combat to lay a trap as a hunter*
@@bunnieskitties293 thats nothing a regular WoW player can't manage. And if you cant or dont know you'll get everything you need to know wrapped up in 3min of google. Like I mained a lock in TBC and retail lock is a million times harder to play actually. Then my current main is an arms warr and I never played that back in the day, but its actually pretty similar. You need macros for literally every skill because you need to swap weapons/stance for everything but once you set that up its no different you just press your stuff normally.
An HOUR OF MADSEASON?? We mortals did not deserve this. Love your videos! Can’t wait for BC (regardless of the boosting)
I see a video from other UA-camrs for an hour insta skip
I see a madseason hour long video insta click
In game shop for classic TBC confirmed. That was quick.
And now we have the WoW token for WotLK. Madseason saw it coming
"If you don't like how the game is going, then just leave!"
*People proceeds to leave*
"Omg, why is it so hard to find anyone to do anything with these days?! And why would Blizzard reduce their development costs even further?! It's all the whiners' fault!"
One of the things that i still can't get over about people who advocate for boosts and who use the "i don't have time to level" argument, is that they often try to use the argument that people who oppose boosting are "selfish" because they are "gatekeeping" the game from people who "don't have time".
It's like alright then, you're the one who is claiming that the game has to be adapted to fit your specific tastes regardless if that negatively impacts the experience for others, but somehow it's the people who sugges that you just do what everyone else does and adapt your own playstyle to the game who are apparently "selfish". Yeah okay, that totally makes sense.
And even when you get past that, they still try to argue that boosting doesn't negatively impact the game experience for others and that it isn't a big deal. That you can just "not buy boosts" and remain completely unaffected. It's like "mate, just say that you want to be able to boost and that you don't give a shit if it ruins the game for others. Just come out and say it and be done with it." If they just did that then i could sort of respect it, because at least that way we all gain new footing from which to work and find a way forward. Instead we have to have this disingenuous fucking back-and-forth about whether or not boosting is bad for the game where nobody listens to anybody and everyone calls everyone else an idiot. And all the while Blizzard is laughing all the way to the bank with all the money they rake in from selling ingame services.
Me: "1h? holy shit, no way I am watching that, maybe I'll just watch for lil bit"
Me 1 hour later: "nice, now let's see what baldmanreacts thinks about this"
every F-ing time....
"...you see the video duration..."
Oh, I didn't even look. Lemme just che-
Oh...
So tired of these youtubers stretching their videos to hit the 10 minute mark.
I'm going to be able to use this to knock myself out so many times
Lmao same
Please. I need the ballad of the WoW token for the newest change lol.
Illuminati confirmed mad season releases an hour long video for Asmon to react to the day he comes back
I think the idea of people not having time to play and level has always been not an actual issue except for people who want to rush to the end. I'm a single dad and definitely don't get as much time as I used to and would like but I enjoy the game all the same. If I only got to do a couple quests and not even one full level in a day? So what? I still got to play the game I enjoy.
WoW Classic needs something like what oldschool runescape got. Some changes, but those changes are voted on by the community and are made in the spirit of classic.
exactly. Let the majority make a vote. You can never please EVERYONE, but atleast appeal to the ones who share common interests and actually care about your game
OSRS also has bonds which completely ruin gold farming, there's no method in the game that makes more gold per hour than buying a bond even if you work at minimum wage.
@@jellyfrosh9102 Were those voted on by the community?
As someone who quit WoW after the first release and "end" of BC (almost 15y ago) and seeing Asmons and your videos about the state of WoW now; it's really quite a ride.
I played WoW a month after launch and quit probably in 2007. It blows my mind that real people (and some of my friends) STILL play after nearly 20 years. People are insane.