World of Warcraft: Current Year

Neranja · Feb 7, 2020

I may be too old for this, but I fail to see the appeal of MMO raiding as an "e-sport." - sure watching the competition and drama is fun, and that pure tribalism USA vs. EU is lulzy, but seriously: WoW is in a downswing, there are only two real guilds left competing and an event every raid tier is making it like the superbowl without the league+playoffs first.

I predict the whole e-sport bubble to burst soon. For example the participation fees for the next OW league seem too high, and it looks like the sponsors are beginning to rethink their investment in this and pull out. Even their commentators/casters left. When you boil it down to numbers sponsors can get better returns on their marketing dollar by paying some "influencers."

Bondurant said:
Unless Blizzard do something awful about that (which you may say, could happen)

Blizzard supposedly sent Twitch a letter after Twitch was bought out by Amazon asking where their share of that money was. With the state Blizzard is currently in it's not "unless they do something awful", it's just "when is the next time they do something awful."

Arbitrary · Feb 7, 2020

Bondurant said:
It has become the most viewed WoW event with hundred of thousand of viewers during the progress, millions of viewing hours, with a professionnal level production and it's happening every ~6 months, it's utterly clear it's gonna keep happening. It brings WoW to the spotlight outside of its community, I'm noticing people who don't play WoW at all discussing it everywhere, from the top poopsock gamer to the most profane casual, curious about the game.

I mean it's Twitch money + endorsements for the guilds and huge "free" advertising for Blizzard. Unless Blizzard do something awful about that (which you may say, could happen), there's absolutely no way this is gonna stop. It's a win-win for everyone involved. I understand when people here say "who cares" or shit on the event because BFA is BFbad but there's a lot of potential for this stuff. The playerbase count is low right now but don't forget 8.1 progress numbers.

You cut a sentence in half in a post that was about evolving standards and not about if people will keep tuning in or not.

Arbitrary said:
If these races continue (and people give a fuck) there may be a time when you've got an entire coaching staff, tech team, analysists, etc. all in addition to the actual players.

Noodleface · Feb 7, 2020

You guys are really hung up on the "esport" title

Noodleface · Feb 7, 2020

Bondurant said:
Limit RL:

Method RL: View attachment 247922

Nothing but class from method as usual

Limit came in this expansion and changed the way world first races were done. They live streamed it with open comms and burst.methods bubble. You could tell that method, being at the top, thought that they could dictate how the race was run. Everything from the arbitrary wait for X guilds to kill a boss before releasing a video, to no open comms. Limit changed it up and this tier it paid off.

Method guys have been salty as fuck about it. And keep in mind, they lose 1/3 tiers here. It wasn't like they were stomped all expansion.

Maybe they do need to switch up their roster. They can certainly afford to recruit anyone in the world for this.

TJT · Feb 7, 2020

Technically speaking I imagine Limits add-on programmer built out a cool client for the raid.

I know Method has some good programmers in the guild who make their add-ons but I wonder how much better it is to have a guy who doesn't play in the raid and just torques out adjustments. I bet he can Ctrl+S and push it directly to the whole raid. Which is kind of cool.

Khane · Feb 7, 2020

TJT said:
Technically speaking I imagine Limits add-on programmer built out a cool client for the raid.

I know Method has some good programmers in the guild who make their add-ons but I wonder how much better it is to have a guy who doesn't play in the raid and just torques out adjustments. I bet he can Ctrl+S and push it directly to the whole raid. Which is kind of cool.

It's much better. And the coaching thing I still cannot believe nobody had thought of before. That was probably the single biggest thing Limit did differently. Having a 21st raider essentially. And it looks like even Method acknowledges that.

The problem with these races as an e-sport is they take weeks. Nobody is watching this for that long and I doubt anyone in this thread does anything more than put it on their second screen while they work or play games themselves so they can glance over every once in a while and listen to the audio. Which is why Limit is hands down much more interesting to leave on in the background.

This entire thing is a problem though. It was already a professional undertaking for these guilds and it becomes more and more professional with each tier and there are really only 2 guilds in the entire world that are even in the discussion. And if Blizzard decides that this extra exposure on Twitch is a good thing and lets Ion keep running things with his personal vendetta, the business requirements suddenly align with Ions personal requirements and raiding, and playing the game, gets worse for the rest of us every tier.

Noodleface · Feb 7, 2020

Khane said:
It's much better. And the coaching thing I still cannot believe nobody had thought of before. That was probably the single biggest thing Limit did differently. Having a 21st raider essentially. And it looks like even Method acknowledges that.

The problem with these races as an e-sport is they take weeks. Nobody is watching this for that long and I doubt anyone in this thread does anything more than put it on their second screen while they work or play games themselves so they can glance over every once in a while and listen to the audio. Which is why Limit is hands down much more interesting to leave on in the background.

This entire thing is a problem though. It was already a professional undertaking for these guilds and it becomes more and more professional with each tier and there are really only 2 guilds in the entire world that are even in the discussion. And if Blizzard decides that this extra exposure on Twitch is a good thing and lets Ion keep running things with his personal vendetta, the business requirements suddenly align with Ions personal requirements and raiding, and playing the game, gets worse for the rest of us every tier.

I mean yeah there were two at the absolute top, but at the time of kill there were 10 or so guilds on the last boss. There's room there for more competition.

I have a hunch that Ion won't be around much longer though

Arbitrary · Feb 7, 2020

There's nothing healthy about the amount of gold the top guilds spend in search of a world first victory but it persists tier after tier after tier. I have to assume it's intentional and I don't like it.

xzi · Feb 7, 2020

Noodleface said:
I mean yeah there were two at the absolute top, but at the time of kill there were 10 or so guilds on the last boss. There's room there for more competition.

I have a hunch that Ion won't be around much longer though

This is probably the most important post. At this time on G'huun it was 2 guilds. Limit and Method. Jaina it was Limit and Method and then Pieces started peaking their head in. Azshara it was Limit and Method and Pieces and Alpha, ettc.

Then Race to World First became a brand and now there's sponsors, now there's money, now there's incentive to actually try to take on these giant guilds. Then fucking 10 guilds are on this boss. I guarantee you next time it's going to be even more, including people you've never heard of. There's money in it now.

& The most beautiful thing about it is that blizzard has absolutely nothing to do with it - other than tuning the bosses. If blizzard took charge of the Race to World First it would suck absolute shit. Imagine Limit having to behave themselves because they're on an official stream. Imagine none of the casters on either streams being allowed to criticize the company for fear of being fired. I'm glad Method pushed this as a competition, it's literally the only time I actively am inspired to play the game and I imagine it's something that blizzard understands the potential of returning customers because of it, so maybe in a dream world they're also incentivized to actually make the rest of the game good too.

Khane · Feb 7, 2020

Noodleface said:
I mean yeah there were two at the absolute top, but at the time of kill there were 10 or so guilds on the last boss. There's room there for more competition.

Not really. Even Method is still only at 20% for a best pull. The longer these "races" go and the more resources guilds have to pour in to them the less competition there will be. The more professional the guilds who compete become the less room there is for guilds who cannot field an entire roster of professional gamers.

Tuning the difficulty down to a 2-3 day expectation for top guilds would breed competition. You don't need to be a professional to swing taking 2 days off of work at a tier release to try to push for a world first. It would also make the race a lot more interesting for viewers. That won't happen though. Too many self loathing nerds who act like the difficulty of these raid tiers is perfect and pretend they love spending 3-5 months wiping over and over to finally clear a tier (after multiple nerfs and huge guild turnover).

Khane · Feb 7, 2020

xzi said:
This is probably the most important post. At this time on G'huun it was 2 guilds. Limit and Method. Jaina it was Limit and Method and then Pieces started peaking their head in. Azshara it was Limit and Method and Pieces and Alpha, ettc.

Then Race to World First became a brand and now there's sponsors, now there's money, now there's incentive to actually try to take on these giant guilds. Then fucking 10 guilds are on this boss. I guarantee you next time it's going to be even more, including people you've never heard of. There's money in it now.

& The most beautiful thing about it is that blizzard has absolutely nothing to do with it - other than tuning the bosses. If blizzard took charge of the Race to World First it would suck absolute shit. Imagine Limit having to behave themselves because they're on an official stream. Imagine none of the casters on either streams being allowed to criticize the company for fear of being fired. I'm glad Method pushed this as a competition, it's literally the only time I actively am inspired to play the game and I imagine it's something that blizzard understands the potential of returning customers because of it, so maybe in a dream world they're also incentivized to actually make the rest of the game good too.

There are only two. The other guilds are days behind. Full days. They are on the same boss but that boss will take them close to a week longer to kill. That is not competition, nor is it even close. Even Method is at least a full day behind Limit in this tier.

Number of bosses down is not a true metric of competition in these races.

TJT · Feb 7, 2020

There might be more competition and all but it will only be from professional players. Most neckbeards or enthusiasts could maybe have three characters simultaneously raid ready at any given time. What they won't have is the ability to do total retard shit like buy 50 tokens on another server. Dump the tokens for gold, buy BOEs then transfer to your actual server just for the race.

Bring the player not the class! But the player better have one of every class ready to go! So lets make gearing and preparing alts as absolutely painful as we possibly can. Ignoring that in previous tiers these dudes did 75 M+ runs on each character, leveled up every single profession just to craft the higher illvl item. Equip it then DE it and dump the profession for the next one.

Truly bonkers what these guilds are doing. It's not a week of competition is months of preparation just to be able to reasonably compete in the race.

xzi · Feb 7, 2020

Khane said:
There are only two. The other guilds are days behind. Full days. They are on the same boss but that boss will take them close to a week longer to kill. That is not competition, nor is it even close. Even Method is at least a full day behind Limit in this tier.

Number of bosses down is not a true metric of competition in these races.

You're missing the entire point, literally only 2-3 maybe 4 guilds even reached past tier bosses by the time it died this expansion (not counting mini raid really)

Now it's going 10+ actually there and getting pulls in. Are they going to kill it? no. Are more people trying harder than ever? Absolutely. It's not about RIGHT NOW, it's about every single tier increasingly there is significantly more competition.

Arbitrary · Feb 7, 2020

As a small upside Method didn't kill it in the NA/EU release gap so there won't be any asterixes next to Limit's world first.

Khane · Feb 7, 2020

xzi said:
You're missing the entire point, literally only 2-3 maybe 4 guilds even reached past tier bosses by the time it died this expansion (not counting mini raid really)

Now it's going 10+ actually there and getting pulls in. Are they going to kill it? no. Are more people trying harder than ever? Absolutely. It's not about RIGHT NOW, it's about every single tier increasingly there is significantly more competition.

No you are missing the point. When the last boss of a tier takes 5+ days by itself just because guild X got onto the boss 14 hours before World First guild killed it doesn't mean they even stood a chance or that they are somehow "competition".

xzi · Feb 7, 2020

Except in Shadowlands when 5 more guilds try even harder since there's real life money on the line and it becomes an actual competition like it's actively becoming with ever tier release.

Superbowl doesn't matter cause only 1 out of 2 teams can win why would anyone else even try to play in the NFL at all 4head

Khane · Feb 7, 2020

xzi said:
Except in Shadowlands when 5 more guilds try even harder since there's real life money on the line and it becomes an actual competition like it's actively becoming with ever tier release.

Superbowl doesn't matter cause only 1 out of 2 teams can win why would anyone else even try to play in the NFL at all 4head

In the NFL every single team is a professional organization. Only Method and Limit are professional organizations in WoW and it shows. And the creation of these guilds, and what they are doing only widens the gap for non professional, but try hard gamers. It is going to take a substantial amount of investment for another organization to truly become competion.

"4 head".

Noodleface · Feb 7, 2020

TJT said:
There might be more competition and all but it will only be from professional players. Most neckbeards or enthusiasts could maybe have three characters simultaneously raid ready at any given time. What they won't have is the ability to do total retard shit like buy 50 tokens on another server. Dump the tokens for gold, buy BOEs then transfer to your actual server just for the race.

Bring the player not the class! But the player better have one of every class ready to go! So lets make gearing and preparing alts as absolutely painful as we possibly can. Ignoring that in previous tiers these dudes did 75 M+ runs on each character, leveled up every single profession just to craft the higher illvl item. Equip it then DE it and dump the profession for the next one.

Truly bonkers what these guilds are doing. It's not a week of competition is months of preparation just to be able to reasonably compete in the race.

I'm ok with it only being professional players. I wouldn't expect myself to make a team of ragtag dudes from the forum and compete in the OWL

xzi · Feb 7, 2020

Khane said:
It is going to take a substantial amount of investment for another organization to truly become competion.

you mean like how a giant organization, Complexity, picked up Limit this tier?

why are you doubling down on being wrong? what're you, me?

Khane · Feb 7, 2020

xzi said:
you mean like how a giant organization, Complexity, picked up Limit this tier?

why are you doubling down on being wrong? what're you, me?

You think that sponsorships and professional e-sport organizations are just going to start raining from the sky in the "WF race" scene? Complexity and Limit proves my point, not the opposite.

You don't seem to understand that every raid tier will look different. If Blizzard decides to make another ToS and Mistress/Fallen Avatar you aren't going to see 10+ guilds on the final boss at the same time like you did this tier. That is a product of prior boss tuning compared to final boss tuning. Not an indication that these guilds are suddenly competition.

World of Warcraft: Current Year

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