D_K_night wrote on Feb 15, 2010, 13:29:
That's only part of the issue. You're finding raids today way too easy because of all things available TODAY, which were not 3 - 4 years ago:

- DBM. That addon tells you what to do, down to the exact timing of boss abilities. It cheapens the boss encounters and makes them easy. Get everyone to play without DBM, and it's a completely different experience.

- Websites like bosskillers are everywhere, which outlines everything in pinpoint detail. Again, you're following someone else's footsteps.

- Compare the overall skill of players today, versus the 1-button fireball/shadowbolt spam of MC/BWL days. Players have evolved, just as the game has. Remember how horrible some of your MC raiders were? But it didn't matter because you needed them for the body count?

- Hmm, 5 - 7 hours raiding each night for several nights in a row. Unless you're a teen, single, or in college, think again as to whether or not many people(married with kids) can do that type of thing.

Oh I'm late in replying so I'll answer this, maybe sometime in the future I'll pay more attention to people replying to me.

DBM/Bigwigs/RDX/etc? It was around in a fashion in February of release. No big deal.
Strats for killing were discussed intra-guild depending on the server, unless it was hot-shit-progression at the time then everyone held onto their own strats until they got the first kill.

No one was 1-button fireballing/shadowbolting in MC/BWL, not sure where you get that delusional idea from. You needed a rotation back then, as much as you do now. If you're a mage and fire you're putting up scorch(but that was a bad idea pre-AQ) better to be frost(which was a one button rotation, unless you were elementalist). Warlocks did the majority of their damage from dots, not shadowbolt. I remember how piss poor some of the raiders are now. Most content you could clear with 30 people, in MC you could clear parts of it with 22. I know the guild I was in did it, our first 4 bosses killed were with between 20-28 people.

Not disagreeing on the time, but I do remember when naxx was released in wrath the average length of the raid was around 4-5hrs(5-9hrs total). People seemed to put up with that just fine, and in plenty of cases that was for only half the content.

Things haven't changed as much as people think. Bad people are still bad, the methods of communication are different. And so on. Back in the day when there weren't websites galore, it really did build a huge amount of inner-outer guild relationships. People I used to raid with, shared tips and info on boss kills with I'm still friends with. Even though they've moved and I've moved to other servers, I know some of the offline as well, and meet up with them when I'm in the area(which could be backasswards no-where Alberta, or metro san-fran, or sunny-sunny florida) Though I haven't gotten a chance to catch up with the one aussie raider we had, or the guy in Trinidad.

D_K_night wrote on Feb 15, 2010, 13:36:
A year's worth of pay earned in a few hours? Soods good.

I hope they're saving their money because age has a way of making even the most skilled player suck.

InBlack wrote on Feb 15, 2010, 09:14:
Im not one to usually comment in a WoW thread but I had to add something hopefully useful to the discussion.

I think its a sad day indeed that Blizzard is trying to cater to everyone in this way. Although it seems like a good idea on paper, at least from a financial perspective, I think that in this case it is definitely the wrong decision.

I think the fact that there is an end-game and that it is ultimately not really that simple to get to it is a great incentive to keep people playing. It doesnt matter if 90% of the entire gaming population doesnt see it, they know that it is THERE and that if they work at it hard enough they will eventually get there.

If everyone gets access to everything without much effort then how do you keep the players interest? PvP? Not exactly a strong point of WoW

WoW isn't the best PvP game, not by a long shot. Yet it is still a game that's good enough, that it receives sponsorships a la starcraft, CS, and many other games where companies like Acer, Logitech, etc care and sponsor these events. Result? Prize money split between you and your buddies.

A year's worth of pay earned in a few hours? Soods good.

Mashiki Amiketo wrote on Feb 15, 2010, 02:50:

PropheT wrote on Feb 14, 2010, 19:10:
The raids might be easier than they've ever been, but they still require a time commitment that most players just can't dedicate their lives to.

An hour or two for a raid is commitment these days? I dunno. I know people who don't raid, who farm crap and hit dungeons for longer then that in one sitting. I just resubbed after a 6mo hiatus. I went into a middling guild run with alts, and we cleared TOC25 in an 1h10min. Followed by ony in 15min. Long time indeed.

Just to add in here, I'm a vanilla raider. I remember 2 day long MC clears, and taking 3 days to clear BWL. Followed by 2 days when you got good at doing AQ and Naxx. That was 5-7hrs a night. Raids are so stupidly easy now, it's not even funny.

That's only part of the issue. You're finding raids today way too easy because of all things available TODAY, which were not 3 - 4 years ago:

- DBM. That addon tells you what to do, down to the exact timing of boss abilities. It cheapens the boss encounters and makes them easy. Get everyone to play without DBM, and it's a completely different experience.

- Websites like bosskillers are everywhere, which outlines everything in pinpoint detail. Again, you're following someone else's footsteps.

- Compare the overall skill of players today, versus the 1-button fireball/shadowbolt spam of MC/BWL days. Players have evolved, just as the game has. Remember how horrible some of your MC raiders were? But it didn't matter because you needed them for the body count?

- Hmm, 5 - 7 hours raiding each night for several nights in a row. Unless you're a teen, single, or in college, think again as to whether or not many people(married with kids) can do that type of thing.

even though some high level players complain that they completed all the current raids within nanoseconds of their release

Have they tried hard mode?

ICC is a tough raid encounter. I'm glad they made it challenging. Gives me something to look forward to. And when a boss dies (or lives, in Valithria Dreamwalker's case) the victory will be sweeter!

This comment was edited on Feb 15, 2010, 11:50.

Bronco wrote on Feb 15, 2010, 09:50:
They will also release the new talent trees in a patch before the next xpac further simplifying existing content.

No new talent trees, only new talent points.

Keep in mind they'll surely be doing events as buildup for the release. That would keep people busy and not require the amount of fine tuning of a dungeon.

I have no idea how difficult the hard modes of ICC will be but I imagine they will get whacked with the nerf bat just like SWP did a month or two before the release of WotLK. They will also release the new talent trees in a patch before the next xpac further simplifying existing content.

That alone is usually enough to get people that were debating quitting to come back and see what is new. Let alone all the world events they will throw in to the mix.

I managed to be in the position of completing all available raid content 2X before the next tier was released. It does get boring but what do you expect when you run ahead and blow through it super fast?

Im not one to usually comment in a WoW thread but I had to add something hopefully useful to the discussion.

I think its a sad day indeed that Blizzard is trying to cater to everyone in this way. Although it seems like a good idea on paper, at least from a financial perspective, I think that in this case it is definitely the wrong decision.

I think the fact that there is an end-game and that it is ultimately not really that simple to get to it is a great incentive to keep people playing. It doesnt matter if 90% of the entire gaming population doesnt see it, they know that it is THERE and that if they work at it hard enough they will eventually get there.

If everyone gets access to everything without much effort then how do you keep the players interest? PvP? Not exactly a strong point of WoW

Zzet wrote on Feb 15, 2010, 05:27:
Money isn't the problem, it's talent and manpower.

Believe me there are enough talented people out there that would like to work on the worlds most successful MMORPG.

Krovven wrote on Feb 15, 2010, 03:39:

It would be nice if they put in the occasional old style dungeon I guess.

They will be turning some (if not all) old world dungeons into lvl 85+ Heroic dungeons. My understanding is some changes will be made, fewer mobs, etc.

That's been changed. They're only doing that to SFK and Deadmines. What a let down...

Peps just have to learn to chill down , new contest is eaten up in like a split sec , "me first me first" rush to new instans get the gear, stand in major city " See me i am the best" then after the 15 min of fame , " I am bored , i demand New contest , lazy blizzard "

Money isn't the problem, it's talent and manpower.

Flatline wrote on Feb 14, 2010, 18:58:

Sempai wrote on Feb 14, 2010, 18:17:

Blizzard is PAYED a monthly fee by its customers you fucking tool bag.
Now we all know that Cataclysm wont be released until next Holiday season and if you think its gonna hit this summer dream fucking on, this is Bliztard were talking about.

So..in that light lets take a look at what its player base will be doing for the next 9 months..
They'd better have something up their sleeves for summer boredom or they are going to see alot of subs being canceled until Cataclysm.

Thats fact.

Or, you know, they could keep generating tiered raids, and release Cataclysm in 2011 from splitting it's workforce.

Which would be totally fair for the 90% of the people who'd never get to that content.

So youre actually saying that Blizzard doesnt have enough money to do both?
Good one.

The funny part here is , all who wants new contest are all those who skip most of the bosses just to get to the last boss , na i say make dungeons so that NONE bosses can be skipped ,

It would be nice if they put in the occasional old style dungeon I guess.

They will be turning some (if not all) old world dungeons into lvl 85+ Heroic dungeons. My understanding is some changes will be made, fewer mobs, etc.

PropheT wrote on Feb 14, 2010, 19:10:
The raids might be easier than they've ever been, but they still require a time commitment that most players just can't dedicate their lives to.

An hour or two for a raid is commitment these days? I dunno. I know people who don't raid, who farm crap and hit dungeons for longer then that in one sitting. I just resubbed after a 6mo hiatus. I went into a middling guild run with alts, and we cleared TOC25 in an 1h10min. Followed by ony in 15min. Long time indeed.

Just to add in here, I'm a vanilla raider. I remember 2 day long MC clears, and taking 3 days to clear BWL. Followed by 2 days when you got good at doing AQ and Naxx. That was 5-7hrs a night. Raids are so stupidly easy now, it's not even funny.

If Cataclysm were to come out at the end of spring or early summer I could see that, but its sounding like fall or winter is more likely and that's a long time without any new content.

Keep in mind they'll surely be doing events as buildup for the release. That would keep people busy and not require the amount of fine tuning of a dungeon.

If Cataclysm were to come out at the end of spring or early summer I could see that, but its sounding like fall or winter is more likely and that's a long time without any new content. They could do with Nefarian what they did with Onyxia, it'd help hype the expansion, give people something to do and it wouldn't be as hard as creating a whole new instance.

Out of the active level 80s there are probably a good % that are hitting ICC, the % that are actually seeing it cleared is probably a lot smaller. While none of the are particularly difficult from a tactical view there are a few DPS tests and poorly playing or geared scrubs aren't going to get past those until they can grind long enough for the uber gear.

All that said I really don't care, as much as I enjoy raiding it takes up a lot of time, so I'm not heart broken when I don't raid.

I've been going back and clearing dungeons for achievements as I want to have those before the changes in Cataclysm, and it reminds me why I quit after hitting level 60 when the game first came out. The dungeons were too long and often boring as hel. As were many of the raids, with having to clear mounds of trash before seeing a boss, or just having to clear through trash just to get into the instance. That design just exhausts and bores players.

I'm totally torn on this - whilst yeah the old dungeons were bloody long and intricate the new ones can in some cases (VH) be literally one room. I had to go back to BRD for a schematic today and as I've only played it as dps I quickly got very lost and could not get where I needed to go.

Nobody could manage to get lost in the new dungeons - there a room or a straight line. But the new ones are far better for pug and emblem grinding so it's swings and roundabouts really.

It would be nice if they put in the occasional old style dungeon I guess.

Cat is slated for "Back Half of 2010".

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