Breakfast Topic: Where's the epic
So we got a lot of big news yesterday: Badges are going the way of the dodo (and I for one will not miss them), and on top of that astonishing bit of news, the way we raid is about to change forever. Loot from 10- and 25-man raiding will be identical, the only difference being in the amount of loot that is doled out, or so the changes seem to indicate. For those that enjoy 10-man content this is well and good, for those that enjoy 25-man content ... well. It may get that much harder to recruit. But I'm not really going to talk about that.
What I am going to talk about is the screenshot pictured above. That's my priest, my first raiding character back in vanilla. She's taking a siesta while waiting for everyone to run back from yet another wipe on Ragnaros, the final boss in Molten Core. By everyone, I mean all 39 other people involved in the raid at the time; when I say this was vanilla I mean this shot was taken before BWL had even been hinted at. See, there's something fundamentally ... off with raiding in Wrath, and I can't really put my finger on it -- but I keep going back to this screenshot and remembering fondly the small army it took to finally make that bastard up and die.
40 people. A virtual army, and it suited the encounter -- the size of that room was breathtaking. The sight of Ragnaros emerging from that lava gave me goosebumps. When we finally killed him, there was this sense of accomplishment, that we'd achieved something utterly amazing. Nowadays, I can go in and 3-man him. It makes me wistful. But what I miss most, what seems to be missing from Wrath is that feeling. The epic.
Fighting the Lich King was all right but not once did I have that "Oh god oh god we are all going to die" sensation that made those old zones so fun. I miss that sensation, the goosebumps, the feeling that when a boss died it was this truly momentous event. I don't know where they lost it -- Burning Crusade had it, when Kil'jaeden emerged from the Sunwell the "Holy s-" feeling was definitely present. But in Wrath, it just fell ... flat, somehow. I keep thinking I'm the only one, but a few more people are piping up here and there, so I thought I'd ask you all over the morning coffee -- do you remember the epic? Do you feel the epic now? Or do you, like me, think that maybe it got lost somewhere and we ought to send out a search party for it? Let's see what people have to say -- I'll be over here, on my porch. In the rocker, reminiscing about the good 'ol days.
