old-raids
Latest
The Importance of Legacy Content
Since patch 6.0.2 came out, I've rediscovered the love I once held for soloing older raids. More than rediscovered it - I've expanded it, because now I can pretty easily solo most Cataclysm raids (I'm working on Spine of Deathwing) and that broadens what I can gather for transmog. But it's more than transmog, and more than the sensation one gets when you push Rhyolith through all his phases so that he dies before he's even done yelling at you in an awesome parody of what it sounds like when I wake up. In a recent interview with PC Gamer magazine, Ion Hazzikostas pointed out that one of World of Warcraft's biggest strengths is its depth of content. The MMO has been going for ten years. There are old raids and dungeons everywhere. It's not just old content - it's a resource. And it makes WoW a game with incredible potential.
110% guarantee soloing old raids will not be harder post squish
Technical Game Designer Chadd Nervig, aka Celestalon on Twitter, has answered a tweeter's question about item squishing with the following tidbit: .@ToppTheDwarf The item squish *will not* make soloing old raids harder. We promise, and 110% guarantee it. - Celestalon (@Celestalon) February 9, 2014 I read this, and my ears perked up. I really enjoy running around killing things indiscriminately in old raids, and I've wondered as to whether or not that would continue to be possible after the item squish. It's good to hear that Blizzard has no intention of letting older content stay as it is while our characters' ability to pump out damage is drastically reduced. Of course, this leads to the obvious question -- what approach is Blizzard going to take for keeping older raids and dungeons' mobs and bosses abilities proportional? The obvious answer is that all of it will be squished along with our characters' gear and abilities. I suppose that will include items dropped of of old bosses too. It will be interesting to see the approach that Blizzards' designers take with the new expansion to make this change go as smoothly as possible.
Low level dungeon and raid scaling technology complete
Blizzard's Game Director Tom Chilton and Lead Content Designer Cory Stockton have really gone out on a limb with interviews at Gamescom, spilling every bean and answering every question with the transparency and openness we're coming to expect from new look Blizzard. One question they were asked related to the up-scaling of low level dungeons. Tom responded as follows: That's something that we did actively work on and certainly the technology is pretty well in place at this point. We were also hoping to get the dungeons to a point where they were scaling, however we didn't actually end up coming up with a reward scheme that we felt fit correctly. I think it's important to remember that today, players can go back and do old content by soloing it and they usually do that to get the transmog gear, and I think if they were going to to go back and do it as a true 25-man raid of Black Temple, as an example, they'd would have to feel like they were getting something that was useful for it as well as transmog gear, and we still have to figure out what the right reward scheme for that is. We don't want it to compete with the new raid in terms of getting you the best possible gear, but at the same time, it has to be worth something. So that's something we haven't really resolved yet, so we won't be seeing scaling raids until sometime in the future. So what do you think they could offer as a reward for redoing old content "properly", in an upscaled raid or as downscaled characters? I feel like points, Valor, Justice, whatever, would be a good reward, along with the transmog gear and pets, but maybe also a low and random drop-rate of Garrosh-style heirloom weapons. What's your take on it?
The beauty of classic WoW's Molten Core
Back in the days of WoW's original release, Molten Core was, in many ways, the raid. It wasn't the only raid, and it certainly wasn't the only raid that left a lasting impression on the consciousness of WoW players. Nonetheless, if you were raiding in classic WoW, you started with Molten Core, and that experience inevitably shaped the way raiding has been perceived ever since. What was it exactly about Molten Core? Was it the sprawling, maze-like dungeon (which didn't have a map at the time)? Was it the memorable boss fights and quotes? Was it the iconic gear drops? Was it dealing with the reality of trying to organize 40 players into their different roles and individual responsibilities? I'd say all of the above, to an extent. The first time you do anything new, be it visiting a city or raiding in a video game, there is a certain significance to the occasion that can never truly be replicated. As the first big raid most classic WoW players experienced, Molten Core has had a special place in our collective hearts for a long time now. Let's take a trip down memory lane with a look at some of the unique and fun aspects of Molten Core, many of which I miss but honestly would not want to have to deal with again.
What if all raids were end game raids?
Sometimes the forums come up with some interesting discussions. Poster Locomonkey over on the EU forums posted this doozy of an idea, which Taepsilum then responded to in detail. They both have me thinking about the idea as well -- what if every raid, from the original 60 raids to the Cataclysm level 85 raids, was updated to level 90? What if, when the next expansion came out, all the Mists of Pandaria raids as well as all those previous raids were in some fashion made current with level 95, or 100, or whatever current endgame happens to be? What are the pros and cons of this idea? I'm not going to dredge over every point already made, you can go read Locomonkey's original post, and Taepsilum's well reasoned list of what the pitfalls to avoid in such a system would be. Instead, I'm going to speculate on how you could address those pitfalls. How do you make a system with so many potential raids tuned and balanced, deal with all the updated loot from those instances, and keep from drowning raid groups in choices? My suggestions are as follows:
Patch 5.1, old raids and soloing
So, since Patch 5.1 dropped, I've been gleefully running old raids with the group of me, myself and I, seeing how far I could get solo. I've found myself able to solo up to Gunship in ICC 10, which has been great for me from a purely transmog perspective as I eagerly love the WoW equivalent of clothes shopping. Now, I know a lot of people are interested in this as well, in part because of the pets that drop from the original four classic WoW raids. So I was interested to see this post on the forums and community manager Brennvin's response on the matter. Are all old bosses intended to be soloable by all classes and specs? The answer seems to be no. 5.1 Thought we could solo old content now? We believe there was a lot of confusion when we originally announced this change and we're certainly at fault for said confusion. The original patch note was very vague to the point of being misleading. It was never our intent to weaken old raid boss encounters to allow anyone to have a chance to solo them, regardless of class, spec, or skill. What we did change were encounters that were mechanically impossible for one person to accomplish, solely for the purpose of ensuring players have easier access to the hunt for the new rare companion pets -- the drop rates of which are actually set to account for a group of three players, not one. Moving forward, though, we do not plan to adjust encounters for tougher raid bosses to be solo'able by all classes and specs. source So while you can zone in to any pre-Mists raid now (and I have been) you still can't solo Vicidus if you have no frost attacks (and I don't). However, the Twin Emps I did solo. It's possible at level 90 to simply overpower the healing they do. What's harder is to get kill credit for both, since I have no attacks that can damage Vek'lor. Every time I kill Vek'nilash, his brother simply despawns. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Anti-Aliased: A few tips for running in-game events
So you're playing your favorite MMO, you've hit max level, you've done your raids or progression-related activities, and you find yourself a little bored. So, to ease that boredom, and perhaps cure the boredom of others, you decide to run a special event in your favorite world. Wonderful! Good for you! That's the type of stuff that makes MMOs so great! But running an event isn't as simple as running an event. Events require a solid idea to plan on, time to plan out the event, reliable volunteers, and advertising. If those weren't hard enough, you might need an in-game reward to provide incentive for people to join you, depending on your event. Over the years, I've certainly run my fair share of events, and I continue to do so as I plan events alongside developers. I've learned a few things that I'd like to pass along, so let's not delay any further. Onwards, to the meat of the matter!
The Queue: WoW 4.0
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.People responded quite well to the Patches of Yesteryear column that I started up yesterday, so I thought for today's Queue I'd use one of the screenshots of the old UI that I dug up on the internet. A few old readers (yes, you're old farts) noted that the UI featured above likely came from an internal alpha build or something way before the beta 4* when WoW went into "public" beta mode. So the above screenshot and yesterday's screenshot are quite old. Possibly as old as 2001 when WoW was first announced.And for next week's Patches of Yesteryear column we'll either look at how the models have changed or examine a couple dozen talents that have gone through some pretty amazing metamorphosis. But enough about that old column, time for Queue!Siaperas asked..."WoWHead's PTR site lists a heroic achievement titled: "I've Had Worse". The achievement made me giggle a bit; is that really an achievement on the PTR?"
The Daily Grind: Do you run old raid content?
One of the things that we heard about people doing over the recent holiday weekend was tackling legacy content. Why? Well, what we heard was mostly about how with people traveling, lots of raid schedules were changed. This meant "whoever can show up" groupings seemed to occur, with many of them heading for old raids (like the above Molten Core raid in World of Warcraft) for fun. Of course, this got us to thinking.... Does anyone just run old content for the fun of it -- at least, beyond the occasional raid-schedule disruption? Are you more focused on progressing in your game of choice? If you do like to check out old-school content, what is it about it that draws you? Did you never do it before? Did you prefer the mechanics? Or maybe you just like the storylines better. Let us know!
