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The Queue: Challenge modes, dungeon sets, and more
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Brace yourselves. Today's Queue comes equipped with some past-blasts. arkainejel001 asked: What's a good way to get a group for challenge modes before they're gone? I've asked friends and guildies but no one is interested, and pugging for it doesn't seem like a good idea.
Warlords of Draenor: Flex, Group Finder and Raid Finder's roles
Blizzard Community Manager Lore has been posting about the future roles of Flex, the new Group Finder, and Raid Finder in Warlords of Draenor. You can, as usual, see Lore's full post after the break, but what he's talking about is how, thanks to the success of Flex as a raid system and the resultant awkward position of LFR, a reshuffle needs to happen. LFR has been wearing too many hats. It's been end-game progression for some, a gear grind for others, and a way to see the sights of a raid for even more, as well as everything in between. That's a hard act for one difficulty, that is simultaneously too hard and too easy. But thanks to the runaway success of Flex, due in no small part to group-finding systems like OpenRaid or oQueue, the devs think they can make some changes to the tuning of LFR. The idea, it seems, is that the new Group Finder will make it just as easy to find a Flex group as it currently is to find an LFR one. Then, LFR tuning can be altered, allowing Blizz to "better provide for both the "busy raider" and "sightseer" styles of gameplay as a result." So it seems likely that, if this remains the case (we're not even in beta after all) LFR will become the tourist difficulty. Flex via the Group Finder, and with friends, will become the new way to get meaningful progression encounters. And that makes sense, given how it'll be renamed to "Normal" come WoD. Hit the break for Lore's full post.
OpenRaid adds new features
For those who haven't tried it yet, OpenRaid lets you create and join cross-realm raids for everything from achievement runs to Siege of Orgrimmar flexible raids. It serves the same purpose as the oQueue addon, but with the added option of scheduling events ahead of time. I've joined quite a few flex raid groups through the site and have had success in most of them, including some Garrosh kills. OpenRaid has just launched version 2.2, adding some nice features to an already great site. The biggest feature is the new "Quick Raid" tab which lets you see raids happening at this very moment who still need more players. Previously, this type of group forming was done in the chat room, which could get a little hairy when you had thousands of people spamming the groups they're looking for. Chat is still there for those who prefer it. Quick Raids work much like existing OpenRaid events except they aren't planned ahead of time. Event creators will see a new option for repeatable events, which can automatically invite the same people if you want to do the raid again. Head over to the OpenRaid site to see the rest of the new features.
The Daily Grind: How far would you go for cosmetic gear?
Massively's got so many cosmetic-gear gurus and sandbox aficionados on staff that sometimes I suspect no amount of character customization and housing and achievements and titles would ever be enough for us. We'd do just about anything for more ways to distinguish our characters in an MMO. But what about raiding for cosmetic gear? Enter OpenRaid, a World of Warcraft website that helps players organize cross-server PvE dungeon raids and premade PvP teams for the express purpose of acquiring achievements and gear to transmogrify (i.e., map the skin of something cool onto something with good stats). While I'd hope that needing to run large-scale endgame content for gorgeous weapon skins isn't going to become commonplace in future MMOs, it's still fascinating to see roleplay-oriented players playing content they wouldn't normally touch, just to collect a dress. So how far would you go -- or have you gone -- to get your hands on a sweet piece of cosmetic gear, title, or achievement? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Cross-realm raiding resource guide
Cross-realm RealID raiding has taken World of Warcraft by storm ever since the ability to enter old raids with RealID friends was introduced in patch 4.3.2. Fearing the end of server communities and the collapse of civilization, players were instead greeted with a quickly mobilizing mass of players on Twitter, Reddit, and other social media to form cross-server communities for raiding. Without server boundaries, these groups can recruit from a larger pool and have more time flexibility. BattleTags will make this all easier. Over the last few weeks, many cross-realm raiding websites and resources have popped up. If you're looking to get into a cross-realm raid, here's a handy list of many places out there that are putting together old raids without the hindrance of those pesky servers. Twitterland Raiding http://twitterlandraiding.com/ LFRaid.com www.lfraid.com Cross Raid www.cross-raid.com OpenRaid US http://www.openraid.us/ OpenRaid EU http://www.openraid.eu/
