boss-kills
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Would you bring back "boss must die!" quests?
Once upon a time it was common for there to exist daily (for dungeons) or weekly (for raids) boss-kill quests in WoW; think Archmage Lan'dalock during Wrath of the Lich King. User Frozenclaw, over on the EU forums, is wondering just what happened to those types of quests? Why don't we see any in Mists of Pandaria? It would be a great way to drive players to some of the lower-tier raids (such as Heart of Fear or Terrace of Endless Spring) these days, as well as a way to gain some reward for being willing to step into old content. I think this would be a great idea! I still regularly hit up some of the initial MoP raids for valor and the like, but sometimes the queue times are, uh, depressing. The addition of an extra reward for killing certain bosses might help drive people into these older raids--great if you're trying to gear an alt in LFR, for example--and give them something nice for doing so. Would you like to see the return of these types of quests? Would you run them if they did come back? What kind of rewards would you like to see out of them?
Aion community update details server-first boss kills and more
Wondering what's been happening in the world of Atreia lately? Quite a lot according to the latest Eye on Community update from the Aion team at NCsoft. The post is packed with content including player screenshots, artwork, profiles of Aion community managers, and a detailed accounting of the first western shard boss kills for both Sematariux and Padmarashka. There's also an embedded video (which you can view after the cut, below) if you're looking to get a few pointers for your own raiding party. Finally, check out the helpful how-to for those of you interested in designing your own legion cloak emblems, as there's a special emphasis on making logos with transparent backgrounds. All of these juicy details can be found at the official Aion website.
Breakfast Topic: The kill shot and other boss downing traditions
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. So, you and your guildies have been waiting for this moment for months. You've leveled up together and run heroics until the sound of Ozruk's voice was haunting your every dream. You took all that fancy blue gear, watched some videos and made a couple nights of attempts. Now you stand at the body of some freshly killed behemoth wondering exactly what the hell a worm was doing with a fancy pair of pants (It's because he's jealous of your legs -- classic Little Mermaid syndrome.) Congratulations! Once all the purple pieces have been passed out, though, it's time to memorialize the occasion. Guilds have long participated in the time-honored tradition of posing for screenshots after they down raid bosses for the first time. If you need further proof of this phenomena, simply do a Google image search of any current tier raid boss, and you'll be assaulted with pictures of avatars, standing together proudly. Something else you notice about these pictures, though, is that they can be -- let's face it -- kind of boring. Personally, I've seen enough boss kill screenshots to last a lifetime, so when my guild succeeds in killing something new, I don't even take one. Instead, my wife mocks up a Photoshop like the one above to commemorate each victory. It's silly, but it gives us something to look forward to as we progress. Does your guild take screenshots of first kills, or do you document the occasion in some other way? Perhaps you write an exciting RP blog entry recounting your band of heroes' legendary triumph? If you do take the tried-and-true screencap, what does your character do to shake things up? Extra points if you always pop a sandbox tiger and ride it in furbolg form!
Fallen Earth boss-killing event in the works
Think your wasteland clone is tough enough to stand toe to toe with a giant mutated fungus named Deathspore? If so, put your money where your mouth is and join Fallen Earth fansite Broken Future for a series of community boss take-downs. Currently scheduled for Thursday, July 15th at 11pm eastern, the party will leave from Jimbo's Cracked Egg in Needle Eye in search of adventure, excitement, and (hopefully) coming home alive. "Bring your combat gear and prepare for a night of fun. If the event goes well, I have a little surprise in store for everyone at the end. So hope to see you all there and take care," says Broken Future's Jkillz in a post on the official Fallen Earth forums. Check out the news posting for all the details.
PUG Checker shows players' boss kills
Although most of us, I suspect, prefer guild runs, most of us also have to PuG it up every once in a while. LFG can be a bit of a crap shoot; you can get an Ulduar-geared player doing 3,000 DPS in your heroic, or a fresh 80 who has a thing or two to learn doing 1,000. Fortunately, we have the Armory to help us separate the good from the bad, or at least the geared from the ungeared. Sites like Be Imba and WoW Heroes have been around for a while to help us more easily check a character's gear level. Now a new site, PUG Checker, can show you at a glance what bosses a character has killed, and how many times - or rather, what bosses they've been present for a kill of. Above right you can see what it shows for raids on my priest (I don't like Malygos very much). If you click "show bosses," you can see specific raid bosses in raids; otherwise, it just counts kills of the end boss. It uses Armory data, of course, which is pretty accurate, but not always perfect. Like the site says, "don't shoot the messenger" if the numbers aren't quite right. Like Be Imba and WoW Heroes, this isn't an infallible guide to whether a player is good or not. It does probably correlate to some degree, though. In fact, if PUG Checker just added the average ilvl of the equipped gear of the person I'm checking, it would be my go-to site for checking puggies. It does load data much quicker than either of those equipment sites, which alone is enough that I will probably use it. I also really dig the clean design and the number-circles that look like subway indicators. [via My Life as a Cartoon]
How many end games have there been?
Today on the WoW Insider Show Mike Schramm, Turpster, Daniel Whitcomb, and BigBearButt were talking about the number of times the game has been beaten. This got me thinking, what exactly is that number? Off the top of his head Mike said 5 or 6 times, and I think that sounds about right. Let's take a closer look though at how many times the game has been beaten, and who's claimed the top spot.Molten Core – The first end game instance. For a while this was truly the end game. The first guild that beat Ragnaros was Ascent on the Medivh server.Blackwing Lair – Added in patch 1.6, it existed for a short time as the pinnacle of end game raiding. Drama of the Shattered Hand server was the first guild to kill Nefarian, the end boss of BWL.Temple of Ahn'Qiraj – Added in patch 1.9, and was opened up after the server completed the opening of the gates of Ahn'Qiraj. C'Thun is the end boss of AQ 40, and was first killed by Nihilum.
Breaking News: Death and Taxes guild disbands [Updated]
Something strange is afoot in the wee ours of the morning here, as Nihilum is reporting that the Death and Taxes guild on the Korgath US PvP server has disbanded. This guild has long been considered perhaps the premiere raiding guild of the US Servers. As of this writing, there is no further word on why they have disbanded, only that they have and that some of them will reroll Horde. The front page of the official Death and Taxes site does not have any sort of news post on the issue, but does have a banner that reads "Rest In Peace Death and Taxes, Beta 2004-May 2008," and has a list of their world and US first kills. The forum's name has been changed to "Death and Taxes - Keep in Touch," though there does not appear to be a forum post accessible by a basic account that gives any insight or information as to the disbanding. Hopefully more information is revealed soon. Death and Taxes has been hot on the raiding scene for some time, gaining US and world firsts starting in AQ40 and Naxxramas, and continuing into the Burning Crusade, including their most recent US first kill of Illidan Stormrage and a few key PTR kills in the Sunwell Plateau as well. For now, we'll watch and see if more information comes forth. Perhaps they may be like Risen, believing the end-game progression is worthless but possibly reappearing in WoTLK. Either way, their achievements were many, and they will be missed. Thanks to Liam for tipping us off on this. Update: A poster called Flux (who is not a DnT member but claims he has talked to some), posting on Nihilum's forum thread on the disbanding, claims that they were having trouble retaining guild members due to the long stretch of time between Illidan's downing and any new content, and that the first week of Sunwell raiding was difficult. After attempts to mass-recruit to fill holes ended in a lower level of raiding ability than they were used to, DnT's leaders decided to disband. Apparently, many DnT members will be rerolling Horde on Blackrock. You might want to take this information with a grain of salt, but it's the best we have for now. Behind the cut is a list of Death and Taxes' world and US first kills.
