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Breakfast Topic: Where's the epic, part two
Okay guys. After spending days thinking this over in the back of my mind and trying to figure out which sock drawer Blizzard stuffed the "epic" into, I've come to a conclusion: It's not about the "epic". What it is about, what's lacking, is something that's strictly based on design. Let's go back to Ragnaros and Molten Core for a moment and see if I can get this point across: the reason that Ragnaros felt "epic" was because the dungeon itself was specifically designed with 40 players in mind. The spacing of the zone, the placement of the rocks and bosses was all designed around the idea that there would be 40 players in this zone. Moving on, Hyjal felt odd at first because I was used to that 40man model. It faded because the dungeons of Burning Crusade were designed with 25 players in mind. Hyjal, Black Temple, Serpentshrine Cavern, all of it, designed with the intent of 25 players being present in that zone, so they felt natural. On the same principle, the 10man dungeons -- Karazhan and Zul'Aman -- both felt exactly right, because they were designed with 10 players in mind. Karazhan was huge, but not once did the experience feel awkward because all boss encounters and rooms were designed around 10 people playing in there. When you get to Wrath, Ulduar in particular -- Ulduar was designed with 25 players in mind. The boss rooms, the open spaces were all created specifically so that 25 people would feel like this space was absolutely gigantic. But when you take 10 people in that space, what was once comfortably "huge" for 25 borders on the absurd for 10 players. That's why it doesn't feel right -- because the space simply doesn't fit the people in it.
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.
Spiritual Guidance: Benediction
Though temporarily bested by Sindragosa's Ice Tombs, a well-timed Renew and some gnome mages have freed Dawn Moore just in time for her to wrench back Spiritual Guidance from the shady clutches of Fox Van Allen; just as she does every Sunday. After she finishes advising her fellow healing priests on the ways of the light this week, she will be waiting for a duel in Zangarmarsh atop the highest mushroom with a Flag of Ownership and Medallion of the Horde. Bring it! I've had a lot of requests recently from readers who want a leg up on gearing out their soon to be level 80, or fresh level 80 priest for raiding. This is certainly a worthwhile topic, one I intend to get to, but not this week. We get a lot of mail at WoW.com and this past week we got an e-mail from a player named Nemikahn who wrote a WoW version of the song Sunscreen. The various staffers read through the e-mail, groaned in realization at how old they were (the original song came out in 1998) before the e-mail got lost in the jumble of BlizzCon 2010 news. I really enjoyed the rewrite though, and thought it rather timely given we are nearing the end of this expansion. Cataclysm is coming, and it's supposed to change everything we've become familiar with. So, this week my fellow priests, my guidance is this: stop and smell the flowers. WoW operates at such a hurried pace these days. Don't feel like you always have to rush off to the next raid or complete another alt. Take more screen shots, visit your favorite zones, make sure you can contact your closest friends in the game outside of it, and most of all: create Benediction. I will, of course, help you with that last part.
Raid Rx: A history of organizational healing
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. Organizing healing continues to be one of the many intriguing challenges that raiding groups face today. In some cases, there are pre-set players assigned to do specific things. Sometimes they are even worked out in advance on a forum or a white board. In looser groups or pickup groups, there isn't the luxury of planning healing in advance and the organizers have to go with their gut feeling and "stereotype" classes in order to figure out assignments. Examples, any holy paladins are told to heal a tank. Restoration shamans are told to heal a specific group and holy priests are told to heal another group. It wasn't always entirely like that. This week, I want to take you back in time to the era of vanilla raid healing, through the Burning Crusade and to now. I'm also going to include my thoughts as to what Cataclysm might be like.
Naxxramas Raid Deck and Treasure Packs now available
Following the success of their previous raid sets, Onyxia's Lair, Molten Core, Magtheridon's Lair, and the Black Temple, Upper Deck has released the first Wrath-themed event pack with the Naxxramas Raid Deck and Treasure Pack last December 22. Unlike their previous raid offerings, however, the Naxxramas Treasure Packs are stand-alone products which can be used separately from the raid deck. According to Dan Bojanowski, Upper Deck's World of Warcraft TCG Senior Brand Manager, the stand-alone approach "was created as a direct result of customer feedback." Aside from containing the standard content such as exclusive foil cards, the set would also include "alternate art heroes featuring heroes from the Drums of War block in Naxxramas-themed gear and settings." The Raid Deck, which is available for $29.99, contains a 110-card raid deck, 15 oversized boss cards, a 16-card Treasure Pack, and a UDE points card (or Loot card) and rulebook. Treasure Packs retail for $9.99 apiece and contain 15 random foil Treasure Pack cards out of a total of thirty collectible cards, a hero in Naxxramas-themed armor, and a UDE points card or Loot card. Hero cards are drawn from the Drums of War expansion set with variant art, with a total of ten cards with new art to collect. Each Treasure Pack also has a chance to contain a random Loot card from the Fields of Honor expansion set.
Enter to win 25 Creative headsets, one for each member of your raid
We've been giving away these Creative World of Warcraft wireless headsets for a while now, one per week to one lucky winner (and grats to those of you who've already picked them up). But Creative also wanted to work with us to do something really epic, something only WoW.com could put together. And so we're going for the whole enchilada: we're giving away a set of twenty-five (that's right, 25, one per raid member in your group) Creative World of Warcraft wireless headsets. This is going to be the clearest, most amazing sounding group on Vent ever -- not a single person in your raid will have to say "sorry, no mic." So how do you win? Obviously an epic contest like this requires an epic entry, so here's how we're going to do it: after the break on this post, you'll find a list of five different riddles, each one hinting at a different place in the game.
The Queue: I demand a recount
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. Michael Sacco will be your host today. I'll be taking over The Queue periodically for Alex and Adam, and thus I've been given this soapbox. Well, guess what! I'm usin' it. I demand a recount on the alleged outcome of the Rossi vs. Sacco arm-wrestling match. I don't know where the results came from, but I bet if we looked in Adam's basement, we'd find a Diebold machine that "fell off the back of a truck." Rossi may have the burly chest and body hair that give him the makings of a champion, but I've got really good hair and I can guarantee that one look at me and Rossi would give up the ghost right there. Unless we're playing by standard rules, in which case he would literally murder me. And now, reader questions. Sean asked... "A question about the new Random Dungeon feature. Let's say you sign up for the first random dungeon of the morning, and you get a place that you just can't stand. (Think OK or Occ) If you bail on the dungeon, then wait out the Deserter debuff, have you messed up your shot at the Frost Emblems for the day?" We've had a lot of questions about the new Dungeon System lately, which is good, because it shows that people are (at least) interested in it and (at most) excited about it. To answer your question, you don't miss your opportunity to get your Emblems of Frost if your first random dungeon of the day goes down the toilet. You get your Emblems upon successful completion of your first random dungeon of the day.
Patch 3.3 PTR: More DoTs
Another week goes by and we see further patch 3.3 developments on the PTR. Last week's changes were pretty far reaching for warlocks. I was pretty excited by just how much they shook up the default raid builds, in terms of which one would pull the highest numbers. One thing that really stood out to me was that the theoretical maximums were all looking pretty even.There are a couple new elements on the patch notes this week, as well as some reworking. Demonology was previously looking like it was going to be the top DPS spec, as well as the best utility build. The margin was slight, but as ever the number one slot has some prestige and we could have seen felguards cropping up a lot more in raids.After the break we'll have a closer look at the warlock changes and what they mean.
The Queue: Trinket-Palooza 2009
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. Allison Robert is your hostess today again (our condolences).I'm in an autumnal sort of mood, hence today's picture. Yes, I know that Barrens trees always look like that. We got a really interesting question about trinkets the last time around that really caught my attention, so a lot of today's Queue is going to be comprised of an Enjoyable Stroll Down Memory Lane and Into Holy ^$*# Look At That Trinket From AQ40 How Has That Not Been Nerfed Yet.Starlin asks...So, what's up with Brewfest this year? Anything new or updated?Fortunately or us, Kisirani posted on this same question yesterday. To summarize, there are no major changes to the holiday, but Coren Direbrew has been updated to level 80, the mount drop rates haven't changed (nor are they now required for the Brewfest meta-achievement), and no new pets or mounts have been added. You can reasonably expect a beefed-up holiday boss with a new loot table (most likely of ilevel 200 items, possibly 219 if they want to match the gear from heroic Trial of the Champion), but otherwise the same experience as last year. I'll have an OverAchiever for the good folks seeking Brewfest achievements up on the site soon.
"Zero lore. Maximum fun." with Onxyia back in town
When the news first broke yesterday about Onyxia returning to her status as a raid boss, I, probably like many of you, went into lore-generation overdrive. She's dead in the comic (Varian Wrynn decided her head didn't so much belong with her body any more), so how was she going to be a raid boss? I stabbed at ideas: she's in the Caverns of Time! Arthas could resurrect her as a Frostwyrm of some kind!Fortunately, cooler lore-heads (Ziebart and Sacco) prevailed: they pointed out to me this comment by Maxim in the original post: "Zero lore. Maximum fun. HOORAY!" That perfectly sums up why Blizzard is doing this: there's no lore reason or explanation behind it, it's just a straight up fun thing for us to do to celebrate the five-year anniversary. Bornakk makes it official: Ony is still dead, and she's not coming back. This is a one-time thing on the 5th anniversary.While, unfortunately, that may destroy some dreams about seeing similar old-world content come back to life (at least until the 10th anniversary, when we'll probably see Molten Core updated for the level 100 15-man raiding scheme -- drool), it means that there's no thinking involved about why Onyxia's back. She's back, we get to raid the original raid and pick up some great loot while doing it. Zero lore. Maximum fun.
The making of the World of Warcraft
Eurogamer has a nice long look at the early days of World of Warcraft, way before Northrend and Outland and even Molten Core, back when the question wasn't just how big the game would get, but whether Blizzard, a company known for their polish rather than their size, could pull off an entry in this new MMO genre. They've interviewed some of Blizzard's luminaries, and the piece offers a really good look at what it was like at Blizzard even before WoW's release, when they were hashing out some of the ideas and mechanics that have now set the bar with World of Warcraft: the stylistic Warcraft look, and questing as storytelling (originally, they thought they'd only do quests through the starting levels, and then have the game move to a grinding, monster-killing stage towards the end, but players said the game was boring without quests).There are all kinds of great little tidbits in here: originally, Warcraft III was planned with the over-the-shoulder look that WoW now has, and that's one of the reasons they wanted to create a more straightforward RPG game. Tom Chilton showed up on the team about a year before WoW's release, and to his surprise, the game was almost completely unfinished -- the level cap was only 15, the talent system wasn't implemented, the AH or mail systems weren't in, PvP wasn't in at all (of course, even at release it was pretty barebones), and endgame raiding was nonexistent. Most of the things we think of as intrinsic to the World of Warcraft -- even things like the Horde and Alliance not speaking to each other -- were debated and almost not in at all as they moved towards release.
Turn off XP gain for classic raiding
The ability to turn off experience gains is coming in patch 3.2, and is rightly being touted as a feature to enable twinking (to go along with the new battleground experience system). However, that's not all that turning off XP lets you do. Remember how people have been asking for classic realms with the level cap set at 60 (or 70)? Yeah, here you go. Level a guild of characters to 60, pay 10g to turn off XP gain, and raid the old world to your heart's content. Nethaera mentioned as much in a blue post yesterday, constituting the first supportive mention of classic only raiding that Blizzard has ever made, as Adam noticed. She does mention that this may change during testing, like everything, but for now: classic content lovers, rejoice! Don't forget to loot your core hound. Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!
The Queue: Troll'is is
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today. Dear Alex, l2preamble.Yours,Modern Writing.Peacebone asked..."Why can't we wear tabards to get rep gains from raids? Is there any specific reason?"
Breakfast Topic: What if achievements had existed in classic WoW?
One of our readers, Eli, wrote in last night with a suggestion for a Breakfast Topic: if achievements had existed in classic WoW, what would they have been? It provoked some back-channel discussion here with staffers wondering how the game would have been different if beating the boss or dungeon wasn't the only thing on your plate:Me: What would a hard-mode Ragnaros have been like?Adam Holisky: Kill Ragnaros using only one tank!Eliah Hecht: Domo comes back from the dead and starts randomly sheeping raid members in revenge.Other suggestions included killing Hakkar with all of his priests still up, hearthing with Hakkar's debuffs and infecting at least 500 players with Corrupted Blood (back when this was still possible, of course), killing at least 500 Dwarves without dropping combat in the Lyceum, the Stratholme timed run, and -- as Sacco suggested -- "getting through an UBRS run without (anyone) quitting." Having recently leveled a Shaman through this content, I can tell you that's one achievement I wouldn't have managed.If you were back in classic WoW again with no chance of advancing beyond level 60 talents and gear, what would make for a worthwhile achievement?
Theming the login page
Toussaint is exactly right -- this took me back. Way back to the original login screen and music, when level 60 was the max and everyone was running UBRS and the Plaguelands instances, and "heroic" was just something us players were. Even the Burning Crusade login screen, right, brings back some memories, of wandering around Hellfire Peninsula and raiding in Netherstorm. The roar of the frost wyrm we have now is nice and all, but sometimes we long for earlier days.Which brought me to the question: what about a theme-switching system? There's no real reason the login screen has to be set to the current expansion -- while it's nice to have a new look to that interface every time we reinstall the program, there's nothing the new one really does that the old one couldn't. You'd think they'd be easy to change around, and if Blizzard just gave us a drop-down switcher in the options, we could choose whichever one we wanted.Let's not forget, however, that their code is weird -- you wouldn't think that they'd hard-wire the new Battle.net login code to the newest login screen, but maybe they did something silly like that, which would probably mean we'll never see the "classic" login screen again. But still, if there's a way to do it, it would be nice to see that old portal and hear that rousing anthem yet again.
The Queue: Item level, attunements, and more
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Good morning/afternoon/generic time of day, everyone! I don't have anything funny or interesting to say here, so let's skip that part and pretend that I did it! Yay! Now imagine there's a silly poll for you to vote in! Exclamation points! More exclamation points! Not enough exclamation points yet! We need more!Okay, that's enough of them.Erogroth asked... "How exactly does item level work? From what I gather its almost like talent points for an item. So any item that is the same level should be about equal in how good it is. However often items of the same item level are no where near equal. So what's the deal?"
Breakfast Topic: Nostalgia vs. reality -- fight!
There's an interesting post on the forums that's become a catalogue of what old-time players miss most about classic WoW. While it's become a pretty thorough compilation of iconic moments, there are admissions that, well, maybe some of the stuff that's fun to look back on wasn't actually that much fun at the time. The examples include trying to get past a 40-man raid of the opposite faction into Molten Core, the boredom of raiding as little more than a glorified Decurse-bot, the countless guilds who broke up on Vael, and the fun of Tarren Mill/Southshore PvP that had the ancillary effect of making leveling in Hillsbrad such a nightmarish experience.I'm seeing the first glimmers of such nostalgia for BC content start to emerge, and hearing a Sunwell PuG advertised as a "fun run" the other day left me speechless for a moment. It's equal parts compelling and unnerving; part of me misses the struggle to down bosses in Tiers 4, 5, and 6, but I also remember ugly M'uru wipefests. Everyone likes looking back on the first boss kill, nobody likes remembering the 45-minute trash respawn timer in SSC, and I like to think that as the game has "grown up," it has also gone resolutely forward.But then, I'm not an old-school WoW player on the level of these forum posters, and I'm also not sure that the nostalgia for BC content will ever approach that for classic content. Is, say, Black Temple going to be looked upon as fondly as its classic counterparts like AQ40 someday, or is the classic "classic" and irretrievable for a reason?
15 Minutes of Fame: Playin' it old school
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.Upcoming RaidsZul'Gurub (Farm)Ahn'Qiraj (20) (Farm)Molten Core (10/10 Farm)Blackwing Lair (2/8)Onyxia (Farm)Azuregos (Farm)ZG (Farm)? Blackwing Lair (2/8)?! LOL wut?!? We've written before about players who love to chow down on some good, old-fashioned retro WoW content, avidly mixing original instances with the latest hotness from Wrath. Heralds of Yore from Smolderthorn takes that idea to the next level: not only do they specialize in old-school content, they do it as intended – at level 60.Why would a guild put two entire game expansions on /ignore? Hearken back to the days of "vanilla WoW" with 15 Minutes of Fame and Heralds of Yore, after the break.
Death Knight gets Thunderfury
Here's a world first I never thought I'd see via Deathknight.info: The first Death Knight with a Thunderfury! Night Elf Death Knight Dragoth of Frostmane-EU grabbed the legendary sword a couple weeks back, and has the achievement to prove it (It's under the Feats of Strength category). Certainly, this was no small task in and of itself. Sure, you can probably do most of the questline with four or five people now, but you'll still find yourself in Molten Core begging for the bindings to drop for at least a few weeks, and that doesn't even count the elementium.
Blizzard opens up old instances to soloers, changes quest items
Blue poster Daelo has good news for people aiming to solo old instances -- Blizzard has made a few changes to the way keys and unlocks work in the old dungeons, so that you no longer need keys or multiple people to get to the good stuff. The rituals in Blackrock Spire and Uldaman only require one click now, and quintessence (in Molten Core to summon Executus before the Ragnaros fight), the Scepter of Celebras (in Maraudon), and the Mallet of Zul'Farrak (in the ZF, obviously) are no longer needed to do their jobs. Additionally, Nightbane will be accessible in Karazhan without the Blackened Urn.Some may be disappointed that items we worked so hard for are now pretty much useless, but as you probably know by now, that's the way of things when an expansion hits. The good news, obviously, is that people running through instances solo or with just a few people will be able to hit all the content they couldn't get to before. And if you happen to be running the content, you won't need to worry about whether you left the Mallet in the bank or forgot the Scepter on a Princess run.And unfortunately, collectors will be left out as well -- most of the items will actually change form into weapons or other useless objects, so even if you have the old items, they won't be usable in the same way. Sure, the Mallet was a pain to get, but it'll be a little sad to see it disappear in the way we know it forever.
