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Tigole: Naxx in Northrend
The MMO Gamer sat down for an interview with WoW lead developer Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan recently. You can hear the audio or read the transcript at their site, but for my money, here's the most interesting bit. In the middle of a rehashing of the debate over whether Blizzard should spend a lot of time developing raids that few people will see, he drops this great idea:So what I want to do in Northrend is to take Naxxramas in all of its glory, scale it down to the 25 man raid size, and then take the difficulty and retune it-obviously we'd tune for level 80, it would no longer be tuned for level 60, since that would be a little silly and it wouldn't be a lot of fun for people at that point-but I want to put rewards in there that are very exciting to level 80 players, but make it the entry-level raid, very accessible, tune the encounters so that there's something for everybody to do, and let the majority get a chance to see that content that they hadn't seen before.Naxx as the Karazhan of Northrend. I like it. I am one of the many who never got a chance to try Naxx the first time around, and I hear it's a well-designed raid. I also like that the entry-level raid is planned to be 25-man, not 10-man; the transition from KZ to Gruul and SSC has caused problems for a lot of guilds. Apparently it's also a bit of a misconception that raiding is unpopular; Tigole says out of all the instances in the live game right now, Karazhan is the one that gets done by the most people each week.The interview goes on to discuss the links between WoW raiding and EverQuest raiding (Tigole was a raid guild leader in EQ for some time before working on WoW), and what Tigole would have done differently if he could go back in time to when WoW was first being made. It's a good read, like most developer interviews, so go check it out. But Naxx in Northrend? Awesome!
The least visited instance... and why
Overpowered on the forums wonders what the least popular instance is, and I'd say his guess of Blackfathom Deeps is probably pretty close-- it's a long run away for pretty much everyone but Night Elves, and at 25-30, there's so many more quests and things to do that BFD usually gets passed up. The other good guesses, I'd say, are the "old" late game instances like Naxx and LBRS. Unfortunately, while Blizzard tells us all about the most popular stuff in the game, they are pretty mum on what players don't like, for obvious reasons.So how do you make an instance that makes players want to visit? Relmstein walks us through his idea of what makes a perfect instance ambiance: music, visuals, interactive features (the Chess Event is one of my favorite dungeon features, although almost all the dungeon dialogue "cut scenes" are fun for me), and memorable boss encounters.But then again, BFD seems to have all of them-- it's a very pretty dungeon (I especially like the temple at the end), and while it might be a little short on interactive features, I really like the lore and the unleashing of the monster at the end. The last ingredient, I think, to a good dungeon, is just a storyline that drives you there. I'm sure Scarlet Monastery (except the Graveyard), and Deadmines are definitely among the most popular instances, and both of those have huge amounts of lore and mystery to make them interesting. Maybe if more players realized that Aku'mai was actually a pet of the Old Gods (or, you know, if there was a quest to kill him that explained that), BFD would see more traffic.
The masterminds of WoW on gaming
Have you ever wondered what the names and faces behind WoW do in their off time? In the recent interview 1up had with Shane Dabiri, Rob Pardo, Jeff Kaplan, and Tom Chilton, we get to find out a bit about that -- at least in regards to some of the games that they're playing right now. Two of them were really no surprise to me: Guitar Hero II and God of War. Those two have been all over the gaming media and are a lot of fun to play, so it makes total sense. The two titles that caught me off guard were several mentions of Viva Pinata and Rob saying that he plays the PopCap game, Peggle. They also covered some great background information from their gaming roots, to some ways they think WoW has changed the genre. Check it out!
Phat Loot Phriday: Death's Bargain
Great stats. An awesome name. And glowy skulls! What more do you want from one of the best caster shields in the endgame?Name: Death's BargainType: Epic ShieldArmor: 3570 (78 Block)Abilities: Green glowy skulls! +12 Stamina, +12 Intellect On equip, you get a +14 to spell crit strike rating, as well as +29 healing (not damage, unfortunately), and +4 mana per 5 seconds The crit is what really makes this sucker great. There are shields with more healing on them, so strictly resto shaman or paladins might look elsewhere (in the Heroic instances, for example). But the crit on this one is excellent especially for elemental shaman. At level 70, you get a whole extra .63% crit from just this one item. And if you've got Clearcasting now, since it's based on critical strikes, that's a nice little patch of mana that you'll get for free just from the shield. How to Get It: Unfortunately, while getting this isn't as hard as it used to be, it's still tough, but for different reasons. The thing is, you've got to find a group that will take you into Naxx (are there any guilds still left running Naxx?). This shield drops from Gluth, the third boss in the Abomination wing there, at a 14.8% rate. So if you can find a guild that's still going to Naxx, get to the boss, and win the roll for this baby, you're golden.Getting Rid of It: BoP of course. Sells to vendors for 5g 74s 2c, but even if you find a shield with more healing or damage on it, you might want to keep this one around just for the crit. And look at those skulls!Update: No one likes the green skulls. Brandon points out this one, a BoE shield found in Sethekk Halls, easier to get and with better crit. But no skulls. Thanks Brandon.
Scholomance? More like Solomance
I've been speculating a lot on what Blizzard is going to do with the old instances, just because I'm always ready for a challenge, and currently, at level 70, the old raids don't offer a full group much of a challenge at all. But as some of our wise commenters have said, you don't have to wait for Blizzard to change the old instances to have fun with them-- just go in solo.NSDragon on LJ asks what instances (Mara and up) can be soloed at 70. You don't have to wait until 70 to solo Mara-- I know folks who were soloing that one back at 60. Sunken Temple might have been tough at 60, but a well-geared 70 should be able to take that place down.I know for a fact that a guildie of mine has repeatedly soloed BRD all the way to Emperor for farming, and a hunter in the guild was farming Stratholme for Righteous Orbs a while back. So I'd guess that most of the 5mans can be soloed pretty easily. Has anyone tried to beat UBRS solo? That seems much harder, but a duo seems pretty easy, and I'm sure a trio of the right classes would probably take down Drakk before he even knew what hit him. Someone on the LJ thread says MC has been 5manned, and I've heard that Ony has been three manned. Anyone know about BWL? Or Naxx? It's really hard to believe that Naxx doesn't still require at least 15-20 well-geared 70s, but I guess anything's possible. ZG and AQ20 are probably easy with ten 70s, but I could definitely see those getting 5manned as well as more people head into the new endgame.When a five man group downs Kel'Thuzad, you know it'll be time for Blizzard to worry about the old instances. But until then, I guess unguilded 70s can just enjoy all the new solo content!
How to fix the old instances
Before the expansion came out, we wondered and wondered what would happen to the old level 60 instances when the Dark Portal opened. And now that it's here, we know: no one's running them. Oh, there's a few quest groups here and there of people working their way up to 58 (the bare minimum to come through to Outland), but there's almost zero reason to run AQ or ZG 20-mans, considering the loot is just so much better, even just in Hellfire Peninsula. And MC, on my server at least, is a barren wasteland-- why take four hours with 40 people just for a few good pieces when you can get much better loot in 15 minutes of questing in Outland?So what to do? We're sure Blizzard will come up with a way to make these instances relevant again-- in fact, I'd be surprised if, despite what they said earlier, they weren't already working on it now. But just to help them, here's a few suggestions of how to fix the old instances.-First, and most obvious, is enabling Heroic mode. We already have dungeons in Outland that will be able to be tuned to Heroic mode, which means bosses and mobs are harder, but give much better drops. In the same way, Blizzard is likely going to let us optionally turn up the difficulty in UBRS or Stratholme, offering better loot for a bigger challenge.
Server-first Shaman ring drops to a Pally
Lots of people have already tagged Blizzard's move to start dropping Pally items to Horde and Shaman items to Alliance in raids (even though neither side can actually roll those classes for another month, much less have 60s that can use the BOP stuff) as a bad one, but here's more proof. A-Team, a guild over on Stonemaul-A dropped Kel'Thuzad, and got a server-first loot item: the Ring of the Earthshatterer, the ninth piece of Shaman Tier 3 armor. That's right, they got a historic, server-first, BOP drop-- and none of them could use it.The drop went to a pally (screenshot) in the hopes that a GM could come along and make it the Pally ring, but as you might expect by now, no dice. As a guy who plays a Shaman main, that especially tugs at the heartstrings.Unfortunately, don't expect a change on this one-- the CMs have said any non-faction drops should be considered free Nexus shards. But considering that a guild running Naxx could farm Nexus shards in their sleep, that these drops mean there's even less chance that the right stuff will drop for a guild that actually needs it, and that these useless items will continue to be useless until someone finally gets a BE pally or Draenei Shaman to 60 (at absolute best, you're talking days after the expansion releases, if the servers are even up by then), it's too bad that Blizzard has resolved not to fix this one. Grats to A-Team for the nice drop, but shame on Blizzard for not letting them use it.
Post-patch raiding: an exercise in frustration?
An anonymous low-level alt on the WoW Raids & Dungeons forums posts about the (lack of) fun her guild has had raiding Naxx after the patch. She bemoans that many useful healing mods no longer work, dungeons keep crashing or lagging badly, and of course, there's the maddening click ... click ... click sound of people joining and leaving the raid, which is the raiding equivalent of listening to someone scrape their fingernails across a blackboard for five hours. Other raiders note that certain boss encounters are nearly undoable post-patch, including Patchwerk (which was hotfixed fairly quickly) and Instructor Razuvious (priests mind controlling Razuvious's students were not able to use their "pet bar.") Less-progressed raiders have been discouraged by paladin and shaman loot dropping for both factions. And of course, there are the personnel issues associated with trying to raid right after a giant patch. What do we do with these trees of life? Why are all our healers either PVP-specced or missing in action? And for crying out loud, who's been going through half the instance 0-0-0 specced because they forgot that the talents reset? Have you given up on raiding until the post-patch madness subsides, or are you planning to fight the good fight right up until the expansion?
"The Lament of the Raidleader"
Gharuvy over on the forums posits this theorem: that most instances/raids/encounters are based upon the ability of 25% of the players to "do their job effectively"-- for 5 mans, that's just one person, for 20 mans, it's about five people, and for a full raid it's 10 people. He also adds that it only takes one person to "ruin" an encounter. He then adds, somewhat poetically, that that is the "lament of the raidleader"-- it's too much to expect everyone to be in that "effective" slice of the group, but not too much to expect no one to be in that "ruin" section.To a certain extent, he's right. People have run Onyxia, perhaps the seminal 40 man raid encounter, with only 10 players (in fact, they've run it with six before). In my personal experience, as long as you have a core group of people who know what they're doing, everyone could pretty much stand there and do the bare minimum, and you'd still finish an encounter without much fuss. And I personally have dragged four people with me through Deadmines on my priest. They were terrible-- one mage pulled aggro constantly, the other didn't sheep, the warrior didn't use a shield, and didn't bother to even switch targets when the mage pulled aggro. And yet I pulled them through it all just because I played my role perfectly and kept everyone alive while doing damage (just in case you think I'm bragging, I've been on the other side of it, too-- I'm in MC when a family member calls, and I'm too distracted to do anything on my Shaman except spam lightning bolt).And it's true that most raidleaders don't (or at least shouldn't) expect perfection. On any raid, you're going to have a core group of people who know what they're doing, and another set of players who either aren't well geared enough or (more likely) experienced enough in the encounter to play their roles well. Is it true that one person can "ruin" the raid? In some cases it is (ever had a bomb explode an entire group during Baron Geddon?), but in most cases, I think one player's stupid actions will likely get them killed, but not necessarily down the raid.Then again, I'm a casual raider, so to date, I've never played Naxx. Do you need more than 25% to be on top of their game there? Are the later raiding encounters more difficult in that you really need to coordinate 40 people, or, considering everyone is geared well, can you pull them off when 1/4 of you are great, and the rest of you are just pretty good?
WoW Moviewatch: DPS-adin rocking Naxx
If there's one thing the Paladin debate needs, it's more fuel added to the fire. That's why Esotarius of Argent Dawn didn't just want to tell people that Pallys in raids could do more than heal-- he wanted to show them. This video, of him DPSing during an encounter in Naxx, is crazy stuff. If you've ever thought a Paladin's role in raids was only to buff and heal, check this out. 2100 crit! That's wild, man. Of course, after the expansion hits, Blizzard is planning to take the Shammy class more offensive and the Pally more defensive (starting by nerfing Divine Shield?). But this video is evidence that Healadin isn't the only option for Pallys after 60.Update: Eso has more info about his build and the movie on this forum.
Should current endgame content be scalable in BC?
Jayne from Mug'thol has an interesting thought over on the forums: he lodges a request to Blizzard to make the current endgame dungeons (BWL, AQ, and Naxx) scalable in the upcoming expansion. We already know a few of the new instances will be scalable-- when you take on the Hellfire Citadel level 60-62 wing at level 70, it'll be harder and have different rewards. So why not, says Jayne, make the current endgame instances scalable as well, so they just as much of a challenge to level 70 players in the expansion as they do to level 60s now. In one sense, Jayne has a good point. Especially in Naxx, an instance that has only been in the game for a relatively short time, scaling it to level 70 might give it a little longer shelf life. And since anyone who's 70 won't even get experience from level 60 mobs, there might not be much pull for players to go back and do the "old" instances.But personally, I'd rather see the new content be for level 70s and let this current endgame become part of the middle game. Jayne says that having only a small percentage of players able to play this content would extend its life, but I disagree-- I can't wait to get into Naxx with my casual guild in level 65 gear and tear things up. And I'd be very surprised if there wasn't enough content in the expansion to keep players interested all the way until the next patch-- we're not just talking a new instance for level 70s, we're talking almost another half of the existing game. Leaving the current endgame at the level its at will just let more players experience all the hard work and lore the devs have put into it.Of course, that does kind of invalidate all the hard work current endgame raiders have put into getting their way through Naxx. Thoughts?
'Hardcore' raiding, one month in
"Because you're not hardcore unless you live hardcore" I've always considered myself a casual player; although at times I may live and breathe WoW, it's not all there is to life, and if something better comes up in RL I'm happy to pause PvP or say no to raiding. While epics are nice, I tend not to measure my worth in purples, nor do I min/max my spec to flatter damage meters. However, all this talk of Naxx recently led me to feel I was missing out. I'd been in the endgame a while, and although I knew some instances all too well, there were other parts of the level 60 experience that I had never seen. I'd never set foot into Blackwing Lair, never seen Onyxia up close, and certainly never had a point of DKP to my name. So, when I was invited by a friend to apply for a spot in her raiding group, I did.
Death and Taxes is Too Darn Good
Yeah, I just got pulled out of my BRD run to tell you: Death and Taxes has downed Sapphiron for another world first. Don't these guys ever take a day off? Their website is probably downed as well, but here it is if you can reach it. Grats to them on the world first of Sapphiron.P.S. When stuff like this happens, we love (really love) to get your tips about it. Feel free to use the "Send us news tips" link on the sidebar. It'll reach us even faster than leaving a comment. Thanks!
