Don’t Worry, Blizzard Isn’t Dumbing Down World of Warcraft
By Ron on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 6:05 PM PST In Blizzard, Computer, Editor's Corner, Features, Game Companies, Game Platforms, Games, World of Warcraft
So, as a World of Warcraft player and a person who follows the gaming world fairly closely, I tend to read a lot of forums. With the upcoming 2.4 content patch currently on the Public Test Realms (hereafter referred to as PTR), the WoW Test Realm Forum (found here) is a great place to see how players are liking the upcoming content and class changes.
Judging from the forum posts I have seen, one of the more controversial changes coming in the 2.4 patch is the removal of attunements for the Mount Hyjal and Black Temple 25-man raid instances, and the introduction of gear that can be purchased with Badges of Justice that is on par with Hyjal/Black Temple drops. At first glance, the non-MMO player would wonder why this, of all things, would be a point of contention. Personally, I wonder what mindset makes players think this is a bad idea.
A perfect place to see what I am talking about is this thread. A player named ‘Fsgadgdsafhg’ offers up the following opinion:
All the T6 raiding guilds old and new are dumbfounded and hung up on the insane devaluing of their arcievements. Everything we worked for raidnights after raidnights, week after week is getting handled out for frickin Badges.
Its one thing that attunements are lifted… Trashmobs and early bosses will take care of the trash guilds. But for christ sake why hand out gear, and now gems too for as much effort as running Heroics. How is it comparable to the countless hours of attunement process, the consumables,the effort?
At least pretend that hardcore raiders are important and introduce some kind of reward or recognition.
This represents what I believe to be a fundamentally flawed viewpoint. This represents the elitist, exclusionist attitude that many casual players have long said makes MMO’s less fun for them. The idea that giving more players access to dungeons or loot devalues the accomplishments of those who have already completed those challenges is ridiculous. Why? It’s simple.
Let’s say you hand me a list of guilds that play regularly on my server. With a small margin for error, I have a decent idea of the progression level of most of those guilds. I know that the Alliance side of my server has a number of MH/BT guilds, including 2 of the top guilds in the US. I also know that we have a few guilds on Horde side working on Black Temple as well. After this patch, I will still know who those guilds are, and what they accomplished. I will still know that Risen cleared Black Temple first on our server (Even if they are Alliance, you still have to respect that). No matter what my guild, or any other guild does after this patch, what came before still remains.
To truly understand why these changes are being made, the players have to step back and look at things from Blizzard’s point of view. Blizzard pumps a ton of time and design money into all the content they release, and as such, they want players to be able to experience it. Think back, if you will, to when Blizzard released the 1.11 patch (Patch Notes). They added in what is widely considered to be the best raid dungeon they’ve ever designed, Naxxramas. Unfortunately, due to the difficulty of the dungeon, the gear required, and the looming release of the Burning Crusade expansion, only a minuscule fraction of the raiding population got to experience it.
I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Blizzard plans to move Naxxramas to Northrend for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, and to make it the first 25-man raid for level 80 players. In an interview with MMO-Gamer.com, World of Warcraft’s Lead Designer, Jeff Kaplan, talked about the move, saying,
“Now, in regards to some of the more difficult raid content, like Naxxramas, or like Black Temple, I think there is some validity to what you’re saying, that not enough people are getting to see the content. In direct response to that, we want to take Naxxramas, what we felt was possibly one of our best dungeons in terms of game design, in terms of cool encounters, great art, it had some of the best music out of any of our zones, and a lot of people missed it, and I think they missed it for a couple reasons: One, it was super hardcore, it was our hardest dungeon of original World of Warcraft, the other reason is that it came only a few months before The Burning Crusade. I think a lot more people would have gotten the chance to experience it if they had the time to progress, but since they didn’t, they missed it.”
As you can see, they want people to experience this content. They want people to see the fruits of the massive labors they’ve put into this content. Honestly, can you blame them? If you had written a spectacular novel, but your publisher said he could sell it to a few hundred people, would you be happy with that? I highly doubt it.
The same goal explains why the new badge gear is on par with tier 6 loot. Simply put, Blizzard wants these players to have a chance in these raids. No one likes to head into a raid knowing that you’re severely undergeared and likely to fail miserably. Not only this, but guilds who have just finished or nearly finished Black Temple can benefit from this as well, making their transition into the newest raid instance, the Sunwell Plateau, much more smooth.
The only people against this change are the hardcore raiding elitists who feel that it is sacrilege to allow guilds that are behind in progression a chance to see content that they might not have been able to see otherwise. These hardcore folks don’t want the vast majority of players to see this content simply so they can feel superior, and that’s just wrong. There are a ton of guilds out there that are playing through Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep right now, lacking only a Vashj or Kael kill to get into Mount Hyjal. Sure, those fights are difficult, and they help get you ready for the next tier of raids. But keeping those guilds from ever experiencing Hyjal or Black Temple is simply not good business, and Blizzard has the good sense to know it.
Now, this is not to say that all hardcore raiders share these sentiments. On the contrary, I believe the number of people harboring these elitist attitudes to be very small. I know a number of hardcore raiders who are wonderful, nice people, and I am proud to know them. They are willing to help out whenever they can if needed, and the community on our server is better for having them in it. It’s unfortunate that the vocal minority often gives these types of players a bad reputation.
Hardcore raiders make up a small percentage of the players in MMO’s like WoW, and they represent the least profitable players for the company running the game. However, they are often catered to as the ‘core’ audience in MMO’s. Luckily, this obviously isn’t the case in World of Warcraft, and the game and the vast majority of its players are better off for it. Let the folks in casual guilds get their badges, and their gear, and their shots at the top raid instances. They’ll have fun, and Blizzard will reap the rewards of a happy playerbase. That’s something we can all benefit from. Remember, it’s a game, and we play it to have fun. If everyone playing an MMO could hold that thought foremost in their mind, they’d be better off for it.
What do you think? Should Blizzard be opening these areas to a larger percentage of players, or should these high level areas be the exclusive preserve of the raiding elite?
Ok I see the /crying and cheering alike, but please remember Pre TBC when we raided MC … for the best gear we could get and not 5 lvls into TBC that gear was not worth the space in our inventory. Now with Wrath comming out please realize that your so sought after gear will again become worthless and pointless.
Ok for the Attunement well heck I know I spent countless hours 5 maning just to get into Naxx but in the end what did I get, the self satisfaction that yes I was one of a few that actually saw the inside and cleared it and that is about all again TBC gear killed it too.
Yes I have lead raiding guilds Pre TBC and was in a very good one post. But the lifestyle of “hardcore” raiders will become mundane for most and Blizz should NOT just be for them. My Warlock is fully Kara, Grull some of SSC geared and my Warrior has full PvP set which was harder IMO the PvP/Arena stuff took MUCH longer to gain the rep/honor than it did for raiding. Which gear is better uhh hell if I know, but my Warrior is set gear wise MUCH better than some raiders I have seen.
I appreciate both sides of this dilemma but in the end it is Blizzards call and if you do not feel that it is right for you go find a differant game.
THIS IS ONLY A GAME
I’m one of those so called “hardcore raiders” in a BT/Hyjal guild.
While I find the removal of attunements annoying, its something I can let slide. I can understand that Blizzard or casual players might actually like to see or make attempts in these zones. If casual guilds/groups wanna try it, then let them.
However, Tier 6 quality badge loot is like pulling the rug out from under the feet of those who went through grueling progression. Before this new patch, BT/Hyjal raiders were forced through the T4 and T5 dungeons in a crawl of progression, as it is only plausible and sensible to take raid instances one step at a time. Gearing up slowly from the easier encounters that match our combination of gear and skill making for logical progression. There was no badge loot to speak of.
Using the analogy the author of this article so cleverly invented, if BT is a masterpiece sequel of a series of books (the previous T4/T5 instance), then giving players the reward of T6 gear via badges is like reading a SparkNote summary of the entire first part of the series, then giving the reader the full benefit and satisfaction of reading the sequel masterpiece (BT) without actually reading the first half of the series (raiding the T4/T5 Dungeons.
Simply put, letting everyone else shortcut raid progression right to the end is unfair to those who worked around the hard way. When you buy a TV from a store for $800 one day, and then it goes on sale the next for $500, if you bought it the first day for $800 and go back to the store they don’t just say “Tough luck, shoulda just waited.” They at least try to even the score by giving you a partial refund or instore credit. Blizzard makes no such attempt to compensate their “hardcore raiders.” Continuing this strategy will result in a loss of their dedicated (non-casual) player community.
To all you “hardcore” players. i can understand your frustration but honestly I think you guys just like to complain. Please stop calling pvp-gear welfare gear for one thing, pvp is not easy and it allows me( a casual player, who doesn’t have time to sign agreements and play like its a job) the chance to get good gear and also to have fun. Im never going to see bt or mount hyjal and honestly i couldn’t care less.
The only thing that has disappointed me and worries me is that WoW will not have any real lore anymore. Thats why I play the game. Thats why I raid. I wanna experience the content and yes gear comes with it. I like the personal satisfaction that comes from completing an instance. I dont have to declare it to a bunch of virtual dorks (I’m one) or what not, but its about teamwork and the friends you make. I like and dislike the 25 mans. I like em b/c you can go in with less people and succeed, but at the same time, those 25 people need to be on top of their games with less flexibility on the people who come.
This game is all about money. Its a business. When cost of living and goods becomes free, then they can cater to more people and make the game hard core. Its simple business unfortunately. Cater to more people, make more money. End of story.
I personally dislike pvp and its probably only gonna get worse but I do like the fact that I can hop in and hop out in under an hour now instead of hours and hours of playing and if I take a vacation with my family or whatever, I get behind. I love the game overall but its my last MMO. Too time consuming for me, but I’m an addict! See you on Cenarion Circle!
Comments like these keep on amazing me.
To all you “hardcore” players. i can understand your frustration but honestly I think you guys just like to complain. Please stop calling pvp-gear welfare gear for one thing, pvp is not easy and it allows me( a casual player, who doesn’t have time to sign agreements and play like its a job) the chance to get good gear and also to have fun. Im never going to see bt or mount hyjal and honestly i couldn’t care less.
pvp-gear shouldnt be called welfare cause people with not much time can also get top tier gear now ! I’d say you already said yourself that it is welfare gear, but still others shouldnt call it that. And no, that it costs a lot of your playing time to get, doesnt make it hard to get, if you go that road and make it all relative then someone who plays 5 minutes a day should get T6 gear if he uses 4 of those minutes to get that gear, cause for him that is very hard and consumes most of his ingame time !
I tend to agree with the last 3 posts, especially the last. I find myself rather frustrated by the elitist posts, many of which sound like whining kids, and yes I read every last post. Those comparing this to RL situations really need to get a reality check. Further if you aren’t satisfied with the fact that you got there to begin with, and when it was more difficult to get there .. then you begin to sound like one of those people (or groups of people) that love sitting around Org gloating for hours on end; which are just about as annoying as gold sellers.
“Sure, we beat it first so that’s a standing accomplishment for ourselves. But, that sort of becomes a moot point when content is nurfed”
Frist of all, it’s nerfed. Second of all, it does not become a moot point because you did get there before hand, it wasn’t as easy, and obviously if you’ve made it to any of the more difficult end-game content people on your server know about it. On mine one of the most known guids is Pinnacle..and it’s for how far they’ve made it. Finally, there are going to be more than enough players that know what it took prior to 2.4; the respect is still going to be there .. not dissolve like you suggest..just because more people can get there.
The bottom line is that these places are still going to be tough, still require the same number of people, and still require the same organization several of you make a point of mentioning. It will however unhinge some of the ‘we are better than all of the rest of you’ guilds from their thrones. It will also allow smaller guilds that don’t say.. have 2 or 3 Kara groups going or have just enough people on at a time to do a 25-man, when it’s planned in advance .. to actually get in to the otherwise unrealistic goal of end content. Not everyone wants to be forced to join one of those few big raiding guilds, especially when they’ve been in a particular guild for a fair amount of time and made close friends in it.
TBH, I’m more concerned about the pvp changes in this patch than what’s being discussed here. With the advent of immediate honor, many think AV will turn into a ‘field fighting’ or middle-of-the-road kill-count fest honor farm. Many of us will agree that WSG is pretty much that way as it is, and I shudder to think how much it might go over the already..sometimes hour to hour and a half field-fighting turtle games there already are. It should be interesting to see irregardless, though, so I’m not entirely opposed to it despite what I anticipate.
If you still can’t get over the ‘omg this isn’t fair’ attitude .. well, as my late father always said … “the door swings both ways”.
There is a certain amount of merit in what has been said before.
However there is something else that has not been stated. People who said that blizzard should not cater to the 5% of the game that is hardcore raiders.
This is sadly incorrect, blizzard in fact (in my opinion) needs these 5% to validate the game. If the encounters were not difficult and challenging the HCRs would leave and find another game. Blizzard would then be forced to dumb down all it’s encounters until it’s hello kitty island adventure.
Imagine a WOW where all bosses are easy, where you can get legendarys for a rep grind where epics mean nothing. That is the ultimate progression of where blizz is going. When some of the hardcore raiders say that this progression will be the end of wow they are not talking out of their behinds.
For these people WOW is often not their first MMORPG and they are just expressing what they have seen in every MMORPG that came before WOW.It is fine to cater to the casual players (to an extent) but when the company begins to bend over backwards for the casual players it ultimately leads to the destruction of the game.
IMO the game itself needs to be challenging for it to mean something, to remove some of the challenge is to devalue my accomplishment, to give away what i worked for is to belittle the effort i put out.
Just to mention i am not some uber l33t raider by guild is stuck on Vashj and Kael but i would love to kill those guys and earn that distinction of killing them and earning my way into Hyjal. Anything less is just a bit disappointing.
The analogy is the random guy who gets picked out of the crowd to try his luck against a pro batter. Sure he’s standing on the mound before thousands of people and doing the job of the pitcher, but does he really deserve to be there or is it just a gimmie? No that’s just one guy, but imagine if they allowed pretty much everyone who wanted to do the same. Sure you could say that they pro player have their huge paychecks to console them but how long would they be satisfied with that?
That’s just my perspective.
Just a few thoughts on the subject..
Maybe my server is bizzare, so I’ll just ask, how many times before you joined your big raiding guild were you told that you couldn’t goto a particular instance ie Ony because you just didn’t have the gear for it. You had the attunement, but just didn’t have the resistance, or whatnot. Same with BWL, worked to get attuned, but didn’t have the DKP for the gear, got outbid, or heard “We need to get our MT’s geared” or w/e. Point is, you didn’t have the gear.
Personally it happened to me a few times, a ton of friends as well. They worked just as hard to get there, but ended up not getting geared in time for the next lvl of progression.
I see this as a way around that, helping the smaller guilds (admittedly like the one I’m in now) a chance to be ready for the next level of progression. Those of you that have gotten the attunement will still have recognition, although it may seem small to you, we DO notice the titles before the names of players who have earned certain achievements.
I may never even see BT, heck I’ll probably never even get the badges to get the ear that you are upset about because honestly, I prefer world encounters over raiding. I work 50 hours a week at my job, I don’t want to WORK when I’m trying to relax.
Having said that, when I do get pulled into an instance to tank, having a few T6 items would be handy, and no I don’t really think it’s a short-cut either because even tho I may never step foot in a raid instance again, I am and have always been a guild farmer. I go out and mine, skin, pick flowers, fish, make pots…. on my toons just so my small guild has every advantage they can when they go into any instance. Now that means I work for it, but since I don’t actually go does that mean I don’t deserve a little bit of fruit for my efforts?
Beyond that, have you noticed that Naxx still requires attunment? And they are talking of beefing it up, moving it to Northrend and making it a lvl 80 instance? Just because they are removing attunments from a couple, allbeit currently high lvl raid instances, doesn’t mean that the elites are going to lose their place. They will still be the best raiders, and will be able to continue to prove it as more dungeons are unveiled. But us little guys will be able to enjoy a little more content, before it all becomes pointless with the lvl 80 bump.
Just my thoughts,
D
Raiding in WoW is like buying a computer. You can buy a $4000 computer, and have bleeding-edge performance. And some yahoo can come along in a year and a half and buy a computer with better performance for $2000. Is that fair? You spent twice as much as he did!
Yes…and you had a better computer than he did for that intervening year and a half, and could wave your epeen about being able to turn the graphics all the way up on the bleeding-edge games and still hit 60 FPS, etc.
Or, you could spend $800 for a low-end computer. It’ll still run all of your games, it just won’t run them as well.
Raiding’s the same way. If you want to spend $4000 (30-40 hours a week of raiding), you can have the fastest computer (first Illidan kill on your server, awesome epix). But someone will come along in a year and a half (next expansion, or nerfed content, or badge gear), and buy it for $2000 (2 hours a night of running Heroics over a period of several months, or getting into nerfed raid instances without attunements).
Is that unfair? Only if you think it’s unfair that you spent $4000 for your uber computer, and someone else bought a better computer for $2000 a couple of years later.
Blizzard is kind enough to provide us with ever-expanding content and ever-increasing challenges. They do this on a large scale (expansions, which increase the level cap and invalidate all previous gear and encounters within a month or two), and on a small scale (Arena seasons scaled to match with the average PvE progression across servers, badge gear upgrades to keep the badge gear competitive with second-rate top-end raiding gear, etc.) And wherever you are on that curve, just like with buying a computer, you can “spend too much” and get bleeding-edge gear, you can “look for the best price/performance” and do casual raiding, or you can “buy the cheap computer” and just run 5-mans and quests and slowly pick up badge gear.
When you spend $4000 for a computer, you’re not buying a guarantee that your computer will be the best computer forever. You’re buying a year or so edge over the person who spends $2000 for a computer.
Same with raiding gear. When you raid hardcore, you’re not buying the best gear forever. You’re buying a six month edge over the casual raider, who is in turn buying a six month edge over the non-raider.
So think about it–when buying a computer, you don’t argue about how “fair” it is, you just decide what you’re willing to pay for a given competitive edge. Why not do the same with raiding?
Take care,
Kemi on Shadowsong, Alliance
Blizzard takes the roll of being the great normalizer. They did it with BC when they took all the gear that people worked hard for and replaced it within the first 2 levels of outland. They did it with classes, one class cannot possibly be more powerful than another (unless you are a Warlock or a Rogue). Everyone must be the same.
They are trying to do it here again with instances. As someone who has raided pre-BC through BWL and AQ40, and now to mid-endgame raids in BC, it kinda pissed me off that I spend countless hours wiping, spending gold on repairs, and learning fights so that better gear could just be given way in the xpac.
I don’t agree with the removal of attunements, and the introduction of badge gear to get people up to speed to get them into current end-game content. It will backfire for the following reasons:
1. Guilds who are not capable of clearing Mags or Gruul will eat it in MH or BT. They haven’t learned the displine neccisary to complete the end-game instances, they can’t currently complete the entry level 25 man instances, unless of course Blizzard dumbs them down too (e.g. Mags).
2. Having great gear doesn’t make you a good player. I know people who have awesome gear because they joined guilds who farm instances with good gear. These folks get this gear, and are none the better at their class for it. A raid is only as strong as its weakest player. In the higher level instances one mistake made by one person will wipe a raid.
3. Blizzard being the great normalizer will nerf T6 in the new xpac with gear in the first 2 – 4 levels of new content. We can’t have anyone more powerful than anyone else, can we?
Will this ruin the game? I don’t think so, but I also think that those who pay the requisite 550 badges and expect to waltz into Hyjal and drop Archimonde are in for a rude awaking.
I find it funny that the people in favor of welfare epics sounds like children, while the people opposing it have well thought out and stated arguments for the most part.
Why not just give everyone in game top end loot and be done with it, that way everyone can be equal and can do the exact same thing. No accomplishments, no reward for real effort.
Yeah you nitwits are the same people who came up with communism. GG.
For all you idiots ranting about how “Durr YOU CAN USE ARENA GEAR TO DOWN ILLIDAN” When in GODS NAME have you EVER seen ANY guild using FULL VENGEFUL to down a BT boss. Never. Ever. You will never see any of them do so. Why? Because Tier gear gives more spell damage and crit than any caster Arena gear does. Take for instance the Voidheart Crown and the Vengeful Gladiator’s Dreadweave Helm. The Voidheart gives +21 spell crit, and +40 spell damage. The vengeful’s gives +42 spell damage and 0 to crit. So let’s pose two questions: 1) How the hell is that better than T4? Let alone T5/T6? 2) There’s NOT EVEN any spell hit rating on ANY piece of PvP equipment. You’d miss EVERY SHOT on illidan. GG try again stop farming primals for your epic mount gold fund and actually look at what you’re wearing instead of saying to yourself:”my epix ar3 l3a7 and your blu3z sux all epix are uber n ilidan is a n00b.”
I am a GM of BT/MH guild and I think getting rid of attunements is fine way of making end game content available to the masses. For one, it means I dont have to drag my ass through SSC/TK for a few people that couldnt make it for the few weeks we all got attuned, secondly, I’d have loved to see Naxx pre TBC however my guild werent very well progressed, so I left and started afresh come BC.
Badge gear is already very good but there is a difference (on the whole) between T6 rated and badge gear. Now with 2.4 around the corner, surely the whole thing will just happen again. Sunwell gear will be subpar to T6 and any new Badge gear. It’s just Blizz’s way of letting everyone else play catch up and give them the opportunity to experience the content. It’s not taking anything away from the likes of me or any other raider. We raid because we want to, nobody forces us to do it.
Sorry meant T6 / Badge gear will be subpar Sunwell gear… doh
I like the changes for two reasons.
On my prot pally, I’ve been in Kara for at least 7 months. I have no gear from there. None. I’ve won the bracers from Attumen, which I replaced with the bracers from Heroic Arc and the Boots of Elusion which got replaced by the crafted boots from SSC/TK trash. Were it not for badge loot, I would not be able to progress.
Because I don’t have the skill? No. Reviews of my skill by those who’ve seen the end game say I’m one of the better pally tanks they’ve played with at any level.
Because of my lack of time commitment? No. I spent 4 nights per week, 4 hours a night raiding (those early days in Kara were hard because we just didn’t bring enough dps. We were a healer/tank heavy guild. funny, no?). I can’t do that anymore.
My progress was purely limited to gear.
I see these changes as letting later adopters and newer players skip some of the pointless grind to “catch up” content wise. As well, EVERYONE has experienced that situation where they say, “i’ve run that instance/raid X bazillion times and never, EVER seen that item drop.”
Badge gear is the putty which fills in the gaps.
Now, honestly, which is better, end game raid gear or badge gear? Duh, raiding gear. It is optimized for raiding. Badge gear is the stop-gap. Moreover, it allows folks to NOT grind on content for gear, but rather focus on the planning, coordination, and execution required to succeed.
Badge gear, while in many cases a HUGE upgrade, allows for a greater participation of those who haven’t, can’t or won’t incessantly grind raids for gear.
Is their gear better than MH/BT? no, not really. Mostly likely not at all.
Are they competent raiders? Depends. I’ve known some relatively new players that were intelligent, planned their gear progression, committed the time and were in end game less than 6 months after starting the game, post-TBC. And they were GOOD raiders. Should that person have to find a group of like-minded individuals who started at the same approximate time to do the same grind? I’ve also seen folks who bought accounts or who simply were caught up in a great guild and put in the time in 40 man raids. Didn’t do much, didn’t know their class, and even with all the gear, all the epeen from “playing since beta, seeing all the end game in 40 mans” etc, they still stunk. Put them in ZA and they can’t hold up. Good is good and bad is bad. When gear is the limiting factor, lowering the barriers to gear is a good thing. It allows good players to join other good players in end game.
Seems to me people are forgetting that people quit the game. If Blizzard didn’t do something to allow for folks to replenish the ranks of raiding guilds, each server would distill to 2-3 end game guilds on average. And BT would be considered irrelevant content.
Every hardcore raider knows which patch included which nerf. I still take pride in the fact that my guild dropped the fire wench in Mech before the nerf. Barely. But we did it. And when folks speak of their accomplishments, they STILL will tell you pre or post nerf.
Rest easy people. Those that think that doing H-Mech runs for 6 months will prepare them for end game are, as someone above put it, sadly mistaken. Skill>>>>> Gear. But since there are fights that are “gear checks”, I’m glad there is an outlet for good players who always roll crappy to progress.
I said two reasons.
1) The loot generator is a serious impediment to progression.
2) New/Casual players of quality are needed to fill the ranks of end game content viewers.
Sorry for not tying that together better. Didn’t see an edit button.
Personally I don’t really care bout the new badge gear nor do I care bout qualty of gems you get from the next patch but what gets me mostly is the fact that I did these raids where I had to do the attuments to get access to SSC/TK and MH/BT. It is a slap in the face to those who did the work and gotten to these places b4 the nerfs. Whats the reward in those who did the all that work and coulda just waited bout month or so to raid? OR perhaps people like a challenge because its more REWARDING than just to have stuff simplfied because someone just couldn’t click cubes at Mag or do cores at Vash. Just name afew.
I think a lot of people miss one VERY important thing. Being geared is only PART of the problem to suceeding in these raids. Knowing what the heck you are doing is a HUGE part of a sucessful raid. Gearing up people who haven’t done their homework will only let them SEE the instances and not necessarily down the bosses.
WRATH OF THE LICH KILL WILL RENDER BC RAIDING USELESS JUST LIKE BC DID TO AZEROTH, JUST ALIKE THE HIGH WARLORDS HANDOUTS PRE BC, BLIZZARD THROWS THE WOW COMMUNITY A SOUFFLE OF NICE GEAR VIA BADGE REWARDS SO BT/HYJAL ELISTS JERKS DONT HAVE A CONVULSION WHEN WOLTK COMES OUT, ETHIER WAY, YOUR GONNA GET NERFED, WE ALL ARE, MAN-UP AND DEAL WITH IT KIDS.
Look, its really not about elitism at all… I used to be in the top raiding guild (at the time) on my server… and it really was like a second job… You pour an incredible amount of energy into these encounter and bosses… there is no casual about it… the reason casual players never saw nax is b/c you couldnt go into it in a casual matter… you would wipe on trash and never see a boss… rooms of trash had their own little strategies to it. And i agree with blizz, as far as I have seen (i quit playing before we got to SSC, but we had downed grull and mag [back when he was hard]) it really is an incredible instance. The reason ‘hardcore’ raiders have the so called elitist attitude is partially due to the… feeling that comes with being on of, or the, first guild to down a boss, or to figure out a strat that works for your team… words cant describe how that feels unless youve experienced it… its not anywhere near the level things used to be back in the ‘tank-n-spank’ raids like MC days… there is an insane amount of work that goes into those things… so it should be understood that people are going to be upset when blizz says that it was all kinda for naught, b/c that thing you spent months to get or achieve? yeah we’re just basically giving that away now… Now on the flip side, I can complete understand that casual player will want to experience the same instances… make perfect sense… im not HC anymore, but i still wanna drop Illidan… but, as i said before… if you’re not hardcore about it, its not gonna happen… all the gear in the world wont make up for lack of skill. No, im not saying casual players are bad at their class, its just a different kind of animal when you have to have mass-coordination, where everyone has to be doing their job or you all die… no grey area. By definition a casual gamer is not goin to have that kind of dedication to the cause. They will either give up, or be forced to become ‘hardcore’ about raiding or about getting that one goal accomplished. All in all, my point is that of course people are going to be pissed about this. To them it feels like all the blood sweat and tears they put into the game is worthless and inconsequencial. Thats why blizz released new content to keep the raiders calm. though it wont matter much, b/c as ive said.. the casual guild wont be able to get through the “end game” instances in the first place… so you can buy some of the gear… what does that help you with? And to whoever said WoW is not about being hardcore, that its not for hardcore gamers- seriously? while its true that there are less hardcore gamers than casual, thats what makes wow such a maddingly good game. that its ‘for’ everyone… you can play this game in just about any way you want to and never get to the end in time to say “ok, im done, i have accomplished all there is to accomplish in terms of what i want out of this game” b/c blizz is constantly building on this universal storyline they’ve created. Thanks for reading.
I, as a middle of the road player who started about a year preBC, not quite casual, not quite hard-core, see it this way.
“Welfare” epics don’t teach a person how to play. Its that simple. Sure anyone can go get some with some time, but does that make them an expert player? No. Does it teach them how to down Illidan? No. Its not just the gear that makes a player, its how you play, your attitude, and how much time you’re willing to commit to things like instances and raiding, and how skilled you are at completing those places.
I do not at all understand the problem with making raid instances more accessible to players. It is not as if they are making it so you can walk in, punch a boss in the face in one try and win, walk out and move on. The encounters are still challenging and require some amount of decent experience, gear, organization, and effort. Just cause ‘anyone’ can get in, doesnt mean they can win, even with their ‘welfare’ gear.
This ties into the PvP gear argument,
The guilds who are ‘elite’ and what not now, will still be the FIRST to clear any new content, no matter how hard or ‘dumbed down’ it becomes. Their greater organization, dedication, and skill will still shine thru.
I see nothing wrong with making more of the game a bit more accessible to more players, and there is still enough challenge. It will still only be the people who show some extra dedication and skill who will see the true end game content. Sure a few guilds will get closer to it then they would have before, but what does it matter? It will still be these ‘elites’ that complete the content with skill and speed.
There is still plenty of room for ‘hard-core’ players to show off their skills.
So sure, theyre being a little more friendly to the ‘casuals’, but by no means do i see it as they are destroying it for the ‘hard-core’ players.
And besides, if anyone has the right to be upset about anything, its still the PvPers from preBC, if anyone ever got truly screwed, it was them. lol
I agree with a few of the ppl who posted that you can get all the gear you want, but it doesn’t do anything for skill and experience.
I’m not hardcore, though I used to raid twice a week back when MC, BWL, ZG was the hot content. I was just a lock, but we all took the time to read over the sites they told us, learn our roles, and work together. I was lucky enough to be in a guild with people who liked loot but cared more about the experience and having an awesome time while getting good stuff.
Nowadays I only have time for maybe 1 or 2 5mans a week, and I only use my priest. However I am on a new server and I have to say you can see the change from being with people who played since WoW was released, to people who have just started since BC. It baffles me how some people hit 70 and still don’t know how to play their class to the best of its abilities. (There are websites out there available for everyone to learn, hell you can just read the wow class forums. But geez…READ! I mean really, don’t you want to play your class to it’s full potential?)
I’m not happy with a lot of the dumbing down of the game (I’m a glutton for punishment cuz I like challenge), but you know what, I will accept it because I have to realize in my gaming situation (and that of countless others), it’s the only way I’ll ever see BT/Hyjal. However I know that it took massive time, research and effort for those previous guilds to get there. Oh can’t forget discipline….something lacking in quite a few.
Just remember, we casual gamers may get there easier, but we will still have to learn the fights, fine tune our teams and die many times before we can say we have BT on farm. They can take attunement from Kara (DON’T YOU DARE BLIZ!) but it doesn’t make it any easier to get through.
A word to the casual gamer (from another casual gamer), if you do get the opportunity to hit BT/Hyjal (or any 10 & 25man), please take a few minutes to read up on the instances and your role in it. Many of you probably do, but some people go in to those places without any preparation.
Anyway, happy gaming and remember everyone’s entitled to their own opinion.
@ Dewayne
Hey if you ever decide to play WoW again come join us on Arathor. I’m bipolar and they put up with me and my attitude so your meds and playtime wouldn’t be an issue and we’re nice and casual and getting these guys ready for Kara.
Just hit me up with a tell or ingame mail on Silentangel.
@hellokittyraider
Aptly put! (btw you sound like an Exigence member from DB)
oh and on this quote:
–c) I can only play 2 hours a day
- Don’t play WoW. All you’re doing is taking part in ruining a great game for those that care about these kind of activities. Play an actiongame, drive a car in a race, whatever. Just don’t play WoW.–
There are many days I can only play 2 hours…and many others I know. DO NOT tell me not to play WoW. It’s amazing what can get done in 2 hours. I can farm guild mats, help guildmates, run a 70 instance and various other things in 2 hours. I am in NO way ruining the game…how? I’m not in anybody’s way lol. So until people with this attitude start paying for our accounts, don’t tell us how to play or to stop playing.
Thanks bye!
The Removal of prequests sucks, i am a hardcore raider, have no life at all, and this seriously made me angry..
Imho, it would be enough for casuals to buy the new loot so they can progress better. Some people are doing nothing for their gear, now they will have to run heroics, karazhans etc to have their badges faster.
Also you can go straight up to Vashj and Kael now.. it would be enough these two things, but the prequests..
Speaking to the middle of your Report. Hardcore as you call us is still somthing we had to work for even if its just in a game… we spent countless hours getting grps working time proffesions and various other things. now random ppl can gear we worked are asses for were no elitest we just want to be able to show off what WE EARNED!!!
imo they should make a badge set close to somthing t5 not t6!
I honestly don’t think it has anything to do with elitist demanding credit or wanting superiority. I think it’s just frustrating that you put people through hell to complete content only to remove that content and practically hand it out freely.
I for one missed out on Naxx pre-bc so I know all about it. But perhaps it’s the order in which changes are being made. If you’re gonna make the game easier, just make it easier, don’t put people through hell and waste countless hours of farming consumables, wiping and repair cash. I feel that was already done w/ the transition to TBC where T2-T3 epics that were worked hard for are simply replaced w/ 63-65 BOE greens.
Again, I agree that content should be readily available to all players. But don’t wait for thousands of people to bust their ass for it and then just decide that not enough people are experiencing the content (translation: we want more money) and hand it out almost freely. It’s simply bad tact on Blizz’s part and to blame it on the ‘Elitist Community’ is cowardice.
Blizz claims they have the sense to make content more readily available to all players… Then have the sense not to waste thousands of paying players time.
yo, i have a 70 gnome mage and dwarf hunter on azuremyst and ive only seen up to illhoof ( yes sad i know) but all i can say from what i have heard about SSC and TK they sound hard, now alot of ppl on my server were mad because of the heroic key rep required, they all sayd it would bring the undegeared nubs in greens into heroics, now imagine lifting Hyjal and BT attunments, you will be seeing a priest who just hit 70 in the lfg for BT or a tank with maybe 9k armor in LFG for hyjal, the top 2 guilds on my server havent even downed illidan, Rebellion (horde) has gotten up to council, ONE PIECE ( alliance) have only gotten to reliquary of souls i think, now imagine all these newbie guilds that are ranked maybe 28th on the server and are attempting hyjal or something.STOP THE MADNESS!!!!!!!
My cousing is lvl 1 and wants to see Illidan too!!! It’s too hardcore now, requiring lvl 70! Nerf it plzz
content since. We don’t care a single second if attunements are dropped. 90%
of all loot every week gets disenchanted. We’re about to crack the 200K Gold
mark with the Guild Bank. We’re giving out BT gems 4 free to the alts/twinks
for PvP gear or whatever. We’re down to 1 3/4 nights clearing Hyjal/BT.
Basically we are bored to death, a few weeks of fun runs to get the bear mount
cavalry farmed out of ZA for all our Raidmembers. WE ARE WAITIN’ 4 NEW CONTENT!
When 2.4 goes live you guys can run to the vendors – trade in all your badges -
and attempt your first steps in Hyal & BT all you want. We’ll be in Sunwell,
workin’ on progress, farmin’ the rep, creating tactics, droppin’ the Bosses & will be farming that content probably before most of you see Illidan down for
the first time. The best will always be faster than the rest … always! None
of the top guilds are complaining – we dont’t care. Haters can just inspect the
nuovo-riche T6 bearers – if they don’t have the Hyal Exhalted Ring -> /spit or
/laugh or whatever u need to do to “feel better” … *sigh*
If anything, this is still a great change. I raid with one of those top US guilds on Korgath, and I know we are actually excited to have all this open up. It means our ALTs and our friends might be able to have good gear into the expansion. Gear will always be reset with something better, and the sole purpose of the game is to have as much people experience the content as Blizzard can. We have already seen it, and if all else, it makes recruitment a bit easier.
to the hardcore gamers who play wow
i understand how you feel when blizz gives gear that you spent hours. days . months. and years of your life away to the masses but im sorry i played FFXI for 4 years and when you have to wait 5-9 months to get a pair of boots and you spend 5-10 hours a day farming pop items for bosses and then people who are the elite games with there hight and might guild/linkshell show up and train mobs so you wipe and lose your pop items and time.that proves to me that the elite player is the player who understands what is like to start rom the bottom and work his way up and at the same time understands that not everyone has the time to play 40+ hours a week.i think those of you who have an objective look at the patch comming up and have worked hard for your gear and still think its a good idea are the real hard core gmers becuse you realize that your group did it and your gorup can take on any task blizz puts in your way in comming patch’s or exp.
those of you who are bitching about this patch and you posts show your age,people like raidleader are why mmorpg get a bad name and why thay put warrnings at the start screen stating you have a real life friends and family. in the end the narsistic attitude of people like raidleaderis why i left FFXI
and swore i would never play another mmorpg. luckly my best friend of 15 years and his wife and 10 other friends got me to start paying wow. we are now building a guild for noob players to teach them how to play the game and help build the fundamentals for them to do raids so this patch will help us out immensely. why should a guild have to farm the same run over and over to get gear on a chance base just so we and try and do some over the higher raids not saying we won’t do the instances from start to finsh i feel that every person should run every instance atlest 1 time if not more its the only way to get good at working to gether as a group but this is a gam and not a job so why take all the fun out of the game by makeing it hell for everyone to get some halfway decent gear. and people dont think they know it all just becuse there 70 or they have pvp epics.but hard core block head wont ever give people a chance becuse they didnt sweet blood and gain 100+ pounds senting in frount of the pc’s for months trying to get gear so they could show it off the get the recognition they dont get in real life. for those of you who read my post and are not 70 and raiding best of luck to you i hope your server has some good people that are welling to help you out. as for the auther of this post i think your view is grate,everyone should get a chance at BT on my server there is only 1 guild trying and they still havent gotten a third of the way thru it.
If you want to see end game content and get end game loot, work your ass off to get into an end game guild, where you work together with 24 other people working just as hard progressing through the end game.
I do not agree with the argument that developers want everyone to see the content. Thing is, everyone already can see the content. They just have to work at it.
They ARE dumbing down WoW, but it makes the masses happy and that is who matters.
I am a hardcore player. I have been farming Illidan for 4+ Months. All of the T6 gear in there is useless to the guild. At the end of the day, the attunements being lifted won’t matter because we have Sunwell. At the end of the day, the heroic badge gear is going to give me and my members upgrades. And let the casuals have equal gear, they will still get outperformed so what does it matter?\
I AM HARDCORE
I AM FOR 2.4!!!
In MMO’s the casual herd of players follows the hardcores around. If Blizzard continues to erase the benefit of being hardcore vs. casual, their game will fail once a viable alternative MMO comes out. WoW got it’s start by catering to hardcores, not casuals. They may all pay the same, and hardcores may cost them more, but casuals won’t stick around if the hardcores go somewhere else.
My Response to this article, In short I disagree. Its blizz’s fault and this bandage won’t fix it.
http://www.roguespot.com/2008/03/in-response-dont-worry-blizzard-isnt.php
~CS
They are not dumbing down World of Warcraft. They are creating an entirely new game: World of Casualcraft.
They are already rewarding people with better loot from Arenas than you can get in many slots from raiding. Arena points are guaranteed to give you loot you want, as opposed to raiding where you get shafted on drops.
Guilds that are too stupid to kill Vashj or Kael do not need hand holding through Black Temple. These are BARELY gear check fights at all. Anyone who has been clearing SSC and failing on Vashj will have the gear needed to kill her. This means they are just too stupid to do it.
This is nothing like removing the attunements to SSC/TK. Those were just annoying quest lines that people would all eventually do. The requirement to kill Vashj/Kael is a right of passage to entry to Hyjal and BT, not to mention Rage Winterchill is the easiest boss in the game.
This DOES devalue what people that have come before have done. The oohs and aahs that people gave them for being the first will disappear once they are given a free key to BT. The bosses in BT are NOT hard, at least the first 4. They were gimmie bosses that were rewards for guilds smart enough to work together to kill Vashj/Kael.
Why not remove the SR requirement from Mother next? Or remove the need to kill Illidan to get Warglaives? Where does this noob-coddling stop?
On a last note: nerfing Magtheridon.
There are two reasons guilds cannot kill Magtheridon.
1) They are too retarded to beat the encounter.
2) They are too retarded to realize that they can beat the encounter, and do not even attempt it.
That is all.
It’s not that high level guilds want to feel superior, for all the effort they put day after day recognizion is I think the least thing blizzard can do.
Some kind of reward and a tittle (that would not be obtainable after the nerfs they do, because it gets easier)
I don’t know but this kind of stuff made me sick and i’m not wasting my time anymore on wow.
Every bit of content in the game is available for everyone that pays their 15$ a month to see and experience, right now. The ‘content’ is not just a new instance to zone into, or a new boss to fight. The ‘content’ is also the path traveled to reach that destination. By removing attunements, bridging gear gaps, etc, you have to realize that Blizzard is actually REMOVING content. That’s what you should be complaining about.
Nice post. I like it. I’ve thought this myself but I have never bothered to interact with this sort. They don’t have any arguements strong enough to penetrate my solid opinion about this. It’d be like (I pvp) we don’t let these kind of people (hardcore raiders) join our part of the world. So if they try to enter Lake Wintergrasp, it will be like an invisible wall and a text saying “You need higher skills in Player vs Player to enter this area.”, I mean what the fuck? C’mon, blizzard look at us with equality and the elitist pretty much tells them and the casual gamer to fuck off. I AGREE ON ONE THING THOUGH. The prequests should remain, because it’s fun. It’s lifting & encouraging to continue the progress. Anyways, I don’t really bother with the elitist kind I pretty much tell them die and then I don’t think about it. But I would like to see the dungeons anyways, because I’m all about design and blizzard knows how to play it. Cheers Ron, good hunting to the casual gamer & keep it up hc raiders. If you truly are “the best” (if that’s a term you think you can use in a game) you will make sure of it and still be the glorious.
*Quote* “Does this make me hardcore? Nah. We only raid 3 nights a week, 3-3.5 hours a night. I rarely raid more than two of those nights. However, we are still progressing, and we’ll be ‘over the hump’ before the attunement is lifted.”
That makes you “Hardcore”. On my realm, the top guilds raid 3 nights as yours does, and they do it for 3-4 hours as you do. They are “hardcore” because they put forth the EFFORT to get things done. I have been in a “hardcore” guild and a “casual” guild. The difference between the two is vast, mostly in the dedication and effort put forth to down bosses and see new content. The fact that the “casual” players don’t see top end raid content is justified by their lack of ambition. I WANT to see BT/MH, but I want to see them because of my effort, not because Blizzard hands it out. The Hard content was made hard for a reason, for the core players to learn fights; kill bossse; and feel accomplished. Now that Blizzard is going to be giving out top end gear for badges, lift attunements, and even dumb down boss fights just so casual slacker players can SEE it is alienating their core gamers. This game didn’t become a huge success because of the instances that everyone got to see, like Scholomance or Stratholm or even UBRS, it became a huge success because of their top-end content.
From what I’ve experienced, casual players are casual not because of their lack or skill or time, but because they simply do not care to see new content. They care about seeing new and better loot, but they wouldn’t care if they were killing Illidan or a giant slug, as long as the loot is “phat”.
Now that I’ve addressed you response, I’ll address your actual article.
Blizzard IS dumbing down WoW. You can’t deny it, they are making it easier for the less skilled players. Now argueing whether this is a good change or not is what you really want to do. Blizzard made a mistake with Arena Gear. Namely, they gave the items you can earn from Arena Rewards too high of an Ilvl(Item Level). The stats on these items are on-par with T4/5/6 in respect to S1/2/3. This was their biggest mistake to date, they allowed easily accessible pvp gear to be comparable to effort-requiring raiding pve gear.
Assuming I am wrong about this, and that Arena gear was a super awesome idea, then the casual gamers should’ve been satisfied with their “welfare” epics from Arena and left the raiding to the real players. However, when they got their on-par epics to the Tier gear, and arena was done with for the season, they wanted to get into raiding. Well they had this super awesome gear that they just got, and so they applied to a raiding guild. The raiding guild looked at the gear stats the casual gamer had and saw it was well above minimum to get into their raids. Whether it be S1 for Kara, or S2 for SSC/TK, or now S3 for BT, these casual gamers got into hardcore raiding guilds with little effort. Now they are going into the raids, not getting any new loot because their pvp gear is “teh hawt sause” and they still are not caring whether they see Illidan or a giant slug die.
The truth is, if these casual gamers go into SSC/TK/BT/MH, will they really care what they are seeing? If they wanted to see this content right now, they could with some effort. But they don’t care, that’s why they aren’t in those instances right now.
In my opinion – blizzard just wants to show off their hard work to all the retard kids so that their retard friends can join WoW, get their character to 70 in a month and also see this content. This is Blizzard being greedy and wanting more money. If they really wanted more people to see their hard work on their super sweet content, they never would have implimented the attument quests in the first place.
With the dropping of attunements, I’ll actually get to see that content. I have always known I didn’t have a chance in the nether at getting there the hardcore raider way. I really don’t see the problem. The hardcore raiders did the attunement; they have a title that many won’t ever have. I envy those titles, I respect someone with it. They raided for their gear; they have a nice shiny matching set instead of a combination of drops, crafted, and badge loot.
The key is Blizz not toning down the difficulty of the instances themselves. If a guild gets a couple of heroics on farm and buys all their gear off of badges, they will still not be able to pull off black temple or the sunwell because they won’t know how to work as a 25 man team.
I origionaly thought it was a bad idea, but I’ve realized its the same as dropping the keys for heroics down to honored. I am still only honored with thrallmar. Heroics are my only way to get rep, as Shattered Halls seems to be taboo on my server. So the lowering of those keys is good for players in my spot. If players aren’t good enough to be in heroics, or they don’t have the gear, they’ll find out very fast in the form of catastrophic wipes and repair bills. The 25 mans are the same way. If you don’t have the skill, all the gear in the world won’t let you clear the raid.
I want Naxx to require the poetry in motion level of coordination on the four horseman that the 40 man version did (never ran it, seen the video). I want my guild (currently gearing up in kara) to get our butts handed to us when we first step into 25 mans. That’s how hard it should be. Gear comes with time, no matter skill. Both are needed to win in the endgame raiding.
Those that are bitching are missing the point. You did it first, you did it the hard way, you did it before easy badge gear. All that gear will be replaced in the expansion anyway. You should be proud of your accomplishments. But instead, you are being elitist jerks(no offense or relation to the namesake theorycrafting group), and thus there is only one proper response to them:
QQ more n00bs
Sincerly,
Ralowae and BlackTooth, Zangarmarsh
I’m slightly confused as to why Blizzard is doing this on a business standpoint. I understand it’s best to keep they majority of your consumers happy which happen to be casual players, but the random drop system for loot has their consumers playing the game a lot longer then a guaranteed badge drop. Strictly based on profit, if you have the consumer playing the game for longer, they will pay more money.
If the only way to get the best gear in the game is to spend large amounts of time in game gearing up and waiting for random gear drops to progress to new tiers of raiding, then wouldn’t that make the player spend more time in game? Or, is the average casual player getting frustrated that they will never get the best gear so they’re just giving up?
Also, why is Blizzard attempting to make WoW into an e-sport? In balanced gear each class is by no means balanced. I am interested to see if the players in the tournaments pick the same classes and races and if that is intended by Blizzard to be part of the strategy or if the intention is to level the playing field.
What does player skill have to do with one spell or ability that is guaranteed to beat a certain class?
Get over it. If you dont make wow your life, Your going to suck at it, and your going to be a loser noob who nobody cares about.
@ Cerias Shadows: I don’t disagree that the mudflation is getting a bit out of hand. In fact, Blizzard has stated (I’ll have to go dig up the quote again later) that the gear progression won’t be as steep with WotLK. IMHO, that’s a good thing.
@TaurusOx: You say “This game didn’t become a huge success because of the instances that everyone got to see, like Scholomance or Stratholm or even UBRS, it became a huge success because of their top-end content.” Nothing could be further from the truth. The bulk of WoW players don’t raid, and never have. The majority of players are casual, and the fact that Blizzard is casual friendly is the reason the game has become the most popular game ever created.
I would remind everyone that both hardcore and casual players are important to the WoW as a whole. Blizzard would do well to keep that in mind and try to give each group something to strive toward in the future. However, opening up content that hardcore folks have already farmed to death isn’t killing prior accomplishments. If anything, letting folks see those encounters that you’ve already mastered should increase their appreciation of your effort.
Every “hardcore” raider needs to step back for just a moment a realize that there actually is actually a business behind this game and that any one of us would probably make the same decision if placed in the developers shoes. Sure you can mope and groan about how this is horrible (I certainly do) but guess what, the change will happen and most of you will continue to play.
I am (or was depending on if you define hardcore by playtime) probably about as hardcore as they come. My guild was the 7th guild through BT and to be honest the majority of us really don’t mind all the badge loot. At this point in the game almost all of us either barely play since we raid one night a week (I guess we’re casual now) or level alts which now can make use of all this new badge gear.
I imagine that the people most turned off by the new badge loot are the “hardcore” guilds that just recently cleared BT within the past few months. They just spent an enormous amount of time clearing through every instance to finish off Illidan. Of course these people won’t see much sympathy from the actual hardcore players since many of us view them as trash anyway.
The change I am most annoyed with actually is the removal of the BT attunement for the specific reason that Blizzard stated that the first three bosses in the instance were made to be easy as a reward for completing the attunment.
I would say the difference between top 20 guilds and everyone else is that the top guilds put far more emphasis on kills and skill than gear. I would be very interested to see if anyone else shares my view. Besides, we were already helping casuals get gear long before this patch by selling raid epics for gold. All Bliz did was give them an addition option of farming badges instead of farming gold and give us a new intance to sell gear from.
Let’s say there was no hardcore raiders. The player-base was 99% casual players that were nowhere near to depleting the content, and everyone was happy with having something to work on. Do you think Blizzard would still work their ass off making new content? All those guilds stuck on Vashj/Kael wouldn’t be seeing MH/BT/MT this next patch. The next patch would be more like the early patches of TBC, with nerfs to the current bosses so people could deplete the content.
It’s pretty simple, nothing will evolve before it has to, and the more the players push for changes, the more it will change. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, but atleast you’re getting somewhere.
The idea of a MMO without people pushing the edge is just that, an idea. There will always be people on top, no matter how hardcore or not you would judge them, and they will always be whining. If it’s not about not having any content, it’s about the current content being too hard. It’s unavoidable, and a necessity.
It is not about removing attunements or giving out stuff for badges that is a problem. There is from my view 3 kinds of players in wow. 1. The casual gamer those who Blizzard wants to reach out to aka ~9,9mill players 2. The players and guilds who think they are “hardcore” cus they are somewhere in the top 999999-100 and 3. The guilds who usually hit content first and make the tactics for everything and shows the way. Now to get to my point, group nr 2 is the ones complaining about attunements being dropped and gems for badges and group 1 is the ones complaining about everything they can’t do in 2h time when they get home from work and are done with their family and read the goodnight stories. I just wanna say that the REAL problem has 0 to do if Blizzard choose to make everything easy obtainable after what almost 1 year of farming Black Temple and Hyjal so i actually don’t care but the problem is when Blizzard does this to cater everyone AND screw around with new 25 man instances..first they thought adding some gathering item for Sunwell was a good idea but they removed it..sure i for one is happy cus now no EU realm or guild got more advantage then anyone else, same for US obviously. Instead they make the gates open when Blizzard feel the time is right wich make it VERY unbalanced between US and EU. US always gets the patch first and there is nothing to say about that but this way US will have a big headstart in clearing content. Im not gonna say it will turn out this way cus we know from previous instances that having 1 day advantage means nothing but i do think it is stupid to do something like this and atleast what i think, is what piss the real “hardcore” guilds off..and hardcore is not defined if u spend 24h ingame..it’s and expression for the guilds doing everything before everyone else got there. I do not have an oppinion that says i don’t think casuals shouldnt see anything or get anything..but the little competition there is left for PVE should not be touched it should rather be improved..we are a small bounch of guilds who really love the game when it comes to progression..but it slowly dies out and recently over a short time some oldtimer top guilds stopped to care after Blizzards changes to the game and i don’t think it all has to do with casuals gettin stuff easy now..i just think that in general there is to little or close to no options to have a decent progression race between guilds. Another thing that have gone totally mad and is not working anymore is PTR..PTR is also the reason to the whole downfall of PVE progression, races. The old days were better, when people actually just played the game for what it was and Blizzard didn’t fiddle around with the possibilities to havea decent PVE progression race. I have never seen this many people from top raiding guilds complain and be so active about something Blizzard have done as now..the fact is that we could live with what we had before cus it was working..atm it is not, we ask for close to nothing the small minority we are and we aint after much either. I went a little bit away from the whole attunement/gem discussion but I think the problem is here rather then how much i can get for my badges.
It’s not enough that you have to do pvp to be good in PvE(an example would be the spellcaster S3 dagger wich is the best dagger in-game for a spellcaster), now they want to make the casuals equals to the raiders. That’s just stupid.
The raiders get more customers to blizzard by beating those bosses and by making hundreds of videos of it wich are posted all over the internet(that’s how I started playing this game. I’ve seen a video of a guild killing Kel’Thuzad and I liked it). A video with a lvl 70 killing hogger will never attract more customers.
If there won’t be anything special for the raiders untill the next MMO comes out (Aion, Conan or warhammer), Blizzard will lose alot of they’re customers:
—PvP’ers will leave due to the imbalance of the arena, the stupidity of the BGs and the constant nerfs
—PvE raiders will leave due to cosnatnt PvE nerfs that “balance” the arena but screw the PvE, and due to not be special with anything comparing to the rest of the servers. Playing 4-5hours a night, another 3-4hours of farming to be able to raid those 4-5hours and be equal to someone who playes 1-2hours a day but has karazhan on farm is just stupid.
Yeah, you’ll say “but raiders will have a new title”. That title sucks. Who the hell wants to have the title of “Hand-job of a’dal” over their head?
“The key is Blizz not toning down the difficulty of the instances themselves.”
THIS is the argument everyone is making. They are dropping attunments but the instances themselves are still hard.
BS. Kael and Vashj are 200times harder than at least 7 bosses in MH/BT.
Making it easier, making it quicker, making it less work IS DUMBING IT DOWN. How can one argue against that?
“Let the folks in casual guilds get their badges, and their gear, and their shots at the top raid instances. They’ll have fun, and Blizzard will reap the rewards of a happy playerbase.”
It would be considered “fun” for most players if they were given whatever they wanted from Illidan’s loot table for free, too. After all, why punish casual players because they have work or school or whatever else and can’t dedicate the time to raiding? Clearly, every rogue and warrior should be handed warglavies, it means they’ll have more fun, right?
While I agree to an extent that content should become available for a larger player base, it absolutely does water down the game. What’s the point of a reward without having to work for it? The reward becomes meaningless, a mere icon, and yet so many players are sufficiently dim to consider it valuable, and so they complain about how few people will see the content, how much they need their own gear upgrades, and how unfair it is that casual players can’t see Illidan.
It’s hard to blame Blizzard–at the end of the day, their job is to make money, and they do it well. No, I blame the idiot players who insist on treating handouts as valuable commodities. This is just another example of the masses leaching off those who dedicate time and effort. Because some people reached a level of content means that everyone should get to? Ridiculous.
Pre-BC, I started in a social guild. We got ~10 60s and decided to merge with another in order to raid. We progressed through MC and got Nef on farm shortly before BC came out. At any point, I could have left for a guild working through Naxx (their MT was a good friend of mine)–but I recongized that the game is fun because of the rewards you receive for putting in your own time and effort–for improving your own gameplay–rather than riding the coattails of others. How hard is that concept?
The casuals calling for “Illidan for all” will never be satisfied. They don’t want to play the game, they’ve just become convinced that purples = fun and that the “old” content is worthless. It’s a simple difference. I pay $15 a month to get good at the game, and reap the rewards available from that proficiency. Those so happy about this change pay $15 a month to be told, however indirectly, “You’re a winner, too! Look! You can go into BT and get epics! Being “good” at something is fun!”