That is actually why I left, being butthurt. I was finally able to stay my favorite spec for the most part then they eviscerated it. If it was to level the playing field I would understand but even on the test servers MM was doing what SV was doing on the live servers. I didn’t understand, not that time changed that. But after numerous minor things started ticking me off, I left. It is a game after all. The straw that broke my back though was when I earned a few our forum ban for posting this
Spoken by Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime
In response to someone asking why the game seems to not be getting the attention it once did with the last major patch.
I understand you realize that you’re getting a bit bent up over this, but this part is not really true. They are locking content to raiders, not to hardcore raiders. There hasn’t been a single thing indicating than any hard-mode kills are required to do these quests. Even on Cairne, one of the 20 worst servers in the world for raiding, there are 11 guilds that are 12/12 at this point, and likely many more raid groups than that. That number will only go up in 4.1 and 4.2.
Legendaries have pretty much always been reserved for large raid groups. I’m just thrilled that these can be done in 10-man mode now - that alone opens them up to a much larger population than in the past.
Actually now that I think about it, in Icecrown you could do a pretty large part of the legendary quest chain, including getting a badass weapon (that your main could have used, IIRC), by only clearing half of the raid on normal mode (in 25-man). That’s was a pretty easy hurdle to get to see some lore, quests, etc…
Okay, perhaps I went a little too far with “hardcore.” But my friend has been raiding for a while this patch, and his entire guild hasn’t finished all the raids yet, so I’m probably not speaking statistically so much as experientially. Yeah, I’m grateful the legendaries have been opened to 10-man people, I just wish that one of the biggest lore events was open to everyone. In my experience casuals tend to be more interested in the story than the people who play on a raid schedule. It’s obviously not mutually exclusive, but I’ve noticed that raiders have a definite “skip the quest text” mentality more often than the people playing for atmosphere, which tend to be slower and as such get to max level slower and get into raiding slower etc.
With my hardcore statement, I was referring to the fact that my gut tells me that you’re going to have to do some crazy stuff to get the staff. I remember the tales of Shadowmourne, how the entire raid had to basically revolve around you for some encounters, like making a healer focus on you because you (likely a non-tank) had to eat 3 of Sindragosa’s frost breaths (which even tanks aren’t supposed to do because of the high damage). That’s not the kind of stuff a guild who is casually progressing does, it’s the kind of thing a guild who has mastered the content and is now bored and needs a challenge does. And like I said, if crazy stuff like that is required, it’s much more likely that the guild will be willing to risk the wipes and repair bills for someone who can actually use the item, instead of little ol’ “but… lore! And blue dragon form!” me.
Now, I may be pleasantly surprised, maybe it will just be something like “loot 3 orbs of fire from any 3 Firelands bosses.” But given the track record with legendaries, and the sheer VALUE a legendary would have to someone who can use it, I doubt it will be that simple.
That’s probably true, although there is likely more overlap than you think.
Mhm. Yeah, a true casual wasn’t likely to get Shadowmourne. But you could get the lead-in epic weapon (which name is escaping me) with very little effort. Once you got that there was very little solo content left in the quest chain (if any) until you were done and killed the Lich King with Shadowmourne. Then you got some bread-crumb type quests with some good lore attached.
I guess I understand the concern, but I think it would be severely devalued if you could solo your way to a legendary as soon as it came out. And you can’t make a legendary actually legendary without attaching some lore to it, ya know?
I dunno, I’m not a caster so I don’t care, but it would be cool if our group was able to get it for somebody - it would be the first legendary we ever had any possibility of getting (although I did help a guy get Shadowmourne during my brief time off-server).
I don’t care about the staff either and I’m totally with you on the lore thing. It still bothers me that as a Wrath baby non-raider, BC to me is Hellfire Peninsula -> Magister’s Terrace. It bothers the living shit out of me. Blizzard has come a long since then (the plaque in Dalaran is awesome) but now I’m kinda getting worried with 4.2. If Firelands is raid content and not heroics like 4.1 I’m going to be pissed.
Don’t most raiders go through the quests -> regular dungeons -> heroics -> raid path anyway? I wish Blizzard would differentiate the lore from the hardcore content more. The people who like lore will get to see it, and the people who like to raid for the gameplay aspect will be happier because they’re getting people who want to do the raids for gameplay, not for lore.
Well Jragon - come help the BDL get on the ball with raiding! 10 man normals is not insurmountable.
And don’t worry about Kene - for one, I’ve been raiding with my pally Keyne instead; and two, even if I started using Kene more, this looks like a DPS staff and not a healer staff (based on forum comments). But who knows for sure.
As to the other stuff - I’ll just say that there are a LOT of people that like raiding for the gameplay and for the lore. If you took away either one, they would lose these people. I liked the way they handled it in Icecrown - you got to see the Lich King (hell, be the Lich King), but you wanna kill him and steal his shit? Gotta raid.
When did they rescale the animal mobs in Tirisfal? I just started a Forsaken hunter and the duskbats in Deathknell are TINY! The scavengers aren’t much bigger.
I understand what you guys are saying about locking out casuals of some cool content… but at the same time, i have no problem with rewarding raiders for all their hard work. If you are a casual player, you just don’t get access to all the cool stuff (be it epic loots, cool lore or other), thems the breaks.
Thems of usn’s that don’t care about teh mad purple (or orange) lewtz shouldn’t be locked out of lore, though. Blizz could, in a perfect world, provide some kind of effective participation (or at least insight) into the same lore events (or comparable ones) to non-raiders.
/shrug. I lightly raided Wrath; it was fun, but even casual raiding was too time-consuming. Too much of real life was going by the wayside. So, I’m not making that mistake any more. Raiding means scheduling and prioritizing your life around raids. That’s a luxury I can’t afford in good conscience. So, I’m a casual.
And yeah, I’d like to see some of that raid-only world event lore stuff, but I understand that Blizz has (for the sake of expedience and efficiency) provided that stuff only to the harder-core community and called it “good enough”.
Whatever. I still enjoy the time I spend playing it, entirely at my own discretion and schedule, with no obligation to any raidmates. I just won’t get to see the grand sweep of events. Not optimum, but acceptable for now.
I’m not criticizing the game with this point, or even looking for a response, just mulling over how it related to my experience: thinking of the scene in ICC where Varian sympathizes with Saurfang over his son* is the sort of thing I mull over obsessively and it eclipses even Legendary weapons. It just makes me laugh coming from Japanese RPGs. There, it’s totally the opposite. Feeding the plot is the most important and the hardcore gameplay is on the back burner.
*If this was a JRPG, ships would float and sink based on that scene. Entire fansites and epic fanfic would be formed from those 2 minutes.
The odd thing is, were this a single player game (or a really hard solo quest) I’d be all over playing 40 hour periods to farm the materials for lore. I’d perfect my builds and get all the right gear.
It’s not that I dislike grouping, per se, but it’s all the little things that come with it like working around 10 peoples incredibly different schedules and time zones. Trying to find that ONE spot on the venn diagram where they intersect, and then hoping it happens consistently enough and for long enough periods to make real progress.
I know know, “then don’t play an MMO.” But dammit! Warcraft was a single player RTS campaign first and I want to finish the story I started! (I’m only half-joking)
Edit: And that doesn’t change the fact that even in hardcore guilds it’s likely that only the raid leaders and a handful of “elite” caster members will ever see the quest proper, while everyone else in the guild gets the “thanks for playing!” vanity pet they advertised. It’s not even how hardcore you are, but a mix of that, who you know, and what class you rolled.
It’s usually tanks if it’s active at all. Sometimes I see it for both tanks and healers. Only once did I see just healers. I don’t think it’ll ever be dps. Also, CtA for heroic cata and heroic ZG/ZA are separate.
At the risk of “whining about stupid shit in the WoW thread”, I did see someone say that healers were up for the satchel on Horde side on Elune last night. Really do not ever expect to see DPS eligible for it. I have only seen tanks eligible on Alliance side.
Interesting…it looks like 4.1 changed the flight points beginning characters have. My human pally starts out with, at the very least, Stormwind, Goldshire, Eastvale Logging Camp, Ironforge, Kharanos and Gol’Bolar Quarry. Which basically is every flight point in both of the Eastern Kingdoms Alliance starting zones. I have a feeling that if I somehow ended up in Kalimdor, I’d have Dolinaar, Darnassus, and Shadowglen. Probably the three beginner flight points at Azuremyst, also…IIRC, you can taxi through server transitions going from Eastern Kingdoms to Eversong/Ghostlands.
On Cairne/Horde, healers are eligible for the satchel for heroics and/or ZA/ZG fairly often. Not always, but usually if I wait 5-10 minutes they’ll be available for one category or the other. That’s how I’ve been deciding what to queue for, although the chances of getting a PuG who can finish ZA/ZG has been less than 50% so far.
Tanks seem to always be eligible. I have never seen it up for DPS.
I think I’ve gotten four so far, each of which contained 40-80 gold plus a agility flask, a couple of healing potions, or a gem (blue or green level).
