World Of Warcraft Discussion Thread

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

ZF has 7... 9 technically... they mentioned that Uldum would be an open riding sorta zone didn't they?

[Clarste]

Uldum's supposed to be a deserty Egyptian themed place filled with Titan ruins. It's actually an entire zone, and will probably have more than one dungeon in it. Maybe even a raid.

[Last Sinner]

Sphinx mount maybe? XD

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

I can picture it....

I can also see a lot of Obsidian Destroyers...

[Kyral]

I must say human-form Deathwing looks pretty epic. xD

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/.../april/059.jpg

[RWBladewing]

Originally Posted by Kyral

I must say human-form Deathwing looks pretty epic. xD

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/.../april/059.jpg

Raymond Swanland is my favorite fantasy artist ever, I wish they'd have credited him with those pics. He's done a ton of pieces for both Magic the Gathering and the WoW card game and all of them are among the best. I don't think any other artist has ever managed to capture extreme, raw fury so well.

[Last Sinner]

I'm not sure how to feel about the following...I don't think I like it...

Spoiler for Major news on 10 and 25 player lockouts!:

The first of the refinements being made is that we're combining all raid sizes and difficulties into a single lockout. Unlike today, 10- and 25-player modes of a single raid will share the same lockout. You can defeat each raid boss once per week per character. In other words, if you wanted to do both a 10- and 25-person raid in a single week, you’d need to do so on two different characters. Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Cataclysm raids, the same way it works in Icecrown Citadel. Obviously the raid lockout change doesn't apply in pure Icecrown terms though, as this change goes hand-in-hand with a few other changes to raid progression in Cataclysm.

We're designing and balancing raids so that the difficulty between 10- and 25-player versions of each difficulty will be as close as possible to each other as we can achieve. That closeness in difficulty also means that we'll have bosses dropping the same items in 10- and 25-player raids of each difficulty. They'll have the same name and same stats; they are in fact the exact same items. Choosing Heroic mode will drop a scaled-up version of those items. Our hope is that players will be able to associate bosses with their loot tables and even associate specific artwork with specific item names to a far greater extent than today.

Dungeon Difficulty and Rewards
10- and 25-player (normal difficulty) -- Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop the exact same items as each other.
10- and 25-player (Heroic difficulty) -- Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop more powerful versions of the normal-difficulty items.

We of course recognize the logistical realities of organizing larger groups of people, so while the loot quality will not change, 25-player versions will drop a higher quantity of loot per player (items, but also badges, and even gold), making it a more efficient route if you're able to gather the people. The raid designers are designing encounters with these changes in mind, and the class designers are making class changes to help make 10-person groups easier to build. Running 25-player raids will be a bit more lucrative, as should be expected, but if for a week or two you need to do 10s because half the guild is away on vacation, you can do that and not suffer a dramatic loss to your ability to get the items you want.

We recognize that very long raids can be a barrier for some players, but we also want to provide enough encounters for the experience to feel epic. For the first few raid tiers, our plan is to provide multiple smaller raids. Instead of one raid with eleven bosses, you might have a five-boss raid as well as a six-boss raid. All of these bosses would drop the same item level gear, but the dungeons themselves being different environments will provide some variety in location and visual style, as well as separate raid lockouts. Think of how you could raid Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep separately, but you might still want to hit both every week.

We do like how gating bosses over time allows the community to focus on individual encounters instead of just racing to the end boss, so we’re likely to keep that design moving forward. We don't plan to impose attempt limitations again though, except maybe in cases of rare optional bosses (like Algalon). Heroic mode may not be open from day one, but will become available after defeating normal mode perhaps as little as once or twice.

In terms of tuning, we want groups to be able to jump into the first raids pretty quickly, but we also don’t want them to overshadow the Heroic 5-player dungeons and more powerful quest rewards. We’ll be designing the first few raid zones assuming that players have accumulated some blue gear from dungeons, crafted equipment, or quest rewards. In general, we want you and your guild members to participate in and enjoy the level up experience.

We design our raids to be accessible to a broad spectrum of players, so we want groups to be able to make the decision about whether to attempt the normal or Heroic versions of raids pretty quickly. The goal with all of these changes is to make it as much of a choice or effect of circumstance whether you raid as a group of 10 or as a group of 25 as possible. Whether you're a big guild or a small guild the choice won't be dependent on what items drop, but instead on what you enjoy the most.

We realize that with any changes to progression pathways there are going to be questions. We're eagerly awaiting any that we may have left unanswered. To the comments!


Here are some clarifications to a few common questions we're seeing.

Regarding how the raid dungeons will share the same lockout. This means that you cannot do separate instances in the same week. If you defeat an encounter in 10 player normal mode then you are locked to the 10 player mode of that dungeon for that week and can flip between 10 player normal and 10 player heroic on a per boss basis (assuming heroic is available). In this scenario you cannot do the 25 player version. Is this correct?

Correct. There should be no circumstances under which you kill a boss more than once per week on the same character. However, in the same way that you can decide on a per-boss basis whether to try normal vs. hard mode, we might allow you to change between 10 and 25 on a per-encounter basis for additional flexibility. If you started a raid in 25-player mode and then found that you couldn’t get everyone together later in the week, you might be able to downsize the next few bosses to 10-player.

Will legendary items be available through 10 player dungeons? How about special mounts like Invincible?

In some of these specific cases, the answer is that we just don’t know yet. We’re going to have to walk a fine line between dropping the same items in both 10- and 25-player modes, versus still offering something extra for the 25s. If we over-reward the 25s, then players who like 10-player raiding will still feel compelled to find more warm bodies. If we don’t provide any extra incentive for 25s, then some players may stop playing with their friends in order to avoid the extra organization required for a large raid.

Overall, our goal is that you make the decision between whether to raid with 10 players or 25 players based on what you find fun and not because of the reward structure.

For perspective, it might help to look back at how we changed lockouts and hard modes on every single raid tier of Wrath of the Lich King to see what felt right and try to fix problems that arose from previous tiers. After seeing the first tier of Cataclysm raiding, we may decide to adjust our design for the next tier.

How many pieces of loot will drop for 10 and 25 player modes respectively?

When we say “25 should drop more loot,” we’re just sharing a philosophy. You shouldn’t assume that this means that 10-player modes will drop 1 item or that 25-player modes will drop 6 items, or whatever. We haven’t finalized how much loot will drop, but our general goal is that 25s should drop more to help make up for some of the logistical cost.

Will achievements be broken down by 10/25 modes? Will realm first achievements/titles be only for 25s? Will meta-achievement mounts be available for both versions still?

There will just be raid achievements, not 10- vs. 25-player versions in most cases. The achievement won’t care if you complete it in 10s or 25s. If we do meta-achievement mounts, it’s possible we’d still have different colors of mounts, or maybe even different mounts; but for some players that might mean that 25s feels mandatory again, which would be a potential problem. This is the kind of thing we’re going to have to consider carefully, and again, we might try a few different implementations before sticking with something we like.

We’re also not sure about realm first achievements or titles. We don’t want to encourage, say, 25-player focused guilds to run a 10-player raid instead because they think that will get them the ream first title faster. One potential solution is you can earn a realm first title in 10 or 25, but not both. These types of achievements also serve as great content for guild achievements.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

I like it.... gives those that prefer 10's some validity. Personally I prefer 10's to 25's the smaller group feels a little more... personal or something. Either way alt's will be hilariously more geared now. Wonder if Legendaries will be available in 10's - I doubt it.

[Last Sinner]

I can't even remember the last time I did a 10 player run. Maybe January? I'll probably stick to 25s and hope the GDKP numbers rise. Guildies always run their 10 mans well after midnight, which I just can't do since I'm working and have early starts.

[Ithekro]

I'm not sure if that is the most ideal solution to raiding. I can see it, but I don't know is having the lockout be for both 10 and 25 for the same raid is a worthwhile move. Because I think I was in a 25 man rep group in ICC and we had a hell of a time with it. Later in the week I was in 10 man group and it was relatively easy.

Also there are things like VOA where people run 25 man and 10 man during a week for badges or gear. I've not done that yet since the 25 mans usually break up now after two bosses droppped or rather close to despawn time...so I've never run VOA 10, and never killed the original boss more the 3.1 boss. Just the most recent two.

[Last Sinner]

They're either trying to prevent people getting geared/bored too quickly and/or encouraging more alt playing. They were hinting they wanted Cataclysm to be harder overall than Lich King.

[Xacual]

In my opinion it doesn't fix any of the issues with raiding as it stands right now. The hardcore guilds will still run alt groups, they just won't run 10s or alt 10s. Hell now this means that if I want to raid 5 nights a week like I do now(3 days I do 25s and then 1-2 nights depending for 10s) I now have to have an alt or I just won't have a reason to log in and play. Honestly this change makes me less likely to buy cataclysm if I'm going to have even less to do than I do now.

[Tokkan]

http://www.wow.com/2010/04/26/catacl...point-changes/

Arena Points getting renamed to Conquest Points, Badges being replaced with points system (Hero Points for low tier, Valor Points for high tier), personal ratings being mostly removed as a requirement for items.

[Last Sinner]

Those PvP changes I like. The Rated BG system sounds good and should balance things more. But I don't like the PvE changes. It's not like I do much raiding at present (9/12 ICC25 in 3 hours). It's been the case for the last year and a bit that learning to do encounters on 10 was a way to be prepared for 25 and maybe get a bit of gear upgrading in the process. This new system prevents that. First week at 85, major guilds are going to have to decide whether to burn it on 10s to learn what the new raids are like or to risk doing 25. This system will be HEAVILY skewed to the major guilds that will get Beta priority and will know the raids inside out by the time they come live.

[Demongod86]

Not that I play World of Warcrack, but I just saw the death of Arthas trailer thingy...

So let me get this straight...

You play as these badass, uber nigh-demigod characters in war3...none of whom could kill each other completely...

And then take out these uber badass characters you were previously playing as by ganging up on them with a bunch of random nameless adventurers?

Wow. Epic fail, blizz.

It just dropped the villain ball on its most awesome characters (Illidan and Arthas both!--not to mention Malygos)

So now what? Alextrasza helps you whomp Deathwing? And after that?

Blizzard's running out of villains -.-....

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

No that's not it really at all...

The player characters are also "Hero's". True we're not a story notoriety like Arthas or Jaina, but we are getting famous for our deeds. There are quests where its referencing to our past deeds, and little lore snippets where people acknowledge you. True there are millions of people playing WOW and things seem diluted, but in the story of the game the players are Heros too.

[Demongod86]

Originally Posted by Mr Hat and Clogs

rue there are millions of people playing WOW and things seem diluted, but in the story of the game the players are Heros too.

Millions of people playing + heroes.

What do you call a country in which every person is a billionaire? Wealthy?

I call it Zimbabwe

That's the exact problem I have right now. Mooks. Swarming not just a hero, but a character. Now whether or not they were good, bad, or ugly, it feels like getting utterly violated when after being Arthas and Illidan and playing through their fates that their story simply ends with them being farm bosses, swarmed by a couple of named random "heroes" and a bunch of ersatz-hero mooks.

[Ithekro]

Technically, it would be only 10 or 25 heroes (plus NPC+) that kill the old heroes, rather than millions.

It isn't like MC or old Onyxia where it really is just 40 random people killing big things....in Northrend, you <name> are a hero. You are one of the best...the elite. You've done countless tasks of heroism, defeated who knows how many enemies of the world. Became the Champion of the Argent Tournement...the best of the best. It really shows when you've done all quest chains or are exalted with most factions. They treat you like a hero.

And it still takes several of you to take down one WC3 hero. And even then you need help. I'd say that is something is Arthus' favor.

When he can be one manned by some random hero paladin (solo)...then we are on the level of WC3 hero. For now, we are low level heros (relatively speaking) units. A bunch of level 8s verses a level 10 with all bonuses.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

Yeah we aren't a grunt. Demongod, you don't need to look at it to compare what everyone else is doing - they don't matter. The quests and so on only care about you (or the group you are with) not the 10 million other mooks running around - that's the only thing you need to worry about, yourself and you friends. I just worry about my experience in the game and that doesn't involve any other guilds or people outside of my own, as far as I'm concerned they don't exist!

[Last Sinner]

MMO-Champion reported today that apparently Cataclysm Alpha testing hasn't even started yet due to two supposedly large setbacks that people aren't elaborating on. I.e. Don't get your hopes up for Beta to appear soon. I'm still thinking of a Q4 release for live Cata.