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Solstice · 05/07/07, 12:21 AM

I see alot of people comparing Naxx to SSC/TK and drawing conclusions as to whether 25 or 40 man content is better. This isn't a reasonable comparison in my opinion. Naxxramas was the absolute pinnacle of the devs achievements, the encounters blew all previously implemented raid content out of the water.

I suppose there's several reasons for this; Naxx was the last 40man instance they were going to implement and there was a long gap between it's release and that of it's predecessor (TAQ). As such they must've had a lot of interesting and creative ideas saved up, and _alot_ of time to design and tune them.

With tBC came a huge amount of new content and it's my belief that they simply didn't have the time or the manpower to make the new raid instances as polished as Naxx was, particularly considering that the vast majority of the player base wouldn't progress past Karazhan anytime soon. Although in fact, Karazhan is a really well designed instance - despite being only 10 man it definitely had the "WoW" factor for me. The encounters are original and creative and personally I don't see how the smaller scale of things really makes it feel any less epic. First time I saw the opera event, for example, I was pretty awestruck.

I haven't seen much of TK yet but as for SSC, it's not even close to being as well designed as Naxx was. Neither the encounters nor the trash seem very original, the backgrounds and scenery are bland, the loot... bleh. Point i'm making is that you can't compare Naxx to SSC and conclude that 40 man raid content was better.. A better comparison would be MC to SSC, and lets face it, MC was unbelievably dull.

Speaking as a CL, officer, RL and now GM, I prefer 25 man raids to 40 man raids simply because logistically they're much easy to organise. Pre tBC I felt that guilds were too large - it was bloody hard work trying to manage a guild of 80+ members even with allocated class leads etc. It was also alot more impersonal, and the playerbase would change alot more frequently leading to slower progression etc.

I don't feel that smaller scale encounters have to be any less "epic", in fact if anything they are potentially moreso. By reducing raid size you're reducing the need for coordination and placing more emphasis on individual skill/execution. For me that's a huge step in the right direction as it's incredibly frustrating repeatedly failing encounters when everyone has the necessary skill and understanding but the raid as a whole lacks the coordination to pull it off.

05/07/07, 12:21 AM	#68 (permalink)
Solstice Piston Honda Solstice Night Elf Druid <iddqd> Sylvanas (EU)	I see alot of people comparing Naxx to SSC/TK and drawing conclusions as to whether 25 or 40 man content is better. This isn't a reasonable comparison in my opinion. Naxxramas was the absolute pinnacle of the devs achievements, the encounters blew all previously implemented raid content out of the water. I suppose there's several reasons for this; Naxx was the last 40man instance they were going to implement and there was a long gap between it's release and that of it's predecessor (TAQ). As such they must've had a lot of interesting and creative ideas saved up, and _alot_ of time to design and tune them. With tBC came a huge amount of new content and it's my belief that they simply didn't have the time or the manpower to make the new raid instances as polished as Naxx was, particularly considering that the vast majority of the player base wouldn't progress past Karazhan anytime soon. Although in fact, Karazhan is a really well designed instance - despite being only 10 man it definitely had the "WoW" factor for me. The encounters are original and creative and personally I don't see how the smaller scale of things really makes it feel any less epic. First time I saw the opera event, for example, I was pretty awestruck. I haven't seen much of TK yet but as for SSC, it's not even close to being as well designed as Naxx was. Neither the encounters nor the trash seem very original, the backgrounds and scenery are bland, the loot... bleh. Point i'm making is that you can't compare Naxx to SSC and conclude that 40 man raid content was better.. A better comparison would be MC to SSC, and lets face it, MC was unbelievably dull. Speaking as a CL, officer, RL and now GM, I prefer 25 man raids to 40 man raids simply because logistically they're much easy to organise. Pre tBC I felt that guilds were too large - it was bloody hard work trying to manage a guild of 80+ members even with allocated class leads etc. It was also alot more impersonal, and the playerbase would change alot more frequently leading to slower progression etc. I don't feel that smaller scale encounters have to be any less "epic", in fact if anything they are potentially moreso. By reducing raid size you're reducing the need for coordination and placing more emphasis on individual skill/execution. For me that's a huge step in the right direction as it's incredibly frustrating repeatedly failing encounters when everyone has the necessary skill and understanding but the raid as a whole lacks the coordination to pull it off.