Because heaven forbid that players have an easy time in Naxxramus as a learning dungeon? I'm sorry, I don't understand the sentiment behind your comment at all, other than "I did this 2 years ago, you still shouldn't be able to".
If that's the case, you're going to continue to be dissapointed by WoW. Blizzard has shown they can make hard as nails raid bosses - but that they won't be throwing those at you in the very first instance.
Because heaven forbid that players have an easy time in Naxxramus as a learning dungeon? I'm sorry, I don't understand the sentiment behind your comment at all, other than "I did this 2 years ago, you still shouldn't be able to".
If that's the case, you're going to continue to be dissapointed by WoW. Blizzard has shown they can make hard as nails raid bosses - but that they won't be throwing those at you in the very first instance.
Im not saying I wanted Kael'Thas v3 there to block everyone out forever?
There is several areas they need to hit with raid content, especially early level ones in the expansion.
It cant be pathetically easy as in inferior to 5man bosses in terms of complexity, but it shouldn't be hard enough to block new people who start the game from ever learning to raid due to missing out on the level 60 and 70 raiding experience.
But where do they start around this time? TBC was a mess to be fair in the start and it kept raiding as an aloof aspect of the game that johnnycasual couldn't really get into to start with.
It was more of a "im happy it sounds like the dungeon difficulty will expand like AQ did" than stay at a generally static level through-out (akin to Kara I guess) which myself and others thought it might possibly end up as.
I think the way they designed Heroics (and regular 5-mans even) allows for 'entrance level' raiding that is still of a higher level than in WoW 1.0 (say, Molten Core style tactics were introduced in 5-man). TBC made a mistake by not having any 25-man raiding available without considerable attunements and organizational headaches. But in itself, I think TK and SSC were quite allright. I expect the last two bosses of Naxx will still be a tier higher (difficulty-wise) than the rest of the dungeon, a bit like Vashj and Kael. So, instead of just Karazhan and heroics, fresh level 80s will now have (presumably) 1 or 2 10-mans, heroics, and a very large 25-man instance.
I have never really done Naxxramas 1.0, but is there an obvious candidate for the "Loot Reaver" status? That is, a surprisingly easy boss early in an instance that attracts guilds that don't normally raid?
I have never really done Naxxramas 1.0, but is there an obvious candidate for the "Loot Reaver" status? That is, a surprisingly easy boss early in an instance that attracts guilds that don't normally raid?
I'd go for Instructor Razuvious. All you needed were 2 priests. Grobbulus was easier, but unreachable for MC/BWL raiders.
Rogues, Hunters, Feral Druids, Enhancement Shamans and DPS Warrior might all be physical DPS, but the latter two want Agility far less than the first three do.
Not to be a pessimist, but do you even think Blizzard knows this? Just look at Dps warrior t6, to be honest I'd love a trend to more offset pieces so leather is still a possibility when Blizz as usual messes up mail/plate itemization.
Well, there's three basic solutions I see that are likely to happen to that issue.
The first would be to decrease the amount of different tokens to two. Less chance of not getting your token, but more competition on each individual token. The second would be to increase the amount of different tokens to five. More chance of not getting your token, less competition on each individual token. The third option would be scrapping the idea of class specific sets, and instead going for role specific sets (With roles being things like tanking, healing, physical DPS and caster DPS). Downside here being that it makes each class lose some of it's uniqueness as you wouldn't be able to tell them apart by the looks of their armor, and of course the fact that even within a role there's variations on the stats preferred (Rogues, Hunters, Feral Druids, Enhancement Shamans and DPS Warrior might all be physical DPS, but the latter two want Agility far less than the first three do).
For the "role tokens", I don't see why token X can't be turned in for Helm A, B, or C, where A, B, and C have completely different looks/styles/stats to fit their respective classes, if they wanted to go that route.
Not to be a pessimist, but do you even think Blizzard knows this? Just look at Dps warrior t6, to be honest I'd love a trend to more offset pieces so leather is still a possibility when Blizz as usual messes up mail/plate itemization.
It seems like they do know now. A quick glance at the original 5 pieces of enhance t6 implies that they had no fucking clue, but the 3 new pieces that drop in sunwell are all best in slot, hands down. Now why they can't spend 15 minutes converting all the mp/5 on the old pieces into crit or something is beyond me, (not to mention giving it the only none-scaling 4-piece bonus in the tier) but the new stuff makes me optimistic about future gear for the spec.
To be honest , pre TBC raiding is pretty much on large dungeon,epic scaled 40 man battles in comparision with TBC. You have like 10 bosses in MC, 8 in BWL,8 in AQ and 15 in Naxx. Now we have 6 in SSC,4 in TK,9 in BT,5 in Hyjal and 6 in sunwell.
When you zone in to MC you are greeted by 2 large looming molten giants, when you zone into BWL you would see a room full of eggs with a large dragon,when you zone into AQ you see giant colossus,when you zone into Naxx, while you see nothing ,the design of the instance look cool.
Now when you zone into SSC you see a poorly designed lift, in TK you see 2 regular bloodlelfs, in BT you see like 2 small surgers?, in SWP you see a robot. Only Hyjal gives me the same epic feel as the pre TBC dungeons.
The boss are also simple enough to wane you into raiding and start learning more complex fights. A luxury you dont get in TBC.
The view on the balcony once you get up the lift in SSC is quite a view I'd say.
Once you get into Al'ar's room in TK, you love the sight of the phoenix.
Now BT is a little bit of sneak in too, but seeing Supremus for the first time is pretty cool too.
And Mount Hyjal ofcourse impresses with it's WC3 flashback or the "participating in lore" but once you start doing the waves....
In TBC you should take the tips you learned from 5mans, heroics and karazhan..
One DOES wonder why the Sunblade doesn't simply use that Orb to invade the SSO base since it leads directly into their base, although the use of the Orb itself is not out of place, even if the actual destination feels a little wrong.
Remember that story wise the building you get ported too was not so long ago another building belonging to Kael's forces. Its not like it just magically takes you to a major city or the boat, you do actually go to one of Kael's old buildings so it makes sense as far as I'm concerned. As to why they don't invade through it, piling a lot of Blood Elfs into a tiny hut with two giant robot killing machines, umpteen guards and hundreds of player mercanaries doesn't seem the smartest idea to me. They'd be lining up to be slaughtered. Especially if you think that lore wise there is probably a small disorientation factor after the teleport.
Edit:
On nax v2 I'm kind of hoping that they'll scale the wings up appropriately. Like:
1 wing is incredibly easy (and maybe drops blues or something to compensate) and is focused on teaching raiders the REAL basics. Aggro management, add management, not standing in the fire, etc...
The sort of thing that the hardcore will 1 shot every boss in the wing, whereas the very casual will maybe clear it in a night or two.
2nd wing is a step up, maybe start dropping epics. Start introducing more damage and hp to raid bosses, with enrage timers and the like.
3rd wing could be what you'd describe as a level of raid entry that we have in TBC, gruul and HKM difficulty bosses.
4th wing you'd start to introduce more advanced tactics and raid requirements. These bosses would be relatively hard but rewarding.
Then you have Sapphiron and the Lich (be it Kel'thuzad or another one, hoping for the latter) who could be kind of optional super hard bosses. These are what the Hardcore would go for and down in a few hours each, but for the starting level casual guilds these would be akin to killing Ragnaros after a month of wipes. These would also be harder than the first few bosses in the next dungeon.
Also I hope the lock would be removed on the Frost Wyrm's lair. No reason to make hardcore raiders clear what is a massive instance of easy bosses just for the last few. Maybe just require the hardest wing to be cleared to unlock it.
You create a few things there:
-Easy learning encounters for absolute raiding newbies.
-Casual wing for raid guilds with tight schedules.
-Tough wing teaching raiders more advanced raiding concepts (which to be fair current raiders have learnt over the course of 3 years and (off the top of my head) 16 raid sized dungeons.
- Last wing is the hardest and continues to test these raiders. Maybe includes gear checks to ensure that new raiders have sufficently practiced/farmed the previous bosses.
- Frost Wyrm's Lair provides a real (and possibly optional) challenge for them.
- For experienced raiders who may be bored and don't want to return to nax more than a couple of times for nostalgias sake, you create what is effectively another mini raid with 2 bosses (sapphiron and lich) that they can hit up on an off night or weekend for fun and those few choice loots that are rare and still wanted. You do this without having to make new content too.
Last edited by Vaccine : 04/18/08 at 6:27 AM.
Originally Posted by Shadowed
The best part is, not only were you late in linking it, that's an April fools topic from 6 months ago.
Alternately, they might have one "easy-ish" wing, along with the first boss of each area being relatively easy. (Patchwerk serving as a gear check, still, but not as strict of one.) I think that design worked fine for Naxx 1.0 - anyone who could really get started in there seemed fine with that bit of bouncing around. If nothing else, it encourages you to have a look-see at each of the themes, even at the start of the instance.
I have never really done Naxxramas 1.0, but is there an obvious candidate for the "Loot Reaver" status? That is, a surprisingly easy boss early in an instance that attracts guilds that don't normally raid?
I think a minor correction is in order here. The original intent of bosses like Void Reaver wasn't to serve as " a surprisingly easy boss early in an instance that attracts guilds that don't normally raid"- quite the contrary. Until the attunements were lifted, "Easy" bosses like Al'ar and Rage Winterchill were meant as "reward" bosses for guilds that completed the arduous attunement process for all of their raiders. The generally accepted idea that i've read around here is that since getting 25 players attuned was normally such an ordeal, there was normally a "knockover" boss that would be completely trivialized by properly geared/skilled players. It was only after the attunements were lifted that these encounters became targets that "attracted" guildes that normally didn't (couldn't??) raid.
The other obvious, well documented example of a "reward boss" was the chess encounter in kara.
So, in a round-a-bout way, Yes- I do think there will be "loot reaver" style "reward" encounters in WotLK raid instances, but I don't think that they will be accessible to players as soon as they ding 80.
I do, however, think that naxx will operate completely differently than naxx 1.0. My guess it that naxx itself will be a quest hub, similar to HFP/CFR/auch, and that each wing will be a completely seperate instance. I also wouldn't be shocked if we saw one 5m, two 10m, and two 25m instances, with attunement chains connecting them. And finally, I'll go out on a limb and guess that the "new" lore of naxx will focus on the defection of death knights, and that death knight character progression (mount quest? epic runeblade quest? etc?) will be tightly woven into the instances.
I do, however, think that naxx will operate completely differently than naxx 1.0. My guess it that naxx itself will be a quest hub, similar to HFP/CFR/auch, and that each wing will be a completely seperate instance. I also wouldn't be shocked if we saw one 5m, two 10m, and two 25m instances, with attunement chains connecting them. And finally, I'll go out on a limb and guess that the "new" lore of naxx will focus on the defection of death knights, and that death knight character progression (mount quest? epic runeblade quest? etc?) will be tightly woven into the instances.
Blizzard is not going to link core character progression to a raid instance. The only things they have ever done that come remotely close to that are the priest and hunter epic quests, which were considered a mistake.
The bow and staff weren't core progression, there were alternatives to them at the same content level. Closer would be the AQ20 class books. I envision a meeting somewhere in the design phase "FFS, thirty levels of epic gear aren't enough to get everyone into our best content, what else can we try to get people to give it a go?"
Blizzard is not going to link core character progression to a raid instance. The only things they have ever done that come remotely close to that are the priest and hunter epic quests, which were considered a mistake.
I don't see tying the primary (read "mandatory") character development of DK to any instance. The fluff, maybe to 5-man, yes (the way Warlock mounts were tied to 5-mans). But the idea of placing the lore of the Death Knight at the center of WotLK, it's base progression (until you go headbutt against Arthas and the lesser obstacles like Kalecgos), sure.
On a tangent, and to fuel and rumor mill, and to speak about the original "blizzcon" topic...
So, Rumor Mill: from a local Blizzard employee (and an ex-MT of my last EQ raiding guild), it sounds like the Blizzard Invitational (which is located about 150m from my flat) will have a major announce, which is offically completely unknown, and unofficially the unveiling of Blizzard's next MMO's focus (code name "Chimera" - which the aforementioned employee can neither confirm or deny, blablabla).
So, Rumor Mill: from a local Blizzard employee (and an ex-MT of my last EQ raiding guild), it sounds like the Blizzard Invitational (which is located about 150m from my flat) will have a major announce, which is offically completely unknown, and unofficially the unveiling of Blizzard's next MMO's focus (code name "Chimera" - which the aforementioned employee can neither confirm or deny, blablabla).
the chance of blizzard announcing there next gen mmo while wotlk is still in development is well... next to 0.
the chance of blizzard announcing there next gen mmo while wotlk is still in development is well... next to 0.
Why? They announced WoW before Warcraft III even came out, two games from the same franchise (which is a lot more important than genre). Blizzard is going to be trying very hard in the coming months to keep the spotlight on themselves and away from their competition (Warhammer), and what better way to do that than to make a series of "big announcements" every few months. I honestly would not be surprised to see a Starcraft or Diablo MMO in the works and get a confirmation of that sometime soon, its excellent press coverage.
the chance of blizzard announcing there next gen mmo while wotlk is still in development is well... next to 0.
Wrath of the Lich King is coming out this year. Announcing Diablo 3, err I mean, this "Chimera" MMO wouldn't hurt WotLK in any way, because, as I said many many pages back, this is Blizzard we're talking about. :P We wouldn't see said codename MMORPG until at least 2011.
Good points on Loot Reaver as a reward boss for getting people attuned.
I am not so sure Naxxramas will be fundementally different from the original Naxx. If it is significantly different, then why did they not just design a new instance? As it was their express wish to re-use an instance that cost a lot of development time but wasn't visited by a lot of people, I suspect it will really be very similar, but with re-tuned numbers (I've never done Four Hoursemen, would that work with current 25-man setups?).
I wouldn't even be surprised if it still had the "wartorn scraps" method of collecting tier items. But I do wonder what will happen to Light's Hope Chapel and all those Scourge Invasion era NPCs there. Is the new Naxx a lore retcon? I guess not, since original Naxx was one of the reasons Fordring rebuilt his Order, right? Well, I guess it's quite useless to speculate on what happens to Azeroth, but in this case it is an interesting issue, since Blizzard has never removed an instance and its loot from the game.
Fairly certain it is. I think it will be too unwieldy to deal with it otherwise. You might see Light's Hope reverted, and all the associated NPC's moved to Northrend.
I wouldn't even be surprised if it still had the "wartorn scraps" method of collecting tier items. But I do wonder what will happen to Light's Hope Chapel and all those Scourge Invasion era NPCs there. Is the new Naxx a lore retcon? I guess not, since original Naxx was one of the reasons Fordring rebuilt his Order, right? Well, I guess it's quite useless to speculate on what happens to Azeroth, but in this case it is an interesting issue, since Blizzard has never removed an instance and its loot from the game.
It's being moved:
Originally Posted by Vaneras
Naxxramas is planned to be somewhat of an entry level raid dungeon in Wrath of the Lich King and not the hardest dungeon in the game, so things will be a little different from what they are now. One difference is that it will float its way back home to Northrend and will therefore no longer be found in the Eastern Kingdoms.
Well, I guess it's quite useless to speculate on what happens to Azeroth, but in this case it is an interesting issue, since Blizzard has never removed an instance and its loot from the game.
While it's true that they've never removed an entire instance before, they did remove old Kazzak/Kruul. Since they dropped [Eskhandar's Pelt] from the Spirit of Eskhandar set, it's actually a more meaningful change than it first seems. It shows that they don't have any qualms about destroying the integrity of obsolete gear progression, even when it costs them nothing to maintain that integrity. I think it's a shame really, since the outright removal of content seems to me at least to be almost antithetical to what I want from an MMORPG, i.e. to experience content.
Wrath of the Lich King is coming out this year. Announcing Diablo 3, err I mean, this "Chimera" MMO wouldn't hurt WotLK in any way, because, as I said many many pages back, this is Blizzard we're talking about. :P We wouldn't see said codename MMORPG until at least 2011.
Straight from World of raids:
Originally Posted by World of Raids
Here is what *could* be one of the biggest news to come for Blizzard fans, BlizzPlanet (known to have a tight relationship with Blizzard) and Diablo3.com are both displaying a countdown with twelve days left on it, so the *fateful day* is May 1st.
What's going to happen in 12 days? There are several theories, one of them being the acquisition of Diablo3.com domain name by Blizzard, but we will know for sure on May 1st. Knowing BlizzPlanet, we seriously doubt it's an hoax.
While it's true that they've never removed an entire instance before, they did remove old Kazzak/Kruul. Since they dropped [Eskhandar's Pelt] from the Spirit of Eskhandar set, it's actually a more meaningful change than it first seems. It shows that they don't have any qualms about destroying the integrity of obsolete gear progression, even when it costs them nothing to maintain that integrity. I think it's a shame really, since the outright removal of content seems to me at least to be almost antithetical to what I want from an MMORPG, i.e. to experience content.
Loot doesn't equal content.
People are complaining about this right and left on the WoW forum, how they want to "experience Naxx in its old time glory", even though it's a whole different ballgame at 70 than it was at 60, and will be drastically further trivialized by level 80. If anything, the real "content"(i.e. the experience of fighting the boss) is better preserved by being retuned for the current level range.
Is this just code for "I eventually wanted to be able to solo this boss"?
04/17/08, 1:11 PM
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