Enchanting uses them for Surefooted.

Well that's the thing right. I think blizzard believed that those three professions were already in high demand and that you were already able to make money with those.

I think it's a serious comment on the level of polish and artwork direction that 90% of players probably could view a relatively obscure screenshot from somewhere in WoW and immediately know what zone they were looking at.

If they were trying to do that, it was a miserable failure. Even with pre-nerf Elemental Plateu the Nethers were never close to a limiting factor for us, and when we first started hitting SSC in early march the only casters without Spellstrike-quality items were the ones still broke from FSW + Epic flying mount + 100g/hour raiding.

The idea behind nethers isn't necessarily that you go out into heroics and farm them for cash. The idea is that, as a reasonably established and progressed level 70 you will be doing heroics for various reasons (even more so with daily heroics) and acquire a couple of nethers as a matter of course. However, they're still prestigious enough, as well as being BoP, that they allow gear-related tradeskills to charge for their production.
And, as mentioned, tradeskills that focus on replaceable items (JC, enchanting, alchemy) were already making cash and therefore didn't need the incentive. That's sort of a half-truth/half-lie: those three professions generally work on tips, much like tailors et al were doing before, it's just that the replaceable nature of their outputs means they get a lot more business. A spellcaster needs one spellstrike set, ever, so each spellstrike set must be expensive for it to be a worthwhile business. An enchanter gets a constant stream of business, as people continue to progress and replace their gear, so they can work by the 5g per enchant or tips system and make a similar amount of cash.


Anyways, off of that tangent: blizzard has shown that, despite being the most popular and arguably the best game developer around, they focus an astounding amonut of effort not on creating new things for their game but on improving what's already there because they realize that it's not perfect (at best). I noticed very early on, back when I was playing starcraft, that the patches for starcraft came out regularly and contained mostly balance changes. It wasn't until years later that I noticed no other game really did that: they released like three patches, mostly addressing normal software concerns like stability and security. And this has carried through to WoW very much. They don't just make great games from the get-go, they make them even better games as time goes on. And very often these are huge overhauls too, not just a few points of threat on devestate.
Hold on, imma go reminisce about before there were spell damage, spell crit, or spell hit stats on gear. <3 necromancer leggings...

If I were to make a list of flawed things that were earnestly addressed by Blizz versus those that weren't, I'm sure the list of things that were done well would be much longer.

- Classes are relatively well-balanced and many strides have been made towards making most specs viable in some form for both PvE and PvP. This is a huge balancing act which Blizzard has done well with.

- The Outlands solo content was obviously designed in a much more meticulous manner than the Azeroth content. There are few unreasonably hard or frustrating quests (Rod of Hecular) and you're lead in a straightforward manner from one point to the next. I suppose this isn't without drawbacks, though, as the content tends to be very linear and I kind of miss jumping all over several zones at any given level range like I did in Azeroth. I would've found it cool if Blizzard made you go back and forth between zones more (by expanding their level range to overlap better), but whatever.

- 5-man content is fun and rewarding. Heroics are a huge success and give a legitimate means of non-raid PvE progression. Even despite the grumbling over Tier 5-quality BoJ rewards, no one really minds that anymore, I think, especially since Kara and ZA give BoJs now. This measure was probably implemented to match the mudflation from the arena.

- Despite the "welfare epics" controversy, the Arena system is a huge success and has drawn in all kinds of players with the promise of... welfare epics. I do believe that Blizzard could be a bit more careful on rewarding losing efforts, but it really isn't breaking the game except for those who want to be able to roll people in PvP using mainly PvE gear, which few believe is a legitimate desire.

- The honor system has been rewarding and kept people engaged with new rewards every season. Even though there's only one new BG (there's really no excuse not to have lots of them since the battlegroup system was formed), they all enjoy some degree of popularity. Anti-afking measures were implemented, and now the revamped AV... which will probably be rerevamped due to the issues some battlegroups are having..

- Faction grinds are done much, much better in TBC than vanilla WoW. As in, they're actually tractable.

- Karazhan is a blast, and Gruul's Lair is pretty fun as well. People say that Gruul/Mag are too hard as introductory 25-mans, and maybe that's so.. I don't know. But maybe Onyxia and MC were just too easy. People complain that the raid instance quality is below par, and maybe that's true in comparison to Naxx, but.... that's comparing everything to the very best of vanilla WoW. Not that people shouldn't expect Naxx-quality raids, but... it's a hell of a lot better than MC/BWL, right?

That's pretty much everything in TBC. The only issues I can think of that really persist are:

- No solution to the "respec problem". It's been partially inflated away by TBC, but it's still there and Blizzard's inability to address the issue is.. odd.

- No new realms since TBC release. The measures taken to fix dying or imbalanced realms have been rather weak. Blizzard is probably afraid of doing anything that would require acknowledging that their NA playerbase is probably shrinking.

There wasn't even Dire Maul loot in the good ole' days...T1 loot hadn't been re-vamped and was in some cases only a marginal upgrade over blues/greens themselves. Most UBRS/Strat gear was loaded with SPI for casters.

Again, back to what Blizzard has done well....they seem to have heard this message and supposedly the new Naxx is an introductory raid instance more like starting in MC than starting in well Naxx. Hopefully, the good guilds can blow throw it and move on to the "meat" and new guilds can use it to build into something more capable.

While I understand where your coming from, I wouldnt appreciate it if every expansion had the token 'Easy as hell, just assist and kill' raid instance. A hell of alot of customers have been playing this game for years and want more dynamic, innovative raid designs. This doesnt necessarily mean they should be hard, but surely need to be exciting enough to keep our interest. Imagine if for the next expansion, blizzard said - 'The first raid instance will be MC level difficulty' and thats where their development went - I for one wouldnt be impressed.

I for one would pay that price to keep the game healthy and right now I don't think the raid game is very healthy.

That said it doesn't have to be boring, just has to ramp up in a consistent way that introduces challenges somewhat logically. Consider having say a 6 boss instance you might have something like this for an order with say 1-2 non-respawning trash packs before each boss.

1. Very straight forward near tank and spank fight. Something like Magmadar. Heck I wish there was one like this now just for pure DPS epeening from time to time. Make it a mild gear check, do you have at least iLvl 115 Blues in TBC terms. Bear Boss from ZA would be another possible model. Minimal movement required, high mobility fights are tough on people learning to raid. Coordinating healing and just getting going the first time.

2. Tank and spank boss with some adds. Lucifron or High King. A "clearn" pull and good start are keys here.

3. Something different, first "cock block" of the instance. How about a Razorgore, Rajjaxx style fight with swarms of adds coming before the boss. Requires people to think independantly do the right thing. First fight with two distinct phases (adds then boss). Movement/independant decision-making.

4. A gear check, movement check fight like Gruul, maybe Onyxia, possibly after a "gauntlet" style trash run with very fast respawning non-elite trash. Gear check, AoE check.

5. Something different possibly unpredictable. A Shade of Aran with slightly randomized abilities, Chromaggus (random abilities and requirements to have use terrain, good positining etc). Can people move outside their boxes?

6. A more complex possibly multi-phase fight. Maybe a Prince Malchezaar, Nefarian, Twin Emps, etc. A bit of everything.

I don't think this would be boring but it would be a more consistent ramp-up for new people. I don't think it becomes a chore with minimal non-respawning trash for experienced people. It is also important that raiders can leave the instance behind reasonably easily.

Something like this would help people learn the fights, learn to raid in a more obvious way. In the long run it would be good for the higher end guilds as you would have a large pool of people that were "raiders" and had some PvE gear from doing the new MC to recruit.

TBC actually got it very nearly right. Karazhan's difficulty level is pitched just right IMO. And yes, you do have the token tank and spank boss (Attumen) - which is an absolute necessity given that there are new people entering the game all the time who need to be taught how to raid. The other encounters in Karazhan teach everything you need, from add control / endurance (Moroes) to decursing (Maiden) to interrupting (Aran), to add zergs (Illhoof), etc. etc.

If Karazhan had been 25-man, we would still be raving today about how utterly perfect the TBC raid progression was. Trouble is... it wasn't. Socially, a 10-man group isn't a "small raid", it's a "large party".

I'm very very optimistic for WoTLK, based largely on the things they got so right in TBC: a fully-fleshed 10-man progression, daily quests, heroic modes for dungeons, better-integrated crafting, and so on. The only thing they need to correct with regard to raiding is that the 10-man progression needs to parallel the 25-man progression, not be a required entry point. Pretty much everything else flows from that - if you set 10- and 25-man raids as parallel progression, that necessarily implies an introductory 25-man raid. With the implementation of ZA they've already shown that the lesson has been learned.

The only other issue Blizzard will need to think hard about for WoTLK is arena PvP progression. I can't imagine how hard it is for a newly-minted level 70 to get into the arena system these days. Unlike PvE progression, PvP progression destroys the lower rungs of the ladder on a constant basis. A newly-dinged 70 in quest blues can walk into Karazhan and have just as rewarding an experience as the rest of us did six months or more ago. The same newly dinged 70 in quest blues will lose every single arena match without exception. The "funnel" of S1 gear via the honor system is a stopgap, but the fact that PvP seasons and PvE tiers behave so differently in progression terms is something that will require some quite creative thinking to make sure it stays fun for everyone.

I don't believe the Kara to Gruul jump has anything to do with the raid game being unhealthy. Much of the overall problem with the raid game has to do with pvp, arena and the new resilience stat. In Vanilla WoW a lot of people were raiding so they could "pwn" in pvp because getting to HWL was essentially impossible for 99% of the WoW population. And while everyone is the exception when you speak to them first hand people in general are perfectly content out gearing their opponents and then chalking it up to skill.

There is a minority of people who actually raid for content and I'm sure everyone can name people in their guild who disappear on progression nights but turn up for farm content like clockwork. They aren't really interested in new encounters so much as the loot tables.

Now that raiding gear is not only less than ideal for pvp but down right sub par comparitavily; and it takes longer to get without a balanced success threshold, a great deal of the people who were filling out raid forces just opt to arena and pvp because it's far easier to gear up that way.

It's not that Gruul was too hard it's that arena/pvp is much easier if you're just in it for the gear and not for your personal rating/competition.

I think it's a little more complex than that. Those people don't show up on progression nights because they are deriving their enjoyment from killing bosses, rather than the process of overcoming a boss with the group. It's the single player mentality - they may be part of the group in game mechanics, but mentally they're not playing a team sport; they're jumping through the hoops necessary to get to the next level.

Sorry, derail. On topic: the LFG system is finally pretty good.

Actually it was loaded with SPI for melee as well. Blizzard's loot philosophy in 1.0 was something like: High end players with top end gear wouldn't necessarily be much more powerful than any regular Joe, instead they will just look more awesome.

So while a green DPS item might have +7Str/+7agi or +7str/+7sta. A Blue DPS item may have +6str/+6agi/+4sta, a purple DPS item might have +7str/+6agi/+4sta/+4spi.

I think it was primarily a Rob Pardo (enoyls) idea, which is why sometime after release it started to fade out as once the game released Pardo was more hands off, and Chilton(kalgan)/Kaplan(tigole) maintained it (if I'm not mistaken). I remember something about a comment at Blizzcon, where, if you liked WoW in 1.0, that was Pardo. If you liked it afterwards, that was Chilton.

The problem of course was at release, 40 people for MC raiding was hard to coordinate. 40 people hardcore enough to raid MC at least. You pretty much needed to have been in beta to have any idea what you were doing by then. Not many people got the unimproved t1/t2 that dropped in MC. Those who did kicked up a stink about how it wasn't much better. It got supremely buffed for the most part, such that raid purples were incredibly stronger than dungeon blues, creating a massive rift between the two play styles.

The ironic thing is we're moving back towards that model. with 5-man gear (heroic badges) being as strong as raid gear. Despite the fact that, in my opinion, the difficulty difference between 1.0 Stratholme with the timed gauntlet (if you didn't clear out the ziggurats fast enough, the previous ones would be repaired) and Molten Core was probably similar to the difficulty difference between current heroics (and thus access to badge loot) and current t5 content.

I assume that the reason this is sustainable is because of the heroic system. The old stratholme had to be dumbed down because new level 60s couldn't complete it. The level of difficulty was reinstated somewhat with the 45 minute run, but it wasn't quite the same.

Because heroics are still somewhat difficult to complete in a PuG, (the last 4 I have tried have dissolved before reaching the last boss) there is not a large outcry because the gear rivals raid gear. Because the instances can be completed on normal settings, there is not a large outcry from new/undergeared players because the instances are too hard. Plus you're comparing purple to purple, which has a different psychological impact than comparing a blue to a purple and finding out your purple is equivalent except has 5 more spirit. There is another psychological impact of having "wasted points". If you know the itemization formula, and you know that you have so many stat points for allocation, and 5 of them are spent on spirit, when they could be spent on something that makes you stronger, it makes you frustrated. Even if the whole point of the design is to just be marginally helpful (increases health regen between fights which means less eating time or not requiring heals between fights) without increasing player power to not create a massive gear gap.

Anyways, that was a long digression. Back on topic:

I think the absolute best thing that Blizzard has done for WoW is allowed it to cater to so many different styles of play.

First you have the levelling game. This is the most common play style amongst all players I'm sure. Everyone levels. Not everyone hits 70. It is fun, easy and interesting the first time around. There are so many quests you can level up multiple characters and still experience new content all the way.

Then you have the 5-man instances. Fun and short, without much requirement of skill to complete. Unless you're fairly hardcore in the general sense, you will always have items to earn from these. Otherwise you can go to...

Heroic 5-man instances. Fun and challenging, with a fairly high barrier to entry. If I would change one thing about them, I would have the quality of the loot higher than blue 115s. The only issue I find with heroics is the fact that the drops are mirrored in level 70 normals, which are easier. (IE: Normal SH drops the same as Heroic SH except +badges and end boss)

10-man raiding. Small player commitment means that it's fairly easy to organize, and Kara PuGs are starting up. Players with less time, or a less cohesive raid schedule can fit 10mans in anywhere.

PuG Battlegrounds. If you enjoy PvP you can do this and be rewarded with an epic every few days of semi-casual play.

Arenas. If you're really into PvP and can organize a team, you can do this for a more powerful epic for a few weeks of casual play.

Daily Questing: There are a number of reputations you can earn faction with if you're more into a solo experience. You can get some half decent blue 115 gear from Ogri'la quests (summons/shard purchases/dragons) you can get some fancy looking mounts from Skyguard/Netherwing, and earn money.

25-man raiding. If you've got a lot of time you can spend adhering to a rigid schedule you can do well in 25 man raids. I would say that this is the least common bracket, but my personal favorite.

The thing is, I know people who play in each of these different sub-games. My wife for instance, plays with me, and we're just leveling. We've been playing for months, but she doesn't play enough to get to level 70, so the game is just leveling in azeroth and exploring, and it's fun.

My brother has levelled up to outlands and is in a guild who only really gets together and does 5-mans. That is his endgame. He doesn't play enough to exhaust the 5-man content so he enjoys it.

My Dad has a schedule that prevents him from adhering to a normal 25 man raid schedule, but he enjoys raiding, so he is in a guild who occasionally invites him to do Karazhan.

There are players in our guild who don't raid, but spend most of their time just doing battlegrounds.

And there are people who completely blow be away in arenas, because that is their focus.

Personally, I've fought Illidan and that makes me happy.

I mean, Isn't the revamped Naxx supposed to be the first WolTK Raid? That's a pretty big step up from MC, Kara, Gruul and Mag in terms of an "introductory" raiding instance.

It's really not too bad I think. I have recently leveled mage as a PvP alt. I crafted up some imbued netherweave, and had various green pieces. I've played BGs and got together with another alt and done some arenas.

The results were something like: In BGs if I pay attention and play hard, I'm normally 3rd-ish in damage dealt, though I do die somewhat often, but that's more of a side effect of learning to be squishy and not have an immunity bubble.

In Arenas it is self-regulating. We dropped down to about 1400 in our first few games, but then we won some and settled around 1450 eventually. Arenas are great that way because once you've sort of find your real "level" you settle there and are matched with people that actually give you a competitive fight. They're fun.

The only time it would be very frustrating for a new level 70 is if you were very hardcore and progression/gear oriented. And you wanted to get full s1 and accessories plus get into 2000+ bracket for full s3 ASAP and hate playing in BGs. I find playing in BGs particularly enjoyable. Except AV on AV weekend when it's mostly a 12 minute rush. But I think I can only enjoy that because I've already got one geared out character, and I'm not particularly striving for any piece of armor/item on my mage, and instead am just playing to kill people.

One of the most enjoyable things about WoW, for me, has been the ability to play a completely different role in a raid encounter by simply rearranging talent points. I played a warrior pre-TBC and one of the coolest things had to be going from main tanking Sapphiron to being able to DPS on him. Just like now it is quite fun to go from being a glass cannon to healing to being hammer swinging aggro magnet. The variety this game provides you with in play style, class selection and talent specs is what gives subscribers the ability to customize the game to what they want out of it without going through the agony (in most classes cases) of having to re-level another class over and over. Even classes such as rogues have such fundamental differences in them that a change in 41 point talent changes the way you play the game. That is what has kept me hooked for 3 years (and of course gnome punting).

One of the best thing in WoW was the token system in AQ40, both the armor sets and the weapons. Sadly they modified the system for T3. T4-T6 is a slight improvement on the T3 system, but yu can still run for weeks without seeing a particular token leaving 3 classes without tiered loot. I know we had that "luck" with Illidan...

Not sure... I just don't see such a steep learning that there is a major difference between taking your kara force and getting the pull right for Maul'gar and going from UBRS and getting to Lucifron before Core Hounds start repopping. If you have people who can handle the more dynamic fights of kara with regularity they have the gear and the requisite attentiveness to handle the esentially tank and spank fight that Maul'gar is. And at least with Maul'gar you get to actually work on the boss encounter where as in MC the frustration was palpable when you "almost" made it to Luci, wiped and then you have to stand around and wait for trash repops and clear again before you ever get any attempts in on him.

Overall I think Blizz did a great job with their introductory to the raiding world. Kara gets your feet wet just enough and certainly more so that UBRS. My only real gripe these days is the amount of trash in SSC and to a lesser extent TK. For instance, I don't see how clearing 5 murloc packs to fight Morogrim proves anything meaningful once you've handeled two. It's just time consuming for no real reason. Also don't see the need for trash before Kael as if you aren't ready for kael gear wise no amount of practice is going to make you successful in downing him anyway.

You have to realize that a lot of players are new as well. Logging on to create a character on the forgotten coast (recommended tag) on Boxing Day showed the realm was full of new players. New as in, I just got this game for Christmas. How does a new player, who will be reaching level 80 sometime after WotLK is released learn to do basic raiding tasks if they're all of a sudden bombarded with mechanics complex enough to make the current top end guilds challenged?

Maybe you wouldn't be impressed if they gave those characters a method to learn to raid. But realistically, there are far more players that haven't completed most of the raid encounters than those who have.

Molten Core difficulty means very little. Molten core was hard when I first went to it. We didn't have a raid UI. We didn't have Decursive. Fighting Lucifron without those mods, and with only a rudimentary understanding of how the fight worked, was hard.

Gruul on the other hand was technically easy. There is a built-in raid UI even if you're using no mods. Generally only 2 people need to be healed. You move out of the falling rocks, and you run away from people when you get ground slam.

From a mechanics standpoint, the entry MC boss was more difficult. Offtanking 2 adds, organizing cleansing and decursing, coordinating line of sight. Gruul on the other hand was just tank and spank, and move away from visible danger.

Gruul in reality was much harder. But this was because of DPS requirements put on the raid. This is something a new player does not know. Optimizing DPS cycles, optimizing consumable use. And just the requirement of having the best gear available enchanted the right way makes gearing up for it more frustrating and difficult.

None of the bosses in TBC are particularly hard mechanically. Look at Archimonde: He shoots flames on the ground that burn you heavily and periodically fears you. What other boss does that? Oh yeah, Magmadar, the second boss in MC. Oh, but he has another ability that shoots you up in the air, and you have to react by clicking a button quickly or else you die and potentially wipe the raid. But then Magmadar has an frenzy, and you have to react quickly by clicking a button and tranq'ing him or else he kills the tank and wipes the raid.

The difference of course is just numbers. Doomfire just hurts you far more than standing in magmadar spit. And it leaves you with a significant dot. If you are retarded and die, you potentially cause a chain reaction that can wipe the raid. He hits like a truck, so your healers have to be more reliably healing the tank than they do on Magmadar. If all of your healers are feared on Mag, you can survive a few hits, not so much with Archimonde.

Making a first tier encounter the correct difficulty is just a matter of properly tuning the numbers, not necessarily the mechanics. You can make the mechanics interesting, but as long as you make the encounter forgiving, it earns it's place as a first tier raid. If you made lucifron's DoT hit relatively as hard as Teron's Incinerate, and increased his damage so that 3 consecutive hits would kill the tank and gave the adds a cleave that would 1-2 shot melee, and increased the range of his AoE he would be a hard boss. The mechanics haven't really changed, just the numbers.

Saying "MC difficulty" doesn't mean all encounters will be a golemagg, just that it will be tuned so that players starting out with blues and somewhat knowledgable about their class will be able to complete them.

On the subject of raid introductions, I don't think Kara was all that good. I'd rather have had a detuned Zul'Aman (to start) then a buffed Kara to follow it up in the 2.3 patch. Detuned to the level of Kara, ZA would have been the perfect next step up from regular instances, for many, many people. Kara was too big of a leap, not because of its intrinsic difficulty, but because it represented a leap from 90 minute instance runs to a long-multiday raid clear.

Yea, I think this was Karazhan's big weakness - it was long and pretty (though not completely) linear, and thus not that great as a tutorial raid zone compared to.... well, any other small raid zone (ZG, ZA, AQ20). This is what necessitates the 7-day reset timer that still irks some people, because if it were ever shortened significantly than the casual guilds working on encounters like Netherspite would find that they don't have the time to practice these encounters much at all.

That doesn't detract from the fact that the encounters were well-tuned and fun and the instance had a great aesthetic, though. But I agree that these things don't necessarily create a great tutorial instance on their own.

Aye - I meant Kara was good mechanically, in terms of introducing new mechanics to people that may not have raided much before. There's a tricky line to take on resets. Long resets are tough logistically, but also a boon an that they give you time to have multiple tries at the deeper bosses. An improvement in my eyes would have been to have Kara as two instances on a separate timer. Opera would be the end boss of "Lower Karazhan", and there'd be an attunement quest line to open the side door to "Upper Karazhan".

Once again ZA shows they've learned something from this, and so I'm optimistic for a good raid instance breakdown in WoTLK. The winged nature of Naxxramas, and the fact that they've explicitly said they'll tune it to "MC-level" difficulty, are encouraging. What they mean by "MC-level" is less clear. Hopefully it doesn't mean that all the bosses turn into tank and spank, but rather that it's defeatable by a group clad in quest blues. Maybe even with a couple of people 1 or 2 levels off the cap, if the rest of the group can hold it together. That's one thing WoW 1.0 did better than TBC - it let people gear up alts much more easily.