Evalara

All content is disposable. How many people never saw Naxx? How many of them never went back once 10 levels made it mostly trivial? The entire old world has been disposed of except for levelling. And what you really meant to say was, "the rate at which PvE content is released is out of step with the rate at which it is obsoleted by me and players like me." Most people haven't beaten the game yet, and won't before it's made irrelevant by another expansion.

This shouldn't even need repeating.

 

Oaken

Besides which, you can't even get into UBRS without at least one person getting Vael's help in LBRS with the key.

Onyxia's Lair and Lady Katrina Prestor are also causal - you can't get your Onyxia Lair key without doing the event where you discover that she is the one who has been manipulating Stormwind's politics.

The only real difference in the case of Kael'Thas though occurs in that nobody on your server had to experience any timeline or event defeating Kael in Tempest Keep before you face him in Sunwell. Its hardly worth twisting your mind into a pretzel over though - timeline consistency is definitely something you have to suspend your disbelief over in an MMO.

 

Enova

I've always thought so myself, but I have helped a few draenei friends get attuned to BWL recently, and we bypassed the Rend event (not something common at level 60, since everyone needed a carapace or something). Now, this may be a single time freak incident, or something may have been altered since I last completed it (some time before the AQ patch), but I assumed it could be skipped regularily.

YOU don't have to beat him yourself. You were in Shattrath when the Verdant Sphere was turned in; You SAW his illusion mocking Ad'al. You KNOW what happened.

And you're not likely to beat his former self anymore, due to the new pacth notes making him a bit redundant. Or if you are, well, mind blank all that exalted rep with the new faction you earned killing mini Kael once a day for badges and Kara loot.

Guilty as charged ^

 

Threepi

This is exactly what I've been worried about.

When someone hits 70 what was the first place they'd look to for epic gear? Karazhan and Heroics for the badge loot. Now what if they didn't get into raiding but still wanted to advance their gear? Well, with 2.3 you just run Karazhan and Heroics for the badge loot. Now we're at 2.4 and if you're still not into raiding, what do you do? Karazhan and Heroics for the badge loot. It's essentially encouraging people to run the same content over and over and over again and giving people progressively better rewards because of it.

While this has the perk of being able to replace those nagging pieces of gear that never got replaced through raiding (Blood Knight Cloak and Hourglass of the Unraveller, I'm looking at you), that'll require me to run content that I was bored to tears with a solid 8 months ago.

 

• Playered

Do you really teach new people how to do content when you have a tank taking no damage, a healer capable of solo-healing the raid, and any amount of DPSers pulling the weight of 2-3 people at that level?

Will their healer learn anything about preventing incidental raid damage, sustaining tanks through burst and sedate damage and so-forth, when someone else is going to do it before them making them feel theres little point to trying harder.
Will their DPSers feel the need to improve themselves when there is no need as everything dies pathetically quickly to the powerhouse rogue with warlgaives?

Not to mention when you (horribly) outgear content you do stupid, risky, and abnormal things which at the intended level of progression you wouldn't even dare.

 

Illundai

European PTRs just came up - but I can't select any of my "Succesfully" copied characters. Bummer. I'm logged on a level 1 though, so I could check out some things if someone told me how :p.

Yes, Death Knight tanks are/were too good in 3.0.x. Having 38k HP, 76.81% Avoidance (Miss incl.) and not gimping your threat in the first tier of gear is broken. (Yes this is clickable)

 

Enova

There's now a 5 day queue for character copy... and insane loading times even for the transfer page

Guilty as charged ^

 

◊ Praetorian

You're misreading my post. SSC being made irrelevant doesn't affect me at all -- I consumed that content and moved on long ago. Content didn't start being disposable until TBC, but I think people accepted the need for that sort of "reset" to fix the gear gap, to make it remotely possible to tune the expansion for Naxx raiders and brand new 60s alike, etc. What has emerged over the past 6-8 months, however, is rapidly accelerated cycles of obsolescence. It's not just the idea of standalone expansions that replace what came before and will eventually be supplanted by the next expansion; it's the fact that Blizzard almost seems to be making this up as they go along. It feels clumsy. They created a blue-->t4-->t5-->t6 progression model that made sense for PvE, but then they've completely disrupted it with little regard for the elegance that it initially entailed. It leaves me with a general feeling of uncertainty and discomfort with the state of the game at any given time, sort of a "why do anything, if everything becomes irrelevant in a matter of months?"

 

Tresjynn

You could go to Wowhead, find some items that are supposed to have stat changes (like T4 retribution paladin gear), use the "Get Link" button to get something cut-and-pasteable into WoW, and click it in-game to see what's changed.

But to get item stats on the new gear, you'd probably have to know exactly what item numbers they have.

 

Illundai

Khaelyn 70 [Draenei] [Shaman] Silvermoon Test Server (EU PVP) Successful
Khaelyn 70 [Draenei] [Shaman] Silvermoon Test Server EU PvE Successful


So it's not about the queue. They should be done, together with many others.

Yes, Death Knight tanks are/were too good in 3.0.x. Having 38k HP, 76.81% Avoidance (Miss incl.) and not gimping your threat in the first tier of gear is broken. (Yes this is clickable)

 

Shadout

Having Kael twice isnt much of a "problem" timeline-wise. Really the world you see in game is representations of different times throughout the story, the Durotar and associated quests you see in-game isnt there at the same time as Illidan getting killed in Black Temple. Although we dont have an official timeline from Blizz yet, there is probably 1-2 years between those events in the story.
And the Sunwell initiative of killing Kiljaeden doesnt exist before Illidan is dead, whether or not your char personally killed him.
Thats really the only way to have a story move forward in a static world, having most of the world represent the past compared to where you are now in the storyline.
Thats how I want to see it at least.

The logic only fails with Dranei/Blood Elves arriving recently in the storyline, while they still lvl through the old world.

 

Enova

Apparently,you copying 5 minutes earlier than me makes a hell of a lot of difference

Also, there's this little text greeting people:

Guilty as charged ^

 

Illundai

I copied yesterday night . At around 5 am the queues were empty, so I initiated the copy then.

Yes, Death Knight tanks are/were too good in 3.0.x. Having 38k HP, 76.81% Avoidance (Miss incl.) and not gimping your threat in the first tier of gear is broken. (Yes this is clickable)

 

Jubling

And more stuff from the spell database:

Thottbot World of Warcraft: Heroic Countenance
Unlocks heroic mode for Magisters' Terrace.

Thottbot World of Warcraft: Holyform
Assumes a Holyform, increasing healing dealt by 25% and reducing melee damage taken by 20%. Holyform lasts until cancelled.

Thottbot World of Warcraft: Portal Effect: Sunwell Isle

So it looks like heroic mode for the new 5-man won't just need reputation but something else as well, probably a quest. And Holyform seems far far too good to be a replacement for Lightwell.

 

Psi

The US transfer Queue's are completely full (was hoping to throw a guy on a EU realm after hearing the server was up, no luck)

Was hoping to get a peak in to the badge vendor tonight to see all they gear they have, hopefully they'll be posted up on MMO/WoR's within an hour.

 

◊ Cadfael

Vaelestrasz is in LBRS, can be summoned to appear in UBRS at the Rend event and is in BWL, at the same time.

 

Enova

That's odd; I had 0 copies remaining, from patch 2.3.2 all the way untill this morning. I must have missed something along the way... But no rush, I'm sure you'll keep us updated on whatever generates interest.

Guilty as charged ^

 

Alcyon

Some other examples have been pointed out, but I think the best example (and is a definite example of a causality violation before now) is this: To start the AQ Scepter quest you need Brood Lord's head, and then later in the quest series you have to wait a reset and go kill Vael despite the fact that to do this he must have already died the prior week when you killed Brood Lord to start the chain in the first place!

This sort of thing really irritated me when I started playing but I've kind of become inured over time to the logical gymnastics an MMORPG needs to do with lore.

 

rhea

WoW's timeline goes as you read the patch notes..

 

Carnivean

For me it is the same, on the character copy status page, its says that I have sucessfully copied 3 of my Lv 70 chars, but there are most definately not on the realm, on the whole realm there is only exactly 1 Lv 60+ only, everyone else only has Lv 1 babies...

Kinda weird bug....

 

Tresjynn

Maybe "Successfully copied" means "Successfully (placed into the queue to be) copied (once the system finishes processing backlog)".

 

Illundai

In case anyone was still doubting, M'uru has vanished from Silvermoon City so he's 100% inside the Sunwell.

P.S: Does anyone know how to get to Quel'Danas? I can't figure out how to bloody get there.

Yes, Death Knight tanks are/were too good in 3.0.x. Having 38k HP, 76.81% Avoidance (Miss incl.) and not gimping your threat in the first tier of gear is broken. (Yes this is clickable)

 

Carnivean

Nope right after you copy your char your status say something along the lines: Undergoing transfer - ETA: 3 Hours...

 

Opioid

I agree with the sentiments here and agree they can exist without the elitist connotations.

I realize there are gaps in itemization that need to be corrected, and loot should exist for people to get spots up to par without relying totally on the RNG. Why not just re-itemize Mag/Kael/Vashj though?

I don't see why the heroic badge gear *HAS* to come from the same Naaru conveniently located in Shatrath every time a new round is added. Without attunements, why not make a Kael token or Vashj token for an NPC that spawns after they're dead where you can get that stuff? (a token in the sense of a white-quality sigil EVERYONE present for each kill gets to loot one of, not a limited-quantity piece like the tier set things that will just be irritating all over again.) 20 badges and a boss token for a piece of T6 loot seems fair to me, especially without the attunements in place. Problems with raiders showing up on those nights or whatever can be offset by selling those pieces, taking a few PUGs who can do the lion's share of badge collecting themselves but don't have a guild and need an apparatus to be able to kill Kael/Vashj.

I agree with the goal of Blizzard here, but it doesn't need to be so incredibly convenient you never have a concern between doing Heroic Ramparts a zillion times and flying back to a sanctuary city where you're safe and nothing can happen.

As to the "experiencing lore" complaint, sequential attunements were a pain-in-the-ass idea, but what real lore experience is there in being able to make a new 70, do heroic runs, and be ready to step up to fight Illidan? By way of gearing up/learning skills you should still have to kill Magtheridon, Kael, Vashj at the very least before you step up to kill Illidan, Archimonde, Kil'jaeden. There's no legitimate "everyone should be able to experience the lore" claim in that everyone should be able to solo what they want until they can find a guild for a surgical strike on fighting that super-cool Demon Hunter and fuck the rest of the content. You can't just bring down the top of an evil organization having never dealt with the minions at all, ever.

In summary, I can see the point in hating the attunements as irritating/cockblocks/nuclear power plant schematics. If attunement clusters are a shitty way of doing it, make it gear based and work to make and maintain reasons to keep doing TK/SSC. In the end, I don't think it is "elitist" to maintain that you *MUST* somehow kill the lieutenants of a big boss before fighting that big boss before you are able to fight the entities more powerful than that big boss.

 

Covertghost

http://www.kolumbus.fi/neree/Lightbringer.jpg

I'm guessing these are examples of the new badge loot, I mean they are Tier6 quality