From what I remember of the panels at the last Blizzcon, the Raid development team were planning on having 2 full 10-man dungeons with progression between them available at release of WotLK. Hopefully that implies at least one more dungeon after that, which would equal the 3-tiers of 25-man content Blizzard seems to like putting out per level cap.
I believe the slide indicated 5 level 80 dungeons (down from 7 70s, or 8 including MgT), 3 levels of 10man content (of one instance each) and 4 levels of 25man content (frontloaded at the start with a few, presumably Naxx & "Ony"-style encounters, and then one instance per tier after). Whether they've stayed with that is a different matter.
This is not just a pacing issue. In 1.0, Blizzard actually worked on content to add to their raiding game while 1.0 was live. In 2.0, Blizzard didn't plan to add anything, and added Sunwell as a stopgap* because they suck at getting xpacks out on time.
I think (because my memory may also be faulty ) the Sunwell Plateau was mentioned early on as being a 3rd zone in the blood elf style (but little details?), and then was stopped being mentioned (until it was rumoured or revealed whenever that happened).
[Paraphrased: WoW 1.x had 1.33 new bosses per month as free content, WoW 2.x (Burning Crusade) has 0, or close to 0, new bosses per month as free content]
This is not just a pacing issue. In 1.0, Blizzard actually worked on content to add to their raiding game while 1.0 was live. In 2.0, Blizzard didn't plan to add anything, and added Sunwell as a stopgap* because they suck at getting xpacks out on time.
That, to me, is the issue. [...]
So you would be happier if they pretended Serpentshrine, Tempest Keep as well as Mount Hyjal and Black Temple was additional content they worked on during the course of Burning Crusade that was added to the game, for free, later on?
- Thank you for agreeing with my post.
That is exactly the pacing that was present in vanilla WoW and which was absent in Burning Crusade.
Because Blizzard front loaded all of the content in the initial product and added Hyjal Summit and Black Temple in the very first patch to the product doesn't mean you have less content over time.
Fact remains: you have the same amount of large raid content in all of Burning Crusade up to the release of the Sunwell patch as you had in regular WoW with all their free content.
The only thing you can possibly complain about is that Sunwell, with it's six bosses, would last 3¼ months if you keep the 1.8 encounters/month in mind; which means in July/August you'd be out of large raid content again.
Terribly sorry, but I'd contend that we wouldn't be discussing raid progression propositions if raid content release was staggered and trailblazing raiding guilds had these artificial progression blocks - like "Assault on Blackwing Lair", "The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj" and "Shadow of the Necropolis".
I understand it's in the nature of the beast to progress as fast as you can.
For if you do not, you become one of the thousands of nameless guilds with a very typical and average reputation with a host of other issues that come with it.
One of them being less visible for potential recruits.
Hence my suggestion to artificially pace trailblazing guilds and offer something at the near end of such a speed bump for them to prove, once and for all, that they indeed have the stuff of legends.
If someone isn't willing to join a raiding group because he's happy in his five man real-life friends guild, he should be pleased with his reachable content.
Why?
Plenty of such folks aren't. Why should they be?
I have the time to raid. I've done it (40, 20, 10, and 25, on and off since before BWL was open). I could still do it. (Guild alliance.) I've had fun doing it. I don't find it worth the cost (certainly not for the 40 and 25 versions, at least) -- not in terms of total personal time spent (I have over 6000 hours /played), but in terms of both organizational overhead and exclusion of friends. And essentially everyone I know in real life who I've played the game with has quit because they felt similarly and were also not pleased with the content that was reachable without raiding. (My guild is now down to one active member.)
So you would be happier if they pretended Serpentshrine, Tempest Keep as well as Mount Hyjal and Black Temple was additional content they worked on during the course of Burning Crusade that was added to the game, for free, later on?
- Thank you for agreeing with my post.
That is exactly the pacing that was present in vanilla WoW and which was absent in Burning Crusade.
Because Blizzard front loaded all of the content in the initial product and added Hyjal Summit and Black Temple in the very first patch to the product doesn't mean you have less content over time.
Fact remains: you have the same amount of large raid content in all of Burning Crusade up to the release of the Sunwell patch as you had in regular WoW with all their free content.
The only thing you can possibly complain about is that Sunwell, with it's six bosses, would last 3¼ months if you keep the 1.8 encounters/month in mind; which means in July/August you'd be out of large raid content again.
Terribly sorry, but I'd contend that we wouldn't be discussing raid progression propositions if raid content release was staggered and trailblazing raiding guilds had these artificial progression blocks - like "Assault on Blackwing Lair", "The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj" and "Shadow of the Necropolis".
I understand it's in the nature of the beast to progress as fast as you can.
For if you do not, you become one of the thousands of nameless guilds with a very typical and average reputation with a host of other issues that come with it.
One of them being less visible for potential recruits.
Hence my suggestion to artificially pace trailblazing guilds and offer something at the near end of such a speed bump for them to prove, once and for all, that they indeed have the stuff of legends.
Why so snarky?
Anyway, to answer your question about being happier about artificial pacing versus generating content and releasing it, my problem is this...
During WoW 1.0, how many dungeon bosses did they really create? Well, they created BWL, AQ, Naxx, Magtheridon, Gruul, HKM, SSC, TK, Hyj, and BT bosses. We know that because all of the xpac bosses were available when TBC shipped (as far as I know), and the BWL bosses weren't available when 1.0 shipped. So in reality, Blizzard created 49 bosses during WoW 1.0. That's 2 bosses per month.
Since 2.0, they have created .4 bosses per month (as a maximum, that number decreases as time goes by between sunwell and the next xpac). The problem is that all the work they're putting into new bosses now are ostensibly for WoTLK (much like they used some of 1.0 time to create the 2.0 bosses). It is my opinion that they not only should be creating bosses for the next xpac, but they should also be creating some for the existing WoW age, knowing that it will be a while before their xpac ships. Or they should make their xpac ship sooner.
Sure, artificial pacing would have helped this run of TBC. I have no issue with that, and think it's a very good way to have done things, in retrospect. Blizzard made a booboo, however, and misjudged either the release date of WoTLK, or the pace at which people would consume content.
I hope that they will get better at generating content in a timely manner.
During WoW 1.0, how many dungeon bosses did they really create? [...]
To me, it seems irrelevant for the earlier mentioned fact that there's still the same amount of content for time.
Also, they had 4 months of work to do before they squeezed out 2.1, which introduced MH and BT.
Technically, you can clock those up for Burning Crusade content development effort.
Actually, I think they developed twice the small raid content for BC as they did for vanilla WoW.
That would be the ZG/AQR vs the KZ/ZA.
But yes, it's true, they delivered little additional content during Burning Crusade's lifespan.
Just Zul'Aman, Sunwell and it's 5-man dungeon.
And to not completely go out of tune with the giste of this thread - responding to Douglas' concerns regarding 5-man progression; it seems to me that Magister's Terrace is exactly that.
Hopefully it'll be a trend that they implement throughout WotLK's lifespan.
Also, Douglas, you are not alone in your opinion on large raid content; our guild has plenty of retired raiders with exactly that sentiment.
In part it's still the required gear grind as well as the attunements and it's associated reputation requirements that drove people away.
And no - Badges of Justice that drop during raids, be it 25-man or 10-man, do not cover the gear grind; that is there just to help core raiders round out any gear gap they might have due to "their sword" not dropping or somesuch.
My apologies for a crude retort earlier, but being snarky is in my blood.
I too am passionate about the game and have my doubts about Blizzard's way of handling things at times which caused me to become such over the years.
For example, I was terribly upset at Blizzard producing Tier6 content when Tier4 and consumables needed tuning badly - them pushing forth on Tier6 content (probably due to management pressure, since it "should have been" in the initial product) instead of focusing on those more immediate issues put unnecessary stress on my guild, causing significant issues, which I did not (and still don't) appreciate in the slightest.
Hence me responding to Quigon that I do perceive the fallout during early BC for non-hardcore raiders as well as late BC for hardcore raiders to be a direct result of content release pacing - or rather the lack thereof.
The only thing you can possibly complain about is that Sunwell, with it's six bosses, would last 3¼ months if you keep the 1.8 encounters/month in mind; which means in July/August you'd be out of large raid content again.
Terribly sorry, but I'd contend that we wouldn't be discussing raid progression propositions if raid content release was staggered and trailblazing raiding guilds had these artificial progression blocks - like "Assault on Blackwing Lair", "The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj" and "Shadow of the Necropolis".
Sunwell's life is not just 3 1/4 months though. You have to account for the fact that people need time to farm all the bosses, get all their raiders 8/8 T6, Sunwell weapons/trinkets/offset armor, until Sunwell is truly "done" and the raiders get bored.
Otherwise you get Naxx 2.0 all over again, with most guilds not having enough time to clear Naxx or not having enough time to farm KT for his rings and weapons.
Once you take this all into account (and the fact that S4 is rolling out soon) I believe there's enough content until September/October. Then, Blizzard can start up the Halloween and Winter Veil festivals, and finally bring out WotLK probably early Q1 2009.
Sorry to cherrypick a single line of a post and anchor a response around it, but I've been conceptualizing this post for a few weeks now, and I think this is finally an appropriate place to share it.
I think that recent events demonstrate that blizzard may be moving away from its fixation on raiding as the only form of "endgame" content. For a while now, players have been asking for "alternative means of character progression" beyond raiding, and I think blizzard is (finally) answering this need.
I think it's somehwat reasonable to interpret the total sum of changes announced for 2.4 (and season 4) as a democratization of "end game". IMO, there are now three distinct "paths" defined for "end game" wow:
Raiding Formation of large (>10 players) parties, often from a single guild, to defeat highly complex boss encounters (multiphase,7-10m duration) in instances with 1 week cooldowns, for approximately 3-4 hours per night.
Grinding a large variety of activities that allow a player to advance his character in groups of 1-10 players, with very little up-front coordination of players required. These activities include farming badges in 5-10 man instances, epic crafting, participation in daily quests, and achieving reputations.
PVP Competing directly against other players, in virtually any size group: 1,2,3,5,10,15,40.
each path is characterized by:
differentiation between "hardcore" and "casual". Each path has measures that allow casual players to participate, and hardcore players to excel. For Raiding, the tiers provide a clear progression path. For grinding, certain achievments are hallmarks of either excellent execution (timed events) or dedication (tier 3 crafted items).
path-specific rewards Each path has rewards that are particularly useful in their given path, and each path has a distinction between casual and hardcore rewards. To illustrate:
The majority of drops from raiding have specific stats that improve raid effectiveness, but are less then optimal in other circumstances. "Casual" raiding rewards can be considered trash drops and (most) non-set boss drops- "hardcore" raiding rewards would be set items, especially from higher tiers.
The rewards from grinding are often versatile, and emphasize stats and benefit specs that aren't optimized for raiding. Casual rewards are items that are simply looted from bosses, while "hardcore" rewards are things that require a few weeks work- high priced badge rewards, complex crafted items that involve cooldowns and exotic mats, exhalted items, etc.
(almost) All rewards from pvp are uniquely purposed for PVP, due to resiliance. The Casual/Hardcore distinction is basically determined by time-based rewards (honor) and skill-based rewards (arena points, especially considering personal rating).
in general, the "casual" rewards from each path are available to any player, while the "hardcore" rewards are only available to players who have chosen to dedicate their time to a given path.
A mechanism for switching paths. Each path essentially has its own "currency", and there are specific currency cross overs that allow players to transition paths. Raiding is the most versatile path- Raiders are rewarded with Raiding specific items, badges to obtain Grinding items (along with gold, reputation, and certain mats as drops), and now (with 2.4) a way to recieve PVP set items through tiered tokens. Grinders can obtain non-set PVP items through badges. PVP players are unique in that there is no direct mechanism for them to "cross over" to other paths, since they don't earn badges or tokens.
The most significant aspect of these three paths is that they are "seperate but equal". For example, Raiding specific items are the best items for raiding, and Season 3 set items are the best items for PVP. from an Ilvl perspective, the "top end" rewards from each path are very, very close. You aern't really penalized in any way from focusing on anyone path, unless you decide to try hardcore content from a different path: i.e., full tier 6 raiders getting stomped by season 1 pvpers in battlegrounds, or season 3 pvpers trailing damage meters against tier 5 raiders.
Finally, the paths "progress" over time using slightly different models. Over the last year, the raiding path often sets the bar for "top end" by introducing new raid zones. Soon after that, the PVP path catches up by starting a new season. finally, the grinding path catches up by adding new recipes and new badge rewards.
I imagine this trend will continue into WotLK- the main differences I foresee might be expanded content options for the Grinder path, and possibly an improved crossover model for PVPers (low tiered set tokens for honor/points).
For 5-man progression, provided they put in sufficient loot at each "stage" (unlike in tbc, where it seemed half the baseline level 70 gear for some class/spec combinations were in heroics as opposed to normal instances), they could fit in 2 levels of heroic dungeons, the 2nd of which required gearing up on the first. Add in (sufficently) long questlines + summoned bosses as attunements for the more difficult ones. Put in specific item requirements on some of the summoned bosses (like Ony cloak) maybe - however you want to do it.
However, Tigole is unsatisfied. They plan in WOTLK to concentrate on 10-man content more. It would actually be quite difficult to have more or better 10-man content without bringing it up practically to the level of 25-man. This is apparently their plan. So that investment of resources is already intended, and while it may not be a very good idea (and it does have costs, as you've pointed out) it's something they want to do.
Granted; but that they plan to do it is not, in my opinion, any reason to believe that it will get done. After all, as has been pointed out in this thread, Blizzard always underdelivers on their plans. 1.0 has questlines that go nowhere, completely inaccessible zones, and vestigial bits and pieces of features that were put on hold and never taken off. TBC was more polished, but launch day still came minus two raid instances that were supposed to be in from the start, and with horrendous levels of tuning across all levels of content. I don't see a whole lot of reason to expect that they'll pull it off in WotLK.
I'm proposing something which reduces the effort of doing something they're already planning to do, not suggesting that they do something wildly implausible which is completely out of line with the development of the game so far. This ought to free up more resources for the development of the 25-man content rather than less.
I agree that it's probably less effort than what they're planning to do, but I disagree that it's not wildly implausible given the history of the game, because what they're planning is also wildly implausible insofar as our evidence shows. To think that they can go from barely managing one single additional instance of each kind to simultaneously implementing timely 10 and 25 man progression is an unjustified leap of faith, and no less of one just because Blizzard is taking that leap. Now, I think your proposal is a lot better than the usual impractical "drop everything and make just 5-mans" things that float around when people say Blizzard should pay more attention to casuals. But I still wonder what will happen if Blizzard can't retune everything in time.
You jumped all over Leaflock for this assertion, but I have to say that I agree: I think Blizzard wants you to raid. I think that there's a better explanation than Tigole simply being crazy about raiding, which is to say I think there are logical and pragmatic reasons for Blizzard to encourage players to be raiders. Primarily, Blizzard's goal is to get you not to quit, and there are reasons to suggest that wanting players to raid is in accordance with that goal. I think there's considerable merit to the idea of funnelling level-capped players into the same kind of content so you can spend development time and resources on the one thing, instead of more than one thing, especially when resources are limited. And it only makes sense that the kind of content should be maximum-limit raiding, since it has the best ratio of development time to consumption time. Those are, in my opinion, good practical reasons to encourage raiding, because that directs people to the kind of play in which they are least likely to quit.
Now, to introduce 5, 10, and 25 man progression is great. I think there's no way to portray expanding the kinds of groups that get to participate in progression endgame content as a bad thing. But I also think that you have to recognize that this gives up the two practicality advantages I outlined above, and that's a major problem. Proper tuning is more than tweaking numbers and clearly far beyond the capabilities of Blizzard's internal test team - looking at the state of all the heroics and all 25-man content at TBC release should prove that. It seems to me that retuning a 25-man encounter down to a 10-man will likely consume an amount of development time approximately equal to designing a new 10-man encounter, which means that the time saved is primarily in art, sound, and writing resources, none of which have yet seemed to be a barrier to introduction of new content.
As I've said, I think this is a more practical plan than many others that seek to get more content for lower-bracket players. The question is whether it's practical enough, and the available evidence suggests to me that it still isn't: Blizzard wouldn't be able to pull it off. They're currently not even successfully executing their current model, which requires far less development time than yours, which is not an encouraging sign.
The consequences of not being able to do it would be huge, massive delays, worse than the current one which is already intolerable. I can't help but think that it would burn out a large proportion of people, because even non-hardcore raiders would cap out on content, and they would have a lot less tolerance for boredom. And that would contravene Blizzard's entire objective in putting out new content at all: trying to stop people from quitting.
My apologies for a crude retort earlier, but being snarky is in my blood.
I too am passionate about the game and have my doubts about Blizzard's way of handling things at times which caused me to become such over the years.
For example, I was terribly upset at Blizzard producing Tier6 content when Tier4 and consumables needed tuning badly - them pushing forth on Tier6 content (probably due to management pressure, since it "should have been" in the initial product) instead of focusing on those more immediate issues put unnecessary stress on my guild, causing significant issues, which I did not (and still don't) appreciate in the slightest.
Hence me responding to Quigon that I do perceive the fallout during early BC for non-hardcore raiders as well as late BC for hardcore raiders to be a direct result of content release pacing - or rather the lack thereof.
Yeah, I do the same sometimes. I'm not sure that I'd say that being snarky is in my blood, but on some days, it certainly seems so
I think our frustrations will either be mitigated or aggravated depending on whether or not Blizzard learned lessons from TBC. It was their first expansion. Now with that under their belt, we get to see if they were satisfied with the product they turned out, or have figured out that they need to do better.
Granted; but that they plan to do it is not, in my opinion, any reason to believe that it will get done. After all, as has been pointed out in this thread, Blizzard always underdelivers on their plans. 1.0 has questlines that go nowhere, completely inaccessible zones, and vestigial bits and pieces of features that were put on hold and never taken off. TBC was more polished, but launch day still came minus two raid instances that were supposed to be in from the start, and with horrendous levels of tuning across all levels of content. I don't see a whole lot of reason to expect that they'll pull it off in WotLK.
I have to disagree with you here. WoW 1.0 was far more polished than TBC. Admittedly there are broken questlines (Eranikus), inaccessible zones (Hyjal) and random features missing or broken, but at least the mechanics were pretty much set in stone. Then TBC rolls out and, a few patches afterwards, Blizzard tries to "fix" their expansion by... handing down massive, sweeping nerfs to basically every class (I'm still a little bitter about the Illumination nerf) and nerfing elixirs. And thanks to arena Blizzard keeps nerfing and changing talents.
Originally Posted by epiphenom
You jumped all over Leaflock for this assertion, but I have to say that I agree: I think Blizzard wants you to raid. I think that there's a better explanation than Tigole simply being crazy about raiding, which is to say I think there are logical and pragmatic reasons for Blizzard to encourage players to be raiders. Primarily, Blizzard's goal is to get you not to quit, and there are reasons to suggest that wanting players to raid is in accordance with that goal. I think there's considerable merit to the idea of funnelling level-capped players into the same kind of content so you can spend development time and resources on the one thing, instead of more than one thing, especially when resources are limited. And it only makes sense that the kind of content should be maximum-limit raiding, since it has the best ratio of development time to consumption time. Those are, in my opinion, good practical reasons to encourage raiding, because that directs people to the kind of play in which they are least likely to quit.
I agree with this, and I think it's one reason why we haven't heard much about WotLK. Remember we were hearing all sorts of leaks and previews and whatever months before TBC rolled out. We're at the same point in regards to WotLK, and yet we get nothing except a promise of Death Knights, some random theoretical drawings and maps of Northrend, and that's it.
My bet is that Blizzard is going back and rushing to create 10 man counterparts of WotLK 25mans. I wouldn't be shocked if the 10mans in WotLK have abnormally large maps, or odd mechanics, both big clues that the fight may have been originally designed for 25 raiders, then scaled down for 10 in a hurry.
Even now, Blizzard tries to funnel PvPers into 5mans/10mans, by only providing Primal Nethers via PvE, and having resilience capes on the badge vendor.
During WoW 1.0, how many dungeon bosses did they really create? Well, they created BWL, AQ, Naxx, Magtheridon, Gruul, HKM, SSC, TK, Hyj, and BT bosses. We know that because all of the xpac bosses were available when TBC shipped (as far as I know), and the BWL bosses weren't available when 1.0 shipped. So in reality, Blizzard created 49 bosses during WoW 1.0. That's 2 bosses per month.
You need to look at "bosses made available for the players" rather than "bosses created". Blizzard had been working on WoW for a long time before the original release and some of that time included raid encounters too. Putting the raid encounters of TBC in the same box as original WoW really isn't fair, especially not when considering that they got multiple developer teams.
So in 1.0 you had Onxyia, MC, BWL, AQ40, Naxxramas, green dragons, scepter questline and a few outdoor encounters available.
In 2.0 you have Gruul, Magtheridon, SSC, TK, Hyjal, BT, Sunwell (soon) and a few outdoor encounters available.
The content available has been pretty much equal and I don't doubt that there's a lot of raid bosses for Wrath that's already way beyond the initial planning phase, making it equal for Wrath as well.
I agree with this, and I think it's one reason why we haven't heard much about WotLK. Remember we were hearing all sorts of leaks and previews and whatever months before TBC rolled out. We're at the same point in regards to WotLK, and yet we get nothing except a promise of Death Knights, some random theoretical drawings and maps of Northrend, and that's it.
We didnt get that much leaked info from TBC before F&F beta was underway. And for some reason it hasnt started for Wotlk yet (and if it has, Blizz has managed to keep their secrets better than usual, but most likely, Wotlk is still only available internally, for the next few months. After that, we will surely see some leaks again.
Hopefully pretty soon, if the game is going to come out this year.
Another reason we havent seen leaks yet is probably PR. There are no reasons to throw out major Wotlk leaks while the hype for Sunwell is still pretty strong. As soon 2.4 gets out, people play the new daily quest content, and raiders get a bit into Sunwell (which will happen instantly anyway) the hype will die down, and its a fair bet the amount of Wotlk info will rise.
My bet is that Blizzard is going back and rushing to create 10 man counterparts of WotLK 25mans. I wouldn't be shocked if the 10mans in WotLK have abnormally large maps, or odd mechanics, both big clues that the fight may have been originally designed for 25 raiders, then scaled down for 10 in a hurry.
Since they already said 10 mans would be more important at Blizzcon Im not so sure, they surely have precedence for doing so (Karazhan being created before WoW was even released and 10 mans was ever thought of) but the idea of more 10 mans seems to have existed internally at Blizz for a quite long time by now.
I have to disagree with you here. WoW 1.0 was far more polished than TBC. Admittedly there are broken questlines (Eranikus), inaccessible zones (Hyjal) and random features missing or broken, but at least the mechanics were pretty much set in stone. Then TBC rolls out and, a few patches afterwards, Blizzard tries to "fix" their expansion by... handing down massive, sweeping nerfs to basically every class (I'm still a little bitter about the Illumination nerf) and nerfing elixirs. And thanks to arena Blizzard keeps nerfing and changing talents.
The 60-70 game was pretty much perfectly polished, much more than 1-60 was imo. Anything beyond 70 was rushed quite a bit.
The consumable nerf should surely have happened before TBC release, I guess Blizz didnt fully realize how much of a problem it was, and it just happened to clash together in one big 2.1 re-release of TBC patch.
But really, vanilla WoW wasnt in a better shape, all the class changes, bug fixes etc. was just introduced much more slowly, so it wasnt as easy to notice, compared to 2.1 and beyond.
Sorry in advance if I butcher your names. I am going on memory of the names of posters' posts I read, and I didn't bother multi-quoting as it doesn't add any purpose to this reply.
I'd just like to add that I do tend to lean more to the point of Blizz wanting players to raid. It seems so damn obvious from my perspective that they certainly are doing everything to get players to try their raid content. So I have to agree with Epiphemone and others on that debate. I think it is inherent in the current game design (though over the past year they are showing signs of shifting design perspective) that raiding is the preferred style of play that they want to impress upon players. I don't see this as ambiguous from my perspective.
I will also add that I am a player that is *not* a hardcore raider. I have the potential to be but all the time required is kind of a big turn off. Especially since TBC, which seemed to increase the time investment despite reducing raid size and consumables. For whatever reasons (pacing content or whatever), TBC made raiding more stressful. Which certainly turned players like me off to it for a while. But I digress ...
I do like the ideas proposed in the OP by Jax and I do agree mostly with the arguments made by he and Doug. This has been an interesting discussion to follow and see all the different opinions players have. But I think the bottom line does come down to this question: Is Blizzard looking to offer more paths of actual PvE progression other than raiding? No I do not include things such as faction and craft grinding to be progression in their current iterations; yes it is more content, but it is all grind. And there is a difference between grind and character development, where grind should only be peppered in between the meat of development, not employed as the primary means to it.
Last edited by Astiron : 03/16/08 at 10:47 AM.
Reason: Grammar and spelling
Another idea that we are bringing back from Burning Crusade is the heroic difficulty mode for dungeons. We learned some things from this feature in The Burning Crusade in terms of balancing and tuning these dungeons for difficulty, which should result in more consistent difficulty both within a given Heroic dungeon as well as between one Heroic dungeon and the next. This time around, some Heroic dungeons will offer bonus content such as new bosses and hidden areas of the dungeon that will only be accessible in Heroic mode.
"Consistent" difficulty? To me that suggests all WotLK Heroics being roughly the same difficulty level - ie, even less 5 man 'progession' than in TBC.
Nah, it could equally well mean that the difficulty level of a Heroic should be consistent with the difficulty of the underlying normal mode - i.e. a proper progression in Heroic dungeons just as there is in normal dungeons. We really can't infer anything from that, apart from the fact that they don't want to make a Heroic dungeon with three pushover bosses and one impossible one
I'd just like to add that I do tend to lean more to the point of Blizz wanting players to raid. It seems so damn obvious from my perspective that they certainly are doing everything to get players to try their raid content. So I have to agree with Epiphemone and others on that debate. I think it is inherent in the current game design (though over the past year they are showing signs of shifting design perspective) that raiding is the preferred style of play that they want to impress upon players. I don't see this as ambiguous from my perspective.
On the second page of the thread I said:
Originally Posted by Jaxtrasi
All of vanilla WoW, and all of TBC, is designed to gently or forcefully encourage you towards 40/25 man raiding. Quest chains ultimately (in the sense of genuine closure) conclude with raid bosses. Content is designed to gradually turn you towards the biggest, latest content. Recent accessibility changes in TBC leave me with a distinct impression of genuine fondness for their work on the part of the designers. "We made this beautiful, complex dungeon. Won't you please form a 25-man raid and try it out?" I hear them say.
However, note the difference between the content that existed at release, and the company's current intentions. It's post the release of TBC that they've said "we're surprised by the popularity of 10-man and intend it to be a viable progression in WOTLK". The difficulty and reward of Magister's Terrace are out of line with a "raid only" philosophy. The introduction of Arena made it clearer that PVP is supposed to be an alternative endgame progression path. (Old PVP was supposed to be an endgame progression according to its designer, it was just rubbish at it because it was appallingly designed.)
The game assumes raiding. That's not the same thing as Blizzard expecting every player to raid or quit.
It's important to recognise the context of a statement. "Blizzard want you to raid" is a harmless, innocuous statement. Yes, of course they do. They also want you to solo rep grind, do five mans, experiment with PVP and level your tradeskills. They want you to play alts. The context here is whether or not there should be non-raid endgame content, at which point "Blizzard wants you to raid" takes on more militant overtones (especially in the way Leaflock presented it) becoming "Raiding is a special thing that deserves special mention amongst these other things Blizzard want you to do".
Hence my response. Blizzard want to increase their player base. Blizzard want to not lose their existing player base. If raiding (or anything else) is the right way to do that, according to what their research tells them, then they will continue to promote and prioritise it. If it doesn't, they won't. Since we're not talking about the design of TBC as such (I used the design of TBC to illustrate the point because people are familiar with the content, but obviously it's too late to design TBC in such a way now, because time travel is impossible), the design priorities they had during the development of TBC are not that important. Their design priorites now appear to be comparitively less focus on the top end raiding game and more focus on the other potential endgame progressions. Whether that's the case or or remains to be seen.
If I remember correctly (and I might not be) it was fairly late in the day when Blizzard announced that TBC would be abandoning 40-man raiding. The day before that announcement was made, suggesting that TBC not contain 40-man raids would have been met with mockery and derision. Likewise it's still conceivable (in my opinion unlikely) that they'll make similar sweeping changes to the fundamental nature of the game with the release of WOTLK.
"I've never known people as dogmatic as those who insist that all opinion is equally subjective."
However, note the difference between the content that existed at release, and the company's current intentions. It's post the release of TBC that they've said "we're surprised by the popularity of 10-man and intend it to be a viable progression in WOTLK". The difficulty and reward of Magister's Terrace are out of line with a "raid only" philosophy. The introduction of Arena made it clearer that PVP is supposed to be an alternative endgame progression path. (Old PVP was supposed to be an endgame progression according to its designer, it was just rubbish at it because it was appallingly designed.)
The game assumes raiding. That's not the same thing as Blizzard expecting every player to raid or quit.
It's important to recognise the context of a statement. "Blizzard want you to raid" is a harmless, innocuous statement. Yes, of course they do. They also want you to solo rep grind, do five mans, experiment with PVP and level your tradeskills. They want you to play alts. The context here is whether or not there should be non-raid endgame content, at which point "Blizzard wants you to raid" takes on more militant overtones (especially in the way Leaflock presented it) becoming "Raiding is a special thing that deserves special mention amongst these other things Blizzard want you to do".
Hence my response. Blizzard want to increase their player base. Blizzard want to not lose their existing player base. If raiding (or anything else) is the right way to do that, according to what their research tells them, then they will continue to promote and prioritise it. If it doesn't, they won't. Since we're not talking about the design of TBC as such (I used the design of TBC to illustrate the point because people are familiar with the content, but obviously it's too late to design TBC in such a way now, because time travel is impossible), the design priorities they had during the development of TBC are not that important. Their design priorites now appear to be comparitively less focus on the top end raiding game and more focus on the other potential endgame progressions. Whether that's the case or or remains to be seen.
If I remember correctly (and I might not be) it was fairly late in the day when Blizzard announced that TBC would be abandoning 40-man raiding. The day before that announcement was made, suggesting that TBC not contain 40-man raids would have been met with mockery and derision. Likewise it's still conceivable (in my opinion unlikely) that they'll make similar sweeping changes to the fundamental nature of the game with the release of WOTLK.
Yes, I did not miss that reply from you. But the tone the argument you and Doug were making seemed to take a turn towards the idea that though the game "assumes" it it doesn't "expect" it. In the current game, this is irrelevant. Because that is what they want you to do, whether they expect you to or not. In my opinion, it's definitely a "raid or don't progress" situation, even if the player doesn't quit.
You can rationalize the difference between "The game assumes raiding. That's not the same thing as Blizzard expecting every player to raid or quit." all you want, but the bottom line is that the previous and current design of the game is for raid progression. If you design content that leads solely to raid progression I don't see the point in arguing that it is not what is "expected". Naturally they have to offer alternatives for those they KNOW won't touch that content, but none of them are progressive. All this rep and grind stuff, Ogri'la, and all that ...is hardly progression content in their current implementation. When I say progression I am talking advancing your character in meaningful ways through the game (meaningful in the context of the current design philosophy). As far as PvE goes, only raiding does this. I will also clarify that progression in this game (by design) is largely characterized by the level of items/equipment you have. Yes, as I mentioned previously, they are showing good signs of moving to a different design philosophy for endgame content but we have yet to see what they have learned. From my perspective, this is the argument. I hope this makes sense to you.
Now I will re-emphasize that I like the proposal in the OP; if any game company in the industry has the financial resources to pull off that scale of development, it's Blizzard. I am all for offering many more alternative progression choices other than raids and I think your idea is a great start. I will not debate its feasibility as I don't design, program, nor market in the industry. But as a player, I would love to see something like this in the game for my character.
Last edited by Astiron : 03/17/08 at 10:08 AM.
Reason: clarity
Yes, I did not miss that reply from you. But the tone the argument you and Doug were making seemed to take a turn towards the idea that though the game "assumes" it it doesn't "expect" it. In the current game, this is irrelevant. Because that is what they want you to do, whether they expect you to or not. In my opinion, it's definitely a "raid or don't progress" situation, even if the player doesn't quit.
You can rationalize the difference between "The game assumes raiding. That's not the same thing as Blizzard expecting every player to raid or quit." all you want, but the bottom line is that the previous and current design of the game is for raid progression. If you design content that leads solely to raid progression I don't see the point in arguing that it is not what is "expected". Naturally they have to offer alternatives for those they KNOW won't touch that content, but none of them are progressive. All this rep and grind stuff, Ogri'la, and all that ...is hardly progression content in their current implementation. When I say progression I am talking advancing your character in meaningful ways through the game (meaningful in the context of the current design philosophy). As far as PvE goes, only raiding does this. I will also clarify that progression in this game (by design) is largely characterized by the level of items/equipment you have. Yes, as I mentioned previously, they are showing good signs of moving to a different design philosophy for endgame content but we have yet to see what they have learned. From my perspective, this is the argument. I hope this makes sense to you.
Now I will re-emphasize that I like the proposal in the OP; if any game company in the industry has the financial resources to pull off that scale of development, it's Blizzard. I am all for offering many more alternative progression choices other than raids and I think your idea is a great start. I will not debate its feasibility as I don't design, program, nor market in the industry. But as a player, I would love to see something like this in the game for my character.
I don't really understand what your point it, or rather, I'm not sure where we disagree. The current game content assumes and expects raiding - on this we agree. The current non-raid, non-arena content is rubbish because it has no progression - on this we agree. Blizzard have formally stated that they want more avenues of progression, and their position on this has become more "moderate" both during the development of TBC, and more so afterwards - on this we agree, and I assume we also agree that their efforts are indicative but not hugely impressive.
Let me put it this way. If they want to introduce progression for smaller group sizes, I propose that they do it in this way, as I think it's a good idea to do so, for the reasons stated. If they don't want to achieve the objectives that the proposal sets out to meet, then the proposal is irrelevant.
EDIT
To clarify a potential misunderstanding; the game content written over two years ago assumes and expects raiding. At the time, Blizzard assumed and expected raiding. They seemed to think that reducing the group size would encourage more people to raid, and that this was the solution to homogenising the population's play content. When I say "Blizzard don't expect you to raid", I mean now, not during the development of TBC. Right now they seem a bit unsure.
Last edited by Jaxtrasi : 03/17/08 at 11:59 AM.
"I've never known people as dogmatic as those who insist that all opinion is equally subjective."
I don't really understand what your point it, or rather, I'm not sure where we disagree.
That's because we're not disagreeing The question I suggested was at the heart of the debate for all sides was in my first post:
Originally Posted by Astiron
I do like the ideas proposed in the OP by Jax and I do agree mostly with the arguments made by he and Doug. This has been an interesting discussion to follow and see all the different opinions players have. But I think the bottom line does come down to this question: Is Blizzard looking to offer more paths of actual PvE progression other than raiding?
Emphasis added.
Originally Posted by Jaxtrasi
To clarify a potential misunderstanding; the game content written over two years ago assumes and expects raiding. At the time, Blizzard assumed and expected raiding. They seemed to think that reducing the group size would encourage more people to raid, and that this was the solution to homogenising the population's play content. When I say "Blizzard don't expect you to raid", I mean now, not during the development of TBC. Right now they seem a bit unsure.
We are on the same page.
Now we know Bliz is interested in more 10-mans. It has yet to be demonstrated that they see them as a path of progression, and not just some additional 10-man raid content. I think ZA is a reasonable example, with entire place assuming you have raided all of Kara and have the good badge loot. The timed run was clearly aimed at high-end raiders. But the rewards in ZA are not progressive; they are just very good rewards (and no I am not complaining about that , just making the point of progression). I guess I am suggesting that (bear with me, it is difficult to imagine different circumstances given the trends and direction of the past) any dungeons seen as progressive in design will host not only class sets, but famous lore figures and legendary story lines. Now Karazhan was quite possibly the best first option we have seen that satisfies both. The zone is entirely designed around a 10-man group. Entirely, from the size and feel of every section, to the lair of each respective boss, to the design and mechanics of the encounters. The logistics involved (raid organization, consumables, organization) are much less than that required for 25-mans. I would actually propose Karazhan as the model for casual raiding based on this, and I think Bliz got it right here. ZA was just ...hard. And did not satisfy the two known trends for progressive raid dungeons. Now it is on the right track, no doubt. There is nothing bad about ZA in my opinion, but if we are discussion alternative PvE progression, ZA didn't quite fill that role.
I think ZA is a reasonable example, with entire place assuming you have raided all of Kara and have the good badge loot... But the rewards in ZA are not progressive; they are just very good rewards... I would actually propose Karazhan as the model for casual raiding based on this, and I think Bliz got it right here. ZA was just ...hard... There is nothing bad about ZA in my opinion, but if we are discussion alternative PvE progression, ZA didn't quite fill that role.
Could you explain further how you think ZA failed as a progression? I'm not clear from your post.
"I've never known people as dogmatic as those who insist that all opinion is equally subjective."
Yes but you will have to take it with a grain of salt. I have done ZA twice, only have success on the bear boss (whatever his name is), but I did try Lynx and bird boss as well. That said, the place felt a lot like ZG did when it first dropped. ZG was perfectly difficult though for it's place. But generally it was just a zone that hit hard; everything could one or two shot you, sometimes even if you're the tank. That's how ZA felt.
Now what I mean about it failing as progression is that progressive content in the past has met two major criteria:
1. Themed around famous lore characters and major Warcraft story lines (the exception would be C'thun and Ragnaros, who are still Old Gods and thus still major characters).
2. Rewards tiered class loot.
I have no problems with this concept really. But this has been the trend.
Karazhan fit this criteria: it drops T4 class gear and Medivh is one of the most famous lore figures in Warcraft lore. No you don't fight him. But you meet him twice: Black Morass (which was really a nice touch for getting players on the path to enter Karazhan; I can't express how well done I think this was), and then in his Tower. They didn't demonize him to do it either, and meanwhile casual guilds got a great raid dungeon with awesome rewards, and interesting, lore marinated, encounters.
Zul'Aman does not fit this criteria. Granted, Zul'jin is a key personality in troll legend, but hardly in Azeroth. In fact ZA follows the same vein as ZG did; nothing key or important about the story lines and personalities, and it also does not drop tier loot. It is simply a new 10-man raid, new content to enjoy. And again, nothing wrong with this at all. But we are talking about progression based on previous known trends with Blizz design.
This is also not a bash on the quality of ZA loot, which is excellent. But the absence of tier loot makes it non-progressive, since there is no content to progress onwards to another 10-man. I think many of us are praying this happens with WoTLK. And I am contending that just because they will have more 10-mans in WoTLK does *not* mean they are making it progressive. Naturally, I hope it is. I think we all do. I think Bliz is interested in the idea. But it has yet to be demonstrated that they view 10-man content as progressive. It might be that they just understand there needs to be more of it.
I would say Zuljin is a major lore character for old Warcraft players (pre-War3).
Though you are right he is pretty much a non-issue now, and they surely dont manage to make him any more interesting in ZA (Hey, a troll city, lets kill them because we can).
Nefarian and Ony was made up just for WoW afaik, so its not like all Raid bosses are Illidan/Kael, Vasjh, Kelthuzad level.
03/15/08, 9:50 AM
) the Sunwell Plateau was mentioned early on as being a 3rd zone in the blood elf style (but little details?), and then was stopped being mentioned (until it was rumoured or revealed whenever that happened).
The question I suggested was at the heart of the debate for all sides was in my first post:
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