Axl_Stukov

Well, during the Veradis questline in SMV, you learn that of the four blood elves handpicked by Illidan to be trained in the art of demon hunting 2 died, Veradis passed with flying colors, and the last one went crazy. I can only presume Leotheras is the one who went crazy. Though that still doesn't answer why he's in the back corner of SSC with some brokens...

 

footloop

Yeah, but you just went on a journey across the world do destroy his sons because they were out wreaking havoc and generally making life hard for the ogres. It's not that big a leap to assume he's probably not doing any favors to the community either. He's also got the 'High King' of the ogres (who presumably isn't a very nice guy either, not sure if he's mentioned in any quests though) under his control, so taking him out is a logical step in the help-our-ogre-buddies progression.

I do concede the point about the questline being patched in later though. I didn't actually start playing WoW until a few weeks before that patch hit, so I was unaware of that

 

Himmel

I'd like to mention itemization in TBC, in old wow there was alot of good-for-nothing items, like warrior tier with spirit or paladin tier having small amount of stats for each of 3 talent trees.

Making specs more or less viable or at least giving them some questionable purpose, pre TBC it was 1 good tree and 2 bad for most classes.

Worst raid was Mount Hyjal indeed. Mind-numbing waves of cloned mobs, 4 trivial bosses, nothing to remember, only archimonde was a nice change after pretty straightforward "cleaning" of 4/5 at least he showed how much it's possible to hate guildmates.

Best ones are Karazhan and Sunwell for me, kara for atmosphere, sense of exploration and memorable personalities of bosses.
Sunwell is the masterpiece of tuning encounters, you give everything you have or you wipe
1) Kalecgos. Understanding big picture of the fight. Timers.
2) Brutallus. Effectiveness at primary role, yes it actually teached people how to perform well.
3) Felmyst. Test of communication. You listen - you live.
4) Twins. Basics of multitasking. Using castbars and /focus
5) M'uru. Another effectiveness at primary role check. Plus timing. Delays are lethal.
6) Kil'jaeden. Don't panic.

I think SWP learning process is one of the most sucessful things Blizzard done in TBC.

The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated.

Oscar Wilde, "The Remarkable Rocket"

 

Tyrian

I think a major success of Sunwell is it delivered the full package. It had challenging (fun) encounters, it had strong lore surrounding the bosses and instance, it had impressive art, quality voice acting, official machinima videos, the music was great - and it had Kil'Jaeden, who undeniably has the coolest boss-entrance seen in the game to date. Regardless of which critiera above you deem important for a raid instance, chances are Sunwell struck a chord with most of them.

Now compare the Sunwell package to the Black Temple, Hyjal, Serpentshrine and the Tempest Keep raid packages. With the exception of the Kael'thas fight (and Archimonde/Vashj depending on your preference) - it's really just BT and Sunwell that felt like Blizzard went above-and-beyond to give us quality content, instead of just pushing out more content for the sake of keeping gamers occupied.

This would have to be one of the problems with TBC. The memorable content, the outstanding fights - they were past much of the crap that was SSC/Hyjal/TK - and thus a great number of people never got to see it. Thats a shame.

I'd like to think that, in WOTLK and beyond, Blizzard gamers will categorically reject any future instances of a SSC/Hyjal/TK standard as unacceptable - demanding more of the voice acting, lore, story, fight innovation and encounter quality that we found in BT/Sunwell... and settle for nothing less.

 

Camaris

One of the frankly quite puzzling omissions is the utter lack of reason to go back in time to slap Archimonde. Even today the attunement quest in the game warns you that "the outcome of the Battle of Mount Hyjal must be preserved" and "We must make haste, the timeline is not safe", yet nothing in the instance suggest anything about the Battle is different from WC3.

I find it even stranger that blue posts actually discredited this part of lore altogether, simply claiming there was never an intention to have the Infinite Dragonflight appear in Hyjal. This has always sounded fishy to me, and it seems likely they simply didn't have the Infinite Dragonflight story thought out at all.

 

Axl_Stukov

I've always felt this was strange, especially considering how easy it could have been done. Say for example after beating Azgalor, Tyrande tells us that somethings going wrong with Malfurion's Wisp summoning, you go to wherever he's doing it and hold off some Infinite Dragon waves then fight an Infinite Dragon boss, and because of them being there Malfurion needs some more time to get the wisp nuke ready, so you go fight Archimonde. Something like that would have worked nicely.

 

kalbear

Going back through the older content I find myself missing how well the bosses of older raids melded with the lore and the overall feel of the zone. Sunwell did this somewhat well; Kalecgos, M'uru and KJ all flow nicely, and having a giant demon fighting a blue dragon and having you deal with both of them - as well as seeing them outside on quests - really helped unite the issue. T4 was fine in this regard as well; Magtheridon was set up in early instances and what Mags is doing is fleshed out both in prior games and in quests. Gruul wasn't perfect, but the presence of a giant Gronnlord and his sons as well as the king of all Ogres fits together.

But SSC, BT and to a lesser extent TK are all completely random with respect to their bosses. SSC has Hydross, who almost makes sense...and then we have Lurker. Why is there a giant fish? Why does it matter to the Naga? Why is Morogrim hanging out and farting in a cave? Why is Leotheras imprisoned? The encounters were fun fights with interesting mechanics, but the actual placement of them just seemed arbitrary. Same went for TK; Al'ar made a fair amount of sense given his connection with KT, but Void Reaver is just hanging out in a room that he can't ever actually leave, and which you don't have to go to to get to KT at all? Solarian is a mage...that turns into a void walker?

BT was the worst of this, however. Having a giant Naga as the first boss was okay if uninspired - and then we have the mother of all infernals working for Illidan - who (if the scale was right) you should surely see outside of BT. Then you deal with the odd Akama questline, but at least that's part of the bad lore. The next bosses are just cryptic as all hell though. We've got Gorefiend hanging out for no reason. Gurtogg is at least a fel orc, but he's just some random orc; he's no Kargath or Kel'idan. Reliquary of Souls may have something to do with the draenei, but does anyone actually know? Then we get to the pleasure palace of...the temple. That Illidan apparently wants demonic prostitutes is beyond bizarre. After that, we have 4 blood elves, who apparently don't care that Kael'Thas is betraying Illidan and want to work with Illidan instead?

I thought that for the most part, the encounters in BT were well-designed and showcased good mechanics and coordination. Especially Reliquary; a multiphase fight where each phase is very different and requiring a natural dps check on each phase was very well done considering no phase had any enrage timer. But the actual feel of why you're doing any of it was just poor.

 

Guybrush

To be honest, most raid zones in the game as a all have you wonder many things. Even as early as MC there were plenty of bosses who you know nothing about, who are Lucifron and Gehnnas? The only bosses you know something about (Besides Rag) are Garr and Geddon, and I guess Executos as well. And most of it is true for AQ40 as well and Naxxamars for some extent. In the end of the day most bosses in the game are created for the game, its just a shame we never get to learn anything about them before entering the zone.

 

Dancing Wu Li Master

I don't think it's a real problem if there are good thematic reasons for bosses in an instance. Heigan, Noth and Gothik were all powerful necromancers, and exactly the sort of boss I'd expect to find in Naxx. The various wings / quarters helped too; you got the sense that the bosses had a purpose, even if you didn't necessarily know what it was. I don't need to know their life story to know that they're evil henchmen of Kel'thuzad. Ambassador Flamelash at least vaguely sets up the MC bosses. Even something as simple as a name for the boss helps. It was annoying that we hadn't heard of Maulgar before the instance, but I doubt anybody felt he didn't make sense: the High King of the ogres was in a cave with the demi-god they worship, at the center of a large stronghold.

Karazhan had some of the best and worst examples of this. Even if you'd never heard of Moroes or Aran before, their position in the instance made perfect sense. The counter example is a fight like Netherspite; a fun fight, but the link to the rest of the instance is tenous at best. I was really disappointed at the lack of Medivh in the instance; Aran, Chess and Nightbane had the right level of involvement, but the Prince didn't really connect to anything in the instance. Even just renaming him something like "Remnant of Sargeras" and changing the graphics / dialog slightly would have done the trick.

EDIT: I think Ogri'la might have been one of the sections originally intended to make release, but which was cut or reworked; the official map (World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade - Map of Outland) does have a neutral city in Blade's Edge called "Gronn'bor Shrine".

Crypts felt horribly undeveloped. I've done the quest chain leading in to it on Alliance side, and most of it barely even relates to it; it's one of the quest chains where you do a favour for a guy so he can do a favour for another guy, and you get your original quest done. I'm normally fairly attentive and interested in quests and lore, but I can't help but feel that the southern bit of the Bone Wastes was just missing a quest or two to tie everything together. Mana Tombs didn't have much story either, but at least it didn't feel like it was missing stuff: Someone Else's Hard Work Pays Off - Quest - World of Warcraft pretty much summarises the instance in the title alone.

 

Krazen

I always felt that Leotheras, in its original form, should have been a Black Temple fight and put in Supremus's spot.

In any case, they need to seriously revise loot pacing. The fact that C'thun dropped superior loot to almost all of 60 Naxx was the right way to go, as opposed to the fact that Kael drops garbage compared to Najentus and beyond.

People have already talked about the issues of dungeon difficulty and pacing, so I won't rehash that. It's my guess, though, that we will not be seeing fights like M'uru 1.0 or Kil'jaeden anymore, and I think that's sad.

 

glowacks

That's a great way to go - as long as Blizzard provides an easy way for people to access the last boss. Consider that there was a guild that hacked their clients in order to bypass most of AQ40 and go directly from Skeram to C'thun. The reason that the end-boss loot was comparatively toned down in TBC was the perception that players didn't like to be forced to continually clear the entirety of old dungeons in order to get the necessary gear. And given the pre-C'Thun trash in AQ40 it's not surprising that someone decided to ignore the EULA and do whatever they could to skip it.

There have been very few raids where there have been optional bosses - mainly 10/20 mans and a few in AQ40 - and even in the best case, AQ20, where only 2 boss kills were needed to access the last boss, there was a significant amount of trash to clear. Even when you could go straight to Kael and Vashj, those instances were a decent amount longer than Onyxia-like instances. Even if you could summon Ragnaros without clearing the rest of the instance, it would be similar to current TK/SSC.

There's no sign that Blizzard will be allowing folks to skip directly to end bosses, so having loot superior to most of the next tier come off of them is not what players want for progression. They don't want to have to give up multiple hours per week to do what amounts to a chore in order to get loot that is the best available for them - they'd rather spend the time workign on new bosses. For those that prefer swimming in loot, whether it was worth anythign or not, over actual challege obviously liked the previosu system, while those who like those fights it's a bit of a bummer to see them defeated only a few times, but you still had all those weeks you worked on them to enjoy the fight, right?

 

kalbear

This was the case in BC as well. Kael and Vashj dropped gear that was significantly better than a lot of the loot dropped from early bosses; the non-tier gear was at the same ilvl as all of T6 gear, and there were more 'good' pieces such as weapons. To this day Vashj's loot table is best in slot for some specs, and to this day some of Kael's drops are either best or close to it.

Same with Illidan; the non-tier gear was at the same ilvl as sunwell pieces, and often was better itemized or had other special tricks to it that sunwell gear lacked. And that's not discounting the glaives. Most of the gear that dropped from Illidan would only be upgraded from KJ, and some is best in slot even after that.

Personally I like this, though I really think they should taper it off a bit more so that it becomes a guild choice whether to farm older content for that last boss or to go forward without it hurting the raid too badly.

 

david0925

Actually, they didn't.

C'thun dropped Ilvl 88 items, 84 for weapons. early Naxx bosses dropped ilvl 81 items. Only at Sapphiron level do you see loot even invested to be better than C'thun loot in terms of ilvl.

T6 content dropped minimal ilvl of 141, while vashj/kael had ilvl 138. Only well-itemized items like Vestment of the Sea Witch and Belt of One Thousand Deaths made them t6 items look worse in comparison: their item budget is still lower.

Maniq is my hero

 

kalbear

138 vs 141 is essentially the same, but you're right. The point was that the gear from the bosses is still on par with the gear from the next tier of content.

Which I still think is very flawed, but at least they were consistently flawed.

 

Oaken

I don't know why people find this such a stretch. Leotheras was imprisoned by those broken. Illidan ended up with a powerful but psychotic demon hunter on his hands. He could kill him but instead he chose to put him in the keeping of one of his lieutenants. "Vashj, I have a job for you. Keep my crazy pupil here safe and under lock and key until I need him."

 

Enova

In the case of Gruul/Magtheridon, them having better quality loot than early content TK would not have been such a bad idea. People already set together PUGs, much like they have done for Onyxia way back. Except there weren't tier 2 hats for everyone, there was just a shot at a DST. Increasing loot quality would have provided more reasons to visit.

Guilty as charged ^

 

Grunn

But then why give him to Vashj? why not keep him safe "under lock and key" in the black temple with the other demonhunters?

The only two major failings of TBC from my perspective were the lack of lore tie-ins with the zones they were found in, in particular, the lack of quests to do in instances (besides the one per instance "go kill the final boss" quest)
I would be truely happy with a good 2-3 quests to do per instance, as it just feels much more fulfilling to me to run an instance to complete quests than go in just for the drops.

The other failing was the side effect of changing the honour system to a non-decaying grind. I think the change from rating decay to a fixed honour cost system was a goodmove (i ground out warlord rank, i know how painful the old system was), but I'm still disapointed at how theres no real incentive to do well in a BG when pugging for honour, i think there needs to be a change to force players to actually play the game and achieve objectives in BGs, such as giving bonus honour to the player that caps a flag orr is in a bunker when it burns, or awarding bonus honour for kills near objectives.

 

Krazen

Why does that need to be the case? If you are willing to put in the time to clear to an end boss, you should be rewarded, both with more loot and better loot. Say Kael dropped a Tempest of Chaos instead of that miserably Nexus Key staff. Well, a t6 entering guild has the chance to work on BT/Hyjal and pick up the slightly inferior Najentus Dagger, or you can go back for a night a week and clear the old content for what should be 3-5 new upgrades. Eventually, by the time you reach Illidan/Archimonde, you can replace your Kael/Vashj loot, but it shouldn't happen much sooner than that.

Kael and Vashj failed partially because they had an overall miserable loot table that made people drop the content like a hot potato.

 

btmorex

I don't really have experience in TBC raiding so I can't comment on Kael/Vashj loot. I do, however, remember going back to AQ40 every week because C'thun had best-in-slot items for a number of classes. Simply put, that was awful. We would spend a night in AQ40 and maybe come out with 1 item from Twin Emps and 2 items from C'thun that were actually upgrades for people. I just don't see why people think that's a good idea. I think Blizzard should target guilds farming an instance fully for 1-2 months (1-2 months in addition to learning time) and then moving on. If you spend more time in an instance, it just ends up seeming like work instead of seeming like playing a game.

 

Lujaar

There are a lot of things Blizzard could do to make BGs better.


-Not forcing players to repeat the same honor grind every arena season.

-Creating a system to reward competition between premades. Rated BGs, or something like it.

-Creating more new BGs, and letting people queue by game type rather than for specific BGs, to keep the content from stagnating.

-Rewarding good play in pugs, rather than just rewarding participation.


These aren't new ideas, and I'd be surprised if many people were opposed to any of them. BGs received almost no attention in TBC, and they needed attention to stay fun. It's not that there's anything inherently unfun about any of the four we've got now. The problem is that we've been doing the same BGs for (for some of us) three years now, and we're playing to grind gear, not necessarily because we enjoy it.

Letting BGs stagnate into a long, mandatory grind was one of the biggest failings of TBC. I don't have a magic solution, but I'd rather see new content and rewards for progressing and playing well. Or, failing that, at least let us "progress beyond" BGs rather than repeating the same tired content just so new players will have more people to queue against.

 

Sumie

Agreed, and they neglected not just battlegrounds, but world PvP as well (flying mounts certainly didn't help that matter). Blizzard made great strides improving PvE throughout TBC, appeasing both the casual and hardcore crowd with fun, challenging content, multiple gear paths, and two of the best instances to date: Zul'Aman and Sunwell. Moreover, they've probably come as close to class balance as they've ever come, lest we forget how much of a joke off-specs like feral druids and ret paladins were or how warlocks were only brought to raids to apply their curses in vanilla WoW.

They dropped the ball in PvP, however, focusing exclusively on arenas to the detriment of other venues. Even regarding arenas, little was done but create new gear sets with each successive season. Balance issues were put to the side by S3, and overpowered classes were left dominant for the rest of the expansion.

Blizzard has to realize that their PvP can't be solely centered around arenas, with battlegrounds as merely a means to gear up. They have to realize that there is a significant playerbase, the ones who are constantly looking at AoC and Warhammer as the "WoW Killer" (and ultimately returning to WoW disappointed), that prefer immersive world PvP or objective-based battlegrounds over deathmatching. Arenas are great, I love them and have hit gladiator multiple times, but I would absolutely love rated BG's and a return to some guild vs. guild rivalry that's been missing since the introduction of xrealm battlegrounds.

 

pdpi

If I were to face "mini-Illidan" at the gates, I'd have scratched my head and thought "why is he here?". Perhaps if the training grounds had been inside the instance proper it might've worked. When I fought Supremus, what I did think was "here's a gatekeeper if ever I saw one". That works for me.

 

Beardstorm

As far as PvP goes, I think that WAR blows WoW out of the water completly. While I may be reading too much into it, the knockback mechanics, encouraging raids on faction leaders and Warriors Vigilance talent are both similar to things in WAR (knockback, Keep Lords, Ironbreakers Guard ability), and with WoWs own seige weapons and "RvR Lake" incomming I hope they have learned a lot from what worked really well in WAR (just as WAR took a lot of good things from WoW).

I think what really killed Arenas and PvP in general for me was the gear requirement (i.e. honor grind) needed to have half a chance. Best example of this is any world PvP where unless you quest in PvP gear you will be blown away half the time before you can try and fight back. I admit that I'm not an expert by any means, but from my point of view lack of survivability of the average joe is far too low for PvP to be fun.

 

Krazen

I guess, but Supremus is a giant rock that can't do much but stand there. Leotheras could be Illidan's insane general.

 

glowacks

From a talk with a Warhammer player, if you successfully raid the other faction's capital city, they are unable to access anything there for something like 2 days. I don't remember all the services he mentioned that are only available there, but it probably includes a Bank, Auction House, and possibly all the trainers (although it did seem he trained somewhere in the middle of nowhere). And since there's only one capital city per faction, that's a huge deal, something that players will actively want to stop.

WoW's faction leader raids already existed, at one time gave a whole lot of honor, and don't do anything to the populous or the city at all. The only reason a faction wants to defend is to PvP and RP protecting their leader - there's no reward for defending and the guy's just gonna respawn anyway. I don't know what the honor rewards for downing them are (if any), but outside of that all that's there is an achievement.

Warhammer is built on Realm vs Realm combat. The factions are decidedly enemies - unlike in Warcraft. I've been told the PvE content is nothing interesting when compared to WoW. While WoW might borrow some good general ideas, they are never going to be able to take PvP where Warhammer does without creating some incredibly good reasons why the Horde and Alliance should commence an all-out war. Arenas are absolutely the most flavorful way to introduce "meaningful" PvP to the game and has worked for a significant segment of players. I'm sure there are those out there who would like to see some more meaningful BGs and such, but given the sporadic and localized nature of the conflicts between the Horde and Alliance it's just not going to happen.