Cynthesis

One of the theories that have been thought of by the raiding community of WoW is that C'Thun was a cockblock - meant to keep everyone busy until Naxxraxmas. Let's just say that this theory is true, and that Blizzard had the fight unbeatable to buy themselves time.

If Blizzard uses a tactic like cockblocking on a fight like C'Thun, then how is it that they haven't used it elsewhere? One could think that perhaps strange occurances, such as Rag 1.0, BWL in the beginning, and pre-fix Chromaggus, were ACTUALLY just as much as cockblocks.

Let's face it, we all might be all OMG BLIZZ IS RETARDED EL OH EL...but honestly a company THAT good at making money and producing games won't make most of an instance, Blackwing Lair, unplayable unless they were doing it on purpose. Perhaps this is why Blackwing Lair wasn't on the Test Server?

It's obvious that Blizzard's goal is to make money, and they have done a very good job at that. However, if they put in every encounter PERFECTLY from the beginning everyone would finish the encounter quite rapidly - causing the multi-month gaps between new content to perhaps cause some people to quit. One could also relate this to the Tier .5 set introduction - a lot of casual non-raider level 60s were about to quit the game and Blizz wanted their $15 a month. If this type of "have broken/no content till people are about to leave," strategy is real (note DnT forums on C'Thun) than I see no reason why it cannot happen again.


Blizzard seems to have convinced the people in WoW that they have made mistakes and will not make the same again, hence BWL (post about needing new testers) having broken content in the beginning. Also on the Test Servers, I don't believe anyone could attempt Phase 2 C'Thun, so perhaps he was broken from the start, while the rest of the instance wasn't (minus Ouro).

Another progression fact to note - is that probably the only raid instance without some sort of an impossible cockblock was Zul'Gurub - and ZG was the only major raid instance that didn't have anything to do with a guild's progression through 40 mans (because it was a 20 man). Actually add AQ20 to that list.

I could be just restating the obvious, or completely off, but that's just something I thought off at class today.

 

• Fogbug

Blizzard is more or less breaking new ground as far as large scale MMO raid encounters go. To my knowledge, nothing in EQ or DAoC approaches the complexity of the cthun fight

also, it looks as if they've really been pushing hard to get Naxxramas ready to show off at E3. Fixing the last couple fights in AQ probably just got put on the back burner until they saw how pissed off everyone was about it

 

subscience

Blackwing Lair was not on the PTR because people wanted unspoiled content when it came patch time.

I think they vowed to never do that again. :laugh:

 

◊ Wubwub

CONSPIRACY THEORIES

 

◊ Lord BEEF

There's no way you can convince me that it was an intentional cockblock.

It would have been a cockblock if they had said "C'thun drops a key to access Naxxramas, and Naxxramas is in the game go there now!" and they didn't want you to kill him since Naxxramas wasn't done yet.

The only thing an unkillable C'thun stopped people from being able to do was get 5 pieces of loot a week. It makes no sense for them to make him intentionally unkillable. We weren't exactly being kept busy since we knew he wasn't about to die.

All that happened is the Blizzard wanted him to be really hard, but made him too hard, and then took too long to tone him down to a reasonable level.

Check out my friend's bitchin' Lord of the Rings Art

 

◊ Praetorian

This is a pretty dumb thread and is more likely than not to end up shit heaped.

Blizzard didn't put BWL on Test because the community asked them not to. I remember making an R&D post entitled "Blizzard, please don't put BWL on Test" and getting a blue reply.

Hakkar and Ossirian both had serious, serious problems in their initial versions. Hakkar had a hilarious bug. But the difference is that those were 20-man instances tuned to be a bit easier and thus balancing them was easier. I was in raid groups on Test that killed Hakkar for the first time, and cleared all of AQ20 as well. We had invisible devs tagging along observing us, dropping repair bots for us when needed, and so forth. We could play through every encounter fully and give feedback like "hey, this guy hits our Wrath-geared MT for over 2k crushing, are you sure this is supposed to be doable with blues?", and they could balance accordingly. We didn't need days of wipes to advance because we were overgeared for the zone, and it wasn't top-tier content.

With AQ40, on the other hand, they needed to balance at the very edge of player capability, while still respecting the competitive raiding game. What would the player reaction have been if C'Thun had died on Test? Wouldn't that have cheapened the whole zone right from the start?

The whole use of the term "cockblock" with regard to stuff like bugged Ouro and C'Thun is fucking retarded. A cockblock in EQ was when a gateway boss was made truly unkillable to hide unfinished content beyond. C'Thun wasn't blocking a damn thing except some epics. It's not like you need 40 C'Thun Hide Cloaks to zone into Naxx or something. Blizzard wanted him to be killable, but they didn't want him to be too easy, and the guys whose job it would be to truly finetune the encounter were probably otherwise occupied making sure patch 1.11 was ready for E3. And yeah, meeting a major corporate deadline like that would take precedence over fixing something that was hindering the gameplay of, at most, a few thousand players (in March, anyway).

Edit: Fuck, what Beef said ^^^

 

• Arawethion

Did you start typing this reply as soon as the OP went up?

Carrot Cake Soup is like the taste of watching girls make out.

 

• saramin

^

I know it's unfashionable to suggest, but most people involved in the gaming industry really are there more due to the medium than the money. Incompetence of varying degrees will always be present but making C'Thun a cockblock intentionally just to string along subscribers is a fair bit beyond what they're willing to stoop to.

Not to mention it's a fairly counter-intuitive way of going about it even if that was the intent.

 

Mesquite

I think more people leave the game due to stupid ass shit like a broken encounter, rather than leaving due to lack of content.

 

Ultramax

When asking, "Is Blizzard this stupid?" the answer is always yes.

 

◊ Wubwub

Who is more stupid: The stupids, or the stupids who pay those stupids 15 bucks a month and then complain about it?

 

Steelfleece

Will the stupidity that is the "C'Thun is/was a cockblock" threads ever cease?

Froststorm breath is pretty rad.

 

• diospadre

THE BLIZZARD APOLOGIZERS

 

◊ Wubwub

Yes, as soon as Naxxramas comes out and it is deemed a cockblock.

 

◊ Praetorian

Naxxramas should include a raid-boss version of this mob. He should be unkillable, of course.

 

◊ Wubwub

I'll see what I can do.








Ok I've seen and what I can do is nothing.

 

Nedfryst

no, blizzard are really great tbh. Not making shitgames like guildwars atleast (jeezh that game suck donkey balls)

 

• saramin

They need to stealth change how glancing blows work so EJ forums can become wholesome and pure once again before "Blizz is teh commies" threads completely overwhelm this place. =(

 

◊ Wubwub

Personally I wish we had more off-topic topics here. I'm all for discussing WoW, and I can respect that we don't want to shit the place up, but I'm all for the generic form of discussion as well. Not just the WoW kind.

 

◊ Praetorian

Anyway, this thread offers nothing original.

 

◊ Wubwub

Let's make it a mod playground. Those are fun.

 

◊ Thrillho

Yes. Yes, they are.

 

• hellsoap

 

◊ Wubwub

So I hear everyone who can't post in this thread sucks.