MMOs - A Raid Bench.

[The Ancient]

Originally Posted by Sunder

The answer is to never trivialize

I disagree here. Trivializing old content has pretty much proven to be a good thing.

[Ogun Nagoura]

Originally Posted by The Ancient

What's your suggestion then to get more people into raiding?

Honestly, players with a spouse + children, or are over 40 years old, don't really care about raiding. Take myself of example, I have had an account with WoW since release. I've let other people play characters they made up and they have lvl'd them up ect but as for my only character I play is a lvl 20 troll hunter. That's right, lvl 20 (2 days played time) that's all I have progressed since release. Why? I am not <40 single, no tall commitments etc. The lion's share of my time is spent raising my kids and paying my mortgage. Before I finally cancelled my account back in Sept 07 I only logged on about 30 to 60 minuets every 5 months or so.

WoW caters to people who CANNOT or DON'T want to raid. When you and Zhev find that love of your life and hold your first baby in your arms all your gaming perspective will do a 180. Sure you'd love to raid five days a week for five hours a night, but rapidly you will bow out of your guilds, cancel subscriptions, or find different games to your new time schedule. Personally, I just play COD4 and love it. I can log in and PVP like mad and the second I have to leave I just click out and no one gets pissed cause I was the only healer and left them high and dry. If I don't get back to the game for a month I don't care and neither does some guild that bent over backwards to get me keyed, attuned, geared up to be on their A team.

[Sunder]

Originally Posted by The Ancient

I disagree here. Trivializing old content has pretty much proven to be a good thing.

Then you aren't getting new people into raiding. You're throwing them a bone of old content. Which would not include TBC content at this point. It would be MC/BWL/AQ40/Naxx. All of which have been trivialized with 10 more levels, badge gear, new pvp gear. So go do your old trivialized content and shut the fuck up. Otherwise, you aren't advocating trivializing old content, you're trivializing current content (which all TBC raid instances are).

You just want it trivialized faster. Which is a bad idea. Trivializing after a certain point is fine and to be expected. Trivializing the content while it is still a part the current content group is just a horrible design decision.

So go do your old-world content and wait for WotLK for TBC raid content to be trivialized and be happy.

[The Ancient]

Defending an idea I think has some merit isn't the same thing as wanting it. I would like to reduce my time commitment and experience all the things I enjoyed about raiding, but your are right, being able to zerg zones wouldn't help that.

I was thinking more along the lines of shutting up the type of people crying out because they can't see Illidan. Maybe it's better just to ignore those people.

I think 10 man progression behind 25 man is fantastic, but I know that it won't be the same content so people will still feel left out. Should it matter? Only if we are seeking the perfect game.

[Sunder]

I was thinking more along the lines of shutting up the type of people crying out because they can't see Illidan. Maybe it's better just to ignore those people.

These same people were the ones crying that they couldn't see Onyxia or Nefarian. Now that they can, how many have gone back and done it? I would wager very very few. They aren't really crying about seeing the content. They are crying about the loot. If it really were just about the content, there would be weekly PuG's of BWL/AQ40 etc.

[Wilfan]

Originally Posted by Xequecal

To be perfectly honest, isn't it just a BIT retarded that Kael is harder than almost every boss that comes after him? Since RoS P2 and P3 are mostly a gear check...

Ahahahahahahaha.

Play with the guilds in the lower half and you'll see that RoS P2 is far, far from "mostly a gear check". Even in my former guild, which beat Kael (after the HP nerf to advisors...), it took about 10 hours of wiping on RoS until rogues learned how to kick. Not to mention P1 where it took almost as long for all the "tanks" to learn when to move in and when to stop. Or Bloodboil where the new batch of paladin healers couldn't figure it out that flash heal alone won't save the Fel Raged person. Or Teron and that one special person in raid who can't figure out how to control the ghost even after 5 screw-ups. Or Mother or ... - I'm just glad I'm on a break from raiding.

Back to the point - Kael isn't the hardest boss, but is much more difficult than the content before him compared to any other boss and his preceeding content (though personally I found Vashj harder, as it was the first fight where I was running OOM even max consumables). That's what earned him the fame of the hardest boss in TBC.

[Wilfan]

Originally Posted by Sunder

If it really were just about the content, there would be weekly PuG's of BWL/AQ40 etc.

There were, but not on all servers and not all the time. But we had a almost two months in TBC where there was a weekly Naxx PUG every Saturday and Sunday. So it's a bit about content, but mostly still about gear. As one would expect from a gear-oriented game.

I bet if they'd make Naxx give the same gold/hour as dailies or drop decent amount of badges, you'd see regular Naxx pugs all the time.

[Sunder]

Originally Posted by Wilfan

There were, but not on all servers and not all the time. But we had a almost two months in TBC where there was a weekly Naxx PUG every Saturday and Sunday. So it's a bit about content, but mostly still about gear. As one would expect from a gear-oriented game.

I bet if they'd make Naxx give the same gold/hour as dailies or drop decent amount of badges, you'd see regular Naxx pugs all the time.

And if they made 10-man progression zones just a step behind 25-man, you'd see them pug'd as well. It's all about the loot to the majority of the whiners. Don't let them fool you. The few that actually care only about the content did just as you said, the first couple weeks of TBC they went and saw it.

Trivializing current content for the whiners complaining because their purples aren't quite as new and shiny as the 25-man purples is a bone-headed design decision.

[Wodin]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

Because that's all TBC is really. If you can learn to not stand in fire, you can beat half the encounters already!

Unless it's the Eredar Twins, in which case standing in the fire is mandatory.

The thing that blows my mind about this thread is that somehow large-group organization is supposed to evolve without anyone actually doing the organizing. If you look at every other organized recreational activity in the world, from gun clubs to beer league softball to poker nights with coworkers, there's someone doing the grunt work of making sure there's a place to go and beer when you get there and that everyone can park. I really don't understand how the fuck that restriction is just supposed to magically disappear when it comes to a computer game.

[Digo]

I think the disconnect happens because people are playing a video game, and being raised on single player player games where *they* are the ultimate hero, they carry that expectation into the online space. People somehow assume that because an MMO is also a game, it should also be effortless fun.

I don't disagree with them: an MMO should be simple, easy to learn, fun to play, and generally not cause more stress than it relieves. If peoples' expectations were different entering the gamespace -- "woah, this is just as organized and competitive as a real world sport..." -- then people wouldn't be so frustrated by bad leaders, lack of progress, and envy.

Remember when the WoW forums were constantly ablaze with: "I didn't sign up for a raiding game! This game was fun and simple when I started playing! They got me hooked and then they replaced the game I love with paramilitary organizations."

I'm not saying raiding should be done away with in MMOs. I do think that a lot of the logistical difficulties can be reduced, and that raiding itself could take far less time while still being difficult and rewarding.

[Draegan]

Originally Posted by Old Man Potter

Why don't you take your own advice and man up and stop polluting threads like this with your inane babbling? You're constant parade of childish one-liners, "Rickshaw this thread!" and "TLDR" sputum rightly belong on the official WoW forums instead of these forums. I seem to recall you've demonstrated that you can behave yourself on the Elitist Jerks forums, so why can't you do the same here?

This board is a forum sport, not for serious discourse.

[Ogun Nagoura]

Originally Posted by Digo

Remember when the WoW forums were constantly ablaze with: "I didn't sign up for a raiding game! This game was fun and simple when I started playing! They got me hooked and then they replaced the game I love with paramilitary organizations."

QFT

I fault Blizz big time for this. But if they were up front with that they wouldn't have a fifth of the subscriptions they have.

[The Ancient]

Originally Posted by Ogun Nagoura

QFT

I fault Blizz big time for this. But if they were up front with that they wouldn't have a fifth of the subscriptions they have.

This is a statement I can not get behind. How the fuck did they fail to advertise that their MMO would feature end-game raiding? Did they need a disclaimer during all media that said: *Caution WoW is not a single-player game.*

[Sunder]

Originally Posted by Ogun Nagoura

QFT

I fault Blizz big time for this. But if they were up front with that they wouldn't have a fifth of the subscriptions they have.

So 3 years later, the raiding population still makes up a severe minority of subscriptions to WoW. Are you claiming that all those who don't raid haven't figured out what the game is "really about" in 3 years or that someone is holding a gun to all their heads and forcing them to keep playing? If things are so horribly bad, why is WoW still holding over 5 million US/Euro subscriptions? I fault Blizz too for making the most widely played MMO ever with a seemingly pretty solid retention rate.

[Wilfan]

Originally Posted by Sunder

And if they made 10-man progression zones just a step behind 25-man, you'd see them pug'd as well. It's all about the loot to the majority of the whiners.

And 10-mans are currently just a step behind 25-man content gearwise and they're pugged all the time. We're in violent agreement here.

What would be nice is to drop a few badges or gold into old content so the "left behind" don't have to run those two 10-man zones for two years. That's much easier that making new 10 man zones. Though I hope WotLK will prove me wrong.