v3.3
Iownzu <Level 15 Tauren Rogue – Barrens>, “So yeah I just killed the Slightly Upset Plainstriders outside The Crossroads and they all drop these Emblems of Triumph. Pretty awesome, eh?”
Iwannabelong <Level 12 Tauren Paladin – Barrens>, “Chuck Norris!”
Eliteownzmaster <Level 80 Blood Elf Paladin – Barrens>, “WTF? I only get three of those for killing the Faction Champions in a ToC raid 25!”
Iownzu <Level 15 Tauren Rogue – Barrens>, “You’re just jealous i’ll have full T9 at level 20!”
Gobble gobble
PS Yes I know the spelling and grammer are not that good in the Barrens
PPS If they are going to make loot so easy to obtain why don’t they at least make the cutting edge end game raiding a bit harder? *Hopes Icecrown is more like Ulduar and less like ToC*
PPPS If the game isn’t about leveling and its not about raiding for exclusive gear, what is it about? A glorified chat room?
BobTurkey's blog 
I do not see how making loot from below the current top end tier of raiding content easy to get in any way diminishes anyone’s enjoyment of raiding?
I raid because it is fun – getting gear is a tool to allow me to do my job in the raid better.
I think it is great that when a newcomer to the game dings 80, they have a way of gearing up so that they are able to at least mostly pull their weight in current content – rather than forcing guilds to run farm nights in old content to gear people up (which is an incredibly inefficient way of doing it thanks to the RNG).
“A glorified chat room?”
Yes.
However … maybe we could say “life” is a “glorified chat room.”
[…] has expressed his dissatisfaction with the […]
@Tufva – Yeah I can see it encourages new raiders, but it also discourages existing ones. Once i’ve cleared content once or twice what is the incentive to continue running it?
@Is – So if Wow and life are both “glorified chat rooms”, whats the point of WoW? 🙂
Thanks for the comments.
Gobble gobble.
My cents:
Blizzard is deliberately shifting the focus in the game away from collecting the shiniest, purplest bulkiest looking gear. These days, flashing e-peen is best done with the harder (or rarer, or most time consuming, etc) achievements as opposed to previous iterations of the end game where gear was the benchmark.
Achievements are definitely better suited for this because it allows different “types” of players to pursue their own goals and allows them to show off the fruit of their labors.
The game IS about leveling, and the game IS about raiding. The game IS about standing around in trade/barrens chat and doing whatever it is they do in there. It IS about exploring the world map and it IS about catching various types of fish. It IS about winning the STV PvP event and the Sunday fishing contest. It is about clearing Naxx without and deaths and it IS about the Tribute To Dedicated Insanity.
With achievements in place, the game is about all of these things… well maybe not the trade chat trolls… but players who are unable to (or don’t want to) “raid for gear” now have their own set of goals to pursue and have a mechanism to share their experiences with others.
I admit that gear is easier to come by, and that there are plenty of scrubs running around in Ilvl 219 (or whatever). However, this is also great for people with numerous alts. Getting “raid ready” for the current content is now much faster (than getting ready for the Sunwell in TBC.)
Fair comment Markham1.
Normally i’m a big fan of achievements and titles and what not. Personaly i’ve been a bit discouraged from achievements because they are so easy to get. For example during Brewfest I fell off the zepplin drunk and got two achievements!?!?
I’m not entirely sure its all about e-peen. I think a chunk of it is about differentiation.
There isn’t much differentiation left in gear, or even downing bosses (perhaps Algalon is an exception). There isn’t any in achievements really unless you look at a website or inspect someone and even then any difference gets lost in the clutter of the pointless achievements.
The main differenctiation remaining seems to be titles and mounts.
Gobble gobble
Gear has always been a sad way to distinguish one’s self from others. Skill, for good or bad and regardless of gear, will always differentiate you from others. If you know your stuff and can perform well then you’ll stand out.
You are of course entitled to your opinion re:gear.
Skill does differentiate you from others but it is not easily detectable. You can’t look at someone in Dalaran and know if they are skilful or not. Guild tag will give you some indication, but tis not fail safe.
I guess I’m doing something wrong. I raid, I heal, I DPS. I have a pretty good rep for doing all on my server. However, I have yet to see past the Champions in TOC 10, I’ve NOT been past Frea in Ulduar and I still wear my T7.5 shoulders.
Gear doesn’t seem to EVER drop when I’m present, unless I’m on my hunter, THEN my healing gear drops ((yay Blizz- thanks for the loot tables!))
All this said, I still find the “End Game” to be pretty damn hard. Yet all I see in forums is “make Icecrown harder than X”, “Naxx/Ulduar are too easy”. WTF?! Problem is, THOSE are the people that say “Blizz only cares about the NEW players”, they post QQ’s more than the people who are struggling, so Blizz makes the “end game” more and more difficult and out of reach of the “casual” player.
My priest’s gear score is around 2300, not bad, but not the best either. Still I struggle if the rest of the people I’m with don’t kow what their doing. Please keep in mind, not EVERYONE has a “Leet” guild full of “Leet” players. So the next time someone bitches about the game getting too “easy” it’s not so for MOST of the players, that’s why there’s a “hard mode” or “Heroic” version of all raids. Just for those “Leet” players. Also, if you haven’t cleared all of Ulduar or ToC and don’t have every achievment for those raids, then really you have no place to complain about stuff being “too easy”. Try a PUG sometime on Sisters of Elune and tell me how easy the “end game” is. Maybe it’s just me though, guess I’m a scrub, noob, or some other intelligent term invented by Tweens.
@khenna – I got my T8 shoulders from VoA and they were the first thing replaced with a ToC 25 trophy. So I know how you feel.
I think the “make end game harder” people are players in regular raiding guilds. Our guild is far from world class and we aren’t the top raiding guild on our serer but we often clear, for example ToC 25, VoA 25 and Ony 25 in a raid night. Disconnects cause more wipes than the content…
I don’t think the end game content should be designed with pugs in mind. Sure when there was only Naxx to raid having the raids easier was a good idea, but now there is VoA, OS, Naxx easily puggable and at least the first half of Ulduar, Onyxia and ToC 10 probably puggable does Ice Crown need to be easy out of the box?
As at 3.3.2 isn’t this enough content for casuals?
My opinion is that IC should be fairly hard at least up until the 4.0 patch. I’m not thinking so hard only the “Leet” guilds can do it, but challenging enough for any organised raiding guild. This gives the players in larger guilds a chance to be challenged by the content for sometime before it gets nerfed to a level suitable for pugs. Pugs and casuals can then play enjoy it from 4.0 patch and onwards.
This opinion isn’t based on me wanting to be more “leet” than anyone else. It is based on me wanting something challenging to raid other than identical content in heroic mode. Thus “*Hopes Icecrown is more like Ulduar and less like ToC*”.
Gobble gobble.
I agree that Icecrown needs to be more like Ulduar than TOC. I like the challenging “trash” pulls and the general flow of the place, more than a “Boss is dead…here’s the next boss” scenario.
I’ve seen a blue post stating that there will be a 5 man version of the Raid content, even with a LICHKING to fight! WHAT?! That’s a little overkill on making stuff easier I believe. Make things accessible to the most number of people possible is fine, but…really?
I don’t consider myself a “casual” by any means, I play about 5-6 hours/day and raid as much as possible. I guess I’m just frustrated that I haven’t been farther than I have, because of a seeming lack of “dedicated, intelligent” players on my server (at least I can’t find them).
As to having more challenging content to raid: Eventually ALL content becomes easy. Remember the first time you did NAXX, or FL in Ulduar? They were pretty tough, but the more you did it, the better you got at them. Therefore, to continually have “more challenging content to raid”, you’d almost need a new patch/expansion every couple months. I for one would LOVE that, but it’s not practical or realistic to expect from Blizz.
It’s kinda like an old Girlfriend I had…we had to keep doing more and more crazy stuff to each other to get turned on. After a while with her crazy ass, she wanted me to choke and slap her around, just to get the same excitment. Needless to say, I left that relashonship. But u see what I’m getting at? After a while, one’s needs surpass what some might consider reasonable.
Oh…almost forgot. I just joined a new guild last night. They have 2x Ulduar 10 groups (that merge for a 25)every week, and have about 15-20 peeps on at a given time 7 days/wk. So, hopefully my raiding woes are at an end. =P
Yeah you probably just needed a change of scene.
Naxx/FL do get easier and putting nerfs aside it is because the players get better geared and they learn the fights. Although individual members of pugs can do this they do not do it as a whole. Individuals get geared and xp with the fights but as a raid group they don’t necessarily get better.
Part of this is because most players PUG in groups which they wouldn’t usually have in a guild. If some of the people I pug with pulled the stunts like needing gear they can’t wear or shaman “too lazy” to drop totems they’d be gkicked faster than you can hurl an expletive.
Where am I going with this? No idea.
Gobble gobble.