More about the cheaping of WoW Raid Content

Ok, so I just wrote about the change to them Emblem/Badges system that we’ll be seeing in patch 3.2. Now, let’s take a look at the possible philosophy behind these changes.

Blizzard pays a lot of artists to create art and “content” for WoW. They spent a lot of money building Naxxramas. So, what’s the problem? Well, back in the day, a tiny percentage of players ever got to SEE the inside of Naxxramas. That’s a shame, especially when you consider that the best raiding guilds all said that Naxxramas was, at the time, the best instance that Blizzard had ever created!

This, I’m sure, did not please blizzard. Their best work, that which they were most proud of, and so few got to see it. When Blizzard released the Burning Crusade, complete with Karazhan, they saw the numbers eventually come up much more – I think I remember hearing that at least 50% of all accounts had toons that had been inside Karazhan. This is all because Karazhan was the first raid instance in BC, and it was the first raid instance that could be raided in SMALL groups, and eventually became puggable.

So, if you’re blizzard, and you want people to see your best work, you start to think maybe you could get more people to see Naxxramas if it was the first raid instance in the new expansion, and if it could be raided in small groups. Voila, behold Wrath of the Lich King.

So, now a huge amount of players have already seen Naxxramas. The plan worked, brilliantly, I must say.

But now, history is repeating itself. Now the best guilds all say that Sunwell Plateau is the best instance Blizzard ever made. There seems to be a pattern forming here – the most powerful, dangerous, and difficult instances seem to be the ones that the best guilds like the most. At the end of the era of Burning Crusade, Blizzard severely nerfed almost every raid boss. At the time, there were many reasons to do this – Talents were being changed, player mechanics were being revamped, and lots of other things were all happening at the same time…

But, Blizzard’s biggest concern is that if people didn’t get to see the Tier 6 and Tier 6.5 instances before Wrath came out, they might never get to see them. Case in point – I’ve never seen the inside of Sunwell Plateau myself, and I don’t expect to see it unless I pug an achievement whoring group to go see it. I will never get to experience the instance with a group of level 70 players all geared with loot from MH and BT.

So, they nerfed stuff. And more people got to see it. Because it was easier to do. The money they spent MAKING Sunwell was better invested because it entertained more players.

So, now we’re at the end of Wrath.

[needle scratches across the record like nails on a chalkboard]

WTF? Seriously?? WTF? We’re not at the end of Wrath. They haven’t even announced the next expansion yet!!??! They haven’t even announced Ice Crown Citadel yet.

WTF is going on here? It looks like Blizzard has started nerfing the raid instances again. But, this time, they’re doing it from the inside out. Instead of making the bosses have less HP, they’re giving the players more power for free. Seriously, it’s too soon, and this is the wrong way to do it.

They’re making it so that players can acquire tier 8.5 2pc set bonuses by simply running heroic instances. Dear God, WHY??!? The problem here is that as players collect more emblems of conquest, they buy tier 8.5 gear, and they clear out heroic dungeons even faster. You don’t need that kind of gear in those dungeons. You can run those heroics in the blues that drop from the non-heroic versions of those same dungeons. Hell, you can run Naxxramas in leveling greens. The first guild that cleared Naxxramas did it 3 days after Wrath was released, so you can bet they were wearing very little heroic dungeon gear when they did it. And that was before any nerfs to it.

I can understand the philosophy of blizzard wanting people to see their content, and thus making it easier for players to gather the gear to be powerful enough to go see it… But this is simply the wrong way to do it. Go nerf the bosses HP again. Go nerf the damage again. Go add more powerful gear to the bosses… But for GOD’S SAKE, Don’t make it so players can SKIP the content entirely! that’s NOT how you get players to SEE the content you paid to build.

The way this is going, players will be able to hit 80, run a half-dozen or more 5-man heroics every night, never step foot into Naxx - OR ULDUAR for that matter - and walk right into Argent Coliseum with level appropriate gear, and about as much skill as an over-toasted s’more marshmallow.

WTF? Seriously, WTF??!!!?!?1?

Badges? we don’t need no stinking Badges (‘cuz we have free emblems now)

So, Blizzard has announced the following in patch 3.2:

Emblem System Changes

• Both the 10 and 25 player instances of the Crusaders' Coliseum drop a new Emblem of Triumph.
• Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism.
• The Heroic dungeon daily quest will now reward 2 Emblems of Triumph and the normal daily dungeon quest will reward 1 Emblem of Triumph.
• The existing achievements to collect 1, 25, 50, etc. Emblems of Heroism, Valor, and Conquest have been converted to Feats of Strength since Heroism and Valor Emblems are no longer attainable.
• New achievements have been added to collect various amounts of any combination of emblems.

… and thus began the Armageddon. World ends at 10, Film at 11!

WTF? Seriously, WTF?

Ok, when I first heard about this, it was from my favorite talk-show host TotalBiscuit just completely loosing his cool over this. And I can see why!

So, today, Ulduar drops the best loot in the game, and you can get Emblems of Conquest only by doing Ulduar on 25 man mode. These emblems can be used to purchase T8.5 equivalent gear, INCLUDING two actual pieces of tier 8.5 (Head and chest, at 58 emblems each). You can’t get this stuff from Naxx, or even from 10 man Ulduar – it has to be Ulduar 25 man.

Now, technically, you can get these Emblems of Conquest fairly easily, because almost any group can down Flame Leviathan. It doesn’t take any special raid composition to down FL, since it’s all vehicle combat with a few players launched from catapults (and that’s even optional). The only thing that matters at all is the iLvl of the gear of the players riding the vehicles. You don’t even need to be buffed.

So, these emblems are easy to get from at least one boss. It can be argued that XT-002 has been nerfed so much that he also hands these emblems out like candy. But, there’s still a pretty steep limit to the number of emblems that your average Dumbshit can collect in a given week.

Enter patch 3.2.

So, now in this forthcoming patch, Emblems of Conquest will LITERALLY Drop like candy. Players can get Emblems of Conquest from damn near ANY level 80 boss. All bosses in Naxxramas in either 10 or 25 man mode will drop Conquest emblems, each of Sartharian’s drakes, Malygos.. Hell, even Archavon The Loot Piñata will drop these things. It’s absurd. But it’s not the worst part.

Here’s the worst part: This includes ALL of the Northrend dungeons on Heroic mode. Every boss.

So, how many emblems can you farm in a week? The total count is staggering.

What can you BUY with those? Let’s take a look. The most notable thing to me is the tier gear. You can buy 8.5 Chest and 8.5 helm tokens with these emblems. And, since they’re down-gradable freely to emblems of Valor (and heroism), you can also just walk in and buy 7.5 Shoulders and 7.5 Legs. These are significant because this means anyone who simply runs Heroic 5 mans can walk in and buy the 2pc bonus for tier 8 and the 2pc bonus for tier 7…

I might be able to accept that if it took a while… but it won’t. ANY dip-shit can farm up these emblems in MASSIVE numbers every day.

In addition to these pieces of Tier-Gear, Ass-Hats will be able to buy just about every other gear slot worth of purple gear, all at iLvl 226 or 213. That includes Deadly PvP gear as well as raiding gear.

Ok, so I lied. The above wasn’t the worst part. Here’s the real worst part.

Emblems of Conquest will no longer be the top-tier emblem. There will be a new emblem of Triumph that will only drop from this new raid instance and can be used to purchase tier 9 level gear. So, all that t8.5 loot candy being gobbled up by fuck-tards will still be inferior to the gear being collected by the most elite of raiders, right?? right?

WRONG.

Players will be able to acquire Emblems of Triumph by completing the Daily Heroic and Daily Dungeon quests. Not just emblems of Conquest… the new emblems. The Highest Level emblems that are currency for the highest level gear – players can start acquiring these emblems as soon as they are high enough level to start doing the daily dungeon quests for Northrend. They don’t even have to be level 80!!!

WTF? Seriously, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You can collect 3 of these every day by doing the two daily dungeon quests. 21 in a week. Currency for the NEWEST, HIGHEST tier level gear in the game, without ever stepping foot into a raid instance.

WHY BLIZZARD? WHY???????

Note: Please understand that my concern is NOT casual players. I know you don’t have time to play in a raid. But, honestly you do. You can PUG Sartharion in less time than it takes to run a 5 man. As long as you can get out of the fire. My concern, when I say things like Fuck-tards and Ass-hats are the morons who can’t raid – not because they don’t have time, but because they suck at playing sooo badly, that every raid leader either kicks them from the raid or even refuses to invite to raid because of their reputation for being unable to not stand in the fire, or to move away from others when their screen is flashing and alarms are blaring that they are about to explode and kill everyone. These are the Dip-Shits about which I am concerned.

Argent Coliseum – Loot design

So, I’m hearing about the new raid instance in the 3.2 patch that is forthcoming, and the loot system is going to be interesting.

There will be 10 and 25 man versions, and for the first time there will be “Heroic” versions of Both 10 and 25 man raids.  In the past, the 25 man version of a raid instance was said to be the “heroic version of the 10 man”. 

With Ulduar, they introduced the concept of (officially) Hard Modes.  We had already seen Hard Modes with Sartharion, but it wasn’t really official other than a few extra bits of loot and the special mount drop.  In Ulduar, we have official hard modes where killing a boss on hard mode activates an additional loot table that contains items that cannot be acquired any other way than doing the hard mode for that boss.  This is what makes these hard modes “official” to me.

To activate these “hard modes”, raid groups would have to do various things to switch the fight into hard mode.  Some were very easy and obvious, like the giant red button behind Mimiron that says “NO NOT PUSH THIS BUTTON” – If you push it BEFORE you aggro the boss, you’re in Hard Mode.  Other hard modes are more tricky to activate, like XT-002 where you have to “Kill the heart” in 30 seconds or less to activate XT’s hard mode.  Once you do that, the fight mechanics change and it’s health resets. For Thorim, you need to reach him before Sif leaves to activate his hard mode.   Finally, some “hard modes” aren’t really even modes.  Hodir’s hard mode is just killing him faster.  There’s nothing special that happens when you switch on hard mode, because technically when you do it, the boss just died.  In other words, some guilds will start doing Hodir on “hard mode” by accident as they get more efficient at completing the encounter.

So, in the Argent Coliseum, I think what they are doing is now using the “Heroic Mode” Switch to activate the hard modes.  this means there will be a regular and heroic version of the 10 man.  There’s never been a heroic 10 man before.  There’s also never been a "non-heroic” version of a 25 man before.  So, now, the new question is – how do we tell an instance that we want 10 man heroic mode?  Does it switch from 10 man to 25 man if an 11th person steps through the door?  or will there be some new switch to throw?

One good thing I have heard is that all guilds will be forced to complete a raid on normal mode before they can attempt to jump to hard modes.  I’m not sure how they plan to enforce this… Does everyone in the raid need to have a “I completed normal mode” achievement before they can switch on heroic mode?  What happens if the raid is already in there, and they need to swap out someone who hasn’t completed it?  I suspect it will reject them at the door just like what happens when someone who is not in a raid group tries to zone into a raid instance.

So, now let’s talk about the loot in this new “Heroic 10-man” mode.  Loot in the normal 10 and 25 man raids sound like it will work as it always has in the past.  It’s the heroic(hard) modes that will work differently.  I’m not clear on this, but it sounds like the heroic modes will drop loot like on normal, and there will be a new “Tribute System” that will drop additional loot based on “number of attempts”.

This Tribute system will work like this… When a guild starts doing the raid on heroic Mode, there will be a counter that counts how many times the raid wipes.  It will probably be more like a counter that counts how many times the boss is aggroed.  If that’s the case, guilds will probably get especially pissed off at rogues, hunters, or mages who try to cheat death and end up re-aggroing the boss after everyone else has died, because it will eat an extra attempt count.

So, the instance will count how many attempts are required to kill a boss, and if the boss is killed within an acceptable number of attempts, there will be a “Crusader’s Tribute” cache added to the base loot, probably just like the “Cache” chests offered by many of the bosses in Ulduar.  Blizzard seems to like these chests, but they are a pain in the ass for raiders who want to click the corpse to see the loot before bidding DKP.  My guild always links the loot in chat, but it’s easier to see them directly, if you ask me.

The loot found in the Tribute will be adjusted based on the number of attempts used to defeat the boss.  Clearly the best loot will be found if the raid “one-shots” the boss, but it’s not clear on how the loot will degrade when more attempts are taken.  Will the iLvl go down?  or perhaps there will be a few pieces of loot and pieces will be taken away as more failures occur?  or perhaps a combination of lowering iLvl and count.  I’m not sure yet how it will work, but I’m looking forward to finding out in person! (in toon? heh)

Hahaha... Ok, I admit, I enjoyed this:

Pure Unfiltered WIN

The following video is made of Pure Win. Discretion is advised.



I hope she wins WoW Idol 2009!

You've gotta get some Glowies!

So, I'm playing with another addon. This one is called Power Auras. This addon kicks some ass!

So, what this addon does is put little blinky/flashy icons or emblems on your screen when you proc a buff... Or if your mana gets low... Or if you're missing a buff that you should have.

I play an Arcane Mage, so today I'm going to tell you how to set up Power Auras to show you when you have 3 stacks of the Arcane Blast debuff. When you see this indicator, then you'll know it's time to cast Arcane Missiles or Arcane Barrage (or, if you're dumping, you'll know your blasts are costing the maximum amount of mana)

I'll assume you can get the addon installed. If you can't do that, then see my other posts about how to install an addon (have I written one yet? I'll have to go check :P hahaha)

Now, log into game, and type /powa to bring up the config window.

Remind me to find a good image hosting site so i can actually stick pictures in here.

The effect we're going to create is relevant only to mages, so let's create this in the "Character effects" section. Click on "Page 1" , then click the red button labeled "New"

A new window pops up called Effects Editor.

The top half controls what the glowy/blinky/flashing effect will be. You can choose from a ton of differnet "textures", and each can be any color you choose(or randomize!). You can stretch the shape, and you can reposition the glowy anywhere on the screen. The slider knobs for position X and Y seem to only let you drag the glowy a little bit, but if you let go, the slider will snap back to center so you can drag the glowy further if you wish. Tooltips appear over every option so it's easy to explore and experiment.

The default options are fine for our first glowy, though I would change the color from white to something else (I picked yellow). There's a little white square below the test texture, and if you click it, you can change the color. Texture: 1 is fine to start with.

Now go down the the bottom half of the Effect Editor. There's 4 tabs. Click the first tab to control what effect actually causes the glowy to show up on screen.

Set the Drop-down box to "Debuff". Set Stacks to "=3" In the text field below the dropdown, type in "Arcane Blast". That's all we need to create a glowy for a debuff. You could create similar glowy's for debuffs like "Positive Charge" and "Negative Charge" on thaddius with giant arrows that point left or right (depending on how your raid does it :P )

Next, choose the Animation tab. This tab lets you make the glowy actually do more than just sit there, and this is what makes this addon so cool - the point of these glowies is to grab your attention, and this addon lets you make each glowy do different dances on the screen to get your attention. For now, set Begin Animation to "Zoom In", End Animation to "Zoom Out", Main Animation to "Static" and Secondary Animation to "Shrinking". You can leave the rest alone.

That's all we need for this glowy. Now, close the Effect Editor by clicking the [X] in the corner, or just hit your escape key to close everything. Your glowy is now ready for use. Go nuke something 3 times with Arcane Blast and you'll see the glowy!

These glowys can be so effective that they start to look like the game's built in graphics effects. It's important to remember that these effects will only appear on your screen - other players won't see them. I mention this because it's easy to create glowy's that look like the real thing - like creating a bubble glowy for a Paladin that reminds you that you have Hand of Protection on, even though it doesn't really look like a bubble anymore. (Silly Blizzard, now my paladin named Bubblewrap doesn't make as much sense :P)

There you go. Tune in next time when I tell you how to do something else cool with an addon.