A month or two ago, with patch 2.4, Blizzard removed all attunements for all raid dungeons in TBC. The only thing you still need is someone that has the key to open the gate at Karazhan, ironically enough the entry level raid dungeon. Nevertheless, a great idea, since it gives everyone a chance to experience all raiding content that was added in the expansion.
One of the side effects of this is though, that raiding guilds seem less inclined to tackle the so-called "gateway" bosses, the ones that used to give access to the next tier of raiding instances. The most striking examples are Lady Vashj and Kael'thas Sunstrider, the end bosses in the two tier 5 instances and the ones you previously had to kill before you got access to tier 6 content. Since they are quite hard in execution and require a full raid of adequately-geared characters, it can take a guild a couple of weeks before they're able to kill these bosses. And for this reason, a lot of guilds just seem to avoid these bosses and just skip straight to the next raid tier. The bosses aren't as hard to learn and the loot they drop is in most cases better or at least on par with the loot that drops from the end bosses.
I understand the lure of the loot and not wanting to spend lots and lots of time learning a hard encounter when you could spend time learning easier bosses in a couple of hours, who drop better loot to boot. But it's a shame, cause the fights they're skipping are some of the most challenging, exciting and rewarding encounters in the game. Especially Kael'thas Sunstrider, which I consider one of the best fights I have experienced in the game at the moment.
So my advice to these guilds is: even if you're skipping them for now, at least go back and try them when you think you're ready for em. You won't regret it. They might seem hard, but when you kill them, it's so much more rewarding in non-loot terms than the easy-mode bosses in the beginning of Mount Hyjal and Black Temple.
Friday 23 May 2008
Wrath of the Lich King raiding - part 2
One of the main problems raiding guilds faced with The Burning Crusade expansion of World of Warcraft, was the step from the 10-man Karazhan dungeon to Gruul's Lair, which requires 25 people. For Wrath of the Lich King however, as you could already read in my previous entry, Blizzard has announced that all raid dungeons will have a 10 and 25-person version. Now, what are the consequences of that?
For the truly hardcore raiding guilds, not much will change hopefully. Their members will rush to level 80 as fast as possible, maybe they'll dabble in the 10-man version for a little while, but then they'll probably hit the 25-man content, never to touch the 10-man raids again, except maybe when they're bored or want to gear up an alt or something.
However, for the not-so-hardcore guilds, I predict it will be quite different. My guild for example, had a few fast levelers who, in TBC, hit level 70 after a week or two and were ready to go to Karazhan. When the more slower levelers caught up, we were ready to form a second raid, cleared Karazhan with both groups, recruited a couple more people and we were ready to tackle the big raid dungeons again.
My guess is, we were lucky to be in an established guild where most people who already knew each other for a while though. I've heared lots of accounts of newer guilds that fell apart, because they had a so-called A and B-team for Karazhan. Where the best team easily cleared Karazhan in a couple of nights, the lesser geared team still struggled on the later bosses. And now comes the challenge for these guilds in WotLK. Given the same scenario with the 10-man raids in the next expansion, will the more advanced group just move on to the next 10-man dungeon, or wait for their slower guildies to catch up and tackle the 25-man version? How many guilds will still be raiding the larger dungeons, especially a couple of months into the expansion, when there already have been a few guilds who split up due to internal drama or something similar.
All I can hope for is that Blizzard will make the larger version of the raid instances appealing enough so that there's still a real incentive to run these, rather than just sticking to the smaller instances. After all, the scale of these raids makes them so much more interesting and exciting in my opinion.
For the truly hardcore raiding guilds, not much will change hopefully. Their members will rush to level 80 as fast as possible, maybe they'll dabble in the 10-man version for a little while, but then they'll probably hit the 25-man content, never to touch the 10-man raids again, except maybe when they're bored or want to gear up an alt or something.
However, for the not-so-hardcore guilds, I predict it will be quite different. My guild for example, had a few fast levelers who, in TBC, hit level 70 after a week or two and were ready to go to Karazhan. When the more slower levelers caught up, we were ready to form a second raid, cleared Karazhan with both groups, recruited a couple more people and we were ready to tackle the big raid dungeons again.
My guess is, we were lucky to be in an established guild where most people who already knew each other for a while though. I've heared lots of accounts of newer guilds that fell apart, because they had a so-called A and B-team for Karazhan. Where the best team easily cleared Karazhan in a couple of nights, the lesser geared team still struggled on the later bosses. And now comes the challenge for these guilds in WotLK. Given the same scenario with the 10-man raids in the next expansion, will the more advanced group just move on to the next 10-man dungeon, or wait for their slower guildies to catch up and tackle the 25-man version? How many guilds will still be raiding the larger dungeons, especially a couple of months into the expansion, when there already have been a few guilds who split up due to internal drama or something similar.
All I can hope for is that Blizzard will make the larger version of the raid instances appealing enough so that there's still a real incentive to run these, rather than just sticking to the smaller instances. After all, the scale of these raids makes them so much more interesting and exciting in my opinion.
Wednesday 21 May 2008
Wrath of the Lich King raiding
For an online game to retain its customers, it's important that they release frequent content updates to keep the players happy. Otherwise they might get bored, and stop paying the monthly fee. Some of these updates are free in the form of patches to the game. They are usually a bit smaller and only contain minor updates, like a single new raid instance, quest zone or PvP area. Other updates are larger and come in the form of an expansion pack that you pay for. Usually you have to go to your local store and buy a new box. These expansions add a new level cap, new races and/or new classes, a multitude of new zones and new group and raid instances.
World of Warcraft has announced it second expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King, a while ago, but so far information has been scarse. We know about the main new additions, such as the new continent Northrend, the new Death Knight class etcetera, but detailed information has been hard to come by. Although we now know the "friends and family alpha" phase has started and unofficial info starts to leak through, one of the few officialy confirmed bits of info, is the fact that Blizzard is planning to make both a 10-person and 25-person version of every raid instance.
At first I thought this was an excellent idea. Everyone pays the same price for the expansion pack, so it would only be fair that as many people as possible get to see all of the content. Getting 25 people together at the same time for an extended period of time and on a frequent basis has always been difficult if not impossible for the casual players, and this way they have a better shot at seeing a lot more of the raiding game.
But a comment a guild mate of mine made, got me thinking. Can 10-person encounters still be as diverse and challenging as the old 25-person raids? Well, this might sound familiar to those of you who were playing WoW when the first bits of information of the current expansion, The Burning Crusade, became known. Back then, the typical raid size was 40 players, and a lot of people were concerned that the boss fights would become a lot more simple. Luckily, I'm happy to say that those fears were unfounded. Raiding in TBC is a lot more challenging and enjoyable than before as far as I'm concerned, although I didn't experience all of the previous raid instances in full.
But will it be workable when the raid size goes down to 10 man? Now, as you may know, Blizzard intends to recycle Naxxramas, an old raid instance from before the first expansion, as the first instance in the new expansion Wrath of the Lich King. Obviously, they'll have to retune some of the fights, both because of the fact that players will be a lot more powerful and have more spells and abilities available to them at level 80 as opposed to level 60 in the old version, and because of the new raid size, down from 40 to 25 players now.
Some of the veterans from WoW before the expansion were already doubting that Naxx would be able to retain its epic feeling, especially the more complex encounters such as 4 Horsemen. Considering that Blizzard stated they'll make a 10-person version of every raid instance, I can only assume that this will be valid for Naxxramas as well. How will this play out when you're tuning that specific encounter for a 10-player raid? Obviously, some of the complexity will have to go. The old version of 4 Horsemen required you to have 8 protection specced warriors in your raid, obviously in this new version for 25 this will not be possible, let alone for 10 raiders.
Hopefully, Blizzard will add special mechanics to the 25-person version of every boss fight. And I think we've had a little preview in patch 2.4, where Blizzard introduced Kael'thas Sunstrider, an old boss from a 25-person raid instance, as the end boss in a 5-person dungeon. Although the encounter was totally dumbed down, lacked pretty much all of the epic atmosphere and was missing the parts of the fight that made the raid version challenging and one of the best fights in the game so far, you can still fight Kael when you're a more casual player.
So my guess is that Blizzard will tune down the raid instances for 10 players, removing abilities and maybe even parts of the fight. If they go the other way, and just add more hitpoints to the bosses and make them hit harder like some other people have suggested, the real raiders will grow bored quite quickly and will be looking for a game that can actually give them a proper challenge before long.
World of Warcraft has announced it second expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King, a while ago, but so far information has been scarse. We know about the main new additions, such as the new continent Northrend, the new Death Knight class etcetera, but detailed information has been hard to come by. Although we now know the "friends and family alpha" phase has started and unofficial info starts to leak through, one of the few officialy confirmed bits of info, is the fact that Blizzard is planning to make both a 10-person and 25-person version of every raid instance.
At first I thought this was an excellent idea. Everyone pays the same price for the expansion pack, so it would only be fair that as many people as possible get to see all of the content. Getting 25 people together at the same time for an extended period of time and on a frequent basis has always been difficult if not impossible for the casual players, and this way they have a better shot at seeing a lot more of the raiding game.
But a comment a guild mate of mine made, got me thinking. Can 10-person encounters still be as diverse and challenging as the old 25-person raids? Well, this might sound familiar to those of you who were playing WoW when the first bits of information of the current expansion, The Burning Crusade, became known. Back then, the typical raid size was 40 players, and a lot of people were concerned that the boss fights would become a lot more simple. Luckily, I'm happy to say that those fears were unfounded. Raiding in TBC is a lot more challenging and enjoyable than before as far as I'm concerned, although I didn't experience all of the previous raid instances in full.
But will it be workable when the raid size goes down to 10 man? Now, as you may know, Blizzard intends to recycle Naxxramas, an old raid instance from before the first expansion, as the first instance in the new expansion Wrath of the Lich King. Obviously, they'll have to retune some of the fights, both because of the fact that players will be a lot more powerful and have more spells and abilities available to them at level 80 as opposed to level 60 in the old version, and because of the new raid size, down from 40 to 25 players now.
Some of the veterans from WoW before the expansion were already doubting that Naxx would be able to retain its epic feeling, especially the more complex encounters such as 4 Horsemen. Considering that Blizzard stated they'll make a 10-person version of every raid instance, I can only assume that this will be valid for Naxxramas as well. How will this play out when you're tuning that specific encounter for a 10-player raid? Obviously, some of the complexity will have to go. The old version of 4 Horsemen required you to have 8 protection specced warriors in your raid, obviously in this new version for 25 this will not be possible, let alone for 10 raiders.
Hopefully, Blizzard will add special mechanics to the 25-person version of every boss fight. And I think we've had a little preview in patch 2.4, where Blizzard introduced Kael'thas Sunstrider, an old boss from a 25-person raid instance, as the end boss in a 5-person dungeon. Although the encounter was totally dumbed down, lacked pretty much all of the epic atmosphere and was missing the parts of the fight that made the raid version challenging and one of the best fights in the game so far, you can still fight Kael when you're a more casual player.
So my guess is that Blizzard will tune down the raid instances for 10 players, removing abilities and maybe even parts of the fight. If they go the other way, and just add more hitpoints to the bosses and make them hit harder like some other people have suggested, the real raiders will grow bored quite quickly and will be looking for a game that can actually give them a proper challenge before long.
Those 1% wipes
Tuesday we had another one of those nights that are really the highlight of a raider, well for me at least. The first night of tries on a new boss. Although in this case "boss encounter" would be a more fitting name, since the fight consisted of us facing off against 4 enemies at the same time, the infamous Illidari Council. I had already read a multitude of strategy guides (some might call them "spoilers"), prepared fully with flasks, potions, and food and weapon buffs. As we had more signups than usual, it's safe to say that the whole raid was anxious with anticipation for the fight. Probably the fact that if we beat these guys, we would have our first glimpse of Illidan Stormrage, the last boss in Black Temple, had something to do with it as well.
Unfortunately, the guild I'm in has a reputation of struggling with this type of fight, where you fight multiple enemies at the same time. It took us a whole evening before we were able to nail the High King Maulgar encounter, despite having cleared Karazhan multiple times with 2 raid groups at the same time. And it took us several weeks before we managed to kill Fathom-Lord Karathress.
But this time, things went a lot better. Although we had a slow start since we had a lot more people than are allowed to go inside the raid instance and we lost some time deciding who got to raid, we made steady progress and even managed to bring them down to 7% on what looked like it would have been our penultimate try. So everyone was really pumped for that last try, 10 minutes before our usual end time of the raid. All soulstones were used, the druids all had their battle rezzes ready, all important cooldowns could be used.
And the attempt went really well. Everyone did their job flawlessly, although we did have a few deaths. But anyone who knows the encounter, knows that sometimes a death is unavoidable in this fight. They went down really nicely - 10%, 5%, 3%… almost there … I was just in the middle of recasting a curse on one of the off-tanked mobs when the dreaded sound of the boss mod informing you of a tank death came. Aaargh. Since all the other tanks were already fighting the other enemies, there was no way they could pick up the loose mob and it went on a killing spree, one-shotting players left and right. Those that were still alive gave it their all to finish the fight anyway, but to no avail. The boss went down as far as 1% health, but we didn't manage to kill it.
What a horrible feeling, to come so very very close, but to ultimately fail anyway. I bet a lot other players in my guild were swearing just as hard as I was at that point.
At this time, it was already 10 minutes past our usual end time, so what to do? Usually we would just end the raid here, but damn… this is a new boss and we were so close. We can certainly beat the encounter, that much was clear, but we are a more casual guild and lots of us have jobs and classes to go to in the morning. I know the vast majority of the raid wanted to keep on going for one more attempt, but in the end we held a vote and it wasn't unanimous. Some people wanted to go. So the raid went to bed and we all went to bed frustrated.
Was this the right decision? Although at the time I was quite disappointed that we didn't go for that last attempt, in retrospect I have to say that this probably was the right decision. We can beat the encounter, we know that, and although it didn't happen this week, it'll certainly happen next week. We still are a more casual raiding guild, and it was past the official end time of the raid. I think it's a still fair to ask the raid if they want to go for another try, and if everyone agrees then go for it.
But if someone, just one person, can't make it, then the raid should be stopped, without any hard feelings. After all, the schedule was agreed on and while you agreed to commit to these raiding hours, anything extra should be entirely optional.
Anyway, in the mean time we had another reclear of the instance and we're all ready to go again on Tuesday, so hopefully we'll manage to kill the boss then. Stay tuned for more info next week for sure!
Unfortunately, the guild I'm in has a reputation of struggling with this type of fight, where you fight multiple enemies at the same time. It took us a whole evening before we were able to nail the High King Maulgar encounter, despite having cleared Karazhan multiple times with 2 raid groups at the same time. And it took us several weeks before we managed to kill Fathom-Lord Karathress.
But this time, things went a lot better. Although we had a slow start since we had a lot more people than are allowed to go inside the raid instance and we lost some time deciding who got to raid, we made steady progress and even managed to bring them down to 7% on what looked like it would have been our penultimate try. So everyone was really pumped for that last try, 10 minutes before our usual end time of the raid. All soulstones were used, the druids all had their battle rezzes ready, all important cooldowns could be used.
And the attempt went really well. Everyone did their job flawlessly, although we did have a few deaths. But anyone who knows the encounter, knows that sometimes a death is unavoidable in this fight. They went down really nicely - 10%, 5%, 3%… almost there … I was just in the middle of recasting a curse on one of the off-tanked mobs when the dreaded sound of the boss mod informing you of a tank death came. Aaargh. Since all the other tanks were already fighting the other enemies, there was no way they could pick up the loose mob and it went on a killing spree, one-shotting players left and right. Those that were still alive gave it their all to finish the fight anyway, but to no avail. The boss went down as far as 1% health, but we didn't manage to kill it.
What a horrible feeling, to come so very very close, but to ultimately fail anyway. I bet a lot other players in my guild were swearing just as hard as I was at that point.
At this time, it was already 10 minutes past our usual end time, so what to do? Usually we would just end the raid here, but damn… this is a new boss and we were so close. We can certainly beat the encounter, that much was clear, but we are a more casual guild and lots of us have jobs and classes to go to in the morning. I know the vast majority of the raid wanted to keep on going for one more attempt, but in the end we held a vote and it wasn't unanimous. Some people wanted to go. So the raid went to bed and we all went to bed frustrated.
Was this the right decision? Although at the time I was quite disappointed that we didn't go for that last attempt, in retrospect I have to say that this probably was the right decision. We can beat the encounter, we know that, and although it didn't happen this week, it'll certainly happen next week. We still are a more casual raiding guild, and it was past the official end time of the raid. I think it's a still fair to ask the raid if they want to go for another try, and if everyone agrees then go for it.
But if someone, just one person, can't make it, then the raid should be stopped, without any hard feelings. After all, the schedule was agreed on and while you agreed to commit to these raiding hours, anything extra should be entirely optional.
Anyway, in the mean time we had another reclear of the instance and we're all ready to go again on Tuesday, so hopefully we'll manage to kill the boss then. Stay tuned for more info next week for sure!
My state in the game - World of Warcraft
As mentioned previously, one of the games I'm playing the most at the moment is World of Warcraft, also known as WoW. It's a game I've been playing for a very long time now, ever since Blizzard, the creators of WoW, started their cycle of open and closed betas in the different regions. That must be about 4 years now, almost.
When I play a game like this, I do tend to get quite competitive about it. Although I never took the so-called Bartle test, I expect I'm more of an Achiever than anything else. I do have a full-time job though, so I don't really have time to be in a guild that goes for "server-first" kills. But I do want to progress as far as possible. Luckily I've found a guild of like-minded people who are mostly in the same situation as I am, and we manage to beat the content at our own pace, currently reaching the end of Black Temple, while having already defeated all the bosses in Mount Hyjal, some of the hardest raid instances in the game.
Due to its composition of mostly people with full-time jobs and students who actually attend most classes, my guild has a more "casual" raiding schedule, where we're only raiding 3 days per week, for 4 hours each raiding night. Well I guess that's still a lot compared to how much time the average WoW player can spend on the game. Compared to the most progressed guilds in the world, that's still not much.
The problem for me is that after almost four years of World of Warcraft, I'm finding myself a little bored when we're not raiding. I have a lot of free time during weekends, when we're not raiding, and when I'm logging on nothing much is happening. I did the whole alt-thing, leveled up a few other characters, but there's only so much replayability left in the game for me and doing all those quests yet again isn't very appealing anymore.
I guess I could do some PvP, but the Player versus Player system in WoW is not really my cup of tea. I prefer the impact PvP that some other games have over the battlegrounds and arenas of WoW. Especially in the battlegrounds, the positive-sum PvP system brings out the worst in people. They just care about the fastest way to their epics, just follow their own instincts or just plain sit there, idle and collect points. I want to win, dammit! And I want to have the impression that our achievements actually made a difference in the game world. Not just collect my "honour" and tokens after a win, and have a full reset 1 minute after, when the next battleground starts.
Well, I'm not going to quit WoW any time soon, I'm too much of an achiever to stop now and leave Illidan sitting pretty on his throne in the Black Temple. That guy just has to die. And if possible, I'd like to advance as far as possible in Sunwell Plateau, currently the hardest raid instance in the game, as well. But on non-raiding nights, I'm starting to explore other games. And that's where Lord of the Rings Online and Age of Conan fit in.
When I play a game like this, I do tend to get quite competitive about it. Although I never took the so-called Bartle test, I expect I'm more of an Achiever than anything else. I do have a full-time job though, so I don't really have time to be in a guild that goes for "server-first" kills. But I do want to progress as far as possible. Luckily I've found a guild of like-minded people who are mostly in the same situation as I am, and we manage to beat the content at our own pace, currently reaching the end of Black Temple, while having already defeated all the bosses in Mount Hyjal, some of the hardest raid instances in the game.
Due to its composition of mostly people with full-time jobs and students who actually attend most classes, my guild has a more "casual" raiding schedule, where we're only raiding 3 days per week, for 4 hours each raiding night. Well I guess that's still a lot compared to how much time the average WoW player can spend on the game. Compared to the most progressed guilds in the world, that's still not much.
The problem for me is that after almost four years of World of Warcraft, I'm finding myself a little bored when we're not raiding. I have a lot of free time during weekends, when we're not raiding, and when I'm logging on nothing much is happening. I did the whole alt-thing, leveled up a few other characters, but there's only so much replayability left in the game for me and doing all those quests yet again isn't very appealing anymore.
I guess I could do some PvP, but the Player versus Player system in WoW is not really my cup of tea. I prefer the impact PvP that some other games have over the battlegrounds and arenas of WoW. Especially in the battlegrounds, the positive-sum PvP system brings out the worst in people. They just care about the fastest way to their epics, just follow their own instincts or just plain sit there, idle and collect points. I want to win, dammit! And I want to have the impression that our achievements actually made a difference in the game world. Not just collect my "honour" and tokens after a win, and have a full reset 1 minute after, when the next battleground starts.
Well, I'm not going to quit WoW any time soon, I'm too much of an achiever to stop now and leave Illidan sitting pretty on his throne in the Black Temple. That guy just has to die. And if possible, I'd like to advance as far as possible in Sunwell Plateau, currently the hardest raid instance in the game, as well. But on non-raiding nights, I'm starting to explore other games. And that's where Lord of the Rings Online and Age of Conan fit in.
Welcome!
Hi and welcome! Before diving right in, I'd like to post a little introductionary post about this weblog and its author (me!).
I'm a thirtysomething IT professional, living in Belgium, whose main hobby is computer games. Which means I spend a significant amount of time in front of the computer screen. I guess that can't be good for my eyes, but I hear they're making good progress on creating prosthetic ones, so hopefully they'll be all set by the time I need them.
Anyway, the main subject of this blog will be the games I am currently playing and will be playing in the future. At the moment this is mostly massive multiplayer online roleplaying games (MMORPGs), and more specifically World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online. I have also pre-ordered Age of Conan, although I'm not in the early access for the game. Hopefully the box will be in the mail soon, in time for the weekend launch over here in Europe *crosses fingers*.
Unsurprisingly, WoW was also the inspiration for the name of the blog, as my main character in that game is actually an undead warlock, who uses the spell Life Tap to get back mana at the expensive of his own life to keep on casting spells. I found it quite fitting, since games and especially MMORPGs have an addictive side to them and tend to tap the life from the person playing.
Well, I hope anyone reading this blog will enjoy it and don't hesitate to submit a comment if you want to.
I'm a thirtysomething IT professional, living in Belgium, whose main hobby is computer games. Which means I spend a significant amount of time in front of the computer screen. I guess that can't be good for my eyes, but I hear they're making good progress on creating prosthetic ones, so hopefully they'll be all set by the time I need them.
Anyway, the main subject of this blog will be the games I am currently playing and will be playing in the future. At the moment this is mostly massive multiplayer online roleplaying games (MMORPGs), and more specifically World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online. I have also pre-ordered Age of Conan, although I'm not in the early access for the game. Hopefully the box will be in the mail soon, in time for the weekend launch over here in Europe *crosses fingers*.
Unsurprisingly, WoW was also the inspiration for the name of the blog, as my main character in that game is actually an undead warlock, who uses the spell Life Tap to get back mana at the expensive of his own life to keep on casting spells. I found it quite fitting, since games and especially MMORPGs have an addictive side to them and tend to tap the life from the person playing.
Well, I hope anyone reading this blog will enjoy it and don't hesitate to submit a comment if you want to.
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