SoO - gated raid?

[Hunter Extraordinaire]

So, the interview with Tom Chilton on the front page mentions;

Flex difficulty will open at the same pace as the Normal difficulty raid

That sounds to me, like SoO will open over a few weeks / months, like ICC

Then I remembered reading this...

The tyrant must topple. The Siege of Orgrimmar is a 3-wing, 14-boss raid for max-level players, which will call you to take down Warchief Garrosh Hellscream at the head of a host of Azeroth’s finest.

Leading me to believe its true.

It doesn't bother me, just thought it was interesting

/discuss

(Sources) http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...per-Interviews
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/patch-notes/under-dev

[Koji2k11]

i hope not gating is stupid in normal modes since we want the progress raid to start a week after :/

[ScooterPerpetual]

To be honest I'd prefer that it was all opened at once but I could see it possibly being gated. Assuming it requires you to kill Garrosh on normal to unlock Heroic I think it would be bad considering there would be very little to progress especially the first week and would be kind of boring from a semi-serious raider PoV.

[Bluesftw]

i sure hope not , gating made ToC and Icc so incredibly annoying...

[Invictus9001]

Even if it is gated, the gating will unlock incrementally in order to stretch the lifespan (for the bleeding-edge raiders) to just beyond Blizzcon, where the next expansion will almost undoubtedly be announced.

Wing 1: Open on 5.4 launch (end of August?)
Wing 2: Opens at end of September
Wing 3: Opens at end of October, meant to last through November/Blizzcon announcement/lead into Holiday 2013.

Pure speculation, but it makes as much sense (or maybe more) than most of the rest of the drek people will theorize.

[yetgdhfgh]

LFR Will be gated

Normal and flex wont be

[Seezer]

So, the interview with Tom Chilton on the front page mentions;



That sounds to me, like SoO will open over a few weeks / months, like ICC

Then I remembered reading this...



Leading me to believe its true.

It doesn't bother me, just thought it was interesting

/discuss

(Sources) http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...per-Interviews
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/patch-notes/under-dev

It won't be gated. And 3 wing means that it's 3 wings.

[Daltin]

Siege of Orgrimmar is actually 4 wings.

"The Vale of Eternal Blossoms" featuring Immerseus, The Fallen Protectors, Norushen, and Sha of Pride.
"Gates of Retribution" featuring Galakras, Iron Juggernaut, Kor'kron Dark Shaman, and General Nazgrim.
"The Underhold" featuring Malkorok, Spoils of Pandaria, and Thok the Bloodthirsty.
"Downfall" featuring Siegecrafter Blackfuse, Paragons of the Klaxxi, and Garrosh Hellscream.

What is likely to happen is that the first 2 wings of Flex and Normal will be available week 1.
The second week, the last 2 wings of Flex and Normal will be available.
The third week, Heroic raiding will begin.

Primarily, I would assume a lot of this could potentially be due to two different things:

1) Raiding the first week of Throne of Thunder was brutal for a lot of guilds. 12 bosses on the first week was a task that not a lot of guilds completed. It only ended up being roughly ~14 hours on average for those who cleared it, to clear. But it was still a pretty intense time constraint.

"Do we add days/hours to make sure we're into Heroics week 1?" was a question a lot of guilds that weren't in the top 10 asked.

2) The Bind on Account weapons that Garrosh drops are going to be very powerful. For a Heroic guild to blow through a full-clear Flex raid Tuesday night in 2 1/2 hours , in preparation for their main run, could potentially have implications.


Doing it this way, a lot of guilds would not feel that week 1 time crunch, and more guilds as a result will be working on Heroics on week 3. This will allow more guilds to be "in the mix" for heroic races at not only the top level, but on a server level. It won't be nearly as bad as Icecrown, and is probably the right call.

[Deleted]

If they gated Normal like that, I couldn't bear to think what LFR would be like. We wouldn't get to kill Garrosh till next year.

[Zstr]

LFR Will be gated

Normal and flex wont be

lfr and flex will be gated
normal and heroic not

but still this worst for heroic prog guild coz flex will be open day1 , as they have to run flex`noobmode`difficulty to get behind and waste time on it

[Daltin]

I'd assume that LFR would open as such:

August 27th, Week one: Part 1 and 2 of Flex/Normal
September 3rd, Week two: Part 3 and 4 of Flex/Normal, Part 1 of LFR
September 10th, Week three: Heroic Modes, Part 2 of LFR
September 17th, Week four: Part 3 of LFR
September 24th, Week five: Part 4 of LFR

- - - Updated - - -

lfr and flex will be gated
normal and heroic not

but still this worst for heroic prog guild coz flex will be open day1 , as they have to run flex`noobmode`difficulty to get behind and waste time on it

Please read the thread and the interview. Flex and Normal -will- be gated, and will be given the Icecrown Citadel treatment. Hopefully since Siege of Orgrimmar does not have attempt limits, it will not be gated as severely as Icecrown Citadel was.

[artem123]

lfr and flex will be gated
normal and heroic not

but still this worst for heroic prog guild coz flex will be open day1 , as they have to run flex`noobmode`difficulty to get behind and waste time on it

Wouldnt be to much wasting time in all seriousness.
You can partly try strats, and know the boss that much more.

[Sierra85]

Gate LFR.
Don't gate flexi
Don't gate Normal
1 week gate on Heroic (obv require final boss to unlock).

If they gate off normals similar to TOC / TOGC or with the ICC wings that would be a massive mistake.

[mistahwilshire]

lfr and flex will be gated
normal and heroic not

but still this worst for heroic prog guild coz flex will be open day1 , as they have to run flex`noobmode`difficulty to get behind and waste time on it

No. Flex isn't gated either.

This raid is releasing exactly like ToT, with LFR being the only gated difficulty.

- - - Updated - - -

Please read the thread and the interview. Flex and Normal -will- be gated, and will be given the Icecrown Citadel treatment. Hopefully since Siege of Orgrimmar does not have attempt limits, it will not be gated as severely as Icecrown Citadel was.

No it's not. Holy shit, can you read? Stop spreading this misinformation.

[Daltin]

Gate LFR.
Don't gate flexi
Don't gate Normal
1 week gate on Heroic (obv require final boss to unlock).

If they gate off normals similar to TOC / TOGC or with the ICC wings that would be a massive mistake.

Like yourself, I thought this was a huge mistake at first. Looking at it from http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post22097299 that point of view though, I've come to terms that this is best for the raiding community. People are gonna whine. Hell, I whined. But going back and thinking about how doing 12 new bosses in a week to unlock Heroics the 2nd week.. That wasn't an enjoyable experience.

Staggering a large raid such as this is ok with me. The more guilds that are ready for heroics the moment they open up, the better.

[Tyrgannus]

Gating may seem arbitrary and annoying, but it may be in Blizzard's best interest realistically. They want a lot of people playing and enthralled when announcements hit Blizzcon, and I know a lot of people ducked out of Cataclysm soon after patch 4.3 hit because they felt like they were done (which is an odd mindset for an MMO, but it did happen). Dragging out the raid only affects the short-term and will continue the pattern that the expansion isn't 100% over by the time the next xpac is announced, and even with gating this year will definitely be pushing it. I for one still found the 25 H Lich King world first an exciting race even if it was gated and happened a fair amount after patch 3.3

[Zstr]

I'd assume that LFR would open as such:

August 27th, Week one: Part 1 and 2 of Flex/Normal
September 3rd, Week two: Part 3 and 4 of Flex/Normal, Part 1 of LFR
September 10th, Week three: Heroic Modes, Part 2 of LFR
September 17th, Week four: Part 3 of LFR
September 24th, Week five: Part 4 of LFR

- - - Updated - - -



Please read the thread and the interview. Flex and Normal -will- be gated, and will be given the Icecrown Citadel treatment. Hopefully since Siege of Orgrimmar does not have attempt limits, it will not be gated as severely as Icecrown Citadel was.

go you read, where the fuck is said they will delay releasing normal mode bosses , nowhere as all 14 will be avaiable at patch day
as it 4 wings raid in style not acsess

[Daltin]

No. Flex isn't gated either.

This raid is releasing exactly like ToT, with LFR being the only gated difficulty.

- - - Updated - - -



No it's not. Holy shit, can you read? Stop spreading this misinformation.

go you read, where the fuck is said they will delay releasing normal mode bosses , nowhere as all 14 will be avaiable at patch day
as it 4 wings raid in style not acsess

I'll be bookmarking this thread for next week.

The question Tom was asked was how Flex will be available on the first day.

If all of Flex was available on the first day, he would have said, "All of flex mode raiding will be available on patch day."

Instead, he opted to say, "It will open at the same PACE as normal".

Traditionally, if something opens entirely at once at the first day, that's not much of a "pace", is it?

"Pace yourself, don't drink all that booze at once".

Throne of Thunder did not open at "a pace." Icecrown Citadel opened at a "pace".

Normal mode will be PACED, straight from Tom Chilton's mouth (fingers?).

Reading comprehension, do you has it?

[Count Zero]

There is no way to know for sure until we get clarification (or it goes live), but so far based on the only indicator we have -- normal and flex will both be gated.

"It will be the same pace as Normal raids. " is the only clue we have, and it suggests gating. That, or it was just very poor word-choice and he meant they will both be fully open on launch. However, they have previously said flex will be gated, but at a faster rate than LFR.

Again, no certainties yet ... but the only signs we have are pointing toward normal-mode gating.

[Shamanberry]

"Same pace as normal raids" would be an awfully strange way to say "open in its entirety on patch day".

I suppose Kalgan could have made a mis-statement, but if he said what he meant, it seems pretty unambiguous to me that he's saying that normal modes will be gated.

This wouldn't be unprecedented. Remember the first tier this expansion was gated, as was ICC and others in the past. Even the 12 bosses from ToT were somewhat overwhelming to have to clear the first week for guilds that raid lighter hours, so 14 from SoO would have been even worse. Taking away the pressure to have to clean out that many bosses is a good thing for the majority of progression raiding guilds, even if it is a small inconvenience to those that raid heavy schedules that may have been looking forward to a full raid schedule again a few weeks earlier.