Open Letter to Blizzard Entertainment from Mark Kern

[Azgraal]

So when an FPS game exists, do you instantly play it on the easiest difficulty, then complain to the game company that it was too easy? I can also youtube any ending to any game and I didn't even have to do anything.. do we ban yotuube?

No. We ban people. Nay, we erradicate people.

[Wolfheart9]

This definitely was true, and he was the last boss of AQ40. Blizzard did in fact nerf him, but even after the nerf, the guy was not a push over. Very few people even got to him, let alone killed him. And I get this isn't everyone's cup of tea. Different gamers have different opinions, some want super crazy hard bosses, and some want bosses that can be challenging, but are beatable after a few attempts. For me personally I enjoyed the aspect that there were some insane challenges though.

Yea, I enjoy the challenging aspect too, and kinda wish Blizzard's difficulty system didn't reward better gear, the fights were just 'harder', that way day 1 you could choose your difficulty, and if you wanted to go straight into mythic because you love you some Darksouls, you go right ahead.

[RickJamesLich]

So? Who actually treats LFR like actual Raiding? These days you could've just YouTube'd to see how the game ends anyways. What does clearing something on LFR actually accomplish?

Who treats LFR like actual raiding? Well the people who hit max level, check it out, beat the game, and then unsub. I don't have exact numbers here but one only needs to look at a subscription chart to see that it's probably A LOT of players lol. So for the people that do clear it on LFR, it clearly accomplishes a lot. They've seen the end of the game, after all.

Bearing in mind, it wasn't so easy to do this in vanilla. Lest of course i remember you, only about 40 guilds ever actually cleared Naxx.

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So when an FPS game exists, do you instantly play it on the easiest difficulty, then complain to the game company that it was too easy? I can also youtube any ending to any game and I didn't even have to do anything.. do we ban yotuube?

To be fair, with these new players out there, they don't have much of a choice in it. The game pretty much points you towards that LFR direction. Now I will be completely honest and say that I quit WoD after 3 weeks, I've heard improvements have been made here and that you can get a starter raid set from outside of LFR. THat wasn't the case for a pretty long time though, and I'm having trouble imagining Open Raid groups accepting people that have skipped LFR. If you feel I'm wrong though, I'd be interested in hearing your opinion.

[scrappybristol]

Reading these threads makes me think people want Blizzard to just stop making expansions and just do legacy servers.

[Granyala]

This definitely was true, and he was the last boss of AQ40. Blizzard did in fact nerf him, but even after the nerf, the guy was not a push over. Very few people even got to him, let alone killed him. And I get this isn't everyone's cup of tea. Different gamers have different opinions, some want super crazy hard bosses, and some want bosses that can be challenging, but are beatable after a few attempts. For me personally I enjoyed the aspect that there were some insane challenges though.

Didn't you need nature resist gear to pass Huhuran? Stuff like that surely forced people to slow down.

But the main problem was probably getting 40 semi competent players. I mean it's already a nightmare in 25s (now 20s) but 40?
Ermagaaaawd... my blood pressure surely is happy that I never experienced that crap.

[RickJamesLich]

Which means 90%+ never saw the ending.

Precisely the reason why Blizzard introduced LFR. Because the majority of players is simply put: not interested in the organized raiding gameplay.

It was much higher than 90%. I don't think that was a bad thing though, nobody was upset about "not seeing the ending". Players always had something to do, another challenge or place to go to.... IMO that added way much more to the game than the status quo. You know, where you raid on Tuesday, clear the place (and if you don't, you clear it on Wednesday or Thursday) and then you can either grind cosmetics, or raid log until next Tuesday.

And there wasn't even just an emphasis on raiding. You probably saw it yourself but a lot of guilds would just do 5 mans and then hit up smaller 20 man raids or pvp instead. Or even complete that tier 0.5 set.

[Deleted]

They should not just make a small note about it on the front page, should have been embedded in the previous post...

[KrazyK923]

Didn't you need nature resist gear to pass Huhuran? Stuff like that surely forced people to slow down.

But the main problem was probably getting 40 semi competent players. I mean it's already a nightmare in 25s (now 20s) but 40?
Ermagaaaawd... my blood pressure surely is happy that I never experienced that crap.

Absolutely you needed nature resist on your melee (and some ranged in case they died) for Huhu or she was impossible. Your Warlock tank for Twin Emps also needed hardcore shadow resistance or just died. Just like the Ony cloak was needed for the 3 dragons and Nefarian (Unless you hid behind the throne, which wasn't even supposed to be how that worked).

There were plenty of bosses that worked like this in Vanilla.

[Deleted]

Sure, show us so we can stop asking about it.

Do some googling and a bit of math, and you might actually get it(rough estimated ofc).
Only problem might come from recreating the old game as it was before, but even bunch of nerds did it in their free time using Mangos, so I'm sure Blizz can't do it with team full of devs...

[Wolfheart9]

Who treats LFR like actual raiding? Well the people who hit max level, check it out, beat the game, and then unsub. I don't have exact numbers here but one only needs to look at a subscription chart to see that it's probably A LOT of players lol. So for the people that do clear it on LFR, it clearly accomplishes a lot. They've seen the end of the game, after all.

Bearing in mind, it wasn't so easy to do this in vanilla. Lest of course i remember you, only about 40 guilds ever actually cleared Naxx.

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To be fair, with these new players out there, they don't have much of a choice in it. The game pretty much points you towards that LFR direction. Now I will be completely honest and say that I quit WoD after 3 weeks, I've heard improvements have been made here and that you can get a starter raid set from outside of LFR. THat wasn't the case for a pretty long time though, and I'm having trouble imagining Open Raid groups accepting people that have skipped LFR. If you feel I'm wrong though, I'd be interested in hearing your opinion.

I have a different kind of experience as I'm one of those weird people that can still find the community that isn't supposed to exist in live WoW, so I play with my guild to do what I do. On my nonguildie character what I've found is it isn't Blizzard's systems that prevent players from getting into raids and pushed to LFR, it's the players. 'You must have a heroic Archie kill and have 725 ilevel in order to join this heroic raid'. Despite showing I could outDPS over half the raid on my hunter, I wasn't taken because i didn't have an achievement. That's not Blizz's fault, that's the players.

Now being in a tight knit guild does skew things I admit as I have a community to fall back on, so being a newblood with no connections I can only guess based on some unguilded characters.

[RickJamesLich]

Didn't you need nature resist gear to pass Huhuran? Stuff like that surely forced people to slow down.

But the main problem was probably getting 40 semi competent players. I mean it's already a nightmare in 25s (now 20s) but 40?
Ermagaaaawd... my blood pressure surely is happy that I never experienced that crap.

Yes, you did lol. You need frost gear for some stuff in Naxx as well as fire gear in MC. And I get where you are going with this lol.

Personally I think it was a lot more interesting having gating like this in the game. It added a different dynamic because now you didn't just want upgrades - you needed other types of gear because they were necessary for certain bosses. Without this type of thing, it's gotten to a point where people are no longer interested in any other type of gear besides raid gear. Essentially it set up a scenario where you couldn't just out gear some fights though. And I get that this may not have been your cup of tea, like I mentioned before, some people hated this, some people had no problem with it. Just describing my own opinion here.

Hahaha, and yes getting 40 players could be rough. You are definitely right here. I think it was a much more epic experience. The last time I raided seriously on retail was back in MOP, where I did do A LOT of the hard mode stuff in a 10 man guild... it was cool, but 40 man raids truly feel like an army. You inevitably get funny personalities, weirdo's, make some good buddies along the way and yes, deal with some assholes as well. I think it was a much cooler social experience though.

[Granyala]

It was much higher than 90%. I don't think that was a bad thing though, nobody was upset about "not seeing the ending".

Thy weren't. They even were okay with it in TBC, because most folks were busy leveling (sounds insane to us raiders but it's what Blizzard stated).
It was somewhere in Wrath that leveling alt X got lackluster. That's when Blizzard started to think about alternatives.

I agree though that the current game is simply bad. Esp since I now experience it from the point of view of a non raider, since I retired.
Tanaan is ultra boring and mythic 5mans are an absurdly unrewarding diablo RNG fest. LFR is a bad joke that should be removed.

Normal mode is plenty doable in pugs and at least feels like a raid boss instead of a target dummy.

[moremana]

So... They didn't let him in to see Mike Morhaime personally.
Who's surprised?

The dude is trying to make it sound like he cares about this. He is just bitter that he left befor WoW became a thing.

This is the most retarded statement I have ever heard, he helped create wow when it was a thing, not the desert it is now, logon, I bet you dont see 3 people in stormwind.

[Jtbrig7390]

This is the most retarded statement I have ever heard, he helped create wow when it was a thing, not the desert it is now, logon, I bet you dont see 3 people in stormwind.

If I win that bet will you delete ur account and never speak on here again?

ill make a level 1 charater and walk my happy ass to stormwind to prove you wrong. Unless you can settle for org since I play horde.

[Wolfheart9]

This is the most retarded statement I have ever heard, he helped create wow when it was a thing, not the desert it is now, logon, I bet you dont see 3 people in stormwind.

Problem is you shouldn't see a lot of people in Stormwind, you should see people in Stormshield. The activity should be the current main city of the expansion.

(And yes I see more than 3 people in Stormshield)

Also on my server there are currently over 50 people in Stormwind. Search won't show me more than that.

[Granyala]

Personally I think it was a lot more interesting having gating like this in the game.

The last time I raided seriously on retail was back in MOP, where I did do A LOT of the hard mode stuff in a 10 man guild... it was cool, but 40 man raids truly feel like an army. You inevitably get funny personalities, weirdo's, make some good buddies along the way and yes, deal with some assholes as well. I think it was a much cooler social experience though.

Yeah .. done the resist gear grind for Hydross and partially for Sharaz in TBC. Didn't like it all that much. though I do think it is preferable to a hard gate, because instead of waiting for week X you play the game until you are ready to continue.

I tried 10man, but it never felt like raiding to me. I always raided 25man. So I get why you think that way.

[ls-]

Problem is you shouldn't see a lot of people in Stormwind, you should see people in Stormshield. The activity should be the current main city of the expansion.

(And yes I see more than 3 people in Stormshield)

During prime time Warspear is packed w/ people on my realm T_T my 970 lags like a mofo there I think people should stop playing on low pop realms or using them as examples of how bad things are now.

[Wolfheart9]

During prime time Warspear is packed w/ people on my realm T_T my 970 lags like a mofo there I think people should stop playing on low pop realms or using them as examples of how bad things are now.

Yea, pretty much that. My server is alive and well. *shrug*

[Granyala]

This is the most retarded statement I have ever heard, he helped create wow when it was a thing, not the desert it is now, logon, I bet you dont see 3 people in stormwind.

Always a few folks in SW. Not as many as in Cata times of course but a few.

[Sim]

Who treats LFR like actual raiding? Well the people who hit max level, check it out, beat the game, and then unsub. I don't have exact numbers here but one only needs to look at a subscription chart to see that it's probably A LOT of players lol. So for the people that do clear it on LFR, it clearly accomplishes a lot. They've seen the end of the game, after all.

Bearing in mind, it wasn't so easy to do this in vanilla. Lest of course i remember you, only about 40 guilds ever actually cleared Naxx.

I doubt that the reason people unsubbed was 100% because they cleared it on LFR then quit. Then again you must realize that people quit a game after beating it, not on normal, not on easy.. but they just got spoon fed the content because they keep drooling on the keyboard. Those people would never be interested in a game experience like Vanilla where you had to devote your first born child to rep grind for entry level raid gear. So I dont know why you would want to use that as a pro towards a vanilla server.

Surely you possess the ability to realize that there is beating the game on Very Easy and beating the game on Hardcore Mode.

Players have just gotten better and I doubt if you stuck a guild like Method in Vanilla that they would have a hard time beating Naxx.