The Epics used to be epic thread

[Crawford]

I see this complaint frequently, and it has never made sense.

Uncommon, Rare, and Epic items, denoted by green, blue and purple item names, respectively, are designations for item quality. This wowwiki article explains what item quality is, and how it works:

http://www.wowwiki.com/Item_level

As you see here, item quality is a variable in the item budget. "Epic" is a designation of quality, not rarity, and it signifies a variable in the equation that determines item stat distribution. Blues get more stats per ilvl point than greens, and purples get more than blues. I think most people understand that items improve by tiers, and that the slider for improving items from one tier to the next is item level. The original design mechanism was to use item quality to tier-up, and to tie the item level to the character level required to equip the item. Thus, instead of raid tier 1 being ilvl 66 purple, and raid tier 2 being ilvl 76 purples, the plan was for tier 1 to be ilvl 66 purples and tier 2 to be ilvl 66 orange. Tier 3 would have been ilvl 66 red, and then there was a gold item quality above that. This plan was scrapped before raid itemization was implemented, though the original vanilla leveling itemization did tether item level to the character level that was able to equip it.

The current design is that greens are for quests and random mob drops, blues drop from instance bosses and purples drop from raids. All end-game gear is purple, after an initial max-level blue dungeon tier, and there is a huge amount of stratification among purples, especially late in an expansion.

Compare and contrast:

Heroic Gendarme's Cuirass: http://www.wowhead.com/item=50606

Chestplate of the Risen Soldier: http://www.wowhead.com/item=39239

There is no mistaking these items for equivalents; the ilvl 277 has twice as much of everything and three sockets as well.

The design rationale for all end-game loot being purple is very obvious; item quality and item level are different variables in the same equation. It would be extremely confusing if max-level items were differentiated in terms of both item level and quality, because these are two different variables in the same equation. There was a period in vanilla where high ilvl blues from Zul'Gurub and AQ 20 were better than purples from Molten Core, and a lot of people had trouble figuring out what gear they needed to be using. Since then, everything beyond the initial dungeon tier is purple quality, and the item level variable is the lever that the developers slide to improve gear.

So when were epics epic? Well, there was a period of a couple of months in winter 2005 when many servers had a population of level 60 characters, but guilds had not developed into 40 man raids yet. Dungeons like Scholomance and Stratholme needed to be raided at that point, so it took some time before guilds could recruit 40 people who were interested in raiding and to get them all geared in the blues they needed to down Lucifron, who was a pretty hard check at that point. Between December and around April of 2005, the only epics anybody had were the rare-drop epics from the dungeons, like Headmaster's Charge and Deathstriker. The only people who had these items were ninja looters.

The Dire Maul patch in March 2005 introduced a lot of blue gear in a dungeon capped for five players, and the other dungeons were streamlined for a ten-player cap, which helped people gear out in blues faster. The Dire Maul blues were also better than the blues from other dungeons. This helped a lot of guilds get past Lucifron and Magmadar. Gehennas, Garr, Geddon and Shazzrah were relatively easy by comparison, so a lot of guilds got over the lip in MC during the spring and summer of 2005, and by fall, anyone who did raids had a fair amount of purple gear.

On some servers the population remained too low for raid guilds to really organize, and horde side had the double disadvantage of a smaller population and the lack of Paladins (and their crucial blessing of salvation). So many low population servers had zero horde-side raiding guilds in 2005, and, therefore, the dude with a Deathstriker was the king of Orgrimmar. Even on the Alliance side, the flow of epics could essentially be dictated by one or two guild-masters, since there were few raiders and many servers couldn't support more than a couple of 40-man raid guilds. To the extent "epics were epic" then, it was because the endgame beyond the dungeons was functionally inaccessible to most players.

I don't think anyone will seriously argue that situation was desirable.

[Herecius]

Epics may have been epic, but some BiS items were level 51 blues.

Hurp da derp!

A very nice post, I'm sure it will unfortunately get a lot of TL;DR replies. Part of what also made purples rarer was the fact that 40 man raid bosses dropped as many items as a 10man boss does today, and if you were unlucky, one of those items would be an undervalued blue, or the 15th pair of T1 shaman pants for your alliance toon.

[Flaks]

TL;DR

But seriously,

you can't try to explain through logic the whims and wonts of nostalgia.

[Deleted]

there is no such item as Deathstriker there is a Death striker a green lvl 58 axe with random stats but no Deathstriker
also i played in vanilla and yes epics where EPICs but they where very hard to get, for the majority of the playerbase only the "chosen" 40-160 players per server where able to get their hands on them but what about the rest of the players? they where all running around in blues and (yes i know most of then didnt fit into a raiding inviorment with 40people) but they where unable and didnt have the skill, then again.
they didnt have a chance to get the skills in raiding,
they wherent able to talk with most of the "elites" on their server about specs what was hot and what wasnt.
most people didnt get advise on rotations and gearing either or just didnt get it anyway.

There really is alot more reasons but i party agree with you and i party disagree and see your post as a whining post, because you know Vanilla was vanilla and yes epics where epics but alot of people quit the game at a point after hitting lvl 60 because well... they didnt like pvp or farming ores/flowers/ w/e they could do when not doing instances and/or raids.

myself imma raidar and yes i actually am on a break from wow atm because well .... 10 and 25 versions of the same dungeons gets tidious, repetativ and BOOOOOOOOOOOOORING! :/

regards

[Deleted]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo&feature=fvst

[Irony]

A long story which could of been summed up by saying "Not that many players back in Vanilla compared to now, so less players = less epics."

[Zantumall]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo&feature=fvst

Too many http:// 's. Fixed.

Edit: or maybe not fixed. Trying again.

[whowherewhat?]

Posting on an epics thread?

[Crawford]

The Deathstriker was renamed Felstriker in a patch. It's an epic dagger that drops from Rend Blackhand in UBRS.

It's not true that raiding correlated to skill in vanilla. A lot of top guilds were very pleased about the reduction from 40 to 25, because they believed they were carrying a lot of deadweight players. Also, people were playing on slower computers and connections back then, and the encounters were fairly forgiving with regard to disconnects and latency, which basically meant a lot of people could screw up and die on a successful attempt.

Naxx was hard (so was Sunwell. So is heroic ICC). But by then a lot of people had at least MC epics.

[Worgoblin]

Screw epics. I wanna go back to the days where I had to run a dungeon 100 times to get my wicked awesome blue Rogue item with +spirit on it.

[Deleted]

Too many http:// 's. Fixed.

Edit: or maybe not fixed. Trying again.

Wacky thing went mental on me!

That is what sprung to mind reading the Op tho!

[Jenkkis]

ಠ_ಠ

[Silence9]

TL;DR

you can't try to explain through logic the whims and wonts of nostalgia.

You sir... are coming off stupid. A) This is a nonsensical generalization that doesn't really mean anything in the context. B) He's not explaining the problem through "the whims and wonts of nostalgia". C) He's not being nostalgic...

[Deleted]

Screw epics. I wanna go back to the days where I had to run a dungeon 100 times to get my wicked awesome blue Rogue item with +spirit on it.

agree

Edit: where you actually had to work HARD to earn the rank of raider

Edit Edit: or just rinse and repeat and instance 200 times.... choice of weive xD

[Super Dee]

Screw epics. I wanna go back to the days where I had to run a dungeon 100 times to get my wicked awesome blue Rogue item with +spirit on it.

I do miss my +spirit dps items.

[Izenhart]

So, a color's making all the QQ?

A COLOR?


WotLK "epics" by rareness and strenght are ilvl 264 and 277 items, while 251 can be considered crafts/ZG/AQ20 items.

Screw a fucking color. Everyone knows if someone's in full 213 ilvl items is NOT in a good gear.

[Boosch]

there is no such item as Deathstriker there is a Death striker a green lvl 58 axe with random stats but no Deathstriker
also i played in vanilla and yes epics where EPICs but they where very hard to get, for the majority of the playerbase only the "chosen" 40-160 players per server where able to get their hands on them but what about the rest of the players? they where all running around in blues and (yes i know most of then didnt fit into a raiding inviorment with 40people) but they where unable and didnt have the skill, then again.
they didnt have a chance to get the skills in raiding,
they wherent able to talk with most of the "elites" on their server about specs what was hot and what wasnt.
most people didnt get advise on rotations and gearing either or just didnt get it anyway.

There really is alot more reasons but i party agree with you and i party disagree and see your post as a whining post, because you know Vanilla was vanilla and yes epics where epics but alot of people quit the game at a point after hitting lvl 60 because well... they didnt like pvp or farming ores/flowers/ w/e they could do when not doing instances and/or raids.

myself imma raidar and yes i actually am on a break from wow atm because well .... 10 and 25 versions of the same dungeons gets tidious, repetativ and BOOOOOOOOOOOOORING! :/

regards

I'm not entirely sure that you actually read/understood his post - that or I completely failed at understanding what you were trying to communicate...

I mean, I dont know how you could call his post whining as he was simply stating a rationale for why "epics were epic" may have been true, but was not the result of a good environment, so it is a silly thing for people to remi- remines- rem--- think fondly about. He just tried to clear some of the rose off of peoples' glasses when they think back on "Epics were Epic"

[fenixblade]

blizzard realized over the years that more casuals play than not. and therefore, more money is made by catering to casuals as a majority, while still keeping the hard cores intrigued enough to keep paying.

it's a pretty simple concept, and it's all you need to know to understand the majority of decisions made to this game.

[Fuzzzie]

you can't try to explain through logic the whims and wonts of nostalgia.

Way to actually read what he wrote... /fail

[Link3492]

So, a color's making all the QQ?

A COLOR?


WotLK "epics" by rareness and strenght are ilvl 264 and 277 items, while 251 can be considered crafts/ZG/AQ20 items.

Screw a fucking color. Everyone knows if someone's in full 213 ilvl items is NOT in a good gear.

Maybe now, but I'm sorry that I stopped playing my DK since Naxx 25, still think those full 213s from the time they were acquired were pretty solid.