ICC (WotLK) raid system is killing my guild!

[humanfallacy]

The gap between earning you gear and /rolling on it is way to far apart, the only gear you can really be proud of is the stuff with a Heroic above it.

You can have full 264s and not be in a guild is what is disgusting about WOTLK.

You came up with a solution to your issue in your own post. If you're a status whore that likes flexing your epeen with your gear, do hard modes and all the other gear whores will know just how special you truly are.

Personally I find the fact that you can get geared without being in a guild works in the favor of players like myself who missed the majority of the patch and those that have odd availability hours. It's not for lack of skill that I wouldn't have had the gear, it's the late start I got on the content. To look down on skilled players that either got a late start or aren't able to find raiding guilds that mesh with their hours of availability is exactly the type of elitist douche attitude that makes a lot of other really good players shy away from hardcore guilds.

It still boggles my mind that despite the massively increased pool of available raid-geared players to pick from now thanks to the emblem system, hardcore guilds see it as the worst thing that has ever happened to the game. A good portion of the players that now fill out your ranks may never have been realized because they would never have had the gear to make an application in the first place.

[anyaka21]

If find it still amusing how ppl can get so worked up because of this shit. Not that any of you sweeties like this guy here will actually read other opinions on this issue or even change your mind about it - but WTF ....so there is the possiblities that guys without a guild have ilv 264 gear. And that is disgusting?

Are you walking from server to server counting people? OH..there is somebody unguilded with ilv 264 gear. Tar and feather him..it is a SCRUUUUB!.

Makes you look like a lootwhore and a guy jerking off to the text on his pixels. Personally I appreciate the ppl more who jerk off over heroic kills (or naked gurlZ), but that is just me.

Guys, you are playing the wrong game. If you get off on rare gear that makes you look distinct and you know it takes living in the game 24/7 to attain..go play Aion or such. WoW isn't your game anymore.

Any remotely mature person will just shake the head at the BS you pin down here and readily ignore it.

but it's true, people do get off on unique gear that looks distinct. Just look at, for example, GDKP runs. Look at the weapons they put on the 1st 4 bosses, and look at how much they go for, especially when the instance was new. People would pay 25,000g for a Nibelung, just because it was unique and different.

[cardie04]

to the OP

I cant answer your question but I can state the reasons I left, if thats of any help?

Difficulty of content and differentiation was the main reason.

Imagine a highway where everyone drove the same cars. How boring would that be? Thats how I felt WoW became. Walk around orgimaar or any major city, and look at people. Jesus, everyone looks the same. TIer gear is a joke to get your hands on. You dont even have to do hardmodes for it. And yet, there is no "better gear" (save for pieces after 4 set)-because of how good the set bonuses are.

I remember when I first started WoW, which was just before BC. How often did you see Thunderfury? People would drop in awe at that shit. How often did you see someone with Thoridal? Or people in full tier 6/6.5? Barely, thats how much. I ended up getting in the 2nd best horde guild and it was a nice feeling being on a different level.

Blizzard has accustomed this game to scrubbers. Everyone has not only purples, but its not even that hard to get extremely good tier gear these days. And if you cant, you just farm badges and still get amazing gear.

Its like they say, if your not good at a game, why should you deserve good gear?

The other thing that ruined it for me is its not "have you killed 8/8 bosses in tier x"? Now its, which ones have you killed in HM, did u use 5% buff or 10, did u use 2 or 3 drakes? Fuk sake, it just complicates thing and COMPLETELY RUINES THE SENSE OF DEFEATING A FINAL BOSS.

I guess, at least in PVP you still have to be good to get Gladiator, but PVE has become terrible.

althought dets post is harsh, i was one of those "dic pullers" that did enjoy being different. Why wouldnt I? if everyone is the same, things become boring. You can apply that concept to anything in life not just a game. wtf is aion btw ill have to look that up

[cardie04]

You came up with a solution to your issue in your own post. If you're a status whore that likes flexing your epeen with your gear, do hard modes and all the other gear whores will know just how special you truly are.

Personally I find the fact that you can get geared without being in a guild works in the favor of players like myself who missed the majority of the patch and those that have odd availability hours. It's not for lack of skill that I wouldn't have had the gear, it's the late start I got on the content. To look down on skilled players that either got a late start or aren't able to find raiding guilds that mesh with their hours of availability is exactly the type of elitist douche attitude that makes a lot of other really good players shy away from hardcore guilds.

It still boggles my mind that despite the massively increased pool of available raid-geared players to pick from now thanks to the emblem system, hardcore guilds see it as the worst thing that has ever happened to the game. A good portion of the players that now fill out your ranks may never have been realized because they would never have had the gear to make an application in the first place.

This post is a bit silly man. Your basically implying that because your have " odd hours of play" you should be aloud into the best guilds and best gear straight up. How about, switch realms to suit? Heaps of people do.

And besides, you contradict yourself. A hardcore guild is a hardcore guild. THey dont want players who show up irregularly or when " it suits them". So even if you are good of course your going to shy away from the real hardcore guilds. By the sounds of it, your one of the people who expect everything for nothing. Well congratulations WOTLK is for you! Besides, your kinda wrong. I got into the 2nd best raiding guild on Frostmourne who was on sunwell and alls I had was kara experience. If your actually willing to do some work and apply as a trial and prove yourself, you can get in. A lot of good guilds just ask that you know your class, show up for raids, and pay attention and have willingness to learn fights. Learning fights is the pisseasy bit anyway. So be mature about it and put some work in and im sure youll get results

It doesnt matter these days anyway as the reliance on a guild is becoming less and less

What you fail to reliase is that WoW Is Serious Business. That shitty slogan is true. If you have ever been in a hardcore guild you would understand, and youd also understand why they see emblems as a shit idea-as it bridges the gap towards gear for basically 0 work.

[anyaka21]

You came up with a solution to your issue in your own post. If you're a status whore that likes flexing your epeen with your gear, do hard modes and all the other gear whores will know just how special you truly are.

Personally I find the fact that you can get geared without being in a guild works in the favor of players like myself who missed the majority of the patch and those that have odd availability hours. It's not for lack of skill that I wouldn't have had the gear, it's the late start I got on the content. To look down on skilled players that either got a late start or aren't able to find raiding guilds that mesh with their hours of availability is exactly the type of elitist douche attitude that makes a lot of other really good players shy away from hardcore guilds.

It still boggles my mind that despite the massively increased pool of available raid-geared players to pick from now thanks to the emblem system, hardcore guilds see it as the worst thing that has ever happened to the game. A good portion of the players that now fill out your ranks may never have been realized because they would never have had the gear to make an application in the first place.

This, to me, sounds like a person, or tons of people that respond that say they are good enough to be in an endgame type guild and do hardmodes, but don't, and in all likelihood aren't good enough to do so. But by saying they aren't available during those hours is their excuse for not doing so.

Simple fact of the matter is...there are tons of guilds recruiting from all servers, for all kinds of time frames, and they need raiders. And now, with realm transfers and faction transfers on all types of servers, there really isn't any excuse for people to say they can't find a guild who raids when they want to raid.

If you truly want to raid, you can find a guild. It's really just that simple. WoW realm forums, websites dedicated to guilds looking for raiders, using MMO-champs recruit forums, etc..., and probably more ways than just that too. Thus, stop making excuses and step up if you're really as good as you think you are and say you are.

[Jenerena]

People burn out yes, but how many people can you think of who quit then came back a few weeks/months later? Wow is at a point now where you can come back and gear up again in a matter of days. You just gotta accept people get bored and move
on. Yea it might not be the same without a certain person etc, that is an mmo for you. It's up to you whether you enjoy it enough to keep going maybe with a new guild or whatever.

[anyaka21]

the last poster is pretty much correct. For example...in EQ, they had these things called AA's (alternate advance levels). These levels were basically meant to allow your class to heal better or do more dps, have more hp's, etc... But essentially were required for endgame raiding. And as the game progressed, end game guilds required toons to have over 500 aa's to apply, which essentially meant that you had to get to max level and then relevel about an extra 100ish levels to get to the point where you could apply or get shot down. Thus you were required to max level probably 3 times as long, in other words about 9ish months or so, of probably 4-5 days a week and probably 4-5 hour days to even stand a chance in terms of endgame.

Which, in simple terms, effectively killed new population. Once you figured out that it was near impossible to get to the point where you could do this, it became, 'seriously, wtf, this isnt' worth it'. Thus the game began to die.

What WoW has done, whether we like it or not, has made the game accessible to the masses. If you wanted to start tomorrow, you could realistically have a toon ready in roughly a month to do end game raiding.

Is this a bad thing? Many would say yes, but probably more guilds would say that this is a win for WoW for the simple reason that it helps to create a stream of toons who want to raid and are available and that apply. Which means that WoW really isn't dying off, but also that people can come back to the game and not really be shit out of luck, they can re-level or re-gear and maybe in a couple of weeks (with some loot luck) be ready to go. Thus in terms that Blizzard looks at (which really is the bottom line) and that bottom line is all about the benjamins equals a win for them, and it also equals a win for new stream of population and also a new stream of people able to come back to WoW and have it be productive and not pointless, which was the challenge with EQ - and as thus as stated above with AA's, if you left you were pretty much done because you fell so far behind the curve it was virtually pointless to come back and try again.

[cardie04]

Oh..you drive on a highway to see different cars and that makes it exiting, I drive on highways to get somewhere fast.

Don't worry, I will not try and convince you to come back, because obviously you care way to much how others play to enjoy your own gamepplay, but as for people feeling special. As for "I ended up getting in the 2nd best horde guild and it was a nice feeling being on a different level." hu..I never felt special to be "Horde second", but I bet Paragon is still feeling special - so how about aiming high?

Hate to break it to you..but there are a lot of raiders out there who consider "Being Horde second" on a server to "Blizzard has accustomed this game to scrubbers" Unless you play on EU Lightning Blade, where Horde second is actually Ensidia - and that is where the real lolZ starts, right? - because this is the point in the thread where some guys will jump in who can barely piss a hole in the snow and tell us that Ensidia ARE in fact scrubs.

Which again nicely sums up the general trolling that is going on these days.

As for your other argument: "How often did you see Thunderfury? " How often did you see "Shadowmourne". I bet that will be even rarer.

As I said, if you dislike the game, I applaud you for doing the stringent thing and quit. Just feels you quit for the strange reasons.

There is no denying that the trend of easiness to get high level gear is increasing. There is no denying scrubbers can get awesome gear. The bridge between scrubbers and good guilds is becoming shorter and shorter. Wow man, one legendary you mentioned? THat healing mace from Ulduar is everywhere. My old guild in itself has 3. I dont recall seeing thundefuries or glaives or thoridals so quickly after content was released.

COrrect me if im wrong here but Im pretty sure Shadowmourne doesnt even need to kill Arthas. rofl. and u think itl be rarer then Thunderfury? Ah yeah no i highly doubt that. Perhaps if u had to actually beat the hardest boss in the game ATM aka LK HM 25 id consider some truth in your argument

INfact the definition of epic kinda lost its meaning in wotlk. Lets hope the same doesnt happen to Legendaries.

Im in no way saying WoW is crap, Blizzard is easily the worlds best developer, but I enjoy being different and having things(and lots of them) to aim for that are extremely difficult/rare to get. Although there is some of that left in the game, its nowhere where it used to be. I still consider Sunwell trash harder then a lot of the bosses ive seen in wrath.

Thats the general trend where Blizzards going man, to account for all types of people to get good shit. Great for them, they get more $$, but I felt that there was not enough left for the hardcore raiders to be satisfied with.

Im glad I got dissapointed anyway, WoW is life consuming! Now I play Heroes of Newearth aka DOTA replica

[Kélek]

There is no denying that the trend of easiness to get high level gear is increasing. There is no denying scrubbers can get awesome gear. The bridge between scrubbers and good guilds is becoming shorter and shorter. Wow man, one legendary you mentioned? THat healing mace from Ulduar is everywhere. My old guild in itself has 3. I dont recall seeing thundefuries or glaives or thoridals so quickly after content was released.

You see, Glaives were a 1% drop. Shadowmourne is a totally different design, just like Val'ynar.

[Dubbelprik]

The end of wotlk (and azeroth as we know it) is comming, Cata is being released "soon" people have seen it. SSDD so people just want cata.
Once the pre-cata events start no1 will be raiding anymore since they're bored prolly.

[humanfallacy]

This, to me, sounds like a person, or tons of people that respond that say they are good enough to be in an endgame type guild and do hardmodes, but don't, and in all likelihood aren't good enough to do so. But by saying they aren't available during those hours is their excuse for not doing so.

Simple fact of the matter is...there are tons of guilds recruiting from all servers, for all kinds of time frames, and they need raiders. And now, with realm transfers and faction transfers on all types of servers, there really isn't any excuse for people to say they can't find a guild who raids when they want to raid.

If you truly want to raid, you can find a guild. It's really just that simple. WoW realm forums, websites dedicated to guilds looking for raiders, using MMO-champs recruit forums, etc..., and probably more ways than just that too. Thus, stop making excuses and step up if you're really as good as you think you are and say you are.

I am currently in a raiding guild. I was simply providing a couple of legitimate situations that, without the emblem system, would be completely prohibitive to people accessing end game content. I was able to gear up an alt that became my main from ~40 to a reasonably geared ICC tank within a month and that absolutely would not have been possible without the emblem system. I'm by no means saying I'm one of the best tanks on these boards or anything like that but I can certainly hold my own and have the skills to help my guild's progression. Now had the emblem system not been there, my guild would still be stuck in progression due to being unable to find a second tank.

[mutantboy]

I love how ICC raiding is killing stuff.
I remember a friend raiding MC/BWL. She didn't have a clue. Absolutely no frikkin idea of what was going on. She got in a pretty good guild by virtue of the fact she was always on and is a cool person (really good vent voice :P) For 3 months she took her hunter into raids, stood at teh back, shot stuff and got epics. She got the hunter bindings from MC but couldn't kite so I logged in and did the bow quest for her. She was one of the best geared hunters on the server at the time despite the fact that she was clueless. By the time the guild got to AQ she had started working it out and became a quite good player.

The point though is that scrubs got carried back then, some found the L2p button - some never did. The current system allows way less carrying because of smaller numbers, the raids are way better designed and vary from as way easier to way harder. many guilds cracked under the strain of failing on cthun just as they are now cracking with LK.

The only thing changed is...
Well nothing actually

[Vordie]

It sucks, but what can you do? There are 127312536172839123182736123512431253671829 posts daily about this, nothing will change.

[Waterisbest]

To everyone who thinks WotLK sucks.

What can you do about it besides whining on forums everyday and/or quitting?

If Blizzard didn't make WoW more accessible it would have died long ago, just like it will die if there is no hard content in the game. Blizzard much smarter then me, you and most gaming companies. No wonder they have 11million+ players.

That said. A lot of people say LK25hc is the only hard boss in WotLK. Have you forgotten about Yogg+0? Ulduar was a part of WotLK aswell you know. And what about Mimi, Freya, Vezax, Algalon, Anub'arak, PP, Sindragosa, LDW, OS3D?

If you compare the number of tough bosses in every WoW era, vanilla/TBC/WotLK. The number of tough bosses are almost the same. Of course some people will come in and add some really shit easy bosses and call them tough, like I remember people calling Naj'entus and Supremus hard lol.

[BlazerWithTheLazer]

11million players? You need to download a few patches of reality. Cut that in half and you're closer to the number of subscribers today.
I've had more friends both from RL and that I've met in WoW quit WoW durring WotLK than durring vanila and TBC then again noone I know quit durring vanila but lets not turn it into a topic about that.
The fact is that many raiders quickly become bored with doing every single raid in both 10man and 25man and it kinda ruins the feeling of accomplishment just so that the less coordinated players wont get accepted into any 25man guild can see all of the content.
Having had the raids 25man only(except ToC) and made stuff like Occulus, UP, HoL, added another troll dungeon in Gun'drak, ToC and PoS/HoR into 10mans instead and a few more here and there for lore reasons so that the "casuals" could still follow the storyline and get a climpse of the content but still have progress to make in 25mans would have made this whole expansion a lot more enjoyable for all parties. The 10mans would ofc be scaled to fit eachother and have HM giving vanity stuff for both the raiders and the "casuals" if they have the coordination to take on the challenge.
Another thing that should be remade is the emblem system. If we follow my idea here then sure lets keep the emblem system so that the whiners can get some free gear and raiders can gear up some alts quick but the emblem gear will be on pair with the current 10man gear. Making it worthwhile to get and putting you just 1 step below the current end game gear but not equal to it.

[Waterisbest]

11million players? You need to download a few patches of reality. Cut that in half and you're closer to the number of subscribers today.
I've had more friends both from RL and that I've met in WoW quit WoW durring WotLK than durring vanila and TBC then again noone I know quit durring vanila but lets not turn it into a topic about that. The fact is that many raiders quickly become bored with doing every single raid in both 10man and 25man and it kinda ruins the feeling of accomplishment just so that the less coordinated players wont get accepted into any 25man guild can see all of the content. Having had the raids 25man only(except ToC) and made stuff like Occulus, UP, HoL, added another troll dungeon in Gun'drak, ToC and PoS/HoR into 10mans instead and a few more here and there for lore reasons so that the "casuals" could still follow the storyline and get a climpse of the content but still have progress to make in 25mans would have made this whole expansion a lot more enjoyable for all parties. The 10mans would ofc be scaled to fit eachother and have HM giving vanity stuff for both the raiders and the "casuals" if they have the coordination to take on the challenge.
Another thing that should be remade is the emblem system. If we follow my idea here then sure lets keep the emblem system so that the whiners can get some free gear and raiders can gear up some alts quick but the emblem gear will be on pair with the current 10man gear. Making it worthwhile to get and putting you just 1 step below the current end game gear but not equal to it.

If you would paragraph it and add space between the text, I will read it. Until then it is making my eyes bleed.

People quitting around you doesn't mean the game is dieing. Blizzard already released 2 statements they currently have 11million+ ACTIVE SUBS. Which stayed stationary throughout WotLK.

[Gron]

If Blizzard didn't make WoW more accessible it would have died long ago, just like it will die if there is no hard content in the game.

This is arguable, according to statistics, subscribers flattened in WOTLK, as opposed to stable growth in the past (Vanilla/TBC).
Blizzard needs to find the way to please their old timers as well, their fans can stick around for long, but they won't return if they just hear the game is easier and more simpler (becoming boring) each year.

[Waterisbest]

This is arguable, according to statistics, subscribers flattened in WOTLK, as opposed to stable growth in the past (Vanilla/TBC).
Blizzard needs to find the way to please their old timers as well, their fans can stick around for long, but they won't return if they just hear the game is easier and more simpler (becoming boring) each year.

You are not taking into consideration that no matter how hard Blizzard makes the content, people will still leave the game. People burnout, no matter what they do. Can you name me another game that you have been playing for the past 3/4/5 years? People will come and go, and it's the new people that Blizzard are targeting now. Alot of old fans will come for sometime, see the game, have some fun and move on. They will keep doing that every expansion without trying out the endgame because that's no longer the thing they are interested in. You have to see that people who were playing the game 5 years ago are now grownups (most of them). They have more important stuff (some of them).

Hard content is still there in the game. People are doing it. I hardly see people doing hard content whining about how easy the game is. Most people who are whining are casuals and people who have quit. You haven't done the hard content and found the game easy, unbelievable! People who quit, have not done the hard content and say there is no hard content :. There is no hard content? The end bosses in Ulduar, bosses in ICC, Anub'arak, FC, OS3D are all hard content. Not everything hard is fun.

Blizzard have 11million people to cater too. How can you say they all want the same thing? Some people play the game because it's a challenge (hardcore), some play to kill stuff like LK/Yogg/Mu'ru/KJ/etc (mega hardcore), some play to take their minds off their daily stuff (causal), some play on holidays only (seasonal player). Everyone of those people want different things. If you make lvling, every instance, every boss, everything method to progress very very hard, can you say that the casual and seasonal player will keep playing the game? There is a very high chance they will stop. Blizzard has to make content for ALL the players. Saying that hardcores deserve better content then casual is utterly stupid. They both deserve the same content, it's up to them if they play it or not. When you pay the subs to a gym, you get access to the entire gym, you workout or not, it's up to you.

I don't think a game can get more then 11million subs. Which other MMO have ever gotten this many subs? Of course Blizzard will keep trying. But 11million is an accomplishment and people fail to see that. If they get to 12million or more in Cataclysm, I will be very surprised (and happy), but it's not easy with some really good MMO's coming out. Will they fall below 11million? I don't think so.

[vesseblah]

This is arguable, according to statistics, subscribers flattened in WOTLK, as opposed to stable growth in the past (Vanilla/TBC).

It's also totally possible that WoW (and the competition) are pretty close to the cap of how many people in the world want to play sword & sorcery mmo with monthly subscription. Games running on micropayments are rising fast, mostly for the really casual players who wants to get stuff with money instead of actually bothering to play for it. Also recession might make people go for free/cheaper options than WoW's monthly subscription fee. All pure speculation, except that no other company has shown significant growth either in subscriptions, which would indicate that WoW quitters haven't changed the game but just stopped playing/paying altogether.

Blizzard needs to find the way to please their old timers as well, their fans can stick around for long, but they won't return if they just hear the game is easier and more simpler (becoming boring) each year.

Speaking from purely business point of view, old subscribers have significantly higher maintenance cost than new ones, so they might not even want to cling on to that demographic. Old playes have tons of alts and much higher server usage in other ways (farming instances etc) as well as tying the customer rep resources, if for nothing else, then into deleting all the bullshit whines from official forums. And the old players always complaining and quitting left and right will not increase subscriptions or work as any kind of positive "word of mouth" advertising. While new players generally have lot smaller 'footprint' in the system and their 'young' enthusiasm recruiting friends into the game.

[Slavemaker]

The most important question is...

What is your progress in Ulduar 25? Have you killed Yogg-Saron yet? Have you killed him with 0 keepers yet?

Nobody cares about Icecrown progression, everyone knows that.

I am being serious.