Stars (TW - Crystalpine Stinger) already working on Firelands Heroic - Shannox World First Kill
A lot of guilds killed all the bosses of the Firelands raid in normal mode already but it seems that Stars (TW - Crystalpine Stinger) decided to take it one step further.

After clearing the encounters in normal mode, the entire raid changed faction to reset their raid ID and started working on heroic encounters shortly after, that kind of thing happened in the past and it's not really surprising to see it used again to grab first kills.

As I write these lines, Stars killed Shannox in Heroic Mode. It's not really my place to judge if something is against the rules or not and I will just keep tracking heroic first kills as they happen.



Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Eternal Embers and Seething Cinders Droprates
You’re assuming the drop chances for embers averages out to .5 per boss in 10’s and 2 per boss in 25’s, which it doesn’t. Whether you’re in 10’s or 25’s you’re going to see an equal drop average for Eternal Embers per player, and the same can be said for Seething Cinders. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

New Content - Differences between PvE and PvP Players
The answer to your question revolves around a common difference in how PvE players and PvP players approach the game. Generally speaking, PvE players want more quests, more dungeons and more raids to experience -- more and new content is king. On the other hand, while some PvP players do want new maps, many others would be happier if we perfected the Arena or BG maps that already exist - or even if we cut existing maps. After all, PvP players don’t graduate out of Arathi Basin or Dalaran sewers the same way PvE players graduate from dungeon to heroic, or raid tier to raid tier. We did make some improvements to the existing PvP maps, such as trying to return Ring of Valor to circulation and changing the way flags work in Eye of the Storm (for rated play).

We’d love to add a lot more maps than we currently do, but we need to do it in such a way that doesn’t make the PvP experience worse for players who are more interested in refining their PvP experience than in seeing new maps. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Patch 4.2 Hairstyles
We had a bunch of hairstyles we threw in for testing on the PTR and the majority of them did not pass the test. (quality, art direction, bugs, etc.) (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Patch 4.0 Raids now puggable
We specifically intend for the 4.0 raids to be puggable now that Firelands is out. Grabbing some tier 11 by way of Justice, quest rewards, plus across the board difficulty nerfs should really be enough to get them going.

The patch has only been out a day or so though. I think it'll probably take a little bit before people really get it into their heads that they should be pugging the previous tier because it's not too hard to be successful. It's just getting people used to the various encounters and mechanics.

Maybe people are waiting for the holiday weekend? If nothing else, leading one yourself is always an option. I think we'd agree that we need some better ways to get pug raids together considering we intend to follow the "New Raid is Hard, old Tier is Puggable" format from here on.

Still unsure what that means regarding the final raid (i.e. Deathwing). Do pugs not get to see him until the next expansion is released? (Not saying whether that's a good thing or not, but personally I enjoyed getting to Arthas on some of my alts without spending near as much time as I did on my main.)
In ICC we had a stacking raid buff over time which gradually made the content easier. Not saying we’ll do that exact thing again but the philosophy was around even then that everyone who wants to can eventually see the content, but it’s going to take very organized groups (which typically means raiding guilds) to see the encounters first.

So casuals will constantly be a tier behind for the rest of the life of this game? If that is what is actually coming out of your mouth I'll save myself the time and unsub now. What a piss poor vision for your game. There are normal and heroic versions of raids for a reason. That heroic difficulty was implemented so that the two segments of the population (casual and hardcore) would both have something to do. You are now bifurcating the raiding population AGAIN, by telling casuals that they have to run around in the left overs.
Trying to label all of our players as “casual puggers” vs.” hardcore raiders” is ridiculously simplistic. Among raiders there is an enormous diversity of players. There are those who will raid virtually every night when new content is out, to guilds that raid once a week (and even then will cancel raid nights fairly commonly). If you must try to label raiders, you’d be closer to the Blizzard model if you said normal mode is for organized raids, heroic mode is for more hardcore organized raids, and the previous tier of content (and Baradin Hold) is targeted for pick-up groups. Also consider that even within a raid zone we try to design easier bosses (usually near the front) and more challenging ones (usually at the end) which can help blur those lines and offer smoother transitions for each category.

Overall, we think you’ll have a better experience playing World of Warcraft if you play with friends, either existing or those you meet in game. WoW, while much more solo friendly than most older MMO games, is still intended as a multiplayer game. We provide features like Dungeon Finder for when playing with friends isn’t possible, and as we said above, we’d like to offer more features like that. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Tabards Tab
Are there any considerations for a tab for your tabards?
Yes!

[...] To clarify: he asked if we were considering it, and yes we are considering it. :) (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Keyring Removal
On a serious point though some people are upset about the removal of the key ring. While that seems like we're just taking it out to be bullies, it specifically frees up storage space we can then make into useful features. Not that it will specifically be used for 'tabard storage', but we are going to be using the space the removal of the key ring freed up. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Thrall and Aggra's "wedding"
Correct. Their pledging of their lives to one another was essentially their 'wedding', although I'm sure Orcs don't use such nomenclature to refer to these things. Maybe 'life bond' fits better. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Does Blizzard plan on adding the rest of the dungeons and raids to the Dungeon Journal?
Absolutely. With the time it takes to present a single boss in the Dungeon Journal we were only confident supplying Cataclysm content with the release of the feature in 4.2, but we are on a path to filling it out with all dungeons and raids in the entire game. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Steam Summer Sales
In a very, very, very unrelated sidenote, Steam Summer Sales are up. I don't usually news non-WoW stuff but ... well, I like Valve and I'm pretty sure a lot of people will be happy to hear the news. Also, don't forget that we have a Video Games Forum!
This article was originally published in forum thread: Stars Heroic Shannox World First Kill, Blue Posts started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 622 Comments
  1. Parkbench's Avatar
    I love Blizzard's logic about the legendary.. Nope it's not a ratio, 10m to 25, of .5 to 2.. It's a ratio proportionate to the number of people in the group.. meaning what? .8 to 2? lol
  1. Gogetaex's Avatar
    If you can break the system, do.
  1. Makro's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Eldrad View Post
    It's not even a exploit of game mechanics. It's a paid service that Blizzard set up, and set it up to reset your raid ID. Blizzard's fault all the way if they think this is a problem.
    And I was there thinking Faction Change was a service to change faction, silly me.
  1. foamy263's Avatar
    Why ban stars for being intuitive? I wouldn't be mad even if i still played and i'm a hardcore raider and its not cheating because they didn't exploit a bug or anything, so just let them have it they worked and payed for that kill
  1. Eloona's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Parkbench View Post
    I love Blizzard's logic about the legendary.. Nope it's not a ratio, 10m to 25, of .5 to 2.. It's a ratio proportionate to the number of people in the group.. meaning what? .8 to 2? lol
    I know right!?!
  1. toughcack's Avatar
    I really do hope they receive some punishment for this.
  1. koticgood's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Chiasmus View Post
    True, but unfortunately for them no one who actually matters will consider their kill a world first. By paying to beat the competition, they're openly stating they feel they couldn't compete on fair ground, and had to resort to buying their way to the top. No one in the top tier community is interested in a guild who can't win through their own merit; reputation and integrity are far more important than a 'world first' which no one else attempted to attain. What the generally illiterate and ignorant posters of MMO-Champion think doesn't matter to the people in top guilds. They are the ones directly affected by this, they are the people whose opinion matters.
    You seem like the biggest nerd in the world. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge nerd, but when I call you a nerd, it's with the implication that you're a faggot ( no disrespect to my gay friends and the gay community).

    "True, but unfortunately for them no one who actually matters will consider their kill a world first."
    No one who actually matters? I suppose you are talking about "elite" wow players? lol

    "No one in the top tier community is interested in a guild who can't win through their own merit; reputation and integrity are far more important than a 'world first' which no one else attempted to attain."
    Yeah, because the top guilds have such amazing reputation and integrity when it comes to progression. AKA abuse as much as possible and log more hours into ptr and pre-ptr testing than most WoW will spend in Firelands. But if it's within the "elite community's" set of rules, aka whatever the fuck they want to do and say is kosher, then it's cool mon!

    "By paying to beat the competition, they're openly stating they feel they couldn't compete on fair ground, and had to resort to buying their way to the top."
    Pretty sure there are plenty of guilds that can tap on their keyboards and kill a heroic boss. Just because they were smart and didn't get want to get shafted by Taiwanese server circumstances, you freak out.

    "What the generally illiterate and ignorant posters of MMO-Champion"
    Just because you use proper punctuation and talk like an elitist douche-bag doesn't make everyone else in the world illiterate. Please forgive us common people who won't dedicate our lives to WoW. Everyone knows top tier raiding is about logistics and time. You're playing World of Fucking Warcraft, not curing cancer.

    Anyhow, I feel sorry for you. I hope you're rich and good looking, because someone as pathetic as you deserves at least that much.
  1. Estral's Avatar
    You’re assuming the drop chances for embers averages out to .5 per boss in 10’s and 2 per boss in 25’s, which it doesn’t. Whether you’re in 10’s or 25’s you’re going to see an equal drop average for Eternal Embers per player, and the same can be said for Seething Cinders.
    Whaaaaa so do they mean theyre actually making it fair and giving 25man a higher drop chance? Or are they screwing us over?
  1. Elothie's Avatar
    could top eu/us guildes do the same? No. Means TW guilds have a whole week before eu/us guilds can start HC modes which is bs and they should be banned.
  1. mmoc4a33ce3c7a's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by koticgood View Post
    You seem like the biggest nerd in the world. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge nerd, but when I call you a nerd, it's with the implication that you're a faggot ( no disrespect to my gay friends and the gay community).
    Do you even read what you write? The first paragraph alone tells how little worth the post of yours is to read.
  1. Expectations's Avatar
    Personally. Good for them for using every advantage to get this. It is no different than any other mechanic that was fixed sooner or later that other guilds used in the past to get their first kills. I don't know who the fuck stars is, and I don't care. But don't flame someone because they thought of something you didn't to get an advantage. Blame Blizzard for not thinking about this happening sooner.
  1. Axxy's Avatar
    During progression through Cata raids, GMs I presume would observe guilds doing the latest encounter to watch for bugs/exploits etc?

    Can Blizz be sure that Stars have killed Shannox Heroic without incident?

    Did Blizz even know that a guild was already doing heroic raids in order to observe them as they killed the boss?
  1. Stonepony's Avatar
    Many years from now some of you will laugh when you look back on this and realize how childish you've acted.
  1. Khornn's Avatar
    From the official Faction Change FAQ: http : // eu. blizzard. com /support/article.xml?locale=en_GB&articleId=39811
    Will my raid IDs be reset following a Faction Change? Your pre-existing raid locks will not be removed or reset completely, but your character will be assigned appropriate raid IDs for those bosses you have already defeated earlier in the week
    So it's clearly a bug that they abused. Eod.
  1. Inexxa's Avatar
    If STARS work the system (which is set in place and not bannable) then fair play to them. Blizzard should fix their shit before they can decide anything.

    Stop yer moaning and if you happen to be jealous then do the same.
  1. lakhesis's Avatar
    It's mildly amusing that because Bliz has had inferior support for the region - late product delivery, no ptr, etc etc - it now comes back to bite them when a feature/bug the more actively maintained EU/US servers already have had removed is used in Taiwan.Speaking as an oceanic player who's had to deal with inferior service since release (us based servers with 300-500ms latency thanks to the pacific ocean), I have a lot of difficulty feeling any sympathy for the sort of quandary this must put Bliz HQ in regarding the "clever use of mechanics or exploiting a bug & we should punish?" decision that must currently be going on there.Regardless, congrats to stars on the kill. I don't doubt a handful of other guilds could also potentially be getting it in this very very early timeframe if they could try, but it'd be only a handful regardless so it's an impressive achievement even if it does put the whole "what's the world ranking" hangup into confusion/uproar..
  1. rdj's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Andelormon View Post
    Blame Blizzard for not thinking about this happening sooner.
    This!!!

    The guild should not be banned or even be considered for a ban. If Blizzard didn't want this to happen, they shouldn't clear raid ID's on faction change. I tip my hat to this guild for taking advantage of the situation. Seems they were the only guild in the world to actually do this and everybody is upset because they didn't think of it first.
  1. Phibi's Avatar
    and in 4 weeks everyone sits at 7/7 hc and nobody gives a shit about stars or whoever else downed a fucking boss in a fucking game first...
    unlike you're a freaking nerd and WoW is all you got in life, then you will give a shit, but then you're a damn loser so nobody gives a shit about you...
    damn, the circle of life...
  1. FattyXP's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by dascylus View Post
    It falls under "obtaining a competitive advantage over other players" in the EULA. Or in other words, exploiting, which can oftentimes result in permanent account suspension based on the severity of the exploit taking place. The fact that these actions were premeditated won't help their case with Blizzard's customer support staff. You can say you were testing the encounters as much as you want, but the straight facts is you did something with the full intent on gaining a competitive advantage over other players and maximum punishment should be expected.
    So then I can't go get the BiS available gear and go into the new raid because that's "obtaining a competitive advantage over other players".
  1. LordKain's Avatar
    The majority of people who play this game couldn't care less about world first. Still, it is most entertaining watching all the Nerdrage and QQ going on. Please continue. :eats popcorn:

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