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. Aerion's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Lamperouqe View Post
    Are you trying to say that they were not aware that the wipe was not supposed to happen as a result of faction changing? Are you really sure that they thought it's OK to reset a raid lockout to advance to the hard modes a week early? Finding a loophole and kindly reporting it, and finding a loophole and using it to your advantage knowingly are two quite different things. The latter is referred to as abusing a bug.
    What I'm saying is that Blizzard either didn't know this could happen or they didn't care enough to fix it. Be as it may it created a loophole as you put it, and Stars-TW abused it shamelessly.

    I'm not trying to justify their deed as right, but to point out that the entire fuss is about a simple mistake that Blizzard made.
  1. Lamperouqe's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Wolfgor View Post
    was the said aimbot provided by the games makers ?
    Okay, you got me. Bad example. The whole point is that there are different kinds of unintended bugs and loopholes in games, and using them is not intended by the games makers. Finding bugs in games is usually something people report for them to get fixed, but there are people who abuse the bugs and use them to their advantage, which is clearly not cool right? They gain advantages over other players by using them, and so the admins usually take action towards these individuals to stop them and fix the bug. God I feel like explaining something to a kid.
  1. Aedail's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Wolfgor View Post
    There is no "obtaining a competitive advantage over other players" as all players have access to use the same account mechanics as they used. They just choose to use it!

    Not their bad if Blizz reset the lockout.

    Even if Blizz takes away the world first, They still did it, Just because Blizz may not endorse it does not mean it didn’t happen.
    "Choosing to use it" =/= the right thing to do. Just sayin.
  1. Floran12's Avatar
    STARS are 6/7 now and currently halfway through Ragnaros. Well done.
  1. wiIdi's Avatar
    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.
    he totally nailed it. win.
  1. Aerion's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Floran12 View Post
    STARS are 6/7 now and currently halfway through Ragnaros. Well done.
    Hmph.

    Sad that you even tried...
  1. Cactrot's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Bashkar View Post
    When you're competing for a World First kill, especially for end-tier, time is a significant advantage. This isn't a problem that just stops at Shannox, this is the kind of thing that rolls over into progression long term. For each boss that they would not have cleared this week, they have a substantial advantage over the other guilds.

    Any Heroic level gear gained from these kills would put them at a significant advantage for the next week.

    Example: Shannox is cleared by all top tier guilds as of next week. Lets say the next logical set of attempts go towards Beth'tilac. Every other guild would have one set of H Shannox gear, while STARS now has two. While it may seem inconsequential, it's that sort of thing that makes the difference between a 2% wipe, and a kill. While the remainder of other guilds seem to be unable to clear Beth'tilac, STARS clears through and progresses to another boss.

    Add onto that the added Valor points gained from that week, which could mean the difference between having, and not having, another piece of gear for each raid member.

    Keep in mind that many of these guilds are sponsored by hardware manufacturers and web-media organizations, among others. Not only is it an ingame advantage, but you're putting the sponsorship contracts of other guilds at risk because of this faction change.

    I'm glad Blizzard stepped in. The gear, VP, and achievement should be revoked; although I would expect STARS to drop Shannox with ease after the lockout expires.
    Are you saying the valor point cap resets as well, because that seems very very unlikely. I doubt there is a single raider in any of the top guilds that does not cap out valor every week at the start of a new expansion.

    The time thing is valid, but it doesn't make their kill invalid, nor their next kills. The timer should start from the moment the players get access to the content. They made that timer start sooner. If next week servers come up and paragon downs shannox faster, then they earned the true world first, the fastest kill. Nothing about this makes their kill less valid, it just makes the timers harder to calculate. If people start releasing strategies that too can throw off the game a bit.
  1. Wolfgor's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Lamperouqe View Post
    Okay, you got me. Bad example. The whole point is that there are different kinds of unintended bugs and loopholes in games, and using them is not intended by the games makers. Finding bugs in games is usually something people report for them to get fixed, but there are people who abuse the bugs and use them to their advantage, which is clearly not cool right? They gain advantages over other players by using them, and so the admins usually take action towards these individuals to stop them and fix the bug. God I feel like explaining something to a kid.
    You need to explain something to a kid then talk in Trade chat, that’s 80% population.

    All in all this is opinion based for everyone until there is an official Blizzard response posted. You make valid points that I will acknowledge.
    Even though Blizz has disabled the raid ID reset for US and EU realms did they explicitly say this is not allowed on Taiwanese realms, or is everyone speculating?

    ---------- Post added 2011-07-01 at 02:09 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Aedail View Post
    "Choosing to use it" =/= the right thing to do. Just sayin.
    I never said it was right, just trying to determine if it is legit with Blizz
  1. Slapp's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Wolfgor View Post
    You need to explain something to a kid then talk in Trade chat, that’s 80% population.

    All in all this is opinion based for everyone until there is an official Blizzard response posted. You make valid points that I will acknowledge.
    Even though Blizz has disabled the raid ID reset for US and EU realms did they explicitly say this is not allowed on Taiwanese realms, or is everyone speculating?

    ---------- Post added 2011-07-01 at 02:09 PM ----------


    I never said it was right, just trying to determine if it is legit with Blizz
    Blizzard has taken action towards it, proving that it was, indeed, wrong. They kicked them out of the instance and locked them till next weeks reset. There hasnt been any blue posts about it yet, but Im hoping there will be one soon enough.

    Heres the source: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...annable/page11 (which seems legit enough considering not a single one has objected yet)
  1. phyrix's Avatar
    All of this is actually nonsense.

    We'll have to wait till next reset when other guilds kill it, and then compare the time it took them. If it takes other guilds longer to get the kill, from point of availability of the heroic boss to the kill, then the kill is legitimate.

    If they do it faster then STARS, STARS' kill isn't legitimate.
    Simple as that.
  1. Wolfgor's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Slapp View Post
    Blizzard has taken action towards it, proving that it was, indeed, wrong. They kicked them out of the instance and locked them till next weeks reset. There hasnt been any blue posts about it yet, but Im hoping there will be one soon enough.
    This does not say it was wrong only that it has not been released. There is indeed a difference.
  1. Slapp's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Wolfgor View Post
    This does not say it was wrong only that it has not been released. There is indeed a difference.
    Well, the raid has obivously been released. I mean, its there, isnt it? They killed a boss inside it on live servers, so you cant question wether its released or not.

    What I really think the GM meant, considering some of the meaning may have been lost in the translation process, is that there is no legit way of reaching the the heroic modes already in the first week. Thus making the raid "not yet released". To be able to reach the heroic modes you first need to clear the normals, which takes at least one lockout. Making the heroic modes available in week two, earliest.

    If Blizzard was 100% okay with this, they wouldnt have kicked them out. Effectively meaning what Stars did is wrong. I dont see how you with logic can question this.
  1. Wolfgor's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Slapp View Post
    Well, the raid has obivously been released. I mean, its there, isnt it? They killed a boss inside it on live servers, so you cant question wether its released or not.

    What I really think the GM meant, considering some of the meaning may have been lost in the translation process, is that there is no legit way of reaching the the heroic modes already in the first week. Thus making the raid "not yet released". To be able to reach the heroic modes you first need to clear the normals, which takes a least one lockout.

    If Blizzard was 100% okay with this, they wouldnt have kicked them out. Effectively meaning what Stars did is wrong. I dont see how you with lagic can question this.
    In that translation they said "Heroic" not the normal so no it has not been released per that translation. Again there is NO response from Blizzard stating it was wrong.

    and what is Lagic ?

    Again I am not saying this is right or I agree with it
  1. Slapp's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Wolfgor View Post
    In that translation they said "Heroic" not the normal so no it has not been released per that translation. Again there is NO response from Blizzard stating it was wrong.

    and what is Lagic ?

    Again I am not saying this is right or I agree with it
    I misspelled logic, big deal.

    How can you say there has been no response? Kicking them out of the instance isnt a reaction to you? What is a reaction then? And when they're forced to kick them out of the instance, they obviously must have done something wrong.
  1. Wolfgor's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Slapp View Post
    I misspelled logic, big deal.

    How can you say there has been no response? Kicking them out of the instance isnt a reaction to you? What is a reaction then? And when they're forced to kick them out of the instance, they obviously must have done something wrong.

    I did not say there was no response to the removing of players from non released content. I am refering to the response in it was wrong.

    I'm Sorry i guess i fail to find the blue post where Blizzard stated what they did was in fact wrong. Can you provide this link to me then ?
  1. Slapp's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Wolfgor View Post
    I'm Sorry i guess i fail to find the blue post where Blizzard stated what they did was in fact wrong. Can you provide this link to me then ?
    You need to be spoonfed with a text response in order to understand something wrong was done? How about putting two and two together and coming up with the conclusion that in order for someone to recieve a negative sanction (Getting kicked out of the instance) you must have done something wrong. Exactly what was wrong, Im not going to discuss, but something must have been shady to Blizzard, so they decided kicking them out was a good way to punish them.
  1. Tikaru's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by phyrix View Post
    All of this is actually nonsense.

    We'll have to wait till next reset when other guilds kill it, and then compare the time it took them. If it takes other guilds longer to get the kill, from point of availability of the heroic boss to the kill, then the kill is legitimate.

    If they do it faster then STARS, STARS' kill isn't legitimate.
    Simple as that.
    According to whom?
  1. Lamperouqe's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Wolfgor View Post
    I did not say there was no response to the removing of players from non released content. I am refering to the response in it was wrong.

    I'm Sorry i guess i fail to find the blue post where Blizzard stated what they did was in fact wrong. Can you provide this link to me then ?
    Do they make a blue post every time someone breaks the rules? Man they must be busy. Throwing them out of the instance and locking them for the week was enough proof that it was not right, and if you use your head a bit you wouldn't even need to think about if it was wrong or not.

    E: It seems I told you to use your head but not think, something for you to ponder about. Wait, that's thinking too.
  1. InstantPoM's Avatar
    Wow, talk about hypocrites. Whenever any guild did something that was at the least debatable, Stars were always on the forefront with taking the moral highground. Now when they themselves think of something, they don't hesitate and go right for it. Definition of hypocrisy right there.
  1. Therdin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Thalendil View Post
    Wow, talk about hypocrites. Whenever any guild did something that was at the least debatable, Stars were always on the forefront with taking the moral highground. Now when they themselves think of something, they don't hesitate and go right for it. Definition of hypocrisy right there.
    They should run for public office. Seems right up their alley

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