Blizzcon 2005 Raid Design - i knew i wasnt crazy

[therealbowser]

Yes because wiping 500 times doesn't mean its a challenge. please stick to LFR

Person you were quoting was basically saying that they wanted raiding to be somewhat challenging, not over the top challenging where you have to wipe hundreds of times to clear a boss.

And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not a fan of hardcore progression either. But the fact you take a guy basically saying "I prefer heroic over mythic because mythic is very frustrating for me" and tell them to "stick to LFR" really is telling about how out of touch you are. Please tell me it's intentionally oblivious and not accidental, though. I want to keep my faith in humanity intact, here.

[Deleted]

I think that that was slightly true in vanilla. But the thing is, it didn't actually work out that way.

"Hey, that guy has matching armor and it looks cool" was great and all, but it didn't really mean much after, say, the first raid. It was more a deal of "Wow, that guy must have been grinding that shit for months to complete that set" than "I wish I had a shiny dagger like that."

I really don't care about the colors of pixels, I didn't in vanilla and I don't now. I raided because I enjoyed raiding, I didn't raid because I wanted to feel 'special' with shiny purple pixels.

People who decided to raid typically did so because they wanted to raid, not because they wanted to grind out an armor set against 5-20 other players for months/years on end so that they could feel 'cool'. People who came in wanting the rewards typically quit soon after they realized how much work it would actually be, the ones who stayed were the ones who wanted to raid (or, you know, REALLY wanted that gear, lol).

Raiding for me was more about the community; it was fun to throw together 40 players and bum rush Molten Core. Ironically, my memory of what it felt like kind of feels comparable to LFR now... but don't tell anyone that, it might hurt their feelings. That said, I didn't push very far into super high end raiding in vanilla because the way gear progressed was a bit much for me. Each tier was substantially more exclusive than the last, and Ahn'qiraj never interested me much. Would have liked to see Naxx, but, well, I did get that wish in WotLK.

I definitely don't miss grinding trash for 4+ hours in Molten Core; it was the players who made it fun, not the content, and definitely not the relatively bland-looking loot with purple pixels for the text.

The shiny purple pixels is only part of it like you said.
Another big part was "you were either a raider or you were not". If you were not a raider you were not able to see the raids.
And to be a raider you needed a lot of commitment for raid hours.

And we all know "time" is the most precious thing nowadays.
Dont know how its going to be in Classic. Will people have "time" for Classic?

[xcitng]

Person you were quoting was basically saying that they wanted raiding to be somewhat challenging, not over the top challenging where you have to wipe hundreds of times to clear a boss.

And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not a fan of hardcore progression either. But the fact you take a guy basically saying "I prefer heroic over mythic because mythic is very frustrating for me" and tell them to "stick to LFR" really is telling about how out of touch you are. Please tell me it's intentionally oblivious and not accidental, though. I want to keep my faith in humanity intact, here.

In his opinion he wants to remove the only real challenging mode, which is mythic. Heroic is a complete joke and cleared in the first week by anyone with a brain cept maybe the last boss.

There is something wrong with it when you want to remove a mode because you cannot do it.

[therealbowser]

The shiny purple pixels is only part of it like you said.
Another big part was "you were either a raider or you were not". If you were not a raider you were not able to see the raids.
And to be a raider you needed a lot of commitment for raid hours.

And we all know "time" is the most precious thing nowadays.
Dont know how its going to be in Classic. Will people have "time" for Classic?

That's wrong though. You had to be a long-term raider if you wanted to progress and do, say, any raid beyond Molten Core or Zul Gurub. But if you just wanted to hop in and get some epics? Sign up for literally any raid as a class that wasn't completely useless for them (i.e. fire mages in molten core). Since molten core was basically doable with ~20 people, most groups were more than happy to pad the roster with puggers, especially since they needed so many players, and since Molten Core was so easy.

Zul Gurub didn't quite allow that, and 40 man raids beyond the first tier required higher end gear, but by and large if you wanted to raid, you could raid. It was as casual then as it is now, nearly, just with a lot more arbitrary restrictions. Instead of there being difficulties, there are individual raids and progressing to them takes months instead of days/weeks.

The thing about classic is that it was the latest MMORPG and the best one out there. Tons of people with plenty of free time and no better games to really migrate to. So yeah, plenty of time. But now it's competing with tons of MMORPGs, including modern WoW which is a lot more forgiving and easy to get into. Classic WoW, as much as people try to deny it, has a pretty limited appeal especially on the long-term. Retaining players to the levels you'll need for AQ, or especially Naxxramus, is going to be very difficult.

So, it's not hard to find someone willing to blow 12 hours per week. But finding 40 players willing to consistently blow 12 hours per week at the same time every week for several months in a row without ceasing on content that has a ceiling that won't ever raise? Yeah, that might somewhat challenging. But I'm sure you'll manage.

[xcitng]

The shiny purple pixels is only part of it like you said.
Another big part was "you were either a raider or you were not". If you were not a raider you were not able to see the raids.
And to be a raider you needed a lot of commitment for raid hours.

And we all know "time" is the most precious thing nowadays.
Dont know how its going to be in Classic. Will people have "time" for Classic?

There was a lot more time invested in vanilla because most people had no idea (myself included). I think classic will be quite easy (until AQ40 atleast) to step into compared to 2005.

[therealbowser]

In his opinion he wants to remove the only real challenging mode, which is mythic. Heroic is a complete joke and cleared in the first week by anyone with a brain cept maybe the last boss.

There is something wrong with it when you want to remove a mode because you cannot do it.

Must have missed that context. I'm against removing mythic because it's 'too hard', that's ridiculous. I like multiple difficulties myself, heroic for people who want something moderately challenging, LFR for those who want a simple experience, MYthic for those who want that hardcore challenge, normal for those who just want a mild challenge.

As I've posted before I'd like to see some changes to some of the difficulties (I want normal to be queuable for wings like SoO flex was, to experience raids in bite-sized pieces instead of hours long marathon), but every difficulty has a purpose and an audience it caters to.

Guess I better be careful though, because this is Shadowpunkz' thread and he's likely to get riled up with all this talk about LFR. No offense, of course.

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There was a lot more time invested in vanilla because most people had no idea (myself included). I think classic will be quite easy (until AQ40 atleast) to step into compared to 2005.

Most bosses in early vanilla have extraordinarily simple mechanics, though there's a lot of mechanics to juggle in some of the earlier raids. Slogging through Molten core now would be awful. I imagine that will be the hardest part of raiding in vanilla. Zul Gurub should be a blast, though, and even in her infancy, Onyxia was a fun fight!

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I feel like this is relevant to the thread at this point.

[Deleted]

So, it's not hard to find someone willing to blow 12 hours per week. But finding 40 players willing to consistently blow 12 hours per week at the same time every week for several months in a row without ceasing on content that has a ceiling that won't ever raise? Yeah, that might somewhat challenging. But I'm sure you'll manage.

Yeah, thats the problem for me.
Im even not sure myself if i can keep up that pace for months.

At best, in Classic, i will be able to farm full Tier 1....at best. After several months.

I dont see me inside Naxxramas anytime soon.

[Themanintobuildafire]

The problem with saying that Vanilla WoW is the solution is that all of its content -has- been beaten and will be stomped into the ground again on release by guilds like Method and whoever else goes back to play through Vanilla.

Within 3 months of launch, everything will be dead again, and since it's a content locked game, there will never be any unbeaten content ever again.

Just saying, if your definition of a 'big world' is 'unbeaten content', Vanilla WoW's world will be real small, real fast.

This is sooooo true. 15 years later we have most likely ALL done those raids 100s of times farming tmog, pets, etc. Did anyone think the MC anniversary event was fun? People were dying all the time as they had no concept of what to do in a 40man raid that normally you can solo in 5 mins.

Also Vanilla you had to farm SO much stuff. Why would I go back? Farming for months to get a mount? Nah, I'm good. Been there. Done that.

If I asked how many people would go back and do high school again, doubt a lot of people would once they realize it doesn't get better the second time...

[Deleted]

Guess I better be careful though, because this is Shadowpunkz' thread and he's likely to get riled up with all this talk about LFR. No offense, of course.

I dont care about the current game anymore. So it wont make me mad in any way.
I stopped trying to give feedback for the current game a long time ago.
Why bother? Nothing ever changes and we will never go back in time.
I just gave up

Classic is the answer

[therealbowser]

Yeah, thats the problem for me.
Im even not sure myself if i can keep up that pace for months.

At best, in Classic, i will be able to farm full Tier 1....at best. After several months.

I dont see me inside Naxxramas anytime soon.

It could take several months to farm full tier 1 even without any competition. Drop rates can be extremely sporadic, unfortunately.

IIRC AQ's gearsets were a bit less punishing to complete, but good luck reaching that point, that likely won't happen for over half a year, especially when you factor in all the resistance gear sets people will need to reach that point, etc.

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I dont care about the current game anymore. So it wont make me mad in any way.
I stopped trying to give feedback for the current game a long time ago.
Why bother? Nothing ever changes and we will never go back in time.
I just gave up

Classic is the answer

That's totally fine. Like I said, meant no offense, just a playful jab. If classic is what makes you happy, I'm not being sarcastic when I say that it's best for you. I don't know if the experience will be able to last, but with any luck they'll open up TBC realms eventually. Now that is something I'd be very interested in myself; I feel like they had a much better class balance than vanilla, more variety in content, actual catch-up methods, and hell, better content in general.

Classic is definitely something I'll dip my toes in; I'll probably join initially for the nostalgia, then stick around on the long term (though casually) for Alterac Valley. But I can't see myself raiding past Zul Gurub, since in order to do so I'd have to grind the hell out of Molten Core and that disturbs me. Sure, I'll dabble but I'm not going to join a raid group and try to move past it.

I might do that for TBC though. I didn't get as much done in that expansion as I would have liked to, and it's a minor regret of mine. It was truly a fantastic expansion, highly underrated IMHO. Not my favorite, but I feel like it was the best 'pure' version of WoW, if you feel that WotLK simplified the game as many seem to. I won't get started on WotLK, though, that'd derail the thread for sure.

[prwraith]

Yes because wiping 500 times doesn't mean its a challenge. please stick to LFR

Is english your first language?

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There is something wrong with it when you want to remove a mode because you cannot do it.

Also...factually incorrect You make a lot of assumptions in such a short post. Don't enjoy =/= can't.

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Must have missed that context.

You didn't miss it, it wasn't there

[therealbowser]

You didn't miss it, it wasn't there

I didn't think it was, though I didn't really feel like digging up posts to find out. Thanks for clarifying.

I think rages are flaring up here and people are jumping to wild conclusions. i.e., MMO-champ as per usual.

It's not a bash, either. I do the same thing. It's easy to misread posts.

[RoKPaNda]

Times change. What seemed like a good idea in Vanilla based on prior MMOs didn't stand up well to years of actual data. Players didn't aspire to raid, and no matter what Blizzard tried they could never get players into raids until ... LFR.

So yes Blizzard was wrong in Vanilla, they learned, it happens.

[xcitng]

Is english your first language?

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Also...factually incorrect You make a lot of assumptions in such a short post. Don't enjoy =/= can't.

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You didn't miss it, it wasn't there

Oh so if you don't enjoy it, blizzard should remove it... ah gotcha, stick to lfr

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Implying that there'll be unbeaten content in content that was completed years ago? I'm not sure what your point is.

[Deleted]

Implying that there'll be unbeaten content in content that was completed years ago? I'm not sure what your point is.

I read it differently.
I read "unbeaten content by the player itself" not "no one in the world was able to beat it" unbeaten content.

At least thats how i read it.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

I read it differently.
I read "unbeaten content by the player itself" not "no one in the world was able to beat it" unbeaten content.

At least thats how i read it.

The first quote is about stuff you've not beaten yet for sure, and that's a part of it, but it's one that still exists in mythic sets and mounts. The community just doesn't seem to value that as highly any more. Part of that's the lack of server communities I'm sure, but also there's a lot of new ways we consume content. We're on a site where everything is datamined to hell before it enters the game. Method streamed their world first kill. We're in an era where everything is more accessible, and it inherently makes some things less special. Part of modern life, I suppose.

As for the the second quote, I'm pretty sure they were talking about stuff that nobody's beaten. This was the era when the Black Temple patch came out before people had killed Vashj and Kael'Thas. There were bosses in the game for a very long time that nobody had seen yet. Ever. That's what they were talking about. That's a truly big world. There are bad guys that literally nobody can take on yet, and they're in the game, not just hinted at.

[Writhes]

I've been called an an awful person for having my "exclusive" opinions about the game.
But Plot twist
Blizzard actually believed in this stuff in 2005 Blizzcon panel of Raid Design.

"Players need something to aspire to: When you see someone in raid gear you think that person is cool (maybe motivate you to raid)"

"The world feels bigger for everyone if there is unbeaten content out there"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Falm0H7VEiQ&t=0m55s

What do you guys think about this?
The guy was completely wrong on his ideals and philosophy behind the game?

I want to play Classic WoW so much because i believe in this oldschool ideals.
I hope all of us have a great time in Classic WoW

I think Blizzard understood eventually that players want to experience the new content that is developed. It simply doesn't make sense from a development standpoint to sink time and money into content that the large portion of the playerbase will never see. This is why we have 3 different raid difficulties now and that unbeaten content for many will be mythic difficulty rather than an entire raid of content.

[tankbug]

"The world feels bigger for everyone if there is unbeaten content out there"

I agree to a certain extent, but to me, this statement is much more accurate:

"The world feels bigger for everyone if there is unknown content out there"

Of course the latter is harder to deliver on, since all datafiles are getting mined and analyzed the minute they're on PTR, and the developers can't create content faster than we can consume it, but beaten, hm, better than nothing, I guess. You know, I have many games where I have finished the bulk of the game, even the sidequests, only to get to the last stages and then put the game aside and found something else. I didn't beat the last boss, I didn't even attempt. Why? Well, I just feel like I have already finished the game already. It really depends on the game, but I wouldn't feel bad about putting the game away and start something else ( I have a huuuuge backlog), if I feel that most of the content is done. If I don't care about lore, it's easy, but in the case of Blizzard I would use teh intarwebz to find out what happened if I couldn't get the whole story as a filthy casual, and in that sense, the world wasn't bigger just because I couldn't experience it on my character, since I had already seen and heard everything within that raid dungeon.

[prwraith]

Oh so if you don't enjoy it, blizzard should remove it... ah gotcha, stick to lfr

Man, take a step back and calm the fuck down kid.

I'll take over-reading and over-reacting for 500 alex.