TK and SSC must be launch content

[Kralljin]

And that is where the true toxicity of TBC comes in. Poaching people from guilds that have just completed attunements so your own guild doesn't have to go back and run older raids everyone is already sick off.

I think it's going to be less of an issue this time around because you're not perpetually stuck in progression mode.

Unless you were a high end guild in TBC, you were always progressing through content until you killed Illidan or even KJ, there was no time to catch on with alts, hence you had to give up progression time in order to get trials or someone who just has to fill a spot attuned.

Now, you have months between each tier, people will get their T5 en masse ready during T4, people will get their T6 ready during T5, you have more than enough time to get attunements done on alts (which will be far more prominent now than back then), socials, whatever, you'll have pugs that might be able to clear a given content, the overall rate of people being attuned will be much higher, which in return in makes the need for poaching less likely.
Disregarding that people will clear the content at a much higher pace will also reduce the issues of having to reclear a given raid.

I think it's going to be similiar how people set up raids aside for Ony / ZG for world buffs or Idols, people will be attuning alts & socials on the side for an emergency.

[Gorsameth]

I think it's going to be less of an issue this time around because you're not perpetually stuck in progression mode.

Unless you were a high end guild in TBC, you were always progressing through content until you killed Illidan or even KJ, there was no time to catch on with alts, hence you had to give up progression time in order to get trials or someone who just has to fill a spot attuned.

Now, you have months between each tier, people will get their T5 en masse ready during T4, people will get their T6 ready during T5, you have more than enough time to get attunements done on alts (which will be far more prominent now than back then), socials, whatever, you'll have pugs that might be able to clear a given content, the overall rate of people being attuned will be much higher, which in return in makes the need for poaching less likely.
Disregarding that people will clear the content at a much higher pace will also reduce the issues of having to reclear a given raid.

I think it's going to be similiar how people set up raids aside for Ony / ZG for world buffs or Idols, people will be attuning alts & socials on the side for an emergency.

Yeah, a more spread out content release will definitely help with this.

[ifrah]

As much as I'd agree that Gruuls and Mag is too little for a 25man guild and T5 raids would be immediately useful I think there's enough to do that this won't be necessary.
Besides, people had no issue clearing MC on their first night and farming it for the next few months. They will do it again for T4 and enjoy it.

There are epic mounts to grind for, Heroics to farm Badges, alts to level, nobody will be bored waiting for T5.

Agree with this. Although not everyone is interested in it, but nevertheless all those rep grinds, just generic feeding on 5mans & kara until you get sated, epic mounts, crafted gears (just think how many warriors will be after their skillheralds in elemental plateau) will keep people entertained with the rather limited T4 content longer than equivalent amount of raid content at later stages.

[Nyel]

No, we don’t need T5 obsoleting T4 from week 1.

People will absolutely be clearing SSC and TK in half quest/heroic dungeon gear.

Kael'thas and Vashj were hard blocks, pretty sure it's not going to happen. Many many guilds killed the first bosses in Hyjal long before Kael'thas and Vashj.

[Kralljin]

Kael'thas and Vashj were hard blocks, pretty sure it's not going to happen. Many many guilds killed the first bosses in Hyjal long before Kael'thas and Vashj.

I mean yeah, the attunements were in TBC not entirely without reason, because what you describe wasn't possible until 2.3.
Blizzard applied the lessons learned from BWL, where both Razorgore & Vael were a huge stepup from MC (at least the at time) and thus made the first bosses of future raids in Classic / TBC very easy as "entry gift".

But then realized without some sort gating mechanism, people would just walk into almost every raid in TBC, kill the first few bosses and collect loot there, despite not having killed the final boss from the previous raid.
Thus, attunements were born.

Looking back, i kinda ask myself whether Blizzard designed the game around a playerbase that was playing the game "incorrectly", reading some Vanilla guides for Vael with modern knowledge is pretty "interesting".
"Everyone should be wearing a high amount of fire resistance", yeah, no surprise when you give that sort of advice that people might struggle on Vael.

[Argorwal]

Kael'thas and Vashj were hard blocks, pretty sure it's not going to happen. Many many guilds killed the first bosses in Hyjal long before Kael'thas and Vashj.

Rag, Vael, princess, and patchwerk were “walls” too.

Even with TBC being a step up, I don’t think these bosses will put up a ton of resistance to any decent guild.

[Koward]

Already complaining to get the next tier faster, one expansion and one patch before due date. That's a new record lads.

[Nite92]

Phase 2 release of tier 5 will break up the TBC experience. Tier 4 does not stand up on it's own. TBC is defined by the long winding road that was the raiding and attunement journey. It would be better to release TBC classic later and have all launch content available as it was in January 2007.

And if anyone thinks this would obsolete tier 4, you do not understand how BC worked. Content pacing is a concept for the modern game. BC content innately paces itself.

No it is fine. Very few want that much content at once.

[Vakna]

Well they wont be, so you saying it "must" is irrelevant.

[Molvonos]

Kael'thas and Vashj were hard blocks, pretty sure it's not going to happen. Many many guilds killed the first bosses in Hyjal long before Kael'thas and Vashj.

Can you explain to me how precisely they did that, when you needed to kill both Kael and Vashj to get attuned to Hyjal?

[Bigbazz]

Kael'thas and Vashj were hard blocks, pretty sure it's not going to happen. Many many guilds killed the first bosses in Hyjal long before Kael'thas and Vashj.

You should clarify that when you say that you mean in patch 2.4 after the attunement was lifted, and you'd be correct. But prior to 2.4 it was no possible to enter Hyjal/BT without having killed Vashj + Kael. Vashj and KT were long ass fights and very mechanically heavy for the time, but unlikely to be an issue for many people these days though unless Blizzard goes nuts with the tuning.

And Hyjal is super easy, Archimonde can be a bit of an ass with the fires and fears but won't cause many people much trouble, I'd not be surprised if a lot of people kill it in under 5 pulls, or on the first pull. But Blizzard isn't likely to allow people into Hyjal without attunement prior to the release of Sunwell, and unlike in 2007-2008 the "current content" raid progression mindset of today will mean the majority of guilds will be beatin KT/Vashj long before they enter Hyjal.

Can you explain to me how precisely they did that, when you needed to kill both Kael and Vashj to get attuned to Hyjal?

Seems he means after the attunement was lifted. He's right, an absolute tonne of guilds got their start in T6 after 2.4 and then went back with their new shiny T6 quality gear to beat KT/Vashj, which were a lot tougher than anything in Hyjal save for Archimonde himself.

[Heathy]

the air burst will probably kill many ppl, you get a little quest item for archimonde that gives you a 2 second slow fall but it is still possible to use this thing too early and still fall and die. or get punted up in the air with a dot on you from the fire. this is where the mechanics for archimonde overlap and what made it a wipe fest back in the day, you can wipe quickly on archimonde. it only takes 1 death.

this is the sort of boss that could be a pug blocker, where you go in and simply wipe wipe wipe wipe wipe over and over. because each person gets to fail on every new attempt.

I didn't like healing vashj because everyone is spread out, similarly to 4 horsemen, where most of the raid just isn't in range or some ppl are down the slope so you have LoS issues reaching both the top and bottom simultaneously, the forked lightning she did, she could do this multiple times in the same direction and that was a bit sketchy sometimes as one side just gets pummelled by 3 forked lightnings in a row. while everyone is spread out to hell. vashj wouldn't be that difficult if you can guarantee that you get the first 4 cores and push her out of p2, but its likely that you'll miss cores. at least potentially you will which makes it drag on. to the point where your healers run out of mana or the blue elementals are spawning faster than you can kill them.

[durenas]

I dont wanna be that guy but private servers are illegal everywhere

They're not illegal. They're copyright infringement and a violation of any terms of service you might have with Blizzard. Big difference. Blizzard isn't going to call the police on you, because you haven't committed a criminal offense. It's civil. They might sue you, but it'd be expensive to sue individuals. More effective to get the ISP to shut down the servers or face liability for copyright infringement.

[ClassicPeon]

They're not illegal. They're copyright infringement and a violation of any terms of service you might have with Blizzard. Big difference. Blizzard isn't going to call the police on you, because you haven't committed a criminal offense. It's civil. They might sue you, but it'd be expensive to sue individuals. More effective to get the ISP to shut down the servers or face liability for copyright infringement.

Eh. Running private servers is illegal.
Playing on private servers is not illegal and probably not even something blizzard would punish, but afaik its still against the rules to say you play on them/talk about them on this site.

[Nyel]

Can you explain to me how precisely they did that, when you needed to kill both Kael and Vashj to get attuned to Hyjal?

As another guy said, they lifted the restrictions later on. Kael'thas and Vashj were for a very long time bosses that lasted longer than the first 3/4 in Hyjal. Archimonde was the next blocker, but Vashj and even moreso Kael'thas were the real ones for quite a long time.

- - - Updated - - -

Rag, Vael, princess, and patchwerk were “walls” too.

Even with TBC being a step up, I don’t think these bosses will put up a ton of resistance to any decent guild.

I do think they will last longer than their Classic-counterparts, but eventually time will tell. Quite interesting to see how people will handle Brutallus, which is basically the TBC Patchwerk.

[Gorsameth]

the air burst will probably kill many ppl, you get a little quest item for archimonde that gives you a 2 second slow fall but it is still possible to use this thing too early and still fall and die. or get punted up in the air with a dot on you from the fire. this is where the mechanics for archimonde overlap and what made it a wipe fest back in the day, you can wipe quickly on archimonde. it only takes 1 death.

this is the sort of boss that could be a pug blocker, where you go in and simply wipe wipe wipe wipe wipe over and over. because each person gets to fail on every new attempt.

I didn't like healing vashj because everyone is spread out, similarly to 4 horsemen, where most of the raid just isn't in range or some ppl are down the slope so you have LoS issues reaching both the top and bottom simultaneously, the forked lightning she did, she could do this multiple times in the same direction and that was a bit sketchy sometimes as one side just gets pummelled by 3 forked lightnings in a row. while everyone is spread out to hell. vashj wouldn't be that difficult if you can guarantee that you get the first 4 cores and push her out of p2, but its likely that you'll miss cores. at least potentially you will which makes it drag on. to the point where your healers run out of mana or the blue elementals are spawning faster than you can kill them.

Which is why you spend a couple of minutes jumping off the cliff before the boss until everyone is able to land without splattering all over the ground.

[intenz]

Phase 2 release of tier 5 will break up the TBC experience. Tier 4 does not stand up on it's own. TBC is defined by the long winding road that was the raiding and attunement journey. It would be better to release TBC classic later and have all launch content available as it was in January 2007.

And if anyone thinks this would obsolete tier 4, you do not understand how BC worked. Content pacing is a concept for the modern game. BC content innately paces itself.

I think the early part of TBC - the levelling, hc dungeons and karazhan - are the strongest features of the expansion. Isle of quel-danas was fun too. But I always thought tier 5 was kinda shit.

[kukkamies]

Eh. Running private servers is illegal.
Playing on private servers is not illegal and probably not even something blizzard would punish, but afaik its still against the rules to say you play on them/talk about them on this site.

A bit different but about sharing copyright material.
Good times when police were after music downloaders. Here a 9 year old girl's Winnie the Pooh laptop was raided and taken by police. She had downloaded a few songs a year ago from that event.
So here police doesn't want to take part in it so easily anymore. Lucky me. Even the courts are turning against the threatening letter sending trolls.

[Aktavite]

But then realized without some sort gating mechanism, people would just walk into almost every raid in TBC, kill the first few bosses and collect loot there, despite not having killed the final boss from the previous raid.
Thus, attunements were born.

What now?
Attunements were there in vanilla. You couldn't just walk into MC, Onyxia or BWL and magically down the first boss.

[Kralljin]

What now?
Attunements were there in vanilla. You couldn't just walk into MC, Onyxia or BWL and magically down the first boss.

Attunements in Vanilla served a different purpose.

MC and BWL, for all intents and purposes did not have an attunement, it was just a means to end to get straight into the instance, nothing stopped you from entering MC or BWL via BRD / UBRS.
The comparison would work if Vanilla attunements were similiarly structered as the TBC ones but you didn't have to kill Ony in order to enter MC, nor did you have kill Rag in order to enter BWL, it was mostly just flavor, not a tool to stop people from skipping over certain bosses or content.

The Naxx attunement was also just an elaborate way of saying "please farm Argent dawn rep, you can skip it if you're willing to pay, though" rather than "you must have downed C'thun in order to access Naxx".