Heroic Dragon Soul Difficulty, Blue Posts, 64bit Client, DiabloFans Contest, GW2 Beta

[chaud]

Statistics: Heroic Dragon Soul Encounter Difficulty
Today we continue our ongoing statistics by taking a look at the relative difficulty of the encounters in Dragon Soul. As always with the API, there are limitations that prevent us from discriminating between players who completed the encounter in 25 man or 10 man mode, so keep in mind that these numbers contain both raid sizes summed together.

The sample size was ~5.7 million level 85 characters, with ~290k that have defeated the Heroic Morchok encounter. Keep in mind that the sample contains many alts, which makes the absolute numbers look lower than they are in reality. This means that we are looking at encounter difficulty relative to the easiest encounter, not the percent of the player population that completed each encounter.

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Blue Posts

What Was Vanilla WoW Like?
I was actually chatting just last night with someone who had started playing shortly after Cataclysm launched.

I have lots of great memories of adventures that have spanned from when World of Warcraft first launched through to the present day. The game has evolved quite a bit over the years, and I’m especially thankful for the many quality of life upgrades that were made along the way.

Way back when, you could only get a mount starting at level 40, so it took quite a bit of time to travel around Azeroth on foot. Flight points were by far the fastest modes of transportation, but you could only use them if you first hoofed your way over and discovered each Flight Master individually. When you used flight points you also could only travel directly from one to the next. They didn’t automatically connect to your final destination like they do now. So you’d have to make your way to the first point, talk to the flight master, fly to the next point, talk to the flight master, and so on. Accessing dungeons or raids also required additional travel time, as you had to make your way to them manually, and there were no mass summons or personal flying mounts back in that era that could speed up the process, either. So assembling five people for a dungeon run involved quite a bit of waiting around while people slowly made their way to the particular dungeon. It often took even longer for raids to get up and running because you’d be waiting for 40 people instead of just 25 or 10.

Battlegrounds and Arenas (both of which I relish) also did not launch with the original game. The first two Battlegrounds areas, Alterac Valley and Warsong Gulch, went live on June 7th, 2005, and you had to physically travel out in the world to the particular Battleground portal for each location in order to queue for them. As there was no time or resource limit on those games, they could run very long, and indeed some Alterac Valley matches on the servers I played on at the time could span multiple hours or even, in some cases, multiple days. For Battlegrounds, specifically, there were no cross-realm Battlegroups originally, so you could only face-off against opponents from your individual realm that were on the opposite faction. Way back then, you also couldn’t step up and challenge another guild on your own faction to an all-out War Game in Warsong Gulch, either, because War Games didn’t even exist until shortly after Cataclysm launched.

Travel around Azeroth and assembling groups for anything from PvP to dungeon runs and raiding is much more efficient now than it was in classic times. I think it’s especially fantastic being able to freely roam around the world and do other activities while you wait. Then, once the group is assembled, you can teleport directly into battle with your comrades as well as your friends from other realms (thanks to the advent of Real ID’s cross-realm support). And that’s, well… awesome. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Global Writing Contest
Instead of the Global Writing Contest this year, would you all be interested in a poetry contest?

If so, what kind of parameters would you like to see set on the contest entries? (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Patch 4.3.3 64-bit Client

If you are currently testing the 64-bit client, in order to patch up to 4.3.3 you will need to remove the 64-bit files to allow the patching process to complete. With the 64-bit client files in place you will receive the error: Blizzard Updater failed with an internal error.

Simply delete the 64-bit files listed below from the World of Warcraft folder, and the patching process will resume after going through a short repair process.

Windows
Battle.net-64.dll
MovieProxy.exe
WoW-64.exe

Mac
World of Warcraft-64.app

A new version of the 64-bit client files will be available for 4.3.3 after the patch is live. Please keep an eye on the 64-bit client forum thread for updated files.

DiabloFans Calculator Build Contest Has Started!
Our friends over at DiabloFans are holding a contest that involves picking the best build for your character. The 50 randomly selected winners will get a Diablo III beta key!

The contest ends 2/28/2012 at 5 PM EST, so make sure to get your entry in before then if you want a chance to win.

Guild Wars 2 Beta
Guild Wars 2 recently opened sign ups for future beta events and got over one million applications in just 48 hours. The accepted players will be able to participate in a beta event closer to the end of March. If you are looking for like people to play with, take a look at our Guild Wars 2 forum.

[Gavan]

And the best part of that graph is that it proves that very very few people are still capable of downing the last 3 bosses even with the 5%.While it's understandable to want difficult content, there is a level of common sense when you have so few actually accomplishing something. Yes, people will faceroll this stuff when they hit 90, but until then, more than what is shown above need to have an opportunity to complete it.

[nezgral]

I am surprised at the spine-madness ratio with spine being slightly harder than madness, of course this is going based off my experience from killing both pre-nerf where we spent weeks and over 100 attempts on spine vs 2 days and 40 attempts on madness.

[sarasun]

The blue post about vanilla wow makes me sad. I Mean, way to make such a biased text that ignores so many aspects of the game back then.

It makes it look like if the game in vanilla was absolutely unplayable. Don't get me mistaken, the game is most likely better now than it was before, but it's surprising to see Blizzard bashing (Yes, that is bashing) their own game that hard. I mean, forming your own group and having to walk/fly to the dungeons had good parts in them.
it disappoints me that they make it look for newcomers like if it was that terrible.

Please don't start a discussion on whether or not Vanilla WoW was good. These always end up in flaming wars.

[rethea]

And the best part of that graph is that it proves that very very few people are still capable of downing the last 3 bosses even with the 5%.While it's understandable to want difficult content, there is a level of common sense when you have so few actually accomplishing something. Yes, people will faceroll this stuff when they hit 90, but until then, more than what is shown above need to have an opportunity to complete it.

You are aware that that is heroic content, right? LFR = alts and casual players; normal = 1-2 night a week raiders; heroic = serious raiders

[rockdontroll]

basically, most alt/pug groups down hc morchock and clear the rest normal, suprise

[Alayea]

I wish Vaeflare had also mentioned how meeting stones originally "worked". I say "worked" because they didn't really work -- they were basically a very primitive form of queuing up for a group to do a particular dungeon/raid. It was worse than when there had been no meeting stones.

[theredviola]

Woo! GW2 news making front page! =D

[asharia]

And the best part of that graph is that it proves that very very few people are still capable of downing the last 3 bosses even with the 5%.While it's understandable to want difficult content, there is a level of common sense when you have so few actually accomplishing something. Yes, people will faceroll this stuff when they hit 90, but until then, more than what is shown above need to have an opportunity to complete it.

because its heroic

heroic is supposed to be very hard

its not like people dont see the content these days. if you're a competent raider, but just cant put the time needed into clearing heroic content, you can easily do normal mode. if youre terrible, go do LFR. you can afk through it all and they wont even notice

[Naih]

The blue post about vanilla wow makes me sad. I Mean, way to make such a biased text that ignores so many aspects of the game back then.

It makes it look like if the game in vanilla was absolutely unplayable. Don't get me mistaken, the game is most likely better now than it was before, but it's surprising to see Blizzard bashing (Yes, that is bashing) their own game that hard. I mean, forming your own group and having to walk/fly to the dungeons had good parts in them.
it disappoints me that they make it look for newcomers like if it was that terrible.

Please don't start a discussion on whether or not Vanilla WoW was good. These always end up in flaming wars.

An the time where you needed to be attuned to EVERYTHING ! I was a vanilla baby an will always be . The game itself lost so much to me thats why I quitted a year ago an still come here from time to time just to kept myself posted on mmo stuff .

Brought chill to my back seeing this again http://us.battle.net/wow/en/media/vi.../wow-cinematic

[Prag]

That was a really well said post by the blues. As someone who didn't start until early-BC, I don't hold any bias, but the post really made me wish I had played back then while ALSO appreciating where the game is right now. I feel very similar about BC that many of the angry posters here seem to feel for Vanilla/Classic. Nostalgia is a wonderful drug, but a drug nonetheless.

[Tripz]

those were the good days

[Kunz]

An the time where you needed to be attuned to EVERYTHING ! I was a vanilla baby an will always be . The game itself lost so much to me thats why I quitted a year ago an still come here from time to time just to kept myself posted on mmo stuff .

Brought chill to my back seeing this again http://us.battle.net/wow/en/media/vi.../wow-cinematic

Know what you mean Brohter ! damn that was times :<

[dmitry]

"Way back when, you could only get a mount starting at level 40, so it took quite a bit of time to travel around Azeroth on foot. Flight points were by far the fastest modes of transportation, but you could only use them if you first hoofed your way over and discovered each Flight Master individually. ..."

/rage on

You know Blizzard, that was a part of the game. Blizzard took it from players and they started grinding. I bet some of the players doesn't know what the friend list is for. You can't find anybody outside of the city unless he is leveling. Nobody is looking at the world you created. Same for the groups. Gathering and managing 25 man group was a part of the gameplay which made it the feel epic.

After pandas Blizzard will say: "It took quite time to get epic gear.... press this button and you will get latest set at no time! That is fun!".

/rage off

PS. I'm a Wrath baby and already don't like changes...
PPS. Peace.

[Vesci]

What Was Vanilla WoW Like? I was actually chatting just last night with someone who had started playing shortly after Cataclysm launched.

You know that guy too? Wow, small world.

[Rixis]

what madness is this, they listed the ooze boss before warlord ping pong O.o

[greyghost]

Did I make it in time to beat the "Get this GuildWars2 crap off of my WoW news site" comments?

edit: yay.

Well, I'm hoping that at some point they'll open the beta signups again. While I did get my signup in time (in the first few hours, actually) I saw many, many people who were late to seeing all the Guild Wars 2 videos from the media blitz last week and was won over to try to get into the beta long after the beta signups ended.

Which really, this was probably what ArenaNet is attempting to do -- throttle it all down to build up really high demand for it. While I don't agree with the hype-building tactic, they at least release very frequent blog posts about their latest game design iterations with their intentions very clearly spelled out, by multiple persons working different aspects of the game (approaching like 2 a week now, for the last few weeks).

[Dhurn]

The blue post about vanilla wow makes me sad. I Mean, way to make such a biased text that ignores so many aspects of the game back then.

It makes it look like if the game in vanilla was absolutely unplayable. Don't get me mistaken, the game is most likely better now than it was before, but it's surprising to see Blizzard bashing (Yes, that is bashing) their own game that hard. I mean, forming your own group and having to walk/fly to the dungeons had good parts in them.
it disappoints me that they make it look for newcomers like if it was that terrible.

Please don't start a discussion on whether or not Vanilla WoW was good. These always end up in flaming wars.

Yea I agree. It made all of those things seem horrible when in reality it was part of what made the game so great. Working to level 40 and farming the gold for a mount actually meant something. Having to run slow until that point was part of what made it such an achievement. Forming groups from people in the city or zones of your own server wasn't a bad thing at all either, that's how I met almost all of my friends in-game in classic/BC. I'm not sure where or when this mentality of "easier/quicker = always better" started but it's unfortunate.

[Deleted]

"Way back when, you could only get a mount starting at level 40, so it took quite a bit of time to travel around Azeroth on foot. Flight points were by far the fastest modes of transportation, but you could only use them if you first hoofed your way over and discovered each Flight Master individually. ..."

/rage on

You know Blizzard, that was a part of the game. Blizzard took it from players and they started grinding. I bet some of the players doesn't know what the friend list is for. You can't find anybody outside of the city unless he is leveling. Nobody is looking at the world you created. Same for the groups. Gathering and managing 25 man group was a part of the gameplay which made it the feel epic.

After pandas Blizzard will say: "It took quite time to get epic gear.... press this button and you will get latest set at no time! That is fun!".

/rage off

PS. I'm a Wrath baby and already don't like changes...
PPS. Peace.

I don't even know what to say to you... Maybe ill start with reminding you that blizzard doesn't give a fuck about what you write here, if you want to complain (like the millions upon millions do) you log on to the official forums. Do you want to know whats funny about people like you? Its that they keep on this facade made up on "it was better in the good old days", "gathering people wasn't hard, it was fun!". When you know damn well that if you got a chance to return to "the old days" you wouldn't last a day. Finally i would like to tell you that blizzard never stole it from you, they simply gave you a faster and more flexible alternative. Just because you can use it, doesn't that mean you have to use it. Like the buff in the Dragon Soul.

PS. Don't state that nobody is looking at the world they created, its foolish to use that as an argument.

[Korgoth]

What was Vanilla WoW Like?Rogues were overpowered but back then they actually died. Luckily now the Rogue is invincible so you never have to watch a rogue lose.

What if they told the truth?