40 people raids

[kinna]

means gear is more epic when you get it

[iamthedevil]

Ahh 40 man raiding, the pinnacle of bad ideas that sounded cool. Remember when Wildstar tried to recreate it? How'd that go again?

[stomination]

means gear is more epic when you get it

Yea it was a great feeling to get the loot but it was also annoying to gear 40+ ppl with very limited drops. Or when someone with tons of dkp gets it and they are the "Donald" of the group.

[The Oblivion]

Ahh 40 man raiding, the pinnacle of bad ideas that sounded cool. Remember when Wildstar tried to recreate it? How'd that go again?

bad because it was a bad game with basically no players? lol

[iamthedevil]

bad because it was a bad game with basically no players? lol

Blizz explains a bit why it didn't work here: https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...-1a-look-back/

At the launch of WoW, there were two formal raid zones: Onyxia’s Lair and the 10-boss Molten Core, the latter of which was originally only accessible by traversing Blackrock Depths. During the first few months after the game’s release, instances in general didn’t have any cap on the number of players that could enter at once, as long they were all in the same group (15-player Stratholme and Scholomance “raids” were not uncommon back then). With the upper limit on group size set at 40, 40-player raiding became the de facto standard for the early raid zones, since bringing more players generally made things easier (with a few exceptions).

When the world of Azeroth was brand new, and the overall pace of leveling was significantly slower than the norm today, such that the primary occupation for a majority of players was simply striving to reach max level. And even for the most cutting-edge players, many of whom were familiar with the leveling experience from the beta, it took two months from release for the first group to defeat Lucifron, the first boss in Molten Core.

Therefore, applying the tried and true principles of Internet forum logic, Lucifron was clearly more challenging than Garrosh—or any boss in the past 5 years for that matter. OK, maybe not. The delay was due not to the bosses’ difficulty, but rather the fact that it took even the most dedicated groups with extensive raiding experience from past MMOs that long to assemble a sufficiently large group of level-60 players who had obtained the appropriate dungeon and endgame quest gear. In many ways, that was the most challenging aspect of classic WoW raiding: the logistics of assembling and maintaining a sufficient roster with sufficient gear.

Over the year and a half to follow, Blackwing Lair, Temple of Ahn’Qiraj, and the original version of Naxxramas were introduced, providing an increasing level of challenge for groups that had already completed Molten Core. These raid zones all were tuned around both a full 40-player group and the expectation that players possessed a significant amount of raid gear, which meant that by definition fewer and fewer people were able to participate in each successive tier of content. New players joining the game during the summer of 2006, at the height of Naxxramas progression, had virtually no hope of ever seeing Kel’Thuzad. At best, they might level quickly and get enough dungeon gear to join a guild that was still doing Molten Core.

In parallel, we introduced two 20-player raid zones, Zul’Gurub and Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj, allowing smaller groups to experience epic content on a scale beyond that of dungeons. These 20-player raids placed more individual responsibility on the shoulders of raid members, due both to the smaller group size and the comparative difficulty of the encounters. Encounters like Jin’do, Hakkar (now retired), and Ossirian were proof that there was plenty of room for involved and challenging encounter mechanics in smaller raids.

[McNeil]

I never experienced a 40 man raid back in vanilla (only did 20 mans) so I'm looking forward to try some of the raids. Hoping to get Corrupted Ashbringer some day.

[Deleted]

means gear is more epic when you get it

YES it was SO great to get PALADIN gear without a Pala in raid /s

[The Oblivion]

Blizz explains a bit why it didn't work here: https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...-1a-look-back/

they also said we think we want vanilla but dont and wont be getting it. LOL

[Eveningforest]

Means you realistically need about 50-55 resist geared, reliable people in your guild because RL happens. The true challenge of Vanilla.

[Deleted]

More epic ? Like different shade of purple ?

[Orby]

oh 40 mans...*nervous twitching*

Not sure it'll bother me as much as those Molten Core trash spawn rates :P

[Lollis]

YES it was SO great to get PALADIN gear without a Pala in raid /s

Horde didn't get Paladin gear in raids, and Alliance didn't get Shaman gear in raids until the TBC pre-patch.

And classes not being in a raid when it drops? Well that happened for ages after Vanilla too.

[Eveningforest]

Horde didn't get Paladin gear in raids, and Alliance didn't get Shaman gear in raids until the TBC pre-patch.

Tbh, I don't remember the exact specifics but my Horde guild has been currently getting Pally skill up books (ie Blessing of Might 7 etc) in 1.9 from AQ.
It's no big waste since we can sell them on neutral AH.

I assume when I played Ally in original Vanilla, huntards just snatched shammy non-tiers and librams were sold like we do now but like I said I don't remember correctly when was what anymore. It seems though that unintended error has been there for a long time.

[Divinexve]

Ahh 40 man raiding, the pinnacle of bad ideas that sounded cool. Remember when Wildstar tried to recreate it? How'd that go again?

That game was long dead before anyone even hit max level

[iamthedevil]

That game was long dead before anyone even hit max level

lol aww come on it wasnt that bad! For the first 3 months a ton of people were playing. Wow streamers brought a lot of people over. The game died because nothing got fixed and content barely came out. They were a mess behind the scenes.

Honestly, i think the game was great(other than the mess they called raiding)... if only they were able to take care of it properly.

[hulkgor]

To be honest, for all its flaws, 40 man raids were the pinnacle of my raiding enjoyment on World of Warcraft.

It was a mess, but it was absolutely amazing, and my fondest memories from Wow come from it, mostly downing C'thun, that was sensational in every possible way.

That being said, it's just unfathomable to manage a 40 man raiding guild, and i'm glad they downsized it.

Someone mentioned Wildstar above, and having raided in Wildstar, it was very, very good. All of its group PvE content was above anything else in the market, but they made a lot of mistakes (sold it poorly with the 'hardcore' vibe, attunements - which were HARD - were wrong for it, turning a lot of people away from the exciting raids, even though i loved the attune process, etc etc. The game just had too many design flaws to even have a chance, but again, its PvE was sensational - and we've been seeing a lot of their ideas pop up on Warcraft from Legion and more are sure to pop up going forward since some of their lead developers went to the Warcraft team this past couple of years, for a reason :P).

[Eveningforest]

To be honest, for all its flaws, 40 man raids were the pinnacle of my raiding enjoyment on World of Warcraft.

It was a mess, but it was absolutely amazing, and my fondest memories from Wow come from it, mostly downing C'thun, that was sensational in every possible way.

That being said, it's just unfathomable to manage a 40 man raiding guild, and i'm glad they downsized it.

).

Surprising hearing that from you, but yeah 60 plus raid ready guild was a challenge to maintain.
We had one super dedicated, chronically ill person now gone, rest her soul in peace.

Serious 40 man raiding took A LOT OF dedication (unless you PUGGED-yuck), and soon enough, retail babies will find out.

[anon5123]

means gear is more epic when you get it

Yeah, having to roll against 5+ other people is so epic amirite?

I mean, I love vanilla, but this whole "hurr epics were epic!" thing kinda comes crashing to a halt as soon as you start raiding MC. Especially considering that with the release of Dire Maul and ZG, there's tons of blue gear that is better than MC epics. Hell, there's a pair of green plate healing bracers that are BIS until Naxx due to having a huge amount of +heal and int on them.

And then when patch 1.10 drops, a whole shitload of blue dungeon gear gets buffed massively, to the point where large swaths of MC gear is obsolete.

Getting your first epic is "epic", everything after that, not so much.

[Eveningforest]

Yeah, having to roll against 5+ other people is so epic amirite?

There was DKP -
you have probably never heard of that in your life.

You hardly rolled against 5 in the same class.

Go, sit in the corner pretending you played Vanilla.

[Kraddark]

I think 40 man bosses is a cool idea. Despite that, I don't think 40 man raids are that fun. I think the world bosses largely filled the role of 40 man raids. They just get kinda faceroll when a second raid group rolls up and mechanically, the bosses themselves aren't much more than large target dummies.

I wouldn't mind seeing special event bosses you could que for and be transported to similar to the holiday bosses. They could rotate in and out or have a progression where you can't que for the next one till you finished the one before it. They could grant a once week loot box. Alternatively, because of the lower time investment, they could require attunement.