TBC HC dungeons hard or nah?

[ellieg]

Of course there were people with toasters. Just like TODAY we have people with toasters.
But your argument was that "today gamers have so much better game rigs today it plays a major role in how easier the game feel". And that's BS, because the game was NOT demanding at the time compared to the average gamer machine, just like it's not demanding today compared to the average gamer machine.

I, and many ppl I played with, were lucky to have 5 fps in raids.

[Millyraynge]

Some heroics are a bit hard now and others are super easy. The harder ones just need a good comp and a good comp means: have a shaman with you and maybe a mage.

Old Hillsbrad Foothills on heroic is the exception though. This dungeon is harder than anything in the game. It's been a pain in the ass every time I did it even with a shaman and mage who'd cc.

Just let thrall pull initial aggro on the drakes

[kubuntu]

i jsut do it with 3 lock and tell them to cast Fears on everythink cos there is nothing to pull in Thrall even what is only hard part

[AeneasBK]

Of course there were people with toasters. Just like TODAY we have people with toasters.
But your argument was that "today gamers have so much better game rigs today it plays a major role in how easier the game feel". And that's BS, because the game was NOT demanding at the time compared to the average gamer machine, just like it's not demanding today compared to the average gamer machine.

We'll just have to disagree here, you seem like you're arguing that TBC Classic is as much more demanding to run (than TBC originally was 15 years ago) than computers have improved in power since then. That or you have a skewed impression of what the "average" gamer machine and internet quality was back then.

OR maybe it's me and I just happened to have probably 20/25 of the raid team running on toasters for 7 years of raidleading an everchanging roster. I just got unlucky 80% of the time or something.

[Akka]

We'll just have to disagree here, you seem like you're arguing that TBC Classic is as much more demanding to run (than TBC originally was 15 years ago) than computers have improved in power since then. That or you have a skewed impression of what the "average" gamer machine and internet quality was back then.

Let's remember that your argument was that the main reason why people have an easier time today in TBC compared to then, was because of better hardware. THAT is what I call complete BS on. There is certainly a marginal improvement on this aspect, but it's a barely felt change compared to all else (mainly experience, information, add-ons and minmax mentality).

OR maybe it's me and I just happened to have probably 20/25 of the raid team running on toasters for 7 years of raidleading an everchanging roster. I just got unlucky 80% of the time or something.

As I said before, Blizzard specifically designed WoW to be able to run on low-end machines, and Blizzard as a whole was known for making games like that, and already at the time the joke was that it could run on anything above a toaster. If, as you claim, the overwhelming majority of people would not be able to run WoW in an acceptable manner, how would Blizzard have gained this reputation ? That's just nonsensical, it would have been the exact opposite and they would have become famous for making excessively demanding games.

I don't doubt that more people than today had hardware limitation, I call full BS having 80 % of your players not having even a low-end machine. People with hardware problems were, in my own experience as RL, the exception rather than the rule.

[ellieg]

Let's remember that your argument was that the main reason why people have an easier time today in TBC compared to then, was because of better hardware. THAT is what I call complete BS on. There is certainly a marginal improvement on this aspect, but it's a barely felt change compared to all else (mainly experience, information, add-ons and minmax mentality).

As I said before, Blizzard specifically designed WoW to be able to run on low-end machines, and Blizzard as a whole was known for making games like that, and already at the time the joke was that it could run on anything above a toaster. If, as you claim, the overwhelming majority of people would not be able to run WoW in an acceptable manner, how would Blizzard have gained this reputation ? That's just nonsensical, it would have been the exact opposite and they would have become famous for making excessively demanding games.

I don't doubt that more people than today had hardware limitation, I call full BS having 80 % of your players not having even a low-end machine. People with hardware problems were, in my own experience as RL, the exception rather than the rule.

I can tell u my experience. I played on the family computer which was some shitty dell. It ran the game fine enough. Until you went into ironforge at peak times. Or went into a raid with 40 ppl. 99% of the game played fine, raid did not. The game got popular because most ppl were leveling and doing stuff besides raid. %of ppl that raid now is much higher than back then

[AeneasBK]

If, as you claim, the overwhelming majority of people would not be able to run WoW in an acceptable manner, how would Blizzard have gained this reputation ? That's just nonsensical, it would have been the exact opposite and they would have become famous for making excessively demanding games.

Because people were happy to play it at 5 fps 200ms and settings on minimum. It was just that good. They didn't know what they were missing until/if they upgraded their computer.

[User517849]

Because people were happy to play it at 5 fps 200ms and settings on minimum. It was just that good. They didn't know what they were missing until/if they upgraded their computer.

While better hardware helps, it also helps being able to know the best spec, where the best loot is, and already having bis lists for every part of the game. People know where to go to farm loot, what loot to get, how to gear up faster, etc.

The biggest difference between now and then was that the game was an unknown adventure and people got attached to their characters. Now? Warrior isn't bis anymore? Guess I'll reroll hunter/warlock because it's all about the FotM meta.

[Zka]

"better hardware" is a bullshit argument. We already had 100 ms ADSL at the time, and the game was already running at 60 fps on any decent gamer machine.
...
That's because you used a garbage computer then, because as said above this entire argument is bullshit. Any actual gamer could run the game EASILY, Blizzard was famous to make games that had average graphics but could run on a toaster.

Oh the "it is possible therefore everyone must be able to do it" argument we see in this forum every single fucking time. Someone leveled to max in 8 hours, so why the fuck does it take 8 days for the average idiot, right?
Fact: WoW was not easy to run smoothly in 25mans back then. Many people didn't have budget for a computer that could do it. I remember struggling with FPS and so did most of my guildies. Period. It's a fact. I remember upgrading my PC for vanilla, then BC, then LK and still having low fps... Paying a proper wow-capable computer was definitely not easy in the poorer parts of the world where I live.
WoW was pretty badly engineered in terms of gfx performance. Instead of using the GPU to do all the gfx computations, most of these were done in CPU. It took them several expansions to fix it. WoW actually underperformed compared to how simple the gfx were.

Still, the hardware agrument is a bit of bullshit. It's a factor, but not overly important. Player skill and knowledge is absolutely the dominant factor in classic being so much easier.

[Akka]

Oh the "it is possible therefore everyone must be able to do it" argument we see in this forum every single fucking time. Someone leveled to max in 8 hours, so why the fuck does it take 8 days for the average idiot, right?

As I pointed in the next post, the point is that if Blizzard was "famous" for having "games that are somehow average in graphics but able to run on a toaster", it means that it's not a case of "someone can do it so everyone can" but PRECISELY a case of "it's recognized to be about the vast majority of people". That's the whole point.
Yes there were people who had trouble to run the game, but it was neither a majority, and even less, as we both agree, such a problem that it would explain the massive difference between how people played at the time and how they play today.

Still, the hardware agrument is a bit of bullshit. It's a factor, but not overly important. Player skill and knowledge is absolutely the dominant factor in classic being so much easier.

So in the end we mostly agree here (though, as I said earlier, I don't agree that people are on the whole noticeably "more skilled", mainly they are "more informed").

[ellieg]

As I pointed in the next post, the point is that if Blizzard was "famous" for having "games that are somehow average in graphics but able to run on a toaster", it means that it's not a case of "someone can do it so everyone can" but PRECISELY a case of "it's recognized to be about the vast majority of people". That's the whole point.
Yes there were people who had trouble to run the game, but it was neither a majority, and even less, as we both agree, such a problem that it would explain the massive difference between how people played at the time and how they play today.

So in the end we mostly agree here (though, as I said earlier, I don't agree that people are on the whole noticeably "more skilled", mainly they are "more informed").

There's a difference between running the game when you're fighting gnolls in Redridge, and running the game in a full raid environment

[Zka]

There's a difference between running the game when you're fighting gnolls in Redridge, and running the game in a full raid environment

Yep exactly. Problems started in larger raids. 5mans and 10mans were good or at least playable, but 25mans were absolutely horrible, sub-10 FPS was pretty common in all my guilds all until Cata.

[cdcformatc]

Yep exactly. Problems started in larger raids. 5mans and 10mans were good or at least playable, but 25mans were absolutely horrible, sub-10 FPS was pretty common in all my guilds all until Cata.

I had no problem doing dungeons, heroics, or even Karazhan. But in Gruul's lair for example I had to zoom in and point my camera on the ground to get a decent FPS.

The guy arguing about how the average computer hasn't gotten better in 14 years is hilariously wrong. Even my machine I built 3 years ago is still 10 years more advanced than anything anyone ran in 2007.

[kneehidude]

Haven't had too much difficulty with heroics (or dungeons in general for that matter) as long as the group is somewhat geared and has/uses CC. Only 3 heroics that gave me any sort of trouble so far have been: BF, Arc, Sethekk.

BF, the 2nd boss gauntlet is annoying. Arc, the first and last boss are frustrating. Sethekk, the adds leading up to the first boss are irritating.