World of Warcraft

[Mete]

Wait, doesn't everyone have a beta key by this point?

[Madican]

I'm wondering why people play the beta in the first place if they're not actively trying to test things. The more you know about the xpac, the quicker you'll devour it all and be left empty before the next update.

[Dr. Glocktor]

I, personally, am trying to get a proper feel of how Windwalker monks play, as well as the changes to classes I normally play, so I can be ready when Mists actually does come out.

[Mete]

September 25th
I knew it was gonna come out in September

[Dr. Glocktor]

I actually expected it to come out in November, that's awesome.

It'll be the first Collectors Edition WoW expansion I get, too

[Madican]

Please fix Archaeology Blizzard. Let us focus on one race and you can keep the RNG. But as things stand I want to burn Night Elves and every structure they've ever built.

At least I got the Ultramarine Qiraji mount and Zin'rokh. Just not the Vial of the Sands recipe I was hunting for.

[Dr. Glocktor]

Decided to do Molten Front dailies again because cheddar.

Tamed Ban'Thalos, Anhka, Kirix and Karkin.

:'D

[Mete]

[Dr. Glocktor]

Relevant

[Madican]

I find it amusing this guy is appealing to the old players with these numbers without saying the real reason those numbers even exist.

Basically, in Classic your gear was shit. T1? Shit. T2? Shit. T3? More shit with spirit on it. TBC rolls around and Blizz releases a level of gear that replaces your T3 with a superior green. Still had bad stats on it though. All the gear in that xpac did to go with the bad talents. Which means you can't kill the end-dungeon raid bosses until you run Heroics, each once a day mind you, hoping your gear will drop. And for many it did not. Why did the raid bosses stand tall? Because the tier needed to kill them was leagues above what you were able to accumulate unless you dedicated weeks or months to just getting the gear.

Wrath rolls around and the raid bosses are dead, but for the exact same reason. Wrath did not have a huge gear jump like TBC at the same time they revamped the talents and stats to perfect the classes. This means the guilds in Sunwell were able to steamroll the raids, which since they'd already done Naxx was no great feat. However, look at the next tier, Ulduar, for those numbers. Yogg 1 Light did not die for a very, very, very long time.

I don't get the people who say they loved Classic and that it was difficult, but fail to acknowledge why it was difficult. It wasn't the encounter mechanics, those consisted of staying out of fire and debuffing every now and then while each class facerolled their one viable ability. The gear had Fire Resist on it for crying out loud. That's called artificial difficulty. Same with TBC. Mechanics of Nightbane? Point away from raid, pick up adds, heal. Mechanics of Kael? Kill advisors one at a time, kill all advisors at once, kill weapons, kill Kael with weapons to stop his abilities. Not hard, just time-consuming.

I don't think raid mechanics actually got difficult until stuff like Ulduar actually. And that's also when Blizz put in the option to fight hard versions of the fights.

[Dr. Glocktor]

Remember when you had to run Karazhan over and over, but not because you wanted to, but because the next tier was a brick wall and you simply couldn't get through it? The hamster wheel, it was called?

Remember when your best geared tank/healer/dps were poached by a more progressed guild and you had to start all over again, either searching for a new one, gearing a new one, or both?

Remember attunements and the dread that came with them?

Remember class stacking?

Remember some specs being entirely unfit for raiding and laughed out if they tried?

Remember sitting in Stormwind/Orgrimmar for two hours looking for a group? Then Shattrath, then Dalaran?

Remember when there was spirit on mage and warlock gear?

Remember when people had statistics instead of vague 'This is what the people like because I think they would'?

[Madican]

Artificial difficulty. Honestly I like WoW as it is. Lots of content, it's challenging for the people who want challenge (3% of guilds worldwide have downed HC DW) and it's accessible for the people who want to see the biggest part of the expansion's lore. Raids are the whole reason we're in Outland, or Northrend, or stopping Deathwing.

[Dr. Glocktor]

Problem is it seems that the people who complain the most about it don't want to do for the challenge like they claim; they want to do it so they can say 'Look what I have and you don't, loser!'.

Doesn't help that the whiners tend to not have done Dragon Soul even on normal, as well.

[Zink]

The thing is that the game -was- technically harder, but only because the bosses had bigger numbers. It didn't take more skill to get them down, you just needed better gear. Mechanics were a lot simpler. As the game went on, however, mechanics began to become far more important than the numbers themselves, leading to bosses that were more about playing well than getting gear. This means that, often, bosses would go down faster simply because there wasn't a brick wall of gearing necessary before the boss could be feasibly defeated.

[Dr. Glocktor]

In other news

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