official World of Warcraft

[the evn show]

The UI minigame is fun (I also like the math minigame). I think those are almost as much fun as the actual raid content.

Hard mode cho'gall is such a great fight. DPS and Healing requirements are pretty tightly tuned at our gear level (365ish) and he ends up being a lot of fun.

I think he's not going to be able to withstand the inevitable gear inflation. Fortunately, unlike Maloriak and Chimaeron "Stand there and do nothing" won't become part of the strategy, you can just push him one set of adds sooner which means I think I'll still like him next month.

EDIT

LFM Thursday night alt run between 8:00 and 12:00 Eastern time. More details here.

[Minifig]

Woohoo!

:happy:

[Shaun N.]

You resurrect the thread with a 1920x1080 screenshot of yourself.

Good job!

[Minifig]

It's more the fact that I finally got my reigns of the golden king, which took months of work by my guildies and myself. It's a huge, huge accomplishment.

[Gallifrey2]

Congrats!!!

[Eric Veteran]

We did that too... I just haven't bothered to buy my scorpion yet.

[the evn show]

You can bet I'd probably post a screenshot of me with my glory dragon when I finally get it. Being happy about the little things you do in a nerd-world is perfectly acceptable for this thread: go back to the first page and see how much of it is "I hit level 35 today, it sure is fun".

So grats @minifig.

[Minifig]

Thanks guys. :happy:

[firey]

Thanks guys. :happy:

Wicked job man. I've seen a few of the Scorpions (I'm horde), thought they looked awesome.

I also feel like a complete noob.. I found out lastnight.. that if I bought the Mail Heirloom gear for my level 31 shammy.. it will turn into leather so I can wear it, then turn back into mail once I can use mail. I had bought the leather chest a while back thinking I would have to just buy more pieces once I hit 40..

[bjoswald]

I think the guild mounts should be race-based instead of one-size-fits-all. I can't imagine my goblin shaman riding around on a giant scorpion, so I'd much rather have a drag racer or lowrider.

Also, why can't engineers make submarines? If Blizzard doesn't want to finish the Neptulon/Ozumat story, I'll bubble on down to the Abmyssal Maw myself and find out!

[Minifig]

I think I might just be the happiest hunter in game at the moment..

Blizzard might be bringing back hunter pets that STAY out when your mounted as a hunter... they currently do on PTR:

Freaking AWESOME!

[Shaun N.]

Minifig, Get some wet wipes and clean your mouse.

[Minifig]

:laugh:

[bjoswald]

The Blizzard Downloader just caused a BsoD from tcpip.sys. Interesting, because the drivers I'm using are brand new. After some digging, I found out that I'm supposed to disable TCP/UDP checksumming, set my speed to "Full Duplex", and disable power savings features.

Anyone else have this issue?

EDIT: Windows 7 x64, Realtek PCI-E NIC

[the evn show]

I think I might just be the happiest hunter in game at the moment..

Blizzard might be bringing back hunter pets that STAY out when your mounted as a hunter... they currently do on PTR:

I remember mounts staying out when you were mounted a long time ago (TBC? Classic?). Anyway, I figured you'd be more excited by this.

8 new rare tamable beasts have been added, each of which provides a unique taming challenge. Will you be the first hunter to tame Deth'tilac, the rarest and most powerful of them all? Players will need to progress through the Hyjal Regrowth and Molten Front daily questing areas in order to unlock access to the full gamut of taming challenges.

source

Last night, I suspect Ahab, our resident hunter beat you on the 'happiness meter' he's now sporting the "Dragonslayer" title.

[firey]

Last night, I suspect Ahab, our resident hunter beat you on the 'happiness meter' he's now sporting the "Dragonslayer" title.

The difference is.. that title has nothing to do with being a hunter. So it's a different happiness meter.

[Minifig]

Man, I must be the luckiest hunter alive..

Not four minutes after switching back to beast mastery ... I figured I'd fly out to Scholazar Basin to see if I could locate Loque'nahak..

My first time ever looking for him..

:happy:

[the evn show]

Speaking of feeling good:

I wasn't terribly pleased with this kill, it didn't feel like we deserved it (we'd been playing like crap all week and have had cleaner wipes than that kill) but I guess I'll take it. I did about 10% less DPS than pretty much every attempt prior and I think that should mean a wipe for an end-game optional hard mode only boss. Healing and tanking was pretty spotty at parts too. On the whole I think the fight was a little bit too easy but I still had a lot of fun with it and I'm looking forward to repeating it for the next few weeks.

Worth doing if you get the chance even after 4.2. If you're not one of the "cutting edge" guilds it'll still feel like an achievement even if you have Firelands gear on when you do it.

[firey]

Worth doing if you get the chance even after 4.2. If you're not one of the "cutting edge" guilds it'll still feel like an achievement even if you have Firelands gear on when you do it.

That's something I am noticing. I have yet to do a single Cata Raid, but I am sitting at 355 iLevel 9200+ GS. Pretty much soley because of ZA and ZG. So I am assuming that I will be able to grind out Instances an hour or 2 a night, max out on my valor points, and still be geared enough for raiding without even stepping foot in a raid, even in 4.2. Based on what I saw, I am geared enough for 25 man raids (not hard mode). I have no tier, or raid gear at all.

Based on that, I think I'll be able to get into the fire lands stuff, again without raiding. Be able to get gear, and just farm heroics. I actually have been leveling a shammy, he's only level 54, but I can hit 58 tonight no problem, and be well into my 60's tomorrow. Once I hit 85 on him, I will be able to farm instances and have 2 raid ready toons without touching a raid.

In a way it's nice, that I don't have to spend hours and hours on raids, and wiping. I can still be geared enough to run a raid whenever I want. I won't be close to the same level of gear.. but I am not too far away. However, because raiding isn't required to proceed onto the next areas, it makes things die pretty fast. For me, the guild I am in is with friends IRL, but no one has time to raid, and we aren't big enough guild wise (numbers) to raid. So I get stuck where I have to leave guild, or find a guild that will let me run with them (Though I have no experience).

I think that blizz kinda missed the boat. Because I don't have to raid, and getting into a raid isn't required. That I can do a 30-40 min ZA/ZG run get my valor points, and possible lewts. Be good and done for the night, there is no need to raid. If blizz made it so it was like the Normals -> Heroics setup where you had to do normals to get into heroics. But for 4.1->4.2 like to progress to 4.2 you have to do raids to get X item level, it would force players to be raiding and do all that, without taking the ez-moad route and getting everything handed to them.

[the evn show]

I think that blizz kinda missed the boat. Because I don't have to raid, and getting into a raid isn't required.

IMO that's a good thing, it means you can focus on content that's accessible to you AND fun to do. Warcraft is a pretty complex game with a number of character advancement options, I like that I'm free to ignore the bits I hate (like archeology, fishing, pvp) and focus on the stuff I like (raids). I'm also glad that I can change mains, roll an alt, or bring a friend up to end-game standards in relatively short order. I guess I just don't see the fun in being 'forced' to do something I don't like in order to participate in the things I do enjoy. I also don't have "more fun" knowing that some significant percentage of the player base can't do the same things I do, especially when those restrictions are actually hampering my ability to get fun from a game. As far as I'm concerned: if you can kill the boss, you deserve the loot.

I've been pretty consistent on this so I'll just repost a comment I made back in TBC:

• 
  

When Patch 2.4 removed attunements for Tier 6 content I wrote this:
I hated running tier 5 for attunements and I'm glad I'll never have to do that crap again. Also, my alt mage has a chance of sneaking in on farm content to pick up some of the crap-tastic loot we otherwise can't give away.
We all benefited from easier access to TK/SSC, and we'll all benefit from easier access to BT/Hyjal too. I don't really care if every terrible player has better gear than me from face-rolling their way through mechanar 50 times. So long as I'm not required to farm badges in order to 'upgrade' my BT/Hyjal gear I'm happy.

[firey]

IMO that's a good thing, it means you can focus on content that's accessible to you AND fun to do.

I agree, to an extent. The problem is that while I can do ZA/ZG to get the gear, it's a big difference to raiding. Now, Cata was nice with all the Instances it came with. Lots of options and choices on what to raid. The problem that formed was ZA and ZG being released creating gear that is far better (and you get more valor points for doing), are only good for a couple weeks. You then sit there farming it sometimes 7 times a week (for full instance valor), you eventually hit a point where you are fully geared out.

At that point, there is no reason to go back and do previous instances as the gear is less than the new ZA/ZG and you get less badges from doing it. With a raid you spend multiple weeks, multiple days per week working on one thing. It requires time, and skill, and all that. Now don't get me wrong, I love raiding, I just haven't been in a position to be able to do so.

It would be nice if the heroic instances could scale based on your iLevel. I know they try and match you as best they can, but if they could have like Heroic Level 1, 2, 3 or something for each dungeon with some multiplier on health, badges, gear, etc It would keep things going, for the non raiders. Or if they could do mini raids that are more difficult than a standard 5 man instance (maybe require 10 people), but isn't as time consuming as a raid, and use that as a gateway that would be cool.

So you can do instances, but you can't just sit there farming them and be on roughly the same level as a raider. As I say through instances I am pretty geared (considering I haven't raided in Cata).

Warcraft is a pretty complex game with a number of character advancement options, I like that I'm free to ignore the bits I hate (like archeology, fishing, pvp) and focus on the stuff I like (raids). I'm also glad that I can change mains, roll an alt, or bring a friend up to end-game standards in relatively short order.

I have multiple alts, only one is 85, but I have one at 81, a couple in the 70's, and now my shammy I am leveling. So I love the fact I can start a new toon, it gives me something to do when I have maxxed my valor for the week on my main. I like archaeology, however I agree, I don't enjoy PVP and I like that I don't have to focus on that, or do that to play the game. So yes the way in which you can play the game is nice, and enjoyable. But I guess what I find is.. to me.. Raiding = end game, it is what everyone in PVE should strive towards, it should be where the gear is, it should be where you go to get the epics and such.

However, I can do Instances and be geared, and do them with a bunch of people who don't understand their class, then you get into raids with them and unless it's a solid guild raid.. you end up wasting time with other players that do instances over and over and think they are leet.

I guess I just don't see the fun in being 'forced' to do something I don't like in order to participate in the things I do enjoy. I also don't have "more fun" knowing that some significant percentage of the player base can't do the same things I do, especially when those restrictions are actually hampering my ability to get fun from a game. As far as I'm concerned: if you can kill the boss, you deserve the loot.

Again, I agree to an extent. You shouldn't be 'forced' into anything, but there should be some form of separation. Like PVE and PVP don't mix together, and blizz has done a great job of separating the two. It would be nice to see the casual players, get separated from the players that do the end game. It would be nice to have not only general phasing, but content phasing (like they did with the heroics). You have to get to X point in the story/lore (Simmilar to attuning) to get into the new content. Either by doing harder instances, or by raiding.

[the evn show]

The problem that formed was ZA and ZG being released creating gear that is far better?are only good for a couple weeks?you eventually hit a point where you are fully geared out.

I somewhat agree with you here. Ever since classic, the moment you start raiding all 5-man content becomes obsolete. It's not just that there's no reward for it, it's just not possible to have fun in content you can roll your face through. I liked the idea of "herald of titans", "tribute to dedicated insanity", etc. but the logistics made those difficult to complete once the next tier of content comes out.

Sadly, I think those of us interested in difficult 5-man content are the exception rather than the rule. Making 10-man raids viable (and IMO the most difficult) seems to be like the best compromise they can make. I'm not really sure how they could make 5-man content exist as a PVE progression path along side raids in a way that most players would find compelling.

It requires time, and skill, and all that. Now don't get me wrong, I love raiding, I just haven't been in a position to be able to do so.

Or if they could do mini raids that are more difficult than a standard 5 man instance (maybe require 10 people), but isn't as time consuming as a raid, and use that as a gateway that would be cool.

I'm curious what you think a reasonable time commitment for raiding should be? How much time should a "casual" raid group spend vs a "hardcore" group? To me it sounds like you want normal mode 10-man raiding, what makes them not-suitable? Will the changes in 4.2 address your concerns?

So you can do instances, but you can't just sit there farming them and be on roughly the same level as a raider. As I say through instances I am pretty geared (considering I haven't raided in Cata).

If you don't have access to raid gear today then you're going to be roughly 1.5 tiers behind what progression raiders are sitting in (355 vs 372). Assuming Tier 12 plays out like Tier 11, we'll see top-end raiders in ilevel 391, the majority of raiders in ~378, and non-raiders somewhere around ilevel 360. Does that sound like a more reasonable spread?

[firey]

I somewhat agree with you here. Ever since classic, the moment you start raiding all 5-man content becomes obsolete. It's not just that there's no reward for it, it's just not possible to have fun in content you can roll your face through. I liked the idea of "herald of titans", "tribute to dedicated insanity", etc. but the logistics made those difficult to complete once the next tier of content comes out.

Sadly, I think those of us interested in difficult 5-man content are the exception rather than the rule. Making 10-man raids viable (and IMO the most difficult) seems to be like the best compromise they can make. I'm not really sure how they could make 5-man content exist as a PVE progression path along side raids in a way that most players would find compelling.

I know you personally hated attuning. But there could be some form of attunement that is either attainable via 5man content or by doing raids. They could make dungeons/5man content a lot more tedious to go through, and raiding be the cleanest shot. I get say.. 3 hours a day.. that could be enough to clear say 2 instances. Which should be equivellant to clearing say 3 bosses in a raid. Obviously the gear obtained in raids stay as it is, and gear attained via instances the same. So that raiding and spending more time and less face rolling does pay off.

So having some sort of dungeon chain that follows the story of a raid (Have raid bosses??) would walk hand in hand with doing raids. It is something that in my head makes sense, and kinda splits up end-game so people with a small amount of time can still achieve things that not everyone and their grandmother can do.

I'm curious what you think a reasonable time commitment for raiding should be? How much time should a "casual" raid group spend vs a "hardcore" group? To me it sounds like you want normal mode 10-man raiding, what makes them not-suitable? Will the changes in 4.2 address your concerns?

I did a bit of raiding in wrath, but most of my raiding comes from TBC. In both cases I was never in a casual guild. I was in the Raid 5 nights a week, 4-5 hours per day, sometimes more. With time spent prior memorizing fights, getting all flasks, etc. We wouldn't do one raid for the entire time. I understand that this isn't a casual schedule, however.. In TBC my schedule was:

Tuesday: 8-12 Kara

Wednesday: 8-12 ZA

Thursday: 8-12: Gruul/Mag

Friday 8-12: Alternatied between SSC/TK

Sat: 8-12: SSC/TK

Sun: Off

Mon: Finish up Kara/ZA

In Wrath:

Tuesday: 7:30-12: Uld 10

Wed 7:30-12: Uld 10

Thurs: 7:30-12 Uld 25

Fri: 7:30-12 Uld 25

Sat: 7:30 - ?? Random Raid

Sun: Off

Mon: Off

So I myself invested many many many hours a week raiding, which isn't feaseable for me anymore, I could be ina casual guild that does a couple hours a day, however there is little progression, and if there was a way I could feel like I progressed, and did something, without farming heroics or leveling an Alt...

If you don't have access to raid gear today then you're going to be roughly 1.5 tiers behind what progression raiders are sitting in (355 vs 372). Assuming Tier 12 plays out like Tier 11, we'll see top-end raiders in ilevel 391, the majority of raiders in ~378, and non-raiders somewhere around ilevel 360. Does that sound like a more reasonable spread?

It sounds like a good spread, we will have to see how it plays out. The idea for heroics was nice having iLevel requirements, but you would still get people who just kept gear in their bags to trick the system, and really weren't ready at all.

[s1k3sT]

anyone seen this yet?

[Shaun N.]

anyone seen this yet?

Yea because a Mexican mum getting 25 years for starving her child is totally Warcraft related!