Cracks starting to show?

[Modern Angel]

I've had it confirmed from more than one person that they've shifted large portions of the WoW dev team over to their new MMO. They're not playing with the same staff, in terms of quantity OR quality, that they were even two years ago.

[Lantyssa]

*coughcteamcough*

[Rasix]

Even the spam I'm getting is worse.  It's from yahoo accounts inviting me to opt in the Cataclysm beta.   

[Paelos]

Today in FUCK YOU CATA, I'M OUT! Dizhonor goes out of his way to say, "It's not you Blizzard, it's me." 

[Amaron]

Today in FUCK YOU CATA, I'M OUT! Dizhonor goes out of his way to say, "It's not you Blizzard, it's me." 

Not only his first MMO.  Apparently his first video game too.

[Merusk]

Something is very wrong in Blizzland.   At 2:30am today I got a "return to WoW for patch 4.1" e-mail. Nevermind that I've been resubbed since the Easter events..     

[Paelos]

Today in FUCK YOU CATA, I'M OUT! Andrise let's Blizzard know they forgot to patch in the "fun"


I do agree with the assessment of the bosses. It's not "yeah we won!" it's "Thank god we got by that."

[Amaron]

I want a blog where I can read nothing but "FUCK YOU CATA" posts.   That shit is not going to get old.

[Paelos]

I want a blog where I can read nothing but "FUCK YOU CATA" posts.   That shit is not going to get old.

It could be like the reverse of a BlueTracker. It tracks the posts of everyone getting pissed off and quitting.

QuitTracker.

[Amaron]

QuitTracker.

OMFG.  DO IT 

[Fabricated]

Basically Blizz has spoken and said that casuals will always be a tier behind in raiding. I guess current normalmode raids are meant for "organized" groups and heroics are for "highly organized" groups. Not living the game? Enjoy having even longer content cycles! So fucking glad I unsubbed.

So casuals will constantly be a tier behind for the rest of the life of this game? If that is what is actually coming out of your mouth I'll save myself the time and unsub now. What a piss poor vision for your game. There are normal and heroic versions of raids for a reason. That heroic difficulty was implemented so that the two segments of the population (casual and hardcore) would both have something to do. You are now bifurcating the raiding population AGAIN, by telling casuals that they have to run around in the left overs.

Trying to label all of our players as “casual puggers” vs.” hardcore raiders” is ridiculously simplistic. Among raiders there is an enormous diversity of players. There are those who will raid virtually every night when new content is out, to guilds that raid once a week (and even then will cancel raid nights fairly commonly). If you must try to label raiders, you’d be closer to the Blizzard model if you said normal mode is for organized raids, heroic mode is for more hardcore organized raids, and the previous tier of content (and Baradin Hold) is targeted for pick-up groups. Also consider that even within a raid zone we try to design easier bosses (usually near the front) and more challenging ones (usually at the end) which can help blur those lines and offer smoother transitions for each category.

Overall, we think you’ll have a better experience playing World of Warcraft if you play with friends, either existing or those you meet in game. WoW, while much more solo friendly than most older MMO games, is still intended as a multiplayer game. We provide features like Dungeon Finder for when playing with friends isn’t possible, and as we said above, we’d like to offer more features like that. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

[Merusk]

Hooray for continuing to misunderstand your playerbase..  The player in question is probably in one of those once-a-week guilds but considers himself casual.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I'll shit on blizzard all day but that statement sounded perfectly reasonable. If you are going to have raid content at all, having random trade channel pugs finishing the current tier is a bit unrealistic.

[Paelos]

They would be about 10x better off if they didn't keep trying to explain themselves.

"We think you'll have a better experience playing WoW if you play with friends."

Yeah numbnuts, we WERE. Then, you ran them off because your model of content labeled them as mouth-breathers who had to wait 7 months to do the first iteration of raids.  

They wildly overestimate what the people who have the motivation to raid are actually willing to put up with.

[caladein]

"Has spoken?"  That's how it's been since they went to regular gear resets in Wrath.  The alternative was getting stuck in Molten Core or Karazhan until the end of time.

[Azazel]

I disagree with your assessment that it's profit now, not later. I think the reverse is the case right now. Blizzard has planned obsolesence for WoW and have diverted the most productive assets to future development projects that will net them greater gains. I think Blizzard wants to be mostly out of the WoW business by 2014 (10 year plan) and have something else that's started with brand new engines, expectations, IP.

Yes, yes, they want to shut down that 10m-subscriber cash cow as soon as possible. The IP is worthless.

I know you like the doomcasting, I agree with some of it, and it's generally  worthy, but this post makes you just look insane.

[Paelos]

I disagree with your assessment that it's profit now, not later. I think the reverse is the case right now. Blizzard has planned obsolesence for WoW and have diverted the most productive assets to future development projects that will net them greater gains. I think Blizzard wants to be mostly out of the WoW business by 2014 (10 year plan) and have something else that's started with brand new engines, expectations, IP.

Yes, yes, they want to shut down that 10m-subscriber cash cow as soon as possible. The IP is worthless.

I know you like the doomcasting, I agree with some of it, and it's generally   worthy, but this post makes you just look insane.

You misunderstand me. They don't want to shut down anything, but they realize they can't keep up the game at that level after 10 years. They need to be headed out of the WoW business and into something new if they want to succeed. Blizzard is not about running something the same way forever until it slowly bleeds to death on the table. They are going to make sure it shifts in a positive direction they can handle with minimal backlash, while also preparing the customer base for the next product in line.

[Amaron]

I'll shit on blizzard all day but that statement sounded perfectly reasonable. If you are going to have raid content at all, having random trade channel pugs finishing the current tier is a bit unrealistic.

It only sounds reasonable.   The reality though is that there is no difference in quality between pugs and casual once-a-week raid guilds.    You could probably make a pretty good argument that pugs are better than those guilds.   At least in a pug you don't HAVE to take baddies on purpose.  Basically blizzard has no understanding of the capabilities of casual organized raiders.   They're telling the bulk of their raider playerbase to piss off and do the previous tier.

[Azazel]

What I'm saying is that they will continue to be in the WoW business for a very long time. Regardless of how shitty Cata may be and how much it may have pissed off a bunch of casuals and hardcores alike, it's still a monstrous cash cow that they will keep the C-Team on for as long as it's making good solid profits. Considering that EQ1 continues to limp along making Sony money even today, and that they own their own IP (unlike SWG, LOTRO, etc - no licence fees) - Blizzard will be in the WoW business for a long long fucking time yet.

[Rokal]

It only sounds reasonable. The reality though is that there is no difference in quality between pugs and casual once-a-week raid guilds.

Dumbest thing I've read on here in a while. The difference between an established group of players that raid with each other every week and a group of players playing together for the first time and organized spur-of-the-moment is huge. PuGs often fall apart or lose a few members at the first sign of trouble, and often you have people who suggest doing fights the way 'their' guild does it. To say PuGs and casual once-a-week-raid-guilds have no difference in quality is completely ignoring how important organization is for raiding.

Even if you were talking about the quality of the players, as opposed to the quality of the raid as a whole, the quality of the players is still going to be lower. It'll be lower for the same reason that the quality is generally lower in LFD than manually pugging a group on your server. The less investment people have in something, the less effort they will put in, and the lower their patience.

[Amaron]

It only sounds reasonable. The reality though is that there is no difference in quality between pugs and casual once-a-week raid guilds. 

Dumbest thing I've read on here in a while. The difference between an established group of players that raid with each other every week and a group of players playing together for the first time and organized spur-of-the-moment is huge.

WHOA hold up.   Who said anything about an "established group of players that raid with each other every week".   That's NOT a casual once a week guild right there.    A casual once a week guild is very lucky if it can get the same people to show up every week.   Most of them have to take puggers to fill in spots.

Yes pugs suck but SO DO casual raid guilds.    If you go to WoWProgress you will easily see most of them still have not cleared the previous normal mode tier.   That is an irrefutable fact.

[Rokal]

I'm glad you have such a concrete and well-established description for what a once-a-week-raiding guild is. Here I thought it was just a raid guild that raided once a week  

Who said anything about an "established group of players that raid with each other every week".   That's NOT a casual once a week guild right there.

That is literally the definition of any raid guild, period, regardless of how many people are in it or how frequently the group roster is the same.

My guild is a twice-a-week raid guild, and we only raid 2 hours on one of those days. Once-a-week is just a step away. We generally have 8/10 people the same every week. Having at least 8 of the same players every week is a huge boon to being successful at raiding.

Speaking of about 'most' once-a-week raid guilds or the 'average' casual raid guild is silly when we don't have good statistics backing up those claims, and it would be hard to even agree on what they mean.

Basically blizzard has no understanding of the capabilities of casual organized raiders.   They're telling the bulk of their raider playerbase to piss off and do the previous tier.

The 'bulk' of their 'raider playerbase' PuGs? This is another example of something you probably shouldn't claim.

[Amaron]

That is literally the definition of any raid guild, period, regardless of how many people are in it or how frequently the group roster is the same.

If you want to argue about semantics go ahead.   The "people who want to do this raiding thing without pugging" (is that acceptable?) are mostly(see below) baddies in shitty guilds that can't finish the previous tier.   The people who pug can't do it either.   They are  both fucked equally.   The are at equal levels of suck.  Teamwork doesn't help them because THEY SUCK and they die in the fire.

Speaking of about 'most' once-a-week raid guilds or the 'average' casual raid guild is silly when we don't have good statistics backing up those claims, and it would be hard to even agree on what they mean.

We actually have some very useful statistics.   Go to wow progress.   They keep track of info for something like 60,000 guilds.    By quick perusing you can see 75% of those guilds have not finished the previous tier.   That info uses in game achievements so it's actually quite accurate.   

The 'bulk' of their 'raider playerbase' PuGs? This is another example of something you probably shouldn't claim.

Good thing I didn't claim that then.  The bulk of the raider player base is in some casual raid guild and blizzard is telling that part to piss off and do the previous tier.

[Lakov_Sanite]

While I think tier1 cat raiding was a bit too hard on normal mode (haven't done firelands) there does come a point where you can only dumb something down so much.

[Simond]

Speaking of raiding:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2365-Firelands-Heroic-Disabled-July-1st-Hotfixes-Blue-Posts-Artworks

Firelands Heroic difficulty has been turned off in all regions until the following week's realm maintenance.

Pre-4.2: "We're holding off releasing the patch because not enough people have seen the release raiding content"
Post-4.2: *turns off heroic difficultly because too many people are seeing the content*

Looks like they should have included plane of water in 4.2 after all.  

[caladein]

Yes, because not hotfixing for the (possibly) region-specific exploit (or unsporting behavior, your choice) would have been the responsible thing to do on their part.

[SurfD]

Speaking of raiding:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2365-Firelands-Heroic-Disabled-July-1st-Hotfixes-Blue-Posts-Artworks

[color="deepskyblue"]Firelands Heroic difficulty has been turned off in all regions until the following week's realm maintenance.[/color]

Pre-4.2: "We're holding off releasing the patch because not enough people have seen the release raiding content"
Post-4.2: *turns off heroic difficultly because too many people are seeing the content*

Looks like they should have included plane of water in 4.2 after all.  

Yeah, that has nothing actually to do with too many people seeing the content, but rather a specific instance in the "Hardcore World First Catass Race" in which Stars (a world first capable Korean guild) full cleared Firelands on normal in the first day or two, then Faction changed their entire guild's raid roster to use a bug that reset their raid lockout to get them access to heroic modes in the first week of the instance's release (they actually got the first Heroic kill of one of the bosses before blizzard kicked them out).

Pretty sure that blizzard really doesent care if people will be doing Heroic Modes on week two, but but abusing the system to get nearly a week worth of headstart over everyone else in the World First Kill race is likely to raise some red flags.

[Malakili]

Speaking of raiding:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2365-Firelands-Heroic-Disabled-July-1st-Hotfixes-Blue-Posts-Artworks

[color="deepskyblue"]Firelands Heroic difficulty has been turned off in all regions until the following week's realm maintenance.[/color]

Pre-4.2: "We're holding off releasing the patch because not enough people have seen the release raiding content"
Post-4.2: *turns off heroic difficultly because too many people are seeing the content*

Looks like they should have included plane of water in 4.2 after all. 

Yeah, that has nothing actually to do with too many people seeing the content, but rather a specific instance in the "Hardcore World First Catass Race" in which Stars (a world first capable Korean guild) full cleared Firelands on normal in the first day or two, then Faction changed their entire guild's raid roster to use a bug that reset their raid lockout to get them access to heroic modes in the first week of the instance's release (they actually got the first Heroic kill of one of the bosses before blizzard kicked them out).

Lolz I guess?  If an entire guild is willing to faction switch to get get 2 raid lockouts worth of raiding a week, you'd think Blizzard would be happy to take their money.

[Maledict]

While I think tier1 cat raiding was a bit too hard on normal mode (haven't done firelands) there does come a point where you can only dumb something down so much.

As an old timer, I always thought that killing one new boss a week was a good rate of progress, but that seems really slow compared to newer instances. I feel like I should be waving a cane at kids on my lawn or something... ;-)

On the downside, if 4.3 isn't happening till November, with only 7 bosses Firelands is going to get dull fast.

[Malakili]

While I think tier1 cat raiding was a bit too hard on normal mode (haven't done firelands) there does come a point where you can only dumb something down so much.

As an old timer, I always thought that killing one new boss a week was a good rate of progress, but that seems really slow compared to newer instances. I feel like I should be waving a cane at kids on my lawn or something... ;-)

On the downside, if 4.3 isn't happening till November, with only 7 bosses Firelands is going to get dull fast.

Hell, a boss per week consistently used to be really really solid.

[Amaron]

While I think tier1 cat raiding was a bit too hard on normal mode (haven't done firelands) there does come a point where you can only dumb something down so much.

Oh I agree.  I think they actually have a real problem where their raid design forces them to dumb it down way too much.    One guy standing in the fire screws over everyone.   The result is you have a lot of decent players bitching about a difficulty they personally have no problem with.

[Simond]

Speaking of raiding:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2365-Firelands-Heroic-Disabled-July-1st-Hotfixes-Blue-Posts-Artworks

[color="deepskyblue"]Firelands Heroic difficulty has been turned off in all regions until the following week's realm maintenance.[/color]

Pre-4.2: "We're holding off releasing the patch because not enough people have seen the release raiding content"
Post-4.2: *turns off heroic difficultly because too many people are seeing the content*

Looks like they should have included plane of water in 4.2 after all.  

Yeah, that has nothing actually to do with too many people seeing the content, but rather a specific instance in the "Hardcore World First Catass Race" in which Stars (a world first capable Korean guild) full cleared Firelands on normal in the first day or two, then Faction changed their entire guild's raid roster to use a bug that reset their raid lockout to get them access to heroic modes in the first week of the instance's release (they actually got the first Heroic kill of one of the bosses before blizzard kicked them out).

Pretty sure that blizzard really doesent care if people will be doing Heroic Modes on week two, but but abusing the system to get nearly a week worth of headstart over everyone else in the World First Kill race is likely to raise some red flags.

And they locked out heroic mode rather than, say, suspending the entire guild for a fortnight, because...?

[sinij]

Hooray for continuing to misunderstand your playerbase..   The player in question is probably in one of those once-a-week guilds but considers himself casual.

Before Cata I was running twice a week, 3 hour per play session raiding guild. We got Sindragosa down right before 5% buff kicked in and I considered us casual. Why casual? We did not had set roster, whoever logged in first-come-first-serve raided. We also frequently had people from friend's list in our raid. A number of us also were mainly PvPers who wanted to see the content, so you frequently would see some PvP gear (mostly glad-level weapons) in the raid. This often resulted in weird, barely workable raid composition but we didn't care because it worked. We had a few star players, but typical raider was mediocre. If raid composition was particularly bad that week we would start fresh raid and 1-4 +1, if we had all key players on we'd dust off progression save.

Once Cata released we hit heroics fairly hard, there were wipes on couple particularly tough bosses but as a guild we cleared them all within a month of Cata release. Then we hit raids... 3 weeks of 10 seconds into the fight wtfwiping and guild folded.  We faced decision of benching all but our best players and enforcing attendance to even attempt kills and decided it wasn't worth it and to cancel subscription instead.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Because if they just suspended every guild that did it, it would be exactly the same as locking out heroic mode until next week.  You can't do heroics in the same lockout you completed a normal mode so there's no un sketchy way to do heroic mode.  If they started banning people for doing it, it would simply look that were punishing people for giving them money and it's only for the first week anyways.
'
I can blame blizzard for not seeing this coming in the first place but there's nothing really wrong with how they tried to handle it, not much they could've done.

[Amaron]

Once Cata released we hit heroics fairly hard, there were wipes on couple particularly tough bosses but as a guild we cleared them all within a month of Cata release. Then we hit raids... 3 weeks of 10 seconds into the fight wtfwiping and guild folded.  We faced decision of benching all but our best players and enforcing attendance to even attempt kills and decided it wasn't worth it and to cancel subscription instead.

That's scary if your guild was still roughly the same.