Cracks starting to show?

[Lantyssa]

The only heroic I flat out loathe is Blackrock Whatever (Caverns?) because of that stupid beam boss. I have made it to the final boss in that dungeon three times, once with a Slap group, and the other two because I joined an already-in-progress one that was on said boss.

Would it make you feel bad or good to know we did that encounter in one try?  My first time, I was tanking, and Drach lived through the whole thing. 

[Ingmar]

I didn't think you bought Cata.

EDIT: I think I must be thinking of someone else, but note that encounter is really only annoying as hell on heroic.

[Ashamanchill]

I just assumed it was a vision of a distant future.

[Nevermore]

The only difference between normal and heroic is one extra beam.  I think the encounter is one of the easiest, personally.  That's why it's so annoying when other people can't seem to figure it out for some reason.

[Ingmar]

I've had it come up with no ranged dps in the party and a healer who couldn't figure out how to do it right. That was really annoying.

[Paelos]

45 minutes to do a dungeon is still too long to me.

[Rokal]

Last time I ran BRC on my hunter alt, the tank decided to stand the boss right next to my add so that I didn't have enough space to use ranged attacks. That said, I actually like BRC. The beam boss is a pretty fun fight when your group isn't screwing it up, and the first and last bosses are also pretty fun. My least favorite Cata dungeon is hands-down Deadmines.

When was the last time you ran one? I haven't had one of the regular ones take more than about 45 min (that was a Grim Batol with a couple wipes) in a while, barring the occasional LFG clusterfuck where people are dropping and we have to reform etc (those happened in Wrath too). Troll ones can occasionally take longer when the group isn't really quite up to it.

I totally agree that at release they were in a terrible state - 2 hour Deadmines etc.

EDIT: I'm not 100% sure because there was a pretty long gap between me doing them now and when I was doing them at release, but I would swear that they've cut the trash down a lot in some of them. It certainly feels like less.

They haven't been nerfed that much. A few boss nerfs here and there, trash yanked out of Deadmines, and the 15% luck of the draw buff. Most of the reason they seem easy now is because people have better gear and know the dungeons much better. Or maybe most of the really terrible players stopped playing, I guess.

The Wrath dungeons got older for me quicker, personally. However, there was more other stuff to do at 80, so I had plenty of other options besides running dungeons. I didn't even finish Icecrown or Stormpeaks until about a year after Wrath launched.

I didn't think you bought Cata.

EDIT: I think I must be thinking of someone else, but note that encounter is really only annoying as hell on heroic.

I think he/she mentioned they played the trial for Cata.

[Ingmar]

45 minutes to do a dungeon is still too long to me.

Uh... OK. That's not like the average or anything, that was the longest one I've had recently.

[Paelos]

Just saying. After 30 minutes in any 5 man, I think you're either getting bored or should be on the last dude. It's the perfect length of fun without any stress.

[Rokal]

The ideal length for me is about 60 minutes. 30 minutes just feels a bit too fast, hardly a journey through some dangerous dungeon.

Deadmines actually would have been a fine dungeon at 1.5 hours if we weren't encouraged to keep re-running it.

[Sjofn]

An hour or less is fine with me, personally. Don't much need to CC these days either, although I definitely prefer the tanks that start off marking CC, realize we don't really need to, and stop to the ones who assume we don't need to for some reason and OH HEY YOU ARE NOT NEARLY AS STURDY AS YOU THINK DUDE.

I was talking about heroic BRC, yeah, I don't even remember how it is non-heroic. All I know is, at least one person fucks it up EVERY TIME I GO THERE, and then someone drops, and then we get a new person, and someone fucks up again, and someone drops, and then someone fucks it up again, and then someone drops, and for all I know it goes perfectly after that, but I'll never know for SURE, because that last person to drop was me.

[Paelos]

A kinder, gentler FUCK YOU CATA, I'M OUT!

Warm fuzzy quitting all around. Hugs!

 

[Ashamanchill]

Lol okay Paelos, next time you have to find the most vitriolic, hate filled, expletive ridden rant you can. You know, for balance.

[March]

A kinder, gentler FUCK YOU CATA, I'M OUT!

Warm fuzzy quitting all around. Hugs!

 

I gave that guy _my_ stuff when he quit.

[Selby]

I realized that I hadn't logged in almost a week.  Checked online and everyone's gone... so the cracks are showing for me in that I've got nothing to do without friends to chat with.  Wonder how long I'll keep my subscription active at this rate...

[kaid]

I am at about the same place due to the total cock block that was the release raiding for our guild everybody left for rift or other pastures. I am still subbed although I have not logged in to wow in months. I may plink a bit when 4.2 comes out but that may be the last hoorah for a while. That said if they come out with another expansion I likely would play long enough to at least see the new content. At this point I am hoping their new MMO is not to far off or that SWTOR is as good as I hope it will be. 6 years in one game is a long time I am ready for something new.

[Dren]

When was the last time you ran one? ...

I hadn't since release of Cata really.  They may make this somewhat better, but as said still too long for me.  Just my preferance.  30 mins is good.  45 mins with some issues causing wipes is fine.  The trouble is if that is 30-45 mins of easy as pie slaughtering of MOBs, I'm bored again, not from time but content.  I want 30-45 mins of good, fairly difficult in the way of making you think and organize, content.  I'll play usually 1.5 hours total, so I want some time when I log in to do some dailies, then run an instance, then do a bg, poke around on the ah, then log.  If I can only log in, do an instance, log out....that isn't the game for me.

The other big issue is that they released Cata the way they did and it all but broke our casual guild.  So, yeah, we never really got back to running instances like we did in Wrath.  So, people did their leveling, crafting, pvp'ing, etc. until they got bored and dropped out.  The big message we got at release was, this game isn't for you casuals, we've changed our direction.  That was the message I got anyway.  Changes to the contrary after that don't matter too much to me now.  I just think the shiny has worn way off for me on the game in general, so things like this made it easy for me to lose interest.

[Paelos]

Here's the thing. I think when it comes to dungeon planning the design itself forces you to run them over and over in order to gain points, so you can't make them that organizational or difficult. The reason is that the challenge moves from dealing with the dungeon itself and becomes dealing with the 4 other morons you're saddled with. I'll call this the "Fade" effect. For those that played DA, you know it well. The first time you do the Fade it's really really cool, but you never want to do it again. You've done it, it's figured out, and any subsequent playthroughs it's just an obstacle that wastes time in your way to the ultimate goal.

Dungeons suffer from the Fade effect heavily in WoW.

[Paelos]

Also, after all the hacks Sony and the like have had recently, Blizzard does this:

If you use an authenticator – and we hope you do – you may soon notice that an authenticator prompt may not appear with every login. We’ve recently updated our authentication system to intelligently track your login locations, and if you’re logging in consistently from the same place, you may not be asked for an authenticator code. This change is being made to make the authenticator process less intrusive when we’re sure the person logging in to your account is you.

We hope to continue improving the authenticator system to ensure the same or greater security, while improving and adding features to make having one a more user friendly experience. If you don’t already have a Battle.net Authenticator attached to your account, don’t wait until it’s too late - http://us.battle.net/en/security/checklist

Shitstorm ensues from people asking WTF? I want to have to log in all the time!

[Miasma]

Unless you're worried about someone who lives with you learning your password and logging in from your computer there's no legitimate reason to worry about the change.  Whole thing sort of reminds me of that Simpsons episode where Lisa picks up a rock and claims it acts as a bear repellent and must work since there are no bears around.  The people freaking out are Homer and would like to purchase said rock.

[Rendakor]

It's a change to make things less secure in the name of convenience; at the very least we should be able to opt-out of the new change.

[Hutch]

It's a change to make things less secure in the name of convenience; at the very least we should be able to opt-out of the new change.

This. I'm perfectly happy typing in my authenticator code every single time I log in. When I got past the login screen last night without it, my very first thought was "omfg I'm hacked". My guildmates talked me down, and when I logged into my battle.net account through a browser, it required the authenticator. (I then searched in vain for an opt-out checkbox in my account settings.)

A warning would have been nice. Even better would have been not changing it at all, or the abovementioned opt-out.

[Ingmar]

A hacker can't really spoof your IP address (you could theoretically make a faked packet, but even if your ISP routed it, which most won't, the return packets wouldn't come to you), there is seriously no reason to worry about this change, unless your roommate is in LulzSec or something. Opting out would really gain you nothing at all.

[luckton]

Opting out would really gain you nothing at all.

You're preaching to the Tin-Foil hat crowd here.  In a time when LulzSec is running around the internet with scissors.  Giving an opt-out option on this is a 'peace of mind' gesture.  That's what we want.

[Lantyssa]

I'll side with Blizzard on this one, for once.  There's little reason to force use unless you don't trust the people you live with.  (In which case, why do they know your password or have access to your authenticator?)

Now the rest of their security is shit, and the authenticator just lets them get away with not improving it.

[Hutch]

What's going on here? How is there pushback against the opt-out?

Yes, clearly my fear that I'd been hacked was irrational. Nonetheless, it manifested. Now that I know what was going on, the "improved" login process is merely irritating.

I would like to have the same steps every time I log in. I don't want to have to wait until my password has been accepted, for the game to then decide if it wants me to use my authenticator. Either require it or don't, every time, and I'd prefer that it be required.

I dunno. Maybe they're getting feedback from customers, stating that the authenticator is too hard to use? Otherwise this smacks of fixing something that wasn't broken.

[caladein]

There's little reason to force use unless you don't trust the people you live with.  (In which case, why do they know your password or have access to your authenticator?)

Yeah, that's the main case that came to mind as pro-paranoid/original mode option.

Also, this explains why the authenticator entry got moved back to a pop-up after login instead of being part of username/password entry.

[Merusk]

They're probably getting feedback from their customers along the lines of: "fuck I lost my authenticator" and "damnit my auth's battery died" coupled with "no, I don't want to buy another one." "What do you mean I have to wait x days to get this fixed" and "Since I can't login to b-net without it I'll just tell the CC company you won't let me cancel and ignore the charge." (Which they are penalized for, IIRC.)

[Paelos]

And today in FUCK YOU CATA, I'M OUT!

I bring you, I JUST WANT TO RIDE MY SEAHORSE!

[Ingmar]

What's going on here? How is there pushback against the opt-out?

Speaking as an IT guy it would be really annoying to be asked to implement some kind of optional, pointless extra step for people just so they can feel better about something they have no reason to actually fear. I imagine Blizzard's network team feels the same way, given IT people are all cranky bastards at heart.

[Nevermore]

And today in FUCK YOU CATA, I'M OUT!

I bring you, I JUST WANT TO RIDE MY SEAHORSE!

I certainly hope that one is a troll.

[Hutch]

What's going on here? How is there pushback against the opt-out?

Speaking as an IT guy it would be really annoying to be asked to implement some kind of optional, pointless extra step for people just so they can feel better about something they have no reason to actually fear. I imagine Blizzard's network team feels the same way, given IT people are all cranky bastards at heart.

Do you do your IT work for Blizzard? If not, then no one is annoyingly asking you to add an opt-out to the misguided, unasked-for change that you just made, that affects millions of your paying customers.

If so, well then suck it up. You work for an enormous entertainment machine. You should be better at CS than this.

[Paelos]

What's going on here? How is there pushback against the opt-out?

Speaking as an IT guy it would be really annoying to be asked to implement some kind of optional, pointless extra step for people just so they can feel better about something they have no reason to actually fear. I imagine Blizzard's network team feels the same way, given IT people are all cranky bastards at heart.

That, in a nutshell, would be why those IT people are terrible business people. If I'm running a company, I tell my IT people to STFU and give the people they consider blantant morons for not understanding complicated internet security code what they want.

[Ingmar]

misguided

I have to disagree. It makes things more convenient for people without compromising security. How is that misguided?

EDIT: I doubt that the actual grunt IT people like me have anything to do with actually making the decision in reality. 

[Hutch]

misguided

I have to disagree. It makes things more convenient for people without compromising security. How is that misguided?

If I don't need my auth-code every time I log in, why do I need to keep using my password? All that typing is just damned inconvenient.

More seriously, I explained myself a couple posts ago. I want to get the same prompts whenever I log in. Up until yesterday, I didn't have to wait for the game to decide if it wanted my auth-code. So how is that more convenient? Seems like a wash to me. Maybe we could have a checkbox on our account page, to let us decide how we want to be inconvenienced.