f13.net

Hoo boy...

Kaa

Rather then calling it the big EZ button, call it what it really is:  The pathway to FUN.

See, strange as it may seem, people like to ENJOY the run up to the level cap.  By properly retuning stuff, and shortening the grind from 20-60, they will be keeping the Fun factor in there, especially for new players.  Add in the bonus to Old players leveling alts (and dont forget the level cap will be going up to 80 in WotLK), and this is looking like a pretty nice change to me.

Besides, some dungeons NEEDED retuning.  Or are you honestly going to tell me you ENJOYED going through Uldaman 4 freaking times to complete the quests there (if you tried to do them in the order you got them based on level) (not to mention the fact that the last boss in there was something like 7 levels higher then the first boss).

Hell, even Arugal in SFK is fairly heftily over conned for the rest of the dungeon. 

Level based gameplay: spending huge chunk of your development time on building stuff your players will do their darndest to skip.

Is 15% even really that big of a deal? It's all about getting everyone to 70 in time to buy WoTLK anyway.

As far as dungeons, yeah, they needed serious retuning. Especially dungeons like Scholo, Strat, etc. Hopefully they're on the list as well.

Regardless, WoW has been turning into a very endgame heavy game for some time now. I know that on my old server, basically 90% of the population is level 70 right now and finding a group for anything below 60 is a pain in the nuts - even in prime time. Let's not talk about finding a group in non peak hours.

The money is now in selling the expansion packs. Newbies just aren't as profitable. So make it easier for them to advance and become the profitable kind of customer (for instance, I quit just before BC and have recently returned to slowly work an alt... I haven't even bought BC, and probably never will... they came up with the 15% number  as a way to speed me up into being a more profitable customer for them, while pissing off their current most-profitable customers to only a small degree - and in true Blizzard fashion, I'm betting that they've only managed to hit the sweet spot where EVERYONE will think it sucks).

Looking forward to this.  I've already got a character at 70, and trying to level an alt is annoying.  While I like the BC content, the old world content is a pain to grind through as you get near the top.  Levelling right now is a lot of fun up to 20 or 30, then it gets grindy for fifteen levels, then it gets even grindier for fifteen levels, then you go to Outland and you finally get to do some neat stuff again.

Of course, it had to come right after I just got my new guy to 60, but still, sounds like a change for the better. 

That isn't an EZ button. An EZ button would be me paying them an extra $5 and them just giving me a level 70.

It's 15% less to gain level, plus unspecified boost to experience gained from quests, so it's more overall. E.g if the boost to quest xp is 15% too then the overall speed up would be 1.15/0.85 = 35% faster levelling. Actually less overall because some of the xp comes from mob kills but that's overcomplicating it.

But given how many people couldn't solve their way out of wet paper bag they'll bitch it's "only 15%, it's worthless", yeah.

I fail to see how this is a bad thing.

Moved.

If you don't like WoW, or don't plan on playing it it's not a big deal.  If you do play, or have friends who want to join you it's huge.  That 15% happens for the levels where the game started to feel 'grindy.'  Combined with an increase to quest XP, you'll probably see a 30% increase minimum in leveling speed - before rested XP.  That means about 3-4 fewer days /played or a few weeks 'real time' off the grind for those new characters.

It's a good change, and I'm pretty happy about it.  It's a much better idea than, "congrats, here's your new level 50 character."  because you still have folks using your older (and relativly well-done) content.

Actually, I generally avoid questing and mostly run instances. Even when I do quest, a serious hunk of the XP I gain is from mob killing.

I guess killing furbolgs in Feralas for the 7th time doesn't make me that horny.

But, I suppose I'll have to get in the mood again.

This really seems to have a two-fold purpose.

First and foremost -- ease of levelling alts, and to basically keep the "time played to level cap" more-or-less the same even as they raised the level cap. Secondly, it brings the Old World more in tune with TBC content.

Leveling 1 to 20 in Azuremist was considerably smoother and faster than 1 to 20 anywhere else, and god knows the 30-40 grind needed some help to begin with.

I'm extremely good with all of this.  Old world content makes no sense with TBC and will make even less sense with the upcoming expansion.  This is a change that has been needed for a long time.

As I've said before:

Happy.In.The.Pants.

Wow... I may last beyond the 10 day trial if this is true.  A grind that isn't soul-crushing.  They need to talk to NCSoft about this. 

This may actually get my 32 priest back out of hock. I couldn't handle the stupidity of the Arathi Highlands and STV anymore.

Yup, I'd been seriously thinking of cancelling until the next expansion but this next patch might convince me to finish getting my 54 rogue those last few levels he needs to go to Outlands.

Now they need to fucking remove the "of the whale" green suffix loot items from the game and I'll be mostly content.


Playing a lowbie caster is often infuriating when all your gear is at best, "of the eagle".

I've said this before, but TBC (including the new starter areas) shows how much Blizzard learned from making and releasing WoW, and how much they incorporated that into their expansion.

The new starter areas are excellent, the quest flow and zone flow in Outland is far superior to "Old World" -- can't speak much to instances yet.

I sincerely hope, and sadly really doubt, that this is just the first step in reworking the Old World. I'd like to see some of the old Raid Content redesigned and retuned for use at level cap -- any instance 58+, really -- turned into a 5 or 10 man heroic.

As someone who used to play Lineage II (worst grind I've experienced) and only has a level 46 Holy Priest in WoW, I think this is an excellent decision on the part of Blizzard. I don't have a lot of time to play and this helps a lot.

I admit it.  I'm intrigued.

Doesn't this, devalue some of the lower end content?

I mean, wont it now be very easy to out level content even faster than before? I know the game has expanded quite a bit.. But when i read this i just hear the posts about "This game has no content, i leveled to 70 in 2 weeks and now i am bored" Screaming in the back of my head.

Then again, i am not sure how many avenues for progression there are at lower levels for player..i mean, does every level 1-50 something take the same route (as far as quest lines, zones, towns etc..)?

This is one of the very few MMO's i have not played. I am scared of it, and scared for my life if i do..so no, i haven't played it.

Everything 58+ was already devauled, as you just go to Outland at level 58 and get handed massive gear upgrades (the greens you get are T1 quality, just for showing up), and a lot more XP.

Prior to that, there's some grouping problems for outdoor quests (instance runs are easier to find groups for) and Blizzard's always had a bit of a problem in the 30-40 range.

So it seems like they're getting rid of uninstanced outdoor quests (I guess this means no more Hogger raids!), since no one can find groups for them, and retuning dungeons for tighter ranges so there's less overlap and better rewards, and smoothing out the levelling time so that you hit cap at about the same rate it took you to cap prior to TBC.

I'm not sure it really devalues content so much as makes it so you can pick and choose what content you want to do for X levels. Part of the reason I really enjoy 1-30 in WoW is because I have multiple choices as to where to level. If I don't feel like leveling in Duskwood, I can go to Ashenvale (or whatever). Once you hit 30, you start having to do all the same stuff every time (unless you have all rest XP all the time). Sick of STV? Too bad. Really loathe Felwood? Oh well! This change will make it so it's possible to NOT have to do zones you hate.

Plus, as others have noted, most people try to rush to 58 so they can get to Outlands where the gear and flow and everything is better than the Old World.

In other news, I am so glad they're narrowing the level ranges for the old dungeons. Places like Uldaman were just ridiculous.

I had a guildie summon my enchanter alt to the Scyer teir so I would never have to run Uldaman to meet with the bloody enchanter trainer there.

What pisses me off is I did all of Uldaman and forgot to get the bloody disks.

Shit, I tried to get an Uldaman group going this past Friday night, and the most I could muster was 2 others. I ended up getting in a Zul'Farrak group instead.

Umm. Mix in a few quests. You will level quicker, and it will be much more entertaining. They are adding 60 quests to dustwallow, plus they have probably added about 25% more quests since release.

I recently leveled up a Blood Elf, and it was pretty cool. I found a lot of new net quests and areas that where not there when I leveled my first 2 characters back near release.

Sounds fine except for:

"Say goodbye to the difficult to kill elite mobs that chill outdoors in the sunshine, they’ll also have same if not better quality loot drops."

What's wrong with wandering super-tough outdoor enemies?

There is a difference between difficult and time consuming, pain in the ass and dangerous. A wandering high-level mob is not a cock-block or a time-sink, it's actual difficulty. Reducing the XP to level doesn't make the game any easier, just faster, but elimating some elite outdoor mobs does seem to be a bit of dumbing down.

That's (obviously) a negative paraphrasing of the original quote, which I'm pretty sure was saying that certain quest mobs that were previously elite will now be regular mobs.  I'm guessing they're talking about things like Morbent Fel in Duskwood, which nobody bothers doing because it's an elite quest and not worth the rewards.  I doubt it refers to Sons of Arugal or the big wandering coastal giants in Desolace and whatnot.  'Course that's just a guess.

I figured they meant the elites at the end of quests. The ones marked "don't bother with the followup" in the levelling guides. I think I've killed one with a group, the rest a 60th guildie just knocked off for me.

Faster levelling is good. Coming from EQ2, the grind is hideous in WOW.

Hm?  As far as I am concerned, Strath / Scholo / UBRS / LBRS were pretty much perfectly designed for what they were : The best dungeons available for non raiders back when the level cap was still 60.   They were nicely difficult, and fairly well laid out. (heck, Scholo has already been nerfed HARD repeatedly)

The biggest problem they suffer from right now is that there is NO REASON TO GO THERE when you can go directly to Outlands at level 58 while wearing "of the" greens that are better then anything that drops out of any of those instances.

I think we're thinking the same thing, but in case we aren't - what Newbies?  They have 9 million customers.  They have more customers then the market for MMOs was projected to be prior to WoW launching.  To not focus their efforts on the endgame would seem kind of dumb to me.

They have already changed public perception of what an MMO is, and who will have fun playing them, thus garnering them the 9 million.
They cannot change the game enough to pull in more people (who would otherwise not be inclined to play MMO games) without risk of losing their current fanbase.

All that is left is focusing on selling expansion boxes and adding enough content to keep peopled subbed between expansions.  Modifying the game to allow people get to the endgame content more quickly - where most of the content and players are, only makes sense. 

SurfD, that's what I mean. There's no reason to go there these days, they need to be made worthwhile.

Typhon - I never said they were stupid. Just said that's what they're doing.

The sad thing is that even before they learned all this, their newbie experience was head and shoulders above anything that came before.  Which is less a testament to Blizzard's genius and more a testament to the incompetency of the rest of the industry.

I think this is great.  It won't get me to re-sub, but it's great.  I know a lot of people who feel the same way.  I know relatively few dimwit, crybaby, douche bags who are complaining.  They also don't like ice cream, or America.

Not liking america is not really on the same level of abject stupidity as disliking icecream.

Reitemizing and speeding up the leveling process for the 20-60 game is a fucking godsend.

It was really awesome when it we all first did it, but the expansion's incredibly polished content and mountain of quests revealed how shitty certain level ranges were in old-world content.

30-58 is okay for 5-7 levels, then fucking miserable for 5-7 levels, then sort of okay, repeat/etc. due to lack of quests/decent instances. This doesn't devalue content, it actually gives you a reason to run the shit again! Yeah, it won't feel quite as zomgepic to run through Stormgarde on an alt after this as it did when you needed 4 other people in the terribly itemized equipment to get it done...but that was when 90% of your server was doing that content and you could just get a group for anything. Most of the old world is a boneyard now, more and easier old-world stuff will get people into those zones again.

Actually, the only thing that bothers me about it is the removal of Elite Mobs.

I liked Elite mobs.  They kinda encouraged grouping and, if done properly, rewarded Soloing 'harder'.

If you could get a group. Try doing "LFG Stromgarde quests" or "LFG Troll Hinterland quests" nowadays and see how many people bite. As for the reitemization - the plan is that pretty much every instance boss will drop blue loot, which will be upgraded versions of their old, green items.

Oh, and the Alliance is getting a flightpath in northern STV in 2.3 as well.

I cannot help but laff when I see people talk about how Outlands is polished compared to Azeroth.

Is it a medical condition or do you actually have some contrary position ?

 :x

I'm not clear on whether they are really removing all, some or just a few quest elite mobs.

I don't think it's all.  I think it's just some quest mobs, like the ones in Stromgarde.  They already did this with the dragonkin in Dustwallow marsh.  They are normal mobs now, but a friend of mine has screenshots from when they used to be elites.

I hope they keep the random wandering elites like Mor'Ladim and the occasional outdoor elite boss.

LAFF - Love At First Fright (musical) ???

You break out into song?  Very strange.

I, on the other hand, agree with people that state Outlands was done better than Azeroth, because, well, I played through both of them.  4 times!

I can confirm.  They were elites when I was leveling up through my first time.  I recently went back there with a lower alt and they are normal now.  It was a major pain in the ass when they were elite.  It made no sense as fighting them in a group gained you nothing and they were just a block to some standard normal level quests.  Plus, it locked the whole zone from gathering herbs...herbs that weren't elite at all.  That was a nice change that made sense.

I agree that the wandering elites should just be left alone.  If you couldn't kill them, no big deal, just skip it.  Yes, I've fallen victim to them multiple times in the past, but it was kind of a fun element of, "Oh, you got me again, you bastard!," rather than making feel like I should just quit.

Get to 60 on alliance in the old world with minimal rested and without grinding. It's practically (and possibly, literally) impossible. Do the same with 58-70 in outland and it's easy. Hell, you'll have at least one zone completely untoucned by the time you hit 70 if you did any instances at all.

I agree as well. I kind of liked having to watch that wandering elite out of the corner of my eye while I was in Dustwallow Marsh- on top of the fact that I'm on a PvP server and was in a dangerous zone.  Other than that, I'm all for the posted changes.

Plus, I didn't find anything more satisfying then going back a few levels later and wtfpwning whatever wandering elite gave you troubles earlier.

Fairly sure those fucking Sons of Arugal would still find some way to own me at 70.


Evil bastards.

(http://common.allakhazam.com/images/i/d/id2446.png)

Not elite, but the most underconned motherfucker in the history of MMO's. I don't know how many level 20-somethings I saw come back to his camp for revenge, only to get their asses beat.

I think it's a fairly good sign. Their motto appears to be "We can do better" which certainly beats the shit out of the industry's prior motto of "Eh, Good Enough" and "Fuck you, assholes, you play my game MY WAY".

About fucking time. Jeesus that whole zone sucks balls, even with a mount.

As for the elites -- the understanding I had of it was that they're getting rid of a lot of the outdoor group quests, not so much the occasional wandering elite. Stormgarde is a good damn example of a pointless cockblock.

Still, I hope they keep that level 35 gold elite that wanders Raven Hill. That fucker has caused more deaths than any other mob in the game (outside of AV, at least) and I made it a habit to go waste him every time I was on my way to ZG, back in the day.

Dude!  At the end of that 7 day pre-beta thing they had, around 10 of my friends and I who were all in the low 20's, gathered together and raided one.  Posted a killshot on the website and everything.  God damn were we noobs then.

So yea, I agree with you on the elite mob thing.  Some things shouldn't be fucked with.  Don't think the Sons of Arugal were involved in any quests.  But overall, these changes are good.

It's even worse than that. Now their faction is absolutely useless there's even less reason to do it.

Which reminds me -- I got to go grind CC rep and get the Moonglade flight path. I never did bother with those grinds at 60, but I suspect it'd be pretty easy now.

That's the thing I hate about Factions. Every new content patch makes another one irrelevant.

The whole concept of speeding up the 20-60 game just makes all sorts of sense. It also makes me glad because it means they won't waste time making yet another 1-20 zone progression for some new race of class. A whole lotta people gonna be farming Hellfire though when Death Knight comes though :)

Question: anyone know if Northrend is for level 70-80 only? Or will it start lower?


Completely agree. Heck, just Netherstorm blows away 90% of Azeroth. I wish I went there before 70. And when I got there I wondered how anyone would get there before it. BC was a whole new boxed game, just wrapped in the required-58 shell and called an "expansion". I'd love to know what percentage of the playerbase didn't get it, in those territories that could get it at all. Gotta be single-digits.


Completely agree here too. I'd go back to him every 10th level with my Bard just to enact my revenge, and to break GF zoneline trains. Good times.

Swamp of Sorrows got a redo too and all the green elite dragonkin are now normal mobs. Same as Dustwallow it made no sense to have them non-elite, asit just made you have to dodge around them on your mount. I dont think I ever remember anyone even close to getting killed by one. Probably someone at Blizzard's office asked why they were elite and no one could remember or something.

Ya I did it on my shaman last week. 1 quest and a couple of feather hand ins and I was unfriendly already.

What newbies? They had 8 million customers six months previously. That's more newbies (who've stuck around) in half a year than the largest MMORPG prior to WoW. Newbies are really important to them. The fact that they're making the mid-level experience more fun is an indication that they give a fuck. This isn't just about converting newbies into raiders, its about reducing the churn among newbies who don't have scores of people to run their alts through mid-level quests.

If you don't think that there are real genuine newbies around, you clearly haven't started a new character lately.

There's probably still genuine noobs buying eq1.

Mixed feelings.  Some shit i hope the leave be, like the aforementioned sons of arugal, those guys are just a sacred part of noob UD leveling experience.

Others, like the giants in Azshara that are required for a few quests (notably the love potion that acts as a "key" to the second half of BRD) are fucking annoying.  NEVER found a group for those, 90%+ people don't give a rats ass about finishing an instance for its own sake.  By the time i could solo them, BRD didnt matter anymore and completing it would feel cheap because i massively outleveled it.

Outland vs Azeroth... i'd definately have to say more TLC was put into azeroth.  Outland is better at feeding you your happy pellets are percisely calculated intervals.  Azeroth doesn't have that same level of mechanic perfection, but it is far more memorable.  I see all this STV hate, and i can understand the opposing faction driving you nuts because to this day it is one of the choicest spots for people to camp, but the actaul design of the zone is amazing.  You have the port town with the goblins, the pirates they are at war with, Juarssic Park in the jungle, king kong off on an island (complete with captive), Venture Co outpost and the infamous (never spelt correctly, including now) Nessingway's Expedition with its grind-happy hunting quests.  Little troll ruins that block LoS (the entire zone obscures LoS actually), which increases the likelyhood of impromptu pvp conflict.

Also always thought Both EPL and WPL were very story-rich and immersive as well.  Searing Gorge was/is great (after they added all those quests).  The best thing about WoW was and still is the game world.  This is not to say that Outland doesn't have some cool areas, but overall does not provide as viscerally satisfying experience.

Hogger is apparently still elite, so I think that maybe what they meant were the mobs JUST outside dungeons got un-elited. I hope that's the case, deep down. Raven Hill wouldn't be the same without Mor'Ladim killing me 8 times.

This thread almost makes me wanna play WoW.  One of the best times I had was me and a bunch of guildmates going to STV and out to that island specifically to gank King Kong and take screenshots.  And then running around ganking Alliance afterward.

Shit, I missed that -- I never did go to that island. I guess my main has a trip to make.

He's like level 52 elite or something like that, so I guess a 70 could solo him?  You'll feel like a badass if you do, he's quite literally King Kong size.

Heck, most level 56, or so people should be able to solo the Big Ape. Just depends on what your gear / spec is.  Pretty sure i solo killed him on both my mage and my shaman at around that level.  I soloed that annoying giant on the island out in front of booty bay at like 2 levels under him on my shaman by casting water walk, and frost shock kiteing him into BB where i let the town guards take him down for the kill :P

I thought water walk dropped the second you got in combat and couldnt be cast whiile in combat?

A few of Azeroth's zones have stronger/better presented stories that tie into the areas, I'll say that. Duskwood is my favorite zone in the whole game, and I could kill to have Blizzard revisit the story of the area because it was really well done and weaved into the lore of the area. I keep hoping to hear that we'll be able to run into Kara's basement to get the Scythe of Elune from the dark riders.

I think all of the SI:7->VC->Ravenholdt stuff was amazing but they kinda dropped that...

Yes, Duskwood is like Halloween year round. It's really really cool looking and fun with great quests. Compared to a place like Red Ridge, it was a welcome change.

Honestly, I considered Red Ridge to be the reason I stopped playing Alliance for almost a year because of how imbalanced and crappy that zone is.  They are changing aspects of it, but it still isn't that great of a place.  Poor quest rewards and low drop rates make it one place I desire skipping most of the time.

I've been browsing over the changes they've made to the low end loot so far and it's awesome. Casters are no longer fucked for +dmg, and tanks can actually get mitigation and defense rating before level 50.

Here's some of them.

Aegis of the Scarlet Commander: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=7726
Albino Crocscale Boots: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=17728
Dragon's Eye: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=10829
Crest of Supremacy: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=10835
Chief Architect's Monocle: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=11839

Atal'ai Loot from ST:
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=10808
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=10807

ST Quest Reward:
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=11123

Robes of the Lich: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=10762

Grimlock's Tribal Vestments: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=9415
Stoneweaver Leggings: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=9407

Big Bad Pauldrons: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=9476

Also, the loot from my favorite instance pre-BC, Shadowfang Keep.

Belt of Arugal: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=6392
Commander's Crest: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=6320
Robes of Arugal: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=6324

The old pile of shit set from WC: http://www.wowhead.com/?itemset=162

Great job so far.

Nah, it lasts until you receive any kind of damage.  So as long as whatever you are attacking has no ranged attack, you can frost shock kite it over the water as long as needed.  If it gets close enough to mele you, and you take a hit, you can hope you can get far enough away to re cast water walk and get back on top of the water, but it generally doesn't happen.

So has this gone live yet? I cancelled a while ago, but I wouldn't mind resubbing when this stuff goes live.

It went on test this week so i would say a month bare minimum.

Hopefully it hits soon, I wouldn't mind going back in with a super boost. 20-60 in the current state is so fucking boring, mainly cause the majority of players have done this 2.5 years or so ago.

Original target date was late October/ Early November, since it was tested internally for so long.  Dunno if that's still the planned date.

Every once in a while I think about picking up WoW again, even though I haven't played since about 2 months after it was released.  Even though I hate raiding and I hate DKP, I distinctly remember the 1-59 game as being a lot of fun.  Then I talked to a friend of mine over the weekend and apparently the low level game is pretty much completely barren and it's nearly impossible to put together even a 5 person group for the low level instances.  Does that pretty much hold true on most of the servers or could it just be a problem on his?

ZF and SM are about the only instances you can consistently find a group for, and even then, it's rather hit and miss.  SFK has streaks of activity, and times where you've got noone else interested.  Pretty much every other instance, no chance of getting a group together.  I've yet to see Mauradon or much of Blackrock because there were no groups when I was levelling.  Occasionally you'll have a nostaligia run of the 60 dungeons, but for the most part, it's 70s running someone through for one quest.  My only time in Scholomance was when some guildies were helping me get that part done for my warlock mount quest.  Same for Dire Maul.  Strat and so forth, I've never stepped foot in. 

I've been leveling a toon again in WoW and while I get several random group invites, it's a pretty barren landscape.  People are either playing the endgame or they are leveling an alt with their guild.  I've given up on most of the dungeons and instances and play solo 99% of the time.

Yep, most runs that happen occour in the 60-70 range.  You can still fairly regularly get a group for all of the BC dungeons, but not the others since even the crappiest-geared 70 can solo nearly any early dungeon.  Those that they can't have better loot in a bc-era dungeon.

If you REALLY want to run the early stuff in an appropriate group, your best bet is finding a reroll guild via the recruitment forums, and running with them.  That, or start-up again with 5 friends and level together.

I imagine that all of this is another reason to up the xp in the lower-end content.  Since the majority are there, it's best to just get new players there sooner, rather than trying in vain to get a huge influx of new players for groups.

Just when I despair of finding groups for the low level dungeons, I do a /who of them and usually find some people in there.  The crappier ones like Gnomeregan and Blackfathom are pretty deserted, but I got a group pretty readily for SKF, SM (all three important wings), ZF, and Sunken Temple (edit: and I know of someone who got a group for BRD recently, but I bet those are less common.  And forget it with any of the old 60-level ones).  It takes a bit more effort than before, and it can be pretty hit and miss.

One thing that's weird is that the fragmentation that results from putting AH in all three capital cities per side and the introduction of the LFG system now means that the looking for group stuff is not concentrated in one area.  In the past, you went to Orgrimmar or Ironforge and spammed general.  Now some people use the LFG tool, some people spam Org, some people spam UC, and some abuse the trade channel (since it's multi-city).  It's a bit more work to check all the right places to find people.

Outland is better because everyone spams Shattrath.

I just levelled a draenei shaman 1-21 in the new lands, and was struck by just how well-done the quests are, how smooth the levelling was, how well-put-together the storylines were.  Blizzard did a fanatastic job on the new lands in TBC.

Retuning Azeroth is an excellent idea.  Running low level instances has been a joke for some time - how many people actually run them instead of getting a friendly 70 to run them through?  How many times must one run an instance before it's just something to get through?  (Clearly I am not a raider.  I cannot run anything more than 3 or 4 times before it's stale).

I'm looking forward to this EZ button being pressed.  I think of it more as a fun button than an ez button, though.

It's time to get over punishing mmo play, or thinking these games are about skill.  If you want skill, get off the computer and do something in real life.

Obligatory, "u onle say it takes no skill bcuz u haf no skillz" post.

Although I agree with your sentiment, but not the hating raids part.   :-D

I love raids and grouping and instances. I hate leveling. I'm glad to see a move towards that direction of play and away from the punative grind.

There really isn't a reason a year-old instance shouldn't offer a solo option.

Solo players are the scourge of the gaming world and must be punished!

<I agree.  If the gear isn't all that great, what's the harm in letting people solo or duo the old instances?>

Part of the plan is gear upgrades and tightening the level bands. IE: No more of fucking smite dropping shit greens. If it's a boss, it drops blues from Deadmines to Strat.

This is a big EZ button, but it's a good change at this point nevertheless.  WoW itself is just a great honking huge EZ button, after all.  Ironically, the upcoming patch has totally sapped my will to play for now.  I have numerous alts I'm wanting to level, my 70's feel dull at the moment, but leveling my alts *before* the patch seems stupid.

Assuming I haven't completely lost interest in WoW by the time 2.3 hits, though, I should have fun getting my alts to 70 quickly after that.  The re-itemization of loot in low level dungeons feels mostly pointless to me though.  A little fun but somewhat pointless really.  After all, how much difference does it really make when you're only gonna be wearing that item for a few levels, AND those levels are now going to fly by?

Pooling your power and in the process meeting new and interesting fuckers is the point of MMOs, dude.  It's why there are two unwieldy looking M's in the abbreviation for Massively -->MULTI PLAYER<-- Online.  Maybe you just meant that it's hard to find groups now that most people don't do lower level content.  In that case, that's the point of this change.  There will be a lot of people who come back to play that one class they never got around to playing now that it's easier and there's better stuff.  So grouping should be less painful.

So in short:  Yes, there is a reason why some content is for groups only.  Lots of them.  You'll thank me when you meet them. :-)

I hereby sentence Musashi to a lifetime of PUGs with newbies who all speak different languages than him. Oh, and immunity to guild invites. And you can only play between 2 A.M. and 5 A.M. Tuesday through Thursday.

And then you have the slews of melee mages, retarded priests who can't heal, hunters who think they can tank, warriors who can't tank, and all of those joyous reasons to play.

The only thing that would make grouping less painful would be to require people to pass some sort of test prior to grouping in order to screen out the miscreants and youngsters.

I like people, really I do, but somehow I don't like many of the people I find in mmos.  The people are the problem in grouping, not the instances or game mechanics.

I actually agree with this. Nothing in the game mechanics of soloing your class teaches you how to tank or heal well. It's simply something you have to pick up by running groups, so for a while you are going to suck at it. This is a large flaw in the way things work in MMOGs. There should be a ranking or certification process involved in the game. We spent 400 hours getting to 70, but it taught us nothing about the mechanics of the game in those classes.

I hear what you guys are saying, and I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I'm so awesome that pug nightmares never happen to me.  But it's kind of beside the point.  If you want to solo, then grind away.  I'm not opposed to people playing by themselves.  I've soloed alts.  I know it can be done in WoW from 1 to 70 without setting foot in an instance. 

So why the fuck would you want to make instances soloable?  You think finding a group is hard now?  Is this game really that hard?  I'm not imagining this.  You clicked on the thread with EZ in the title.  Look, I'm jaded, and I've had to listen to a ton of total pussies whine about not finding a group.  So if it sounded like I jumped on you, I'm sorry.  But this is a huge pet peeve of mine.  If you can't find a group, you're doing it wrong.   :-D

About the holy trinity learning curve.  I totally disagree about lack of grouping instructions being a flaw, but wholeheartedly agree with a rating system as long as it doesn't overly punish noobs.

Speaking of PUGs, one of the things being added in 2.3 is that talents will be viewable on inspect.

Heh.  Cue the complaints.

If Blizzard wanted to throw the money into it, they could add a henchman system to low-level instances that would teach about group roles. Imagine playing a tank and having a dps henchman who is a bit too eager with his nukes. The "problem", knowing Blizzard, would be that grouping with henchmen would be much more enjoyable than with other players.

*edit: spelling*

Perhaps because you want to see and/or experience the content of an instance but don't want to group to do it?

BTW, use of the term "EZ mode" or "EZ button" to describe decreased leveling time puts you on my list of suspected catasses.  You can expect some burly black-clad men to drag you out of your home, drug you, beat the shit out of you, put you under hot lights and spend a little time asking you what you think of Vanguard.

WUA

MMOG 'achievers' who have such miserable unrewarding lives full of disappointment that they get their deluded sense of self-worth from committing to the tedious and repetitive game play that automatically eliminates from competition anybody capable of accomplishing even the simplest goal in their worthless existences, such as washing their arse.

Because cats don't deserve the insult.

It is interesting that MMO achievers always want things to take longer rather than being genuinely more difficult.  I'm guessing that many of them would be less successful in MMO's if the games were made more challenging rather than larger time sinks. 

Seems like a good idea to keep the game accessible to newbs.  You can keep raising the level cap as long as you make getting the earlier levels easier and easier to do, so it takes a relatively short (and constant) amount of time from installing the game to getting to max level (where the people are).  The fact that the levelling game is so solo-friendly will keep WoW newb-friendly in a way EQ never was.  EQ's high-end single group game is actually pretty decent now, but there's no fucking way a new character (esp if they pick a class that is bad at soloing) is ever going to find out before they quit in disgust.  If WoW plays its cards right, in 5 years new people will still be able to roll up a warrior and be max level in under a week /played, and ready to jump in to the high end group game.

The old instances are basically a waste, but they seem to have learned that in TBC with heroic modes.  Hopefully, when WotLK comes out, the TBC instances will have a new super-heroic mode (nightmare! hell!! where's my World of Diablo dammit....) so they will still be useable.

I still think they need to add an easy 25-man raid instance or two, with mostly tank-and-spanks to get newbs used to raiding.  I imagine that jumping right into current raid content is quite a shock for people without raid experience.  Then again I haven't played in quite a while.

Unless of course, you ARE doing it right and just can't find anyone to do the instance because other instances have better loot and are more popular. Finding a PUG for Uldaman on a Friday night during peak time was impossible for me. The best I did was 2 other people who grouped. I waited for almost an hour grouped with them just trying to get someone else interested, using the LFG tab, etc. Didn't happen.

Switched to LFG on a Zul-Farrak run, was in a group within minutes. If I'd actually wanted to do Uldaman to experience that particular dungeon, I'd have been SOL.

Uldaman is also a really long instance that is a huge quest hub.  There's literally no way to go there with a pug and not clear the whole thing, because the chances of all four other group mates only needing the same quests as you are slim.  People don't like clearing whole wings in a pug 'cause so-and-so needs to talk to the Enchanter trainer.  The potential pug suck factor in Uldaman is abnormally high.  So if you needed another reason not to pug it, there you go.  But I think we both know that this isn't the point.  I mean, you know it's possible right?  I really don't feel like an elitist in saying I've pugged Uldaman with no problem.  You know that even if it's hard to pug, it wouldn't be that hard for you to cash in a couple favors from people on your friends list and get it done if you really wanted to do it, right?  Uldaman, or any other instance sucking balls isn't a good reason to make it a single player game.

I was just discounting your rather arrogant view that "if you can't find a group, you're doing it wrong."

In fact, I was doing it right, but the content does not reward me doing it right. The content forces me to either know lots of people or suck a big one.

Uldaman is a fucking bitch if you don't have a decent group, and ZF is simply faster. The only reason I went there was because I had an enchanter -- which I bound to Shat city ASAP so I wouldn't have to go back.

The upcoming changes -- tightening the level bands so less overlap and less disparity in the dungeon (no more "a third of the dungeon at level 30 elite, a third at 34 and a third at 37 elite") and adding decent damn loot (I wonder if my smelting pants are going to turn blue, since 2.3's Smelting pants are -- I should pick up a pair of Buzzer blades for my rogue just in case), there'll be more reason to go.

Less overlap with ZG, and a hell of a lot better loot -- so you'd do Uldaman at one point, then a few levels later be able to do ZF.

I have an level 45 enchanter, and I'll be damned if I set foot in Uldaman.  I'll pay a mage to portal me to Shattrath in a second rather than visit that ho one more time.  She's probably pretty damn lonely in there lately.

Only if you're Scryer.  I tried doing this the other day, but on my L70 Aldor pally I'm teaching enchanting so I can farm shards in Scholo with her.  Uldaman was my only option, as the GM enchanter won't teach Master-level enchanting, only Artisan.

Try levelling a hunter and finding groups to do low level instances, then get back to us.  I levelled my hunter the first year, and even then had trouble finding groups. 

Now, my priest gets invites constantly.  My 'lock even gets invites.  I don't think I've ever been whispered cold to join a group on my hunter, the toon I've played almost 3 years.

Hmm, my shaman didn't get many invites either (only when I stuck in the instance queue and got auto-assigned into a group, or if someone was explicitly looking for dps, but I was still turned down a few times due to not having CC), I think it's a general DPS curse. Twice I only got a group because they were really desperate for a healer (ZF and Blood Furnace ... we finished both with zero wipes, but it wasn't pretty, with plenty of mana pots + downtime between pulls).

On the other hand, I've seen a TON of hunters all over the place while leveling up my shaman (according to wowcensus, 15% of Crushridge is hunters, making them the most popular class). I've been in maybe 1-2 groups that didn't have a hunter (and one of those was a 3-man Manaforge Ara group), and since my shaman was enhancement spec, it was always a pain trying to distribute instance loot in pugs -- since I wasn't elemental/resto, all caster / healer mail got sharded in most cases (I need to remember to bring extra shards so I can "bribe" the party members :p), and a lot of the time hunter loot sucks for enhancement shammies... we don't need int or mp5!

Ahem, ontopic: I really like the redesign and rebalance of lower-level dungeons. It always bugged me how Uldaman was basically "two instances", since you had no hope in hell of defeating the end boss with a level 41-43ish group. Some instances could also use some trash mob trimming, especially Maraudon (ugh), Sunken Temple (bleah) and BRD (nooooo), along with the old lv60 instances (is their loot getting retuned to BC-level, or will they still be useless?)


-- Z.

I must have missed something.  Patch 2.3 is going to make instances soloable at appropriate levels? Huh?