f13.net

An extremely solid expansion pack. They plugged holes we bitched about for two years. The new zones are aesthetically pleasing in a way the old world wasn't alot of the time. Both dranei and blood elves have a cool factor with good, solid noob areas. The new dungeons are, almost top to bottom, better designed and paced than anything Azeroth had to offer. Karazhan is (annoying trash respawn aside) simply breathtaking in aesthetics and design. PvP mechanics have been revamped with arenas only requiring an hour out of the week to get your reward. This expansion pack was, in short, everything I ever asked for.

So why does it leave me feeling dry after a month and do the same for alot of my guildmates and friends?

It's not just me. Several guildmates are planning on unsubbing or curtailing their playtime before they even hit 70. I was speaking to one I'm rather close to last night and we both feel a sort of blah feeling we can't quite place our fingers on. I have RL friends I've never played with feeling precisely the same way.

And we all agree that the expansion pack is just so GOOD; we'll set aside whether that's good from a general game standpoint or from a MMOG standpoint as it's irrelevant. In the context of this particular game it's staggeringly good.

As I said, I can't quite place why I feel that way. Everytime I do something lately I guess the shallowness of the whole thing is starting to peak through a little bit. I craft (STILL without a way to organize my recipes the way I want to) and I think how much better EQ2 did it. I arena pvp and I think how much better the mechanics for GW's arenas are and how completely pointless from a metagame standpoint it is. They made the itemization curve so gentle that Karazhan drops are actually DOWNGRADES to alot of folks; even if they were upgrades with a few extra points here or there itemization went from boring to super duper boring (thesaurus fails me).

Maybe sitting at 60 for two years doing the same thing shut all of our brains off. Maybe by the fiftieth MC raid we'd all put so much time in that we couldn't go back. With a new horizon, with everyone ostensibly on the same playing field again, the cracks started to appear, that little bit of self loathing with the realization that you'd spent so many man hours on a game ("It's a game, not a lifestyle. We play so much some weeks it's easy to forget that. Human nature... we're fundamentally broken," I said to a friend frustrated with one of the worst priests I've ever seen healing.) started to creep in.

Help me out here. I can't make this materialize for me but I know I'm not alone. I've gone from love affair to thinking even a new flavor of diku would be nice in about a week.

Interesting.

My guild is behaving the opposite in a way - at the moment.  The guys who seem to have time to play every day - all day - are now idling waiting for the rest of us since they are struggling to find the needed classes to finish their next keying objective.  When they look at our guild, they get frustrated at seeing how long it will be before we can field a 25 man of properly keyed 70s for regular raiding.  So.. some have left because of this.

It took 2 years (?) to bring us this expansion.  It can easily be at least a year before this game sees any signficant new content again.  My impression is that folks have just burnt themselves out plowing into it - and feel frustrated at the staggered rate of progression of their guild mates.

For myself and my friends it is all about heroic 5 mans.  If those runs are challenging and offer some genuine loot - fantastic.  If the heroic 5 mans are "meh" - we might stop playing.

I know exactly what you mean, Angel, because that's exactly how I've been feeling.  I can't explain it any more than you can.  Last night I ran Old Hillsbrad for the first time and though it was stunningly good, engaging and fun (with some nice warrior drops, yay), I still found myself unexcited by the whole thing.

I thought, however, that it was just me.

I resubscribed, took a draenei and blood elf to 20, then logged on to my 60 priest to check out the new areas.  Felt really self-conscious being the only player on the server still wearing that stupid glowing staff above my head.  Spent about an hour or so riding around the first outlands zone, then logged off, and I haven't logged on since.

For me it's a combination of things:

- I'm not in a guild that I like, and all my old in-game friends are off on other servers and stuff.
- I don't want to do the whole grinding for faction, keying up, and pursuing tier x pieces all over again.
- I'd probably find it more fun to start over from scratch, play a new class, find a new guild, but having to hit the mid-level zones all over again turns me off.

I figure, I'm going to wait until Blizzard opens up a new RP server, and start over on it, see how it goes.  Although, with several servers still labelled as New, and several others remaining at Low population even after transfers, I'm not sure they'll open another set of servers any time soon.

Thinking about this again - I was very disappointed in a fundamental design decision in BC:

I had hoped that their would be upgrade paths for hte existing armor sets we had assembled on our characters (e.g. they become socketable).  That way you don't have that feeling you are starting all over again.

It really seems a shame that the art work for the T1-T3 sets will likely not be used by the player base again.

It's fucking nuts. I keep going OOOOOO and AHHHHHH over stuff, making good progress in Karazhan and it still leaves me high and dry on some lizard brain level. I've never played anything, ever, which I really, really liked and just didn't like at the same time. It's very weird.

I'm not planning on unsubbing since I want to keep the social network alive for Warhammer and/or Conan; I really like most of my guildmates. I've generally been a two MMOG guy anyway but for my next dual sub WoW might be the secondary, less played one. I'm thinking maybe a little EQ2 for a bit since their expansion intrigues me.

I think you might find the Heroics a bit disappointing, jpark. They're generally considered to fall after karazhan in terms of progression/difficulty. While I think that's overstating it a bit I've found them to be wildly untuned for the most part. Way too hard for the reward.

A lot of the T1-T2 set graphics are recycled in endgameish drops, crafted items and quest rewards. There's a level 70 "Might" set (at least helm and shoulders, not sure which items), a level 70 "Arcanist" set (frozen shadoweave), a level 70 "Prophecy" set (primal mooncloth). There is a recolored "Netherwind" helm from the spectrecle questline in Shadowmoon; you can also get a purple "Judgement" pally helm (and some other pieces) from a boss in one of the l70 instances.

Anyway, me and my guild have been mostly enjoying the expansion so far. It has a lot of new, good content, though it's worrying that the heroic content seems unfinished, untuned and the rewards are underwhelming when compared to Karazhan (which is for all intents and purposes going to become puggable, at least for some bosses). Can't comment on the arena system yet.. as fun as it'd be to repeatedly get steamrolled by random uberguilds and/or stacked teams, I have yet to try it with my mix-match blue/green gear. :p

Also, whoever thought that farming for BOP enchants would be "fun" needs to die in a Vanguard fire. Especially if the mobs in question that drop the enchant have a longish respawn, with only 5 of them in the entire camp, and the camp itself is an aggro nightmare (not to mention the target of several quests).


-- Z.
still bitter after farming for the +40 damage enchant for 2 weeks, on-and-off... and no, it hasn't dropped yet.

Hmmm. I also agree that the expansion is outstanding. But I've also been experiencing a bit of frustration, though it's kind of my own fault. I just have too many characters and too much to do basically. First I thought I'd just rotate through my 3 60's and work a couple alts on the side. Well I soon realized that doing a boatload of quests on my Priest, then logging on my Druid and running those same quests, then logging on my Shaman and doing those same quests, was a sure way to burn out quick and get nowhere.

So I shelved my Druid for a while. Played a few different Draenei and BE alts.

Now, the thing about the new characters is that great feeling of quick progress. Plus shiny new zones. My Draenei and Blood Elves have been good times. But then I spend too much time with them. So I go play my Priest and Shaman. And it's fun, and at first there was a lot of gear upgrades. And Terrokkar and Zangarmarsh are really cool zones. But after a bit, the gear upgrades became few and far between. That level bar just moved sooo slow. And all the while I see guildies and random folks already at 70. Clearly people who have the ability to focus on just one character! Sometimes I just sit at the character select and I'm not even sure what I want to do.

So I've shelved my Shaman at 62. My Priest is halfway through 63. Blood Elf Mage is shelved at 17. Still playing 14 Blood Elf Rogue, 24 Draenei Hunter and 24 Draenei Paladin. Though the alts are fun, my Priest is starting to feel like work. Because I just want to get to 70 so I can *rest* and not feel pressure to get on with it and get some xp already. Which is not llike me, I'm usually an "enjoy the journey" type.

This is all compounded by the fact that I really don't have that much time to play. Wife/2 kids/job means I sneak an hour or two in at night when the kids go to bed. And my wife yells at me because I'm playing my game instead of sitting on the couch with her watching random TV shows.

So in a way, the game is slowly driving me crazy, even though I still love it.

I really dig the expansion pack, but it is frustrating to know that aside from a few added dungeons, this is it for more than a year.

So I can see friends and guildmates who've resurfaced, hitting 70, then disappearing once more.  Depressing to know that the same cycle is coming again.

And that may be part of it. I know what's coming in the back of my head.

I've decided that one thing is skill. Skill is the main factor in the new raid game and that's sort of what we always said we wanted. Except I'm grouping with people who can't clear the 70 bloobie dungeons and thinking, "Oh god... oh no. Not you. Not five hours of wipes becase of you."

I'm getting old. I turn 30 in a couple months (haha, old). Maybe I just can't handle other peoples' incompetence for numerous hours on end anymore.

Yeah.

"Manage your aggro, you fucking Tit, I don't care how fucking special you were when you were in a group of 40 people, you obviously know fuckall about handling a 5 man, so here's a hint, it doesn't involve using a macro to blow all your DOTS, then incinerate then death coil and then Fearing the whole fucking bunch of them because they're angry with you.  You fucking knob."

And that's just the TS conversations I can safely write down here.

Maybe you're just tired of WoW, and the expansion is still WoW.

Personally I am having a great time, but I only saw the beginning of the new areas before I switched servers/sides/classes/everything.  I am taking it slow, as always, and I find that as I get to the "new" content, it's no longer new, but all the bugs and issues have been fixed.

Also, I'm not sure why everyone is forecasting another year before any content is added.  Wasn't Dire Maul and/or MC added shortly after the original release?  I don't remember how long it was, but I don't think it was a year.

I agree with you on the models, not so much on the upgrading of T1-3 items.  The entire idea WAS to hit a 'reset' button, and force a reboot for everyone.  The game fundamentally changed.  The early levels could use some tuning for this change, but 61-70 is an entirely different game from what the last 2 years have been.

 It's also part of the burn-out that y'all are expressing here (and I've felt a touch of as well.)   Lack of 5-man skills from some player with more time than skill but were able to hide that in larger groups.   Friends who are a lot slower than you at leveling, but you didn't know that because you made friends with them at 60.  (Thus you and idiot-healer_403 are at 70 while that really good priest you know is still at 62-63 because of RL commitments. )

 You're there, ready to move on to new content but realizing that 'moving on' will likely get wiped with the next expansion, yet again.  So frustration begins to set-in.  Then angst and aggrivation at the slowness of the folks you actually want to play with while they take their time and continue to only login the 9-10 hours a week they've always done.   I've watched at least 5 guilds on my server alone splinter because of this.  Then there's the splintering that happens when the 'favored cliques' or 'A-team' start getting taken into Kharazhan and the other 3-5 70s sit on their thumbs because the only 2 healers at 70 are in the Khara group.

Honestly, I was feeling the same aggrivation until I realized that a lot of it was I'd pushed too hard.   I was way too eager to get to 'the end stuff' without realizing that, hey, what'll I do if I get there and get everything I want.   Sit on my ass doing nothing, that's what.  If I were running Kharazan with my old guild already, I'd STILL be waiting on 15 other people to get to the same level so we could do 25-man, and feeling even more frustrated about that.  Then after that  happened, what next?  Wait however long for the next new content and repeat the cycle?

So instead I took a step back from 'the push' and now I'm leveling my alts, putzing around with quests I didn't finish before I hit L70, farming a bit and waiting on the rest of the server to catch-up so I can run PUGs of some of this stuff.   I realized what I was feeling was burout from trying to 'get there' so quickly I wasn't enjoying the journey.


Yes.  Which is another reason I stepped back.  I mentioned a few of the nightmare groups I had in a guild of 'competent raiders.'  And that was the problem.. they were still in raid mindset.   At L70 on the hunter and L63 on the priest I'm still running instances with "Uber" guildmembers who can't fucking play the game, because all it ever was to them was pushing 2-3 buttons and leeching off the other 39 folks.  I'm done with that and building up a friends list of competent players once again, like I had when I was running Strath/ Scholo/ UBRS when they were 'hard.'

I must be really old. I don't want to deal with people at all for hours on end, competent or no. I solo 95% of the time, so I rarely have the angst of dealing with idiots. When dealing with people, I'd rather just socialize and RP with guildies than run dungeons.

Im having a great time with the expansion. I rerolled a BE Pally for my guild, and have got him to 65 so far. Also my old main (rogue) is at 63. I plan on pushing the pally to 70, and getting all my keys, then using the pally for PVE mostly, and probably an arena team. After that Im going to go back to my rogue and get him to 70, and just have fun running around with him ganking other level 70s and getting gear in 5 men raids, and bringing him on the occasional guild raid. Oh yeah, Grats on 70 Hat. Jayce, your lagging.  :-D

Haha, tis true.  However, I'd just like to point out that I didn't have the luxury of a 60 horde toon I could transfer :)

I'm having a blast. I've gotten my main to, um, 61. And a Draenai Shaman to 20. And my wife has leveled a Dranaei Shaman to about 10, and a Blood Elf mage to 15.

Then again, I have a lot of real life commitments-- and I'm not in any hurry. So......I enjoy what I enjoy. Admittedly, if I only have a little time I log in my main and go drop bombs in Outland. Too fun.

It's so bad - ironically - I don't group with guildees.  PUG guys - I can lay down the law - and remove from group as needed.  Can't do that to a guildee without much drama.  So - it sucks - my solution - I stick to non guildees - who I can boot from group.

Heh, hit L70 and promptly spent 1 hour trying to put together a decent group to get keyed.  Spent 3 hours wiping in Black Morass (hard w/ idiots) because the warlock couldnt' figure out how not to aggro mobs.

Apparently I'm notorius for kicking people out of groups who act stupid.  I've done this a couple times, someone rolls on a BoP they can't use + are generally not playing very well, I start running back to the meeting stone and kick w/out explanation.  When you've spent basically your entire WoW play time doing PuGs you learn that stupid now will be even more stupid later on when you're beating your head against the wall because you've died so many times everything is red.

So ya, hit L70 and started a new toon.  Enhancement shaman ftl.  Shadow priest ftw.  And I love me some rest experience.  L69-70 was a 6 hour level.  On a side note: L60-70 is faster than L50-60.

I think you pretty much got it for me, Morphiend. I was the first 70 in my guild and while I have plenty of other 70s I've been there for awhile. Grats me, I killed some of my enjoyment by doing it on some level.

And I rolled an enhancement shaman I intend to switch to as my main if I can get through the 40s and 50s. That's a very big if but I'm enjoying it alot so far. Mage is fun but simple so a little more complexity like playing a shaman as a GASP actual hybrid is a nice change of pace.

Wow, not for me at all. And I'm going on pure rested XP. 50-60 just kind of flew by for me, wheras I'm only 63 on my highest and it is just taking forever.

Small derail.  Absolutely - once I booted a guy - our only healer complained - so I admitted him back into the group on the condition the healer became the leader - and was responsible for leading the group.  By the end of the Baron run - the healer pretended to disband the group for the night - sent tells to everyone to stay - except the idiot.  So we finished the final boss fight without the guy in the end. 

Your summary on this is quite accurate - I lead my RL friends not because I am a good strategist - but because I can be the prick when necessary and dump people.

Back on topic - what I like about BC - is that it is making it harder for guys to have a cadre of high level, keyed alts in which they can hop to.  Fewer alts, in my opinion, fosters more of a community, since you cannot easily evade the consequences of your actions by hopping on another toon.

I have absolutely no quams about kicking someone in a group mid instance either.  Just don't be a fucktard.  I only have an hour and half a night to play, and I don't want to waste it on people like that.  Then other people in the group are always amazed.

And it is for this reason I DESPERATELY WISH FOR A 3RD PARTY SITE THAT CAN SHOW ALL THE ALTS ASSOCIATED WITH A SINGLE ACCOUNT.

After all, I don't want the toon on my ignore list - I want the account  :evil:

60-70 is not faster in terms of pure played. It seems for level 60-70 its about 6-7 hours per level, with 50-60 being 5-6 hours a level. Its not faster, just that the quality of the zones and quests are so much better the time flies by. It is nowhere near the 1-60 time some people where predicting though.

I get a little of the "meh" feeling, but that's mostly because I'm the one people rely on in the raiding alliance to make things happen. That's also sort of shitty because a lot of the people I used to raid with now aren't ready to raid yet. Then, I have to make decisions about who to shoehorn into raids based on old loyalties and the new go-getters who leveled quick and well.

I think my main feelings stem directly from that gap that will close later. Also, there's the stress of leveling early yourself and having a ton of "leeches" always trying to guilt you into helping their slow asses get to the top. That's a whole different PITA.

cOULD IT (damn caps) be a simple case of burnout?  TBC is good, but at its core is more diku WOW.  I had a nice long break over Christmas where I played very little, and due to guild drama created a new char on a different server with a different group of people.  This has resulted in everything being nice and fresh and new for me - I'm only just hitting Hellfire now, thus missing all the overcrowding etc.  I'm having a great old time right now.

But then you're missing out on the sensible older brother, because it's always the little brother playing on his account that's the retard, right ?

I'm enjoying the hell out of the expansion, but I had to take a break from my warrior (66) since I was getting burnt out on finishing out zones (which you kinda have to do to get a decent amount of rep with each area's factions...most of which have the Heroic Mode keys) and I had some really bad PUGs for Slave Pens/Underbog due to my guildies having real life stuff to do.

I'll say this: Fucking raiders have no idea how to do 5-mans anymore. I've had pugs with full groups of people in full Tier 2/3 where I was just that lag cog needed (on my mage alt, and my warrior main), and I've wiped over and over and over with them because they just have no idea how to do anything but hit the same 2 buttons over and over. Warriors who have no idea how to hold aggro on multiple targets, Warlocks who don't get that fearing is BAD in most 5-mans (and that blowing their whole DPS wad before I even get a sunder in as my War is bad), worthless arcane/fire mages who have similar DPS control problems, priests that toss me heals once every 5 minutes or go OOM because their UI consists of one gigantic flash heal button, etc. etc. It's frustrating to group with people who're like "wh-what i don't get it i have this claymore of unholy might/soulkeeper/wrath/etc why aren't i owning".

Another forum I visit started a level-locked guild sheerly for the hell of it on a PVPRP server, where there was a guild level cap so we could all instance/quest together. Some of the WoW resubbers were annoyed at having to stop and tradeskill a bit but everyone is really having a good time since we're all doing the same stuff.

I've really enjoyed the Dranei starting zone, but hitting the 20+ content was a bit like running into a brick wall. This is my first serious Alliance toon and, well, A mjority of Alliance lowbies seem to be bleeding idiots. Meanwhile at the end-game my guild has mysteriously run out of healers (well, the entire level 70 population, more like) and it's impossible to find groups for anything, so I've given up the hope of even seeing Kharazan, much as I'd like to, and I'm hoping a transfer to Mal-Ganis to hang out with Shavnir will help. If that and my Alliance foray (level to 70 with a RL friend and arena PVP) do not work out, I'm done with the expansion.

Burning Crusade is done well, but it still doesn't address any of the soul-crushing problems that lie in the domain of diku gameplay.

I'm loving the expansion.

Doing Kaz with a group of competent people has been some of the most fun I've ever had in this game.
Flying mounts are AWESOME!
The grind to 70 only took a week (I hate leveling)
Encounters are varied and fun, I know more people on my server now so I'm grouping with less randoms. I'm in a decent guild.

I think a lot of complaints people have is just that they've been playing WoW for a long time an expected the expansion to be radically different. It's not. It is without question better, but the fundamentals are still there. I don't mind this because I only resubbed late last year for the expansion  .                                                       

Run out of healers, or run out of priests?

My guild seems to be down to one priest (the class leader), and, while I haven't looked at what the paladins and druids were doing, from what I hear they can heal as well as ever, so there should be healers around...  Plus, there's supposed to be a whole wave of eager-to-be-healing shamans levelling up, no?

I've got the blahs too.  Made it to 65 and now I'm a bit frustrated because it's stunningly hard to find 5 man groups for the Zangarmarsh instances.  I want to do them before I move on. 

And my guild..my god it feels like high school it's so cliquey (sp?).  Haven't been in a guild group instancy YET.  Everyone is gonna race to 70 and ignore all this sweet content beneath it.  It's the journey not the destination!

OH well. 

Paladins.. and we have 3 mains, I think. It's not that they have actually disappeared, they are all just loldps spec and as such not ideal main healers. Our guild, however, has always been dps-heavy.

60 content practically trained people to be mindless pigeon-holed zombies, why is it now big surprise that they can't adapt? What scares me is that eventually these people will move to other games but will expect exactly same thing out of them.

I have been a bit disappointed with that also. In 60 - 70 content at least in my opinion they got the pacing exactly right. I am now levelling a paladin alt and you can easily see that 1 - 60 is not "flowing" the way 60 - 70 does. I do not want easy xp but In 1 - 60 you always seem to hit some sort of brick wall at times when you are out of quests but still to low to switch to another area. (like end 20 or end 30). The old game is also not very well tuned for people questing in groups. Me and my friend who plays a warlock are already attempting "red" quests because we have run out of other stuff to do.

It is great that you are now more flexible when choosing slots for 5-mans however. Need a tank, take a prot pala or feral, need a healer, take a holy pala or resto druid. Need dps, take anything that has skilled in the appropriate dps tree (even shadow priests). That is how it should be and now it might even work for raids.

Of course nearly all classes are whining at the moment (especially the mages) because they are no longer the unique dps/healer/tank uber-snowflake they have been before the expansion.

The 1 - 60 game could use some serious retuning and I am quite disappointed that they haven't introduced a few lower zones (< 60) and instances for all the alt players out there. Running scarlet monastery for the umpteenth time can get a bit boring.

I also agree on the 5-Man part. Most raiders simply forgot how to play competently

Maybe they just need a pseudo-ctraid mod where the group's window is replicated 8 times, and the group leader talks in raid leader colors.  Plus, you know, if you host voice comms for every 5-man you join, and take charge, it'll feel more like old times and I bet the group's performance will improve.

I really hope the heroics turn out to be better than my impression with some comments in the thread.

I have always found - along with my friends - that 5 mans are far more interesting than raiding.  In a challenging 5 man - I find you use the skills of everyone more broadly - raiding tends to focus on a few key attributes for each class.  You can recover creatively from a fuck up in a 5 man - which is a hell of a lot of fun - especially if we are drunk.  But if a raid fucks up - it's a wipe ...

There are some challenging heroics, but there are some easy ones too. Of course, this is coming from the thinking that all normal 70s a a walk in the park; people hitting easy heroics for the first time will take some adjusting.

Some heroic stuff is really great and fun, some challenging. But unfortunately they are not fully fleshed out and the loot tables are pretty up and down, and some places are only hard for the trash and thus annoying. They seem a bit rushed out and will hopefully improve in a bit.

As for the second part of your comment: no, that's entirely wrong. You fuck up in a 5 man you will at the least die, and at the most common wipe. Anyone will get 1-2 hit by most mobs except for the tank. It's all about CC, kiting, and co-ordination. You can only do this kind of stuff on the fly if you are with a regular group, are competent, and have vent. The average player will bang his head against the wall due to the unforgiving nature of some Heroics.

Raiding, and by extension some of the heroics, is hard because it has a small margin for error. You take that away and things don't become more "interesting" or subject to creativity; they become easier.

The reputation grind has sullied my fun. I hate that I need to continuously run the same dungeon not for some item or ability that will noticeably effect my gameplay but to move some shitty progress bar to 100% to gain access to Heroics. So not only do you need to have a skilled group of players to tackle heroics you need them also to be masochists that had little better to do than grind the same rep you did.

In addition, the new 10-man content has only widened the gap between the 'A' and 'B' team that most guilds have formed. As one of 8 Mages in my guild I consider myself lucky to get one 10-man invite per week. If the 'A team' didn't use all of the Warriors and Priests in short supply I suppose this wouldn't be as much of a problem. Karazhan is not hard enough to warrant nice loot (at least early one) yet too hard (and ID-bound) to tackle with an inefficient group cobbled together from whatever was available on a given night.

Most of all, I hate that months of my life were wasted on mastering raids for gear that is now completely irrelevant. It makes me wonder when my new gear I will spend months acquiring will be trivialized by yet another expansion.

Play for the sheer fun of it.  Then no time is "wasted".  If something you're doing isn't fun, don't do it.  No game is worth it.  I learned that lesson the hard way in ATitD when I refused to macro crap in order to get to "teh fun".

Maybe I play for the wrong reasons to truly have fun, but a big part of the fun for me was excelling at the game and being part of the top percentile of players based on gear and experience. The reward for my catassery was knowing that I had fought battles and wore gear that most players of the game consider unattainable goals. There was some satisfaction in knowing that I had the best pieces of equipment possible as compensation for my obscene time investment.

I could have leveled to 60, quit playing, and come back for the expansion and be no worse off for it at this point. That frustrates me.

I'm sorry, I have a news flash for you.  One day, you will quit playing WoW, and no one will ever see or hear of that gear again.  Those months will still be wasted, no matter whether Blizzard had in fact made the very business savvy decision of restricting all expansion content to the top tier of Naxx raiders or not.

Now if you had fun and developed friendships, it won't be wasted.  If you didn't, you can get every ding grats lewt in the game and one day, when they shut the servers down (25 years from now), you won't have much left, except maybe screenshots.

Well, this knowledge of how uber you were entertained you for...  how many months?  Now it's gone, but you WERE entertained for however many months you spent raiding in that gear.

WoW gear isn't quite like an olympic or sports trophy or medal, that you can brag about forever, unfortunately.

I've played a few games with Tairnyn and I think he's just being honest here.  There is some fun to be had by being at the leading edge of any game.  Of course this gets stomped anytime a new expansion comes out.  You're not telling the guy anything he doesn't already know... I guess I wasn't either.

I'm well aware of the triviality of a database entry. But, there is a utilitarian part of me that wants to succeed at games (and most everything in life) with deadly efficiency. The same part of my brain that fires with displeasure when my morning drive takes 10 minutes longer than I had planned is also declaring that my time spent in WoW was grossly inefficient, causing me to question the utility of my time being spent in-game now.

Now that I can understand.

It almost seems like a consequenceful PvP game would be more your style. You sound a bit like a PvE version of Slayerik.

The same week the next expansion comes out.  Welcome to mudflation, newb.

Inefficient fun. Now there's a term your utitarian brain should spend a little time analyzing. Comparing your entertainment to a rush hour commute suggests that you either enjoy rush hour far too much or you are really unsuited to this type of entertainment. I know what you're saying. Let it go. You're not a unique uber-snowflake. You never were :P

Enjoy the game for the enjoyment of the game. "Success" in a MMOG is completely dependent on the providers of the MMOG and you're bound to be dissapointed. If you require this kind of "deadly efficiency" play a RL competitive sport. Then you have long term bragging rights and rules that don't change. Here you don't.

I don't find it so crazy actually.  One of the things I enjoy about any mmog is being able to find the most efficient ways to accomplish tasks.  I don't necessarily mean efficiently grinding levels, but more what tactics do I need in order to get past a presented hurdle most effectively.  It can translate to making money by efficient use of the crafting/economic sub games or getting through an instance with the least amount of downtime.  I know that inefficiency in groups makes me insane when I play games... it's one of the biggest contributors to my hatred of the raiding endgame.  Give me a group of outstanding (and efficient) friends and suddenly the raid is more enjoyable.

I left WoW months before the expac because I dislike 40 man raids, and I understand what you say, but it can't be a primary motivator. My point is that if Tairnyn is that bothered by this kind of thing then this is the wrong kind of game for him. Mudflation abounds. Success is completely discretionary at the whim of the developer. There is always a better, faster way/person/class. Playing these games with that mindset as the primary driver is a road to madness.

You're absolutely right.  I just haven't quite gotten past it.  I always start games with friends saying "just play whatever you want and we'll make it work" and end up rerolling to another class to make the group more effective.  One day I'll be able to relax and just have fun rather than turning every game into a new puzzle to solve.  I'm a researcher... I think it's deeply imbedded into my genetics.

The bolded part is the road to MMO misery.  Once I let go of that, enjoying WoW became trivial.  Log on, do what I want, log off.

Being part of the raid scene meant having a desirable class, a desirable spec, and the ability to be present from 7pm server time to 10pm server time or later.  That's a lot of demands on my fun.  But.. it was the only way to experience the top content and get the best gear.  I don't know now why I considered that so goddamned important. 

I've been enjoying BC a lot.  This may be odd for some considering the following: my friends quit WoW pre-BC, I have only been in one dungeon in BC and it was a PUG (hell, I've only been in a group of 5 maybe 2 other times), I still haven't SEEN two world zones in Outland, I have a shaman I've parked at level 69 for the past week, am in the most casual guild I've ever been in (fuck, sometimes no one even speaks in guild chat), have gone back to getting my druid up to 60,  and haven't replaced one piece of my TS set for healing. 

However, I'm playing the classes I want and in the fashion I want to.  I've played healer exactly TWICE in BC over 9 levels while having a heal button sitting nicely in the middle of my UI.  Hell, the only other time I've had this much fun in WoW was leveling with my friends and doing 5 man instances as a 3 man team (that only lasted for so long..).

I'll get bored and quit when the game leaves me no other choice but to do things I do not want to do; once all advancement avenues are closed except those that require me alter the way I fundamentally play the game.

I know you're right Rasix, yet I'm compelled to stay on the same broken path.  I think that MMOG's just appeal to the obsessive-compulsive recesses of my brain and I'm unable to get past that.  I need an MMOG Epiphany... though Schild keeps telling me that the only way to find it is to quit playing MMOGs. 

Maybe he's right. 

And give thanks to whatever god you beleive in that the NGE/CU/ABCD did not happen to WoW.

SOE: "We've altered the agreement.  Pray we do not alter it any more".

Compared to that, more shiney is looking pretty good.

My sentiments exactly. I know that it's wrong to play a game focused almost entirely on progression but no matter how many times I tell myself that I still get whisked away by the potential for 'mastery' that every game presents. More often than not I grow to loathe a game before I finally drop the habit. I think of it as a character flaw that plagues my enjoyment but I'm going to shift the blame to genetics and go with Nebu's 'obsessive-compulsive recesses'.

This doesn't explain why you don't like TBC though. All that would imply is that you continue your behavior here, not be upset about the past.

The problem probably stems form a competitive urge and an awareness that you are no longer the best/never were, not compulsive behavior.

I'm somewhat compulsive, and very competitive. But all TBC has done for me is made me want to be in the first group/guild to clear Kaz, kill Gruul, get to Serpentshrine, etc. It hasn't made me care about the past.

Maybe you're just tired of the game and don't really want to play it anymore and reach those targets, and are annoyed you didn't have more time to sit back and rest on your laurels.

But that's just life, buddy.

I played WoW to achieve after the questing to 60 was over. It wasn't to beat somebody else, but to reach the pinacle. Once you reach the pinacle it's over and that's when a singleplayer game dies until you possibly revisit it later. In a Diku MMO they don't die, the pinacle is just moved so you have something to achieve again. But through the whole process every pinacle you reached earned you a step-up on the next pinacle. Your time was never wasted because it's still there. But BC is a complete reset. NOTHING you did really matters anymore. That's why I cbf'd rejoining even though I am tempted to try out the new content. BC broke the illusion that what I was doing "mattered" in the gamespace, that it had a semi-persistance. I was never under the illusion that what I did had a global relevance, or that the time wasn't just being "wasted" on pure recreation that would help me in nothing else. But it did feel like it mattered within the game, and that gave it meaning for as long as I decided to play.

Maybe that's part of why some people are feeling empty? That they realise subconsciously that BC destroyed that illusion for them. That now everything they "achieve" has lost that extra meat it once had.

EDIT: Also when I went on a few months break from WoW to focus more on work and returned I was... dismayed to see that a good portion of the server had gear like mine. They didn't deserve to have the same gear level as me. They weren't anywhere near as skilled as me. They didn't play the hours I used to. They didn't farm pots like I did. They didn't know their class as well as I did. Etc. And yes I really did feel that way. I realised that a part of me felt that higher gear than everyone else was my right as a far superior player, and that the gear I wore was a mark of my excellence. That's part of why I put down the virtual pipe and haven't gone back.

No, that's not a reason. People who like to achieve like to achieve for it's own sake.

People who are going "aww this sucks" are those that liked to ride on the coat-tails of their guild reputation and can't be fucked putting in the effort to get it up there again. You probably enjoyed the game from the position you felt you had within the game world, and that position no longer exists.

I feel no sympathy, if you felt special because you had done content no one else had done before then you hold the same position in my eyes as the guy who feels special because he owns a flash car.

I'll give respect to those who enjoy doing things for the sake of them, and those that have success because they put in the effort and have the skills. I respect the effort and the skill, and most other people do. TBC is a whole new area to demonstrate that skill and earn that respect. Expecting anything simply from results - that seems to be your problem with the way you face the game.

Summary: Too material. Learn to enjoy things for their sake, even in competition, instead of results and maybe you'll get more out of TBC/your past experiences.


You snooze, you lose.

If you are a superior player your "right" is getting that gear faster. Not getting it ever.

Given that I only started playing WoW again last year after over a year w/o it I was stuck with people who weren't that competent or hardcore and getting annoyed (because nothing was a challenge and there was nothing else to do). I got myself to a gear level to do BWL pretty quickly and could have gotten to a higher guild, but instead waited for TBC. With TBC a lot of the disparity that came form time playing the game, and not skill, was removed, and I have been able to play at a position in the game I enjoy.

I always considered myself an excellent player, and never felt that excellence was judged by my gear. My excellence is judged by being able to play the game better than   other people. My view of myself isn't any different now that I am one of the "top" players on the server as when I was one of the normal masses. The only different thing is now I'm playing with people I feel are as competent as myself, doing content I want to do.

I don't care about what my gear says about me, I care about what I think about myself and being able to enjoy the game.

The EDIT part was my dirty little secret, the part above it was not. It wasn't about other people. I get pissed off at singleplayer games that take away all my weapons and ammo because I got thrown in prison or some other deus ex machina to reset the game (ironically Deus Ex almost does this, but you get your stuff back shortly after). If the game is a permanent reset I can respect that. I don't bemoan CS for the fact that my money from last round is no longer relevant because that's the game. But when the game has a permanence, or illusion of permanence I don't like that permanence being reset in an arbitrary fashion. I've spent the game not using my sniper ammo for use later, or I've saved my lockpicks for locks that really matter, etc. I've played under the assumption that what I have is relevant or "important" and the reset messes with that. And I'm saying maybe that's what people are feeling, that the game broke the rules and now the permanence is gone. If not hey, whatever, it's just one possibility.



Also on the subject of coasting, I've never been in a guild that wasn't either the best or second best guild on the server (been on 3 servers). I've also always been an officer either from the beginning or with time. I've always been part of the strats, and I'm always one of the biggest contributer of consumables. I hardly ever am the one who lets the team down in execution, so much so that there were running jokes all the way into Naxx of the time I died to deep breath on Onyxia. I don't coast. I didn't do it because I felt it was necessary or cause I was sucking on the tit of phat purples, it's just in my nature to want to do what is necessary to succeed (in games). I also never felt, at the time, that what I was getting was my right and due, it was only after I was wearing what the average raiders were wearing that I felt that way, and I quit shortly after. Part of the reason I quit was BECAUSE I felt that way. I'm not trying to exault that feeling or say it's right, I'm saying the exact opposite, so there's no need to shoot me down over it.

Wasn't trying to shoot you down. Was just trying to shoot others down who felt the way you used to and havn't yet realised it's a stupid way to feel.

Ok. Now I'm glad I was aggressive rather than abusive in my reply. :P

Calantus, you do realize that I patterned Killbotx after people like you, right? You're an ass when you actually speak out loud. Rethink that decision.

I hit 60 and didn't like the raiding game so I quit for a year too. The fact that I'd be able to upgrade my equipment and be on par with the people who spent that year endlessly keying themselves up and raiding for better equipment was a major factor in my decision to resubscribe. I can see how it'd be annoying for you but I think Blizzard made a good decision.

It'd probably be a good idea for Blizzard to give people a way to show off their uberness though even after their equipment has been superseded. They should think about putting in Vet rewards so that long time subscribers could show off some unique and impressive pet or mount.

This is all interesting, but it's not the reason for me.  I was never hardcore.  I never liked 40 man raiding.  I have always been casual.  I should be enjoying the merciless fuck out of BC as suddenly I AM totally rubbing it in the faces of complete cockholes that spent the last year /flexing at the Bank.  Heh.  Fuck them.  And fuck anyone here who fits that description.  You got owned hard and you're not even learning the fucking beaten wife lesson.  Rushing to 70, rushing to Heroic, rushing to the purples, AGAIN.  It's all complete and utter fucking nonsense.  Two of the TOTAL LUNATIC HARDCORE in my Guild (and RP Guild whose members are free to go and joinup with raid forces) have since quit, quoting RL issues.  But it's not RL issues.  It's a complete and utter inability to deal with the fact that the complete Purple Naxx Gear they have means precisely Dick and that they've spent the last year pretty much wasting their lives.  They didn't enjoy the raiding, though they said they did, they just did it to be the bestest.

But all that's an aside for me.  I don't know why I'm not enjoying it as much as I should.  I think perhaps I have the Opposite problem.  Perhaps it's because suddenly I am 'The Guy'.  I'm a really good 5-man trained tank who finds himself now in comparative gear and MUCH in demand for runs.  So much so that I have said to the Guild and my friends that I'll tell them when I can make it, not the other way around :  Elena comes first.

I dunno.

But it's interesting to read.  I wonder if Blizzard is seeing a similar phenomenon ?

Well said. People achieved a lot of things in a lot of time spent in WoW between December 2004 and January 2007, and TBC has erased all evidence of it.

I've never seen an expansion in any MMOG do this so ruthlessly. Even the factions/reputations are different in TBC, decent resist gear is easier to obtain, etc. Veterans are actually disadvantaged - we've got Onyxia keys, Eternal Quintessence, etc, all uselessly taking up bank slots that are free for people who simply quit at 60 and returned for TBC.


Exactly. There needs to be something that permanently indicates "this person has defeated MC, BWL, AQ40, Naxx". Or as a side-effect like "this person is exalted with Hydraxian Waterlords", etc. Mudflation is going to happen, but why should it overwrite history?

I agree this is something that would ameliorate a great amount of the whining that goes on over this subject. I wouldn't mind it either.

This is the best part of being level 70 in my opinion. Having upgraded all my pretty-shitty gear to BC blues I have a great deal more stamina than those who are clinging to their tier2 or tier3, and it makes my heart smile when I can PVP them into the ground due to my amazing survivability.

Why though? EQ1 never had anything to say that "this person is Max Ally with Thurgadin". I see no reason to reward faction/rep grinds with a dick-measuring token. Even the decorative range-slot shields that you got in PoP were only given for the Elemental planes and then Time, and the people with their raptor mounts from ZG still have them.

I mean, if people were that uber, why would they need a visible medal for their own self-worth? Still got your orange weapon? Still got your Benediction? There's your "I was uber before BC broke my life" dick-waving tool right there. Pull it out at parties and impress all the girls.

On Faction Grinds :  My mate who started a BE Pally is already Revered with the 'Starting Towns'.

As a level 68 old skool dude, I'm just at the top end of Honored.  Apparently they changed the rep rate for the old Factions and yet didn't give us some 'compensation' (sorry, can't remember the exact word I'm looking for) to bring us in line. 


Bear in mind, considering my rant above, I don't really care all that much.  But these things apparently matter for Mounts and whatnot.

Um, except that's just showing off your 1950's Classic Bentley when someone is driving around in KITT.

Thats excatly what I did. I feel your pain, but its self-inflicted. You should have played the raidgame because you liked it, not for some rewards that would be invalidated in the future anyway. The enjoyment of the process it the only thing that will last in a MMO.

My orange weapon is rotting on a warrior I may never play again.  Meanwhile my new main is a 33 mage on the opposite faction, currently carrying the arcanist dagger from the ghostlands and a robe I got off a murloc.  I guess that shows what I care about uber loot.

No not really. I only ever raided because it was what was there. I've never thought of them as an indication of skill or a mark of prestige. I raided for gear, but I did so for myself. Just like in a singleplayer game I'll min-max my character(s) to excess and get the best items for them. There's nobody to impress there, so why do I do it? Could it be because it's simply somethig I enjoy? I replayed fallout 2 last week and I found it mentally impossible to not take the gifted trait because OMG MY STATS LOOK SHIT IF I DON'T TAKE IT. That's just how I play games, and it has nothing to do with bragging or elitism. I never bragged about my gear except amongst friends in the way friends brag about anything. I also prefer 5mans and less to raiding, oh and PVP also. I didn't look down on casuals, ever, I looked down on shitty raiders. The casuals never got to my level of gear because I was wearing BWL/AQ40 gear.

I also quit when I realised I had begun to think like an elitist raider (actually I'd say I was more like the whiny casuals who bemoan that shitty players are getting better gear just because they have more time... oh wait, that's exactly what I was doing!). I never got around to, you know, actually looking down on people and calling them losers. That's the line between regular people and assholes: assholes say and do the things everyone else is too nice to do.

EDIT: Also, damn man, I don't want this to be some huge derail. Angel was wondering why he wasn't feeling BC and I wrote down why I wasn't feeling it incase it would be helpful. That. Is. All. My. First. Post. Was. About. I wasn't bashing casuals or bitching about Blizz "giving in to the casual losers" or whatever else the retards on WoW R&D are saying these days.

EDIT2: In the spirit of not wanting this to go on forever, where I say "whiny casuals" above I am not implying casuals are whiners, I'm specifically referring to the whiny subsect of casuals who bitch constantly in WoW R&D.

What's WoW R&D ?

Allow me to welcome you to hell.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=11126&sid=1 (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=11126&sid=1)

R&D, I believe, is this particular hive of scum and villainy (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?sid=1&forumId=11126).
Anyway, I'm amused at the number of uber raiders with bwl and aq40+ gear being unable to get past black morass. [now granted, these are pugs, but still...]


Edit: blah, beaten to it. :p


-- Z.

Its where dreams of leetness go to die in a whiny swan song of despair.

I won't link to it, thats against the Geneva convention.

Oh Good Gods.  It's the Wellspring of Lern2Play Techologies.

Anyway...  I do not want to waste board space by rehashing what has already been said before, but here are some of my thoughts.

I did enjoy the expansion quite a bit.  The dungeons were new and refreshing, the additional factions gave me something to play towards and the push away from forty man raids was a nice break.  I played the five man dungeons to death.

But, as soon as I did my first Kar run, I realized that this expansion was not for me. 

What has really turned me off is the fact that there is no new loot for me to aspire to at this point in the game.

As I looked to the tier four and five sets I was taken aback by the fact that they were not really upgrades from my tier3 loot.  My level 70 pvp crossbow is actually a step down from my bwl crossbow.  Sure, I did get some nice rings, a trinket and a cloak, but there are no armour/weapon upgrades for me.  (Plus, that tier 5 hunter set looks god awful.)

WoW is no longer a game I will subscribe to, but I will be back for the next expansion.

I'm pissed at the game at the moment because I feel like I've hit a wall. My old BWL/MC/whatever gear getting knocked out doesn't bother me, because it was always boring as shit to farm for things for me. I liked new boss fights and new challenges. I DON'T like grinding through trash four times in an evening to get shots on a boss, which is why Karazhan is pissing me off.

Note to Blizzard, high respawn rates don't make a place harder, they make it really really annoying. You put in 2 hour respawns in five mans, and 30 minutes in Karazhan? Were you high? Stop it.

I was going to agree in the other thread but it seemed more appropriate in this one.

You would have thought that they learned their lesson with ZG.  They toned down the amount of trash there and it really brought up the quality of the instance.  A lot of people really appreciate Ony because there are grand total of two trash mobs.

The lesson should be that trash is TEH BAD except when it has a specific purpose besides pissing off the playerbase.

So far I'm really liking the hell out of the expansion. My guild is very casual, not uber at all. We can beat ZG on a good day. We can clear most of AQ20. The farthest we ever made it in MC was Geddon. My warrior's gear was a mixture of T0, T0.5, and random other stuff. He was about the 4th best geared warrior in the guild. We had one warrior that transferred onto our server from another that was deck out in mostly T2. At the end of last year, the top 2 warriors stopped playing but said they'd probably be back for the expansion. While I wish I could have gotten better gear, I'm content with what I got.

Enter the expansion. The other top warrior still playing doesn't have as much time I do to play. Next thing I know, I'm the top warrior in the guild. I'm getting some pretty incredible gear from drops and quests. Every time I log in, within 15 minutes one of the hunters (for some reason its always a hunter) asks if I want to run something. I'm now level 70, just finished clearing the soloable quests in Netherstorm and haven't even touched SMV. I've seen the inside of all the 5 mans, currently working on the Karazhan key. I'm having a blast in the expansion and I know half of it is because of the new stuff and the other half is because I'm playing with a group of people that are just having a bunch of fun.

Although to be honest, I still want to go back and hit the old world dungeons. I've seen half of MC and none of BWL, AQ40, or Naxx. I know we'll completely overwhelm most of the trash and none of the gear will probably be worth anything to me, but I still want to see all that. I want to kick Onyxia's ass. I want to stick Nef's head on stick. I want to screw up on C'thun and get the whole raid wiped. That's a ton of content that I still want to see from the old world plus all the new BC content.

Don't get me wrong, I love the trash in Karazhan. It's well done, mildly tough, and spaced out so that I'm not pulling down the house on the group constantly when something walks by. What I hate is fighting is again and again and again every half hour because we wiped twice on Moroes and our SS was down.

Blizzard can keep as many mobs as they have in there as long as they tone down the respawn timer, and we'd be fine. Or they could take about 1/3 of the mobs out of there and keep the timer the way it is. Either way, we'd be better off.

It's always a hunter because we don't get fucking groups if we're not the ones starting them.  The combo of the current 'conventional wisdom' that our DPS is shit, the number of hunters out there and the old adages that hunters are ninja lootwhores who wipe groups,  we get the short end on the instancing stick a lot.

All some very good posts and so much of what's said touches on why I'm feeling burned out. I can't point to a "main" reason because it's bits and pieces from everyone's experiences.

I've never been bleeding edge content and am in a casual raiding group. We got to Chromaggus in BWL after an inordinate amount of time, cleared MC/AQ20/ZG. We have about half of Karazhan down. But it really struck me in a conversation with an ex-officer the other day over email: there's no room for a sort of raiding guild in this game. I'd argue that there's less place for us than there is for a guild that's content with BRD 2.0 for the next year.

I can sniff the top of the game but I'll never reach it. At some point you're either nice or good in this game (except for a few very special exceptions) and we'd rather be nice. So the thought of topping out in another three or four months only to farm stuff for another year every weekend is lurking just over the horizon and I don't think I want to do it.

I could be surprised. I could change my mind. Right now, though, I'm looking at staying subbed for another couple months and then giving something else a try, I think. Maybe a little casual EQ2 for a new flavor of diku, maybe through myself back into musty historical simulations, maybe rediscover shooters... fuck, maybe random arenas with my friends in GW. Just... not this. Not farming MC again.

And I understand where Calantus is coming from. For good or ill (mostly ill) this game played a large part in my life. The expansion and the soft reset broke the reverie. That's a GOOD thing. I can play EU3 more often.

No fucking kidding. Another hunter and I duo a lot, and groups were a bitch to get together until the guild got to know us. Steady and high DPS, good pet control (we were quick to offtank adds and save squishies), and decent CC with traps.

All we lacked was AoE, although we managed that at times.

Funnest run I can remember was a live Strat run where we had two hunters, a warrior, and a priest. The warrior was tanking the end boss and got MC'd -- our pets took up the slack, and we burned him down so fast he never got off his final transform. This was before we had T1 gear -- we were rolling in bits of T0.

I've had about 10 hunters in and out of my old raiding group, and they all had one thing is common (except one), MAJOR personality flaws. One out of ten actually spoke about the raid on topic, didn't banter about uselessly, didn't bitch about raid slots, or didn't say obsene crap that offended me or the raid. So, in my experience, 10% of the hunters were people I could actually handle in the long run. That's not to say it's standard everywhere, or that they couldn't play their class, which they did quit well. It just seems that it's one of those class types that attracts social rejects quite frequently. I pretty much write off anyone now who is a Night Elf hunter as an idiot until they prove otherwise.

For me it was never about utility, it was not wanting to deal with their shit.

Having recently switched from a Tauren hunter to a Gnome warrior - that ol cliche seems to be very true.  And night elf rogues too, come to think of it.  It seems like the combination of Legolazz + Mad DPS! = fucktard in the vast majority of cases.  I've also come to find the same thing with Dwarf Paladins - dunno why - but they all seem to be 14 year old lootwhores.

After 2+ years as Horde, it still feels weird grouping with Paladins.  Still, at least I don't have to worry about the hordes of belfs - I can just imagine what angsty emo FOTM elves are like to group with...

Interesting hunter-quasi-on-topic-aside: there's a thread on general forums the other day (yes, I know, I should know better) on someone telling people to stop yelling "HEAL ME", when they apparently thing the healer isn't paying them enough attention.  I offered up my usual solution, say the following "Ask for a heal, and you'll get a rez." 

Some random hunter replied with "Enjoy your misdirection".  Heh, I wanted to point out to him that a hunter doing that would get booted in a second or enjoy being screamed at by his group as I port out and leave them scraping for a healer.  Of course, there's the possibility that he'd never do something like this, while I enjoy watching a rogue eat dirt after pleading to me for his life  :evil: Maybe I should just install the Sympathy addon.

Heh, but that's (the "heal me" crap) a whole other sidebar.  Don't necessarily want to derail this down that path.

Note: I actually like hunters and like having them in my groups.  They make instances easier even if their DPS isn't quite as impressive anymore.

In games where people would cry for heals, we'd often make our counterpoint by having the healers yell at the melee classes to "Hit the mob" or to casters to "Cast a spell".  I think they got the point that healers know when to heal and when they don't they often have a good reason why they didn't.

About the only time I ask for heals is for my pet -- you'd think the priest I just yanked a mob off (because of adds, or because the fucking warrior wasn't doing his job) with my pet would realize that all that's standing between him and the coveted #1 spot on the hate list is my pet would at least toss a heal that way.

Got past that when I joined a guilt -- if our pets have off tanking duty, a healer is generally tasked to handle them. About the only problem I had after that was one pull in MC -- none of the Hunters (at the time) could take the DoT damage that got inflicted on the pull. The people assigned to keep the tanks up took several tries before they realized it was good to go ahead and whip those damn DoTs off the pullers.

All we frankly needed was a single cleanse -- we could pot, bandage, and HS through the rest. (It was easier to bubble, cleanse us after the DoT's took, and throw a HoT on us as the tanks too aggro -- ended up being an easy fight once all the hunters stopped dying on the pull. And the tanks learned to pull the priests to the right spot).

I wonder if life on an RP server is different, though -- I only played with a pair of Nelf Hunters (both guildies in a guild that catered to older folks) and they were just fine. I did get the occasional idjit spamming LFG who wanted DPS, and didn't think Hunters offered it...

I spent a few weeks leveling on an RP server... not because I like to RP, but I like to get away from all the kiddies and guys with names like Xxmasterslayahxx.  I think only like 10% of the server population even knew what the "RP" stood for.   

Good Guild > All. The usual story, I guess.

Good people make the game in MMO's.  Sadly, my willingness to meet new people in MMO's has all but vanished and none of my old gaming friends play WoW.

I started on the Earthen Ring RP server at launch (also to avoid idiots, not to RP) and there was some role playing going on, now almost two years later there isn't even the slightest pretense of RP anywhere, the RPers seem to have given up and only do it in their guilds I assume.  They used to always talk with ((ooc comments in these double brackets)) and I have yet to see anyone do that.  The only reminder I have that I'm on an RP server is the whining about name violations.

I think "RP" tends to mean more "Less idiots" these days. Or at least, the fond hopes for less idiots. I see a lot more Role-playing type events on Argent Dawn -- parades, Guild Events, and the usual -- that I did on PvE servers.

On the other hand -- still lots of jokey names and no real RP, but eh, can't have everything. I actually got into my current guild because a friend's guild (the reason I rolled on that server) didn't take Warlocks for RP reasons, and my wife's main was a Warlock. She suggested my current Guild, which I'm very fond of.

Actually it's because most hunters cannot play their class for shit. A decent hunter will always get group invites, especialy for heroics! I'm not babysitting any random hunters who do 1/4 of my DPS though.

A hunter who can use all their skills properly and do decent DPS is alwesome. A hunter who can't is worse than 4-manning it (Yeah, pull aggro then FD it on to the casters/healer! Break your own trap with autoshot! Don't Retrap! Don't learn how to kite!)

The problem with RP servers is players get funneled to them when new just like any other server.  Kirin Tor was "new" for like five months.  Even my RP guild barely does these days (and what they do is so bad I want to gag).  I pretty much gave up.

I really wish some of the specialty servers were hidden a few links down so only those of us who want to be on one are going to drill down far enough to find them.  I know it's elitist, but RP is dead with what we've been given.

Yeah, that's right. (You) got your pre-BC uber items back before BC. Whatthefuckdo(you)want?

They were talking about wanting dick-measuring devices to show off the fact that they previously had the game's largest e-peens since their previous raid catassery means nothing now. They got their Bentleys back in the 1950's. If people are driving KITT now, then catass your way back to Mr Hasselhoff and get one of that's what you want to wave.




Clearly then, you're not one I was speaking to. Thanks for telling us you have an orange weapon though.  :heart:



Yeah, again, I'll have to agree with Paelos. I don't like hunters in general and on principle. Despite the fact that my first character was in fact a NE hunter. Just too many-to-most of them are either fucking idiots who can't control their pets or are just fucking idiots or just can't control their pets (no, I don't want to see your fucking "Asshat tells kitty to attack a %t" macro on every fucking mob in the place). Probably if I'd had at any stage a regular or semi-regular group member who was a hunter and not a fucking waste of space I wouldn't mind them so much, but until that happens, I'll pass on hunters as often as possible unless they come with a high recommendation from someone I trust. Which is rare. No problems with their DPS or anything like that though.

NE rogues often share the same quality of personality, but at least they're less likely to wipe the group because they still don't know how to control their fucking pets.

On "Heal Me!"~

Rasix - having played a tank in EQ for years, I can tell you I rarely told a healer to "heal me" but when I did, it was usually just before I died anyway because the healer was an incompetent fucktard who was only able to get groups because they were a healer. Being EQ1, I'd then have to wait for a rez from that fucktard healer before logging off for the evening.

Nebu - sometimes the healer is just a fucktard. That applies equally for every class, and healers aren't immune at all.

I say "heal the fucking tank! keep him up" in raid sometimes - not because our healers are crappy or wern't doing that. You just get into a focus and say obvious stuff because you want to get the boss down.

Gyah, like I said, not my intention to derail down this line, but whatever.. this thread is all over the place. 

Saying "heal me" doesn't matter.  Either the healer sucks and you're going down anyways or the healer knows what he's doing and all you're doing is pissing him off.  The reasons someone isn't getting a heal can be rather complicated also.  Hell, I could need a heal.  Something could be hitting me in the face! The rogue might have been near death and you just got an odd damage spike in the meantime (this shit aint instant, I'm a shaman). 

And if you know the healer isn't up the task, you're going to know pretty early on.  Sorry, you're screwed.  No amount of "heal me" is going to mend their terrible ways.

Giving someone a helpful pointer like "be prepared to heal me after I sap this" or "there's going to be a lot of burst damage when this starts, be ready" is fine.  "Heal me" is just generic, insulting and makes you look like a paniced moron. 

I mean really, even in the example you gave it was a pointless exercise. 

Edit: Raids are different beasts all together.  I've never heard a raid tank yell "heal me". Heard plenty of "HOW THE FUCK DID THE OFFTANK DIE AGAIN, DAMN IT".

I guess my guild is blessed with pretty decent hunters then. They are the ones who are marking up targets for CC before each pull and almost always do the initial pulling. Their pet off-tanks one and they trap a second. Depending on the combination of saps, sheeps, shackles, and sleeps available, that usually leaves 1-2 for me to tank. Hell, I often tank with 2 hunters in the group. 2 peta and 2 traps mean 4 mobs out of the way. That makes the trash real easy to handle.

A properly specced BM pet can make a damn good tank -- can't stand toe-to-toe with bosses, and really suffers from AoE cleaves and the like -- but I've saved more squishies than I can count with well timed intimidates.

You actually have to do that a lot of the time anyway. Healers will often figure the tank is fine and go heal some other people or regen some mana. Which is fine, but often a few healers get that thought at the same time, which is not. "Heal the tank!" snaps them back to healing him until the next time they can't seem to land heals. It's very noticeable as a healer when it's happening too, you can just feel that suddenly not enough people are healing the tank. It does get annoying as hell when you're fighting a mob with spike damage and some non-healer raid leader will say "HEAL THE TANK ZOMG". Yeah... there's this thing called shadowburn/mortal strike/unbalancing strike/etc that does like 90% of the tank's HP and it just happened, but thanks for the heads up!

I accept "heal me" from any regular tank because they eventually learn to figure out when you're not paying attention. When I'm confident in the tank I'll sometimes slack off because healing a good warrior tanking a normal instance in great gear gets boring as crap, and so I'll be in my inventory screen or chatting away and not notice that they're in trouble so the call is useful. My brother especially when playing tank knows exactly when I'll usually wind up/land a heal and will pipe up if he's low and it hasn't happened yet. It's only randoms saying it that piss me off because I've got a reason for not healing them yet 99% of the time, and since they don't know my healing style they have no way of knowing.

I'm all for non-confrontational derails after the 1st or 2nd page. :mrgreen:

For regular 5 man stuff - what is the healing ability of a hunter like to heal his own pet?  If his mana bar is full - should the priest heal or should the hunter not assume that responsibility?

Yeah, I do actually agree with most of what you said, though as a tank I tended to use lines of "would you mind dropping a heal on me before I die?" rather than "HEAL ME WFT!!1@" though occasionally I did have to use the "heals?" or "HEAL" while hoping not to die and firing off Leechcurse and whatever else I had up my sleeve. Sometimes though, yeah a healer was just distracted by somethingorother and my prompt would net me that life-saving fast heal. In my regular group (RL mate played a cleric) my HP often went down to 20% but in those instances it didn't worry me so much because I know the guy well and I know he was just keepng himself entertained (Divine Arbitration -evens out all the groupmember's HP->World of Replenishment/etc -group heal) even so in those situations I didn't feel great about it but I knew that unless he fucked up bigtime or started going linkdead I'd be fine.

I do remember one particular raid main tank who would bitch about heals often. I think he got often got fewer heals because of the way he thought he was red hot shit and the way he treated out healers (I was a raid sub-healer with my 2-boxed druid, so I was in healer's channel too).

Hunter pet healing is shithouse, especially in-combat - its a channelled spell and heals not very much, and the fact he is channelling means he is doing 0 dps and his not-great mana regen is now hurting even more.  So while its fine as a downtime reducer between fights, its pretty crap during a fight (caveat: My hunter is only lv60, dunno what the numbers are like at 70).

I haven't done anything with a high level hunter, but my experience so far agrees with pants'.  At best a mend in combat keeps the pet alive a few more seconds and gives a real healer a bit more time to notice the tiny pet health bar is getting low.

I usually just say something along the lines of "It's getting dicey on heals, I've blown my healthstone/last stand." That usually gets attention, or directs things back on point without being a complete raging douche about it.

Regarding the RP tangent:  It's just not worth doing in WoW, regardless of the community.  It's like trying to roleplay in Diablo 2 or something.  Sure you could do it, but why would you want to?  The world consists of nothing but a million near-identical iterations of the same small handful of professional monster hunters with huge shoulder pads.

If I were walking around roleplaying in UO, and I met a wandering paladin having a confrontation with a death knight type, while one of the local bumpkin town guards watched to make sure a fight didn't start and an errant samurai walked past on his way out of town, I could tell all of them apart just by looking at their style of dress and equipment.  Even if, in reality, they were all using identical warrior templates.

I'm having fun with WoW right now, but I wouldn't bother trying to RP there unless Blizzard suddenly went batty and added a HUGE variety of fluff clothing and equipment variation.

EQ had tiered progress that roughly continued through expansions. If your guild was capable of doing Z, you had obviously equipped everyone by doing X and Y first. While that made it all catassery and grinding, it eliminated the need for "badges". Although it did have honorary titles for players who had achieved certain things.

WoW in its expansion has levelled all its old tiers, wiped the slate clean and made everyone roughly equal again, whether they played the 60 game for two years or not. TBC is entirely self-contained, where EQ expansions were not.

You could delete all your gear at 60 in WoW and still do TBC at about the same pace as someone who kept everything. If you did that in EQ, you would have to redo earlier raids to equip your character to the standard your guild required.

And thusly people that quit some time ago could jump right in without having to be dragged through old instances by their Guildbuddies. By leveling up to 70 you get the needed gear to jump right into the fray.

Sound business decision if there ever was one. Blizzard still works under the premise that people played up to now because they had fun, not because they have an obsessive-compulsive disorder and are too cheap to spring the money for a good psychiatrist!

Yeah, that's right. But why do you need an e-peen measuring device to show off that you for max rep with Hydraxian Warlords? Just like Thurg or Kael rep meant next to nothing later, besides access to a few npcs and so on, so to does your maxed Cenarion Circle rep.

You cleared MC? Big grats and big deal. So did half of the rest of the playerbase. Again, no need for an e-peen flag any more than a "we cleared Tormaxx" or "we killed Ralllos Zek" when hanging around at the Ironforge Bank/Plane of Knowledge. Your badges of former uberness are still there in your Tier whatever armour and your big pointy purple stick of former-uberness. Unless you just sharded them, but then, that's a choice you make.

I kept a bunch of my old raid shit in EQ that meant something (to me) when we did it first time around. I keep my especially cool looking weapons I pick up in WoW, hence I still ahve my souveneirs of old-timey "uberness" in EQ and my "that was fun and cool" pieces in WoW. I don't need a special medal because I maxed out some mindless rep grind though to show off to random people I'll never even group with in a PUG in Ironforge.

 

I disagree, not because it's needed (what IS?), but because it's drop dead easy to design and code, won't break any sort of balance, and it's fun.  Win/win.

Besides, like it or not, epeen waving is a big part of the endgame WoW.  It IS the endgame for a lot of people.  Let the raiders have their fun as well as the casuals.

They've not removed they e-peen waving AT ALL.  Those of you waxing towards anxiety about the BC soft-boot haven't thought things through.

EQ1 had a progression like they had because raids were either the same size, or grew in the amount of players required  Your group for Nag went on to Sebilis, then VP, then ST, then increased in size to hit the planes.  Through it all you kept the same folks (who hung arond for it) and added new ones.   Most of you seem to have quit before the FUBAR that was GoD, or have wiped it from your mind. 

 You went from a raiding guild that was required to field 72 players to take out the last boss in PoP to a HARD CAP of 40 or so in GoD.  The cries from the raiding playerbase were resounding as hardcore guilds were required to boot people out or sit them on the sidelines to get anywhere.  Masses of people quit not just because GoD was buggy (and it wasn't as buggy as most SOE expansions), but because all their friends who were on the sidelines said 'fuck this' and quit too since they couldn't advance. 

Sure they could have tried to builda new guild, but that would require running these new raiders through the lower dungeons and planes ALL OVER AGAIN.  It was far easier to walk-away than to mess with it.

Now we're seeing something similar in BC as the raids are downsizing.  The same guild break-ups are happening, but you're not seeing the masses of quitting people.  Why?  While guilds are breaking-up, there's 2-3 new guilds forming in their place and they're ALL able to run the endgame stuff.   Why?

It's simple: because now se new guilds can include those players who have started the game sometime in the last 3-6 months and WANT to raid right now, but couldn't join those raiding guilds before because they were 'full up, sorry'.  These new guilds can add them without going through all the progression bullshit that the 'hardcore' who care about it want them to.

I fully believe this 'soft reboot' was absolutly based on the above reasoning. Right now it's helped the game and made parts of it more accessible at the expense of a few people's egos.   Those of you upset about it have no idea what the future plans are for adding-in dungeons, or even what the next expansion will do.   MC gear wasn't that superior to UBRS/ Scholo gear, it took almost 2 years to hit Naxx-type stupidity.

True, but now we grind though 5 mans again for a while, then move up to 10, then move to 25. It's the same style of grind in a new package. We're doing it again as raiders, just not in Molten Snore anymore.

That said, I do enjoy the new 25 mans, and Gruul's Lair is fun even though my ass was sore when I left. 7500 fireballs??? OMG!  :evil:

I am one of the n00blers who is looking forward to raiding anything for the first time. I have never maxed out a character in any game (SB was closest), so this will be a new experience for me. I am not sure how excited i am to get yelled at for being a n00b though.

You poor bastard.

I know. I feel dirty.

It is just that SO much of my MMOG time is spent soloing that I haven't totally burned out on grouped activities. As long as they aren't PUGs.

For instance- tonight we are going to try to fun ZF...there are 3 of us, but we will likely need a couple of PUG members (if we can't find a 70 in the guild to come babysit for an hour). That will hopefully be tolerable. Daddy needs some blues for his mage!

Let's just say that I'm probably better off running up to my pet with a bandage than using the heal, and I'm currently using gear that boosts my pet heal and range. It's only good if I'm trying to keep the pet up another 5 or 6 seconds and someone else is handling DPS.

My guild's generally good about pet healing, and I'm okay with the fact that unless my pet is playing directed off-tank (as in: Group or Raid leader says "X pet is offtanking so-and-so, keep it up please) that I'm damn low on the priority list. My guild's healers are also pretty good at tossing a heal towards it at least once in the fight if it's playing "round up the adds".

If it's just doing DPS and it's health gets low, I call it back. I hear warp hunters always warp in to the back of a mob, which -- if true -- is pure awesome. There's a lot of boss fights where the safe spot is to be behind them, and it's impossible to get pets to do that reliably.

I mentioned Hydraxian Waterlords as an example, because you could only have high reputation with it if your guild had mastered MC raiding. Previously in the WoW progression, if you were doing BWL it was a sign your guild had achieved MC clearances. If you were doing AQ40 you had mastered BWL, if you were doing Naxx you had mastered AQ40.


It's not a choice for me. I play a druid and I need to maintain and bank different sets of gear (healer, cat, bear, moonkin) plus resist gear sets, plus tradeskill and quest stuff. There's no room for an old tier, it's going to get vendored. There will be no evidence of anything I ever did. Even the graphic for the epic weapon in my healing set was reused for a green quest reward in TBC.


Ironforge? No high level folks there anymore.

Anyway, If I complete the City to Surf (annual 14km fun run in Sydney) I get a certificate saying so, giving my time. It doesn't mean much to anyone that I completed it in 80 minutes in 1986, but at least I can prove it. If play in the local soccer team and we win a community tournament, it doesn't mean much to the rest of the world but we all get little trophies or certificates.

What I'm thinking is something like SWG's badge system, but without the fluff badges for meaningless crap like walking up a hill. It's like a tattoo on your character's bicep, just to show you are oldschool and something happened in WoW before January 2007. Some of these things took serious teamwork skills - getting the Razorgore thing right in BWL, for example. There is no longer a marker of anyone having done them.

That's because for the most part, nobody other than the person who did it cares. 

That's quite true -- but frankly badges are nice on a personal level. I'm a bit surprised WoW has never implemented it (it seems an easy enough feature), but perhaps they will at some point. After all, they already track which quests you've completed, which zones you've explored, etc. I suspect that if they implemented it that retroactive badging would be a bit sparse, but they could expand on it for newer areas.

Oh course, I liked badges most in SWG -- simply because prior to the level-shit, looking at someone's badges and gear was the best way to determine how good they were. (I can't count the number of TKM/Fencers who ran around with "Novice Brawler" tags). And even then, you couldn't be sure -- maybe they were changing profs.

It's not a necessary feature, it's just a nice little "I wish" sort of thing that personalizes toons and helps players form attachments to them. I'm only surprised that WoW doesn't have a version of it (other than rep tracking) simply because Blizzard is pretty spot-on in spotting simple and nice little touches like that and adding it in.

It's fitting, because that is the person who will see it the most :)

Also, it lets someone maintain the illusion to themselves that someone else cares.

I love me some distinguished combat efficiency pins in BF2142 (you get them for a 10 killstreak), and am happy anytime I get one. The funny thing? Nobody else can see how many I have. They can see I have 1 (and almost everybody has at least 1), but they can't tell more than that. Only I can see the number, but it's nice to be able to look at them and see how many I've got. I'm even max rank (which is just a function of time) so the bonus points they give are meaningless to me as well.

If WoW gave badges ala BF2142 where you get bronze, silver, and gold variants for instances I'd probably be happily plugging away forever. Bronze badge for completing the instance once. Silver for having completed it 10 times. Gold for completing it 30 times. I'd be so there. :P

Huh? "The person"? No, the people.

Given that they were 40-person raid achievements, mostly done by a guild at a time, and a vast number of people did them, I think it's far more than an individual thing. A guild cares that they did it.

I would find it useful to be able to inspect someone and see that they raided right up to AQ40 in the old days. It would give me some confidence that the player behind the character (presuming the account has not been traded) is good at teamwork.

Maybe if/when they inroduce player housing and/or guild halls, they could do it that way? Onyxia's head, Ragnaros's mace, to decorate your guild hall. Eternal quintessence to decorate your house, and so on.

They sorta did add that in BC with all the Exalted tabards. It's not a full-on badge system, but it's a nice, "hey doesn't this look sexy, ignore the fact I just grinded my eyes out in an instance."

That would actually be useful as well. You join a pug for Botanica (I did last night... ouch). Does the tank know the instance? Check out his title/badge/medal/whatever.

Except is doesn't mean any of those things. It just means they were in AQ40 at some point.

No. I didn't suggest anything that stupid.

In my MC example, the badge would be awarded based on high faction with Hydraxian Waterlords (which signifies a lot of MC time), for example when you qualify for eternal quintessence instead of aqual quintessence.

That only solves MC, but I'm sure smart minds could come up with similar types of triggers, such as possession of X pieces of tier 2 gear (BWL veteran).

Based on that system, the people most likely to flaunt their 'BWL Expert' title would be those who paid uberguilds 1k gold to get their full tier2 or tier2.5 set (and yes, there were guilds selling naxx loot pre-BC, too).


-- Z.

I don't care about useless people with badges they paid for. There aren't that many of them, and they're generally the kind of folks who are already the laughing stock of the server.

It's how you wear it. There was a guy who ninja-looted an item from my group (deliberate late need roll on an item his friend wanted). He had good equipment and when he was kicked he said "suckers, I'm in a guild that has BWL on farm". I replied "not for long" and he laughed at me. So I posted a screenshot of the incident for his guildmaster and now he can't get a guild for love or money. He still can't understand why.

Most people are not like that. If you inspect someone's badges and see a list of achievements, most of the time it's going to be a reflection of quality raiding experience.

I pretty much agree with Merusk's entire post just up the page. I'll also say I find the desire for a "I catassed MC to teh MAXtreme!!" badge a tad retarded.

- And no, I'm not calling Tale retarded, just that particular idea of only rewarding (recognising) maximum MC catassery as opposed to having just cleared the place. Yes, even despite the difference between one clear and 4,325 farm runs, as the difference in skill between the (or a) first run and going in on the 325th harvest train are very different.

You also know as well as I do that if they were to give out a "certificate" or some form or visible recognition it would take up one of your bank slots (you did get the extra bag and vault space like the rest of us, didn't you?) as much as the Harpoon of former uberness would, as opposed to being /inspectable.

Like the Valentine's day outfits, the Moon Festival outfits, the Summer festival shoulders, Christmas pets, Limited edition pets, etc, and even the various Rep tabards all do.

Anyway, with that, I'm out of this argument. I've said my piece, and it's Blizz's call in the end.

edit - some cleanup and clarification.

Coming in late to the thread - which is all over the place  - but I'm still very much enjoying TBC.  Old Hillsbrad is just awesome.

I've gotten my hunter to 70, but am still finishing quests in Shadowmoon and have to do most of the ones in Netherstorm still.  Have to do BM again for the last part of my Kara key (not looking forward to that, I hated that instance).  Working on rep, but in a non-hurried kind of way.  Working on gold, so I can get my fast mount - so far I have a net loss though, due to having crafting alts and buying  a lot of recipes.

I have a 375 jewelcrafter (my lock, lvl 61) and a 370 tailor (my priest, lvl 60).  Some day I'll level those too.  Mostly those hang out in the Exodar, because it's the only city where I can avoid random beggars and people wanting me to run them through VC.

Due to lifestyle, I'm not able to instance much at all - limited to weekends, pretty much, and being a hunter, I try to avoid pugs as much as I can.  Which is easy, being a hunter.  (Oh and being a nightelf to boot, fuck you all).

My guildies are mostly all further along rep-wise, key-wise, heroic-wise and all that.  I don't know that they are enjoying the game as much, though - they seem pretty driven and downright grim sometimes.

I'm kind of baffled that a month into the expansion, people are losing happiness.  It's been one month, that's all.  Maybe a little more balance in life is needed?  Maybe you're playing too much and still feeling left behind?  Maybe people need to relax and not try to do it all in a month or two.  Or maybe it's time to take a break.

I haven't even gotten to fish as much as I'd like.  There's so much to do that I haven't done, and I'm still looking forward to it.

I think this statement encapsulates it for me. Everytime I get worried that I'm not as uber as I should be, and don't have enough time to play with family and work commitments, I remember that I'm one of the lucky ones :)

Moving at a snail's pace - my RL friends and I are almost at a point where we can all start keying together.

What can we look forward to so far as good 5 man instances?  We loved Dire Maul.  The Baron runs were also good fun and quick.  What 5 man instances do you guys see as comparable or that you really enjoy?

Pretty much Ramparts and Blood Furnace are easy and quick. Slave pens is pretty solid too once you figure out the layout and what trash you can bypass. Underbog sucks because it's long and you'll generally only want to run it a couple of times since the loot tables are pretty bleh. Sethekk halls is very fast and a good time, and I liked Steamvaults even though what you want never seems to drop off the last boss, so you have to do the worthless bosses again and again.

Pretty much anything in Tempest Keep is rough. Mechanar is short but challenging, and I like that one. The Botanica is a freaking pain in the ass and probably the worst designed 5 man in the expansion. There are 5 bosses instead of the normal 3, it's horribly long, there is trash everywhere, and on top of that most people will end up only wanting the loot that drops off that 5th boss way the hell at the end. The Arcatraz is alright, but the last boss is ridiculously overpowered compared to the rest of the place. I never understood what the hell they were thinking on that dude.

I guess its the same Alliance side, but you're not quite as 'connected' to Thrall Jr. As a hordie, seeing Thrall clock the guard has me /cheering every time. The "Let's ride!" after he takes the horse from the defeated chap at the gate makes me want to play some cheesy 80s hair metal over Ventrilo. Fortunately I don't have any to hand.


For me its the realization that I'm in a raiding guild that's becoming more hardcore by the week, and that with the number of hunters we have with extreme attendance, I'm not doing anything especially useful by playing one. Also a hunter has gone from being a somewhat boring PvE class that's a hoot to play in PvP to being mind-numbing to play in a raid and somewhat under-armed in a knife fight. Can I be arsed to level another class up to 70 and gain the rep & gear? Probably, but the option isn't available to me in my current guild, so I'd have to find a new home. With so many wankers out there, that's a big chore in itself.

All the the 5 mans are fun to me (but I'm a small group/raid person).  The easiest I'd say is ramparts/slavepens.  We haven't really found any (regular) mode instance to be hard--so try them all and see what happens!

Heroic dungeon setting is another beast altogether.  The non level 70 dungeons in heroic mode, the trash was more of a pita than the bosses.  Shattered Hand heroic mode to finish my hyjal key I've yet to finish on time (you need to finish the gauntlet after the first boss in 55 minutes to get quest credit).

Also, as an answer to a post 2 above, botanica you can skip 2 bosses to get to the last one with careful dodging.  Mechanar's last boss is a mush of some of the mobs/bosses abilities from AQ and bwl.

Dotter, do you play a Warlock ?

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Nope, undead priest since day 1 :D