Is the PVE game dying?

[ShenMolo]

While the US forums are down I went over to the Europe Forums and found this interesting thread.

He makes a pretty good case for how Arenas/PvP Gear is killing the endgame by removing the reasons for raiding (making top gear easier to acquire).

I personally haven't seen a situation where top endgame guilds are having trouble keeping their ranks filled, but it sounds like it is happening on this guy's server.

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=1381078730&sid=1

PvP is skill, PvE is lol scripted stupid mobs
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=1295819659&sid=1&pageNo=10

The "scripted" encounters are as random as what you find in arena:

Warrior - resto druid.
Warlock - resto druid.
Warlock - shadow priest.

Rinse and repeat, this is the fantasious and diverse arena scenario.

Well, in 3v3 it's warlock + priest + healer, so much different, yeah!

In 5v5 it's warrior, shaman, pally, priest + random. Here, we found the "you never meet the same combinations"

I find more diversity at doing Archimonde than at doing 2v2 and 5v5 (played 3v3 too little to make myself an idea).


Enjoy raiding for what it is, get over it and go kill bosses. PvE is fun
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=1380898258&postId=13807241335&sid=1#35

Enjoy raiding has a steep price. In arena "terms", an identical PvE experience would mean:

- Place NPC near the arena NPC
- Put options in that NPC like the arena NPC options: you choose your preferred instance, no attunements asked.
- Then you select the exact boss you want to do, skipping the others and the lower instances
- You are instantly teleported inside the raid instance, before the boss, no booooring trash to kill first.
- You are handed free mana when buffing, you are handed flasks and consummables for free of course
- You failed. You get 300 "PvE points" for that week. No repair cost.
- You succeed. You get 900 "PvE points for that week"
- You leave the instance. You go to Area 52. You choose your PvE weapon. No competition, no random chance at never seeing it in months.

This is equivalent PvE to arena PvP.

Well, excluding the fact you still have to stay there for 4-5 hours and with 25 people of course


"LOL skillz0rz play for fun killing bosses not for the gear"
Does it really hurt PVEers that people have PVP epics? Does it hurt PVPers that people have PVE epics? Or is it all down to e-peens?
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=1295819659&sid=1&pageNo=11

Those arguing about "doing PvE for the fun of killing the boss" as excuse for arena free gear are playing the wrong game.

THEY should quit WoW and go play a first person shooter, for the frags.

The others, correctly, pay a *RPG* game. RPG games are about improving *YOUR* character and his stats.

RPG = You like to improve your character over time, there's *pleausure* (call it e-peen) at doing it, and you are right at wanting pleausure because you are indeed playing a RPG game.

Since WoW is quite limited, the only way to improve character at max level is gear. No castle, no statue, no "Illidan Destroyer Gazebo" to put in your garden. Just and only gear.

Hence if you want to RPG and improve in this RPG, the only way is gear.

Hence, those willing to improve in gear are right, the others talking about "the fun" (which indeed is a part of the RPG) as pure intangible success are wrong.

For those wanting intangible success, non lasting "pleausure", there's CS, Quake and so on. RPG players, and WoW is a MMORPG want tangible and lasting improvement for their character *in addition* to adventuring around.


PvE is for killing bosses and have fun at it
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=1380898258&postId=13807241335&sid=1#35

Despite we are a decent guild (Illidan down and stuff), since S1 we have issues at recruiting classes, expecially the "easy mode arena" classes.
We had to resort at seeking and getting people cross realm but even this is over now.

Just, no dog wants to PvE any more. It's just not worth the effort for everyone who wants to have more than just PvE.

Once you are done with a boss, you leave and suddenly are in a pure PvP situation (PvP server players), be it at grinding or doing dailies or arena or battlegrounds all you meet are PvP situations.
You and your imba 10k mana, 6k hp healing set WILL be destroyed by the first random.
You and your imba raid holy spec WILL be devastated and violated.

So, sure, you get happy for the 10 minutes of a new boss kill (becomes boring grind from the next week onwards). All the rest but those 10 minutes suck royally.

For the average raider:

PvE spec sucks at fun and you only scream when you are easily crippled by a blues random.
Grinding in PvE spec sucks
Repairing for 50g per raid sucks
Buying 2 flasks, 20 mana pots, elixirs and oils per raid sucks
Arena in PvE spec sucks, and respeccing every day is impossible if you don't play 12 hours a day.
PvE gear is pointless outside instances. Oh yeah *for some classes* you can grind motes fast, yay.
You revel with your PvE gear... oh wait, the photocopy of you standing nearby (with a sligthly different tint, yeah!) got a better weapon for PvE than you and doing PvP only.


How did arena ruin PvE
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=1380898258&postId=13807241511&sid=1#42

Go back some months.

- Middle S1: becomes evident that doing arena is the way to go, better PvE weapon, almost as good set for some classes as PvE.
- The 25 players finished Gruul (the nerfed version of course) but now crashed in Magtheridon. Progress died for weeks, many quit.
The promise: you get unlocked for next 25 men and you get some lousy T4 chest.
People trickles away incessantly, both going for arena or to enter the one guild that downed Magtheridon. Getting new people is HELL: they must fight against the worst idea in years, trials of the Naaru aka trials of the guild officers.
There's no words to describe the infinite pain at getting a new recruit doing all the heroic unnerfed SL, SH on timer and so on.

- S2 comes, guilds still stuck on Magtheridon so much that Blizzard has to remove the attunement and even then 30% guilds ever killed it.
- S2 comes, your guild still stuck on Magtheridon while S2 gear is HUGE. People keep trickling away, incessantly.
- Your PvE hunter friend quits and rerolls warlock for 2v2, your mage friend rolls warrior for skillheraldic activities.

And nowadays, you can be an Illidan guild all you want, you won't get new (capable) people fighting to join any more.
If we had not to constantly replenish people, regrind with them, re-attune, re-do low instances for them etc every other week, we'd killed Illidan 2 months ago.


Why arena gear opportunity cost >> PvE gear
Even admitting arena would be hard (LOL yes it is at 2k rating not at 1500 yet you get everything at 1500 and at S3 you'll just pay a boost), arena gear is:

- powerful. Like the best PvE gear
- useful. Unlike the best PvE gear. Basically PvE gear is worthless but in 25 men, you remove it and put up arena gear the second you zone out and then go in outworld / grinding (ganking) / arena / battleground with PvP gear.
Unless you are so idiot to use your "imba" 10k mana, 6k HP healing gear to grind outdoors and face the dire consequences, on all the possible ways.

Moreover, being in PvE spec sucks for everything in game bar 25 men raiding.

Basically, PvP gear covers and is useful for the whole game except (but it's still decent for some classes) 25 men, where PvE gear but not weapons, is better.


Arena gear is so good compared to vanilla WoW PvP gear that was inferior to raiders', you had to raid or die
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=1381188254&postId=13807241022&sid=1#37

Would have been so easy to fix that.
Just provide "next season" vanilla WoW PvP epics that would be balanced with AQ40 and Naxxramas.

Instead they broke all with this dual gearing system, with broken resilience (affecting classes and even specs in vastly and unbalanced ways - crit builds anyone?).

And still, had to provide S1 - S2 - S3 else we'd be back to the very same issue (PvP gear being gimped vs PvE gear) despite resilience and all the TBC crap.

Basically they added a new level of "complexity" and broken-ness on top of the only fix needed: update PvP gear thru the months.


I took 1 week to get 452 PvE epics but I take 40 weeks to take full S2 at 1500 rating
Grats, you leeched on the efforts of your / another guild and leveraged on their months of expenses and wipes. Now they don't need the drops any more so you get every benefit and gear in one run (if they drop that is).
Grats.
Taking 40 weeks to get full S2: besides it's almost impossible to be SO BAD to stay 40 weeks at 1500 rating (I got above 1600 without even trying to play), after 40 weeks I still only have 4 >= tier 5 armor pieces, you get a full set and weapons. Only 2 tier 5 because I had to earn it with endless wipes, endless daily raids, be so lucky to have the item drop and to have enough DKP to overbid on the always 3-8 competitors.
I had to spend 24,000 gold in expenses and repairs since Karazhan, how much did you spend for your 1500 rating full set?

Last but not least: why should you even get a SINGLE epic in 4000 weeks if you barely floated at 1500? That's the true definition of spineless, deterministic welfare.

[Simond]

Someone whining about how their epeen is reduced if people don't have to raid (and only raid) for gear? 

[Threash]

Complete BS.  PVP gear is for pvp and raid gear is for raiding, what the raiders want is being able to dominate in pvp with their raid gear like pre-bc.  The only place where i can see them having a valid complaint is on the dps weapons because the stats are a very far second to the damage they do, this could be fixed by slowing the pvp weapons way down and lowering their dps which would make them a lot better for pvp and a lot worse for pve.

[stray]

He thinks anyone not playing the game like he likes to is equivalent to being on "welfare"..

And he wonders why he can't find friends on his server?

[Litigator]

I think they need to seriously re-evaluate respec costs. Blizzard has been talking about making people who aren't specced to tank able to tank, and letting people who aren't specced to grind be able to grind.  This will create all new balance headaches, and the healers will still suck at grinding and the arms/fury warriors will still suck at tanking. I think they should just make it easier for people to be prot for PvE and arms for PvP.

Also, I think more gold should drop in dungeons. 

What has "killed" PvE is the necessity of creating challenges for a handful of superguilds like Nihilum. New content is tuned for the "World First" competition, and is released in a state that is completely unreasonable for even most hardcore raid guilds, because these guys have a level of dedication to breaking content that is completely unreasonable. What allows them to exist is the paid server transfer; the top guilds on servers have always been able to cherry-pick talent from other guilds, but letting the world first guilds cherry pick all the guilds in the world has allowed them to amass deep rosters of people who play very hard. 

Gruul 1.0, the trial of the Naaru, SSC 1.0, Kael 1.0, and the various aspects of Hyj and BT that have been nerfed are not revisions based on bugs or design. It's like the way the same golf course is cut to play much differently for a PGA event than it is for regular players. 

Players are still pushing PvE and there are progression guilds for both factions on every server, which is honestly an improvement from vanilla when there were far fewer horde-side progression guilds. Arena may have taken some of the urgency off of it, but separating PvE loot from PvP dominance has made people less neurotic about loot-whoring and more relaxed in general.

The arena system is great. The rating requirement on weapons was a good idea, but scrubs have honestly not been accumulating that much gear anyway. Bad teams are unstable and bad players usually don't get points every week. The people with full PvP gear on my server are few enough that I know almost all of them, and there are tons of people on my server I don't know.

[ajax34i]

Yeah, he's got some points.

In theory, raiding is like arenas and questing:  you do an activity and you get rewards specific to that activity.  Unfortunately, questing stops at 70 at some point, and arena gear is useful for the majority of the game activities, and raiding requires 25 people to remain focused over a few months.  So, yeah, raiding sucks, why do it?

What happened with me was I repeated the tier 4 stuff enough to not only get the healing set, but also the DPS set and parts of the tanking set.  Of course, that's not "progression" for the guild, at least not going by the old definition.  The guild did lose some people and had to recruit and gear others, which delayed the process even more. 

I guess progress for raiding guilds is kinda the same as the progress of a character through the PVP rankings:  at some point the ratio of how many players you lose and have to re-gear vs. how many stay and raid gets high enough that all the guild's efforts go into staying afloat at whatever tier they're at. 

I guess Blizzard is trying to fix it with the badges, which technically let each raider roll for their raiding drops (healer set, whatever) while also getting badges for their DPS set on the side.

[ShenMolo]

One of the reasons this post struck a chord with me is how it described my current itemization choices.

I have a freshly leveled druid at 63 right now (2.3 ftw), and being the spreadsheet junkie that I am, I'm currently putting together a gear wish-list for dps/tanking/healing.

The one thing that I am noticing is that through PvP, and even heroic badges, I can acquire equal or better gear than running Karazhan or even Zul'Aman. With some time and effort I could basically gear up a toon to "skip" the 10 man content.

Up to this point I have been happy in a casual guild doing 10 mans and the occasional Gruul run, and I doubt this is going to change. However, why run Karazhan for the 30th time when I can get the gear though heroics and PvP, which are done on my schedule in small chunks of time. Maybe I gear up this druid outside of raiding, then apply for a SSC/BT/etc etc guild just to eventually get a chance to see these areas. I'll have the gear for it without ever having raided with this toon.

Also, to this guy's point, do most people who raid the top 25 man instances do it for the "fun" or for the gear? He seems to imply it is for the gear. From my own experience, killing new bosses is great the first couple of times, then after that its just a delayed gratification vending/slot machine that only occasionally pays off. With PvP & Arenas there is a path to follow and goals that are attainable without the randomness factor, which can be a royal pita.

[Litigator]

Well, first of all, the new badge gear is designed to be better than kara gear.  It's meant to be a shot in the arm for guilds stuck in SSC and TK and it's meant to speed the process of gearing up new raiders. The badge gear is close to the top end ZA drops, and the best ZA drops match or beat pre Vashj/Kael 25 man loot.

This is not unprecedented; the same relationship existed between some of the ZG/AQ20 stuff and the MC/BWL stuff. What is being broken down here is the common raider assertion that failure at raids won't get you anything. Raiding is binary and PvP is a continuum; you either get raid loot or you don't, while you can get a few pvp points or a lot depending on how good you are. But the badge mechanic puts a PvP style accumulation mechanic on getting high-end gear for less successful players, and it also keeps content like Kara and heroics relevant for more advanced players, so they still have a reason to participate in those, and it's easier for newbies to get groups.

[Threash]

The one thing that I am noticing is that through PvP, and even heroic badges, I can acquire equal or better gear than running Karazhan or even Zul'Aman. With some time and effort I could basically gear up a toon to "skip" the 10 man content.

Thats because you are comparing tier 4 pve gear to the equivalent of tier 6 pvp gear.

[Merusk]

Complete BS.  PVP gear is for pvp and raid gear is for raiding, what the raiders want is being able to dominate in pvp with their raid gear like pre-bc.  

Not so.  I can't speak for other classes, since I don't look too deeply at their gear, BUT.. for Hunters PvP gear works eceptionally well in both PvP and PvE.  In fact, the S2 shoulders have proven to be superior (for me) to the T5 shoulders that now rot in my bank.  Not to mention I was able to pick them up at a time that my guild was only able to aquire T4 shoulders, which suck ass.

Now with S3 upon us, I'll be picking up a very nice Hunter Axe that I won't be able to replace EVER (since the next upgrade comes from Hyjal, and I'm not going to see that before WOTLK.) and a new set of gloves/ BP that are superior to anything outside of Hyjal/ Sunwell.  All for a LOT less invested time (and no repair costs) compared to raiding.

Not that I'm going to stop raiding, since I do enjoy killing bosses and seeing the 'horribly predictable PvE.'  (Yes, I agree that PvP is just as predictable.)  But for the time invested, I can see where a lot of folks would think "why the fuck should I bother?"

PvE epics are, in fact, too difficult to aquire.  That's something I've always felt, but the arena gear and the nice upgrades that system allows for the time invested just underscore that problem.   I'm of the opinion the GAME should track "DKP" (or "Badges" or whatever) for every boss kill, 5-man, Heroic or Raid dungeon and the players should pick their loot from vendors based on that.   

"Oh noes!" People cry.  "What about immersion!"  Fuck immersion, it's a game.  You sound like those twits complaining when a green item drops off an animal.

[Threash]

Once again you are comparing pvp gear of a higher tier to lower end pve gear, obviously if you are in a kara guild season 3 gear is going to be a huge upgrade and by the same token if you are decked out in tier 6 pve gear you wouldnt down grade to season 1 pvp gear for pvp.  I pvp and raid, my guild is currently at kael and my 5v5 was around 2150 before we started using it to gear our alts with a 7/3 split and as a hunter i have a separate bag with pvp and pve gear with zero crossover.

[Salamok]

I think they need to seriously re-evaluate respec costs. Blizzard has been talking about making people who aren't specced to tank able to tank, and letting people who aren't specced to grind be able to grind.  This will create all new balance headaches, and the healers will still suck at grinding and the arms/fury warriors will still suck at tanking. I think they should just make it easier for people to be prot for PvE and arms for PvP.

I would probably resub if they let you respec on the fly for free, as long as they made it so you couldn't macro it for instamidcombat respec goodness then I don't see how it would unbalance the game, all it does is eliminate the gold sink and possibly allow you to pause for a few minutes to tune your spec for a particular raid boss. 

I'd even be happy if they made some out of combat for 5 minutes and no respeccing while in an instance rules. 

[Merusk]

Once again you are comparing pvp gear of a higher tier to lower end pve gear, obviously if you are in a kara guild season 3 gear is going to be a huge upgrade and by the same token if you are decked out in tier 6 pve gear you wouldnt down grade to season 1 pvp gear for pvp.  I pvp and raid, my guild is currently at kael and my 5v5 was around 2150 before we started using it to gear our alts with a 7/3 split and as a hunter i have a separate bag with pvp and pve gear with zero crossover.

No, I said My S2 shoulders (T5 equiv) are BETTER than T5.   It was simply a bonus that I was able to get them at a time that our PvE progression was such that I could only get T4.  

Arenas give better gear earlier (to the majority).  Yes, that's harmful to the PvE game IF you only PvE for the loot. (Something I suspect a lot of people do.)  That 20% raiding starts to become a smaller and smaller number, because "why bother?"

Your guild may be on Kael, but where's everyone else in the world at?  Survey says: Kara What are the chances they want to wipe for weeks on end learning Gruul or Mag instead of just PvPing an hour or so each week?  Now add in that they'll be getting worse gear AND spending all that lovely consumable and repair cost gold.  Yeah, see, that's the problem with the current accesibility of PvE loot.

[Litigator]

ZA and the 2.3 badge gear are designed to rapidly increase progress through SSC/TK and get the midlevel raiding guilds into Hyjal or BT well ahead of WotLK which is probably a holiday 2008 release.

I think downing Archimonde before WotLK will be like downing Nef before BC.

[Chenghiz]

The dichotomy of PVP versus PVE gear is greater for some classes than others. I know for my rogue the PVP epics are basically trash for raiding, with the exception of the weapons, but for my feral druid they are the bee's knees. Also: free respecs would be fucking awesome. I think they only cost money to make for a money sink, but seriously. Money flows like water if you have the will to spend some time doing dailies (I do not). I doubt it would affect the economy much at all.

As for the quote, yet another wonderful example of how ass-backward people treat this game. Nowhere else can you find a more pestilent hive of dumb fuckers with entitlement issues and an extreme desire to spend time not having fun for a false sense of accomplishment.

[Modern Angel]

WotLK which is probably a holiday 2008 release.

If PvE is dying that right there is why. They are fucking GLACIAL with content releases and there's simply no reason for an expansion to take that long. "But Modern Angel, Blizzard puts out quality abloobloohurblur"

No. It's not just because the highest end guilds are sitting around bored it's that midlevel guilds will hit their wall (whatever that wall may be) and be ready for something new. And not just a new dungeon patch type new but a new ten levels.

I'm going to be really interested in seeing if they can keep up with their shifting emphasis to five and ten man content once the expansion drops. The best ten man in the world simply is never going to take as long as an equivalent twenty five man. If they can't keep up the pace... well, they'll still be Blizzard and it'll still be WoW meaning nothing will happen. BUT I WILL SHAKE MY FIST AT THEM!

[Paelos]

I think you're pulling that Holiday 2008 number out of thin air. There's no way it will take that long. I'm still thinking Summer 08 release, just in time to pick up the kiddies who are getting all that free time out of school. If they wanted it in the holidays they would have pushed for this season, not a year from now.

[geldonyetich2]

Let us rain some doom down upon the filthy heads of our doomed enemies!

Sorry, the thread title got me overly excited.

[Modern Angel]

I think you're pulling that Holiday 2008 number out of thin air. There's no way it will take that long. I'm still thinking Summer 08 release, just in time to pick up the kiddies who are getting all that free time out of school. If they wanted it in the holidays they would have pushed for this season, not a year from now.

Here's all we know: one more major content patch (Sunwell) and they said that they're not pulling a Naxx and putting the expansion out before people have had a chance to do it. Summer 08 sounds about right but it's still too long.

[Merusk]

I seem to recall reading that they were trying for a Q2/Q3 release but that might slip.  Knowing Blizzard, we change 'might' to 'will' and there you go.  They've been very hesitant to give an exact date after the hullabaloo about the "2 month BC-slip" that was based on a general time frame given by a community manager, not one of the devs.

[ShenMolo]

I read a Vivendi press release or financial report or something recently(may have been here on these boards - pardon my laziness) that said 1H 2008 (first half of '08). Ofcourse, when has Blizzard NOT delayed a release? But this sounds about right, and is definitely Blizzard speak ("we'll release it sometime between January and July of next year").

[Chimpy]

Did the Vivendi specifically state "WoW Expansion" as the major release, or did they state that "Major Release of Blizzard title - estimated sales 8million"?

Because they could very well release SC2 before the WoW expansion (though there has been little press about that game since the big korean party last summer).

Sunwell probably won't be out until February at the earliest, and unless they go for a late august release of WotLK, that will still only give them a Naxx to BC window for people to do the content. Thus why late 2008 seems most "logical". It also would coincide with the 4th anniversary of the original release.

That is not to say it won't come earlier, but I find it unlikely that it will be out by "kiddies with free time" time.

[Paelos]

Did the Vivendi specifically state "WoW Expansion" as the major release, or did they state that "Major Release of Blizzard title - estimated sales 8million"?

Because they could very well release SC2 before the WoW expansion (though there has been little press about that game since the big korean party last summer).

Sunwell probably won't be out until February at the earliest, and unless they go for a late august release of WotLK, that will still only give them a Naxx to BC window for people to do the content. Thus why late 2008 seems most "logical". It also would coincide with the 4th anniversary of the original release.

That is not to say it won't come earlier, but I find it unlikely that it will be out by "kiddies with free time" time.

Thing is, who gives a shit about the Sunwell? Hell, I raid and I could care less. I want to kick Illidan's ass, then I want to kick Arthas' ass. That's in the cards somewhere down the line, but this adding on raid content is just for the hardcores and nothing more. It is Naxx, no matter what they say. You can't fight that when you release a new raid dungeon for the 1.5% who've beaten the largest one in the game.

[Righ]

As a raider, you'll probably come round to their way of caring. They'll nerf the hell out existing end raids to progress more than 1.5% of people into Sunwell. Then if you tarry too long farming the now simpler instances or things don't go well for you in Sunwell, they'll do a PvP-lite giveaway of BT end quality PvP epics before WotLK 71-80 starts dropping superior greens. This pattern should be familiar by now.

[Fordel]

The Sunwell is supposed to have a new 5 man dungeon as well, no?

I certainly wouldn't mind a new 5 man to run.

[Venkman]

The Naxx to BC thing was largely due to how high-end Naxx was at the time. How many guilds were "just on the cusp" of Naxx when BC came out? I'd very highly doubt it was that many. And that wasn't because of BC coming nor being announced. It was due to the difficulty level of getting prepared for Naxx itself.

Sunwell is not sounding like it's going to be that relatively difficult compared to <pick an instance> endgame BC. If the content is largely approachable enough, two months for Sunwell would be fine. As far as I know, it's not Hyjal to BT to Sunwell.

[Paelos]

As a raider, you'll probably come round to their way of caring. They'll nerf the hell out existing end raids to progress more than 1.5% of people into Sunwell. Then if you tarry too long farming the now simpler instances or things don't go well for you in Sunwell, they'll do a PvP-lite giveaway of BT end quality PvP epics before WotLK 71-80 starts dropping superior greens. This pattern should be familiar by now.

...and? I'm not one of those people who hate other people getting epics or epic-lite. I don't give a shit. I relish the journey to the kill, not the loot itself. After I've cleared a place, my own personal hell is farming it for gear to get to the next challenge. You think they'll put more than 5% into Sunwell successfully? I sure as hell don't, and I don't care.

[ClydeJr]

The Sunwell is supposed to have a new 5 man dungeon as well, no?

I certainly wouldn't mind a new 5 man to run.

Its supposed to have a 5-man (with normal and heroic modes) and a 25-man.

[Righ]

...and? I'm not one of those people who hate other people getting epics or epic-lite. I don't give a shit. I relish the journey to the kill, not the loot itself. After I've cleared a place, my own personal hell is farming it for gear to get to the next challenge. You think they'll put more than 5% into Sunwell successfully? I sure as hell don't, and I don't care.

Doesn't that just imply that you will care about raiding the Sunwell - for the journey to the kill and so that you dont have to farm the shit out of BT et. al. after it is simpler and past its sell-by date?

[Nebu]

The question I'd ask is: Would people even bother to do Sunwell if it wasn't itemized?  I would, but I'm betting most wouldn't.   People like a slot machine in their MMO. 

[Paelos]

...and? I'm not one of those people who hate other people getting epics or epic-lite. I don't give a shit. I relish the journey to the kill, not the loot itself. After I've cleared a place, my own personal hell is farming it for gear to get to the next challenge. You think they'll put more than 5% into Sunwell successfully? I sure as hell don't, and I don't care.

Doesn't that just imply that you will care about raiding the Sunwell - for the journey to the kill and so that you dont have to farm the shit out of BT et. al. after it is simpler and past its sell-by date?

What? I'm not sure what you're getting at with that phrasing.

[Paelos]

The question I'd ask is: Would people even bother to do Sunwell if it wasn't itemized?  I would, but I'm betting most wouldn't.   People like a slot machine in their MMO. 

Well, no obviously. That would be ridiculous. Everyone needs rewards to emphasize the instance. Some people would raid for raiding's sake, just like some people would pvp simply for the adventure. However, the addition of those rewards piques the interest of a contingent of people who would otherwise not bother with it due to time involved. I think they may primarily raid for the loot, but they enjoy the challenge. I primarily raid for the challenge but enjoy the loot as well. Either way, it gets the job done.

[ajax34i]

The question I'd ask is: Would people even bother to do Sunwell if it wasn't itemized?  I would, but I'm betting most wouldn't.   People like a slot machine in their MMO. 

Most people, probably not.  My guild, probably yes.  It's the same as asking "would people bother to do <whatever instance> on the PTR?"  We had fun getting to the second ZA boss and exploring just for giggles.

[Merusk]

...and? I'm not one of those people who hate other people getting epics or epic-lite. I don't give a shit. I relish the journey to the kill, not the loot itself. After I've cleared a place, my own personal hell is farming it for gear to get to the next challenge. You think they'll put more than 5% into Sunwell successfully? I sure as hell don't, and I don't care.

Doesn't that just imply that you will care about raiding the Sunwell - for the journey to the kill and so that you dont have to farm the shit out of BT et. al. after it is simpler and past its sell-by date?

It does imply it, but most folks when faced with that choice won't do it.  I'd rather *not* do it afterwards just because it's so trivialized by a few levels/ gear and I like the challenge but I would do it if only to see the bosses and the area.  (BWL had some of the best atmosphere around Chromaggus' room, and I heard Naxx was even better.)  Fuck, I'll still run MC/ BWL if there's pick-up groups, even though the places are useless to me.  (Nobody wants to do Naxx pugs tho.  /sadf.)

[Chimpy]

...and? I'm not one of those people who hate other people getting epics or epic-lite. I don't give a shit. I relish the journey to the kill, not the loot itself. After I've cleared a place, my own personal hell is farming it for gear to get to the next challenge. You think they'll put more than 5% into Sunwell successfully? I sure as hell don't, and I don't care.

Doesn't that just imply that you will care about raiding the Sunwell - for the journey to the kill and so that you dont have to farm the shit out of BT et. al. after it is simpler and past its sell-by date?

It does imply it, but most folks when faced with that choice won't do it.  I'd rather *not* do it afterwards just because it's so trivialized by a few levels/ gear and I like the challenge but I would do it if only to see the bosses and the area.  (BWL had some of the best atmosphere around Chromaggus' room, and I heard Naxx was even better.)  Fuck, I'll still run MC/ BWL if there's pick-up groups, even though the places are useless to me.  (Nobody wants to do Naxx pugs tho.  /sadf.)

I would do AQ40 again in a heartbeat if I could find 39 other fools willing to slog through the asinine early bosses and the retardedly asinine trash post-twin emps to kill C'Thun again. Still without a doubt the most fun I have ever had in wow was C'thun. That was just a great encounter design. Though I hear Kel'Thuzad was pretty fun too, but my guild didn't kill him until 3 weeks after I quit playing wow in November of last year.