Our guild is in a similar situation. Coincidence, one other raid leader of us just posted yesterday a forum post "Good old days in Molten Core". Funny, eh?

Our best two groups are mid-deep into Karazhan. We tried Gruul yesterday but with little success. The first Miniboss (Maulgar and his 4 adds) smashed our best MT (Thunderfury and all) within 15 seconds after pull to pieces, with healing of our best healers who made it all the way to Twin Emps. And this is just the FIRST, EASIEST 25 MAN RAID instance.

Raiding has become ridiculously hard, BC raid instances are by far harder than Onyxia / Molten Core at their time.

Add the ridiciulous attunement for Serpentshrine Cavern, Mount Hyjal, Tempest Keep and (I bet it will be as ridiciulous as the other ones) and what do you get? Much grind with little fun.

BTW: Just signed / payed lifetime account in LOTRO...
 

We having seriuos problem motiviating people to show up for raids. They prefer to pvp, and thats on a RP-PVE server. They don't wanna play the golds needed for potions and repairs so many wait until we have instances on farm and then they happy show up ready to loot.
 

I still think that what made WoW so damn popular was the 1-59 game. It's exp and leveling that keep players coming back, so long as the leveling isn't slow and tedious.

What makes it tough for Blizzard is that adding levels also means adjusting talents, so every time the level cap is raised, it's going to be a huge pain to balance.

Future mmorpgs should be designed so that the cap can be raised one level per month. That's a far better alternative to raiding, imo.
 

This reminds me of something I learned a long time back from a business course I took in college. When new products are invented suppliers often include features which inconvenience the customer but make it easier for the supplier (perhap making the product easier to manufacture or distribute). A proven strategy for late entrants to the market is to spot this kind of feature and change it to suit the customer. It sounds like the extremely difficult and expensive dungeons of BC are an example of this - designed to suit the supplier by stretching a limited amount of content over as long a time as possible.
 

One of the problems with raiding now is indeed that raids are too hard and the rewards too few.

We haven't cleared Karazhan yet and we have almost 100 Void Crystals in the bank. We'd have those if I hadn't managed to sell a dozen or so on the AH. That can't be right can it? We kill every boss up to Shade with 2 groups each week and in total a raid will bring in 3 epics and disenchant another 9. We're also finding out that individual performance must be absolutely 100%, we have a pet specced Warlock and his damage is just way too low to be viable, he either has to respec or find another guild, we cannot afford to bring him to raids, yet this is one of the most pleasant guildies we have, he's been with us since the start.

Casual friendly raiding? Yeah right Blizz, pull the other one.
 

Black Temple is going to be Naxxramas all over I reckon. Tons of work, a great beautiful instance in terms of design... and so ridiculously difficult that only 1-2% of the population will ever visit it and 0.1% or less can ever hope to kill Illidan. Even worse, whether you visit/clear it will only depend on skill to a limited extent and mostly depend on willingness to grind every living buff out there and be available 5-6 nights a week.

Before the usual trolls step in to proclaim we shouldn't whine about challenges but overcome them, I'd like to point out I play games for fun as much as for challenge. The fun part of TBC I worked through in 3 months. Then I thought about the end-game proposal and said: it's even worse then when I worked my way into Naxx over the scope of a year.... and decided to call it quits.

Of all the instances I always liked ZG and MC best. ZG for it's excellently balanced challenges and fun flexible fights. MC to relax in and have a big DPS fest. Neither have returned in TBC - a pity.

- Sveral
 

And while the question of whether going to Molten Core at level 70 was fun or stupid was hotly debated, everybody agrees that at the time Molten Core was a lot more fun than Karazhan.

I would bite my tongue for that and everyone who is claiming that, probably played MC when all the boss guides where online, everyone had their UI-addon helpers installed and such. Raiding never ever should be 40 pawns AFKing around for 4 hours to loot gear wich was miles above anything you can get with 5 mans. My first MC run was about single buffing 40 people every 5 minutes, oh boy what a thrill and a real achievement to get loot for smashing 1 button 40 times every 5 minutes. Deep and rich raid design at its best.

No thanks, i rather take what we have now.

Karazhan for me is the best thing since i started MMORPGs more than 7 years ago. It's demanding content for less players, content wich you can not outgear yet, where execution is the challenge. It stays challenging even after dozens of kills. I understand that this is not "mainstream"-like design, but "mainstream" doesn't mean good either. The learning curves are way more steeper and rewards are smaller, but this only filters out players who raid for loot only. I have no problem with that.

What is the option to the current situation? A URBS-challenge-like Karazhan, a MC like Gruul/Mag? A BWL-lile SSC/TK? Arenas getting stomoped by TK/SSC raiders just like it was with MC geared folks 2 years ago? Content getting rushed through in no time? Players screaming for the Black Temple patch?

As long as players think that the good old days of Molten Core were better than the current situation, Blizzard has a problem.

Blizzard has a problem when they lose subscribers big time, not if they players are unhappy subscribers, but happy non-subscribers. Like it or not, but with such a market dominance and with players kissing your feet for 2 years, they can get away with way more than such little dents in the product. They still do way more things right than wrong. Players may stop raiding right now, but they do not stop playing the game yet.

We're also finding out that individual performance must be absolutely 100%

And this is the thing wich bugs me most. When you design content for the let's call them gameplay-challenged-players, the same content gets blown away by the 100% people. So you have the choice of spending weeks/months of work to see it cracked by the 100% people instantly or entertain the challenged ones for weeks. As a content designer, not a business manager type of guy, which option would you consider? It's easy right? And come on it's not like you have to have a degree in rocket science to play at 100%.
 

My guild's not having problems with Karazhan, although we only run one group. We at least get through Moroes, Attumen, Maiden, Opera, Curator, Chess and Prince each week, and I think I heard mention of Nightbane in /g. Usually in that time I'll go through a few mana pots and maybe some spell damage food and a spellpower potion or two.

Admittedly, we have had issues with Maulgar. I think there have been two raids there, and on the one I was on, we wiped rather spectacularly on the pull. Would perhaps have helped if I was in vent, what with the tanking Krosh and all.

I have no heroic keys yet, but I'm fairly happy with the speed and level of progress I'm getting in the game, even if the last 15 points of tailoring are hell to level.
 

Blizzard has a problem when they lose subscribers big time, not if they players are unhappy subscribers, but happy non-subscribers. Like it or not, but with such a market dominance and with players kissing your feet for 2 years, they can get away with way more than such little dents in the product. They still do way more things right than wrong. Players may stop raiding right now, but they do not stop playing the game yet.

History is full of companies that were in the same dominant position, and then got blown away by some upstarts. End of this year I'm pretty sure that WoW still will be dominant, but they *will* feel the pain of people moving to LotRO, AoC, WAR or other games. If a sub-par game like Vanguard can get 200,000 subscribers from the pool of frustrated WoW players, then you can imagine how decent games will fare.

I understand that this is not "mainstream"-like design, but "mainstream" doesn't mean good either. The learning curves are way more steeper and rewards are smaller, but this only filters out players who raid for loot only. I have no problem with that.

I understand that you are one of those 100% players, and that the situation is just fine for you. But as you said, that isn't "mainstream". WoW got 8 million subscribers by being mainstream. EQ got 400,000 subscribers by being for the 100% players. Turning a mainstream game into a 100% players game will certainly please those 5% of the population, but will have the other 7.6 million players looking for an alternative. Blizzard is on a track to less profitability here, and sooner or later some suit from Vivendi will step in if they don't mend their ways.

And come on it's not like you have to have a degree in rocket science to play at 100%.

No you don't. But you need a lot of dedication, plus a Real Life that doesn't interfere much with your playing habits. Plus a lot of available time, and a stable internet connections. Brains is not the limiting factor here.

Look at it that way: if you go to a public swimming pool, the majority of people there just want to splash around, swim a few laps at their own pace, and have fun. A few people might want to give 100% and try to swim their laps as fast as they can and without interuption. But redesigning the pool that you can only do that and not just hang out in the water would be a bad idea.
 

Hmmm, I really don't understand the problems people are having with Karazhan.

Karazhan is imo the best Raid Instance today. The tuning problems (Opera event, Nightbane) of the first months are mostly solved, and the instance itself is beautiful and challenging.
10 Man doesn't mean it's casual content... Raid Experience in AQ40/Naxx helps a lot, Experience in MC where everyone was AKF doesn't.

That's my main problem with BC raiding: It needs 100%.
One disconnect is wipe, one player on telephone break is a forced break for the whole group. One single fault kills the group. One "wrong" class makes everything twice as hard.
It's ok to some degree (imo 10 man), but makes 25-man content not fun.

MC wasn't perfect. The bosses were too simple (tank dps heal), too much trash, but you could beat them with your guild mates. BC raiding needs 100%, and every sub-optimal part of your group hurts, hard.

This is where the loot problem comes into play: A lot of people have no problems with hard encounters, they wiped weeks and months on Nefarian, C'thun or Naxxramas... but 90% of the loot isn't worth giving 100% every minute. And loot is what matters in WoW. Yes, it's great to beat a boss first time, but to do this a second time the reward must be fair. Damn, it should be fair the first time, too.

Plus, it's frustrating to see people switching to tailor, grinding "T7" in two weeks when you need 2 months+ and an organized 25man raidgroup to get T4! Balancing was once Blizzard's strength *sigh*

Oh, not to forget this pvp hype.
Blizzard fears WAR. So they focus on pvp at the moment: Arena, tournament, pvp balance patches... everything to make WoW a competitive pvp game. Blizz is loosing focus... and customers.
 

Hrm. I hating raiding in pre-BC. It was boring, there were far too many people, and individual roles weren't involved enough. I was one of 40, I didn't feel like I could make a difference.

Now, I vastly prefer raiding in TBC. Karazhan is my favorite raid instance, and our guild runs two full weekly clears. Gruul is a great Onyxia-style instance. Both Karazhan and Gruul are not hard, they just require raid attendees to execute well -- which is great, because it builds player skill and teaches folks how to have great situational awareness. The loot is also on par, as it doesn't blow everything else out of the water yet is still a good PvE-upgrade (but by no means required for PvP).

Molten Core was the worst raid instance... most people would be doing something else simultaneously while raiding MC (watching a movie, talking on the phone, etc.). You can't do that in Karazhan, because the raid instance itself is interesting in and of itself and requires a high level of concentration and performance.

As for content beyond Gruul, we're planning on Magtheridon soon, but are holding off on SSC and TK until after 2.1, as we know those instances are simply not done and had our fill of beta testing in TBC's beta :)

--Alcaras
 

the majority of people there just want to splash around, swim a few laps at their own pace, and have fun.

Well they did not redesigned the pool. You can still splash if you want to, even way more relaxed than before. Wanna splash? How much people splashed in AQ40 or Naxx before BC? You can play there now, they even lowered the water and heated it up, but you won't and why? Cause you see the rewards race swimmers gain and you want them too, but without the risk and that's a problem.

I totally understand the points coming up, but i also see a 2 year old game with very many people adapting. And i am really sure that a complete rehash of the old progression path UBRS-style will hurt WoW way more in the long run, than this maybe slightly overtuned one.

As for what i'm playing in WoW right now. My game time decreased a lot since BC. We do play 1 to 2 Kara groups per week, with about 3 days per week, 3 to 4 hours. Both groups are at Netherspite/Nightbane right now. Majority of the guild never set a foot in AQ40 or Naxx. Consumables where used but when looking back i think exercise and coordination is the key to beat Karazhan.

Turning a mainstream game into a 100% players game will certainly please those 5% of the population, but will have the other 7.6 million players looking for an alternative.

They will be looking for a better alternative. In the next 12 months there will not be any and besides, i do not think that WoW consists of 8 million MMO switchers. I guess many will take a break for the genre if they are fed up with WoW.

Just be realistic here, i am. A tiny fraction of WoWs player base will switch the game, even less to carbon copies. LotR looks too WoW-like, AoC requires beefy PC systems and WAR is far far and way more far away. In a 12 month window, subscribers will not change much for WoW.

Does the game offer less content for the sub 100% players right now? Yes. Will it be just like that for the next 12 month? No. If there would be serious subscriber runs, there would be serious fixes.

Oh and than Vanguard 200k number stated by McQuaid wasn't subscribers. It was boxes sold. Subscribers right now are way way less and rapidly declining. I do not know a single WoW-to-V switcher.

I know Tobold, many times you created new topics from comments. This is a good question. What is this 8 mill player base any MMO studio is fighting for right now. I just know that we have parents in Karzhan-raids right now, wich force the raid to hold, cause they need to bring their kids to bed. Those people will not switch the game, no matter how good or bad the alternatives are. Those switchers wich are targeted are not even half the WoW population?
 

Of the BC raids I've only been in Kara, but I'd say it's a vast improvement over the level 60 raids that I did (everything but Naxx and AQ40). I hated MC, most of BWL, and AQ20 (loved ZG though), but no matter how many times I wipe on Moroes or Aran I keep wanting to go back to Kara. The boss fights and atmosphere amaze me each time... working your way up through the library with a disintegrating tower floating above you.

Is it perfect? No. I don't think it should require 110% from everyone. I'm also not a fan of all the trash. I couldn't care less about loot though, so the fact that I can get comparable blues from 5-mans doesn't bother me at all.

Blizz just needs to make the new raids a little more accessible, in my opinion. I prefer what they have now to the 40-man AFK-fests they had before... just maybe a little more forgiving would be nice.
 

I think Blizzard did well with TBC boss fights. From five man pug-dungeons to kara. Boss fights are interesting. I havn't been able to see more then two boss fights in kara, but I've read up on them....that brings me to why raiding sucks. I've only read up on them....

I have a life, I work 40+ hours a week, I have other hobbies besides video games. I have friends and family...thank god I don't have any kids, I don't know how people do that and have time for wow. Bottom line is I'd like to play wow more but I only have about 1-2 hours per night. Friday/Saturday night aslong as I don't get sucked into something in the real world, I'd like to play 6-8 hours. Weekly that can be up to 26 hours. Which isn't bad. I'd say I'm the average WoW player and I don't have time for raiding.
In 26 hours I should have time to raid..but its more about organization then raiding. Blizzard made raid timers. This is a way to keep hard-core raiders from farming epics. Karazan takes a whole week to reset. Whats the going time for a raiding guild to clear Karazan? 6 hours? One, maybe two nights? My guild...well we still aren't through Karazan...but group 1 is getting close. I give them credit, they play every night, they push and push but always fail due to disconnects, afk's, and mistakes. They clear up to nightbane in three nights. They spend the rest of the week wiping or not showing up because some memebers dont want to waste gold or time. I'm in group 3, the left overs from group 1 & 2....so no stress for me. Can some of the more experienced players come and help group 3 after they tire of wiping? No, the raid timers wont let them. Once you are saved, you are saved. Can I fill in for one of the members in group one? Only if I'm not saved...but its most likely a week night and I wont be able to run long anyways.

This is how most casual guilds see Karazan. Either have one main Karagroup and have the rest of the guild on stand-by for when the regular raiders don't show up, or have three groups who cannot interact with each other during a raid. The later is the only viable option because come 25-man raids you are going to need atleast 30 raiders. Lets not forget that these three groups havn't raided with each other.

In a perfect world I could log onto wow. Open up an LFG tool. Select raid Karazan as a healer. Be matched to a pug Karazan group with in minutes and go....

-I hate waiting for raids to start.
-I hate waiting in raids for everyone to come back from being afk.
-I hate waiting to fill a slot after someone leaves.
-I hate having to leave before a boss fight because I have to wake up in 5 hours.
-I hate getting only 5 hours sleep.

Bottom line is as a casual player, I don't have a lot of time to begin with. In a guild with other casuals, they run into the same thing. I spent four hours in Karazan only to get to the maiden and wipe 2 times. This is why raiding sucks hard.

Raiding wastes time. I don't have much time, neither does the rest of my causal guild...if I was in a hardcore guild, I might actually fair better because they wouldn't put up with people showing up to raids late, or going afk. However being late and going afk is what happens when you play wow around your life, and don't live around wow. I wouldn't even be able to get into a hardcore guild, or stay very long because of this. The MMO that fixes this...is going to be the wow killer.

Karazan took a step foward by bringing very interesting boss fights to a 10 man raid. 10-man raid is very casual friendly. Karazan took two steps back by adding crazy amounts of trash, minor gear upgrades, and content that still needs A LOT of time to complete...mostly due to all the trash and wipes.
 

I have been playing MMOs for quite sometime now. UO, EQ, DaoC (not much), Asherons Call and a bit of Lineage, I have played them all. I have raided KZ through Nightbane, I have killed Gruul, and I had started Magtherion with my guild before deciding to quit WoW. I have done most of dungeons on heroic (cept arcatraz, that stuff is tough) I have been through all of the pre-TBC content except the later bosses in Naxx. I have been a tank, a healer, and a DPSer (I play a druid).

Through all of this experience in WoW I can truely say I agree with Tobold. The most fun I ever had in this game was during the beginning days of MC and BWL. Granted the guilds I have been have never been at the bleeding edge of the raiding curve, but we have be up there. The feeling of dropping the 3 drakes in BWL for the first time or watching that first Ragnaros kill was pure adrenaline. The exhilaration of seeing your tier 1-2 piece you have been waiting for weeks to drop. It’s not the same in TBC. It’s just more of the same, kill a boss, receive loot no one can use and has dropped the last 3 raids, DE said loot. Other than the t4 stuff, most pieces in KZ go to waste. Heck even some of the heroic final boss pieces are better than KZ stuff.

I have become bored with the end-game in WoW. Too many bosses fights which rely heavily on luck, exact raid compositions (switching 3-4 people out in KZ just to make it efficient), and until recently dropping 100s of gold a night just to raid.

The fights are boring and easy unless someone screws up in which it is normally non-recoverable as in pre-TBC days. Stuff like Gruul relies on having ridiculous amounts of DPS, a good amount of luck (4 healers clumped together = bad, BOOM!), and a tank which can withstand his 3-8k hits towards the end (aka ridiculously geared and buffed).

I think Blizzard went down the wrong path with their raiding schema. The whole thing that makes WoW the success it is today is its appeal to the average gamer. Sure there are a lot of 5 mans. Sure they can generally be accomplished by a pug. But the raid content, unless you are in a end-game raiding guild, is simply not available to 99.9% of the players out there. The guild I ran and the guild I have been in have seen many great players leave simply because they don’t have time to devote 5-6 days a week to a videogame, which I completely understand now. I am lucky to get in 3-4 hours a week now for games.

Maybe this is just coming from a burned out raider who has bitterness towards the way Blizzard decided to take the raiding system. I have always played this game for one reason: THE PEOPLE. My real friends who play, my friends I have made and met in the process, and the friends who happen to be casual players and raiders.

To end my rant, I think Turbine is taking LOTRO in the right direction. Maybe they will completely screw it up. Only time will tell, but so far they are doing a top-notch job. Feels just familiar enough to be like you are at home with the game and new enough to keep my interest. I like the quickness of the instanced pieces (only done a couple so far), I love the fellowship maneuver mechanic, and the game itself is immaculate in terms of looks. The community around the game is slightly more mature than the 1337 kids who frequent WoW, but I am sure that will change with its release today. Overall, I don’t know if it will be the WoW-killer, but it sure as hell will give them a run for their money.
 

My Karazhan group isn't having too many problems except on the Shade and Nightbane. We do usually have a good class balance though which helps us out a lot.

Most of the epics from Karazhan are better then the blue items from Heroic dungeons. The problem is that Karazhan usually only has loot for the "raid" spec of a class.
 

What's this? A WoW blog entry?!

I'm not convinced that 'weakness in endgame raiding' = 'Blizz has a vulnerable underbelly'.
IMO, it will mostly lead to some combination of Blizz tweaks and player inventiveness, with some new blood replacing some of the old guard in a natural progression.

As has been mentioned by others also, many people are enjoying PvP (even on PvE servers). Not only that, but whole guilds (such as my casual-ish, small-ish one) have yet to get into the raiding game. We're still running instances, questing, gearing, grinding rep (which is IMO far more palatable in the BC), leveling alts, checking out "old" content with post-level-60 toons, etc, etc, etc...

Furthermore, if you're talking endgame... what do the competitors offer?
Vanguard?
LOTRO?
It is interesting to me (perhaps a human trait) that burnt-out or discontented veteran WoW endgamers are jumping into other products -- but as far as I know they're not being pulled away because of the endgame promises of the competitors.
IMO, there is nothing unusual about that; two years or more of pretty much daily play in the same game is a long time to spend (especially for the 6-day-a-week raid crowd), and people will tire or get burned-out, especially old-timers who mastered much of the "old" endgame and are basically put back at square one by an expansion.

There's a lot of the, "Raid grind again? Not me!" proclamations. Then the person says that they've subscribed to some other WoW-clone MMO. Do they not expect that a WoW-clone will end up in a raid grind?

Doeg
 

Okay, I was in a Naxx raiding guild pre-TBC (about half clear). I considered myself a casual raider, many considered me hardcore. Perspectives I suppose.

I've really done next to no raiding in TBC, by choice. However, I loved the idea of Karazhan and eventually relented when a group of friends had asked me repeatedly to join their guild. They helped to get me keyed, and I finally go into Karazhan this weekend.

Honestly, the other raid instances just never sounded interesting to me but Karazhan sounds like an amazing, ambitious dungeon when you read about it. Then when I got inside I really thought they'd hit it out of the park. It's gorgeous, it's interesting, it feels huge and it has great boss fights. I'm not sure why all the pushback. Keep in mind, I had never been there before and I was with a group who I figured were farming content. Once we downed Prince they went nuts on Vent and it turned out that was their first kill (first night attempting him as well). We got him after 4 wipes. Then we pulled Nightbane 3 times and got him to 26%. He needs some work from us to figure it out, but he's not undoable.

I just don't understand why people are complaining about Kara tuning. It's fun, it's a challenge but it's doable. Actually, it's everything that the smaller guilds whined that Blizzard should put into the game ("can't they just make smaller instances with raid rewards? You can make them just as hard as raid instances, but tuned for less people!"), and now that Blizzard found a way to do it people are still whining that it's too hard. It makes me sad, really, as I honestly think Kara is up there with Naxx in terms of the looks and interest and people are just blowing it off because their purples aren't good enough.
 

The reoccuring theme here is that Tobold doesn't understand that WoW doesn't "have" to appeal to everyone all at once.

The high end raid gear are for the people out there like me and some others that visit this forum that aren't waiting for someone to hold there hand through each and every step of the game. There are (believe it or not) people out there in the world that play games for a challange.

Tobold's and many others posting here failure to see that they shouldn't expect to beat WoW content with a hodgepodge of deadbeats, whiners, complainers, and frankly people who don't seem to know what they're doing in the game is starting to get on my nerves.

Frankly, noone who takes any seriousness in the gmae of WoW takes you seriously. Because of articles like this one.

"And while the question of whether going to Molten Core at level 70 was fun or stupid was hotly debated, everybody agrees that at the time Molten Core was a lot more fun than Karazhan."

Noone whose played the boss fights in BC would ever say something as stupid as what you said. Name one boss fight in MC that is more fun, interesting, creative, or challanging as the majority in Karazhan.

My suggestion is that you stop playing WoW BC in a guild that is shite, with people who don't know what they're doing, and who can't even kill more then 2 bosses in Karazhan.

Btw. My guild that I help lead with several others killed both boss's in Gruuls 2 weeks after we got there over a time span of about 4 actual nights. The funny thing is once you learn the fights and gain experience the fights become easier. I KNOW WHAT A CONCEPT

I swear I think you're being paid by someone who doesn't like WOW because otherwise if you knew what you were talking about you simply wouldn't post such drivel.
 

The bosses in BC are much more interesting. But BC really needed a 25-man raid that starts out as easy as MC. New raid guilds need some place to practice, other than old content (the raid alliance I was in practiced 25-man BWL a few times while everyone was levelling up).

People who didn't raid past BWL in vanilla WoW are going to have a much harder time learning the tricks to BC raids since they're thrown into relatively complex fights almost from the start (Attumen is dull, but Moroes and Maulgar are not).

Karazhan can be done with the 2.1 consumable restrictions. 2.1 is retuning Gruul and up, but from what I've heard, theyr'e leaving Karazhan alone for now. Guilds that power through it with flasks for everyone will have some trouble, but I don't know many who do that. Karazhan will still be hard after 2.1...which would be fine if 90% of the gear was useful for something other than disenchanting.

I think the gear progression still needs a ton of work. Even with the improvements to T5, there's not much reason to want them. They're definitely not worth the time and gold (more time) required. WoW used to have serious loot inflation with every new raid instance. I can see why Blizzard wanted to change that, but I think the loot inflation was better for the game. As long as crafting and PvP rewards keep up with raid loot (update them with the raid instance patch or alternate raid and PvP/crafting patches), I'd much prefer to see big gear improvements again with each tier or raiding.

WoW really only has two kinds of character advancement: levels and gear. Once you get the last level, gear is the only advancement path, and it's not worth the time right now. So there's no point in playing past the level cap, apart from social ties.
 

Dear Anonymous 17:12:

I don't understand why Tobold tolerates the likes of you on his blog. Your opinions may be valid, but your rude, belligerent delivery should be limited to sessions with your psychiatrist. Also, if you are going to insult someone on their blog, at least have the decency to use proper grammar. And if your grammar stinks because you aren't a native English speaker, twice the shame on you for being criticized by an American in this day and age for being too aggressive and insulting.

As for your "points", such as they are: I guess as long as WoW appeals to you and your level of genius, the rest of the players, and Blizzard's income can all take a stroll off of a cliff, eh?

Karazhan is a real pain, even for those of us who clear it every week. When you end up disenchanting most items because they are not even purple-colored sidegrades to rep and 5-man gear, what's the point?

The one-two punch of ten times the work with little or no reward really does not fit in with human behavioral patterns. People were used to MC EZ-Lewts, and I agree that was quite extreme. Make the new raid content this hard, and keep the loot as desirable. Or make raid content like MC, and give us the crappy drops we get now.

MC took us about 3.5 months from first attempts to full clear. Can you imagine having done that, and getting Scholomance-grade gear for your efforts? I think not.

I'm the type of guildie who donates hundreds of gold worth of primals to get tanks geared up for content, farms stuff for consumables for the guild well over the dkp limit every week, and even I have a tough time justifying to myself staying up late 3 nights a week to go to Karazhan.
 

WoW got boring very fast in TBC for me, even with many of my friends playing along side.

Towards the end (..of my paid subscription) I was having a better time doing pvp events and grinding towards the pvp gearsets than bothering with the completely ass-backwards system of raiding TBC introduced.

Just to give you an idea of how I play... I generally give WOW a good 6+ hours of gameplay when I do log in... however I dont log in everyday just because i play other games as well. Waiting around for raid parties to organize ... staying up 5 hrs longer than I wanted to everytime there is a raid... the overall fun factor of raiding is just not there unless you consider WoW your career and only hobby.

Why pvp > raiding on WoW for me? the same reason you go to an icecream parlor and not order 15 scoops of vanilla on your cone. DEFINEATLY A CHALLENGE AMRITE?!!!!11

Pvp on WoW pits you vs a challenge which is not a simple follow-this-do-this scheme (Raiding requires only builds/and basic strategy/oh... and not being afk... this so called "100%" the vain 5% playerbase talks about). In pvp players who adapt to the environment regardless of how their enemy specs. Tank and spank trifecta you use for PvE may work in pvp... but can be countered and will be countered because the layer of sophistication live players bring to the game adds to the fun factor tremendously. You still can have your undergeared mentallity as well, as gear definately teirs how hard an opponent will be.
 

Honestly...people here are on the rampage at both ends of the spectrum, and its great :), so I'll toss my opinion into the mix as well.

Kara should be tuned so that 9 people can do it whe giving 100%+, without heavy consumables, thus 1 D/C (excluding MT) will not cause an autowipe.
Trash respawn time should be lengthened due to the amount of trash that they included. (to accomidate the luck based aspects of the encounters)

The loot system should be based on the classes/specs that you bring to an encounter, minimizing the useless purple loot pile that currently drops.

The cellar bosses should continue to drop semi-useless crap to be used for shards (and actually habe a purpose if my above suggestion is taken.)

Karazhan in my opinion is, for the most part, a great time. The boss fights are challenging as well as fun. The loot is an upgrade (however marginal in some cases)

Raiding in general is a time sink, if raiding isn't fun for you, go PVP. If you don't like that, roll some alts. If none of the above suits you, you shouldn't be playing WoW and need to get some RL.

@Tobold - GL with LOTRO ;) I'll continue to troll
 

I only have a couple points to add here:

One, for anyone who thinks the current level of challenge is good, let me remind you that we're discussing Kara, which is supposed to be introductory. Raiding in TBC was supposed to be more inclusive, not less; else why change the raid size? Unlike some posters, I'm all for challenge for the hardcore, but you have Hyjal and the Naxx-like BT ahead of you, which should take you months and months. Leave a couple ZG or BWL-tuned 25 mans for the more casual crowd. Having a 10-man with a raid lockout tuned to maybe AQ40 difficulty as your opener, and *still* no full 25 man dungeon at BWL difficulty is silly.

Two, I'm sure that LOTRO and other competitor games will have a moderately grindy endgame for the most hardcore. But they can at least install a decent scaling of difficulty and keep the out-of-instance farming from ever getting out of hand.
 

Ooh look, it's Mr Fun Time Anonymous and his crazy WARCRAFT: SERIOUS BUSINESS japes! "The high end raid gear are for the people out there like me", what larks he must have with his carefully selected guild, shouting at each other on Vent and /gkicking people who slack a couple of percent on a damage meter. And yeah, I know, we'll get someone coming on saying their guild cleared Karazhan and Gruul two weeks after the Burning Crusade was released and they're still casual and great friends and hang out at coffee houses with each other and have high powered jobs and families and their main tank has a Nobel Prize for physics and their hunter officer is a Pulitzer winner, that's great, we're all dead chuffed for you, honestly, don't take any time away from your volunteer work at the orphanage to lambaste us pitiful, whining dregs of humanity who have the temerity to want to have fun in a game.
 

@ ^^ well said, I loled at work there :)
 

Anyone else noticed that the people that post comment basically saying "you are all idiots" never dare to sign with a name? They are all anonymous. I wished you could turn off anonymous commenting in Blogger.
 

I find it interesting that this is a hotly debated topic, not only on this very humble forum but also in the WoW forums. Basically ill grind it down for everyone about the Burning Crusade.

THOSE who made many friends (or had lots of irl friend to play wow to start with) LOVE pre-bc. Pvp was very simple, and 40 man raids means you can take in your skilled or unskilled friends with you. It was a much more social friendly game and if you all take a step back from the grind/learning curve/ consumble / afk / loot/ whatever, it comes down to i can play with anyone i wish pre-bc endgame.

post-bc however is differnt, smaller raiders and harder instances means not every one of your buddies can come along to raid, if they are horrible, and we all have "horrible" raiding friends, they arent exactly welcomed. NOT to mention in bc, 5 man raids do not open much room for double up a class, you cant bring 2 rogues to a 5 man instance in bc currently, which really hurts the social aspect of wow, how many of you reading this have a friend that you used to raid all the time that was the same class? cant do that anymore unless its 25 man, and even then he/she better not suck then you dont raid with them at all. Granted you can play with your friends no matter what but progression in an instance is only really fun when you beat it, and that usually requires skillful players, it sucks to want to play with a awesome mage but as a raiding team he only raids if his wife and son who suck can take part (totally understandable). In the BC era of raiding we cant spare 2 dead weights for 1 of the best and dedicated players. We could at least spare a few pre-bc days.

In short, those that like BC as it is i find are those who did not progress end game pre-bc (and im talking past MC please) or did poorly in pvp becasue they could not progress in pve and did not want to get pvp reward gears.

Those who hate BC as it is i find are those who made many online friends or progressed far in pre-bc content only to have the game "restart" in terms of gears and work they put in the game for the last 2 years. It was fun playing and building up my character but this time around im putting a helluva lot less effort espically if a expansion will reset the game all over again.

Tobold, keep these touchy subjects going for blizzard fan bois!
 

Many former hard-core raiders are turned off by BC raiding.

Karazhan isn't that hard, but it's harder than entry-level raid content should be, IMO. BC doesn't really have entry-level raid content. It goes straight from 5-man to a 10-man raid (a really uncomfortable size) that's challenging to the 10 best players of a group that cleared BWL and part of AQ40.

KZ isn't hard for a top raid guild, but that doesn't seem to be the target audience.

Making the gear drops based on the classes present wouldn't help with KZ, though. You'd still shard 50% of the stuff because it sucks. KZ stuff is mostly not an upgrade to Tier 3, much less BC 5-man and quest rewards.
 

KZ has hotly divided our formerly family-like guild. We were farming MC and ZG, preBC, so we were not high end raiders. Raids were the equivelant of family dinner table time. It was lots of fun.

Moving to KZ, you now have no wiggle room. Like Tobold said, a person having to take a phone call, or any other RL obligation causes the raid to halt. And then you end up with loot that you're forced to shard/vendor sell because the people who could use it couldn't get in due to the 10 man limit. Ever (like our druids and shammies, since they can be beat by some other prime class).

As a priest, I try to make the raids. But I have a buzy RL schedule that includes two kids which require much more than a cursory pat on the head. The main KZ raidboss lectured me two weeks ago when I said I couldn't make a raid (due to a birthday party), saying that I had an obligation to be there and I was letting everyone down. I stopped signing up for raids. I plan my game time around RL, not the other way around. I did it all for raiding years ago in EQ - it's not worth it, but it took me too long to find that out.

When you'd see raid loot before, it was "omg, that's amazing." Besides an item here or there, there's almost nothing in KZ that is that way. Make it a 15 man. This lets people pug raid it. After all, most of it is minor upgrades from stuff you can walk up and buy at a vendor, or craft with a few hours of mindless farming. I'm not saying you walk in, press a button, and get loot - but there is no casual raiding as was promised.

I know there's people out there that are hardcore. Enjoy your game. You will beat every challenge, and strive to be #1 at it all, and first to finish. Jolly good, gold star, kudos and all that. But 2 months from now, you'll be bored, and playing another game. Why should the rest of us suffer a porely turned run that requires 1000% attention and effort when we're playing A GAME?
 

I'm still seeing the same things. The most vocal who considered themselves "casual" pre-TBC would whine that the only thing holding them back from success was the amount of time it takes to coordinate a 40 man raid and that their schedules didn't allow it, but that if there was a 5-10 man instance tuned to be raid level hard but with epics that they'd jump for joy and prove to everybody that they could play with the best of them.

Now we have that, and people are whining that what they really want is an instance that isn't really so hard, something that they can defeat in a PUG, oh and could it please have phatter lootz also? I used to despise the "hardcore" outlook of people feeling like they deserved to be way better than other players because of the time they put in, but this "casual" attitude is no less disgusting. I've been to Kara once, and it was fun. I'll keep going until it's not fun. If I get loot while I'm there, great.

In the meantime, something for the casual folks to think about. The expansion has been out just over 3 months. In that time, you had to gain 10 levels, had hundreds of quests to complete and also had by my very unofficial count 12 new 5 man instances that can be completed normally as well as tried on heroic mode (which I have seen people PUGing on my server). So you're trying to tell me that in 3 months you've exhausted all of this (and I'm not even bring up arenas as well as other content)? There is nothing left for you but the 10 and 25 man raids, and those don't meet your criteria?

Some people need to stop calling themselves casual and face facts. If you've exhausted the in-game content to the point of only having the raid instances left, you aren't casual. And if you've exhausted all of the in-game content other than the raid content, and find yourself totally incapable of handling the raid content, then it either isn't for you, or you're just really not very good at the game. Either is an acceptable answer but I doubt most people want to figure out which heading they're under.
 

I'm hearing from many people that they are not pleased with WOW end-game. I can understand hardcore wanting hardcore content. Yet they always fail to recognize that they are the minority of the player population, yet end-game tends to reflect them

I've retired into PVP twice now. Not because I love PVP but it's really the only content left available if you don't want to raid or burn out on raiding.

I'd be raiding Kara to some degree if the attunements weren't so grind-heavy. They provide solo content for leveling but this time tied attunements to doing instances. Hmm, I find that odd and it's a departure from previous game. At the most, you had to complete a quest chain in BRD for MC attunement but you didn't have to grind in there.

Solo levelers and casuals don't do instances as often because of preference and time constraints. I was casual pre TBC and attuned for all except Naxx. This round I'm attuned for nothing because I'm not interest in this grind-fest for attunements, just to experience content I'm only minimally interested in doing in the first place.

So as a paying customer, where is my end-game? My son - hardcore raider, quit WOW this weekend. He'd just had enough. The rewards for the effort were no longer compensated enough for the time and costs of raiding.

We were a family of four accounts and have dwindled down to one. The leveling game has always been the best part of WOW. If they could some how sustain that, it would be fantastic.

I'm back to PVP until the next thing comes along that I want to play then I'm done with WOW until the next expansion.
 

crazyflanger:
I spent four hours in Karazan only to get to the maiden and wipe 2 times.

It doesn't sound like you raided pre-BC to me. When the raid group I was in first tried Molten Core we spent four hours wiping on the trash mobs, and we were lucky to get anywhere near the first boss. After a while, we spent our four hours getting to the first two bosses and killing them, wiping many times on the way. With more experience and time we eventually got to the stage where we cleared MC in under three hours.

I have done no raiding in the Burning Crusade for various reasons, although I'd like to have the time to join in, so I cannot comment on the difficulty or playability of the new content. But to complain about wiping on a boss a couple of times and getting nothing out of only four hours of initial raiding is not understanding what happened before. Raiding is supposed to be a challenge, and overcoming that challenge can be a primary focus, with loot also being a reward. You may not have to dedicate yourself totally to the game to enjoy raiding, but you certainly need to treat raiding more seriously than a 5-man dungeon run, and expect to spend time learning encounters, even with trash mobs.

As for the 'good old days' of Molten Core, they were good as an introductory raid, but paled in comparison to each successive raid instance. We had people who, quite rightly, never wanted to see MC again. This was partly because we had cleared it so much and it no longer held a challenge, and partly because the newer content was clearly much better designed. Every encounter in BWL was better than in MC, maybe excepting Ragnaros, and bosses got better in AQ40 and then in Naxxramas. The later places were simply more interesting to be in, because of the design of the area and the design of the boss fights. It was more than pressing the same button, as far greater situation awareness was necessary, and different strategies instead of just nuking away were required, making people think and react.

There were good times in Molten Core, when we were learning the instance and gaining experience with raiding in a 40-man group. But we learnt along the way, with Blizzard, that the concept of raiding could be made much better. I'm only looking back because I had time to raid back then, and enjoyed the company of my raid members. If I were to raid these days, I would hope for an instance that was more like AQ or Naxxramas than MC.
 

the phrase "the grass is greener at the other side" comes to mind.
 

"Challenging" is fine. But "your whole raid just wiped because one player lost connection, and the trash mobs respawned before he reconnected" isn't that fun any more.

And then there is the matter of rewards. One of my friends told me how after several attempts they finally managed to kill Moroes, ... and the promptly disenchanted all the loot he dropped, because nobody wanted it. On their first kill. The hardcore always accuse the casuals to want "free epix", but now the casuals wonder why the hardcore would want hard fights *without* even getting epics for that.
 

From what I heard and read about Karazhan before we got there, the place is very annoying, lots of thrash mobs on short respawn timers, and boss encounters which need weeks to practice, and a full-buffed/flasked group of pro-raiders.

None of that was true, and we were very surprised how few trash there was to clean between the first bosses, and how doable the fights were. We're a group of 70% casuals, with 40h/w jobs, family life and friends (I myself play no more than maybe 14h a week), that never cleared BWL (wiped over a month on Nef), made it only halfway through AQ40 and never set a foot in Naxx, and nevertheless we rush through Karazhan in an awsome speed (Attumen, Moroes, Maiden down on the first raid evening, and at the end of the third week (3 raids a week) we're faced Malchezaar for the first time).

Yes, I like Karazhan, it's very challenging but never annoying, and the first boss can be laid by unexperienced raiders in no time. Sure it requires preparation in form of coordination, and everyone has to know the tactics else you wipe endlessly, but apart from that the instance is definitely doable by semi-casuals with blue equip and without flasks. Kudos for that, the goal to make an accessible small challenging raid instance is well accomplished.

But you're right, Karazhan is not the 'entry level' raid instance that everyone expected it to be. In fact, there's no such instance in BC, and that's the problem that upsets most casual raiders.
BC is missing an accessible instance with forgiving encounters, such as Zul'Gurub and MC were in Vanilla WoW, where 40% dedicated people were enough, and the rest could be on autopilot (autoshotting afk, or watching TV besides).

As for the Karazhan loot: yes, most of it is sidegrades, the T4 parts are disappointing (side- or event downgrades compared to blue quest rewards, needs definitely some upgrade), but there are still a few 'omgmusthave' items to be found which can keep the interest on the loot high. Same situation as in MC, where T1 was a joke (at least for mages) and you could get way better gear by doing PvP (blue rank 8 set was a zillion times better than the T1 set), even after the T1 set has been updated (and more spelldamage had been added).

Karazhan is nice as it is, the loot could be better in general, but it's still worth going there.
And yes, we need more accessible raid instances, where you can kill any boss even when 10% of your raid dies upon pulling, and another 10% are afk.

The other raid instances give me much more of a headache though...
 

I'd like to comment just on the issue of MC vs. Karazhan, or more broadly on the issue of pre-BC raiding vs. post-BC raiding. I'll leave all the side issues raised by Tobold and all the other commentators (e.g. loot, content), as they are all subjects that would require very lengthy replies by themselves.

MC was long, boring and after enough people had the gear for it, easy. Tactics were basic and people could go AFK even mid-fight with no harm done.
BWL was orders of magnitude more challenging. Maybe even a little too hard for a casual raiding guild. (we only got to the 4th boss before BC)
Which was more fun, MC or BWL? I would say, MC was more fun before it got too easy, BWL more fun once the challenge, especially of the first boss (Razorgore) became more manageable - it's no fun wiping over and over and over, unless you're hardcore - and my guild was/is not.

So is Karazhan more like BWL or MC? Of course the answer to 95% of the people out there is obvious, it is more like BWL. It is hard! Does that make it less fun? No!
Karazhan boss 1 was very hard at the beginning, but as time went on, both our tactics and gear became better, until finally he is easy for us. Rest of Karazhan is still challenging, but doable - we've already downed all the bosses up to Prince Malchezaar. Although I have to admit, That Shade of Aran is a right bastard... :)

I don't agree that Karazhan is too hard, even for a non hardcore team like us. Very hard? yes, but doable! Nor do I agree with Tobold's claim that "everybody agrees that at the time Molten Core was a lot more fun than Karazhan." I don't, and I think most people that I know don't. MC was easier, but easier doesn't equal more fun... easier runs the risk of turning into boring, as MC did...

I also don't agree with the claim that the raiding content doesn't scale well in BC. You're so used to pre-BC ways, you can't even see the answer in front of you - 5-man heroics are the new "MC" and they are sweet! Your progression should be 5-man instances, followed by 5-man heroics, followed by (or in parallel to) Karazhan. 5-man heroics are raids, but small ones that require only 5 people! They require dedication, careful planning, and good execution. And of course, appropriate gear. If you haven't done a 5-man heroic raid, why do you expect to "walk all over" a 10-man raid?

If really easy content is your cup of tea, grind regular 5-man instances. Bored of those? Go do a quest, or start a new character. The new races starting-zones are fun! If you are hardcore, you've done all that and still looking for more. But hardcore should have no problems in Karazhan... if like me you're not hardcore, you don't have enough time to do everything in the game... and already Blizzard is coming out with new "casual" content in the upcoming patch - Ethereum Prison! Skettis! Ogri'la! This isn't "hardcore land", this isn't content which will come in 9 months, it's good "casual" content that is coming next week! (sorry I know I promised not to talk about content but I just couldn't resist ;))

It may be that since the BC shakedown to raiding guilds, some have had a hard time adjusting to the new reality, and previous players who could "hide" among 40 others have their faults exposed in a 10 man group. I repeat, if for some reason you are not yet up to the 10-man-raid challenge (due to gear, Net connection or even lack of a suitable guild), do 5-man heroics. In its own way, such a small raid can be even more challenging, but at the same time it is easier to get a group for and certainly these days, getting to revered with a faction is a joke. I have a friend (on another server) who barely plays who is already revered with 1 faction.

Just my 2 cents worth :)
 

Dearest Tobold, I find those who post as "Anonymous" are being rude, and as such, only deserve to have their poorly-thought-out arguments summarily deleted by you. But that is only my own poorly-thought-out opinion.

All the hard core raiders need to protect their identities. These are veritable celebrities, aye!
 

Baah to many of u guys are focusing on Kara aspect of wow and not the big picture. I read Pretty much all of the comments and im left thinking more ppl are upset about the way BC is than happy.

Big picture is this. WoW isnt what it was before BC. New atmosphere with wierd new races running around. Loot is a mess now coz BC greens make old epics look like poop. Plus Bliz 4got about hunters and most of the mail is shammy gear now. Now Hord have bloody pallys and alliance have stolen our shammys. Its nothing like it really used to be.

There cant be any bull about these things not messing with the gameplay of wow coz that wld be madness.

Blizz had the right idea and then messed it up a bit thanx to one stupid mistake. removing LFG and giving us this system that makes parties of just rouges is not only a joke but very annoying. I am yet to find a good group with the new LFG. And as its the foundation to filling last spots of a raid this really is source of the problem with raiding. These smaller man instances are the right way and making them a challange is nice aswell but they shouldnt cost money but earn money and loot shld be worth the work the players put in. but if players need to spend money to get loot to dust is just wrong and crazy.

To make it all worse is that blizz have totally messed up the classes making most players feel that they are almost playing new chars and have to learn again how to play. Ok some people think "yay fun a new challange" but ppl like me think .... but i like the way it used to be so why change it? my character that i have spent the last 2 years working on has almost been deleted coz i dont recognize this new char im stuck with. why the hell did they ruin Hunter specs i really wld like to know. i was an ATK power spec hunter with 1400 raw atk power and ok so i did a lil less damage in DPS but i always knew how much damage i wld be doing and wasnt crossing fingers for crits to keep my DPS high. Plus in BGs i wld scare the bajeebas out of people when they run 2wards me thinking they can kill me in melee only to get a 1300 smash on the head and unable to move with wing clip. I was happy with my gears and many other hunters also where happy with theirs and yet now i simply have no idea how to spec. Am i now forced to go for agi now? all gears give atk power so whats the point in going for it? i made many set combos and it just dnt seem right to go for an atk power set or agi set or interlect set .... im lost with no idea where to go. i try changing the types of gears and they all seem the same. my crit raptor strikes at lvl 70 now only do 1200 dmg which is less than before TBC and i can also do a 1200 dmg raptor strike with my old arcanite reaper instead of my crystal forged axe which looking at the stats just shld defiantly not be the case. plus it seems im gonna have to go Beast Master coz my hunter seems to be only worth sumin as a farmer and little else. Im not wanted for DPS anymore and im not the only upset hunter. i only know one hunter that doesnt mind the changes.

Anyways Blizz have changed a lot of stuff and so the old hardcore gamers feel uncomfortable and let down by wow. blizz give so many empty promises about things they plan to do but never do. So people wanna leave and find new MMOGs where the company cares about their customers. What about making hunter pet atk speeds normalized and almost normalizing hunter attack speeds also eliminating all fast range weapons from game? that was met with hundreds of thousands of people incredibly angry at blizz for just the thought of it and they did it anyways.

We ask for a better raids system where we can play in smaller groups and they make the loots naff and get rid of LFG chan to stop us from making the raids able to take the instance down and also try to exclude certain classes from the instance.

I see a lot of people saying blah blah blizz rocks and the other games suck etc coz they will be the same. but god just look at what AoC is looking to be and you begin to wonder what Blizz are doing. Clearly the other MMOGs are not going to be the same. is wow that similar to EQ2 or UO? No.

my theory is this guys. the Blizz guys are to busy playing the game instead of improving it. :P

But ofc there is a silver lining. Ok so its been 3 months... thats a very long time but Blizz works soooo slow on anything that they still need another 4 months until they start to fix these things if they are going to do it at all. Its just a case of "too little too late" which is something you hear people saying a lot when talking about Blizz and WoW.