Worst idea ever.
 

Sure. Seems like a pretty good idea to me.
 

They do it now anyway with AQ gates etc, with the mount reward. Would be cool seeing more things like this.
 

Isn't that what top raiding is all about, to be recognized as being the best?
No.

Those that are interested in faction/server/world firsts already maintain their own kill lists on their server forums, WoWWiki or in the "WoW media". Any in-game rewards would seem pale in comparison, since only your battlegroup would ever be able to see those.

Name recognition > in-game rewards.
 

You're getting it all wrong, shalkis :) The question isn't "name recognition or ingame rewards?", but "name recognition or name recognition _and_ ingame rewards?". It's pretty clear to see that name recognition + X > name recognition...

The problem with welfare epics is that they have the same look as the raider's epics, and thus raiders don't have a distinctive "top notch" look that nobody else has anymore. This would rememdy this. A really great idea.
 

Why not just have a special server for hardcore raiders only?
 

They already get plenty enough rewards. I ran a few of these kinds of guilds and getting server firsts is like increasing your budget for viral marketing by orders of magnitude.

It would make more sense to give out some type of medallion based on which class composition you used to kill some particular boss. Like "Gold medallion of priest gruul" which you get if you can kill gruul with 20 (silver 15, copper 10) priests or something like that. Then do the same for all classes and interesting compositions of classes.
 

Sure, name recognition + reward is better than name recognition, but not by much.

Let's use the Olympic Games as a metaphor for raiding. Sure, that gold medal could be auctioned for a nice sum, but it's value pales in comparison for being recognized as the best in a particular sport. The name recognition is multiple orders of magnitude more important than the value of the medal.
 

No, horrible idea. Basically this is what EQ had, back when they would nerf content and take the award away from anyone else ever getting it. Remember the Mask of Deception? They claimed it was a bug, allowing anyone into turning into a DE. Then one day they patched it and people that already had it could still use it while new people getting it had to be a bard. What a crock of shit.

no, hardcore raiders getting world firsts arn't better, they are actually worse. Why, because of my own saying. "Those that win in MMOG, fail in Life". What that means is to win quickly in an MMOG, you usually have to sacrifice your real life & friends. So yea, all the net kiddies throw glories on you and worship your toon, why you spend 12+hrs at a desk growing paler & fatter by the minute ha. Many claim to have control of their lives when in reality WoW or whatever their poison is, has control of them.

I don't believe in being penalized in a game just because I choose not to spend all day for weeks playing to race others to special content that won't be available to others. If there are games like that coming out, I will WIN by not playing them but instead choosing to play others that don't fail in their design. And yes, I've done many server firsts including BTL & up to Kara bosses before I retired from Wow and I don't think I should have a mount or visual loot that others could never have.
 

Yeah they could also win a full life of no cost pizza deliveries for them to not go out in real life.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

Why, because of my own saying. "Those that win in MMOG, fail in Life". What that means is to win quickly in an MMOG, you usually have to sacrifice your real life & friends.

A perfect example of projection if I ever saw one.

To get back on topic..

Even if we assume that faction/server/world first boss killers deserve extra rewards, I don't think that it would do much to solve the problems with the mindset and/or game design. It's like offering a lollipop to a kid whose leg is broken. It's ineffective at best.
 

It does seem strange to give yet another incentive to hardcore raiders, and I don't think they'd suddenly acquiesce to easier raids if they were given new rewards for finishing them first.

The solution to the casual raiding issue is to create normal and heroic versions of new raid instances. Pitch the normal versions at a competent and well lead pug or casual guild group, and then ramp up the difficulty in the heroic version. Larger trash pulls, mobs and bosses with more health and additional abilities, requiring more complex strategies, etc.

Sure, it's a little extra development, but they've had plenty of practice with the normal heroics already, and it's a small price to pay in opening the content up to literally millions of more people. Perhaps even introduce an additional 'Legendary' difficulty level for the masochists.
 

Hmmmm. I think legendary weapons is blizzard's answer to that in terms of rewards. Even though casual gamers can get epics, only top raiding guilds have access to legendary weapons. That's why in their guildsite they announce who recieved the legendary weapons if it dropped for them.
 

I say leave it as it is.
In order to keep everybody happy do what Tobold once sugested: nerf old raid dungeons so they can be puggable by a 10-15 player raid group, have them drop heroic badges (like 3 for run) and everybody will be jumping up and down. That would fix the complaints about not seeing some of the content. People without time would just see it later.
 

wanting recognition for being a "top notch raider" is abit sad, just because you can repeatedly farm a boss...i suggest you leave the game a seek a fresh challenege.
u dont see "hardcore casuals" wanting recognition for playing as a casual,
the only group who deserves recognition in wow, are the "silent majority" people who can play the game as designed and are happy to do so
 

love it love it love it.

the reward doesn't have to have any in-game status effect, it just needs to show that you did it, and joe bloggs over there didn't.

glow effect on items, status-neutral decos, one-off dyes for clothing, buff that alters appearance but nothing else: all are good ideas.

achieving something that no-one else on the server has yet done is a buzz, and having some way to display that makes the buzz last longer.

by the same token, when it gets to the point that ppl have the achievement you worked so hard for on farm, its very disillusioning - so being able to prove that you did it first makes it still seem worthwhile.

extra rewards are always nice, as one of the commentors said - but they're not essential. doing something first is as much about recognition as it is material (in-game) benefit - so anything that added to that recognition would be very worthwhile, in my opinion.
 

I dont' see a problem with this.

I've always thought it a good idea
 

I find it sad so many somehow think they lose if someone gets a server first. We aren't talking about preventing you from trying or even doing the content. We are just talking about recognition for who got there first.

If you feel you lose because they get a server first and get some reward. Then you are part of the problem.

HOw they should balance content for everyone else is a different discussion.

I think some of you are pulling your emotions from some of the games bad practices into this narrowly focused topic
 

Actually Sam, if you read Tobold's post, he suggests that giving raiders this special recognition might allow raid content to be made easier for the masses, and therefore content balance is indeed one of the issues that was raised.

Giving status rewards to elite raiders will not suddenly make them happily accept easier content. They won't be happy just being the first to have done something. They want to be the only ones to have done something, or at least in the minority.

This group of players is already the most pampered with regards to rewards, status and development time - grossly disproportionate to their numbers. Do they really need more rewards?
 

Special title, like the old Scarab Lord. Possibly some shiny unique mount. That's it, nothing else.
 

I think any new or extra reward related to gear or money is a bad idea. However, any rewards based on recognition, namesake, or any way to receive a reward that would not effect any element of the game for other players would be a great idea.

Furthermore, I totally agree that instances/raids should be either scaled based on party build/number and/or have difficulty levels. I would love to raid w/ 4 people all the way through end content and scale it so that I would get rewards just sufficient enough to complete this but certainly not on par with a 25 man raid. Also, lower difficulty should not be eligible for any name recognition...save that for the hardcores.
 

Who cares? This is a video game.

If raiders need to prove that they have "achieved" something, sure, let them have one more dumb-looking title after their name.

At least the people who do it first didn't have youtube videos to study and mods specifically designed for the encounter that makes those raiders "special".

How about this:

Who cares about meaningless titles or dumb glow effects that pale in comparision to existing enchants.

How about Blizzard fixes the bugs in this game, puts out new content, and keeps its word on what changes it is and isn't making.

Really...another title for raiders?

Who. Cares.
 

Being first means you had more time, not that you are the best...at least in Wow. Maybe the next big game will require skill to be first and not 20days played.

I don't think some of the ideas are that bad, names, maybe some kind of trophy. WoW has had a few first items like the bug mount but I don't think there should be many items that are never attainable. Why play a game where you can never obtain items? I played EQ to get Soulfire which I got. If only the first 10 paladins could have gotten it, where would the fun be for the rest of them?

And if you reward the hardcore raiders with their firsts even more, will they stay? doub it, I know several Legendary weapon holders and rare mount drop riders that later quit the game.

Maybe give them a name, "First Dragon Slayer" and the rest that kill the dragon will be "Dragon Slayer". That should be recognition enough if anything. Now most know they are the first anyway because they go bla bla bla all over the forums. what a wasted read those are now a day lol
 

This is a suggestion that has come up in some variation or another many times by many different people.

I like it because, in addition to allowing the raids to possibly be made simpler, it might allow the gear difference between raids to be reduced while still keeping players competing, since they will be getting the reward they expect as a status symbol rather than game effecting gear.

The few additions I would make is to provide status symbols to, say, the first 10 or so groups to down a boss, to possibly make this a guild wide reward, and possibly to give some sort of equivalent "status symbol" to anyone who kills the boss, just not the same symbol as the first kills, so that those people playing for the rewards will still have something to go for after the first few kills.
 

There are a few factors that may bear on this question.
Who invented the "server first" concept?
I don't think that Blizzard intended raiding to be a race. I'm not so sure that sanctioning the race with a reward is a good idea.

Then the floodgate of possibilities is opened...
Do we reward second and third?
The top ten?
The whole guild, or just the raid that finished first, or by some other set of criteria?
What then will we say to any number of other "firsts" on a server?
In WotLK, will the first to level 80 be rewarded?
The first to 450 skill in each profession?
The first to clear each instance?
On and on this could go.

I guess I don't really care either way, except that I don't think it's worth the Blizzard design and implementation time to work all this out, or the player-base drama about who got what reward and whether the reward was appropriate, etc, etc, etc...
 

I don't mind the idea for titles and special rewards for server firsts, but I would also like to see titles and special rewards available for special combinations and finding/completing easter eggs and hidden quests, or heck completing all the quests in an area (like half of a continent or all the quests for one of the larger factions, etc.)

What I mean by special combinations is for example, doing an instance or killing certain bosses with a 5 man group of just one class.

And the twist, would be that the special reward or title would be considered "Legendary" in that no one else can get that title or reward until the characters that have that title have acquired new titles or the special items or characters no longer exist (deleted).

That way, you can't have copy cats come around on your server and have more than a group of people share the same titles or rewards.

And if someone has a title already won, and they "unlock" a new title, they will be given the choice to accept the new title and discard their old.

Additionally, the system won't let someone get more than one legendary item per slot. For example, if you have the option to pickup a second pair of legendary boots, it will tell you if you accept the new item it will delete your other pair of legendary boots (whether they are in the bank or not). Meanwhile you can have more than one legendary item as long as they fit in different inventory slots.
 

I always wondered about stuff like that. In competitions like the olympics, do people care about who won the first hundred meter dash? Do people care about who threw the javelin first? What about the first person to do the pole vault, or the long jump?

I have a hard time equating "first" with "best". That said, if raiders got some sort of cosmetic reward for doing well at raiding, I'd be fine with it as long as it didn't give them a huge advantage over me. If they did something the developers think is worth rewarding, then more power to them.

--Rawr
 

Im complety agree with it
 

The biggest indictment of how lame “hardcore” raiders have become are sites like www.bosskillers.com that hand hold guilds through content. I get sick to my stomach when I see people writing things like “go read up on the strategies for XXX” in guild chat. Is it just me, or am I the only one that finds some of the joy of beating a dungeon is rip away because I am asked to copy-cat someone else who did it first.

I find it ironic that “hardcore” raiders use these sites like the bible and then turn around and claim that PvP gear is a welfare epic. It seems the true welfare is coming from the sites that are doing the hand holding. Most guilds have trouble beating many of the bosses even with the strategies these sites provide.

I’m all for server firsts getting all the props. It takes something extra to be a trailblazer. But don’t tell me you deserve epics more because you raid when all you do is follow a strategy guide. Walkthroughs for the Win!!!

BTW - I'm not saying you fail if you use those sites, just that you lose the right to be strut around bragging when all your doing is walking around in your older brother's shoes.
 

well the thing is it used to be that "Hardcore guilds " were the ones that got thier first on thier own. Somewhere along the line hardcore became anyone that raided several days a week or more regardless of progression. Its now a fuzzy term kind've like casual so haveing an intelligent discussion becomes hard because what you mean by the term and someone elses interpretation of the term are usually different
 

Popcorn:

About the mask, this was a flaw with EQ, the rewards mentioned would be visual, and have no effect on the game what so ever apparnt from being able to tell those apart from the rest. Take T6 shaman gear, they are all blue, maybe the shamans in the guild on x server who completed it first, their gear is white. Purply visual, but cool, and no matter how many thousands of guilds complete it later, noone can take that away from the guild. Its would unit the guild more.

Unwise:

Giving hardkore raiders a small but unique bonus like this, would probably actually fix the problem you mentioned in your post. Something as small as anew style haircut that noone else can get in exp, Spectral Tiger, Turtle Mount, those kind of things make people stand out and look *better* to onlookers for being unique.
 

Giving hardkore raiders a small but unique bonus like this, would probably actually fix the problem you mentioned in your post. Something as small as anew style haircut that noone else can get in exp, Spectral Tiger, Turtle Mount, those kind of things make people stand out and look *better* to onlookers for being unique.

It might appease some raiders, but I suspect that once every other guild and pug on the server have cleared the same content, that server first status symbol will start to lose its sparkle.

You can see this with the titles they give out on LotRO for killing raid bosses. The first handful of guilds that achieve it proudly brandish their title, but as soon as a handful more have done it, the titles disappear, because the feat is no longer remarkable.

If the raid content is made easier, but with server first rewards being introduced to appease raiders instead, those raiders that blow through the content to get their special titles/haircuts/mounts etc, will soon find that:

a) There is nothing left for them to do.

b) More casual raiders will catch up with them sooner.

c) Their server first feat will become less impressive over time.

Now, I'm fairly indifferent to the idea of server first rewards being implemented. I just don't agree that they will allow raids to be made easier. The hardcore raiders will still want the hardcore content, as the real status they crave is prove that are better than other players, and easier content won't give them that.