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[Angry Grimace]

Name dropping a guild that is now dead? You're a retard. Guilds are having huge issues recruiting, ANYONE that shows they're a good player and wants to put in effort to gear up, CAN get a fucking guild. I'm pretty sure your argument that it's impossible to catch up in BC type raiding was a rebuttal for whatever that's worth too.

Your posts are worthless, your ideals are worthless, you have no actual comebacks to any arguments, your entire ideology that you present in your posts consists of attempting to undermine everyone else's position by being an insulting asshole. You have never once refuted any of the points I've presented. I posit this: You don't refute them because you can't.

And yet you can't even see the irony involved in saying this in a post which is almost entirely composed of ad hominem attacks. I can almost see the spittle dripping off your screen. I'm simply noting the fact you can't go more than five posts without trying to defer to some guild nobody's ever heard of in some vain attempt to latch on to them. Nobody knows who these people are, so stop mentioning them to prove a point.

It's simply without logic that you'd expect me to respond to each and every point you make when your inherent premise is so lacking merit. Your argument about catching up in TBC is, simply put, trash. Think about it; it's based around the theory you'd gear up using badge gear added that was of a quality higher than previous raid tiers and a 5 man which had all epics in it. You realize, you're using this point to argue for why it's bullshit they add easily obtainable gear that's higher quality than previous raid gear. You just picked a very specific point in time where you could make that argument, and then said something that's inherently incompatible with your premise. You don't know what you're talking about at all.

And I posit this: It's generally futile to discuss algebra with someone who doesn't understand basic addition and subtraction.

 

[Bisnic]

I think you 2 are like a couple that keep bitching after the other for stuff that isn't worth it and that just don't give up and leave instead of dealing with it.

How to take a game too seriously. I especially like the huge walls of unnecessary text.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I think you 2 are like a couple that keep bitching after the other for stuff that isn't worth it and that just don't give up and leave instead of dealing with it.

How to take a game too seriously. I especially like the huge walls of unnecessary text.

He started it, mom!

 

[wonderdung]

If you are a) not terrible at WoW and b) want to progress, you can usually progress. It may take a server transfer and making a whole new set of in game friends, but it's pretty doable.

Illidan US is a top 5 server worldwide, and has been since classic. It's going to be significantly easier to find a good guild there than anywhere else. If you're not on a top 5 worldwide server you may have to xfer to raid, it's just the way it is.

 

[Bisnic]

He started it, mom!

Quiet. Both of you go in your rooms and think about what you've done!

 

[Angry Grimace]

If you are a) not terrible at WoW and b) want to progress, you can usually progress. It may take a server transfer and making a whole new set of in game friends, but it's pretty doable.

Illidan US is a top 5 server worldwide, and has been since classic. It's going to be significantly easier to find a good guild there than anywhere else. If you're not on a top 5 worldwide server you may have to xfer to raid, it's just the way it is.

That's rather besides the point that either of us were making.

Quiet. Both of you go in your rooms and think about what you've done!

A better punishment would be to force the transgressor to go grind out 125 Marks of the World Tree.

 

[Bisnic]

That's rather besides the point that either of us were making.

A better punishment would be to force the transgressor to go grind out 125 Marks of the World Tree.

Nah, a real punishment would be to grind all the necessary Argent Champion marks to buy all the mounts and companions available.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Nah, a real punishment would be to grind all the necessary Argent Champion marks to buy all the mounts and companions available.

That's something you do if you kid steals a car, not when he gets cheeky

 

[Rokal]

Seems like some people forgot TBC introduced some shit people complain a lot about, like arenas, dailies or resilience.

Dailies were actually well-loved by the community when they came out. They were an alternative to grinding for gold and they were more varied/interesting than previous rep-grinds which usually involved killing thousands of specific enemies for items to turn in for rep (Furblog rep, Wintersaber rep). Dailies were single-handily the biggest blow Blizzard ever made to the gold farming market.

At this point, dailies have a negative reputation. The quests aren't anything that players haven't seen before, and it's such an obvious grind/gating mechanism that it's hard to hold much appeal for it. Still, they're better than the alternative. Can you imagine if the only way to gain Tol Barad rep in Cata was to kill random mobs in the zone to collect "Tol Barad Flags"? 10 flags for 100 rep!

Your argument about catching up in TBC is, simply put, trash. Think about it; it's based around the theory you'd gear up using badge gear added that was of a quality higher than previous raid tiers and a 5 man which had all epics in it. You realize, you're using this point to argue for why it's bullshit they add easily obtainable gear that's higher quality than previous raid gear. You just picked a very specific point in time where you could make that argument, and then said something that's inherently incompatible with your premise. You don't know what you're talking about at all.

The epics from 5-mans only dropped 1 item per run from some 5-mans and only from the last boss. The epics were worse than what you could get in Karazhan. As for the badge gear, what was added was added slowly. Towards the end of the expansion you saw the most badge gear. At that point, people had already had 1.5 years to try to get through T4/T5 content, so releasing a larger pool of badge gear wasn't as destructive to that content.

A similar model in Cata would have resulted in 4.2 only including 4 pieces of 359 gear via valor points, and no 378 gear. This would have kept T11 a more attractive option for longer in the expansion while still giving people a chance to 'catch up' (4 pieces of 359 and 353 from ZA/ZG would have been enough). When 4.3 released, 4 pieces of 378 gear would be available for VP, and the 4 pieces of 359 gear would be moved to JP.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Dailies were actually well-loved by the community when they came out. They were an alternative to grinding for gold and they were more varied/interesting than previous rep-grinds which usually involved killing thousands of specific enemies for items to turn in for rep (Furblog rep, Wintersaber rep). Dailies were single-handily the biggest blow Blizzard ever made to the gold farming market.

At this point, dailies have a negative reputation. The quests aren't anything that players haven't seen before, and it's such an obvious grind/gating mechanism that it's hard to hold much appeal for it. Still, they're better than the alternative. Can you imagine if the only way to gain Tol Barad rep in Cata was to kill random mobs in the zone to collect "Tol Barad Flags"? 10 flags for 100 rep!



The epics from 5-mans only dropped 1 item per run from some 5-mans and only from the last boss. The epics were worse than what you could get in Karazhan. As for the badge gear, what was added was added slowly. Towards the end of the expansion you saw the most badge gear. At that point, people had already had 1.5 years to try to get through T4/T5 content, so releasing a larger pool of badge gear wasn't as destructive to that content.

A similar model in Cata would have resulted in 4.2 only including 4 pieces of 359 gear via valor points, and no 378 gear. This would have kept T11 a more attractive option for longer in the expansion while still giving people a chance to 'catch up' (4 pieces of 359 and 353 from ZA/ZG would have been enough). When 4.3 released, 4 pieces of 378 gear would be available for VP, and the 4 pieces of 359 gear would be moved to JP.

That's not incompatible with what I'm saying, or even necessarily related. His point as I understand it is that you could just join TBC at any time and just work your way up to Black Temple. Well, yeah sure, if you have a guild of equally skilled and equally geared players ready to go, which isn't as easy as just logging on and "hey I'm going to join Juggernaut right now." It's not really such a different model from vanilla where getting geared to raid was pretty much impossible due to the mechanics of farming certain gearsets.

What was always meant by the "barrier to raiding" doesn't simply mean the fact you have to run the old content; it means the fact that there are ancillary considerations because you can't merely clone yourself 24 times and then spam run Tempest Keep. It's just illogical to look at it from any perspective other than the totality of the circumstances rather than merely seeing it as subjectively a perfect system because you were already in a good raid guild.

 

[vilmer_]

Just finished off an a amazing quest chain in Icecrown that was focused around Crusader Bridenbrad. I don't remember doing this one in the past, and I sat there in awe after the Naaru lifted his spirit up into the heavens. Upon realizing this epic chain was dedicated to a real person who died of cancer, I shed a few tears

 

[Alucrid]

It's getting real catty up in herr.

 

[Mister Zimbu]

That's not incompatible with what I'm saying, or even necessarily related. His point as I understand it is that you could just join TBC at any time and just work your way up to Black Temple. Well, yeah sure, if you have a guild of equally skilled and equally geared players ready to go, which isn't as easy as just logging on and "hey I'm going to join Juggernaut right now." It's not really such a different model from vanilla where getting geared to raid was pretty much impossible due to the mechanics of farming certain gearsets.

What was always meant by the "barrier to raiding" doesn't simply mean the fact you have to run the old content; it means the fact that there are ancillary considerations because you can't merely clone yourself 24 times and then spam run Tempest Keep. It's just illogical to look at it from any perspective other than the totality of the circumstances rather than merely seeing it as subjectively a perfect system because you were already in a good raid guild.

TBC wasn't as inaccessible as most people make it out to be, nor was it as accessible as he is. There's huge advantages and disadvantages to both models of doing things.

Cata/Wrath model only effectively has one tier of content at a time, and no real sense of progression once you clear a raid. However, it's pretty quick to get alts and new players geared just by running heroics and getting VP gear, so it ends up being accessible to everybody.

TBC model was nice because there was always more content to be getting ready for. If you started late and were still in Kara/Gruul/Mag, you still had SSC and TK to look forward to while you were still gearing up in the prior instances. New raiders still had an entry point to raiding because there were ALWAYS Kara guilds around, though it would still be somewhat tedious to gear them (and alts) up as you always had to level through the previous content. Higher level guilds sniping players from the lower level guilds was a problem, tough. Alot of the problems people had moving from Kara -> Gruul was simply that they couldn't get the numbers because as soon as someone got geared, they moved to an already existing Gruul/SSC guild.

I sort of like the TBC model better because it never really felt like a grind as much as the current content does. As long as you weren't a top-end hardcore guild, you always had a new raid to look forward to while working on the current one. Nowadays, you clear the content, and then you wait several months doing the same thing over and over again while waiting for the new content to become available. It wears you out.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

I think overall, Wrath was the most "balanced" expansion so far. Cataclysm started out looking pretty good, especially when we're all clouded by the leveling process, but I think we can agree that ultimately it has been a failure - at least not a success. Burning Crusade introduced some great things, but maybe was a bit too "hardcore" in some respects.

Personally, I would like to see future expansions fall somewhere between TBC and Wrath in terms of system design and overall experience. I would rather things be a little harder to accomplish than easier, but maybe that's just me. I've always been the guy to go the extra mile to gear himself out, even if I've never found a guild composed of mostly like-minded individuals. I would easily hop back into the game right now if I had the chance to find that perfect guild, if it wasn't going to cost me so much in server transfer fees.


Unrelated: What's the Maelstrom Crystal market like nowadays? How much are they going for?

 

[Mister Zimbu]

Unrelated: What's the Maelstrom Crystal market like nowadays? How much are they going for?

80g per on my server.

 

[Alucrid]

I think overall, Wrath was the most "balanced" expansion so far. Cataclysm started out looking pretty good, especially when we're all clouded by the leveling process, but I think we can agree that ultimately it has been a failure - at least not a success. Burning Crusade introduced some great things, but maybe was a bit too "hardcore" in some respects.

Personally, I would like to see future expansions fall somewhere between TBC and Wrath in terms of system design and overall experience. I would rather things be a little harder to accomplish than easier, but maybe that's just me. I've always been the guy to go the extra mile to gear himself out, even if I've never found a guild composed of mostly like-minded individuals. I would easily hop back into the game right now if I had the chance to find that perfect guild, if it wasn't going to cost me so much in server transfer fees.


Unrelated: What's the Maelstrom Crystal market like nowadays? How much are they going for?

Er, Heavenly Shards are more expensive lol. Probably like 60-80g depending on the market fluctuations on my server.

 

[Bisnic]

Er, Heavenly Shards are more expensive lol. Probably like 60-80g depending on the market fluctuations on my server.

Considering most people run either raids or ZA/ZG where blues dont drop, its not surprising.

 

[Tamanon]

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2889061

Warrior T13 looks pretty awesome.

 

[Alex]

Looks like it has more effort put into it but I was hoping for something different after they said they brought in a new art director for armor for T13. This looks like the same ol', same ol' and it gets a little old seeing beasty heads and appendages plastered on everything. Current armor thematics have been like looking at a low-rent version of Monster Hunter (a game still running on PS2 asset quality).

If they want new armor to remain an appealing option and to really diversify things, they really should consider boosting up the geometry in the body and legs for new equipment. I very much think it's time to move past the flat textured fare, especially if they want to implement all of this organic looking detail into the gear.

Then again with as sluggishly as they pump out new assets outside of an expansion launch, asking them to design 5 new models per class up from 2 would probably cause some issues.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

The T13 is fine. Still looking at all the other sets, T4 and T5 are probably the best (T6 helm ruins that set for me.)

T10 was good too, but I didn't like the helmet if you weren't a horned race already and replaced the goofy looking horns with your own. T10 H25 especially with the red tones.

 

[Einchy]

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2889061

Warrior T13 looks pretty awesome.

I'm shitting bricks at how it looks. We're going to look so awesome come 4.3.

 

[Alex]

The T13 is fine. Still looking at all the other sets, T4 and T5 are probably the best (T6 helm ruins that set for me.)

T10 was good too, but I didn't like the helmet if you weren't a horned race already and replaced the goofy looking horns with your own. T10 H25 especially with the red tones.

Burning Crusade had the best theme work and equipment design by a large clip.

Northrend, despite my complete indifference to the lore and narrative in Warcraft, is probably the most cohesive and well made video game continent ever, IMO. (it's a shame exploration is kind of meaningless in this game)

A combination of those two in the next expansion would be the ideal to me.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

I'm shitting bricks at how it looks. We're going to look so awesome come 4.3.

The shoulders are definitely very nice - they look like wings almost.

Also, new blog up from Ghostcrawler on the rate of change in WoW. Fascinating stuff if you're just interested in game design philosophy. The article itself isn't too important regarding actual upcoming changes, but more how they decide to make changes, and how frequently the can do so. Would love to just go into Blizzard offices for a week to get access to all the data they have (recent data and older stuff from Wrath, BC, Vanilla that hopefully they have cached) to maybe understand more why they did specific things.

The one thing though is that while data can be an incredibly useful tool, I hope they're not basing some decisions solely off data. Sometimes it's more about whether something feels right, or has a certain flavour.

I don't know if I wrote it here before, but I was thinking the other day that a lot of the more recent general changes to WoW that have made it feel like it has taken a turn for the worse seem like they're coming from a more mechanical systems designer, rather than a game designer. Making game systems function more smoothly at the expense of other things (fun? sometimes.)

Burning Crusade had the best theme work and equipment design by a large clip.

Northrend, despite my complete indifference to the lore and narrative in Warcraft, is probably the most cohesive and well made video game continent ever, IMO. (it's a shame exploration is kind of meaningless in this game)

A combination of those two in the next expansion would be the ideal to me.

Definitely I think. Wrath was really cohesive in conception, while BC had the better overall theme with generally superior equipment design (barring the clown leveling gear.)

 

[Alex]

When you enter Outland and equip a full set of TBC equipment an achievement should pop up and play: http://youtu.be/V8vINCq_IAI

 

[Mairu]

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2889061

Warrior T13 looks pretty awesome.

meh ;(

 

[Bisnic]

Warrior T2.5 is ridiculous lol. Great T13, can't wait to see the others.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

This gave me hope: "To combat the complaints of armor always looking the same, there is a sub-lead who is in charge of guiding the art team to produce new styles not found in the game yet."

And the Warrior set pt me back to reality. I mean the new dungeons having unique looking gear, and maybe the non set gear looking unique will exist, but the tier sets will always look like balls.

 

[Mairu]

This gave me hope: "To combat the complaints of armor always looking the same, there is a sub-lead who is in charge of guiding the art team to produce new styles not found in the game yet."

And the Warrior set pt me back to reality. I mean the new dungeons having unique looking gear, and maybe the non set gear looking unique will exist, but the tier sets will always look like balls.

I feel the same way, I don't see why anyone's impressed by it

 

[C.Dark.DN]

Also, it's contradictory to put a lot of effort into new gear anyway if most people are going to transmorg. Seeing the light, or failing at seeing the light, it a bit late.

 

[Alucrid]

This gave me hope: "To combat the complaints of armor always looking the same, there is a sub-lead who is in charge of guiding the art team to produce new styles not found in the game yet."

And the Warrior set pt me back to reality. I mean the new dungeons having unique looking gear, and maybe the non set gear looking unique will exist, but the tier sets will always look like balls.

I like Hunter T12, so much so that I probably won't transmog it. Looks radically different from T11 too, of course I hated T11. However T2 remains near and dear to my heart.

 

[Mr Nash]

Wound up dragging myself back into the game for a bit after poo-pooing it recently (go ahead and laugh!), and am still trying to figure out what classic tier set to get for my worgen resto druid once the transmogrifier comes along. I'm leaning toward T5 or T7. Hard to decide, though. I probably wouldn't care if I was feral or boomkin, but here we are!

 

[C.Dark.DN]

I like Hunter T12, so much so that I probably won't transmog it. Looks radically different from T11 too, of course I hated T11. However T2 remains near and dear to my heart.

I like that it's a humanoid head that is way more detailed than any playable model's face in the game, and would like to see more helms like that, but the shoulders are meh and everything else is a skin tight spandex body suit with a multicolored pattern as always.

 

[Alucrid]

I like that it's a humanoid head that is way more detailed than any playable model's face in the game, and would like to see more helms like that, but the shoulders are meh and everything else is a skin tight spandex body suit with a multicolored pattern as always.

Shoulders are awesomeeeeeee. Are you high? They really have to do something about the whole eye patch thing.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

Shoulders are awesomeeeeeee. Are you high? They really have to do something about the whole eye patch thing.

Yeah I dunno what was up with that fetish this go around. Makes all the hunters look like pirates. Not something I'm a fan of.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

Shoulders are awesomeeeeeee. Are you high? They really have to do something about the whole eye patch thing.

Double checked on a few hutners in game, nope, boring shoulders.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I think everyone can agree TBC's armor design was the best by far. I think transmog is pretty much going to come down to everyone tripping over themselves to get T4-T6 depending on class.

 

[Kunohara]

Nobody is ever going to successfully refute the argument that TBC's armor design was the best by far. I think transmog is pretty much going to come down to everyone tripping over themselves to get T4-T6 depending on class.

T4 helmet for lock, and T5 Lock set was the best I agree.

 

[strafer]

The hell is this??!?!?! This is not Warlock material.

Where are your designers.

 

[Bisnic]

Nobody is ever going to successfully refute the argument that TBC's armor design was the best by far. I think transmog is pretty much going to come down to everyone tripping over themselves to get T4-T6 depending on class.

Eh. My mage and warrior already bought the lvl 70 PVP set, they look pretty good, cost only a small amount of honor and you don't need to get a small party to farm them, unlike BC raid Tiers.

Beside, the lvl 70 PVP shield is a BEAST. So huge and badass compared to the crappy little 359 shield my worgen warrior is using. I wanted to use it on my female draenei paladin too, but the stupid tail has clipping issues with huge shields. =/

 

[Kunohara]

What the fuck is with the mouth in that picture? Is that T13 for locks? If so, I am quite disappointed.

 

[dave is ok]

The helm is a just a T10 helm with a few adjustments too. Very lazy

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

I'm kind of disgusted by that honestly. Looks like something that would have come out of an aquatic raid (you know, the one we aren't getting anymore...) Unless there is a squid boss or something, somehow. We still have no idea how this raid is going to work exactly, with no known entrance.

 

[Alucrid]

Worgen mounts = A big 'fuck you' from blizzard

JK., I FUCKING LOVE HORSES MANG

 

[Alex]

Blizzard really needs to go back to the class themes they talked up during BC then talked down during early Cataclysm, it's making them look extremely foolish.

Warlocks want to look like this:

For the love of god stop putting monster parts on armor if you aren't going to boost the geometry and make unique models for robes/chestpieces/legs/etc! The current stuff just cannot support designs like that with just two unique models then flat textures slapped on the rest.

 

[Dunlop]

I'm totally gong back to T2 on my priest.

I don't know why so many cloth casters like have massive f-ing shoulders with laser lights shooting out of every component.

Stand a plate wearer and a cloth wearer side by side and you really can't tell which is which nowadays (outside of the robe factor)

I want my caster to look like a caster

 

[strafer]

Blizzard really needs to go back to the class themes they talked up during BC then talked down during early Cataclysm, it's making them look extremely foolish.

Warlocks want to look like this:

Best set ever.

 

[Bisnic]

I'm totally gong back to T2 on my priest.

I don't know why so many cloth casters like have massive f-ing shoulders with laser lights shooting out of every component.

Stand a plate wearer and a cloth wearer side by side and you really can't tell which is which nowadays (outside of the robe factor)

I want my caster to look like a caster

If you're looking for a nice staff, unique model if im not mistaken, there's a blue reward from a quest in Shadowmoon Valley. It's pretty cool looking and hopefully you havent completed it. It's from the last quest with the old orc and his 3 sons where you end up fighting a big green giant in the middle of the map. Forgot the name.

Wish i could link a picture but wowhead is blocked at work.

edit : it's the staff of the redeemer

 

[strafer]

Yeah, it's nice looking. Gotta check if I have done it.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

I'm totally gong back to T2 on my priest.

I don't know why so many cloth casters like have massive f-ing shoulders with laser lights shooting out of every component.

Stand a plate wearer and a cloth wearer side by side and you really can't tell which is which nowadays (outside of the robe factor)

I want my caster to look like a caster

Didn't Paladins get pants this time (T12) after having dresses for awhile?

Oh, and that Warlock T5 is absolutely awesome. I need to browse through old sets again sometime. Definitely going to be checking out what cool things there are for my shammy - DK main unfortunately is kind of limited for tier at least (and I still have a lot of most Wrath sets for him anyway.) I do know I'm missing T8 shoulders (having all other T8 parts) - those drop from Yogg though. Even now, Yogg 25 might be pretty difficult with just a PUG, and I'm not sure how many 85s it would take to down him at a decent pace (5, 10, 15?). Maybe I'm overestimating though, since the damage/effects from the tentacles should be pretty negligible now - certainly if you were doing him with 2-3+ keepers.

 

[Azwethinkweiz]

Didn't Paladins get pants this time (T12) after having dresses for awhile?

The funny thing is I keep hoping they'll swap out DK pants for dresses. I think they look better on non-war plate classes but maybe I'm in the minority.