A year with no new 25-man content
by Dan O'Halloran 
Jan 24th 2008 at 11:00AM
And this is where Lore, a level 70 Blood Elf Paladin whose guild has had Illidan on farm for the past three and half months, now sits. For 25-man raiders, clearing Black Temple hasn't been the real challenge. Finding a new goal worthy of their time, dedication and uber-gear has been the task just out of their reach. And Lore's guild has been suffering for it with attrition, disinterest and players leaving the game entirely.
The news that new high end content is coming is great news, but it can't come fast enough for elite raiders who aren't quite the minority they used to be. WoW Jutsu shows that more than 6% of raiding guilds have entered Black Temple already.
Has Blizzard made the right choice by ignoring this group of players in favor of cranking out PvP improvements, 10-man instances and Cooking Daily Quests? Or has Blizzard dropped the ball for a good chunk of its player base?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Raiding, The Burning Crusade
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
drjonesac2 Jan 24th 2008 11:04AM
"Or has Blizzard dropped the ball for a good chunk of its player base"
False statement is false. 25 Man Raiders are not the majority.
seankreynolds Jan 24th 2008 11:33AM
Oh no! There's not enough content to satisfy ... SIX PERCENT of the player base!
Seriously, if you have BT on farm and can't find anything else to do in the game, I kinda feel sorry for you.
jrb Jan 24th 2008 12:00PM
i like the fact that people seem to think that blizzard has one man making content, and he/she can only make content type a, or content type b. BUT NOT BOTH AT THE SAME TIME, ARGH!! it's just wrong.
Naix Jan 24th 2008 11:44AM
There is sooo much more to do than raid. Daily pvp, Heroics, Daily quests, skilling up, group quests, find cool places to take screen shots.
If this can not fill a game void. Perhaps you should play EQ2.
Ras Gonzo Jan 24th 2008 2:17PM
WTB more 10 man's. They are more fun, shorter, less stressful, and easier to put together IMO.
Bloodelfer Jan 24th 2008 11:05AM
blizzard priority is PVP now - they really dont care about PVE anymore
Aldrel Jan 24th 2008 1:07PM
I know. The massive number of new BGs really proves this.
Wakoo Feb 11th 2008 8:53PM
Yeah nice one mate.
Because the next major patch is all focused on PvP and not a new 25 man raid.
Jess Jan 24th 2008 11:19AM
I think that the problem Blizzard has to keep dealing with his that they are trying to make 10 million people happy with thier game and different people want different things and no one wants to feel left out.
Developing instances with really tricky boss fights takes time and it looks like Sunwell will have dailies and 5 man content to keep us casuals from whinging too much.
In the mean time as a casual raider 2.3 was a great development for people who enjoy leveling alts but got sick of the same STV grind and well the leveling grind in general. Those changes have made me really happy. I feel like the pvp has had some unintended side affects that could be fine tuned. Lowering the rep requirements for heroics and then Adding more heroic gear, and badges to Kara made me more interested in farming kara and also running heroics so I could get all my new upgrades.
shiplore Jan 24th 2008 11:29AM
You do realise no more than 6% of all player have even SEEN BT yet...so umm not there's not a dire need for new 25 man content.
npm Jan 24th 2008 11:12AM
There's always someone driving 100 mph in the 65mph zone. Does that mean we should push up the speed limit to accommodate the fastest? When you push it to 100 mph, they'll drive at 120 mph. Same with the game. There's always going to be people willing to make WoW a second job. Trying to keep them happy just means the other 94% of players get shafted on content.
IMHO Blizzard should get rid of 25 player content entirely. The notion of big raids should have died out long ago.
Everquest had completely forgotten about the non-uber guild when I left that game. They were dedicating all their development to satisfying the mega-guilds. It really killed the game for a lot of people.
original2k Jan 24th 2008 11:17AM
hmm i wouldn't go that far because as little as that user base maybe, the fact they still exist shouldn't be left unnoticed.
ah this never ending debate continues to resurface.
if less than 10% of raiding guilds actually see BT then what does that tell you? why put all that effort into content 9.5 million people will never see?
personally i just pvp, but i don't think they should get rid of it entirely because those people who enjoy raiding should get to have as much fun as the rest of us. but from a development standpoint i don't think it's lucrative enough for them to pump out the raid content for people who will never access it
nav Jan 24th 2008 11:50AM
25 man's a reasonable size. It's not so large it's too hard to get together or have slackers in, but it's not so small that it limits complexity in the encounters. I really don't see the problem with 25 man raids - if your guild isn't big enough to get that many together then merge with another one.
anonymoose Jan 24th 2008 12:19PM
"IMHO Blizzard should get rid of 25 player content entirely. The notion of big raids should have died out long ago."
This is extremely misguided. The game is bigger than just one thing, including raiding, including 5 mans, including pvp, including dailies, including .
To state that 6% of raiding guilds have entered BT and postulate that "25 man raiding is dead" or somehow harms the player base by siphoning away attention completely discounts the very high number of guilds working on all the 25 man content preceding BT & MH, such as Gruul's, Mag, SSC & TK. This also discounts the servers that have pug raiding as part of their culture--on some servers up through SSC is a part of pug raiding.
I'm a working parent and I am also part of that 6% in BT right now. I have to say, I'm not excited to see new content *yet* because a number of guilds are responding with an urgent push to clear BT & MH before Sunwell is released (since it's billed as the next step from T6 content this means more than just clearing BT & MH, it means gearing as well.)
That said, I know there are a number of guilds ready for the next 25 man to be released and I can understand their desire to be challenged. While I personally feel no drive to be 1st at anything in the game, there are plenty who do. This does not mean I think we should eliminate content and/or challenges for that group. It just means I don't really want to do it at the same rate.
I like to pvp, I like to raid, I like to do heroics, and while I've never maxxed cooking on any of my 70s, I'm glad there are even cooking dailies. I'm glad the game is big enough to accomodate a wide range of gaming needs. Just because you aren't in BT does not mean 25 mans should be eliminated or ignored, in the same way that just because I don't have cooking maxxed on any of my 70s I think cooking dailies should be eliminated.
Rob Jan 24th 2008 1:45PM
I'm pretty much a hardcore raider, i spend at least half of my game time raiding Kara.
The fact is, blizz has poured alot of time into end-game progression. Granted many will never get to 70. But its not an impossible task, and believe me when you hit 70 you will start thinking 'what next'. There is a whole other game beyond 70 that Blizz has done great with. IMO the game probably would have died a long time ago w/o end-game content.
That being said, our server (a backwater to be honest) hasn't even seen BT or MH. The most uber of guilds is struggling through SSC. So, yes, its pretty hard to get 25 people that are sufficiently geared to try the 25 man raids. Its nice that they are releasing a new T7 25 man, but I'll never see it most likely (or maybe after WOTLK). And easily 95% of the user base will also never see Sunwell. So i think blizz has done the right thing, in focusing on lower end content such as ZA (that was huge), and the new awesome quests in DWM (that was also huge), and finally in easing 20-60 leveling (also huge). So, really the game is significantly better than it was 6 months ago, or a year ago.
I think they nailed it just right. For example, how would people feel if there was none of the above fixes, there were no dailies, no arena, just an endless progression of 25mans? Everyone would hate it, we'd be bored silly. Even the hardcore raiders (because you can only do kara or others a few nights a week). So would would you add if you were developers? I'd like to see BGs with randomized maps (or at least allow switching of horde and alliance start positions). I'd like to see new arenas (just another few is fine). I'd like to see more dailies and more epic mount grinds (call me crazy). I'd like to see another profession or two, ideally a secondary profession. I'd like to see kara or gruul level 5mans (heroics do not count, the likelyhood of getting T4 or T5 gear from them is very small). Sure, throw in another class or two. What would you like to see?
anonymoose Jan 24th 2008 4:39PM
" The major mistake I saw was having 6 25-man instances in the game from the ship date and only a single 10-man. Everyone would have been much better off if at least SSC were a 10-man, and preferably TK being 10-man as well. (and bump Gruul/Mag up to T5, drop SSC to T4, kinda in reverse of what it is now..) "
If you are in the subset that finished the content months ago, yes you have been waiting a proportionally long time for new content to challenge you compared to the rest of the wow population. At this point, I think it's appropriate to release the 25 man, and yes, it is stressful on guilds that have beat the content to lie fallow during this time period.
The amount of player prejudice against who these people are and what they do is astounding. I would like to assure you that as a BT & MH raider I am a perfectly ordinary person, like many of you, except I chose to raid and have found guilds on various servers that raid at times I can live with. (I'm a working mom, so playing after my kid is in bed is a priority in scheduling for me.)
Of the friends I have in guilds that have cleared the content--many have done exactly what you have suggested. They have created alts, they have maxxed their rep, they have pursued pvp goals (Arena and BGs), they have gotten obsessive in obtaining every possible in game world drop pet, they have then rolled alts of the opposite faction and begun clearing all the WoW content on those characters too. To assume those who have down Illidian are just hanging out in Shattrath doing nothing, going nowhere and bellowing QQ "Oh woe is me! We downed Illidian and I'm soooo bored!" is incredibly prejudicial and narrow.
The reintroduction of a 10 man as the LEAD IN for raid content created incredible strife on many servers. If you weren't around for it, you can't possibly understand how this devestated numerous guilds. Even today in groups just starting Kara it continues to be a real sticking point in terms of social cohesion.
To say that TK and SSC should have been 10 mans is idiotic and flies in the face of the huge numbers of guilds that are working through that content.
Just because *you* aren't in a guild or cross guild premade that is involved in 25 mans does not mean the game should be brought down to your level. The introduction of fantastic pvp rewards, amazing heroic badge rewards, stunning crafted goods has leveled the playing field gear wise to the point that every gamer in WoW has some personal choice and control in how they want to gear themselves.
People complaining that 25 mans should be eliminated because not enough people have access to them are just as idiotic as those in T6 content complaining that non raiders have access to high quality gear through other channels (crafted items, heroic badges, pvp). It's a big game, no one is holding you back.
gleja Jan 24th 2008 11:14AM
You think 6% is a big chunk? And that's not 6% of all guilds. It's 6% of guilds that have started Kara. So all the PvP guilds, goof-off guilds, etc are excluded from that number.
Compare that it's been well over a year since we've had a new 5-person dungeon. And pretty much everyone has been into a 5-person.
PeeWee Jan 24th 2008 12:13PM
Even worse, it's 6% of the guilds that bothered to register on Wowjutsu. It has come to my knowledge that at least a few raiding guilds in which I have personal friends has not bothered to do so, and they're at least farming SSC.
And believe me, 6% of the players on wowjutsu means less than 2% of the REAL population. Heck, I'd go as far as saying there are probably more people RP:ing than farming BT! And when was the last time we saw _any_ RP content?
michael.rudge Jan 24th 2008 1:35PM
You don't register for wowjutsu, it data mines from the Armory based the gear found on players. So 6% of raiding guilds probably have started BT.
As another poster mentioned though, that doesn't represent casual guilds who haven't downed a boss in Kara, PvP only guilds or unguilded players which I bet is a large segment of the player population.
Additionally, I'm not sure this argument applies to all those who have entered BT. Those who have entered BT but not cleared it do still have some content left for them. Looking at wowjutsu's numbers only 2.3% of guilds have cleared all the raid content, including a full clear of BT.
Also, why single out high-end raids? There haven't been any new Heroics, no new level 70 five-mans, no new five-mans at all since TBC launch. There have been no new battlegrounds since TBC launched. There was a new arena introduced in the same patch at MH/BT but not since.
The truth is Blizz provides large raid content updates more frequently than any other content, so I don't really see a point in complaining about it. It's the way it's always been and will probably remain. When you run out of raid content you repeat the same stuff or stop playing until more content is released. This is the same thing casuals do with five-mans, PvPers run the same BGs and arenas repeatedly, granted different opponents definitely add flavor.
There are always options, go PvP with some BGs and arenas, play an alt, play another game, take a break from WoW. Does the top-end raiding guilds really need to be fed constant content? Only 2.3% of raiding guild have done all the raid content. If it were 1% people would probably be crying that nobody gets to even see the content, like Naxx was. I think the game is much more balanced in TBC than it was previously, there is a fair bit of content for solo'ers, casual five-man'ing, smaller/casual guilds can get into Kara, more serious rading guild can move further into T4/T5/T6 content. 2.3% of raiding guilds (a subset of the player-base) have completed all PvE content at this time. This is a very small percentage of a portion of the player-base. New raid content will be out in a few months. I don't believe this is an issue. FWIW, I'm a raider in T5 content so I'm not overly biased based on the content I play.
Dave Jan 24th 2008 3:00PM
Yes, even more deep diving with the numbers suggests that the raid game is enjoyed by a small number and succeeded by an even smaller number still.
This is what people should focus on. %6 of %20-30 of the game (assuming wowjutsu can have missed as much as half of the existing raiding base) have hit BT.
This is approximately 150,000 people have beaten a boss in BT.
If we're really sitting on 10 million subscribers...
Less than ONE PERCENT of the entire subscribe base has killed a boss in BT.
Let it sink in, think about it for a minute...
Less than ONE percent.
And this is where people think effort needs to be made in content? What we need, are more 10-man and 5-man instances on a regular basis. Every patch should throw us a handful of new small group content, new BG's, new dailies, new quest zones, etc. LOTRO has it kinda sorta right, in that they add that sort of thing every time they publish a content patch. I think WoW needs to follow suit and give up the large-scale raid content in the quantity they have and focus on small group stuff every patch and give out a 25-man (or 40-man) instance every other patch or every 3rd patch kinda like they did this time around. The major mistake I saw was having 6 25-man instances in the game from the ship date and only a single 10-man. Everyone would have been much better off if at least SSC were a 10-man, and preferably TK being 10-man as well. (and bump Gruul/Mag up to T5, drop SSC to T4, kinda in reverse of what it is now..)