Attunement is one of those subjects that divides
WoW players. You either think people should have to work to get into high-end dungeons, or you think they should be open to anyone with the guts to try. Of course, you're more likely to fall into the first camp if you yourself had to do that work, hence the recent controversy over the attunements for the Black Temple and Mount Hyjal being removed.
Well, it turns out that if
WoW lead developer Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan had his way, attunement would be much less of a pain. He dropped the following information in a thread on "
Attunement and Alts" in the general forums today:
- They would like to make it so getting a Karazhan key or a heroic key gave all your other max-level alts access as well.
- They're looking into guild and raid attunements, but "no promises."
- They're interested in doing server events to open up content, like the AQ war but, Tigole says, with more fun dailies and fewer boring collection grinds.
Overall, he says the topic of attunement comes up often at Blizz HQ, and they want to do better moving forward and going into
Wrath.
Tags: alts, attunement, blue, heroic, heroics, instances, jeff-kaplan, raiding, raids, tigole, wotlk, wrath, wrath-of-the-lich-king
Filed under: Instances, Raiding, Alts, Forums
Feb 15th 2008 at 4:20PM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Ironhide Feb 15th 2008 4:32PM
If getting exclusive access to raid content is such an issue for some people then put 2 price tiers into the subscription model.
Tier 1 - $15/m Casual players. - Access up to Heroic Dungeons. No attunement needed.
Tier 2 - $20/m - Casual Raiders - Access to 10 Man content (more than just one- add a few more). No Attunement needed, must be on this subscription though.
Tier 3 - $25/m - Raiders - Access to full difficult 25 man progression. Exclusive loot and titles. - No attunement.
There you go, fits for everyone and the raiders can QQ less about the game being made easier for the casuals.
While we all pay $15/m, are we not all entitled to the same content? Not just those able to spend more time.
Flame on raidtards.
Layne Feb 15th 2008 4:34PM
your $15 a month gives you the opportunity to raid.
it doesnt give you loot. you still have to play the game.
i dont see any other developers making their games easier because people cant beat them.
Ruby Feb 15th 2008 7:21PM
I think you should play one of those free-to-play games.
Sakerin Feb 15th 2008 4:50PM
Worst idea ever ... (if you don't get the Simpsons reference don't flame me for simply leaving a fragment as a comment).
domineek Feb 15th 2008 4:54PM
Dude. That has to be the worst suggest conclusion to this old argument that I've seen yet but considering that you've set the pace here, let me digress to your level of troll logic and explanation.
Tier 1 - You are an idiot. Why, for any reason, would I want to pay the same money that I'm paying now for less content? No reason at all. Fail.
tier 2 - Attunement = you actually have to prove something to someone in order to enter. Either you prove skill, ability to work as a teammember, or sheer determination and/or some combination of the three. I'm sorry, but 5 mans with 20%-40% of your group possesing no skills suck. 10, 25 mans with the same percentages suck at the same rate. Progress your skillset (any of the 3 factors above or combination thereof) or can it and stay out of endgame. Having said this, adding 10 man content for additional subscription price? C'mon. Is that actually the direction in which you would like to see Blizzard take this game? Next time plz think before shoving your foot in your mouth in order to be the first troll to post.
tier 3 - To drive it home here... Same content at more price = idiotic. AoC on the horizon, expansion coming, record subscriptions, and raise the subscription price? /slap for suggesting such nonsense.
This game has always been the same in one regard. More time and effort and skill produces greater results (insert argument agaist HP farming and welfare epics here). The concept of equal content for equal subscription price is an atmosphere such as this is assinine.
Plz crawl back to troll hole and stfu with you mindless drabble.
Flame on trolltards.
Verit Feb 15th 2008 7:32PM
@Layne
Happens all the time - back in the day there was a game by Team 17 called Project X. I defy you to find anyone who made it past level 2. It was so hard they re-released it.
I can find other examples - but that was the most memorable.
Matdredalia Feb 15th 2008 10:17PM
@ Layne - wow, you've never played any other MMO's have you? EverQuest (basically the grandfather of all MMO's unless you count UO, which in my eyes is not quite the same thing), has repeatedly made the game more and more easy to cater to the casual player. They did the same exact thing with EverQuest 2 because they receieved mass amounts of criticism about how difficult the game was, especially in comparison to WoW which provides better content for casuals.
Not to mention, there is this thing called a Game Shark & a Game Genie that have been around for pretty much my entire life. Maybe you've heard of them? Yeah, they used to actually be licensed products by Nintendo.
Gazmik Fizzwidget Feb 15th 2008 4:41PM
Wow. I put together that diagram and posted it on a private section of a guild website over a year ago, and it's still turning up in new places without attribution. :(
Poddo Feb 15th 2008 4:52PM
This is the internet. Welcome. If you think that when you post something, no one is going to repost it everywhere else, you must be new. If recognition is that big of a deal to you, but a giant watermark on it. Otherwise, be happy in knowing that your chart helped lots of people understand attunements.
Rich Feb 15th 2008 4:55PM
The picture does say "Chart by Gazmik Fizzwidget"...
Eliah Hecht Feb 15th 2008 4:57PM
@Rich: I just added that credit at his request. In my opinion, he was right to call me out for posting something without attribution; I was being lazy and made a mistake.
Artemis11 Feb 15th 2008 5:36PM
Do you have a link to a full resolution version? That looks really nice, gazmik.
EM Feb 15th 2008 5:45PM
I, too, would love to see the full size version.
Eliah Hecht Feb 15th 2008 5:44PM
Here's a full-res copy:
http://worldofraids.free.fr/bc/BCRaids.png
sagerush Feb 28th 2008 11:16PM
And this is why don't plan to raid when I hit 70, maybe once or twice, but I already decided I'm going to dedicate myself to getting BG and Arena gear. Raiding sounds like fun, but I don't think my 8 hours a week will allow me to even get to half of this content.
Maybe if attunement was lifted or made easier to aquire, guys like me and get a chance to check out these great dungeons.
wyrd Feb 15th 2008 6:00PM
If you cant find time for a few dungeons runs, how the fuck do you expect to find time for a massive raid dungeon? Everyone bitches about not having enough time, but the attunement is the LEAST of the time requirements for raiding.
Tridus Feb 15th 2008 5:02PM
Working version of the link: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4665319300&pageNo=1&sid=1#8
I'm glad Blizzard is looking at other options for the future. Quite frankly the original BC attunement chain was awful. The content itself should be the wall, people should not have to jump through idiotic hoops before they can even try the content.
Pzychotix Feb 15th 2008 6:01PM
The original BC attunement chain for Kara was cake. It only required you to run around for a while, but you were doing dungeons that everyone else was doing also.
The SSC attunement only required you to kill bosses that you were already killing. Nightbane/Gruul? Cake. If you didn't down these bosses, you probably weren't ready for SSC anyways.
TK attunement was the only troubling one, since it required you to do multiple heroics. Frankly, if you couldn't do these heroics with a solid guild group, you weren't ready for TK either. The only problem with this one was the lengthiness of it.
Snailking Feb 15th 2008 5:09PM
"They would like to make it so getting a Karazhan key or a heroic key gave all your other max-level alts access as well."
The problem with this is most of the people I know level one to max, and then get, for example, a Kara key. Then as they work through Kara with their main, they play an alt in between. Then, once their alt hits 70, they would still be expected to re-key.
He's looking in the right direction, but he needs to take it all the way.
Eliah Hecht Feb 15th 2008 5:11PM
I could be wrong, but the way I interpreted what Tigole said is actually in line with what you want: once you key one of your chars for KZ once, you never have to do it again and any level 70 char you have is automatically eligible to enter.