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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsTwentyFifthNovember beats all Wrath PvE content
by Zach Yonzon 
Nov 15th 2008 at 2:30PM
This means that within three days of the game's launch, a guild has leveled to max level (although some members of the raid were below 80) and defeated all available raid content. While Blizzard has admitted to tuning the game to become more accessible to more players, or a more casual audience, TwentyFifthNovember's defeat of all PvE content available in the current game brings into question just how tuned down PvE content has become. It will be interesting to see how long it will take another Guild to clear through all of Northrend. Congratulations, TwentyFifthNovember! You can now all go an play Guitar Hero. Or something.
Filed under: News items, Raiding, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 6 of 8)
Vektorix Nov 16th 2008 1:56AM
I think the whole point of nihilum/sk's concern has been largely missed by all the people who look at it as egomaniacal bragging. Since World of Warcraft was launched, there has always been a solid, serious PvE endgame that guilds and players have focused on. From Zul'gurub and AQ40 to original Naxxramas and then on to SSC/Tempest Keep/Black Temple, the PvE endgame was challenging enough that players and guilds who dedicated their focus to that sort of play had the sort of challenge that would keep them in the game. Yes, in the vast majority of cases the reach of raiding guilds exceeded their grasp, but most kept striving because the rewards weren't just loot, but a sense of accomplishment. Even the best guilds in the world took weeks to beat the T4 content in The Burning Crusade, and months to beat the T5 instances.
Now, it appears that the PvE endgame has been casualized to the point that 25-man instances are really no harder in execution than a 5-man heroic pug. Maybe Blizzard has decided that's what they want to offer from now on, and to some extent I can understand that both from the financial point of view of creating content that few see, as well as from the perspective of the ongoing domination of the game by PvP and arena.
But while it will certainly mean that more players by far get to do end-game PvE content, those players, whether the super-elite or the "everyday" raiding guilds that were raiding for the thrill of the challenge, will likely find that the challenge is no longer there, and will simply stop raiding or playing entirely once the new content is cleared. And it didn't NEED to be this way - Blizzard set up the Wrath 10/25 player raid paradigm ostensibly to cater to casuals (10) and hardcores (25). No one expected the 10-man versions of Naxx, et al, to be hard, but if top guilds are clearing 25-man content in hours, then good guilds will be clearing it in days, and THAT is the point the nihilum/sk people are trying to make: that the options aimed at dedicated PvE players are likely too easy to give those players the challenge they want from the game.
Skullcandy Nov 16th 2008 1:57AM
People don't understand that more than 1-3% of the player base raid, right?
It's more like 15%.
Stop whining.
Angrycelt Nov 16th 2008 3:29AM
Ok... so they spent every moment during beta planning this world first gig. If that's what gets their unmentionables all sweaty, so be it.
I dig achievements just for the fun of seeing everything and doing weird stuff (turkey slaughter, anyone?), but there are always gonna be those who just *HAVE* to be first, and damn sleep, jobs, relationships, and personal hygiene.
Hey, it's impressive that they did it. But maybe, like Barry Bonds' record-breaking home run ball, their achievement needs a big ol' asterisk on it, and a footnote saying that they all were in Beta... then give a nice, big shiny Achievement award to the first guild that makes it through without the advantage of months of prep.
(btw, I tried to find some way to work "e-peens" into this, but it just didn't work without sounding forced)
Dyermaker Nov 16th 2008 4:01AM
I think people are missing the point... Five months testing, who knows how much more of development, nothing new on the horizon, and the top end boss does not even require everyone to be 80? Think about that a moment... Do not bother leveling, the game can be beaten completely before then.
This is absurd.
I expected things to be faster than ever with the removal of attunements, gear check encounters, consumables, raid configurations, etc... but not even a raid full of 80s and this is the best the expansion offers?
DanH Nov 16th 2008 7:02AM
This is the attitude I seriously don't get. I think people are confusing "challenge" with "difficulty" or possibly confusing "strategy" with "logistics chain".
I don't see how it's a bad thing that a highly dedicated group of highly skilled players were able to beat high level content without having to jump arbitrary hurdles.
lodovik Nov 16th 2008 4:14AM
What a set of e-peen wankers. Really, after extreme preparation they set out for a 'record', ruin the game for all other so called 'high end guilds', then go on to whine at blizz for not making the game hard enough, as well as insult the majority of WoW players for not being as hardcore as them. I really hope these tossers will be banned or quit by them selves as they actually ruin the experience for me. And Pee WEe, that includes you too. As long as you are not paying anything for me, do'n tell me to shut up, whiner. I heard there's a real difficult game called 'Hello Kitty Online' thats 100x as difficult as that easy WoW game, go play that.
Zarzuur Nov 16th 2008 6:27AM
Note to the $sponsors of the new raid farmers: their insulting of the rest of the player base is not a good image for your products ...
Also, if they wanted excitement and difficulty, they could've raided against each other -- but no, they merged to monopolise because they were scared of not getting the 1st for $$.
lethality Nov 16th 2008 8:18AM
This is a sad state of where the MMORPG genre has gone.
YOU definitely can't tune for these types of players, but doing the equivalent of this in TBC took the same players 6 weeks. That sounds more right.
2.5 days? No way, Blizzard has fallen. If they think having EASY content is what will grow this game, they're mistaken. It's the allure of high end content even if they never get to it that keeps many players interested.
As it is now, it's like they're all rushing for a huge ball pit - no danger or accomplishments to be had.
Vektorix Nov 16th 2008 9:28AM
The whole "practicing on beta" thing is a red herring. Every new content patch that I've been aware of since I started playing has been on the Public Test Realm (i.e. beta) for weeks or months before its release to the live realms, so there's no difference between situations as far as that is concerned.
Where there IS a difference is that Sunwell firsts, which were accomplished in days, were facilitated by the long period of T6 farming before the 2.4 patch was released (i.e. guilds were geared to the teeth and ready to go), and the Illidan firsts (which took weeks) were likewise not hampered by the "need" to level up, but still took time to do.
So in a situation where arguably it should have taken MORE time to achieve these PvE firsts due to leveling to 80 and using Naxxramas drops to become as powerful as needed to defeat the content - leveling and gear proved to be unnecessary.
My point continues to be that in a content expansion that promised a casual approach to end game (10-man) and a more challenging version (25-man), what instead has been delivered is casual and absurdly easy. Many of you may be happy with this change, but if it does result in the death of organized raiding as an endgame play option, it can only hurt the game in the long run. There are a lot of players (like me) who don't PvP and don't collect alts and who don't see that as a viable way to spend my time at 80.
Dean Nov 16th 2008 11:04AM
Lets not forget that these are the first raids, Blizzard said they thought Kara was too tough and would be making Naxx easier so we knew this was on the cards. The fights were going to be more forgiving.
Sure, they could have delayed it by 2 weeks by throwing in a resistance fight in the middle, so this guild would have had to level up 3 professions, farm mats and maybe even farm badges from heroics for gear. That would have slowed them down. Would that have been fun AT ALL?
Korenwolf Nov 16th 2008 4:55PM
@Agelamer,
"Why would I not want the game to be built to my specifications? I, as a consumer, want the best product for ME [...] I care nothing for you, or your enjoyment of the game."
Entirely your right to have that view and if Blizz no longer keep you happy you are able to stop giving them money. However they are going to focus on the balance which keeps the majority of their players happy (and paying their monthly), if that means some of the hardcore are "cheated" out of their l33t position tough and if it means I never get to see some of the end game content then equally tough.
lollalock Nov 16th 2008 4:06PM
ohemgee..3 days and all raid contents done..I, UNLIKE them, gets super dizzy spending too much time staring at the monitor :S don't worry sk/nihilum, blizzard will cater to your needs like they always do, heck it's not that hard really, insanely increase bosses hit points and damages they deal and all is good..and for the rest of us,have fun at your own pace,it's just a game..chillaxx!
Taytayflan Nov 16th 2008 4:31PM
Hmm, when can we bring back...
TWO BOSSES ENTER!?!?!
Cat Nov 16th 2008 9:47PM
I can't help feeling that with all the data mining that Blizz no doubt do, this wasn't a mistake but a deliberate decision. Fine I guess, I'm in the raiding minority, do what you need to do to make your money for your shareholders. I'll play Rock Band until the next raid patch. *sigh*
Jyotai Nov 17th 2008 4:35AM
WoW has a population of what? 10 or 11 million?
It needs to appeal to the 10,999,975 of us that didn't go on that raid, not those 25. Or perhaps... it can just get away with appealing to the 10,999,000 or so not in top raid guilds...
TBC had it flipped for most of its lifecycle, resulting in a lot of people not seeing a lot of content. Original WoW was even worse.
That's fine for a small MMO that has a hardcore player base. But WoW is the Walmart of MMOs - its the one everyone plays. Let the elitists go to some tiny little MMO off in the corner somewhere built for the kind of challenge they want.
WoW has gained a mass audience, even if it wasn't designed to have one back on day one. It need to appeal to those masses now.
Sucks to be a hardcore player, but its great the other 10,999,000 of us.
Ryan Nov 17th 2008 11:15AM
Amen Brother.
The last two weeks before launch we had classic raids running on Fenris. Why? because so many people hadn't seen old content. MC Runs would be full (40 man) within 20 minutes of a broadcast message. Same went for AQ20\40, ZG, BWL, & Onx. So many players with decent BC gear (tier 5\6\SWP) who in younger days never got to see the old world raids. I myself only got into zg twice back in the day.
I for one am glad that blizzard is opening raids to the masses. they have a business to run & need to think about the future & the old system of only the l77t get in will not survive today's market
dion Nov 17th 2008 6:50AM
These guys ar ejust sad, pure and simple. Why on earth would you wanna clear a game like WOTLK in 3 dyas of the launch? I mean come on, Beta or no Beta. So they've spent like 50 hours over 3 days playing WOW. Get a life.
I playcasually and cannot even begin to imagine how on earth they got to 80 so quick, and yes my guild is a high end raiding guild, yet we are enjoying the ride to 80 as everyone should.
Rivana Nov 17th 2008 9:22AM
Kudos to Blizzard for catering to the masses! I personally think it would be stupid to tune a 11,000,000 subscriber game to 25 people who are paid to play fast. And I would guess that for every “concerned” hardcore raider there are 1000 casuals who are really happy with Wrath.
I’m quite pleased with the play experience so far. On my server, a Realm First 80 message came through at about 9am CST 11/15 - and I didn’t even know there was such a thing! I was happily questing in Howling Fjord as a level 71 with my wife (knowingly taking the XP grouping penalty). This morning, 6am CST on 11/17, the highest level in my guild and friends lists was 76, with and a couple of 75s; most guildies are still in the 71-72 range. None of us spent significant time in the Beta, so this is first-run - have fun, and sightsee, and we are REALLY enjoying it!
Naix Nov 17th 2008 9:22AM
No Life = Clearing wotlk in 3 days
Bob Dewane Nov 17th 2008 10:44AM
A couple of points from my perspective:
I don't have a problem with 25thNovember complaining that the content in the 25 mans is too easy. These are the guys (and girls?) who live for the challenge. They WANT to wipe a bunch of times as they figure stuff out. They WANT the fights to require the EXACT mix of classes and PRECISE execution in order to overcome the bosses. Although I'm not wired this way, I understand it.
I have no idea what it would require on the programming end, but can't Blizz make a 'super-heroic' difficulty for 25 mans? That is something that lets the hardcores have what they want to satisfy them while still allowing an avenue for the casual raiders to see engame content via 10 man tune downs.
Speaking of the 10 man versions of the raids...they are designed to allow the casual raider to see the endgame content. We pay for the game, too, so we should at least have the chance to see the endgame stuff. Kungen is on the record (from a post TBC interview he did on Nihilum's own website) as saying he thinks this is a bad idea because he thinks that only the harcore raiders should be able to see endgame content.
I think that's a load of BS. If that's the opinion, then its not that you want a challeng, its that you want so see stuff no one else can, and I don't think that's an idea that Blizz thinks will appeal to many consumers. "Give us your money each month so that you can play 80% of this game but never see the other 20%." I would certainly lose interest in a set-up like that. By the way (and I ask this because I don't know how professional sponsorships work), do the memebers of 25th even pay to play the game or do their sponsors pay for it? Maybe that would make a difference in the attitude.
And as far as the argument goes over access to the beta and OF COURSE they did it in 3 days, they had been playing for months...I can see both sides of this. Beta testers are important to Blizz. They are free employees that help find the bugs in the game so they can fix them. In the case of the pro raiders who ge beta keys...they help Blizz tune the fights. I wonder if complaints were raised during the beta about the content being too easy. I wonder if the Malygos fight was harder in the beta than in the live. Dependig on whether or not there were differences might justify their complaints.
The bottom line from where I sit is this:
If your goal is to clear the content as fast as you can, you shouldn't really complain that you did it too fast. That's like me kid saying he has a tummy ache because I let him eat as much candy as he wanted. If you want harder content, raise the issue of adding the 'super-heroic' difficulty. Address it in that fashion.
Don't knock me, as a casual player, for wanting to see the same endgame stuff that you guys get to see because Blizz allows me to see it in a watered down version of the raid. If you want harder versions of the same raids, fight for that. But if what you really want are exclusive raids, then be prepared for people to call you elitist snobs, because that's what you would be. You get better gear in the harder raids as your rewards for doing them. If gear is not the goal, but keeping others out is, then just be up-front about it.