Ghostcrawler on dual specs and loot tied to achievements
by Adam Holisky 
Dec 8th 2008 at 6:00PM
So sayeth the Ghostcrawler and so we shall listen. He spoke today regarding a few issues that are of prime importance to many players. However instead of long rants or detailed analysis on the issues of raiding difficulty, dual specs, and achievements he presented them in bullet points.First dual specs, a topic hot on everyone's mind. He provided some new insight into how things will work. In particular he said that "It will be trivial to do in town. You will also be able to do it out of towns, but not as trivially." This is new information and should make everyone tingle with gleeful anticipation at how trivial it might be to switch specs while in Dalaran.
He also makes mention of things we already knew. They are aiming to allow people to swap glyphs and action bars with the dual spec feature, and that it should be along ideally in the next major content patch.
That patch cannot come soon enough.
In addition to the dual spec information, Ghostcrawler went into some points on raid difficulty. While there isn't any really new in terms of how difficult the raiding environment is (or isn't) and what may lie in store for the future (a harder Ulduar raid zone), there is some new news about loot tied to achievements.
He says, and I quote, "We do realize that vanity items like titles and mounts can only motivate people so far and we do have plans to offer better loot for such accomplishments." He's speaking about the challenges of the hard mode achievements.
This is new and neat. It appears, based on his statements, that there will be loot connected to achievements.
Now what exactly this loot is will be something we'll have to just wait and see, but it definitely is an interesting option and will no doubt spark a storm of speculation.
The other interesting note he makes is that they don't want to spend several months of development time on content that less than 5% of players will ever see. One can connect their statements that they "won't ever make an instance as hard as Sunwell again" and then this statement together and form the conclusion that only 5% of players saw Sunwell.
I think the number is probably a bit higher than that, but even if it's just a number used to prove a point (as I suspect it is), it is still a bit of insight into how they focus their resources.
Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Raiding, Talents, Mounts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
blueSkyye Dec 8th 2008 6:08PM
Dual specs? Can't wait
Damntheman Dec 8th 2008 10:05PM
Why is everything so difficult for casuals, including reading comprehension. I said 25 mans are bad! Less people in group is good! I think 10 is a nice balance between the chore of organizing too many people, and the restriction on what kind of encounter you can design. Yes, 25 mans are heroic 10mans. I'm saying that is a stupid idea. Heroic raids should still be 10 mans, but harder. The same way a normal 5man dungeon doesn't become a 10man on heroic mode.
Save big raids for world pvp, or cooperative world boss kills. Make 10man content more challenging than kill-the-adds/stay-out-of-the-fire. Make harder 10mans and show the casuals that the reason they don't raid isn't because they don't have the time, it's because some raid encounters require more than 2344, something which they already fail at.
vazhkatsi Dec 9th 2008 2:53AM
because my guild likes to work together. we have enough tanks and healers, and dps for a balanced 25 man, but when we split up the two teams aren't as balanced
Demgar Dec 9th 2008 4:28AM
Just because 25 man content isn't for you, doesn't mean it isn't for everyone.
As a co-GM of a quite large guild, we will probably be running 25 +10 on the same night or maybe even 25+25. that's hard enough, can you imagine trying to sort out 10x5??
Anyhow, most of our guild, and I think most people in general feel that 25 mans are "the real deal" and 10's are just practice mode. But if that's your cup of tea, run with it.
Clbull Dec 9th 2008 12:52PM
Because game content should be more accessible for people who don't raid endlessly and would almost neverbe accepted to join a hardcore guild just to do it.
To me, Raiding in WoW was a catch 22 situation. You needed good gear to raid, but the only place to get the good gear was from raids.
Seeing as many guilds didn't accept me simply for my class and gear options, how was I going to get good enough gear to continue without raiding???
I say its good that casuals can do 10 - 25 man raiding now. And its also good that 80 blues can make excellent entry level raiding gear.
JDM Dec 11th 2008 8:48PM
@Clbull: "To me, Raiding in WoW was a catch 22 situation. You needed good gear to raid, but the only place to get the good gear was from raids."
This was one of the things that was so evil about pre-tBC raiding, and was still happening in tBC to a much reduced extent - guild hopping. You'd join a guild that was just starting the lowest end raids, snag the gear, then move to a guild that would take you to the next level of raiding since you had a bit better gear. Repeat.
It sucked majorly. With this "new" style of raiding, it should make it less important to need to guild hop, and offers less room for guild hoppers even. It will still happen, sure. It will never stop - it should just happen less often now.
frankthetank22 Dec 11th 2008 1:31PM
Bring back the 40 man raids!
Origami Dec 8th 2008 6:14PM
Re: content only 5% get to experience
It's very interesting that Blizzard went from their initial "doughnut" model (ie cater to the hardcore centre which keeps the $ rolling in while casuals come and go) to a content accessible model. What I couldn't understand is why is took them so long to come to that conclusion - that casuals were the foundation of the economics of the game seemed obvious to me about a year into the game.
I suspect it had more to do with ideology than evidence.
BladeeR Dec 8th 2008 7:01PM
it had to do with that few years ago Blizzard had no real competition, and didnt care about actually fixing such things in game such as world PvP.
Now with WAR out, and some other games, they actually have to stop slacking and offer something they should done from beginning.
my2cents Dec 8th 2008 7:15PM
Yes, until WAR came out, Blizzard didn't care about whether or not their game was fun or profitable. /end sarcasm
My personal theory is that when WoW was new, Blizzard didn't have any experience making MMOs. Therefore, they (mostly) followed a model created by previous MMOs. Part of that model was that raids were for the hardcore.
After four years of trial and error (and a massive amount of player feedback), they've decided to try a new model. It all seems like common sense now (from a business point of view), but hindsight is 20/20.
smg77 Dec 8th 2008 7:28PM
I disagree. I think that if 95% of your playerbase isn't taking part in content that you've created then it's pretty clear evidence that you should be focusing on them instead of the 5% so-called hardcore players.
It's not the hardcore players that provide bundles of cash to Blizzard...it's the casual people that pay the same amount per month but consume a fraction of the content. These are the people that may never have seen BWL, Black Temple or Sunwell but they have been playing for four years with an army of alts happily paying a fee every month.
Damntheman Dec 8th 2008 7:41PM
People like smg77 make me laugh. Do you not realize they're agreeing with you? This is why people make up terms like "welfare epics". It 's not that anyone has a problem with a faster route to epics, what bothers them is an easier one. Yes only 5% of the population are "hard-core raiders", unfortunately only about 5% of the remaining aren't mouth-breathing imbeciles. I think that loot for heroic achievements is the greatest idea ever. The brain-dead majority can SEE THE CONTENT, as they always profess to wanting. The rewards can go to those who perform well. I say burn 25 mans, make heroic raids just harder raids. Same encounter, more mechanics, more stress, much better rewards.
Janaa Dec 8th 2008 8:27PM
That's exactly what the 25 mans are.. 10 man raids in heroic mode..
kidsmoke Dec 8th 2008 9:29PM
It doesn't matter how easy or hard they make the encounters the vast majority of people who never saw Hyjal, BT, and Sunwell didn't make it there based on difficulty but because the "casual" way of playing doesn't coincide with the way you raid.
I/E you need 25 people X amount of healers and tanks and X amount of DPS to succeed, and getting these people to show up consistently.
As far as anyone who has raided T6-6.5 content to even 7.5 content knows that just a few nights of attempts can make a HUGE difference in how encounters go. You can run in one night and slam your face against a boss all night long, and then come in the next night and it just clicks even w/o gear upgrades. That's just how raiding goes, and many of the ten mans can be just as difficult as 25 mans because there is LESS room for error even though the scale of the fights are considerably lower.
So unless you have a casual guild with enough members to consistently fill your roles then you will still be met with failure. And getting fights down means consistently have the same people who know the fights and understand them during the learning process. I know near the end of BC pre 3.0 our difficulty were members getting burned out on Sunwell and then having to replace those members with undergeared members and re-teaching/gearing them for fights. And we were a relatively hardcore guild. 90% of raiding is still attendance, and the majority of casual/hardcore differences is with time spent in game.
Demgar Dec 13th 2008 8:51PM
I think it's a matter of depth.
Even though I never saw Sunwell (we started quite late) It was nice to know it was there. That there were things SO HARD that I would have to do my absolute best effort to even have a chance.
I have a feeling that a lot of people will be "bouncing off the celieng" very quickly and I think that will be even more frustrating than having bosses that you aren't quite ready for yet.
So far it seems that even poor players will be able to to do well through several tiers of raiding, and that isn't really the point is it? It's less fun if EVERYONE wins. You must strive to prove yourself.
rutterbutt Dec 9th 2008 12:53PM
I'm not sure if I'm the only one who realizes this, but the casuals who didnt raid before Wrath, arent going to raid now. People who didn't see illidan because they are "casual", wont see Arthas either. They will continue to farm rep, gold, buy mounts, collect pets, run 5mans - and maybe hit the ocassional 10man naxx. Hence the term casual.
So all you raving lunatic commenters who call yourselves 'casuals' and love to "LOL HARDCOREZ SUX WE GET FREE EPIX NUBZ" on every thread that even mentions a raid need to realize thats its not a Casual vs. hardcore thing...
...Its a failure vs. winner thing. Those who are failures will love the free epics and rewards for no effort, where the winners want challenging content with satisfying rewards. The casuals wont raid anyway (besides occassional 10man naxx) so leave them out of it. Because you fail at raiding and/or fail at getting the necessary people to raid, doesnt mean blizzard has to make the content drooling-idiot easy.
Watch, when you realize that only 10% will beat arthas you will realize its still the same thing, only everyone will have t9 epics from spending badges and achievement points and other welfare type methods.
TL;DR -- Failure vs. Winner, not Hardcore vs. Casual!
Skullcandy Dec 8th 2008 6:15PM
Kind of proves that the dev team is trying to make this game an E-sport, with the increased focus on PvP in this expansion.
Eldoron Dec 8th 2008 6:18PM
Arena is already an e-sport.
and where do you see that in this news, or in any comments? how does that come here? duh
darren Dec 8th 2008 6:18PM
I somewhat disagree with there being a "PvP Focus". Moreover, what does this have to do with anything in the article?
James Dec 8th 2008 6:19PM
CGS made the statement that they're "ceasing all operations immediately"
i.e. no one cares for pro gamers as a form of entertainment
That considered , i doubt the dev's care about e-sports