Around Azeroth: Raiding for cowards
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Dec 30th 2008 at 10:00AM
As such, Blabba was taken by surprise when Rag's knockback blasted him to the top of the pillar. He jumped down, managed to get in one hit with his weapon, and was hit back to the pillar again. After this experience, he decided that his guild could nine-man Rag and stayed atop the pillar for the rest of the fight. It took his group two minutes to locate him after the boss went down. I can't blame him -- I've spent many a boss fight wishing I were watching it from a safe distance away.
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Filed under: Screenshots, Around Azeroth, Galleries
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jason Dec 30th 2008 10:34AM
While I admire old content, and agree that it has challenges that nubs today probably have no comprehension of...
And I admire pointing out that most newbs just are unable to learn fights on the fly...
...This story is pretty weak land lacking content. I was expecting better of WoWInsider.
Tim Dec 30th 2008 10:40AM
The last time I checked, this was a blog, not The New Yorker.
It can qualify as a post even if it's just a photo and a paragraph.
James Dec 30th 2008 10:44AM
You're lucky you got any story at all, this post is about a picture.
Pauly Dec 30th 2008 10:43AM
It's the same length as every single other "Around Azeroth" article, were you expecting a 10 page dissertation in MLA format?
It's a post on a blog describing an unusual screen cap. Take it easy there chief.
James Dec 30th 2008 10:46AM
Awesome! I tried to 5man some of MC with with a t7 DK and myself a t7 Resto druid, along with some failtacular lvl 70+'s.
However on Tich there's a guy who PUGs bwl and aq40, it's awesome content that people are totally missing it along with MC! I had missed all this in TBC, but now it's such a joke I can finally experience it.
Cyrus Dec 30th 2008 1:30PM
Heh, I know what you mean. My guild had cleared MC, ZG and AQ20 before tBC, and killed the first boss of AQ40 and all but the last boss of BWL. Less than a week before WotLK came out, we finished the job. We got together and did AQ20, AQ40 and BWL. A paladin in our guild finally got the red scepter shard from Nefarian. :) If I remember correctly, we did it all in one night. We started with 20 or so, but as the night went on and we got to the harder fights, we eventually had a full raid, mostly guildies but with a lot of people from other guilds too. No, it's not that impressive to do that stuff with experience (on most of it) a full raid of level 70s, but it was a lot of fun.
Also, this picture made me wonder, what's the smallest group of 80s that could reasonably do MC or BWL? I know a lot of level 60 raid bosses have been soloed, but there are a lot of other fights where that's hard to imagine. The boss with the adds that explode when they die, the bosses that turn you into a bomb, class calls, stacking debuffs and dots... some of that could be muscled through, but not all of it.
Blabba Dec 30th 2008 10:48AM
hehe. if I were to go back to MC, I wish I could recreate this again. who said I didnt learn the fight? the view from up there was just amazing, and the occasional Lightning Bolt when in range kept me entertained.
William Dec 30th 2008 1:34PM
awesome pic man!
John Dec 30th 2008 11:07AM
Raiding is a Wotlk. I am unimpressed with most of the boss fights. The only fight that gets my heart pumping and toes up is probably Sath 10-man with 2-3 drakes up. Other than that Blizzard needs to step their game up and stop serving to god damn "casual" gamers. (even SSC/TK was puggable) I am expecting way harder content in 3.1.
Kaeona Dec 30th 2008 11:49AM
You see John, you make a classic mistake here. You assume it's all about you.
Newsflash: It's not.
Blizzard is a company. A company is a business. It's not a charity. It's not John's personal plaything.
A company is in the business of making money. A company is generally not in the business of making John happy. Unless it's MakeJohnHappyCo — Proudly Making John Happy Since Whenever John Was Born.
Those "god damned casual gamers" have lots and lots and LOTS of money. Blizzard, being a company, wants that money.
So Blizzard has a choice. Make the people who have lots and lots and LOTS of money happy, thereby gaining that money. Or go the bleeding edge, destroy your soul, route which will make the people with lots and lots and LOTS of money unhappy, thereby losing that money.
Of course, by going that route, they will make John happy. Which, in itself, is its own reward. It's just likely not profitable.
All that being said, I'd like to see the difficulty ramped up a little, too. I'm just not willing to throw those highly profitable "god damned casual gamers" under the bus to do it.
Mak Dec 30th 2008 1:08PM
Wonderful sentiments and post Kaeona. Although I suspect that pointing out John's self-absorbed demands will be lost to his me-generation mind.
In addition, may I also congratulate all of the above posters who pointed out to Jason that WoW Insider is indeed a blog. On many blogs, all you'll see is a post with sentiments along the lines of:
"Not posting today, too busy." Perfectly acceptable (if a little disappointing to one's regular readers) for a blogger to supply such a brief and succinct post on a blog.
In comparison, I think the contributors at WoW Insider do a great job in providing the community with a variety of posts EVERY day. Admittedly, some are not quite as interesting as others, but them's the breaks. If you're looking for news Jason, may I highly recommend bbc.co.uk?
Finally, for an Around Azeroth post, I thought this one was particularly detailed and I enjoyed it. Points for everyone except 'It's-About-Me-John' and 'News-Not-Nubs' Jason.
Dart Dec 30th 2008 1:20PM
Why is it someone makes a anti-casual comment, immediately everyone jumps down the posters throat.
Blizzard has been serving the casual fanbase for a while now. Simplifying things, and making bosses a joke compared to downing Rag for the first time.
John made a valid point. While Blizzard does want money, and by making the game more casual they will earn a lot of money. They are losing respect in the eyes of many gamers. Blizzard has tried to make Arena a competitive game. But with over simplification (no more downranking) it is just a RNG-fest.
I don't see why Kaeona and Mak started freaking out. John simply wrote what he wants to see. If I remember correctly. Freedom of speech is still in effect.
Inc Downranking
Kaeona Dec 30th 2008 1:45PM
Freaking out?
You mean logically breaking down the flaws in the statement, "Blizzard needs to step their game up and stop serving to god damn 'casual' gamers."?
Keep in mind that "freedom of speech" — I'm assuming here that you're referring to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution — only comes into play if the federal government flew into John's house after he posted, stuck a bag over his head and spirited him off to a secret prison camp in Eastern Europe where he was forced to listen to Abba in slow motion for the rest of his natural life.
What it doesn't say — and I'm staring at it right now — is that John has a right to say what he wants without criticism or disagreement because his speech is a holy, blameless creature.
I have the freedom to say that John's basic understanding of what Blizzard needs to do is fundamentally wrong from an economic perspective for the company's long-term financial viability.
When "respect" becomes legal tender and they can use it to pay for server, bandwidth and developers, I'm sure Blizzard would be all over this plan. They could name Aretha Franklin CEO.
Until that happens I'll just be here in the real world. Freaking out.
Apparently.
Danel Dec 30th 2008 5:43PM
It's one of my favourite things in the world when someone interprets "Freedom Of Speech" to mean: "I have the freedom to say whatever dumb thing I like, and you're not allowed to say anything against it!"
Zul Dec 30th 2008 11:21AM
I wish I could just "take a break" on occasion, but as a healer it usually ends up badly.
Then again, with the other healers in my guild I don't have to heal at all in Naxx but if I die while were doing Sarth with 2 drakes up there is a lot of problems.
Zasziden Dec 30th 2008 12:09PM
I found the pic and accompanying story rather amusing while here at work. I approve.
Eisengel Dec 30th 2008 1:32PM
Actually my guild did something like this.. they put together an AQ40 run of pretty much everyone online at one point (about 30 ranging between 60 and 80, nearly all were above 70)... and they had one helluva time getting through. They ended up stopping partway through, but the old raiders of the group were somewhat amused at how much it was like they remembered, and how much trouble everyone had with it. Vanilla raiding was definitely hard, hell, vanilla instances were in some cases harder than some Wrath heroics and later raids (kara).
To tell you the truth, I like it. My main started maybe a year after WoW was up, so I never have raided or run any instance 50+. I just couldn't find a guild to so it with... so... I PvPed a little... ground some Crusade rep... and then the expansion came out. If it didn't, I would have cancelled my account, since there was really no way for me to continue progressing. Now though, it is so much easier to find groups for instances. Things are still rough once you get past the initial content chain, but I think Blizz is working on that. For instance I never saw anything higher up than Magtheridon, who I raided once (as a fill-in for another guild) and Gruul. Most of the time I had really nothing to do... since, again, I couldn't find a raid for higher level content. At least I could run heroics for badges and progress that way, but I've hit ZA four times, never seen SSC, TK, BT, Hyjal, Sunwell... here's hoping things are accessible enough that there will be enough groups that I can actually get into the Wrath raids.
Licister Dec 30th 2008 7:47PM
Nice pic :)