Looking back at 40-player raids
by Matthew Rossi 
Feb 12th 2010 at 4:00PM
I agree that there were some very epic moments in the old raid game: last night for instance I was looking at old screenshots of myself from those days and gabbing with the people who work here about our respective accomplishments and experiences in original WoW raiding. The great C'thun death beam chain ride, where we all mounted our bugs and rode in at once to see how high we could get it to go (I believe I took 6 million damage, with another 6 million resisted), the night I got my Sulfuras, the Onyxia attunement chain and what an incredible pain it was to wander around Desolace looking for Rexxar.Right now our plan is to look back on 40-player raids fondly as a format by which we were able to evolve and customize what we feel to be the best raid formats for World of Warcraft. I don't believe our developers have ever stated that they'll absolutely never do a 40-player raid again, but we're really happy with the raid variety we have now with 10- and 25-player raids featuring normal and Heroic difficulties.
I'm a veteran of the 40-man raid game from both the Horde and Alliance side, and I have to say, I really only miss the experiences through the patina of time buffing up all the glory moments like killing the bosses for the first time and letting you forget the pure hassle of getting 40 people together. The griping over having to break up into 15-man groups to go run UBRS and MC the mobs there for a fire resistance buff for Vaelastrasz is long since forgotten. I think in the end 40-man raiding was cool and fun and an artifact of the games that preceded WoW, and it belongs in its place of honor but definitely in the past.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Aurigo Feb 12th 2010 4:02PM
Vael was my favorite fight hands-down
Jdherko2588 Feb 13th 2010 2:47PM
BRING BACK AQ 40 IN CATACLYSM!!! The Earthquake reopens AQ!!!!
Andrew R. Feb 12th 2010 4:04PM
No. No. No. No. Let me say that one more time. NO! As in not happening, never want to do that again, denied.
I don't have the patience to deal with 39 other people screaming and playing random sound clips in vent. I don't have the patience to try and guide 39 other people(and myself at times) through a raid. I am quite content with my 10 and 25 man raids. It's a far smaller headache when learning new fights. =)
BigBadGooz Feb 12th 2010 8:46PM
Okay we need a dwarf priest....... after haveing gutted our server for players and gettng as far as we have 40 man raids I droped my huntar spent 2 months of grid hey guild we have a dwarf priest.
Mr. Tastix Feb 12th 2010 9:50PM
24 people screaming and doing random shit in vent is no better than 39 people doing the same thing. It'll still annoy you.
Killer Feb 12th 2010 4:05PM
I don't miss waiting in MC for an hour while the rest of the group is formed then getting kicked from the raid for falling asleep while waiting. I once was removed from a guild for falling asleep before Onyxia.
Ah those were the good old days. I got more sleep back then. lol
Vitos Feb 12th 2010 4:06PM
I wonder what people would think of an optional 40-man raid system. Like with Ony, for example, you have a completely optional 40 man Onyxia if you want the same degree of epicness that the old fights held. It would drop the same gear as 10 man (or maybe 25) but it would drop proportionately more of it and there would be a proportionately higher chance of getting the mount. It would not give anything extra, so no one would feel compelled to run it, but if your guild generally has two 25 mans, and you're missing several people you could just pop into a 40 man...
Marcosius Feb 13th 2010 5:38AM
I really don't see this "epicness" of 40 people raids. It's just more people to bungle stuff up, or more people to slack off while the rest do the work. I assume the logistics of handling that stuff is epic in and of itself but... I really don't see it.
VioletPheonix Feb 13th 2010 2:26PM
Except if you are missing key players, such as the tanks you would need and are short on healers, then you would have a problem.
The thing is, back then 40 mans didn't have a proportionately higher drop rate of anything, you were still fighting for 2-3 pieces of loot between the 40 of you and gearing up was sllllooooow business. I don't see why they would change that now for people who don't remember how truly unwieldy the raids are. (Besides wouldn't increased drops ruin the whole authenticity of the 40 man experience?)
Zanathos Feb 15th 2010 4:54AM
How many guilds out there regularly run multiple 25 man groups? Not many, because getting a bunch of people split to multiple raid locks is a headache if you raid more than one day a week. A 40 man difficulty would still mean blizzard would be devoting time to balancing the 40 man difficulty and making sure it was equal to or above the 25 man difficulty. Suddenly, the time to test raids just increased another 50%.
If 40s have their own tier of gear, that creates problems balancing 10s and 25s, as you can see now with everyone looking down on 10 mans as easymode...while groups go in with a mix of 10-25 man gear. If it has the same gear as 10 man raids, well, no one's ever zoning in to a 40. If it dropped equal gear to 25, 40s might seem a small amount of useage if it was about as hard or slightly harder. If they balanced 40s to be noticeably easier than 25s, then that might see them get some decent traffic. Hardly much for maintaining an epic feeling though.
Let's be realistic. 10s and 25s are a successful format. 40 mains mainly appeal to old players who miss having a mass of bodies surrounding them. The time investment for supporting a 40 man format is unlikely to be worth it. That would mean raids would take even longer to be released. Old 40 man raiders who wax nostalgic on the forums are obviously still hooked on wow anyway. Where's the benefit to resurrecting an old format to appeal to players who are going to be subscribing anyway? That would simply be poor business.
Lissanna Feb 12th 2010 4:12PM
the problem is that a 25-man guild doesn't have the players to support easily putting together a 40-man raid anymore. Since they downsized raids, it's hard (or nearly impossible) for most of the guilds to pull an extra 15 people out of a hat.
Kragragh Feb 12th 2010 4:19PM
Only true now. However if tomorrow they announced all raids in Cataclysm were 10, 25 and 40, that would be plenty of time for guilds to build 40 man raids if they wanted to.
Lissanna Feb 12th 2010 4:31PM
Now, I miss 40-man raids, but I don't really see them going to having all the raids be 40-man again in Cataclysm. I also don't think just throwing in a couple 40-man bosses seemingly randomly would be good for the majority of raiding guilds.
Elleyna Feb 12th 2010 4:54PM
Making 40m raids would be a guildkiller. Smaller or even decent sized raiding guilds would be gutted of a lot of people who would jump to get into higher progression raids simply cause they'd have room now. Sure downing bosses with 39 other people was fun, but every other aspect of it kinda sucked (mainly, as stated earler, actually GETTING 40 people, buffing, etc).
Mr Shinra Feb 12th 2010 4:16PM
I think one large reason people want a 40-man style raid again is because, with 39 other people around, the struggle gains an additional momentum of importance from a lore/cinematic presentation sort of perspective. Basically, The feeling that this boss before us is SO powerful, that it takes ALL these players to take him/it/them down.
However, I think it should only be reserved for a very small number of possible bosses, such as end-expansion lore-mentioned threats... The BIG Players in other words.
The main one that comes to mind for upcoming content being Deathwing (for Cataclysm)-- He seems innately more powerful then Arthas given that his mere ENTRANCE to the world caused another near-sundering (and that he managed to Xanatos Gambit his way to siphoning off power from the rest of the dragonflights), so I feel that having him as a 40-man raid would be a compliment and acknowledgment of just how powerful he really is.
Conversely, I understand many others feel differently, and I can certainly understand the practical reasons against 40man raids (39 other idiots all vying for loot drops for example), so consider my comment a 'devil's advocate' sort of stance :)
Hansbo Feb 12th 2010 4:33PM
I was wondering what a Xanatos gambit was, so I searched and found this cool site where you can check up on these kinds of things.
You should really check this site out!
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit
Keary Feb 12th 2010 4:47PM
Look what you did. You went and introduced someone into the massive timesink that -is- tvtropes.org. Good job!
Sunaseni Feb 12th 2010 7:00PM
Or maybe... that was his plan. Well played, Hansbo.
Zalvi24 Feb 12th 2010 4:18PM
40 man raid was barely a setback
Aureliusz Feb 12th 2010 7:16PM
Too soon?