[1.Local ]: Screaming over Hellscream's Warsong
by Lisa Poisso 
Mar 14th 2010 at 2:00PM
While some players are hailing the Icecrown Citadel "tugboat" buff (Strength of Wrynn/Hellscream's Warsong) as a great equalizer that will open up endgame content to the player base at large, others have spotted holes in its implementation. The most common complaint is that doing the encounters the hard way yields no bonus at all: no achievement, no title, no recognition.
Mennoknight: The issue ... is that there is nothing showing if they did it the hard way. Most people take kill shots with the UI hidden, so the buff will not show.
Our group wanted to do it "the hard way" because we could. But the more you look at it, there is no reason NOT to keep the buff. There is no in-game tracking of it, and while you could technically take a screenshot of every boss kill without it, who's to say you won't go and kill everything with it one week and then kill the next week (with much better gear and perfected kill strats) without the buff? (5% doesn't matter, but this will become easier in later weeks.)
Additionally, none of the other groups are trading in the buff, and we decided as a realm not to count it in the progression threads, so there is very little reason not to change it. This could be EASILY solved by a simple track (feat of str, no points) with something along the lines of "Achieve your first kill of Marrowgar without using the Strength of Wrynn" (because other kills don't count past the first). Just something in game to track the kill, so you don't have to jump through hoops to get it tracked. You don't need to give better loot, more badges or anything. Just the simple tracking would be enough to get groups like mine to run without the buff.
More reader perspectives on the Wrynn/Warsong buff, after the break.
Gizen: I do not believe you'll be able to choose the strength of your buff, no. Blizzard hasn't said anything one way or another, but judging by how it currently works, it looks like it's either full strength or not at all. This seems especially stupid when you consider that some people are hypothesizing that the DPS requirement for the Lich King on heroic difficulty is too high to be doable without at least the 5% buff, so slower guilds will essentially be forced to fight him with a 30% boost and will never even get the option of fighting him the hard way.
Has your ICC raid been taking advantage of the buff? How do you feel about it -- do you feel a little disappointed, as if you're "cheating," or do you think the buff is a welcome way to open up more content to more players?
It was a great week for crowdsourcing at WoW.com this week. At press time for this post, readers of WoW Rookie had contributed nearly 300 comments towards translating common PUG terminology. Meanwhile, over at The Overachiever, Azeroth's fishers were sharing their secrets on cross-faction fishing.
Ravdoss: "For Alliance, fishing in Orgrimmar is more troublesome. The two pools of water in Orgrimmar are in the Valley of Spirits and the Valley of Honor." It is, especially if you have no stealth ability to get to those fishing spots. A few things I've done to minimize being seen: fishing by the late of night when most foes are fast asleep; Noggenfogger Elixir for the shrink-dink 10-minute effect (plan on buying more than a few in Gadgetzan); cast from a seated position (it works just as well as standing); turn OFF the title to your name, because nothing sticks out more than some huge honking title with your name on one end.
There's little coverage to be had, and I won't give up my choice spots (just in case any Horde happen to be reading.) ;) Happy fishing!
artifex: Don't forget you can tag along with a For The Alliance raiding party. They provide great ironic cover for the Diplomat. Have yet to get Old Crafty, however. :(
Henrah: You can also fish whilst lying down. Just type /lie and then fish away. This works great behind the rocks under the fountain.
If Residue Rendezvous has been giving your ICC raid fits, try these reader suggestions.
Wallert: A little creativity can go along way. Our guild's not so hardcore; we have Festergut on farm but rarely beat the enrage by more than 20 seconds, so a couple of deaths usually means a wipe. We got the weekly to get the debuff off both him and Rotface. We killed Rotface first since he gives us more trouble, downing him after a few wipes. We're having major lag issues, but make our way over to Fester. It goes bad and we lose 3 people to Pungent Blight, causing a wipe. After the groans die down, I ask everyone to check their quest logs -- everyone completed. Demonic Circle outside the door. :)
125 frost badges for the guild made me very popular that night. Of course, being a evil lock, I was just trying to dodge repair bills, but I managed to convince them I'd ran away for the good of the guild. ^^
Andy_C: If this works as you suggest, you're a friggin legend! I guess there's nothing stopping a lock from porting out intentionally after getting the debuff to ensure the quest is completed (usually guaranteeing a wipe, but that might be worth it)? Or am I missing something?
On that note, would a pally bubble or DI do the same thing?
crschmidt: DI/Ice Block/etc. remove debuffs. Feign Death and Evasion both work. I would not be surprised to see these things fixed in 3.3.3 to require you to actually defeat the boss with the debuff or something, but there's been no notice of that yet.
vazhkatsi: Note that we did this a week ago, and you should definitely do it in this order. We had a 10-man with 3 horrible DPS but no hope of replacing them. So we did this so we could do the quest without finishing the bosses off. However, I had a huge repair from us failing 7 times 'cause we either died too fast to get a spore and he ran through the door to swat me, or on Rotface I got an ooze as I was running away.
Goon Squad: harmless annoyance or dirty, rotten scoundrels?
Throckmorton: When I first started playing World of Warcraft back in 2006, I was on Mal'Ganis as Alliance. It was pretty bad. Horde on that realm outnumbered us 3 to 1 and consistently I would be ganked, the mailbox would be covered in Goon Squad alts, the flightmaster in Ironforge would be dead, et cetera. But the fact is, even though I was one of the people who they (and guilds like them) were being "cruel" to, I really didn't mind. It gave me something to do for an hour and took my mind off the monotony of leveling. It was funny. I realize where you are coming from, and it's great you are sticking up for these people (I realm transferred during BC), but it's really not that bad. People need to relax about WoW; it's not like your character is going to lose all his stuff and you have to start from square one. He will still be there when you log back on.
Brett: "Emergent gameplay"? Is that what we're calling weapons-grade jackassery these days? I can't get as exercised about this particular example as the crap these douche nozzles pull in the non-instanced world -- hey, if you want to screw your own raid, feel free. But this isn't some phenomenon that demands a newfangled descriptor from "scientists": it's nothing more complicated than online vandalism by egomaniacal children (in maturity level, if not in age). If these guys weren't playing WoW, they'd be measuring their e-peens by writing malware or hacking web sites. They're a boil on the ass of the user base.
How's your own ass feeling after reading about the Goon Squad's antics?
The lore fanatics were out in force after PC Gamer magazine divulged more details coming in the Cataclysm expansion. Garrosh? Cairne? Everybody has an opinion. Meanwhile, others raised distrustful grumbling about the effects they fear the changes will have on game play.
Radiophonic: So tired of seeing my talent trees "retooled" -- please, just give us a break. I think the only Mastery System here is players' ability to adapt to irritating changes made by game developers.
RobynM: Surprisingly, a lot of this put a damper on my enthusiasm for Cataclysm.
- Number 20 is worrying if they install reputations for Worgen and Goblins, depending on how their starter areas are built. If they're on an inaccessible phase, like the DK starter zone, that'll deprive everyone working on the updated versions of Ambassador of the Alliance/Horde of a significant source of rep.
- Numbers 27 and 30 are troubling. Yeah, they're laden with dramatic conflict, but I'm not sure the devs realize just how unpopular Hellscream is already. Trust me, there's going to be a lot of unforeseen consequences that the devs are going to have to deal with.
- Numbers 31 and 46, particularly in conjunction, are going to make significant portions of the player base -very- unhappy. From the looks of them, it appears that one of the potentially few areas that could be solo-friendly is a PVP zone. Not everyone raids, and even fewer want to be ganked while they're questing, which is why they're not on PVP servers to begin with.
- A particular comment in regard to 46 -- they put the very best sources of a number of high-end resources in Wintergrasp and it still didn't become, by their own admission, the World PVP hub they were hoping for. Maybe that's a clue.
- As for 31, I'm just going to ahead and say it. I'm not thrilled that we're only getting five levels so that the devs could concentrate on yet another huge pile of content I'm never gonna see.
The WoW.com Weird E-mail of the Week
Name: [Redacted]
URL: Medical Alert Systems
Subject:
Will WOW work with medical alert systems. I would like a straight honest answer to this. No double talk. I have just signed up with WOW. I am interested in your reply. Also you could possibly have a new customer. I have no idea what you want (yes-*no) by "remember your info?"
Honestly, if you're looking for a medical alert system, we recommend VuhDo or Grid. We also suspect that you might want to look into beefing up your log-in practices, including checking into an authenticator. Safety first!
Ha, caughtcha looking! Hey, don't scroll away ... Come join the conversation on these and other posts around the WoW.com community. We'll see you around in [1.Local]!Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, [1.Local]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
lawters Mar 14th 2010 2:11PM
Again, there was nothing new in the PC Gamer article that wasn't from MMI-champion leak or the Something Awful forums.
Kurash Mar 14th 2010 2:21PM
Multiple sites presenting the same information is not a failure on the part of the second or third site to do so. Do you criticize NBC when they report on a story ten minutes after CBS does? No. People get their news from different sources; those who don't check MMO-champion or whichever site got that particular scoop could still find useful information here, even if it's reported second.
lawters Mar 14th 2010 6:25PM
I would criticize NBC if they reported a story several months after CBS and presented it as new information, yes.
Kurash Mar 14th 2010 7:30PM
Just so you know, reporting news -- even news related to online video games -- is not the type of thing that you need to yell "FIRST!!1!1!" over. Sure, kudos to the people who get the scoop, but if the news is worthy of being noted in the first place then any media source would be failing in their aim to report such things by NOT doing so simply because they weren't the quickest on picking up the story.
If it was, in fact, seven months late (which I don't believe to be true, since this isn't the first time WoW.com has reported these types of Cataclysm-related items), there is still such a thing as re-reporting things -- a review of past news as it relates to upcoming topics.
If you missed it the first time here, which it seems you may have, you're basically reinforcing the position of this website for writing a new story about it.
Jacobins Mar 14th 2010 2:19PM
The QQ over the buff is kind of ridiculous. We all pay the same amount of money per month, therefore we are all entitled to see all the content if we so desire. I've been banging my head against the bosses in ICC since it released with my guild, and none of us are mad about the buff, it will just make it easier for us to go 11/12 in one night.
All of our gear will be worthless when Cata raids start anyway, so who cares if "casuals" can pug ICC and do most of the bosses. Its about enjoying the game, stroke your e-peen in private if loot is all you are playing for.
Sqtsquish Mar 14th 2010 2:37PM
The complaint wasn't about people seeing the same content for less effort, it was about there being no reason to do the content without the heroic buff- there is no incentive to stretch yourself, it is the same reason communism doesn't work: why work when you get everything either way? For that matter if you all want to see the same content and not have to put any effort into it then petition blizzard to stop making games, but instead CG vids.
Odinfrost Mar 14th 2010 3:52PM
@ Sqtsquish
Thank you for your political statement concerning communism as it is clearly a major point of interest to people reading a WoW webpage…
And yes Jacobins clearly misunderstood the conversation about the buff…but I notice that he really seemed to get your panties in a twist, perhaps his comment about e-peen stroking cut a little to close too home in your case?
kabshiel Mar 14th 2010 5:57PM
I don't think using the buff is a big deal. That being said, it seems silly that you can use the buff and still get achievements and hard modes. It just seems to defeat the purpose of those challenges.
Sqtsquish Mar 14th 2010 10:34PM
@odin- just so you know- I am in a casual guild, we are still working on downing festergut and rotface (depending on the raid comp) and we do it without the buff- why? Because enough people in my guild don't like having things handed to them on a silver platter and frankly I agree- I have no sense of being better then anyone else out there, and since this is my hobby I can choose to put a little more effort into earning things that other people very validly don't care so much about. My issue is why bother? I mean, what is the point of doing the content and getting guildies I like cranky if in a few more months it will be even easier to do?
Carson Mar 15th 2010 6:56AM
If you're crying about this buff.. and you hadn't already cleared ICC prior to the buff arriving.. then there is a severe disconnect between the size you think your e-peen is, and the size it actually is.
Wowcoholic Mar 15th 2010 11:05AM
All e-peens aside, use the buff or don't use the buff. It's your choice. You can QQ about comunisim and achievements all you want, those world firsts are already out the door when it comes to ICC....and can be your "unbuffed" achievements. So just take what you are given and be done with it.
imsobuzzed Mar 15th 2010 11:53AM
OK, the buff is like a sale at the local store. If you go in to buy something you intended to purchase without discount you will not refuse the discount the sale provides. It makes it easier on your pocket-book. Refusing the discount because other people only showed up to buy stuff because of the discount is simply stupid.
In a similar manner the buff makes it easier to one shot the bosses already on farm and makes it easier to get through progression content where your raid may have previously hitting a wall. Less wipes is easier on the gold sink for repair bills and should help to shorten raid times thus limiting the expense on consumables.
If it is so important to you to make it through the progression content without the buff you still need to run with 9 or 24 like-minded individuals to help stroke your epeen till the "lootz" come out. No one else cares.
Dravniev
~ I don't think I've drunk enough to do THAT. ~
Ebylon Mar 14th 2010 2:31PM
That fella Brett complaining about Goon Squad sounds like he needs a hug.
Alanid Mar 14th 2010 2:45PM
big time
MightyBurebista Mar 14th 2010 11:31PM
Probably, but my two cents is that attention prostitutes like Goon Squad also needed a few more hugs while growing up. :P
Sqtsquish Mar 14th 2010 2:33PM
About the complaint that the developers are only allowing for 5 new levels so they can focus on endgame content that this person will never see- almost all the endgame content in LK is easily accessed to anyone that can spend any moderate amount of time playing the game. If you want to play a game that focuses on leveling and silly social content then I suggest that you either learn to live with what the MAJORITY of the playerbase here wants (ie accessible endgame content) or you find another game.
kunukia Mar 14th 2010 3:17PM
I am an altoholic and a person who enjoys the leveling process myself, and just have a couple of toons who are raiding. I do not go for 'social' at all, but I think you calling the social content silly just makes your whole statement downright obnoxious. Who are you to say what the majority want, anyway?
henevsarhoe Mar 14th 2010 3:40PM
The majority of users do not raid. And its not an effort thing; raiding can be a massive hassle that just isn't fun enough for us. And you overestimate the average level of WoW layers; you sound like you'd be shocked to hear the proportion of players without a lvl 80. Or its because, like an awful lot of people not in your privledged position, we don't possess highspeed reliable internet connections. So his complaint was valid; that content is fantasy to him.
However, the big innovations are to the levelling game, which is going to be very real for people like us, and is nice to get. Which is a big part of why cataclysm's big shake up is going to be amazing. But with only 5 levels? Those of us non-raiding 80's are going to have a magical 5 levels and then have to start an alt, and wait for the next trickle down from some small feature of the patch. It's lamentable, but we'll get over it.
Oznak Mar 14th 2010 3:49PM
Guys, you're not getting five new levels. You're getting 65. Five of them will be brand new, but the other sixty are still gonna be a damn good improvement. THAT'S why they're only adding five levels to the level cap. Because they can't improve the old world, appease raiders with lots of dungeons, and add massive new zones all at the same time. Roll alts and enjoy your time leveling.
henevsarhoe Mar 14th 2010 4:17PM
Yeah, we couldn't have realised that. ::cough::
"However, the big innovations are to the levelling game, which is going to be very real for people like us, and is nice to get. Which is a big part of why cataclysm's big shake up is going to be amazing" ::cough::
In fact the entire second paragraph of my reply was "Its great that your redoing other levels! Thanks a bunch. But for those who get to max level, we're getting crap all for maybe a long time, with everything we get being trickle down from that given to the raiders." ALSO, like I said, we'll get over it.