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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: Attunement was awesome
by Adam Holisky 
Aug 23rd 2011 at 11:00AM
On today's podcast, you can hear about the attunement required in the old The Burning Crusade expansion. Some people hate it with a passion, but you know what? I loved it. It was hard, it was an accomplishment, and you were set apart when you could just enter the raids.
Alas, those days are over.
For a reference, look at the attunement chart over on Wowpedia.
Krazy asked:
Did Blizzard ever release a design philosophy change as to why mobs no longer drop the highest level healing and mana potions?
You know, I've never thought of this before, but I've never seen one ...
Blizzard hasn't said anything on the subject, and this would be a great question to ask the devs at BlizzCon. It'd lead to a deeper understanding of itemization and buffs theory with Blizzard.
My guess is that Blizzard wanted to build up the alchemy profession more than anything, but I don't have any source for that (other than their wanting to give professions more love in general).
Tommb asked:
Will my death knight be able to wear the paladin judgement Set vis transmogrification?
No, you must be able to wear the gear before you can transmogrify gear to look like it. Since the judgment set has a paladin class restriction, and your death knight can't equip paladin class-restricted gear, he can't use it via transmogrification.
Fallemwarrior asked:
Any word if mainhand items will Xmorg with one hand items?
We've been told there'll be restrictions that only allow main-hand items to be transmogrified to main-hand items, and one-hand items to other one-hand items.
But all that can change. The best thing to do is to just wait for the PTR, pay attention to what you're seeing on sites like WoW Insider, and then see where things fall.
Mcdreamy asked:
Is anyone else having trouble with an unresponsive script on the WoW Insider pages causing the page to load eternally? The article, comments, and sidebars load, but Firefox never actually finishes the loading.
I've looked into this and I'm not seeing anything, so it might be something on your system or network that's causing the problem. If you're at an office, chances are there's thing blocking part of the internet, and that could be an issue here. If someone has more information, I'll happily forward it along and get it fixed.
That being said ... we're due for a redesign soon, so any issues people are having should be going away. And that's soon as in soon™.
Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW Insider crew is here with The Queue, our daily Q&A column. Leave your questions in the comments, and we'll do our best to answer 'em!
Filed under: The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 11)
Angus Aug 23rd 2011 11:39AM
@Nina: I never had Throne of Tides until a random Heroic after the change. I wish I had though about that with Stonecore. I had 15 heroics under my belt and 3 achievements for heroics. Someone called me a liar, I linked my kills of Ozzy. 12. I only killed the first 2 bosses 5 times...
Wolfbeckett Aug 23rd 2011 12:38PM
I liked attunement. Basically I just like getting that sense of accomplishment, it's a lot rarer to get that in WoW these days since so many things are easy now. Yeah, yeah, hardmodes on raids are still difficult, but what else is there in PVE?
Nathanyel Aug 23rd 2011 12:40PM
Attunements "questlines" could be used so nicely for (re)introducing (the (bosses of) the raid. Some quests, not hard, not time-consuming, just a little lore to please us lore-lovers.
If the raid comes along with one or more 5mans, have the players run them _just once_ for that attunement. They really missed out on that with ICC, the 5mans felt somehow detached from the raid, which could have been improved by having an attunement questline explain: "Ok, first, you and some other adventurers, lead by Lady Jaina/the Dark Lady, try to sneak in through the side entrance, but when that fails and you hardly escape the Lich King himself, you decide to join the Ashen Verdict's assault on the front gate."
EidlonImp Aug 23rd 2011 12:51PM
There's certainly a flip side to removing attunements and lowering the bar for entry.
Yes, lengthy attunements meant simply being able to raid represented investment, but it also meant dedicated officers would have to farm the same instance daily to have an attuned raid team, and unintentionally fostering a sense of entitlement, ie. "it's the guild's job to get me attuned."
Meanwhile, lifting attunements has enabled quite a few people who would never have attempted raiding to get their feet wet, find they like it, and go on to excel.
MisterRik Aug 23rd 2011 1:16PM
I can't speak to raid attunements since I don't raid (and I didn't start playing until about a month after Wrath's launch, so by the time I got a character to the right level for Vanilla or TBC raids, almost nobody was doing them anyway), but I can say I'm really glad they did away with attunements/keys for TBC 5-mans. I've been going back lately and soloing the TBC dungeons for RP gear, and I'd be really annoyed if I had to jump through a bunch of hoops just to farm, or just to see the content I missed while I was leveling.
I was also getting really frustrated when I was working on Loremaster (the old version) and trying to get all the Outland zones done, and in some zones the only quests I could find were these attunement/key chains that I couldn't do solo at the time (mainly in Shadowmoon Valley). Fortunately, I was able to avoid those after finding a guide that pointed me to some of the hidden/obscure/out-of-the-way questgivers that I'd somehow completely missed.
Pyromelter Aug 23rd 2011 1:46PM
Optional questlines that delve into the lore of a raid or bosses within, with some decent rewards = Good.
Forcing people to do time-intensive and sometimes tedious activities just to get in the door = Bad.
If you want to differentiate yourself as an uber questline-completer, it can be as simple as a vanity item or a title. Hand of A'dal would be a great example of that.
Skarn Aug 23rd 2011 1:59PM
I agree with Pyro. The best part of the attunements was the lore involved. Particularly the Alliance side of the Onyxia chain. That's what I miss the most. I would love to see them come back, but as mostly optional. Maybe with a nifty trinket like the arcane resist one from the Kara attunement or (as suggested) a title or other vanity reward for completing it.
While I did like the dedication shown by those finishing attunements, it could get fairy oppressive and ridiculous to get alts or returning friends into raids. Overall, bring back the lore chains and leave the "keying" gone.
Sleutel Aug 23rd 2011 1:59PM
@Pyromelter:
What you seem to fail to understand is that Hand of A'dal was REQUIRED to do the raids at one point. It wasn't a vanity title for the most hardcore questers--it was a way to reward the people who did the attunement back when it was required to enter the raids in question.
vocenoctum Aug 23rd 2011 2:05PM
My feeling is not every raid needs attunement, but the big ones should as a sense of story and gear/competency check. I'll use ICC as an example, it released with the three dungeons, which had a storyline, but the raid was going on at the same time and ignored that storyline. If they had required a player to have gone through the 3 dungeons before raiding ICC, but just once each, I don't think it would have been a huge requirement.
Then, in the dungeons, you introduce some of the raid bosses, without being a direct fight. You introduce some of the mechanics of the fights (say a raid boss that has 3 powers, but you see 1 or 2 of those powers on different bosses in teh dungeons).
And just as important, you introduce the trash packs earlier. Maybe in teh dungeon the 3-4 packs have 1 badguy, but in the raid you combine those bad guys into varied groups.
Granted, folks will still be run/carried through a dungeon and it's not some sure thing that they know what is happening, but right now there's no gate at all.
Gaurisk Aug 23rd 2011 3:07PM
An attunement scheme like the one BC had is fine if you're deliberately designing an MMO where endgame raiding is a niche minigame supported by a base of players who get left out.
That isn't the game Blizzard set out to make, they look back on attunements as a failure, and I can't disagree with them.
Caz Aug 23rd 2011 3:59PM
I liked attunements, but just because I enjoy the involved and long-form storytelling. This can be accomplished in other ways, though.
The one downside to attunements being removed is that it is one more thing that contributes to the player-base becoming more and more entitled to have it all. Everything is supposed to be easy these days and open to everyone regardless of the eort put forth....and I guess I don't agree with Blizzard on that philosophy. But that's ok, I enjoy the game anyway, attunements or not.
Caelys Aug 23rd 2011 6:24PM
@The Dewd
On behalf of all Horde that went through the Onyxia attunement...
"HAS ANYONE SEEN REXXAR?!?!"
/eye twitch
F that guy.
Jamie Aug 23rd 2011 11:06AM
Q for the Queue:
It's been a while since I did this (read pre-Catalysm), while I RP'd as a way of making money while not questing I made Gryphonheart Items and sold them for small amounts of money (no more than 1 gold) as a traveling salesman type. Is this practice acceptable? Or legal by Blizzard's EULA?
Most people didn't seem to mind buying novelty scripted items for a small fee. I had a couple people who refused OOC whisper in. Any thoughts?
MattKrotzer Aug 23rd 2011 11:23AM
Blizzard allows you to sell useless grey items for thousands of gold. They generally aren't going to object to transactions like this, by my understanding. So long as you aren't selling gold for real world money, they could care less what you do with it in-game, provided you aren't using dishonest means to bilk players out of it. (The way some in-game casinos have in the past.)
Jamie Aug 23rd 2011 11:26AM
Indeed but grey items are items made by Blizzard. Gryphonheart Items are created by the user's addon.
Maymer Aug 23rd 2011 11:32AM
Though I'm not a level 10 Legal Wizard specced in Transaction Marketing, I'm still going to take a guess and say no, there's nothing wrong with that :)
The Gryphonheart items may not be real in the sense that anybody can see or trade them, but you're not asking for any real money for these items, and THAT'S were I believe Blizzard would have a problem. You're simply roleplaying as a Traveling Salesmen (which, if I may make a suggestion, try and get some friends together and do a fun snake oils salesmen kinda skit ;) a lot of fun to do).
If this still makes you feel uncomfortable with the idea, just think of the money you're being given as donations, cause in the strictest way of words, that's what they are. They are giving you money for a fake item that they know cannot be used, but are still willing to give you money :)
MattKrotzer Aug 23rd 2011 11:33AM
You could go sing/perform at an inn for pay, and Blizzard would take no issue with it. GHI items are more permanent than that, so I don't foresee an issue.
That said, I'd love to know what sort of things you've got. I'm a big GHI fan. I made Stormwind Messenger Hawks for my friends. It's a fun way to send messages to each other, and drives people around you bonkers.
Jamie Aug 23rd 2011 11:41AM
When I did RP back on Argent Dawn-EU. I RP'd as a Gnome who created engineered items. My two biggest sellers were the..
Steam-powered Groomificator, which would run an emote and apply a buff to them about how well groomed they were. It worked well because I'd have another random person who may have bought one and they'd also convince others to buy it.
Then there was the PUCU Portable Uniform Changing Unit. Which again was a simple macro emote. But it removed that awkward outfit switching situation you got with RP servers and the introduction of the built-in item switch UI.
Of course it's useless to spell-casters who simply magic their new costume but to any aspiring gnome they'd want to get into battle gear as soon as they could!
Hurbster Aug 23rd 2011 1:26PM
Ok, who is picking on Matt's comments again ?
Mike Aug 23rd 2011 11:07AM
Re: DK Judgement set. A good "second best" is the purple recolor of the Judgement set (http://www.wowhead.com/compare?items=27790:27539:27897:27548:27748:28221:27489:27457;16951:16952:16953:16954:16955:16956:16957:16958) (if that link does not work, go check out the judgement set on wowhead, the purple recolor is disussed there. It has a nice flavor, and looks like a "corrupted" pally, which is fitting for a DK, I guess.