There is a lot to be said about the vocal minority, but blizzard was wrong to listen to the people that wanted to make the game “hard” again.

A lot of people miss the point that the complexity of the game in vanilla was not because the end game encounters were harder, but the game was not as refined as it is now. It was exponentially less accessible.

I was WoW for the first time while I was living in Michigan. The person showing me the game was one of the developers I worked with and I cannot even remember what class he was playing. All I remember from that first look at the game was the obscene amount of buttons available to you and that you were penalized by having to walk back to your body. I was torn between trying UO or WoW back then, but FPSs were more my addiction back then, that and gunbound.

I did not actually play WoW until BC and the little endgame I got to see was limited. It wasn’t until Wrath that I really started to be able to raid and experience the end game and by this point we had the LFD, the Token gear system and just overall a smoother user experience. I did experience dungeons where CC had to be used before, and even some of the fights where you had to use multiple people performing various tasks that created a lot more complexity to encounters. Ulduar was no pushover by any means, but encounters in that expansion, even ToC which I did not enjoy all that much were engaging and difficult but rewarding.

As I have noted before Cataclysm separated the casual from the raiders big time. With the lack of content and heroics being challenging again you really damaged the casual groups that had mixed skills in their ranks. The troll heroics did not do us any favors because most people that has seen the places before were not engaged by them story wise, and most casual players would cause death after death because the trash was extremely unforgiving. I believe most players in WoW sit in the dungeon world for quite some time hoping that they can raid but not having the time to invest on it. When those dungeons are not a source of fun for the people that already have the gear, good luck with trying to get people to go with you to those places.

The LFR and the new dungeons are completely opposite to what the rest of Cataclysm was. It is not that they are overly simple, because they are really not. The ramp up though is not as high as it was the rest of the expansion and you can still have fun inside of them. They are quick, they are fun, and they allow you to once again play with your friends.

Most of the hardcore raiders I knew stopped playing the game with Cataclysm. Once those players have moved on, who is the audience? The casuals. It makes no sense for a company like Blizzard to create content that only 1% of the population gets to see. Sure, that might have been the case before, but when that number turns into 5-10% during Wrath, there is no point to dial complexity back up and saying… you know what you guys don’t deserve to see this because you don’t have the skills. Enter Firelands nerf, enter LFR, enter new shorter dungeons.

Three difficulty levels is a great model. I will probably still be a normal/raid achievement raider. Knowing I can have fun with my friends is more important to me, and the LFR and new dungeons clearly show that Blizzard gets it. Make things too difficult and lose players.

I hated Firelands. We will have to still go in there until Triz completes her legendary quest as well as Jackie’s mage that has it right behind her. It will be probably done on a off night but I could not wait to get out of that world of orange and brow. I am not a fan of the color to begin with and with all the fights being driven by one or two dumb mechanics it felt good to go in there a clear the place minus Rags in less than 2 hours. So 3 new dungeons and a new raid could not come fast enough.

The dungeons are short, VERY short. With a competent group they can be done in less than 30 minutes. I think we cleared one in about 20 or less. Eventually I think that Ilidan and Thrall will get very very annoying and seem slow, but at least for now they seem to keep up. I still seem doomed to have the same shield from the first month of Cata that Mike crafted for me… I hope the gear gods smile upon me and let me upgrade my shield.

Only half of the new raid is open in the LFR. The raid is extremely easy for raiders, who are the only people that could probably access it the first week due to the iLvL requirement of 372. I did the raid with one of my tanks and both of my healers and actually managed a couple of nice drops for the healers. The bosses seem to have their mechanics tuned very low and after 1 wipe it seems anyone that had not seen the fight before was able to pick it up and execute. I do think that having most of the raid be in pretty good gear probably helps, but 372 is pretty high… I am sure people with PvP gear will sneak in but overall it should not be an issue for any group to clear at least the first 4 bosses.

I did not spend any time in the darkmoon fair since I was focused on capping my 4 raid capable toons of valor points. Capping is now a breeze. The new dungeons give you 150 (either new or old heroics) and the raid gives you 250. It took no time to get all of them capped.

I have not had this much fun playing WoW in a while. If I want to raid, I can get into one in minutes. The only annoying thing is dealing with bad pugs, but surprisingly that is not the case in the raid. I guess we will see how it pans out as the weeks go on and more people get into the LFR.

While the whole WoW community was all up and arms about the Fireland nerfs, I was too busy having fun with the actual game.

I cannot help but enjoy all the chatter going on on the web about the Firelands now being a joke and the cries from hardcore raiders about how now their achievement has been taken away, blah blah blah.

Really guys, really? No matter what blizzard does it seem that someone will complain, but with all the attention being paid to raids I cannot imagine why so many are so upset.

If you are truly that good and that hardcore you should have been 6/7HM. Even if you were just semi hardcore 4/7 should also have been yours pretty easily. Anyone that completed T11 on heroic should have been working on hardmodes day one (well, I guess week two after pwning Rag)… if you weren’t, then you got exactly what you asked for after Wrath, OMG let me be LEET and better than everyone again! Newsflash! you truly are not, so many d-bags out there are still not 7/7 HM and they still think they are top raiders.

Trust me when I tell you that casual raiders like me (someone that is ok with no doing HM at all) doesn’t care about your shinnies.

I have killed Rag with two toons now, as a healer and as a tank. My big regret is that I did it once with just some people I knew, and another with a total pug. I have been able to put with some of the best raiders in our server and it has been a fun experience. I just enjoy killing things with my guild so much more. We are going to be working on that though. Being able to pug gives me the opportunity to learn fights and mechanics, and then come up with my own strategy with less wipes with my friends.

One interesting thing about Firelands is that most of the encounters are exactly what I expected them to be. Frustrating for no good reason. I have not done heroics yet, but even the normal encounters are so dependent on random crap that it really separates people. Its not just the bads from the good either, it is also separating people by computer performance. A lot of things have a huge lag component. Shannox, you stand on fire and you die… but you have only seconds to get out.

Even thought they are complex, one encounter that I liked a lot was Domo. The encounter is extremely easy for people that have raided for a while, but still challenging. It scales great too, if you have awesome healers you can let something happen more times… if you are great at movement, the same. The encounter is probably one of the best bosses I have seen designed. It is also easy to explain and execute. That is probably my favorite encounter in Firelands.

Rag is probably my least favorite. Not because I died there quite a bit while people learn the fight, but because it is just too much going on. It is not interesting or fun, it is basically a lot of… omg someone messed up, we all died, walk back. There are a lot of defile like situations where one messup will kill everyone.

I have a solid strategy now for that encounter that is a combination of several things that I have seen other people do. The frustrating part is that there is still an element of luck to the encounter. One simple timing thing can be the difference between a wipe and a kill.

One of the things that I don’t understand about strategies for that fight is how people assign DPS.

You have 8 sons to deal with in 10 man and there is always a split depending on where the hammer lands.

S – S – S – S – S – S – (H) – S – S (right split)
S – S – S – S – (H) – S – S – S – S (middle split)
S – S – (H) – S – S – S – S – S – S – (left split)

Most people end up assigning a number to each person and having them kill that sun regardless of split. It always leads to trouble. All the sun run to the hammer and if they hit the hammer they blow up causing a wipe most of the time, if two sons hit it, game over.

The way I will deal with it when I am actually leading a kill will be that 4 people are assigned a side of the hammer. The rest of the DPS will then be cleaners.

The split should also take into consideration DPS numbers and stuns.

S – S – S – S – 1D – T – (H) – T – 2D (right split)
S – S – 1D – T – (H) – T – 2D – S – S (middle split)
1D – T – (H) – T – 2D – S – S – S – S – (left split)

Tanks and top DPS are what matter the most.

When you are learning the fight, this is probably the hardest thing to get consistently. If you work on that first, the rest of the fight can be directed by the RL, however telling everyone what to kill can be a daunting task and what makes Rag hard to pug.

On the second hammer phase you have the added mobs to deal with. As a tank you have to just pick it up, deal with your son, then kill the add. That also takes a little be to get used to if the tank is new.

This is the first time that I actually wanted to write an addon that just slots people for you and spams it so they know where to go.

I still dislike Firelands quite a bit. I hope there is never another raid like this one again. I hope that Dragon Soul is more ICC or Ulduar than ToC. However, I am comfortable enough with it to take groups through it now. It will be nice to get some legendary weapons out of there.

How can a guy this cute cause so much controversy?

Let me tell you a little story. I went to a private catholic high school. Even though we were only middle class my parents put a high value on education so they sent me to a school they thought would provide me with better opportunities in the future. There were plenty of people in that school who had parents that were very, very well off. There once was a concert of some popular band coming to the city, and some of my classmates decided to go… not only did they get the best sits that money could afford, they also made a big sign with the word “Poor” to show to the rest of the crowd. It even made the paper. It was probably just a stupid teenager move, but it illustrates something that happens in WoW quite a bit.

“I have something you don’t have.”

From raiders displaying their hard to obtain mounts, to people riding their celestial pony. Many people like to show off what they can get. It used to be that the game was “pure” and you could only get certain things through grinding or skill, but the celestial pony, at least to the masses, told everyone… I can afford to buy this.

Sure, there are plenty of people that buy it just because they like it, are “completionists”, or think is ubber-cute, but there will be a segment that gets stuff like this to tell others, “I have the money to spend that you don’t.” I think that is what rubs most people the wrong way, that they either can’t afford or chose not to spend real money beyond their monthly fees for the game.

The real issue with this cute guy is that he comes packed with tons of issues.

The most important in my opinion is value. It used to be that if you bought a pet at the store you got it on all your characters. Say you have 10 toons you play, at 10 dollars you are paying about 1 dollar per toon to have that pet. Now if you want that cute little guy on all of your 10 toons… you have to dish out 100 USD!

You say ridiculous… I say really? Yeap, there are people with multiple mains that love pets and might end up dishing out money to get it on all their toons. I think the value for the customer there is at that point diminished greatly.

The second side-effect is that since this item is now trade-able you now have an indirect way of converting real money into WoW money. This is not new, the WoW admins pointed out already that you could do that with the loot cards. Easier and more available to players it is though. It will depend greatly on your servers economy, but in essence now you CAN buy gold in a legal way if you want to.

Blizzard is being really smart about a lot of things, and this one might rub a lot of people the wrong way, but you cannot blame them for trying. Will this curve gold selling? I have no idea, I don’t know what that market looks like at all anymore. I have always been against buying gold. Is this annoying to the people that don’t want to or can afford the extra money? It depends on how much you care.

I never bought the celestial steed, I did not like how it looked. I still might some day buy the winged guardian… it will be for the convenience of having a ready mount that flies when I am leveling an alt. The game is so easy right now that I doubt it will really give anyone a big advantage to be able to sell those cubs and make gold. I don’t think it will translate into progression for anyone unless the market for them is super high. What I will be doing is waiting to see what happens with the prices for it. I know I won’t be shelling out 1000k for a pet, the cuteness factor will probably make my wife pay 10 bucks. I don’t think it will break the game… will it open the gates for other things, more than likely. Blizzard has to make money to keep the lights on, and overall I think they do a good job at not making the game all about micro transactions.

In all reality, all they are doing is keeping us talking about WoW for another week before Blizzcon. That they are obviously masters at.

*Update*

WoW insider has now posted the official response, which back ups what I mentioned about the card game already doing this. I also like the fact that Matthew Rossi bring up the point that with the cub you don’t have to hope you get a card, you actually know you are getting the cub.