WoW Producer Discusses Killing Deathwing, Raid Finder and Everything Patch 4.3

[UnravThreads]

"Hey, our activision side releases the same game with some lil tweaks and a thrown together story once a year! We have millions more customers, why dont we do the same with WoW and make MORE money!" "Thats a brilliant idea, start on it right away!"

Except expansions aren't releases of the same game?

 

[Mouse_Crouse]

Arthas was always implied/said to be the final boss of WotLK, and he was! Mistakes happen, bad design choices happen. Deathwing will be the last major boss of Cataclysm. It fits in with all the previous timing, bar TBC.

Ruby Sanctum disagrees.

On a side note: Where in the heck did this article go? It was up last week and it, and all record of any posts I made to it, seemingly ceased to exist until today.

 

[MajorDolphin]

WoW has grown far too top heavy. It's not exactly built on a solid foundation anymore.

 

[UnravThreads]

Ruby Sanctum disagrees.

That was a minor raid. The boss of Ruby Sanctum was not the ultimate enemy of the expansion. It was content released halfway between the final major raid (i.e. Icecrown) and the next expansion (i.e. Cataclysm) to give raiders something to do as well as a way to offer alternate gear to that from Icecrown.

 

[Mouse_Crouse]

That was a minor raid. The boss of Ruby Sanctum was not the ultimate enemy of the expansion. It was content released halfway between the final major raid (i.e. Icecrown) and the next expansion (i.e. Cataclysm) to give raiders something to do as well as a way to offer alternate gear to that from Icecrown.

While that is true, it in no way changes the fact that ICC was not the 'last', 'hardest', or 'final' raid/boss of WotLK. What they did in BC with Sunwell is no different then Ruby Sanctum. His point is still valid that Illidan was not the 'end' of Burning Crusade.

 

[Venats]

Can't they just make another raid like Ulduar? I actually found that one to be enjoyable and varied enough from boss to boss to have a decent replay value. Or would that be too hard for a raid finder?

 

[Jumwa]

Hopefully, they will go back to the idea they had in Wrath where dungeons were meant to be a quick and fun thing, not a slug fest requiring coordination for every pull. Keep that in the raids, and leave the dungeons for smashing enemies and getting loot in 30 minutes or less.

Making average dungeon lengths longer than 30 minutes in Cataclysm was the final nail in the coffin for me that got me to quit WoW. I have a life, bodily needs and health issues that all make sitting in one spot without break for over half an hour painful. Extending dungeon length and making them a tedious slog while doing so made it so that I had no choice but to bow out.

And once I stopped doing dungeons, what was there for me to do? I could spend an hour waiting in queue for a battleground, where I could get curb stomped by kids who could spend all day, every day playing endlessly for fun times, stressing myself out with such competitive PvP instead of unwinding at the end of my day.

So I quit. Though honestly I don't see anything bringing me back in now. I've been enjoying using my free time for playing many different games and reading more to sacrifice it back to running the same dungeons over and over again.

 

[Dendio]

I think it's HILARIOUS that people are upset over how fast the expansion went. I bet these were the same people who complained over how long Wrath was. I'm also not surprises that 4.3 is the final patch. Remember, 3.3 was the final Wrath expansion, and no one wants another 3.2... Sure, Cataclysm has flown by, but as someone who let their sub drop because of the dungeons, I see this as a good thing. Hopefully, they will go back to the idea they had in Wrath where dungeons were meant to be a quick and fun thing, not a slug fest requiring coordination for every pull. Keep that in the raids, and leave the dungeons for smashing enemies and getting loot in 30 minutes or less.

For the people who have been playing WoW since cata launched im sure the expansion will be long enough. I played it last year and enjoyed it. A year later to come back and not be near the tail end feels weird. Still we have some time before the expansion is over. I expect 4.3 to be released maybe mid november. And yes Wrath was way too long near the end.

 

[Azmael Silverlance]

Tito: Not soon. I have tons of questions about the next expansion but that's not something you can really talk about.

Brack: That sounds like something we may potentially be talking about at BlizzCon.

Tito: Does it have to do with pandas?

Brack: That sounds like something we may be talking about at BlizzCon.

Aahhahaha i love how casual he was with denying any sort of spoiler information

 

[Vaccine]

along with an ever increasing number of MMOs going F2P, Blizzard are slowly losing their grasp on the market. They've gone from 12 to 11m subs, and if they don't get in gear they'll lose more.

This has always been a silly argument, there is always going to be that chunk of subscribers who're flaky with their subscriptions, be it for money or boredom, you only notice because 1,000,000 of 12,000,000 is more apparent than 100,000 of 1,200,000, they're still the dominate force in the MMO industry and it's not dropping like a stone like the doomsday preachers think it is.

 

[Sean951]

I think it's HILARIOUS that people are upset over how fast the expansion went. I bet these were the same people who complained over how long Wrath was. I'm also not surprises that 4.3 is the final patch. Remember, 3.3 was the final Wrath expansion, and no one wants another 3.2... Sure, Cataclysm has flown by, but as someone who let their sub drop because of the dungeons, I see this as a good thing. Hopefully, they will go back to the idea they had in Wrath where dungeons were meant to be a quick and fun thing, not a slug fest requiring coordination for every pull. Keep that in the raids, and leave the dungeons for smashing enemies and getting loot in 30 minutes or less.

For the people who have been playing WoW since cata launched im sure the expansion will be long enough. I played it last year and enjoyed it. A year later to come back and not be near the tail end feels weird. Still we have some time before the expansion is over. I expect 4.3 to be released maybe mid november. And yes Wrath was way too long near the end.

I agree, LK got a little, long, though I blame ToC for that. I spent most of LK being over geared for 10 mans and had little desire to run the 25 mans regularly, but the DPS handicapped our group, so I gave up out of frustration. When I can get us to clear the first 10 bosses of ICC in 2 hours, but we can't get Sindragosa, then something is wrong.

 

[Ghengis John]

As somebody who doesn't play the game anymore I wasn't exactly on the edge of my seat reading this. There was just nothing in this patch announcement that would have thrilled or excited me enough to check the game out again. Woo an epic weapon for the class I revile the most. Wooo. Yeah that'll make me run right on back.

 

[Random Argument Man]

I'd be more interested if they would make a 4.4 patch that focuses on the Alliance/horde stories

 

[McNinja]

I love how Blizzard is saying that people who can't raid can now with this new raid finder, yet they can only do 25-man easy-mode raids, which give easy-mode gear, making the whole thing almost entirely pointless. Way to go Blizzard, one more part of the game that is absolutely retarded.

I'd be more interested if they would make a 4.4 patch that focuses on the Alliance/horde stories

That would be interesting, and they could have done a lot more with that. Considering how weak of a Horde character Hellscream is (he is without a doubt the stupidest, most contrived Orc character ever created) though, it wouldn't hold much water, because anyone with a brain cell can see how dumb Hellscream is. Just thinking about how stupid of a character he is makes me glad I don't play anymore.

 

[Ranorak]

I love how Blizzard is saying that people who can't raid can now with this new raid finder, yet they can only do 25-man easy-mode raids, which give easy-mode gear, making the whole thing almost entirely pointless. Way to go Blizzard, one more part of the game that is absolutely retarded.

It doesn't make anything pointless.
It gives people like me, who don't have the time to raid weekly, a chance to experience the raids.
I don't care for the loot, I want to take part in taking down Deathwing.
Easy mode or not.

If that means that I don't need to join a weekly raid that eats away my free time, then label me retarded-McSpankypants.

 

[Charli]

No I applaud the raid finder, if you're willing to subject yourself to the will of the Roulette-of-Arsehole-Pick-up-groups and get a taste or crash course in raiding, it opens up some people to the possibility that applying to a dedicated raiding guild might be right up their ally, and that they're now prepared for it. And dammit do we ever need new applicants because god.dawmn. Is my server dying a slow raiding death. All of the top 3 horde guilds on my server have been discussing this and it turns out none of us have had any new applications for a donkeys age. And we're talking 6 year old guilds here, not the "We put ourselves together in Wotlk because everybuddy could raid yay" No we're talking the Molten Core - Sunwell and beyond crowd...

And I'm no elitist, I think everyone SHOULD be able to raid, but newer levels of difficulty were and are still needed and I still believe 10man for a game that holds 30+ Spec class combinations is ridiculous and 15man raids should be highly considered when constructing the next expansion... But I've made my point where it needs to be on the official forums so...we'll see what comes of that.

/rant over

Cataclysm certainly was what it's name implies but not in a very epic way... Oh well here's to the next expansion.

 

[robert01]

Cataclysm was very lack luster for me. I took my sweet ass time getting to 85(a whole 3 fucking days), and started doing dungeons. I wanted to pull my fucking hair out with these things, heroics weren't any different. And than there was the Tol Borad bullshit that happened, and to talk about archeology, that was a complete joke and agility based DPS classes got NOTHING out of it at launch except the little novelty trinkets,

Blizzard murdered WoW with the Dungeon Finder, I could handle AoE based trash mobs and dungeons, because in the beginning they weren't like that. Their new plan isn't something I enjoyed, and when they said Raid Finder, I laughed ... a lot. PUGs were bad enough half the time, but to make it random? This next patch will be another million subs lost, as soon as people kill Deathwing.

 

[Furbyz]

When I left WoW a little over a year ago my biggest regret was that I would never be able to get the inevitable Polearm/Staff Hunter/Feral Druid legendary weapon that simply must be coming in Cataclysm if I left my raiding guild because, besides from the then recently announced Spellcaster DPS legendary, that was the only thing they'd never done. Well, I'm glad to see that I didn't need to feel let down about that because god damn it Blizzard you've come through in spectacular style, delivering the unthinkable to those poor, downtrodden rogues.

Definitely glad to see the decision I made reaffirmed. WoW, we had some good times, but you're poisonous.

Remember Alamo
Cat is 4 FITE

 

[BabyRaptor]

Oh, and kill Garrosh. I don't care how; just bring me a corpse.

This. Goddess above, this. Still more points if we actually get to do the deed.


The new 5 mans sound interesting...Definitely a loregasm. But there's something that's bothering me...

The last of the new 3 mans, Twilight Hour or whatever. The one where you have to escort Thrall to Wyrmrest. How exactly is that going to play out? I have this picture in my head of Jaina porting Thrall to Dalaran and us taking a long walk.

But seriously...If the dragons are openly working with us, as is heavily implied, why would we need to hand-hold Thrall to their house? Couldn't they just give him a way to get there?