Project Lore

Magtheridon, my home server, has been off ever since the Lich King was released upon the masses.  Pings of 100-200ms (56k speeds) have become the norm.  Unplayable pings of 500ms and beyond plague prime time on Tuesday and Wednesday.  As the week moves on the server becomes more playable.  To little to late, as the damage is done to most guilds.  Including mine, which raids on Tuesdays and Wednesdays only. 

After a successful 25-man with my two 10-man guilds last Tuesday, this Tuesday's was an absolute disaster.  While forming the raid we realized that the pings were going all over the place, from tolerable to two seconds of lag.  We zoned in hoping that the instance cluster would be more stable.  It wasn't.  We cleared trash, but could not get past Marrowgar due to the sporadic latency.  After the raid dissolved a 10-man was formed to tackle Ignis, the new weekly quest.  Our assumption was that being outgeared would make up for any lag.  The quick demise of Flame Leviathan gave us hope.  False hope, we wiped.  Repeatedly.  Our failing was chalked up to lag and everyone logged in disgust.  Who knows if my rogue will get his weekly done now...

Click to read more ...

It was one of those fights that took everything my raid group had to get through it. And that made it all the sweeter when we finally beat it.

I'm talking about that ugly, bumbling, high-pitched experiment of an abomb, Rotface. For whatever reason, my 10-man raid crew had opted to take the right fork in the hallway outside of Professor Putricide's laboratory. Although probably the harder of the two abominations, we set our sights on downing Rotface first, and focused on getting down the tactics we needed to down him.

Our first night trying him out seemed encouraging. Our best attempt had gotten Rotface to 20 percent, and we were certain it was only a matter of time. Then things went south.

Click to read more ...

I've Already Sent In My Application Since Wrath of the Lich King launched in November I have been in more guilds than I have ever been in my lengthy World of Warcraft career.  Now moving on to my fourth (and fifth) guild, I've discovered a trend.  A trend that I believe caused my former two guilds to collapse on themselves, leaving me holding the non-raiding bag for a few weeks.  That trend is focusing on 10man content.  But what's causing us to fail? Bad Tuning:  10-man content is considered to be the easiest way to raid, but I simply don't believe that.  If one person dies in a 10-man encounter it's far more difficult to deal with than in a 25-man match-up.  It comes down to simple math, you're losing 10% of your force to a paltry 4% if a single member dies.  Here's a bit of anecdotal evidence to back that up.  In the early going of Wrath 10man Sarth+3D was considered the most difficult encounter in the game. The developers obviously comprehend that simple math, and design around it.  Or at least we'll assume that.  But it's unlikely that Blizzard expects many guilds to stick to one degree of raiding.  Most people that I know mix in 25-man, PUGs or guild runs, with their 10-man plate.  This allows players to acquire gear that will make the 10man encounters more trivial.  A smart idea.  My previous two guilds didn't have much success in this, leading us to stick to 10-man progression by and large.  This path proved unsuccessful after a few months. Too Many Guilds:  One issue that I've mentioned before is the amount of guilds there are these days.  Guilds come and go as often as celebrity relationships, allowing players to see greener pastures with an alarming frequency.  Sure, new guild X may be doing great right now, while your guild is stuck in Ulduar, but who knows how long they will be around?  For most players, it doesn't matter.  They subscribe to water's mantra, the path of least resistance (to gear). In theory the amount of guilds shouldn't really matter.  Having options is nice, and guild competition tends to drive players to perform at their peak.  A win-win, right?  In practice, the setup leads to guild hopping, and spreads the herd of good players over a wider range of guilds.  Thus, lowering their collective effectiveness. Too Many Bad Players:  I honestly don't believe that WoW has a larger percentage of bad players nowadays.  They've always been around in large numbers.  They just appear more obvious simply because the entry to raiding is far lower than ever.  On top of that my guilds have chosen the level that nearly everyone starts at, 10man raiding.  Because of this Smooth Criminals and Warriors of Faith had a high percentage of mediocre players, poorly geared players or flat out bad players in their ranks.  Ranks that have a small portion of good players that aren't casual.  Mix too much bad with good and the results are always the same. Players that are new to raiding are also highly likely to either quit raiding, possibly the game, or even progress past their guilds after they learn the ropes.  Causing the guilds to fill up with another round of unskilled or under-skilled players that need their hands help.  Repeating the viscous cycle. Me:  Sure, I have been one of the only absolute constant factors in these failing guilds.  That isn't a matter of opinion, but cold hard fact.  I hope to god I'm not such an awful player that I can cause a group to collapse when I am only there once a week!  I guess it's possible though.  I do play a gnome.  If it turned out to be true I think it would just increase my ego further, in a very unusual way. Before you go tearing me a new one let me reiterate that I know that 10man raiding is easy to PUG.  I know that many guilds succeed week in and week out.  This is just a discussion as to why my last two guilds failed to stay together during their 10-man push.  Ultimately, we failed to dominate content, hitting a wall at some point.  Then the leaders got fed up and moved on.  Do any casual raid leaders/GMs have any tips? My ideal guild would be a rather close knit group of friends and acquaintances, around 20 players, that could raid on the same schedule.  Two nights a week would be dedicated to tackling various raids, and one day would be spent on progression and just having fun (to ease the tension of failing).  We'd obviously be casual, but when raiding it'd be taken seriously.  Pots, food buffs, full enchants, gemmed to the gills, we'd expect every character to be at the top of their game from trash to boss for three hours a night.  Most of all, people would show up on time! What's your ideal guild?

Click to read more ...

It seems like a most appropriate time to reveal to all my first experience with quality guild drama.  You see the guild I've been running with since Warriors of Faith went in to administration mode died over the weekend.  It wasn't until yesterday that I managed to get one side of the story.  According to my informant, the former GM was fed up with the guild, snagged all sorts of materials and gold and gquit.  Your basic ninja scenario. Instead of flocking to some random guild I've decided to split my chances between my characters.  Solidsamm will be joining the guild that a large portion of Smooth Criminal's officers and members have moved to.  Solidsagart has already moved to a guild run by a friend from the "good ole days" of WoW.  She'll reside there for the foreseeable future, gearing up and possibly even raiding with them. Hot on the heels of the collapse of Smooth Criminals, I bring to you a tale of woe, back room deals and intrigue. Since the abandonment of 40-man content I've always felt that guilds have become a far more fleeting endeavor.  The social aspects haven't changed, but the difficulty of finding 40 competent people, and the more challenging raid content in general, lead to guilds and members remaining together longer.  Knowing those facts, you can imagine my old guild's shock and dismay when word came out that a few core members were thinking about forming their own crew.  A rumor of that caliber, which happened to involve three officers and the main tank, crushes moral, to say the least.  An even worse case, it could easily fracture a guild. Not the stuff of legends; a simple exodus of the executives you say?  Here's the kicker, the rumor started during the second All That Remains party.  As it spread like wildfire through the 30 or so people roaming my apartment the situation went completely nuts.  It became an elaborate game of telephone mixed with the too many cooks in the kitchen issue.  Everyone heard different things, tried to interject their opinions and create a plan of attack.  Personal feelings were used as facts, and players with conflicts of interest started writing guild policy.  It was a mess. Oh, the second kicker (would that be the placement kicker?), this all went down while the people in question were in transit to their domiciles from the party.  A party where they spent a weekend hanging out and having fun like everyone else.  Didn't matter, they were unceremoniously kicked before being confronted.  I bet they were surprised when they logged in! In the end the guild lost a few members, but ATR remained as the premiere guild on Matheridon-US.  The members were kicked, their new guild dreams died shortly after, and they joined another guild.  With the help of our ousted members the other guild became the #2 guild on the server, even grabbing server first kills for a good stretch of time. Friendships were tested, the guild hit a wall in raiding as it recovered, but worst of all feelings were hurt.  All because of a stupid rumor's ability to take on a life of its own, and cause once level-headed people to act on impulse instead of logic.  It pains me to even discuss the stupidity at how the whole debacle was handled.  At least everyone lived... What's the craziest bit of guild drama you've ever been tied up in?

Click to read more ...

I've never played World of Warcraft without being in a guild. When I first started playing way-back-when at the games launch, I joined a starter group with a few people from a forum I frequently post on. Since those rarely last long (and this one certainly wasn't breaking the trend), I eventually hopped servers and fell in line with my roommate's guild.  They were focused on end-game raid progression and we had some wonderful times fighting through Molten Core, Onyxia, and Blackwing Lair, but by the time Burning Crusade rolled around, the leadership started to crumble. Our guild leader got fed up with the drama and quit, while I had my own sort of "falling out" with my own roommate. Needless to say, I had to find a new home in more ways than one. In real life, I finally moved in with my girlfriend, but the lack of viable options in WoW meant that I was taking a hiatus from the game for a little while. Several months later, I decided that I wanted to get back on the wagon and found out that several of my female friends were actually playing together. One had hooked up with a group of players she had met through playing Final Fantasy XI previously, so I figured it wouldn't be a terrible idea to throw my chips in with them. I started leveling a Warlock and eventually pulled my level-capped Rogue (which is still my main character) over since I so dearly missed playing her. We were a small, close-knit guild, but we hungered for more. Several mergers, and a complete take-over later, and I find myself in a fairly dedicated progression raiding guild once again, with a fair group of people that I generally enjoy interacting with. So what's the moral of the story? That I've been exceedingly lucky in my choice of companionship so far. The reality of things, though, is that most people have trouble finding a guild, let alone one that they actually enjoy being a part of. Joining a guild can feel a lot like applying for a job, and much to the chagrin of most of you out there reading this, I have to admit that this is not an empty comparison. But don't fret! It's not quite that dire. Unless you're seeking a spot in one of the guilds at the absolute pinnacle of raiding in the game (almost every server has at least one or two), you're not going to have a whole lot of competition. In other words, while a lot of progression guilds can be picky, they're willing to take on just about anyone who makes themselves an attractive addition, and in a series of articles over the next few days, I plan to help you do just that. WoWProgress is a wonderful resource for scouting out the perfect guild! Where do we begin? Well, people are starting new guilds every day, making empty promises of "one day hoping to raid" and hawking their "sweet tabards" and "two bank slots" in an attempt to swell their numbers. If you're at all interested in becoming a progression raider, you need to avoid these guilds like the plague. So, the first thing you need to do is educate yourself. Figure out what the serious guilds on your server are. The easiest thing to do is ask around in general or trade chat, but the top groups often require you to apply at their websites for consideration. If they're openly recruiting, chances are that they'll have posted something on your realm's official forum. In general, that's a good place to look when figuring out who is prominent on your server. If they maintain an active presence, this also allows you to figure out whether or not your personality is going to conflict with theirs (this is something I'll get into in the future). But if you're looking for pure stats, sites like WoW Progress can help. Simply find your realm and it will give you a ranked list of guilds on it, based on level and speed of progression, as well as any special achievements they've earned. Some guilds even list the classes or specs they're actively looking for and provide a link to their individual websites. If you think you're already geared and experienced enough, I'd suggest aiming for the top. If you don't make it in, then they're likely to give you a few tips as to why you weren't up to snuff. At that point, it's up to you to follow their advice and try again at a later date, or start working your way down the list to find a guild that will accept you as you currently are. It should go without saying that most top-tier guilds have extremely high standards, but you'd be surprised at the kinds of people that end up applying. Something else to consider, and you should come across it at some point if you're doing your research, is whether or not you can make the raid schedule. In my guild, we have three core raiding nights a week, and each one generally lasts three hours. Now, due to the nature of our guild we don't technically enforce attendance (even though we do encourage it). However, what we require is often the bare minimum. Stone-cold serious proression guilds may raid four or five days a week and they may ask you to put in longer hours. Chances are good that they also make many of their raids mandatory, meaning that if you can't make it, or you don't have a reasonable excuse for missing a given night, you won't find yourself in the guild for very long. At the least, you'll be put on the second or third string, at the worst, they'll toss you right out the door. Keep in mind that a lot of guild officers take their job setting up and running raids seriously. They want you to be successful. They want you to get better gear and become a star player. If you can't show them the appropriate appreciation or respect, then they won't want you around. But I'm getting ahead of myself now and, looking at my word count, it's about time to wrap things up! Shopping around for guilds is one thing. Making yourself a top candidate for admission is another completely. In the next edition, I plan on covering basic gear requirements. Any questions or thoughts, readers?

Click to read more ...

Thanks to a lovely excursion to Anaheim, California for something, an enjoyable trip to plague ridden Seattle, and the recovery time from said plague, I've missed a fair bit of raiding.  Actually, I have missed almost a month's worth of raiding.  I've never missed a full month of raiding unless I was still leveling, or not playing the game at all.  Coming back to raiding is a new experience to me, one that makes me feel incredibly dirty. You know that feeling when you haven't showered for a few days; your hair is oily and shaggy, your skin feels like it has an extra layer to it, and your feet have begun to grow a new breed of penicillin?  I've felt like that, disgusting, dingy, dirty, during this week of raiding. I've misplaced Tricks of the Trade (be faster on that Feign Death next time!), dropped Slice'n'Dice, blown openers, allowed Hunger for Blood to dissipate and mistimed Envenom after Envenom.  In short, I've been a total n00b the last few play sessions.  As if completely dropping off of the "good" side of the DPS chart wasn't bad enough, I even did something I haven't done as long as I could remember.  I failed at the same thing in an encounter not once, but twice.   You better believe that was a night filled with /facepalm. My utter failings came as a complete shock to me.  Sure, I've take a week or two off here or there for vacations, I've had friendly rogues come back from excursions only to complain about ruining their spell rotation, but I never thought it was this bad.  I never thought it could happen to me!  I never dreamed I could be this bad again!  But the proof is in the pudding, I've absolutely blown chunks in every possible way since returning. Other than raiding - simply brute forcing my way back to nimble fingers and high DPS - I have no idea what to do.  There's nothing I can easily correct.  As far as I can tell the only remedy is to simply get back into the rhythm, get playing and get focused.  If you guys have any bright ideas on clearing the cobwebs and knocking off the rust of vacation I'd love to hear them. Please, for the sake of my ego, tell me I am not the only person to ever experience a total lack of skill after an extended break.  Lie to me if you must.

Click to read more ...

The inability to launch instances this late in Wrath of the Lich King has always been odd to me.  Like many of the people in my guild, and likely a large part of the WoW populace, there is almost no reason for me to enter any 5-man dungeons.  That isn't to say that I don't do it here and there, but my frequency in no way compares to Solidsamm's marathon sessions during the early days of level 80.  I am sure many of you agree (that is until Call of the Crusade drops with its Emblem changes), and yet, just as many of us continue to get the dreaded "Additional instances cannot be launched" when trying to open an instance.  This is an especially painful message after having just attacked a raid full of Horde. Logic would state that if less people are running dungeons there should be more "room" on the instance servers.  According to Vrakthris it isn't that cut and dry.  But one should never apply logic to system architecture and computer programming.  There are a numbers of reasons why this isn't a one-to-one situation.  For example, if instances are given some sort of weight (5-man = one, 10-man = 2, 25-man = four) depending on how stressful they are on the hosting machine, then the server could theoretically be just as full as ever. Whatever the real design flaw is, it appears that Blizzard's architecture people have found a solution.  According to Wryxian, over on the EU forums, the recent extended maintenance and server restarts are directly related to fixing the instance problem.  Wryxian explains that "each group", presumably each Battlegroup, has to come down not once, but twice for the fix, and that things do not always go smoothly. I haven't located a post that mirrors the undead crocodile's statements on the North American forums, but it's probably safe to assume the same thing is happening here.  After all, my server was down for some extra time this morning, including a reboot during my Drakuru battle (I died!).  With Call of the Crusade's background downloading initiated, the fix may come just in time. I've had to deal with it more and more recently, but the wait hasn't broken my spirits.  Getting a group still remains far more difficult.  How bad has the stubbornness of the instance server been on your realm?

Click to read more ...

Competition is in my blood.  It has been breed into every fiber of my being, a staple of my personality from my first memory.  Early on it was eating as fast as possible to grab the last piece of food, then I moved up to the big leagues, the Undisputed Champion of Tag (you're it btw).  Later I moved into sports, girls and finally video games (yes, they can exist side-by-side).  Now that I am older (remember when Optimus Prime died?!  No?  Well I still recall crying in the theater, at a cartoon!) sports have become far more chummy, and I don't "compete" for a women's affection anymore.  But I still have my video games World of Warcraft. Thank C'Thun that I do.  Without a release for my overzealous spirit there is a good chance a biblical meltdown would occur.  Seeing as I rolled a rogue, the only thing that I can compete at is damage (DPS and DD).  It's become quite a challenge recently. As much as the hardcore (my vanilla WoW persona included) hate the idea, Wrath of the Lich King's launch allowed casual players to be on a level playing field, again.  I took the opportunity to infuse raiding into my weekly routine after racing to level 80 along with the rest of the bell curve.  I can hardly dedicate more than a single night a week to raiding, but I managed to stay on top (or at least competitive) in the charts thanks to tons of research.  I spent hours calculating the best gear that was easily obtained, be it through heroic grinds, badges, or crafting.  When I started losing the edge and falling behind, I made sure to always have my buffs - food, tea and some fluids - applied.  It's no longer enough. Sure, I have my hang-ups with Solidsamm's new home, but I agree entirely with Smooth Criminals' Prime Directive.  "To Demolish Ulduar."  But it has become far more difficult for a casual raider (again, one night a week) to remain competitive.  No longer can I slide by on raw skill, pots, and well researched gear combinations.  Sure, the Nobles Deck I am working on should help, but my gear - a mix of heroic, crafted, badge, Naxxramas normal and heroic - can't hold a candle to the Tier 7/8 geared toons we have. My realization won't stop me from bringing my A game.  In actuality, I believe it may even light a fire under my ass to eek out that x% more.  Hopefully knowing my current place can get me off my haunches and back on my toes.  Otherwise I will just resort to my old methods of remaining useful to the guild, cooking, fishing, and finding cheap materials.  With enough materials provided I hope I can guilt trip the RL in to accepting my sub 3500 DPS on the later (unseen to me) bosses. How do the rest of the casual raiders stay up with the members who can dedicate more time?

Click to read more ...

Follow The Tips Or Be Eaten By Each And Every Maw Combat, Assassination, Sublety.  Backstab, Mutilate, Sinister Strike.  White, yellow, green damage.  These are all important things to consider when you are trying to maximize your DPS, but they aren't the only things.  Not by a long shot.  The stab-happy class (and all other classes) also needs to keep stats like Hit, Expertise and Critical Rating in mind as well.  Then there's the act of standing behind your target at all times, timing a Slice and Dice refresh, popping the various cooldowns to maximize total output, sharing the wealth effectively and dropping a Vanish at the most appropriate time.  In short, the class that many players believe to be incredibly easy simply isn't.  Maximizing a rogue's abilities is as difficult as any other class in WoW. Here's the thing, one's raw DPS isn't the only thing that matters.  Adding to the already complex task of DPS is other raid mechanics.  Staying alive, reducing the healing required, spreading out and minimizing incoming damage.  These are all highly important tactics that every raider should be trying to master.  PvE encounters will become far easier for each member that masters their basic role - DPS, Tanking, Healing - and these "secondary" tasks.  Achieving outside the box is exactly what separates the casual raiders from the hardcore, and I don't mean in time spent. It'd be impossible for me to discuss what every class can do outside their normal role, but here are a few for my favorite class.

• Minimization of incoming damage - Yes, yes, of course killing the target will reduce its DPS to the fullest extent.  By show of hands how many of us can kill an elite target inside 10 seconds?  No one?  Thought so.  In the midst of burning that mob down be sure to interrupt incoming damage as much as possible.  Kick spells - but prioritize which you kick - stun whirlwinds, Blind stray mobs.  Sap.  Every class has a handful of tools to make life easier on the healers, use them.
• Spreading out damage - You have to be careful with this one depending on your class. Especially considering that this mostly comes up during a breakdown in an encounter.  During these hairy times spreading the damage across multiple players can be the difference between a catastrophic failure and a messy recovery.  For a rogue the idea is to save any squisher class from being pummeled, while bringing the mob to a tank.  Liberal use of Evasion and Cloak of Shadows are key.  By reacting quickly you can save other raids members, give healers time to react and focus on the tanks while reducing the tanks incoming damage as the encounter returns to normal.  Saviors just need to watch our for their own well being, as heals won't likely be coming their way.
• Staying alive - Blaming the healer is a fun past time, but barring a complete wipe you could have saved yourself.  If you were one of a few deaths during an encounter it's on you.  Sorry.  Perhaps you should have potted, moved away from the pretty spell effects that were nearby or eaten some food for that extra stamina.  If all else fails Sprint or Vanish.
• Dealing with AoE - Previously rogues couldn't do much with AoE.  We'd just stand there and take it, interrupting when applicable.  And we couldn't return the favor.  Very annoying.  Now we have two new tools at our disposal.  For incoming AoE damage - as seen in numerous Ulduar fights - we should be spamming a tried and true ability, Feint.  A 50% reduction in AoE damage is a sweet buff to the old school spell.  For dishing out AoE we have Fan of Knives.  FoK is best used with slow weapons.  If your energy is going to be dedicated to FoK during an encounter then switch to your slowest, hardest hitting pair.
• For the love of all that is holy - Enchant, socket and fill out all of your glyphs with something!  None of this "waiting for a better piece of gear to enchant" or "need to find a good gem."  Get a placeholder at least!

With many experienced raiders part of the readership I know a fair amount already grasp these concepts.  But I hope each of you learned a new trick, or at least remembered how important these tactics are.  If you already knew this information, then I am sure you have something to add.  Let's hear it.  Examples for other class tactics would be appreciated as well. Remember folks, we each have roles, but we can all make raiding easier, more efficient and, most importantly, faster by performing outside our narrow view of the world.

Click to read more ...

As we enter the end of the 3rd 'set' of raid instances in the current expansion, I think it is a good time to take a look at Blizzard's new raid philosophy which made another dramatic change in WotLK, not unlike the change from 40 man raids to 25 man raids in Burning Crusade. With the release of this expansion Blizzard essentially made a promise to the entire WoW community that the raid content would be opened up to everyone (in theory). They changed all raids in Wrath to have two separate versions, a 10 man and a 25 man. Within those raids they had even more lines drawn with heroic and standard versions of many of the fights. For better or for worse though, six months into this expansion we can see that they are well on the way to their goal to opening this content up to nearly everyone. On my home server of Cenarius you can find PuGs for any range of content that fits your need without too many problems. Did your side just capture Wintergrasp? It's very easy to find a group for Vault of Archavon which drops some of the best armor pieces in the game (for both PvPers and PvEers). Naxxramas, Eye of Eternity, Obsidian Sanctum, and even Ulduar are all PuG options for both versions. Granted you most likely will not be hitting up the hard modes with these kinds of groups, but you're seeing the content, which is esentially what Blizzard wants. This is why they brought Naxxramas back (which I missed the first time around, so I am a huge fan of the decision) and why they have expanded the types of groups that can attend these raids, and brought around the philosophy of “bring the player, not the class” (which was a problem in TBC, especially with Sunwell). As positive as these changes are there are naysayers, mostly in the hardcore raiding community. They do have a point as they continually clear through normal modes like nothing. Blizzard really changed the raid designs with Ulduar though. There was only one fight with the release of WotLK that gave those who went “the extra mile” incentive and better gear for doing the fight in a more challenging way (Sartharion with three drakes up). With Ulduar though, most fights have a hard mode, better loot and a greater sense of accomplishment. To even clear the whole instance though players must clear hard modes to unlock the extra boss Algalon. Now that Ulduar has been fully cleared (all hard modes completed) we can shift our focus to the future once again with 3.2. The raid philosophy gets a slight shift again, this time with the separation of 10 man and 25 man raids into regular and heroic, all with separate lockout timers, so essentially you'll be able to run Trial of the Crusader four times a week, all on the same character. In the coming weeks though, we will get a lot more information about this raid zone as we will see the zone live on the PTR for testing. Blizzard seems to be opening things more and more for players to experience the raids. With the change to badges helping players gear up fairly quickly to be able to have proper gear for the new content shows a shift in design philosophy. Previously you absolutely had to have cleared old content (within that expansion) to really gear up for the newest, or next tier, of content. The lines have been blurred now and there is no “one” way to gear up properly anymore. Once patch 3.2 drops we will most likely see an emergence of heroics being run once again, and quick clears of Naxxramas (my guild doesn't even have anything besides Ulduar and Wintergrasp on our raid schedule). It seems as if Blizzard is attempting to please everyone with this patch, the hardcore raiders will have their 25 man heroic and regular 25 man to gear up quickly and easily. While tighter knit guilds still have the opportunity to do regular or heroic modes. Blizzard is also introducing a feature that I think every guild will be able to appreciate, with the ability to extend a lockout period an additional week. This will allow guilds to get additional work on a particularly challenging boss, but will require them to give up loot on the “easier” bosses for one week. I think this will be another level of strategy for raid leaders and guild leaders to use their time more effectively for their guild. Possibly the biggest surprise throughout all of this is that there will be absolutely no trash in this instance, purely bosses! I am a huge fan of this and I think more people will be happy over this than just me, no more complaining that mages pad the meters on trash! Will this be how it is in Icecrown Citadel though? I would be very surprised if they did, as I think this is a special case scenario and I think they want the Colosseum feel to feel authentic and not similar to how it was in Hyjal. If we take a look at our preview of Crusader's Coliseum then it appears that it will be just one area that we fight in (this may or not be the case and we should know very soon). Do you like the way Blizzard is pushing their raid content now? There are a lot more options for people (three separate versions of the Tier 9 gear) do you think this will spread the player base out a bit too much? And one more thing, what will you be doing with your guild, just one tier of the new raid or multiple ones?

Click to read more ...