Project Lore

It pains me to say it, but after several months of dutifully raiding Ulduar, one of the coolest aspects of the dungeon just isn't the bee's knees anymore. I'm talking about the Iron Concourse, that long stretch of dark iron dwarf-infested land that sits between your raid and Flame Leviathan each and every time you start a new lockout period. In the previews leading up to the dungeon's release, nothing could've sounded more epic: you and your buddies jump into some high-powered engines of destruction as your tear across the map, laying waste to the gate-keepers of Ulduar and anything else that might be unlucky enough to sit in your path. And it was fun... the first few times. The scale was huge, the concept above and beyond what you'd normally find in a dungeon, and the on-going narration from Brann Bronzebeard was a real atmospheric treat. Blizzard could do with fixing the ramp bugs while they're at it! But now, just as soon as I first jump into a vehicle at the start of the event, I can't help but count down the time until the whole affair is over. Once the majesty fades, the Iron Concourse is nothing more than a terribly easy, drawn-out trash-clearing exercise of the worst kind. Ten to fifteen minutes of demolishing towers is enough to kill my raiding buzz. I've rallied against nerfs to Ulduar in the past, but now I'm putting out the call: nerf the Iron Concourse! Despite the negative connotations the word has come to be associated with over the years, it's not always such a bad thing. The way I see it, there are two ways to "nerf" something: to make it easier or to make it more convenient. Blizzard's been doing a lot of both lately, and while I'm not a fan of the changes they've made to a lot of the bosses in Ulduar, I would welcome just about any remedy to ease the pain of having to clear this area. What can they do? They can't very well make the vehicles any stronger or faster without having to retune the Flame Leviathan encounter, and it may just make clearing more of an ordeal to make it any more difficult. Likely, the easiest thing to do is simply make the enemies weaker (and get rid of those damnable helicopters!). As it is right now, the iron dwarf gnats that stream out of the storm towers right now can be easily dealt with, but the bigger mobs act as nothing more than huge damage sponges. Unless you're running into the dungeon with a bunch of people who have sub-200 item level gear, the Iron Concourse just doesn't pose much of a challenge. And if you're doing that, you probably just shouldn't be in Ulduar anyway. What do you think, guys and gals? Has the Iron Concourse event become as rote and annoying for you as it has for me? I'm always hesitant to suggest things that make the game too convenient for players (let's face it, you've got to put some effort in), but when you're forced to engage in an encounter like this with no tangible rewards for doing so, maybe it would be better to just get it over with as soon as possible. Hey, we've all dealt with worse trash, but at least you might get some gold or the occasional drop out of it. Are there any other parts of Ulduar you feel the same way about?

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A long, long time ago, in Stranglethorn Vale, our guild started Zul'Gurub. At the same time, the elite guilds had finished ZG, Molten Core, Black Wing Lair, and were doing AQ20, AQ40 and Naxxramas. We had Dungeon Set 0 and epic PvP gear, they were decked out in Tier 3. There was a huge chasm of raiding experience and gear-level between us and them. A long time ago, in the Caverns of Time, our guild finished Mount Hyjal. At the same time, the elite guilds had completed Black Temple and Sunwell. We had 4/5 Tier 5 and they were decked out in Tier 6. There was a significant difference in gear-level and raiding experience between us and them. As of this week, our guild has completed all 10- and 25-man raiding content in WotLK. The only challenges left in front of us are Sartharion with two and three drakes up, and some raiding achievements. The elite guilds have finished the "hard modes," but there is no raid-boss they've seen that we haven't. We are 13/15ths of the way to being totally decked-out in Tier 7.5 gear - they have a better necklace and trinket than we do. They also have the gun from Kel'Thuzad, those rotten {expletive (plural) deleted}. There is no real difference in gear-level, and while they have many more years of end-game content raiding experience than we do, we’ve walked where they've walked in the new expansion, and not years after they have. So what’s the deal? We've heard over and over that the content is easier. Bullpucky. We remember our first kills in Karazhan. We remember going to Maiden and being sure it was going to take many hours to kill her. We remember warning the guild that wipes were the price of success. Then, we one-shot her. /kapow! "Don't move when Flame Wreath is cast!" And if you didn't move, and you had the DPS, you'd beat Shade of Aran. Learning the skill took time, as did getting a high enough raid-DPS, but once the skill was learned, never again did a movement fight cause as much fear. Thaddius in Naxxramas is a movement fight, and people don't freak out about that guy nearly as much as they did about Shade of Aran. The problem with Karazhan was two-fold: First, an entirely new population of WoW-players suddenly had access to raiding content, and they weren't used to it. Second, in a 40-person raid, you can have a screw-up. In a 10-person raid, a single person could easily wipe everything. So in old-school raiding, the old-school raiders learned to raid as they were "carried" through Molten Core. They made mistakes, they were mostly hidden, and the raid kept on trucking. By the time they got to Karazhan, they knew how to raid and thus breezed through it. In contrast, a new generation of players learned to raid in 10-man Karazhan, and they learned to raid as they wiped. Karazhan was hard, not because of the difficulty of the content, but because individual mistakes were magnified and the results were much more severe. Was Gruul or Magtheridon much harder than Karazhan? No, because these 25-person raids required Karazhan-geared people to attempt them. And once you've gotten gear from Karazhan, you probably knew how to behave in a raid. The difference between 10- and 25-person raiding isn't much, the only difference is in specific people learning their specific roles. Once the trick of the boss is mastered, the basic raid skills needed are already known. (i.e. don't stand in the fire or the black circle, don't take aggro from the tank, etc.) Then we get to WotLK and the new Naxxramas. Is 10-person Naxx easier than Kara was? Yes. Is it because the content is easier? We say No. We say that people crushed Naxx with such relative ease because there were no new skills needed to defeat the place. If you raided Kara, you could raid Naxx. There is no skill needed for Naxx that was not taught in Kara. And who didn't raid Kara? What percentage of people who are raiding Naxx do you think didn't step foot in Kara? Five percent? That means ninety-five percent of the people with their eyes set on Naxxramas just had to level to 80, then they'd have the gear and the Kara-learned raiding knowledge to defeat the place. And they did, foshizzle. So now we have the promise of Ulduar. What's the big scary thing there? Vehicle-mounts for combat. /shudder What fight do we have right now with something like vehicle-mounts? Malygos. What raid boss do people dislike the most? Malygos. Why? Phase three - The drakes. People dislike the drakes because they don't get to play their own class, and because it's a new mechanic. We love Naxx because it's just an extension of Kara. We've mastered Kara, so Naxx is easy. We have never had a vehicle-mount boss before, so people hate learning Malygos. Defeating one, two, and three drakes-up Sartharion is a matter of gear, positioning, and DPS. All three of these things are easily comprehended by Kara-experienced raiders, and thus three drakes-up Sartharion, while technically a much greater challenge than Malygos, does not inspire the same dread and hostility as Malygos does. Ulduar is bringing vehicle-mount boss fights to an entire new level, like it or not. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to farm Naxx for fun and profit? Are you going to go for the hard-mode achievements and beat 10-person Sartharion with three drakes up? Or are you going to practice your vehicle-mount combat skills in Malygos? Just as the Aces High! daily is practice for Malygos, so is Malygos himself practice for Ulduar. If you have the choice, we recommend you get your happy little tuckus out to Borean Tundrea every week, do both 10- and 25-person Malygos, not so much for the gear, but to get used to the dynamic. The skills you learn in Malygos are going to prepare you Ulduar, just like Kara prepared you for Naxx.

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So we have all had Wrath in our hands for a little over a week now. That was enough time for a few dedicated people to “beat the game” but I suspect many of us are a little behind the curve in that regard. I, myself, am on the verge of hitting level 80… and will likely have done so by the end of the day today. So I feel like I have seen a fair bit of the new content. Originally I had intended to grind instances all the way to 80, but quickly learned that was not the way to go. The XP per hour is simply much larger if you are questing. So ultimately I ended up questing for the majority of the leveling process. And, man, I am glad I did! I have found questing in wrath to be absolutely awesome! The new phasing mechanics really add a while new element to the game. While I have always enjoyed questing, there was never much tangible result other than a quest reward and unlocking the next link in the chain. Now you get to see the world change as the result of your actions. You get to witness time move on and realize things will never be the same as they were. It is great. I am not going to give out any spoilers here, but the epic quests that take advantage of it in Dragonblight, Icecrown, and even the DK starting area had me cheering at my computer monitor. Beyond the phasing mechanic, it seems to me the quests are all together better. You don’t see nearly the amount of kill X mobs for Y drops. They are more creative, more exciting, and all together larger feeling. The new vehicle mechanics play a big part in this, making lots of things possible that you were not able to do before. From time to time you get to step out of your character and control something of absolutely epic proportions. For me, so far, Wrath has been all I wanted and more. Now with hopes of seeing some end game next week I am anxious to see what the rest of the game has in store! What do you guys think so far?

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