Project Lore

Wishful Thinking is a column for the theorycrafting behind World of Warcraft.  No, not the number crunching madness perfected by the folks at ElitistJerks, but the features, abilities, and design ideas that the Project Lore writers conjure from their squishy pink stuff. Is Violet Hold The Bastion Of Wrath's 5-Man Content? I love WoW's PvE content, but there's no denying that it can get boring.  Doing the same runs over and over for weeks on end do nothing but show us how repetitive things can become.   After the first few virgin runs we fight through the monotony mainly for a chance at some glorious rewards.  Thanks to hard and heroic modes, and quick content patches, raiding has become less repetitive, but our heroic dungeon farming is no less mind numbing than ever.  Considering how much time we now spend in heroics, thanks to the vastly improved badge system, don't you think party-based PvE deserves content diversification?  What to do... We already have heroic and non-heroic versions, so that's out of the picture.  Hard modes could be done, but would be placed on farm by anyone who raids in a matter of weeks.  Not the best return on one's development investment there.  That's out.  What else can be done to make five man dungeons a little less stale, a little more enjoyable? Ignoring our insatiable desire for loot and badges, one way to keep an instance fresh is already implemented by Blizzard in Violet Hold (and later ToC).  Boss mob rotation.  In VH the party is given a random chance to encounter three of six possible bosses before they tackle Cyanigosa.  It's a small change, but the randomness forces players to stay on their toes even after they start to outgear the dungeon.  Extend this idea further, apply it to multiple dungeons, and it'd give us a little boost in content. For the lore and item junkies out there, new bosses can offer both.  Many instances can simply have lieutenants written in as taking over a former leaders' position, or perhaps the vacuum left by a leader's demise allows a new faction, race or species to subjugate the rest of the instance's denizens to their will.  It's true that in the long run the change would be like Diablo II's "dynamic" map system, where you could easily remember all the map layouts, but the longer we can extend that notion the better. I've mulled over the problem of the lack of 5-man heterogeneity for ages, with multiple audiences, and outside of making entirely new dungeons more frequently, a dynamic encounter assignment has been the best thing I've come up with.  Does anyone have any other bright ideas to make five man content less repetitive likes their big brothers? Do you agree that that VH offers a bit more play before it becomes repetitive?  Everyone likes new encounters right?

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So by now we have all heard about the great stuff coming in patch 3.2. While mount changes, battlegrounds, and dailies are fun and all… I wanted to take a second to talk about what, to me, is the most exciting thing about any content patch. The new raid!

As many of you have figured out by now, raiding is really what I play this game for so naturally I want as many details on the new Crusaders Colosseum as possible. Unfortunately at this point, details are a bit lacking. So that just leaves me to do one thing: make wild assumptions based on too little information and discuss possibilities that may have no basis in fact!

So let me first say this. I am a bit skeptical about this whole “ring of blood, but more epic” thing. When we first heard about Ulduar the possibilities seemed limitless. It was a huge dungeon with a great story 14 bosses tons of hard modes. Sounded great! This on the other hand sounds like it could very well be a hole in the wall that bosses come out of.

Perhaps that is what some people want. No trash, no dungeons to walk through, just one room where bosses come and drop their loot. I honestly hope this isn’t the case. To me raiding a new dungeon is more about the experience than just the bosses. It’s no wonder some of my favorite raids of all time are the ones with story and tons of design like Karazhan, Black Temple, and even Ulduar.

In my mind the only basis for comparison I can even think for the new Colloseum would maybe be Violet Hold, or perhaps on a bigger scale Mount Hyjal. Those were both dungeons when the mobs and bosses came to you. But if Blizzard is comparing this to Ring of Blood (which we have already done 3 times by the way), then it makes me question if trash will even be in the equation. Seems a bit lazy from a design perspective.

I guess we can only hope for some really interesting boss fights to hold us over until Icecrown. While I’m not totally discouraged just yet, let me say I can only hope that Blizzard has some good tricks up their sleeve.

Until we get more details all we can do is wonder. So what do you guys think?

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One of the perils of doing anything publicly is the risk of being labeled "Stupid". Ignorance we can handle, stupidity not so much. Is there a difference? You bet. Ignorance is the absence of knowledge. How do rogues do an attack rotation? We have no idea; we're ignorant about rogue-mechanics. Stupidity is acting in a manner inconsistent with known facts. We know not to pull aggro from our main tank. If we were to start firing before the main tank has established aggro, we'd be acting stupidly. There is a fine line between ignorance and stupidity and that's "Unconventional". A hunter who melees because he knows no other way is Ignorant. A hunter who knows the proper method of playing a hunter who chooses to melee his way while leveling is Unconventional. So also would be a player who eschews killing mobs while leveling -- known as pacifist-leveling -- or someone who refuses to wear gear while leveling, just for the challenge of doing it. Being unconventional is fine, as long as you don't affect other people without their knowledge and consent. For example, it is known by most hunters that bringing a level seventy-five pet to a heroic instance will be gimping his own damage-output. It is also well known that the fastest way to level a hunter-pet from seventy-five to eighty is in heroic instances. A single heroic Violet Hold will usually give a pet almost an entire level. Bringing a level seventy-five pet to a heroic with the goal of leveling it quickly, but seeking the permission of the rest of the raid before the raid starts, is Unconventional. Bringing a level seventy-five pet to a heroic because you didn't know there are level seventy-nine pets available for immediate taming is Ignorant. Bringing a level seventy-five pet to a heroic and without caring about the feelings of the rest of the raid is Stupid. Personally, we are ignorant about just about everything there is to know about tanking and healing. When we bellow at our tank, "Make more threat!" we are very fortunate she doesn't yell back, "Why don't you, in your infinite wisdom, tell me just how you expect me to accomplish that!" Because if she did, we'd stammer and stutter and exclaim, "Just... you know, get it angry. Hit it, whatever, right? Threat! Do it!" And she'd reach through the Internet and squash us for our ignorance. However we are not stupid, and we know that regardless of how the tank is generating threat, it is our responsibility to not pull aggro from the main tank. Our ignorance of tanking-mechanics can be compensated with our knowledge of hunter-mechanics. How do we compensate for a tank not generating as much threat as we'd like? * Cast Misdirection at every opportunity. * Feign Death before we overtake the tank on the mob's threat list. * Just chill out and decrease our DPS until the tank has a solid threat-lead. If we were to refuse to Misdirect, Feign Death, and reduce our DPS when the tank is having difficulties maintaining aggro, we would not be "teaching the tank a lesson" by intentionally pulling aggro. No, we'd be Stupid. Eliminating ignorance requires two people: an apt teacher and a willing student. Eliminating stupidity is the job of just one person: the stupid one. You can encourage, enlighten, educate, and cajole a person towards not being stupid, but ultimately, it's his decision. But what else can you do? You can learn to differentiate between ignorance and stupidity yourself and react accordingly. Your PUG is having a hard time in Culling of Stratholme because the priest keeps running ahead of the party? Remind him that the paladin tank makes a wonderful Undead battering ram. Teach the priest that standing on top of, or slightly behind, the paladin tank will basically guarantee the priest's survival. If the priest adjusts his tactics appropriately, you'll have eliminated a little ignorance from the game and probably ensured the success of your run. But if the priest says nothing and keeps running amok, you'll know that you're dealing with Stupid and it's time to abandon-party. Ignorance, stupidity, and unconventionality are big parts of Warcraft. Learning to modify your behavior when confronting these characteristics is key to your progression and fun in the game, (and in real life too).

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