The Daily Quest : karazhan

WoW Struggles: Maintaining Reputation

matticus — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 01:08:58 GMT

I must apologize about my lack of a posts recently. I had a term paper due, and like many WoW students, I have horrible time management skills. It's the end of semester for many of us students. But that's another topic I hope to address entirely.

Anyways, onto business!

First, I want to extend Gwaendar a hearty shoutout. He has honored me with a spot on his blog roll which I will reciprocate in kind. One Among Many has also done the same. I thank them both for their links. I believe it's important to recognize writers who link to you. Any of you aspiring writers would do well to keep that in mind.

Today, I plan to start an ongoing series of blog posts about our struggles in WoW. I guess you could call it my catch all on days when I have no material!

In addition to WoW Blogs, I also read non-WoW blogs to help improve my writing and style. Lorelle's Blog Struggles series has inspired me here, as you can see.

1 An Epic Tale
2 One Question
3 One Answer
4 He Was a Warlock
5 The Lesson
6 The End?

An Epic Tale

I've been lucky throughout my entire WoW raiding career. I cannot say there was an incident where my instance raid ID or my loot had been stolen and ninja'd. Unfortunately, others have not been so lucky. Big Bear Butt had his raid instance partially taken.

Kirk wrote an excellent reaction to the situation that I think everyone should check out.

In a game like World of Warcraft where players need to interact with others, social reputation is the currency. How players view you could either open doors or close them.

A situation like this one where a player has done something unfair will cause other players to think badly of them. The Guild in question will be labeled as an organization where none of it's members can be trusted until the culprit is found.

I know what you're thinking.

One Question

Who cares what they think? So what if I ninja loot and commit other acts? I pay $15 a month to play this game how I see fit and I don't care what other people think of me.

One Answer

Because if you do that on a consistent basis, no one is going to want to deal with you. Take a look at the following list and possible penalties.

No fun in groups because you can't get any
Zero raiding opportunities
Crafters won't want your business
Online abuse
...Need I say more?

He Was a Warlock

Let me cite an example. A year ago when I transferred to Ner'Zuhl (gosh has it been that long already?), I heard stories of a Warlock named Evilana. Apparently he was a bad player and had a bad reputation. To get associated with him meant serious bad news. I never knew precisely what the reasoning was behind it, but I did not want to deal with a player who sounded that bad. In fact, he was a target of many flamers on the WoW Forums. I was new to the server at the time and like a kid entering high school for the first time, just wanted to fit in. I didn't actively participate in any e-floggings but I stayed distant.

A while later, I had gotten word that he either transferred off the server or ebayed his character (or both).

That was the last time I ever heard about him again.

The Lesson

Do not underestimate the power of a united social force. They have a mind of their own. Think of it as the online version of the mob mentality. They can spread the word about a player's dominance and make him seem like a god. Or they can shred his reputation entirely like he is a pile of dirt. The popularity of a person depends entirely on what other people think of them. You can think of certain world leaders as an example. Popular opinion can spread like a wildfire and ruin WoW careers.

The End?

So what's going to happen with BBB? I can only imagine. I suspect if they ever find the person involved, he's only going to get a slap on the wrist and a stern talking to. But I plan to observe any developments with great interest.

Like what you're reading? Matticus runs his own blog over at worldofmatticus.com. Come by, check it out, and drop him a line!

Karazhan and Zul'Aman - A Fixed Mistake?

Indelible — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 00:22:04 GMT

When Karazhan was first introduced at the start of TBC, WoW fans and fan sites immediatly began questioning Blizzards approach in implementing this instance as a tiered instance. Making up the first 1/3rd of the tier 4 instances, Karazhan was supposed to provide an easy step up to 25-man by allowing casual guilds access to tiered instances without having to worry about the logistical implications of 40-man. However, it didn't quite go so smoothly and despite Blizzard saying that they were intending to implement another 10-man instance, players began to question the decision.

Previously on World of Warcraft...

Back in the olden days when UBRS and LBRS were still used to gear up players for MC, it was cut and dry mechanics from a logistical stand point. 4 groups ran UBRS and LBRS to get gear and then those 4 groups merged to form one 40-man raid to attend to MC. When Blizzard implemented Zul'Gurub, it became even more cut and dry as the gear was better and it was specifically tuned to help in Molten Core so the majority of players only visited UBRS for their BWL attunement quest. Again, cut and dry means that 2 seperate groups could attend to ZG and then merge to form one 40-man group to take on MC. This made ZG not only a fun instance suitable for guilds that weren't in a position logistically to raid MC but also a viable and easy way of gearing up for MC and the fact that this raid dungeon wasn't tiered meant that nobody felt compelled to pay it a visit if they didn't want to - it was considered a complimentary instance with bonuses but not an all important one. Everyone loved it and everyone thanked Blizzard for such an instance and when 10-mans and 25-mans were announced for TBC, initially people began to rejoice at the lower logistical requirements and at the casual nature of the 10-mans. The complications came when Kara was placed in the tier 4 league...

Now, The Conclusion...

So what we had was raid numbers that fit with the maps. UBRS = 10-man x2 - ZG = 20-man x2 - MC = 40-man and so on and so forth. Now however we seem to be at a wierd place in World of Warcraft logistics. Granted, the logistical requirements of end game raiding have gone down, thus making it easier to create a raid group but at the same time, things have become a little more complex.

Karazhan is a 10-man dungeon designed as an entry level instance to train basic coordination and introduce newer players to raiding without subjecting them to hardcore situations. It's a relatively easy instance that provides average challenges on later bosses. It was designed as a ZG for level 70 (sort of) and whilst that is all well and good, a clear mistake was made with the instance - it was tiered. Players had to visit it to attain pieces of the tier 4 set and thus, greater importance was placed on it than ZG. Now, this immediatly seperates it from ZG and either the player base were mistaken and it was never intended to be a ZG for 70 or Blizzard got something else wrong. Even if Kara was not intended to take the place as the ZG of 70 (as the addition of ZA would suggest) and more the place of the UBRS and LBRS of 70, there is still an issue that a lot of players are concerned about and that is in the logistical area of the game.

Every instance past Karazhan (excluding Zul'Aman) requires 25 players. This is two and a half kara teams. Therefore, you either run 3 kara teams and have 5 players that are cycled in depending on their performance, you run 5 kara teams and have two 25-man teams running or you don't run karazhan and gear your raid group up in heroic dungeons. The latter is a little ridiculous as you need kara to attain pieces of the tier 4 set. The 5 kara teams idea is a logistical nightmare, as 40 mans were. The only actual option is to run kara with 3 groups in order to gear up enough players to see 25-man and as such, you always have 5 players left out. This is ok if you want benches that take raid spots based on who is and who is not available for certain runs but if you are intending on have a closed guild that only has 25 players that run as a closed group, you still have a logisitcal nightmare.

In short, it is harder to step from kara to 25-mans than it was to step from UBRS/ZG to 40-mans and the hardcore raids are penalised by what is a lengthy reset timer (7 days) which, in my opinion, should be lowered.

The Late Addition

Zul'Aman would suggest that Blizzard did not intend Kara to be the ZG of 70 and as such, presents a few concepts that could work out for the better. For a start, the casual guilds who do not want to run 25-mans now have a form of progression to make from kara to ZA and as such, have something to keep them occupied until WotLK comes out. Another is that the gear in ZA is none-tiered whihc means it can be used as a complimentary instance like heroics to gear up for G25-mans without feeling compelled to pay it a visit, like you are with Kara.

A Solution?

There is no solution to this issue. Blizzard have said they intend to stick with this format and Naxxaramas is being retuned as a 25-man dungeon for the first tier of WotLK and they have no plans to change this.

What about 25-mans then? Surely they could change the logisitcs so that 25-mans became 20-mans or 30-man and this would make the complexities of progress from the 10-man entry level dungeons up to the full on end game dungeons far easier on the numbers and far more cut and dry... like the old system?

Loot Management Week: Karazhan

matticus — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 01:09:17 GMT

Sorry guys, I had a really busy weekend. I had to finish up a few projects and participate in my hockey draft. I think my picks look pretty solid.

I've noticed an alarming trend lately in how some younger Guilds are imposing DKP for their Karazhan runs. Wait, what? Why? Why use DKP for loot distribution in a small ten man instance? Hopefully my plea can change the course of Guilds so that they don't run into any Guild Drama later on in their path.

Don't use DKP for Karazhan. As a Guild run, there will be at most two classes that are the same (warrior/warrior, priest/priest). It adds unnecessary work and possible consequences in the future. Loot should be decided via rolls or gear prioritization. I'm assuming that your guild is running with the same crew of people on a weekly basis. Even if you have two or three groups for Karazhan, then the loot being distributed should remain in those individual groups.

Like come on, seriously, its only a ten man raid. Did anyone run UBRS with DKP? I think not. There's only a few pieces in Karazhan that can be used by multiple classes. Even then, a simple roll off will work for it. There's a LOT of bosses in there that it's almost virtually guaranteed that everyone will get an upgrade at some point. As you progress through the higher areas of karazhan, you're going to end up with players with an insane amount of DKP through the roof. Once you start instances like Gruul's and Mag, then you will have players with lopsided points (in the range of thousands). These are the instances where DKP really DOES matter.

The rest of the week, I'm going to discuss the various methods that Guilds can use to distribute their loot in the best possible way for players. Each loot system is different and should be tailored to the primary objective of the Guild.

Matticus just topped the 1000 view milestone on his blog. Thanks very much to all Curse viewers! You can read more over at http://www.worldofmatticus.com.