In a post made by Tigole this morning on the Raids & Dungeons forums, he informed everyone that the attunements for Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep: The Eye have been lifted, meaning players can zone in without needing to complete the previously required quests. This is a major change for raiding in TBC, and will no doubt be a welcome one for many players.
Tigole wrote:
After a lot of thought and deliberation, we’ve decided to remove the attunement requirements to enter Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep: The Eye. While many of our attunements in the Burning Crusade have been good progression checks, a few of the attunements have turned out to cause unnecessary stress on guilds either doing the content or attempting to do the content. With Black Temple and Battle for Mount Hyjal thriving, we want to encourage (rather than prevent) new guilds and raid groups to attempt Serpentshrine and TK. We are going to leave the current attunement quests in the game so that players can still engage in the challenge and the lore of those quests should they choose to. At a later point, we are considering adding a final reward step to those quests as well (that way those who have already completed them would not miss out on a *new* reward).
We’re listening to feedback from you guys constantly and your opinions are important to us. We want this game to be the best possible MMO experience for our players.
Enjoy Serpentshrine and Tempest Keep =)
(Please note: This change will go live later today -- it's not yet active)
Comments
ok for everyone saying i pay 15 a month and deserve to do end game all i can say is no. You earn everything you do every step of the way. I disagree that the attunement should be removed but i am glad it was, less of my guild saying well you should find a pug for it. I know it can be a hassel to get attuned, for example: my guild wants me to get Kara attuned yet every time i ask for ppl from my guild to start a party with me to do Durnhole keep they say oh you can just get a pug for it. Although it was my fault for having a hunter as my main. I got so sick and tired of it i rerolled Alliance(i was horde, 70 orc hunter) and i made a priest, maybe then ppl will be like omg its a healer lets group with him.
I'm just going to point out that anything that lessens the rep grind is a good thing. Seriously, how many of you people play a priest or a tank and have gotten tired of running instances again, and again, and again getting rep not for yourself, but guildies?
The rep and quests and timed quests and the quest items that may or may not drop were nothing but huge, gigantic pains to slow people down from pushing through on content.
I personally think that this was BS from blizzard.
dropped 375 alchemy to get tailor grinded my ass off for frozen shadowweave set and spellstrike set. And now the noob green geared says that i have already so much epics, i should pass to him....
What people seems to forgot is that attunements have always been more like walkover-quests that could be finished in 1 day.
ie. you could perfectly fine attune yourself to BWL and Naxx even without seeing a single mob in MC, and AQ40 man doesnt even need one. If you are stupid enough and go to SSC/TK without magtheridon and gruul on farm, dont blame Blizzard for not giving you precise order of progress. Attunement-quests have never been Gearchecks before, why it is so bad if they are removed from TWO instances(BT and Hyjal still have attunements)
You still wont see kara-guilds clearing The Eye.
To all of those who say things like "It is a game, I pay the money, I should get to go," go ahead and try to do those instances without doing any of the lower level instances or heroics. You will find that your group will not get very far in trash mobs, let alone killing a boss. The attunement quests were there for a reason, to get you geared and to give you the experience to be able to complete the higher level instances, but not even those alone can really do it. The only reason Blizzard took them out was to make sure their $80mil or whatever they make a month doesn't drop a few dollars. So think what you want, but I think this was a bad idea and was only done because Blizzard just wants more money.
I really like this change, while I didnt have any problems completing the trails I just thought it was a pain in the ass. Attunments should work like they do for Hyjal, you have to clear 2x zones to be able to enter, which is a good check if your raid is ready to enter the next lvl, or if you should stay and farm up. :)
I understand the trials of the Naruu were not that hard to complete. I had no worries about being able to finish them. After running LBRS for a week straight for Ony...I was not looking forward to helping the rest of my guildies complete them.
I've always felt that killing a boss in said instance was enough to be "deserving" of being there.
They were already nerfed in 2.1.0.
Well won't help me or my guild... but oh well.
Its not like they changed the encounters - guilds attempting to do SSC or TK (without the ability to clear the previous necessary instances) will find themselves rewarded with little else than repair bills.
Not so different as to the old AQ40 being open to the entire server.
Farming trash, the best you can hope for are the items crafted from Vortexes, a number of recepies - although also naturally a few reasonable standard epic items as well. Theres only what, half a dozen of 'pure' items drop though - nowhere near enough to 'gear up' so to say.
Developer
I just want to make a standpoint. We long time raiders don't complain about that casual raiders get to see this stuff. We aren't "nolifers" or "nerds" as certain people love it to stereotype us. Most of us either have a work or study at a University(like me), we understand you can't spend all your time in the game. What we complain about is that stuff gets nerfed constantly, and people seem to think it's ok to remove any form of big challenge, because they "pay the same monthly fee" or because "Games are supposed to be fun". Yes, Games are supposed to be fun, but they're supposed to be a challenge as well, everything getting nerfed is like beating an RPG or RTS campaign using cheats.
As long as SSC/TK don't get nerfed it's fine, but I'm almost certain they will.
They shouldnt get nerfed imho. If the guild takes advantage of the no attunement, and just walk in ungeared or prepared thats thier fault then. Blizz shouldnt have to nerf something because of a few peoples laziness to aquire proper gear. Thats something i think everybody should highly agree on. :P
All you people who say "Oh no! now EVERONE can get into SSC and TK!" Stfu. i pay the same 15$ a month to play this game. Theres no special VIP account that ive known of where people have the right to say "You dont desverve to experience the rest of End Game content like WE do." Its also people like that who make this game less fun. If you had to put up with the attunement quest, you should be proud that you put work into that, not sitting here whining about how nobody has to do it anymore to get in. So please, go QQ somewhere else and quit encouraging the disencouragement of the lower class raid guilds that arent as "Hardcore" as you say they should be. In my opinion, anyone should have the privilage and ability to experience every inch this game has to offer without any sort of tight constrictive leash. It is a video game after all, and what fun is a video game if your not able to progress just because of a silly attunement as rough as having to full clear a bunch of uneccisary instance heroics.
Wow.... Would you get of your high horse please?
This is a game.
The game was preventing several people from experiencing content, not due to difficulty, but due to the silly atunement quests.
Blizzard saw it was a problem and fixed it. Great that they actually fix stuff that needs to be fixed and has a large impact on the end game scene.
Don't "deserve"? Who the hell are you to determine who "deserve" to be in an instance? It's a frikkin game, not some VIP lounge for people with a special lifestyle. There have been several cases of raiding schedules preventing people in a guild from attending the atunement parts, yet being full able to aid in the 25 mans, if they could get in.
Now they can get in, now they can aid their guilds, now the game doesn't artificially prevent people from actually helping their guilds.
Boy... Some of the criers here really make me feel sad for the future of mankind... "I had to do something I didn't really enjoy, so others should suffer too!!" seems a pretty big part of the argumentation I see here. Guess what, the game isn't about you, but about the whole community and trying to keep the majority of it satisfied and paying their monthly dues by keeping them playing.
edit: As for the unfair comments and such: You'd rather keep flaws and bugs in the game rahter than having them fixed so it was equal for everyone all the time? If I ever saw a flawed reasoning for not fixing something, that has to be the worst one I ever saw...
To put it simple this decision is not only uber stupid, but also very unfair. First of all if you can't do a few quests that can be done while leveling to 70, or you can't put together group of 5 for heroic instance, how can you get 25ppl for TK? - you don't deserve it. Attunement to SSC isn't extremely hard. It's just another step in your raid progression. Clearing Karazhan, doing Gruul... if you can't do these how are you suppose to be prepared for real 25man dungeon? Blizzard made fools of many ppl including me and my guild. The process of getting all ppl attuned for raids wasn't easy yet we did it and it's rewarding. I don't like the fact that some whining noobs get everything for free. Another thing is that the decision was announced day before release of the patch - no discussion, no question asked. Most frustrating is that we will end up with SSC and TK getting nerfed just because some god damn idiot in 5man blues cant do it. GG Blizz. And rewards? You must be joking. 'There will be some in the future' doesnt make any difference. Who cares what they give us for it next month? The change is being made now, and at least we deserve some respect for doing the chain which was too hard for 'average' player. Maybe you should remove other attunements as well? Kara - yeah running 4 instances, too hard. Heroics? Yeah revered too hard... And for those guilds that miss 1 or 2 ppl with attunements - there are easier way to achieve that change. For example scrolls could drop from every boss in the instance instead of last one.
i think this is good. i am a casual gamer in a raiding community just starting ssc and tbh most of my community play during the day when i am at work so its very hard for me to get into heroics in the evenings to do the TK attunment. (LFG tool is crap)
so this for me is a gods gift on a plate :)
means i can enjoy the game not having to worry about leet rep farming