WoW Insider has a nice article about what the (pre-expansion) instance bosses are up to now that they have become in almost all senses useless and unneccesary, and they offer up some basic suggestions for Blizzard to make them relevant again. It is really a huge shame that the end-game content millions of people have been pouring their entire days and nights into have been instantly evaporated into the ethereal plane, and to me reveals one of the (few) major flaws with the Burning Crusade expansion.
The quality of items is, and has been, clearly out of whack. In an MMO an item’s value is measured by two things:
1- it’s actual usefulness
2- the time needed to get it
What this expansion has done is taken all of the most valuable equipment and gear in the entire game and completely demolished its value. Sure you can spend hours upon hours going through Molten Core to get your tier set, or you could grind in Outland on your way to 70 and get just as good green items. During the beta phase and pre-release Blizzard constantly dismissed this, saying that people who’d devoted so much to getting the best gear would have an easier time leveling in the new content. Everyone bought into this concept because they weren’t lying, it’s true, but what they didn’t point out is that this isn’t a balance. The players at tier 4 have worked their way up to that point through all end-game content, and what they are competing with now is players that can easily get to tier 2 without doing any end-game content at all! effectively tier 4 has now become tier 2, as all previous equipment is now completely useless.
Here are the WoW Insider suggestions on what to do with the old instance content. To me these all seem like really obvious, and in the end mostly uncreative solutions to an exceedingly interesting event:
-First, and most obvious, is enabling Heroic mode. We already have dungeons in Outland that will be able to be tuned to Heroic mode, which means bosses and mobs are harder, but give much better drops. In the same way, Blizzard is likely going to let us optionally turn up the difficulty in UBRS or Stratholme, offering better loot for a bigger challenge.
–Send us in for quests. This isn’t quite the same, but it’s another likely option. During the AQ gates quest chain, one section took level 60 players back into Sunken Temple to watch a special cutscene, and the same thing happened in Scarlet Monastery with Naxx. A few Outland quests are already sending players back into Azeroth to finish them, and Blizzard could do the same for the old instances, offering special summons or cutscenes (even involving challenges, like the 45-minute Baron run, or the DM Tribute run) inside the old stomping grounds.
–Tune them up. Instead of leaving the old mode in and offering Heroic mode seperately, Blizzard may just tune the old instances to the new content. What if MC was tuned down to a 25-man instance that offered epics at a 62 level? Or ZG became a 10-man instance that offered epic rewards for level 65s? On the way up to 60, players would be much likely to make a go of either one. Unfortunately, this plan means newer players will never likely see the “old” content in the form it’s now– a large part of the player base has never seen a 40-man Naxx, and if it’s tuned to 25 players, all those new players will never experience taking down Kel’Thuzad with a full raid.
These are solutions to save the content, not the gear or what is actually obtained through the content other then sheer entertainment. Saving the gear is an easy fix, just make it better, but the content demands more attention. What WoW Insider is missing is the purpose of the old instances, if you use heroic mode or just tune them up entirely then they are competing with the new end-game content. These instances are meant for level 58-60 characters, why take this all away from them and extend their painful grind all the way to 70? These instances are a great tool to get characters well into their 60’s without even going near any of the new content. Scale it up, sure a little, and sending us into them for more quests certainly seems like a good idea, but no player (or very rare ones) want to play the game just for the content alone.
Blizzard needs to provide something unique and useful from these instances, preferably things that don’t require running them a kazillion times just to get your specific class’ piece. I was running the early end-game content for two months with my Warrior before I got fed up, having obtained a nearly complete devout set I would have made one bitch-ass healer! By this point I’d probably invested days of my time and completed barely anything. In Burning Crusade time, I’d actually made negative progression, spending days to get a dungeon set when tier 2 equivalents can be found off of any trash mob with ease. Blizzard shit on my time spent with the end-game, I should just be thankful it was really enjoyable to experience the end-game story and content, not to mention the environments, otherwise that time would really be gone.
These previously end-game instances need to become like the Deadmines or Scarlet Monastary, where the average players runs them a handful of times at MOST and comes out of it with the experience and a good amount of sweet gear that they can use to speed progress a bit. The gear could all probably use a bit of a boost, and a lot of the hoop-jumping should be removed, but all that delicious content can still be mined for hours of player enjoyment, and make Blizzards efforts more worthwhile also.
Blizzard: please don’t take WoW Insider’s advice, these are no-longer end-game instances, and theyshouldn’t be forced into that slot any longer! Just add some must-have items and a few connections to later quest lines and you’re gold!
(via Joystiq)
As a non-player my question is this: Does TBC increase the appeal for new players and would your ‘fix’ decrease the appeal?
Overall, this situation seems analagous to the old danger of ‘power creep’ that comes into every CCG. The old stuff can’t compete with the new stuff, after all old players need enticement to spend time and money on the new shit that’s for sale.
I don’t think there is a way to avoid the ‘power creep’ (good phrase by the way. Unfortunately you can only become powerful in WoW by burning (pun intended) hours and hours on the same crap over and over again. People complaining about level 60 stuff not being as good as level 70 are idiots. It’s a 10 level difference, of course it isn’t going to be as good. What would be kinda neat is if Blizzard allowed people to sell entire sets of equipment (soulbound or not) either to other people as a special unit or to a vendor for vast amounts of cash to make buying mounts and such easier. The other currency is reputation which would also make an excellent reward. Either one would probably be an acceptable trade for the really hardcore players. Allow the person to sell their tier 4 set for 20k rep or something.
And why do they call it “rerolling” when you make a new character – there is no random chance involved!
TheMainEvent: My fix has nothing to do with new players, the people who experience this stuff have to be at least level 58. Sure they could still suck and be a noob, but they still aren’t new to the game.
TBC does provide some appeal to new players with the two new races and starting zones, and the new profession of jewelcrafting, but beside those nothing at all to attract new players. (that I can remember) Power Creep is definitely the problem here, and its so bad that all of the older most powerful stuff is completely and utterly useless.
Joshx0rfz: It’s true that level 70 stuff should certainly be more powerful then the 60 stuff (new or old), but the problem I’m pointing out with TBC is that the NEW level 58-60 stuff is far more powerful and easily accessible then the old stuff. FAR more accessible, there’s just no balance at all, which is proven by the fact that no one is going to the old instances at all anymore except for the random (epic mount) quest.
I also agree with the re-rolling thing, it’s always annoyed me in an MMO, but that’s how classic phrases get abused!