Plea for not rushing TBC content

WoW Classic Wrath of the Lich King Classic Discussion
1

Please do not rush the addition of raiding content in TBC classic.

With TK/SSC going live on PTR-servers, this is an indication of ‘new’ raid content coming to TBC live servers pretty soon. What I am going to provide an argument for in this post may not be something that a lot of readers and writers on this forum will agree with, but I believe it is an important aspect to consider in the debate over the pace of adding new content to classic TBC. However, I welcome your opinion about it.

First off, I want us to remember that the consensus amongst us was that the launch of TBC Classic came out of nowhere. For players returning to TBC, they were given mere days to prepare. For those unable to level a dranei or blood elf to 60 in time for the opening of the Dark Portal, they were left a little behind. For others, who may have wanted to take a week off work to play hardcore, the short notice became an issue.

Now, I want to discuss the pacing of how new content is released for TBC classic. We are a couple of months into it and most guilds have all raiding content on farm. However, I doubt that most players have completed all content. For instance, I know for a fact that not everyone has been bothered with finishing attunements for SSC/TK and not everyone has reached a full BiS set of gear in preparations for the next raiding content.

My point is that there is still much to do in the game, even at a point where raid content is on farm and may effectively take up as little as 3 hours of raiding per week (2 h for Kara and 1 h for Gruul/maggy). Just because content is on farm, this doesn’t mean that new raiding content is due.

An important aspect of the Classic experience so far, I believe is that it possible to enjoy content at a slower pace. For instance, there are players who only play tbc classic and don’t have a lot of hours to sink in the game as they have now families, work and other chores to take care of. There are also players who alternate between retail and classic content. With a new raid being released, they may want time to clear the content before being interrupted or stressed out by new content being released in classic.

What is special about TK and SSC is, at least to my memory, that it steps raiding difficulty up quite a bit from the bosses we currently have available. Even though the forthcoming bosses may be viewed as “solved content”, I highly doubt that doing Lady Vashj is going to be a PUG-friendly experience.

Instead of joining the chanting choire that asks for “more content asap”, I want to propose an alternative approach: Consider releasing Ogrila, Skyguards, Druid epic flying before releasing new raiding content (if it is, as everything suggest, is due pretty soon). This gives people more things to do. In addition, I believe that the efforts directed at solving the PvP-battleground system needs to be done with before introducing a new set of raiding content that potentially bring a lot of people who occasionally engages in PvP away from battlegrounds.

Ultimately, I plea for not releasing raid content at a high pace that predominantly caters to the scene of players who already have established raiding guilds and designated roles. For what it is worth, as anecdotal evidence, my own guild is newly formed with TBC. The majority of players in it did not play through all vanilla classic phases, and a lot of them are actually new players with the launch of TBC classic. For this group of players, there is a lot of new things to get used to. Releasing TK/SSC too soon may carry the risk that some players get overwhelmed, even those who played TBC classic already for two months.

Simply put, I believe we all want to enjoy TBC for as long as possible. Not having raid content released at a high pace does not necessarily mean that TBC is not to be enjoyed. Having content on farm is part of the game, in my opinion. However, there are some parts of the game that could be added without much harm already at the end of this summer - such as new dailys. There is also the opportunity to re-introduce the original Recruit a Friend (RAF) programme with mount awards etc.

Looking forward to the discussion,
Hitch

16 Likes
2

And my point is that SSC and TK was released originally from the start

8 Likes
3

I expected this comment, and you are of course correct.

However, if TK and SSC is released next week, do you believe it is sustainable to wait with BT/Hjyal until 2022?

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4

Blizzard probably realized with today’s gamers they would complete SSC/TK within a matter of weeks. And then? People will start calling for BT and Hyjal.

If you want to get every bit of sub money and store transactions out of this, you may want the full TBC expansion cycle to last at least 1.5 if not 2 years. This also gives your dev team ample time to test things and recreate the game as it was many years ago, possibly with some new additions that sadly are demanded by today’s gaming culture.

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Seeing Zul’Aman is somewhere between now and 2022 and that we are already nearly in August I don’t see why not

6

I believe more it just took them longer to fix/tune/add those raids as can be guessed from how long it took them to implement the lfg tool from back then and that it was not a decision the “actively” made

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If you give the tryhards the mandate to determine content pacing then you would get something like this

P1 - June - August 2021
P2 - August - November 2021
ZA - November - December 2021
BT/Hyjal - December 2021 - February 2022
Sunwell - February - April 2022

that’s less then a year. They lost tons of sub money of more casual players if they stretch it out to at least 1.5 years. So what people cry on the forums for faster pacing, it’s all about actual sub numbers instead of the vocal minority.

8

Sorry but T4 content will still be relevant even with T5 out due to attunements and some gear still being better for some specs. There is no rush really… many people play to be done with the game as of needing nothing from outside raid content anymore (reps done, badges done, heroic epics/bis done) and just raidlog.

New raids would not fix the issue of them having to do no outside content anymore but give them more gameplay overall as of raiding. There is nothing wrong with this release schedule if it’s coming in 1 or 2 months.

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Price Question does it make people “tryhards” if the just want the original pacing?

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TBC was released Jan 16, 2007
Wotlk was released Nov 13, 2008

That’s about 22 months or 1 year and 10 months between.
The time schedule I presented was 10 months.

If you want original pacing, you just might get it.

11

So, is there anything inbetween (a) original pacing, and (b) ‘tryhard pref pacing’ e.g. 10 months example above?

For example, (c) a pacing that makes sense and does not leave long periods of no new added content? I would personally prefer it if content is hauled out at even pacing. I would like if there are new dailys to tend to that does not have to coincide with the introduction of new raid content.

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Personally I do believe they will “rush” this to get ASAP into the cash cow that made this franchise explode over the globe in hopes to make bookoo bucks

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What is the cash cow? In WotLK original sub numbers already started to stagnate, and subsequently they plummited immensely. I’d say the cash cow is TBC, so enjoy what you have? Aside from some ‘fresh’ servers for the 1st three, there will be nothing to look forward to for the classic crowd.

14

That’s where you are wrong, hard numbers tell a different story

Wrath was then one with the most subs for the longest stretch and had aswell much more paid services than tbc. So no tbc was not the “peak” by a long shot

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15

Raiding wise, WoTLK will not even be that great
Vault of Archavon - boring
Naxxramas - reused
The Obsidian Sanctum - boring
The Eye of Eternity - boring
Ulduar - okay this one is the one, this is what we want to see
Trial of the Crusader - absolute worst raid ever
Onyxia’s Lair - reused
Icecrown Citadel - also pretty good

That’s about 2/8 to look forward to.

2 Likes
16

A bit contradictory to say that there’s a lot to do while there’s only 3h of content per week.

How much slower than 3h per week can it get?

Sure, I still need a couple of items, but it was the same in classic Vanilla, I was never full bis in any tier going in to the next one in spite of attending almost every single raid of whatever content was current and also being on the LC.
Fact of the matter is that there’s not a damned thing to do in game apart from those 3 hours of Kara, Gruul and Mag if you’ve played regularly since release if you’re not into pvp. Unless you’re super casual you’re done with heroics and all that since long.

17

Sounding like a broken record already but

  1. SSC + TK were launch content, available in January 2007 along with T4.
  2. For every “i’m still catching up” player, there are a tonne of raiders bored and ready to quit a game with only 3 raid bosses available in 25man. 5000 guilds had already killed Magtheridon 1 month ago, that’s not including pugs… 5000 guilds!

The game has been out nearly 2 months, and they are still 1 week away from beginning to test content that everyone has had ample time to be ready for. And guess what, if you’re not ready the raid is not going away, most people in 2007 progressed through content at their own pace and didn’t start T5 until long after T6 was available, and it was completely fine.

Karazhan was regularly raided for the entire TBC expansion, it’s completely fine. But if you leave 25man as only 30mins of content people will lose interest, it’s already happening.

18

How is it rushing when they’re releasing content that was there originally on TBC launch back in the day? If anything, they’re playing it slow.

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Have a survey whether people want P2 now or for example end of August or start of September. I think the results will be August/September.
Just because you and your friends circle might be ready for it, doesn’t mean that the average player on your realm is more casual and wants more time to fully explore all the content.
And this is coming from someone with almost full BiS and everything on farm, and I still wouldn’t mind the August/September date.

20

Which is their prerogative. It’s their game, they want to make the most out of the money they receive in subs and shop sales. In the ToS there is something about you not owning your own account, you’re just buying the sub fee to gain access to it.