Comments on: Attunements – your mileage may vary

By: Zuzu

Zuzu — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:07:11 +0000

I agree, attunement definitely added to the thrill of raiding. The rich lore built up the excitement and suspense. Making it BoA is a great solution. I would like to add another point to this is, it helped prepare people for the raid. I did the Kara attunement with guildies we were soo psyched! These groups fought their way through all of those heroics together, as a team learning how to work together, how to use our toons to the best of their best abilities. I think all of that paid off when we did finally get to set foot in Kara. We had come far and learned a lot in the process. Our groups were well oiled machines. Nowadays people rush to 80, they either skip dungeons or get run thru’s. They get some gear and enter their first raid encounter with nooo raid experience whatsoever. It gets frustrating for the rest of us who learned how to raid the hard way in the good ole days when it took skill, and teamwork.

By: Grumpyhorn

Grumpyhorn — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:18:25 +0000

I loved the Kara attunement! The quest line was great to follow and it also made sure that people that got into Karazhan were probably geared enough to get through the first encounter or 2. The game itself has lost some of it’s appeal with Quest Helper and Carbonite. We follow epic quest chains but don’t even read the quests. We simply accept and follow the arrow to kill the mobs marked. The idea of account attunement is good, because after the first or second toon that goes through it, anything simply starts losing it’s appeal. the BoA head enchants is great in that I don’t have to get every toon exalted with different factions to get a required enchant.

Your idea of hard mode attunement is good as well. It would require people to actually finish content before moving on. Magister’s Terrace heroic is a perfect example of this working.

Thanks for the great post, sorry I’m a couple days late to the party.

By: Sarabian

Sarabian — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:24:36 +0000

Oh how I miss the challenge of having to complete long series of quests that require you to have friends to help just to gain entrance into a place. Not even to run the place, just to get in the door. The fact that you no longer need to work for this stuff is indeed sad.

I agree with the BoA idea and the idea of getting attuned on everyone in a raid before being allowed to do hard modes. It would be easy for a character to get a quest reward of (soulbound) [A Key Box] that would make a key to a raid instance, but the keys are all account bound. You can send them to your own guys, but that’s all.

Making it so that in order to enter into hard mode you must have a raid that everyone has cleared the place is also not even remotely unfair. That would even be better if you had to, say, clear Naxxramas entirely before being allowed to enter into Ulduar. Simply clearing a raid instance “attunes” you to the next one. If that were in place, Naxxramas would still be overflowing with people daily and no one would miss out on all of the wondrous goodness to be had in it’s depths.

Our keyboards to Blizzgames’ ears.

By: LightHearted

LightHearted — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:31:31 +0000

I loved the chains.
I am also into achievements.
I was amazed, and disappointed, that you could be “The Keymaster” WITHOUT The Master’s Key. I mean, seriously, WTF?
All my druids complete the epic flight form quest. and I’m hoping it won’t be removed before my worgen druid gets that chance.
My paladin did her epic mount quest. And was into the Quel Seras weapon chain when they removed it…and the quest item from my bags.
I mourned when only one person needed the key for the party to enter Kara…but only a little because I was on my 4th 70, and “chain heroics” meant a lot more work in BC.

By: Pazi

Pazi — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:30:05 +0000

My most epic moment was freeing marshall windsor and the following “walk” through stormwind. Seriously, my inner geek cried. And it was on my paladin, the class I consider the most lore-driven class.
I’v done the kara-quest-chain up to the urn 4 times (even on my deathknight who got nothing out of kara but reputation with a faction nobody needs anymore). I did the MH-attunement once. I did the attunement for upper black rock spire three times (twice after they made it optional). I’m still working on the naru-quest-chain (even tho you can’t get the title anymore) because I’m a completionist.

Players these days don’t even take the time to complete 1 quest to unlock the repair-npc close to naxx. WoW is treated like fast-food. I’m certainly not an elitist (only 12/14 in ulduar – no hardmodes – and we try ToGC 10/25 for the first time this week) but I wish players would be forced to learn their class before they could enter naxx/ulduar/toc.

By: Gnomeaggedon (Squidly's Mate)

Gnomeaggedon (Squidly's Mate) — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:52:57 +0000

Ohhh Lordy, I agree till my head is bouncing on the floor from too much nodding.

Being casual that Attunement process was weeks of toil, working out how to solo fragments and so much more.

But what an achievement and not the “Gnomeaggedon and drunk one too many Lattes” type of achievement. It was one that made me get up from the computer desk, walk outside and pump my arms in the air!

Now I was not just attuned to Kara, but connected. Kara owed me something for the trouble I went through. In reality it would have taken 12 months to actually clear the place, but it was worth it.

Now if that Attunement was BoA, like that penguin egg or Ony hatchling… That would change my world.
.-= Gnomeaggedon (Squidly’s Mate)´s last blog ..Gotcha =-.

By: Aleanathem

Aleanathem — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:42:12 +0000

My only thought, BBB, is noticing how many people say others “won’t/weren’t” able to see content. Is that truly Blizzard’s fault? In the end, no. It’s the fault of the gamer for not taking the time to get attuned or run the instance. I mean I did not see any topics like this over the Final Fantasy Series, Super Mario, or any other type of game. As much as people “deserve” and feel they are entitled to see content I believe we are entitled to challenging content that isn’t simply “bust down the door and receive your loot”. This entitlement is a rollover from society as a whole. It’s ruined many governments and countries. I wish Blizzard wouldn’t let it do so much to their content, but again it’s all about money. And if the money is coming in on a redone instance then Blizzard will continue to make instances as such. Just some thoughts after last night’s post was quite late.
.-= Aleanathem´s last blog ..Winter Hibernation =-.

By: Rob

Rob — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:58:26 +0000

I just finished the kara key attunement. Usually nowadays we cheat and grab someone who has the arca key before, because sure as heck I dont want to do a major quest chain *and* run bot *and* run mech, just to get a key, so can go in to arca, get another key, then do two more instances, and then get the final key, so i can open the damn door in to kara. Yeah, i agree, first time, great. Second, third time, not so much. Although my friend mage and I (bear druid ftw) had a great time doing all the old 5 mans by ourselves (80s in epic gear). Blizz I dont think ever really figured out a way to have you only do the thing exactly once. BOA isn’t BOA, its BO this specific facation and this specific server. Sure for $50 you can move faction and server, but that’s not the same thing is it. So we’re stuck with a game that slowly loses its epicness and a whole lot of content people will never touch because it doesn’t drop phat loot.

By: argbot

argbot — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:26:29 +0000

I’d like to add to what Nyctef said, that the Shadow Vault quest chain is something of an attunement to the Ebon Blade. And it’s awesome.

By: Erispere

Erispere — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:54:19 +0000

I agree with a lot of your points, BBB. I really liked the idea of attunements. The big problem I had was that I was slightly behind the curve while leveling, so by the time I dinged 70, the raiding crowd in my guild was already running Kara. It was very hard to find people willing to go back and run the 5-mans and the other things needed to do the attunement. I started the chain right around the time that they changed it so that only one person needed the key to open the door. After that, there was especially no incentive for people to go and do the quest chain unless they were a completionist.

This could have been because of the kind of people that were in my guild, and that we were on a very low pop server at the time. I also tried the Ony quest chain, right before 3.0 dropped, and part of it was bugged, so I couldn’t finish it (Alliance side). I eventually did finish the Kara key attunement at 80, when I went in an soloed everything in bear form to get the fragments. I really enjoyed it, but it served no other purpose other than completionism.

I really like the idea of BoA in general. Repeating rep grinds and such on characters is such a bore (to me at least). I am definitely NOT an altoholic, and redoing a lot of stuff I’ve already done doesn’t usually ring my bell.

I agree that attunements were cool, but I also see the side of the argument that it’s tough to have gated content that so many people won’t see – it’s not good business sense. Tough to strike a balance, but I think they may have come down a little to hard on the side of accessibility…