BC lewtz

[Kolem]

I thought you guys might like to see some of the Burning Crusade loot that I have been able to pick up and or catch a glimpse of in my forays thus far...

[Zuipol]

Bloodscale Sabatons of the Champion. Green. Level 60. Outclasses the Crystal Encrusted Greaves in every way possible, imagineable and thinkable, and gives the Might Greaves a serious run for it's money.

Cripes.

[Jivundus]

Its damn crazy.. I'd thought greens were always you know.. Of their own level. Apparently BC throws that idea out the window..

[Guest]

1up.com has a preview they put up today. One of the guys who's in the beta posted this:

"After running Ramparts, I turned in a quest back at the Alliance town, Honor Hold, and the blue boots (20 agility, 28 stamina, 38 attack power) I got from that quest were better than my Bloodfang Boots. Let me break down my reaction to that:

* 0.0sec - 3.0sec: "Oh sweet, a new pair of boots!"
* 3.0sec - present: "Why did I spend six months of my life running Blackwing Lair every week to get these Bloodfang Boots if they're going to be replaced by the very first instance quest in BC?"

So that brings me to the part about the Burning Crusade that I kind of love but mostly hate -- everyone is back to square one. Doesn't matter if you're in a cutting-edge Naxx guild; all your gear's getting replaced sooner rather than later. The only difference between you and a freshly-minted 60 in greens and blues is that you'll get to 70 a few hours quicker.

So, like.. yeah.

[Fanae]

Personally, while I've spent plenty of time raiding, I still think the 'reset' is going to be a good thing overall. I like the idea that smaller guilds and alliances can get the very best stuff now, too, instead of always playing second fiddle to those able to form 40-man raids, just because they can't get the numbers. That never sat well with me.

[Zlinka]

Personally, while I've spent plenty of time raiding, I still think the 'reset' is going to be a good thing overall. I like the idea that smaller guilds and alliances can get the very best stuff now, too, instead of always playing second fiddle to those able to form 40-man raids, just because they can't get the numbers. That never sat well with me.

Yes, I agree. I'm really looking forward to the Burning Crusade. There will be so much to do! I can level Zlinka, play new instances, start new Blood Elf characters, work on new professions, explore new zones, and level my family of alts...

On a higher level, I'm pleased to see the direction the game is taking. It has seemed to me that Blizzard has three broad audiences to please: the raiders, the PvPers, and the casuals. Over the past year the game has taken a direction that strongly favored the raiders, with the introduction of several new 40-man raid dungeons that contained the very best items in the game. Raiding was rich and complex, containing many months of content and the very best rewards. In contrast, PvPers were stuck with earning reputation from three battlegrounds, or with a brutal honor grind, both of which were rewarded with items that were less powerful than the upper raid rewards, leading to raider-dominated PvP. Lastly, the casuals had it worst of all, as they had almost no access to end-game content or epic rewards without a complete rearrangement of their lives around raiding with 39 other people.

As I see it, Blizzard had created a raid-dominated end-game, which richly rewarded the hard-core raiders and provided them with months of challenging play, but which ultimately alienated the other types of players.

With the expansion, Blizzard seems to be re-balancing the game in favor of casuals and PvPers. By doing a reset on gear, they are curbing the raiders and bringing everyone back to square one. Everyone gets to enjoy the leveling game again for ten whole levels (*glee*). In the end game, the best gear will be in 10- and 25-man dungeons, which posess the ability to save your progress. This system will be much easier for non-hard-core players to experience. PvP is getting a nice boost with a complex arena system with raid-level rewards. The new level 70 end game should look quite different from the current level 60 end game, and many more people should be able to access the content.

I feel for the raiders who feel like they've wasted months of their lives working for items that will shortly become obsolete... but I can only say that time spent raiding was not wasted time if they were having FUN. To me, the lasting goal of playing Warcraft is not to get the best purple pixelated item, but rather to have fun playing a game with people you like.

Just my two coppers!

-Zlinka

[Ibis]

I'm very curious to see what happens 3-6 months after BC launch. In many ways, the content mix of PvE for the launch of the expansion is close to the launch of original WoW. There's Tier 4 spread out in many dungeons, just like there was Tier 0 sread throughout many dungeons. There's a heavy focus on 5-10 mans and only a couple 25 mans.

My guess is that there will be a new high end, AQ40/Naxx style 25 man raid released every 2-3 months with Tier 5 and Tier 6. Of course, with the promise of an expansion every year, things won't get nearly out of whack as they did with the past two years.

Imagine if the expansion had come out a year ago, a few months after BWL. It would have fit perfectly. I've heard that was their original plan, but was thrown off by the massive adoption of WoW and losing the first year to scaling issues. It appears in fact that Blizzard bumped the loot progression a tier in BC (which is why 61 greens are so strong) to compensate but kept it mostly linearly beyond that.

Of course, they are changing a bunch of things to be more casual friendly: 40 -> 25, hard mode instances, etc. And the quicker expansions also helps make things more casual friendly. But hard core raiding will likely remain the focus towards the latter half of the expansion's product cycle.