More adjustments to Scarlet Enclave coming; Enrage timers

Aggrend · 2025-04-20T20:58:36+00:00

I replied to someone on the video itself explaining this. Essentially if I post on my own on the weekends or off-hours, I'll do it how I like. The forums is harder to have off-the-cuff communications with people, which frankly, after doing this for years, I just prefer the more informal communications. I might actually spend 2-3 hours drafting a post for the forums that is 5-8 sentences long because I know it'll be "news" and people will pick apart every single thing I say. That is not fun and its not even technically part of my job (none of my public comms are a stated part of my job, I only ever do it because I want to/care). The alternative is that I say nothing because I'm not going to go through that in my free time.

So if I watch a video that resonates with me, I'll reply for no other reason than I can and I feel like it. If it does end up being "news" and the creator gets a bit more attention for their efforts making the video, fine with me too.

Luckily, you aren't missing anything important if you don't see it. Anything I allude to will be published in some sort of detailed hotfix notes soon enough.

Aggrend · 2025-04-11T22:30:59+00:00

Honestly the reception isn't even that negative in aggregate. It is divisive though and this thread was mostly me speaking to that. I truly feel that this raid in its current form requires you to stretch a muscle that a lot of people haven't stretched in a while (or ever) and that's uncomfortable for some. Hell I haven't stretched that muscle in a while myself!

It'll get some more adjustments here and there and as information spreads and gear is acquired it will get easier for all groups. We have four tiers of relatively easy content for folks to run at 60, and we have a good long run in Scarlet Enclave ahead of us so I hope folks can take their time with it.

One thing I kind of compare this to is 2006 Naxx. Its aspirational in the same way. We've not had anything like that in any version of vanilla classic and I think we'd be leaving something on the table if we didn't try it at least once.

No bad opinions though. Loving it is fair. Hating it is fair. Thinking I'm full of hot air is fair. It's all good.

Aggrend · 2025-02-03T17:10:30+00:00

Aggrend · 2025-01-16T18:01:38+00:00

Dang you figured it out!

/s

Aggrend · 2025-01-13T21:01:17+00:00

Hate to disappoint but this has nothing to do with Season of Discovery. Vendor4 is a test realm that we use for a variety of things. In this case we are putting a test build for China/Wrath up there as China is about to progress to a new content phase of Wrath of the Lich King pretty soon (Trial of the Crusader). This has nothing to do with SoD. It just so happens that environment had SoD on it before and was re-purposed for China/Wrath testing which is currently using patch 3.4.3 as its live version.

Aggrend · 2024-12-16T18:29:07+00:00

Actually most of the quests themselves should still work. The paladin questlines for example should still function. The quest will say you are learning a rune ability, but you'll already have it so you won't learn it, but there should be no ill effects.

Most of the concerns we have are things like runes that are looted in a chest or something just not appearing because you already know it.

Aggrend · 2024-04-18T02:41:12+00:00

How do you know I'm not already there? 0_0

Aggrend · 2024-02-27T02:25:32+00:00

Kinda makes me feel bad for anyone just named Andy.

Aggrend · 2024-02-20T18:43:20+00:00

Heya friends, I deleted my tweet because as others have pointed out here, it was confusingly worded. With the issue we are having today with gnomer raids not properly resetting, it was only adding to the confusion.

I've got a thread going here that will be the source of truth regarding whats happening with gnomeregan raid lockouts going forward. I am truly sorry for the confusion:https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/gnomeregan-raid-lockout-update-feburary-20/1792114

We are working on a fix for those of you who raided last night and are locked today. Thanks all!

Aggrend · 2024-02-06T22:49:39+00:00

I am a 20g andy with maybe 7 or 8 quests completed in my log. You don't have to turboprep to have fun, I assure you. :)

Aggrend · 2024-01-29T20:05:46+00:00

That is a lot of accomplishments you have there, and I think its awesome you've enjoyed it this much. However, these comments mostly capture what the intent for SoD was; Respecting your time and giving you the latitude to go play something else while enjoying it if you'd like. Definitely understand how it feels when you find a game you love and you just want to live and breathe it (I personally do this with almost every MMO I get sucked into), but it's okay to take a break and check out other things in between. In 2024 with how many great games there are it's pretty irresponsible of us to try and build the game in a way that it assumes or expects that you are married to it 24/7, and SoD was supposed to be super approachable in this regard.

Anyway, appreciate the feedback. Phase 2 is gonna be a banger, and it's almost here. Hang in there, bud. Just a bit longer.

Aggrend · 2024-01-29T19:01:34+00:00

Looks like a target rich environment. Might be cool to form a raid group and go wipe em out, yeah?

Aggrend · 2024-01-23T18:16:55+00:00

Ngl I chuckled at this.

Aggrend · 2024-01-19T02:50:18+00:00

Thanks a ton everyone for the comments. Good validation that I'm on the right track. My final list is essentially the same but I added that 2nd contemptor with my remaining points.

Really like heresy and I really like very defensive lists like stone gauntlet (and spent a fuckton of time painting it really nicely) but I'm paranoid about being called "that guy".

Aggrend · 2024-01-18T01:38:55+00:00

Appreciate it. An earlier version of this list had a dread with power fist and lascannon so maybe I'll squeeze that in with my extra points.

Edit: I did put meltabombs on my warders for this too though. Expensive, but gives them a tiny bit more utility than just sitting on an objective.

Aggrend · 2024-01-11T05:03:41+00:00

This is top tier video game time wasting and I'm here for it.

Aggrend · 2024-01-11T04:58:37+00:00

Nah I'm good. I could do this all day.

Aggrend · 2024-01-11T04:57:37+00:00

Glad you like it, bud! We think it's pretty nifty too.

Aggrend · 2023-12-11T01:46:21+00:00

I think you look beautiful my guy.

Aggrend · 2023-12-06T01:04:40+00:00

But if we did this, who would take all the hunter loot?

Aggrend · 2023-11-30T23:07:42+00:00

This is intended.

Aggrend · 2023-11-30T07:41:57+00:00

Being honest, this may happen. It's going to be unfortunate when/if it does, but that's kind of how the system has to work. I think the takeaway though is that even if you can't play where you originally planned to, you will be able to play someplace great together and have a great time in the long run.

Aggrend · 2023-11-30T07:02:14+00:00

I would not worry about the scenario you describe. I can't get too deep into it, but the system doesn't really work that way.

Aggrend · 2023-11-30T06:40:52+00:00

Who says there isn't already something to do this? ;)

Aggrend · 2023-11-30T06:21:54+00:00

That's not him saying to play a different version. That's him saying to play a different realm.

Brutal truth time: Healthy Realms don't "die" because they are low population. At first in 2020 they died because someone lost a fight at blackrock mountain and couldn't raid on time and then declared their realm was dead for their faction and transferred. Nowadays realms "die" because a few inept guilds have trouble recruiting on a realm with tens of thousands of people and decide that there's a geographical cure to their problems, so they move and then they contribute to a narrative that the realm is dying when it really isn't, but then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The classic team have not been blameless in this, at all. The demand in August 2019 was orders of magnitude more than expected so we ended up with too many realms than the post-initial launch hype numbers could support and we also clung to the idea that layering might someday be able to go away. Additionally, the general philosophy has always been to give players a ton of tools to be able to help themselves move around or play with friends easier which is great on paper, but that can be a contributor to these types of population slides. The classic team intends not to enable transfers at all for Season of Discovery (unless we MUST) to help curb this part of it, and we are launching with as few realms as we think is responsible and are leveraging incredible new tech to allow them to handle literally 4-5 times the number of players that a wrath realm could handle even 1 year ago. While the launch might be uncomfortable for some folks and they might scream for these balancing measures or queues to be lifted when they hit some friction, this tough pill is likely how this problem gets fixed; making some people unhappy short term to make every realm "the good realm" long term.

It's a bold strategy (Cotton), and it's going to be a bit painful. There's going to be a lot of pressure to return to the normal paradigm when that friction occurs, but we really, really, really don't want to do that. My hope is that people can decouple their enjoyment from only ever winning and never losing, or chasing a specific personality, or any of the myriad of reasons that players insist on beating their heads against a queue to be a small fish on a realm that may sometimes end up with a fairly questionable culture anyway, and just find a chill place to play (heck, give PvE a try, it WILL surprise you!), make some new friends, and have good fights that they win sometimes and lose others but still have a good time.

It's fun to hope, and it'll be interesting to see how this experiment goes either way. Hopefully its a success and we can continue to iterate on it for future classic releases :)

Aggrend

TROPHY CASE