[WoRBot]

Today, we have a great and insightful interview with the guild leader of Elitist Jerks, Gurgthock. If you are an active raider, then this guild name is familiar to you, since their site, and especially their forums are the home of the most popular class mechanics discussions which serve as reference when you are looking for indepth information and analysis on all classes.

This interview is brought to you by our colleagues from Frostshock (a Hungarian WoW blog), we would also like to thank Vincevega for organizing the interview.


If possible tell us a few words about the player behind your character. What are you doing IRL etc.
 
I'm 28 years old, and I am a lawyer currently living in Washington D.C. Since beginning my current job in late 2005, I don't have the same amount of available time as many endgame raiders, to say nothing of guild leaders, which definitely contributes to the general approach to the game that we've taken as a guild.
 

EJ is one of the world's favorite guilds - do you guys have a fanbase, like lets say Nihilum does, If yes, how do you guys handle the sometimes overwhelming amount of attention?
 
Actually, thankfully it really isn't anything like that. I occasionally get random tells from people wanting to join, or wanting to thank me/us for maintaining our forums, and such, but I think there's a large gap in the type of exposure we get for running a successful website versus what a guild might get for world firsts. Really we're just a pretty good raid guild. Top 10 in the US, Top 25 or so in the world. I'm proud of that, but we're mainly known for the forums we run, not for our in-game accomplishments. And forums don't generate fanboys at nearly the same rate (thankfully!).
 

The EJ forum is the wondrous safe heaven on the wow related internet , there are no retards, flamewars, whining or meaningless conversations there. How did you guys achieve that, and how is it sustainable on the long run?
 
Ha, it's funny to hear you ask that. There are plenty of retards, whining, and meaningless conversations, such that we've recently doubled our moderation staff to try to stay on top of it all. Two years ago I used to read every single post on our forums, and had a much bigger hand in maintaining the overall tone of the conversations, but that simply isn't possible these days. If I tried, it'd be a full-time job and then some. We rely a lot on our community to police itself, and while every person who gets an infraction for a poorly-composed or contentless post seems to lash out at the moderation staff and wonder if we have no lives and just scour posts looking for nits to pick, the reality is that ordinary users are the ones who flag 99% of the "bad" posts on our forums, and moderators just hand out the infraction/ban.

There's a lot more "noise" on the forums than I'd like, but I feel like that's almost inevitable with over 70,000 registered users now. It's just a tremendous amount of traffic, and many people are only coming to read a specific class thread, so they don't always get to properly appreciate the overall community here before they start posting. We do what we can to keep things in check, though, and I'm certainly glad that you find our forums to have a high level of discourse.
 

Looking at The Sunwell, do you feel it that the gate system was a good idea, especially when some of the HC guilds had long whinefests before it hit live servers?
 
Yes, I think the gate system was a success, though I do think Blizzard should have been up-front about exactly when each gate was going to open. It was frustrating as a raid leader trying to plan our week's schedule without knowing what the gates were going to do (i.e., are we just farming Kalecgos->M'uru on Tuesday this week and then have the week off, or are we going to be doing hard progression on K'J? No way to find out until Tuesday afternoon!). I do share some concerns expressed by some top Euro guilds in a thread on the Euro forums, that the gate system effectively encourages and rewards truly extreme/unhealthy behavior, like raiding 60 hours in 3-4 days. Not having the gates in place, though, wouldn't have been much different. Maybe SK and Nihilum wouldn't have been able to sustain 12-16 hour days for two weeks straight, but you'd still have seen the world first guilds raiding five or six times as much as other good guilds that are in the top 50. There may be solutions to that problem, but they aren't related to the gate mechanism (again, some people in the Euro thread suggested having more Vael-style bosses, though with a more forgiving timer, but at least making it so you couldn't attempt the same boss from 12pm to 3am nonstop -- I think that has some merit).

What the gates did do, however, was pace the content nicely and create a series of competitions on each new hard boss that emerged. That was facilitated by the quality of overall tuning, of course. If M'uru had been a joke boss who died in one night, then the idea of any kind of race would have been lost. But I like the series of short "sprints" rather than a single grueling marathon, as a dynamic. It also lets more guilds feel like they're a part of something big. For us, our first night at K'J, walking in with NO IDEA of what to expect, was one of the best experiences I've had in WoW in a long time. And if not for the gates, SK or Exodus or one of the other first M'uru killers would have been the only ones to truly enjoy that unspoiled experience. This way many more were able to.
 

In your post on the EJ webpage you wrote "the best raid zone the game has seen (yes better than Naxx, I think)". What made Sunwell so good, what does it have, that Naxxramas haven't got?
 
The overall feel and flow of Sunwell were great. Every boss had a reason for being there, the lore really worked, and things like the role Kalecgos plays through the whole zone, dealing with M'uru after learning about what happened at Silvermoon, and so forth, really tied the whole zone together. The best thing about the zone, in my view, was the tuning. M'uru and Kil'Jaeden are especially impressive given their lack of PTR exposure (I know M'uru was seen, but the version of M'uru made accessible to the public was pretty much identical to the one released on Live).

People love to reminisce about Naxxramas, but I really think it's 99% rose-colored glasses, thinking back to the "good old days" and forgetting the bad parts. In terms of challenge, Naxxramas was huge in scope, but the individual fights were, as a rule, not as hard as Sunwell fights. Sapphiron died within a couple of days once the first guilds reached him; so did Kel'Thuzad. And then many guilds repeated those kills. The only block was 4H, but the problem there was understanding that you really did want to use 8 tanks. Like so many guilds, we spent days wiping with 6 tanks. Once we realized 8 were needed, and we got all 8 online at once, it wasn't bad. I also don't miss going from 1 tank on Loatheb to 8 tanks on 4H, or stacking priests for Gothik and Sapphiron, or relying on world buffs to trivialize many encounters. As of today, there are only 36 guilds in the world that have killed Kil'Jaeden, with him being accessible for over a month now, and with videos all over the place. That's impressive. And anyone who's seen SK's excellent video can attest to the "epic" feel of the entire encounter and its associated lore.
 

Which bosses are your least favorite/hated ones in BC, or in vanilla WoW?
 
I really disliked Shahraz v1.0, though I think they probably overdid the FA nerf a bit too much -- the original Prismatic Shield mechanics (i.e. stack physical DPS), plus ports into solid objects, were simply frustrating. Beyond that, I like just about every fight in TBC. Pre-TBC, again, the main culprits were untuned ones like the original C'Thun or most of BWL after the initial wave of buffs (e.g. Chromaggus casting Ignite Flesh every 30sec, always). My complaints with pre-TBC bosses were mainly not about the bosses themselves, but about consumable-reliance and faction imbalances. I can't fault the people who made the bosses themselves for those, though.
 

The old top guilds are disbanding one by one (Risen,Forte,DnT), you see desperate recruiting drive on most HC guild web pages nowadays. How does EJ cope with that phenomenon (if you guys experiencing it too), what do you think are the reasons behind?
 
It's inevitable. It isn't because of badge epics or a casual-centric game, or anything like that, people's loud whines notwithstanding. DnT's farewell post pretty much summed it up -- we had 10 months with no new content, and during that time lots of very good players got bored and burned out. Guilds replaced them with players that were good enough to farm BT/Hyjal for a year, but either weren't skilled enough for Sunwell or didn't have the stomach for days of wiping with no tangible reward, because they'd never had to experience that since they joined during farm content. As a result, a guild gets stuck, and remaining good players from the old days get increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress and poor quality of play, and stop having fun as well. And then, really, it falls to a handful of officers usually to make huge personal sacrifices in terms of time and energy to rebuild properly, or more often to walk away and let the whole thing die. Many of us have been playing WoW for almost 4 years now. That's a huge amount of time -- it's naive to expect that people won't move on, and often in large numbers.
 
At EJ, we've been fortunate to have extremely low turnover, largely I think because we have an amazing pool of recruits upon which to draw, we raid much less than most guilds, and we try to offer an overall pleasant atmosphere in which to play. We've recruited a total of around 15 people in the past 14 months, and 12 of those 15 still play with us, with all 3 who left being people who had to quit WoW due to RL circumstances. Thus we've had a lot more continuity than a lot of other endgame guilds, I think. That makes a ton of difference.
 

Judging from your forum posts, you have a deep and intricate knowledge about the philosophy, and mechanics behind WoW. It would be surprising if Blizzard haven't realized that. Have you or the other well known theorycrafters, been approached by Blizzard? (Just like they did back in the day with Tigole, who was one of the main community figures of Everquest.) Would you take such opportunity?
 
I can't speak for anyone else. I haven't had Blizzard ask me to apply for a position, or anything like that, no. I have been fortunate enough to meet a couple of Blizzard devs while I was at events like Blizzcon, and I've corresponded via e-mail with a couple of people regarding feedback arising from the PTRs and such, and those avenues of communication are certainly appreciated. As for whether I'd be interested in such an opportunity if it arose, I guess I can't rule anything out, but it'd be an awfully difficult move to make for me -- I have 7 years of my life invested in another career path, at this point, and as much time as I spend on WoW, it's still just a hobby for me. Besides, I'd have to find other things to complain about then, and I'm not sure I could handle that.
 

What do you think about the introduction of what is arguably the most important PvE development in WotLK, the 10/25 man raidzones?
 
I think it's a great idea. I take as given that it will require fewer man-hours to convert a 25-man zone to a 10-man version than it would to create a whole new zone from scratch. Thus, having two versions of each zone might mean that instead of getting 4 25-mans and 3 10-mans, we get 6 raid zones that have both versions. And thus everyone gets more content to enjoy within their preferred playstyle. People who mainly do 10-man raids will get twice as many zones to experience, and people who mainly do 25-mans will have extra zones too, while also being able to enjoy a more varied 10-man playstyle during downtime and on alts and such.

The only caveat for me is that I feel that the highest-tier zone at a given time should start off as a 25-man-only experience and then have the 10-man version unlocked once the zone is defeated on a server, or once a given amount of time passes, whichever comes first. To use a contemporary example, I think it would have cheapened the overall experience of Sunwell-25 if while we'd been wiping for hours on M'uru we were going in on weekends and steamrolling through K'J in the 10-man version in a couple of hours. It would have diminished the sense of exploration and achievement at clearing the zone. I do feel that 10-man-only players should get to experience the same lore and ultimately see the same content, but I don't think that the easier alternative should be available right away. It'll just get cleared right away by overgeared high-end raiders anyway, and kind of like using a cheat code to skip through a regular video game, I think that it would diminish the experience for all involved.
 

What do you think about the often debated topic of the PTR's? The instances that haven't been tested on the PTR, were the buggiest. worst tuned, borderline catastrophic ones in the past. Yet this time M'uru and Kil'jaeden were near perfect without much (or any) PTR testing. What do you think about PTR testing spoiling all the surprises, boss mechanics, new content not to mention the pve race for first kills? (best example being the first day of live SWP resulting in 3 dead bosses) Do you see any alternatives to the PTR process, or is it a necessary evil that we have to endure for bug free and well tuned content?
 
I was pretty happy with how Sunwell PTR went. Blizzard got Kalecgos just about right from the start, but fights like Brutallus and Felmyst underwent fundamental mechanics changes and heavy rebalancing solely as a result of their PTR exposure. M'uru and K'J, as you note, did turn out great without that PTR exposure, though. Really, my answer is just a pragmatic one: I want well-tuned bosses. If Blizzard can do that totally internally, then they should, and that'd be ideal. But if they can't, and in some cases I think past history indicates that they can't always do that, then PTR is a necessary evil. I'd much rather have PTR cycles than C'Thun v1.0, or having a Brutallus and Felmyst that everyone one-shots and laughs about. I think that the way Blizzard handled this PTR was good, also, the way they disabled bosses once they were satisfied with them, so that it really became more about intensive testing/retuning and less of a chance for guilds to spend hours "practicing" for free.
 

What are the biggest problems/shortcomings of WoW at the moment? What are the problems, in your opinion that must be fixed with the new expansion?
 
That's a tough question. I think a lot of the major problems lingering from vanilla WoW were solved in TBC. I think Blizzard really needs to take a fresh look at how they do endgame itemization for parallel gameplay paths, including PvP along with questing/5-mans and raiding. The simple fact of the matter is that items are all that matters in terms of character progression and character differentiation in this game.

We're going to buy WotLK, and in a couple of weeks (or months, depending on playtime) we'll be level 80. During that period, we'll go through tons of different zones and get new skills and talents, and fundamentally improve our characters at a shocking rate. One month into the expansion we'll be able to go back to any TBC content and find it largely trivialized, most likely. But then we'll have another year, or two years, ahead of us, where the only thing we can do to our characters is to gather new items. That's it. There are no Alternate Advancement points like Everquest, or other means of progression. It's just items. And when Blizzard "gives away" (relatively speaking) a tier X+3 item to someone in tier X gear, they're basically invalidating a portion of their tier X+1 and X+2 content. Items aren't just "loot" -- remember, they are the only method of progressing your character. To use leveling as an analogy, large skips in item progression are like giving level 62 players a quest that lets them skip to level 67 upon its completion. Players might appreciate such a quest, but its existence would by definition obsolete most of the level 63-66 content. I have some ideas for what a comprehensive itemization scheme might look like, but that'd be a small treatise rather than a response to an interview question.

[AK47]

Interesting *smile*

[Schusselchen]

i like him .. :> for being a evil lawyer

[Xentropy]

Great interview. I agreed with nearly all of his points. The only one I disagreed with was:

Quote

I do feel that 10-man-only players should get to experience the same lore and ultimately see the same content, but I don't think that the easier alternative should be available right away.

I have never understood the mindset that "more people" == "harder". Getting the requisite number of people who aren't morons is easier if you have a smaller group to build, sure, but with the proper tuning the 10-man version of a 25-man instance need not be easily "steamrolled", as he put it, just because it requires less people.

Take 25 people into MC who're T5+ geared but have never seen MC before. Now take a semi-random (accounting for class balance) subset of those 25 people into ZA who've never seen ZA before. Which run will you have a harder time with? It seems like most people would be tempted to answer the 25-man raid no matter what they're raiding... But other than the "herding cats" analogy I'd wager the MC run would be a breeze compared to the ZA one.

Tuning means difficulty != size. They don't have to directly correlate. Period. I hope Blizzard learns this fact and I'd love to see them not use 10-man lockouts like people are asking for and yet see the 25-man version of content get cleared first. Just to see the reactions of people gaping at the fact the 25-man was easier. Hell, I'd love to see them overtune the 10-man stuff, just to make the "size == difficulty" people eat crow.

It'd be hilarious seeing 10-man guilds form alliances to be able to run the 25-man "easy" version to learn strats for the 10-man. LOL.

[Kys]

"It's inevitable. It isn't because of badge epics or a casual-centric game, or anything like that, people's loud whines notwithstanding."


Partly disagreeing there, Failure (Risen) even stated the casualness was the reason they stopped. But oh well, even though I'm kinda surprised about his answers, it was still a nice interview.


Edit:

"Tuning means difficulty != size. They don't have to directly correlate." - Xentropy

It obviously doesn't have to be, but most of the time is. A fight like 4h man is hard with 40 players because of getting everyone at the right place, at the right time. A smaller raid needs less coordinating which makes it partly easier. Of course a hard 10 man fight can be harder than an easy 25 man fight. But most of the time a hard 10 man fight is easier than a hard 25 man fight because of the extra coordinating needed.

The thing I'm worried about is that the memories we will have of naxx will be those of the easy and smaller (smaller raid size that is) naxx. Instead of the big and quite hard old naxx. But oh well, not much we can do against it and probably it will be fun to see some certain fights again!

[gurgthock]

Xentropy said:

I have never understood the mindset that "more people" == "harder". Getting the requisite number of people who aren't morons is easier if you have a smaller group to build, sure, but with the proper tuning the 10-man version of a 25-man instance need not be easily "steamrolled", as he put it, just because it requires less people.

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed the interview. As for the 10/25 issue, I figured that some would disagree with my perspective, but Blizzard has stated that the 10-man zones will drop loot a notch below what you get from the 25-man zones. It's certainly possible for a 10-man encounter to be harder than a 25-man encounter, but from Blizzard's comments I've gotten the impression that they aren't planning on tuning them this way.

For example, Z'A is a tier 5 10-man. BT drops ilvl 141-146 loot. Imagine a 10-man version of BT that dropped ilvl 133-138 loot, like Z'A does. It'd probably be tuned to be about as hard as Z'A. And, as we all saw, people doing T6 content cleared Z'A in 2 hours the first time they saw it, sometimes without wiping at all. My comments are based on the assumption that the 10-man versions will be tuned to be a bit easier than the 25-mans. If this isn't the case, then it wouldn't matter.

Kys said:

Partly disagreeing there, Failure (Risen) even stated the casualness was the reason they stopped.

Failure posted further to clarify his thoughts, and a better summary would be "lack of content he was interested in" but honestly I wouldn't assume that one person, even a guild leader, speaks for everyone.

[Zyrus]

The way ZA was 'easy' for so many people were largely due to being overgeared and not so complex boss mechanics.
Everything about every boss was pretty straight forward, everything had been seen before.

[Amroo]

Xentropy said:

I have never understood the mindset that "more people" == "harder".

The point is simple: if you have 10 people in your raid, you have 10 people you have to coordinate correctly and 10 people who can make a fatal mistake due to a temporary lack of concentration. if there are 25 people, just multiply everything by 2.5
The human factor alone makes larger raids more difficult if all other variables stay the same. Of course, you can tune a 10-person encounter extremely tough, but if you demand the same grade of concentration and focus in a 25-person encounter, it is automatically more difficult overall, since there are more people who can mess it up than in a 10-person raid with a select team of your most reliable guildmates.

Another difference is, that more people also allows a greater variety in encounter design. A 10-player raid has usually 2 Tanks, 2-3 Healers and the remaining players dealing damage, so there are most likely going to be encounters, that need 2 tanks and 2-3 healers. Also, encounters must be more variable in terms of class composition. It's hard to design 10-man encounters that definitely need a warrior tank or a paladin tank or a mage tank, since the probability that a 10-player consists of those at any given time is not very high.

[csulok]

gurgthock said:

For example, Z'A is a tier 5 10-man. BT drops ilvl 141-146 loot. Imagine a 10-man version of BT that dropped ilvl 133-138 loot, like Z'A does. It'd probably be tuned to be about as hard as Z'A. And, as we all saw, people doing T6 content cleared Z'A in 2 hours the first time they saw it, sometimes without wiping at all. My comments are based on the assumption that the 10-man versions will be tuned to be a bit easier than the 25-mans. If this isn't the case, then it wouldn't matter.

They have to be tuned easier - not only because it was said they would drop half a tier's ilvl lower loot, but because a 10-man setup has to have more "give" than a 25-man setup. By "give" I mean you can take specs for granted in a big raid, but you can only take classes or a versatile subset of specs for granted in a small raid.

[Xentropy]

Actually I find the class composition argument to not necessarily be the case for 10-mans. It's definitely a reason why 5-man instances can't be tuned in the same way, but "requiring" one of each class be present in a 10-man isn't much more of a limitation than "requiring" two of each class be present in a 25-man. If anything, it's a way in which the 10-man can be *harder*, because you can't stack the raid as easily. 4 locks and 1 mage in every one of the first 6 KJ kills. Wouldn't see that kind of nonsense in a 10-man KJ.

It's still perfectly possible to tune a 10-man to be equally difficult. Require 2.5x the concentration from the 10 than the 25-man requires of those 25. Or require the level of concentration be held for 2.5x as long. (Really given mental exhaustion, 2x as long may be a closer balance. Just shows "multiply everything by 2.5" is a gross generalization.) Make every single 10-man encounter a wipe if any one person dies. That's the equivalent, generally speaking, of tuning the 25-man for a wipe if 3 people die. I'd argue the 10-man might even be more difficult, since at least you'd have a little slack in the 25 version, then.

I'm aware that Blizzard has already stated the gear from 10-mans would be a tier below the 25-man gear from the same instance. But that doesn't, to me, answer the question of how they plan to tune the difficulty. They've already shown a bias for giving gear from larger group instances higher lvls regardless of the tuning. For example, at the same gear level, one could easily argue that some AQ20 encounters were more difficult than some MC encounters, but the drops weren't as good (or were at best equal) because it took "only" 20 people paying attention instead of 40 watching TV and glancing over at the screen from time to time.

Mostly it's wishful thinking on my part. I concede that Blizzard seems incapable of tuning smaller-sized instances to be difficult. But I still don't like to consider "easy" and "10-man" synonymous, because I hold out hope that Blizzard will learn in time. They certainly learned a lot going from classic to TBC. The TBC raid encounters are far more interesting and fun as a rule. (Perhaps Naxx, which most people didn't get to experience in its time, notwithstanding.)

[Prometheus]

Really nice interview indeed, I agree with everything.

I too hope that content will be released more often but at the same time it should maintain it's quality.
Sunwell was a really good step in the right direction. Well-tuned bosses and at the same time very challenging. The gate system did work out for the best even for the HC guilds, since they would probably burn out had it not been for the gates.

Releasing a schedule of when the gates would open would have been the best thing for everyone. Of course it was a bit easier for us in Europe since we had almost 1 days notice thanks to the US.

As for Lich King, the 10/25 man raids is imo the most important thing about this expansion. Up till now, a small fraction of the WoW community actually got to experience end-game raiding mostly because many people do not have enough time to invest in this game.
Blizzard managed to open up BT/Hyjal to more people by removing attunements and giving them the right tools (badge gear) to progress in there. Suddenly many more people got to see Illidan and far more will get to see it until Lich King.

The more players we have accessing raid instances, the higher the pressure on Blizzard to release new content and therefore in the end everyone will benefit

[Schusselchen]

you cant compare mc to aq ... mc was basic first raiding ... not even really tuned .. as chars get higherleveled and skillsets allow more complex tactics encounters get more difficult ...

but its easy to see that 25 people raids are allowed to encounter more complex fights due to more people against their 10 people variations ...

so different tiers of loot are a must ... imagine just for example a sunwell 10 people edition ...

bosses on far less health/adds ... because a 10-raid cant keep it up to the 25-version in quantity and quality of dps or even cc/heal/tanking

[nopher]

Spot-on interview, agree with everything said.

[Sethala]

One thing worth mentioning is that nearly all of the 25-man fights in BC can be re-tuned to work with a 10-man group.

Now, let me just clarify that my guild only recently got to Eredar Twins, so I can't comment on that, M'uru, or Kil'jaeden, although I think those three could also be retuned.

Anyway. So far, the only fights I haven't figured out how to retune for 10 people and still keep the fight the same is Illidan and Council. And no, none of my retuned strategies require group stacking (so it's workable with 1-2 tanks, 2-4 healers, and the rest DPS).

[gille]

/flex

[Kys]

"Failure posted further to clarify his thoughts, and a better summary would be "lack of content he was interested in" but honestly I wouldn't assume that one person, even a guild leader, speaks for everyone." - gurgthock

Granted, and of course everyone has his own ideas about something. Just wanted to point out there are players that are (also) annoyed by this particular thing, among some others obviously.

"It's still perfectly possible to tune a 10-man to be equally difficult. Require 2.5x the concentration from the 10 than the 25-man requires of those 25. Or require the level of concentration be held for 2.5x as long. (Really given mental exhaustion, 2x as long may be a closer balance. Just shows "multiply everything by 2.5" is a gross generalization.) Make every single 10-man encounter a wipe if any one person dies. That's the equivalent, generally speaking, of tuning the 25-man for a wipe if 3 people die. I'd argue the 10-man might even be more difficult, since at least you'd have a little slack in the 25 version, then." - Xentropy

I dunno, the more concentration thing is kinda not my thing. Of course concentration, skills and dedication should be needed, imo, for boss encounters. But for example RoS, the kicking/pummeling part isn't as much fun as it could be. What blizzard did was just making something that requires a lot of concentration but not skill. If you do it wrong, it's most of the time not your skill or anything that made it went wrong, but just that you lost your concentration. Personally I think that's a bad thing, but wouldn't surprise me if quite some people don't tho.

"The TBC raid encounters are far more interesting and fun as a rule. (Perhaps Naxx, which most people didn't get to experience in its time, notwithstanding.)" - Xentropy

Have still to find a fight as 'kewl' as C'thun. Enjoyed pre-tbc more than tbc so far, but I do have to note I stopped the serious raiding just before sunwell so probably I'm missing the most interesting part and I'm just talking nonsense here.

On a serious note tho Xentropy, not attacking you or anything, probably I just like an other aspect of the game than you do.

[Spiny]

Great interview. Gurgthock seems so level-headed. It is no wonder that EJ has made such an oasis of genuine information and perspective in a internet otherwise clogged with "QQ moar" etc.

I especially liked his analogy of how "loot" is our only means of character "progression and differentiation". Nail on Head. THIS is the reason why Badge gear is a sore spot. It is a development and design issue related to end-game character development.

I think achievements are Blizzard's response to this accusation. I would like to see other cosmetic rewards that are given out to guilds/players who achieve various "firsts".

Some examples:

Non-combat pets, mounts, tabards, various and sundry trinkets or 'use' items that are given to the raid that gets Realm-first Boss kills and such would go a looooong way to satisfying end-game desires.

At any rate, cheers guys. Many thanks for the great interview.

[afrobotics]

I believe the instances in Wotlk should be a gate system, or at least an unlocking system such as in SW. So when you walk in and see (Naxx?) you must clear that place before the next instance can be accessed. If they really wanted to go hardcore, they could block the next progression of zones until the 25's bosses were cleared, but that might cause issues on low pop servers. But basically it would discourage people from just blowing to 70 and seeing none of the new content while the gear is still lower level.

[roxsand]

I liked most of the interview, but he's on his own with the "cheapening" of the experience by telling 10-man playstyles to sit on the bench until the 25-man is clear.

One serious thing he forgot to consider is that not every server is his server, and they don't all have hardcore fast-clearing raiding guilds en masse.

Blizzard specifically said that the two systems were not going to be linked, so anything that happens in the 25-man game should have nothing to do with the 10-man game.

Each individual should be making the call on what a quality gaming experience is for them. Make both versions available at the same time. Any foolish individual who complains that a 10-man guild "beat the game" before a 25-man by downing Arthas on their server first needs to remember that they are completely seperate from one another. If "beating the game" to them is simply observing the lore, then they can choose the 10-man route, keeping in mind that the experience will likely be less "epic".

I personally found ZA to be more challenging than SSC or TK (Vashj and Kael being slightly more difficult exceptions). Same tier level and the latter requiring 25 people. So the 10s will be quite difficult on their own, only real difference being the mechanics of raid comps in 25s and the politics/coordination of a larger raiding guild. I agree with the greater rewards (loot) from the 25-man versions, and that should be enough. Do not make 10-man raiding guilds sit on their thumbs and wait for people with a completely seperate raiding style dictate a 10-manner's decision on what makes the game fun for them.

Gurgthock has spent too much time at the bleeding edge to remember/know what it is like to prefer as less intensive/consuming raiding game. So I understand why he made the comments that he did, but I hope Blizzard is ignoring him specifically regarding the 10/25 accessibility and remain focused on their core (read: largest subscriber base) group as they have since a few patches into TBC.

[roxsand]

Spiny said:

I especially liked his analogy of how "loot" is our only means of character "progression and differentiation". Nail on Head. THIS is the reason why Badge gear is a sore spot. It is a development and design issue related to end-game character development.

Badge loot of the same ilvl =/= loot from an equivalent ilvl in a raid. The differentiation there automatically being cosmetic, telling you that that person has seen the lore/content to get that gear. Badge gear had no reason to be a sore spot amongst anyone but the epeen thriving schmucks who are only happy if they hit/heal/tank harder than anyone else. I'm glad Blizzard is turning those people away.