There has been talk about this by some streamers. as well as somebody from method stating that they are planning on going for them in Classic.

With how the phases are planned out we have Phase 1 containing Onyxia and Molten Core. For a Phase 1 world first people are looking to clear in the first week which from what I've looked up, is possible. I am excited to see Phase 1 race to clear Molten Core, mostly because of the leveling component included in it.

The rest of the phases everyone will already be 60 and I imagine be rather simplistic in nature compared to Phase 1 except for Phase 2 Rank 14 grinds being highly competitive and entertaining to hear about.

What do you all think about the Phase races to first clear?

Edit: The method statement was just a joke.

Can we really have world firsts again?

The achievement this time around is going to be way less impressive now that people are playing with years upon years of pserver experience and theorycrafting vs. guilds that were going in completely blind on potato computers with shitty internet connections back in 2005/6.

Being worlds first in anything does not interest me one bit :( Being the world best at something does. Such as Arena tournaments etc.

I'm going to be topping the leaderboards on the amount of fun I'm having, and as far as I'm concerned that's the only metric that matters.

There will certainly be some bragging rights for the guild(s) that are able to orchestrate the "classic firsts' and but personally, I'm approaching the game a little differently this time around and it's going to be more about enjoying the journey vs. racing to the destination.

Cheers

World firsts don't actually matter that much because its the re release of a 15 year old game, but I still wonder if people will clear AQ 40 and Naxx on day one now that everyone is so much more knowledgeable, skillful, and have better computers

Sudnep wrote: ↑

5 years ago

What do you all think about the Phase races to first clear?

Any endeavor that is competitive in nature, will attract competitive people. Of course people are going for speed clears. The game should be tuned to be more challenging. I'm grateful for Classic and excited for the game, but the PvE content is trivial and thus, will not be authentic. The game could easily be tuned to be 10-20% more challenging to preserve some semblance of difficulty. This would not change the fact that people would speedclear and tear through the content, but at least it would be a challenge. Any change that promotes longevity and serves to increase or preserve difficulty, should be considered.

Part of me is excited to relive phase one and to step foot into MC. The other part of me is dreading doing it with 35 players in green gear on week 2-3, without some of those players even being 60, and walking through the raid like its Ragefire Chasm.

what faction are the guilds going to be, is it public knowledge? some good opportunities for shenanigans here.

Method is not a competitor.
I'm really excited about the first 7 days who first has MC clear, I don't think it's going to be method.

aeh wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Method is not a competitor.
I'm really excited about the first 7 days who first has MC clear, I don't think it's going to be method.

Interesting thought. Method has been extremely prevelent in retail forever now. I imagine if they set their mind to it, it should be plausible.

I do imagine some pserver guilds, with their high experience, will give them a run for their money but if method is seriously going for it I imagine they will be prepping a lot in the coming weeks.

Well, what I saw of Method shows that they want it. But there are also other "freaks" that I expect more from, so I met some of them in the PServer community in the last years.
I mean, I'm also heading into a 40 hour session. And the days after that will get the same time investment. My 1 1/2 weeks vacation will be completely exhausted.

Sudnep wrote: ↑

5 years ago

There has been talk about this by some streamers as well as somebody from method stating that they are planning on going for them in Classic.

Apparently this was a joke from him, due to him being asked the same questions every day;

"Will you go for world first?"
"Do you think you can beat the Private Server guys?"

I'd be surprised if they did, their org is built on winning world firsts. Once they stop winning those they stop being as popular as an org, it's a very bad decision to go for something they are not 100% on. If they did go for it I would have expected them to start snatching up people with 5-10y experience with Vanilla to add to their roster and I haven't heard of a single one leaving their main pserv guilds.

The benefit pservs have over a guild like Method is that sure you can say Method has experience, but compared to these other guys they have very limited experience. The game has massively, fundamentally changed and the pserv guys have all the known and runs drilled into their head. Classic won't be 100% like pservers of course, but pserv guilds get WFs through several means including exploiting, abusing and what not. There's just so many skips, methods(no pun) etc known to these guilds that Method possibly wouldn't know about.

tl;dr
Method SHOULDN'T go for something that isn't 100% in the bag, it's a bad business choice.

Relik wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Can we really have world firsts again?

The achievement this time around is going to be way less impressive now that people are playing with years upon years of pserver experience and theorycrafting vs. guilds that were going in completely blind on potato computers with shitty internet connections back in 2005/6.

I dont see how that makes it less impressive. Everyone being less knowledgeable/resssourceful also means competition is less fierce. How impressive being best at something is usually depends on a) how many people are trying and b) how hard are these people trying.

Stfuppercut wrote: ↑

5 years ago

The game could easily be tuned to be 10-20% more challenging to preserve some semblance of difficulty.

I 100% agree with this. I think all raids should be tuned up, even if it is just for the first couple of months - make it harder, make it more challenging. Everyone has had 15 years WoW/MMO gaming experience, everyone has seen the fights before, everyone has better PCs and lower latencies. Tune it up, or it will be trivial.

Selexin wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Tune it up, or it will be trivial.

I don't know because I have never raided AQ 40 or NAXX

But do you think that AQ 40 and NAXX will be trivial for high end guilds?

Sierick wrote: ↑

5 years ago

But do you think that AQ 40 and NAXX will be trivial for high end guilds?

I was in really bad guild, we took a long long time to clear MC/BWL and when we started on AQ40 first boss we nearly had him down first night. There were guilds who cleared it quite quickly in vanilla, and insanely quickly on pservers (obviously that has a caveat on it). I think you will see hardcore guilds clearing AQ40 in the first few weeks after gates open, and same for Naxx (maybe slightly longer). If they tune it up it will just help add a couple of weeks of difficulty for the hardcore guilds will the lower guilds play catch up.

Selexin wrote: ↑

5 years ago

I was in really bad guild, we took a long long time to clear MC/BWL and when we started on AQ40 first boss we nearly had him down first night. There were guilds who cleared it quite quickly in vanilla, and insanely quickly on pservers (obviously that has a caveat on it). I think you will see hardcore guilds clearing AQ40 in the first few weeks after gates open, and same for Naxx (maybe slightly longer). If they tune it up it will just help add a couple of weeks of difficulty for the hardcore guilds will the lower guilds play catch up.

Makes sense
It is still odd to think about that a numerical change might make the game experience more like the original

Sierick wrote: ↑

5 years ago

make the game experience more like the original

Yeh that's the idea of tuning up raids, is to try to better emulate the vanilla experience in regards to difficulty. I don't know if they will do it, but I think it could be a good idea to consider. If hardcore guilds breeze through content en masse it may just make the game feel every different to vanilla WoW.

Sierick wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Makes sense
It is still odd to think about that a numerical change might make the game experience more like the original

This is true for numerous aspects of the game and this is why #nochanges can be a bit counter productive. The modifications we have seen to emulate server batches is a prime example of changes that are designed to capture authenticity. There are many changes that should/can be considered in the spirit of recreating an authentic experience. Do you want an authentic replication OR an authentic experience, because you can't have both without a time machine =(.