Archive for February 14th, 2008
Tokens/Trophies for Every Boss Drop?
Comments(0)I was reading through comments on Tobold’s post about rewards in raids. Someone mentioned having tokens drop for every piece of gear…
I think this is an excellent idea! This would work well both for raids and 5-man instances. It’s not like you’re losing an immersion factor by turning in the tokens to an NPC for the items anyway. I actually think it INCREASES immersion. Does Hydross carry around a backpack with a robe, a plate helm, leather shoulders, and so on? Even if it’s sitting in a chest behind the boss, why would they even have those items to begin with? You’re much more likely to get rewarded by an NPC than have a water elemental drop a robe that fits on a gnome. Why not let all of those drops be token or trophy rewards instead? Say Lurker’s would be “Scale of The Lurker Below” and Hydross would have “Essence of Hydross The Unstable,” etc.. Bosses that drop tiered gear would just drop both. These could also function as quests, which would help us learn more about the bosses as well as get another monetary or reputation reward.
The FIRST time we killed The Lurker Below we DE’ed a reward because it wasn’t even needed by any of our pallies (they had better items that weren’t even from a 25-man raid, go figure…) so we had to shard the drop. This just seems asinine to me. When competition for gear is so high and drops are so low, shouldn’t raiders at least be able to use every drop that they get? Even moreso when you are just entering a new instance killing new, harder bosses.
Hopefully we’ll see a change like this at some point, but I doubt it will be any time soon.
~Kanthalos
Hydross and More
Filed under: Burning Crusade, Raiding, WoW, World of Warcraft |
Comments(0) Well, I regret to inform you that our guild has not killed Hydross the Unstable as of yet 
What I can say is that we have had three very solid attempts. On the first good attempt, we were able to survive until the enrage counter went off at 10 minutes at about 50%. The second attempt we got him to 52% with 4.5 minutes left before we ended up with 8 adds (we probably would have wiped at about 5-7% if not.) The third attempt we got him to 23% before enrage. Clearly, we have all of the concepts of the fight down, our dps was just a little light because the raid composition was a bit off. We have Gruul scheduled for tonight, but I have a feeling we’ll be headed back to SSC, and I have little doubt that I’ll walk out of there with the Robe of Hateful Echoes (ok, maybe not me, and maybe not that drop, but you get the idea. 
)
On another note, I jumped back into Mythos a few days ago. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my level 11 pyromancer hadn’t been wiped, so I hopped back on with him. I quickly discovered that my skill points had been in large part wasted, so I went to the NPC to have respec. It cost 1g which is a somewhat substantial sum, but I was glad I did it. After some research on the forums, I found the build I liked (Flaming Fist) and started in.
Several things quite different since the last time I played. There are now four “difficulty” options to choose from. The first is normal, which hasn’t really changed. The second is Elite mode, which means significantly harder mobs, better drops, more experience, and 50% return on items sold to vendors. The third is Hardcore mode, which means one death and your gone. The fourth is Hardcore Elite which you can figure out. The main other change I’ve noticed is that pots, which used to be insanely priced, are now very reasonable, which is good since they are used frequently. Many other changes have also been included, like guilds, a looking for group tab, achievements (very similar to LotRO), a few more maps, and lots of things that I haven’t noticed 
With that said, I suggest you a) try this game again if it’s been a while since you’ve done so, or b) get your hands on a beta key. There are lots of them floating around, so it shouldn’t be terribly difficult. I have two extras, which I can give out if anyone is curious, I just need an e-mail address. Please actually intend to play the game and do so if you ask for a beta key. I would really like to get these to players who actually want to try it out.
That’s it for now, but I’ll be back soon.
~Kanthalos
