Gurgthock wrote:(Apologies for the crosspost from the other BWL thread, but it was off-topic there and, I think, deserves some attention.)
My request is simple: Please, please, please do not put BWL on Test. Let guilds have a legitimate competition and genuine sense of discovery and exploration when the new raid zone comes out on the live servers. Don't force us to spend weeks on Test learning it without any rewards if we want to remain competitive.
Don't allow guilds to learn encounters the easy way by copying over dozens of flasks and hundreds of resist and rejuv potions to Test and using them without concern. You doubtless put hundreds upon hundreds of man-hours into designing and balancing this place. Do you really want the first groups of players in BWL to be abusing the character-copy system to attain levels of power you couldn't have possibly balanced the zone around? Take a guild of 40 people. They can farm and make 10 flasks, 30 major rejuv potions, 20 fire prot potions, 20 shadow prot potions, etc. Give them all to one person on the live server, he copies his character over twice, and then gives them to the next, who copies his character twice, and so forth. And you end up with a raid on Test full of people who can use high-end consumables nonstop to force their way through the carefully tuned encounters. And everyone who isn't willing to sink to that level will be at a disadvantage when BWL comes to the live environment.
We can deal with bugs. We managed just fine with LoS errors from every overhang in MC, with Garr and Majordomo failing to properly reset after wipes, with Onyxia doing chain knockbacks. We understand that BWL won't be 100% perfect on release, but that's fine, as long as it provides the new challenge that we've been waiting for.
Thanks.
Source: http://blue.cardplace.com/cache/wow-dungeons/50928.htm
The contents of this link shows a request from Gurgthock, Guild Master of <Elitist Jerks> on Mal'Ganis US when BWL was under development. Not exactly a nobody, considering that he was picked up by Blizzard after his extreme influence and engagement within the theorycrafting community. The name behind this character is coincidentally Ion Hazzikostas, Lead Raid Designer of Blizzard and has been ever since he was picked up by the company. I encourage the developers to read his plea to Blizzard in the link I provided and how Tigole responded to it. His mindset regarding PTR should be, in my opinion, transferred over to Nostalrius also. Here is why. You have, uncountable amounts of guilds raiding BWL at this stage, learning the bosses and structuring their guild over there. That itself effectively diminishes every aspect of guild competition which is a much more important factor than you would think. It will kill a huge purpose of the realm if this remains a thing. Nostalrius has the opportunity to change this completely; if you think it is good now, imagine how it would be with actual competition added to it. It would give the server some flavour. This is part of building serverhistory and it serves the community well; it is very healthy for the playerbase that you can't just stroll through content like in WoD, e.g. Do you really want to be done with content before the content is actually out, with the guild you're actually raiding with? What is epics and raiding all about if you can pre-clear it in testing environments? Isn't guildprogression and facing barriers a huge part why we came here to play? To struggle a little, for a tougher experience compared to what current WoW has to offer us?
The problem I am presenting here is that guilds advertise themselves in world that they are "6/8 BWL" and "8/8 BWL". There are guilds on the recruitment board with "killpics" of their most recent Chromaggus kill on the PTR, as if it is even remotely relevant. You are there to report bugs, not speedclear and optimize your time, not take killshots, not finetune your strategy, none of that. Emphasis on reporting bugs are close to non-existant per guild. There are so many better models than the current one that you can use, Nostalrius. It is in fact boring to know that you can clear everything on the PTR, and not have a slight ounce of competition on the live server. It removes the excitement factor too, and what the raiders can expect from you.
Over to suitable PTR models. I think it would be far more appropriate to have an IsVV team, and chip-in dedicated testers (if wanted/needed) from the established guilds and form two separate raids to test content in high detail. And you don't have to actually use your own character and port over. Why is that a thing? You're just in the raid to objectively fix bugs. Pre-made characters would be completely fine for an IsVV raid and just run an extremely thorough testing session. You would also have much stronger communication between the actual testing team(s) and the devs. Maybe the devs could even join in themselves? A second suggestion for upcoming PTR would be to again not have guilds join it, but pick players from each guild and form one or two raids for testing purposes. This would not hurt the competitive aspect since they'd all be from multiple guilds and it is self-explanatory. The last model for testing would be to pick several guilds to test several, isolated parts of the given dungeon. This is my least preferred model of the ones I presented, but still a huge step in the right direction.
Have you, the developers, seen the streams of the PTR testers by the way? Participating raiders never discuss bugs, they only focus on the progression and how they can kill the boss they are facing. I can guarantee you that one dedicated raidteam within a closed PTR would produce a better result and the competition and excitement factor, for example for Ahn'Quiraj would be far greater than it will for BWL once it releases. I have already learned and realised that BWL will become somewhat a disappointment, not because of the raid itself, but because of the factors I have presented. Therefore, I hope and beg that you will consider a closed PTR for AQ and onwards, to spark competition and that guilds will have something to really look forward to.
Lastly, to anyone saying, "BWL is easy, lol who cares", I have seen countless and countless of guilds struggling already on Razorgore because they don't have the structure/players to execute the fight. And then you have the Vaelastrasz 1hour barrier which several guilds wiped for several consecutive hours on the PTR. Imagine how they would handle it on the live realm without the infinite consumables and a timer to add to the pressure. BWL is not easy for unorganized/not-so-organized guilds and that is simply how it is. Guilds are adapted to MC standards. Not all guilds are able to transition over to BWL standards which is one step further organizationally which validates my arguments in this thread for closed PTR.
I would be extremely satisfied with a reply from Viper, Daemon or any developer/gm that can provide some reflections over the matter. I genuinely feel this is the best way to go on the endgame content.
Thank you for reading.
TL;DR: The message in this thread is to fix current PTR model and limit the PTR for actual testing for AQ40 and NAXX. Current PTR is treated as progression for every guild and no emphasis on bugs are given.
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