MMORPG.com World of Warcraft Correspondent Javier Ledesma writes this look at patch 3.1 and the difficulty of the Uldular raid.

It's all really the same. All bosses before Ulduar were "hard" at some point. Sure, people just went in and cleared the content, cause we had a preemptive strategy to work off of. All of the kind hearted players who ran the Naxxramas content in the "Vanilla WoW", and even the lucky few who ran through during The Burning Crusade, all knew what they were up against, and all had an idea of what was going to happen in there. So, when the time came in Wrath of the Lich King, people knew exactly what to do in these fights and situations, which were toned down slightly and revamped for 10 and 25 players, rather than the classic 40.

Read Trouble with Ulduar

Did i miss something, is there more to this article?

Your slacking and it's not even Monday.

Ok it's working now.

Originally posted by mbd1968

Did i miss something, is there more to this article?

They didn't enable the article.

Im glad they made Ulduar very hard.  It puts to rest all those people that were saying that WoW is now a joke because WOTLK is too easy.  Well, Blizzard delivered what people want, and now we are seeing pve progression in wow like is normally is, with the vast majority of the guilds struggling and only the best of the best guilds farming the content.  Even then, guilds have the "hard mode" to keep them entertained once they have the 25 man content on farm.

Its also nice to see guilds kick out players who were able to get full tier 7.5 just for showing up, despite being bad players.

-Its kind of a pet peeve I have to see shitty players decked out with the best gear.

yea the raid really weeds out the bad players/guilds

The issue isn't that Ulduar is "hard", it's that it requires everyone in the group to be on their game and know what they're doing. With the LK version of nax, you can have a 25 man raid where 10 people are slacking and more or less being carried by the rest of the raiders, hell we've done it in my guild. With Ulduar, you have to really bring your top people, because there's alot of situations where 1 person can wipe the raid, or a couple people doing something wrong can set an encounter back.

I almost passed out from laughter... too hard?

*edit

sorry Martie I'm a wow hater.

It does not really matter to me as I refuse to raid. Those people take the game way to seriously.

i dont think is too hard, last wow expansion decreased a lot the raid difficulty compared to previous ones

is all too easy now imo

Ah so I see the Casual Vs Hardcore stupidity has left the cesspool that is the WoW forums. This whole argument only serves to give tools that use moronic terms like "Baddies and Terribad" some sort of false sense of legitimacy. It is a raid for gods sakes...jump through the stupid hoops, cblocks and gear requirements that you always do using every cookie cutter build and face roll add on known to man then sit around swinging your e-peen bragging how much more skilled you are than the "terribads" honestly can it be more pathetic?

I've raided in my day, hell our old guild woke the sleeper back on FV , when you really had to have no life to raid; but one would think that old illusion of worth died with grunge metal and spoiled military brats shooting their High Schools up.
Bottom line most anyone with an IQ above 84 understand that it isn't skill that gets you through raids, it's connect the dots and following the right net guide, that gets your through. That’s why 90% of MMO's in development isn't even bothering with raiding as a viable end game.

This stupidity has had its day...it’s time to move on people.
 

WoW really doesn't need to tune down ANYTHING. And while I agree with you that blizz made the right choice by "listening to its community" and make a "hard raid" ... the reason why this game is questionable is because blizz listens to its community TOO MUCH. All the nerfs, all the buffs, I have not seen one MMO apart from WoW that has at least one class change in every single patch. But that argument should go to PvE VS PvP threads, because we all know, this game is horribly imbalanced and changes happen exclusively because they try the impossible, balance both together.

Look a while back, look when Naxx first came out... it was hard, it was tough, players ADAPTED, stepped their game up, and learned through hard work how to beat it. The outcome, you get vets who have had their memories refreshed on what it is to truly play a challenging encounter, and you get all that "mid-range noob" players who finally had their switch turned on and realized that no, this isn't wailing caverns all over again like it's been for the rest of the entire game.

Heroics were brought in, maybe it's their version of "challenge" ... I think not. At first they were, hell I remember having a harder time in Heroics Shattered Halls than Heroic WOTLK Naxx. Everything you can PUG succesfully without too many deaths, is I'm afraid, way too easy.

WoW NEEDS more Ulduar, WoW NEEDS an entire expansion with encounters as "hard" as the ones seen in Ulduar, WoW needs to step its own game up :P Raids are meant to be hard, where coordination, communication, and player skill/presence of mind is required. Not some gathering where you just press 1 and 2, stand still, and talk about your evening on Vent, leave that to 5-mans.

People can complain all the want about difficulty, but I only have a few hours a day I can log on, and when I do I want to be able to experience everything I'm paying for. If I had all day to sit around and play an MMO, I'd go back to FFXI. That isn't the case. I'm glad that the instances aren't insanely difficult. While I do agree that some things need to be left challenging, not everything does.

One thing I think that should have never been removed was PVP rankings. While I agree that they shouldn't have been as crazy of a grind as they were (in that you had to literally PVP every day to keep the top rank) it could have been toned down, at the same time introducing arenas and so on.

In the end, I'm extremely happy that Blizzard has created a casual-friendly game with such immense detail. Since a majority of the people who post on the forums about MMOs are generally more "hardcore" than most, that is why it seems the general opinion is people prefer hardcore content, when in reality the majority of players are the silent ones.

 If ANY WoW raid instance can be cleared in 2 nights after it's released its name cannot be uttered in the same sentence that uses the word "hard."

I remember back to my days of learning Razorgor and Vael in BWL.  There's no f'ing way Ulduar can be hard if it was cleared in 2 nights after launch, by ANY guild.

Originally posted by Thradar

 If ANY WoW raid instance can be cleared in 2 nights after it's released its name cannot be uttered in the same sentence that uses the word "hard."

I remember back to my days of learning Razorgor and Vael in BWL.  There's no f'ing way Ulduar can be hard if it was cleared in 2 nights after launch, by ANY guild.

That's hardly a fair statement when the guilds that cleared ulduar two nights after it was released had been playing on the test realm for weeks before the launch.

Even so, I assume they are going in "undergeared" in the live version.  And if they can do it in 2 nights being undergeared but knowing the encounters, how tough can it be for regular guild after they gear up an watch all the videos?

Sorry, but WoW raids have been dumbed down to the extreme since vanilla.

Meh, what do I care...I quit playing a year ago halfway though the joke raiding in TBC.

My impression, well I quit wow last month, no regrets the games got more issues than just Ulduar. I just hope that the guys that think wow is a great game stick with it, don't get me wrong some good friends play wow, but there is a small messed up few that play too.

Originally posted by todeswulf

 That’s why 90% of MMO's in development isn't even bothering with raiding as a viable end game.

let me see.. eq was game based on raiding.. eq2 was/is based on raiding  wow was/still somewhat is based on raiding

lotro is based on raiding , and there is l2... l2got raids.. but i doubt its based on raiding

yes.. new games drops focus on raiding.. and fails misebraly , aoc failed cuz they were making pve game.. with lots of raid content.. then they went pvp side due community or some shit..and in the end.. you got half assed product with bit of each.. and lacking in both sides

war failed, everything else failed

so tell me, why noone should focus on raiding..

you clealry below 84iq with your statements.. clueless.. go play some cs

I love those "I only play 2 hours a day" comments... really. WHY ARE YOU PLAYING THEN?

Seriously! MMORPG's, from the beginning, were made for the "hardcore", but then again, I still don't get it. I've played with people who "play 2 hours a week" and that 2 hours was spent in a raid with us, doing fine.

There are 2 types of games in this world, MMORPGs... and the rest. The rest (specially nowadays...) are made for the casual gamers, hell they're the reasons why (opinion) they all suck now. Take a good look at today's gaming: Games come out full priced, 59.99 plus taxes, and have a 10 hours lifespan. I think it is CLEARLY obvious that these games are made for people like you, the casual.

This is like saying: I'll learn guitar and be real good! then train 2 hours a week and wonder why you suck at it.

If you don't like shooters, don't play shooters. If you don't have TIME, don't play MMORPGs because really... that's all you need sadly.

Originally posted by Smikis

Originally posted by todeswulf

 That’s why 90% of MMO's in development isn't even bothering with raiding as a viable end game.

 

let me see.. eq was game based on raiding.. eq2 was/is based on raiding  wow was/still somewhat is based on raiding

 

lotro is based on raiding , and there is l2... l2got raids.. but i doubt its based on raiding

 

yes.. new games drops focus on raiding.. and fails misebraly , aoc failed cuz they were making pve game.. with lots of raid content.. then they went pvp side due community or some shit..and in the end.. you got half assed product with bit of each.. and lacking in both sides

war failed, everything else failed

 

so tell me, why noone should focus on raiding..

 

you clealry below 84iq with your statements.. clueless.. go play some cs

OH SHIT SON YOU JUST GOT PIIIIIIIZOWNED

Good article.

It seems that a lot of people think that "difficulty" has only one interpretation in MMO's generally and WOW specfically. However, there are many ways to make a raid or whatever more difficult.

If you go back to original WOW, the encounters were hard because they had 40 persons in them and you needed all 40 persons 110% aware of what was going on. Take for example, the Baron geddon fight - it was not a hard fight at all except for the fact almost any of the 40 people could become the "bomb" and if they were not paying attention, they could wipe the raid. The fight itself was easy, the numbers made it harder.

In BC, to make raids harder, Blizzard began to rely on chance and luck. The Prince Malchezar fight is a good example of this. The fight itself is easy except for the fact you have RANDOM elementals dropping out of the sky. Good elemental drops, easy fight. Bad elemental drops, horrible fight. LUCK made it difficult.

In pre-Ulduar WOTLK the fights are generally easy. Some fights require coordination and paying attention (like the safety dance or Thaddius) and others are luck (a bad strike on Patchwerk or a bad timed posion and crit of Maxenna). Generally thought the fights are easy enough for people to enter into raiding.

Now in Ulduar, Blizzard has gone back to coordination and paying attention as their main focus. I have heard that a badly coordinated group of idiots can easily wipe on trash mobs in Ulduar. That is why Ulduar is harder.

Most people forget that what made 90% of the pre-BC raids harder is that they required 40 persons. That is 40 chances someone will mess up versus 10 or 25 chances now. That in and of itself makes pre-BC raids much harder.

I am glad that Blizzard has made a raid dungeon that is harder than othes and requires the player to get better to see it (much like BWL was before). The best thing is nobody is crying about Ulduar being too hard because they have their easy raid dungeon to prepare to see it; but when they get there, many players are soon realizing that Ulduar is no cakewalk.

Originally posted by Zypher04

I almost passed out from laughter... too hard?

 

 

*edit

sorry Martie I'm a wow hater.

I wasn't saying that it was "THE HARDEST", it was that it was hard to some guilds at  some point, but now it is a little bit easier.

bringing up barron gedon made me remember how silly entering Mc was( molten core).  everyong stacking them selves onto each other to get into the portal in that corner.  i was lucky enough to never have been the bomb when i killed geddon. 

In wow wiki ulduar is what is ranked one level above Nax is what it said.  I never got to  go to nax but i sat underneath the portal and wondered what it would be like in the plaquelands. 

You guys are funny. What is the point of making something hard simply for the sake of being hard? Life is hard enough, this is a video game for crying out loud.

Originally posted by Palebane

You guys are funny. What is the point of making something hard simply for the sake of being hard? Life is hard enough, this is a video game for crying out loud.

The word hard is being used interchangibly with the word challenging, which it should not be in this case.  A game without challenge isn't very interesting is it?  There are "hard" modes of most of the encounters for people looking for extra levels of challenge. 

It has been a major complaint that most of the expansion was lacking challenge.