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Saturday, July 3, 2021

A Bucket of Cold Water

For some reason that I can't fathom, people fawn over Karazhan.

The fact that it was the residence of the Guardian of Tirisfal, which is on the other side of the continent, for pete's sake, doesn't truly enter into it. Lorewise, yadda yadda yadda, whatever, doesn't change that it was designed as a "catch up" raid in as much the same way as Zul'Gurub and AQ20 were, to be run in conjunction with Gruul's Lair* and Magtheridon's Lair, so that people who ran Naxx in Vanilla would be on the same footing as those who didn't raid at all. If you look at the entire focus of The Burning Crusade, which is Illidan and the Burning Legion in Outland, it seems pretty silly to have both Karazhan and Zul'Aman as part of the same expansion. Neither of these 10 person raids are directly part of the story; while you could make an argument that Zul'Gurub and AQ20 were built up to in Vanilla as part of extended storylines, neither of the TBC 10 person raids could lay claim to the same level of build-up.

And no, attunement to Karazhan doesn't count.

But regardless, people who played TBC back in the day seem to have a universal love of the place, and just about any conversation I've had with friends in TBC Classic has led with "Are you raiding Kara yet?"

The attunement to Karazhan itself is pretty much a bare minimum if you want to consider yourself "caught up" in TBC Classic, it seems, as guilds have made a concerted push to get into Karazhan and to get as many bodies into Karazhan at all costs.** 

***

I knew that by the time I reached L60 that people in guild were already attuned to Kara, and a week later they were already going into the place. As one of the raid leads I also knew that there would be a push --once I reached L70-- to get me attuned as well.

Another add-on the guild has been promoting --and WoWhead as well-- has been Attune, which keeps track of the various attunements needed in TBC Classic. That's nice and all, but by default it announces in Guild Chat whenever you've accomplished an attunement. 

Which drives me nuts.

If this was all it did, I would be using it myself.
From the Attune Curseforge site.

 

Yes, you can go into the settings and turn that off, but the blatant spamming and wink-wink advertisement --by default-- by the add-on only serves to irritate me. Maybe it's my Midwest upbringing shining through, but the "look at me!" nature of the add-on only served to remind me that I was not with the cool kids. And to make matters worse, you could configure the add-on so that you could see where everybody in your group was on attunements so you could "keep track" of them.

It just had to get more invasive. I work
in IT Security, and this set off alarm bells
in my head. Just what else under the hood
is going on? From the Attune Curseforge site.

 

So what have I done? 

I've ignored any and all suggestions to use the add-on --or any other add-on that keeps track of things and reports/collects them without my knowledge-- and am using my own noggin instead. Just like knowing that Guild Roster Manager is watching for any changes to my information, and that even my birthday would be registered if it were known***, I've been trying to keep as minimal a footprint as possible within the guild itself.

No changes, no updates, no snooping. 

I've strongly considered keeping only my main in guild, which means Briganaa, and pulling Card. After all, she's my disenchanter right now, and will remain so for the time being. I may do that once I settle into Phase One raiding at the end of July, because by then everybody and their grandmother had better be aware that Card is in semi-retirement.

***

Regardless of how it was tracked, I knew that I would need to get attuned to Karazhan. And given that I got to L70 my way, I was going to get attuned my way as well. The Friday that I dinged, I'd already done every single quest or instance that I could perform without flying being required.**** This meant that I had the first two Tempest Keep instances to be run to get the parts for the key for the third instance (The Arcatraz) and then I also needed a Black Morass run to get the key 'approved' by none other than the past version of Medivh himself.

I still think a Shivarra would make a great
around the house assistant. Imagine the
amount of repair work that could get done
with six arms!

 

Yeah, bear with me on this, because there's absolutely no reason --in game or out-- to think that Medivh would be so stupid as to provide his imprimatur on a key to his stronghold to someone he didn't know. This is the case where Blizz' careful story building completely falls apart, and they pretty much handwave that obvious flaw in the story to just say "Hey, you got to see some lore firsthand, isn't that cool?"

/sigh

While I was watching the livestream of the Gruul attempt on June 25th, I was pinged by my Raid Lead. She was already dead in the Gruul attempt (I think), so she had time to chat. She apologized for missing that I dinged L70 (see my previous post for my standard answer), but she asked if I thought I could get attuned by Monday's Kara raid.

Only four instances to run and 3 days to do it? I told her that sure, I could get attuned.

I had only one requirement about joining Monday's Kara run: that I not bump anybody. 

Just because I'm on the raid lead team doesn't mean that I should bump someone who had been waiting to raid Karazhan. I don't get to jump the line just because of my rank; I'd much rather have someone else go who was ready before me, especially since the Raid Lead and the other two members of the lead team were already signed up.

I was assured that yes, there was a spot for melee DPS as the raid was short one already.

Then she dropped the bomb: "How do you feel about off-healing?"

Well, crap.

"I haven't healed an instance since 2010, so I'll need to practice."

"We'd only need you to off-heal on the later bosses in the run, as we can get by with two in the first half."

"Okay, I'll do it."

***

You have to understand something about my relationship with instance healing: it ended badly.

I still remember the run as clear as day. It was an at-level Halls of Stone LFG run, with me on Quintalan in Holy Spec. The tank zoned in and while the rest of us were getting ready he took off. After the first couple of pulls I was sucking wind on mana and constantly having to drink. Of course, I know now that a Holy Pally drinking constantly is pretty common, but he wouldn't wait. Still, I'd done this instance before so I knew what to expect. 

It was then that the tank started harassing me, asking me "Do you even know how to heal?" 

"Of course," I replied.

Then he posted "Divine Plea", "Arcane Torrent", and told me "Use them." 

That was great and all, but if I was going to use Divine Plea, I'd ideally use it while he wasn't in combat, which was, well, never. Back then at least (I can't tell you if/how it works in Retail now), if you healed while Divine Plea was active the outgoing heals were severely handicapped, so you'd preferably use it while out of combat. Such as, you know, drinking. And besides, Arcane Torrent's minimal amount of mana regen isn't exactly a panacea for constant pulls like the tank seemed to think it was.

Then, right after the first boss, before I had a chance to get unstoned, the tank runs up to a trash mob, pulls, and immediately after dropped group and left, the others following shortly thereafter.

I sat there for a long time, staring at the screen, thinking that maybe he was right and that I didn't know how to heal. Maybe he knew things I didn't, and I simply didn't measure up.

And I thought about all the stress that I induced by simply trying to heal an instance --which was considerable-- and I decided it wasn't worth it. I could go Ret, treat healers with respect, and probably do a much better job overall than what I was doing. If the healer went down, I could pick up the slack by sliding Healbot into view and just start casting. In that scenario nobody was expecting heroics out of me, so I could relax a bit.

So I said screw it and switched off to Retribution on a permanent basis.

With the benefit of almost 12 years of MMO experience, I now know that was just a bad pug, and that instead of a complete overhaul I likely needed to tweak things a bit and get more heal specific gear. But then, when I was still feeling my way through WoW the first time, that was a gigantic and crushing blow to my ego. I'd had the benefit of running with Deftig as tank for months, and he made my healing a lot easier because he was a skilled tank. Oh, and he was overleveled for a lot of these instances, which made a big difference.

Still, my belief I was a bad healer persisted through the decade, and I avoided healing like the plague. 

And now I was going to have to confront that belief, whether I liked it or not.

***

I finished my attunement in a semi-guild Black Morass run on Sunday. I say 'semi' because the tank was an ex-guildie who he and his friends from our AQ40/Naxx raids had gone back to their original guild when TBC Classic dropped, but they remained friends overall. So there was me, a couple of guildies, and our ex. The run wasn't put on for my benefit; the tank wanted some rep and I happened to be on at the right time. Considering a few hours earlier a Black Morass pug had ended in abject failure (the Pally tank was unable to keep threat even though I was doing non-crit white damage) these two runs ended pretty much as I expected. 

Another thing that Black Morass is
good for is farming Netherweb Spider Silk.
And leveling Skinning.

 

"Hey, I get to group up with the world famous Cardwyn," one guildie quipped when we hopped on Discord.

"It's not like I've not been around," I replied, a touch irked.

"I know, but the thing about this guild is that if you don't completely keep up with the latest you get left behind."

Tell me something I don't know, I thought. "I won't lie and say it hasn't been rough, because it's been rough for all of the leveling Shamans, watching everybody else being where we want to be while we struggled alone. And now, once I get attuned, I'm going to be tasked with off-healing on Monday, which is something I've not done in over a decade."

"The thing is, Card, that sometimes you're too nice for your own good."

"I find it hard to believe that treating people with courtesy and kindness is considered too nice."

"Amen to that." One of the leveling shamans had hopped on Discord and chimed in.*****

I realize that he meant well, but I wasn't going to change who I am just to play the way I want. If there was going to be a choice about it, who I am versus what I want to play, I will always choose being true to myself.******

So when Monday came around, I got some practice in learning how to create and use mouseover heal commands, and I set off for Deadwind Pass. 

I'm still not used to some of these empty
places in Wrath being active and busy.
Much like how Silithus was in Classic.

 

***

I can describe Karazhan in four words: Shadowfang Keep on acid.

If Shadowfang Keep is Worgen heavy with a decent helping of ghosts along the way, Karazhan is a haunted house where the ghosts have decided the party never ends and the entertainment borders on the bizarre. 

Courtesans? Check.

Wanton Harlots? Check

Opera? Check

/record scratch

Opera? Yep, there's an "opera" in there, but Aida it ain't. We're talking stuff like The Wizard of Oz, The Big Bad Wolf, or Romeo and Juliet, and it's a boss encounter. Our raid got the Big Bad Wolf --a Worgen, naturally-- who turns a random raider into Little Red Riding Hood, and you have to kill Wolfie before he kills off Red and the rest of the raid. It's hell on totems, let me tell you. I was constantly throwing down Tremor Totems while chasing Wolfie around, because he fears (again, naturally).

Other people in the raid loved it, but I was kind of meh about the whole thing. Part of that was that I practically went out of mana just tossing down those freaking totems, but part of it was also that I wasn't amused by the shtick. 

Nor was I amused by the Chess event, which was obviously a Blizzard homage to Harry Potter.

"Ron, you don't suppose this is going to be like . . . real Wizard's Chess, do you?"

"Yes, Hermione, I think this is going to be exactly like real Wizard's Chess."

Probably part of the reason why I was not amused by the Chess event was that two players in a 10 person raid were going to be stuck with being pawns. What's the fun in that?

Let's see, some other highlights....

There's a giant woman dressed in Roman garb as a boss, because that's apparently a thing Blizz does. See: Uldaman, Myzrael, Halls of Stone, Halls of Origination (Egyptian garb here), etc. For all I know someone on the dev team has a thing for Giantesses.

I died three times on one boss, the Shade of Aran, because he requires constant heals while on the run, and guess what class' off-heals doesn't have instant heals? Shamans. So I had to constantly stop to try to get a heal off, and that put me behind this boss' blizzard. And not being on a Mage, I couldn't blink out of the blizzard either. 

Oh, and did you know that there was a ghost dragon in the upper halls? Well, if there's Chess and an Opera, sure... Why not have a ghost dragon?

Or that the end boss was a demon,******* in an impossibly large roof area of netherspace? I am shocked... Shocked, I tell you.

***

As you can tell, I wasn't altogether thrilled about the experience.

Healing wise, I think I did okay. I didn't have too much to do, but I filled in where I could. I can confirm that Chain Heal is really nice, but if not a lot of people are taking damage, the quick heal is much more efficient.

DPS wise, I was called out for my positioning, and the tank was absolutely right. My positioning sucked. I had issues trying to figure out which direction the ghosts were pointed, because you can see through them, so I didn't have the visual reference of knowing the tank was on the other side or not. And that was on me. 

I suppose I'll get better at my melee positioning, having played Card for so long, and as far as mechanics goes I'll get better with practice.

But what I think won't get better was my impression of the place. 

I've a friend who is an English Lit teacher, and she went bananas about all the Enlightenment references in there. There are other friends who came to TBC Classic just so they could run Karazhan again, because it was such a touchstone on their WoW careers. Still there are others who think Karazhan was the best raid that Blizzard ever produced for WoW.

I just... No, I just can't think that.

For me, Karazhan was neither epic nor special. I never went there until I was L90 --and soloed the place-- so I didn't have the pull of nostalgia. Its mere existence in the southern part of a continent for a Guardian who was named after the northern part is off putting to me, lore be damned. If nothing else, it feels like a very pretty "look at what we can do!" showpiece that is out of step with the rest of TBC. Now, if this raid were a bridge between TBC and Wrath, some judicious reworking of the bosses could let this fit right in as a prelude to Wrath. But TBC? The only thing it's got in common with TBC is that there's a demon at the end. And that the last occupant opened the Dark Portal back in Warcraft 1.

I mean, I'll still run it, but it doesn't have the same feel or pull that the Classic raids did. Even if you took the 40 persons and converted it to 25, the Classic raids would have a greater sense of purpose and awe than Karazhan has. And while Karazhan does make a 10 person raid feel like a raid, that's not saying a lot given that if you treated both Upper and Lower Blackrock Spire as one dungeon --which it can be treated as such if you choose to-- Blackrock Spire would feel pretty epic in its own way. And be more integrated into the WoW Classic story than Karazhan is to TBC Classic.

Even Gruul's Lair looks more like a regular raid to me than Karazhan does.

***

I suppose I ought to brace for the commentary telling me I'm full of crap, but after the Death March to L70 and the subsequent push to attunement, I've more than a bit of buyer's remorse. 

I busted my ass for this?



*I still don't get why we're picking on poor Gruul Dragonslayer. I thought the Black Flight were the enemy, after Onyxia and Nefarian made pretty plain. 

**That 'all costs' reference continues to bear fruit, as I've seen some acquaintances decide to pass on the raiding scene in TBC Classic entirely, getting off the treadmill just as they should be getting ready to roll. Ironically enough it hasn't been any of the Leftovers, although we could be forgiven for jumping off the raid train, but people for whom real life has trumped any game playing. 

***Sorry, I'm not gonna put it out there. I'll just say that it's already happened in 2021, which means you've got half a year to guess. 

****Technically speaking, if you had a Warlock in the group you could get summoned to the platform of a Tempest Keep instance prior to running inside without being L70, but I knew that wasn't an ideal situation. Or, bypassing the Arcatraz key, if you had one person in group with the key plus a Warlock, you could skip two instances entirely. But like I implied, you're going to need that key eventually, so why not take care of it now?

*****I couldn't decide whether she agreed with me or the other guildie, but I'm going to assume given she said it after my comment that she meant my opinion.

******Somewhere upwards of 25-30 years ago, my father was involved in a disagreement with his boss at work. From what I remember, the disagreement stemmed from activities that his boss would do --and encourage his underlings to do and then expense-- when they went on business trips. Dad thought the activities were unethical and said so, and the resulting tiff led to my Dad getting reassigned. Well, the people who worked for my dad --his entire department as he was a middle manager-- effectively revolted and told senior leadership that they would all quit en masse if Dad didn't get his old job back. Because of that pressure, my Dad's boss was reassigned instead and Dad put back in his former position. My dad and I frequently didn't see eye to eye, but I never forgot that moment. 

*******Whom we defeated on our third try. Or was it fourth? Either way, the RNG gods smiled on us and we were able to defeat the Prince before the summoned hellfiring demon that wiped us in previous attempts appeared.

13 comments:

  1. I raided Karazhan back in the original BC, and I ended up hating it with a passion. The fact that it was 10-man while every other raid is 25-man meant that there was no easy transitioning to the rest of the content. Either your guild could field 3 Karazhan teams each week, so you could do everything, or it would start hemorrhaging the geared, progression-minded players to guilds that could. Since my guild was a friends guild, we kept trying to recruit to compensate the loss of players and only raiding Karazhan for most of TBC.

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    1. Nice to know that I'm not the only one who isn't very fond of Karazhan. And yes, guilds hemorrhaging people is, I believe, going to be a thing in TBC Classic too. That's one thing about AQ20 and Z'G that people miss: they're 1/2 the size of the main raids. It makes for easy breaking up of teams into ZG/AQ20 runs.

      Maybe it'll resolve in the long run, but I doubt it.

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  2. I feel the same way as you do about Attune. I do use it, but I disabled the announcer functionality the moment I installed it. I thought the tracking option would be useful for finding people that are on the same quest steps as you but I've found that to be unreliable, plus people go through all these chains so quickly now, someone who's on the same step as me one day will be three steps ahead the next.

    I still don't have my Arcatraz key. :P And warlock summons to the TK instances don't work in this phase, so you do need to be level 70 (or a druid, seeing how they get flight form at 68).

    I do have to defend the logic of Medivh giving you the tower key! The quest text implies that it's a time travelling paradox and he basically gives you the key because he remembers giving it to you before. I think that's cool, not stupid. :P

    As for Karazhan, I think many people have very fond memories of it because it was their first time really stepping into a raid. It was my first time raiding seriously as well and for a noob like me it was a huge learning curve back in the day. (I wrote down some of my memories related to that in this post from ten years ago.) Personally I also find the random mix of bosses quite charming. It's a mad wizard's lair and it fits that theme, even if it has little connection to the rest of BC.

    That said, I do wonder if Classic BC won't dim some people's fond memories of the place. With people just breezing through from week one, it doesn't feel nearly as magical, and you're more likely to sigh at things like the abundance of trash, especially in the first half and after Curator. Also, new min-maxing information has once again revealed that a lot of Kara loot isn't actually as great as we thought back in the day. I can see people growing bored of it quickly.

    (Oh, and I never associated chess with Harry Potter! I even went to double-check that that book was even released before TBC, but of course it was.)

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    1. He says he recalls future events, which since he is in the past he cannot have. Additionally, how would he know if they were future events if he had not had them? That would have been interesting except that Blizz never actually did anything with it. Besides, he was already under the thrall of Sargeras, so how much of that was Sargeras and how much of that was Medivh? The event shows him as Sargeras' proxy, but the discussion was him as Medivh, which, if the Bronze Dragonflight were concerned, he would have no knowledge of future events. After all, that's their job.

      Perhaps the rose tinted glasses about Kara did come because it was people's first raid, and they didn't know enough to wonder why they were in a place that had no bearing on TBC at all.

      I don't object to rotating bosses, but to the opera event itself. If Kara is a showpiece / kitchen sink raid, then of course there'd be an opera in a big ol' party raid. But I simply don't like the premise or the shtick. I can't make myself obtain the willing suspension of disbelief that makes the Classic raids work better.

      And that's not to say that the Classic raids weren't flawed, either. When wiping on the trash leading to C'Thun is more common than wiping on C'Thun itself, there's likely design flaws involved. Or, dare I say, the goblin packs in BWL or the scientist packs in Naxx. I grew to hate those scientist packs more than most of the bosses in Naxx, especially Patchwerk itself.

      As for people growing bored, there's already discussions about gear and mat requirements for Phase 2, so the sweaty people have effectively "moved on" even though TBC Classic has already been out a month. That, to me, is a symptom of the disease that the Classic team will need to combat because it will create a sweaty vs. everybody else mentality, and I fear it'll exacerbate the problems that began when people split along following the Meta.

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  3. Interesting post as always, Redbeard, and a lot to go through here.

    With regards to Attune, one of my guildmates is actually the creator/author of the Attune addon. I can assure you that there is no malicious intent behind it (I would trust this person unreservedly). I do get that the announcement in Guild chat feature could be viewed as obnoxious or intrusive. But I know that from the perspective of our guild leadership, they have found it invaluable to keep track of where everybody is up to. And, as you pointed out, you can turn that feature off if you don't like it.

    As far as Karazhan goes, I never got to experience it (or any of the other TBC raids back in the day for that matter) and am really enjoying it so far. I think possibly it's just that the 10-person raids are a little bit more intimate and you can have more casual banter and chat than the larger 40-person raids in Classic where half the time you didn't dare talk too much and it was harder to build relationships with your fellow raiders. Sure, you had UBRS as a 10-person raid in Classic but half the time people were just dragging you through there to get you attuned for one of the raids so there wasn't really that casual, 'let's have fun' atmosphere.

    Each to their own, I suppose, but I am really enjoying TBC as a whole and Kara in particular so far.

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    1. Blairos, I will completely trust your opinion about the author since you know them personally. However, that doesn't mean that the design can't be used in ways it wasn't intended.

      I have seen firsthand how usage of the announcement feature serves to divide people within a guild. While I find the announcement feature annoying, I've seen people congratulate some in guild and ignore others. Since the Attune feature is pretty common in our guild, it's not like these people aren't aware of attunements happening, it's just that they choose to ignore those not of their own clique. In this case, it's just like Guild Roster Manager, where the main bubble of people leveling were feted, but if one of the leveling Shamans dinged there was radio silence. Unless one of the other leveling Shamans said something, that is, and then there'd be a smattering of belated congrats. There was more than one occasion where I'd get a whisper from someone not part of the cool kids saying "What the hell? Why am I being ignored and these others aren't?"

      That both apps are present exacerbates tensions, because while people can ignore things if they don't know they're there --for example, you'd have to have people actually announcing if they're attuned if an app like Attune didn't exist-- the fact that people now know alerts are there and choose to ignore some guildies while applauding the rest creates problems.

      I guess you could say that apps like Attune and Guild Roster Manager are force multipliers; they amplify potential problems within guilds based on how they are used. GMs should be up front with their guildies in how these apps are being used, and take pains to be inclusive, but that also requires diligent follow-through on the guilds themselves. Guilds can create all of the documents they want, but people are judged by their actions.

      Your friend can't control how guilds use Attune at all, and he shouldn't bear responsibility for those decisions made by individual guilds. I am glad, however, that there isn't any other intent --malicious or otherwise-- behind the design. Of course, I guess you could say that no good deed ever goes unpunished, so people can take your friend's design and use it in ways never intended.

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  4. Hi Red;

    Back in the fall I joined up with a couple from Texas while questing in Felwood. The were leaving their guild due to GM issues and were forming a new one. The expected people to return for BC and those, along with some recruits, would give them the raiding team they'd take into Kara.

    It was a good fit, until TBC Classic released. Some of their people returned, yes, but they'd left guild invites available to any and all. The guild turned into a ghost town, where previously you logged in, and everyone said a hello, to 25 people on, say hello, and get zilch in response.

    Guild Manager app worked, you saw people dinging, but rarely a congratulations went out. Even the older guildies weren't participating. I brought this up with the GM and his wife, said that this isn't the guild you guys started, just an anonymous bunch under the same flag.

    Last week, Kara signups went out, 6 days from the run. You had to be 70, attuned and geared with level 70 blues.

    My highest toon was 67, I'd been working on my stable of alts since release, not a worry, can get to 70, attuned, and have the gear ready. But...couldn't sign up until then.

    I asked the question "You'll take someone that has the guild presence of a piece of gum, just because they're ready, over someone you've run with for months?" GM, uncharacteristically, said the rules are there, read them.

    Alrighty, well, if that's the consideration, here's 10 toons gquitting as quick as I can log them.

    The whole point of joining a guild for me is that you're NOT anonymous. Sure, there's tons of add-ons that invite random unguilded people automatically. If that's your gig, enjoy. To me, the anonymity of retail is what drove me away.


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    1. Yeah, I get that. That feeling when you become a number and not a name.

      Of course, guilds could be active and yet you as a player remain in isolation in another way: in-guild cliques.

      I've been disappointed that remains the case, but there's not much I can do about it. When I was first employed at my work, 20 years ago, I discovered that --much to my surprise-- I was lumped into a clique with a particularly disagreeable person because I reached out to everybody when I first joined and went to lunch with this person in my first couple of days. It was at the point where people would be going around and gathering groups for lunch and deliberately ignore my or his cubicle, even though I was right there and able to watch what was going on.

      I was incredibly disappointed in this behavior, but there wasn't much I could do about it. Additionally, this was a "dream job" at a big corporation, the sort of place you retire from, so I had that incentive to try to make things work rather than head for greener pastures. The irony was that our transition to remote work --accelerated by September 11-- put a stop to the cliques as people weren't going to the office to shoot the breeze at all. The cliques may have migrated online, but without a "net nanny", nobody could see them.

      The fact that add-ons such as Guild Roster Manager are widely available allow a person to observe what is going on more directly, so while you might suspect that players A, B, and C are in a clique, you don't have any direct proof until GRM helps you observe what is going on by watching the dings and correlating them to which people respond to what activity.

      I personally only respond in GChat now to an out-of-chat prodding by someone, because I avoid the guild chat like the plague. The GRM-related congrats and Attune announcements have poisoned the well too much for me.

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  5. Interesting topic for me, because I usually bow out of certain observations because I simply know I am not very objective (also the reason why I would never "review" games).

    But Karazhan... I hated the place at the beginning. I came from a weird guild in vanilla that had transitioned from 100% Battlegrounds PvP to 20 man raiding with another guild (we actually killed Hakkar) to a normal raiding guild in TBC, but with only 10-15 people. And we struggled like hell, it's as if it was a completely different game. Maybe there were some less than stellar players, maybe something was off, I don't know. It was hell and we hated it and it took ages (many, many weeks) until we killed Prince. (A good part of these people ended up raiding Black Temple later, so it's unlikely that we completely sucked, I guess).

    But... my memories of Karazhan the place are actually mostly positive. We did come back on alts and it went smoother, so maybe that's the reason I can look back fondly - also maybe that was a lot later in TBC with another guild already... but I really liked the fights and everything. I just hated "progression raiding" there.

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    1. You know, I wonder if the people who love Kara the most weren't part of the go go go progression raiding teams like today. I hadn't thought of that before.

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    2. Well Red, I can certainly give one nay to that. I love Kara, it's my all time favourite raid. During BC I was running a minimum of 7 toons per week through that place, for weeks upon weeks. Tanking, off tank, dps, cc, healing, off healing, whatever role I played it, and enjoyed it tremendously.
      All of that, I definitely not a go go go dude, by a long shot.

      Bill

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    3. Uh.... 7 raids every week?

      You beat me on the raiding front. At my height in Classic, I raided 6 days a week, although most of those were old content by that point.

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    4. It was a perfect storm, my job required about 2 hours of prep and 6 hours of wait, so do my 2 hrs in the morning, turn around in my U shaped desk and hit the gaming computer on the other side.

      Bill

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