Before I start I'd like to apologize for not keeping up the columns during the last weeks. As you might have guessed, I've been pretty busy with Sunwell raiding and to be honest, throughout the last weeks I haven't had the energy or the motivation to write columns.
Failing sucks
I love this clip! Because I love miniguns/Gatling guns, but also because Jesse delivers some simple and hardcore wisdom in the end. FAILING SUCKS. Yeah, if you ask yourself what this clip has to do with anything, it's about failing and losing!
We as a guild aim for world firsts all the time. And this time we failed - and it sucks! Just like it sucked for Jesse to fail with his car project. And I for one would love to take a minigun and pump the Sunwell full of bullets until there's nothing left but a burning corpse.
Like butter scraped over too much bread
This is how I'd describe the Sunwell experience. From the first day Sunwell was released until Kil'jaeden was dead it took exactly 2 months. And how long did it take exactly to kill the bosses? It took 11 days total for all 6 bosses to go down for the first guild. 1 day to kill first three, 2 days to kill Twins, 4 days to kill M'uru and 4 days to kill Kil'jaeden. 11 days. 11 days of progress spread out over 2 months. A very dissapointing and boring experience. And as I've said before to the guild (and I know others feel the same): if the gate system or anything similar will be a part of future high end instances then I will go casual. It's simply not worth it.
Sunwell being the hardest instance so far?
There have been statements that Sunwell is the hardest instance so far and Kil'jaeden and M'uru are the hardest bosses created yet. To that I say: yes, obviously they are and they should be. Just as Blizzard stated that they would be. They require more healing and more DPS than previous bosses and they have some new "twists" to them. But there's a flip side to that coin.
Even though they are hard and they have new mechanics or elements not seen before, how challenging were they really? While bosses get harder, guilds get better as well. Kil'jaeden went down in 4 days for the first guild, 6 days for Nihilum. Even though it's a hard boss I can't say I'm impressed. Also I'm dissapointed since I was hoping the fight would be more complicated, but even though it has multiple phases, it's a pretty simple encounter. There's only one phase in the fight that is really hard. Trust me, that phase is hard. :) But if you ace it, you basically win. Just as with other Sunwell fights like M'uru and Twins, everyone in the raid needs to ace his performance. One death most likely means a wipe. To sum it up, Sunwell is indeed a hard instance, but still a very dissapointing experience.
SK vs Nihilum
Don't misunderstand me though, nothing in this column is written to belittle SK's achievements. The only thing I want to diss about SK is their guildname. Curse > SK and MYM ! Curse is a badass guild name, you suck for giving it up!
Jokes aside, we have been watching SK's progress throughout Sunwell and I believe all Nihilum members agree that they have impressed everyone! We have said it before in comments to their kills - they deserve their kills. They showed determination, motivation and skills throughout the whole Sunwell. So respect to them.
Blizzard vs Raiders
If there's anything to belittle it's Blizzard achievement. 9 months of nothing after Black Temple and Sunwell is what you deliver... Very dissapointing from the endgame raider's point of view. 6 bosses. Compare that to when MH/BT were released - 5 bosses in Mount Hyjal, 9 bosses in Black Temple, 14 bosses in total, more than twice the amount of Sunwell. I don't even need to start commenting on the gate system. I wrote a ranting column about it before and thousands of posts and comments have been made about the gate system everywhere. So I'll leave that topic untouched. We all think it sucks.
Some people might say that this is QQ from elitist raiders, that Blizzard is right about caring more for the majority of players that don't raid Sunwell and spending time on developing for them instead. All the casual changes. But in my opinion the top raiders are needed in many ways. There's a strong culture around it. There are a lot of players out there who might only do low end instances but are interested in top guilds, look up to them and hope that one day they can join a top guild. If Blizzard destroys the competitive high end PVE culture in WoW, they will destroy more than they think and indirectly they will lose more players than the minority that does high end PvE, trust me.
Age of Conan, Warhammer, Aion and more are here now or incoming soon. This is not the time to be cheap and stupid, Blizzard. I'm hoping for you to shape up and so do a lot of others.
although they implemented gates, just imagine clearing sunwell in those 2 weeks
yeah it added a casual feeling to the WF race but at the same time kept people occupied just that much longer until wotlk
First off, nice vid! The part where he tear up the car with the machine gun is just awesome!
Back to the topic: I am also one of the people who really hates the gates system, although I never stepped foot, and probably never will, into SWP. I personally think that if it wasn't because of the gates, nihilum would take WF on at least M'uru (I'm not a fanboy, its just my opinion)
Also, you said that you want to belittle blizzard's achievement of putting 9 months of nothing but SWP/BT/MH. Let me port you back to the time of naxx, Nihilum killed Kel'Thuzad at the end of august/beggining of september 2006 if I'm not mistaking, and TBC was released somewhere in january 2007, that is a difference of only 4-5 months. Blizzard don't want another instance where only a small minority of the players will have the chance to see.
Hmmm if the hardcore raiders all think that the gate system sucks, why does Mackelina, co GM of the #1 guild atm (SK) like it? If you don't like wow atm go play AOC man....
#8 And since of course SK downed KJ first, we all have to follow their 'lead', right?
And SK is not #1 guild the moment, it's only the first in Sunwell, overall Nihilum > SK (I agree GD, Curse was a better name). Don't get me wrong, I'm no fanboy, but it's like one random guild manages to get a world first and bang, it's already declared the best (though SK/MyM/Curse is no random guild, I respect their achievements), and all of the so-called previous 'best' guild achievements are forgotten (endless world firsts from Nihilum anyone?).
At the moment, SK-gaming is the best. All-time? Without a doubt, Nihilum. I honestly like Nihilum A LOT more. But there is no denying SK is the best at the moment. Nihi will be back though, and like great champions they will again reign supreme
Tbh as much as I dislike the gate system. Open testing on bosses prior to release spoilt the fun of the race for me. The gates only delayed the kills so they wouldn't all be dead within the first 2 to 3 weeks.
Ye you wrote a ranting column about the gates, but the only explaination I found was the fact that US would have (even) more advantage over EU. Though it seems like there is a whole lot more to it.
I suspect its simply because you want more after having waited so long. And more at once. Maybe you should rephrase your opinion about the gate into something like; blizzard has to release content faster (and make hard bosses more complicated).
If theres something important I missed, point me in the right direction please.
#14 Darmor 28 May 2008, 09:45 AM
Master Fireballer
I have to disagree with Muru and Kil'Jaeden being the hardest bosses ever.
It took months to kill 4H for example, and even though Kil'Jaeden and Muru might deal more dmg and have higher hp it doesn't matter since it all scales with your gear anyway.
@ Darmor - Is it because of guilds becoming better and better, 4H being more complicated and these just being perfectly tuned or maybe because of the 25-man vs. 40-man thingy?
From where I am sitting it looks like these Sunwell bosses are just perfectly tuned. But not really complicated.
#14 4H only took time cuz you needed 8 tanks and there was invisible void zones. The actual strategy/tactic was worked out the first or second day of tries. Just that no guild had thoose amounts of tanks. And especially not 4/9 DN for non taunt resist.
Also i dont belive that Nihilum would have a greater chance at world first if the instance was realsed without gates. SK Gaming would obviously be able to raid 10.00->04.00 everyday for 11 days but does Nihilum have that dedication? I'm not so sure. Its alot more about time investment then skill theese days. Bit sad but true.
The gate systems stinks, and even if they opened at the same time in EU and the US it still suck. The only ones that gain from this sytem is high end US raiding guild.
"But in my opinion the top raiders are needed in many ways. There's a strong culture around it."
Totally agree with this, the backbone of WoW's community has been built by raiding guilds and communities - if all the Nihilums, DnTs and so on's disappear WoW would be pretty boring.
