MMO-Champion - Stars Heroic Shannox World First Kill, Blue Posts
Stars (TW - Crystalpine Stinger) already working on Firelands Heroic - Shannox World First Kill
A lot of guilds killed all the bosses of the Firelands raid in normal mode already but it seems that Stars (TW - Crystalpine Stinger) decided to take it one step further.

After clearing the encounters in normal mode, the entire raid changed faction to reset their raid ID and started working on heroic encounters shortly after, that kind of thing happened in the past and it's not really surprising to see it used again to grab first kills.

As I write these lines, Stars killed Shannox in Heroic Mode. It's not really my place to judge if something is against the rules or not and I will just keep tracking heroic first kills as they happen.

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Eternal Embers and Seething Cinders Droprates
You’re assuming the drop chances for embers averages out to .5 per boss in 10’s and 2 per boss in 25’s, which it doesn’t. Whether you’re in 10’s or 25’s you’re going to see an equal drop average for Eternal Embers per player, and the same can be said for Seething Cinders. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

New Content - Differences between PvE and PvP Players
The answer to your question revolves around a common difference in how PvE players and PvP players approach the game. Generally speaking, PvE players want more quests, more dungeons and more raids to experience -- more and new content is king. On the other hand, while some PvP players do want new maps, many others would be happier if we perfected the Arena or BG maps that already exist - or even if we cut existing maps. After all, PvP players don’t graduate out of Arathi Basin or Dalaran sewers the same way PvE players graduate from dungeon to heroic, or raid tier to raid tier. We did make some improvements to the existing PvP maps, such as trying to return Ring of Valor to circulation and changing the way flags work in Eye of the Storm (for rated play).

We’d love to add a lot more maps than we currently do, but we need to do it in such a way that doesn’t make the PvP experience worse for players who are more interested in refining their PvP experience than in seeing new maps. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Patch 4.2 Hairstyles
We had a bunch of hairstyles we threw in for testing on the PTR and the majority of them did not pass the test. (quality, art direction, bugs, etc.) (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Patch 4.0 Raids now puggable
We specifically intend for the 4.0 raids to be puggable now that Firelands is out. Grabbing some tier 11 by way of Justice, quest rewards, plus across the board difficulty nerfs should really be enough to get them going.

The patch has only been out a day or so though. I think it'll probably take a little bit before people really get it into their heads that they should be pugging the previous tier because it's not too hard to be successful. It's just getting people used to the various encounters and mechanics.

Maybe people are waiting for the holiday weekend? If nothing else, leading one yourself is always an option. I think we'd agree that we need some better ways to get pug raids together considering we intend to follow the "New Raid is Hard, old Tier is Puggable" format from here on.

Still unsure what that means regarding the final raid (i.e. Deathwing). Do pugs not get to see him until the next expansion is released? (Not saying whether that's a good thing or not, but personally I enjoyed getting to Arthas on some of my alts without spending near as much time as I did on my main.)
In ICC we had a stacking raid buff over time which gradually made the content easier. Not saying we’ll do that exact thing again but the philosophy was around even then that everyone who wants to can eventually see the content, but it’s going to take very organized groups (which typically means raiding guilds) to see the encounters first.

So casuals will constantly be a tier behind for the rest of the life of this game? If that is what is actually coming out of your mouth I'll save myself the time and unsub now. What a piss poor vision for your game. There are normal and heroic versions of raids for a reason. That heroic difficulty was implemented so that the two segments of the population (casual and hardcore) would both have something to do. You are now bifurcating the raiding population AGAIN, by telling casuals that they have to run around in the left overs.
Trying to label all of our players as “casual puggers” vs.” hardcore raiders” is ridiculously simplistic. Among raiders there is an enormous diversity of players. There are those who will raid virtually every night when new content is out, to guilds that raid once a week (and even then will cancel raid nights fairly commonly). If you must try to label raiders, you’d be closer to the Blizzard model if you said normal mode is for organized raids, heroic mode is for more hardcore organized raids, and the previous tier of content (and Baradin Hold) is targeted for pick-up groups. Also consider that even within a raid zone we try to design easier bosses (usually near the front) and more challenging ones (usually at the end) which can help blur those lines and offer smoother transitions for each category.

Overall, we think you’ll have a better experience playing World of Warcraft if you play with friends, either existing or those you meet in game. WoW, while much more solo friendly than most older MMO games, is still intended as a multiplayer game. We provide features like Dungeon Finder for when playing with friends isn’t possible, and as we said above, we’d like to offer more features like that. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Tabards Tab
Are there any considerations for a tab for your tabards?

[...] To clarify: he asked if we were considering it, and yes we are considering it. :) (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Keyring Removal
On a serious point though some people are upset about the removal of the key ring. While that seems like we're just taking it out to be bullies, it specifically frees up storage space we can then make into useful features. Not that it will specifically be used for 'tabard storage', but we are going to be using the space the removal of the key ring freed up. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Thrall and Aggra's "wedding"
Correct. Their pledging of their lives to one another was essentially their 'wedding', although I'm sure Orcs don't use such nomenclature to refer to these things. Maybe 'life bond' fits better. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Does Blizzard plan on adding the rest of the dungeons and raids to the Dungeon Journal?
Absolutely. With the time it takes to present a single boss in the Dungeon Journal we were only confident supplying Cataclysm content with the release of the feature in 4.2, but we are on a path to filling it out with all dungeons and raids in the entire game. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Steam Summer Sales
In a very, very, very unrelated sidenote, Steam Summer Sales are up. I don't usually news non-WoW stuff but ... well, I like Valve and I'm pretty sure a lot of people will be happy to hear the news. Also, don't forget that we have a Video Games Forum!
This article was originally published in forum thread: Stars Heroic Shannox World First Kill, Blue Posts started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 625 Comments
  1. Youlose's Avatar
    Stars is bad ass pro :P That's what I call competitive raiding!
  1. Frosties's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Terashi View Post
    Wowprogress has a rule against faction change abusers (paying real money for ingame advantage is cheating, no matter what anyone says). So while it may be a "first kill" it really doesn't count.
    lol it counts they put in there effort, money, time and got the kill to say it does not count is beyond idiotic...
  1. adamzz's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by zekiel218 View Post
    you are right about others guilds can get to the same point (starting HM) in around 1 week, but they DO NOT START the race at the same TIME. US servers will always get started FIRST, EU second then Taiwan. If a boss took 1 day to practice and get a kill, Taiwan guilds will always 1 day behind US and EU progress regardless of skills. get it?

    Now if you call getting head start is cheating then Blizzard been giving advantages to US guilds all along?? but you still call it legitimate kill from a US guild then why Star's kill is not legitimate?

    of course, I don't deny that they exploited the rule to get starting HM first, but the kill itself is legitimated. They don't get extra attempts like Grand Trial of the Crusader, they just get head start LIKE US servers always do.
    US has always been first but EU has always had the world top 3 guilds, one day doesn't matter but one week does. STARS had the same chance to get Ragnaros HC as everyone else before they fucked around and cheated.
  1. Bub's Avatar
    Yeah right... And what 'bout 10 slots I have to use now for all those keys left? 10 slots its a lots of space. LOTS OF. So thanks again Blizz for "smart" idea.
  1. Erto's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Pagmat View Post
    Boubouille, you are rapidly approaching your 8000th post. I wonder.. does anyone on this forum have more posts than you? And are you going to do anything to celebrate this momentous milestone?
    Yeah, there are a couple of mods with 9k and I'm presuming there's some over 10k.
  1. mirrorzoom's Avatar
    The thing is, faction change to reset raid instance isn't even new, it has been done ever since faction change for came out years ago.A few top guilds also did this to get higher ranking in ICC and TOC, but it was never done in the world 1st level.So I don't think they'll be banned, but you can talk about it all you want.
  1. kucerakov's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Paux_Like_Poe View Post
    And this is why this argument is moot and pointless. Don't pout because you didn't think of it first, it's very childish.
    Except, no, everyone can't. Aren't people reading the thread? Faction transfer doesn't reset lockout on US/EU servers. Everyone COULDN'T do this.
  1. ashblond's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Vasz View Post
    No reason why they can't use the EU servers PTR. If you are willing to pay money for a faction change, then im sure you would be willing to buy an EU/US account.
    To be playing on EU PTR, you need to have an EU retail copy account first. You need a a valid payment method, and you cannot expect every chinese people in STARS has international credit card that is accpeted in EU and US. Maybe it sounds funny to you, but it is true.

    And the connection lag between China and EU or US is horrible, even you get the chance to test, you cant really do a shit with 10k+ ms latency.

    In your logic, if Stars is willing to pay so much, they could have already transferred their whole guild to US server during Wrath already, for getting the patches first and competed world first. But they didnt do it.

    It is a chinese guild that play on TW server, simply because China wow was expansion later, and TW server is the most geographically close to China. You have to consider lag when you play MMO
  1. Rafy's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Mauli View Post
    I think they will get a ban, i mean ensidia got banned for using bombs on LK, a pretty normal thing and they said that they didnt know what caused the glitch
    wrong... after they found out about the glitch they reported the glitch but they continued doing the boss using the glitch and they downed it.
    they didn't stop killing it.
  1. Imahunther's Avatar
    Though some people may disagree, I applaud this strategy. It just shows a higher level of dedication and willingness than the average raider.

    The one thing I do find slightly odd, is why not just do it first on Alts? Surely they could have geared 1-2 alts during the long hall of release and 4.1.

    Just my opinion.
  1. Brett Skullcrack's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Tymefor View Post
    But, as he says, this IS A HEROIC FIRST KILL and he has reported it as such.
    Sure Stars killed some heroic bosses. They did it by cheating so people following the world first race, which starts next week and from which Stars are now disqualified, are not going to care.
  1. Doctordecay's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Imahunther View Post


    Just my opinion.
    I'm sorry but this is pathetic. WoW should NOT be about who is willing to pay the most money, ever.
  1. Waytomoo's Avatar
    World first is when guild kills boss first in the world without CHEATING (third party software) or ABUSING boss mechanics. People are just being butthurt because their favourite guild didnt get the first kill from first bosses...What Stars did was maybe stupid or at least I wouldnt pay just to get in heroic mode the very same week we cleared normal. Some people do and that's fine since it's up to them what to do with their money and if they are all ready to spend it, why not? After all it's the last boss kill that counts the most anyway.
  1. Rocketbear's Avatar
    Haha, nice one Good job STARS, you continue to amaze us with your cleverness.
  1. Terrorwave's Avatar
    cant ban stars for using a system that is available to every and all guilds that play this game. Yeah they may have pissed off a few ppl by doing this, but is there an actual written rule stating that they cannot do this?

    I say congrats to them.
  1. VanishO2's Avatar
    Guess Blizzard will now change this "problem" with Faction Change.

    It was never used this way (world 1st), so looks like Blizzard was really "ah, ppl will never use this way, don't mess with it"... using it for a few more tries in the old ToC heroic system wasn't that much of a problem like it is to kill the same boss twice in the same week. ToC itself was designed to allow doing it in both normal and heroic. Players even used alts while we had the atempt system in ToC and ICC.

    But this one... yes, it's there (or was there if Blizzard disabled it to "fix", or even was there only for TW players) for use outside of the game, but inside the game, it's "against the rules", since it is stated that a character can only kill each boss once per week. Except for ToC, it is like that for ages.

    And we can bet that Blizzard do not want the heroic modes going down that fast. They alread have a lot of problem with ppl bashing 4.2 content, normal dificult, only a few bosses, etc. they don't need the "super heroic modes" going down in the same week, lol.
  1. Ezzet's Avatar
    Why should _STARS_ get banned for doing this? Blizzard made the mistake to implement raid id reset in the faction change.
  1. Achillia's Avatar
    I always looked up to STARS for getting patches(and expansions) later than the rest of the world, and still being a top world guild. They were able to kill bosses with half of the gear other guilds had. And I was really amazed by them. They complain when other guilds use exploits, and claim that they would never do that. They play with honor. Due to this latest incident I lost all respect for them. There is no honor to use a paid service to get an advantage. ID resetting was supposed to be fixed. In ToC they were supposed to fix it, but some patch later ID resetting suddenly worked again... unintended. People transferred/faction changed like crazy to get their shadowmournes faster, to ninja loot in pugs. It was supposedly fixed again and your raid ID was transferred. I guess in one of the latest patches it got back to resetting ID.
  1. Paraclef's Avatar
    It means that the Hardmodes are available and it means that the Firelands are just a joke like ToC

    Seven easy boss.....and do you really think that Ragnaros HM > Lich King HM. I don't think so.
  1. tikzib's Avatar
    apparently stars had an agreement with blizzard that they could use this feature to get a look at the first heroic bosses due to the fact that they didn't have the chance to test them on the PTR. for those of you who speak or understand german, "" is the source.

    /Edit: forgot to mention: they don't get any loot or achievements.. it was just for testing the new bosses. they also stated that on their homepage, which is currently offline due to the huge rush on their website..

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