The Raid Observer: Week 1, Weekend Update!

Yet another Raid Observer update from the Guest Contributor, Ladan, on the raiding race. This time I'll give you an update on what (may not have) happened over the weekend: continued concern over the LFR situation and more guilds join the raiding fray!

And my usual disclaimer: I am not a member of DREAM Paragon, I have just been asked to provide a regular update on my observations of the raiding race for Patch 4.3 as it unfolds. All typos, misunderstandings, and opinions are my own (though my cat may cause the typos if she walks on my keyboard) and may or may not represent the views of Paragon and its actual members. Please do go and visit my research blog that has more information about my doctoral research into raiding, raiding culture, and WoW, http://www.raidingresearch.co.uk.

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LFR Update

While things did quiet down a bit over the weekend, there was still a buzz around the LFR situation. So far any guilds determined to have knowingly exploited the "LFR bug" have not received any penalties. Of course, this won't get reported on any official site so word of mouth will typically be how news of anything will be passed around. Despite the at-times controversial comments and jokes spread around, this is still being considered in a very serious light, with players or guilds potentially involved awaiting what, if any, specific penalties might be meted out, and for vocal members of the WoW community there has been quite a lot of dissatisfaction with the fact that nothing appears to have been "done" yet. I would imagine that due to the complexity (and largescale-ness) of the situation, it's not going to be easy to navigate the decision on how to deal with it. Also keep in mind that it was the weekend. Some people don't work on weekends. Shocking, I know.

There has also been a small, very vocal minority that appears concerned with the ethical consequences of "condoning" cheating and the impact it might have on children playing the game. (And I know some comments were trollish in nature, but not all of them were.) Now I assume these parents are speaking about their children who are aged over 12, which has been deemed as the appropriate minimum age for this game. I also assume these parents are actively engaged in discussing what forums their children might visit (since most discussion and hype over this issue has been limited to a few forums and the IRC) and helping them navigate the complexities of the online environment. Now whether or not we all agree that there is a valid concern over the impact of this current situation on children who might play WoW, I have to just reiterate my own quandary over the fact that we sometimes thrust people into positions of moral responsibility due to the simple fact that they are the best at something. I'm not saying that that's not an understandable thing to do (we have only to look at sports and top athletes for a parallel), but I also think that we may be asking too much of a fledgling gaming activity that is just starting to develop and shape itself. I also know that from speaking with quite a few members of guilds that have an alleged involvement in the exploit that none of them were happy to do this. It just felt like a necessary activity to them at the time. I suppose we could all bang our heads against a wall about whether we feel right, wrong, or indifferent about the implications of acting on this "feeling" but at the end of the day, we have to leave the decisions on the consequences of this (and the punishments) to Blizzard. And if we end up satisfied or dissatisfied with their punishment, well, I'd say it would be a perfect opportunity for any motivated parent to explore issues like ethics, decision making, and cheating in games with their children, whatever the outcome. Sadly I imagine that until we can release perfectly bug-free games to the world, and can be assured that all players share the same ethos in relation to fair play and competition, this won't be the first or last time this happens.

 

Normal Progress Continues

So guilds have continued (although fewer and fewer are joining the race) to pursue the raiding content, with a thousand or so more kills of Morchok since Friday. We've got a nice little chart below tracking progress, which I'm showing to indicate two points of interest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. The leap between Morchok and Yor'sahj. There is an approximate (I use approximate here as none of the tracking sites are providing consistent data, which makes me a little wary of being too precise) 5000 kill gap between Morchok and Yor'sahj. Considering that Morchok appears to more like a mini-boss than a fully fledged one, perhaps this explains why so many more guilds have killed Morchok than Yor'sahj. Or maybe the most casual guilds wanted to see what the raid instance was like and only had time to clear the first boss. Whatever the reason, there is definitely a big difference between boss 1 and 2.

2. Hagara to Ultraxion. Again there is about a 5000 gap between kills of Hagara and Ultraxion. There could be many explanations for this. Some guilds (but this is a significant minority) have been holding off on a full clear due to other raiding preparation activities (LFR, Firelands runs, etc). For others it could just be taking this long to get through the content or they may have hit a wall. There has been a trend for raiding bosses to gradually scale up in difficulty as you progress through an instance, with the last half or few bosses typically being designed to represent the harder challenges. With Ultraxion being regarded a gear check, the gap may also represent the fact that some guilds have some catching up to do with their gear and output (both healing and DPS). But it could also just reflect the speed at which some guilds are progressing through the normal content. After all, this data doesn't even represent a full lockout of the instance and since when have all raiding guilds been able to do (due to skill, time, or desire) a full clear of normal content during the first week of a new patch?

Anyway, whatever the reason, isn't the graphic cool?

My only major issue at this point remains with the significant inconsistencies between all of the ranking sites. I've opted to use wowprogress as my primary source, but it's got some huge gaps in accuracy and while it only just split out the 10/25 raiding groups, their numbers don't add up to the complete numbers. I believe this has to do some new mechanics on their site that requires guilds to update the tracking, but suffice it to say it's left me with data that I can only regard as at least somewhat inconsistent and unreliable.

Either which way by Monday night (US servers) and Tuesday night (EU, etc) the first week will end and we'll be looking forward to how groups are doing on normal *and* heroic mode. And depending on what happens with the LFR situation, things could get exciting indeed.