Attunements or Recruiting Quality, Uphill both ways!
World of Warcraft launched with very few (if any) real attunement requirements. Many of the dungeons launched later that required Keys or attunements such as Molten Core, though some attunements and keys were in at launch (even Scarlet Monastery required a key). Getting someone of higher level to run a character through lower level content just to get keys became a staple of the game. “LFG shortcut to core fragment” was my first glimpse into attunement work around options. That simple request would snowball into all types of game designs and exploitation.
Key to my heart
The first type of gated content was sealed behind locked doors. Even Searing Gorge required a couple of quick quests so that players could earn the favor of the gatekeeper and obtain a key. Beyond that, keys started filling up bag space and requiring a checklist of who had which keys (before Key Rings, keys were kept in bags, and the largest bags were 16 slots). Dire Maul, Stratholmes Mail boxes, Scholomance, Upper Black Rock Spire and others started filling up our bags with all kinds of keys. The keys got easier once we received key rings, but it still didn’t help if we leveled up an alt, it was starting over from scratch.
That’s Attune I Can Dance To
The next round of gates were more figurative, they were attunements to Molten Core and who could forget the Onyxia chain? Onyxia brings back some fun memories as it has been re-released with no attunement requirements what-so-ever. Keys provided a slight gate, Attunements is when the instance entrances got really interesting.
The two game breakers for most people were Blackwing Lair and Naxxramas (the original version). Casual players could PUG or slog their way through most of the other keys and attunements, but Naxx required a real guild to get people attuned. Thus the beginning of the end of attunements – the gold rush. Real money transactions (RMT) is one area that Blizzard has been fighting since day one, but what about in-game exploits of rushing people through for in-game currency? Give us gold and we’ll run you through. This type of scenario created two issues: now Blizzard was supporting the idea of RMT if players bought gold to pay others so they could get attuned, and as they said themselves, the attunements weren’t fun.
Wrath of the Key Master, oh and the Lich King
When Wrath launched, most keys and attunements were thrown out the window. Blizzard wanted to make everything accessible to everyone. Great in theory, but do you really want to go to a concert with no entry fee? Every Tom, Dick and Harry shows up and then the next thing you know you can’t even see the stage.
Keys, gone. Attunements, gone. Pre-requisites, gone. Looking back it’s safe to say that the game has changed. Everyone can get into every instance in the game (within level requirements). Has this made it better?
Pros and Cons – the Pro Side
From the accessibility aspect, the game has become amazingly available to the masses. More players are seeing more of the content than ever before. This has to be one of the biggest successes in game design in MMOGs. Instead of gating everything off with keys and attunements, Blizzard is using “hard modes” for the hard core end-gamers. If a guild needs a role filled (i.e. another healer), then the alt of someone can be geared up in very short order and become a prime contributor quickly and easily.
Pros and Cons – the Con Side
Just because the game says you “can” run an endgame instance doesn’t mean you should. As discussed in previous articles from Medawky, Messiah, and even my previous works, raiding is at an all-time fever pace but at a fairly high cost. Without attunements and keys, guilds can no longer judge on that basis. This has led to gear scoring, achievement boasting, DPS meter flogging, and all kinds of player-driven attunements. It seemed easier when the game made the hurdles and kept out the riff-raff (and I’m part of the riff-raff usually so don’t take that as a dig). The attunement quests weren’t that hard and only required a bit of effort and persistence to get through. In the drive to make the game open and available, it feels like we’ve lost some of what made us special.
Bring ‘Em Back
I’m no elitist except that I believe in rewarding players for their skills and/or their perseverance. One of our biggest social issues is that we give too many trophies for participation and not enough for winning. I had an interesting conversation the other day when I was grinding away. I like grinding when the reward meets or exceeds the pain and suffering. If I need to kill 50 mobs for one piece of tar, I’m ok with that as long as I’ll gain a level in XP and a bunch of gold or reputation or skills for doing it. Bring back grinding instances or reputation so that I have a reason to gather up my friends and go get attuned to the latest instance.
Change Is Good, Except When It Sucks
Blizzard explained that they are fans of gating new content without making it gated. Thus, the “Grinding versus Gated” debate was created. I am usually the first one to grab onto change and call it a good thing, but I really believe that grinding is better than the idea of “gating.” I hate daily quests. Yes, they provide a good return on your investment of time, but I don’t like to think of anything in terms of days/weeks/months. When I read about something I want via dailies, I immediately calculate how many days of doing X quests it will take. If that number is higher than about a week, I’m not doing it. It’s not that I won’t play enough to do it, or be online enough, it’s just that I lose interest. I want to know that I can log in on a weekend and put on some tunes and grind on a thousand Furlbogs and become exalted. I don’t want to read that I can kill 100 per day maximum, and then do that for 10 days. This is off the main topic, but I think it applies.
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