A Discussion of the newly dropped Thori'dal bought up a lively discussion on Legendary weapons in my guild chat the other day, which has in turn set my own mental wheels turning. Looking at the difference between the pre-Burning Crusade Legendaries and the Burning Crusade Legendaries, there's one big difference that stands out (beyond the level difference): The pre-BC Legendaries were quested, while the BC Legendaries have been drops.
The clear-cut off seems to suggest that at some point, Blizzard decided that creating long, involved quests in order to obtain Legendary weapons just wasn't the way to go, and they'd rather let the RNG take care of distributing Legendaries. But the question is, did they make the right choice? There's good arguments for both sides.
On the quest side, probably the strongest argument is that it just feels right that you have to go through with some epic tasks to truly earn your legendary weapon, such as defeating the master of the Liches and an Old God to reconstruct Medivh's staff, or summoning and binding an Elemental prince to obtain the Thunderfury. Because you engaged in a legendary storyline and a legendary undertaking, you have earned the right to wield a powerful weapon.
There's a few answers to this idea that the BC-era Legendaries can provide.
First, sometimes just killing the boss is epic enough. After all, Kil'jaedan, who is one of the most powerful beings in existence, was moments away from entering our world completely when you pushed him back. It seems that's an epic enough feat to deserve a bow.
Secondly, sometimes a quest just doesn't seem needful. After all, Illidan's blades are Illidan's blades. It doesn't seem like he keeps them at low power or let them leave his hands -- and thus it makes sense that they'd be ready to use when you them from him. Sure, you could technically make up a quest where they're drained of power and you need Archimonde's essence, one of Kael'thas' orbs, and 30 demonic sharpening stones off Black Temple bosses to make them wieldable again, but really, there is a point at which those types of quests can feel a bit arbitrary.
Thirdly, quests can often wreak havoc with raiding schedules. It happened quite often with Atiesh. I knew many raid groups that just didn't want to kill C'thun anymore after Naxxramas came out. Getting 40 people to dodge Dark Glare and kill tentacles was just too hard for them, or they didn't want fight through all the annoying trash, or they didn't really need any loot off the other bosses... the list went on. Of course, the side effect of this was that none of their casters could hope to see Atiesh, since C'thun held the base of the staff. Dropped Legendaries mean you never have to convince your raid group to go back and pick up old content again.
The other major argument I've heard in support of questing is that it supposedly removes a little bit of the RNG and gives you hope that you can obtain a legendary without waiting forever and hoping that Illidan drops a glaive instead of a blindfold this time. Having the focus of a quest to finish both gives you a clear goal to work for besides killing the same mob over and over and hoping for a drop.
Of course, the problem with this is that the quests for the Legendaries still depend largely on RNG. I knew many a guild who cursed every time they ran Molten Core and never saw one or the other of the Bindings of the Windseeker or an Eye of Sulfuras drop. The Splinters of Atiesh are not a guaranteed drop either, so you easily might have to kill a few hundred bosses in Naxxramas before getting enough splinters to form a Frame of Atiesh -- and that's assuming your guild or raid group is kind enough to default every single splinter to you. You can't really escape the RNG, or else you'd have every other Rogue, Warrior, or Paladin who ever set foot in Molten Core and saw Ragnaros die carrying around a Thunderfury or a Sulfuras -- and then those weapons probably wouldn't feel that legendary, honestly.
So really, in the end, it feels like the idea of droppable Legendaries just have a lot more going for them. Still, I can't help but think that I'd like to see a few more quested Legendaries, if only because there is a good sense of accomplishment and awe when you finish a well crafted epic quest line. I know this by personal experience, as one of my proudest MMO memories is still completing a long, story-driven quest line in Everquest for a ancient sword known as the Greenmist. I'd love to recapture that feeling in WoW some time. Perhaps the best balance is to take it on a case by case balance. For incredibly epic bosses, it makes sense have a Legendary be a simple drop, while for lower level raid dungeons, you can get away with a quest to create a little bit of extra work for the player and to give a different sense of accomplishment.
We'll have to see what Blizzard does with Legendaries in WoTLK. It's wide open right now. While we know that they want to bring back Atiesh, it might be a bit much to expect it in the upgraded Naxxramas, due to Karazhan and C'thun being obsolete, so we might have to wait for another opportune moment, such as if they implement the Karazhan Crypts. We know from the last Blizzcon that we may not be able to wield the Ashbringer either. Still, perhaps we'll be able to cleanse another corrupted Runeblade, and I'm still pulling for a Legendary rifle from Uldum or Ulduar or Thor Modan, if only because Dwarves with guns is one of the best fantasy concepts ever invented, and it pains me that my Dwarf Hunter must currently wield a crossbow.
Subscribe
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
6-06-2008 @ 7:09PM
RichM said...
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=4272228429&sid=1
Make it 100% drop rate for the 2nd binding after you have the 1st.
The Ragnaros quest item is 100% if you are on the quest, and the sword is mostly useless these days (and more so at level 80) so why not?
Would it really hurt anyone? No.
Reply
6-06-2008 @ 7:36PM
Lycanthro said...
How can you say it pains you to see your dwarf wielding a crossbow when you said earlier in the article you played EverQuest? Remember the Coldain?
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=4927
I couldn't find a picture of one of them but when you entered Thurgadin the rows of Coldain sentries all wielded crossbows.
(for the noobs, the Coldain were a race of Frost Dwarves from the ice-continent of Velious)
Reply
6-06-2008 @ 8:40PM
Kanuris said...
Because as he stated in the article, Dwarves with guns are awesome.
6-07-2008 @ 12:08AM
Jessierockeron said...
Not all of us played Everquest Lycanthro, watch who you're calling a noob.
And yes, dwarves with guns are awesome
6-06-2008 @ 7:42PM
g said...
The sulfuron hammer required for Sulfuras does reauire a quest to craft, but the hammer itself is BoE so you could have just paid somebody (a lot) to make it for you. Once you have that you just combine it with the eye that drops off Rag.
Reply
6-06-2008 @ 7:50PM
Thomas said...
I know it's friday night, but did anyone proofread this first? There seems to be a few missing words
Reply
6-06-2008 @ 9:28PM
Gzub said...
Wow, this was a poor effort. I'm sure Daniel had good intentions, but this is a really sloppy article. It was distractingly hard to read. And he's the second most prolific blogger on the site.
"Secondly, sometimes a quest just doesn't needful. After all, Illidan's blades are Illidan's blades. It doesn't seem like he keep them at low power or let them leave his hands -- and thus it makes sense that they'd be ready to use when you them from him."
6-06-2008 @ 7:54PM
kr3wman said...
Nihilum killed Illidan ~50 times and never, ever got 1 warglaive.
Reply
6-06-2008 @ 11:01PM
Dixonij said...
Sucks to be them then.
6-06-2008 @ 8:44PM
Kristianna said...
"Secondly, sometimes a quest just doesn't needful"
.... Seriously. Blog or not, that's terrible.
Reply
6-07-2008 @ 3:25AM
rick gregory said...
So... before you get all uppity about the language... there's nothing wrong with it. Needful is a perfectly good English word:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/needful
Try again...
6-07-2008 @ 2:45PM
Anid Maro said...
"Secondly, sometimes a quest just doesn't needful"
"...just doesn't needful"
"...doesn't needful"
The issue isn't the word.
Try again...
6-07-2008 @ 2:16AM
Sirg said...
Quests are better than random drops for aquiring legendaries.
Quests = more lore
Legendaries are almost like any epic, but the difference is that they have alot of lore attached to it. What is cool about one is that you might think that it doesn't really exist, that everything said about it are just legends... but one day some great adventurer comes with it and it's only one on the server, or among a select few.
Thunderfury was the best, and perhaps only the low drop rate in MC was a bad idea. The effort required to get it in preBC days was huge.
Reply
6-07-2008 @ 3:09AM
Smilodon said...
i agree that in some cases quests just don't seem needed to get use the legendary item. but the quests do make the item seem all that much cooler and more legendary and gives a warm and fuzzy feeing because you know that you had to do extra work besides just downing the boss to get that legendary weapon that will make everyone in a 50 foot radius stop and inspect you. for example, blizzard could have easily added a small quest that caused you to have to "cleanse" or "purify" the warglaives because they were corrupted after being in the possession of a demon (Illidan) for so long. it could have been as simple as running back to A'dal and saying "Here! Fix it!" but it wuld have made the glaives seem even more powerful and unique because they culdnt just be picked up and put on
Reply
6-07-2008 @ 3:56AM
PimpyMicPimp said...
To me, drop legendaries arn't very legendary at all.
Legendaries should be attained through long, epic, guildwide questlines (like the old ones), not beating the RNG. Getting a 1% drop is not legendary, it's lucky. However, taking weeks do to a questchain is. It's the same reason I don't see Death Knights as a hero class; having a level 55 Character is not heroic at all.
In sum, Quests > Drops.
Reply
6-07-2008 @ 5:04AM
Brian said...
I think quests for legendaries is a bad thing. We have already had epics come down in rarity because of the BGs and Badges. While these 2 loot distribution methods are preferable there should still be some ultra rare loot in the game that drops off the most difficult of bosses.
While I would love to see epic quest lines that reward an epic weapon I would rather it was more universal and dealt with the lore. So you'd be interacting with Tyrande or Thrall regularly and doing missions for them and by the end you had a full blue armour set maybe a nice ring a couple of trinkets and an Epic Weapon. I'd like to see trinkets that are tied to bosses perhaps a use of a trinket gives a debuff to mobs within a certain radius that makes a boss easier to kill. Or like the PvP trinket in Mount Hyjal it allows you to mitigate a boss' ability making an encounter simpler.
I guess what I am getting at is how in Zelda you would always get a key weapon for defeating a boss in the dungeon. I'd like to see that in WoW in the form of trinkets but I don't want to see quest lines for legendaries. Legendaries aren't for everyone that's what makes them special. I had the quest for the level 60 hunter bow but I never completed it because it was just too tricky for me. (kiting up hill is a pain in the butt) But I wouldn't mind long quests where you kill a bunch of named mobs in cool locations, that would be funski.
Reply
6-07-2008 @ 5:43AM
Avtalyon said...
"It happened quite often with Atiesh. I knew many raid groups that just didn't want to kill C'thun anymore after Naxxramas came out. Getting 40 people to dodge Dark Glare and kill tentacles was just too hard for them, or they didn't want fight through all the annoying trash, or they didn't really need any loot off the other bosses... the list went on."
I'm sorry - no offense - but are you freaking kidding me? Guilds with an attitude like that aren't worth getting *any* legendary at all in my honest opinion.
Needless to say, I'm in favor of the legendaries via quests idea, just because of the fact that guilds actually were able and willing to put in the effort to go back to lower tier instances to help their members in obtaining the items needed for their legendary quests.
Plus, there were hardly any fights in the game that feel more legendary and novel than fighting Atiesh, Hand of Sargeras in Stratholme (with his own legendary weapon) - and that was long before the release of hard 5-man, i. e. heroics as well as the Kael'thas encounter, phase 2.
Reply
6-07-2008 @ 5:52AM
Fendrieon said...
@rick gregory
So how does a quest "do needful" (or "not do needful" in this case)?
Please enlighten all of us English language noobs.
Reply
6-07-2008 @ 6:23AM
Tridus said...
The old legendaries were still drops. Just talk to the guilds who farmed MC for a year and never managed to get the bindings needed in order to start the Thunderfury quest.
The difference is that now its just a drop. Back then it was drops AND a bunch of work after you got the drop.
Reply
6-07-2008 @ 8:17AM
Caribez said...
Why does everything have to black or white? I'd prefer having the item drop, then a less complicated quest just for the attunement for the weapon. Maybe 5 quests in a chain involvning getting a kind of driver's license for the weapon. :)
Reply