Draenor Diaries: Playing With the Blues

Thursday there was an in game Beta event where they were testing PVP Variances and Pre-Made Dungeons.

I joined one Pre-Made group and Formed one to see how they actually work.

We had no Blues in either group which seriously bummed the participants.  Some people were staying up till 1 and 3 in the morning in the hopes of playing with a Blue. 

Connectivity Issues:

PVE 100 Realm was completely down for the event.  Since those folks are testing the high level content and dungeons pretty exclusively it had to be a bummer for them to not be able to play unless they did a quick Pre-made or Transfer character on the Beta Leveling Realm.  That’s ten levels of skills and experience down the hole for those folks.

There were constant Disconnects and World Server Down problems throughout the Event, making a two hour event what? Forty five minutes worth of play time?

 

Blues Staffing

They didn’t say how many of their staff were participating but clearly they could have used many more.

I wondered if most were working on the PVP aspects, which made me think if they do more events they should split what they’re testing.  Certainly Dungeons and PVP should run separately.

There were only 4 to 6 Pre-Made Groups at any given time looking for members, so I think if staff were spread out they could easily have put a staffer in each group.

People reported that as they entered a group if they were not a Blue they were kicked right out.

There were apparently “Streamers” running groups and I suppose you wanted to be in one of those if you were staff so you could advertise the awesomeness of the event.

The Pre-Made Dungeon  Interface

 

 

You can Name Your Group Whatever Your Want

Say What Dungeon and whether Normal or Heroic

Choose what ILevel you want people to have

People ask to be invited to the group and the Leader sees the Character Name, Class, Ilevel and you can invite them or reject them

 

 

Everyone can see looking at the main list what roles are already filled in the group.  (Another suggestion, since every group needed a tank Blizzard should load their staff with tanks to help fill the groups).

There is an element here for people to feel shy about putting their name out there, and getting accepted or rejected.  Also it seems when someone makes their own group like this they may feel more empowered to just boot people, which on a social level isn’t so pleasant.

I think over time it may be that people will get reputations good or bad running these groups and it would useful for all if the Group Leader’s name was included so if you know you like running dungeons with this person or hate it, you are fairly warned.

I’ve seen the suggestion that you be allowed to also ask for people from your own realm or any realm in this interface and I think that would be excellent.

You need to be in your garrison or in front of the Pre-made Dungeon Teleporter NPC in Stormwind to enter a dungeon in the pre-made group.  Really inconvenient.

 

The Group Runs

 

Group Onewas in the Bloodmaul Slag Mines.  It was run by someone else. We just wiped then wiped again pretty early on and needless to say the group broke up.  Lots of problems with disconnects that didn’t help either.

 

Group TwoI took my teeny ego in hand and put a group out there.  This is an ego problem because it can be that nobody asks to enter your group and it’s a little daunting.  I honestly didn’t care if we had a Blue or not but felt bad for those folks who were so excited about it.

I turned the group over to the tank when they came in which turned out to be a mistake because he immediately rolled for a random dungeon and we ended up in the #$@^&*% Everbloom.  I have been trying to go in all of the dungeons and I officially hate Skyreach and Everbloom.

So die die die.  Tank leaves, I get group back.  The group finder allowed me to look for a new member and re-list the group.  I could edit the name anytime.

This time we go to Upper Blackrock Spire, my original dungeon request.  I keep the leadership this time.  We get a Tank, right.  Sigh.  I was paying attention to a variety of things and did not see that although the guy rolled in as a tank, he somehow was in there as DPS. And he wouldn’t move or tank and he was all about his live stream.  Nightmare. 

We only got as far as the spot where all the eggs usually are but they’re gone now and just a boss who needs to be dispelled and two adds and death death.

Mr. Stream ducks out.  I no longer have access to the dungeon finder interface to replace him so we are done.

 

Why would you use the Premade Dungeon?

You can choose classes you want for your party.

You can Choose Ilevel

In theory (mine) it should be that if you want to swap out a character…say you want to bring in one of your other toons or someone from your guild who will step in, you could just invite them to the group and voila away you go.  I asked people if they thought that was how it could work but no one had given it any thought or trial.

In theory if they let you choose from your own realm you could get to know players and develop some good teams over time.