Dungeon Journals: What's the big fuss?


So the Public Test Realm is back. Yay! It's like getting to pre-open our Christmas presents! Or get a sneak peek at the final exam questions from our "Intro to Quantum Mechanics" course. Or like finding out what you're going to look like in 20 years.

This latest venture into the PTR has a new feature Blizzard it's testing: the Dungeon Journal. It's an interesting tool to help provide information on boss fights, locations, gear and more. I can see the value in the system but I think there's an unforeseen element that has caused some significant concern amongst the more serious raiders. I'm not saying it's exclusively an elite raider issue, either, because it's not. Any player who is serious about their raiding--even if they have to play at a more casual pace--would prefer not to know every little detail about a boss fight. We raid because we like to solve the puzzle: "How will 10 or 25 of us manage to get this boss down before we die from all of the stuff it throws at us?"

Yes this does impact the elite raiding guilds most directly because they are the ones that get to the heroic content first and for many of them, they are troubleshooting the very nature of the encounter to determine what happens and how it should be overcome. You see, raiding at the elite level isn't just about getting the bosses down, it's also about figuring out how to do it. So when Blizzard opted to include a lot of detail about the boss fights at the heroic level, it was not well received. Why give so much away when this particular group likes to figure it out on their own, they seem to be asking. Why take away one of the most important elements of our fun?

What do you think? I've got a new poll up on my research blog, please go and vote!


Comments

Well the race for first will be trivialized that is for sure. All the theorycrafting and combat log digging wont be the issue, it will be raid comp and player performance.

The guild that DC's the least wins! :P

Datamining didn't trivialize things, it only makes planning easier. The Dungeon Journal is essentially datamining to the power of two, on drugs. It will make things simpler and take away enjoyment from the raiding process from those who appreciate that aspect, but trivializing is far too strong a word for it still.

TRIVIALIZING!!! ok maybe that is too harsh of a word but it sure as hell will speed things up.

Can't agree with you guys on this one.

If you think the journal ruins the race for kills, the ptr itself shouldn't have raids openly tested.

". I'm not saying it's exclusively an elite raider issue, either, because it's not. Any player who is serious about their raiding--even if they have to play at a more casual pace"

Yeah, anyone that is not a elite raider will watch many videos on youtube, read about the bosses on wowhead. What's the dungeon journal compared to that? Nothing.

You're saying it's not only an elite raider issue, because it's not as powerful of a tool as boss guides and videos, which are only NOT available to... Yeah, makes sense.

I doubt any of us would moan one bit if Blizzard shut down PTR testing but that obviously isn't going to happen.

One thing could be done to keep the nice challenge of world firsts: the journal for the current tier could be available only a certain time after the release of it. That would be cool :]