I was running Drak’Tharon Keep on my warrior tank. A hunter decided to go AFK pretty much right after the first pull, and didn’t move from the spot. I tried to kick him, but got the response “cannot kick someone that close after combat” or something like that. Impatient as I am I moved on, but after each pull I tried to kick him again, to no avail. To make things worse you cannot kick someone during loot rolls, and since the hunter was AFK and being in range, we had to wait for him to auto-pass on rolls, and during that time couldn’t kick him.

Finally just before the last boss another player in the party somehow managed to enable a vote kick, and we replaced the fifth player halfway through the last fight.

My own current stats in the Vote Kick system: 0 times kicked.

Most of the raid encounters in World of Warcraft has the same basic concept. You got a boss, and you tank it until dead. Tank ‘n’ spank. Then you add a “gimmick” feature on top of the tank ‘n’ spank fight and get a standard raid encounter. Onyxia fears, Prince Malchezaar summons infernals, Flame Leviathan are done in vehicles, etc.

I have done pretty much all of WoW’s raid content, from Classic up to now, and below is a list of what I consider the most original encounters in the game. Not fun, challenging, or awesome (although some are all of these), just original. An encounter where you can imagine that the designers just went crazy in the brainstorm sessions where they came up with them. In no specific order:

Gunship Battle – Icecrown Citadel, Wrath of the Lich King

The Gunship Battle is an aerial fight between the Horde gunship Orgrim’s Hammer and the Alliance Skybreaker. As if fighting on an airborne gunships wasn’t cool enough, you also have to fire cannons on the other ship and use Jet Packs to fly over to the other ship and times to take out a mage that freezes your guns.

Razorgore the Untamed – Blackwing Lair, Classic

You ultimately have to kill him in a tank and spank fight, but to get to that point you have to take control of the boss and break all the eggs in the room. It’s up to the rest of the raid to protect Razorgore and the controller from the hordes of adds that are summoned from all four corners of the room. It is a frenzy that borders oh so close on full chaos.

Hakkar the Soulflayer – Zul’Gurub, Classic

A relatively easy fight is made impossible since Hakkar siphons life from every raid member at specific times. How do you kill a self-healing boss? I would love to know just how the first raiders thought about this, since the solution is not the most obvious. You have to kite a mob that spawns on the way to Hakkar, kill it at precise timing, and then have every raid member stand in the poison cloud that appears. Hakkar then siphons your life – but it’s poison! Problem solved.

Majordomo - Molten Core, Classic

Original in the sense that you actually don’t kill the boss, you just kill his adds. Majordomo comes with 8 adds, 4 of which must be tanked, and 4 which must be crowd controlled. When all adds are killed Majordomo surrenders (“Impossible! Stay your attack, mortal… I submit! I submit!”) and goes to summon Ragnaros.

Ossirian the Unscarred – Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj, Classic

Ossirian starts the fight in Supreme Mode, which is well worthy of capitalization, since in this mode he hits like a truck. Instead tanks have to quickly grab some aggro on him, and then start running. You kite him to huge pillars that appear in the ground to dispel the Supreme Mode and make Ossirian vulnerable to a school of magic. Repeat until dead.

Opera Event – Karazhan, The Burning Crusade

The Opera Event in Karazhan breaks the mould in more than one aspect. First of all you don’t know which of three random encounters you will get before the start, and secondly the encounters is based on real life tales and movies. You have:

• Big Bad Wolf (“What phat lewts you have grandmother”; “All the better to own you with!”) based on the Little Red Riding Hood tale. Turns one of the raid members into a gnome with a red hood, and the Big Bad Wolf will start chasing you. Then it’s another raid members turn.
• Wizard of Oz (“Oh dear, we simply must find a way home! The old wizard could be our only hope! Strawman, Roar, Tinhead, will you… wait! Oh golly, look! We have visitors!”), based on the tale with the same name. You have to fight five bosses (Dorothee, Roar, Strawman, Tinhead, and Tito the dog), each who has to be handled in a specific way.
• Romulo and Julianna (“What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?”), based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. First you have to kill Julianna, then Romulo, and then both at once.

Chess Event – Karazhan, The Burning Crusade

You are not fighting a boss at all, you are fighting chess! Each player take control of a piece on a chess board, and then you must kill all the opposite pieces controlled by Medivh (who cheats). Chess has never been so exciting.

Heigan the Unclean – Naxxramas, Classic/Wrath of the Lick King

“A Necromancer specialized in diseases and dancing.” A simple tank and spank fight, except that at intervals you all have to avoid the floor erupting in flames by standing in specific places and then move to another location after each eruption. Also known as “The Heigan Dance”. Holy crap! The floor’s trying to kill us!

Loatheb – Naxxramas, Classic/Wrath of the Lick King

Loatheb is an anagram for “Healbot”. Loatheb casts an aura that reduces healing by 100%, and you only have 3 seconds to actually heal before he recasts it. With normal tanking and AoE damage it makes the fight very interesting from a healing perspective.

Thaddius - Naxxramas, Classic/Wrath of the Lick King

Thaddius is a fight, not just against the boss, but also against electricity. Everyone in the raid will receive either a negative or a positive debuff, and if a player with negative stand close to one with positive the raid might wipe. If two players with the same debuff stands close they receive a damage buff. Then he will change the debuffs several times during the fight so people have to rearrange themselves.

When battling a raid boss I’m a stone-cold killer. I can manage my complex rotations, keep an eye on the raid, the chat, and talk about the weather on Teamspeak. When other people turn into wild chimpanzees that yell hysterically on Teamspek when we are about to down a boss for the first time I always manage to keep my calm.

But when it comes to PvP all that goes straight out the window. My blood starts to boil, my vision narrows, verbal communication turns into repeating “Die! Die! Die! Hruugha!” over and over, and my precise rotations become a wild button-smashing almost turning into literally rolling my face across the keyboard. Why? I don’t know, I’m no Sigmund Freud. Possibly something to do with battling a real intelligent human being that is intent on killing you and teabagging your corpse.

Rated Battlegrounds that comes in Cataclyms will likely change the battleground a lot. When people play the normal Battlegrounds they might play to win, but the first reason they are in there is to earn honor points. Sometimes those two objectives align, and sometimes they don’t. If you lose in a Battleground you just lose some bonus honor. You still receive all that you gathered during the game.

In Arenas you get a penalty for losing, and that’s what makes every battle fought all about winning. So with rated battlegrounds winning becomes the first and only priority. Hopefully that means people will really start to work together and towards the greater good, not just their personal interests. Protecting flag carriers, capturing towers, aiding your healers, crowd controlling. Rated battlegrounds will be a huge step up for teamplay, and I hope I can keep my inner monkey leashed and controlled when it comes.

On one hand I want to see everything new, changed, and prepare myself (my toon) for the real deal. I love the entire concept of Cataclysm, because at the very core I am an Explorer. I love diving around the sea just to see what’s down there. I explore every cranny and crook of the mountains. There isn’t a single spot in Azeroth or Kalimdor where I haven’t been. Cataclyms will change the landscape, so basically I can explore the entire world again. Yes, I care about raids, items, levels, talents, and all that stuff. But it’s the new unexplored world that intrigues me the most.

On the other hand I want to experience it in all its pureness. Barrens become boring just the second time you do it, and coming into Cataclyms to do stuff I have already done would be a sacrilege.

But maybe if I experience it early I can ignore it when I play the real deal and put more focus on levelling. Choices.

At the end I think I will just read the information and look on some screenshots. That way I will be both prepared and satisfy my curiosity, while not ruining the first experience. And once I get the box in my hands (or digital or whatever) I will be so filled up with anticipation that the enjoyment will be ten times greater.

The issue was that plenty of statistics showed that only the very tip of the iceberg that is the WoW playerbase got to beat the final boss–the main villain of the expansion–Illidan. I never got to. My guild cleared Mount Hyjal and got halfway through Black Temple before Wrath of the Lich King came out, and then we thought we did pretty well.

Blizzards solution to this was the badge/emblem system. It was brought in at the end of the Burning Crusade, and came to its full in Wrath of the Lich King. By running heroic 5 man dungeons you got badges (you also got them from raids, and in larger quantity), and with them you could buy epic gear. It was a nice feature that made heroic dungeons popular again, and even if you didn’t get any loot from encounters you still got badges. My guild even started running Karazhan again just for badges.

The real problem arose in WotLK, when Blizzard decided to upgrade badges after each new raiding tier. First you got Naxxramas-level gear from running heroics. Then you got Ulduar-level gear from running heroics. Now you get Trial of the Crusader-level gear from running heroics. For letting new players/alts come in and immediately be able to raid the latest content it was a good system. Except it also made all the earlier raiding tiers completely obsolete.

For what? So that as much as possible of the WoW population get to kill Arthas before the next expansion. So that Blizzard can boast with a much higher percentage number compared to The Burning Crusade.

Is it worth it?

Considering that there is new 5 man dungeons where players can finally meet Arthas (although not kill him), and by clicking on a memorial in Dalaran you can see the cut-scene where Arthas dies, without ever stepping into a raid, I’d say no, it’s not worth it.

In The Burning Crusade you had guilds all over the progression ladder. Some were in Karazhan, some were in Serpentshrine Cavern or Tempest Keep, and some were in Mount Hyjal or Black Temple. Is that really a bad thing? Do every single guild need to be in Black Temple, just like every single guild is in Icecrown Citadel now? If you came late to the party in TBC you had to start at the beginning like everyone else and work yourself upwards. In WotLK you start at the bottom, then jump immediately to the top.

Just so you can kill Arthas.