#1 - May 17, 2011, 1:15 a.m.
The dungeon journal feature, as currently implemented on the PTR, has elicited a "gut reaction" from most of the high-end raiding community. This thread is a place for us to try and provide tangible insight to why we feel the way we do, and offer solutions and compromises that we feel will satisfy all types of players.
The following is my personal opinion on the Dungeon Journal.
Overall, I really like it. A searchable, in-game, item drop database is fantastic. Listing all the bosses and instances from an intuitively easy to navigate in-game pane is something I think a lot of people have wanted to see in WoW for several years. The implementation with the dungeon maps themselves is perfect. You can see where the boss is located and click on their pictures to go straight to the correct section of the journal.
The major issue that I have with the Dungeon Journal however, is the actual content on the boss pages. On this latest PTR build I've found that every boss in Firelands, including ones we've never seen in game (such as Ragnaros), have their phases listed out. Each phase then lists every ability that occurs within and a short description of what the ability is and how it occurs (unlike a simple data-mined tool-tip).
In the past, data-mining a tool-tip (which I also did not like, but felt compelled to do for competitive reasons) still leaves little to no information about when it occurs in the fight, how many phases a fight has, what triggers the ability, and how the ability interacts with the others in the fight. We've had some of the pieces to the puzzle before we should have, but it was far and away nothing compared to the outline and flow of the fight that the Dungeon Journal provides.
So, the Dungeon Journal gives more information, including information about bosses we would never have expected to PTR test, why does anyone care? I care because for me, nothing is quite as fun as seeing a boss for the first time. Simultaneously having to read tool-tips and observe abilities, without ever seeing them before, while also actually pushing yourself to keep pulling and solve puzzles mid-attempt. Lately we have been forced to get on the PTR and test out a lot of the fights to experience this, but we did have some heroic modes and, of course, the final boss of each new instance to look forward to. Even that, now, is being taken away.
I understand that I am in a position of extreme minority, and that it will be hard for those who are not in a "no-life bleeding edge" raiding guild to relate to, however I do have a specific example that may help.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZh5ZCr1z90&t=5m25s
This is Adept's first 10man Heroic LK kill. This happened quite a while after LK was released. This happened after HUNDREDS of pulls, not just the first one. Ignoring all the Premonition !#%* talk (Vallkor lol), you can hear the excitement of the unknown. They have no idea if they won or not when LK uses "Fury of the Frostmourne". They have no idea if there will be a new phase in heroic or if they really did finish with a US first kill. That is what it has been like to get first kills in the past. We've had no idea on the exact workings of the abilities and the phases until we actually got the boss to those low percentages for the first time. This is what its like to be working on a new boss that has never been defeated or has no kill videos out. This is experienced by at least the top 20 guilds every tier. This will be gone forever if the Dungeon Journal remains as is.
