From the way I've read the post, I thought that Xi- was emphasising on the fact that there is not much incentive to conduct raids any longer. This could predominantly be due to the fact that Blizzard had made the game a tad too casual then before - People stuck around even though they didn't want to only so that they may be rewarded more generously with either gear, reputation or lore - this is especially the theme pre-BC. To quote him:

"I'd love to be able to sit here and tell you this was a result of the casualization of the game, of feeding us easy encounters for mediocre rewards, while at the same time undercutting these meagre accomplishments and upgrades with welfare epics obtainable by anyone who has a large quantity of time, regardless of their skill or lack thereof. Let's be honest the theme of TBC is sacrificing everything that was good about raiding on the altar of accessibility"

And perhaps this statement has some merit to it and may be true in lieu of WoW becoming a more casual accessible game - there are less challenges around, even so less rewards to be meted out for those players who overcome the high odds of the challenge itself: the "epic Welfare scenario" and BoJ implementation, the removal of atonements, the nerfing of bosses (i do agree to bug fixes to remove impracticalities, but never nerfing it to the point of making it easier).

The mentality of Blizzard in setting the stage for "overly casual" play is either that of being extremely short-sighted or maybe it is their intended target after all?. I say "short-sighted" because I strongly believe that a game with no challenges insurmountable to that of a single person or a group of ordinary people will, inevitably, fade off. Why would a game fade off in popularity by merely being less challenging or time consuming, you might ask? Well, for most of us, we semi-consciously stick around the world of Azeroth/Outlands with hopes and aspirations of becoming THE best equipped, best geared, the highest ranked pixel ... there is a humanly sub-conscious need for us to prove ourselves better than other people for various reasons. After all, if this were not the case the arguments and demands from casuals to entitle them to equal purple loot (on the basis that they pay the equal money for the game) will fall flat and they would hard pressed to counter-argue this should I bring up the subject of playing Single player games (especially in the no rewards genre like FPS – excluding BF2 and the post-patch TF2). If one is not fussed about merely retaining blues or greens on their character, then I sincerely concede my argument on this point. But then again, I assume this stance only because I dare not imagine anyone could find running around Azeroth/Outlands on a daily basis, completing repetitive chores such as dailies, fishing or killing the same old pixelated mobs to be sustainably interesting - the point being, doing away with challenges and its severely ridiculous yet highly important time-drain factor, and WoW and any other successful MMO will no longer be an appealing game, based on my earlier arguments.

As for those folks who meekly declare that their money's worth is that of Lore, I find this proposition to be unconvincing. Why would one attempt to waste their time playing a game just to entitle them to capture the lore of Warcraft? There are tonnes of Warcraft laden lore books on the market at the moment and my presumption, though biased but true, would be that at least half of such people demanding to see/feel/hear the lore through the computer screen, have yet to pick up one of these Warcraft written books (which i highly recommend). Coming back to my point, it is inevitable that one is only human, and their sub-conscious need to prove oneself better then others is both permissible and far from immoral. After all, what use is there for grinding mobs or running daily quests day-in day-out if it were not for “real-life worthless” Gold (with the exception for Gold Farmers), for running the same old instances again and again (even though with intolerable pick ups) with fingers-crossed that a statistical probability (of gaining specific loot) will occur? It all sensibly leads to my previous argument that WoW should be (yet it is direly subverting from it) based on the fundamental aspects of any traditional MMOs – to satisfy this “e-peen”, or ego or what not, be it sub-conscious or not.

To conclude, I have a strong feeling, seeing how things are going, that WotLK will be the final episode to this fantastic chapter of Warcraft history, its swan song being a deception to the people to go will and buy it. 10 million subscribers in the end of the day will find the exact emptiness I felt, a void that was once filled with a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment – after all, sustaining a game on merely dailies, and short instances with push over raids, will lose its general appeal in a slow but steady fashion.


(P.S before one goes on to dismiss this opinion as being hypocritical and elitist, I can assure you that despite having downed Illidan 4 months back, with my Haomorush EU guild, I have put my mouth where my money is and have stopped playing WoW since then due to the prescribed reasoning above. In addition, I DO NOT consider myself hardcore as I only spent 3 raiding days a week (mindful of my law degree in tow) and pre-BC was only a ZG raider only. I have played with my 3/8 T6 Warlock main and a Warrior alt, since Early Nov 2005.)

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