Raiding is a success in some ways and a failure in others. I'll explain:

In BC and Vanilla the raids were made to be so hard as to prohibit progression. Some of the most beautiful and detailed instances in the game were simply inaccessible to most players. T4 may have been nerfed into the ground, but T5 was some of the hardest content in the game. To say that guilds broke up over Kael is an understatement. The situation was more or less the same in pre-TBC, but with the added obstacle of requiring 40 people.

There are benefits and downsides to this. The downside, as I have mentioned, is that players are restricted from seeing certain content, either due to time constraints, skill level, lack of dedication, or even latency issues. This caused drama, and was somewhat unfair to those people who didn't have excessive time to pour into this game.

The benefit of it, from the raiders' perspective, was the feeling of pride and accomplishment when you stood over the body of that last boss. The reward for them, was not just the phat lootz (although this is a nice reward), it was also seeing the rest of the story play out in the boss' defeat. I'm thinking of Sunwell, and the long sequence at the end where the Sunwell gets relit with holy light. The "end credits" are a major reward in themselves.

There's also a positive side for those players who are not downing these bosses. It's something to aspire to. There's a certain mystique inherant in content that you can't access yet. You can look forward to clearing it someday. Whereas now everyone and their brother has killed Malygos, teabagged Sartharion, and sat on KT's throne. Too many people are done with the content or are working on the immortal (which is definitely THE most irritating achievement).

Achievements and hard modes fulfil some of the positives of the ultra-hard content. They give challenge, they allow players to look cool and show off their exceptional dedication to raiding. But a title is NOT the same. Achievements are NOT the same. Even getting additional, superior loot doesn't give the same sense of satisfaction and pride. Are hardmodes a success? Yes. The idea of hardmodes is an excellent one. The execution in Obsidian Sanctum is superb. The title is awesome. But it's not the same as having a dungeon that only the truly dedicated can reach. Players (and not just the hardcore raiders) are starting to get bored. There's not as much motivation to get that next boss down. There's not as much flavor and mystique to the endgame as there was.

So, again, raiding in Wrath is both successful and not. The real test for it is going to be Ulduar.

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