I like what your trying to say, but don't think the scale of the supposed impending doom adds that much to the game. As you say it's a seven year old "game", but really the game is only a year old (effectively WoW 2.0), while the style of the game has been streamlined over a seven year period.

We do some dungeons/raids that outline what is going on. Then we do them some more till a patch comes out, the world changes slightly and we do the new dungeons/raids to receive a bit more story content, then do them some more ... .

I haven't paid any attention to the lore (or even read any quest text) since about level 20 on my first ever toon. We continually move through the world, leaving area's and npc's we meet behind, well not the AH/bank guys, they are more important to me than any other npc in the game. I have been trained not to get attached to the npc's or locations in the world, unless they have portals in them.

If I felt some attachment to the world or the npc's in it I might pay attention to the stuff the npc's are saying, or what the raids are about. We've got void storage to hold onto those items we grew attached to and I guess some of the transmog people might be doing for it nostelga(sp?), so people are attached to stuff ... I guess.

If Deadwing was going to delete my bank and void storage, I would be seriously engaged by the story, hell I would be activating alt accounts.

Deadwing is just doing some stuff and I have to wait around on some of the fights for the dialog to end before the combat can begin. Then I just focus on the encounter mechanics to get it done. Some of them are fun the first few times, some are fun later on with under geared groups, it's definitely more entertaining that TV (for me personally anyway).

I have to admit I like the game like this though. I don't have to care about lore or the world. As long as I can get around the place I can do a few dungeons to gear up then raid.

The new raid finder is awesome: hit 85, pvp a bit, hit raid finder and vp cap on new dungeons for a few weeks and you're ready to raid. I don't even have to leave Dalaran except to spend tokens and reforge.

In terms of out with a bang, I personally hope it's more like "out with lesson's learned". The 4.0 raids felt more like I was playing a platform game in a raiding environment. It's like the devs were playing some kind of joke on us: jump through hoops for you loots. And all that interupting stuff, omg?

I liked this patch, it's more like: stack/spread, switch to the this target, move out of this and that, none of it seriously overdone. And there are a smattering of fights where the raid gets to make choices. Like the slime fight, which one are you going to kill? Or the last fight where you chose the order you're going to do the islands in. Sure they may degrade to this is the optimal order (I haven't seen them in hardmode), but I think that having a choice about how to overcome the encounter makes it more engaging and a raid strating level.

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