I do believe somebody has thrown down the gauntlet, yessiree I see it right over there......

Someday, I'm gonna marry that girl.

Bravo, Ing. /cheers

So does this mean that we're gonna raid more?

From what I can tell 60-70 is non-stop instances. From 5 to 25 man. There will be a lot of grouping.

From what I can tell 60-70 is non-stop instances. From 5 to 25 man. There will be a lot of grouping.


Wow, such a complete 180 from what we do now! ;)

Only difference now will be that we get to level while killing the same mob 4 gazillion times for the next Druid Leggings to drop!

I wasn't gonna continue with this, but since it seems I was sorely misinterpreted, let me rephrase.

Please stop assuming that what I'm saying has anything to do with a sense of eliteness. I am sorry if what I've written comes across that way; it wasn't my intent. So please stop it, it is really, really hurting my feelings. Thanks.

That said, what I MEANT is that this is going to cause problems for high end raid guilds because tight raid means not everyone gets to go. High end guilds are used to the 40 man set up, and if Blizzard is changing the way raiding works, then naturally a period of difficult adjustment must follow. What has to happen is that either A) guilds recruit 10 more core players to fill out two 25 man groups or B) the guild's core is streamlined to fit within the 10 man mold. It has NOTHING TO DO with anything being more or less elite, or open, or whatever. It has everything to do with how the playerbase of high end raiding guilds will be forced to change. I realize that this is not your problem, and that you don't care. But changes will have to happen, and they are not going to be easy, because either people have to go or new people have to come in, and both changes of that type are hard to adjust to. That's ALL.

And what I mean by 'it doesn't matter' is that what it was like then has no bearing, logically, on what it's like now. Maybe Blizzard didn't intend the high end focus to be on 40 man. But the fact is that 40 man focus is how it's turned out, and to switch it back suddenly is going to cause raiders some trouble. How much trouble depends on the individual guilds, but even the best guilds will have some thinking to do.

As far as difficulty goes, yes, it's true, people can slack in Molten Core because it is a very straightforward instance. But when I said leeway I did not mean leeway in terms of how you play, I meant that in a 40 man you can have, theoretically, 8 of one class and 3 of another, because the 8 can make up for what's missing from the underrepresented class. I have made no aspersions on which classes, difficulty, etc. :|

Players without time, no matter how skilled, have had to adjust to having a whopping 0% of the end-game available to them. If 1% of the players have to adjust to paying attention to group makeup and sharing attendance so that the other 99% can actually access the game content, I don't see how that's bad.

From what I can tell 60-70 is non-stop instances. From 5 to 25 man. There will be a lot of grouping.

Really? Well that will change the way our guild operates a bit I would guess. We will become more efficient and streamlined at cat herding ;-) . So no noninstanced quests and mobs to grind on? I can't imagine it. Sounds great but seems unrealistic. Yay for change.

P.S. Deme, we love you and I don't think you are elitist, why else would you hang out with us wackos otherwise? Cheerio.

I didn't mean no noninstantced quests. I'm sure there will be solo stuff too. But for the next 10 levels there are already like 4 or 5 instances announced. And there may be more to come.

It has everything to do with how the playerbase of high end raiding guilds will be forced to change...But changes will have to happen, and they are not going to be easy, because either people have to go or new people have to come in, and both changes of that type are hard to adjust to....But the fact is that 40 man focus is how it's turned out, and to switch it back suddenly is going to cause raiders some trouble.


If your point is that things will change, well then that's obvious. And it has nothing to do with how many folks are in your raid group. Everyone will have to change to deal with having pallies or shamans. Everyone will have to change to deal with having new talents that change a class's ability. Everyone will have to change to deal with new spells, new gear, new mobs.

But if you think I should feel more strongly about 40-man guilds having to adjust to 25-man dungeons, then I can't really see where you are coming from. I can't see why their changes should have any more weight than everyone else's.

Where, exactly, did I say that it should? I'm only pointing out, from my personal perspective, why not everyone will receive this news gladly. Please do not place words in my mouth--I am expressing my personal feelings on this event just as everyone else is.

Those adjustments--new spells etc--are different than my sadness over the fact that I know a few friends of mine are going to be left behind owing to their schedules because of this new system, which is ultimately what I mean to express.

I maintain: that is not the game's fault. That is not the designers' fault. If a raid leader is going to be an asshole and doesn't know how to manage participation, then it is that one person's problem, and you find a new guild.

Where, exactly, did I say that it should? I'm only pointing out, from my personal perspective, why not everyone will receive this news gladly. Please do not place words in my mouth--I am expressing my personal feelings on this event just as everyone else is.


You need to relax. Did you see where I said "But if you are saying..." that means I am asking, I am unsure. I was looking for clarification.

Now if I had started my sentence with "Now, what Deme is saying is..." then I'd be putting words in your mouth.

I can see where D' is coming from. Say we have a regular ZG run going. Blizz decides to make it a 15 man. No big deal, we just run two. But with people's schedules we have to do different nights. Because of people's schedules and class make up you find you can only realistically get into the group on the night you have to get up early the next day, or just flat out aren't able to go, or you're of a class where the slots are very competitive. So suddenly you go from running ZG weekly to being in a guild with two ZG groups, but neither of which you can attend. We're all cool enough to work together and schedule so everyone would get a shot, but most guilds don't give a fuck. Sign up for the open slots, too late too bad sucka.
Another thing is with less people, unless they make it as easy as MC with 40 people, most guilds are going to have to seriously tighten up the classes you bring. Unless they make gimmick fights specifically for hybrids or certain classes, classes are going to be left out by raiding guilds or are going to be doing the same things they are now. Feral druid? We have 5 melee dps slots open, better served by fury warriors or rogues. Once we have it on farm we might be willing to risk having you, but until then sorry. Oh wait, you're willing to heal? Ticket to ride, just respec. Yea, I know you don't like it but get in the bitching line with the shadow priests. Warlock? Well we have one for a Soulstone, provided the dungeon make up allows it to be used. Other than that we're sticking to mages and hunters. Once we have it down we'll bring you, don't worry. Unless we moved on by then. God forbid most of the bosses have aoe attacks. Rogues? Ummmm, sorry. You're great for clearing the trash, but seriously, you spend half the boss fight not fighting (this is one spot where the hybrids would shine however, they can either heal or range dps usefully while rogues stand around spamming their shoot bow button).
So yea, it does come down to if the guild is huge and uncaring or smaller and intimate. But for I imagine the majority of raiders their only experience in end game guilds have been guilds of convenience, designed to organize and push 40 man raids. Like a beaten dog they're skittish about their raid slots, not willing to trust their leadership farther than they can throw them, and more than willing to bite if they feel threatened. On the plus side for us we can pick them up when they eventually bail and try to rehabilitate them, but we have to realize they're a different breed of animal and may never fit in.

HEH well said KT! While we probably won't want the uber raid leaders from the current guilds, it would be fun to play with their minds and then send them on their way!
Also, I don't see VS having any problem with the upcoming changes. First off, we've never done a 40-man instance. Reducing the cap to 25 would not affect us. Why? Because most of us have never seen any of the 40-man instances, so we wouldn't know the difference. I myself never set foot in Scholomance until it was limited to 5-man, so that is all I have ever known of Scholo. Strat - I hit it maybe 3 times with more than 5 people until the patch, so again I pretty much only know it with 5-man. I think VS will have a great advantage over the high-end, uber, phat lewt seeking guilds, because we're used to adapting...they are not.

Unless we're blocked by gear we'll be in a very positive position post expansion. We just have to bear in mind that there is likely to be a huge amount of drama in the larger raiding guilds, and be very careful on invitations unless we want to be swamped by bitter refugees. However having well geared experienced raiders would also be a positive. I reckon that we will have to continue on judging people on their personalities rather than knowledge or gear, otherwise we could be blinded to something that will eventually destroy us. We need to recruit more people like Demetriana that will lift us up rather than drag us down.
Speaking of gear I'm curious on what type of gear will be necessary for these new instances. Will some be only for the tiered few or can a 60-63 in greens jump in? They speak of them being self adjusting, maybe that will be a factor in the difficulty. I just hope to god Blizz gave up on the resist cock block model for dungeons.

Oh, and another thought on the 40 man raids. It may not have been how the game was originally intended, but look on what ONE play type has been rewarded since MC first came out. The 40 man raid guilds where handed the game on a silver platter at that time and it has only been reinforced over and over. They had the first realm event ever (as far as I know, not counting the end of times after the play testing) based on getting them into a 40 man raid dungeon with a quest only doable by people who where farming the highest end raid dungeon at the time. The second realm event was based on yet another 40 man dungeon. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that this had become a raider's game. That ending means the game has changed fundamentally and totally from what they're used to and had been encouraged to do from the game developers themselves. There is going to be strong negative feelings about this and the bitch of it is they're justified in feeling so. Whether or not that was an appropriate play style is irrelevant, it is what they where led to do to advance by the people making the game. This is the second bait and switch Blizz has pulled (first being getting to 60 doing small dungeons, then finding out to improve at all you must 40 man something), but this time they actually looked at the numbers and went with the majority base (what I hope is the majority base). Imagine if there had been no 40 man raids pre expansion then the expansion was announced to have only 40 man raids. The announced change is easier to deal with in a strong guild, but there is still going to be similar panic, confusion and anger. Also, while I may be personally overjoyed at the change, and it may keep me playing, we must recognize other people are being forced to change, as opposed to simply having an alternative play style open to them. I imagine they’re as pissed as I was when I finally realized if I didn’t alter my play style my characters would never improve.

I don't understand why there's panic, confusion, and anger. What is extant in the game now is NOT changing. They're not saying WHOOPS BWL is only 25-man now! NO. *ONLY* new content is 25-man or lower. Was there panic, confusion, and anger when ZG was added in 1.7 and it was only 20-man? No.

Because change is scary, that's mostly why.

And because many raiders (not including anyone who is reading this forum) have equated the size of their cocks with the size of their raids.

My favorite whiny post on the WoW boards was titled "ZG + 5 man != epic". As if fighting Illidan is gonna be just like fighting Hakkar, but with 5 more buddies along for the ride.

There can be one on one epic battles. Illidan vs. Arthas, for example, or for those who aren't into the previous Warcraft games, Vader vs. Obi-Wan, or Gandalf vs. Balrog.

Whew. Thanks for seeing my point, KT <3

I do get defensive about this because I AM a sensitive person and that is how I am and always will be. I'm not going to start bashing on raiding, either, because even when I stop (which will be sooner rather than later, honestly, grad school isn't a good fit to a raiding life) I will likely miss at least some parts of it. Some parts I won't miss, some people I won't miss.

However, there are a few people in particular that I love, truly love, in my current raiding guild, and I am so sad for them because I don't know what's going to happen to them once this happens. One is a law student who can't log in that much because she's busy doing an internship. The other is a man who lives in Australia who can't log in that much because A) 15 hours apart and B) he has a job, and since it's early morning there when it's evening here, you can see how that conflicts. As it stands, both of these people are able to get raid slots with regularity whenever they sign on, not only because they're excellent players and we love them, but because with 40 man, that leeway exists. When fighting new encounters, especially, we go on for a while and people have to leave for other obligations, so finding them a slot EVENTUALLY always happens. With this new system? No. Not going to happen, for exactly the reasons KT described.

It's not as easy as 'find a new guild.' Find a new guild to a raider means multiple things: 'find a new set of friends' 'find a new set of friends with a schedule like yours' 'start over from the lowest rank and lowest priority' etc etc.

KT is right when he says a raider playstyle is a different breed of animal. You might think the policies encouraged by a lot of raid guilds are cruel, and yeah, maybe they are. But in a guild where the objective is to progress as quickly as possible while at the same time making the most people happy, they make sense. For example: if my friend, who is a mage, had people sit out for him occasionally, then he would acquire the latest gear. But since he's not on that much, he wouldn't use it that much. The prevailing philosophy here, to the mages who ARE on, why should I let this guy take gear he's hardly ever going to use over me, who is going to use it frequently? In a raiding guild, gear belongs theoretically not just to you, but also to the whole guild, because you would not have been able to acquire that leet tier 2 or AQ 40 set without your 39 comrades. So it's expected that you're putting what you've acquired to use in service of the guild. I know that sounds pretty serious, but believe me -- at the highest end, raiding guilds ARE serious :\

Is that cruel? Perhaps. But it's logical. I'm not saying I like it. I'm saying it's what is going to happen and I DON'T like it. Maybe I'm not putting enough faith into my guild and others like it, we'll see. But I'm worried about them all the same.

You're wrong in thinking it's not changing for these people. You're right in thinking it's not changing for us. Their game experience is not going to be the same in the expansion as it was pre expansion. For some long timers 40 man raid has been the game since MC came out. That's longer than allot of people have been playing. For almost every week, on the same day they're been forming a group of most of the same 39 other people and operating in that environment since MC came out, or they got a toon to 60. The dungeons have changed but the idea was the same.
And ZG was not made designed for them. Comparing the release of that is similar as comparing our reaction to a new level 55 dungeon. Yea, there might be some nice items floating around, but on whole are they on par to say what the Baron drops? Maybe close in a different way, but generally not.
As for fear, yes, but I've noticed the thing people are most afraid of is their own guild. They know the score, they've come to accept the advance at all costs ethic some have, but alot are just normal players who hit the guild lotto and found one where they fit in. For the longest time it's been what worked for them. Now there will be less raid slots per raid, they know people will be excluded or put in a group that is designed to be inferior on purpose because of spec, or gear, or lack of brown nosing. Some may have deserved it, but most are just going to get screwed over. However, I'm trying to stifle my own schadenfreude, mainly because they are getting the rules changed on them by Blizz when the expansion hits, and we all know how that feels since we reached 60 and learned raid or die.
Oh, and I maintain it is the designer’s fault. Say your company makes 15,000 year making widgets (yes, cloning Widget, be very afraid). They’re called Widget International. A widget is the spoke widget. However they make 3,000,000 a year making notwidgets. Are they a widget company or notwidget company? They may argue the point, but it’s obviously a notwidget company. Blizz makes no new level 60 five mans, but continues to churn out new 40 man raid dungeons, the only way to improve is via 40 man dungeon, the best gear is from 40 man dungeons, they make world events around 40 man dungeons, they make people who do 40 man dungeons better able to do a totally different aspect of the game (PVP), they plaster 40 man dungeon gear all over their website, and we’re expected to think they have been encouraging non 40 man content? They made it so guilds formed around the content they provided, the content they encouraged and shaped to make these type of guilds successful, now they're eliminating that same content.

You're assuming that every dungeon in the Burning Crusade will have Teh Phattest Lewts. This is not necessarily the case. Out of all the dungeons I have read are coming in BC, only ONE is supposed to be Ultra Super Mega 1337ly Hard, and that's the level 70 -only Central Medivh's Tower. Therefore I think it IS the same as a new level 55 dungeon showing up; with the exception of Medivh's Phat Lewts, Naxxramas is still going to have all the best gear -- and that's still 40-man.

They made it so guilds formed around the content they provided, the content they encouraged and shaped to make these type of guilds successful, now they're eliminating that same content.


And now they are changing it, which is their perogative, as the game's designers. Again, I am sorry they're going to have to deal with the new system, and I'm sorry it's going to screw over some of the players that did have time to raid in the beginning and don't know, or folks who don't want to leave their friends and can't meet the raid schedule.

But again also, this is not the place you're going to find any sympathy there UNTIL the lower level cap hits and we have the same problems as raiders, and have to solve them. Then I think we will all understand each other a little more, and maybe the horrible raider vs casual animosity will abate.

Right now though, it feels a lot like, "It's always been that way and we like it that way and we did all this work to be successful this way and we don't WANT it to change because we're used to it and good at it."

Which is fine. It is totally, TOTALLY fine to be disappointed that the way things are is changing, and making it more difficult after sacrifices were made to get there. However, you also cannot realistically expect a company that wants to make a profit to spend time, effort, and personnel designing content that is only accessible to a small fraction of its customers, unless that small fraction represents a portion of the profit equal to or greater than the profit from the majority. It is bad business.

Am I glad that it's bad business because this change benefits ME? Oh, absolutely. Do I have little sympathy for the plight of raiders because many of them seem to revel in the fact that they get content that is only accessible to them? Again: absolutely. However, I sucked it up when Naxx came out, and raiders were all, "YAY, more elite content that you will never get to see," and I kind of feel like the raiders can therefore suck it up now.