WoW.TableTopless.com

http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/03/03/patch ... d-content/

Didn't click te link version: blizzard says "no firelands in 4.1, not enough people have seen the rest of the current raids yet and we want to do more smaller patches and philosophy and goals and yadda yadda yadda..."

Plainsy's 'what this actually means' corporate speech translation: "We overtuned the crap out of the cataclysm release. People are just NOW getting comfortable with heroics. We're gonna do a gear reset, and probably mellow things out a bit, and then we'll pick up where we left off. So, wait till 4.2, gear up some, and really, we're not gonna punish you quite so hard next time. Our bad, sorry."

How it'll actually play out, i.e. cystal ball gazing predictions: Blizzard has never done things by half measures, It's one end of the spectrum or the other when they take to "fixing" things, so, since Cata opened as brutally as possible, I expect 4.1 and maybe 4.2 to be tuned very very softly. We'll have a couple months of near-faceroll. Which will be amusing, since we're mostly geared up in stuff from "hard mode intro" now. And there is gonna be COPIOUS QQ, oh man is there gonna be QQ. I mean, there's always QQ, but this time the seriously loud QQ'ers are gonna start in. They'll still run all the content provided, obsessively and repeatedly, but yeah. Get ready for the QQ-Flood like we've not seen in ages.

(Not from me though, I'm gonna be having a massive amount of fun in New Troll Here instances, and getting a KITTY! Bring on 4.1 and the extra time to get stuff done!)

Plainsybeans the Prognosticator

Now this is my personal point of view on things. But it seems to me that there are less people excited about forming up to do end game. All the folks that I know that raided in Wrath, maybe half of them raid. And it has nothing to do with the content being too hard or the gear incapable of getting. People, unless they belong or joined a specifically raid focused guild, don't want to make the schedules to actually raid or spend as much time in game anymore. Even if that's one day a week.

This admittedly is somewhat anecdotal. But if you look at Ishnu, we can't get five people together to even do five mans on our raid days. Partly because of RL schedules and partly because some people just haven't been focused on their characters to get them levelled and geared up. Then you look at say Razortalons or Iron Dwarf Brigade. I can think of a few other guilds also having the same problem. They're totally geared up, but they can't fully get the people to actually commit to raids either. OES, who used to be able to field a 25 man regularly can barely get a second 10 man running. Then there are all those people who used to tag along with the various guild groups that existed in Wrath but needed just those one or two members to help fill out their roster. I know quite a few 'solo' raiders who are looking for groups to tag along with but can't find an active one. I also had like half a dozen people who used to tag along our raids say early in the expac that they are ready and willing to come to a raid. But have now since disappeared, bored with the game.

And just to add a little fact to the mix. If you don't already know, I keep a census count for warcraftrealms.com just for fun. The population is down by about 10% overall and the percentage of that that are 85 is less than what it used to be. We also used to be a high pop server. We're not anymore. We're consistantly medium. The pool is starting to shrink.

Is tougher content part of the problem? Probably. Tougher to get a PuG raid that can kill a raid boss beyond simple easy demon dude in Baradin Hold. But tougher didn't stop people from forming raids back in Vanilla. And they were tougher. Tougher to get 40 people organized, tougher to first kill a boss in one day. It would take WEEKS to be able to down Razorgore. And then weeks to down Vaelestraz after that. Tougher to go through a whole raid in one day. Tougher to be allowed to play the spec and role you wanted to in some circumstance. Yet people did it. They were far more excited. I just don't think the excitement to raid is as huge as it once was. I think that people just aren't as willing to commit themselves to the game like they used to anymore because it's not as shiny as it once was no matter how much fun the changes to the story/quest content have been.

I want to raid. I love raiding. I just don't want it to consume my life. And it doesn't. But I don't have the guild to do it with right now which is why I've pointed people to other possibilities. The thing is, even pointing people out to those possibilities, no one has committed to joining even them except Plains and Jindall and myself. I WANT to do it as a guild group. But I don't see the guild commiting themselves to getting ready for a raid at all. I have several people that WANT to raid. But when are they in game getting the level and gear to do it? And those of us that are ready, I can't get the solid commitment to show up on the days we have available to raid because of the 'excuse' of RL. (And no, it's not an EXCUSE, but you know what I'm saying). And even if they did come to those days, there aren't 10 people to do it anyway. And then sometimes I talk about changing the days and I always get some people saying, nope I can't do those days. And those are the same reasons I think other people have not seen the new content as much as well.