I read quite a few WoW-related blogs. I don't always agree with every one of the authors, and I don't always care about everything they write, but overall I enjoy hearing from people about all aspects of the game. One of the best things about this is being reminded that there are other people out there wanting something entirely different out of the game than I do. Whether that is every mini-pet available or an AV that lasts 12 hours doesn't matter. What is important is that checking my Reader reinforces the fact that WoW is a game with wide appeal.But is that wide appeal diluting the things I loved about the game?
My guild is ranked in the top ten on our server (or at least we were the last time I looked at a ranking page), but we aren't cutting edge progression either. We've killed Sartharion with one drake up (did I mention how ridiculously easy that was?) and plan to tackle him with more drakes alive this week. In my almost three years raiding with xeno, we have gone from being a bit behind the raiding curve to being right in the thick of progression guilds. Every step has been a challenge, and overcoming those challenges was part of the appeal of the game. I love the feeling you get when a group of people from all over the world work together to accomplish a goal.
Many of those blogs I mentioned have commented on Blizzard's apparent watering down of the raid content. Most hardcore raiders dislike the trend to make things easier. There have been rants about the changes in WoW reflecting the overall tendency in our culture to make things fair for everyone. There have been parodies comparing WoW raiding to a rollercoaster that can now only go 10 miles per hour. I can understand these authors' viewpoints, but I'm not sure I share them.
Don't get me wrong. I do think that the early raiding content in Wrath of the Lich King has been very easy compared to raid content in both vanilla WoW and the Burning Crusade. But I'm not convinced that this is the end of the game. Blizzard has promised that harder content is coming. And although I've jumped on the "hurry up already" bandwagon, I think that the easier early content will mean that my guild can be part of the cutting edge when it gets here. We're farming Naxx, Eye of Eternity and Obsidian Sanctum. We're gearing up our regular raiders and their subs. We're teaching new members how to raid with us. And we're learning how to work together as a team. All of these things will help us conquer the next wave of content.
Are the raids too easy right now? Possibly. Mama Bear's bowl of porridge was too cold for Goldilocks, too. I'm hoping that Ulduar and the raids that come after that will be just right. And that the early content will have taught us how to use our spoons.
But the thing is, we already know how to use our spoons. I'd say that farming Illidan even got us our Gold Spoon Achievement. We're all experienced raiders and, in my own opinion, all this current content is doing now is hurting us. Last night we had our worst night in Naxx since we first set foot in there because we were getting lazy and bored. When people get lazy and bored, things start to go down hill.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it's good to help teach new people how to raid with us, but in a couple of weeks when we shard every single piece that drops and no one gets any RP from an entire run, people will start getting restless and our raiding *could* have to be cut back or even put on hold. There are people who just won't go if there's nothing in it for them. Last night we barely cleared like 150 (not sure exactly) RP from almost an entire run.
I have to say I agree with Silver. I think people get it in their mind that's it's easy, so they start concentrating more on a t.v. show or websites than the raid. They simply don't bring their A game. I think this is a big reason Xeno has a 2nd kill curse. We relax way too fast :)
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