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Unless readily accessible new instances give even better loot than this, many players would completely ignore them. Raid instances along the way in leveling simply aren't viable, as raids cut experience by half. Further, the only reason guilds can get 40 players to go do Molten Core is because there are many, many 60s in the game, at least when compared to the number of players at exactly, say, level 37. The only sensible thing that I see to do with instances like Zul'Gurub, 20-man Ahn'Qiraj, and Molten Core is to heavily nerf the mobs to make the instances 5-man, raise their levels so that the loot the instance drops is suitable for the level without changing items, reduce drop rates, and remove the raid lockout. That would at least get some utility out of the instances, rather than Blizzard having spent all that time designing instances that even raiders who happen to pick up the game after the expansion can never see. Furthermore, the 40-man component is hardly the only problem with raids in their present formulation. If they were to make the end-game instances 5-man, but keep all the other problems, would that make for a fun instance? Raid lockouts, exotic resistance requirements, prescheduling, regrouping on multiple days, pigeonholed class functions, forced respecs, reputation grinds, DKP, guild drama, and killing the same mobs in the same orders using the same tactics week after week after week in a 5-man instance? No thanks. If that's what it takes, the mobs can keep their epics for all I care. If the problem with the existing raiding end-game is that it's a boring time sink, then what is gained by offering the alternative of another boring time sink? Should a 60 with 100 days /played who still has trouble with Ragefire Chasm get epics just because he's a 60 with 100 days /played? If you got a thousand characters to level 5, would you expect epics for that? Emphasizing time spent over skill leads to mind-numbingly repetitive content, which is exactly what should be avoided. Surely it is better to spend that time creating real content even if it means only one boring end game path instead of several. Perhaps for whatever the final expansion Blizzard has planned, it would make sense to have multiple end-game paths, so that players could advance to the very best gear via 40-man raids, 5-man groups, solo content, or whatever mix they prefer. But in the until then, it doesn't make sense to overdo the end-game content which will need a major overhaul later, instead of real content which will remain useful for as long as the game exists, and without needing to be completely rebalanced. Another alternative would be to have no end-game at all. Put no raid instances or reputation grinds into the game, so that once you finish Stratholme, Scholomance, Dire Maul, Blackrock Depths, and Blackrock Spire, you're done. There's nothing left to do. That would be like Blizzard telling players, congratulations, you have beaten the game. Now you should cancel your account and go do something else. For obvious business reasons, they can't do that. Let's not forget that Blizzard is playing a game too, here. They're trying to make as much money as they possibly can. This isn't an anti-capitalist rant; that's a good thing, not a bad thing. If Blizzard didn't care about money, they wouldn't care what players want, and certainly wouldn't adjust the game based on player demands. If you don't see the difference between this and what they do now, I suggest you go apply for some permit at a government agency sometime. It doesn't matter much which agency, so long as it isn't dependent on customer satisfaction for its budget. Indeed, Blizzard trying to make money is the reason they made the popular level 1-59 section of the game the way they did. Blizzards great insight was that, even if it was necessary for the game to be painful grinding once the content had run out, many players didnt want the painful grinding stage to begin somewhere around level 3. So they postponed it all the way until players had done nearly everything there was to do, and players loved it. That is a big reason why the game has six million or so subscribers, and the company has (hopefully) made millions of dollars in profit. But players see that the grinding can be postponed, and want it postponed further, or put off indefinitely. A company that found a way to do that in a stereotypical MMORPG with heavily scripted content would make oodles of money off it. But trying that is perhaps a holy grail type of mission, and one for which neither Blizzard nor anyone else on the planet has a solution. However, Blizzard knew that they could only add so much real content to the game, without making a bunch of ill-conceived garbage. The problem they faced was how to get players to keep subscribing after they have run out of content, or more commonly, skipped most of it. Their solution was the current raiding end-game. Look carefully, and you'll notice that that is exactly thinking of pvp, it would make much of the pve content horrendously difficult. And that would give players yet another topic on which to whine. What other reasons are there to get epics, apart from pvp and pve uses? Ego, perhaps? While I tend to pity those who make a huge deal about either leveling or getting some particular drop, as though it were some great accomplishment, this doesn't make much sense, either. Suppose that Blizzard were to add a new legendary set for each class which was undeniably the best gear in the game. All that players have to do to get it is upon reaching level 60 is to complete a trivial quest line which basically consists of the quest giver repeatedly asking the player if he is certain that he wants the set. There's one big catch, though: once you get the legendary set, you can never again enter an instance. No battlegrounds, no raid zones, no group zones, no solo farming instances, even. That is, you can get the set, but can't use it much. Interested? If the players who want gear want it for something other than pvp or pve use, then surely this would be quite a popular set, don't you think? I can sympathize with non-raiders who want more non-raiding content added to the game. What I can't sympathize with is the people who use exploits to trivialize (and hence essentially skip) the existing content, and then complain that they've run out of things to do. You've seen what I'm talking about: take a 40 into Deadmines and a 60 into Scarlet Monastery. Such people would take an 80 into Scholomance if they could, but they can't, so instead, they take 10 players into a 5-man zone. And now that exploit is being cut off as well in patch 1.10, and they're screaming about it. Amusing. It's not hard to find the problems with the people you don't like, and raiders have jumped on this to point out how ridiculous it is. They're right, of course. Where they go wrong is in claiming that non-raiders asked for epics for hard non-raiding content and are now complaining about it. The non-raiders who are complaining about the changes of patch 1.10 are not the same people who wanted actual challenges in non-raiding content, such as having to pay attention. So let it be known, I'm not a raider and I don't want easy epics. What I want is to be able to attack one challenge until I get tired of farming it (and I have very little tolerance for grinding of any sort), and then, as a result of having completed the previous challenge (and the ones before it), to be properly equipped for the next. Whether the gear involved is green, blue, purple, or orange doesn't matter much. And I do want the challenges to be, well, challenging, as opposed to monotonous time sinks. I routinely turn players away from groups I form for being too high level. A 56 wants to run Maraudon, or a 38 Razorfen Kraul? Not with me, they won't. Five man caps on five man instances are great. I wish Blizzard would fix the overleveled exploit and not let players more than 10 levels apart enter the same instance together, too. Finally, I want for there to be a next challenge. Even if it's called an expansion. The game doesnt need more time sinks. It needs more real content. Lets let Blizzard create that without getting all antsy in the meantime about not being able to find a boring time sink that isnt, well, a boring time sink.
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