How Raiding Hurts WoW More Than It Helps

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How Raiding Hurts WoW More Than It Helps

By Cameron Sorden | November 30, 2007

Let me say this up front: This isn’t an anti-raiding post. I think raids are fun. I’ve raided in a number of guilds across several games throughout my gaming career and it can be a great time. Raiding can be extremely satisfying, helpful for forming tight guild connections, and is a good way to really test your mettle as you try to form a 25-40 man team into a cohesive fighting unit. However, I think it’s got no business being in World of Warcraft.

The idea for this post started when I read another post on Elder Game where Eric Heimburg discusses why he thinks that WoW succeeded in spite of its solo to group progression instead of because of it.

World of Warcraft has shown us that we were wrong about grouping: MMO players do not need to be pressured into grouping in order for an MMO to be successful. But on the other hand, when you reach WoW’s level cap, you are almost forced to be a grouper (and a raider, to boot) if you want to do fun things. Now, this approach doesn’t seem to be particularly successful if we look at how many players leave the game when they hit the level cap. The players don’t want to switch from soloing to grouping, so they go away.

WoW made such a splash in the industry for a number of complex reasons: great timing, unprecedented polish, an established IP, plenty of hype, and mass migrations of players, to name a few. One especially key thing that drove its success was that it was accessible to the solo and casual player. Anybody could jump in and make meaningful progress on their character while playing just a few hours each week. That’s the thing that kept and still keeps many players involved in the game when they would have been turned off or burned out with the steep time and grouping requirements of many prior-generation MMOs.With WoW recently hitting the 9.3 million player mark, it’s obvious to everyone that they’re doing something right. But is raiding really part of that recipe for success, or is it something that’s an unnecessary resource hog for the majority of the WoW population?

Some Crunchy Numbers

WowJutsu is a site that tracks raiding progression in guilds using equipment data from the Armory. It’s the same site that caused a little stir a while back when people were complaining that hardly anyone had seen the inside of the Black Temple. The current numbers reflect the progress of about 2 million players over 81,000 guilds. Here are the percentages of those guilds in the completion of various WoW raid targets:

Karazhan (99.45%)
Zul’Aman (32.00%)
Gruul’s Lair (70.98%)
Magtheridon’s Lair (30.63%)
Serpentshrine Cavern (33.81%)
The Eye (33.22%)
Hyjal Summit (5.37%)
The Black Temple (4.59%)

Karazhan and Gruul’s aren’t looking too bad, but four other raid zones have been completed by only about 30% of the guilds. The two hardest have been completed by only 5% of the guilds. Now, keep in mind that these numbers represent only the top 2 million players which are currently in raiding guilds– WoW has 9.3 million customers, 7.3 million of which have never even defeated a boss in any of these zones. That means that the six hardest instances of the game have been defeated by only about 6% of the total WoW playerbase (about 600,000 players).

That’s six whole zones, with scripted events, painstaking itemization, and hundreds of hours of development time and artwork paid for by money from subscribers that 94% of World of Warcraft players will never use, seeing as the Burning Crusade has been out for almost a year now and the next WoW expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, is right around the corner (bringing a new gear wipe with it that will make these current raid zones obsolete, much like BWL and MC are now). When’s the last time you stopped by Naxxramas?

The Challenges of Raiding

No one’s saying that raiding isn’t tough. It’s damn tough. There’s a reason only 5% of the top guilds in WoW make their way into the Black Temple, and it’s not because Illidan forgot to leave a key under the mat. Only the most dedicated, patient, organized, and skillful guilds with strong leadership to guide them can make their way into the high end zones and deal with the challenges they find there. The question is whether that kind of gameplay belongs in World of Warcraft.

Illidan Stormrage It certainly belongs somewhere. Many players obviously love this kind of gameplay and thrive off of it. After all, 600,000 players managed to get in and defeat those zones. Raiding has been a fixture of MMORPGs since the days of MUDding, and there’s certainly a lot to be said for the thrill of successfully defeating massive challenges on an epic scale with 25-40 of your peers. But remember that WoW is a game that was built on the premise of accessible gameplay. Solo and small group content is the bread and butter of the game that keeps many people enthralled and helps bring in new players daily. I have friends who play MMOs more than I do that would never have gotten started if WoW wasn’t so newbie and solo-friendly.

To me, that doesn’t sound like a group of people that thrives on or even enjoys the kind of gameplay which raiding provides. The numbers I outlined in the previous section tend to support my gut feeling there. Clearly, we have two groups of people in WoW: 2 million players who think raiding is fun enough to at least give it a shot, and 7.3 million who could care less about raiding or just don’t have time to get involved. I’d bet that plenty of those 2 million players are only raiding because there’s nothing else to do at high levels anyway, as you can see from the significantly lower completion of the more difficult raiding zones.

When almost 80% of your players aren’t using content that you define as your “end-game,” and 98% of your players don’t even use two whole instances that you spent a lot of time designing, are you really catering to the needs of your players?

MUDflation? More Like Raidflation

Without raids, we never would have had to mess with MUDflation in WoW. MUDflation is an old term that’s recently been discussed quite a bit in the blogosphere, but it’s essentially what happened when the Burning Crusade came out and made all the previous raid gear trivial compared to the new common drops in Outland. A lot of raiders were upset about this while everyone else was pretty happy with their sudden huge power upgrades, but it was necessary because of the presence of raiding in a largely casual playerbase.

Because of the extreme gear disparity between raiders and non-raiders, the designers had a choice with Outland: balance it for raid gear, making everything in the expansion practically impossible for 80% of their player base, or balance it for “casual” gear (from solo play and 5-mans), making everything in the expansion absurdly easy for 20% of their player base with some raid gear. Either way, players were sure to cry foul. Instead, they did the smart move: Level the playing field by dropping raid-quality common items on new mobs and quests and balance everything for the new minimum. It made the most people happy while creating only a minimal fuss, and everyone happily went off exploring the new content.

Unfortunately, it also had the nasty side effect of making all the previous high-level instances totally worthless. Why would you bother with hard 5-mans or harder 40-man raid instances when easy greens with significantly more power are only a few levels away? Say goodbye to Stratholme, Scholomance, Blackrock Depths, Blackrock Spire (Upper and Lower), Dire Maul, Zul’Gurub, Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, Onyxia, and Naxxramas. Not only did MUDflation remove all incentive to go through some of the coolest 5-man instances in the original game– it also made sure that there was no point for non-raiding players who hit the new level cap of 70 to go back into instances like Molten Core or Zul’Gurub and see what they missed the first time around.

That’s a lot of work to ruin (and a lot of your subscription dollars wasted) just because raids are available to a game community that largely doesn’t use them.

Customer Service 101: Find Out What Your Customers Want and Give It To Them

There’s absolutely no reason why raiding needs to be present in World of Warcraft. Many players enjoy it, but it’s purely a preference thing on the part of the developers. Molten Core or Black Wing Lair would have felt just as impressive and epic if you were fighting giant monsters with a group of four good friends as with a group of 39 acquaintances. Consider this, for a moment: What if every raid instance in WoW had been a five-man dungeon? Would it really change anything? You bet, but probably for the better.

Molten Core For starters, more of the players would have seen more of the content. You could still have the gear progression, the resist work, and the complex battles, except that people who need to move through faster with a smaller group of people would be able to do it. Who hadn’t done Stratholme, Scholomance, and Dire Maul half a million times before the Burning Crusade arrived? They were hard, but they were fun. Imagine how much longer it would have extended the “end game” for the 7.3 million people who don’t raid if they could have continued their character progression into MC, BWL, and Naxxramas with the gear they gained in those earlier zones, using the same play style they had grown accustomed to. You’d have 80 or 90% of your players seeing all the content that Blizzard spent time and money on instead of just 20% (or less than 1% for the top end).

Next, there would never have been a need for that pesky MUDflation. With all of the content available to the majority of the players who played the game, the power and gear distribution would have been more evenly spread. There still would have been a gap, but it would have been a gap between those who had played further through the instance progression and those who hadn’t, instead of a gap between groups of players with dramatically different playstyles (solo/5-man versus raid). Instead of a gear wipe, the Burning Crusade could have been an extension of that progression, giving players at the top something more to do without invalidating the work that Blizzard had already done on all those really cool instances at the end-game. You would have finished the whole story arc for Azeroth in solo or 5-man instances all the way up to Naxxramas, and then used that gear to continue the epic journey of your hero into the Outland zones which would be balanced for your progression.

If raids were 5-man content, you would see a smoother progression of the playerbase throughout all of the game content instead of seeing 7.3 million “casual” players plateauing at maximum level and having to hop over tons of cool content when the new expansion comes out because they didn’t or couldn’t raid. Under the current structure, new players to the game never see that content at all because it’s obsolete.

Did you know that the Burning Crusade destroyed almost half as many zones (for the purposes of meaningful progression) as it brought into the game, and more than doubled the number of raiding instances that only 20% of WoW players even use?

The Moral of the Story

Onyxia In closing, I want to state again that I don’t think raiding is bad. I do believe that game companies should give their players what they want, however. There’s an obvious preference in 80% of World of Wacraft’s 9 million players for solo and casual play. No one gets hooked on a game for its endgame, after all, and the whole game until then is very casual. So why does Blizzard make a community with a majority of non-raiding players raid, given all the problems it causes? Why do they spend so much time and effort on designing, developing, and tuning zones that only 1-6% of their subscribers ever use?

Raiding isn’t a bad concept and it has a place in some games, but it hurts World of Warcraft more than it helps it given the make-up of their community. The raiders might complain at not having it– some of them might even leave for different games. But the majority of WoW players would have their needs better served if that time and energy were devoted to making entertaining and fun solo and small group content that wasn’t wiped out each time a new expansion came along.

You can’t ever keep everyone happy, but you should try to do the most good for the largest number of your customers that you can. At the end of the day, it’s just good business.

(Edit: Check the comments below for a discussion of the numbers used in this article. Also, be sure to stop by the Ten Ton Hammer Forums for more commentary– I also posted this as an op-ed piece there.)

Topics: Blizzard, World of Warcraft |

95 Responses to “How Raiding Hurts WoW More Than It Helps”

Tipa Says:
November 30th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Cameron, that is the single, best, most concise examination of what is wrong about the endgame of MOST MMOs that I have ever read.

Thank you.
Tholal Says:
November 30th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Interesting take and well thought-out arguments.

I think that they could have followed the standard 5-man instances with the 10-man progression for the raid zones such as Molten Core, etc. Upper Blackrock Spire was a lot of fun, could be done with a pickup group and could also be done with less than the maximum of 10 persons. Karazhan is basically the same, and would likely have a lot more visitors except for the ridiculous key-quest that EVERYONE has to do. If only one person in the raid needed the Karazhan key, it would see a lot more traffic. But having a 25-40 person requirement just raises the barrier to access much too high.

Also, instead of ramping up the power of items in a linear fashion, they could have branched off and made some of the top-level gear more of a sideways progression to give players more options (the set bonuses and gem insets give them a lot of leeway to make alternate items).

Instead we’re just stuck with the Monty Haul syndrome.
Michael Says:
November 30th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
Yeah, man. Geez. Nicely written.
SquireCL Says:
November 30th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Nicely done Cameron
Heartless_ Says:
December 1st, 2007 at 9:32 am
Sorry to be a party pooper, but your numbers are way off. WoWJutsu only tracks the NA/EU Armory, so comparing the number of players on Jutsu to the 9.3 worldwide total is wrong.

Last I’ve heard, the NA/EU market was about 4 million strong, but at the same time, concurrency numbers have recently dipped below pre-TBC levels for the first time since TBC’s launch.

Also, Jutsu counts every single person in the guild as a “raid participant”, whether they have a piece of raid loot or not. So, the number of raiders can actually be decreased even further from your 600k figure.

For example, according to Jutsu my guild has tackled Kara and Gruul, but I have nothing to do with that success. I haven’t touched either, but I still count towards the “guild member” count, or that is my understanding of the website.

I think the better approach here is to compare the results of Jutsu with PARCs numbers from a while ago that estimated only 2% or so of the NA playerbaes were ever actually IN a raiding zone.

Just using some basic numbers, 600k out of 4mil is almost 7% of the user base enjoying upper tier raid content. A much improved figure. However, the big improvement comes in the form of the lower tier raiding environment where 50% of the playerbase seems to be participating.

What that tells me is that Blizzard has done something to bring “raid” content to more players, since it is very evident that many more players are enjoying the TBC raid content.

The debate over end game raids will always go on, but to me the war is won when Blizzard provides step-up content to get core players there. If players are given a path that is achievable, and then CHOOSE NOT TO participate, we can draw some conclusions about the validity of the end game raids.

NOTE: I hate raids and do not participate in them. I did at one point in my DAoC years, but only once have I hit a raid zone in WoW and it was a pick up raid to AQ 20.
Cameron Sorden Says:
December 1st, 2007 at 10:54 am
I was actually waiting for someone to call me on those numbers, Heartless. You’re right. Cody Bye told me the same thing on AIM yesterday.

However, I don’t believe it weakens any of my main points considerably. Even if we’re dealing with a population of 4 million instead of 9.3, the numbers still indicate a largely casual playerbase and all of my main points still hold. There are still six whole zones designed for only 7% of players to access.

Also, as you mentioned, that 600k figure is probably inflated (for two reasons, actually). One, WowJutsu counts players who are in a raiding guild whether they’ve actually raided or not, and two, (as Cody mentioned) it probably counts alts in those guilds as well. We actually have no idea how many players that 600k figure might account for. The high-end raiding population could very easily be half that, or even less.

You mention that about 50% of the player base participates in the lowest tier of raiding as an argument in favor of raids in WoW, but instead I think it’s telling how sharply those numbers drop off. With Kara at 99% and Gruul at 71%, the next highest percentage after those is Serpentshrine with about 34% of guilds having beaten it.

You mention that this is a way for Blizzard to “bring players into raid content,” but I’m asking why they should be trying that at all given their clearly casual community. Sure, people raid Gruul and Kara– because there’s nothing else to do. But the vast majority of them get a taste of raiding there and don’t move on to harder raids.

Your claim would make more sense if there was a smoother progression through the raid instances, but there isn’t. There’s a sharp drop-off where most players say, “Nah, I don’t think I want to get into that.” And six cool instances are wasted on 90% of players (even with the modified numbers).

My article has two main complaints about raiding in WoW: It’s a lot of time spent on development for a significant minority of the population, and it causes the need for MUDflation which invalidates established content when expansions come out. I think that even with the modified numbers, both of those points still hold, and that raiding does more harm in WoW than it helps the game, on the whole.
56K Noob Says:
December 1st, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Brilliant article, loved it.

You’ve captured in one post what I’ve been feeling for a long time. I left WoW a while ago for the second time (first time, before TBC) because of the state of the endgame.

I dig PvP quite a bit, but it’s not enough to keep paying a monthly fee for, and the dedication and investment into the PvP game doesn’t equal that of the raiding game, as you describe above.

One of the things I’ve been talking over with my WoW-junkie friends is how WoW could change to win me back, largely brought on by Hellgate (which I love). Hellgate provides random dungeons and frequent loot and boos encounters; it also balances instances based on the number of players. I think there’s a place for that type of gameplay. Keeping your idea of “what if all raids were five-man” thing, it’s similar, but the instance balances itself around you. Got five friends? Great. Got 20? Even better, expect harder mobs.

Yes, it’s a trick to balance that kind of content, but I put it to you that it’s no harder than the balancing and scripting they currently do.

Heroics was a shake in the right direction, but with their relatively useless rewards they’re not quite right.
Heartless_ Says:
December 1st, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Whoa there! We are saying the same thing. I 100% agree with you on the wasted space idea regarding the top tier raid zones. What I’m saying though, is that we have no evidence, that given the chance, players would choose not to participate in this top end content.

Like we both stated, there is absolutely no content progression to reasonably get that “50%” of players there and therefore the lower raid tier is where they stay. Part of it is raid size, part of it is time, but mostly it is a content gap and lack of “steps” to get them there.

If that gap was filled with good step-up progression content, and the number of players in the top end was still low, then we could definitively draw a conclusion about it’s worthlessness. So, I argue that it is only a waste when Blizzard does not provide the means for the core player to get there, and currently they are not.

To expand on why I think Blizzard has not gotten there is because they have done a lot to feel out their end game. The swapping from 40 to 25 to 10 as their focus has killed a lot of development time. It has splintered the content, and the most popular, the 10-man stuff, is the smallest portion of it.

It seems that Blizzard thought they had TBC’s raid content covered. There are plenty of 25 man raids for the crowd that enjoys them. Blizzard just didn’t realize that the rest of us might actually care about this 10-man thing they threw in there. And for once Blizzard recognized what was working (10 mans), instead of throwing out what wasn’t (25 man progression), and adding more to it (ZA). Blizzard has a bit of a history of sticking with their same ideas and trying to make them work, before throwing them out and refreshing (great example, PvP Honor System).

Also, sadly, there are elements on the WoW development team that have a “raid or die” mentality and there is no way they can hide it. All you need to do is watch the constant stream of updates and developer feedback that the top end raid zones get while in development, while it is nearly impossible to even get a blip out of their mouth on simple things like class changes! I can go and find a 2 page, detailed report on upcoming Mount Hyjal changes, but not until Patch Day will I learn the fate of my favorite class!

Lastly, WoW’s core audience has proven remarkably resistant to the fluctuations of the development team, and I firmly believe that is because the core audience has grown roots in the game. WoW gets blasted for lack of community all the time, but I honestly believe that is because big raid guild drama is always fucking over the legitimate WoW playerbase. The core audience is invested in this game, because the content is friendly to them and it takes very little to keep them interested. The exp bump and Dustwallow marsh changes were perfect for these core players!

It comes down to a balance and a point at which Blizzard has to start developing for the majority. How man expansions that will take is unknown.
56K Noob Says:
December 3rd, 2007 at 2:09 am
Heartless - I like your comment about some of the WoW development team having the raid or die mentality - I’ve seen that too.

I suspect that some of the people in charge of the game’s development (Tigole and Furor?) might need to be replaced before this stuff gets looked at seriously.

We were talking about this in our guild forums and a few ideas have come through, that would expand on the “casual” player (like me - I used to raid, but I’ve got a job now and don’t need a game as a second one :). Some of the ideas were regular PvP map drops, regular 5-man drops, new crafting, that kind of thing. It’s easy enough content to make in comparison to script-heavy events like raiding.

My suspicion is that they want to promote you to play longer, and by waiving the “if you were just a bit better, you could be a raider!” flag, guilds are currently grinding themselves into oblivion trying to get past the lower content and into the upper. Many people don’t have the time, co-ordination, class balance, skill makeup, whatever to be successful at WoW’s raiding game as it stands, but the *promise* of that game keeps them paying monthly.

They blame themselves for failing. I think this is faulty thinking, having been in both hard core and casual raiding guilds. It’s not a human’s fault if their car breaks down so they can’t make a raid, or if their computer dies, or whatever - but those kinds of things kill a 10-man raid when you’re trying to break into it because every person counts.

I’m done with WoW’s raiding game, I don’t see myself raiding in the future. Too much time, too little rewards. I don’t play WoW right now, but I respect what the game has to offer that’s not a raiding game - I just wish there was more of it. When Lich King comes out, I’ll be in there boots and all - for maybe 3 months, until I’m done with it, and then it’s back to other things.

Blizzard could get more of my money more of the time if they gave me more content for *me*. I don’t care a toss about raids
Dcarter672(Mbht) Says:
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:01 am
What a get topic to tackle! Your absolutely right about raiding and endgame. I have enjoyed playing wow for 9 months now and it was a breath of fresh air to see someone is feeling the same way I do. However I dont see a change in the near future but if it were to happen I wish endgame could be a little more fun and the opportunity to get better gear by soloing be more plentiful…Again I wish more people felt like you. Great article. Mbht-Elune
crsh Says:
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:15 pm
I beg to differ.

While it was certainly a problem before TBC came out, because there was little to no casual content for non-raiders, things have most definitely changed in Burning Crusade.

I think a lot of people are focusing on raids because that’s what Blizzard is showcasing; however, it isn’t the only thing players can do in the game.

Main complaints seem to have been that raids are too time-consuming for the few drops a boss will drop at a time, too demanding in terms of group coordination and strategy, and that attunements are acting as artificial roadblocks to keep anyone from jumping ahead of intended progression.

So we need shorter raid instances; Gruul’s Lair and Magtheridon’s Lair are good examples of short instances with little trash; I’m sorry to report that despite this different approach, a lot of players are unable to beat these bosses because they demand a single skill: awareness. Is that too demanding? Yes, unfortunately, it is.

The original raid designers came from hardcore EQ raiding guilds, they wanted WoW raiding to be challenging and fun for those who enjoy that. I think they succeeded for the most part, unfortunately the side effect is that non-raiders were left out. I won’t lie though, raiding is dying in WoW anyway; obviously Blizzard has to make sound business decisions and put their focus on the majority of their player base.

Blizzard certainly tried to make “casuals” (I despise that moniker) with, in the original game, 20-man instances and now in BC with 10-man instances. Great rewards, a decent level of difficulty, not insanely involved in terms of strategy. Feedback says these instances are too hard, too time-consuming, not worth the effort. Again.

What I don’t understand is the lack of effort and strong sense of entitlement; players who don’t raid wish they could raid if raid instances were tuned to their desires. No amount of babyspoon-feeding can address that.

Players who complain about raiding are not even trying to get through the raid content because of the lack of instant gratification; it’s in fact as ludicrous as the proverbial player who wants to be able to solo everything in a multiplayer game.

It’s getting to the point where Blizzard is going to have to make a stronger decision, and that decision will be made against raiders; that’s clearly not where the money is. Raiders will leave (hell, they already are), that is no big deal in itself though given it’s a minority of players; they’ll just go to other games.
Llew Says:
December 3rd, 2007 at 3:23 pm
I linked this post at the WoW official raiding forum. Not surprisingly, they went nuts in anger.

I think you’re just about 100 percent right, though.
Llew Says:
December 3rd, 2007 at 3:23 pm
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=3168485050&sid=1
Heartless_ Says:
December 3rd, 2007 at 6:21 pm
crsh, I don’t agree. I think your casual comment is way off. The 20-mans, and now TBC 10-mans, were and are not for casual players. Just getting to 70 is not casual in itself. Getting into an entry level raid is not casual. So how can you state that Blizzard made them for casuals?

What the 20 and 10-mans have always focused on is the “core” player. These are the players that don’t dedicate their play time to raiding schedules, but still have max leveled characters with end game aspirations.

Most, if not all, of core players are more than capable of handling their class in most end game situations. However, core players usually do not have the time or ability to research, learn, and prepare for the lengthy raid process. They lack experience, and in raids, experience is valuable.

The numbers discussed already trump most of your points.

In TBC, players participating in both lower and upper tiered raiding are up. The most dramatic change is obviously in the lower tier. However, the numbers are also up in the higher tier.

Your statement, “Feedback says these instances are too hard, too time-consuming, not worth the effort.” is full of crap. Look at how many players are in Kara and tell me that the feedback is saying it is too hard. Zul’Aman, considered a lot harder than Kara, has already surpassed most of the 25-mans in “conqured” status.

I think what we are seeing is Blizzard hitting a “sweet spot” for raid size. It is clear that the majority of WoW players enjoy the smaller group sizes. The only 25 mans worth noting are the easier ones that don’t have a ton of trash, because they are the ones that the guilds hitting Kara and ZA will actually go and try.

Also, I find it funny you talk about instant gratification as a hit against “non-raiders”, because we all know there isn’t a single raider out there that wouldn’t mind getting their drop on the first run. Right? Funny enough, raiders are always complaining about the fact that Item X never drops for them. It is no different than a non-raider complaining that they don’t even have the chance at the item.

So, to recap:

1. Raiding is not dieing, it is adjusting.
2. Players that don’t raid don’t expect the same rewards, but still expect something for their time. Therefore, they choose the options that maximize their satisfaction (aka lower level raids).
3. Blizzard is looking for a sweet spot for raid size. Hopefully they find it before anymore of the poor wittle babies (aka hardcore raid guilds) quits.
4. Regardless of the sweet spot, there still needs to be a bridge for the players to get to the content.
Cameron Sorden Says:
December 4th, 2007 at 2:01 am
Tip of the Day: Venturing over to the WoW forums to read the response to an article you write related to WoW is a good way to build thick skin.

If you cut through all of the “the writer is a moron” type comments, the chief complaint mentioned in the responses there revolves around the numbers I cited. If any of them had taken the time to follow up on the article by reading the responses in the TTH forum (or here), they would have known that I already acknowledged those concerns and addressed them to my satisfaction. Apparently, no one did bother to read the discussion of the article.

Actually, I was surprised to see that about a 1/6 of the responses were sort of positive. That’s actually a huge compliment, given that I would expect most of the players in that particular forum to be hardcore raiders and that those who are most likely to read my article, come back, and post are going to be the people that I pissed off.

I’ll also take any responses there with a grain of salt, since the majority of the people who would be most likely to agree with the article would probably be the least likely to find and read it, by and large.
Snowboard Says:
December 4th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
What you fail to realise is that people will blaze through solo / 5 man content much faster than raids. And what will you do after you’ve finished seeing all the content? Stop playing I suppose. The idea of putting in 25man raids is to give something people to look forward to. That keeps people playing. After all, you spent your past 69 levels doing 5 man quests and dungeons, wouldnt you like to move on to something bigger? Entry level 10mans and 25mans arent hard at all.

You stated that “I’d bet that plenty of those 2 million players are only raiding because there’s nothing else to do at high levels anyway.” Small group and solo / casual(I personally dislike that term) gameplay is very much accessible when you hit 70, even if you do not want to raid, as can be seen from the number of people participating in arenas and battlegrounds. You get to play as often or as little as you like, according to your own schedule, and the rewards are very competitive.

I’d like to bring up another point : “Molten Core or Black Wing Lair would have felt just as impressive and epic if you were fighting giant monsters with a group of four good friends as with a group of 39 acquaintances.”
You’ve got to be joking there. Toning down 40 man raids will definitely lessen the awe factor when downing a boss. When was the last time you felt a sense of satisfaction after killing a 5 man boss?
You said that you raided yourself, surely you would know the difference. The Burning Crusade did not kill off the older instances. It did the exactly the opposite, allowing people to see the older content they didnt previously get to because they are now much better geared. On my server there are raids scheduled almost every weekend for aq40 / naxx, and the response is overwhelming.
Think about this: I have a toyota, and my neighbour has a ferarri. I might never own a ferrari, but i’ll keep on working, and one day i might eventually have one.

Another thing i’d like to add: Like it or not, raiders fuel the economy. The majority of consummables are bought by raiders. Herbalists / other gatherers are able to sell their goods at such high prices because of this.

“No one gets hooked on a game for its endgame, after all, and the whole game until then is very casual.”
Most people play WoW for the end game, be it competitve pvp, or raiding. When you first started this game, which did you see as the height of your WoW experience: Rushing into AV in glorious combat/slaying the meanest dragons, or completing the same mundane quests you did when you were level 1? I didnt get hooked on levelling characters.

One last thing: You might also want to take a look at your math.
“That means that the six hardest instances of the game have been defeated by only about .06% of the total WoW playerbase (about 600,000 players). That’s six whole zones, with scripted events, painstaking itemization, and hundreds of hours of development time and artwork paid for by money from subscribers that 99.94% of World of Warcraft players will never use”
600,000 out of 9.3m is not 0.06%, but 6%. And what makes you so sure that just because they havent seen the content, they never will? Guilds do progress, and Blizzard regularly makes encounters easier to allow more players to experience the content. Karazhan, Gruul, SSC, TK have been nerfed many times, 25man attunements for SSC / TK have been lifted, loot from all these instances have been made more powerful. Kael’thas has also been nerfed more than once. Who’s to say that this is not like to happen again?
Cameron Sorden Says:
December 4th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
The math in the original article seems to keep tripping people up. :/

@ Snowboard: I know the original math is incorrect. I’ve addressed that already. I’ve chosen not to change it so that the discussion of the numbers in the comments still makes sense. I don’t believe it weakens the major points of the article. Sure, 6% is bigger than .06%. That doesn’t change the fact that far more players do not use the content than do, and it certainly doesn’t invalidate my points about MUDflation.

As for your other comments, I disagree with a number of those assertions– especially the part about BC not killing off Naxx/AQ40. While some people might be running them just for kicks, the vast majority of people won’t unless there are gear upgrades or some other reason to go there.

Raiders fuel the economy because of a design choice to make consumables necessary for raiding, not because of some intrinsic quality unique to raiding.

As for epic boss fights, it’s the battles themselves that make them epic in my opinion, not how many people you have with you. You’re free to disagree, and clearly we do.

“I didnt get hooked on levelling characters.” A lot of people did, and a lot of people clearly don’t care about raiding. Just because some people think raiding is important to World of Warcraft doesn’t mean it is, or that everyone who doesn’t think that is wrong.

Everyone has their own opinions about what they want from their games. My assertion is that based on the numbers and the community, the majority of WoW players would be better served with a smaller emphasis on raids and a larger emphasis on more approachable content for small groups or solo players.
Cameron Sorden Says:
December 4th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
That WoW forum thread where my article was linked has actually turned into a somewhat intriguing discussion of the presence of raids in World of Warcraft (around the bottom of page two). Check it out, if you’re interested.

It’s nice to see a few people who got the main thrust of the article defending it there, despite the bad numbers.
Cameron Sorden Says:
December 4th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Actually, I will change the obvious math gaffe, on second thought. .06% -> 6%.
Azy Says:
December 4th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
It never ceases to amaze me how quickly thoughtful essays on the topic of raiding can begin devolving into “hardcore vs casual” controversy. To me, this post isn’t about which is the better way to play, but about which population is larger and thus, should logically have more of an effect on Blizzard’s business decisions (do I have to stop calling them Blizzard after the merger? I hope not), which in turn translate into development choices to serve whatever WoW population is deemed most economically valuable. That would be a traditional corporate decision-making model, anyway.

By competitive necessity, high end raiding guilds chow down on new content as fast as possible. Such guilds want to get server firsts–first player to 80, first to down boss ‘x’, first to clear zone ‘y’, etc. Success and domination are their primary goals, and meeting those goals takes a lot of time, effort and coordination. Providing the CONTENT for those guilds requires the same thing, plus money. Real money. Blizzard paid a developer or two, plus conceptual artists, graphic designers, testers and likely a horde (haha) of other folks to create the beautiful zone that is Black Temple. They are not going to get an ROI on that project that can be quantified financially based on the number of actual players who will SEE Black Temple–although admittedly those few players will spend considerable time there conquering the content. So the question then is, why do it? Why provide content where the ratio of development effort & cost to actual usage is so skewed?

This is the issue we are struggling with here, not whether raiding is better than wandering around Tanaris killing scorpions. What is Blizzard gaining by providing a plethora of raiding opportunities when such a small percentage of their WoW player base will see them? I’d argue there are at least two reasons. The first has been mentioned here…some players like to have end-gaming content to aspire to, even if they never actually get there, or only reach the early stages. Very valid reason from a business model perspective, because it keeps people playing.

I would argue the other reason is a more intangible combination of pride and desire for street cred. Raiders are, without question, the most vocal consumers of pretty much any MMO that includes a raiding option, and even when they aren’t happy (or perhaps more so when they ARE), raiders are TALKING about the game. On the official forums, on their blogs, in their guilds, to their friends, etc. This doesn’t provide any monetary value, and might be a puzzle to a Blizzard VP who’s never gamed, but the majority of folks developing games there are gamers themselves and it makes them FEEL good. There is validation in knowing they are engaging and stumping, at least temporarily, the most hard-core of their users. They like providing the challenge, and getting the feedback.

So I would suggest that until such a time as we have non-gamers making games (which I pray never occurs) OR someone creates a different, *successful* end-game option to raiding, there will be some inclination among developers towards providing content for the small but dedicated, vocal and determined group of players that drive most current end-game dynamics. And that’s more about human nature than the bottom line.

I’d like to clarify that I don’t think raiding is bad either, Cameron. I was raid leader for my guild in EQ2 for over a year, and I’m a regular DPS cog in my current WoW guild’s raiding wheel. But I agree that the development *focus* on raiding doesn’t make that much sense if you look at it from a customer-base perspective, which is why I took at stab at leaving a comment even though I’m usually just a lurker.
Pathos Says:
December 4th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
I wanted to chime in to agree with you on a key issue: the fun of raid encounters is their challenge. You could have made Molten Core a 5 man instance, and if it still hit that challenge level, I would have had a blast.

There’s a sweet spot for me (and I assume a great deal of players) in terms of gameplay that can exist from 1 to 70 and beyond into expansions, and that is the challenge to the player. The reason I love dungeons so much, raid or otherwise, is that they provide a challenge that your typical “kill 10 foozles” quest lacks. You don’t have to necessarily worry about your cooldowns and mana efficiency and fine-tuned combat tricks when you’re grinding out simple quests. But step inside your first 5-man dungeon, where you’re sitting back and planning a 5-mob group pull, then reacting to emergency situations and coming out alive with everyone barely intact…it is SUCH a thrill.

You don’t need a set number of people to guarantee that level of intensity. My wife and I enjoy 2-manning some Azerothian dungeons for that very reason. I was there when an old guild first downed Rag, and the only thing about having 40 people present was that the fight took longer. Sure, we looked like an army, but all tactics boiled down to small groups.

I honestly think 10 man is the sweet spot for raids, and the heroic dungeons were a huge boon to the core players. If Blizzard looked into stepped progression 10-mans in WotLK like the MC->BWL->Naxx were to 40 mans, they’d be generating content that would get a LOT more visitation. Not to mention you’d keep a larger percentage playing as they geared their group of 10 up for the next tier, and so on.
Snowboard Says:
December 4th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
If you raid for loot, then you are raiding for the wrong reasons. Loot will always eventually get phased out by the next expansion. This is a normal aspect of this game. Going by your point of MUDflation, since WotLK will be out next gear and render all our lvl 70 gear (from raiding, pvping etc) obsolete, there is no point in doing any end game content.

Use of consummables may not be an intrinsic quality of raiding, but it is most definitely unique to raiding. Sure you might find the odd person flasking in BG’s and one or two people popping a mana pot now and then in 5 mans, but large scale consummmable usage only happens in raids, where hundreds of elixirs / pots are chugged every night.

Let me restate what has been said : Raiding is a selling point of WoW. It is part of Blizzard’s marketing strategy. This has been in existance since the launch of WoW, and clearly the idea is working. Although the majority of people will never see Illidan (at least not at lvl 70), it is what keeps people playing after hitting 70. It is the aspiration to raid, the hope that one day they may defeat raid bosses. Not doing 5 mans, although 5 mans are necessary to gear up for raids.
Cameron Sorden Says:
December 4th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Some people raid for loot. Some people raid for the social activity. Some people raid for the challenge of defeating encounters. Saying that someone is “raiding for the wrong reasons” is a ridiculous argument. Am I questing for the wrong reasons if I do a quest for an item instead of for the lore? Am I PvPing for the wrong reasons if I do it for gear instead of for a competitive challenge? You can’t dictate how or why other people should play the game just because you disagree with it.

You’re missing my point about the consumables. An active economy in an MMO has nothing to do with raiding in particular– raiding doesn’t “fuel the economy” more than any other activity that encourages people to buy various commodities. Crafting works just as well, and solo play could easily require consumables if Blizzard wanted it to.

And let me rebut your restatement: Raiding is not a selling point of WoW. Are you kidding? How many people do you think pick up a WoW box for the first time because they heard that Kara is awesome or that the Illidan fight is a real challenge? The selling points for WoW are and always have been accessibility, polish, and casual play. Those are the things that get new people hooked and allow people who would never have made it in a prior generation MMO to really get into the game. Raiding aspirations come later in a player’s game cycle (unless they were a hardcore raider in a different game).

The fact that you don’t see 5-mans as anything more than a “gearing up” speed bump to the raid game tells me that you’re probably just not on the same page as a lot of other people and you’re really into raiding. That’s fine. Raids can be a lot of fun, like I said. But it doesn’t change my opinion about their effect on WoW’s community and gameplay, much like I suspect that this won’t change your opinion.

Sometimes you just have to agree to disagree.
Snowboard Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 2:39 am
If you want to raid for loot, then please dont complain about how your rewards will be diminished by the next expansion. It is necessary to introduce new powerful items so that people who didnt raid will be able to venture into new zones.

An active economy in an MMO has nothing to do with raiding? Maybe not in other MMO’s but definitely in WoW. It is not just consummables. Why would you want solo play to require consumables? Spending money on consummables is part of the reason why people do not raid. If you introduce consumable usage as a requirement for solo play you will scare people off from the game.

From your third paragraph, you seem to think that raiding is only for the hardcore. Yes, blazing through content and being in a bleeding edge raiding guild is hardcore and is a huge time sink, but you dont have to spend endless hours in front of your computer to raid successfully. You can still raid, but at a slower pace.

You suggest 5 man content as endgame instead of raiding. Dont you realise that this 5 man content will be completed way faster than raids are currently? And when this content is completed, Blizzard will have to come up with more 5 mans to keep people interested in the game and paying their subscriptions. This will require way more effort than designing a raid zone every few months. If Blizzard tunes the difficulty level of these instances such that only the top people can complete them a few weeks after they are released, then we’ll end up in square one, where many people dont see content. Tuning these instances will already be a nightmare because you have to consider that not all classes are present in a 5 man group.

Raiding has always been a part of WoW, which has been hugely successful since it was launched. If you dont want to raid, its fine, there’s other stuff for you to do. But by calling for 5 man content in place of raids, you are dictating how the game should be played as well. There’s content for everyone.
Warzard Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 9:28 am
First I would like to say that this is a very well written article and does shed a lot of light on Blizzard’s success.

I’m not surprised at the trend of players soloing up to level 70 only to reach endgame and have to get into grouping or just quit the game until the next expansion comes out.
The argument from what I can understand is that Blizzard should focus their money on developing more for casual players instead of hardcore raiding content that most players will never get to see.
The problem with this argument is that casual players are going to quit anyway, regardless of the amount of content Blizzard makes. Simply because the nature of casual players is not to stick with any particular game.
Hardcore players are the exact opposite, even though there are far less in numbers, they are likely to stay with the game for YEARS as long as there’s enough raid content. The hardcore players are also the foundation of the WoW community, that actually give back to game instead of take, take, take, and leave.

That said, more casual friendly end-game content could be created in the form of new lands to explore, new job classes to toy with, the raising of the level cap, and more involving quests spread out inbetween. The Lich King expansion pretty much covers all that. (Hopefully)
Cameron Sorden Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 9:58 am
“It is necessary to introduce new powerful items so that people who didnt raid will be able to venture into new zones.”

Exactly, but it doesn’t have to be that way. That’s a main point of the article. Besides, if I was raiding for loot that would be exactly the thing that I would be upset about. But personally, I’m more upset about how it invalidates content. I don’t know how many more ways I can say that.

I think we’re talking about different things. You’re very focused on how my arguments are wrong because you think that the current environment of WoW contradicts them.

I’m not trying to discuss how WoW *is*. I’m trying to discuss the design of the game and consider *what could have been done differently* and how that would have affected the game environment. Your point about consumables is a perfect example. I’m trying to explain how there are alternate ways to stimulate an economy other than forcing raiders to need material components, and I use games whose raid environment doesn’t use consumables to illustrate that. You’re focused on how WoW currently uses its raid game to do that, which is irrelevant to the larger issue of whether you need raiding to stimulate an economy (which you don’t).

Casual raiding guilds that raid at a slower pace are rife with problems– so many that going into them honestly could be its own article. The way gear progression through the instances works, players leaving for other guilds when your geared players get impatient, and having flexible raid times are all issues for people who might otherwise go through content “at a slower pace.”

I’d rather have Blizzard design more five and ten mans that people consume quicker if the whole playerbase uses them instead of large raid zones for only 15-20% of the population. It’s not that hard to scale difficulty for players that want a larger challenge. They tune the difficulty for five man instances just fine all the way up to 70. It doesn’t suddenly get way harder.

The whole point is designing for the majority of your customer base, not purposely alienating people. If more people used raids, I’d have no problem with more development time spent on them. Maybe that’s a design issue on Blizz’s end.
Following Up on the WoW Raiding Article | Random Battle Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
[…] How Raiding Hurts WoW More Than It Helps […]
Grimbeorn Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 10:23 am
I agree with the OP to 99%.
I am a father of a 6 months old baby, and I simply stopped playing WoW since all raid instances takes too long time and needs too much preparations.

Heroic 5 man are OK, but not after u have discovered that u can simply farm Heroic UB/SP/Mech for easy badges, and it is impossible to get a grp. for any other heroic instance.

I DEMAND! solo-content to even bother buying the next epxpansion, and not just “kill 10 wolfs” solo quests. Solo or 2 man instances would make sure that MANY more players stayed.
Tobold Says:
December 7th, 2007 at 6:52 am
While I agree with the analysis of the problem, I don’t think that turning raid dungeons into 5-man dungeons is the best solution. Especially in TBC there are already a *lot* of 5-man dungeons, and having half a dozen more wouldn’t really add all that much.

My favorite proposed solution has always been to make raids easier. It isn’t the fact that you need 10 players for Karazhan which keeps the majority of players from entering it, it is the attunement requirement and the fact that a random pickup group probably won’t survive the first trash pull. It would be very, very easy to create mirror image copies of all current raid dungeons, and label the original ones as “heroic raids”, while simply decreasing the strength of the mobs in the other copy to create “normal (aka easy mode) raids”. That way you could get far more people to see raid dungeons, and you would give casual players a choice between 5-main and larger group content.
Cameron Sorden Says:
December 7th, 2007 at 9:44 am
If you also dropped the 25-man requirements to 10-man requirement, that would work just fine, Tobold.

There are lots of creative solutions for the problem that would fix or mitigate most of the issues, which is why it’s that much more irksome when they don’t really get fixed. Hopefully, Blizzard will keep heading in the right direction.
Elder Game: MMO game development » WoW Donut Has The Wrong Jelly Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 7:37 am
[…] Sorden on Random Battle asked a very good question recently in his post How Raiding Hurts WoW More Than It Helps: So why does Blizzard make a community with a majority of non-raiding players raid, given all the […]
Jason W. Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 9:37 am
I’ll be the first to say that I enjoyed the post and that you make a good argument. I think it would be fun to see all of the content in the game with a 5 man group of close-knit adventurers. That said, there’s a flaw in this logic.

How do you balance every 5 man with 9 available classes and dozens of different specs? The content would become too easy with the perfect group, and nearly impossible with a less-than-perfect setup. What would happen would be a required “dumbing down” of all end game content.

Some would argue that raiding is ez-mode in wow, and I would tend to agree, but the challenge is in gear progression in instances that are balanced around having 7-9 of the classes represented (in some cases a requirement of all 9 in various specs to be successful). Changing the cap to 5 would completely change the way you look at class balance.

People complain about the classes in wow already being too similar and vanilla. Removing raids would only worsen the problem and create 3 extremely generic classes: tank, healer, dps.

10 man raids is a step in the right direction, but going even further would really be a detriment to WoW in my humble opinion.
Cameron Sorden Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Jason: I’ve heard that comment a lot in relation to the article, and I have a two-part answer.

First, I find that argument a tad bit flawed because there are already a bunch of 5-man instances in the game which seem to be balanced just fine, and are challenging and fun. It’s certainly not impossible to balance 5-man instances for all of the class combinations (since different specs are really just different role assignments); Blizz already does it every time they design a new non-raiding instance.

Second, there’s also the possibility of dynamic content. Is there no tank present in the group? Maybe the mobs can hit a little softer when you enter. Only healer is a shaman? Maybe the healing requirements are less intensive. Low on DPS? Drop the mobs HP a little. This isn’t an easy solution or one that will make everyone happy, nor even one that I would suggest. I’m just illustrating how you can address balance issues like that with creative design.

That said, I would agree that 10-man raids, if accessible to the public (no long key quests), are still appropriate for the WoW playerbase and fit well as a step up from 5-mans.
Hoof@Whisperwind Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 11:32 am
All the number nit-picking aside this article is amazingly well-written and concise. I sure hope BLIZZARD catches wind of this article (and others like it).

Thanks for writing it, Cameron!

/cheer

Hoof
Illuminator Says:
December 14th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Thank you Cameron for mirroring in a publishable form what I have been saying on other websites in fragmented forum posts. This piece can also apply to EverQuest 2 in practically its entirety.
The waaaa-factor - Page 11 - EQ2Flames Forum Says:
December 14th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
[…] The waaaa-factor A good read, at the very least, and applicable to EQ2. How Raiding Hurts WoW More Than It Helps | Random Battle __________________ Ignorance is not bliss when the shit hits the […]
Zen of Design»Blog Archive » Why Blizzard Keep Building Raids Says:
December 17th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
[…] now and then, someone asks why World of Warcraft continues to make level 70 content (examples here, here and here). After all, they only make up a small percentage of your customer base (if you […]
SOE Licenses 3rd Party RMT Company for In Game Virtual Property Sales - Page 28 - EQ2Flames Forum Says:
December 18th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
[…] The Black Temple (4.59%) <— very hard 25 players Source and further links can be found How Raiding Hurts WoW More Than It Helps | Random Battle along with some number correction etc. and it’s an interesting discussion in itself. Don’t be […]
Damion Schubert (sort of) defends the raid mechanic | Warcraft-News.com Says:
December 20th, 2007 at 10:30 am
[…] me to state the obvious; raiding is an integral part of WoW’s design. A lot of citizens think that’s a poor thing. They’ll say raiding is only for the elite hardcore, and that it alienates everyone else. […]
Steelheart Says:
December 20th, 2007 at 11:28 am
A lot of good points here and I do agree that raiding is most definatley not for everyone. However, what is overlooked is the amount of things for non-raiders to do in the game. The 5 mans in TBC have some of the best, maybe not the hardest, boss fights in the game. A few examples of this: Arc - The bickering couple is hilarious, and the last boss fight with the gnome makes me laugh every time! Shadow Labs - Getting mind controled is guranteed to make you laugh a bit when your rogue jacks your healer, and the first time I saw Murmur I was truly in awe.

Kara is more than accesible(s?) to a casual player. It took my guild a couple months to get our groups geared up enough to completley clear the place, but we cleared it. 10 mans let the community that can’t explore 25 mans because of lack of time or real life obligations encounter harder bosses and get phat lewt.

The arena, if you are so inclined to participate, is another fun way to occupy your time and aquire some really nice epics in the process of having a bit of fun.

25 man’s such as Gruul and Mag are definatley doable by a casual player who wants something else to accomplish in this game. But you guys are right…the next 4 instances can not be done by someone not commited to doing them.

No my question is, how does this hurt WoW?? You have SSC, TK, MH, and BT that are probably not going to be conquered by the casual player. That’s 4 instances out of how many? WoW does an excellent job of catering to everyone, if they want to PvP then they can, if they want to PvE then they can….want to solo…roll a new character, I’m having a blast on my mage alt….quite literally!

I’m sorry but all I got out of this was you think everyone should be able to do everything that is in a game….I disagree, I think those who put forth more effort should get more out of it….it’s that way with most every other game isn’t it?

As for the Solo content, I hope there is never endgame solo content. This is a social game, it isn’t that hard to find a PUG or a guild that groups for instances and quests….I never understood why someone would buy and MMO with the expecation of soloing, but to each his own I say.

Just my opinions, but WoW does an awesome job of balancing endgame content..there is something there for the PvPer, and the PvEer, as well as your Hardcore Raiders. No game can capture your attention forever, but WoW is doing it’s best to thats for sure.
Cal Says:
December 20th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
As both an officer and raid leader of a 10 man guild I would love to see 25 man content. I hope to get our guild there but I wouldn’t want blizz to make every instance accessible to 5 man groups.

You would have to axe or cripple some of the more interesting fights.

For example:

Moroes, Oz and High King Maulgar are all multiple mob fights that require coordination and good class balance. I can’t see how these could be done with only 5 toons without lessening the “Oh $%$#” and “Whoa” factor.

Netherspite, Mag would be out of the question for 5 mans as well.

Hyjal would end up being just like BM, so why have 2 instances?

I think it would dull down the game to tune it that way.

Plus with 13 dungeons in Outlands (+ 13 heroics)and 2(+2) CoT in Tanaris
There is plenty of 5 man content to see and experience.

As a related tangent I think that as time goes on old raids/instances like scholo, strath, L/UBRS, MC become accessible for lvl 70s.

Our MT had a family emergency recently so we cancelled ZA and put together a BRS run to attune people to BWL and it was a blast.

If you’re playing WoW for the experience then a trip through Undead Strath/BWL is awesome and a worthy endeavor regardless of loot. If you’re in it for loot then you’re probably hardcore and want/do raid today.
Earnest Dodge Says:
January 4th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Perhaps you’re right, maybe Blizzard shouldn’t bother with raiding. But if they don’t they should be prepared to lose all of the people who are only in the game to raid, like me. I’m sure EQ2 or some other game that pops up to cater to the raiding crowd would love a sudden influx of raiders. I know that in my guild, I am not the only one who would be gone overnight… the 30 hardcore raiders would all leave, taking with them their 30 friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, spouses, and etc. Left behind would be a good 50 people who’d probably be thrilled to have lots of new solo and/or pvp content. Multiply that by all of the raiding guilds on the NA servers. Perhaps a small ripple in the overall subscriptions to WoW, but a huge influx to the lucky successor MMO!
Sensa Says:
January 5th, 2008 at 7:38 am
I agree with the thrust of your article. I was surprised you didn’t make the connection between class imbalance and end game raiding though. If you create an epic 40 man instance then the characters have to be strong enough to take the boss down..of course there is absolutely no reason to be that strong or have so many talents if you’re pvping…the two shall never meet and blizz will never be able to balance classes when they are made to fight a ?? level elite in a 40 man instance and then have to pvp against each other 1 vs 1
Laslow Says:
January 5th, 2008 at 11:14 am
I don’t think the issue is the difficulty, lack of interest, or the amount of time it takes to run in a 25 or 40 man raid instance, but opportunity, the “casual player” may have four or five hours to devote to a raid but not when, the raid happens. Most “hardcore players” raid at night on their servers and starting at 10:00 pm or later, while most “casual players” can’t always play until 5:00 am, they have to go to work, school etc… the next day. Let’s be honest what makes the “hardcore player” hardcore is being able to play all day and night without worry.

If some of these guilds and raid organizers scheduled the raids to fit everyone’s time table you would get a lot more people wanting to do the bigger raid instances. Only the top line raid guilds have the ability to schedule a 40 man raid early enough to involve everyone in the raid. They may even have two or three raids in a day, but the requirements to get into these guilds is very high, and space is very limited, so everyone has to rely on their guild mates and put together raids.

I have said that if someone could set up a raid in the future for when they have the time to raid, say on a calendar or message board that anyone could look at to see if there is something available for when they have the time to raid. I think you would get a lot more involvement on the 25 and 40 man raids. I really believe everyone would like to do one at least once, but don’t always have the time.
Keniacon Says:
January 7th, 2008 at 11:19 am
WoW is about social interaction and what you want out of the game and what you enjoy. This is not Halo 3 were u play by yourself and save were ever you want. End game is what you make of it. you can run heroics and get t5 equiv badge gear or run 10 mans and do the same and see some very cool content in za. If you want to play on a larger scale go into 25 mans. If you like pvp do Bgs and arena. Remember MMOs are about people playing together not solo play. MMOs are no designed for single play. they need to add in an ethics and realism in MMOs eula before you are allowed to make your 1st lvl 1. After all 1 thing is for sure Time Spent = Rewards. If I play for 30hrs a week wouldnt you expect more then someone who logs in for 4hrs a week. Think of it like your job at work, do you want the slacker walking out with your paycheck? no. I love raiding I love playing long hours with people I enjoy its what i choose to do and really enjoy it. Im sure I’m not alone.
jlaw Says:
January 7th, 2008 at 11:28 am
While I think your article is very well written I can’t aggre with it. According to the numbers you have provided there are a lot of players in everything through tier 5. That means that a grand total of two instances are only generally attainable by the dedicated raider. Compared to whats available to the rest of the player base this is very small and not out of line.

Ten man raids are fun. I have enjoyed both Kara and ZA. I also enjoy 25 man raids and they are not the same as the ten man. Could they do Kael’thas as a ten man? Sure, heck they are doing as a five man in 2.4 but there is no way they could make a fight with the same complexity and that complexity is what makes some 25 mans fights awsome.
Draslen Says:
January 7th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
I’m going to have to strongly disagree with your post. Any succesful MMO has to cater to a large crowd of players. I think the PvP aspect of WoW is tedious and boring, but a lot of people enjoy it. I don’t ask Blizzard to scrub it to focus on the raid content I enjoy. You bring up development dollars. Well frankly raid content is your best dollar to use ratio the developers can ever create. It takes so long for the average person to finish and move from raid to raid that they last far longer than any new 5 or 10 man Blizzard could put out. You mention that you have a job now and don’t want to raid. Well there is a large percentage of raiders that do have jobs and wives/girlfriends, etc, etc that raid reliably.

Personally I feel Blizzard has catered too much to the casual player. Gear is no longer as Epic as it once was. PvPers on most servers out gear even the raiders because their gear is hand me outs. Kara and ZA are about as hard as UBRS was when they made it 10 man and drops excellent loot. Hell I find it annoying that I can look through SSC/TK loot and find like only 1 upgrade worth picking up off of 10 bosses because of this much easier obtained badge/pvp/10 man gear.

I look at it this way. Solo play = Doom on God Mode, you know you’re going to win just have to play.
Heroics = low difficulty, mainly just a gear check or you got to be willing to use potions. As long as you don’t have 5 retards it’s not hard to get through.

10 mans = medium difficulty, a little more organization for amazing rewards. The difficulty the average player can handle and they get the easiest upgrades next to the PvP game.

25 mans = Nightmare mode. You want to know the reason only 5% of the raiders have been in BT? It’s because you can’t have a single idiot in these dungeons. When Blizzard made it where one guy can wipe a raid fairly easy, you remove the ability to bring friends. So because it’s so hard at least we get the best gear right? No not really.
Epiphanes Says:
January 7th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Honestly I think raiding IS bad.
I true believe MMO PvE and grinding and time wasted=power is a vile concept that never should have been invented in videogames.
Why? Because it is intrinsically skilless. It just takes time, and a willingness to stoop to invest countless hours in something very boring just for the loot, and nothing else.

And trust me, most people raid for gear first and foremost. I can’t believe most human beings who pay this game can actually enjoy the deliberately easy, mindless act of clearing trash mob after trash mob, clusterf*ck zerging 1 monster with the rest of your raid competing over a ZOMGDPSMETER, and then moving on to the next Molten Giant/troll/whatever boring mob it is, and doing this same crap again and again ad infinitum.

I always laugh when people call raiding ‘challenge’. The so-called difficulty of raiding is completely artificial. Its hardwired, there’s only 1 way to do it, it doesn’t require timing or initiative, just that you ‘play by the rules’ and do exactly what’s laid out for you. To me raiders are lab rats trying to make their way through a labyrinth.

My point is, there is no creativity/excitement involved in PvE. And raiding takes the mindless, grueling, slow, drawn-out boredom of PvE in general and multiplies it times a million.

For all I care, ZOMGILLIDAN is the first wolf you kill in Elywnn forest with a different skin and bigger numbers.

The true flaw of WoW is its underdeveloped PvP aspect, which has so much potential but like you said Blizzard spends all their resources developing elaborate dungeons and more time-consuming grinds that most people don’t really care about.

We just want to log on, spill some blood in battlegrounds, enjoy ourselves for a good, quick blast of PvP fun… then log off and get on with our REAL LIVES.
Challenge the Party, Not the Player at MMOG Nation Says:
January 7th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
[…] You might be wondering how I’m jumping this thread to MMOGs. After all, most games do just that; no one character class is specially equipped to handle a threat in most games. You’re probably going to want the holy Trinity on hand but beyond certain high-end dungeons/instances, most games don’t demand overly specific party builds. What most do require, though, is a very specific number of people. Lots of folks have complained about this, talking about alternatives for high end content and the specificity of raid events. […]
Draslen Says:
January 8th, 2008 at 5:42 am
Epiphanes it takes a lot of “skill” to be number one in the dps charts. Your poor spelling and grammer is indicitive of all the pvptards that represent a good chunk of MMOs. Trust me from first hand experience, it is harder to be number 1 in a boss kill than to be number 1 for any given season of arenas. Both are hard, but the PvE aspect is much harder. Bosses are attuned to x difficulty as where players can be good or bad, and nevermind poor class balance to boot. This isn’t Starcraft.
Cameron Sorden Says:
January 8th, 2008 at 10:33 am
I know this is a highly charged issue, everyone, but please try to keep the discussion civil and refrain from personal attacks. I appreciate all the commentary and I think everyone has something valuable to say (I do read all the comments even if I don’t respond).

This ultimately boils down to a question of perspective, and people have different perspectives. There is no right or wrong answer– there are just a lot of answers.
Keith Says:
January 10th, 2008 at 4:45 am
, btw I’m not nor most likely is anyone jealous of you two I just hate you both and the self-serving elitism you have

always stood and continue to stand for)

youth still living with/off their parents and having no real life responsibilities whatsoever

the irresponsible (those who shirk their real life responsibilities preferring WoW instead)

the obsessed (those who are so absorbed in the game they can’t separate WoW from reality and let their WoW existence define them)

So that being the general field of “raider” personalities, I’ll just have to pass because the personality types above I just know from experience aren’t my

favorite ones.

Did I just overgeneralize? You betcha! Did I just stereotype? Yep, I kinda did that too. Is either completely unjustified? Think about it. Who besides these

exceptional cases can play WoW the way you need to play WoW in order to experience 80% of the CONTENT in the CONTENT EXPANSION you PAID FOR?

So where am I going with all this? I must confess that I’ve become a bit lost myself, but if you take only one thing away from this post, dear reader, let it

be this:

THE LOGICAL REASONS FOR NOT RAIDING ARE NOT EXCLUSIVELY LIMITED TO LACK OF PLAYER SKILL, LACK OF SOCIAL SKILLS, FRUSTRATION OVER NOT BEING “GOOD ENOUGH”,

BEING A “SCRUB”, BEING A “LOSER”, NEVER GETTING THAT PUPPY YOU WANTED FOR YOUR 5TH BIRTHDAY, WANTING RAIDERS “NERFED” SO YOUR OWN PLAYSTYLE CAN BECOME THE NEW

GESTAPO, AND A HUNDRED OTHER ASSUMPTIONS THAT ARE REPEATEDLY MADE ABOUT THE “CASUAL” PLAYER POPULATION OF MMORPGS

The pure and simple fact is that MOST people, given the choice, do NOT prefer this playstyle. So at this point I repeat Cameron’s simple question, why is 80%+

of the development effort of the game being focused exclusively on 1-6% of the paying subscribers? Does that make ANY sense? Does that have ANY semblance of

fairness?

You decide. I already have, and I voted with my wallet, which is ultimately the only power a subscriber who doesn’t find himself among the privileged elite of

the Tigole-ocracy has. I encourage more of you to do the same until Blizzard feels the financial impact of this flawed, outdated elite minority appeasement

strategy and brings the game back home to those who have made it the huge success it is.
Lacan Says:
January 10th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Having raided up through the start of Naxx on two characters pre BC (Haven’t had time to raid since)I can tell you that it in fact does NOT take a lot of skill to be number 1 on a dps chart. You just have to know how to play your class and how its abilities work, and if you don’t, a little research on forums will usually teach you how. The rest is mostly gear dependant and also what happens to be the most effective raid spec at the time.

That said, and like I also mentioned on the tentonhammer forums, I think blizz could very well keep developing raid content (since they claim to like keeping everyone happy) as long as they dedicated an equal amount of development time and energy to the other aspects of the game like PvP and the casual content. It just seems silly that they take the easy route when it comes to anything but raiding.

For Heroics they just had to buff mobs. For arenas they just made rooms with pillars and one with a bridge. Even the arena gear is copy/pasted graphics from the raid gear (which ends up being a detriment to both raiders and pvpers). BG’s remain the same old staleness that they have been for years other than the new AV changes, which have caused more harm than good in certain battlegroups for both factions.

Now imagine what the game could be like if they had spent and equal amount of time/talent/money on the PvP and more casual content as they have on MC/Ony/BWL/AQ/Naxx/Kara/Zul’aman/Gruul/Mag/SSC/Eye/Mt Hyjal/BT/Sunwell?

To keep catering only to the minority, while throwing scraps/leftovers to the majority of your customers just seems like a bad idea to me.
Dreadicus Says:
January 10th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Cameron - well said.

You elaborated on the points that many WoW players feel, express on the WoW forums (despite the ineviteble attacks from the non-witty population) and have been saying since beta!

The one point you make that is really the gold nugget caviat of your entire piece - especially if you’ve followed the ‘background’ story of WoW, it developers comings and goings, and know something about the game team designers:

“There’s absolutely no reason why raiding needs to be present in World of Warcraft. Many players enjoy it, but it’s purely a preference thing on the part of the developers.”

Tigole - we’re getting tired of ‘your’ game, how about making it more for ‘us’ now, ok?
Dustus Says:
January 10th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Interesting read.

The problem with limiting end-game raids to 5-man content is you really limit what types of encounters are possible. You can’t, for example, do something like Karathress or KT that requires 4-5 tanks if you only have a 5-man group.

I also disagree with your statement that raiders raid because there’s nothing else to do at 70. There are several things to do which I won’t go into here, but a lot of us endgame raiders raid simply because we enjoy raiding.
Frank Says:
January 10th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Wow! That is so brilliant. You really summed up everything I dislike about the game. Nothing beyond 5 mans from the start really sounds like it would have been the way to build the game.

It bothers me so much that there is all this content created for WoW that I will never get to see. In spite of that, I have no better gaming alternatives so I have come back to WoW after a little break.

Maybe some day we will get content for the average player.
Soldierk3 Says:
January 10th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Okay, I do have a statement that bothers me with this post. And most people are going to think that since I’m a raider I’m going to say something along the lines of “This is stupid” or “You’re an idiot for saying this”, but I’m not as everyone is entitled to their own opinion whether or not I agree with it. However, on the numbers regarding the players per raid there is something important that seems to be missing.

Everyone raids Karazhan because nowdays it can be easily pugged with people who have no idea what they are doing. I’ve seen it happen myself. However, the reason the other ones have considerably less is probably for one of two reasons.
1. A large percent of the people that I have seen in Kara probably couldn’t survive in Gruul’s lair, much less anything else.

2. This one pertains to Hyjal and BT now, Attunements are really a way to weed out the people/guilds that cannot handle those instances.

And this is a note to Lacan
You are right and wrong. You are right in that Pre-TBC raids you did not need any skill, hell people went afk autoshot and were still in th top 10 in some of my raids. However, TBC is different and requires a lot of attention and quick reaction times. Nowadays, being an actual raider is hard to accomplish, and at least on my server, I’d say there’s only really about 5-7 guilds that are (mainly) composed of them. And I personally witnessed about 20 of my old raider dps friends quit the game not because it was boring, but because their damage became terrible and no guild would accept them.

But I digress.

My final thought here is, if Blizzard is losing people to raiding, Colleges are losing students to tests.
Keith Says:
January 10th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
“a lot of us endgame raiders raid simply because we enjoy raiding”

O RLY? I’m sure that’s true of a few of you, but imagine what would happen if equivalent or better gear were available by alternate avenues involving PvP and/or grinding heroics. That would probably reduce the raiding population quite a bit, wouldn’t it? Oh wait, that already happened. And now the number of people you see in a /who on a Saturday evening is about a quarter what it was before arena epics.

How about this for you guys who just love raiding for the sake of raiding… since none of you finished Naxx, how about making a Kel’Thuzad kill a requirement for Sunwell attunement? Then you’d get to experience that glorious content you crave so much and can’t get anyone to do anymore. After all Blizzard is all about linear progression and it doesn’t seem quite right that folks can skip right past this awesome raid zone they put so much time into.

No? Awwwww c’mon…
Locke04 Says:
January 10th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
I think what most people forget when they read things like this is the fact that we do not own any single part of the World of Warcraft. The EULA that we all agree to every time we log into the game says that Blizzard owns every last megabyte of the game. We pay them a monthly fee for the privilege of playing with their toys. The fact is, this means they don’t owe us anything. They can and will do whatever they want with their game. If that means pumping out the high-end raid zones, that is what they’ll do. Those of us agreeing to the EULA can either play what Blizzard decides they want to develop or move on to a different game. Pieces like this create the illusion that we are being done some kind of injustice. If anything, paying Blizzard to take part in their game and then demanding they tailor it to suit our purposes is in effect an injustice to Blizzard. This is what WoW is. You have no grounds to expect it to be any different. Play it or move on.
Sunwell and 2.4 Patch Information (Swedish Magazine) - Page 28 - Elitist Jerks Says:
January 10th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
[…] lot of them, even if they don’t frequent this site. Likewise there are other sites like this guy: How Raiding Hurts WoW More Than It Helps | Random Battle who thinks that the 25 man dungeon is completely irrelevant. The whole reason the game is popular […]
Keith Says:
January 10th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Cameron, I’m sorry to spam your thread but I’m going to repost my TLDR diatribe again, this time with a couple of revisions, some reasonable paragraph separation, and in a single post, and ask that you moderate the previous post to remove it. Thanks!

*** Original Post Follows ***

Cameron,

This is a very good commentary on the current state of WoW and an almost exact extrapolation of my thought process for leaving.

An unfounded assumption exists among ‘raiders’ (and by ‘raiders’ I don’t refer to anyone who has ever stepped foot in a raid zone, but to those who identify so deeply with that MMORPG playstyle that it defines them to the point of getting emotionally upset when Blizzard’s blatant bias towards their selfish interests is called into question on any level) is that the only people who complain about raiding are those who lack the

skill

dedication

social skills

to succeed at it. It’s the exact same syndrome as the kid who comes home from school and tells his mother everyone hates him, and to preserve his fragile ego is fed the line ‘it’s because they’re jealous’. No it’s not Timmy. Not at all. It’s because you’re a jerk. No one likes that you brown-nose the teacher, or that you take a bit too much pride in your idiotically expensive Abercrombie & Fitch catalog wardrobe, or any number of other things that people just find generally annoying about you. Most people don’t like those who think their poop doesn’t smell, or who go out of

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