5/03/2010

Instancing

I've been reading some WoW blogger's entries (not b/c i like reading about WoW, but for the content about mmo's), and a hot topic recently has been the difference between 10 man raids and 25 man raids.. that apparently the game is becoming more accessible for all players as they 10 man raid instances will get similar/equal loot compared to the 25 man raids.

It makes me wonder, should games segregate instances/dungeons into two such groups. Would you classify those type of groups as casual vs hardcore. Or is it just close-knit and wide-spread? Sometimes I think it's a combination of both: A small close-knit group could be hardcore, whereas a wide-spread/high population guild could be full of casuals. Whatever/whichever way it is divided, there are two groups, those that can only afford the 10 mans, while others that can meet the 25man requirement.

mmm snowcones.. delicious

Blizzard apparently wants to make the game more accessible to their consumers, which is not surprising due to the many things they've done (convenience items, fluff, premade characters, racial changes etc). This has worked in their favor as they have millions of subscribers and live on their mountaintop of gold. I'm not one to be part of the 25 man bracket, but I would like to see more exclusivity between the two groups. What should happen though, is there should be exclusive areas/dungeons that are solely 10man or 25man and ones where its possible to be both.

1 comment:

  1. "similar/equal loot" is the key here.

    Perhaps it would be enough to leave legendary items in 25-man dungeons only... but I don't think that would work.

    If you could "gear up" the same in 10 vs 25 person runs, it would effectively diminish the reasoning of running a 25-man instance to the point of saying "it's not required this week for the guild to complete".

    I think that in order to run a 25-man instance, you should be required to join a larger guild. That alone allows a player to "evolve" in-game, grow to work as part of a larger team & gives a player something else to look forward to in the game. But, take away the "loot", and there's no reason to hunt down this aspect of WoW.

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