Ok mmcookies Im out too!

[puppychow]

I cancelled 3 of my accounts early this month (time ran out this week) and don't miss running 5 accounts at all. Sure, its fun for a few days/weeks running heroics solo but after that there isn't much to do as a 5 boxer who isnt into PVP. I am having fun right now leveling my Deathknight (just hit 76) "boosting" with one of my shamans, I might re-activate the 5 once my DK is 80 and jam him through some heroics for a month. All the raids in the game are super simple right now, on my server there are soooo many Naxx/OS25/EoE pugs daily there really isn't any need to multibox, just login and you can raid within a few minutes.

In TBC it was much harder to raid (pre 3.0) beyond Karazhan, so multiboxing made sense -- I'm bored, can't be arsed to find a guild to do SSC/TK/BT with, so i might as well multibox and have fun doing heroics/arena and get gear nearly as good.

In WOTLK no point, all my guys are in nearly full naxx25 gear just from each running 25 man pugs over the weeks. Hell, my resto shaman is one of the most geared players on the server (5/5 T7.5, KT mace, all Maly25 drops, even pugged Sarth 3 drakes) and I hardly ever played him. I've done 2 drake OS25 pugs on all my guys, theres no way any multiboxer is doing that. So in essence you can actually get further as a single player pugging than as a multiboxer, which wasn't really true (on average) in TBC.

[Niley]

simple question.
What is there to do when You achieved everything that was fun for You?
That's right, stop playing.
I quit boxing few months back after I did all my heroics, and got rep up with whatever i need it too, than i hit a wall....there was nothing else to do for me, so i canceled 4 accounts, and I'm just raiding now. I'm having as much fun with that as I had with boxing( I really like my black proto drake :P)

[mmcookies]

I have no idea why this is such a big deal, and the same arguments recur over and over despite overwhelming one-sided evidence.
Maybe Blizzard is just THAT good at marketing the illusion of elite end-game raiding.

Epics WILL be made easier to get, and more so over time.
Blizzard has to keep bumping up entry level epics in order to make the end-game gearing process manageable for their target consumers.

And even if you don't buy that, think about this. Raiding requires people, lots of people.
While a dedicated guild might get the same 25 people to raid week after week, this is not true for the majority of WoW players who have to PUG at least part of their raids.
Getting 25 people together at the same time to do the same thing requires a far larger pool of potential players than 5-man PUGs.
And raiders, being real people, stop raiding for one reason or another (lack of progress, not enough content, attention whoring girlfriends, etc.)
So how do you get new people to replace the missing players?
Can you seriously expect new players to work through all levels of content in order to join their friends?

The weakness of the raiding end-game is that it requires a constant supply of fresh players who are willing to climb the raiding pyramid.
And for the most part, the willingness has a lot to do with how tall that pyramid is.
Once the top starts to seem out of reach, Blizzard will have to catapult new players mid-way up the pyramid to keep them coming.
Whether you want to call these welfare epics or knowing your customers and how your game works is up to you.

And seriously, I haven't just been playing heroics either. I've gotten loremaster on all 5 of my main chars, all the mounts that I really wanted, and spent quite a bit of time exploring Northrend. (Have you guys seen the freakishly large orca that surges up from the depths? That thing literally made me jump.)

One of my friends compared raiding to line-dancing with 25 people who all have to wear the right costumes.
He was talking about group complexity as opposed to, say, competitive couples ballroom dancing.
But anyways, watching a well-edited raid video with good music gives me just about all I want out of raids.

[Stealthy]

Keep it civil please...I'd hate to have to lock this thread.

S.

[Moorea]

Keep it civil please...I'd hate to have to lock this thread.

S.

What's not civil in this thread ? (or was it edited out already by the time I got to read it)

[Stealthy]

Yep it was - Fur beat me to it.

[Gadzooks]

So what kept you guys playing in BC after you farmed all the badge gear? T5, T6, T6.5 (Sunwell) was all out of reach... why'd you keep playing?

Or if any of you have been playing since launch like me... after you hit the level 60 wall and farmed out all the 5/10 man instances (8/8 Dungeon 1 w00t!) - what did you do then, since you're all so against raiding / pugging?

I can't farm the 5 mans, as I only have 3 - by the time my guys can handle one, the gear is woefully out of date. Plus, even BC Heroics hand me my butt because I don't have a tank or healer (mage, boomkin, warlock). I was lucky that my guys were almost 70 when Wrath shipped, so I was ready to go pretty quick, and I spent the time since leveling, and had a complete blast doing it. I have all of the exploration and quest achievements, a good chunk of reps ground out, and some pretty good crafted and quest gear. No PvP, and no raiding is fine with me.

Now, I'm exploring the shaman, priest and paladin classes, and I'm going to level them to 80 as well, and hopefully by that time, have my hours restored at work and can afford two more accounts, then I'll try 5 mans. If not, I want to level a warrior, my 70 rogue, and a hunter, and have all the classes leveled. I always wanted a 70 of each, but figured it would take way too long, but MBing plus RAF makes it a lot easier. I might even level my DK team.

I have PLENTY to do!

Along the way I'll level all of the professions, and for once max out fishing and cooking on a few. And, there's always grinding out epic flying on all of them.

I guess I have altitus - I don't have a favorite class anymore, if MBing has done anything for me, it's taught me a lot how all the classes work, and how they work together - and I like them all now.

We all have different goals and approaches, and while I did have my eye on end game for a long time, I'm now perfectly happy leveling and learning new things, and that can keep me going a ways yet. Epics? They'll happen eventually, or not. I still have fun, either way.

[Taliesin]

Another reason that there is separate 5-man, 10-man, and 25-man content is that they progressively take more teamwork and coordination (and commitment). Not everyone has the time to coordinate with that many people to just get something done.

I prefer 5-man content because it is generally fairly short, and takes very little time to get going compared to bigger events. I rarely do 10-man content, and only did two 25-man runs in the last year in TBC.

I don't expect to see any tier 7.5 gear for a long time, but I have a feeling that Blizzard will probably make it easier to obtain once raiders have moved onto tier 8 or 9 gear. At that point, they won't care very much if a heroism -> valor system is added, since they will be well above that gear level anyways. It will give the non-raiders a final gasp at the "uber loot" before Blizz announces when the next expansion is expected out and greens replace them again with generic models.

In the meantime, I agree that the game needs new 5-man content to be released on a fairly regular basis. Not because they have even better loot, but just to keep people interested in the game. New rare pets/mounts/gizmos that drop to give something new to strive for. I also like to see other story lines, even if they are not directly related to the greater story line of the expansion. An instance that relates the taunka to the tauren and gives some more background, for example. Or a story line that may give some pretext into whatever they are secretly concocting for a later expansion.

[Talamarr]

I hope in the future, Blizzard expands on the 25/10 man idea to include 5 man and maybe even solo progression. Each raid area also has 5 man content with it's own progression line and maybe even some solo'able epic quest lines that allow you to play through the story.

Right now, the idea is to do 5 mans, then 5 man heroics then raid. I think we'd get more mileage out of the game if you there were separate 5/10/25/x instance progressions starting with level 70 to 80 and beyond (or whatever levels apply for that expansion).

I never understood why the end-game forces you to be in large scale raids. What does that prove? That for every Shepard there are 24 sheep?

[Hachoo]

I never understood why the end-game forces you to be in large scale raids. What does that prove? That for every Shepard there are 24 sheep?

That the greater enemy requires more power than a single character can provide?

You don't' see the US Military sending out solo troops to accomplish large missions....

You don't? I'd wager most of the most important missions are carried out by small tactical groups of elite forces (rangers, special ops, delta force, etc), or very small groups of pilots. Perhaps you could compare these to 5-mans.