Props on the subject matter but I've got to add to the 'ZOMG FORMAT IT!' chant.

That said I totally agree and have said the same of guilds many times. The whole guild concept just ends up further segregating an already segregated player base. In some cases this helps but in others it's very limiting (I can't do XYZ with you because of my guild, yada yada) and ALL guilds of any size end up with significant dramatic events that break them up. It's almost a joke now on my server as to who's with which guild and almost everyone is cross guilded either openly or secretly.

25 mans... better than 40, but still too much. To me 10 is the upper limit of what I can tolerate. I think Blizz picked 25 though as sort of a minimum that would them to be able to tie every class into the encounters, etc. Still wish they'd focus more on the 5-10 as I believe there are good solutions out there. I LOVE a challenge but the only thing challenging about a 25 man really is patience and persistence. Ok, which one of you 24 other people messed up THIS time. Trying to get 24 other people to come on time, knowledgeable, with reagents, pots, etc. on a regular basis is VERY tough. On top of that, IMO, the fights are even FUN just a pure beat down. Your reward most nights after a 4 hour session of not even being able to get up and take a piss is usually a repair bill and I found by the time I actually got gear I just didn't care about. 'Oh yay... 24 more +healing and 10 more intellect... go me..'

In contrast the 5 mans are a blast, heroics were a good idea (now that they actually have loot worth getting) and the only thing really holding them back from doing more is that the loot level would start treading on the holy raider territory (you know, 2% of the population, who has had their uber gear for months anyhow). The really sad part is how much time and money most of us put into a game and never get to see 'the really cool stuff'. I wonder if sales would have been different if on the TBC trailer when Illidan comes out they put up a subtitle that says, "Note: 98% of you will never actually see this guy in game"

So why play? Because, what else WILL we play? EQ2 is even worse (32 man raids), LOTRO was just sad, SWG died years ago just not everyone noticed and it had no real point anyhow, Warhammer Online (were they just joking with this or what?), Horizons was stillborn, Lineage2 was just a gold farming enterprise, etc. etc. DDO doesn't seem to have much momentum, from what I read it was really akward, so on and so forth. There's stupid stuff like Pirates of the Burning Sea, The MATRIX online (HOW could this be good?), etc. I just like the traditional dungeons & dragons inspired fantasy and Blizzard's playstyle is unmatched from what I've seen. From level 1 to pre-raid geared WoW is just awesome and I love playing it, but then it just dies for 98% of us.