Here is a post I read this morning on a WoW discussion site. I chose it because it is a good representation of many similar posts I have seen in the last couple of days:
I have a Deathwing kill on my Hunter and I’m already finished. But, for the first time ever, I unsubscribed for a positive reason. I came back to learn and gear my Hunter, get a transmog bow, and kill Deathwing. Done, done, and done. Time to move on to other games.
And herein lies the problem with easy content. This player’s reaction would be great if Blizzard’s business plan was to run an MMO for a week after a content patch and then shut down the servers, but that is clearly not the case.
The LFR version of Deathwing can be one-shot in a pug (as I did last night) and then Shaman Ex Machina Thrall shows up in the post-kill cinematic to declare “The Cataclysm is over!” (I’m not making that up, he really does) and millions of players say, “Oh sweet, later guys” and go play League of Legends for the next 8 months.
At the end of the day the Looking for Raid feature will be a monumental reminder of why uber-easy, no risk, “casual” raiding doesn’t work beyond a week or two.
Herding Cats is the blog of Liore, known in the real world as Jessica Cook. She writes mostly about MMOs and RPGs, and believes in 
The more I think about it, the more I think that they should have left the Madness of Deathwing out of the raid finder. Just have Thrall knock Deathwing into the maelstrom, give them loot, and shuffle them off. Having an entire encounter not available on raid finder would provide more incentive for them to push into actual raiding afterwords.
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I agree! Or at least gate it even more, so you can’t LFR Deathwing for a month, maybe even two. This new idea of “do all content and then go dormant for months” is death to guilds, and I won’t lie — it was kind of underwhelming to wander in and one-shot the final boss of the expansion even though I had no idea what I was doing.
I think you hit the nail on the head there. They should have the LFR take them all the way up to the final boss, but not allow the kill. Add a different cinematic that shows Deathwing coming but the NPC state we don’t quite have the energy to defeat him, We will have to come back with a stronger force. Then have them ported out of the instance. So basically they would get to see the instance then know they need to be “stronger” or run the “harder version” to defeat him.
I think the bigger issue isn’t that the individuals that are willing to quit after they kill the end boss is because they are casual but because they are trying to play the game as if it was a single player game and not an MMO. They don’t care about raiding and being with friends playing, they don’t care about their toons progression with gear or achievements. They probably don’t even have alts leveled to 85. They are probably the same players that think Skyrim is an MMO not and RPG. They look at it like Mario Bros and I just got to level 8 and beat Bowser time to return the game to Gamefly.
“I think the bigger issue isn’t that the individuals that are willing to quit after they kill the end boss is because they are casual but because they are trying to play the game as if it was a single player game and not an MMO.”
Reliquary, you have put it much better than I did! That is exactly the aspect of all this that irritates me the most. I love the MMO part of MMOs, and it makes me really sad to see people play it as a single player game and then in turn to see MMO developers clamber to make their games more appealing to the single player audience. Thanks for posting!
ToC version 2, it seems.
I’m somewhat pleased that I’ll be able to see Deathwing’s demise before the release of SW:TOR. The other half of me is asking WTF are they thinking, giving a gazillion subscribers a sabbatical to try out SW:TOR.
I clearly have no future in strategic software release planning. I just don’t get it. Did that many people pony up for a year’s subscription?
pony up for a year’s subscription
I see what you did there.
It’s tempting to pay $15 to get to kill Deathwing. Maybe that’s part of what they’re counting on. Or just that everyone is gonna be playing SWTOR, so why bother with anything this month, and people will play WoW in February for the love of pandas.
I can’t say it’s a great idea, but I imagine after 8 years of leading the industry, eventually you run out of ideas. I give as evidence: ToC 10 normal, ToC 10 heroic, ToC 25 normal, ToC 25 heroic.
Sometimes the tank’s dry.
Both you and Anonymous above make a good point — this is almost a perfect lead-in for SWTOR. The patch will have been out for 3 weeks, most people will have killed Deathwing on their mains in some form. I’m sort of confused by Blizzard’s timing, honestly.
“I give as evidence: ToC 10 normal, ToC 10 heroic, ToC 25 normal, ToC 25 heroic.”
Auuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh.
These people at least know they can down the last boss of the expansion. How many people saw the difficulty jump in T11 and decided they’d have no chance of that, and unsubbed right then and there? Quite a few, I think.
But they unsub either way, right? So it’s cheaper, technically, for Blizzard to not spend the money and time developing LFR because its main audience — people who have little playtime and are not interested in finding a guild — are quitting after a week.
I mean, hey, I am down for people to see content, and if I can get her geared up enough I’ll definitely be running my alt through LFR. It’s just.. you know how raiding guilds see a drop in attendance after killing the final boss (in any mode)? Now everyone can feel that way. In the first two weeks of the patch. It’s kind of sad.
Sorry, Anonymous = Idie. Apparently I read this blog while sitting on inane conference calls at work and rarely from home.
As an officer in a casual raiding guild, 4.3 sucks. Folks see the content in LFR and don’t bother showing up for raid night. 25 man raids have turned into 2×10, which migrated to a single 10 that is still hard to staff.
As a player, I’m ok with it. My alt is as well geared as my main. Where I generally struggle to see the last boss die before the next expansion comes out, both of my toons will see it before I set foot in SW:TOR. From a personal perspective, it seems like Blizzard is setting me up for retirement. I do appreciate it, there is something that feels right about waving Benediction at Ragnaros one last time. I just hate what it is doing to guilds.
But they unsub either way, right?
Unsubbing a few weeks into the first tier of the expansion is much worse for Blizzard than having them unsub a few weeks into the last tier of the expansion.
LFD is pretty much a solo experience as well. You queue up, join a group, no-one speaks, people drop group at the drop of a hat, some other anonymous person joins, still no-one speaks unless things are going wrong, at which point insults are exchanged and someone else leaves or is kicked. You kill the end boss, grab your loot, quit the group without comment, and carry on. You may as well be playing with bots.
As for LFR, in no way does it teach anyone how to raid. It’s simply a loot pinata, and as you said, a quick way to see the demise of Deathwing. Other than that, there is still nothing new to do outside raiding, so yes, lots of people are going to stop playing once Deathwing is down and they have their LFR shinies.
I think Blizzard is just trying to do what they feel is right for the player base here. Sure there are some unforeseen side effects, but there are many types of players in the game. Just because someone did or didn’t defeat the final boss of the expansion doesn’t mean they will or won’t unsubscribe. I know I will never see the real end content, get the really good loot or feel the real sense of achievement you’d get from the real thing after weeks of trying with your guild. I am in a very small guild of good friends who can only hope to do LFR at the moment. Does it mean we like the game any less? No.
For people like me there are other things to do in between, grind rep, get pets, mounts, explore, get achievements, holidays, pvp. I’m not trying to speak for everyone, but I like to believe there are more people out there who just love the game no matter what they can or can’t accomplish. No doubt there are those who are just in it for the loot and to kill bosses, but like I said, everyone is different.
Cheers :)
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I think it’s great that different people want different things from WoW, and everyone should fill their boots with their preferred activity.
However, the rallying cry before 4.3 was that a majority of players wanted to “see the content”. Now they can… in about 2-3 hours. Total. Content seen! For a lot of people — not everyone, but a lot — that is the beginning of the end of their engagement with WoW, and that makes me sad.