04-14-2006, 10:44 AM
If one type of activity in a role playing game is better rewarded than others, many players will focus on that activity in order to develop their character.
Doing any single activity often enough becomes boring.
Combine these two and you get the current situation. The problem isn't raiding per se, it's the lack of viable alternatives - if the deeprun tram suddenly becomes a reliable source of Legendary items a lot of people currently raiding will begin doing nothing but riding the rails and burn out on that instead.
If every style of play provided players with roughly equivalent equipment (same ilvl and quality, different stat mixes) for roughly equivalent effort, players could mix up their activities without slowing the development of their character. I know I'd enjoy that more, but I don't think it will ever happen in WoW. The last year has seen the release of five instances for raids and not a single one for small groups - it's pretty clear to me that the designers intend for raiding to remain the most effective means of character progression by a wide margin.
Doing any single activity often enough becomes boring.
Combine these two and you get the current situation. The problem isn't raiding per se, it's the lack of viable alternatives - if the deeprun tram suddenly becomes a reliable source of Legendary items a lot of people currently raiding will begin doing nothing but riding the rails and burn out on that instead.
If every style of play provided players with roughly equivalent equipment (same ilvl and quality, different stat mixes) for roughly equivalent effort, players could mix up their activities without slowing the development of their character. I know I'd enjoy that more, but I don't think it will ever happen in WoW. The last year has seen the release of five instances for raids and not a single one for small groups - it's pretty clear to me that the designers intend for raiding to remain the most effective means of character progression by a wide margin.