25 person max raid size for expansion

[Sword_of_Doom]

Given all the mixed information on difficulty settings that has been posited in interviews and blue posts, this is the first I've heard that there won't be difficulty settings on raids. Can you provide a source for that statement?

The statements thus far clearly articulate:
There will be a player selected difficulty slider.
That slider will have 5 settings from easy to super hard.
That slider will have 2 settings normal and hard
The difficulty will be set based on the party's level and not player selected.
The slider will affect only expansion dungeons and raids.
The slider may affect older dungeons and raids (SM was mentioned).

Your statement is the first I've heard. I'd love more info on that.

-Kershner

I will say this, its not explicit but implicit in a number of Burning Crusade previews. I will try to prove my point with a small quote.

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft...n/725327p1.html

In a move to ensure that "level up" instances don't get permanently shelved by max level players, Blizzard is working a difficulty system into its dungeons. Basically, it works like this: As you're leveling up, you run through all the Outland instances at their default difficulty. You'll earn gear commensurate for your level, and the challenges will be tuned as such. Once you hit 70, however, your group leaders will have the option of running dungeons on "Elite" difficulty. This will tune the challenges to a level 70 group and increase the relative value of the rewards. At this point, there aren't any plans include such an option for the game's existing dungeons, though Chilton said that we shouldn't dismiss the possibility.

This is the only direct quote i can find that clearly says that level up instances would have the difficulty setting. Within the very same article raids are talked about (25 man) but no mention that there will be difficulty settings. My guess is that making a difficulty setting for a 25 person raid dungeon would be hard to too and from a cost perspective not worth it.

So this still leads me to conclude that if they are truly changing the raid cap size for accessiblity then they HAVE to make the content easier. Otherwise this is the stupidest dumbest move i have seen any gaming company make. Destroy the social structure that they enforced for 2 years and then break that very same social structure for what, no change to accessiblity to the casual player.

I could be wrong on difficulty settings for 25 person raids but implicitly i think there will be no difficulty settings.