I know what you mean about small groups also, I think it’s partly why the 10 man raids were so popular (as well as being easier to assemble). As the group gets bigger, you get relegated to your assigned role and yelled at if you step out of line (gets more regimented I think). In a smaller group, just like working in a small company, you have to think on your feet more and you can see what everyone else is doing.

And I really really hope Icecrown won’t be disappointing. I love that we can get excited about it though. Which I really am not about Ulduar (yeah titans yawn).

I think I was way more excited about killing Nefarian in vanilla WoW than I was about any TBC boss too, because of having seen him in UBRS and knowing that he was Onyxia’s brother. I think the WoW writers could do a way better job of giving us more of the raid lore sprinkled among other content.

Fighting Arthas will be way epic (I hope) for the same reason. Even if I’d be sad in a way to beat him.

Raiding is even worse, with killing the same bosses every week.

Warhammer had quite an interesting take on the kill quests. They have kill collectors in each zone who will pay you a bounty for each monster (of whichever type they are collecting) you kill. There’s no quest to pick up. You just go talk to them when you are in town and they pay you for what you killed since you last talked to them.

But they have regular quests too.

Quests are meh, but they’re just the bread. You are the ham, and your moves are the mayonnaise. And now I want a sandwich.

But seriously, grabbing three quests to go into New Hearthglen (south of Venomspite), and going in there and just DESTROYING everything without even checking to see if I really *need* to or not, then surviving some mainy pull with 12 HP left over screams super hero to me.

I missed my warrior. It’s good to be back, and hot damn (!) have they made some changes to prot.

One thing that really detracts from a heroic quest chain or encounter is raiding. Back when I palyed WoW, I really didn’t feel all that mighty when 10 or 25 of us dragged a boss down like a swarm of army ants overrunning a praying mantis. Smaller groups give an individual a moment to stand out and show what they can do.

City of Heroes was awesome about this at launch. You could solo missions, as they would scale to the relative strength of the individual or group. Task Forces never involved huge numbers of players. Of course, all of this was instanced as well, so you really were in your own pocket reality with no assistance from passers-by. I definitely miss playing my blaster, sometimes.

Though I would say that the place Blizzard has the most lacking in terms of storytelling has got to be the raid instances. We’ll have to see if all this build up with Arthas is going to carry well into Icecrown Citidel.