They have given up on the idea that basic game content should be restricted to 0.1% of their players and I’m sure this new philosophy will apply to non-hard modes.

It’s the old conundrum though. Everyone wants content just hard enough that they and their guildies can beat it while it still gates the vast umwashed hordes who are less adept. If you’re one of the ones gated it’s ridiculously elitist but as soon as you get through then it’s equally ridiculous to let the undeserving rabble have the same loot and bragging rights.

The autonerf is probably ok as well as long as it is a small effect (say 1% a week, not 5%).

Again limited attempts mean that people who want to raid x amount a week don’t get pushed into staying for way more attempts due to guild pressure (yes its a big problem for many people).

I only hope that everything is tuned hard enough.

Would people be complaining less if rather than gating, they’d have made you farm Frozen Saronite from inside the instance to make Frost Resist gear using rep farmed patterns to get past the boss Froesty the Snowman who does raid wide frost damage?

I’m going to be very curious to see the initial tuning. Because if it’s really that hard, it might not even be worth the non hardcore trying it for a few weeks. I hope they don’t do that though.

This is a particularly tragic quote I found on EJ on the subject:

Between all of the boss kill videos available, all the information posted on EJ and other related forums, and the PTR being open to anyone who wants it, “getting your feet wet” should be a thing of the past. No one should be going into a fight on the live realms without knowing exactly what to expect.

Crimson Hall would then be around January 18th and Frostwing Hall around February 8th. Even if this is off by a couple weeks, you can roughly guess we won’t be fighting the lich king until early to mid February, and only after he’s been defeated will the heroic versions become available.

I like this for several reasons – sure the top guilds will down each wing on their respective patch day, but it won’t matter that much because it is just a wing. But once the heroic unlocks they’ll be able to go from defeating normal mode Arthas to heroic Arthas in the same week, that’s where the rush will be and they can get their bragging rights.

I also like that for the more casual raiders it really gives us time to focus on and learn 3-4 encounters over a few raid lockouts and gear ourselves up for the harder wings. By the time a new wing becomes available hopefully we’ll have more guild members familiar with the existing wing so we don’t need to explain everything.

This new system should work out well for a lot of guilds – I know due to the limited attempts I’ll be much more selective of who I raid with. Right now we’ve carried some seriously undergeared people through ToC 10 and this mechanic really gives us a built-in excuse to exclude them. Sure it might sound mean, but when you’re dealing with people now who expect to hit 80 and see ToC 10 the same day it gets old.