And I agree, it’s brilliant that more people are able to run instances these days. Especially if it takes some stress off the smaller family-type guilds who used to feel that they had to try to organise regular runs.

What I am thinking about though is the next step. What happens when people finally have as much as they can get from the instance runs? When they get bored of Halls of Stone et al? This will happen much more slowly for more casual players, but it will happen eventually.

At that point, your options are to level more alts (which works!), find other things to do in game, or think about raiding. And this is where the server size comes in. I think a lot of people don’t realise the difference between larger and smaller servers, but on a large server, there will be pick up group raids running every night. Multiple raids, to multiple destinations. You could log on, sit in Dalaran, and whisper the raid leaders to try to get yourself a spot.

Sure, some raid leaders will be fussy about gearscore and achievements but others won’t – might just be a case of picking the right raids.

So eventually, the casual player on the larger server will have more opportunities to see these things than would happen on a smaller server. And as one barrier comes down (ie. the barrier stopping people seeing instances), I wonder what will happen when they see the next barrier ahead of them and know that a server transfer would bypass it.

I am a LONG time casual gamer, (3? yrs playing, 1 main, lvl 80) and I’m just now getting into “serious” raiding. While I DO agree the /LFG tool is going to help people gear up like mad, and be able to raid easier, I don’t think this is such a bad thing. The wait time between “80-in-greens” and “Raid Ready” is going to go WAY down, but I don’t see this as a bad thing. Will people transfer more because they are geared and want to get into a better raiding guild? there may be a slight increase, but Its been happening ever since they allowed paid transfers and I don’t see it getting worse. For the Casual gamer however, the /LFG is a godsend. A small casual family guild is no longer forced to wait for an hour to pick up the last person they need for a dungeon Run. Friends can group and level together so much easier even if it means bringing in a stranger. But you’re having to o that anyway so what difference does it make so long as you get to do your run? for me? the new /LFG tool is a Godsend. Ive’ got my little casual guild, my low pop server, my zero wait time for logging in, And I’ve got 10x the people to draw from when I’m pugging a dungeon. Win all the way around as far as i am concerned Others mileage may vary of course… But I think its an awesome addition for the Low-pop servers/Casual players.

Now, if only I would have the patient to wait for a PuG…

But the solution is already in game, they just have to make a LFR-option, and with the build-in gear check, the random-raid will not be undergeared… no way of knowing if the players have the don’t-stand-in-the-fire-talent though .