>It was a joyless and obsolete game feature. All it did was encourage people to search out exploits (like that ogre in Blasted Lands who can’t normally be killed), or to make high level characters muck up low level zones as they run around one-shotting mobs.

Buh? When I levelled weapon skill it was always on enemies close to my level, because they have enough health for you to just stand there whacking them while alt-tabbed. Usually a couple of levels below so they wouldn’t hurt too much. Though the exploits are pretty fun and a bit better value. Or I did it while healing random dungeons XD

A second, linked, is that a raid group is more than just 25 folks to happen to be in more or less the same place at the same time, and, by and large, going in the same direction. I wouldn’t say it’s analogous to teamwork, per se, but it’s part of the whole “this place is hard – we really need to do of our best to defeat it”.

I never experienced the level 60 Loatheb – the acknowledged nadir of the raid consumable trench – but I’ve never found consumables to be a major pain. When I’m in the mood to fish, I turn up sufficient to keep me going for weeks – by which time I’ll have been in the mood to fish again. An experiment in Ulduar, which turned into an amazingly profitable 2 month raid extension, provided me with sufficient herbs to flask for the rest of Wrath – and make a bomb in hard sales into the bargain. Gold is plentiful even if you don’t have this kind of Lotus opportunity.

With all that said. Please, for goodness sake, can we get a more meaningful tank flask in Cataclysm? 650 health was negligible in Naxxramas, and 1300 was almost as trivial by the time we were in Trial of the Crusader.

It’s just not.

Farming consumables built a camaraderie amongst raid members that is completely absent in WotLK. WotLK in general feels like it took too big of step to appease the person that can barely play WoW ever. I’m pretty shocked that we dropped from 3 raid days/week in TBC to 2 raid days/week in WotLK and I feel like I have less to do in WotLK.

5 mans need to be way longer. The Emblem system is broken now offering too many items. Hard modes are just total garbage. Tanking is far, far less involved now with your contribution to a fight being determined by often a single button at best.

WotLK is just an inferior product to TBC.

I do remember those days fondly, it really made you feel involved with the whole raider lifestyle even when you weren’t actually raiding. Very different to now when I mostly just log Spinks on for raid nights. (But I did play her a lot at the start of Cataclysm which is why I can do that now.)

The prep nights were sometimes more fun than the raid (although never as good as a ‘first kill’).

Good ‘ole days farming food mats for the tanks in Feralas, or levelling locks alts in guild groups so we could summon round the continents for crystal buffs, Ony kill buffs etc for ‘one more go’ at whatever almost impossible boss we were going for that night!!

It was a joyless and obsolete game feature. All it did was encourage people to search out exploits (like that ogre in Blasted Lands who can’t normally be killed), or to make high level characters muck up low level zones as they run around one-shotting mobs.

And Blizzard (and other devs too, they’re not the only ones) have a tendency that when they decide a mechanic isn’t fun, instead of replacing it with one that is, they will just remove it altogether. Sometimes removing a mechanic is the best way to improve the game, but I’m sure sometimes there would have been scope to put something else there instead.

In any case, the idea that consumables are there as an option is difficult to implement. And the argument that perhaps they shouldn’t design for the hardcore is another argument for making the game easier …. (In fact, with the normal modes in Wrath, they’ve been able to do this, which is why my casual raid group have been making good progression.)

How do we create appropriate challenge for our casual players without making the content too easy for hardcore players?

Even Jeff Kaplan of Blizzard has said many times “we want players to beat our content”.

I agree with what you are saying that the hardcore players would find the content too easy but I believe these hardcore people have a disproportionate influence over Blizzard.

Blizzard listens to hardcore players. We know this because many of the top hardcore raiding guilds are essentially unpaid Blizzard employees testing their content for free. Casual players don’t have this kind of clout at Blizzard.

But on the other hand, then we have Blizzard continually dumbing-down the basic mechanics of WoW. In Cataclysm there will be no such thing as weapon skill. Why? I guess it’s too much to ask players to “level up” a new weapon. What’s next? Maybe they’ll eliminate hit points as players can’t be expected to wait till their hit points refresh. At what point does this end?

I’m worried that the devs at Blizzard seem obsessed with constantly tinkering with every class/talents/skills in preparation for each expansion. It’s a never ending game that seems to keep lots of game designers employed at Blizzard.

That said, balancing a MMO is no easy task.