Originally posted by: SupaDupaPan
I still think WoW is following in the footsteps of EQ. Despite what you say about party, there is a party formula. It's DPS/Healer/Tank pretty much. Doesn't matter which you have, you can substitute for another. I mean sometimes you'll get too many melee DPS or too many caster DPS or ranged, however, again, it can be substituted pretty easily. Need a healer? Get a Pally/Druid/Priest/Shaman (Pick one! )
My standpoint though, is from that of a newer player's rather than that of a veteran or someone who has played for quite some time. Those who have been playing for quite some time most likely sooner or later, quit due to repetition/game gets old for them etc. However, it's the newer players that I would think Blizzard wants to hook so that they subscribe and play for X amount of months/years. The older players, Blizzard already has milked their money from them and the only thing that is left is to come out with new content. But even that gets old.
As a former hard-core now casual raider, it really is a completely different game in a lot of respects, and most of the ones that matter.
Just for some perspective: I started raiding on my druid when raiding meant taking 30 people into buggy Scholo and half the raid could die instantly to stacked ghoul disease clouds. Then I had a full Cenarion set (minus maybe one piece, I think) while they still had the green placeholder graphics. My guild had Horde-side and occasionally server-first kills all the way up to Naxx. Then I burned out because the game became more time-consuming and stressful than the full-time job that pays my mortgage.
I sold my account and quit for about a year and a half, then started up fresh with a new account when WotLK came out. Seriously, it's a completely different game and you only need to look at the complaints about the lack of hard-core content to see it. Classes are balanced completely differently than they used to and most, if not all, specs are viable for their given roles.
Something I see regularly in chat I never, ever expected to see:
"10 man Naxx LF boomkin!"
I'm feral and cash is so easy to come by I respec pretty frequently between tank, dps, and PvP specs. Tells I never expected to get (admittedly for some fairly lightweight content, but these specs are as much in demand for raiding guilds):
"You feral?"
"Yep"
"Great, want to tank heroic Gundrak?"
"You feral?"
"Yep"
"Want to do heroic VoA, we need a kitty."
I'm sure Ulduan will raise the cap on the hardcore content a bit, but it's still a very casual-friendly game now where you hop and play for an hour or two, then hop off feeling like you accomplished something. It's not quite Hello Kitty Online, but it's about as accomodating to a casual playstyle as you could expect from an MMO.