I think that the change to 25 mans is a good one, the best raiding experiences I have had were in ZG and UBRS. However, this coupled with the revelation, also in that article, that pvp is be overhauled and even the battleground reps won't work like before makes me question why I even play my 60 anymore. There is not a single thing left in the game that will be relevant when the expansion comes out, which might be in 3 months if the more optimistic projections are too be believed. I'm trying to level an alt right now, but my account runs out at the end of the month and I don't have much reason to renew.
The other thing is that I don't trust Blizzard, even now. I still think that there might be a bait and switch somewhere in the future. Perhaps they have all the smaller content ready to go, because of course that's what people will need to do first, and then they will exclusively patch in giant raid dungeons once the expansion has been released.
 

I think 25 man dungeons sound really good but what is going to happen to the 40 dungeons that already exist such as MC and NAX? Will blizz just leave them at 40, or will they cap those at 25 as well and keep the monsters at roughly the same level? I am excited to see what the expansion will have to offer, but there are many other games on the horizon line that I think may give blizz a run for their money. Blizzards ability to stay on top is going to rest on how well they are able to keep their current player base in a world where many players are sick of them changing game mechanics, talent trees, ect. I don't play much PVP, but I know I would be less than happy to find out that after spending months acquiring BG points, Blizzard decided to change the way PVP points were handed out.
 

They stated something along the lines that the existing dungeon caps wouldn't change. The other thing was that the 25 man dungeons in the expansion had *scalable* difficulty based on the level and number of those attempting the instance.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/worldofwarcraftexp1/news.html?sid=6155696
 

I'm not sure this is a good thing for casuals. Dungeons will still take many hours to complete. If you can't do a 3-4 hour raid with 39 people, then how is doing it with 24 any different?

Dungeon difficulty will be ticky to balance. Does all the great loot only drop from the highest difficulty setting or just more of it? If the answer is the former, then nothing changes. If it is the latter, then expect to do a lot more repetitive grinding to get what you want unless you can run it on the "hard" setting.
 

You retards that have been building guilds around 40 man raids are just plain embarassing to the rest of us guilds. Being in a guild should never be about a raid schedule, number of people required for a dungeon, or any other such bullshit. It should be about the people and be about people that enjoy being together.

That is why the raid cap is down to 25. So the people that actually have solid social guilds can go "hey there is 10 of us on tonight... we can god do this." Or "hey there is 25 on lets go do this." All the way up to 40. You have no clue about a casual guild so don't even pretend you understand how they work. Raids and having the right classes are the LAST thing on any casual guilds mind. If a guild is so absorbed in raiding... then it by far is not casual.

You are nothing but loot driven children.
 

How can it be retarded to have built guilds around 40 man raids when Blizzard was telling us for two years that was what was required to experience everything the game had to offer? How can you even use words like “retards” to describe others while at the same time implying that you are an adult and the others are children? Children use the word retards to feel superior. Adults drop that slang from their vocabulary.

I think 25 man dungeons are a good thing. I think 30 and 35 man dungeons would also be a good thing along with bringing back 15 man.
 

Heartless writes: You retards ...

On the internet, you are what you write. Now imagine a guy coming into a bar and addressing the assembly of people not known to him there with the words You retards .... You would assume that the guy was crazy and rude. And the same assumption is made by everybody reading Heartless' words. You would need to read his blog to realize that he is just one of many burned out casual WoW players that couldn't or wouldn't take part in WoW's official "end game". So excuse his rudeness, the man is just bitter because the game stopped offering him anything.

He is right in saying that many of the "modern" WoW raiding guilds are not about the people any more. You are just a character class and a set of gear to these guilds. Most guilds have application forms asking you about level, raid experience, Onyxia key, etc., while telling something about your beliefs and your character isn't strictly necessary to get invited.
 

If he thinks the 25 man zones are going to be some great thing for casual guilds, he is going to be sorely disappointed. This is simply another bait and switch like the 0.5 Tier armor quests.

I'm not that pessimistic. Lowering the cap to 25 makes organizing a raid a lot easier. And the "winged" instances means that you can have shorter raids and do the next wing another day without losing anything. Thus with less people and less time needed for a raid, a lot more people will be able to raid. Sure, the barrier might still be too high for the ultra-casual, but a lot of middle-class guilds will be able to raid nicely.

I also have hopes for the old level 60 raid dungeons becoming casual raiding targets. So if you have a larger number of people, but not a good class mix, and not much raid experience, as long as these people are all level 70, they should be able to handle Molten Core.

You are right that class mix becomes more important in a 25-person raid than in a 40-person raid. You can't take 8 warriors and 8 hunters on a 25-man raid. But just like I more or less retired my warrior, some people have to realize that if they want to raid, they need to compromise. If their real life doesn't allow compromises on time spent, then they need at least to choose a raid-friendly class if they want to participate.