Nick, 1-hour raids might be a bit too short, gathering 25 people still takes some time. I'm okay with raiding taking "the evening", as long as it doesn't take "the night" as well. But extra for you I see Blizzard added more 1-boss raid dungeons, comparable to Onyxia, to the Burning Crusade.

Especially during weekdays you often start raiding as late as 8 pm, and then a raid lasting over 4 hours starts affecting your fitness on the next morning.
 

less than 2 hours for high end raids for ONE instance. Don't forget thatmany instances will have wings, each 1-2 hours, that adds too.

So Raid Guilds will do 2+ instances per run. The key is choice here: you can do one wing per evening or just finish the whole thing in one night how they are used to.

I like it. Choice is key for us players.
 

Don't be so sure, Nick. Maybe Blizzard will make the raid dungeons so casual player friendly, that even you will start to go raiding. :)
 

Question : I'm a hardcore raider so grinding MC for T1, BWL for T2, AQ40 for T2.5 and Naxx for T3 is fun for me and keeps me paying $15/mo. Do casuals who don't like 3-6 hour raids want to grind dungeon after dungeon like the more extreme raiders do for incremental upgrades along with many hours of farming for pots to prep for the raids?

Example: Razorgore is the first mob in BWL. The very next mob is Boss #2 Vaelastrasz. You can get 2 sets of T2 epics in less than 30 mins in BWL. I'm not so sure that the time investment is what keeps casuals out of raiding (But I guess you do need to be MC equipped before BWL so if you don't have time for MC, etc... and I'm guessing that nobody wants to go through the leadership and administrative work of raid leadership for 2 hour raids.

I will dare to suggest that 25-man content will not be PUG-able. ZG when it came out was on par with BWL at the time. Even full raids of T1 & T2 people had trouble with many of the harder bosses in there.

I will also go out on a limb and suggest that DKP will be alive and well with the 25 man raids.

Another downside to 25 man raids: Loot ratio

The loot-to-raider ratio for MC was 26-30 epics to 40 raiders on average for a full clear. With ZG, the ratio dropped to approximately 5-6 to 20 (this is before the ZG nerfs and before the addition of new epics to the loot tables).

As the math shows, a full clear of ZG back in the day was much less rewarding than a full clear of MC. In the BC, I'm 100% sure that we will see a more ZG style epic-to-raider ratio.

-maz
 

"and I'm a bit afraid of the possibilities for guild drama"

Already happening in my guild. Straing being put on the raid leaders who want to put all hybrids in a healbot box and most of our hybrids wanting to be more than that. They're seeing what's coming and see no reason to change their attitude. So I have to listen to the GL moan about how blizzard is going to destroy raiding in the x-pac. sigh
 

I despise DKP, since I think it discriminates against low-frequency attendance disproportionately.

That depends on the DKP system. There are many DKP systems which are inflationary, that is they give out more DKP per raid than are spent. And you are totally right in thinking that this discriminates against low-frequency raid attendance. But for example a zero-sum DKP system is raid attendance neutral.

And of course low attendance can even be overproportionally rewarded. For example my guild has done MC so often, all the regular raiders have nearly all of the loot from there. So people raiding for the first time often end up with two or three epics, just because nobody else wanted them.

But I totally agree with you that what can make raiding unpleasant is the elitist, military style, sometimes bordering on fascist, way that some of the most "uber" raiding guilds are run. Guilds that kick you out if you went on a holiday for two weeks, etc.. I wouldn't want to raid with such a guild either. Fortunately there are guilds that are big enough to raid while being casual enough to be friendly.
 

Seriously, the more I hear about TBC, the more excited I get.

I'm with you nick.

I can't believe, after raiding all this time, given the option to do something else I'd leave it behind.

And no, I'm not someone who raided just for epics. I raided because what else is there to do at 60?

With TBC I'll have an option. I'm really excited about that.
 

… discriminates against … disproportionately.

Wouldn’t disproportionate discrimination actually be equality?

Just wondering.

:->
 

What's the breakdown of raids vs. 5 mans? And, what levels do the raid dungeons begin in BC? Are their raid dungeons right off the bat, or are they mostly for those at lvl 70?
 

What's the breakdown of raids vs. 5 mans? And, what levels do the raid dungeons begin in BC? Are their raid dungeons right off the bat, or are they mostly for those at lvl 70?

Take Coilfang Reservoir for instance
# Location: Zangarmarsh, Outland
# Wings: 4 wings including a raid wing
* The Slave Pens (Level 62-64 mobs, 5 player groups)
* The Underbog (Level 63-65 mobs, 5 player groups)
* The Steamvault (Level 70-72 mobs, 5 player groups)
* Serpentshrine Cavern (25 player raid)

Look it up on wowwiki for more info.
 

Bit off topic, but can you tell me if you still get XP for doing Azeroth quests / instances at level 60+?

Also, what is the lowest level you can travel to outlands?
 

Yes, the old world mobs and quests still give xp, but you need the Burning Crusade expansion installed to get the level cap lifted.

Lowest level mob I've seen in Outlands was 58.
 

Holy shit people that like each other may get to play together!