Full Circle

Firstly, no, it didn't take me a month to write this post. I've had internet issues this past month and haven't been able to log on.

When I finally do manage to log on, I find that not only have I missed 3 heroic boss kills, it is also the last week of raiding for Infamy - there aren't enough of us to keep a 10m raid team going.

Considering I only just joined the guild 3 months ago, this is incredibly annoying. I hate to go back to being a non-raider after the challenge of heroic raiding, but I may have to - there are very few Oceanic guilds left on Proudmoore (or at least, ones that can at least clear ToT).

Blizzard may be bringing in more casual players by promoting LFR, but damn it's killing the raiding scene. It makes me wonder how many people now are doing heroics - surely a lot fewer now than previously.

I used to know and PuG with so many people from familiar guilds; now my friends list is almost empty and those guilds have fallen apart with very few new ones to replace them. All the inter-guild banter going back and forth about which guild killed which boss, Trade Chat filled with guilds picking up PuGs to fill raiding slots - gone.

I feel I'm back where I started, way back in Vanilla - no permanent home, no ties, just casual playing. Not terrible, but I was playing WoW like a single player RPG, subscribing on and off to make the most of the monthly fee.

Perhaps it's worth it to Blizzard to change the playerbase to mainly casuals, but I'm not so sure... hardcore fans will pay any price for what they want (just ask Apple); casuals will go at the drop of a hat... and now that there are games out there that look and feel less dated, it's not a good sign.