I know I will try Warhammer when it comes out, I’m looking forward to it as something different or until WotLK comes out. I play for fun. I sure don’t play WoW because of Epic raiding loot. Its nice to get but for me it would just be about seeing the content that’s there and the loot as part of the reward for the attempt at overcoming the challenge. It would also be nice to have a single player dungeon. But of course that just not going to happen due to Blizzard focus. That benefits ever player even if your gear due to raiding higher level surpasses it. Maybe you could get titles that matches your accomplishment. I’ve never earned a title in WoW other than a Netherwing faction title. Yet I’m a good player with the masses. Lot of stuff in the game don’t balance to the majority. I have no clear answers how it can be all fixed.

I’m skilled enough to raid if I choose to, but WotLK will be out soon. Looking at it I’m not sure I want to invest the time in months on end in drama ladden guilds just to see content. So I’m just about at another crossroad in my thought process looking at the endgame. I’ve worked hard to get there and now that I’m there at the point in game when WotLK is on the horizon ahead not sure how much time if any I want to commit to raiding.

I liked lotro enough to max out a character but the ride was too quick and the endgame wasn’t there. Guild Wars Eye of the North I also really enjoyed but was also very very short. Other than that it seemed like an year of MMO disappointments and delays.

Loose guild association, definitely. Half-guild, half-PUGs we’ve done too. Notice I didn’t say clearing but in ZG and MC in particular, getting the first couple of bosses down while being severely understaffed was no special feat, nor even rare, with nothing but people geared through these raids and crafted stuff. There’s a bunch of vids on YouTube showing 24-man kills of the first 4 bosses in MC wearing nothing but T0 to attest that.

I’m not so sure you played the same game I did. Before burning crusade I don’t ever remember people running MC with 25 ’slapped together’ people and getting easy epics. In fact I don’t remember Molten Core being done with 25 people and only once have I ever even heard of a PUG for it and it certainly wasn’t going to get any epics.

ZG? AQ20? Sorry, these two like MC all pretty much required a guild and a coordinated one at that. You could not simply slap together a couple of players and go get free epics.

I have no idea what you’ve been smoking since pre-TBC to make you have such a WRONG view of how things were back then.

Maybe you didn’t mean PUG, maybe you meant a ‘loose guild association’ but it certainly wasn’t anywhere near as easy as your words make it seem.

What I feel is holding back wow, is that at the end game you only have three choices of time investment:
1. PvP for Epic Loot
2. Guild Raid for Epic Loot
3. The Sub Game of maximizing crafting, learning new recipes, making money from Auction House or farming, raising alts

I feel Blizzard spends far too many resources on having more and more ‘epic lewtz’ be available and not near enough time adding more ’sub games’.

I for one don’t see any point in spending 3 months raiding, countless hours and days, just to get some purples that make me somewhat better now, when in 6 to 12 months Wrath will be released and I’ll be vendoring all of that stuff I worked so hard for.

Blizzard needs more goals in the game that are not loot.

Whether that be finding more crafting recipes, or hunting down a new character skill, or trying to find the last piece of some special outfit, or trying to kill ever monster there is in the game, etc. etc.

Anyways…