Editorial - How Will Raid Changes Effect Guilds in the Wrath of the Lich King?

[Messiah]

As our readers know there are many things changing with the World of Warcraft in the near future with the release of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. One of the things that will surely cause ripples is the move from a 25 player raiding progression system to a side by side 10 and 25 player progression system. With these changes in mind Byron "Messiah" Mudry weights in in his editorial this week on how will raid changes affect guilds in the Wrath of the Lich King.

When WoW was first released, raiding required a 40 player group. This meant that the ideal progression raiding guild had around 45-55 raid player members. They may have had additional characters for each player, or friends that just wanted to be in the guild, but the core raiders numbered in that range. This ensured enough players to fill the spots required and a few spares for when real life interrupted a players ability to be online. It also ensured that the player base was small enough over the minimum, that players could learn who everyone else was and come to count on them, it wasn't random who was there each week.

You can read all about it in Messiah's Editorial - How Will Raid Changes Effect Guilds in the Wrath of the Lich King?

[Miralyn]

Right now I see a lot of people trying to join guilds that are in BT and beyond to get in that last bit of TBC raiding. I also see guilds right now dealing with "what does it matter, in 6 weeks it will be moot". So raiding right now is tough.

In Wrath I think the 10 man instances will done a lot more but guilds will have their 25-man raids with the "cliques" in each guild forming their 10-man teams. While some guilds will not survive there will not be the "destruction" of guilds there was in TBC. I would say that there are 5 high end guilds on my server still intact from pre-TBC....whether those make it in Wrath remains to be seen.

I have a good group of friends and I would love nothing better to do then run with them in a 10-man capacity - yes you miss the extra tier of gear but its more about the encounters then the camaraderie. Whether this will happen or not I don't know but I am hoping.

Definitely good editorial and we'll see what happens.

[Rahl]

I read somewhere (wowinsider i think) that both the 25 and 10 man raids wont be linked. So that if you finish the 10 man version within the weekly lockout period you can still attempt the 25 man version.

I see allot of guilds building up experience and gear in the 10 mans and then progressing to 25 mans. It also means that you can have multiple teams running the same raids but with different numbers for gear and badge farming.

Personally i can only see the 10 / 25 raid split as a step in the right direction as it provides content not just for the hardcore but also for us casuals who just don't have the time (even if we wish we had sometimes) to dedicate to be able to do 25 man raiding!

[heerobya]

When Burning Crusade came out we saw a great sundering of the old world Raid guilds.

I was in a 50+ member guild that was well into AQ40 before TBC, after a few weeks at 70 we could barely get the people online to do a Kara run.

I'm not saying that the same will happen again, in fact I think that many of the current 25-person raiding guilds will continue on and prosper...

But at the same time I wouldn't be suprised to see a second sundering.

Guilds who "plan" to stick together for the 25-person raids will break and run the 10-person raids.... eventually coming back together or siphoning new members to get back into 25-person raids.

[Barbarious]

Looking at Blizzard's subscription numbers and comparing them with the consistent news that many of their largest raiding guilds have jumped ship on the news that they would shift from the 25 Required to 25 or 10 man options.

I would say that this is a great feature for casual players but a painful blow for the more hardcore raiders of WoW.

It seems to be the community consensus as far as the competitive guilds go.

But since there isn't really another quality MMO out for raiders atm (Vanguard?lol) I doubt they will stay away for very long.

[Aegwynn]

Finally! People like myself who are members of smaller, more casual guilds who happen to raid and have been running Kara continuously with a few visits to ZA here and there and have never seen the inside of Gruuls, SSC or Mag due to the fact that it's rare to get 25 guildies online, never mind in a raid, will be able to see end game content! Hooray for you Blizzard!

In both my Alliance and Horde guilds we have many well geared members who are running Kara now basically for the badges. I routinely pass on drops because I have them or better and I would LOVE to see places like SSC, Mag, or Black Temple but never will because you need 25 people and the few times I've gone in as a PUG it's been pretty awful. Now in WOTLK we can raid and hopefully have a lot more in the way of choices.

I also think the jump from Kara to ZA has been a bit too much in terms of difficulty. I've long felt that we needed something slotted in between those two. I'm hoping with more content Blizzard will make the difficulty of the raids closer together so that a well geared group that routinely clears the first level raid dungeon won't find that they are wiping at every fight when they walk into the next level dungeon. I like a challenge but constant wipes and corpse runs makes for a frustrating experience.

As for the larger guilds who have been running and enjoying the 25 mans in BC..Why should that stop? They have the option of doing the same in WOTLK. Unlike when Blizzard ended the 40 man raids there's no elimination process here. They are just giving us more options and expanding things, something that I think should be applauded. Yes, the hard core raiders should have the challenge of doing the kind of raiding that they enjoy but it's ABOUT TIME that those of us with lives that include work, family, friends, etc, as well as WoW should have the opportunity to engage in high end raiding content too.

I play WoW at least 5 nights a week and feel I should be seeing Black Temple at this point. Many in my guild feel the same as I do but what keeps us out is the fact that you need 25 people for so many of the end game raids. The result is that I've seen many good people leave our guild to go raid with the larger raid guild in the 25 mans or settle for running Kara week after week and hoping they can get enough badges to upgrade gear in that manner. Now we can keep good people in our guild and enjoy end game raid content to the fullest.

Kudos to you Blizzard!

[Zeep]

I agree with Aegwynn, and while I don't have the raid-guild experience to comment on the editorial, I expect it's correct.

Though for me, the time or two I got to set foot in a 25-man raid were really exciting, and I don't think I'd choose to give that up if I were in a guild that was doing 25-mans.

[Yakb0]

one thing that opened my eyes, was reading a thread on the official forums from late 2006 about BC, and speculation about how raiding guilds would change.

They got everything wrong.


I'm just going to wait and see how things shake out.

[DarkFact]

I'll be raiding again after a BC hiatus

Now I just need to find 3 more buddies to play with us and we'll be golden for any and all raids 10-man wise.

[liverpoolfan]

I had two level 60 players pre-bc, both of which never saw gear past the first tier. I'm just not a huge 40 or even 25 man raid kind of person. 10 men (or women) for a raid is the perfect amounts and blizzard doing this is amazing. Makes me <3 Blizz even more.-Liver