Would you play WoW if it didn't have raiding?

[Seefer]

Simple short and sweet............no way.

[Sansnom]

The game would die in a heartbeat.

Doubt it, unless the majority of the players are playing solely due to raiding, which given the statements and action from Blizzard, and the reaction from players, that does not seem to the case.

[Daffan]

Why can't challenging 5 man content be a real endgame?

I think that because of so limited classes and class design, it will never be optimal. I think 12 man minimum is the best solution to that problem.

[Ciddy]

Sure. I played through MoP without raiding and enjoyed it well enough. I raided pretty heavily from BC to the end of Cataclysm but sort of "retired" at that point and just became a more casual player. Haven't done anything more advanced than LFR since MoP came out. I'm unsubscribed right now but am planning to play in Legion, at least for a bit. I think Legion would be just fine without the "raid or GTFO" thing that WoD is doing.

[therealbowser]

I voted yes, but I presume that other content would take its place.

My playing the game doesn't revolve around the existence of 10+ player dungeon content. I could be content playing 5 player dungeon content, though it likely would not be as fun since we have less diverse content and a major, driving part of the game was removed. But, on the plus side, other content would take its place.

Overall, I could live with it. I have never been a big raider anyways, so I could shift my focus to other content -- provided there was other quality content to play.

[Allenseiei]

Raiding is the only thing this game has for itself. It's the only reason i picked it up back in vanilla and would immediately drop it if it no longer offered it. Other games do world content, crafting, pvp, better.

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

I don't raid, did it at the end of Wotlk briefly, then at the end of cata, beginning of MoP, and beginning of WoD. It's not really my thing tbh, i think the game would be better if it didn't have raiding.

Then there's also the fact that most players don't raid and they still play the game.

[Draenox]

I would play it, but it would be largely cyclical, subbing for new patches.

Works well for me in FFXIV as I don't have any desire to raid there, yet still enjoy the other things the game has to offer

[Nethlord]

I'd have to say No, simply because that would make it a lot like guild wars 2, which is really fine & fun, but tends to get bored cause of repeating the same/similar things over and over again. (or like diablo3, its fun but the infinite scaling is no solution to keep people in there, which is why most people leave within the first month of a new season)

The bolded part of your statement....that is, and has always been the M.O of raiding. It's never been anything but repeat the same raid and same mobs,and the same bosses, week after week after bloody week. Hell, if the arbitrary weekly lockout rule on loot wasn't in effect, people would just do the same raid over and over and over everyday, all day, all week for all the gear (which then shows you how shallow raid design has become, as this type of play cannot be upheld in raid design). And all the models and difficulty levels in the world won't make a lick of difference. Know how to make raiding fun? One word:

Dynamic

Dynamic instanced raids on flex with built in hard modes. Think Ulduar with flex and random rotating bosses/mobs each with different random attack and abilities. Player skill becomes a factor, out entire toolkit makes sense (all abilities are useful all the time because we don't know what is needed when until we need it.) Tanking becomes dynamic, healing becomes dynamic (not unpredictable, just more than clicking and not standing in shit) dps is always on their toes (ranged and melee dynamic combat...glorious).

Without this...its Learn>kill>progress>farm>kill>do same thing every-week until next tier.

[Soeroah]

pets gone from raids, mounts gone from raids, transmog gone from raids, story gone from raids.

wow that does leave a lot doesn't it!

In the OP's scenario, raids don't exist, so those things would be funneled into other areas of the game like dungeons, quests, scenarios, achievements and other such systems.

The person I was quoting when I said what you were responding to asked what people who don't raid do in the game. That was my list. If you want to call soloing old world raids when all the bosses are trivial to get the pets and mounts and stuff "raiding", sure, but since a lot of people struggle to accept LFR as "raiding", I doubt a trivial solo experience would be accepted where a time consuming 25 player experience is written off as "fake raiding".

Outside of doing old raids for the above materials by myself, which again I don't think could be called "raiding" at that point, I collect pets and mounts and toys and transmog from quests and dungeons and the like. The majority of my game time is spent outside of raids, most of my time spent inside raids is by myself farming mounts and the like, and the only times I really go into current raids with other players are once for the story plus as many times as are required to complete the legendary questline.

I've always said I'd be content if they put a "story" version of raids in the game which were solo scenarios with no loot, just the lore and abbreviated boss fights assisted by NPCs. Obviously they should keep normal raiding for players who like that stuff, but loot I can come back to in future expansions, same with pets and mounts. All I'm interested in as current content is seeing the story in the right order.

Things to do once raid is on farm.

Or once I've seen the raid once for the story.

If raids weren't in the game, and the story was instead in dungeons, quests and scenarios, I would be farming those things after I saw the story in those places. I only raid until I've seen the story. I don't really care about the raids themselves. I'm not quite sure what your point here is.

[tinybaby]

Blizzard said that Raiding and PVP are the minority of the game, So that means people are already not raiding in it which has to be the the majority of its players. So if raiding didnt exist most people would still play.

[Deleted]

No. I really like doing achives outside of raiding. But would never play it if it wasnt for raiding.

[Trapped]

No. I really like doing achives outside of raiding. But would never play it if it wasnt for raiding.

When I asked if people would still play Wow if it didn't have raiding, it was under the presumption that something else would take its place.

I did not mean to keep the game the way it is now and just remove raiding.

[lolpve]

Yes, probably more so since it would mean I wouldn't have to go through the obnoxious routine of pugging gear every expansion in order to be relevant. I'd rather the game was about crafting, pvp, world bosses, quests, dungeons, and FARMING. WoW is the only mmo I've played where farming is pretty much non-existent. And there should be more solo content.

[anakin57]

I never truly raided either, still enjoy it

[namecraft]

every zone should have at least 3 raids

yes my opinion

[Strakha]

yeah, raiding on a schedule is not fun. not going to dedicate 1-2 nights a week to do a raid. if i want to log out i just do and i dont let down a guild when i do. the older i get the more casual i play games.

[Deleted]

Yes. I raid rarely so it wouldn't change my playstyle much. I mostly like PvP anyway.

[Deleted]

What kind of endgame content would bind you to the game besides pvp? i dont understand the question. I would love no-instanced open world bosses and dungeons though.

[wiggletard]

I would say yes, with an asterisk. I would prefer to see the game move to a bc type model. Some people may raid first teir, but very few see the end. I am of the opinion that stories should progress outside of raid encounters. I feel like blizzard has always weighted raiding over other portions of the game, and it sent the title in a poor direction.