Originally Posted by
Selastan
Thanks for making solid arguments. I would say that the "gating" created by casuals having to craft up the items is a good thing. Assuming you are not on the first raid of an expansion (which should be entry level, anyway), there is much for raiders to do. Raiders have their part to play, its not just waiting around. Any required end game crafted item should require materials that need to be gotten by raiders, be it a flowers that only grow in a mid-tier raid or skull level boss that needs to be killed in an alchemist's current quest chain. The system is also meant to give raiders more to do than run the same raid on repeat. The most obvious thing they can do is to keep trying the raid. Its meant to be failed, maybe with a big reduction in repair costs when you die in a current raid. The raiders test mechanics, figure out strategies, and if they are still failing by the time the crafters start producing, it gets a little easier.
As for people who feel not quite up to mythic raiding but would like something in between...This is perfect for them. I was envisioning returning to "one size, one difficulty" raids, with the "mythic" difficulty just being the latest raid, "heroic" the tier before it, etc. As mentioned before, there is much to do raid wise rather than what is the most difficult at the time. These middle ground raiders can be part of the team that raids mid tier raids, getting mats for crafters, cool gear to show off (as epic gear is now much harder to come by, and kind of a status symbol), invaluable experience, and just have fun. I was never quite good at raiding, and back in BC when raids were arguably at their hardest, I had Kara, ZA, Gruul, and part of SSC under my belt by the time Wrath launched. I wasn't disappointed I never seen the inside of BT or the Sunwell. In fact, going back to run them at a higher level to see the story, it was great. I was at my limit in the earliest of tiers, and there were people doing these things that were so much harder. It doesn't do it justice to watch it on youtube. It does it even less justice to let people "run it for the story" while it is current. Running Sunwell at a higher level a few expansions later with memories of how hard it was gives you a sense that the people who ran it then were legends.