What you would have without LFR

[tru]

LFR could be used to fill the 40man niche do "legacy" content with lfr let the new stuff be tuned for a couple difficulties

[Giscoicus]

LFR could be used to fill the 40man niche do "legacy" content with lfr let the new stuff be tuned for a couple difficulties

Please no that's even worse. If I'm going to do legacy content I would like it to have a semblance of difficulty and not be carrying 20 terrible players.

[Sansnom]

Please no that's even worse. If I'm going to do legacy content I would like it to have a semblance of difficulty and not be carrying 20 terrible players.

Then form your own group?

[nekobaka]

Sounds worse IMO. I prefer more five mans and alternatives to raiding. LFR is not an alternative to raiding. LFR is personally also very shitty at story telling due to the environment and player bahavior. You need something designed like siege of UC for large random group immersion. For random groups I prefer smaller group sizes which are also more friendly for small groups of friends.

mechanic heavy 5 mans like the za/zg was a complete disaster and when they started to bleed subs.
anything random cannot be mechanic heavy it has been proven by now.

We shall have to see in WoD with the return of normals, but it has been said by the developers that a big issue with the Cata heroics difficulty and random was that everyone was forced into them rather than having a choice of doing normals. The developers even tried to force players into ZA/ZG as the only way to VP cap if you didnt raid which only further added to the burn out. If you look back at WotLK there was even players who found heroics too hard and stayed at normal, but then bitched about queue times. Stick those minority in the heroics and groups are going to have a bad time.

[Uoyredrum]

People say this a lot. People say they would love a vanilla wow. Difficult leveling, attunement, large raids. Etc.

From what I read, Wildstar seems to fit the wishes of many people who post here dreaming of a return to golden age of Wow, the period of Vanilla and TBC. Wildstar was even developed by a group who were ex-Blizzard employees.

So what happened? I was not expecting Wildstar to sound the deathknell of Wow, but a few months after the release and already the signs are not good. I have not played the game so cannot give a real first hand impression but I was expecting it to have a solid enough crowd to keep it going. Even Swtor took a year to relies its model is not working.

Are you playing Wildstar? If not, why not? Sounds like your type of game.

I haven't played it myself, but I've seen my wife play it and from what she (and others) told me, it's because it's ridiculously buggy and the attunement chains are like basically the onyxia attunement on pcp. I think they should bring back attunements, but I have my limits. If you ever look at what it takes to get attuned for the raids in that game, you'll understand what I mean. Honestly though, from what I understand a lot of the people who were hyped for it quit because it's extremely buggy and poorly optimized. I know people will say "LOL BUT VANILLA WAS BUGGY AND PEOPLE PLAYED THAT", and yes, it was, but there's a couple key differences:

1. WoW was a pioneer in the genre and set the pace for other MMO's. Wildstar was literally made to cater to the old hardcore players, most of whom can't afford the time required to raid like this anymore.

2. That was 8-10 years ago, this is now. Technology has improved a lot, this shouldn't be happening at an MMO launch, at least not to this degree. From what I understand a number of bosses are unkillable due to glitches, including some bosses randomly despawning for the rest of a lockout and preventing further progression.

The first point was more important though, even if the game was impeccable it's hard enough to pull people away from WoW, let alone draw people back into that style of play a decade later when they probably have a family and a job now, especially when it's a new game.

[Dasani]

Throne of Thunder would have started at Duruumu the Forgotten. The Zandallari part and the sewers up to Ji'Kun would have been 5-mans.

Siege would start after Nazgrim, Vale would have been a 5-man as would have the landing.

Both of these would have rewarded gear equal to the last tier or tokens that could be exchanged for the current gear. For example: ICC, End of Time, ToC 5's, Zul'amon and Zul'Gurub remakes - all were the required catch-up mechanic to get folks into the latest tier.

Now imagine if LFR had been around (yes, I realize it was there for dragon soul.)

Suddenly the ICC 5s are now a completely separate raid that goes through each boss and ends with your 10 to 25-man group running away from the Lich King as you try to remove the ice walls and get to the gunships.

The End of Time dungeons become a full raid too. Suddenly Azshara gets a better time to shine, Jaina, Baine and Sylvannas all suddenly have power that makes them a real threat so you know you're fighting former faction leaders. The Nozdrumu fight gets really cool and we get a bigger and better showing from Illidan's betrayal.

LFR allows them to build in a catch-up mechanic that allows for bigger, more immersive and cooler raids. Just thought I'd remind folks.

Except no.

Plenty of very long, full raids existed LONG before LFR did.

We had ICC + ICC 5mans, we had TOC + TOC 5 man, we had ulduar which was a massive raid and the best designed. Even in cataclysm which birthed LFR, there was a decent amount of raid content and bosses. Dragon Soul, which is what spawned LFR, was even accompanied by THREE 5-mans to go with it.

LFR existing has absolutely no correlation to any lack of content. Historically they release 5-mans as a catch up mechanic for the final tier of raid within each expansion. They did it in burning crusade with the sunwell and sunwell 5-man, they did it in wrath with 3 dungeons + final raid, and they did it in cata with 3 dungeons + final raid.

In MOP they didn't give us anything and instead created the timeless isle to be the catchup mechanic place. In vanilla they didn't HAVE catchup mechanics because you had to just not be a bitch and do all the content start to finish.

LFR existing as a catch up mechanic is a side effect of it existing in the first place. They have to reward decent gear but still be sub-par compared to real gear because casuals think they need and deserve decent gear for doing nothing. LFR is not there to be a catchup mechanic, its there so casuals can experience raid content and give them one more thing to grind on and work on. The developers realized raid content takes a lot of time and resources to create and only afraction of the playerbase was getting to experience it and by creating dumbed down, fool-proof versions of raids that already exist they can give one more thing for casuals to waste time on and grind and it costs them practically nothing to create. It's pretty smart really.

[Vaelorian]

The fun thing about threads like these is that people seem to have this idea that if you take something out - something else would not take it's place.

So if LFR had not existed in its current form - to people who makes threads like these - there would be no way to gear up if you join late in the game and had no guild.
And people who wouldn't want to be in a guild would have never seen all the current content in its raidform and had nothing to do apart from running countless easy as piss 5 man heroics.

Well I am here to say that you are wrong. Regardless if it would have been for the better or not, there would be something else to keep people who aren't in a raidingguild busy.

1. More 5 mans - perhaps increasingly more difficult 5 mans as the expansion releases more content
2. More scenario's - perhaps increasingly more difficult 5 mans as the expansion releases more content
3. Feature X, where one can solo a decently difficult thing and get LFR-type loot for it
4. no challenge modes in its current form but with LFR-type loot attached to it as rewards

I mean those are just 4 examples coming from my limited imagination.

[Deleted]

When patch 3.3 launched (ICC), it had 3 awesome looking 5-mans, that served as gear catch-up, AS WELL AS a massive, 12-boss raid. Oh and they had time and resources to also make Ruby Sanctum while we were waiting for Cata. And no matter how small that raid was, and how annoying the cutting lasers were, it was still better than 13 months of NOTHING.

Just thought I would remind you, mr. white knight.

When people like you actually DEFEND Blizzard's laziness, we will have less content, while paying more for it lol.

LFR as a catch-up method for gearing up is absolutely atrocious. Your only way to get into SOO raid is to spend weeks or months in LFR and FLEX if you are unlucky with RNG, and by then you are completely fed up with the place, that you feel no motivation to raid it on normal. "Yey, I can finally fight the bosses with slightly more health, 1-2 more abilties, and be rewarded with 10 ilvls better gear!" wow such excite, much amaze.

In Wotlk or Cata, when I wanted to reroll or gear up an alt for raiding, I would grab 4 friends, we would chain spam dungeons, get some JP gear, 1-2 valor pieces and in a week or two we were geared enough to join latest raid on normal difficulty. Hell, even Firelands trash farm "raids" were more fun than LFR...

[Sansnom]

1. More 5 mans - perhaps increasingly more difficult 5 mans as the expansion releases more content
2. More scenario's - perhaps increasingly more difficult 5 mans as the expansion releases more content
3. Feature X, where one can solo a decently difficult thing and get LFR-type loot for it
4. no challenge modes in its current form but with LFR-type loot attached to it as rewards

And people would then complain about people getting epic loot from not doing "epic" or raid content. The question has never been about LFR. It is about loot. It always has been. It always will be. The common argument has always been "Only people doing raids should get raid loot. If you are not raiding, why do you need raid gear?"

Why are people complaining about LFR? It is because of the loot. If LFR did not drop the same "color" or "type" of loot, there would have been less complaint. The fact that Blizzard is doing this shows they are bowing to very vocal portion of its player base that wants it to be removed.

Back in WoTLK with the VP and JP system. It was initially intend to help people get some rewards that were missing from raids. A person can be extremely unlucky and never get an upgrade for a slot because it never dropped. Happened to me in WoTLK and in Cata. The VP/JP alleviate the frustration by allowing people to get some rewards from it.

This meant people not raiding could also get the same reward by farming VP. It took them longer but they were able to obtain them outside of raiding. And "welfare epic" and "epic is no longer epic" were becoming common.

[DeadmanWalking]

And people would then complain about people getting epic loot from not doing "epic" or raid content. The question has never been about LFR. It is about loot. It always has been. It always will be. The common argument has always been "Only people doing raids should get raid loot. If you are not raiding, why do you need raid gear?"

Why are people complaining about LFR? It is because of the loot. If LFR did not drop the same "color" or "type" of loot, there would have been less complaint. The fact that Blizzard is doing this shows they are bowing to very vocal portion of its player base that wants it to be removed.

Back in WoTLK with the VP and JP system. It was initially intend to help people get some rewards that were missing from raids. A person can be extremely unlucky and never get an upgrade for a slot because it never dropped. Happened to me in WoTLK and in Cata. The VP/JP alleviate the frustration by allowing people to get some rewards from it.

This meant people not raiding could also get the same reward by farming VP. It took them longer but they were able to obtain them outside of raiding. And "welfare epic" and "epic is no longer epic" were becoming common.

Let's not forget that LFR dispenses loot so that if a person decided they liked the taste of raiding that they got from LFR they would have the gear to join a raid group and contribute to downing a boss rather than having to be dragged to the loot and give people a reason to deny them. I have personally taken a few friends through LFR to see if they liked the taste of raiding and they liked it so much they ended up joining my raid group. LFR does what it was intended to do which is why it still exists today, I know it pisses LFR haters off but they are just going to have to learn how to live with it.

[Giscoicus]

Let's not forget that LFR dispenses loot so that if a person decided they liked the taste of raiding that they got from LFR they would have the gear to join a raid group and contribute to downing a boss rather than having to be dragged to the loot and give people a reason to deny them. I have personally taken a few friends through LFR to see if they liked the taste of raiding and they liked it so much they ended up joining my raid group. LFR does what it was intended to do which is why it still exists today, I know it pisses LFR haters off but they are just going to have to learn how to live with it.

If LFR didnt exist then the item level of normal raids compared to dungeons or the past tier would be closer as there would be no need for the space LFR takes up. Normal MSV was 489, dungeons were 463, and LFR fell in at 476. Without LFR, normal MSV would have a lower item level.

How you can consider LFR an adequate sample of actual raiding is beyond me, it lacks progression, difficulty and the social aspect. Furthermore, why do those who dislike LFR need to "deal with it"? Cant the LFR players go back to dealing with being too bad to raid? Luckily, some of the changes toward LFR in the coming expansion show that no, we dont have to just deal with it.

[Sansnom]

How you can consider LFR an adequate sample of actual raiding is beyond me, it lacks progression, difficulty and the social aspect. Furthermore, why do those who dislike LFR need to "deal with it"? Cant the LFR players go back to dealing with being too bad to raid? Luckily, some of the changes toward LFR in the coming expansion show that no, we dont have to just deal with it.

Why do you care if they consider it raiding or not? How are they bothering you? Are they stopping you from raiding?

Why can't people like you just leave others to enjoy the game as they see fit? Why must people like you decides what people can and cannot do in the game?

[Bladesyphon]

It kinda falls apart as a theory if you include that the raid that started LFR is considered one of the most lackluster raids, and then that Wrath had two very long raid instances too, just like SoO.

Now, I'm not saying LFR is horrible, but I highly doubt it's what makes raids larger. Personally, I would gladly trade a few raid bosses for dungeons instead of having to do LFR to gear up alts.

I'm pretty sure the reason Dragon Soul was so lackluster was because it originally WASN'T going to be an LFR raid. Blizzard said they added LFr support near the end of it's development cycle so that everyone could see the conclusion of the raid. They were already planning on releasing it as is before LFR, likely in the shape it was due to how few people were raiding during Cataclysm, with a mind set of "Why put a lot of effort into something so few people are going to see/be interested in."

LFR really is the reason why raids in Mists were so much larger then what we had in Cata, and are continuing to be larger still in WoD, though Flex has a good deal to do with that as well.

If LFR didnt exist then the item level of normal raids compared to dungeons or the past tier would be closer as there would be no need for the space LFR takes up. Normal MSV was 489, dungeons were 463, and LFR fell in at 476. Without LFR, normal MSV would have a lower item level.

How you can consider LFR an adequate sample of actual raiding is beyond me, it lacks progression, difficulty and the social aspect. Furthermore, why do those who dislike LFR need to "deal with it"? Cant the LFR players go back to dealing with being too bad to raid? Luckily, some of the changes toward LFR in the coming expansion show that no, we dont have to just deal with it.

By the very same page, however, what makes raiders so much more entitled to have content delivered specifically for them? Last I checked, Raiders neither make up the majority population of the game, nor do they pay more then any other subscriber. Until both of those points become true, there is NOTHING that makes you any more entitled to see and participate in Raid Content to completion then anyone else, other then your own selfish desire to lord content over others you very clearly feel inferior to you.

Thankfully, while blizzard is removing tier from LFR, they aren't listening to any other of the other ridiculous demands coming from players like yourself, which if you had your way, would grind WoW into dust, much like what Carbine did with Wildstar.

[thebelltolleth]

Life, a sense of sanity and self-respect.

[DeadmanWalking]

If LFR didnt exist then the item level of normal raids compared to dungeons or the past tier would be closer as there would be no need for the space LFR takes up. Normal MSV was 489, dungeons were 463, and LFR fell in at 476. Without LFR, normal MSV would have a lower item level.

How you can consider LFR an adequate sample of actual raiding is beyond me, it lacks progression, difficulty and the social aspect. Furthermore, why do those who dislike LFR need to "deal with it"? Cant the LFR players go back to dealing with being too bad to raid? Luckily, some of the changes toward LFR in the coming expansion show that no, we dont have to just deal with it.

They would have to create mid tier and end tier dungeons to dispense loot and unlike lfr you have to invent all new stuff and how did that work out in cata? How many raid bosses did you have in firelands and dragon soul? Thats what I thought.

- - - Updated - - -

and Lfr doesnt have progression for you because that is not your endgame but you do not represent the majority who do. In fact you belong to a tiny but loud minority by design.

[Deleted]

By the very same page, however, what makes raiders so much more entitled to have content delivered specifically for them? Last I checked, Raiders neither make up the majority population of the game, nor do they pay more then any other subscriber. Until both of those points become true, there is NOTHING that makes you any more entitled to see and participate in Raid Content to completion then anyone else, other then your own selfish desire to lord content over others you very clearly feel inferior to you.

Thankfully, while blizzard is removing tier from LFR, they aren't listening to any other of the other ridiculous demands coming from players like yourself, which if you had your way, would grind WoW into dust, much like what Carbine did with Wildstar.

first i want to say, After LFR was introduced the sub numbers have been dropping a lot.
second, Why ppl who are not putting as much time and effort into the game should see all the same content than the ones who are willing to put time and effort? It should be a damn MMORPG. It works that way, it allways has and it allways should! Otherwise if i does not work like that its a really shitty MMORPG.
let me give you a mindblasting information. MMORPG GAMES ARE TIMESINKS, THEY HAVE ALLWAYS BEEN. If you have so busy life that you dont have time to play more than 1-2h a week then the last thing you should do is play an mmorpg games? Like this is the thing i dont get. If you cant carve enough your time to play an mmorpg games THEN DONT FUCKING PLAY THEM.
Wow is now like if you buy the game. You allready won it. Thats the adventure now, buy the game and you have almost instant acces to see everything in the game with minimal effort.

[Vaelorian]

I love how people claim that "raiders" do not get hurt by LFR. They do. I can name a good example in this case.

Recruitment for the guild you (the raider) are in.

I quit raiding just before LFR came along. The amount of guilds were already plummeting during Cata, especially the 25 mans.

When LFR came along, even some of my raiders were like: fuck heroic raiding, I'll go do the tourist mode. It saves me the anguish from having to explain to my wife that I do not have time for X, I need to raid.

My guess is that at the very least SOME portion of the people who run LFR would potentially be heroic raiding material. But they won't join such a guild. They would have though if it weren't for LFR.

So again how does LFR nót effect raiders? Because it does, be it indirectly.

When I quit my guild was the nr 1 guild on the server (25 man). You think my guild would be flooded with applicants right? Well we got some applications. Our rank was somewhere between 175/350. Not too bad but not the best, I get that. So we expected a lot of applications. We got some, more then usual. But they were of the quality that couldn't read/write properly. Answering the apply form with "yes". Etc.

Still when LFR came along, the applies just ran dry. It was already hard to get proper people in. But now it became impossible. This was one of the reasons I quit and I was glad it was in our finest hour rankwise. But damn LFR really seemed to make an impact.

Nowadays I wonder myself if I would have ever started to raid if LFR had been there from day 1. I would probably have been part of a guild for "funzies", but perhaps I would have done something else with my time. I am not saying I am regretting that I raided. I am saying that some people perhaps even myself, would rather not be tied to a schedule. And even if the experience is far less, they welcome that freedom over the experience.

So in short - yes LFR affects everyone. People who would normally choose to commit themselves to a proper raiding guild, now do not.

I doubt very much that a majority of LFR people, would actually think "hey LFR is fun! - let's enter a normal" - I might be wrong ofcourse. Just like I don't know how many would be raiders or former raiders now choose to do LFR instead.

And I am not talking here if these people should be forced to go do X. I am saying that LFR does affect raiders and raidingguilds.

Edit: Same thing happened to a few other guilds I knew the GM of. They were in the same boat. Some guilds made it due to others disbanding, but that only lasted for one year. Then they fell too.

edit: do not take my post as "LFR is the sole reason guilds have it hard." I don't feel that way at all. It is just a secundairy effect

[DeadmanWalking]

first i want to say, After LFR was introduced the sub numbers have been dropping a lot.
second, Why ppl who are not putting as much time and effort into the game should see all the same content than the ones who are willing to put time and effort? It should be a damn MMORPG. It works that way, it allways has and it allways should! Otherwise if i does not work like that its a really shitty MMORPG.
let me give you a mindblasting information. MMORPG GAMES ARE TIMESINKS, THEY HAVE ALLWAYS BEEN. If you have so busy life that you dont have time to play more than 1-2h a week then the last thing you should do is play an mmorpg games? Like this is the thing i dont get. If you cant carve enough your time to play an mmorpg games THEN DONT FUCKING PLAY THEM.
Wow is now like if you buy the game. You allready won it. Thats the adventure now, buy the game and you have almost instant acces to see everything in the game with minimal effort.

After Transmog was introduced subs started dropping a lot.

After reforge was introduced subs started dropping a lot.

After the twillight Highlands were introduces subs started dropping a lot.

After Worgan and Goblins were introduced subs started dropping a lot.

You see how I did that? I mentioned something that happened at the same time subs started dropping and so the two must be correlated, its a fact go look it up. Of course I don't have any proof myself but it's obvious if you look at a chart.

Subs started dropping a lot before LFR was ever invented. Subs actually defied the dropping trend when LFR was released so I could just as easily say that subs would be worse without LFR and be more factual than saying that subs dropped a lot because of 'function X that I don't personally like.'

LFR keeps the raider balls deep in raid bosses, every single boss that comes off the line are raid bosses after the first tier of the expansion. Dungeons make horrible catch up gearing, in Cata the ZA/ZG dungeons were largely avoided once a person got what they wanted. If they were farming valor by doing heroic dungeons and they randomed that dungeon they typically took a 30 minute lock out rather than run those dungeons and if they did stick around it was for one boss which they abandoned the group after. The end times dungeons were good but people just bought PVP gear to skip over those dungeons and go right into LFR. If those dungeons had been Raids then Dragon Soul would of gone from 8 bosses to 17. If ZA/ZG were Raids Firelands tier would of had nearly 20 Raid bosses. Both dungeons were largely avoided when ever possible once you had the minimum gear you needed because the first tier heroic dungeons of cata were much easier and efficient to farm valor from. If people are quitting a dungeon or buying PVP gear to avoid those dungeons then those dungeons are a waste of development time.

- - - Updated - - -

I love how people claim that "raiders" do not get hurt by LFR. They do. I can name a good example in this case.

Recruitment for the guild you (the raider) are in.

I quit raiding just before LFR came along. The amount of guilds were already plummeting during Cata, especially the 25 mans.

When LFR came along, even some of my raiders were like: fuck heroic raiding, I'll go do the tourist mode. It saves me the anguish from having to explain to my wife that I do not have time for X, I need to raid.

My guess is that at the very least SOME portion of the people who run LFR would potentially be heroic raiding material. But they won't join such a guild. They would have though if it weren't for LFR.

So again how does LFR nót effect raiders? Because it does, be it indirectly.

When I quit my guild was the nr 1 guild on the server (25 man). You think my guild would be flooded with applicants right? Well we got some applications. Our rank was somewhere between 175/350. Not too bad but not the best, I get that. So we expected a lot of applications. We got some, more then usual. But they were of the quality that couldn't read/write properly. Answering the apply form with "yes". Etc.

Still when LFR came along, the applies just ran dry. It was already hard to get proper people in. But now it became impossible. This was one of the reasons I quit and I was glad it was in our finest hour rankwise. But damn LFR really seemed to make an impact.

Nowadays I wonder myself if I would have ever started to raid if LFR had been there from day 1. I would probably have been part of a guild for "funzies", but perhaps I would have done something else with my time. I am not saying I am regretting that I raided. I am saying that some people perhaps even myself, would rather not be tied to a schedule. And even if the experience is far less, they welcome that freedom over the experience.

So in short - yes LFR affects everyone. People who would normally choose to commit themselves to a proper raiding guild, now do not.

I doubt very much that a majority of LFR people, would actually think "hey LFR is fun! - let's enter a normal" - I might be wrong ofcourse. Just like I don't know how many would be raiders or former raiders now choose to do LFR instead.

And I am not talking here if these people should be forced to go do X. I am saying that LFR does affect raiders and raidingguilds.

Edit: Same thing happened to a few other guilds I knew the GM of. They were in the same boat. Some guilds made it due to others disbanding, but that only lasted for one year. Then they fell too.

edit: do not take my post as "LFR is the sole reason guilds have it hard." I don't feel that way at all. It is just a secundairy effect

You are right, LFr does effect raiders. LFR makes it so instead of 8 bosses you have 14-16 raid bosses.

Those guys who choose to go do LFR instead of heroic bosses choose to do so because Heroic raiding was messing with their married lives and didn't really have the time to do Heroic Raiding. They grew up and got jobs/wives/lives. Those guys would of ended up dropping out regardless of LFR.

You also can't speak for the majority of people finding LFR fun or not because you are not the majority of people if you are a raider. You belong to a small minority, you can't be the everyman at the same time. I know lots of people who enjoy LFR in my guild even though we are mostly a raiding guild. I never needed to go in there but some of us go in groups for something to do together on non-raid nights that rewards valor. They don't even need the loot.

And not everyone can commit to a raid group, your friends that are married are proof of that.

I can understand people getting mad that raid rewards were dropping in LFR but that is no longer the case. I can understand that people got mad that you had to go into lfr for trinkets and tier, that is no longer the case. There isn't transmog in there, The loot is barely better than blue dungeon gear and daily challenge quests give out the same rewards.

[Sansnom]

Why ppl who are not putting as much time and effort into the game should see all the same content than the ones who are willing to put time and effort? It should be a damn MMORPG. It works that way, it allways has and it allways should! Otherwise if i does not work like that its a really shitty MMORPG.

They don't. And that is a mis-conception that people like you have. Let me ask you this, what has Blizzard release for non-raiders? Hardly anything. All major contents have focus on raids. Raids and more raids. Blizzard believes raids are the end-game content and continue to focus their effort into this. Even though their own numbers shows this is not the case.

So instead devoting time to developing content for the non-raiders, they just took the existing raids, nerfed it, made it queueable, and then shoveled it down the non-raider throats. "Here is your end-game content. We made it easier and queuable now so you do not need to create your group.". For Blizzard, they probably think problem is solved. It is not. Non-raiders wants contents suitable for them, not easier raids.

let me give you a mindblasting information. MMORPG GAMES ARE TIMESINKS, THEY HAVE ALLWAYS BEEN. If you have so busy life that you dont have time to play more than 1-2h a week then the last thing you should do is play an mmorpg games? Like this is the thing i dont get. If you cant carve enough your time to play an mmorpg games THEN DONT FUCKING PLAY THEM.
Wow is now like if you buy the game. You allready won it. Thats the adventure now, buy the game and you have almost instant acces to see everything in the game with minimal effort.

Another mis-conception. MMO does not have to be a time sink. How do you raid? Your guild sets a time, Wednesday. 8.00pm - 11.00pm. Thursday - 8.00pm - 11.00pm. Friday 8.00pm - 12.00am. Something like this? Maybe more, maybe less. People are expected to be present at these time. If not, they cannot join the team since the team needs to progress as a group. To be expected.

Nothing everyone can make all those times at regularly. There are people who may have 4 hours, 5 hours, 3 hours randomly. It is not always the time required. They may even put more time into the game than "raiders". The difference is they do this irregularly. This week maybe it is Monday and Wednesday that they play. Next week it is Wednesday and Saturday.

So far, Blizzard has been fortunate. Every competitor tried to follow their formula and failed because Wow is already available. The moment a casual, non-large group non-raid style MMO becomes available, WoW's subscription will probably take a nose dive.

- - - Updated - - -

I love how people claim that "raiders" do not get hurt by LFR. They do. I can name a good example in this case.

Recruitment for the guild you (the raider) are in.

I quit raiding just before LFR came along. The amount of guilds were already plummeting during Cata, especially the 25 mans.

When LFR came along, even some of my raiders were like: fuck heroic raiding, I'll go do the tourist mode. It saves me the anguish from having to explain to my wife that I do not have time for X, I need to raid.

My guess is that at the very least SOME portion of the people who run LFR would potentially be heroic raiding material. But they won't join such a guild. They would have though if it weren't for LFR.

So again how does LFR nót effect raiders? Because it does, be it indirectly.

That is a real selfish attitude. You are complaining because due their life changes, their interest changes, their priority changes and choose to stop raiding with you. This strikes me, as "ME ME ME".

Why complain about LFR? Why not go the source of the problem? Why not complain to his wife for not allowing her husband to raid with you? You can explain to her how your raid, your desire to beat this boss in this video game is more important this marriage, his family and his wife.

[Vaelorian]

That is a real selfish attitude. You are complaining because due their life changes, their interest changes, their priority changes and choose to stop raiding with you. This strikes me, as "ME ME ME".

Why complain about LFR? Why not go the source of the problem? Why not complain to his wife for not allowing her husband to raid with you? You can explain to her how your raid, your desire to beat this boss in this video game is more important this marriage, his family and his wife.

Seriously? Did you not read that I am no longer raiding at all. I clearly stated that. I actually quit for the most part because of Real Life. A secundary part was due LFR the amounts of recruits dropped significantly - that coincided with me quitting.

Also I never stated that people aren't free to do as they please and what is more good for them. If you read me correctly - I do not bash that at all.

All I am stating is that LFR does affect raiders. As opposed to people: LFR does not effect raiders

I have not even taken a position if that is a good or bad thing from my own perspective.

You are right, LFr does effect raiders. LFR makes it so instead of 8 bosses you have 14-16 raid bosses.

Those guys who choose to go do LFR instead of heroic bosses choose to do so because Heroic raiding was messing with their married lives and didn't really have the time to do Heroic Raiding. They grew up and got jobs/wives/lives. Those guys would of ended up dropping out regardless of LFR.

You also can't speak for the majority of people finding LFR fun or not because you are not the majority of people if you are a raider. You belong to a small minority, you can't be the everyman at the same time. I know lots of people who enjoy LFR in my guild even though we are mostly a raiding guild. I never needed to go in there but some of us go in groups for something to do together on non-raid nights that rewards valor. They don't even need the loot.

And not everyone can commit to a raid group, your friends that are married are proof of that.

I can understand people getting mad that raid rewards were dropping in LFR but that is no longer the case. I can understand that people got mad that you had to go into lfr for trinkets and tier, that is no longer the case. There isn't transmog in there, The loot is barely better than blue dungeon gear and daily challenge quests give out the same rewards.

Same goes for you - I am not in that particular post taking a stand if it is a positive or negative thing. I no longer raid. I actually do LFR. I might not enjoy it but I do it due to Real Life and not wanting to live by a schedule.

I am just taking a stand vs all those people who say: LFR does not affect you, so why should you care @ raiders. Because that is simply untrue.

BTW @ those bosses you mentioned: Sure more bosses... I'd rather have more meaningful 5 mans instead. I would have had this wish even if I did still raid. What else is there to do when you're not raiding.