BFA: the longest lasting xpac in the history of WoW

[dextersmith]

At 26 months by the time Shadowlands is out. Given how long this expansion has dragged on for, does it give you hope for Shadowlands? They have had by far the most time to work on an expansion, and given it has now been a few years since the dev team has increased dramatically, should we expect an impeccable expansion for Shadowlands?

I thought they were going to churn out one xpak per year.

[Sondrelk]

I thought they were going to churn out one xpak per year.

The publicly gave up on that sometime during WoD, and even with that it was never something they seemed to be building towards heavily.

[Kathranis]

The publicly gave up on that sometime during WoD, and even with that it was never something they seemed to be building towards heavily.

They were trying to build to it during WoD which is why that expansion got only one meaningful content patch. They gave up on the idea because it turned out disastrously.

[Zapporius]

At 26 months by the time Shadowlands is out. Given how long this expansion has dragged on for, does it give you hope for Shadowlands? They have had by far the most time to work on an expansion, and given it has now been a few years since the dev team has increased dramatically, should we expect an impeccable expansion for Shadowlands?

Longest and shittiest.

[Boo Radley]

- - - Updated - - -



So, in all honesty, the same as every other expansion? this is just silly criticism.[/QUOTE]

No, These past two expansions are the only ones where we've regressed. We have gained zero permanent power gains. No talents, new skills at level cap, new mechanics or anything else. Everything you gained in legion you turned in at 116. Everything you gained in BFA you turn in at prepatch. Azerite traits, neck, corruptions, essences. 4 borrowed power metrics that stack. That is borrowed power ontop of borrowed power.

[Ielenia]

That's Vanilla and Wrath though. By the time SL comes out it'll be BFA (805 days) > Vanilla (784 days) > Wrath (754 days).

Vanilla is not an expansion, though. And MoP lasted 780 days. From Sept 25, 2012, to Nov 13, 2014.

[Raelbo]

Except you literally said that, here:

You know, you are just impossible. I accuse you of misquoting me. Your rebuttal requotes me literally not saying what you quoted. Now sure, maybe you think you're paraphrasing what I meant (which you got subtly wrong) but then you shouldn't be putting quotation marks around it. I mean, seriously, firstly you are misconstruing what I said, and then quoting me as having said it as you misconstrued it.

Let me be specific, I clearly did not say that there was a group who "could not do normal raiding" and "refused to do LFR". What I did say was "A lot of players have little or no interest in doing LFR, but do have an interest in doing it in Flex". Now maybe you failed understand to why I said that, and while that may be on me for not explaining it (because honestly, I thought it was pretty obvious), what is on you is choosing to misquote me rather than seeking clarification.

The advent of Flex achieved 2 things:
1) It gave us a way of being able to avoid having to bench players (and all the negative problems associated with that)
2) They also introduced Flex at a difficulty level above LFR, but below what then "normal" (now heroic) in order to accommodate a significant portion of players who wanted to raid in an organised group, but for whom the difficulty of raiding had become a bit too high.

Again: false. Flex raiding was never about "letting more people see and do content", nor did it have that effect.

Again, STOP misquoting me. It is an awful habit that you have which I already called you out for, but you seem to want to double down. WTF?

I categorically did not say that. I said Flex raiding made Normal Difficulty raiding "a lot more accessible to the players who raid at the that difficulty level".

LFR already existed for those who could not do normal raiding, regardless of reason.

So what? That doesn't mean that LFR was an ideal solution for everyone. You're utterly failing to consider the needs of different people.

For example, one of the big problems with a fixed raid size was that there are almost always players who want to raid but can't because they are benched. But hey, that's fine (according to your line of reasoning) because they can always go to LFR!

Secondly, you fail to consider that the entry level for raiding had been steadily increasing over the years. Flex entered at a difficulty level that made real raiding a lot more accessible to average raiders.

Flex, quite literally, helped to ensure that those players were able to participate in raiding, in a manner acceptable to them. If you cannot see how that translates directly into players having more to do, I am not sure I can really help you.

The reason for "flex raiding" is solely to make raid sizes more flexible.

lol no. The action/effect of flex raiding is to make raid sizes more flexible. The reason for doing it was to better accommodate players and guilds doing normal raiding and achieve greater rates of participation. Also, in MoP they used flex mode to introduce the idea of a (much needed) 3rd difficulty level for organised raiding.

Not to "let more people see and do content", nor did it have that effect, regardless of purpose.

Again with the misquotes. I certainly never said that. And you keep arguing this silly point (because some person wrote it that way) while ignoring the actual point being made. Flex raiding resulted in more raiders participating in raids. This helped to ensure that players had something worthwhile to do, and helped mitigate the effect of the content drought. Just because LFR existed didn't mean it was the right format to entice participation from the people who ended up using Flex.

And yet those people who "enjoy doing raid content in an organized group at more challenging difficulty levels" apparently had so much trouble doing 10-man normal raiding (the easiest difficulty at the time, LFR notwithstanding) that they "needed" Flex raiding to be able to "see and do the content"? Something doesn't add up in that statement.

Now you just sound elitist.

I mean you're 100% correct that no-one needed Flex in order to see and do the content. But by the same token, no-one needed to play the game. If you can't see how offering players an experience they're more likely to enjoy translates into more people actually participating in raid content, then honestly, that's your fail.

Because your statement is just objectively false. Everyone could already "see and do raid content" thanks to LFR.

My statement? The one you keep "quoting" that I actually never made?

The purpose and effect of Flex raiding was never to "let more people see and do content" and simply just test a new technology that allows raid instances to automatically balance itself to any raid size (within 10 and 30 players).

There is a world difference between "let more people see and do content" (what you're misquoting me as having said) and "making content more accessible" which is a paraphrasing of what I did say.

Secondly, the purpose and effect of Flex raiding are two different things. The effect, sure, was to introduce a new technology that allows raid instances to automatically balance themselves to any raid size. The purpose relates to why they choose to spend money and resources developing this system.

Again: it was never about "letting more people see and do raid content".

Again: Stop harping on that point. I never argued that it was...

[ThiagoTorres]

Last wod patch took 1 year till legion released

[Ielenia]

You know, you are just impossible. I accuse you of misquoting me. Your rebuttal requotes me literally not saying what you quoted.

Except it is "literally" what you wrote. Hard to be "paraphrasing" when making a direct quote link to what you wrote. You did say "different subset of players". And if this "different subset of players who have not seen content" exist despite LFR existing for way over a year, already, that means there are people who cannot do normal raiding yet refuse to do LFR. A "different subset of players" who was never shown to exist, and simple assertions that they exist is not evidence.

I don't believe this "different subset of players" exist. And, just as easily as you make the assertion that they do exist, I can assert that they don't, and everyone who claims that they belong to said group are lying. Empty assertions without evidence.

The advent of Flex achieved 2 things:
1) It gave us a way of being able to avoid having to bench players (and all the negative problems associated with that)
2) They also introduced Flex at a difficulty level above LFR, but below what then "normal" (now heroic) in order to accommodate a significant portion of players who wanted to raid in an organised group, but for whom the difficulty of raiding had become a bit too high.

1) So nothing to do about "letting people see content they otherwise wouldn't", since those benched players would likely be allowed in the following weeks.
2) This "significant portion of players" who you have never demonstrated to exist, only asserted they do. Of players who are "incapable" of doing LFR to see the content.

This "allow them to see content" is an objectively wrong statement to make considering that LFR already existed for that exact same purpose: "to allow them to see content".

So what? That doesn't mean that LFR was an ideal solution for everyone. You're utterly failing to consider the needs of different people.

If those "different people" did not have the time to dedicate to organized raiding, Flex didn't do a thing for them. For those who got benched by didn't want to do "easy content", Flex didn't do a thing for them.

Secondly, you fail to consider that the entry level for raiding had been steadily increasing over the years. Flex entered at a difficulty level that made real raiding a lot more accessible to average raiders.

Except... it hasn't. At all. Whatsoever. If anything, it has decreased over the years. TBC introduced heroic dungeons, that lowered the gap between dungeons and raiding. Then Blizzard split the raids into 10- and 25-man, making the 10-man easier than 25-mans. Then Blizzard made the 25-mans as easy as 10-mans when they introduced the Heroic difficulty.

lol no. The action/effect of flex raiding is to make raid sizes more flexible. The reason for doing it was to better accommodate players and guilds doing normal raiding and achieve greater rates of participation.

Right. Because the fact that Blizzard would only have one instance to balance per difficulty instead of two surely didn't matter at all in the least whatsoever, right?

Also, in MoP they used flex mode to introduce the idea of a (much needed) 3rd difficulty level for organised raiding.

False. There was no need (much less a "huge need") for a third difficulty for organized raiding.

Again with the misquotes. I certainly never said that. And you keep arguing this silly point (because some person wrote it that way) while ignoring the actual point being made. Flex raiding resulted in more raiders participating in raids. This helped to ensure that players had something worthwhile to do, and helped mitigate the effect of the content drought. Just because LFR existed didn't mean it was the right format to entice participation from the people who ended up using Flex.

How? People who did not have the time available to dedicate themselves to organized raiding would not participate in Flex raiding. And people who had the time to dedicate to organized raiding and wanted to were already raiding the raids' normal difficulty.

Guilds as a whole are not elitists, unless you're talking about the hardcore guilds and some, maybe even most, of the semi-hardcore. But the casual raiding guilds are not elitists in the least, and would take you into their guild and group if you applied.

Now you just sound elitist.

I mean you're 100% correct that no-one needed Flex in order to see and do the content. But by the same token, no-one needed to play the game. If you can't see how offering players an experience they're more likely to enjoy translates into more people actually participating in raid content, then honestly, that's your fail.

It's not about elitism. It's how nonsensical your idea that people who enjoy doing "more difficult raid difficulties" somehow are having trouble doing 10-man normal raiding (the easiest, not counting LFR), somehow not enjoying their time that they wanted an easier raid difficulty. You said it right here:

I am not trying to argue that this isn't one of the intended purposes of LFR. That doesn't mean that LFR is the ideal solution for everyone, especially for a raider who enjoys doing raid content in an organised group at more challenging difficulty levels.

Why would those people want an "easier difficulty" if they enjoy doing "more challenging difficulty levels"?

Secondly, the purpose and effect of Flex raiding are two different things. The effect, sure, was to introduce a new technology that allows raid instances to automatically balance themselves to any raid size. The purpose relates to why they choose to spend money and resources developing this system.

The effect was to introduce a new "flexible raid" technology. And the purpose? To allow raids to be easier to balance, so they have one instance per difficulty to balance, instead of two per difficulty.

[Raelbo]

Except it is "literally" what you wrote. Hard to be "paraphrasing" when making a direct quote link to what you wrote. You did say "different subset of players". And if this "different subset of players who have not seen content" exist despite LFR existing for way over a year, already, that means there are people who cannot do normal raiding yet refuse to do LFR.

1) Go look up the word "literally" please. Hint: If it's not exactly what I wrote, then it's not "literally" what I wrote. You are trying to paraphrase, and because you failed to understand what I was saying, the way you rewrote it has different meaning to what I wrote.
2) Stop trying to defend your use of quotation marks. They're called that for a reason. If I didn't say it in those exact words don't quote me as having said. It is blatantly dishonest.

A "different subset of players" who was never shown to exist, and simple assertions that they exist is not evidence. I don't believe this "different subset of players" exist. And, just as easily as you make the assertion that they do exist, I can assert that they don't, and everyone who claims that they belong to said group are lying. Empty assertions without evidence.

Fair enough - I can't offer concrete proof that there exists a different subset of players who like raiding in normal/heroic and don't like LFR. I mean, I know that it pretty much applies to everyone in my guild (it's why we raid in a guild). I guess it's one of those things I thought would be a universally accepted truth by people who participate in those formats. But sure, if that's something you refuse to believe, then you're welcome to hold that viewpoint, and I will know not to bother trying to have a rational discussion about it.

1) So nothing to do about "letting people see content they otherwise wouldn't", since those benched players would likely be allowed in the following weeks.
2) This "significant portion of players" who you have never demonstrated to exist, only asserted they do. Of players who are "incapable" of doing LFR to see the content.

So you're still being dishonest and quoting me on stuff I never said. I mean, seriously, where did I say anything about anyone being incapable of doing LFR. Yet you're quoting me as having said it.

This "allow them to see content" is an objectively wrong statement to make considering that LFR already existed for that exact same purpose: "to allow them to see content".

As I said when I first challenged you on this: You're totally ignoring context and arguing semantics. I wasn't the person who said anything about "allow them to see content". I simply claimed that arguing the point against the person who said it wasn't contributing to the argument. Could he have used more accurate words? Sure. As I read his comment in context what he meant was the same as "Flex helped players participate in content". But would that have made a meaningful difference to anything? No. You would simply have found some other grammatical issue to take umbrage with while stubbornly refusing to see the point being made.

If those "different people" did not have the time to dedicate to organized raiding, Flex didn't do a thing for them.

Where the hell did I say anything about not having the time for organised raiding? The fact that you are having to continuously invent words to attribute to me to argue against is tantamount to an admission that you have no argument against what I am saying.

For those who got benched by didn't want to do "easy content", Flex didn't do a thing for them.

So what? Flex also didn't the problem of starving children in Africa. That doesn't invalidate that there are people who did benefit from it.

Except... it hasn't. At all. Whatsoever. If anything, it has decreased over the years. TBC introduced heroic dungeons, that lowered the gap between dungeons and raiding. Then Blizzard split the raids into 10- and 25-man, making the 10-man easier than 25-mans. Then Blizzard made the 25-mans as easy as 10-mans when they introduced the Heroic difficulty.

Well you're wrong. It is the stated reason why Blizzard decided to move from 2 difficulty levels of organised raiding (normal/heroic) to 3 (normal/heroic/mythic). Since it's evident you're not well informed about this stuff, I went and found another source where someone explains it well.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...ic_difficulty/

most of us here, active and informed players with fair bit of experience are probably able to go through hc with fairly easily and quite a bit of us are even able to clear most/all of mythic. But we're still a minority compared to the rest and all Blizzard is trying to do is to get maximum amount of people involved in the content they make. LFR made it possible for the casuals, which is probably the largest group, normal was a needed step for poorly performing players, heroic is for the skilled and mythic for the hardcore. Idealy I'd like it if it was reduced just to 3 simple progressions (normal and heroic only would have too much of a skill gap)

I bolded the pertinent parts to make it even easier for you.

Right. Because the fact that Blizzard would only have one instance to balance per difficulty instead of two surely didn't matter at all in the least whatsoever, right?

Ok. I am not going to tell you that what you are saying is incorrect, rather that it is irrelevant.
1) It doesn't disprove the notion that Blizzard want to make raiding more accommodating to less hardcore guilds
2) The whole reason that they even had 2 raid sizes in the first place was to be more accommodating than just having one

False. There was no need (much less a "huge need") for a third difficulty for organized raiding.

Then why do it? I clearly remember reading a statement by a dev back in the day (was probably Ion) explaining the issue. He quite clearly stated that high end raid encounters had become significantly more complex over the years in order to remain challenging to players who were getting better and better, but that at the other end, it was raising the bar too high.

How? People who did not have the time available to dedicate themselves to organized raiding would not participate in Flex raiding. And people who had the time to dedicate to organized raiding and wanted to were already raiding the raids' normal difficulty.

Flex (in it's incarnation) addressed two separate issues:

1) The difficulty step of getting into what was then normal raiding (now heroic).
- Flex literally made raiding more accessible to players who lacked the skill/ability/inclination to successfully participate in that mode of raiding, but who were still a step up from LFR (and besides that, wanted to raid in a social setting).
2) The logistical problems for players and guilds of being constrained to a fixed number of participants in a raid.
- Being benched is a negative experience that deters some raiders and makes them more likely to stop bothering with it
- Having to organise rosters and manage who gets to come and who doesn't is extra effort for raid leaders and can result in them getting the hell in with the whole thing.

I honestly don't understand how you cannot see the obvious reality that flex got more people into raiding (and continues to do so today).

Guilds as a whole are not elitists, unless you're talking about the hardcore guilds and some, maybe even most, of the semi-hardcore. But the casual raiding guilds are not elitists in the least, and would take you into their guild and group if you applied.

Another irrelevant point from you.

Before flex, the reality was that if you were in a guild, you were not going to raid every week that you wanted to. That is not ideal, and in same cases led to drama, and people deciding to quit.

It's not about elitism.

Being condescending about the difficulty people have doing certain content is literally elitism

It's how nonsensical your idea that people who enjoy doing "more difficult raid difficulties" somehow are having trouble doing 10-man normal raiding (the easiest, not counting LFR), somehow not enjoying their time that they wanted an easier raid difficulty. You said it right here:

Why would those people want an "easier difficulty" if they enjoy doing "more challenging difficulty levels"?

More difficult than LFR. Once again, you totally ignore context, cherry pick a few words, and then try to argue with someone about what they are trying to say, complaining that what they are saying is "nonsensical". (Here's a tip for you: If what someone is saying makes no sense to you, maybe you're reading it wrong.)

You don't have to be a Mythic raider to not want to step foot into LFR. Flex was the equivalent of modern normal raiding. It was (and still is, as normal today), absolutely, harder than LFR. It's a very different experience (even someone like you wants to call it the same "content")

[Ielenia]

Where the hell did I say anything about not having the time for organised raiding? The fact that you are having to continuously invent words to attribute to me to argue against is tantamount to an admission that you have no argument against what I am saying.

You mentioned "different subset of people" without specifying what "different subset" we're talking about. I'm just pointing out the "different subsets" of which Flex did nothing about.

Well you're wrong. It is the stated reason why Blizzard decided to move from 2 difficulty levels of organised raiding (normal/heroic) to 3 (normal/heroic/mythic). Since it's evident you're not well informed about this stuff, I went and found another source where someone explains it well.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...ic_difficulty/

I bolded the pertinent parts to make it even easier for you.

Are you trying to pass off an opinion piece taken from the comments of a Reddit page... as official information?

Then why do it?

Because they wanted to make people try out this new raid feature, and it would be counter-productive to either mess with pre-established difficulties, as they'd have to completely remake the raid difficulties they changed should people not like the feature, or make the new "flex" difficulty to be above heroic. Making Flex easier than normal was the only real option they had.

Flex (in it's incarnation) addressed two separate issues:

1) The difficulty step of getting into what was then normal raiding (now heroic).
- Flex literally made raiding more accessible to players who lacked the skill/ability/inclination to successfully participate in that mode of raiding, but who were still a step up from LFR (and besides that, wanted to raid in a social setting).
2) The logistical problems for players and guilds of being constrained to a fixed number of participants in a raid.
- Being benched is a negative experience that deters some raiders and makes them more likely to stop bothering with it
- Having to organise rosters and manage who gets to come and who doesn't is extra effort for raid leaders and can result in them getting the hell in with the whole thing.

I honestly don't understand how you cannot see the obvious reality that flex got more people into raiding (and continues to do so today).

Your point (1) does not match the explanation underneath it. The point says that, in your opinion, Flex "bridged the difficulty gap between heroic dungeons and normal raiding". So you're saying that Flex allowed people to better transition from heroic dungeons to normal raiding. And yet, your explanation clearly mentions people lacking skill and/or inclination of doing normal raiding, i.e., would likely never do normal raiding unless carried. And your point (2) puts raiders and raid leaders as primadonas, who can't stand taking a night off, or have anxiety attacks when they have to tell Bob that they're taking Luke tonight, instead.

Being condescending about the difficulty people have doing certain content is literally elitism

Again, I was not being an elitist, but commenting about how your statement made no sense.

[Pony Soldier]

I think everything will be fine. People bitch about every new WoW expansion regardless if it looks good or not. The fact of the matter is people will still buy it, still play it and continue to bitch and whine about it.

Shadowlands to me looks good and in my opinion looks to be one of the best expansions. Torghast is looking awesome and fun and the covenants looks interesting too. So I'm actually looking forward to it. I'm sure there will be things I don't like or agree with but like with a lot of things you can't please everyone. So it is what it is.

Regarding BFA, overall, I didn't think it was as bad as people say. I think Legion did it better but I look at BFA as one of those "good" expansions. Nothing to get excited about but fun enough to keep my attention. I had lots to do and lots to catch up on so the long wait for Shadowlands never bothered me that much. Now that I'm pretty much caught up on everything I wanted to get done I'm ready for it and Oct. 27 is looking like a good release date to me.

[MasterHamster]

SL will be very much like BFA, it's unfortunate but I cannot bring myself to buy it.
BFA shows the overall design of WoW expansions going forward, and I'm not interested in this "play-the-patch" design.
BFA lasting a long time says very little about SL's quality, because pretty much all content Blizzard churns out is designed to be easily clearable either solo or in a lowest-difficulty group.
The game has become a Theme Park travesty

[ReleaseDay]

Gonna go off the top of my head, no sources:

Vanilla - BC: Nov 4th, 2004 to Jan 15th, 2007 - a tad over 26 months.
BC to WotLK: Jan 16 2007 to Nov 12 2008 - 22 months
WotLK to Cata: Nov 13th 2008 to Dec 6th 2010 - a week shy of 25 months
Cata to MoP: Dec 7 2010 to Sep 24th 2012 - almost 25 months
MoP to WoD: Sep 25 2012 to Nov 12 2014 - around 23-24 months
WoD to Legion: Nov 13 2014 to Aug 29 2016 - about 21.5 months
Legion to BfA: Aug 30 2016 to Aug 13 2018 - 2 weeks shy of 24 months
BfA to SL: Aug 14 2018 to Oct 25 2020 - 26 months and 11 days.
SL to ???: Oct 26 2020 to Dec 2022 (that's what the pattern suggests)

The dates are based on the day the expansion launched to the day before the next one goes live.

So it's fairly even. An expansion comes around about every 2 year

[starburst]

BFA was rock bottom, so whatever they give us can only be an improvement.

[Raelbo]

You mentioned "different subset of people" without specifying what "different subset" we're talking about. I'm just pointing out the "different subsets" of which Flex did nothing about.

If you'd been reading what I was writing instead of looking for semantic errors, maybe it would have been obvious. Also, pointing to subsets of people that Flex didn't help isn't really valid or useful in any way whatsoever when it's obvious that there were many players for whom Flex was very helpful (and continues to be today).

Are you trying to pass off an opinion piece taken from the comments of a Reddit page... as official information?

Not at all. Just demonstrating that what I am quoting from memory was also remembered by other people. Of course you are quite welcome to go looking for the blue posts on the subject from 2014 to validate it or refute it.

Because they wanted to make people try out this new raid feature, and it would be counter-productive to either mess with pre-established difficulties, as they'd have to completely remake the raid difficulties they changed should people not like the feature, or make the new "flex" difficulty to be above heroic. Making Flex easier than normal was the only real option they had.

Or maybe it was a bit of both. It was pretty clear that there was a gap. It was also pretty clear that a flexible raid format would help. Now maybe Blizzard simply stumbled upon introducing a much needed difficulty to fill that gap (being complete noobs at game design /s), and maybe people like me and others only imagined the devs stating that they wanted to fill this gap. But it is actually irrelevant what their intention was because it doesn't change the fact that Flex filled a rather significant need that got a lot of people participating in raiding.

Your point (1) does not match the explanation underneath it. The point says that, in your opinion, Flex "bridged the difficulty gap between heroic dungeons and normal raiding". So you're saying that Flex allowed people to better transition from heroic dungeons to normal raiding.

No, that's not what I said at all. I quite clearly stated that Flex provided an accessible raiding experience to people who weren't able to make the transition from heroic dungeons to (then) normal (now heroic) raiding. But I suppose now you're going to argue about what I meant when I used the "bridge" for the next 10 posts
As I said earlier, you seem to have this strange way of choosing to interpret what people write so that it makes zero logical sense, when clearly, with a bit of imagination, it should be easy to interpret it in a way that makes perfect sense - and is likely the way it was intended to be interpreted.

And your point (2) puts raiders and raid leaders as primadonas, who can't stand taking a night off, or have anxiety attacks when they have to tell Bob that they're taking Luke tonight, instead.

Nope, never said that either. I said that being benched is a negative experience.

But yeah, whatever. As expected you continue to nitpick at minutiae while carefully making sure to avoid the actual point - namely that Flex makes the raiding experience better by removing the problems associated with fixed size raiding and having to bench people.

Again, I was not being an elitist, but commenting about how your statement made no sense.

Interesting that you didn't deny that you were being condescending (and continue to be in your tone tbh) towards the raiders at whom the flex (now normal) raid difficulty is aimed at.

[Ielenia]

If you'd been reading what I was writing instead of looking for semantic errors, maybe it would have been obvious. Also, pointing to subsets of people that Flex didn't help isn't really valid or useful in any way whatsoever when it's obvious that there were many players for whom Flex was very helpful (and continues to be today).

"Obvious"? Obvious to who? You? Again, you only claim such "many players" existed...

Not at all. Just demonstrating that what I am quoting from memory was also remembered by other people. Of course you are quite welcome to go looking for the blue posts on the subject from 2014 to validate it or refute it.

I'm sorry, but it doesn't work that way. You don't get to make an affirmation, and then say "prove me wrong". Also, regarding the comment you linked, read the definition for the "Mandela Effect".

It was pretty clear that there was a gap.

"Clear" to who? You? I don't remember that gap ever existing...

Nope, never said that either. I said that being benched is a negative experience.

You said, and I quote:

- Being benched is a negative experience that deters some raiders and makes them more likely to stop bothering with it
- Having to organise rosters and manage who gets to come and who doesn't is extra effort for raid leaders and can result in them getting the hell in with the whole thing.

Interesting that you didn't deny that you were being condescending (and continue to be in your tone tbh) towards the raiders at whom the flex (now normal) raid difficulty is aimed at.

I suppose it was too much to expect that you'd understand that me denying your accusation of elitism would imply that I'm also denying your accusation of being condescending. And yes, I was condescending in that statement. And, again, the "flex" was simply to test a new feature, and making it a higher difficulty setting would be counter-productive to testing.

[Raelbo]

"Obvious"? Obvious to who? You? Again, you only claim such "many players" existed...

Ok, so after some level of effort I managed to go dig up an article that included the entire blue post by Ion at the time (2014)

It pretty much validates everything I have been saying and destroys your argument in its entirety.

https://www.engadget.com/2014-04-29-...sm-to-now.html

In short mate, you simply don't know what you're talking about. It's been obvious for some time now. And I did try to find the old blue posts which I know existed because I read them. But I guess because of the change to the Blizzard forums and the time that has passed, it took me some effort to figure out how to get Google to find the info instead of giving me a list of 4.7 billion wrong pages. The point of posting a reddit link was to demonstrate that other people could verify the existence of the original source, and I guess I naively believe that any reasonable person would accept that as sufficient evidence.

Whatever. I can't say it's been a pleasure debating with you.

[Skendarn]

I reeeeeally hope that shadowlands will be everything that BFA wasnt. BFA was boring all the way through. Hated the zones, themes and the raids did feel abit "meh". Azhara was a huge build up but feelt like some small DLC pack.

[MrLachyG]

I think the biggest annoyance that I have from BfA is currency. This specific situation will resolve itself in a couple of weeks but still. Echoes of Ny'alotha and Corrupted Mementos - the way of obtaining them was really, really fucking dumb. Don't have the cloak? well, no echoes of ny'alotha for you. What's that? you've levelled a new character, geared it up in 8.3 and gotten heaps of corrupted items which are a much higher ilvl than what you have on but PSYCH! you can't cleanse them because you can't get corrupted mementos until you have the cloak. meanwhile the amount of corruption you have absolutely gimps you from doing anything in the meantime