* This means 10 man = 25 man. A 10 man guild will be able to work alongside a 25man and be properly geared, not an iLevel behind.
* It will be the same loot %, regardless of the raid size. Whereas in WOTLK, 10mans and more often 10man heroic, lead to easier gearing than 25man, you will be grinding your eye balls red just to be 'perfectly' geared.
* 10 man guilds are now viable and can feel confident in their achievements.
* No more separate mounts or achievements for 10/25? Get it done on 10 or 25 and it's done? Simplicity is nice, if that is how this will work.
* I have a 'gut' feeling that we will end up with more UNIQUE (being the key word here) raids. In WOTLK, we didn't have many DIFFERENT raids, we just had 2-4 of the same raid on different versions, which made the game eerily boring. As many of you experienced, it was expected you HAD to do all versions to be invited to most content, unless you ran into the benevolent RL who would allow you into a raid with prior tier gear or 10man gear (rare).
* They want to make ALL guilds viable, not just 25 mans. No longer are 10man second fiddle. With the emergence of GUILD achievements, this makes being in a 10 man guild that much more attractive. In addition, your 10man core can finally do as it needs and succeed without feeling that the 25 man has too many bads hurting progression. In WOTLK, alot of 25 mans had a core that could nuke any content, but would stonewall at certain 25 man content, leading to the attrition we had seen during TBC, too.
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This couldn't be a better thing to happen.
Show of hands:
Who thought (4) TOC versions was "fun?"
Not I. I didn't like the instance as it was, not to mention running it 4x when it first dropped. Ulduar was great, but it was LONG and running it twice over was not possible for much of the population. Naxxramas was the start where achievements came to matter, but there was only a 10/25 version and once you were geared it was cream puff.
HOPEFULLY...we will have plenty of fun, difficult dungeons...many DIFFERENT raids, rather than varied raids of the same actual dungeon/raid...more difficult content...and a balance to all aspects of the game. WOW is an evolving GAME and an evolving MMORPG model. It has come a long way and as long as BOTH aspects evolve simultaneously, it will continue growing. Once either stops, IT will end.