ICC is...

(This was a post I wrote a while back while in a car or airport or something where I didn't have internet. Figured I'd post it before it goes out of date)

Lately with time at work being so high and full weekends of work consuming my life, I found that the crawling pace of ICC releases is actually helping me out. With the release of Ulduar, and previous to that with Naxx there was so much pressure to clear because we were able to. (I was in college barely going to class, I pretty much played whenever I wanted to) This allows you to go as far as your raid is capable of and choosing when to stop. Now that blizzard decided that they would control the flow of raiding by only releasing the easy content one step at a time, the challenge in ICC just isn’t there for me.

I really do enjoy the new scenery and the new fights, yet at the same time I find it difficult to get really enthusiastic about content that everyone *should* be downing.

After re-reading that proclamation I realize that it can come off as very elitist and in the same tones as the “Why is everyone allowed to raid and see the content I deserve to see after all my hard work” but I really don’t mean it in that sense. I love the accessibility that blizzard gave to all players into the endgame. When I first started playing I mentioned casually one time to a person that I really enjoyed Wow. He claimed that after he reached level cap there didn’t seem to be a whole lot to do except raid. At the time he was playing (vanilla) it really did take a long time to gear up to actually contribute, then you are looking at being a dpser in a 40-man? Let’s pretend for a moment they even HAD recount (they didn’t). You have no idea who is doing well, and who is afking for anything they like. The content isn’t challenging except for the fact that the raid coordination and leadership. (Think of the nightmare that was Thaddius for 40 people. Granted it was high enough up in progression that any guild that got there had enough people committed to actually paying attention… but still… It was bad enough when we were pugging it before Uld. with 25…)

Back on topic, the accessibility that blizz has given out for raiding is awesome. The logic that they design uber-awesome content (like AQ or Sunwell) that not very many people were able to experience is not really logical. It’s like James Cameron being like “Avatar is teh sex, and you can’t watch it unless you are a well known movie critic. I realize I dumped a massive amount of money into this, it’s extremely popular, received amazing reviews, but unfortunately you all have not watched all my other movies leading up to it so you do not deserve to even be in it’s very presence. You are not 1337.” That just makes no sense.

I want Icecrown to be the pinnacle of raiding, I want the Arthas fight to be just phenomenal. Anything else would be a letdown. We all played WC3 (assumption here) and no one got irate when everyone was able to beat the game!! It had amazing story and the story comes to a close here. It is 100% logical for most people to get to the Arthas fight and to see it. The self-nerfing raid instance is what will assist this as well.

Here’s to hoping it cracks up to everything we want it to be!