Charting the path

This just makes me dizzy.

The linked chart is the raid attunement chart for the Burning Crusade. Yes, if you believe the data on the chart, you need to complete all of that in order to get into Mount Hyjal. Mount Hyjal is the Big Bad raiding content for BC. The chart also shows the requirements for the other raids as well.

Now, I'm not really going to pass judgment on this yet because it very well might be that this attunement will fall out naturally by just playing the BC content. If that's the case, bravo to Blizzard. It should take a lot of work to get into that instance, that I agree with and is just good game design. However, the player should always feel that they are moving forward towards that goal while still maintaining the feeling that they are playing a game, not working at a second job. Just looking at the chart, you see a lot of Revered rep requirements...and we all know how much fun getting that is.

This is Blizzard's big test as far as I'm concerned. Have they really learned the lessons from current 60+ game? If the rep doesn't accumulate naturally from quests and other meaningful tasks then the answer is no and I really do think that Blizzard will be in a bit of trouble. Don't misunderstand me, I don't think all 6 million people will cancel their accounts because they have to rep grind for 2 months. By "trouble" I mean that the experience of the BC expansion will be seriously shortened by those who are turned off by a grindy end game. Those that see this pattern might just move on to other things and if Blizzard takes another 2 years for their next expansion then this might be a problem.

Getting off of WoW now...Fileplanet now has an open beta for Vanguard for subscribers. If you're interested in checking this one out, I suggest that you do. We want to make sure that Sigil gets as much feedback as possible for this game...they need it.

D out.