I was a huge fan of the staggered releases for RoF and CotF. I do not have strong feelings on the matter here, but I do like the thought process put into it. One of the things that makes raid forces more stable is having multiple targets to choose from, and expansions that focus on linear progression (literally linear) tend to be problematic sometimes. That is where The Broken Mirror (edit: I put my favorite expansion here by mistake for some reason at first) excelled, since what would have been a guild destroying event (Damsel of Decay) could be returned to later, and the disease side raids were significantly easier than Stem the Tide, and Emollious is on the easier side too. The array of difficulty probably wasn't intended, but it worked well giving things to do if the force wasn't strong enough for the tougher ones.
Screw the race for nerd points. What do you get for first place? Jack Squat. I guess all you nerds gotta feel like you can compete at something. If I was a guild leader/raid leader, I wouldn't care about that. I would just want to be able to complete them all and farm them. First or last before next expansion... it is all the same to me. Just completing them is all I care about. I like how they are doing this. Gives guilds time to get progression done and then when first month is over, the next day it will be like a horse race starting out of the gates to see who gets it done first. We know nerds can't run for shiite, so will be fun to watch. Once they beat it, farm it while salivating for the next month to arrive. I hope the first day to raid each tier is on a Wednesday. All joking aside...I like what they are trying for this expansion. A month to work on progression and levels to get ready if they want to raid. The anticipation the raiding guilds will have is gonna make their tummies ache. Great job devs!
The non-flagging requirement will hopefully encourage smaller guilds to work together if they have issues completing alone. I think it will help those servers that have open raids as well?
That's the problem. I have family I buy presents for and asking for an expansion hasn't worked out too well yet.
IDK how this will work out, but one good thing is that there wont be pressure to keep the same people in every raid and bench the same people for extended periods so as to maximize flagging.
It likely has to do with quarterly or years end sales in order to build the budget for the next year.
I think a better option for raids would be: Open ALL RAIDS on day 1, behind some sort of progression, open the T1 raids and allow all raiders that want to raid on lockouts getting keys to open the next tier of raids. This will allow those that want to, the ability to see who can "finish" the raids as we historically have. On your 1/2/3 month schedule, REMOVE the requirement of any progression to open the next tier of raids. Now everyone, regardless of some sort of progression or flagging requirement, will have access to the raids.
Great news everyone! We can now go f2p until January. Just plow through the 5 levels in the first week and go afk for the holidays.
Except you cant earn any AA and you cant wear prestige gear whilst getting these 5 levels, which will make it take a fair bit longer than a week. Unless of course you do these things before you go f2p
Fair point but it is unlikely that anyone in non-prestige gear, especially tanks, could get those levels in a week
Saturday 9am pacific, noon eastern, 5pm gmt gives most players and guilds an opportunity. Midnight pacific, 3am eastern, 8am gmt on a weekday not so much.
This is honestly the absolute most logical "best of both worlds" suggestion, period. You have the people who want to race. You have the people who want to be lazy*. Let the racers race, let the lazies be lazy. *I jest. Kind of.
So if you've ever wanted to try a TLP server with expacs, now raids, unlocking at a preset time, here you go. Just pretend live is temporarily on TLP. Once the first raid is tuned appropriately and most of guilds can accomplish such, I will be chomping at the bit to move on after the first month of release - really, really chomping.