My Thoughts & What I Need

[Alarick]

Mongojerry has said that the developer's vision for this game is item progression, not character progression.  Thats why there is tier 1 Epics in Molten Core and eventually there will Tier 2 epics in Blackwing Lair.  To get these said items does require great amounts of time.  Levels 1-59 are very casual friendly, but 60 is a whole different ball of wax.  It pretty well is a different game at 60 and from what i can see, very few people will ever get to see. 

Unfortunately there is two parts to this game, hardcore (EQ defined because of Tigole and Furor) and casual (that includes hardcore elements.  These two playstyles are worlds apart and do not mesh, at best they conflict.  I am not certain Lurker Lounge wants to do the above.  Why is there so much angst about that.  I see a lot of Diablo 1 and 2 expectation where great gobs of time were not needed to accomplish end game things.  This is whole different species to that.  It does require huge chunks of time which realistically very few people have.  Tackling Onyxia once a month would mean it would take the the Lurker Lounge 1.5 years to get to Blackwing Lair.  By then, my guess would be that WoW would be on Tier 4 gear.  Anyways, those are some random thoughts from me.
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Sadly, this is exactly the thing that I don't like about the game, and what is starting to push me away.

A game should not end with item progression only, because there is no way to balance item progression between hardcore and casual players. Make things too easy, and hardcore players get bored and complain. Make it too hard, and you alienate the portion of the playerbase that makes a good amount of subscribers.

I was drawn to this game because I could do so much in short periods of time. I don't want to sit in front of my computer for hours on end just to get a single piece of gear to make my priest ever so slightly better.

Blizzard needs to move in some definite direction. They need to choose a group and stick with it and advertise the game as being that way. There can be no more of this "WoW is casual friendly!" with the hidden note that this only applies for the first 3-4 months until you get to level 60.

Casual gamers need some method to progress their characters the same as anyone else, and making alts is not the answer to this problem. There either needs to be content available that's worthwhile or an admission from the devs that casual gamers should just quit because no content is coming.

I realize this is pretty off topic, but it's something I've been thinking about for a decent amount of time now, and is the single largest factor in the fact that I will probably be ending my subscription for the summer in the least. I hate to say it, but the "character progression is item progression" thing is exactly what has made it hard for me to even log on as of late, and it will take a huge change in the game for me to keep playing.