Zorrixor posted:Potentially I can't necessarily see any reason why the 5-man/10-man/25-man versions of the same instance like WOTLK has done couldn't work. The problem WoW still suffers from, however, is that despite them making big changes with WOTLK itself, the patches have somewhat slipped back into making the highest end game zones raid only again. I think the problem is it's somewhat unavoidable given the way the WoW community has grown up with the game, making it very hard now to come in with a sledgehammer and say to the raiding community that the entire nature of the development teams' goal has changed. If there was a 5-man to take down Arthas, I can see that causing no end of complaints. In a brand new game? TOR isn't up against the same wall of existing expectations, so potentially can try something a bit different. Will that something have its own problems? Definitely. But they can still try to learn from WoW's mistakes. Blizzard have to a certain extent, as they've come a long, long way from the pre-expansion game when they mostly just took what the outspoken community of hardcore PvPers and raiders said for granted, whereas ever since BC they've recognised the casual crowd is actually the bigger one. But that original outspoken community is still outspoken, so they're always having to play a careful balancing act... as I'm sure they also realise that that same outspoken community will also be the people who probably will keep playing long after the more casual crowd migrate to a different game. Placate the masses who will only play until a better game comes along... or placate the addicts who will continue playing for years? It's not an easy thing to answer really. BioWare at least are in a position to try to cater for both crowds from the get go. Frankly, the very notion of there being NPC companions at all tells me that they're going to try something new, even if it doesn't work out. There were companions in NWN and the NWN2 expansions after all... not that I ever used them personally. That's the battle for them: make companions worthwhile, without making the game into ezmode. What I'd not mind from a solo perspective perhaps would be if they just made, say, "2-man" instances or something, i.e. you, a friend, plus 2 NPCs each to bring you up to 5. Frankly, as useless as an AI bot sounds, there are few times in WoW where I think the game is actually all that hard at all. And when it is... that's because of the boss's AI. Most of the time though it's just spamming your tank/heal/DPS classes fixed role.
Zorrixor posted: EDIT: So, take this with a rather large grain of salt, but after following a rather big link on the front page, Amazon is claiming the release date is 31st March 2010. Bearing in mind Amazon often is just guessing, my past experience has at the very least found that they nearly always predict things will be out earlier than they are, rather than being excessively cautious; so, on that basis, we're looking mid 2010 at the very earliest.
Magnuskn posted: Story relevance is another conondrum. If raids are not accessible for many normal players, they should also not be relevant to the overall story. WoW raids are essential for the storyline, having many of the biggest lore figures as opponents for the players. This should be avoided at all costs, unless the general game audience can participate, instead of some selected few with too many time on their hands.