I would like to have it here in case the forum post gets deleted or something
Raids don't exist in a vacuum; they are part of a whole I like to call "classic MMOs". Those have some specific rules:
1) Players need to play for as long as possible, since the model was created based on pay-to-play MMOs.
2) In order to get enough content to keep around for as long as possible, the easiest path is to make players grind for as long as possible.
4) Players love to grind under the idea that their characters will become stronger by doing so, even if this increase in power is illusory (doing 10 damage to a 100 hp monster is seen as significantly worse than doing 1.000 damage to a 10.000 hp monster). This feature is called "progression", and while it's just a trick to keep players paying for a longer time, people have been indoctrinated into believing all MMOs should have it.
3) Level grind is a great way to add "progression", but sooner or later players will reach the level cap. There needs to be some other way to grind.
4) Gear grind complements level grind. It can be stretched for long enough so a given character will only have reached the level cap and the gear cap by the time an expansion is released, effectively increasing both the level cap and the gear cap.
5) In order to stretch the time it takes to reach the gear cap, it requires a few tricks: drop rates must be very low (so people do the same area over and over), it must require challenging content (so success rate is low), and it must require a lot of people (since organizing a lot of players is harder, and happens less frequently, than organizing a few players). Those features have been packed together and called "raids"; while those raids are just one more trick to keep players around for a longer time, in a classic example of the "carrot dangling in a stick" method, MMO players have been deceived into believing they are actually a required part of any MMO.
GW2 breaks all those assumptions, so it does not have, or need to have raids. It's therefore logical that raiders won't accept dungeons or the event system as the replacement of raids; what they are missing is not only the raids themselves, but the entire illusion that surrounds said raids.
It's Brilliant and exactly what I was thinking (even when playing FTP MMOs - because they copy the PTP ones) .
Sharing is caring :P
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