flex-raids
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Raid design evolution from Cataclysm to now
Yesterday Lead Game Designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas published a fascinating Dev Watercooler blog that discussed the history and evolution of raid design in World of Warcraft. That article was part one of a three-part series, and looked into the way that raiding developed from WoW's original release through to Wrath of the Lich King. In part two, published today, Watcher discusses the ways raid design has changed, and stayed the same, through Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria. The article focuses primarily on difficulty levels and raiding. Watcher discusses in detail the problems inherent in the "10-man is easier, 25-man is harder" approach, as well as the ways that making 10- and 25-man raiding more equivalent in difficulty led to new problems that hadn't existed before. From there we learn about the origin of both the LFR and Flex raiding options from the perspective of how different raiding difficulties serve different portions of the WoW player population. If you've ever wondered about the thought processes that went into developing the different types of raid systems we see in the game today, this is an excellent article on exactly that. Check out the full blue post after the break.
WRUP: BRB, raid flexing
It's been a little over a week since we discovered flex raids. Since then, Blizzard has supplied more information, talking heads have hypothesized, and we've all had time to search our feelings and know it to be true. So while we were polling your inimitable WoW Insider staff about what they're playing this weekend, we decided to take a dipstick of the team opinion on flex raids. So jump in and join us for the conversation, and tell us what you think of this new feature.
