However, that doesn’t mean there’s no hard content in WoW. Absolutely not, because there is. The problem is that the hard content is incredibly gated and tucked away, and is made less intimidating by the fact you can do most of the hard stuff in ‘easy mode’ first. Anub’arak in Trial of the Grand Crusader is hard. Super hard. But if you can almost nap through the fight in the normal mode of the dungeon, the bite is taken away. Fights that are truly difficult in hard mode don’t form a reputation for being hard, because they’re ridiculously easy on normal mode. Everybody says, “Anub’arak is so easy!” when they really mean Anub’arak’s normal mode is easy. Kind of silly. I’d like to see more of the hard content be like Algalon: Legitimately hard, no matter how you approach it.

Blizzard could certainly make the content as hard as they want, so player skill isn’t going to make or break the difficulty of the game. But I think that the average skill level is higher now than it was two or three years ago, and it’s something they take into consideration when designing encounters.

I also don’t think that the talents can be considered to be undergoing an entire refit — granted several are getting moved around and will be present via different game mechanics, but overall things like Titan’s Grip are still going to be around for us to use.

To me the principle change within Cataclysm will be the environment. Azeroth will be torn asunder, never returning to the way it was five years ago. In this aspect I do agree with you that it will be like WoW 2, but I think that’s really the only way it can be viewed like that. I should note here that personally, for myself, it will be a big enough change. I have toons of every class between level 60 and 80, and I never really intended to go back and level through the old world again; but then I heard about Cataclysm and I can’t wait to go and roll a goblin priest, if only to see new zones and quests.

I also like Ringo’s answer: “What you call sneaky, I call brilliant. If Sony could go back and do it over, I’m sure they’d prefer to have retained their EQ1 numbers with EQ2, instead of fracturing the player base in two just as WoW was released.”

EQ2 is a great game in my opinion, I’ve actually been playing it as long as WoW (although not anywhere nearly as seriously). In my dealings in the MMO industry I’ve heard lots of people say that EQ1 is actually doing slightly better than EQ2 now, and I’m sure Sony would do just about anything to go back in time and de-fracture their playerbase. The split they had will likely go down as one of the largest blunders in MMO history. And yes, I know what I’m saying will likely cause a lot of people to QQ, but such is life.

With that said, this would be a very popular feature if implemented, and I’m sure Blizzard has thought of it. Why it didn’t make it into the final product would only be speculation.

For additional information on the new LFG system, check out our gallery of the new interface.