Hardcore Ecosystem

[bryant]

At the moment, on the order of 423 United States World of Warcraft guilds have completed all the available content. If we assume that each of those guilds has around 40 raiders, which is a slightly generous estimate, then about 17,000 people have seen Illidan die.

There are over 2.5 million WoW players in the US. That makes that ratio of players to players who've completed the content roughly 150:1.

The usual question at this point is why Blizzard should care about the hardcore guys. Shouldn't they put more effort into the casual player?

Earthen Ring has 109 guilds partaking of raid content. Call that 4,300 characters (note: not people), but that's low because a lot of those guilds are more diffuse than the hardcore raiding guilds. Let's work with it. There are something like 7,000 level 70 characters on Earthen Ring. A majority of level 70s raid at least a little.

It gets too uncertain to extend past that. There are around 26,000 characters total on Earthen Ring, but some of those are bankers, some are alts, and an RP server is probably a bad baseline after all.

On the other hand, Blizzard clearly has enough content for people who are under level 70, sort of by definition. So maybe I won't worry too much about that; the question is what to do for the level 70s. Raid content is, as we return to the thrust of the discussion, most of what Blizzard works on.

(Not all. PvP content happens, five-man content happens, etc. But the majority of the work goes to extending the raid game.)

OK, where were we? 4,300 Earthen Ring raiders. Two guilds have cleared all the content; four more guilds are currently experiencing the highest-end content. Call it 240 people. Blizzard is blithely working on even tougher raids, which will be experienced by those 240 people plus perhaps another six guilds. 500 people total on my server will kill a Sunwell boss.

That's a small minority of our raiders. 10%, probably, when all's said and done. We're back at the main question: why should Blizzard make content for those 10%, of which I'm admittedly a part, when the other 90% of raiders might get more out of a new raid instance at the same difficulty level of the stuff that already exists?

There's a lot of really good commentary on this, including this post from Sandra Powers, which makes a good argument that's always bugged me. So unto the point: what's missing from the analysis?

The answer, I think, is that the actions of that 10% has a major impact on the other 90%. It's not about recruiting, it's about how easy it is for the 90% to raid. Most of those people rely heavily on strategies written by the top of the 10%. I may be in the bottom chunk of the 10%, and certainly my raid group would be a lot further behind if we didn't have strategies to read. I get a lot of my insight into appropriate tactics from a high-end raiding guild's message board community.

Raiding is more satisfying for me, and less frustrating, because the super hardcore guilds exist. Without them I think I'd have less fun, and I think that holds true for a lot of the rest of the 90%.

So it's important to keep the 5% happy and busy. (Note: the page I just linked makes the assumption that raiding is taking away from the time Blizzard would spend on content for levels 1-69 -- but again, there already is content for them.)

I'm not going to swear to my numbers, because they're not official and the player/account distinction is tricky, etc., etc. I think the point about high end guilds enabling medium and casual guilds to see content is, however, important and perhaps even new.

Comments

[that-cad.livejournal.com]

I spend far too much time reading posts about this subject. I don't know why, I just find it fascinating. Anyway, I wanted to toss something in here.

I don't think I ever quite get to your point, here. You ask what's missing from the analysis, and then say that:

[T]he actions of that 10% [raiders] has a major impact on the other 90%. It's not about recruiting, it's about how easy it is for the 90% to raid. Most of those people rely heavily on strategies written by the top of the 10%. I may be in the bottom chunk of the 10%, and certainly my raid group would be a lot further behind if we didn't have strategies to read. I get a lot of my insight into appropriate tactics from a high-end raiding guild's message board community.

But I don't think that answers the question of why Blizzard should make more content for the 10% at the expense of, say, more instances and battlegrounds for the other 90%. What that answer seems to be saying is that the 10% who do raid make it easier for the 90% who don't raid to raid, once they decide that they should raid. But isn't that just begging the question, i.e., the 10% who raid need to be kept happy so that the 90% who don't raid will be able to derive strategies and goals for raiding from the 10% who do currently raid?

I'm not trying to be argumentative or attack raiding, or anything like that. I'd love to raid, but doubt I'll ever have the time. And, most importantly, I'd only love to raid because that's where Blizzard has put the best end-game content. If I could get loot on scale with what is obtained through raiding any other way that did not require rigidly-scheduled group activity, I'd probably pursue that other way. But because raiding is the only way available to obtain that equipment, let alone see the High and Mighty NPCs of Lore, I find myself wanting to raid, even though raiding, hypothetically, as "something to do," does not interest me any more than anything else in the game.

[that-cad.livejournal.com]

This is probably the best argument I've seen advanced in favor of Blizzard favoring hardcore raiding in lieu of other content. But I wonder if raid content is the only type of content that delivers the most player usage for the number of development hours invested. Certainly low-level areas deliver little usage for what are undoubtedly countless hours of work, but what about other forms of endgame content that require long term player involvement? Is raiding really the only form of endgame content that returns a maximum profit for the investment?

[halfway-back.livejournal.com]

It's trickle down raidonomics!

=D

[bryant]

You're slightly misreading my unclear breakdown; let me recap.

Some percentage of the WoW population is under level 70. That percentage of the WoW population has enough to do, by definition; there's a ton of leveling content and even some non-leveling content to do along the way. There will be people who don't like the game that WoW presents, but it's very hard to argue that WoW is unsuccessful in presenting an appealing game. I don't think you can argue that Blizzard does a bad job of supporting people under level 70.

(I would love to see more expansion of the Azerothian content, but that doesn't mean it's necessary or good business.)

OK, so let's consider level 70 players. There are roughly five types of content available to them:

* PvP. Endless content is available, because it's generated by other players. If the PvP game is balanced, Blizzard is making these people happy. Blizzard spends a lot of time on PvP balance. This is a success.
* Crafting/economy. There are people whose enjoyment of the game is driven by playing the Auction House and making money. Similar to PvP, as long as the economics of the game doesn't become trivial, these people are happy. Blizzard wins here with even less effort.
* Raiding. Content must be created by Blizzard.
* Small group/solo activities. Content must be created by Blizzard.
* Social/roleplaying activities. Not limited to level 70, of course. Content is generated by other players or by Blizzard.

The numbers tend to make me think that raiders are close to a majority of the level 70 players. When I say 10% has a major impact on the other 90%, I'm referring to the raider population, which may well be a majority of the level 70 player base.

And of the rest of that player base, PvPers and capitalists make their own fun, so there's another big chunk of the population that's happy. Who isn't satisfied? Solo/small group players; but despite popular opinion, I don't think they represent the majority of the level 70 playerbase.

[bryant]

Nope. PvP is /great/ return for the investment, because you just worry about balance and let people provide their own challenge. Unsurprisingly, Blizzard puts energy into that.

[bryant]

Yes. Yes it is. :D

[bryant]

[Separate followup because it's a separate point.]

"If I could get loot on scale with what is obtained through raiding any other way that did not require rigidly-scheduled group activity, I'd probably pursue that other way."

You dig the fist weapons, as I recall?

Talon of the Phoenix
Fist Weapon
182 - 339 Damage
Speed 2.70
(96.5 damage per second)

Equip: Improves hit rating by 15 (0.95% @ L70).
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 19 (0.86% @ L70).
Equip: Increases attack power by 52.

Vs:

Vengeful Gladiator's Right Ripper
Fist Weapon
187 - 349 Damage
Speed 2.60
(103.1 damage per second)
+30 Stamina

Equip: Improves hit rating by 8 (0.51% @ L70).
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 21 (0.95% @ L70).
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 12 (0.3% @ L70).
Equip: Increases attack power by 34.
Equip: Your attacks ignore 49 of your opponent's armor.

The second is a PvP reward. Not an easy one to get, or anything, but it's from PvP.

Blizzard has three distinct routes for gearing up:

* 25 man raiding; allows you to reach the maximum gear level
* PVP; allows you to reach the maximum gear level
* 10 man raiding/heroic dungeons; allows you to reach a level one below the maximum

A lot of people mix and match.

[that-cad.livejournal.com]

I see your point. My argument from before was based on the misconception that you were saying that the 10% (hardcore raiders) influences the 90% (everyone else) by giving them something to strive for (i.e., raiding). So, I guess I agree, ultimately.

[aelfsciene.livejournal.com]

I'm actually one of those minority of 70s, who's never raided at all, and am not sure I'll get to. We've got 6 people at 70 now, with a 7th working his way up...but that still doesn't get us even to Kara. And I hate PvP; I'm just not at all good at it, and I tend not to dig conflict with other players (something I learned in FLtD, although this is admittedly many steps removed).

So with my main, Kirat, I've been pretty bored and stuck for the last couple of months. I've blown through every soloable quest in Outlands, and am sitting on some group stuff (there are upgrades to my gear from quests, sad to say). We run an instance once a week (was twice, but our tank has cut back), and with our warlock recently reaching 70, I'll probably only be in the rotation every other week. So I've been faced with the long grind of farming primals (I think I'm making the Ebon Netherscale set), and have pretty much avoided it, playing up alts instead.

I just finally got to Ogri'la stuff on Sunday, thanks to Gretchen and Grindelwald and some other folks letting me follow them for the last two quests to unlock it, and our group might do Netherwing in the next week or two. The dailies are still interesting, so it's been a lot more fun (bombing is challenging from a laptop and trackpad!), but I'm still going to hit against the ceiling at some point.

From what I've heard from Gretchen about raiding, I'm not sure I could handle it, even if we had the people. It sounds really stressful and not always much fun, and I don't know if I could manage the time committment. But I don't know, and I'm not sure when I"ll find out. I do love hearing that other groups are doing it, and even with instances, am always grateful for the tips and walkthroughs from people who've come before.

And there's always stuff in Azeroth for all my alts, when I get bored. But if you're not raiding, and have a very casually-meeting group, there's just not much to do after awhile. I agree with you that the high-end content needs to be there, but it's also a fact that not everyone has access to it, and I really don't know what can be done for us.

[bryant]

Yeah; I'm not saying people in your shoes don't exist by any means. How many times can you do a given instance before you're tired of it? (Not a rhetorical question; I'm curious. I can do a lot of any given instance, but only if I'm collecting heroic badges from it.)

[bryant]

btw, it's been my assumption that you're gonna raid; maybe not the high end stuff, but there's nothing at all keeping you from casually doing Karazhan every couple of weeks. :)

[shiffer.livejournal.com]

WoW is a social game. The content which produces the largest return play, and therefore the greatest ROI, is repeatable group play. In the context of PvE this means raids and 5-man instances.

5-man instances are by definition simpler (and for same level of gear always easier), and the smaller number of players needed make them much more suitable to PUGing. Generally speaking the more players involved, the more complex and challenging an encounter can be made. The downside is that the larger number of people requires more organizational overhead and discipline.

It's worth noting somewhere in this debate that Blizzard has already made significant steps in making content more accessible - level 70 has far more instances then level 60. They all have heroic modes. Just recently the requirement for entering these heroics were lowered, and their rewards increased.

In the raid front, "large", or "full" raids were dropped from 40 players to 25, making it much easier to go raiding. Furthermore, 10-man raids are specifically targeted at more casual players.

Blizzard have stated on several occasions that the most played instance (5-man, 10-man or 25-man) is Karazahn, by a large margin. I know I sure ran it more then any other instance.

Finally, to your question - "is raiding really the only form of endgame content that returns a maximum profit for the investment?" Yes, raiding is the form of endgame content which returns the maximum profit for the investment. Of course, that is not to say that Blizzard should only go for the most cost-effective route. But if the same amount of work goes into designing a new level 70 zone with quests and a 5-man instance or a Karazahn-style 10-man raid, I'd definitely vote for the latter.

Personally, I think that in WotLK there should be three entry level 10-man raid zones. You can tack them on the end of instance hubs, like they do today with Magtheridon in HFC and The Eye in TK.

[aelfsciene.livejournal.com]

Honestly? I'm not sure yet. We've done most of the instances once, at this point (4 of us were at 70 considerably sooner than our 5th, so none of the sub-70 dungeons were done in-level), haven't even gotten to Botanica or the Arcatraz yet.

Steamvaults finished twice, I think? The first time we tried it, our rogue was level 64 and I was 68, and it was dire; we cleared the first room but died twice on Thespia. We did get her, but gave up on the rest of the instance because it had taken so long. I think they're trying it Heroic on Sunday, but I have no idea how it'll go, as we haven't hit 10-mans at all yet. I hope we can manage it, because the gear I want to make wants 4 more Primal Nether, and we've only seen one so far (which I won, happy day). Can Heroics be done without Kara gear, or are they supposed to be the step between 10- and 25-man raids?

I'll be happy to do Steamvaults as many times as necessary to get my Cenarion Expedition rep up, because I would so like a hippogryph, but I'm not sure that'll hold as true everyone else. Other dungeon-based rep is pretty much halted. And Ray cutting back to once a week and and Soula and I odd man out for DPS (we've 2 hunters, a warlock, a rogue, a priest and a tankadin) means I'll be seeing even less of things.

How're the Haughties doing? I've been extremely lax with poor Ash, but if you all run them up to 70, we'd love to work with you. ^_^

[bryant]

Hanging at around 30 -- I've had a burst of Alliance-side fun with my rogue and hunter lately. But you never know. If I start pushing the druid again, he'll wind up tank-enabled.

You can do heroics without having done Karazhan. The epics available as heroic loot are pretty good, and in fact would make Karazhan easier. The epics you get from badges are better than Karazhan loot at the top end (but those take like 60 badges).

[that-cad.livejournal.com]

Man, that is wicked encouraging because I would desperately appreciate the opportunity. My schedule does shift around a bit, but I could devote a night a week to raiding. I was just under the impression that one night of raiding a week = not happening, because people have Places To Go and Things To Do, y'know?

[bryant]

Personally, I think that in WotLK there should be three entry level 10-man raid zones. You can tack them on the end of instance hubs, like they do today with Magtheridon in HFC and The Eye in TK.

I agree with this. Looking at how BC has developed, I'm expecting the four-prong gear model to continue, perhaps with the top gear level reserved for 25 man raiding and PvP, but perhaps not. I think we'll see more 10 man content at the start, and I think we'll see a wider range of badge rewards planned.

[aelfsciene.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's awesome to know, thanks. I've heard conflicting reports, some say Kara's first and others Heroics, so there's at least some hope we might cut it.

I'm working on bringing my paladin up, and Soula and Kevin have a shaman and druid on the way, too, so we'll have a bit more class flexibility, if not more people. We don't really do any Azeroth dungeons anymore (Zul'Farrak a couple of weeks ago was a dreary grind, my first time out as tank, plus a comedy of errors and lag), and it would be great to hit a couple with my alts (20 rogue, 22 druid, 35 priest, 47 paladin); I'll try to keep better tabs on what's going on with CH, I'd love to play with you!

[shiffer.livejournal.com]

Some heroics are harder then others. Some can be done in blue gear, while others should really only be attempted in epics.

Slave Pens, Steamvaults, Ramparts and Mechanar are considered the easiest heroics. I've done all of them in blue gear while we were just starting kara.

[aelfsciene.livejournal.com]

Ah, fantastic, thanks much for the info. I'll pass it along to our people, and we can try-try again on another of these if necessary!

[shiffer.livejournal.com]

As a feral druid, I currently need the following items from badges:

Wrist - 35 (best in game, no alternative)
Boots - 60 (alternative BoP LW, which I'm not)
Belt - 60 (alternative crafted with vortex, not available)
Cloak - 35 (best in game, no alternative)
Chest - 75 (unless I get T4, which is not likely)
Idol - 20 (best in game, plenty of worthless alternatives)

In total that's 285 badges just for tanking gear. I didn't even run the calculation for the DPS set, but I'm sure it'll break 200 too.

Even if I were running full kara and ZA every week, which I'm not, it would still take months. Welcome to the new grind.

[bruceb.livejournal.com]

It's always hard to talk about hypotheticals versus actuals, but...

I know of one case (engineering) where people with one craft make a recipe for another. And there are cases like smelting bronze where you input an A and a B and get 2 Cs back. I can envision a set of interlocking crafting assignments, quest or otherwise, where 2 or 3 or 5 people with different professions all work together with an end product that has a copy of whatever it is for each of them. If it had two flavors, "one for each of us" or "one (or more) BoE", with somewhat different requirements, it'd be repeatable and an input into the economy.

Or say that one could do stints with the various patrolling groups, accumulating rep for clearing enemies but losing it for slaughtering through quest targets. A borderers faction might have items that provided inn-type bonuses from a tent, and like that.

It's not just a matter of resources allocated in development, of course, but of enthusiasm. Kaplan really loves raiding, and is constantly thinking about it. So do some of the others. I wish that questing, crafting, and such had such really passionate advocates in development somewhere I could see them.

[bryant]

Well, except that 2 or 3 or 5 people = 1 person who has the time to level up that many crafting characters, giving the advantage to the really hardcore.

Crafting's exceedingly hard to design. You walk a constant line between trivial and overwhelming. You don't want crafting to be meaningless, because people like doing it, but you also don't want it to be so good that it's mandatory. WoW comes a little close to the latter in places -- everyone needs to know an alchemist, for example. But it's a remarkably robust crafting system for all that.

I actually think there is someone at Blizzard who's remarkably dedicated to the economic aspects of the game, and who thinks about it a lot. There's a stable economy in WoW, and it's been stable for years now without any extreme inflation. The balance of inflow vs. outgo is tuned better than most games; very few MMORPGs actually manage to maintain the basic unit of currency as a valuable currency. You usually wind up with some other item turning into the gold standard, because the intended cash unit is devalued.

And questing... again, it's already got the widest set of basic quest primitives I've ever seen. Someone worked hard to come up with viable building blocks in BC -- flying around, bomb runs, playing Simon, the demon possession quest up in Ogri'la, etc. DDO is pretty close, actually, and I know how much hard work that was.

[bruceb.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure, there's a tremendous amount done right. It just seems like there's room for expansion on other fronts at the high end.

[indigo.livejournal.com]

I joked to a friend who's leveling up a mage on this server (she has Horde 70s on other servers, but hasn't raided with them in BC, I don't think) that I consider myself a small business - two tailors, an enchanter, an herbalist (with an epic flying mount), an alchemist, a skinner, and two DPS classes in epics who can farm efficiently. I also have extremely convenient access to another enchanter, a blacksmith, a miner, and another herbalist/tailor on my boyfriend's account. The friend thought it was a funny joke, but it's actually a pretty good example of how you can avoid a lot of the ways Blizzard "forces" player interaction by simply doing the steps in single character development multiple times. (The downside here is being unable to enchant your own alts' gear.) But I was still able to, for example, get the materials to enchant my own bracers by mining for primal earth, transmuting it to water, and then using the cloth I'd gotten from trying to farm for the bracer enchant to create rare-quality bracers to disenchant to get shards. (And it took one character to farm the cloth, another to make the bracers, and back to the first to do the disenchantment.) I feel like Blizzard gave those of us who do this kind of thing a bit of additional support when they introduced instant mail between characters on the same account.

[bryant]

Yeah! We make the same joke; in the household, we've got just about everything covered. :)

[solarmus.livejournal.com]

12 weeks of just running Kharazan. ZA or heroics would cut that number substantially. You could do three daily heroics a week and 1 full kharazan and be done in 7 weeks.

That's no small bit of work, but 12-17 hours a week isn't all that much of a grind. (and you could cut time off with KZ drops)

[dcltdw]

The answer, I think, is that the actions of that 10% has a major impact on the other 90%.

Not at all a given, and from here you use circular reasoning: because the 90% is dependent on the 10%, thus the effort should be made on the 10%. Do the 10% enable content for the 90%? Yes, but first, the 90% has to care. Some of them do; many don't. That there are or aren't strats is irrelevant to them: the logistical/operational problems of raiding are what's stopping them from doing raiding, not the tactical issues.

That said, there's a bell curve of how much effort people are willing to put in. What segment should Blizzard cater to? My impression is that previous MMORPGs have catered to the very top percent, which is why they've died. WoW caters to a few more percent of people for raiding, but a *lot* more for levelling. I think that's the core problem: Mom and Grandpa can play the levelling game, but then they suddenly don't have anything to do at the endgame. The question I have is: when does this crowd get bored of the reroll game? I'm wondering if that's an ongoing issue. Namely, there are people levelling so slowly that they haven't exhausted levelling content, because they're still levelling up their 2nd 70. Has there / will there ever be a significant exodus of these people? I don't know.

Problem is, I lack the terminology to really attack this problem. 25s involve more logistical effort, so they should have better rewards. Assuming a bell curve of individual skill, and then applying the same shape to both 10 people and 25 people, 10s and 25s are equal that way. So now you have something like you summarizing elsewhere: 25s give the best gear best-of-slot; 10s and 25s and PvP give ladders to next-best gear.

So then, how many 5s, 10s, and 25s should there be?

Now that's a good question. The entry-vs-endgame raiding question is also fascinating. I think 3 entry-level 10s would be a huge mistake, akin to the huge mistake of announcing the raid progression at BC launch: seeing that enormous flowchart was just depressing. You already knew your Kz epics were outdated: "Congrats on your first Prince kill, but that dagger sucks."

Instead, I'd much rather have a ladder of 3 10s, each a sequel to the previous, just as undoubtedly there'll be a ladder of 25s. So T7 gear is released with WotLK; T8 gear is patched in with a new 10 and a new 25; T9 is patched in with a new 10 and a new 25. I'd put 2-4 items in the 10s that are best-of-slot, with the rest in the 25: now your obsessive raiders will go screaming into the 10s for those items. PvP seasons then match your T8 and T9 patches.

Hmm, maybe release T7 and T8 instances together, but I think it'd be better to have the T8 -area- released, and then the actual dungeon gets released later.

Hmm, I'm totally glossing over "mate the PvE release cycle to the PvP arena cycle", which I think is a good conceptual idea, but I don't know how that lines up with reality. Arena seasons are 4 months long? Blithely saying "well, hardcore endgame guild, your next dungeon comes out in 2 more months" -- I have no idea if that's a viable statement or not. I think it's equally foolish to say "Blizzard can ignore the middle 50%" as to say "Blizzard can ignore the top 3%".

[st-rev.livejournal.com]

90% of the people pumping quarters into the crane machine at the arcade aren't going to get a stuffed toy. And almost nobody is going to get that giant stuffed Garfield in the middle. The toys aren't there to be had, they're there to be attempted.

Raid content isn't there to be experienced, it's there to be talked about. In much the same way, the average paper RPG purchase never gets played, only read.

[bryant]

Also quite true.

I have this other lengthy rant about how loot drops tickle the gambling urge. A lot of people want Blizzard to go to a token system where you get to choose your loot every time; they don't get how powerful random reinforcement is to the human psyche.

[bryant]

That there are or aren't strats is irrelevant to them: the logistical/operational problems of raiding are what's stopping them from doing raiding, not the tactical issues.

Ah, but I'm not talking about people who aren't raiding -- I'm talking about the low end raiders.

The huge difference between EQ raiding and WoW raiding is the fact that WoW raiding is accessible to the less obsessive player. This is a product of two things; first, the entry level raids aren't quite as complex. Second, and probably more important, EQ raids are all world bosses -- nothing's instanced.

This has huge knockon effects. First, it means you need less logistical skill to get a raid going, because you don't need to convince X people to sit around for a week waiting for a boss spawn. Second, you can't compete by killing a boss before anyone else gets there. That second is why people started posting WoW strats very early, while EQ strats were always state secrets.

So you have this very large base of people who're working on Karazhan right now. Without the strats, many fewer of them would find it a satisfying experience.

[st-rev.livejournal.com]

I suppose that random reinforcement must be nice. As a balance druid, though, I can say that token systems are WAY better than nothing at all.

[bryant]

Here's to lousy itemization!

Did you see the video of a balance druid tanking Gruul?

(Hm. Yeah, it really is about raiding as a spectator sport.)

[dcltdw]

Ah, but I'm not talking about people who aren't raiding -- I'm talking about the low end raiders.

Ah! If that was part of your central thesis, then I missed that. Yeah, then we'd be talking about different things; whoops, mea culpa. :)

Hmm. Hmmmmmmm. Absolutely, your point is spot-on about being an enabler. I'm tempted to say "but that's not the important thing to debate", but changing the topic feels like a faux pas, so I won't try too hard. :)

[bryant]

I should very carefully wall this off from the question of whether or not Blizzard is doing X right, where X is anything. :) They're a long way from perfect.

[st-rev.livejournal.com]

I saw that video; it's a stunt, and I think at least partly inspired by the fact that for a long time most decent moonkin gear was pvp gear.

A fantastically geared moonkin can tank, as long as the boss only does physical damage and doesn't fear or silence, and if the druid has amazing healers. But when an actual tank spec is only 50 gold away...yeah, it's a stunt.

[dcltdw]

Good point :)

[bryant]

Yep. 40 priests killed Onyxia pre-BC; also a stunt. And in a lot of ways not as hard as the 5-man pre-BC Onyxia kills.

I have this outline for WoW raiding as an ESPN sport, with drafts and seasons and so on. I think it's a mistake to assume that PvP is the only thing that anyone would watch.