WoW - Death Knight Q&A @ Official Site

Gallifrey said:

Well, whatever it was Ion was going to say, it's clear that he and I have vastly different perspectives on what WoW "is", and that's both a strength and weakness of the game.
On the one hand, it's great that one game can facilitate so many different players and playstyles, but on the other it's that facilitation that causes a lot of confrontation and jadedness amongst players. The hardcore detest the more casual players because the latter may not have maximised their gear and don't know every little trick and exploitation their chosen class offers, often resulting in the witticism of "lern2play" and all of that.
Which of course causes the problems of casuals having a very hard time finding groups to run instances with to get that better gear and necessary group-dynamic interaction going on.

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Ya, might be... could very well be that there often is some tension between casual and hardcore players. Personally I don't think it's much of an issue really because casual players tend to do their thing while hardcore players do theirs. Both groups seldom meet unless you're trying to get into a raid group as a casual player. And here you really have to see both sides of the medal - I was always someone who was speaking in favour of casual players, but my first raid group disbanded because it had too many players that did not take the raid group seriously enough. I know that sounds harsh - and I don't judge them... it's just a fact. From a certain point on you just need reliable players if you want to raid. But I think that the point of origin of this discussion was a very different one. I claimed that Blizzard is a fairly lazy bunch and I stick to that statement. You have to see it like that: It took Blizzard about two and a half years or something to release an expansion which is pretty long if you compare it to other MMOs. I won't deny that they added a bit of content, but it was nothing really new... if you know what I mean. No new classes, for example. Ok, they introduced two new races, but let's face it: the choice of race in WoW is negligible. And again if I compare it with other MMOs or my former MMO experience then I have to say that what Blizzard offered was not really that great. Just to give you and example - when SOE introduced the "Ruins of Kurnark" expansion they did not only introduce a new race, they also implemented the possibility to level a new character from level 1 to max level without even entering one of the old zones. And they did it again with "Shadows of Luclin". Now, when I look at TBC, I just have to acknowledge that from level 20-25 on, I have to go back to old zones to level my character... and that simply tells me a lot about Blizzard's expansion.

Blizzard's main advantage at the moment is that for most players this is their first MMO. Don't get me wrong - I really don't won't to sound elitist - it's simply a fact. I was a passionate Everquest player, and believe you me, I hate SOE... if someone deserves to die a slow painful death than it is certainly SOE's customer service, but when it comes to adding new content they were simply superior to Blizzard. Especially at the time when Verant was still responsible, the game was just a blast. An really I don't want to begin a discussion about Everquest and if it rocked or sucked - it's a matter of taste. I just see the facts here.

I guess something has to be said about the shadow knight... I'm extremly sceptical of the whole concept of the first hero class. I consider the choice of class a very basic thing... every class should be available to everyone. I don't like Blizzard's decision to limit the availability of the new class to an elitist few who will have the possibility to attain it.

One of the major things that bugs me about Blizzard is that they seem to do everything in a rather calculated manner that aims at maximizing their profit. I've never experienced that before - not even with SOE, at least not to such an extent. Blizzard seems to do always the minimum of what they have to do to keep people playing their game. From the point of a business-man that might be understandable, but from the point of view of a passionate MMO fan it just seems totally wrong.