As a former hard-core MMO raider going from WoW all the way back to EQ1 (ahhh, the sweet, sweet joy of training a rival guild and stealing back a ninja Trak attempt), I think Blizzard has made a conscious decision to design the game away from that playstyle. And honestly, I think it's for the better. I wasted a nice chunk of my life in a five-night-a-week raid guild and got first server kills on everything up to Naxx before I finally burned out on the constant grind.
There's certainly something to be said for the challenge of many of these games, but skill simply does not operate in the same realm as it does in the vast majority of other games and sports.
Compare EQ1 or WoW to an RL sport on the one hand, there is really nothing at stake and you ultimately get very little out of it. For the rewards to be worth it, you have to actually risk something, and while wasting a few more hours in a raid or taking a few extra nights to learn an encounter can be rough, it's really nothing compared to the risk of injury and hospitalization in a serious outdoor activity. Likewise, the reward of being the first on your server to clear MC back in the old days really isn't much compared to the reward of (I'm a cyclist) climbing a 7 mile mountain gap on my road bike then trying to break 60 on the downhill without plastering myself into the grill of an oncoming truck. The risk/reward is much the same for any number of other sports.
From an angle of intellectual competitiveness, MMOs simply can't compare to something like chess, as a classic example. There are too many variables that affect play, and there are ultimately too many tricks and easier ways to do things as you struggle along the nerf/buff path of MMO class balance. Your opponent's knight in a game of chess won't suddenly be able to move like a bishop as well, and your queen won't one day lose the ability to move diagonally. MMO fights are by nature too gimmicky and the encounters for the vast, vast majority of players really comes down to who can most precisely emulate something someone else did.
MMO raiding is all about risk vs. reward and even (or especially) when the encounters are incredibly difficult, the rewards are meaningless outside of the direct context of what you've accomplished. Sure, some of the encounters are incredibly tough, but filling a backyard pool up a thimble at a time would be pretty damn tough, too. That doesn't mean i want to do it, and it doesn't mean the sense of accomplishment would be worth it.
The kind of dumbing-down WoW is going through was always inevitable and it will continue to be the norm. The MMO genre itself is headed mostly in the direction of a lifestyle game where it's just another thing that people do and companies rake in the subscription fees. Honestly, I'm enjoying the game as much now as a purely casual player as I did when I was playing it hard-core.
If you're looking for a game that will always challenge you, MMOs as a genre simply won't deliver it anymore. They're much more about being able to log on, be social in a virtual world, and run around and kill stuff with your friends. And honestly, I'm pretty happy with this. That said, there should continue to be niche games popping up that are more focused on hard-core play, but don't fool yourself into believing they won't dumb themselves down as soon as they acheive a modest level of success in order to grow faster, whether it's a choice they make or one they have foisted on them by their publisher.
Facebook
Twitter