Originally Posted by
Gadzooks
Is it the devs can't or won't do both, or they're constrained by time and budget?
Do you think, given a larger budget, and a 2 year time frame to build an expansion set, they could make large, engaging raids, AND plenty of engaging 5 mans and alternate progression paths?
It's no cooincidence the game started to change when they started leaning heavily on the "one expansion a year" nonsense. That to me is the reason why the game is being pruned down to a simplified shadow of it's former self. I don't think it's dev arrogance, or incompetence, I think it's all budget.
"Okay, we have one year, and 3/4 of the budget we had last time. What are we gonna keep, and what gets cut?"
In that environment, the devs chose to focus on raids, and cut dungeons. Not a popular choice, but it was theirs to make - that's where their favoritism to raiding came into play, I suspect. And, that's why multiple levels of difficulty have become "new content".
If you boil it all down, it's pretty obvious the game is the way it is, because that's what they can get done with less budget, and less time. How great would Legion be, if we were looking at another year of WoD (with associated patches with content and new raids) - and how bad do you think Legion will be with only a year to develop it?
You're right - we can't have nice things, because they don't have the luxury of time and money to make them. Want it to change? Start yelling at the people at the top, like Mike Morhaime, to give them more time and money to develop content - because otherwise, one year expansions is it - and we've seen how hard they had to prune to get CLOSE to the goal, time-wise - how much more do you think they'll cut, to hit the year mark?