Hooray for Limited Attempts

Next in a series on things that I actually LIKE about WoW, is the way they're introducing Icecrown. Not the story or themes, I haven't looked much at those, I mean the implementation. There's two things that stand out: limited attempts on certain bosses, and a gradual phase-in of the kind done in ToC.

These are good things, people, even if it's not obvious. And it isn't, cause I know what you're thinking, cause I thought it at first too. "WTF, my guild is so uber leet that we can faceroll Arthas day 1 yo. Well, no, that's a lie, but we should at least get the chance!" And indeed, for that illustrious top 5% of guilds, they probably could blow through ICC in the first week, and get crackin' on hard modes. But think of the rest of the guilds, the ones who will wipe and have the terrible birthing pangs of learning a new raid. If Arthas were there from week 1, taunting guilds ever so temptingly with his sexy exposed loot tables, guilds would push headlong into ICC, grinding fights out, maybe extending raid locks. And once Arthas was down, they'd have to grind for several more lockouts.

Face it, most people require some serious practice before many boss mechanics become natural to them. ICC would consume our raid schedules, we'd spend every raid minute pushing through it without stopping to learn the earlier fights more or gear up more as the earlier stuff becomes more farmable. Now that raid lockouts can be extended, this brutal dystopian future was very close to reality, but Blizz wisely intervened. Now ICC will be small, it will not dominate our lives, and as we learn and master earlier fights, the later ones open up for more progression. Limited boss attempts saves us the frustration of wiping 10 times on a single boss, but feeling as though we must continue for progression's sake.

I always thought of limited boss attempts as a way to reward elite raids who don't die with extra Amani War Bears, and phase-in raids a way to slow down these same guilds. I never thought of using them to socially engineer a less stressful and demanding raid culture in the majority of guilds. Kudos.

p.s. it was super gay in ToC because there were only 5 goddamned bosses to phase in, and they were all super easy. It's only a good idea now.