If you have any passing interest in the soon-to-be-released raid content, you’ve probably seen this post.

Predictably, a lot of progression raiders seem to think the sky is falling, because they won’t get to down Arthas the night the patch is released. To be fair, it’s understandable. If raiding is all you want from the game, and Blizzard put a seemingly arbitrary limit on the rate you can get things done, I can see how that would be annoying. Let me offer up a different point of view, however.

We all know the “casuals”, which for some seems to be used as a form of insult, are for the most part loving the fact they have access to raiding content in this expansion where they did not previously. The 10/25-man split has been previously discussed in our comments on another post, where we were in agreement that it’s been by and large a good thing. Yes the most hardcore guilds have been left a bit bored by the end of things, and a bit less “special”, and I can definitely see why they’re up in arms about it, but the fact remains that for the majority of us this has been a good thing.

A similar argument can be made for gated progression. While it limits the speed with which the hardcore guilds can clear the place and stand around in Dalaran /flexing with whatever recognisable shinies they coax from Arthas, the majority of us will be seeing it as a chance to keep up a bit with the big boys without getting too serious.

Now, if you are one of those big boys, why not think of it like this?

To be number one, you need rivals. Guilds 5 bosses behind you are not rivals.  Gated progression means more guilds will be “caught up” by the time Arthas finally goes live, this in turn means more competition for that usually predictable number 1 spot, and that in turn means even bigger bragging rights for the winner. Everyone loves bragging rights.

Pro tip: If you don’t care about being number 1, but you just get bored when there’s nothing to raid….take up fishing. That’s a timesink if ever there was one.

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