Wrath of the Lich King Opening Cinematic Released

[Crash]

I like WoW, but i'm a fairly casual player. I've only done one raid, and dont play enough to do most other raids. It took me a full year to get one character to 70. I actually play a fair amount but its almost always in 1 or 2 hour blocks and never scheduled, so I could never do a pre-scheduled raid.

My biggest complaint though is that Blizzard is actually too controlling of a lot of aspects. Everything has to be really tuned, really controlled, a good example is world pvp, can't let things get too out of hand. What WoW lacks, is persistency in the world. I'd love there to be a real ingame reason for like 60 people to launch a siege of Stormwind or something, or a battleground that felt like a real battle (i hear pre-changes AV was like that, alas I missed it), or one that was like a giant pit where 40 people just fight instead of some half-baked objective, etc etc. Its like they are afraid things will get too out of hand if they introduce a little freedom into the world.

I'd love to have the actual game/engine/interface of WoW, and the world and freedom of a game like Eve Online.

This is because of the demands placed on Blizzard by the playerbase. It's sad to say, but the developers can never win, and they've ended up catering to the two most whiny and outspoken groups of people.

The first is the hardcore PvP community, who really want nothing more than a glorified version of Counterstrike and whine incessantly about class balance to the point where Blizzard makes ill-conceived changes to classes in that direction. Did you try to level a mage when they had that 10% damage tax on their frostbolts and fireballs? Not fun. Thank PvPers.

The second is the raid community, who burn through all of the leveling content, loudly proclaim that the game begins at 70, and then push and push and push and push for new raid content. Blizzard has stated they intend to release Icecrown Citadel towards the end of WoLK, and I'm sure these guys who will be whining for months.

Most of these people want structure. They want all the rewards to stem from that structure, and they're ruthlessly cruel to anyone who doesn't min/max towards that end.

Not that some of the "average" people are any better. Dealing with a guy who bitches more than both of those groups put together, and he hates both camps.