Thursday, March 14, 2013  Where Have You Gone, Svala
Sorrowgrave?  The news that Blizzard is going to stop putting
out new 5-man instances for Mists seems to have caused a bit of
a stir.  Those people who gear up using LFR kind of shrugged and
said "no big deal".  So did those who like the new Scenario
concept.  And the "I love dailies" crowd chuckled and continued
muttering to themselves in a corner.  But for me, I see this as
the continuation of what started in Cataclysm.  Cataclysm began
the deviation from the standard Warcraft pattern by instituting
Heroic-only 5-mans, and then segregated them further by
separating them out in the LFG queue.  I can presume this was
done so that those who wanted to either gear up to the latest
tier or max their VP acquisition could do so in the most
efficient manner, but as in all things there were unintended
consequences.  By subdividing 5-mans like that, the queue times
soared to levels only previously seen in obsolete 5-man end game
instances.*  Starting with the Zuls -