#0 - Sept. 16, 2009, 7:06 p.m.
A. Attunement - Instead of marching through the front door and killing stuff, we have a series of quests to complete in a compelling storyline.
B. Crowd Control - Real CC, like the raid wipes if you break the sheep, etc. Think TK trash before Kael, most of SSC trash, BWL too for that matter.
C. More Linear Raids - Like MC, AQ40, BWL, where you feel like you are travelling through the instance and the end of it feels far away.
D. Separation of Gear - Raid gear vs Heroic gear. In Vanilla, there was no comparison. Now, this idea is nothing new and there is always the argument of elitism vs casual but the truth is that the reason a lot of people ran BWL back in the day was for the gear, not for the epeenery.
E. End Boss who takes several weeks to kill - Rather than the "world firsts" (and yes I quoted those words) of today, harken back to the days when the end boss was a real bad ass and it tooks weeks not hours to kill him.
The real question is: Is this type of raid extinct or can we be surprised with maybe one or two raids that really feel like the old days of raiding where there was a sense of accomplishment and challenge?
To those "hard mode" advocates: I have no problem with hard modes, I am just asking if we can see a dungeon that doesn't contain gimmicky hard modes.