So from

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/

We learn that patch 2.1 will be:

So here's a question.. what now. I have to assume tier 4 will be finished with Gruul and Magtheridon, so tier 5 would have to all come from Serpentshrine and Tempest Keep. Those aren't big upgrades for most classes, and we don't really know much about what T6 will be like. So is TBC basically 'finished' with Black Temple? Since we get to face Illidan I would think so. In fact it would make sense if with 2.1 they intend to basically have TBC done, save for the usual bug fixes and class balance issues, so they can start working on the next expansion asap, since they want a 1-year per expansion time frame.

Since all CoT instances are actually pretty quick 'missions' and such, I wouldn't be surprised if Hyjal droped no tier at all, just extra epics.

If Hyjal is really a recreation of the War3 Campaign, it might be quite lengthy.

If this patch comes out in the next month you can expect 99% of the guilds won't have seen more than 1 boss at best in serpentshrine, and nothing from tempest keep or mount hyjal. Magtheridon? Please.

Most of the current raid content is horribly overtuned if their plan was to launch a difficult tier 6 raid zone anytime soon. Maybe the new paradigm is release hella content and let it last for a long time (a bit more like EQ in a sense). I know that certain encounters in the game are currently "unkillable" and completely untuned (so definitely like EQ in that regard). So we'll see what black temple will be, but I'd expect itll be months.

Can't say this note is unexpected, but its borderline meaningless.

Edit: Dammit, yeah, what that guy said ^^^^

FYI:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...77556707&sid=1

I was cheating because I just copy / pasted my post from my own forums after reading Quigon's post.

I do however agree with the sentiment of his post. Coming from a guild that is used to raiding 6-7 nights a week, we are really having issues with the fact that there is very little content we currently have access too. The Black Temple is so far off our radar at this point that for the first time in WoW we won't be waiting (or ready) for new content when it's patched in.

Does anyone else feel that the current progression path is overly restrictive? There is a huge bottleneck at the "lower tier" where we are looking at two Onyxia style instances (not even complete raid zones) and one ten-man instance. We had hoped we could run one 25 person raid and one 10 person raid once TBC came out. Now we are looking at either wiping on Gruul / Magtheridon with 25 of 40 people, or attempting to get two Karazhan raids going (still with 15-20 sitting out). Anyone else experiencing these issues?

Thats great news, my batphone signal is not very strong here at work I guess. We tried mag a few times, it is a relatively absurd lesson in futility, especially if what he drops are not massive upgrades. I'm sure he's "killable," and i'm sure if I tried hard enough I could win an olympic medal also. But both would take a lot of time and effort, and I play video games afterall.

I'd like to add that I think the changes are excellent if they tune down some encounters.

Most people won't readily express when some things are too difficult, but I'm not worried about my ego here, and our guild has certainly proven they're capable and not scrubs. But, mMy opinion, and its just my opinion, but in terms of progress: Serpentshrine, Gruul, and Mag should all be dead by now by a lot of guilds, with ones like Nihilum pushing something like the last boss of tempest keep, or something in there.

It is very much to blizzard's advantage to have several lower end mobs that are killable by a majority of guilds. It also establishes a more solid raiding base (to which is maulgar, and maulgar only at the moment for most guilds).

There is something to be said about having some farmable content to kill each week, and then having an epic struggle a bit later. Naxxramas was extremely well tuned if their goal was to have a steep curve. But I don't get the point at making everything equally difficult and just making it a plateau. It caters well to guilds like many of ours, but not overall, and not necessarily to "fun or function."

Challenging encounters are what make this game great, but with a new raid dungeon coming out, and only 1-2 guilds even making a dent in the boss after Gruul? Yeah... not so much.

And rogues the world over rejoiced.

More importantly, where the heck does Tier 5 drop then?

I'd assume TK/Serpent, but theres been no official word on that yet.

Can't imagine anywhere else you'd find it, at least.