There was a point in the evolution of the original Everquest where the idea of raiding became a thing. At least that's the first time I came across the phenomenon while playing a game. Large groups of people would team up to take down super powerful enemies. Depending on what zone I'd be in there'd be people shouting to come help them. The more the merrier. As time passed, we started to see this element appear in other games whether it was high notorious monsters in Final Fantasy XI or World of Warcraft's Molten Core. By the time we hit 2010, it seemed like raiding was an entrenched part of end game in a lot of these titles, and if a game was somehow lacking this there would be a chorus of people complaining about nothing to do. It always left me wondering, though. Was that really the case or just a very vocal minority moaning on message boards? Somehow I was still having a ton of fun exploring, leveling alts, being social, and generally futzing around in these games without ever stepping foot in a raid.
Blizzard sort of removed the veil of mystery when they started to explain why they were trying to make raiding more accessible. They did view it as an important part of the end game experience, but also felt that they had to make sure it was something that a reasonable portion of the community would want to participate in. The company brought up the original Naxxramus raid as an example of why things needed to change, as they had spent a fair chunk of change developing the thing but the number of people who could actually be bothered to do it was minuscule. There comes a point where companies have to justify expenditures to shareholders, and the return on investment for places like Naxxramus and The Temple of Ahn'Qiraj was becoming a pretty tough sell.
So, right from the get go one has to wonder just how vital raiding was to the game, and arguably to the genre as a whole. Even with the activity gaining increased popularity in subsequent years, especially during Wrath of the Lich King when accessibility was getting pushed hard, there were no lack of people quietly running around leveling alts, doing PvP, and generally not lining up to learn a dance to explode a loot pinata. There's an appeal to it, for sure, but I have to wonder just how skewed the online conversation was and is with regards to how integral raiding is to the MMORPG genre. It's hard not to come to the conclusion that proponents of it have been by and large part of a rather vocal minority.
Nowadays we are seeing games try to find other stuff for people to do besides raids. World of Warcraft has been fiddling around with it for a while introducing things like pet battles, world bosses, and garrisons, not to mention the ever present PvP modes which have long served as one of the biggest alternatives to raiding. On top of this, we have games like Final Fantasy XIV which sometimes feels like a bottomless pit of things to do, the vast majority of which doesn't involve raids. In that game we have several story-intensive side quests (Hildebrand and the postal moogle), the Golden Saucer, Triple Triad, sightseeing logs, and crafting is pretty much a mini-game unto itself. Meanwhile, there is The Secret World which largely eschews many MMO conventions and has an extremely narrative-heavy mindset. So, the feelers are out there and companies are finding alternatives to raiding with varying degrees of success.
It seems like a logical path to take as well, as I have to wonder to what extent folks will want to embrace raids in the future. Ten or fifteen years ago, when MMORPGs were largely in their infancy the player-base was a fair bit younger with quite a few more people in their 20s, single, with all of the free time in the world. Now, looking at the present, while there are still plenty of young people in their teens and 20s playing these games, I'm also noticing a considerable number of players who are in their late 30s to early 40s. They're often times the same people who were playing these games back when Everquest and WoW first came out, enjoy them still, but don't necessarily have the time to set aside each week for raiding, or have simply burned out on it after doing raids for years and years. There's something about the genre that they still enjoy which keeps them coming back, however they are at a different point in their lives now and for whatever reason raids just don't appeal to them anymore.
With that in mind, it makes a lot of sense to find ways to keep these people entertained. While raiding is likely here to stay, one does need to question just how integral it is to the whole "MMO experience". If people want to do it great, but the question still remains as to whether there are enough to warrant such large development costs on these dungeons instead of directing the money toward other avenues, whether it's making the leveling experience more rewarding in and of itself, mini-games, or something entirely new as an alternate focus of endgame for some people. In any case, I do question just how relevant raiding is to today's MMO. There'll be people shouting on forums and whatnot that it's the biggest, bestest, most important thing ever, but for all of their bluster I'm not convinced that they're representative of the majority of people who play these games.
