World of Warcraft : World of CasualCraft?

MMORPG.com World of Warcraft Correspondent Eric Grucza asks whether Blizzard is now trying too hard to appeal to casual players as opposed to long-time subscribers.

Patch 3.2 is live, and with it the wonderful new 5/10/25 man Heroic and Regular Coliseum has opened its doors to the Northrend's adventurers. Most players at the 80 level mark by now have completed or at least attempted the Regular and Heroic five man mode and for the most part probably completed it after a few tries. Blizzard did away with most of the trash as far as instances go and made a unique trio of boss fights. Each of them comes with its own set of interesting quirks that you are unluckily to find in the other instances in game. They have added a new feature that anyone who participated in the Argent Tournament is already familiar with and that is the jousting section of phase one and phase two on the first boss. The jousting adds an interesting game play element but unfortunately, as with the Argent Tournament, jousting lacks any type of decent control. Every time I participate in this encounter I can only think to myself "Why can these mounts not control like the mount I ride on a daily basis?" Besides this small complaint, the five man version of this instance flows together nicely. You can easily begin an encounter by simply speaking to the NPC in the middle of the room and after a brief monologue the doors are open and the encounter has begun. You are able to take breaks in-between bosses and if the going gets tough you are even able to run out of the instance and reset the boss, not that the run back takes anymore time. As a casual player you may find yourself finding a few hiccups where your group will wipe and need to retry, but after learning the basics, the instance becomes an easy 20-minute a day chore.