It’s very clear that the classic game and the audience in particular has changed drastically since the release in 2019. Just venting the idea of LFR back then would probably have been met with mockery and laughter (and rightfully so). But in 2024 Cata Classic it somewhat makes sense, in my head.
How raids are being done is totally different in 2019 than in 2024. A whole lot of guilds from the first years of classic has vanished, and the active guilds are becoming more scarce week by week. People are quitting in favour of other classic game modes or just abandoning WoW altogether. Personally, barely anyone I know today or have played with for the last couple of years will continue into Cata. I liked the Crix analogy in a podcast, Cata is basically Nickelback – it’s cool to sh!t on them, regardless if you hate them or not.
And the pug scene is also looking rather grim. It’s either pay up in GDKP, or pay up in GBID SR runs. There’s barely any old fashioned pug runs going at all, and the few ones that run are done on normal and basically consist of sewer quality players.
I’m almost out of hope of finding a solid raiding guild again. All my previous guilds stopped raiding, all my homies quit. And due to real life commitments, the 11pm/midnight raiding guilds (the vast majority it seems) are out of question for me. I simply refuse to join in on the pug gold trading/RMT meta (and don’t get me started on all the corrupt loot council guilds) so these types of groups are out of bounds aswell. And whiping on normal mode bosses with the rock-bottom players doesn’t seem like an option to me either.
And that kind of pains me going into Cata. Because I know the expansion has good raiding content to offer. But it just seems so unavailable at this point in Classic. That’s where LFR comes to mind. Personally, I would absolutely play a demo version of the raids, just to somewhat experience the content. With over a decade of LFR experience from retail, I’m sure the devs could introduce it in such a way that it doesn’t taint the experience like you could argue the first versions of LFR did. Such as not putting stupidly strong tier set bonuses in LFR content, like it was done in Dragon Soul.
I know LFR to this day is a pretty controversial addition to the game, with mixed opinions. It would still be interesting to hear different takes on this topic, I think!