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That's my guild trying to raid MC tonight. The raid was disbanded shortly after for obvious reasons. My guild has around 260~ characters into it (after a few merges with other guilds collapsing for the reasons described, along some random drama) and not just level 60. Many players (like me) have just one character into it.

This isn't my idea of a "small" guild. In my estimation you'd need around 100 unique *players* (at least if they aren't all neighbour in RL) in order to have forty of them logged in at the same time AND for the amount of time required to do MC and Onyxia AND all level 60 AND representing precisely all the classes needed AND being able to repeat this somewhat constantly during the week and not as an exceptional event during a vacation.

I played DAoC on the bigger server most of my time and I'd be surprised if even the bigger guilds have more than forty players regularly logged in at the same time and representing all the classes. It goes beyond every conception of "huge" I had till today. In DAoC small guilds aren't penalized. Even the most elitist, haters of people, just need eight other players in order to do what they need. So those small guilds can still play effectively and the players are free to join bigger or smaller groups of people just as personal choice. This isn't an option in WoW and being able to raid constantly and effectively MC or Onyxia or even the upcoming Blackwing Lair definitely falls in my definition of "catass". There isn't ANYTHING I can imagine more catass than that. It's already insane.

And yes, I know that all these problems come as a result of bad choices in the design. It's not even just a problem of dropping more or less stuff, it's a deeper problem that would need a complex solution and a lot of work. Often the solutions are conflicting. For example I'm all for rising the *difficulty* of an instance, so that instead of having to grind it 100 times in order to get your stuff, you just need to do it, say, 10 times and you get everything (and the possibility is there in the form of questing, something that was deliberately dropped in order to chase the mechanics of the standard EQ raids). Maintaining the balance so that you'd have still to repeat it many times in order to complete it successfully. Replacing the grind with an actual *hard* goal. But this is again an accessibility issue and would make the grind even more hardcore than how it is now.

The point is: how you are able to provide enough endgame stuff, and keep the players busy, if you let everyone get what he needs without these painful grinds?

The fact is that treadmill games are meant to build gaps between the players, while "world-y" games aren't. WoW is a treadmill. You cannot build treadmills that do the opposite. So there isn't a solution possible just because it's the model itself to present the problem. If all the focus is all about building more content that must be "conquered" (instead of "managed" and reused as in a world-y game), you put yourself in a path that just cannot end well. That's the stuff we discussed with Brad on Grimwell.

Ultimately, smaller guilds ARE collapsing on a daily basis. I'm starting to believe that the endgame is more about guild drama than loot. Smaller guilds just cannot survive for the exact reason that created the need of the DKP or even your idea of "mature" players. The point is: both those "structures" AREN'T OPEN. They do not welcome new players, they do not talk to people outside.

Both are a problem for the overall community of a game.