I don't think anyone in this thread is arguing that M&M needs to be raid-focused. That's not the point. The issue is what the game plans to offer once people hit cap. If the intended experience is: Group content > dungeon crawling > slow XP > social gameplay? Cool. That can work. But those systems need a long-tail loop to keep players logging in after the leveling honeymoon is over.
Because historically, the timeline looks like this for MMOs now:
Week 1: Level grind honeymoon
Week 2: Routine sets in
Week 3: People ask "what now?"
Week 4: Population cliff
EQ didn't survive because of Nagafen and Vox. It survived because the leveling game itself was long, slow, layered, and varied and because by the time players hit 50, Kunark was almost ready. Even then, people still ran out of things to do.
So when Shawn says, "We don't expect people to be raiding full time," okay, totally fair. But then what is the endgame loop? Not philosophically, mechanically.
Because if “the game we want to make” boils down to: group content, camps, dungeon crawls, and slow xp...that's fine, but that's also a content model where people are going to hit the ceiling fast unless there are deep, repeatable, evolving systems waiting for them.
This isn’t a "gotcha." It's just how MMO retention curves work in 2025. "Not being raid-focused" is valid. Not having a plan for post-cap gameplay is not.
If the intended endgame is truly "log in when your friends are on and vibe," okay - but then the game can't also have: huge world size, mandatory grouping, slow travel, slow XP gain, and punishing downtime. Because those systems assume a large, stable, active player pool. And you don't get that with a "drop in when you feel like it" endgame loop.
You either design for a large, retention-sustaining base or you design a small-scale, session-based co-op game. Right now, M&M is trying to be both and that contradiction is the real issue.
