It has become easier, which is a boon to most players I think; WoW definitely draws in a larger crowd than a game like FFXI or whatever that focuses on really hard end-game content. It is losing its luster for me because it seems to be moving toward a pvp/esport game with some pve stuff to do, rather than the other way around. I do not participate in pvp, frankly I hate it, and one of the main reasons I started playing WoW was because it didn't focus on it. But over the past 4 years or so it has become more and more important in the game, to the point that it seems like PvP totally dominates all class-balancing decisions.