This comes as a big surprise to everyone who loves to raid, but according to a post from Jeffrey Kaplan (aka Tigole), Blizzard lead designer for world design, the attunement requirements for entering the Serpentshrine Caverns and Tempest Keep have been lifted.
Here's what Tigole had to say on the matter in a post on the forums:
After a lot of thought and deliberation, we’ve decided to remove the attunement requirements to enter Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep: The Eye. While many of our attunements in the Burning Crusade have been good progression checks, a few of the attunements have turned out to cause unnecessary stress on guilds either doing the content or attempting to do the content. With Black Temple and Battle for Mount Hyjal thriving, we want to encourage (rather than prevent) new guilds and raid groups to attempt Serpentshrine and TK. We are going to leave the current attunement quests in the game so that players can still engage in the challenge and the lore of those quests should they choose to. At a later point, we are considering adding a final reward step to those quests as well (that way those who have already completed them would not miss out on a *new* reward).
We’re listening to feedback from you guys constantly and your opinions are important to us. We want this game to be the best possible MMO experience for our players.
Enjoy Serpentshrine and Tempest Keep =)
Enjoy it indeed. The removal of SSC and TK attunements as a needed process also removes one of those stressful barriers keeping guilds from progressing in the game. More importantly, it opens up the two instances to more casual players, and so long as they have the needed gear to survive, they can also experience the same joys raiders have been finding in their time there as well.
