August News/Discussion

[Mirajj]

I thought the most profound statment in the whole list was this:

"Blizzard threw battlegrounds under the bus to improve raiding."

<span style="color:#33FF33">This. Battlegrounds really have been set up so that all the people that either can't play, or don't want to bother, will flock to them because of the easily obtained epics. It seems as if there needs to be some avenue available in the game for all the mentally WoW disabled to be able to get epics. Battle grounds at the moment just happen to be the short bus. Call it welfare epics or whatever but the more i think about this it just seems like blizzard is saying "go sit at the kiddie table so us grown-ups can talk over here." And the more i think about it, the more i like it. By setting one section of the game apart for welfare epic kiddies they can keep the other aspects of the game stronger. I don't know if Battlegrounds should necissarily be that outlet, but I do think there needs to be one.

I've yet to find a brighter warning sign for "person you don't want to group with" than a hunter wearing all Merciless Gladiator's Mail.

It kind of had to be something pvp related. How would you be able to give a "welfare epic" to a raid group? You get a token just for zoning in? After 5 attempts, the boss falls over dead anyhow? With raids/instances, you have to actually WIN to get something. So since there are many folks who can't seem to put out the effort to win at pve, Blizzard threw them pvp, honor, etc. Managed to at least get off one auto attack? Honor point. Was able to get yourself killed? Honor point. Lost the BG? Honor points and a mark as consolation.

But you do raise and interesting question. What else could they have done in the game to provide an easy path to epics for those who can't/won't raid for them? They have to give them something, to keep the interest up in putting forth the small effort required. SSO Dailies are also a step in this direction. They are pretty easy to do, you slowly (but not too slowly) grind off rep so that you can get some shiny purples, and some pocket money at the same time. Especially now that arena is 'getting hard' (with new personal ratings, higher/harder ratings, etc).