Originally posted by Balmer

Originally posted by MillaMerani

Originally posted by Vinadil

Originally posted by MillaMerani

It's posts like this that make me want to punch babies. 

This kind of move by Blizzard does nothing but degrade the people who put in actual effort to attain the necessary faction to have earned epic rewards. 

This casual vs. raider is a tired argument and ultimately, the direction of Blizzard currently will drive away hardcores because the poor, whiney casuals who think they're ENTITLED to the same rewards as those players who put in more effort, more hours, and undoubtedly more skill (read: have more experience) demand Blizzard cater to them exclusively. 

You want a casual game, go play phucking Sim City and GTFO of my MMO. I'm trying to actually achieve something...unlike you.

 

I'm curious. What exactly are you trying to achieve? Cure cancer? Save mankind from aliens? Take over the world? Or gear a meaningless toon up in WoW? Get a grip, bud. I say good-riddance to the raiders, because they make up a very small population of any MMO.

I gotta admit you thinking you are achieving something by spending 40 hours a week in a game is pretty hillarious. You can do whatever you want, but don't be delusional by thinking anyone gives a rat's behind that you invest hundreds of hours into a game every month.

Originally posted by JackDonkey
but nerfing the honor after all the "premades" got most of their stuff and after saying they wouldn't nerf it that made me not question my decision to cancel.

Sorry for the ignorance, but I keep hearing this term "premade".  What is a "premade".  I have an idea but I won't comment on it for fear of being entirely off center with it.  Perhaps somebody can school me on this term?

Trellot

 

 

Originally posted by brostyn

Originally posted by Balmer

Originally posted by MillaMerani

Originally posted by Vinadil

Originally posted by MillaMerani

It's posts like this that make me want to punch babies. 

This kind of move by Blizzard does nothing but degrade the people who put in actual effort to attain the necessary faction to have earned epic rewards. 

This casual vs. raider is a tired argument and ultimately, the direction of Blizzard currently will drive away hardcores because the poor, whiney casuals who think they're ENTITLED to the same rewards as those players who put in more effort, more hours, and undoubtedly more skill (read: have more experience) demand Blizzard cater to them exclusively. 

You want a casual game, go play phucking Sim City and GTFO of my MMO. I'm trying to actually achieve something...unlike you.

 

I'm curious. What exactly are you trying to achieve? Cure cancer? Save mankind from aliens? Take over the world? Or gear a meaningless toon up in WoW? Get a grip, bud. I say good-riddance to the raiders, because they make up a very small population of any MMO.

I gotta admit you thinking you are achieving something by spending 40 hours a week in a game is pretty hillarious. You can do whatever you want, but don't be delusional by thinking anyone gives a rat's behind that you invest hundreds of hours into a game every month.

Is BC still good for Casual player?   I found that most of BC instance need Rep grinding.   Can we do anything with 1-2 hours/day in BC?

One of the best changes to the game so far IMO. I really wasn't looking foward to raiding a "ton", so the PvP items are perfect.

Originally posted by Vinadil

I wonder what game you can name that gives an EPIC reward for anything less than an EPIC time commiment?

Take... Football.  What is the time commitment to win the SuperBowl?  Heck, what is the time commitment to win a High School championship... or even one GAME?

Basketball, Soccer, Baseball... yea just about any other game that is Multi-player is the same story.

Even games like chess require a large time commitment in order to achieve any sort of good victory or skill.  And some might consider playing chess a "grind", I mean you do just about the SAME THING every time you play right?

The term "grind" should not be defined by the task alone, but by a measure of a) How enjoyable the task is, b) How MUCH of the task you have to do to achieve the reward, and c) The reward being significant enough.

So, A + B = C means that I am not experiencing a grind.  That means I would be willing to do an UNenjoyable task for a SHORT period of time to obtain a GOOD result, or a semi-enjoyable task for a longer period of time to obtain the same result.  But, I would NOT be willing to do an unenjoyable task for a long period of time for said result.

If you are looking for some story-book ending where a hardy group of adventurers go out and slay the dragon in a 1 in a million fight... then I can suggest LOTS of good books to read, perhaps even some singly player games that might work for you... but there has not been ONE mmo that has done this, and I don't even know if it fits the genre.  If a game DID attempt it, then by default 1 million people would try the encounter and only ONE would succeed... giving them the epic story and the rest the natural defeat.  It is just not so EPIC if everyone can do it every time without any work.

Bad example.

In basketball, soccer, baseball.... you win because you are BETTER than the other team, and not because you invested more time. In chess, you win because your brain works better than your opponent's. If two teams are equally skilled, then of course the one that put more time into practicing will have a better chance to win. Those people and teams deserve their rewards because, yeah, they were actually better than the rest.

But also, many people do sports because they enjoy the activity itself and their goal is not necessarily the World Championship. I know many people who play football, basketball, table-tennis, volley-ball and so on just for the fun of it. In chess the game seems to be repetitive, because all they seem to do is pushing chess-pieces - in reality it is the mental challenge they crave for, the challenge of outwitting the opponent, to figure out from the moves he made what he is up to.  So the activity is rewarding in itself. Should not it be the same with MMO's?

With all MMO games, the developers are forced to make a decision early: which group of players they want to cater to? Those who say: skillz > time invested? Then they'll lose a bunch of players who say 'Bah,  I do not have the reflexes of a hyperactive 10-year old kid, gimme something to grind'. Blizzard opted for the time sink based gameplay (which is good for them business-wise). They thought if we gave epics only to those who are the most skilled then after a while we would cry over dwindling subscriber numbers because many people would quit due to frustration. What is our goal? To keep people going, to convince them that it is worth renewing their subscription month after month, to assure them that if they invest enough time they can get the epics they want.

However, such business logic does not make time sinks more fun. And fun is the reason why people are playing games. You brought the a), b) and c) examples. I say no matter how worthy the reward of "C" is, it does not justify forcing the players to do something that is utterly boring and repetitive. If a game start to evolve in that direction, it won't be very much different from real life, and most people do not want real life mechanisms in a game that is played for fun. Gaming companies should redefine the meaning of "work" - "effort" would be a more appropriate term, because "effort" could mean something interesting, something challenging. This is why I suggested epic quest lines for epic items that do not involve mindless reputation grinding and such. I say putting hundreds of hours into grinding does not justify your getting an epic item, and does not represent any kind of achievement. A bot program can do the same.

Getting epic items should be a rewarding experience in itself. They could do it - but it requires creativity. They could do it as an option - they could keep the grinding for those who prefer getting them that way. I say, epic quest series that present an epic challenge and epic fun could be an alternative.

Right now, the game is epic boredom while you are grinding for your epic, a short period of enjoyment when you grab it, and enjoy your improved skills, and the the epic boredom starts again for the next item. What fun it is!

Let me join those who are asking the question: who will reward those who don't play PVP and have relatively little time to play....?

(you can guess my gamer stereotpye, a true casual :)

Originally posted by Phaelo

 

 

Originally posted by Bigx

It is people or kids like this this that ruin the game.  Most people play the game to have fun.  People think that being hardcore in a video game puts you up on the food chain.  Wake up call.  IT DOESNT.  It just proves that you have nothing constructive to do with your time. AKA job or collage.  Rewarding a hardcore gamer is only saying that having no life is good.  But in the real life it doesnt mean nothing.  I like the new changes.  Even though I was exalted in all 3 before the patch.  I couldnt invest enough time to get the rank gear.  I laugh when a tier2 or tier3 warr charges and doest hamstring.   Remember that WOW is pve first then PVP thrown in with no end game objectives.  Wow has to counter that WAR is coming up later this year.  As most of us know WAR is pvp first with endgame pvp obectives.  Where the hardcore raider will not make it there.  I have no problem dealing with tier2 or 3 players.  Most of them do not know how to pvp but relie on the gear to make up for lack of skill. 

It's casuals like you that know i speak the truth and get so upset at what i say. If i'm not so high on the food chain than what does it matter to you? Construction? I work 40-50+ hours  a week and still find time to both raid, and own you in pvp as stated in my previous posts. You will come back saying that i am 10 years old and don't know what i am talking about and that i am some elitest jerk, which is fine because you mean nothing to me and most likely never will. "Hardcore' is not just raiding, it's a way of life. I'd wipe my floor with you in pvp and pve if it was not such a disgrace to my floor. I play the game to have fun aswell, but being a 'hardcore' player i get the added bonus of stomping on kids or people like you that think i am trying to prove something.

Lets recap: I play for #1 Fun, #2 Sense of accomplishment, #3 teamwork and close friends, #4 hanging out in hillsbrad feilds killing low lvl horde with 5000+pyroblast crits. You have fun your way, i will have fun mine, i dont' have to agree with you and can make my opinions about the game AND SO CAN YOU we both are neither are right or wrong because there is allways two sides you can look at it from.

You can beleave me or not, it makes little difference. but some of us have a life and job that is good enough to be able to not be high strung stressed out about a game

For just saying that you like to wipe low lvl horde tells me you do suck at pvp and like you said 10 year old elitest prick.  For you to assume that you can wipe the floor with me also tells me you still suck at pvp and have to relie on gear then skill and trash talk.  I doubt it very much that you do have a job.  Bring it fanboi.  Doubt very much you will come back after you taking your dirt nap.  Great thing about internet is that even 10 year old elitest pricks can be tough.  You have no idea of my pvp skill but you did tell me yours.  Camping tauren mill ganking lowbies is your top end of your hardcore skill. 

Get a job, move out of your parents basement and pay your own bills.   Paper routes do not count.  Like I said Hardcore in a game does not make you Hardcore in life.

Get over your childish self and move on.

For the others. I do like what blizzard is taking the pvp.  Dont know for a fact but ZG runs can get some decent epics to.  Great thing about ZG is do it at your own pace and rep doesnt decay.  But the nature of mmo is the grind pvp or pve.  It is all based on time longer you play more they make.

@ Milla...

The formula works just fine for you.  YOu have just said that the Task A is SOOO unbearable that there is no amount of Time B or Reward C that justifies you doing it.

That is cool, find a different game or enjoy a different part of that one, but don't try to say that the equation is broken or that the game is broken.  I think the spike in numbers speaks for itself.

As to Sports teams being about better skill = more wins... I wonder just how closely you follow sports.  I say that because EVERY week I know of teams with less talent but more determination (read TIME SPENT) that win over their opponents.  Less talent/better coaching wins out over better talent all the time too.  And... I don't care HOW many skills you have, if you are not spending hours upon hours of conditioning EVERY WEEK, then all your skills amount to squat.

You might find it hard to believe... but I can find enjoyment in the WoW BGs for the same reason I find enjoyment in Chess. (well mostly just AB, but the others to a lesser extent).  It is not the running around and killing people and claiming points that is fun, because that is the same EVERY game (much like the moving of pieces on a chess board).  The fun comes in from the fact that I play vs different people every time.  They may send 5 people to the smith this game and 10 the next... how do I adapt our guild's strategy to counter that?

Perhaps you are a solo player in MMOs, or maybe just a grunt in the guild... I dunno, but PvP has a strategy level to it that goes beyond the actual gameplay.

Blizzard is attempting to even the playfield a bit (and make it so people are not just PWNED by the BC mobs) and I think it is a step in the right direction.  If you can't get into PvE raids OR PvP fights... then I just wonder why in the world you would give Blizz your money every month.

Originally posted by Bigx

For just saying that you like to wipe low lvl horde tells me you do suck at pvp and like you said 10 year old elitest prick.  For you to assume that you can wipe the floor with me also tells me you still suck at pvp and have to relie on gear then skill and trash talk.  I doubt it very much that you do have a job.  Bring it fanboi.  Doubt very much you will come back after you taking your dirt nap.  Great thing about internet is that even 10 year old elitest pricks can be tough.  You have no idea of my pvp skill but you did tell me yours.  Camping tauren mill ganking lowbies is your top end of your hardcore skill. 

Get a job, move out of your parents basement and pay your own bills.   Paper routes do not count.  Like I said Hardcore in a game does not make you Hardcore in life.

Get over your childish self and move on.

For the others. I do like what blizzard is taking the pvp.  Dont know for a fact but ZG runs can get some decent epics to.  Great thing about ZG is do it at your own pace and rep doesnt decay.  But the nature of mmo is the grind pvp or pve.  It is all based on time longer you play more they make.

I don't have to prove anything to you and nothing i can say will make you beleave that i do in fact work, which is ok, i allready established that does not matter. However... moving on, i have nothing more to add to this  I'm going to let you have the illusion of winning this discussion  Come see me on Eredar if you want to really prove something.

 

[edit] See you in Mount Hyjal.... sometime 5 years from now

First of all i WAS a harcore player... spent alot of time in WoW everyday... made several lvl 60s

Only did random raids now and then call me a casual harcore player then. I did some PvP but lacked the interest to get the big grind and have all the respect to all who did make it all the way to the end THE OLD STYLE! Today any 9 yr old newbie can get same stuff within a week if he wanted to.

But worst of all (for me) the free epix killed crafting. Who wants to buy crafted gear when you can get it for free. With all my chars i got alotta 300 skill crafting in allmost all crafting classes. Stocked up MATs for a year and its all useless now. All the time and efford wasted over a night. Same story was told when SOE killed crafting in SWG and see how that ended up. (And everything else in the game.. i know)

I feel high end rewards/drops/gear in MMO are MEANT to be hard to get! Thats what so awesome about it. In SWG it took up to a year to become a jedi... it was "the carrot" most players where all hunting for and kept loggin on to get.

The people that whined, and in the end, made the developers change the game to please. Was the casuals!

I truly feel that if people dont wanna work for it... they dont deserve it!

Theres room for all of us, but changing a game for the casual "1 hour a day"-gamer, ruins it for everyone else.

Wumi - EU-Kazzak (Havnt been on since the free epix... but whats 1 guy with 5mill. players around *sigh*)

Yea Wumi.. I hear you about crafting, but the same was true 3 months into the game (like 2 years ago).  Fact is Blizz made crafting almost completely irrelevant to the end-game.  Only herbalism has any real money-making potential.  But, the new PVP patch really is not the bane of crafters... the entire game design is.

Crafting will not be a viable way to make money really until they make EVERY profession necessary to accomplish PvP and PvE goals.  It looks a BIT like they might be moving this way in TBC, but really Blizz has never been big on crafting, and they don't look to be in the future either.

 

EDIT - And, let's not get TOO carried away with how "casual" you can be and still get rewards.  On a double-honor weekend you are still doing good to get 1,000 honor/hour.  So, even your basic weapon rewards will require over 22 HOURS of gameplay.  That is just one weapon.  The issue is not the time it will take you, but how and when you spend that time.  instead of needing 40 people 6 hours on the SAME day, you can now run 5 people at any given 6 hours ANY time of the week.  If people want to completely gear up in PvP stuff they are still looking to spend 100+ hours to do so.

..it kinda takes the discussion into another level.

What is MMO? Isn't it "living" in a virtual world?

The way i see it the PvP rewards are nothing different from the unlocks you can get in FPS games like BF2/Battlefield2142.

Wumi

Originally posted by Wumi

First of all i WAS a harcore player... spent alot of time in WoW everyday... made several lvl 60s

Only did random raids now and then call me a casual harcore player then. I did some PvP but lacked the interest to get the big grind and have all the respect to all who did make it all the way to the end THE OLD STYLE! Today any 9 yr old newbie can get same stuff within a week if he wanted to.

But worst of all (for me) the free epix killed crafting. Who wants to buy crafted gear when you can get it for free. With all my chars i got alotta 300 skill crafting in allmost all crafting classes. Stocked up MATs for a year and its all useless now. All the time and efford wasted over a night. Same story was told when SOE killed crafting in SWG and see how that ended up. (And everything else in the game.. i know)

I feel high end rewards/drops/gear in MMO are MEANT to be hard to get! Thats what so awesome about it. In SWG it took up to a year to become a jedi... it was "the carrot" most players where all hunting for and kept loggin on to get.

The people that whined, and in the end, made the developers change the game to please. Was the casuals!

I truly feel that if people dont wanna work for it... they dont deserve it!

Theres room for all of us, but changing a game for the casual "1 hour a day"-gamer, ruins it for everyone else.

Wumi - EU-Kazzak (Havnt been on since the free epix... but whats 1 guy with 5mill. players around *sigh*)

First of all, there is a general misconception about online games here.

A game is meant to be FUN. That is its primary purpose. I repeat: not WORK, but FUN. If you have fun because of the quests, the challenges you face while you level your character to lvl 60 (or 70), the diversity that PvP presents by throwing unknown enemies at you on the BG's - it does not really matter. As long as you have fun, the game is OK for you.

However, there is a conflict of interest here. Players want fun. Companies want income. So they invented time sinks and grind instead of coming up with creative ideas that entertain you in addition to offering a challenge.

Grind and raiding instances till your eyes bleed are NOT challenge. It's a time sink that was created to make you spend your money on the next month subscription. A dungeon may be fun until you figure out how to beat it. From that point it's nothing else but DKP grind, and ceaseless re-runs, unti everbody is geared well enough for the next instance levels.

If you want to get rewarded according to the time you spent in the game -why don't you play EVE? There you can increase your skill, even if you are offline.

You mentioned SWG. and Jedi as a big carrot for people. True it was a big carrot but why. Because - if you were not a crafter - all other parts of the game lacked content, and that was the only viable goal that drove people. And belive me, subscription numbers started to drop before they introduced the Combat Upgrade.

Unfortunately, designing time sinks like grinding and raiding for the slim chance that the boss will drop the item you want and you'll be lucky to have enough DKP or to roll the highest to get it requires much less creativity (and therefore it is much simpler and more cost-efficient) than desining fun, challenging - albeit difficult - ways of getting the same items.

I have not seen any statistics about the gaming habits of the 7 million WoW subscribers but I doubt that the hardcore gamers represent the majority.  So Blizzard's logic will work this way... we will rather sacrifice 1 million hardcore gamers to retain 6 million casual gamers. If you have issues with that approach, blame it on them and not on the casual players who love this game as much as you, but have different ideas about having fun.

Originally posted by MillaMerani

Originally posted by Wumi

First of all i WAS a harcore player... spent alot of time in WoW everyday... made several lvl 60s

Only did random raids now and then call me a casual harcore player then. I did some PvP but lacked the interest to get the big grind and have all the respect to all who did make it all the way to the end THE OLD STYLE! Today any 9 yr old newbie can get same stuff within a week if he wanted to.

But worst of all (for me) the free epix killed crafting. Who wants to buy crafted gear when you can get it for free. With all my chars i got alotta 300 skill crafting in allmost all crafting classes. Stocked up MATs for a year and its all useless now. All the time and efford wasted over a night. Same story was told when SOE killed crafting in SWG and see how that ended up. (And everything else in the game.. i know)

I feel high end rewards/drops/gear in MMO are MEANT to be hard to get! Thats what so awesome about it. In SWG it took up to a year to become a jedi... it was "the carrot" most players where all hunting for and kept loggin on to get.

The people that whined, and in the end, made the developers change the game to please. Was the casuals!

I truly feel that if people dont wanna work for it... they dont deserve it!

Theres room for all of us, but changing a game for the casual "1 hour a day"-gamer, ruins it for everyone else.

Wumi - EU-Kazzak (Havnt been on since the free epix... but whats 1 guy with 5mill. players around *sigh*)

First of all, there is a general misconception about online games here.

A game is meant to be FUN. That is its primary purpose. I repeat: not WORK, but FUN. If you have fun because of the quests, the challenges you face while you level your character to lvl 60 (or 70), the diversity that PvP presents by throwing unknown enemies at you on the BG's - it does not really matter. As long as you have fun, the game is OK for you.

However, there is a conflict of interest here. Players want fun. Companies want income. So they invented time sinks and grind instead of coming up with creative ideas that entertain you in addition to offering a challenge.

Grind and raiding instances till your eyes bleed are NOT challenge. It's a time sink that was created to make you spend your money on the next month subscription. A dungeon may be fun until you figure out how to beat it. From that point it's nothing else but DKP grind, and ceaseless re-runs, unti everbody is geared well enough for the next instance levels.

If you want to get rewarded according to the time you spent in the game -why don't you play EVE? There you can increase your skill, even if you are offline.

You mentioned SWG. and Jedi as a big carrot for people. True it was a big carrot but why. Because - if you were not a crafter - all other parts of the game lacked content, and that was the only viable goal that drove people. And belive me, subscription numbers started to drop before they introduced the Combat Upgrade.

Unfortunately, designing time sinks like grinding and raiding for the slim chance that the boss will drop the item you want and you'll be lucky to have enough DKP or to roll the highest to get it requires much less creativity (and therefore it is much simpler and more cost-efficient) than desining fun, challenging - albeit difficult - ways of getting the same items.

I have not seen any statistics about the gaming habits of the 7 million WoW subscribers but I doubt that the hardcore gamers represent the majority.  So Blizzard's logic will work this way... we will rather sacrifice 1 million hardcore gamers to retain 6 million casual gamers. If you have issues with that approach, blame it on them and not on the casual players who love this game as much as you, but have different ideas about having fun.

Well as I said there is room for everyone but Id like to point out that its the hardcore gamers that keeps the shop running not the casual "visitor". I still have SWG in my mind as I write this and the post before. Cant help to compare this giving away free epix to casuals in WoW with the free jedi in SWG... which ultimately killed the game. (Yes i know the killing of the proffession and all that aswell but free jedi was one of the ultimate stab in the heart for the people working a year to reach the highest honor in Star Wars.. to become a Jedi)
 I also have to add fyi that I reached Jedi Knight myself but I was a bounty hunter by heart as most people know from Bloodfin at that time. You are into the right path tho... the issue is content. The expirience from the minute u log on till you log off again.

 I'm a little split on this tho. MMORPG its called... to my knowledge RPG means Role Playing Game ...as in entertaining yourself. Why do people of a virtual world have to get everything delivered on a silver platter? Can't people make their own fun strengthen their online community by making up their own fun?
 I can't agree more to the "work" ur relating to. I feel i lost quite a few friends on that part. I have my own little guild for all my alts and turned down several merges with some fulltime raiding guilds. Just cuz I play to have fun. And i found that in crafting, upgrade quests and random raids. The free epix killed all 3 parts of that cuz everyone is in BGs getting epix! I feel I lost some good friends cuz they joined a major fulltime raidingguild and from the time they log on till the time they log off they are "working". And in between trying to convice me that its fun wiping yet again when the boss is at 5% or less. After ½-1 year they get bored and leave WoW.

As you see Im split on this cuz I fully believe that its meant to be hard to get "the carrot".
I wish there was an endgame BG for high end players only accessable by a loooong questline. Like if the gear You have kinda decides what BG You can enter. Being a casual gamer kinda sux when You run into a premade BG full of tier2 or higher opponents dont You think?
 
I really hope TBC will even up the raiding on current and upcoming instances so players will have more time for fun and dont have to "work" all the time.

Originally posted by Averki
The only problem with the changes, and the rest of the upcoming content is that it completely devalues all of the time that players sunk into 40 man instance grinding, and the old pvp system.  Other games that have made changes this sweeping have at least given out crappy "veteran" rewards as status symbols of all the lost time....

that would mean the so-called casual players would also receive them.

it's a game.  you don't grind in 40 man instances because you LOVE doing so?

Originally posted by Wumi
Well as I said there is room for everyone but Id like to point out that its the hardcore gamers that keeps the shop running not the casual "visitor". I still have SWG in my mind as I write this and the post before. Cant help to compare this giving away free epix to casuals in WoW with the free jedi in SWG...
 

do you have numbers to back up your hypothesis?   if by hardcore, you mean "raider", you're wrong.  kaplan gave numbers at the last e3 which showed that less than 1% of the players raid.  this is followed by the massive BG changes pre-tbc and the actual changes AWAY from raids in tbc.  (if anyone disputes these numbers, like some did before, please feel free to contact mr. jeff kaplan and tell HIM that he's wrong.)

so, raiders aren't the ones that keep the shop running.

have you ever gotten a toon to the highest three pvp ranks?  have you ever gotten to the highest rank?  what exactly are they giving away?  all the people who had worked up to say rank 6 or 8 or even 10, all of a sudden don't have any honor at all and have to start from the very beginning to get new items, THEN they made it cost even more honor after the initial change/release.  if it would've taken me two weeks of pvping to get from rank 6 to 7, will it only take me two weeks to accumulate all the honor to buy whatever i would have had available at rank 7, rank 8? rank 9? 

there's plenty of casual players that piddle around on their multiple lvl 60s, waiting for TBC to come out.  keep in mind, that wow was marketed as a casual friendly game, which is why they drew in the crowds they did.  because casual players COULD play and still have a life.  when someone quotes '7 million subs/players/whohas' they're talking about a lot of casual players.

pvp/bgs have been broken since they released bgs (9 months after retail, not AT retail.  even though this game was also touted as a pvp game and would have those BGs available at retail release).  not only the recent bg changes show they've been broken, but all you had to do was play in a bg, see some high ranking guy soloing (so that he'd get more honor and be able to advance quicker) whilst messing over everyone else on the honor points. 

imo, they jacked over the hardcore pvpers in several ways.  1 bg rewards are still crap compared to the items you get from raiding.  even though in order to be high level in bgs (previously) you had to spend more time BGing than any raider would spend raiding in a given week.  2 everyone starts at scratch, so those that only had a few weeks in order to get to the uber items, now start at the very beginning and well, that's fair?    3 there's still ONLY 3 BGs in a game called 'world of WARcraft'.  it's not called 'world of RAIDcraft', so where in the world is the war?  is it over that rare commodity in the desert?  sand.  rare.  in a desert...   shows the creativity behind the dev team there, bub.

anywho, i think i've rambled on too much at this point, so i'll close.

Originally posted by achesoma
lol there is still nothing casual about the new honor system.  hate to break it to you guys but if you plan on getting full HWL/GM set it will take you about a year, if you are truly a "casual player."  Not to meantion, in about 12 days it will no longer be end-game gear.  Like I said a million times before, there is no such thing as a casual MMO player. 

This is entirely inaccurate.  Since the new honor patch I have attained the Field Marshal Shoulders for 12375 honor, Field Marshal's Boots for 12375 honor,  Field Marshal's blade for 22500 honor, and the Blue Helm for 6k and the Blue Leggings for 6k.  My +spell damage increased by around 200+.  I PvP almost everyday from 2 hours to 6 hours (is this hardcore?) I have always considered myself a casual player, I dislike the endless raiding without reward side of the game.  This system is more realistic for me with more attainable goals.  I enjoy the fact that I can actually have a goal when I PvP, unlike raiding there are no guarantees.  And on a personal note, I just like PvP.

Perhaps people will think I am a hardcore player and maybe I am slightly but I am not compared to most.  I spend 14-25 hrs a week since the patch playing PvP, is this hardcore?  I honestly think hardcore players are actually playing 6-8 hours a day 40+hrs a week. 

A good PvPer makes use of the Double Honor Weekends!!!

Now if a player only plays 5-10 hours a week, it could take a month to purchase their first 22500 honor epic but even then they could have the entire set in about 6 months

Also, I don't care if this gear will obsolete at 70, it will help me get to 70 and kick ass while getting there. 

I agree with a lot of what is written here by everyone but on several different fronts.  I play...a lot, and I would consider myself a hardcore player, however, I don't raid and therefore was never really given an opportunity to earn epic items unless I scaled the PvP ladder, which I did, once, for the old, unrevised items.  This patch seems beautiful to me.  I don't lose my work when I decide to take a short break and I can have a tangible goal to work towards and track my progress better than before.  One downside I have seen, and I can't speak for higher levels because lately I have been PvPing in lower brackets, is that everyone is starting to get the same items.  I'll go into a BG and see 3 out of 4 rogues will have the same sword, dagger and boots and that really kind of kills the uniqueness of it all for me.  I understand that they worked for the items as well but, eh, just doesn't do it for me.  I know that there are many viable alternatives to these items but let's face it, A LOT of people are going to go after them because of how nice everything has been done now.  On the flip side, I do recognize that players got the total shaft in revamping the honor system.  I ground AV on one of my several 60s to revered, very close to exalted and then this patch knocked me back down to 0.  That is a lot of time spent working towards items I wanted to have to start over from scratch.  Inside, I think they almost made the items too easy to get, again, not referencing the 60s bracket as I haven't checked it out since the patch.  In my mind, we could keep everyone happy if we offered items of several different qualities.  Provide players with multiple shoulderpads, and charge more for the ones that are better.  Hardcore players can get their awesome phat epix and casuals can also get items as well, only those who put in more time are rewarded for their effort.  My two cents. Cheers.

Originally posted by Vinadil

**If you can't get into PvE raids OR PvP fights... then I just wonder why in the world you would give Blizz your money every month.**

Not everyone likes these types of gameplay.  Some like simply to do quests and explore the terrain.  There are too many gameplay styles that it's simply folly, in my mind, to say something like if you can't do this, the way I play, then why are you paying to play at all...pure folly.

Trellot