General Discussion

Hasani Davis returns today with a World of Warcraft Editorial regarding the recent 2.0.1 patch.

With only a little more than a month to go before The Burning Crusade hits stores Blizzard has put out one of the few last patches to Warcraft before the expansion changes the game forever. Patch 2.0.1 finally went live with some dramatic changes to the PvP system that Warcraft had to offer, do not worry, we will discuss those changes shortly. Players were given a Talent refresh to their characters because the talent trees were updated to reflect the upcoming levels in the expansion. So with several new spells, abilities, and pets, the game looked a little different, but it was the same old Warcraft.

Gear, gear, gear, and more gear is what really matters in Before the Storm. Now PvP rewards can be gotten without the ridiculous grind it took players to gain the rank in order to purchase the items. No Wait! For those who did not hear, one week into the new Honor system and Blizzard has changed their minds again. Now there has been a 30% reduction to the honor you gain from PvP. Sound crazy, this was posted on the Blizzard forums Tuesday by Blizzard employee Nethaera:

Read the editorial here.

IMHO, you overestimate your position. Basically, you are saying that there is no room for fixes, no room for balancing, no room for any errors or changes since the game was published. You don't know how good you have it.

Let's take a look at some of the rest of the MMO world. EQ and EQII sucked. They were rife with bugs from day one. And some of them still have not been addressed! So, to bring it back to the discussion, let's say you just love the idea of playing a Druid. You work your rear off to get to level 60 in PvE only to find out that the Druid is broken and doesn't meet your expectations. There is a critical weakness that Druids have that is being exploited in PvP or in Raids or even end game instances. Under your regime you would just be screwed. There will always be changes that need to be made to balance out play in every game. However, Blizzard doesn't do products with test results showing bugs and errors and then just ignore them for all time while they work on the next expansion so they can make another burst profit from expansion sales.

Okay, now that covers the basic tweaking, what about major shifts. I said you don't know how good you have it and that is so true. Ever hear of Star Wars Galaxies? They completely changed the game, not once, but twice. The second time restricted class structure down to 9 possible classes with absolutely no variety from one person to the next in each of those classes except for the weapons and armor you used. And if you departed from the standard weapons and armor, you sucked at everything. Blizzard made a small but noticable change in to add some additional abilities and tweak some others. Oh, boo hoo. My life is over.

Now to talk about your original subject, battleground rewards. I suppose that everything you do is right the first time. That would mean you have never had to change your talent tree, or buy a different weapon or armor in game. It would mean that in your real life, you have never made a mistake, ever. If you think that is you I call bull pucky. Get a clue, life is a growth experience. It is no different when you are providing an online service than if you are running a restaurant. After a while, you grow and change or you get left befind. To give you an example, look at McDonalds. This is probably the biggest chain restaurant in our country, yet they started out with hamburgers, cheeseburgers, fries and shakes, and that is it. They introduced new foods to the menu. They took off foods that didn't work. If it is broke fix it. Is there something about that statement that you don't understand?

So, let's examine what would have been the end result if Blizzard had not made the 30% reduction. Based on that percentage, the battleground gear would be the next thing they would have to spend resources to "fix". You are advocating that they change some other area that you don't play in so that you can get the big rewards 30% faster than you are supposed to. Hello? If the plan is not working, you change it or fix it. have you ever heard the saying that no plan survives contact with the enemy? Well, the enemy here is the ones who do nothing but complain, my glass is half empty, how come yours is half full?

Why not spend some time looking at what you gained rather than what you lost that was not in the original plan anyway? Excuse people for being human and making a miscalculation. Remember, we are nerds and geeks, we find all the ways to exploit the program and then we do it. Excuse the programmer for being just as much of a nerd and fixing the exploit. Then take a look at what you get and stop complaining about what you don't. If it ain't there, you don't get it. Get over yourself.

I know this post opens my up for a severe flaming, but I don't care. I can read between the lines of flamers and see the hurt child underneath their cruelty. And yes, I have a hurt child in me too.

Have fun and level fast.

-=zg=-