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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBadges of Justice topple the Black Temple
by Alex Ziebart 
Feb 9th 2008 at 8:30AM
According to Drysc, the Sunwell Plateau will bring new badge loot to a vendor near you. Its too early to say what these items will be, but Drysc says the items are going to be Black Temple quality.This definitely has ups and downs. In my opinion, it really seems like the devs are eager to make their past dungeons obsolete. Dumping the old world raids with the launch of the Burning Crusade made a lot of sense, but rendering most of the pre-Sunwell content obsolete with badge gear within the same chapter of the game seems a little strange to me. Even if the vendor was in the raid zone itself, giving a wider selection of gear to those who have cleared Black Temple and Mount Hyjal, that would only lead to those with a plethora of badges paying for a raid ID for vendor access.
Of course, this could be a very good thing for people sitting on many, many badges from Karazhan and are trying to gear up for Wrath of the Lich King levelling. Black Temple loot in exchange for a few Kara runs? Sure, I'll take that!
Filed under: Items, News items, The Burning Crusade, Forums
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Dean Feb 9th 2008 12:51PM
Because of course there will be badge gear for every slot, every class and every spec.
Most people will get one or two suitable pieces at most, it's not suddenly going to allow them to kill Illidan, but it will ease slightly guilds still struggling on the early TK/SSC bosses and even ZA and the stuff before that.
Khanmora Feb 9th 2008 1:27PM
It sounds like they are trying to reverse the mistake they made with Naxx. They are giving us a no attunement raid with supplementary gear to make sure as many people as possible get to see the new content before the expansion. They are learning from their mistakes and it sounds like the player base will only benefit from it.
JMS Feb 9th 2008 1:42PM
Meh. There may be new "BT-equivalent" gear that's more readily available to more people, but it's not like those folks will suddenly acquire the skills that current end-game raiders have honed on the T5 and T6 instances. Sure, Blizzard does tend to tone down encounters over time, but I doubt the Sunwell boss encounters are going to be less complex than Vashj, KT, Archimonde and Illidan, even in their nerfed forms. Bottom line, people who still can't take down Vashj will not be clearing Sunwell... Hell, there are still people that can't take down Mags. (And seriously, how many times does that encounter need to be dumbed down? By the time WOTLK comes out, they'll just be handing out loot for entering Mags' instance!)
Rasnarok Feb 9th 2008 2:55PM
I usually support rolling down the raid content over time to make it more acceissible but I really just have to say WTF. Giving away BT loot through Heroic badges? Seriously? What's the point anymore Blizzard? Why don't we just have full epics at character creation?
Fanryn Feb 9th 2008 5:27PM
Consider PVP epics. PVPers that were skilled harvested nice loot during arena season one. Time passed. Season two starts, skilled PVPers collected upgraded epics. Let me ask -- did these season two PVPers have to engage in "content" that was any more difficult than they did in season one?
How it it at all fair that if you PVP, then you get upgraded epics over time just by doing the same level of difficulty, where if you're PVE centered, you must continually face more and more difficult challenges to upgrade your gear?
I'm not saying that PVE gear should be so easily attained, but disparity between the two methods of gear upgrade is poorly thought out.
If they want to make older epics easier to get after new ones become availible, that's fine, as long as it's fair to both PVP and PVE. In my opinion, this change levels the playing field.
I'm a retired raider. I was once at the cutting edge (on my short-bus server, at least). Yes, it was fun having better gear than anyone else because my guild had some success raiding, and yes, that's inherantly elitist to some extent. But BT and Hyjal were first fully cleared HOW long ago? They're no longer bragging rights. Want to still be elite and better geared than your average bear? Be on the cutting edge and get Sunwell gear.
Pzychotix Feb 9th 2008 5:59PM
Considering that high grade PVP gear doesn't require you to be highly skilled at all, your analogy has no bearing here. I could waltz into arena 10 times a week and grab the same gear that 2.2k rated people get. The reason PVP people don't get angry is that this is accepted as needing to balance the gear levels so that gear isn't as much a factor.
The reason why PVE people are angry is because it invalidates the hard work they had to go through to get to where they are. It honestly isn't that hard to follow directions, but it takes time and dedication to get to where they are. People with BT/Hyjal badge gear can and probably will waltz into BT/Hyjal and even sunwell, and will probably struggle, but they'll probably get through it sooner or later. But they won't have had to struggle through the same stuff the rest of the end-game raiders have.
Ask yourself this when you step into sunwell/BT/Hyjal: Did you struggle for weeks on end, facing against Kael and Vashj? Oh right, you skipped it. And that's what pisses the rest of us off.
infection Feb 12th 2008 5:59PM
And your analogy has no bearing either. Since you can't get weapons (which is what most pve'rs were complaining about) without a 1850 rating and shoulders without a 2k rating.
To say you will just "waltz" up in arena's and grab epic's is showing you obviously don't arena much.
First, you have to actually be good and have a skilled effort to succeed at getting any amount of "decent" points. Otherwise you will be just like my other friend that has all of ONE piece of s3 arena gear because he and his team can't break a 1550 rating, which gives them about 300 points a week.
At 1850 being the average cost just for gear (not counting the weapons cost well over that) He has spent this WHOLE season to get 1 piece with another on the way.
To get up to 1850 where it counts in points in 5's isnt necessarily "easy" to do and you "waltz" up in there and grab an epic.
Even the top teams out of them all get around 1k a week which puts them at getting 1 piece every 2 weeks (not counting weapons). And that is like saying the end game Bt/hyjal groups, because the biggest percentage of arena teams are not 2k rated.
But I still love how people just think epic's are just so free and easily gotten (top rated arena gear, not s1)
Fanryn Feb 9th 2008 7:04PM
The point I was trying to make was that there was a disparity between the ease that PVPers get gear and the ease that PVEers get gear.
As you said, people don't even necessarily have to be skilled in the arena to pick up epics. And they get to generate points at their leisure. In raiding, as you said, it takes time to learn the encounters and perfect the strategies to take out the bosses that drop better gear. And on top of that, you only get to get these upgrades once per week per boss, according to a guild schedule that you may not mesh well with -- and even then only certain people get it each week.
This simply isn't fair, especially to people that don't like PVP (Including myself). The only way to fix this would be completely revamping the way PVE loot is awarded (unlikely, though I hold some hope for WotLK), or they could either make PVP gear dramatically harder to get, or make PVE gear easier to get. The path they seem to have chosen for 2.4 would be the latter, the lesser of two evils.
And for everyone still struggling with Kael and Vashj, I completely feel your pain. That's when I retired from raiding -- when my guild was embarassing itself on Vashj. If they had made this change when only a dozen or so guilds had managed to get past them, yes, everyone has a right to be pissed. But it will soon be a full year since they first fell (if we haven't passed the anniversary already) and it's the nature of MUD/RPGs that content becomes outdated or obsolete. We should consider all raid content on a ticking clock -- kill it before the timer runs out to get any credit, and its hard to argue that a year wasn't enough time.
I didn't raid with gear updrages as my primary motivation. I wanted just to see the new areas and new bosses. I wanted to explore. If I was still an active raider, I'd actually be glad to see this -- it would mean I'd get to see all the content and encounters BC had to offer before WotLK launched!
Josh1235 Feb 9th 2008 9:26PM
Good gear doesn't equal good players. Ever been in a PTR PUG? Tier 6 gear does not a good player make.
George M. Feb 10th 2008 12:05PM
As of right now on 5% of the 9 million player base has seen Mount Hyjal and Black Temple. World of Warcraft's continued popularity and success depends on the remaining 95% logging in not the privileged 5%.
Darowen Feb 11th 2008 12:36PM
Whats so wrong with those that dont have time or not in a guild that raids BT/SSC/TK?
Personally, Im glad I can spend my time in a 10 man or a heroic get badges and get upgrades.
My guild doesnt do Bt/SSC/Tk, because we dont have the people or gear. But, the badge gear will help us out killing bosses in ZA or even the Sunwell.
Good_Idea Feb 11th 2008 2:48PM
It's not gear that's stopping people from doing content, it's the difficulty and skill involved with the encounters. It's learning the encounters.
As we get closer to an expansion, Blizzard basically gives away gear to "even the playing field" because soon the gear won't really matter. It allows struggling guilds to do content a little easier, and it allows experienced guilds to gear people up much faster to join them. It also gives casual players something to do, a sense of achievement, and also will make it feel like they aren't left behind. I figure we're only 6 months away, so this makes sense, give people loot when it really doesn't matter anymore.
Rob Feb 11th 2008 4:00PM
Yeah I wouldn't QQ about this too much. Much of the badge stuff is again for off-spec ppl, that don't have easily available rewards in normal raids, ie Ret palys, surv hunters. As a hunter there is very very little in the way of badge items that i could possibly see as an upgrade from my kara gear. Maybe one or two pieces of 75 token stuff. So lets do the math. If they release say two pieces of BT equiv gear, that's first of all not going to allow you skip the Eye, and second, would take you about 20-25 days of heroics to get *one* piece of gear.
If you can do Kara up to prince, that would still take 4 to 5 *weeks* of effort all the way up to Prince. Of course this means if your main kara group can get through prince every week for a month the group as a whole should be mostly kara geared then have a piece of T5 (or T6 after 2.4) gear, to make progression into 25 mans easier. See how this isn't all that easy? And don't forget such a group would be struggling through kara, spending 20+ hours per week. How is spending 80+ hours to get a piece of gear considered welfare? Same thing for PVP, it usually takes 20+ hours to get a season 1 piece of gear. How is that welfare?
hoviboy Feb 12th 2008 11:41PM
????? I dont understand your post.
t4 geared ppl can clean kara in +/- 5h. This instance is very weak
Mr T Feb 16th 2008 4:20AM
IMO i think that pvp'ers and pve'ers should be seperated like it was back pre bc i think that its retarded to see people in t5/t6 with pvp gear on and vice versa its really pisses me of when pve QQ about how hard they ve worked and how much time they ve spent getting illidan down to see some nubs where gear equiv to theres because they got it with badges how do you think those arena gladiators see those pve nubcakes where glad and merc gear something u can think about there b4 u start QQ somemore about this topic on the new phat lootz as u call them
Muugor Feb 20th 2008 12:04AM
First Yes the raiders work their butts off to down bosses, and I give you guys kudos. You guys get bragging rights, how fast you take them down how many times.. Grats. This badage gear come with work as well .. look at the price tags Its not like Blizz is completely giving it away. 100 badages for a set peice .. How many bosses will they need to take down to get them? Who says the gear will be good for everyone.. I know I use gear from all kinds of different places.. its the best of the best .. I may not match but it helps enhance how I play.
Chris son Mar 13th 2008 12:23PM
@#25
So, get over it. Not everyone has the time to try and beat one boss for weeks. Not to mention everyone knew their quality gear would be obtainable with ease eventually anyway.
Alex Mar 21st 2008 6:25PM
............................. Raiding is fun for me. IF you go healer your usually someone who loves raiding. You all need to stop complaining. Raids arent going to "die out" the MC and blackwing lair are over because guilds dont raid at 60 anymore. THat was pre BC, that was " so last year ago". If you see my point,kara runs are still being made ofcourse, guilds need to advance, you are acting like guilds will somehow be super duper leet by the time a new instance comes out. Everybody needs to work together in their guild and make it all work. Gear counts for 23/100th of ability, the rest of it is playing your class for months, or years, and knowing how to play your class
Dennis Mar 20th 2008 6:19AM
im im 100% sure that anyone would rather have a piece of T5 or T6 over any "equivalent" piece of armor...this does not apply to weapons however...i do not raid, i simply dont have time but i used to...if i still did i would have 2 sets of gear, welfare arena epics for pvp and a set of hit rating + AP gear for PVE (i play a rogue)
with that being said, my S2 rogue would take out another rogue in T6, but when it comes to straight DPS in a raid, i would be FAR behind to say the least