If your ego is so tied up in your gear that you feel threatened by someone else obtaining gear through alternate methods... then man you really need to quit WoW

Sure. I agree... I should pay for the amount of content that I see. I only see Karazhan and ZA. So, how about I go over to wowjutsu, count up all the guilds no farther than kara and za, and then we'll divide the cost of the development of those zones by the number of players.

Then we'll add up the number of players in BT/Hyjal/Sunwell, and divide the development costs accordingly. Since you're seeing more of the game than I am, you're okay with that, right?

The fact is that those "alternate methods" require nowhere near the amount of skill, dedication, coordination and gold required to achieve the same level of gear from raiding.

No, I don't think someone soloing a sunwell daily should be entitled to the same rewards as a group of 25 people that show up regularly, with consumables, with their gear gemmed and enchanted, who spend hours learning difficult encounters that require teamwork and communication.

nearlysober wins.

Gear is a means to an end, and not an end itself. If you're playing the game just so you can have more purples than anyone else, or for that extra +5dmg/heal, you need to rethink the amount of time you spend on the game.

You're getting reward enough in even seeing the inside of BT. 99.9% of the playerbase won't ever step foot in there.

I'm sorry, but as someone who does all those things you suggest, I support this change. You're overreacting horribly. If you do every single one of these new Sunwell Dailies and get ridiculously lucky, you'll have a new piece of gear in TWO MONTHS. That's for ONE piece of gear.

Meanwhile, 25 man bosses will be dropping badges. So you and I, who run 25 mans, will be getting badges every raid. If we run Kara and ZA every week and do just Tempest Keep and SSC, not even Hyjal and BT, we're looking at easily 65 badges a week if we clear them. That means what takes a casual two months to do, we can do in a little more than two weeks, AND we'll be getting loot in the meantime. Throw in Hyjal and BT and the badge count increases. Plus, if we really want to, we could do the daily heroic (since, frankly, we're overgeared for it) for another five badges a day.

Meanwhile, the dude who MIGHT get a badge for doing a daily quest is somehow devaluing your hard work? Frankly, if the fact that you get better gear faster than he ever can AND get to see the best raids in the game isn't enough, I have no idea what would be for you.

I think you're failing to see the point I was making - it's not about time, but the amount of effort required. Killing Kael'thas and Vashj is hard! Running a bombing daily is not.

Bayard,
I hope you remember this discussion the next time you go out to eat. I don't know what you do for a living, but I bet the waitress thinks you get paid lots of money for not working nearly as hard as she does. Tip accordingly.

-p-

Killing some bosses the first time is hard, true. But then they're on farm and it's easy. Free cake. Frankly, if raiders haven't had Illidan on farm for months already, maybe some of this gear will help them get there. gear > skill anyway in WoW.