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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsForum post of the day: Purchasing raid epics (poll)
by Amanda Dean 
May 7th 2008 at 3:00PM
Back in March, Mike Schramm reported on a player who paid 20,000 gold to ensure that she would receive the Amani War Bear from the Zul'Aman raid instance. It is not entirely uncommon for players to run their guildmates' alts though low level dungeons for fun or profit or purchasing raid runs or arena points. Any of these may be considered cheating by some players, some more obviously than others. Angona of Hellscream (obviously an alt) had the opportunity to purchase
Her guild leader disapproves of this transaction. Angona quoted him as stating "Only lazy noobs buy gear, that's not what this guild is about. If you want to buy gear, then I suggest you just /gquit right now." This attitude suggests that players should earn their gear, even if a gear upgrade would be good for the guild's raiding efforts overall.
I can appreciate both sides of this argument. I have never turned down an instance run, and rarely say no to a friend who needs one (especial Wailing Caverns, I love WC). In one respect the ability to purchase these rewards is earning it, in the sense that the player earned the gold to buy them, but that is not the way they were intended to be awarded. I also respect the guild leader's appeal to a moral high ground. We've gone round and round about "Welfare Epics," I think in this case that title applies?
The thread has several pages of discussion and a few analogies of varying degrees of relevance. I thought we should put it to a poll:
| Wait and earn the gear myself | |
|---|---|
| Discuss the subject at length with the officers | |
| Get the gear anyway | |
| /gquit |
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, Instances, Raiding, Forums
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 6)
arcady0 May 7th 2008 3:17PM
As a Guild Leader, my concern would be that you have gear for a content level you lack the play skill to handle.
Doing good in wow is related to gear, but it is much more about play skill. An undergeared toon is much more valuable to me and my guild than a well geared one if the undergeared toon has earned it all and 'hopefully' knows how to play their role.
For an alt? I might stillsay the same thing. Having recently leveled a tank after being a healer for most of my WoW playing experience, I had to relearn the way the game works. If I had gotten my guildies to speed level and gear up my tank, I would be a useless tank - even though probably better geared and faster leveled than I am now. Learning to play is something you have to do all over again everytime you try to take on a new type of character.
Lesley May 8th 2008 9:45AM
"As a Guild Leader, my concern would be that you have gear for a content level you lack the play skill to handle."
Then being overgeared for the content he IS trying to run would balance out to competency that could help his guild. It's like putting extra padding on the kid that falls down a lot in football.
i agree with the idea that personal progression IS guild progression, and would add that that automatic benefit to the guild is negated the second they start getting pissy about someone's method of play. The suddenly geared guy is not going to want to stay with people who will constantly harangue him about how he got his BT gear.
heath May 7th 2008 3:23PM
hmmm....badge gear = t5-6.
what's the difference between using gold to buy t6 gear and using badges to buy it? nothing imo.
badge gear has devalued raiding epics.
darian May 7th 2008 4:02PM
The difference is you can't buy a full set of T5-T6 gear from badges. At most you can get maybe 3-4 spots at those iLevels, out of a dozen or so.
That's ultimately what the badge gear is about, filling gaps. You can't deck yourself out in T6 level gear with just badges.
Angus May 7th 2008 4:05PM
I love how no one else hit up on this.
I am essentially a T5 geared Enhancement Shaman. Very few of my pieces will see upgrades except for in MH and BT. In fact, a large portion of my gear is better than my T5 and some of it better than T6 for DPS.
My guild has no issue with this. We see people with badge gear intermixed with Raid gear and we are all happy because it gives us a chance to push our content. The badge gear effectively is giving guilds with less than top players a chance to see that end-game content. The players can make up for not having much of a clue when the DPS they do bring is better. (Sorry, but tanks have to have the gear AND skills, which most in these raids will) Healers get boosts to make it so that even bad raid drops won't hurt them and so you have a lot better chance of clearing content.
A person running into BT with another guild is not very different than someone buying the 100 badge armor. The major difference is that they bought it using daily quests for money while the other people walked into Kara and heroics that they outgear usually. When I am doing 40 minute daily heroic runs for 6-8 badges, I really am not spending much more time than a person doing 40 minutes for 100G.
My guild has close ties to 2 or 3 of the BT guilds on our server. We are working on Karathress tonight. We've had people in BT and it isn't a very big deal.
Crowfoot May 7th 2008 3:24PM
To examine this concept of "earned" let us discuss the situation of a player who learns an instance with his guild, 4 runs a week, every week for 3 months. The end boss is killed, no loot for said player is dropped, or dropped and given to others. Did the player not earn the gear that was not acquired? The concept of earning is working or spending to acquire. If no acquisition is guaranteed than it is gambling, not earning. I'm ignoring DKP systems as they are external to the actual game mechanics.
But the real concern to me is that the Guild Leader is trying to enforce a bias on how a guild member can acquire gear.
Starie May 7th 2008 5:27PM
You cannot ignore loot entitlement (e.g. DKP) mechanics because they are "external to the actual game mechanics." That's like saying you will ignore human error when developing user interfaces because users are external to the actual mechanics of implementing a control interface for software.
The game and the social artifacts that people create around it are in seperable from the concept of 'earned'. To earn something means to expend effort in return for some entitlement. To depend on the game mechanics' random number generator to arbitrate entitlement is a choice, just as depending on DKP is a choice. If one decides to use the RNG, then that is part of the entitlement model; you haven't "earned" loot unless you participate in the activities, master the fight, *and* be the highest roller. Is that fair? It must be, if one chooses to use it, otherwise one must be foolish.
"But the real concern to me is that the Guild Leader is trying to enforce a bias on how a guild member can acquire gear."
The Guild Leader is trying to promote a particular set of ethics, presumably that of the guild's. That's not a prerogative; that's a leader's obligation. No one is bound to guilds against their will by laws or technical mechanics. /gquit if you can't abide by the guild's ethos, but there's nothing wrong with a leader leading.
Soriel Angelfyre May 7th 2008 3:24PM
on a totally seperate note....
how did you get the picture of the gas station prices in my area? (now to read the actual article....)
Soriel Angelfyre May 7th 2008 3:29PM
ok....after reading the article, i say /gquit (and as the tater mentioned.. /laugh while im at it) but that has a lot to do with my feeling towards ultimatums that involve "do this my way or /gquit now"...ok so im an ass in that way, but why pose something like that if they actually are a valued member.
Jemhadar May 7th 2008 3:31PM
If the guild leader wants to pay my $15 per month subscription, then yea, he can have a say in my gear. If not then STFU and worry about his own gear.
darian May 7th 2008 3:59PM
Conversely, when you start paying the guild leader's $15 a month, you can tell him how to run his guild. Until then, you can abide by their rules or go find a guild that's more in line with your ideology.
Dan May 7th 2008 4:03PM
GL sets the rules for the guild-- if people don't like them or won't abide by them, then the guild will lose people and that will be that. Every guild has different rules and different ways of doing things. As simple as that. If the GL doesn't like a particular action you just have to deal with it. Either /gquit, work out a solution you can both live with, or don't do it. Simple as that.
Jemhadar May 7th 2008 6:32PM
He is a Guild Leader, not god. And who says it is "his guild" you toad. He can pay his $15 per month and worry about his own gear, and I will do the same. If a GL pulls that crap he can have fun sitting alone in "his guild" and look forward to the weekly Wailing Caverns run...solo.
Dan May 8th 2008 12:23PM
No need to get nasty, your reply was pretty much exactly what I said in part of my post. If people don't like the guild leader's policies, then they can leave. And if he, like you are, is to much of a jerk, he'll end up with no one in his guild. A GL wouldn't be telling you what to do with your precious $15/month account, he'd be telling you what you needed to do to stay in his guild. If he doesn't like your actions he has every right to /gkick you. And if you don't like a policy, then you have every right to /gquit. Obviously you can do whatever you want withing the TOS, so quit QQing. Different guilds have different rules, and if you get so butthurt over a certain policy that you can't stand to be in someone's guild, then go find a guild that will put up with you or create your own. Just because you pay blizzard a minimal amount each month to play their game, doesn't mean that other players have to put up with your self entitled BS, nor does it mean that your GL must let you stay in his guild if he doesn't like your actions.
Jemhadar May 8th 2008 1:25PM
Ah Dan, I was not even talking to you. That response was to the post above yours. I agreed with what you said. Read the context...
Xin May 7th 2008 3:31PM
i think the title of the poll should be changed to, would you buy raid gears?
and for the record farming gold is a lot easier then running through high end instances. you can farm gold youself and if you are good at it you can get 1to 2k gold a day easy. running a high end instance requires team work and it will involve a lot more people. so the run will consume your time and 24 other people's time
Saelorn May 7th 2008 3:33PM
What's the difference between a frustrated group of 35's hiring a level 60 ringer to slaughter Scarlet Monastery for them, and a guild that's just starting on Kara using some tier 6 ringers to help them?
By bringing in people who are disproportionately powerful for the encounter, it cheapens the experience for those who are "where they should be."
darian May 7th 2008 4:27PM
It's ultimately about merit.
We can reasonably expect anyone wanting a run through SM to be perfectly capable of accomplishing it themselves give four other similar people and perhaps a few levels. Buying an SM is ultimately a convenience, speeding up something they would otherwise have accomplished on their own. But for BT, this is not the case. You can't expect that anyone wanting to see or experience BT is capable.
It's the difference between an Olympic Gold Medal and a "Great Effort!" ribbon. One is given on merit, and the other is given to everyone. No one cares if you buy a ribbon, because it's meaningless, but the Gold Medal is supposed to symbolize an accomplishment. Buying that breaks the spirit in which it was meant to be rewarded.
Dave May 7th 2008 3:34PM
The problem with guilds, is that your gear progress isn't necessarily determined by your own personal skill level at the game.
It's determined by 24+ other people who may or may not be on the same level as you mentally and in terms of game skill. I don't think there's really any difference in buying epics from a guild that's willing to sell it, and going on another guild's run if they have an open slot or two and need some help. You're gearing yourself up, which will clearly help your current guild, and you're not removing yourself from an existing raid to do it. At least hopefully not.
I personally PUG a Kara with my Warrior every week with a handful of people who are geared up enough to do a 2.5hr or less clear of the whole instance. My guild has no shot at doing this at all. Plus, we have plenty of tanks ready to do the instance that need some of the gear way more than I do, so I'd basically just be wasting the opportunity for another tank to gear up to my level. I'm not paying for it, but I'm not going to let myself be personally held back by my guild's lack of progression. I'll be %100 ready for them when they get their act together and are ready for the next level of content, but for now I'm gearing my Warrior up with badges in another way since I can't rely on them to make it happen.
Maybe this guy has the same sort of setup. He's comfortable in the guild, but for whatever reason the guild is not progressing as fast as they need to. Honestly, there's no REAL reason why any particular guild given enough people can't be plowing through the already nerfed to hell content. ZA resets twice a week and two ZA runs combined with a Kara run and an easy kill of Gruul/Mag, should net you at least 40+ badges per week and hopefully a few pieces of useful non-badge loot too. A month of regular kara+za+gruul+mag should get you to a mostly T5 level, which if you can't clear TK/SSC in mostly ZA/T4 gear, you're doing something horribly wrong.
My concern would be that they're trying to buy their way into a better guild, because their current guild sucks for some reason. In that case, I doubt highly that the person really cares about your guild anyway and they're most likely going to leave once they've got all the gear they need to buy. Gold is cheap. Waiting on scrubs isn't.
Rational May 7th 2008 3:34PM
I think the guild leader in this case is a pretty cool guy. Fights buying epcis and isn't afraid of anything.