Badges unbound
by Eliah Hecht 
Jul 22nd 2008 at 5:00PM
Badges of Justice: I love them. It's brilliant that you can go to a raid, down a boss, and have everyone walk away with a piece of an epic (albeit a fairly small piece). It really cuts back on the angst of not having what you want drop, as well as giving Blizzard a way to provide for uncommon specs without too much loot table bloat. And with the relatively recent system that has all raid bosses dropping badges, and some pretty great new badge rewards, the system is now quite strong. However, in my view, they do have one defect: they're soulbound.
Now there's a strong argument to be put for the concept that if a character can't do a raid, they shouldn't get the reward. And I certainly agree that badges should not be salable on the AH. However, I do think we should be able to send them between alts. I have one character who needs very little in the way of badge gear, and correspondingly rakes in badges like nobody's business by tearing through Karazhan. My character that really needs the gear is typically not taken on raids, or not "A-group" raids anyway. It would be nice to be able to send all my badges over to that toon to get an undergeared character geared up, without being able to give them to just anybody on the AH.
As it turns out, Blizzard is thinking about implementing just such a system in Wrath with "Legacy" items. These will be items that are not BoP, but not freely tradable either – instead, they will be bound to your account, so you could mail them to your alts, but not to anyone else. Tom Chilton mentioned them specifically in the context of twinking: you might be in a raid and find a high-powered item that you could pass on to a lower-leveled alt. In my opinion, though, the Legacy system is perfect for badges.
And additionally as it turns out, there are some hints that Blizz may, in fact, be heading in this direction, before even reading my post about it. (I know, spooky!) Remember that it is beta, so these may just be bugs or omissions, but: in the beta, Badges of Justice seem to no longer be BoP; and there is a new currency, called Venture Coins, that are also not marked as BoP. These coins are obtained as a quest reward from various quests in the Grizzly Hills, and are also not marked as BoP. No word yet on what you can buy with them. My theory on both the coins and the beta badges is that they are going to be Legacy items, but those have not yet been implemented on the beta realms, so they have no binding category at present. I do think Legacy would be better than freely tradable, since I don't want to see whatever Wrath's badges are on the AH. That would be silly.
Update: Apparently (as several of you have pointed out) these were just tooltip/data bugs; BoJs and Venture Coins are both BoP in the beta. Still, it's nice to dream.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
dan Jul 22nd 2008 5:07PM
Did you even read the thread you linked? They're still bop.
pudds Jul 22nd 2008 5:18PM
From the thread:
"Yeah it's still soulbound, despite it suggesting it can be traded. I tried mailing some to my DK last night and it didn't work. :P "
Zigs Jul 22nd 2008 5:10PM
I think it's a great idea. I very rarely play my hunter anymore and my lock is coming up on 70. It would be great if I could mail the badges sitting in the bank to him.
By the time wotlk hits I'll probably be mailing them to another char...
shinken Jul 22nd 2008 5:10PM
This sounds like a bug or a beta only thing. Or perhaps
badges of justice cannot be used to buy new wotlk "badge" gear and it is simply useful to gear up alts.
It should bea hard fast rule you must be on that toon and have done the dungeon for that quality of gear.
Spiffyman Jul 22nd 2008 5:14PM
Uh. The tooltip for Venture Coin pretty clearly says it's BoP. Oversight or error on wowhead's part?
skynes Jul 22nd 2008 5:12PM
Scroll over the venture coin link. It says "Binds when picked up"
deviationer Jul 22nd 2008 5:12PM
read the forum thread, it says it's basically a bug and it's still soulbound.
tkc Jul 22nd 2008 5:16PM
Think of the loot drama legacy items will cause.
I'd have my hunter rolling on plate for my pally. I'd have my druid rolling on mail for my hunter. Everybody would want everything.
I wouldn't mind seeing it on badges becasue everyone gets those. Doing it for items will have loot ninja's coming out of the woodwork.
zappo Jul 23rd 2008 9:31AM
They could work around this though. Just give options "need", "greed", "legacy". If you roll need or greed it still remains soulbound. Legacy allows you to mail the item to your account, but is the lowest priority (and thus requires the entire group decides to let you have it for an alt).
Jenna Jul 23rd 2008 10:06AM
I agree 100%. With all the rules I see in various guilds concerning the issue of people rolling on gear for alts, I only foresee a mass amount of drama erupting from such a change.
And then what do you do about the people who are SURE to complain that they can't gear up their other-faction alts due to no ability to mail stuff cross faction?
Can'o'worms, internet-style.
STereo Jul 22nd 2008 5:16PM
I agree with sending them between alts. I have suggested this on the forums. For example, it would be really helpful to people who leveled up a tank to raid due to the severe tank shortage, but still want something for their main. Myself being one of those people. I think blizz should have a distinction between soulbound on character and soulbound on account and this should be soulbound on account.
Smurk Jul 22nd 2008 5:25PM
If your alts can get all the raid gear tokens they want without raiding, how is it "not fair" that someone could buy them on the AH?
Doesn't sound like it's happening anyway.
STereo Jul 22nd 2008 6:03PM
It's fair because I am doing the raiding. I'm just taking the gear for character A instead of for character B. And in my case, I'm raiding on an alt and sitting my main because there's an insane shortage of tanks. I agree though, that I don't think this will happen. But it should.
Smurk Jul 22nd 2008 6:20PM
That's like saying I should be able to send PVP gear to my alt who's never stepped into a battleground. It would be convenient for us, but it doesn't make sense.
vlad Jul 22nd 2008 5:16PM
the Venture Co. has mines set all over griz hilz. possibly something for faction. dunno. the griz is my favorite zone so far. i love it.
vbg Jul 25th 2008 6:16PM
Badges are exchangeable to a degree. Just use them for gems or nethers. These are easily sold and crafted epics are almost as good.
Rage Oct 7th 2008 12:28PM
I would like to purpose an interesting idea.
I’m sure you are all aware of the change to have marks and badges display on a menu instead of showing up in your bags. BTW I love that change as a druid I carry 4 sets of armor and have very little bag space!
My suggestion is that they add to that menu an account tab and instead of having to mail say gold between accounts you have access to all of your gold no matter what character you’re playing.
Personally I’m all for allowing account sharing of BoJ’s and I would love to see them added to said account tab mentioned above ^.
As other’s have mentioned, I too have a well geared tank and all of my online friends want me to tank for them so I don’t get to play on my Rogue as often as I would like to. Allowing me to share my badges with him would be amazing! I could still help friends and not hurt my other character.
One more idea, I would like to see an account bank. A bank that you can share things like potions and mats between characters without having to mail things log off and log back on. Just make it so you can’t put BOP items in it and your G2G!
I agree that things like boss drops should be earned but let’s face it BoJ’s where made to reward people for playing as a group. So everyone gets something. Using them on alts rewards people for sacrificing playing a character they wanted to play for the good of the group. I look forward to Blizz implamenting this change as it is a good one.
Evangelin Jul 22nd 2008 5:18PM
I would very much like badges to be Bind on Account. I attain badges on my mage by raiding 25 mans and ZA, and my priest by raiding Kara and ZA now and then, but my hunter and warrior are quite neglected and need badge gear. By this point, my mage (and to a lesser extent, my priest) does not.
Imogynn Jul 22nd 2008 5:21PM
Umm... there are players who have more than one account.
Screw those elitist bastards though. I'm with ya.
Kalakaua Jul 22nd 2008 5:22PM
The author of the article is wrong as other posters have pointed out and badges of justice are still soulbound. This is the way it should be so that you actually have to play the character to get him/her geared up. If badges were free to trade between characters on the same account, I can imagine a whole new industry for the gold sellers. Badge sellers! It's not hard for a decent group to do every heroic every day and bring in tons of badges. These badges could be sold for real money by mailing them to a lvl 1 alt and then transferring said alt to the customer who can mail them to his main.