I would think the simplest way would be to make PVP epic gems purchasable through conquest points and then only make them res or res/stat gems.

I just can't believe there won't be some way for PVPers to get epic gems (besides the AH). Blizzard has said SO MANY times that they don't want people to feel they have to PVP in order to PVE and vice versa. Given how directly (and pointlessly) this flies in the face of that philosophy, it has to change before patch day.

Besides, it wouldn't be hard to change. The easy and obvious way would be to sell them for Conquest, but that might inflate the epic gem market too much. Alternately, take a page from the Dragon Soul raid and award a geode to players upon winning an RBG or Arena match.

But if you sell them for conquest than every raid team is going to be spending there off nights in RBGs trying to farm up conquest so that there team can be fully decked in Epic gems right away. The only answer is to make them available OUTSIDE raids and conquest level PVP. Whats weird is that Blizz already figured this out in BC, made changes in wrath and then promptly forgot

@ darkspade if, as you propose the conquest gems are resil or resil/stat gems only, then PvPers are going to have to raid to get the red epic gems since by this point, high end PvPers have got enough resil on gear that they have switched to red primary stat gems

I say stop ruining the game by coddling the PVP crowd. It was only added as an afterthought anyway. Blizzard keeps stepping in the quicksand of trying to make everybody happy and ending up making nobody happy, they learn their lessons about everything else but this, and I, for one, am sick of it. Declare once and for all in no uncertain terms that this is a PVE game first and a PVP game second and for anyone who doesn't like it, this is all the help I'm giving:
http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AjJhECtSw_U8ls5yGqEJClqbvZx4?p=best+mmo+for+pvp&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-701

I say good day, sir!

Your favourite search engine is Yahoo? Really? O.o

Don't get saucy with me, Bernaise.

That's just where I happened to be. I promise no one perfect answers. Especially when they insist on infuriating me with this mamby-pamby "but what about when we've hit our resil target and just want stat gems how are we gonna get those waah waaaaah" crap. Every time a niche group (and yes, that's what the pvp crowd is, a niche group) bitches about "why aren't they catering to my needs at everyone else's expense" I reserve the right to tell them to eff off. Blizzard keeps getting caught between the amazing game they envision which I and pretty much everyone I know want, and the game they are forced to provide to pull in the maximum possible number of subscribers, and THE PRODUCT SUFFERS. This thread is the perfect example of it.

I seriously wish they'd never introduced pvp.

You were able to buy epic gems with honor points in Wrath. Any indication this isn't going to be the case anymore?

This reply is actually directed at Grovinofdarkhour: I used to agree with you, once. I used to think that PVP was Blizz's way of wooing the Xbox crowd, until I tried to explain raiding to my wife. Raid design is a huge drain of Blizz resources--especially compared to the ratio of subscribers who will interact with this content. They spend an inordinate amount of time & money designing--and then tweaking--raid encounters. Subsequently, the developers must be under tremendous pressure to monetize their raids more.

PVP, on the other hand, is just set-it and forget-it. There is a limited number of scenarios (capture the flag, king of the hill, etc.) Most new battlegrounds are just a variation on established basic scenarios. From a development standpoint, PVP design is incredibly profitable--especially in comparison to raid/dungeon design. I can see a developer going, "ok then, I've got your battleground ready for you, now back to tweaking the end-boss."

So I can no longer stand on your side and say that PVP is "ruining the game." Like a benevolent capitalist tide, PVP might just be helping to raise all boats. PVP might be what is allowing us to continue raiding in the World of Warcraft.

@Grovin

You don't think PvPers are tired of blizzard catering to PvEers? It goes both ways, no one part of the game is better. And your description of PvPers crying certainly is mature (read: it's hilariously immature). You think blizzard coddles PvPers? Blizzard has coddled BOTH sides of the game. But I guess you fail to see it as coddling when it's for PvEers, you probably just think its "making things right, and making those evil PvPer jerks go away" (see what I did there? I made a stupid assumption, like you).

@Grovinofdarkhour:

So PvP is a niche? I hate to break it to you, but far more people engage in pvp than raid, let alone raid heroics. Ask yourself which activity consumes more of Blizzard's resources.

If anything, pvpers could complain that raiders are constantly being coddled at the expense of the player base. But in actuality, many of us enjoy both aspects of the game, and are happy that Blizzard works hard to keep both balanced.

@Grovinofdarkhour

That's just silly... so what happens after they "declare in no uncertain terms that it's a pve game"?? We PVP'ers just sit tight and take it? That's a bit selfish of you to propose that! I don't believe Blizzard will ever do anything of the sort, it will cripple the game!

For me WoW without PVP is step number one for settling for mediocrity, being content with being an average player, never tasting defeat at the hands of a fellow player to force yourself to improve your gameplay skills, skills that have a massive influence on the PVE side of the game and ultimately lead to creating extremely versatile players.

The game will always need balancing and players will always be unhappy whether PVP is around or not :)

Blizzard has repeatedly stated that making new battlegrounds is a huge time commitment, at least on par with if not greater than making a new raid. The scripting and terrain editing alone must be ungodly. You can just throw down a floor in a raid, you have to pay somebody to go over that floor with a microscope for a battleground. Arenas are a significantly smaller time investment, but the amount of people who do arenas for reasons beside gear progression are minimal (See:WOTLK). Blizz has also stated that the wow pvp system was designed for large scale pvp, not e-sport duels. They have never, ever, in any way referred to pvp itself as bolted on or an afterthought or to the group of people who PVP as a minority. I, personally, am sick of whiny raiders who think they are anywhere near the skill level where minor nerfs, of whatever type, will have a noticeable impact. Finally: PvP is not a phrase that means "Top Level Arena." PvP may be the vinegar to your honey but it's the peanut butter to my chocolate and I'm not alone.

@ Grovin

Whoa! Allowing competitive pvpers the chance to get epic gems will "ruin the game"? Really? This is not an issue of them nerfing your class because of pvp. Why the outrage?

About the whole "why aren't they catering to my needs at the expense of everyone else" bit... I thought it was common knowledge that raiders are the loudest minority in WoW? Raiding is also a "niche" within wow and our needs are constantly being catered to. I don't understand why people are so adversarial towards the "other" aspects of the game. I applaud Blizzard for not dropping one side of the game for the other. Doing only one or the other all the time can get tedious.

Try out pvp. You might like it more than you think.

MadMac - I agree with you and disagree with you, but let me come back to that.

Matt,
I apologize. My first response was snarky, but my 2nd cranked up the A-Hole Factor by a power of around twelve. You were asking a legit question and didn't deserve to get shit on for it. I could say that we were discussing something and I was getting worked up about it, and then Killik threw a useless and unrelated shitbomb on it that flipped my switch, but I can't even really justify being ticked at him for that, since I do the same damn thing all the time. Great Wheel of Karma's boot + my ass, I guess.


Mac - I agree with you from a business/profitability standpoint, in that I'm glad there are people who will keep paying $15/mo to keep running the same scenarios that neither have to be replaced every few months nor have any boss mechanics needing to be coded and debugged. So BGs and arenas are easier and more profitable for Blizz, and I see the validity in that. My disagreement is from the customer satisfaction standpoint. The devs probably all have addictions to painkillers by now from the headaches they've gotten trying to make sure everyone has access to the stuff they believe necessary for success in their chosen facet of the game. Matt's argument sounded as though he believes that if he faces a nearly identical opponent except in one particular gem slot the other guy has a stat gem and Matt has a resil/stat gem, the other guy has an obvious benefit, but I think between variations in skill and the component of randomness inherent in every such scenario, no single gem is going to bestow on anyone a significant advantage. I would also argue that if Matt loads up resil-only gems first until he hits his resil target, he's much more likely to be frustrated if he doesn't have easy access to primary-stat-only gems for his remaining sockets, whereas if he were to just count up his open sockets, do a wee tiny amount of math and start with resil/stat gems he'll get where he needs to be with a lot less frustration, and we could have avoided having this conversation entirely.


Darkfreak - point taken. Thanks for pitching in. However, it is not opinion but fact that the original game was PVE only, and PVE was added later. Warsong Gulch and Alterac Valley were added in patch 1.5 on 6/7/05, Arathi Basin in 1.7 on 9/22/05. Arena Season 1 came much later, starting on 1/31/07. Everyone's free to their own opinions, but not their own facts.

too be clear grovin, I don't PvP competitively. my concern is not that we coddle some niche group. My point is that from Blizzard's STATED point of view, forcing PvPers into PvE or PvEers in to PvP is a design problem. Your opinions, while interesting (if a bit rude) do not address the point.

In order to keep the PvP folks free from PvP content (and vice versa), Blizz has made tons of changes to this game. Bear gear in BC was PvP gear. PvP weapons have been at times BiS for PvE. This Geode business goes back on that concept for, from what I can tell, no gain at all. I suppose providing a special benefit and coddling us namby-pamby raiders is enough of a benefit these days.

*and PVP was added later. (You knew what I meant.)

OK...so I'm going to ignore the PvP vs PvE argument here. O.o;;

I imagine that they will make epic gems available through purchase with points (not sure what they are called now) for PvPers. If not at launch, then shortly after. So what if it makes raid teams do BG's on their off nights?
I am pretty sure Blizzard likes the idea of more people trying more things. See: All those holiday achievements that include PvP of some sort along with PvE elements.

In Wrath I would do Wintergrasp and then go buy epic gems with honor because I had no money to buy them. I still managed to gear up. I just don't have a problem with raiders doing the exact same thing. And hell, I am more likely to do Tol Barad or something if I can buy an epic gem with the results than I am to be in a raid that gets geodes--and this is coming from someone who doesn't like PvP.

Sure, epic gems are going to be rare as hell for both sides of the game to start. But eventually they will get on the AH etc. and I bet they allow them to be found in other ways too.

Though I'm headed home from work now and probably won't be on these pages again til Monday, I do want to applaud the additional commenters I didn't have time to respond to, who almost without exception managed to take a contrary position from my own while retaining a level of civility that I did not. I salute you all.

And perhaps I'll see you in the BGs this weekend. :)