And while gear is important in the big picture, Blizzard keep bringing up measuring skill in PvP, which the current system doesn’t really favour.

Last but not least, with all the hollering about the ease of raiding by the hardcore, we’re no longer in 2005 or 2006 – when you could walk around in IF and Org and hear many people /s something about T2 / T3 clad players near them. The “wow, cool gear” expressions of admiration is something which I haven’t witnessed, on more than one server, for at least a year and a half.

Bragging rights in WoW 3 is no longer about your kit, it’s about the achievements you have and when you got them.

But if you want a game where everything is perfectly even, a FPS that shares the same classes on both sides might be better. And that is not WoW.

Come on, Arena (and the dedicated tournament servers – do they even exist anymore?) is a special beast already. And indeed, if I wanted to play a game with a single class, I’d pick an FPS. I however want to play a paladin in the arena, not a shooter. Completely different mindset.

Not all Ret/DK teams are created equal. Not all Hunter/Paladins are created equal. Gear is one method Blizzard keeps people playing. Take away the obtaining gear through Arena and lots of people stop playing Arena.

So what? Part of the welfare epics debate centered around the fact that people stopped raiding to play arenas instead because raiding wasn’t fun enough anymore to keep doing it instead of arenas to gear up. PvP however is no longer a real efficient way to gear up in wow 3.0. Would it be a real disaster if people who don’t find arenas fun stop playing them? I don’t think so. If you actually remove special incentives from particular activities, and people keep doing them, you will know that you have a relatively solid design. If you remove the gear incentives and people stop playing that, it’s probably a pretty clear indication that your design needs a lot of work.

I can fully see that the marketroids would rather keep players tied to unfun activities artificially subsidized through tasty incentives, but I don’t think I could think of a single instance in gaming history where Marketing has actually been able to design a fun game. If you remove an incentive and people stop doing something, fix your game. People will continue paying 15 bucks a month for a fun game for a long time. They’ll eventually tire of paying for unfun things under the pretense of improving their toons, and once they leave because of that, they’re not likely to come back ever.

Of course someone could say that they just want to play with their friends. But if that was the case, they could easily run instances, be it lowbie or heroics, or even raids. But raiding and competitive PvP is about the enjoying fighting other people and obtaining gear.

No person that raids or even runs heroics on a regular basis is going to care in the slightest if Emblems are given out each week. I know personally don’t. Plenty of folks already are out of things to purchase. There isn’t anything for a lot of people to buy with 25-man badges either.

And if you are not one of them, you will be eventually if you run heroics in any frequency. Badges won’t keep people playing Arena.

You would be surprised how much PvE gear is worn during high-rated Arena matches as well. Not every class has to stack resilience. And that is also part of the strategy. Gear, spec, class compositions are all part of the Arena game.

I am sure this will come out rude but know it’s not meant to be. But if you want a game where everything is perfectly even, a FPS that shares the same classes on both sides might be better. And that is not WoW.

RPGs, specially WoW have and almost guaranteed, always will be about gear. Sure some players are better than others. Not all Ret/DK teams are created equal. Not all Hunter/Paladins are created equal. Gear is one method Blizzard keeps people playing. Take away the obtaining gear through Arena and lots of people stop playing Arena.

It will become very apparent which teams are capable of winning. So those teams who know they are not going to get anything but a few badges stop playing. Now the teams that used to beat them but lost to the better teams also stop playing. The gear drive is why people keep going to Arena. Even if you lost, you gained something from Arena. There was still a goal to save up for or to shoot for.

And that kind of drive for “it” keeps people paying Blizz 15 bucks a month. Doesn’t make sense for them to take away a whole way for people to wear shiny things in a major city.