Hey people.
Just been raiding the good old tbc raids again just for some achievements that I noticed weren't converted into WOTLK, which got me thinking about how tiers in WoW have developed.
So kinda wanted to share what my thoughts were..
First 3 tiers:
DKP ftw, raiding 24/7 to get epics, hard to obtain, epic feeling once you had them tho. A little annoying because if you were very unlucky you'd never get that one last piece that you'd been waiting for forever (a dagger on my rogue). Tier wasn't useless when newer tiers came out.
Tiers 4,5,6:
Still DKP = Win, raiding 4-5 nights a week because of the amount of content, forcing you to push to your time limit and loads of whipes to get down hard bosses in 25 man raids.
Hoping and wishing for your tier piece to drop, once you got your dkp, if it did drop feeling was EPIC. Tier wasn't useless when newer tiers came out. Sweet looks and decent gear-insane gear, no crap.
Tier 7:
Pretty epic, was nice to get the loot, and would be insanely happy when you finally recieved one, bit easy to obtain tho, because raid instances were too easy. Still a nice feeling when you got it.
Tier 7,5:
Okay, so you get to look the same as people raiding 10 man, but ur a little better .. wuuhuu, very boring experience.
Tier 8:
Nice, getting 2 pieces from emblems was okay, no biggie, good looks, besides the two pieces it wasnt easily obtained. Very good.
Tier 9:
Boring farming: feelings: "okay so next time i'll just get chest or w/e."
Everyone looking alike, exteremly easy to obtain (now), putting t8 completely out of the game, makin it absolete. - The raid to this was just bosses, a bit of a bore and not much effort having to be put into it.
Tier 9,5:
No epic feeling, just a minor upgrade to your current tier 9.
Does everyone even know this exists? People don't care about it, rather just move on to tier 10, ofc it's set out of the game.
Tier 10:
Farming heroics, farming raids, farming weeklies. Too much farming, no epic feeling at all. Knowing when you're gonna obtain your next tier, always checking what you can buy next, no hopeing or wishing just assumeing you get your next epics soon, its just zzzz.
Decent looking sets, but just changing the colors to make the difference between 10, 25, and 25 hc is very boring.
Tiers:
The WOTLK
So okay, now everyone looks like each other, nothing to distinguish the better player from the worse, and huge gaps between every set, putting the past set out of the game, making it useless and worthless of farming.
The TBC
The tbc sets were nice, not big gaps between the stats on the tiers and very nice looks. Annoying that PvP sets looked like PVE just in different colors, but the game has gone in a very PVE oriented direction, so it's not that big of a deal. You'd still be able to see who had cleared what content, by looking at gear, and it wouldn't matter if you brought someone in t4 gear to ZA, which is kind of like the current RS, because t4 was still decent gear for the level.
The vanilla
The vanilla sets were awesome, nice looking, really showing how far a player had managed to come in the game, what he had achieved and rewarding the hardcore player. I loved inspecting people and going like: Wow those guys are sweet, maybe one day I'll get there. PvP and PvE sets were very different, and PvP really showed which faction you were fighting for. Although it was hard to the casual player to be end game, the casual player would get to see another enjoyable part of the game, which was leveling, not easy at all, and actually quite difficult. T1 was good even when t3 was out, and players with the tiers or last parts of pvp gear, would be appreciated, and egknowledged for their work..
The non tiers:
The WOTLK
Lol epics without having tier items, what a rediculous noob. Go farm tiers.
The TBC
Other sets than tiers, like the tailor sets. Nice gear from bsing, not tiers tho, tiers WERE ment for the raiders who actually raided, but you could compromise this and still get some sweet gear from your reputations, professions etc.
The vanilla
Epics were still sweet, expensive to craft and hard to obtain, required either alot of gold, or time (reputation pvp farming).
Now this is NOT, meant as a whinepost were I go "" BAAAH GIEF PRE-TBC OR TBC BACK "". But more of a "story" as to how the tiers have changed, and which meaning they have to the game now.
And note, this IS an opinion post, and ofc some people will disagree, but I thought it would be cool to have a "story-line" of equipment developing written down.
Regards Cirk