POST from Braindance:
I ain't gonna argue for 2 reasons:
1) Half the people asking for it started playing in either wrath or cata and simply found the game the way it is right now. The other half are simply old dogs that can't look further than their own micro-society in the game and only care for the short term profit
2) “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” Stephen Covey
I am only gonna give a few small paragraphs to describe why I think this would be bad for the game (I would need 3-4 pages for a complete explanation)
You are used to the instant gratification and immediate rewards of the current day. Play 2 bgs get 1 item. Play 10 games get cap. Hit 90 be half epic with 2 hours played. Of course people like me are to blame for that; the older generation of players that lobbied for such changes to make the game easier, without realizing that we didn't play this game because it was easy, but because of the sense of achievement after grinding bgs or mobs or instances for countless of hours just to get 1 item.
There was an era (and a very long one that spanned for 4-5 years), where getting gear was such a huge pain, most current players would quit in the first 2 days. And yet, it was the time when WoW was at its peak. The decline started with the advent of wrath that made the game more socialist and open to anyone, and from there it was downhill. Easy raids, readily acquired gear, fewer (and faster) wins required to cap, fewer bgs won required for the same amount of honor, LFR and the list goes on. WoW lost the bulk of subscriptions, neither from the top players nor from the casuals. It lost subscriptions from the middle class; people that played the game for 3-4 hours a day, trying to get better gear, or rating. People that were the backbone of the 25 men guilds that cleared 60/70% of the current content at each patch. The same people floating around 1800-2000 rating.
The old game design gave those people the illusion that they were better than the casuals, and at the same time, the hope that after a lot of effort they could be like the "better" players (gladiators, world first guilds). The huge grinds of the old days instilled to the middle class the notion of rewards through hard work. WotlK created a huge gap, since less and less work was required for equal or better rewards. Gradually, those players lost their carrot; with a few bgs they could get full gear; with easier raids they could get any item they wanted with just 1 or 2 wipes. Collective and individual effort requirements became smaller and smaller, leaving the middle class with nothing to do but to log for a couple of hours every week to keep their shinny armor even shinier. Their interested slowly abated and waned until they decided they should move to a different game or go on with their lives.
That is the true reason that WoW is losing subs. Not because of balance issues that always existed and were even more accentuated (every time I see someone mention it as a reason for people quitting I simply smile). It's precisely because of this middle class that got fed up with their achievements being handed to the casuals. The middle class that witnessed the gap between top players and them widen more and more (due to button bloat, unbreachable pvp and pve cliques), month by month, until they gave up. The people that got sick of WoW turning into something completely different from what it used to be.
To those unsung heroes that quit the game because they were forsaken by the developpers; to those shinning knights that paved the halls of UBRS and Karazan with their skeletons and rare quality armor; to the countless soldiers that provided fast queues in BC and early Wrath trying to prove themselves; to the biggest fans of the repair vendor. I salute you.
You will never be forgotten.
Edit: And a fitting song in memoriam
Original source:
http://www.arenajunkies.com/topic/23...0#entry3916627