A long time ago, when I was a little level 50 rogue, I ran the Sunken Temple. It was my first time in the instance, and I ran it with friends that I had made over the course of my slow leveling progress. We took our time in the instance, as only one other of the group had been in there before. He was a paladin tank, and he was excellent in that role. We finally got down to the Shade of Eranikus boss, and got him down after one wipe.
Then this dropped, oh my god.
It was the first epic that I had ever seen in the game, and it was a sword. I used swords. I was a combat sword rogue. This did great damage, had okay speed, and it called forth up to three dragon whelps at a time to fight for you in battle. There was much excitement in the group but we managed to stay calm and then the paladin and I rolled on it – and I won.
My first ever epic. I had The Hanzo Sword as my off-hand and the two together made not only for a righteous fury type damage/speed/proc combination, they also looked amazingly cool. I was a level 50 rogue and I would get stopped in Stormwind by level 60 rogues complimenting me on my weapons. I was proud of my swords, as any good rogue would be to have these equipped at that level. And having an epic was, well, epic.
Not anymore. We’ve all heard this argument before, too many epcis, welfare epics, blah blah blah. And I agree. So why am I writing this now? Well, the new patch 3.3 has ushered in a new era of players getting gear. It’s extremely easy to have epics. Everyone has epics. My mum has epics and she doesn’t even play wow. The point is, epics don’t mean anything anymore. Raiding isn’t high end, hell, with the new LFG system you can get geared for raids and do raids without being a member of a guild. I know, I’m doing it.
But now that I am fully geared in epics, do I feel more epic than when I got that first epic drop? Nope, not one bit. That first epic felt special. Epics that I earned in Burning Crusade felt special as well. I came into Northrend fully geared in epic 70’s, but holy damn did I earn those things. I think that my last one remained until about level 76. But now everyone has epics. It has been the great social leveling crusade in WoW. We’re a communist game now, comrades. Epics for all. You all deserve epics, you are all special little flowers.
Well, I’ve been running with some people with epics in these LFG groups that are most certainly not special little flowers. Special little retards maybe, but not flowers. How can you have epics equipped in every slot and put out 1200 DPS? That requires sincere and lasting commitment to being a retard.
Which leads me to my next point – if epics are not special anymore, what is?
I have the answer – Blues. Yes, you heard it right, blues are the new purples.
I have joined the Greedy Goblin on his quest to raid in blues. I rolled a new toon on that realm, gave him a whisper and got an invite to the guild. The guild is interesting. For a start, it’s an instant demotion if you write, “lol.” You are demoted to “lolled” rank. As some of my regular readers know, I really hate the use of lol, so this sits very well with me. Another nice aspect – nobody says “grats” when an achievement pops up in guild chat. I really, really like this. There are about 50 of us in the guild, and we are all running around leveling and helping each other. No doubt some regular retards have snuck in, but for now everyone is doing their level best to not stick out as a moron. Time will get the better of some of them of course.
I will periodically post updates of how this is going. I hope that it will be epic.
December 19, 2009 at 6:09 pm
…”It has been the great social leveling crusade in WoW. We’re a communist game now, comrades. Epics for all. You all deserve epics, you are all special little flowers”…
I like this philosophy. So what?
Why raiding HAS to be for high-end players only?
Why should I be forced to be in a guild to raid?
I enjoy beating challenges in WoW at my own pace. I don’t care if the guy next to me has 3x times better gear than me and his guild is top-3 hardcore raiders of the realm.
Blizzard’s new philosophy is very fair in my opinion. Normal modes for the casual-communist-special flowers like me, and hard modes for the dedicated hardcore raiders that deserve better rewards and recognition.
Everybody is happy. How is that a bad thing?
“Everybody has epics”, you say. “Does everybody have an Ironbound proto-drake?” I reply.
Gear is not the reward, is the means to and end.
P.S: Congratulations for joining Gevlon’s project. I wish you guys good luck and success!
December 19, 2009 at 10:43 pm
So the only way to differentiate yourself through skill from the general masses is to have an ironbound proto-drake?
I don’t have to ever RAID to have RAID GEAR, that’s the problem. The Noisy Rogue’s mum has raid epics. Never played WoW. That’s what he’s complaining about.
December 20, 2009 at 5:04 am
And it’s a valid complaint, and shared by more than a few people.
however, it’s necesary in order to help “catch up” those who didn’t play WotLK since day one, and the already top raiders’ alts.
I’ll tell you what happened to me: I reached level cap for the first time (lvl 70) at the end of the BC, a month or two before Wrath.
The way progression worked then, was Normals -> Heroics -> Kara -> etc, etc up to Black Temple and Sunwell. You couldn’t “jump” from Tier 4 to Tier 6, you had to do it all in order. Sounds logical and fair right?
Now, going on with my story, When I hit 70 I didn’t have good enough gear for heroics, I had to do normals. Nobody did normals at that time. I had to be carried by my guild through Karazhan for badges but it was hard to get a spot since everybody in the guild wanted to steamroll Kara for “ez-epikz lol”, and my gear level didn’t allow me to PuG it.
So I couldn’t start raiding, because I was “too late”. Imagine if we had the same system now. How many guilds do you see doing Naxx nowadays?
Blizzard fixed the problem so newer players won’t have to suffer what I did. And nobody hears me saying “these kids have it too easy nowadays, in my times…”, to the contrary, I’m glad for those that won’t be “left behind” like I was.
People that doesn’t raid has raid-level gear (not the same as “raid gear”). How is that bad for the game or the community? If the reason you kill raid bosses for is loot, then you miss the whole point of raiding: “You don’t raid to get gear, you get gear to raid” the motto of almost every dedicatesd raider.
And I still see people bring up these point of “better gear to differentiate us (the raiders) from the rest”. I feel really sorry for those who need to jerk their e-peen and show “superiority” to others in order to feel acomplished.
It’s no different from the idiot in real life who buys a Ferrari just to get other people’s attetion and show how “successful in life” he is.
“I haz Ferrari lol, Im better than U”
Isn’t that what Gevlon calls a “social”?