I was in Dalaran standing around waiting for a guildie to give me some enchanting mats when I suddenly got invited to a group by a stranger. Almost as quickly the invite disappeared and then I got a whisper of apology. It was another rogue. I whispered back;
“Those damn invite and inspect buttons are just too close for comfort, eh?”
“Indeed,” was his reply.
Truth be told, I myself had inspected him only a few moments before, checking out his impressive ilvl 264 weapons which I would do naughty things to an elephant in order to be able to get my hands on. The rest of his gear was all top level PvE stuff as well, nicely gemmed and enchanted. A wonderous thing to look apon. Some of his gear had the little heroic label on it and some of it was obviously from 25 man ICC. The best gear I ever saw on a rogue was back in BC when I saw a rogue decked out with all the top gear and the legendary twinblades. Man that dude looked cool.
Blizzard has announced that they will be giving the same gear and achievements to 10 and 25 man raids in the next expansion. There has been a lot of wailing and crying and happy people about this announcement in the time since, though things have quietened down somewhat in the last few days. I myself am happy with the change but I do think that it will be the death of 25 man raids for the simple fact that there will be no way to demonstrate to somebody inspecting you in Dalaran that you have run it. In short, running 25 mans with all the extra hassle and difficulty will garner you no prestige. You will have no special gear or achievements. There will be no way for you to show off with it. And this prestige goes a long way to getting players to put up with all the hassle of 25 man runs. Oh sure, maybe you’ll be able to find 10 or 15 players who still want to run 25 mans. But you won’t be able to flesh out the rest of the raid with the players who were doing it for epeen glory.
The question then is, where will the prestige be found? Arena gear will no longer have ratings either. Will the prestige be found in mounts? The common player needs the pull of potential prestige, even if they don’t have a realistic chance to get it. I hope Blizzard keeps this in mind for the next expansion, because otherwise we may see a decline in WoW.
May 7, 2010 at 8:52 am
I have never thought much of prestige in WoW. In hindsight its probably because I get the “prestige” I need from my guild. However I do have two ideas for where prestige could be found.
One is in guilds: With more and more guilds coming on to the raiding scene being a part of a guild that does hardmode and/or is in top 10 on server carries prestige for people.
Second would be skill. Two months ago I made ToC 10 for guild alts and we pugged a tank, with me being the other. the pug whispered me often for advices/tactics and after Anub he whispered me that he was really impressed by me. Made me feel proud of my performance. Point is with welfare epics people will only notice you if you perform well, not if you look cool.
May 7, 2010 at 8:58 am
Two comments: at first if you read my post you know that if you want ICC weapons you don’t have to do nasty things with elephants. You shall do nice things to guildies and strangers: supply them with enchants and gems – for a price.
Secondly this shift away from “prestige” items is natural and good move from Blizzard. Only small fraction of the socials want “prestige”, meaning being ahead of others. The majority wants to fit in, want to keep up with the Joneses. He is not motivated to show off something rare. He is motivated by the fear that his peers have something he doesn’t. And he is ready to grind to get it.
PS: my GF has 6K gold (she got it herself, no gift from me), and every weapon with agility is hunter weapon for her
May 7, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Your GF is right. In GDKP runs there should be no mercy. If one wants something badly enough and has the gold for it, why not take it?
Heck, if I was at the gold cap I could bid 100k gold on Reign of the Dead (on my hunter) just to observe the flow of QQ. Of course I’d throw the “NABS, Arcane Shot iz a spell” punchline.
Griefing aside, a hunter with two 1-handers is a valid itemization strategy. Even if that screws some melees over.
May 7, 2010 at 9:07 am
Remember “The Fonz” that glance in the mirror at the opening of the show, about to comb his hair and realising that it couldn’t be improved ?
I think, as you say, there’s a little of that in everyone and without it another motivation is gone.
“Prestige in mounts” may as well head over to “Star Doll” right now.
May 7, 2010 at 12:09 pm
@Kal, I agree with you completely, but the heaving masses tend to get their personal satisfactions out of the good opinions of other people in more easily accessible ways. In order to get people to praise your performance you first have to actually be good.
@Gevlon, yep, read your post and commented on it. I very much like the GDKP idea. And if your girlfriend rolls need on a dagger she will incur my wrath!
I actually think that prestige is very important to socials, it may even be the most important thing. Socials want to fit in with the crowd but they also want to be special. Prestige is their way to do it.
@Chewy, my dogs name is ‘The Fonz’. He also has perfect hair.
May 7, 2010 at 1:25 pm
@Adam: you are mixing two different kind of socials, the “fun ppl” and the “l33t”. The l33t wants respect while the fun ppl want love and inclusion. While these are not black and white cathegories, and most fun ppl WISH for prestige, it’s not something they NEED.
If WoW gives no prestiege at all, the l33t will leave, but the fun ppl will rejoice.
About weapons: the best way to avoid a bidding war is always a sneaky deal in the background
May 7, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Which of the two social groups has the higher percentage of people? Of course we cannot answer, but it would be of some importance I would think.
Ah yes, the sneaky backroom deal. I would preface that by saying that perhaps I feel the need for a shiny new bow …
May 7, 2010 at 6:44 pm
I think the only way 25 man raids don’t completely die off is based on the Blue’s comments that 25 mans will drop a higher ratio of loot per person.
I imagine the increase in loot would have to be fairly substantial to compensate for the extra trouble of organizing 24 other people to run it.
May 7, 2010 at 9:01 pm
Prestige will continue to come from the same places: gear, mounts, titles, guilds, achievements. It will function in the same way: the community will gravitate towards some new indication that a player has done the hardest/rarest/most-desired thing. Those who have done it will enjoy the admiration of those who haven’t and the peacocks will position themselves in order to be admired. Human nature won’t change with this patch. With rated battlegrounds, there may be a way for PvP success to become more easily displayed. The change to the raid rewards just means that the new indicators of PvE success probably won’t come from participating in the 25m format.
May 7, 2010 at 9:21 pm
“The change to the raid rewards just means that the new indicators of PvE success probably won’t come from participating in the 25m format.”
Which is my whole point.
May 7, 2010 at 11:32 pm
You were also wondering if Blizzard would leave us with no way to show off and nothing to envy. I have complete faith that this will not be the case.
May 8, 2010 at 7:11 am
I agree with you on that, for sure.
May 8, 2010 at 11:01 am
When you discuss WoW gear issue, you concentrate on it’s social aspects, while completely missing another important point. WoW is not a FPS game, where every teammate can pick up a weapon of choice and go shoot the enemy. WoW is a MMORPG, and as such it is based on fundamental idea of character
progression. The majority of WoW players care about gear not because of social prectige, but because it’s inherent ability to develop a character beyond the levelcap. From this point of view the future decline of 25-man raiding is inevitable, it will not give anything more for character progression than 10-man will be able to provide. More “prestige” (or in other terms – progression opportunities) will be found in hardmode raiding. One can argue it is already found there in the modern state of the game, since welfare 262ilvl become fully available for badges. Will the prestige be found in mounts and other bragging items? I doubt that mounts, pet’s and other trumpery will ever be as attractive for players, because these items are irrelevant to character progression (they don’t raise in-game stats of a character in any way).
P. S. Sorry for my “awesome” English, but I hope you can see my point.
May 8, 2010 at 11:20 am
Your English is much better than my Greek, (I assume your site is in Greek …).
You’re correct, I was concentrating on the social aspects of this in my post. Your point is perfectly valid and I agree with it, but there have been a shit-tonne of posts around the web in the last week about the gear issue. I wanted to bring attention to the social factor, as I feel that it has been somewhat forgotten in the general uproar.
What is more important in the game: the gear you can get or the number of people who can see you with that gear? It’s an interesting question I think considering we play a MMORG.
May 9, 2010 at 12:10 pm
My site is written in Russian, but your guess was pretty close, our alphabet derives from Greek
This is the beauty of blogging – your never know who is reading your stuff… 
As for your last question… Our character is a kind of alter-ego, built by our own hands. It’s value is a question of self-esteem and self-expression. It is in the
nature of things that every sculptor wants his masterpiece to be seen and admired by people. But if it were his only motivation, he would never make anything worthwhile.
May 10, 2010 at 10:03 am
Yep, a lot of people never make anything worthwhile.