Unfortunately, my guild had only cleared Uld 10 once and was 2 bosses short of a 25 man clear when TOC hit. Naturally for a lot of people there was little incentive to run it any more after that. (Unless you’re someone like me who is very much in touch with your inner Brann Bronzebeard and longs above all else to visit Algalon). I can see their point of view. TOC seems like the McDonalds of raids. Quick, easy (well on normal anyway), cheap and dull, but oh so convenient.

That’s the only real problem I have with the new gear system. I really like the philosophy that it should be quite easy to gear enough to at least start raid content. A guild where raiders have several geared and useful alts able to step up to the plate as needed is a guild that doesn’t necessarily have to cancel another nights raiding because they just don’t have the right mix. But if Blizz had only set TOC level gear as a sidegrade, or slightly below Uld level, I think it would have worked better. Easy epics for those who don’t have the time or interest for a longer raid, or have many alts to feed. Ulduar for those who want something a bit more involved. Maybe even with the T9 now dropping in Uld, and the T8 moving to TOC. For the higher end raiding guilds who had progressed past Ulduar, the TOC hard modes would drop super special shiny stuff that proclaims how awesome the wearer is, so those at the top end of the raiding scale are also happy.

And that’s another thing. In a world where everyone and their dog is fully purpled up, wearing near-identical looking armour, let there be a level of epics that really are epic. It’d be nice to go back to the old days when you’d see someone in the bank with the warglaives or Sunwell gear and get all excited. Maybe the option for mega-epics that actually DO need the wearer to have worked through previous content and built on it, such as upgradeable tier sets. Personally, I don’t mind if I have only the faintest chance of getting them myself, but it’s good to have something to admire and work towards.

They kinda had it right at the launch of wrath where 10 and 25 had different badges and showed what content you were raiding. But now someone can run fresh 80 content and get t9 level gear pretty fast. Blizzard was complaining about flying mounts in wrath and how people could skip thier content, yet now they are setting it up for new players to skip 2 full tiers of current expansion content. I for one am glad I was there and experienced that content, and I do enjoy to grind from one tier to the next. When TBC came out I truly did enjoy struggling in kara/gruuls/Mag and when finally getting the gear from those struggles it made the content easier and then we moved to t5 where it started all over again. Yeah the wipes and growing pains hurt a little, but it made you a better player and appreciate what you had more. So when we finally got to t6 we could all look back and say man what a ride, and enjoy the top level content with pride and accomplishment. Sadly nowadays this game seems to be all about instant gratification. “Ok Im 80 now Blizzard, now give me all top level epics plox so I can steam roll top level content”. /rant

However. Gear will always reset. What bugs me more is the continuing availability of titles when you can waltz in and get them with 245 gear, and I busted my ass in my 213s. That’s more of a slap in the face than any kind of gear reset, to me.
.-= CC´s last blog ..The Northrend Beasts Heroic, or: An Ugly, Hairy Learning Experience =-.

The downside for me is that it makes it much harder to pug anything other than the last level of raiding. It is already getting hard to find Ulduar PUGs on my server – everyone has jumped into ToC. (Personally, I find doing every battle in the same arena is boooooooring.) But Ulduar is gorgeous, varied, interesting!!! Come back, come back! I fear that Ice Crown is just going to make this worse. The upside is that at least we’ll be out of the arena.

As to whether your accomplishments lose value when the gear is available otherwise, ummmm no. The accomplishment is the accomplishment – it’s only value is to yourself and your teammates who shared it – that was always true even before the gear reset. The only difference is now you won’t get the epeen from lording the gear over other players. Epeen does NOT equal accomplishment. But hey, if epeen’s all the fun you get out of the game, maybe it will be time to move on.

;)

K/K of Bladefist

Most of our core 25-man raiders are kitted out predominantly in 245 gear and we’re begiining to work through ToTC 10 and 25 Heroic for the challenge. We raid 4 nights per week, 2.5-3 hours each session. By many measures we’re fairly serious raiders. We’ve come from very very casual roots in Kara and ZA and a solid core of competent people has drawn in more like-minded people.

Everything but the very top-level 258 gear is readily available to us and even that will be within our grasp in the next 3-4 weeks.

Mostly our attitude to the gear resets is positive. It’s great that people can gear up and catch up with those of us in a lucky position of being able to raid that content when it’s released.

Guilds like ours will always have access to the shinies a little sooner than most on our sever and a while after others who are more skilled and focussed.

Denying others access to them eventually is pretty chilidish and seems to me only an effect of people believing that they are special or entitled. Things are probably balanced about right now.
.-= Ulv´s last blog ..Trial of the Grand Crusader 10 – Jaraxxus is Dead! =-.