PvP, Honor, Faction and BGs

[savaughn]

While faction might be very well achievable if one only hangs out long enough in the BGs, on the honor front the mother of all grinds begins...
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I keep hearing this complaint over and over. Generally followed by "Hey, Blizz, you said you were going to make this game viable for the casual gamer!".

I find myself confounded by the concept. People want to be able to get the exact same benefits through solo play that you can get through the focused and concentrated effort of 40 people working together. :blink: That doesn't even make sense.

Can you slowly but surely grind your way in the post 60 game? Sure. You can slowly accumulate honor points, you can go mine the 48000 dark iron ore required for that faction, you can pick a battle ground and play when you can and slowly grind your way through those factions. You will likely find it slow, monotonous and boring. You have two choices at that point: quit, or find a different way to enjoy the game. I don't think Blizz really cares that much which one you choose.

Let's compare the end game for WoW with the end game for Diablo 2. 48000 dark iron? No problem compared to the 150,000 Pindleskin runs people were doing. And grinding for honor in the battlegrounds is a joy compared to grinding out that last final level before capping in D2. Assuming you ever got there.

My take on it is this: there are two parts to every game. The first part is the provided content. In Diablo, you could get through this in a day and a half at which point you'd seen all there was to see. In WoW, I've been playing since December and I still find new stuff. There's a lot more out there. But even once you're done, once you've seen all there is to see, explored all that provided content... there's more.

Talk to MJ about a certain little lady who punched her way through the first part of Diablo2. Once you've exhausted the provided content, what you are left with is a toy. And it's up to you to make a fun game with it at that point. Blizz will add content now and again and it will be great. We'll get a whole EXPANSION of content - probably at the rate of once a year - as things move forward. Every couple months we'll get some changes that will give you something else new to explore or whatever.

But if you feel like you've been there and you've done that and it's lost it's magic... if you don't make the decision to enjoy the toy that is WoW - it's time to move on. If you aren't in a supporting guild, you are probably never going to get a full set of purples. If that's the only criteria you have to say if WoW is a success for you or not, it's probably time to move on.

Personally, I haven't done all the quests on the Horde side, I haven't capped a Warlock or a Shaman, and I haven't seen nearly enough end game raid content for my tastes. I'm gonna keep playing with this toy until then. But then, I was one of those idiots who was actually trying for a complete set of Uniques in D2, too.