WoW: There's not enough bitch, please in the world to cover my feelings about this....
http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/05/18/the-queue-ill-take-it/
Okay, so.
World of Warcraft is a game where you, along with millions of other people, sally forth in pixellated glory to slay dragons, stab demons, raid bosses, smite other players, and engage in this time honored activity known as questing for fun and profit. Quests in WoW work basically like this: you go out into the world, find a town/quest hub, talk to the NPCs known as quest givers, perform the quests that they give to you, and return to the quest giver, whereupon you are rewarded with an assortment of things, usually at least experience and a sum of in-game money, but also occasionally with a selection of gear for your character to equip -- or, as is more often the case for some sorts of characters, not equip. You see, gear quest rewards are really sort of hit-or-miss in terms of pure utility, mostly because WoW has many and varied character specializations and every gear quest does not reward every one of those specializations. And, in some cases -- such as "old" content in questing zones added in Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King -- the quest rewards are still itemized for specialization builds no longer supported by actual gameplay. F'rex: hunter mail quest rewards in Outland that carry Intellect and Spirit, two stats no longer even remotely useful for hunters, as they no longer use mana as a casting resource and thus have no use for stats that boost spell power or mana pool/regeneration. For another: the general paucity of plate quest rewards that do carry Intellect and Spirit, and which would directly benefit the gearing needs of holy paladins.
This is changing -- and changing objectively for the better -- in Mists of Pandaria where, instead of a random selection of gear that might be entirely useless to you, quest rewards will instead be tailored specifically to individuals, depending upon their class and specialization, and you will be able to swap back and forth between specializations if necessary before selecting a quest reward. Simply put, this means that for armor rewards plate-wearers will always be getting a selection of appropriately itemized plate rewards, cloth-wearers a selection of cloth rewards, mail and leather the same, and weapon rewards will also be similarly responsive -- no more picking which awesome two handed weapon you'll be vending because you're a tank and need an upgrade for your single-hander or shield. This is awesome at multiple levels and a very definite quality of life improvement that will positively impact every class in the game and so, of course, the WoW fanbase is fucking bitching about it.
No, really. They are literally complaining about something that will make their gear in both main and off-specializations simpler and less fraught with frustration and lack of appreciable reward. The substance of the complaints basically shake out as follows:
* THIS IS CHANGE. I FEAR CHANGE. THEREFORE, THIS IS AUTOMATICALLY BAD AND WRONG. (Nothing to be done about this one.)
* WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. WOW IS DUMBING DOWN THE QUEST REWARD SELECTION PROCESS TO APPEAL TO CASUALS/MORONS/BADDIES WHO DON'T KNOW HOW TO PLAY THEIR CLASS WITH SUBOPTIMAL QUEST REWARD SELECTIONS. RUUUUUUUUUUUUUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNED FOREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRR. (The most frequent complaint of Homo WoWicus Pretentious Hardcoricus, a wankerific subgenus that invariably rears its head in any conversation about gear and the relative difficulty/ease of procuring the same. See the post further down about people having mixed feelings about the new uber-expensive Black Market Auction House appearing in Mists of Pandaria. Also nothing to be done about it, as H. Wowicus Pretentious Hardcoricus is constitutionally incapable of extracting its head from its ass.)
* BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT I LIKED BEING ABLE TO SELL THE REWARDS I COULDN'T USE! THAT WAS A MAJOR PART OF MY CASH FLOW! (You can still sell stuff you either cannot use, no longer use, or don't want to use.)
* IT'S NOT FAIR THAT X ARMOR/WEAPON TYPE VENDORS FOR LESS/MORE THAN Y ARMOR/WEAPON TYPE! EVEN IF I SELL MY OWN OUTDATED QUESTING GEAR, I STILL WON'T BE MAKING AS MUCH MONEY FROM THE THE SALE A X ARMOR/WEAPON TYPE USERS! (The most recent Beta build normalized sale prices across all armor and weapon types.)
Or, and my personal favorite:
* I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO TAKE THE TWO SECONDS IT WOULD REQUIRE TO SWITCH BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN SPECIALIZATIONS EVERY TIME I TURN IN A QUEST! (Suggestion: examine all the gear rewards in one spec and then the other. Make your decisions accordingly and swap only twice. Especially useful for quest hubs where individual quest givers hand out multiple quests! Your brain, fucking USE it!)
I wish I were making this up, but I am not. Click the link. For bonus hilarity, read the exchange between myself (Ashatha), Mr. Killik, and ZacharyBrandon, where the delightfully passive-aggressive Mr. Brandon essentially accuses me of being morally identical to book-banners for the crime of observing that the WoW community is full of people who can and will complain about any/everything and that some complaints and opinions are not worth taking seriously.
Okay, so.
World of Warcraft is a game where you, along with millions of other people, sally forth in pixellated glory to slay dragons, stab demons, raid bosses, smite other players, and engage in this time honored activity known as questing for fun and profit. Quests in WoW work basically like this: you go out into the world, find a town/quest hub, talk to the NPCs known as quest givers, perform the quests that they give to you, and return to the quest giver, whereupon you are rewarded with an assortment of things, usually at least experience and a sum of in-game money, but also occasionally with a selection of gear for your character to equip -- or, as is more often the case for some sorts of characters, not equip. You see, gear quest rewards are really sort of hit-or-miss in terms of pure utility, mostly because WoW has many and varied character specializations and every gear quest does not reward every one of those specializations. And, in some cases -- such as "old" content in questing zones added in Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King -- the quest rewards are still itemized for specialization builds no longer supported by actual gameplay. F'rex: hunter mail quest rewards in Outland that carry Intellect and Spirit, two stats no longer even remotely useful for hunters, as they no longer use mana as a casting resource and thus have no use for stats that boost spell power or mana pool/regeneration. For another: the general paucity of plate quest rewards that do carry Intellect and Spirit, and which would directly benefit the gearing needs of holy paladins.
This is changing -- and changing objectively for the better -- in Mists of Pandaria where, instead of a random selection of gear that might be entirely useless to you, quest rewards will instead be tailored specifically to individuals, depending upon their class and specialization, and you will be able to swap back and forth between specializations if necessary before selecting a quest reward. Simply put, this means that for armor rewards plate-wearers will always be getting a selection of appropriately itemized plate rewards, cloth-wearers a selection of cloth rewards, mail and leather the same, and weapon rewards will also be similarly responsive -- no more picking which awesome two handed weapon you'll be vending because you're a tank and need an upgrade for your single-hander or shield. This is awesome at multiple levels and a very definite quality of life improvement that will positively impact every class in the game and so, of course, the WoW fanbase is fucking bitching about it.
No, really. They are literally complaining about something that will make their gear in both main and off-specializations simpler and less fraught with frustration and lack of appreciable reward. The substance of the complaints basically shake out as follows:
* THIS IS CHANGE. I FEAR CHANGE. THEREFORE, THIS IS AUTOMATICALLY BAD AND WRONG. (Nothing to be done about this one.)
* WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. WOW IS DUMBING DOWN THE QUEST REWARD SELECTION PROCESS TO APPEAL TO CASUALS/MORONS/BADDIES WHO DON'T KNOW HOW TO PLAY THEIR CLASS WITH SUBOPTIMAL QUEST REWARD SELECTIONS. RUUUUUUUUUUUUUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNED FOREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRR. (The most frequent complaint of Homo WoWicus Pretentious Hardcoricus, a wankerific subgenus that invariably rears its head in any conversation about gear and the relative difficulty/ease of procuring the same. See the post further down about people having mixed feelings about the new uber-expensive Black Market Auction House appearing in Mists of Pandaria. Also nothing to be done about it, as H. Wowicus Pretentious Hardcoricus is constitutionally incapable of extracting its head from its ass.)
* BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT I LIKED BEING ABLE TO SELL THE REWARDS I COULDN'T USE! THAT WAS A MAJOR PART OF MY CASH FLOW! (You can still sell stuff you either cannot use, no longer use, or don't want to use.)
* IT'S NOT FAIR THAT X ARMOR/WEAPON TYPE VENDORS FOR LESS/MORE THAN Y ARMOR/WEAPON TYPE! EVEN IF I SELL MY OWN OUTDATED QUESTING GEAR, I STILL WON'T BE MAKING AS MUCH MONEY FROM THE THE SALE A X ARMOR/WEAPON TYPE USERS! (The most recent Beta build normalized sale prices across all armor and weapon types.)
Or, and my personal favorite:
* I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO TAKE THE TWO SECONDS IT WOULD REQUIRE TO SWITCH BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN SPECIALIZATIONS EVERY TIME I TURN IN A QUEST! (Suggestion: examine all the gear rewards in one spec and then the other. Make your decisions accordingly and swap only twice. Especially useful for quest hubs where individual quest givers hand out multiple quests! Your brain, fucking USE it!)
I wish I were making this up, but I am not. Click the link. For bonus hilarity, read the exchange between myself (Ashatha), Mr. Killik, and ZacharyBrandon, where the delightfully passive-aggressive Mr. Brandon essentially accuses me of being morally identical to book-banners for the crime of observing that the WoW community is full of people who can and will complain about any/everything and that some complaints and opinions are not worth taking seriously.