The game indicator of winning in WoW is receiving an epic item.In vanilla WoW, the vast majority of epic items came from 40-man raiding. Granted, there was an epic hunter quest, and a few limited crafting bits, and world drops, and a top-level pvp set that only a handful of people could get. But in all, the reality was that if you wanted a reliable way to get epic gear (and win), you hooked up with a raid guild and started raiding… whether you liked raiding, or not.

Compare with the current WoW, TBC. The reliable ways to get epic items include:
25-man raiding
10-man raiding
heroic five man instances
crafting
participating in arena
participating in battlegrounds
purchased at a vendor with tokens (Badge of Justice) obtainable from 10/25-man raiding or even daily questing
and also the world drop/auction house

People who play in hardcore raiding guilds miss the days of when they were the only ones with epics. Despite their complaining, Blizzard has consistently introduced more ways to get epic items, not less. They’ve made the game more accessible to those who can’t or won’t hardcore raid. This is great for players like me: a new father, full-time working, and so on. If I get spend one or two nights a week online, I’m happy and will continue to keep my account active. And the game will reward me for it. And when I do participate in raids, my gear won’t be a liability, only my rustiness.

With 2.4, every last crafting profession yields BoP benefits akin to useful epics, even alchemists. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next expansion, Blizzard expanded the BoJ purchasing scheme even further, allowing (in essence) crafted Badges of Justice.

The best part is that these paths to success aren’t finite anymore, either. Now when a higher-level of loot is released to 25-man raiders, a waterfall of upgrades cascades down to those who aren’t involved in 25-man raiding. New heroic loot, new badge of justice rewards, a new arena season, upgraded battleground gear, another tier of crafting or relaxation of material requirements. Basically, they’re giving everyone new ways to continue improving, without ever having to set foot in a 25-man raid. You’ll never have gear as good as all those dedicated raiders, but you won’t be left in the cold, either. Blizzard now adds loot across the board.

In short, there are many ways to win.

This hurts guilds trying to build up to 25-man raiding (including my own), because in vanilla wow you had a lot of players who were in raiding guilds solely for the loot (again, like my own). The primary reason the people are in my guild stick around is because they like each other! This makes my guild more fun, and therefore the experience of playing the game more fun.

I’m looking forward to the next expansion to see how this trend continues.

I started off playing World of Warcraft because my best friend said that he loved it. He’s usually a great gauge for what I will like, although I hated Heavy Metal 2000. (In all fairness, it was one of those times where he loved the original Heavy Metal in his teenage years and was horrified upon seeing the sequel ten years later) He asked me over to his place so I could try it out, and my first question was “Where’s the run button?” He laughed.

A couple of years later, and I’ve solo’ed to max level, had my wife join me in game (to great joy), grouped up to max level more than once since then. We’ve been in a couple of guilds, and ultimately found the guild that became our WoW online home. In this guild, I’ve been: an enthusiastic member, a newbie officer, a raid leader, guild master, and now am a veteran officer.

My guild is casual/raiding pve, which translates to max-level/light-endgame. We’re all adults with jobs, we play well when we’re on, but all of us have real lives that we don’t put aside for the game. We’re good friends.

I raid with a healing priest and a tank warrior (whichever as needed), and dabble with other classes as time permits. My wife raids with a combat dagger rogue and dabbles with a druid. We know a little about battlegrounds and arena, but not much.

The game is fun; it was my primary hobby before my daughter was born (less than a month ago). Now I’m a casual dad. I play when I can. I help out the other officers in other ways when I can’t be online.

I’ll expand on most of this over time, but this is a decent overview of where I’m coming from.

In my April 2008 issue of Writer’s Digest, there’s a short article by G. Kyle White called “Back Up Your Work for Free”. Here’s the first sentence:

There’s a saying in Texas: If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute and it’ll change.

Ah, Texas. Compare this to Mark Twain’s famous quote:

If you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes.

I’ll put aside that this is a paraphrase of one of the most famours literary figures ever, appearing as original in a magazine on writing, and nobody caught it.

I love the whole Republic of Texas meme, and how this quote shows how Texas weather changing is clearly… bigger than New England’s. Because everything’s bigger in Texas. I can’t help but wonder what other sayings that Texas has.

• A stitch in time saves seventy-two.
• Killing ten birds with one stone.
• The only thing we have to fear is hesitation itself.

Also, I didn’t read the rest of the article because I was laughing too much.