They be takin' mah points

All week long I had been looking for a good topic to write about. I'd seen the phrase “welfare epic” a time or two and was ready to unload on all and sundry how wrong I thought everyone was about that. Using welfare as if it's an insult makes me want to hit people over the head with a bound copy of Das Kapital, just so you know. But thankfully, Blizzard released some patch notes for 4.2 that caused a bit of a stir and I rejoiced!

As things stand right now, Blizzard intends to lower the weekly cap of valor points from 1250 to 980, while leaving points gained from Zandalari dungeons and regular heroics at their previous caps. Previous heroic raids will give only half the current valor points and the new Baradin Hold boss will also drop a mere 35 points in a 10-man raid. This means that a player may cap their valor points in a week through Zandalari dungeons alone, but will find it difficult doing so by raiding. Cue the rage.

Mind you, I find the cap to be a nuisance at best, as I am a burst player. I spend weeks doing very little in game and then find myself in a fortnight of frantic activity. WoW and many other MMOs, especially those with a subscription model, do not support that kind of play-style. They live on sustained interest and need me to log on, if not every day then at least every week to not fall behind the curve too much, to facilitate uninterrupted subscriptions.

But let's examine the valor point system. One of the main reasons why we have valor and justice points at all (previously tokens) is to off-set the ridiculous RNG-heavy loot distribution in raids and dungeons. Intelligent loot, it is not. Downing a raid boss is its own reward, but more often than not it is also its only reward, because it drops a spell-sword and heal-plate in a raid without mages, warlocks or paladins. No matter how lucky you get, there is a very real limit to the items that a raid group can gain from a boss, the loot table is not an endless fount of beautiful sparkling epics.

Valor points offer supplemental items. There are the three set pieces and there may be a best-in-slot item for a particular spec or class, but the items on the valor gear vendor are hardly the be all, end all of progression raiding. They are supposed to be a personal back-up for when the RNG gods hate you personally, or as a way to catch up for people who've just gotten back into raiding or are doing so for the first time. Hardcore progression raiders don't need valor gear. In fact, the highest ranking ones are so far ahead of the curve that by the time they've collected enough points to buy their second item, they're already retiring until the next patch.

The point system is a way to reward and progress the unlucky. Currently a group may be getting more than 2 useable items per person per week, if the loot fits the group make-up and gear status. That same group may also get a whole lot of nothing, especially in 10-man when they may not have all classes or even all armor and weapon proficiencies present. To alleviate an individual's or group's bad luck, valor points are a constant, but much slower source of new gear. Equalizing prices and needs, right now it takes a bit less than two weeks for a player to get one valor item.

Of course, if there were no cap at all and we had an unlimited supply of points (perhaps as reset-able raids or valor points for all random heroics instead of just the first 7) serious raiders might feel they had to chain-run raids and/or heroics to the detriment of their own health and/or sanity. More casual players might then feel they were being punished for not being insane enough.

The valor cap was always an arbitrary number. It paced the gear progression of a single player – not a raid group. Any group tended to have some visible progress over the course of several weeks and across all their members, but a single player may outpace or fall behind that progress by being exceptionally lucky or unlucky (not just on loot rolls, but also simply by which loot becomes available that week). Valor helped with that by offering a base-line of sorts for each raider to gain new powerful gear.

Lowering the cap in the next patch to 980 points is essentially lowering that base-line, but there is also a lot more viable potential gear. The difference between old heroic and new normal gear is negligible and that ups the number of items a group may want and get in a given week, while still maintaining a reward floor for those few of us who still haven't even seen the one item they truly wanted.

As for the heroic dungeon caps – the reason these remain the same is extremely simple and has nothing to do with veteran raiders. Valor also provides new or newly returned players the ability to get ready for any given tier of content without having to raid through older content. Let's face it, if my new guild is raiding Firelands, they're not going to take time out of their schedule to pull me through Bastion of Twilight and Blackwing Descent first. It's an accessibility feature. Valor gear won't make me a better raider, but it will give me the chance to prove myself. It's also turnover protection for a guild or raid group, so perhaps it's better not to scoff at it too hard.

In conclusion, the new cap is hardly the end of the world for raiders – if it were any higher they would have to supplement their points with heroic runs and nobody seems to want that. It doesn't affect non-raiders at all, as they will still get the same amount of points. It's a tempest in a tea-cup filled with delicious troll tears.

Winged Guardian of my heart

Sometime yesterday Blizzard released the Winged Guardian in its online store. Cue the conversation over micro transactions, digital ego boosters, business practice and more people being wrong on the internet than you can shake a stick at. Personally, I'm beyond upset. Let me tell you why.

I think the mount is absolutely gorgeous. I love the way it moves, I adore the detail and texturing and the glowy bits. Simply put, it's the WoW mount I always wanted. Some of the newer dragons and the proto-drakes are close, but this one, this is it. Someone said elsewhere that it reminded them of The Lionking. There's a reason why that was my favorite movie growing up - something about the stylized, beefy-looking lions hits my aesthetic buttons, and this mount has it all.

Okay, now we have established that I want it like burning.

So, really, what's the problem, you say?

I don't have anything against micro transactions, actually. I think they're a prefect solution for giving everyone access to most features and still support development in a free-to-play game. I'm not a fan of restricting something categorically, so I prefer those systems that allow for a way to unlock that content in game through some kind of challenge or grind - I support selling in-game currency or unlocks that would otherwise take a long time above selling elite or exclusive items needed for progression. I also do not mind cosmetic items.

My favorite business model is what Arenanet is doing for Guild Wars - you buy the game, giving them a serious infusion of money on release and then you are free to play it forever, while adding only cosmetic or convenience items to the store. I tend to buy these without remorse because I like supporting the game developers and they always give me the choice.

There's a psychological factor here, beyond the economical. Micro transaction in a free-to-play or hybrid model give me the feeling of control. Guild Wars vanity items (costumes in particular) usually come in pairs that are cheaper as a package deal upon release, but the package deal has an expiration date. It gives the whole thing a sense of both saving money and urgency, no matter what actual value you attach to digital vanity items. It certainly makes me feel good upon buying an item in their store and that's something.

Now, Blizzard unfortunately presents the most costly alternative. They are already holding my characters hostage. I do pay the same amount of money for a WoW expansion as I would for a Guild Wars one, but that still leaves me with €12,99 a month for nothing but the privilege to access my characters and enjoy the social interaction the game provides. Upkeep and support costs are high indeed, but not that high. So here I am, already thinking that Blizzard is too expensive compared to other similar services.

Enter the pet store. I would love to buy some - or all - of these. I'm not morally opposed to micro transactions or fluff material added for extra money, I'm really not. Just recently I bought the first Dragon Age 2 DLC item pack because it was pretty (and provided some interesting lore, but mostly the stuff is nice to look at). But Blizzard is killing me. €20 is too much for me. Not economically, but psychologically. I can't really justify it to myself. That's two months worth of playing time or half an expansion.

Here is the core of it: I would love this mount. If I had a significant other, I would drop anvil-sized hints until they bought it for me (let's be honest here, I'd prefer this to a bouquet of flowers or some cheap yet affectionate jewelry any day of the week); if something like a birthday or any other gift-giving holiday was coming up, I'd make noises about this to any of my lovely gifting-inclined family members. But none of that is an option. I have to make this decision for myself and my principles are warring with my desire and this dissonance is making me very unhappy.

If I bought it myself, I would be marginally less unhappy - the underlying issues would still be there and I might hate myself in the morning but at least I'd have a OMFG FLYING LION THAT GLOWS. The only other way to reduce that dissonance is to convince myself that the lion isn't all that good, possibly loudly and in public, so that I can feel others agree with me.

Or I could camp that Time-Lost Proto Drake until my head turns blue, whichever.