There may not be another issue revolving around World of Warcraft than loot and its distribution.  Once you get your character to max level, the only "leveling" beyond that is through loot.  It’s no surprise, then, that so many people take it so seriously.  I’ve always been somewhat vocal on this issue in my guild and elsewhere, and for a long time I’ve wanted to discuss it openly on the blog.  Before we get started, realize that this post will be chock-full of opinion, and I both expect and hope for much disagreement in the comment section.  Everyone has their own ideas on what is most "fair" and I’m sure I’ll rub at least one or two readers the wrong way. 

The good thing, though, is this:  I love a good fight.  Let’s get to it.

In the simplest terms, loot systems are designed to make the random distribution of loot less random.  Before you even get to the question of who should get a particular piece of loot, Blizzard’s calculators in the background must determine what will drop.  Therefore, before the players can even get involved, loot is already incredibly random.  With loot systems we normally try to remove as much of the randomness as possible. 

The goal of the many loot systems is to make that non-random distribution method "fair."

What is "fair?"

This is the crux of any loot system, and therefore the number 1 stumbling block.  Before you decide what loot system you should be using, or if you should use one at all, you have to determine what is "fair," at least in terms most of the people involved can agree on.  You won’t find a loot system where everyone agrees, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many out there!

There are many different ideas on what is fair when it comes to loot distribution, here are just a few:

• People who put in more effort are more entitled than those who show up occasionally, if at all.
• Everyone who participates in a particular raid should have the same chance at any loot that drops.
• Loot should go to those raid members who will benefit themselves and the raid the most.

I believe a lot of what makes a particular philosophy fair depends on your guild and membership.  If you aim to create and foster a hardcore, bleeding edge raiding guild, chances are you value who will benefit the raid most along with those who put in more effort.  If your guild is more casually focused, you are more likely to focus on a more equal distribution of loot that skews things less to the top end raiders.  Fair is too subjective a term to label any one system superior to the others in all situations. 

The problem is that many guilds could not classify themselves as either extreme:  all hardcore or all casual.  There are many gray areas, and trying to find where your "fair" should rest is questionable.  What if most of your guild is casual, but you have a hardcore contingent that wants more progress?  What if your guild is mostly hardcore, but you can’t seem to find all hardcore members, and have to pad your roster with more casual players? 

The Long View vs. the Short View

In the long view, the regular, random /roll is a fair system.  Over 100 raids, the numbers will normalize.  Sure, there will be spikes here and there, but a random  system is fair by definition.  The problem is that players don’t get the long view, and we rarely raid anything more than a dozen times or so.  Also, in my experience, the more a particular instance is raided, or the longer it is "on farm," the more loot rules tend to loosen.  Where in the beginning everyone is often interested in drops, as time goes on, and people begin to get focused, the pool of people interested in particular items naturally shrinks.  Toward the end of our Karazhan raiding, loot could be just short of a free-for-all, with new 70s getting many drops on their first run.

In the short view, /roll can be horribly distorted.  Because this system is truly random, each /roll is a separate entity, so individual players can (and often do) get high rolls an entire run, or for a few runs.  Obviously this is potentially quite irritating for other players who feel, for one reason or another, that they have put in more effort  and therefore deserve more.  It’s sort of like clearing the spawns around a couple of resource nodes only to watch another player swoop and in and take the rewards. 

In the short view, then, people understandably feel some kind of loot system is necessary — preferably one that rewards their level of effort.  Really, with the way raiding works in WoW, there really only IS a short view.  So how do loot systems try to address the problem?

The Question of Effort

Most loot systems try to translate your level of effort into gear.  If you raid more often, you will have more DKP or whatever your system uses in order to have more leverage when it comes to gear drops.  Conversely, if you raid less often or give less "effort," you are likely resigned, at least at first, to the drops that those with more points or what not don’t have an interest in or already have.  It makes sense.  If you raid more often, you should get more and better loot.  It’s good for you, and it’s good for the raid when a reliable raider gets better gear.

The problem with this thinking, in my opinion, is that those who raid more often already get more and better gear naturally.  Your effort is already rewarded by more chances at whatever piece of loot it is that you want.  In a way, loot systems will punish those who put out less "effort" when the RNG that determines what gear should drop is unkind to regular raiders.  I think the issue is with drops that are more rare than others.  No, I’m not talking about Legendaries like the Warglaives of Azzinoth, but just pieces that drop with less frequency than others.

These excessively rare pieces are often sought by many.  Does someone who raids more often really have any more right to it than anyone else?  I’m not sure.  I’m really not.  But I do know that chances are the people who raid more are better geared than those that raid less.  In fact that’s one of the only things of which I am fairly certain.

The Fix

So what can be done?  How do you make everyone happy?  Well, like I already said, you really can’t.  Loot systems are designed, for the most part, to try to appease both groups of players in some way.  The difference is in how the systems are managed and how much they are slanted either way.  Straight, capitalist DKP systems favor the hard core more heavily.  More liberal systems like weighted rolling systems and Suicide Kings tend to favor the more casual contingent, as they reward loot a little more evenly. 

In all honesty, there are only two systems that I believe are both fair and honest.  Loot council systems, and /roll.  Loot council systems at least don’t try to hide behind the machinations of a fictitious bureaucracy – real people make real choices.  There is blame to be had, yes, but at least those systems can be honest.  If your goal is to gear up regular raiders first, my opinion is that you should quit hiding behind a mechanical "system" and come right out and assign loot as you see fit.

That’s just me, though.

The regular old /roll system has its drawbacks, honestly, but it does give everyone a fair shake.  If you were in a group that helped kill a boss that dropped loot, you have as good a chance at anyone at getting said loot.  You don’t have to hear "sorry, player A tried more, so you can’t have it."  If you win the roll, you get the loot. 

I’d also like to add that I believe in the context of 10-man raiding, you should be able to just work things out without a system.  Honestly, if most of the loot that drops is only of interest to 2 or 3 people most of the time,  can’t we all just get along?  Especially if you are in a good guild?  Don’t you know that Player A has been begging that the loot Gods let that particular epic to drop while he’s around?  I know I would.  I know I’d step aside and let him have it, no matter my level of interest.  That’s just me, though.

I suppose part of me likes to rock the boat.  Part of me enjoys the random, slot machine nature of /roll.  I’ve been as burned as anyone else, but I’ve also come out on top.

My name is PTD, and I have a WoW jealousy problem.

And it’s high time that I admit it.  If you haven’t guessed from the blog’s title or from previous posts, I don’t have a whole lot of time to play WoW.  Now, I’m not a 2 hour a week guy, but my play time usually hovers around 10 hours or so a week.  Not a bad amount, but it comes in fits and starts, an hour here, two hours there.  I also have trouble scheduling raids with my guild, as their times just plain don’t mesh with mine.

I can’t blame them, though.  My times kind of suck.

Anyhow, what happens is I spend time wishing I had the time to raid.  I sit around and wish I could run back to back to back heroics, too.  But it just doesn’t happen.  It’s nobody’s fault, I just happen to have a family and, well…

Family >>>>>WoW

It’s a pretty simple equation.

Still, I can’t help but be a little jealous sometimes.  You see, I like to think of myself as a fairly SKILLED player with an absence of TIME.  I routinely beat out those better geared than I on the lovely little meters.  (And yes, Matticus, I know what you think about meters..)  I’m also very, VERY good at staying mobile when healing (I am a Tree, after all, a Tree that stands around too much is not a very good one in my estimation!) and I tend to pick up things very quickly. 

Honestly, there’s no way through the blog I could really illustrate my skill, but the most I can say is that I think I’m pretty good. 

So when I see people far better geared than I, I sometimes get jealous.  You see I may have grouped with you, and outhealed you, yet I don’t have all the shinies you do.  That just gets me thinking:  How much better could I be if I DID have another 400 spellpower to play around with?

There’s the jealousy.  I wish I had more time to farm heroics, but I don’t.  I wish that I could raid 3 nights a week, but I can’t.  And when I see other people that can, I sometimes get irrationally jealous.

I know it’s irrational, but that doesn’t stop it from happening.  Sometimes I get overly critical of other trees, poring over meters and thinking "this guy doesn’t use his tools!  He never even uses Nature’s Swiftness!"  Then I feel kind of bad about it, and I really must stop.  Hell, maybe that player would be jealous of my family, or my job, who knows.  I just need to knock it off.  So I ask myself, what’s the real problem?

Success in WoW is Nearly All About Time

And I won’t kid you, that bugs me.  This whole hardcore versus casual argument, for instance.  It’s rarely about real, measurable skill — chances are one guy just has a lot more playtime than the other.  After all, what constitutes leveling past the cap?  Gear!  How do you get the best gear?  Some kind of grinding!  Be it heroics, raids, farming, PvP, what have you.  The way you get better gear is spending a lot of time grinding for it in one way or another.

And time, my friends, is something I flat don’t have.

Think about this for a second.  You’re a raid leader, and you get two apps for one spot.  Both are tree druids, and just for the sake of argument, let’s say their gear is roughly equal.

Tree #1:  Able to raid up to 4 times a week, a total of 16 hours.  Can guarantee at least 3 nights per week.  Performed well, though not exceptionally, in a trial heroic run.

Tree #2:  Can only raid once per week, period.  Can’t guarantee more than that.  Performed well beyond expectations in a trial heroic run, same group, same instance.

Who gets the spot?  Tree #1, of course.  No questions asked.

In fact, in today’s WoW, I doubt it’s even a competition.  Unless there are some sort of mitigating factors, like Tree #1 being a know asshat, Tree #2 is out of luck.  He hopes to find a guild or some kind of outlet that will allow him to raid, but the prospects are dubious.

I am that Tree.  And honestly I can’t outright complain, that’s just the way things are.  WoW is a game that’s built as one giant time sink, in the end the guys that have more time to dump into it will come out on top.

This mentality spills over not just from basic game systems but to guild structures.  Besides, there are few good ways to accurately measure WoW skill, if there are any at all. 

So never mind me, I’ll just head back to the corner and snark about your play time.  Gripe to myself about how I wish I could run 4 heroics right in a row.  I’ll just envy your pull of 25 Heroic badges from one solitary play session, a number that takes me 2 weeks sometimes.

Oh well, I have beautiful kids. 

No, Burning Crusade was not an abject failure.  It certainly kept a lot of people enjoying the game for a long time, yours truly included.  In hindsight, though, I can see why I’m positively giddy with what I’m seeing in Wrath, and how it is light years beyond what BC ever hoped to be.  BC had some great instances, and added a lot to World of Warcraft overall, but it came up short in so many ways.  In terms of zone design and quest design, Wrath absolutely blows BC out of the water.

Before we get started, let me put on my fanboi suit. I know it’s around here somewhere…lessee…

Ahh, yes, here it is:

I couldn’t in good faith do a new blog post without including the 7 Levels of Awesomeness Murloc Suit. Whoever came up with that quest should get a raise. Or maybe a yacht. 

Zone Design

I’m talking about this first not because it’s the most important, but rather because it’s the first thing I really noticed.  Do you remember the first time you took the boat to the Howling Fjord?  I sure as heckfire do.  Boat rides normally meant go make a sandwich time, but the entry into the Fjord was absolutely jaw-dropping for me.  It’s the first zone I hit in the beta, and it’s the first taste I really got of the expansion.  I remember vividly thinking as the boat went along "That’s awesome."  "Wow, that’s awesome, too."  "How cool is that."  And it continued.  Just look at the waterfalls, the sky, the keep in the distance.  Beautiful.

So, do you remember when you first entered the Dark Portal in BC?  Sure, there was a cool battle going on right at the entrance, but what about the zone in general?  Rust colored, busted up mountain terrain.  Not all that exciting.  As I thought about this post, I tried to think about something memorable to say about the first zone in BC.  Well, I couldn’t really think of anything.  Hellfire Peninsula was essentially the same theme repeated ad nauseam – floating, red rocks and mountains.  Bleh. 

Now, let’s think about Borean Tundra, for comparison’s sake.  The zone is both beautiful and, more importantly, varied.  It’s almost like it has a half-dozen mini zones within the larger zone.  Coastlines, snowy mountains, lakes, plains, ruins, you name it.  It’s all there.  Hell, you might argue that there is more variety in the Borean Tundra than all of the Outlands combined.  And that’s just ONE ZONE!  I have now seen nearly ALL of Borean, the Fjord, Dragonblight and the Grizzly Hills.  Every one of them is beautiful and interesting.

Looking back, I’m having a hard time remembering an Outland zone I REALLY liked.  SMV, Netherstorm, Blade’s Edge, Terokkar and Hellfire all kind of sucked, to be honest.  I turn my back on them without hesitation.  Sure, each one had one redeeming quality or two, but overall they were just flat out boring.  Nagrand and Zangarmarsh were OK.  That’s the best I can do.

Quest Design

My first thoughts on quests in Northrend? "Holy crapload of quests, Batman!"  It starts off slow, but before long there is a flood of quests.  There are many, many quest hubs, and most have their own individual flavors.  I remember that at first I was intimidated by the 1.5 million EXP I’d need to level, but then before I knew it I was halfway home.  The reason I hardly realized my quick progress was because the quests were just so damn interesting.

Sure, there are plenty of vanilla "kill 10 of this, gather 12 of that" quests, but there are just as many different and interesting quests to keep things rolling.  Vehicle quests, long, interesting chains, plenty of lore that’s worth reading.

Looking back at BC, I can only think of a handful of memorable quest lines.  The Sons of Oronok chain in SMV, the Gorefiend line in SMV, the Ogri’la attunement series.  These quests were all interesting because they had visceral payoffs in terms of story and rewards. 

In Northrend, I can think of at least that many memorable quest lines in Borean Tundra alone. 

The Mechazod quest line:

The Dragon quest line outside the Nexus:

Last Rites:

All of these quest lines I just mentioned have one thing in common:  big time payoffs.  The quests in Northrend make you feel like you’re actually DOING something, not just looking for big EXP.  And how cool is it that you see Arthas so early and often?  The funny thing is, I haven’t even mentioned the Wrathgate series.  If you know what I mean by that, you know what I mean.  Wow Wrathgate, just wow. 

Even crazier is the fact that the three great quest lines I mention above are all in the introductory zone, Borean Tundra.  The memorable BC quests I noted are from much later in that game’s progression.

Final Thoughts

It’s really pretty simple, when you think about it.  Blizzard gets a little better at what they do all the time.  It’s really just like anything, you might do ok when you start out, but the more experience you get, the better the results usually are.  Think about McDonald’s, they didn’t have the Big Mac right at the start, they just really had regular old hamburgers and cheeseburgers.  It took some practice for them to churn out the genius that is the Big Mac.  I believe the same can be said for WoW.  Classic WoW was a good start, BC expanded on the game and experimented with some things, and now Wrath has taken the knowledge gained from BC and run with it.  Instances are faster.  Off specs can tank or heal normal 5 mans.  Rep grinds are streamlined.  Quests and lore are actually engaging.  So thus far, bravo Blizzard.  I’ve only seen 4 zones thus far (though every inch of said zones) but I have a lot of optimism for the future.  I guess my only question is whether Blizz will be able to keep this streak going!

I’ve been struggling.  Struggling with who I was going to level once Wrath hit.  Well, as I’m sure you’re aware, Wrath hit. 

Before we get into that, though, my sparse thoughts on the launch.  The launch, in my opinion, has been wildly successful.  A little too successful, in fact, as I am plagued by ginormous queues in the evening.  Friday night the queue stood at over 1100 when I tried to log on.  It took hours to get a spot.  Still, to me this is a sign of the games success rather than any kind of failing on Blizzard’s part.  Hopefully the free realm transfers they opened up alleviate the waiting a bit.

Now, about the topic.  My main for a long time has been my Resto Druid, hence the blog title.  Any kind of end-game raiding I have done in the lasts 2 years has been with that Druid.  I really enjoyed my time healing, and it also afforded me nearly guaranteed spots in any raid in which I was interested.  I’ve spent oodles of badges, pored over loot tables, and done everything else to keep my Druid in tip-top shape. 

Well, as raiding fizzled, so did my playtime with the Druid.  I didn’t feel any pressing need to run heroics with him, or spend time doing dailies.  So he was at least semi-retired in the weeks leading up to Wrath.  In that time, I toyed around with a few of my other characters.  My 70 Hunter, a 65 Shadow Priest, and finally leveled my Warrior into the mid 60s as well.  In that time, I found that the character I MOST enjoyed playing was the Warrior.

I love the look of plate armor.  I love the look of giant 2-handed weapons.  I love dishing out pain and being able to take a few hits.  With the changes to the Arms tree, I’ve loved the Warrior even more.

Still, I’ve been torn.  If I level my present "main," I will certainly find myself in the same position I was in before.  I’ll get spots in raids, I’ll be able to focus heavily on one character, and I already know my way around healing.  With that in mind, I started out in Wrath leveling the Druid.  I quested my behind off in Borean Tundra, as a Boomkin spec, and got him to level 71.  And you know what I realized?

I wasn’t having all the much fun playing him.

Sure, I was blasting the hell out of mobs, as the Boomkin spec with my T5ish spell power gear proved to be more than effective.  I liked seeing the big crits, and I liked mowing down everything in my path.  But – and I’m not entirely sure why – I was bored.  Maybe it’s the Boomkin play style.  I basically do the same thing with every mob I come across.  Moonfire, Insect Swarm, Entangling Roots (sometimes, not always), Wrath, Starfire.  By that time, said mob was either dead or very close to it, and I deliver an additional Moonfire or Wrath to finish the job.

I do this EVERY SINGLE TIME. 

Now, I could see how this spec would be enjoyable in a raiding situation.  I could see myself playing the numbers game, and doing everything I could to push maximum DPS.  For the purposes of leveling, though, I find it boring.

The Warrior, on the other hand, is pure joy for me right now.  Combat with an Arms Warrior, even when leveling, is more varied.  You have to spend your time monitoring your skills, and watching for when Overpower or Execute light up.  Also, while my Boomkin can take a few mobs if necessary, my Warrior can REGULARLY obliterate several mobs at once.  You want to see fun?  Look at what happens on my screen when I collect 4 or so mobs and pop Retaliation and Bladestorm.

So that reminded me of something.  I often wonder, why do we play WoW?  What is it that’s so great?  Well, when you peel away everything, at its core it’s all about the FUN. 

And, well, I’m having fun with the Warrior, in spades.  So it is that I will continue to focus on the Warrior, at least for now, and put the Druid and everyone else on the back burner.  I’m not abandoning them, but for now they are in a holding pattern.  Now, this could be just the first blush of love with the Warrior, maybe I’m in love with the "different" and not with the actual class itself.  I guess I’ll have to keep playing him to find out!

Is this blog still the "Part Time Druid?"  Absolutely.  For me, this blog has moved beyond my original concept.  I can still talk about MOST of the things I was talking about already, regardless of what I do in the game.  Don’t expect any Druid Gear posts in the near future, but you never know!  Anyhow, back to Wrath!

I don’t know about the rest of you, but since the patch I’ve been literally obsessed with the new achievement system.  I’ve been running all over Azeroth with my warrior alt (now 52) and trying to complete as many of them as I can.  Which, for a 52, isn’t all that many.  I suppose I could be doing this with my Druid or Hunter, who have the ability to clear all the BC and before achievements, at least.  With the Warrior, I can only do so many.  I suppose part of the fun doing it with an alt is that I’m gaining actual experience while I do them.

This brings me to my point about achievements.  Why am I doing them anyway?  What do I get out of them?

If you really look at it, there are very few quantifiable rewards for achievements.  The more difficult to complete achievements give titles a lot of the time.  There are also the nebulous achievement points, but I have no idea what you can use those points for anyway.

So what’s the deal?  Why do I bother? 

Is it for the pop-up on the screen when I successfully complete an achievement, along with the message in guild chat?

Is it for the fact that something that was once "grayed out" on my achievement panel is now colored in?

I suppose that the answer is really none of those, though they do help at least a little.  I think the real answer has to do with the completionist in me.  This hearkens back to my days playing Mario games.  If you remember Mario 64, that was one of the first games that really CATERED to that completionist tendency.  Sure, you could beat the game with a fairly low percentage of the 120 available stars, but who did that?  I spent a LONG time after beating it scouring every nook and cranny for the deviously hidden "secret" stars to get all 120.

I suppose I wanted to feel like I had really "beaten" the game, and wasn’t satisfied with just taking down Bowser.  It’s funny, too, that in the end the reward for getting all 120 stars was absolutely and completely underwhelming. 

So are achievements a way for people to feel like they "beat" WoW?  Do we now have a way to say we "beat" the classic and BC content before Wrath hits?  Even if you do manage to unlock ALL of the pre-Wrath achievements, what exactly will you get for it beyond the satisfaction of having done so?

In the end, though, if you look at all the different things you can achieve in the game, be they loot, boss kills, or how many vanity pets you own, none of them mean all that much.  Even the shiniest Warglaive of Azzinoth will soon be deemed unworthy of an equipment slot, and I’m sure the day will come that you will vendor your Kara or T5 or T6 gear.  Achievements, though, will be here to stay.