Recently on the pvp forums at World of Warcraft a thread was started by Barthilas asking which people preferred: Battlegrounds or Arena. Some of the answers so far have been overwhelmingly leaning towards the old days and what the battlegrounds meant. As an active arena player each week you would think I would disagree with these people, but I do not. While I enjoy the arenas and what it can do for you gear wise, I still miss the old days when you would battle against the top players and teams in Alterac Valley, Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin to see not only who was better, but for titles and gear.
In pre-arena days it actually meant something when you had your gear put on from the battlegrounds. People knew you spent the time needed and put forth the effort to succeed. I honestly do not believe blizzards true intention was to make gear become as common place as buying a sandwich at Mcdonalds, but this is exactly what has happened. In fact the days of true fun in the Battlegrounds are essentially over. Battlegrounds are nothing more now to people then a means for them to simply gear up a character in quick and easy purple epics.
Take for example the fact that much of the reputation gear including that of the new Shattered Sun Offensive is essentially only filler pieces until season one arena gear is fully equipped on a character. The reason is that blizzards attention has been more focused on the arenas and they have paid little attention to those that want better gear from the pve side of the game that is more in line with what is being provided to arena players.
I know this sounds strange coming from someone who plays in arena, but I honestly would prefer to go back to the old ways. What is happening in World of Warcraft is reminiscent of what Nascar is doing today with their race cars, by making everything on the mechanics side so equal that essentially it is becoming quite boring. Well lets hope that Blizzard will finally come to their senses and balance out their efforts to make both arena players and pve players happy.
