The Coliseum and this entire patch is pretty much a gear reset for Icecrown. In some ways this is good – recruiting for Sunwell sucked when you needed to find people who didn’t need gear from MH/BT any more.

Unfortunately they screwed it up. 25-man bosses that you can kill on the first pull should not be dropping better loot than Ulduar hard modes. Grinding the heroic daily should not get you better loot than the Ulduar hard modes. What should have been an amusing interstitial between Ulduar and Icecrown has been turned in to an annoying grind of a poorly designed instance and heroics that were old news the week after I hit 80. Icecrown better be damn impressive after this.

Pretty much my entire guild agrees with everything you just said and the majority are already playing the Aion beta weekends. Unfortantly this means that we are losing alot of really good raiders which is making it harder for those few of us who are still interested to actually raid…

There isn’t even that distinction in gear that comes from being a regular raider when you know that people who dont put in the team effort are grinding heroics and ending up in the same T8.5 that you have been rocking.

I wish there were something in 3.2 that was new and exciting, but there isn’t. The closest thing to it was the new Druid forms that almost made me resub just to get my Druid from 70 to 80 and be all pretty while I did it. But such vanity isn’t worth the time for something I stopped considering fun a while ago.

I feel bad because I had really hoped that 3.2 would revitalize me so that I could play again and experience Icecrown when it’s released, but even the news on IC makes me go “bleh.” 31 bosses is a few too many given the MTV-generation attention span I’ve garnered regarding WoW lately. I’d love to be able to raid a few nights a week to see IC, but with 31 bosses and the “bleh” treadmill I’d have to run on to get geared to even walk in the door, I don’t think that WoW’s my thing anymore.

And that makes me really sad. Because I had high hopes for 3.2, but they were shattered by the very lazy design you talk about. I wanted something new and fun to make me care again, and instead, I get…this.
.-= Beej´s last blog ..True Blood – Wait, Who’s Doing Those Bad Things Again? =-.

Also, I would like to say what someone else said: looking back on BC is like looking back on a pile of garbage. BC was NOT Blizzard’s best by any shot. I miss Vanilla WoW. However, BC did have fine points, and honestly…it saddens me to hear someone say it was better than something else.

Good article! Kudos.

I don’t think there’s any force that could get me back into Naxx on either of my characters. There’s too much gray cinderblock covered in green goo.

I had green hair for so long that I don’t recognize my avatar with the white hairdo. At first, I looked like Phaelia, and I wasn’t happy with that, so I put the “bear” tattoo on my face and I’ve been happy since.

However, since the advent of Pink Kitty I’ve been in cat form for my strolls around Dalaran.

I can get runs done on my main, alt, and other alt and still it’s no problem to find a group for the next alt.

On making money. I actually make my money through raiding. Throw a naxx 10 group together, and go have fun. Pick up a mountain of conquest emblems, a pile of money, and have a relaxed evening of fun. Buy gems or orbs for the badges, and sell it. Honestly so much better than spending 2 hours at the AH selling stuff. And as profitable. (One naxx run can net you about 1000G that way on my server).

If none of this attracts you, go level an alt through BGs. It’s a new way of levelling and can be a lot of fun.

Not to mention extending raid lockouts, the fact that you can trade dropped items around (non enchanters are now getting their needy and greedy), and a different type of instance then what we have ever seen before.

Sure the design of the location might not be as amazing, but so far I have to say that the northrend beast encounter is well designed and a lot of fun to do.

Lots of new stuff and lots of design time, and though the art department might’ve been focusing on Icecrown already, I personally think that this patch has brought a lot of changes to the game. A lot of good ones as well.
.-= Shy´s last blog ..Cataclysm =-.