Is this really good for the rep of the community much less the server?

[cishop]

Instead of complaining: why not setup your own raid with your own rules as to how it's conducted, OR:

I used to run Money bidding runs for raids that were farmable in groups (primarily TOC 25) back in Wrath on live:
-to join, everyone has to pay a fee (100g), but will be paid back and then some at the end* (this is to only keep people from leaving early, and comes into play later).

Every item has a set starting bid of what would be reasonable (1-2k gold), and the raid bids on items, till the highest bidder is found.
This money goes into a pot. This pot + starting fee = gold payout to the rest of the raid who stay (you have to make this a stipulation. NO payout for those that leave early).

1) people who get the items and can afford it, are happy.
2) Everyone gets JP
3) everyone gets a split of the overall pot.

They were very successful on my realm, and I made well over 2 million from dividends over the course of the expansion.

[Selaya]

Ah, the good ol` gold DKP raid.

[DarkGrudge]

I been here over 4 yrs total and i feel like i pretty much seen it all when it comes to the on goings of players ect.. But one thing i have noticed and to me its not good.

Granted the economy use to be pretty screwed up, people with millions of gold ect. walking around. Hell i had over 4.5 mil myself at one point.. BUT..the point i am trying to make is that the staff has "tried" to correct the economy which is in theory a good idea. The thing is though by making the drops low, gold harder to make (not to bad if ya got professions and know what your doing) this has moved greed to a whole other level. Now 8 out of 10 raids.. you get reserve.. reserve.. reserve.. reserve... unless its a guild run and even then i seen reserve come into play. Scammers, well we all know they have always existed but now more so then ever. All of this is ripple effects of trying to have a "stable" economy. To me, i wish the drop rates would go back up, gold easy as crap to come by like before. This cuts down on the reserve crap and scammers, not to mention making it easier for people to get gear and such. If you need the ashen rep go do icc rep runs, but yea.. still pretty much forced to to it EVEN THOUGH 95% of the time any boe is RESERVED which is stupid cause if you have a tank that can actually use it he can't get it and is forced to stay maybe with a blue or even worse a greenie simply because some douchbag wants it to sell in the ah.

Before, i didnt care to pay 200k for a piece of gear cause gold was easy to make... now that same piece of gear you might can get for 45k but the ripple effects of being able to do this is all that i mentioned above. People in the community are already aggravated over the gold situation then to top it all off now 100% more reserve and scammers. Granted that some can still build up gold but not like before, BUT the majority cant. If nothing else the i think the drop rates should be raised some. When trying to make the economy stable making everything a rare drop and making gold harder to make isnt the solution. There has to be a nice balance.. a sweet spot if you will to make it stable across the board.

Everyone can't donate full bis and they rely on being able to gear in game (like your supposed too) but now .. even fos and pos has ninjas and reserver sometimes , really, really reserve or ninja pos that alone speaks volumes. Myself i have 1 full bis toon atm and a ton of alts i am gearing up legit and i can tell you now coming from an experienced player that these ripple effects all but make you wanna quit when playing now.

Just my take on it all guys and i realize everyone has their own opinion, whats yours?

I guess I, respectfully, disagree with your opinion here. You're making the assertion that people are somehow "cheated" by reserves, whereas I (and the staff here, apparently) feel that's not the case as long as the loot-rules were properly communicated to all upfront. Outright ninja'ing is one thing, as shown by their stance of 60day bans for the trouble.

The piece that I think you're intentionally leaving out is that most people who are joining "reserved" raids are those who have many wants beyond those that are reserved, otherwise they wouldn't join, of course. It's a question everyone asks themselves when joining one: is getting a chance at multiple item improvements worth giving up my roll to the reserved ones IF it should drop? Obviously, the longer the list of reserves, the more likely the answer is "no," but that should be up to the individual contributor to decide.

Yes, you can argue that reserving BoE drops in ICC is greedy...yes, you can argue that reserving patterns in ToC is greedy...and you'd be right. But, if you actually need only those items, why are you joining the raids anyway and not making your own? Doesn't the chance to "earn" the other 5 upgrades you need out of a raid outweigh the slim possibility that one of those BoEs will fall right into the RO's inventory? I personally think letting someone else struggle to put the raid together is worth that cost,.

Considering just how frustrating putting a raid together is, as others have said here, I'd wager if you regularly put your own raids together you'll very likely change your stance on reserves, especially when you regularly find people are horribly impatient for putting together 25-man raids together and just leave with no notice dragging the process out to several hours in some cases.

Finally, the flip-side can likely be (except in BoE reserves) that the RO really only needs the one or two items, thus implying less competition for the others he already has. A simple whisper to the RO to check is often enough, as they will want you in the raid.

Let's also not forget that "reserves" have been Blizz-like forever.

TLDR: I personally am OK with joining raids with some reserved items, as long as they're clearly communicated before I joined the raid -- I know I always have the choice to create a competing raid without the aforementioned reserves, if I so desired