Will hardcore raiding exist on the worlds most hardcore realm?
Hello,
I'm fairly new to this realm (and private servers in general) and recently discovered there will be a coin store where you can buy items. So far, the experience has been top notch and even though I've only put nine hours into the game, I plan on donating regularly to the team behind it and would like to see this realm prosper. I've been looking for a server where I can experience WoW in a retail-like way during WoWLK for ages so finding Lordaeron has had me giddy as hell. But this aspect is a little worrying to me as the second a realm goes with a pay-to-win model, it loses it's integrity as a "hardcore" realm. P2W is casual content enjoyment, not hardcore competition.
Developing strategies, theorycrafting for your roles, and pushing boundaries are what make raiding, raiding. This is all rewarded with gear in World of Warcraft (even retail) which not only lets us feel like bountiful conquerors who had earned their prestige, but it also lets us conquer bigger and bigger challenges. Now, once you allow gear to be bought, this is all thrown away. Being a conqueror depends on how much real life money you throw at the game. The strategy, theorycrafting, and competition are rendered irrelevant as the only boundaries that are really necessary to push are those of our wallets. This kills the idea of gaming (fun competition) at its very core. Of course, it doesn't kill the games themselves since there's still fun in playing the game and I'm not at all saying it's a bad thing that some people would prefer that. But can it any longer be considered hardcore? No.
That said, I'm hoping this won't be the case with Lordaeron, so I really wanted to ask if anyone knew how the shop will work in regards to raiding gear and the influence it will have on the competitive raiding scene. Will BiS items be available in the store? It's mentioned on the forums that you can only 'upgrade' items through the store. Is there a limit to how many times you can upgrade? I've been in the hardcore raiding scene for eight years now and it's not at all uncommon for people to go to great lengths to get that boss kill once things get competitive. If your guild is wiping at 15% on HMLK25 for a week, it would not at all be surprising that the guild begins encouraging it's members to pay for their BiS gear so that they can guarantee a kill next pull if they wanted to get the first kill on the realm. Now the guild who would have had that realm first achievement and has been working tirelessly to get it doesn't because their competition essentially purchased buffs for themselves. They didn't kill the boss with time and effort, they killed it with money.
TLDR: In regards to hardcore raiding, a guild buying gear is effectively the same thing as a guild buying a nerf for an encounter. This makes realm firsts depend less on who is good at and dedicated to the game and more on who donated the most to the server. Is this going to be prevented within the coin store? Being able to purchase raiding gear for bosses that haven't been killed by the player is the final nail in the coffin, not just for me, but for fair competition in PvE.
