For everyone wondering why we aren't still running around in Daoc. Dark Ages was created as a pvp game. The first several years were awesome. There was no gear grind. There was no end game grind of any kind. Realm abilities were nice but the most powerful ones could be gotten fairly quickly leaving the rest as mostly modest stat boosts. The problem was Mythic decided to compete for the pve endless grind market. They turned their backs on the core of their own game. Epic loot, master levels, legendary weapons all served to remove the even playing field that existed before. When the game started you leveld to 50 got a couple of groups together and quickly did your epic quest for which you got a full suit of level 50 armor and that was it. After that you just played rvr. After atlantis you got to level 50 and you still had a long grind in front of you. Epic loot, Legendary weapons (which had to be leveled), Master Levels. All PvE crap that was a big *** road block to rvr. That began the slide, a steady loss of player base which is brutal for a game based on group play. When all three realms have 500 to 1k people online rvr is a blast. When all three realms combined are less than 500 rvr sucks. WoW has been successful by staying true to its core design. A PvE game with a endless gear progression system. Doac died because it took a pvp game and tried to tack on a pve progression system. The steady decline of player base and as a result revenue stopped any major upgrades from occurring. Thus, you have a game with dated graphics, ancient ui, and all the pve crap that killed the game is still there. Although they put in short cuts, the imbalances from all the pve crap and extra 'levels' still cripples the game. Add in a 15$ a month fee and there ya go. If EA took a group of programmers and modernized the graphics and ui of the original game, implemented the class balance that took place over the first years you would have a successful game. The problem is that no pvp only game will ever come anywhere close to the popularity of WoW. The community simply isn't large enough. ( might help ourselves here if the pvp crowd could stop being such a large collection of ******es. If we as a community were nicer and not so intent of driving away other segments of the gaming population developers might be more willing to take a risk on a pvp game...just a thought.) The ultimate game would be one that could marry the pve of WoW to the rvr of Daoc. ( yes other games had great pvp but Daoc appealed to larger numbers and companies like large numbers). Not sure it could be done as the gear progression of wow would (actually did when Mythic tried it) kill daoc rvr. And a Daoc endgame with little character progression wouldn't work for a wow pve system.

It isn't losing that annoys people it's not even having a chance to win. There is a big difference. Most people don't veiw the 'pay my dues' bit as philosophically as you do. Like you I prepared for 50 by saving commendations and gear bags and I will likely be in champ gear in a week and battle masters a couple after that. But not everyone will prepare in that manner. Also as more and more people reach battlemaster, having ungeared 50's will become even more of a weakness in warzones. To me it is simple, most people want to at least have a chance at winning. Removing the gear differences gives everyone a fighting chance at winning. That will bring more people into pvp thus making warzones pop faster and get more people out to illum and smuggler's den. More people = more fun. There are plenty of ways to reward players without giving them an unreasonable advantage. Most would be fine with server rankings. I.E. most kills per week, most healing done, most warzones won etc. you can also give out special gear(cosmetic) and titles for success in pvp.

Not sure you understand what it will be like when you hit 50 and try to pvp. There are already quite a few battlemaster groups running. In a month the warzones will be saturated and you WILL get destroyed by anyone in full gear. Are you willing to spend two months losing non stop, getting chain stunned and annihilated by higher gear players? A brand new ungeared 50 is arguably less useful to a warzone team than a lvl 10 in the lower bracket. Still your point is taken, but I think the majority of people would prefer that pvp be an even playing field without any artificial advantages or disadvantages based on time played.

Everyone keeps saying this but I have yet to meet anyone who actually supports it. most everyone I have spoken to or read thinks this gear system sucks. People want fun, fair, balanced pvp. Above everything else pvp requires participation from lots of people. Removing the imbalance of gear removes the biggest entry barrier to pvp. Normalizing stats for all classes takes care of any potential imbalance with pvp vs. pve raiders.

That said... you best not take all my gear away as I like to dabble in PvE as well and use my PvP gear for that. Not talking about removing any gear. Simply code in a 'pvp' buff that normalizes all stats regardless of what gear you are wearing. Pvp gear would still be available but the stats on it would only be useful for pve and for random pvp on pvp servers. In warzones (and I would hope Illum and Smuggler's den) your gear wouldn't matter beyond appearance.* * This has the added benefit of solving the problem where from lvl 10-49 I managed to look like a dark lord of the sith but upon hitting 50 I look like I have been dumpster diving in the garmet district. The pvp suits look atrocious as it is but it's even worse when you are in half champ gear/ half whatever gear you were using to level.

This is likely the easiest way for bioware to save whats left of pvp in this game. Normalize stats for each class and their opposing mirror. Doing this you could even retain expertise as an easy way to manage overall healing/damage/mitigation across the board. Simply assign x amount of expertise to every character. Honestly, at this point you don't have anything to lose Bioware so why not step up and copy successful pvp games. You already have the bolster mechanic in place so we know you can normalize stats at least to some extent.* The current system WILL fail. As you get a larger pool of people rolling in full battlemaster gear, new 50's will refuse to submit themselves to months of slaughter to even have a chance at winning. I would even add this to open pvp. Normalize gear in illum and smugglers den as well. Limit unbalanced gear based pvp to the pvp servers. Please, in this area you need to go in the opposite direction of WoW. * I don't mean that to sound as if this is a simple task. I realize there may be massive problems to overcome some possibly insurmountable but it's worth the attempt.