This is Not the Post You're Looking For...

New PTR Push, and no I haven't downloaded it yet coz I'm trawling through MMO's site, where they have. There's a gazillion sound files for Icecrown, and there's a lot given away. Go there at your peril.

What has grabbed me most however (apart from the Meeting Stone change, which frankly is well overdue) is this line of text:

PvP
Battlegrounds

• All level 71-80 Battleground daily quests will now award 25 Arena points in addition to their current rewards.

Now, this is fairly huge. Yes, really, it is. Before 3.3 THE ONLY WAY to get arena points was via the Arena, quite obviously. The fact that Blizzard has now decided to award them for BG victories is pretty damn significant.

I assume it will work like this: all current Season's gear (the stuff that requires an actual team rating) will remain as is, but the previous Season's gear (and by that I don't just mean armour, I mean weapons as well) will have it's rating removed, thus allowing people to purchase them both after reaching the current points total. By far the biggest beef of everyone I know in PvP is the fact you have to play arena to buy resilience weaponry. Not any more, I'd fancy.

This is great news for my slacker PvP aspirations. Yes, I can see myself  grinding a 2 hander for P at least. But what is probably more significant is the fact that from 71-80 I can now level in BG's and have some points towards what would be (if it is true) some fairly decent kit for my alt family. Weaponry is always a big beef at 80: not just the main hand stuff but (certainly in the case of my casters) the offhands. Offhands are like hen's teeth when you run on a casual basis. Shields too, especially in the case of my Shaman.

I can see a lot of hardcore Arena players getting annoyed by this, as it's undoubtedly another concession by Blizz for the casuals. For me at least it's a great step forward in making PvP viable in my relaxed playing style.

Honesty

I like Billy Joel. I am comfortable admitting this to you guys, because with nearly 200 posts under my belt, I feel I can be honest with you. Please don't hate me as a result, ok?

Anyway, I am doing some Real Life at the moment. It's stuff that, to be honest, I need to do before the year is out, and now that both my kids are doing full-time at school, it really should be sorted sooner rather than later. So, I apologise in advance if things are a little slower than usual, but this is a good time for me to stand back a bit and sort out the Things Not in Warcraft. There will still be posts, but if it goes quiet from time to time, you know why.

Having said that, I have a post coming later, once I find the kitchen table again. It was there this morning, I swear, but now seems to be covered in a Large Pile of Stuff... ^^