There is no such thing as an even playing field for MMORPGs. Investing more time or money in them will always get you ahead in any of these games.

This is true, but nothing is perfect in this world. So, I guess what's important is how close to an even playing field a game is.

Maybe this "equality" thing is what makes WoW so popular. You can spend lots of money/time, but you won't really get that much far ahead if you don't have skill.
 

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I agree in "time = money", so someone with more time/money will get ahead.

However I disagree that there is no even playing field. The point is that "victory" is defined by progress/time. A world first C'thoon was great thing ONCE, now I can kill him with 2-3 players.

The person who kills the Lich King in farmed badge gear will kill it much later than the skilled player did (on the first or second week).


One must notice that "completing the content" is NOT equal to "winning", just like running the Marathon in 5 hours will get you the Marathon badge, but you won't be considered winner.

With money/time you can complete anything, but not in a competitive manner. That needs skill.
 

I don't think people generally set the bar that high, that they would consider themselves "winners" only if they did server first kills, and "losers" if they don't. Otherwise on every server there would be like 25 winners and 20,000 losers, which isn't a viable business model.

I think everybody first looks at his own progress, and then at the progress of people he knows, his friends, his guild mates. Gaining an iLevel 264 epic and getting up in gearscore considerably because of that would for most people already count as "a win", regardless of whether they got that epic through spending lots of time farming emblems, or spending dollars on gold and buying the epic as boe from the AH.
 

Sounds all very egalitarian, until you take the criticism and replace money with time.


Not at all!
If I play badminton against a professional badminton player I won't tell him: It is unfair, that you are better than me: You train 6 hours a day!!

It's a general property of humans that they become better at things if they spend time. I think that's quite ok and absolutely fair.

Now, imagine you trained badminton for 6 hours a day and then some casual guy comes along with this super-expensive racket and he easily wins.. ..
(and imagine he is a 8 year old kid with rich parents!)

Besindes:
Looking at it from an in-game point of view: I want to be beaten by a character that is more active in the fantasy world.
 

If you start with the real life hard-working people:

Well: You need to chose:
Do you want to earn a lot in RL and have little time for your hobbies or the other way round? OR: Do you want totake a balanced approach?

There's probably no other activity on earth where you would argue that the guy who is less active should still be as good (or better) than somebody who is very active.

Choices have consequences.
 

The truth is most players have nothing against spending time or money on a game to get ahead, as long a they have enough of the resource in question.

I'm not sure I buy this. I have plenty of disposable income that I could spend buying advantages, but why would I want to? You're presuming that players are motivated solely by a desire to win, rather than a desire for a challenge or a fair game or an immersive experience. Imagine that the dungeon master in a PnP game allowed characters to buy magic items for real-world money. Would that really make the game more fun?

As Nils pointed out, there is a key difference between time and money: There is a lore-consistent explanation for characters becoming powerful by spending a lot of time adventuring. There isn't any consistent explanation for a character gaining items because its controller bought them for real-world money. In other words, money breaks the fourth wall in a way that time does not.
 

The truth is most players have nothing against spending time or money on a game to get ahead, as long a they have enough of the resource in question.

One last word about this:
I certainly do have the money and I've never used any micro- nor macrotransaction in any MMO. Nor do I plan to ever buy something that changes my character in-game.

Now, I may just be in a ideological minority here. But if so many players were indeed so eager to spend much more money on MMOs, why do the subscription costs remain at ~15€/month for years now?
 

One more point off the top of my head: Many players, especially achiever types, like the traditional MMO effort-reward structure. I.e. it's more fun to get a sword by killing a powerful dragon that by buying it from an online store. And the fact that you can't buy the sword for real-world money makes the earning feel more worthwhile.

It's sort of like Boy Scouts. Do you think scouts would prefer having the option to buy merit badges for cash?
 

Tobold, you're quite correct. If you have the money, why not pay somebody else to play for you, and save you time? That way your character could complete all your goals without you having to spend any time at all. Why, you could even pay somebody to kill the Lich King for you. It would save you a lot of time.
 

And Nils, instead of playing badminton against a professional, why don't you just hire another professional to play him? It would save you time, and it would level the playing field surely?
 

This may get me a lot of flak, but I 100% agree with this post. I may disagree with Tobold on most issues, but not this one.

@Tobold I have argued this point many times over, in my early days of blogging. However, It's a tough market of rationalizers out there.

I will say this(Actually I've said it many times before): I believe that there are legitimate reasons why someone would want a closed-environment free from any additional content being flown in at the wave of a few bucks. Players who want that, have every right and are no less wrong or right than any other player.

But, every the majority of excuses that unfortunately spread to the masses are ill-conceived and hypocritical.

I felt compelled to comment as I think this is a mighty movement that needs spread to the masses. I couldn't agree with you more.
 

I really liked this article. It is so true that people define their values & ideals in a way they makes them feel better about themselves. Or cognitive dissonance changes their beliefs.

@Azzur - let's just say that you can get ten level 80s in 5T9 with quite modest skills.

Not only is 25 winners and 20000 losers a bad model, but can winners only start one week every two years? If someone started a level 1 today and had a heroic LK kill in a month, does that mean they must be a poor player and a loser since Ensidia et al have already done it?

I also don't buy the immersion argument: how is a special sword of pawnage dropping after being purchased from the Blizzard store any less lore based than someone killing a boss once a week for 5 months and never seeing DFO or some special trinket drop due to RNG? Would it make it seem more WoW like if instead of a sparkly pony for $25, they sold you a 1% chance of a pony for $0.25?

Nor do I buy the time is skill: someone who runs 10 random heroics a day for a month will have better gear but not necessarily more skill than someone who runs one a week. And I can spend as much practice time every day as a professional tennis player or chess player and I would be better but still not significantly closer to their level.

Other people do not get to define your success criteria: you may prefer your choices where you have lots of achievement points or roleplay stories or alts but never set foot in ICC. Just because most of the blogosphere thinks raiding is important does mean that there aren't a million customers who find it irrelevant.

The Blizzard Arena tournaments ($20 for a pet) were absolutely fair: everyone had the same choice of the class and gear. That is not a better or worse game than WoW, just different. I do not think MMO companies have figured out a way to monitize that sort of game. Should someone with no professions and no Hodir rep have the same gear as someone who spent time to be 450 JC/BS and the exalted shoulder enchant? Saying you want a game like the AT where time and money don't matter is fine; but it is no MMO I know of.

I could spend more time and money and still never be competitive in Arena.

I do not buy Nils argument "There's probably no other activity on earth where you would argue that the guy who is less active should still be as good (or better) than somebody who is very active." There are a lot of salesman who don't work as hard, didn't go to a good school and yet still dramatically outperform the hardworking Willie Lomans. (Sales tends to be used in a lot of Organization Research discussions since it is one of the few business endeavors with a quantitative metric.) Working hard will make you better; but it may not make you better than the person sitting next to you.

@Tolthir: cynics would say that the boy scouts with sparkly ponies would buy merit badges.

I think the EVE Online Faustian bargain works well: you do allow people with more money than time to buy ISK. But that enables people with more time or skill than money to play without spending RL$ by selling ISK.
 

It's a general property of humans that they become better at things if they spend time. I think that's quite ok and absolutely fair.

Nils, be honest for once. What you say here doesn't apply at all to MMORPGs. Are you really trying to tell me that all the progress in the form of levels and gear you get in a MMORPG is a function of your *skill* in playing that game, acquired by many hours of training? Balderdash!

At most you could claim that skill has some influence on a small part of the endgame. But for example in WoW the time you need to level up from 1 to 80, and then the time you need to grind heroics until you have a 5k gearscore, have absolutely nothing to do with "training" to learn how to play the game better.

That is easily proven with a simple experiment: Roll a new character in any MMORPG you like of a class you already played to the endgame. How much time does it take him to reach the same endgame point? If it was just skill and no grind time requirement, he should be instantly at the mastery level, but in fact he needs hundreds of hours to get there.
 

This doesn't explain why people enjoy spending money on things that don't help them to 'get ahead' at all.

In fact ... they seem to prefer spending money on cosmetic items, and Blizzard has so far been very keen to emphasise that they have no intention to ever offer anything for sale that would unbalance the game.

So I think you are basically wrong here. But you seem very upset that some people have more time to play. Why is that? (I mean, I think you have a legit game design complaint underneath this but I don't yet understand what it is.)
 

Tobold -

I agree 100 %. And it sounds strange to me that one could even argue against this obvious truth: Time=Money.

@some commenters: you might not like this. You might stress the importance of the resources you can provide best (be that time, analysys, organisational skills, money, or whatever else) so you can keep up with the other players well. That's just fine.

But it doesn't make the statement any less valid.
 

If you can buy in one minute what others need to spend 10 hours for that diminishes the value of that work.
 

What Carra said.

I recall a Free Realms purchase from Tobold that basically ruined the game for him.
 

My personal view would be that we need less carrot and more fun.

If these MMORPGs were intrinsically fun we would not be discussing paying money to skip investing time on a fun game.
 

If you can buy in one minute what others need to spend 10 hours for that diminishes the value of that work.

I would say that if you think of playing a MMORPG as "work", you are doing something wrong. If you spend 10 hours for something in a MMORPG, you gained 10 hours of fun, which the person who bought it in 1 minute won't get. It's like buying an Oscar or an Olympic gold medal on Ebay: It's not the same as winning one.

But you seem very upset that some people have more time to play. Why is that?

No, not upset about people having more time. Upset about the time-rich people being all sanctimoneous about the even playing field, and how spending money on a game is bad.

If there is a valid game design complaint underneath it is that progress in a MMORPG should *only* depend on your skill. Only nobody would play such a game.
 

Nils, be honest for once. What you say here doesn't apply at all to MMORPGs. Are you really trying to tell me that all the progress in the form of levels and gear you get in a MMORPG is a function of your *skill* in playing that game, acquired by many hours of training? Balderdash!


In fact, it is the other way round:
Since MMO do not require any skill whatsoever for 99% of its content, better equipment is the only way to introduce, what is already there in most other activities: A reward for invested time.

The more powerful argument, however, comes from immersion in my opinion.
 

Exactly what kind of advantage have the players willing to spend more time than the players who aren't?

I cannot figure it out. Is it that the kid who has more time or the unemployed person can have more characters at max level? Or they managed to beat some raid earlier?

In any case these are muddled waters. How much time is too much time? And how much money is too much money? Why is it that any person who invests time in his/her character must surely be unemployed or a student? And people who complain that they don't have time are plainly deluding themselves. If one claims that can only play 30 minutes a day with who exactly do you want to compete? Just spend a shitload of money in exp pots to level up? Or simply buy the strongest epics in order to "pwn n00bs" in BG's?

People should set realistic goals according to how much they are willing to invest in any given activity, not only games.

If only people would start boycotting games that don't have a pay-per-time model then this advantage thing would go away and everybody would be happy.

Yeah, right...
 

Playing an RPG means progress -- strengthening the character. I also have fun when I play. So playing the game fulfills two points: fun and progress. I do not "lose" the time, I spend the time not only for progression, but I spend the time having fun.
Using money to advance my character is absolutely no fun by itself. It just serves to make my character stronger, in the end skipping the "play" aspect.
I do not want to play a game where I pay money to skip some of my enjoyment, and I do not want to play a multiplayer game where others use that mechanism. If others play the game more, because they have more time than me, I have no problem with that. But if they are stronger because mommy gave them a huge check for Xmas, my stomach churns. And it's not because I lack the money.

Compare winning the sword of ultimate coolness by beating some raid-boss for the first time and bidding your hard-won DKP against buying the sword of ultimate coolness for the money you earned by flipping burgers for 50 hours. Which one is more satisfying? Which earns more respect? Which is the "fun" way? Which one is the point of the game?

Buying gold is a sympton of bad game design: If the progress (like getting a cool horsie) becomes so important, but the way to it is too boring, people skip the way to get the progress anyways. If Blizzard found a way to let everybody participate in a meaningful way in all aspects of the game without doing some boring farming, nobody would buy gold anymore.
 

"If there is a valid game design complaint underneath it is that progress in a MMORPG should *only* depend on your skill. "


Hm. I think maybe it's more that designers make certain assumptions about how much time various groups of people have to play. And if you can play more than that, then you will complete more of the grind that was intended by the design. And if you play less than that then you'll complete less.

It would be better if grinds adapted themselves to how much time people have available. Or else use stuff like daily quests and lockouts to limit how much time can be spent on a grind.

Also, skill in optimising your use of time is also a MMO skill. Some people raid hardcore on 2 nights a week. Others play the same amount of time but will never raid hardcore.
 

Strange how someone who recognizes this fundamental truth should hate asymmetrical, unfair, ganking PvP so much.

Someone is always going to have more time, money, and/or skill than you. If you happen to get ganked by such a someone, it is surely not the end of the world.
 

Blizzard could convert everything to a monthly limited model. You can only do 100 dailies in a month, 500 quests, 30 instances, and so on. Or set the limits lower so that you can barely play a few hours a week of content. After that you can still run content, but with no rep, honor, gold, achievement progress, or any drops.

This would be fair. And I think quite unpopular.
 

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I agree 100 %. And it sounds strange to me that one could even argue against this obvious truth: Time=Money.


It's not like time is always equal to money .. otherwise you could die of old age tomorrow if you spend too much money now..

Or you could buy an education. But you cannot. You can only buy a certificate, not the ability to understand things.

Moreover, even for those things where time is equal to money, it is not a linear relationship (your last $ is worth much more than your first) and even if it were linear, the amount of time that is worth 1$ differs from person to person.

Time is not always equl to money. Quite obviously not.
 

Tobold asked:
"Are you really trying to tell me that all the progress in the form of levels and gear you get in a MMORPG is a function of your *skill* in playing that game, acquired by many hours of training? Balderdash!"

You need to differentiate between you the player, and the character that you are playing. In RGPs, it is the character whose skill increases as he or she spends time training. "Look! I have trained a new spell, and can now cast frostbolts at my enemies. My skill in magic has increased." This says nothing about player skill. Their skill in magic is still zero. Players are roleplaying a character.

I have more to say on the topic here.
 

I've moved towards games that involve skill more than time because they fit nicely into life instead of forcing you to play them for stupidly high numbers of hours so that you may remain competitive.
 

I completely agree. All games, especially MMOs, are competitive and it's just that the resource required varies. Your example for M:tG is perfect because it beautifully illustrates how, in that situation, money is the biggest factor for being the 'best'. Yes, you can play the game without investing a ton of cash but you will never be able to compete on the same level as those that do. As you pointed out, the exact same thing is true for MMOs except with time instead. Ultimately the guy who can spare 40 hours a week to play is going to be 'better' than those that can't or don't.

At the end of the day though these products earn their revenue through this investment of our resources. M:tG directly through sales whereas WoW does it through time. The longer you spend progressing in the game, the more subscription fees you will pay.
 

There is no such thing as an even playing field for MMORPGs. Investing more time or money in them will always get you ahead in any of these games.

An even playing field implies that the rules apply equally to everyone, not that everyone is literally equal. In this case the rules prohibit the buying and selling of in-game property. No rules prohibit playing a lot.

It is true that gold buyers insist they have a right to buy gold because "they have a life." They are breaking the rules, they know they are breaking the rules, and they are simply rationalizing, like all cheaters do.
 

It is true that gold buyers insist they have a right to buy gold because "they have a life."

To all the people who seriously say this 'I have a life' crap. My answer is this:

You already have a life, and I have not (so you assume). It's only fair that my virtual character is more powerful than yours then.

This is like saying: I earn more money than you. Therefore I should be allowed to work less!

Sorry, but your decisions have consequences. If you spend a lot of time to earn a lot of money then you have the advantage of money and the disadvantge of less time. That's the consequence of your decisions.

Accept it!
 

This isn't exactly what Tobold wrote about, but I'd love it if WoW's battlegrounds had us spawn in with PvP gear. What I mean is I wish every class was outfitted in the same gear with the same weapons once in a battleground. Wizards would all have wizard PvP gear, hunters would have hunter gear, etc.

In other words, it would be nice if in terms of gear, the playing field was level. It is true that some players would still have an advantage because they'd understand their class better, react more quickly, etc., and that advantage might come from having spent more time in the game.

Dealing with that kind of advantage is a bit easier to take than dealing with someone who just vastly outgears you. Right now you have players with 5k and 6k gearscores who just flat out stomp fresh 80s with sub-3k gear scores.

I know Blizz will never do this, but it would be nice, in terms of playing BGs, to not have to constantly chase after gear every time new and better gear sets are patched into the game.
 

It is true that gold buyers insist they have a right to buy gold because "they have a life." They are breaking the rules, they know they are breaking the rules, and they are simply rationalizing, like all cheaters do.

The one who is just rationalizing here is you. Because many of the people complaining about players buying an advantage with money are talking about games in which that is completely legal, like trading card games. They also complain about sparkle ponies and other MMORPGs with item shops, where again there is no rules-breaking involved.

Face it: You have more time than money, thus games in which having time gives you an advantage are good for you. You're just using sanctimoneous arguments to explain why a game which is unfair in your favor is so much better than a game which is unfair in favor of somebody else.
 

To get back to skill versus time versus money, think back to the old MTGO forums and the discussion of "going infinite".

This meant that you had enough "skill" such that you could enter tournaments and consistently win more than the entry cost of the tournaments. Having a good deck was part of this "skill" and that required a certain amount of money; but having good playing skills was even more important.

In this case the money doesn't really matter because you are actually earning money rather than spending it and will eventually recoup any early expenditures. The time did matter since that was how you acquired the skill.

In the perfect MMO there would be some way to "go infinite" that would be based on real skill.
 

You have more time than money, thus games in which having time gives you an advantage are good for you. You're just using sanctimoneous arguments to explain why a game which is unfair in your favor is so much better than a game which is unfair in favor of somebody else.

Well, I have much more money than time. Much, much more! Not because I have so little time, but because of my €/hour conversion rate.

If I wanted to outspend somebody in a MMO by working many hours in real life, I certainly could.

But: Why exactly would I want that ?
 

I know Blizz will never do this, but it would be nice, in terms of playing BGs, to not have to constantly chase after gear every time new and better gear sets are patched into the game.

Actually, I support this as one single feature of an MMO. It'd be fun and easy to explain within the game.
But I still want the real BGs, that allow me to play my character.
 

"If I wanted to outspend somebody in a MMO by working many hours in real life, I certainly could.

But: Why exactly would I want that ?"

Because you play a MMORPG in which the developers recognize that there are people with more money to spend than time and cater to them also?
 

The whole thing that is being overlooked here is how the game is designed from the get-go.

If a game is designed to be a time-based game, such as WoW, then the playing field is already level, in that everyone who plays the game knows that it requires a time investment to advance. The problem comes into play when those with more money than time seek to bypass the in-game mechanics and decide to buy gold to buy items in the game such as BOE epics and whatnot in order to gain a faster obtained advantage. That's the crux of the issue here.

I dont have a problem whatsoever with players spending money on a game that is -designed- to allow the use of RMT or microtransactions as a means of playing said game.

If the game is designed to support the action, and anyone and everyone can do it, then the playing field is level in that regard, and players will be able to make use of whatever mechanic the game supports, across the board and inclusive of all who play it.

The player simply has to make a choice at this point on which type of game they feel best suits their income levels and/or time availability.
 

Because you play a MMORPG in which the developers recognize that there are people with more money to spend than time and cater to them also?

But they don't need to allow me to spend my money for epics to cater to me!

All they need to is create a fun immersive world! I'd easily pay a few hundred euros a month for that, but it has to be fun and immersive. Rich kids with swords-of-ueberness are just not immersive; not even fun.
 

My answer was not directed at you personally, Nils. But rather, in answer to the question why would anybody choose to do this?

Letting people buy epics doesn't sound like these devs would also be catering to those with more time than money.
 

The one who is just rationalizing here is you. Because many of the people complaining about players buying an advantage with money are talking about games in which that is completely legal, like trading card games. They also complain about sparkle ponies and other MMORPGs with item shops, where again there is no rules-breaking involved.

Face it: You have more time than money, thus games in which having time gives you an advantage are good for you. You're just using sanctimoneous arguments to explain why a game which is unfair in your favor is so much better than a game which is unfair in favor of somebody else.

Yeah Tobold, you nailed it. I must condemn cheating because I am poor.
 

Paying for advantages in a game, competitive or not, undermines the integrity of the game. By doing so, one is in effect changing the rules of the game. That would be fine for a single player game where the advantages so purchased provided a better player experience for that player.

However, a multiplayer game assumes that all who are party to it play by the same rules. It is implicit in the act of "playing" the game that you also uphold that X,Y,Z,etc. constitutes the rules that all play by. When in-game advantages, particularly those that are not accessible by other means, are purchasable for real money, you add an additional rule that is a function of money. Time spent in a game is time spent PLAYING the game. Buying what is otherwise achievable with time invested is doing an end run around a large portion of the game itself.

If you don't like playing the game, or don't have the time to do so, then don't play it. However, don't encourage companies to weaken the incentives and warp the social fabric of these games by introducing items and services that are a function, not of anything related to the dramatic or formal elements of the game world, but the size of your pocketbook.
 

"Face it: You have more time than money, thus games in which having time gives you an advantage are good for you. You're just using sanctimoneous arguments to explain why a game which is unfair in your favor is so much better than a game which is unfair in favor of somebody else."

This simply doesn't make sense...
I have no time to play as I had 2, 3 years ago but I would never spend money in-game to have an "advantage", whatever that means...

And I'm currently subscribed to 3 MMO's... Playing them ultra casually. Why would I even try to "compete"? Is it a ego thing? "I cannot be beaten at anything by someone clearly less successful than I am?"

I also don't rag on people who have "too much time", whatever that means...

Seems to me that some people are falling in the "happy are the poor for they have no responsibilities or duties" fallacy.
 

Time is not always equal to money. Quite obviously not.

It is. Only conversion rates vary (depending on other factors like: How much pleasure do I derive from activity a/b/c because of reasons d/e/f?).
 

Seems to me that some people are falling in the "happy are the poor for they have no responsibilities or duties" fallacy.

Not only that, but people don't seem to understand that they have a choice.

Everybody can quit his job tomorrow and apply for a less time-consuming one. But having a lot of time comes for a price!

The hard-working, less-time having MMO players don't need no compensation in MMOs. They already have much more RL-money!
 

@Kyressar:
Could you tell me the conversion rate for falling in love now instead of somewhen in the next 60 years?

I'd like to bridge the period in between, because I think it is unfun.
 

@Nils:
I can't tell you your personal rate because it's not mine. Plus: you can't plan the success of falling in love. But anyone looking to fall in love spends a great deal of time going out/ socializing/ dating. And once they found someone, it always strikes me they spend a lot less time out.

But I think we're digressing, so I'll leave it to this.
 

I can't tell you your personal rate because it's not mine. Plus: you can't plan the success of falling in love.

And that's the reasons?

Mmh.. assuming a rate of 60€/h, could you tell me how much money I need to spend, so that my birthday is in two days? If I did't spend any money it were in 100 days.

Thanks!
 

"could you tell me how much money I need to spend, so that my birthday is in two days?"

How much does it cost to change your birth date in your country? Include bribes.
 

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Running with the MtG example, I find I much prefer drafting if I want a mostly level playing field. In fact, if I play in official venues, I will only draft, and I prefer to draft with friends, too. (Buying a box and drafting and redrafting with it for ages is awesome fun.)

In the MMO space, I'd like to see a game that uses time investment only as a way for *players* to develop skills. Sirlin made a similar argument a few years ago with a lengthy rant against WoW and how time>skill. If the game could be skill based, and money only opens up content, I'd probably be a happy camper.
 

Dear JD,

shouting at me and calling me names will get your comments deleted.

I quoted the last two paragraphs of your comment. If you think that the last two paragraphs of your comment have nothing to do with the point you were trying to make, I would recommend improving your writing style. If you can't express your point clearly enough for people to find it, that is hardly my fault.
 

I'd like to agree with Tobold here, JD. Although I sympathize with your PoV, you should try to write a little less hot-minded.

As a general guideline: Having 'Tobold' in your comment more than once is probably a mistake.

However, I'd like to say that (at least) I value your insight. You should just try to stay cool(er) ;)
 

Being Tobold a veteran gold buyer, I wouldn't be surprised with him again defending the advantages for players who buy things with money on a MMORPG.

I wonder if the perfect Tobold's MMORPG is such a game where a player, who pays real money deserve to become stronger than players who spend more time by exploring the game's content, by creating items themselves, by playing with the lucky game system, by wasting electricity, by testing builds for both hunt and pvp... Forgot something here?

Real money should not give any advantage for players on a MMORPG because a player who has enough money to spend on such games will do it for sure.
Such players don't think 2 times before spending money on a virtual game just to get things in the easier way or by getting unfair advantage over real players.

They are called cheaters.
 

Makes sense that the two warring camps are reading from different scripts.

Time does NOT equal money. You can always get more money, especially with credit, but once passed, time is gone gone gone.

Wow evens the field by continual gear resets, allowing casuals to catch up.
 

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