The new season 4 arean rating requirements have me seriously reconsidering buying a better computer and Age of Conan. I love World of PvP and often enjoy BGs. I want to be part of big epic battles where I kill Alliance (especially gnomes), not a 2 on 2 against other Horde in an arena match that is totally meaningless.

Except arena is the only way to get serious gear for PVP, which sucks for people who don’t have fun in arena. Raiding Stormwind is hard, why doesn’t that make me eligible for gear? Defending Thrall against 200 Alliance would be tough too so why doesn’t that make em eligible for gear? Because when I walk into Stormwind, I want as much resilience as possible. When I’m in AV I want as much resilience as possible.

These are my choices as I see them:

1. Spend many hours not having fun in arenas hoping to get a high enoughr ating to purchase some S4 gear. Then do the stuff I enjoy in awesome gear.

2. Do the stuff I enjoy in pve gear and the limited pvp gear I get from BGs. Basically meaning I have to be a rogue or a paladin. I’d like to play a shadow priest but their survivability in pve gear sucks. Eventually I could do enough BGs to get all S2 or better gear, but I don’t like grinding BGs…

3. Quit “world of arenacraft” and find a game that actually supports world PVP.

3 is lame because I hate starting over. I do have close friends playing AOC and if they say it’s cool I’ll have to consider it.

2 allows me to spend most of my time having fun, but pvp is more fun when I live and it doesn’t give me access to a lot of good pvp gear.

1 means I spend a lot of time playing a game and not having fun doing it. I might as well just work and earn some money while not having fun.

So I’m gonna try choice 2. We’ll see what happens.

Possible objections – I know some people will say that this is good because it rewards the serious pvpers. That is an exaggeration though. This system rewards the serious arena players. I am or would like to be a serious pvper, in battles with hundreds of other players. However for pvpers like me there are no gear rewards.

The rules we’re tlaking about by the way:

When Season 4 begins, Season 3 items will be reduced in personal and team arena rating requirement to:

Shoulders: 1950
Weapon: 1800

The new Season 4 items will have the below personal and team arena rating requirements:

Shoulders: 2200
Weapon: 2050
Head: 1700
Chest: 1600
Legs: 1550
Gloves: none
Off-hand: none

In addition, some of the Season 4 quality items that will be purchasable with honor will also carry a personal and team arena rating requirement:

Boots: 1700
Ring: 1650
Bracers: 1575
Belt: none
Necklace: none
Trinket: none

The Season 2 items, which will move to the honor system when Season 4 begins, will continue to have no rating requirement.