World of Warcraft®

The problems with this system seem to be largely overstated. The satchel isn't worth all that much, beyond multiple shots in a day at some mounts. (I suppose this hinges on exactly how rare the gems etc. are supposed to be.) In the case of the deathcharger's reins it'd be faster to go to Stratholme and farm. The problem with DPS queueing as tanks and expecting someone else to tank is miniscule, unusual, a statistical outlier. I can't see more people abusing the system once this is in place, because the behavior would only continue if they get rewarded.

Blizzard has made it so the upcoming tanks learn to tank in heroics. There's no need for a tank early on. Cataclysm normal instances require a little gear, but the mechanics can still be largely powered through. Learning in heroics is certainly not ideal, but that's on Blizzard, not the players.

That being said, I doubt this will work for long. I don't leave much time for this game, but I'm fairly certain Lothax is sitting on five figures of gold. A small spike of more people firing up their tanks simply because it's new etc., and then the numbers go back to just about where they were in the first place. Are there that many collectors? Even if there are numerous collectors.. how many won't get discouraged/distracted after ANSWERING THE CALL TO ARMS after fifty times or so? Maybe Blizzard intends for it to be a short-term solution until gear availability renders heroics rather inconsequential though.

You can only hope for some reason this gets more people like Plains to queue to tank. The game needs more people willing to give it a shot, and more people willing to communicate about mechanics etc. Less people convinced their time is so valuable that thirty seconds of communication before fights in a heroic is a cumbersome hindrance. Once in game, realize you've just taken the time to say, "I can't or won't do anything worth a damn right now, which is why I'm playing a videogame." Not only that, an old videogame that lacks the charm of dusting off an NES for some Zelda or what have you. Relax. Communicate and promptly boot someone's ass, if it's too difficult for them to communicate and follow directions.

To answer the questions originally posed by Plains. I'd use the LFG tool regardless. I won't be doing so because my free time is elsewhere, especially now that the weather's warmer.

Update: have commenced tanking on the surfer. Low level learning dungeons (intro cata stuff). Have started stacking avoidance stats like a madman (dodge and mastery, I love them so). Have gotten into habit of going slow and marking everything. Much to the irritation of the DPS around me.

Note: lvl 80 cata "normal mode" dungeons != heroics, in more ways than one. Most notably, the people running them. I've noticed a far greater amount of "patience" and "civility" in the lower level stuff. Did a random heroic last night as DPS for contrast on Plains. The d-bag meter went off the scale. I was booted because of a disconnect, and yelled at by another dps for using the AOE silence on a hostile healer. (The Moonkin one, to be fair, they really do need to tone down the light effect on that... otoh, this guy seemed to think standing in the green glop was 'pro'.)

Followup Question: what happens to people in between running normals, and being decent, civil, and patient, and running heroics, and turning into raging D-bags?

This is why I don't do dungeons. I despise having people screaming at me when I'm doing the best I can. If I'm doing something wrong ask me to correct it, don't scream at me.

Extra rewards are already available to tanks. I'm not referring only to inta-queues but also to people posting cash rewards in trade looking for tanks to queue with. Sure a lot of folks don't actually pay up, but formalizing such rewards and making them more attractive than just gold both saves people from having to offer such rewards out of pocket and will be more successful at encouraging tanks to queue.

Yes, tank quality may take a hit, but as a veteran of many a PUG, I can attest that it often isn't tanks or healers who need to improve. How many of you tanks have lost aggro to a warrior who is smacking an off-target? You go to taunt only to lose threat on a different mob to the boomkin or hunter or hunter's pet that is still on solo play settings (and without mods you can't tell the difference). Now the healer has a choice to make: heal the tank or heal the DPS. If one of those two doesn't have an ace up their sleeve, chances are a DPS is going down or it is a wipe.

Some DPS can CC, but fury warriors are among the most popular DPS right now and I for one rarely see a random PUG without one. No CC options there. Same with DKs. Depending on the enemy, you may not have any options at all, so more CC isn't always the answer. Many DPS will have to learn to assist off the tank, watch threat on AOE or wipe te party. Healing and tanking aren't always easy and if the only reward at the end is some metard posing their recount result with your name down toward the bottom (if you're lucky) it can be a real drag.

As such, I think meddling in the role market is warranted and that it isn't just new tanks enticed to the rewards that will have a lot to learn.

That's kind of what I'm talking about, Plains. People are more civil when it comes to the normal instances, because it's expected that people are learning how to play in group situations, and that people aren't geared up for heroics and whatnot. And heroics are typically filled with people who are geared enough (typically) for the heroic version, and have "paid their dues" in the normals and they figure by then that people are geared and know the pulls (since they aren't all that different). They don't want to wait to train people in a place where the training wheels should be off.

Myself, I don't really care either way. If someone needs help on something I will gladly help, but I don't expect to go to a heroic and then hold peoples' hands through the whole thing. I've had way too many 3+ hour heroic runs in Cataclysm by now that it's just silly how often it still goes on. It was expected at the beginning because nobody really knew what was going on, but still finding groups were 4 of the 5 people having never even seen the NORMAL version of the instance, doing the heroic version? Come on now.