The hall of mirrors

So, I appreciate that teh badge system gives a schmuck like me access to good gear through the entire run of the LK expansion, I really do.

I appreaciate that the new epic weapon questline will give me a poker that I probably don't deserve with mind-blowing stats, I really do.

But I don't appreciate the fact that the ultimate outcome of all of this has been to remove individuality from the game. We all look the same, we all have the same stuff, and I miss recognizing my friends from accross Stormwind.

It reminds me of a day when I was a bit frustrated with my community on SwC back in the wanning days of vanilla. That server was never particularly successful in progression and people generally had only a handful of endgame items, if any, and generally we all were a bit distinctive in whatever mishmash of late-50s swag we chose to wear. Anyway, on the hunt for a new group of people to play with for reasons I cannot recall now, I rolled an alt on an older, more established, high population realm. The first thing I noticed while standing around outside the Ironforge bank was that everyone had really good gear, tier 0.5, tier 1 mostly. The second thing I noticed was that everone looked exactly the same as every other member of their class. It was disjointed and unpleasant to watch. I went back to SwC and just dealt with the juvenile shenanigans.

And now it's snuck back up on us. Sure, BC had some homogenation. Lots of people wore the honor-bought arena gear toward the end, and most people had stuff from Kara, but not everyone, and BC gear was so visually varried that even with mostly the same gear, the off-set pieces left you looking just different enough to be "you" instead of "them."

Apparently, people didn't like looking different. They complained about "looking like clowns" in BC gear and LK stuff all sort of goes together. It goes together too well. Even before the simplification of aquisition that came with the first round of badge changes people looked pretty much the same, all browns and greys, but now, it's like that server I joined for an evening back in vanilla. Every hunter has teh same shoulders.

Except me. I won't buy the t9s, even though I have the badges. I want to find my toon in a crowd.