As mostly all WoWers heard by now
Blizzard has cut down Honor Gain by 30% for PvP, raising the ire of many a gamer, like when the 40 man raid dungeons was announced as soon to be 25 man dungeons, or that Pallys and Shammies will be available for both factions. From these changes it has appeared more and more to me that Blizzard's try at walking the fine line between casual and hardcore MMORPG gamers is getting rougher and rougher, and that it's becoming more prevalent in the game that this sort of balancing is cheesing off both sides and leaving neither happy. The hardcore peeps are mortified now that casual players can get their hands on stuff that was neigh impossible without being hardcore and basically living in the game for some, whereas casual peeps find it harder and harder to enjoy playing the game as they get rolled over by hardcore peeps with armor and weapons many casual gamers may not have the time to acquire. I personally think that a large amount of difficulties that Blizzard is facing is due very much to the completely opposing play style of both hardcore and casual gamers: hardcore gamers demand new and DIFFICULT challenges in which they can have bragging rights to post in the forums or whatnot, whereas casual gamers are using the game as a virtual substitute of "hanging out" with friends or meeting new friends; it is simply a social event in which the end goal is not just the cool l3wt, but the enjoyment of being able to talk and play around with their friends they meet on line or already know off-line, and can spend at most 2-3 hours constantly on. I can see only one real way in which Blizzard can lessen the complaining for this situation: Blizzard needs to institute a new separation of players beyond just PvE and PvP -since those 2 only separate raiders from PvPers- and make an actual Hardcore-specific and Casual-specific realms where the respective playstyles can flourish. Hardcore realms would have higher emphasis on raiding and crazy PvP ranking systems (Zing!) which they can happily spend countless hours downing tough bosses and strutting their stuff, while Casual-specific realms make 5-10 man raids their big raid system, with a save point after clearing a boss or a wing, so that if RL intrudes the party can easily disband and reform at some later time and carry on without fear. Face it, most casual players DO NOT have the man power nor the time to spend getting into 20 man raids right now, let alone 40 man raids. These 20/40 man raids can be easily removed from the casual realms and not hear a peep from casual gamers, providing that more 5/10 man raids which are fun exist. It's less time-consuming to gather that amount of people, and less whining and bitching about who gets what either, without resorting to DKP. And what would the end result be, if we run WoW under these parameters? I really do think that the hardcore people will enjoy having a higher level of difficulty and getting loot which no casual player can get, since the uber-loot is only found in hardcore realms, and so they have their bragging points which would not be cheapened in any way. The casual players in the casual realm would be able to fight against people with roughly the same armor level attainable to them (i.e. you spent a week playing 2-3 hours a day you most definitely can get this kinda equipment) without being just STEAMROLLED. Secondly, casual players would not have to deal with griefing, ganking, and many other characteristics found in WoW today that I would happily contribute to very bored hardcore peeps just waiting for the expansion ;) (I kid, I kid, but you all know that somewhere deep inside you would agree with me somewhat). The casual players can easily do stuff by themselves (since the difficulty setting can be set much lower) and grouping with people you like PLAYING with rather than how important they are to actually finishing the instance (i.e. you can have a group comprised of a druid, a pally, a shaman, a priest, and a warrior, and you'd still be fine running it even when you're not 5-10 levels above the recommend level for the dungeon!). My 2 cents, and I think this would help resolve Blizzard's need for balancing by quite a lot.