Choice vs. Random

So why am I doing PvP, if that isn't my natural favorite occupation and the honor points have been nerfed? Well, besides the fact that I already did everything else, the main attraction for me is that in the PvP reward system I get to choose what reward I want.

This contrasts sharply with raid loot, which is completely random. If I go on a raid, I don't know if something for my class will drop. And I don't get to choose which part either. I know which boss mob drops which part, I can only hope that when we kill the boss who drops the part I need, he won't be dropping the part for another class instead. When people complained to Blizzard about shaman loot now already dropping for Alliance and paladin loot for Horde, Tseric just replied with "Plain fact is that this is about production schedules and not about you." (and later deleted that post when he realized that isn't wasn't great customer service). But even before that move, which basically reduces your chance of finding raid loot by 11%, raiding for one specific item was an exercise in frustration. Especially getting an epic weapon is hard, because usually more people can use it, and weapons drop less often than armor.

In the new PvP, I can plan ahead to get the epic sword I want, without having to count on chance. My rate of progress towards that goal might not always be as fast as I wish, but I always know exactly where I am and how far I still have to go. I don't need luck, and there is no random chance that I get a mage robe instead of a warrior sword.

Which of course makes me wish that raid loot would involve more choice. And apparently even Blizzard thinks that this would be a good idea, and is experimenting. For example the Naxxramas tier 3 loot is based on tokens. A specific boss drops a token for a specific slot, but the token can be used by one of several classes. You get the actual item by handing in the token, plus wartorn armor scraps, and some crafting materials.

In the Burning Crusade it seems you get tier 4 tokens which are specific to one slot and one class, but not specific to a talent tree. So if you get a druid bracers token, you can choose between three different druid bracers, one for moonkins, one for feral, and one for restoration druids. That is a step backwards from the tier 3 loot, because you probably aren't changing your spec very often, and you still need the luck that the piece for your class and the specific slot you are looking for is dropping.

I wonder why raiding loot can't be handled like PvP rewards. Imagine you get "MC honor points" for every kill in Molten Core, plus *everybody* in the raid gets "MC victory token" for every boss killed. And then everybody just goes and buys tier 1 armor with a combination of points and marks. With every raid member getting the same amount of points and marks as long as he participates in the same amount of kills, guilds wouldn't even need DKP or other loot distribution schemes any more. It might not be as exciting as finding phat loot on a killed boss, but it is inherently a lot more fair.