Blizzard, I’m begging you not to launch Wrath of the Lich King in its current state without RDF and here’s why.
Non META DPS will be in serious trouble, the spam will increase significantly and acquisition of Frozen orbs will be extremely frustrating.
Lets start with with non META DPS
DPS have always outnumbered tanks by a large margin and even though wotlk introduces DKs, many of them will choose dps roles over tanking.
Because tanks are in such high demand and there is no other way DPS can form groups without them, it will create a situation that will be detrimental to non meta dps as tanks will use the current LFG system to quickly select META dps that doesn’t compete with its own loot table. For example;
- Paladin tank opens lfg menu. Grabs the first priest, shaman or druid healer he sees being careful to ignore any pally healer as he/she will need on paladin healing gear (tank may want a healing off spec kit)
- Now that the paladin tank has a healer, he can quickly scroll down the list and pick up 3 locks or boomkins bypassing all other dps classes (warriors that will need plate, 1 & 2 hand weapons. Rogues that will need dps necks/rings and 1 hand weapons. DKs that will need plate, 1 & 2 hand weapons)
I don’t know about you but as non meta dps this doesn’t sound like a good experience.
Spam
Remember how bad LFG chat was before blizzard nerfed boosting? It was post after post after post of mages and paladins selling boosting services. Legit groups never stood a chance as their posts would quickly be buried under a sea of boosting posts.
Now imagine how bad it’s going to be when tanks start selling tanking services to all those desperate non META dps who were bypassed by that paladin tank. It will make boosting spam seem like a relaxing Sunday drive in comparison.
Frozen orbs
Last but not least, frozen orbs. Frozen orbs are a guaranteed drop from the final boss in every heroic and is required for almost every single high end tradeskill craft. These crafts are sellable and are often best in slot. Because of this, these crafts will sell for a huge premium in phase 1.
So what does this mean for the current LFG system? It means tanks are going to reserve the frozen orb drop as part of the agreement to tank for the group. Just like how tanks reserved crusader orbs back in classic but on steroids.
Your group could say no, but then you’ll be stuck waiting even longer for a tank while that tank will instantly find a group that will give him the orb. So if you plan on doing any trade craft in wotlk and you’re not a tank, then I’m afraid you’re going to be SOL
TLDR
So to recap, the LFG system will give tanks a huge amount of power to select META dps or DPS that don’t share the tanks loot table, to sell tank services, and to reserve highly sought after crafting mats while the rest of us scramble with great difficulty to put a decent group together.
Does no one at blizzard see a problem with this? You’re removing RDF without implementing individual loot. You’re removing RDF while keeping some classes overpowered and highly sought after over others classes. You’re removing RDF without addressing the tank to dps disparity. And you claim you are removing RDF to “promote” community interaction?
Having no RDF will seriously hurt the quality of this game and will be detrimental to building a strong community. Wotlk will fail if it does not have RDF. If you’re concerned about the community, then make RDF realm only which is what I think is best.
TLDR to the TLDR
Put realm only RDF into the game
