I was just thinking about it and I heard with the new expansion that we will be able to socket items. I was just curious why the need to socket items, I mean clearly I know what it does but we already have enchanting, isn't socketing and enchanting a bit of an overkill? Or am I missing something?

orsus

Lets people improve their gear further (especially the non-raiders); time sink; money sink.

y guess anyway.

I assume the gemcraft is going to fill those sockets, so you have another profession (so people don't complain about the new time/money sink) 8)

Also it let's you customize an item to your tastes... given how many threads I've seen on the WoW boards complaining about Item X having Stat Y... this is somthing people want.

I disagree with Yrys... as with everything else raiders will be getting the best of the best. I would think either via powerful gemcraft plans (ohh.. what are the plans gonna be called? cutting diagrams?) or epic items with more open slots to fill.

Because they have to make more ways for people to improve their toons, otherwise people will stop playing and Blizz dont get dollah. :-)

/agree they need a way for non-raiders to be able to improve their gear

if they don't they will see subscription retention good up until about 6 months, then start to nosedive

Yet another way for people with level 19 and 29 twinks to overgear themselves in order to ruin BG's for new players.
BG PvP needs a major overhaul if they want to keep attracting new players. They can't keep making new servers every few weeks forever. Starting on a new server is the only way someone can have any chance of a level playing field.

BG's are like democracy. It's not perfect but it was the best they could do..

if they don't they will see subscription retention good up until about 6 months, then start to nosedive

funny they said the same thing when the game was originally released, which was about 30 servers ago =)

Actually I have no idea how many servers were added since release but it is probably some sickening number.

There's at least two times the number of servers available today in North America since the game went live. Wouldn't surprise me if it was 3x.

That said, the compelling issue within the game now is character advancement. Once you hit 60, it's solely Gear. You have two ways to gear up - PvP (requires a lot of time each week) or Raiding. 20 man ZG was welcome for people in smaller guilds. Based on my limited play on the test server, 20 man AQ is significantly more difficult.

They are putting more gear in the game which you can earn from missions (quests) in Silithus. That's going to help a lot. The expansion will help more, but that is something like 6-12 months away.

Personally I think the only reason people keep playing is the ease with which an alt or twink is created and leveled these days. People that have been 60 for months likely have multiple level 60 characters and are gearing all of them up too.

I really have no idea what justifies the server indicators they put up, like new/low/medium/high/full. My server was medium a month ago and now its full and server queues have started. Are there really that many people joining the game that steadily or are people just making characters on a bunch of different servers? Or is every character created counted towards the population count and are those characters when deleted removed from the count? Those gold sellers like "Asadkjdsd" sending me tells and then likely disappearing from the server come to mind.

The population levels are crazy. We always have queues and the population indicaters just say medium. Insane. But its fine, I always forget some last minute things after I log in, so waiting a few minutes gives me time to grab a soda, have a smoke, or grab my slippers.

As for socketing I see it as a way for players to customize their equipment for themselves. Somepeople have nice purple caster gear with nice stats and +spell/healing, but could use some dodge for when the grab aggro. Others would take the same thing and say, well, my healing is good, and I never get aggro, so I could use extra spell damage for when I have to play that role in a pinch. Still a warlock with the same thing might want extra sta for their lifetaps.

Its also possible the jewels will add modifyers that aren't common, like +run speed or something. Oooh maybe they will have perfect topaz for +Magic Find. Help bump that green drop into a blue. Lol

Nyte

Hopefully they will do as nyte said and have some rare / new buffs or modifiers probubly the basic ones to elemental protection and spells, (topaz, water, ruby, fire, pearl, holy, etc) but what i want to see is make it so that all crystals are VISIBLE when your socket them, just because it would really give you a cool way to do up your characters, and i'm not saying that i'm a RP person because i love pvp but they're really needs to be more variety in visuale customization in this game (clothes wise). Some other things they may do with it would be stuff like increasing the max durability on a wep?... sound good to anyone?.. lol didn't think so, i don't know blizzard has proved to be un predictable when it comes to where there taking the game, so all I can say is, i can't wait.

I guess socketing if for more stats. Makes sense to me.

I came to the game about 9 months after it came out and never thought anything of the 'twinks' in the battlegrounds. Always have won and come in 1st or 2nd with first character.

Really alot of people who play this game go at it with 'I am going to hit you with my big expensive weapons' and not actual gaming skill. (WoW is a really easy game when it comes down to it).

A few people in my guild have lv 19 rogues with dual cruel barbs and firey enchants, and are not planning on lvling past that. I think thats kinda funny. Whats the point?

They probably want to do Warsong Gulch and have the advantage of being the highest level for 10-19 while having some good weapons and gear.

It's an ok idea if you just want to own all the time, but I would rather try to improve my skills so that I can actually kill people levels above me - not below.

They probably want to do Warsong Gulch and have the advantage of being the highest level for 10-19 while having some good weapons and gear.

It's an ok idea if you just want to own all the time, but I would rather try to improve my skills so that I can actually kill people levels above me - not below.

I was in WSG last week on Illidan. There was this Dwarf Pally with a Crusader enchant. Yeah it was the 10-19 BG's too. It was just sick. Seriously.

Nyte