Through the Mist is a regular column from Luke Le Page covering everything World of Warcraft. If you’d like something covered in a future column, drop us a line!

As I’m sure many of you do, I regularly check the larger WoW sites such as MMO-Champion and Arena Junkies  as well as the official WoW forums and I have to say I have been extremely surprised by what I have found there and more importantly by the responses of Blizzard reps on the official forums.

Players of all types have been expressing increasing concerns over the daily quest system. The most common area of contention is that players feel they are being forced into doing every possible daily every day in order to keep up with progression and this extends to repetition on alts. In response, Blizzard seem to be taking the stance that players are not forced into doing dailies – rather, we can do dailies, challenge modes, scenarios, heroics and LFR etc.

I can see both sides of the argument and for the most part I enjoy doing dailies but to say that we are not forced into them is ridiculous. Yes we can run these other modes to gear up and to obtain both Justice and Valor points but what do we spend these points on? Well the answer is reputation restricted items from factions. It’s a Catch 22 situation – players can gear up from these other methods but is the randomness of a random loot system reliable enough to keep players, particularly more casual players, at a level where they can participate in and enjoy content?  So far, my experience says no. In the past I have been involved in progression raiding and server firsts and the like but I am little more than a casual player in this expansion and I am still not at an ilvl where I can participate in current (albeit LFR) content.

Players have in turn suggested a return to the tabard system that was employed in Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm and on this point I agree with Blizzard’s stance of not reintroducing them. Tabards, whilst extremely convenient, made reputation a trivial part of the game. It should mean something and work should be involved in unlocking these Justice and Valor point items as well as many of the mounts that are available. My alternative suggestion is to implement a tabard system that works much the same way as the original guild reputation system: allow players to use tabards but cap the amount of reputation that can be obtained per faction on a daily basis. The cap would include both dailies and tabards – this not only gives players a choice (something the vast majority of complainants are screaming for) whilst maintaining the integrity of the daily system. It also has the added advantage of getting people into dungeons again.

Blizzard seem to be listening to an extent, insofar that they are planning changes to how alternate characters will accrue reputation and this is a positive sign going forward.

Do you agree?