Season 4: The End of Warcraft?

The sad part is that I don't feel that this post has a sensationalist title. Whenever I get to thinking about making a post about World of Warcraft (WoW), I feel overwhelmed. Strangely, I do not feel this way when thinking about working on a novel. I think the feeling grows from my own steadily rising sense of helplessness about WoW, which I don't feel when I am in total control as I am when I work. Why do I feel helpless about WoW?

From WoW BlueTracker: Season 4 Requirements and Arena Changes:

When Season 4 begins, Season 3 items will be reduced in personal and team arena rating requirement to:

• Shoulders: 1950


• Weapon: 1800

The new Season 4 items will have the below personal and team arena rating requirements:

• Shoulders: 2200


• Weapon: 2050


• Head: 1700


• Chest: 1600


• Legs: 1550


• Gloves: none


• Off-hand: none

In addition, some of the Season 4 quality items that will be purchasable with honor will also carry a personal and team arena rating requirement:

• Boots: 1700


• Ring: 1650


• Bracers: 1575


• Belt: none


• Necklace: none


• Trinket: none

Have hunter ratings improved at all? Nope, and in fact, they have gone down. Now, like most of you, I play WoW casually. I won't be making a living from WoW. I'm not a professional gamer. I don't cheat; I don't point sell. What I do is play arenas on my main a few hours each week to get her gear over the course of the season. It takes me the entire season to do this. And I've noticed that arenas have gotten steadily more difficult to win as others get better gear much faster than me and my team.

With the rating requirements for gear set even higher than before, in Season 4, my team will get steamrolled. With poorer gear, we'll lose more times and get less points and take even longer to get gear. And as people grow tired of losing, they'll quit. So everyone will move down the ladder. If we averaged 1800, we'll drop to the 1700, and those from 1700 to 1600. If I quit arenas, I won't raid. I have even less time to do that. I already have all my battleground gear, so there's no need for me to run them anymore. Most likely, WoW will lose a subscriber.

My SO has already decided to forget arenas, but since his guild does Sunwell, he will at least continue to play until he gets tired of that. For the time being, I've rolled a warlock on an RP server (forsooth!) along with him in order to give us a way to play together. At least it's nice to be able to go anywhere in the game and not get ganked (someone there even asked me what ganked means--bless his heart).

What will you do?