Project Lore

There once was a time when earning a badge meant slogging through a 5-man dungeon over the span of a couple hours, or spending an entire night on downing two or three bosses in a raid. And it was a really long haul towards the next piece of gear. Not to mention that there was only one type of badge, so you knew exactly where to spend it and how many you would need when you got there. In an effort to equalize the playerbase, Blizzard has expanded on this idea several times in Wrath of the Lich King, first introducing a new set of badges for each tier of content, and then, in 3.2, making their acquisition even easier by handing them for just about anything remotely dungeon-related.

BlizzCon Entry Pass: the hardest badge to earn of all!

What once took weeks could take a matter of days, especially if you've got a group of people capable of running Trial of the Crusader in all its forms. Some in the community have cried foul, myself included, but even I can admit that its only because I've been around the block a few times. I've seen the gear grind at its worst, and it's all too tempting to look down my nose at the people who've only picked up the game more recently, and yell at them in my shrill old man voice, "Why, back in my day...!"

And also like a confused geriatric, keeping all the different badges (and how you can get them) straight sometimes makes my head spin. It's bad enough that (excluding Badges of Justice from Burning Crusade) we have four different kinds, but to obtain Tier 9.5 equipment, you need to pair them up with trophies you can only get from 25-man ToC.

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