Expansions of All Sorts

I decided to write about two very different kinds of expansions, one relates to the social aspect of WoW, the other to the more technical, theorycrafting side.

Talent Tree Expansion
I hope that all know about or have seen the new, revamped talent trees (31-point). There are many opinions on them, myself I am reconsidering some previous positions and have had other reinforced. But I was wondering, what about instead of dramatically reducing the number of talents available, we increased them by...a lot.

Let's stick with the Wrath style trees and add 20 talents points to them. 10 for levels 1-10 and 10 for 81-85 (two talents awarded each level). What would be the ramifications of adding 20 talent points to your pool?

For one you could really start to reach down into a secondary talent tree and maybe pick up 1 or two formerly especially unique abilities that before you didn't have a chance to get. A good example would be a Priest that could cast Penance and Circle of Healing. Overpowered? Who freakin' cares!!! Then we'd all be over powered and therefore nobody would be.

Admittedly the difficult part would be when trying to create tricky hybrid builds, like Feral Druid. What real benefit would they gain from 20 extra talents? Would they delve deeper into Restoration tree only to be gimped by the lack of Resto gear as a part of their normal Feral set? What about an Enhancement shaman that went deep into Elemental? Would that build benefit from more Intellect/Spell Power and therefore cause debates on gear drops?

I think the winners of the debate would be PvPers, potentially being able to pick up a lot more pvp talents than they can currently. Some are saying that the current 31-point trees gimp PvPers, and that maybe the cutback on these trees was too severe, taking away too many important and useful PvP abilities. But if you go the other way, expanding access to even more PvP abilities, then that means that those players will have more tools at their disposal, more choices to make in a very short amount of time.

I'm all for specialization and getting some iconic abilities at level 10, it will really spice up the leveling experience. But since we're gaining more levels and therefore more power, let's really make it more complicated and significantly EXPAND the talent trees. Dual-spec would still be around, you wouldn't be able to fill out two complete talent trees. But if they really want healers to DPS, then give them more talent points to spend in the DPS trees to further enhance their healing capabilities.

I know it probably won't happen, but I can dream, can't I? What good or bad do you think would come of a significant expansion of the talent trees, as opposed to the reduction that has recently occured?

Guild Expansion...The Good and the Bad

Have you ever been in a relatively small guild? I mean 20-30 people, 10-15 of which are on most of the time. The individual personalities that make up a guild each have their own point of view as to the best kind of guild as far as numbers and requirements for entry. For example, I view massive guild expansion as a bad thing, I think huge guilds take away from any intimacy that could have otherwise been present. Smaller, not tiny, but smaller guild I think have a greater chance at providing positive social experiences. It's easier to really get to know people, not just their avatar but their person. The larger the guild the less time and opportunity there is to get to know other people, unless you particularly single somebody out.

Maybe I'm just feeling remorseful about my own guild's recent expansion, which has been significant in the past 3 months, adding well over 70 new recruits. It's made raiding easier, sure. I no longer, however, have the chance to talk to my older guild-mates like we used to. There's far more idle banter (not that I'm against it, but in small and clever doses only). Any significant conversations are no longer, there's just too many ears and fingers scrambling for attention.

Ah well, that's the growing pains of a growing guild, I suppose. There's still the core group of a year ago, but it's not the same anymore. Then again, maybe it is just me...it probably is.

In summary...Talent Expansion Good (imo)...Guild Expansion (massive expansion) Bad. That's my story and I'm sticking to it...for now.