According to my math, if they never spent any, and did every source of frost badges possible every day/week (also assuming they had the ICC weekly in both difficulties in a wing that was available every week), the maximum possible Frost badges a player could have on one character right now is 2275.

This is a great idea but am I the only one hopeing that the gold for badges exchange rate is not too high as it would just lead to rampant inflation?

Zetter

A rogue in my guild currently has around 600 frostbadges and even more triumph ones.

He has no need for offspec gear, doesn't sell primordial saronite and he's an achievement hunter AND is a happy raider. He raids for fun, he doesn't need gear anymore.

So yeah, I'm not surprised at all about people having so much badges.

On that note - I'm *happy* about that cleanup. The whole currency tab is way to cluttered in the moment. :)

I think it's a good thing that we're finally getting rid of the old stuff. It'll be nice with a cleaner (emptier) currency tab.

I found the numbers odd too, sure I guess theoretically people could have that many emblems, but they'd have to never really have bought much.

Personally I have to admit I used up pretty much all of mine, but then I never had loads since I mainly did 10 man raiding and didn't fill out my emblem pockets from 25 man pugs. But then as a warrior I did get a full tank set as well as a dps set :)

You know, I had no idea you could still get Badges of Justice until I started doing some rep grinding in Quel'Danas. At least the badges I did get will be converted into some gold rather than just sit there until the cows come home.

I had no idea, that's really nice. I think I used up most of my emblems though, to make money already. it was really easy in wotlk with the righteous and crusader orbs, and saronite later on.

That sounds sensible, but I wonder what will happen to the old items that you could only buy with these currencies before? Will they be removed too, or will you be able to buy old level 70 epics for example with justice points, maybe even as you level up? I've been using my old badges of justice recently to buy level 70 gear that didn't have screenshots on WoWhead yet and then submitted pictures. :P

I have the habit of not disposing badges just in case I may need them for anything. (Like Sanctifying my third set of gear.) At the moment, I'm sitting on about 1,200 frost and just as much Triumph. I've stopped running heroics long ago unless someone needs a hand. I only show up for the 25man raids now.

So yes. It is entirely possible to have that many badges sitting in your currency tab.

But I like all those old emblems.

Well, I was also storing old emblems in some chars and after all that was useful, so when dualspec came out I could get some useful relics (since there're very few you can get via quests) while spending emblems on other pieces of gear. I always wondered why make relics (dk, druid, paladin, shaman) so scarce.
Shintar: I don't think they will remove old gear, just make it available through Justice Points. The Zalazane's Fall trinket that turns you into an Amani warrior seems to have sparked a renewed interest into collecting the plate gear used there (Amani Mask of Death, Bloodthirster's Wargreaves/High Justicar's Legplates, Bonefist Gauntlets/Furious Deathgrips/Handguards of the Templar, Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian,
Implacable Guardian Sabatons/Sabatons of the Righteous Defender, Pauldrons of Gruesome Fate)

The less badges, the better :)

I was a little surprised at the change to all the old things, and am a little curious what else will be changing. Will they also be removing the Dalaran Cooking and Jewelcrafting Awards too? Or will those just be another out dated currency to be removed later. I suspect it will get removed since they also mentioned pulling Venture Coins, which are also from this expansion. Maybe it will put the huge quantities of the things I have to some use.

I am not sure how good an idea it will be to make the current badges carried over (Though from the standpoint of someone who has an absolutely enormous stockpile of badges, I appreciate it). Maybe it’s kind of a concession to all of us that have been farming the instance for months upon months that “Hey, we know that farming was bad for a year, so at least have a tiny leg up in the next expansion.”

For the quantities, I could very easily see someone with that number of badges. Doing the math a little bit, let’s say that as a guild I completed Lich King on both 10 and 25 man for the first week of May. That’s 26 weeks between then and the last week of October, which is 1,248 badges. That’s not including the ICC weekly, the Raid weekly, random dungeon, Ruby Sanctum and Vault frost badges. I know I have about 600 unspent frosts right now, and would have closer to 1000 had I not bought a lot of saronites to gear out alts and get recipes for completions sake, and still have another six weeks to go.

Currency exchange rates are here:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=14574620792&sid=1&pageNo=3

There's also a currency calculator at MMO Champion
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/1971-Cataclysm-Currency-and-Honor-Calculator

Thank the old gods for a way to get rid of my Venture Coins. Not really sure how I got them, but darn sure that I don't want them.

as long as we don't have to poke a bad vendor and trade them in 10 at a time...

stupid battleground marks

stupid 4 hours wasted converting 10 80's worth of pvp tokens to honor.

*grumble grumble grumble*

@Glyph, The Architect: But why on Earth would you keep those badges rather than buying your Tier set, trinket, back and after that saronites? Why would someone still have those badges?

@Zetter: I never think too much about the inflation tbh. I have the impression that Blizzard wants it to be fairly easy to get the gold you need in game, so people don't get any reason to buy gold.

@Carina: What I can't understand is why that rogue doesn't sell the saronites. I suppose he hates that kind of ingame-activity and just wants to raid. But still. It has been so much extra gold for so little effort (just to trade it in and then head to AH)

@Saga: No, I've used up most of mine as well, the last few months by selling saronites. I probably have some triumph badges though that I should deal with.... Or maybe just wait for the conversion. Haven't made up my mind on htat.

: I've seen that too and it felt really weird. Now we get a little perk from them, which is good.

@Syl: yeah I was better at doing it in Wrath, but I left TBC with some crap still in my bags.

@Shintar: I actually don't know, but Kurnak says sounds reasonable. How kind of you btw to help out to submit screenshots to Wowhead!

: 1200 frost! Wow. So you're the guys they're talking about in the example. I really didn't think you existed.

: I'm not sure if it helps to send them a plea to let you keep them. Probably not. I'm afraid.

@Kurnak: I can definitely see that you have a bigger reason to store them if you have a hybrid char. Or spend them ofc. The need for my druid seem to be infinite.

@Nils: ... and in Cataclysm you won't have any at all. Just points. Which... basically is pretty much the same. Oh well. At least I think there will be fewer varieties of them.

: I'm not completely sure about all those things. They did keep the fishing quest rewards from TBC in Wrath after all, but those didn't have any tokens.

I think it's a good idea to let them carry over a bit. It will probably help motivate a few players to run instances slightly more now than they would have done otherwise. Keeping up some activity.

I can't understand why you haven't bothered to buy and sell saronites. The prices are falling quicky now but I think you can still make some nice gold on them.

: That was quick! Thanks for the links

: I think you got them doing a couple of PvP quests in Grizzly hills, which you might even not have perceived as being PvP. But I'm fairly sure that you've passed beyond the point where the gear you can buy for them would matter to you.

@Holly: Exactly. That's what I like so much about it. That I don't have to do anything at all - the gold will just roll in.

True. Only points...

Well, at least they are honest calling them points and not pretending that the 'boss' had a badge on his body.

If there were some immersive explanation of these 'points' now, that would help me a lot to welcome the new system.

The big decision I have to make is do I convert what frost and triumph emblems I have into the lower level ones for a gold boost at the start of Cata or save them for the point boost.

I didn't sell Saronite, because I'm fairly comfortable gold wise. I mean, I have enough to cover my expenses plus on a regular basis, and enough materials not to need to pay for enchanting or JC till expansion; so I never saw much purpose in exchanging the badges for Saronite (I did convert a lot of my Triumphs over to gems though). That and I have most of the toys already.

I mean, going from 10k to 20k is a nice jump, but going from 40k to 50k is pretty "Meh, what's the difference? I would need to actually try to burn through this all anyways just to waste it."

I am at 250 or frost, 400 triumph on my main, partly because in the past I have made sure i converted surplus to gold even when i did not need the gold.

But I have guildies who have emblems in the 1000's, I certainly passed the 5k earnt mark quite a while ago.

@ Nils

Perhaps they're more of an abstraction of fame, or services rendered in the name of the Horde/Alliance, if you will. You go kill Loken, in defense of your kingdom, and you get a few "points" to spend on gear the kingdom has set aside for aspiring adventurers. Not that it's any different from emblems or badges, really. Same rose, different name.

But that aside, do you *really* need an immersive reason for points to exist here? Because if you want to go that far, why not make a game that has no health bars, because you could just show the damage on the character, because it'd be more immersive. Or how about how much mystical energy you have left? Why have a character sheet with stats at all? Instead of reputation bars, you should have to figure out how much a faction likes you by puzzling out whatever the faction characters say to you, and how it maps to numbers under the hood! How would you make experience points more immersive? Just because you can make something more "immersive" doesn't necessarily make it better, nor intuitive.

Having badges, or points, or reputation, or experience as numerics makes them easy to understand, and easy to measure progress (since people who play RPGs, MMO or not, tend to enjoy watching their characters grow). Obfuscating them in the name of immersion isn't doing anyone any favours other than the people who enjoy decrypting such systems and then posting guides on the internet to explain to everyone else what everything means. That's exactly what Blizzard is trying to move away from.

:
I think there is a middle ground. The points could, indeed, rather easily be interpreted as services for the Horde/Alliance. But Blizzard does not support this.

I do not think that it would make the game more complicated to call the points: "Fame gained".

Otherwise, you are of course correct: Sometimes immersion benefits hurt gameplay and if this is the case and no gameplay-neutral solution can befound, a compromise needs to be made.

@Nils: I too have a somewhat naïve wish that the drops would make more sense. That a bear wouldn’t drop a sword, but rather a bone that could be used as a sword. Or a piece of skin that you could wrap around yourself as a chest. If you get what I mean. And instead of badges or points, wouldn’t it make more sense if they dropped “fragments”? Some sort of bone pieces, whatever that would make sense. Oh well. I suppose they have good reasons not to try to make the loot make sense from a world/immersion point of view. Probably it would require too much of effort to come up with way more items that would be needed.

@Boleuge: that depends on how much gold you can expect to need as a boost. I have some 30 k gold and I hope it will be enough.

: Ah, I see. Well then you’re probably better off with the points.

@Ngita:that’s a crazy amount of badges your guildies have. I seem to be a little bit odd in my habit to change them to saronites and sell off. Maybe I should stop this now though, when it’s clear that you’ll get them converted to points.

: I agree that there are practical reasons to do it the way they do it. Still I can sympathize with Nils wishes, even though I don’t think it’s possible to implement in a good way.

Fame gained as Nils suggests is actually a good idea. Although it looks very much like just another version of reputation. And what happens if you want to use it as a currency for items, which was the idea. Fame losses?

I's just a simple orc, so I ain't that excited nor distraughtified by the change. Not havings fer ta trade Triumphs fer Conquests fer Valors fer Honors fer ta buy heirlooms'll be nice, but having all them things on my currency tab never reallies bothered me. I just glad the dang things ain't fillin' up me bags no more.

Wasn't saying anyone would have that much, just that it was possible.

Also, I forgot to add in 130 badges for Ruby Sanctum 10 and 25.