Blizzard
We’re going to take 7.2 Arena Skirmishes for another spin on the Public Test Realm, and you’re invited to join us!
Several members of the World of Warcraft development, quality assurance, and community teams will be queuing for PvP Skirmishes between 3:00 p.m and 5:00 p.m. Pacific time (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. Eastern) on Thursday, March 23. If you’d like to join, simply log into the PTR and queue for a PvP Skirmish during that time.
Blizzard employees will be identified in game by their guild (either <Blizzard Alliance> or <Blizzard Horde>). We’re looking forward to joining you in the Arenas for some testing pew pew pew!Blizzard
Thanks for all your feedback so far here - it's been a great read to get us thinking about some of these things.
First, I'd like to reiterate that we have not made any final decisions on how appearance unlocks will work in a post-Legion world, so any thoughts, discussion, feedback, etc. on that is appreciated.
When thinking about the 'Balance of Power' quest line, the intention is for it to feel similar to the Legendary Ring or Cloak quest lines from the past couple of expansions insofar that neither one of those can be obtained today, and both were time-sensitive achievements to show you participated in that expansion content wholeheartedly. This content generally has a lot of warning up-front on its removal to give players time to complete the requirements, and that will be true here as well if and when that decision is made.
With Legion, we decided to go with a cosmetic reward instead of an item that augments your power (mainly to balance the feeling of being a much weaker raid spot candidate), but it should still be and feel like a reward for players who actively participate in organized raid content.
It's worth noting that we've been making improvements over the course of Legion to help alts with these appearances (e.g. bad luck protection). For the hidden appearances, this was added in patch 7.1.5, so it's also good to note that this was not a retroactive addition - if you are a Guardian Druid looking for your Ursoc drop, and you've killed him 20 times, but only 3 of those were post-7.1.5, you wouldn't have a total of 20 kills of bad luck protection currently.
I think it's important that these achievements and their rewards feel prestigious overall, especially since cosmetics rewards are by no means "mandatory". We do think it's fine that some of these rewards take a lot of effort to earn over all.
I'll continue to follow along with the conversation here, so feel free to keep the feedback coming.Blizzard
I'm aware, but saying "limited time" here makes it sound like you didn't have the entire course of an expansion to do it.
This conversation came up around the end of Warlords as well (and I'm sure it did with Mists, but I wasn't here then), but our view on it still stands that those who are engaged and active throughout the expansion in all of its aspects are the ones who have the easiest time earning these items.
Edit: As said, we are aware of those with many alts, and it's something we are keeping a close eye on!