Hey there friends, Jesse Pew here with another rant post. I've won another contest for a crowns code so I have message boards access again, my reign of terror continues!

I've noticed quite a few posts popping up on the message boards about the Ranked PvP reward situation so I thought I'd chime in, doing a light port of a post I made on Central awhile ago.

For those who haven't followed the Rank PvP drama saga I'll give a brief recap:

So around December 20, 2018 Kingsisle decided to bring in a new era of PvP items to the Ranked PvP vendor, most of which was useless. While adding useless items isn't necessarily a problem removing the actually useful items is. For literally the entire year of 2019 and now 2020 there have been posts all over the official message boards begging for the actually good items to come back. I was one of them, near the end of the winter season in 2019 I made this post warning them that removing the actually valuable weapons would just screw over newer players. Obviously, they ignored me, the season after they took it a step further, replacing the PvP weapons with worthless stat gear that doesn't even have a rank requirement to buy. I was able to get the entire Dark Sea Outfit without doing a single Ranked PvP Match, there was literally no reason for anyone to participate in Ranked anymore. I ended up making a much saltier post the season after chastising Kingsisle for killing ranked PvP, some content I mildly enjoyed. My favorite part about that post is when I predicted the future, saying

"Can we get the old weapons back before I have to wait an entire year to try and actually get them, assuming we aren't ignored by KI and don't get the weapons back after a year passes, which at this point wouldn't be entirely surprising."

Circling back to the title of this post, for those of you who are wondering why the PvP items didn't cycle after a year passes like they're supposed to, a Kingsisle developer provided a response during a Kingsisle Live a few months ago.

https://youtu.be/SNc3IHS-dUo?t=4359 The Question and Answer is at 1:12:39 if the timestamp doesn't work for you.

Basically Joel aka Decius of the message boards says he wants to change the ranked rewards back to the old ones now that they've been out for a year but is unable to because there is some "technical work" involved and he can't just do it right now. To me that seems like the higher ups not allowing him to push out a very small update for the Pirate101, but feel free to interpret it how you like. This is the core of the issue, we are going ANOTHER YEAR without the winter and spring weapons because Pirate101 is so abandoned they can't make a simple change. Note that the old Winter weapons were last obtainable in early 2018 they now wont be available again until around 2021 Three Entire Years with champion weapons being unobtainable, it's honestly ridiculous. Anyone who joined in 2019 and decided to get into PvP has just been at a massive disadvantage vs veteran PvPers, who have access to powerful abilities from PvP weapons like the Fall trees or Spring heal, items that in the Spring weapons case, won't be available again until 2021. Luckily for them thanks to Kingsisle's attacks on the PvP community featuring changes like this, them ignoring issues in Ranked like time warp and Scratch, and not adding any relevant items or companions to change up the PvP scene since 2016, newer players don't have to compete against these powers often because most Veteran PvPers have abandoned the game, that however, doesn't make the situation anymore acceptable.

To sum it up, in order to stop this issue from inevitably becoming a thing again in the far off future, Never do anything like this again, no more swapping out items every couple years, just put them all together for each season. I kind of doubt Pirate101 will be around when its time for the new stuff to cycle back in 2024 with the support it gets now, so it's time to stop making "bi-yearly" things. Decius since it seems to fall to you to eventually fix the Ranked PvP rewards situation it would be appreciated if you could respond to this post.

Willowydream on Jul 1, 2020 wrote:

Excellent argument. In Wizard101, I don't believe that the PvP gear vendors ever change out what they sell for tickets, but since I don't PvP in either game, I can't be sure.

Latecomers to the game are surely at a disadvantage here.

Not yet they don't, but one of the previous PvP developers on Pirate101 that now works on Wizard101 intends to do just that. They intend to add seasons within/under Wizard101 PvP Ages. I can hardly believe that swapping out PvP rewards each season won't be a part of that concept, but maybe they will read this thread. There might be hope for Wizard101, whereas very little exists for Pirate101.

Friendly Jesse Pew on Aug 17, 2020 wrote:

Bumping this thread asking once again for Decius to respond or at least Bat, this is a pretty serious issue that’s been effecting everyone who wants the weapons since 2018. PvP weapons have no business being discontinued for three years straight especially in a game like this.

It certainly would be nice to see even the least little acknowledgement, wouldn't it?

Somehow @Bat Masterson, please get Decius to find the time to respond here, or get it on the Agenda for the next KI Live? It should look like this:

1. Introductions

2. Pirate101 News, PvP Weapons and Gameplay questions

3. through ??? Wizard101 yada yada yada

If it doesn't, then Kingsisle is pretty much saying Rhett Butler's famous line to Scarlet O'Hara.