What happened to fitting in?

Bhagpuss over at Inventory Full made an interesting post that I loved. It's about armour and how betas looking better then release. In short, he says that beta is a time where everyone is wearing mid-level armour, they look like they fit the surroundings, and no one's a clown with forges on their shoulders. I agree fully.

What happened to fitting in? I don't mean fitting into a group of people, I mean the world. We'll look back at Vanilla WoW again (I know that may be getting tiresome, but bear with me.) Epic gear, the sets of raids and legends were rare. Most people were still wearing quest and dungeon gear because that's what you could wear without devoting yourself to a 40 man raid team.

Here's an image used to promote WoW when it was new. People looked like they fit.  Sure there was the problem of the 'clown suit', armour that didn't match, but at least each piece was believable.

But epic gear was something else, something that stood out. Sure it made you stand out from other players, but also the setting.

Don't get me wrong, some sets looked amazing, believable and in place. The tier 2 paladin comes to mind as one of the better looking sets to this day.

But then there was the tier 2 warrior set and.... ugh.... As a warrior at the time, I never envied anyone wearing this.

Fast forward to some of the sets we have today. With catch-up dungeons and LFR, these epic pieces are more common then ever. What rogue would find this practical? Is this the look of a man who defends Alliance boarders from the horde, or a raving lunatic?

Perhaps I'm different. I'm not in these games to be the big hero who killed Deathwing. I'm in these games to try and be a part of the world and for many games that's no longer the focus.

So I agree with Bhagpuss, I miss the days where players fit the world they played in. Thankfully Mark Jacob agrees, his recent dev blog on Massivley is a breath of fresh air after the ever growing trend of...well.... this....

That is apparently a hunter... You know, the in tune with nature, raises animals, uses a bow kind of thing... apparently....