I think it's time to stop this nonsense. Stop all this talk about 'fail to pay' or 'pay to lose' etc.
We have a great bracket. People like to talk about how it's the worst and how it's unbearably awful but this bracket has always had something the others never could have. Activity. Yes, 19s have games. Yes, 29s had games before we got merged. But we've always had games since F2P became a thing and it's almost never stopped. What other bracket has ever had that, post-XP-off? I can't think of any. We're talking years of constant pops. Is it perfect? No but it has great potential.
Our bracket has the rarest thing among any twink brackets, consistent activity. Its most precious commodity is being weighed down by imbalance, petty feuds, and general spitefulness. It's always been the bad side to this bracket, both the feud between 24s and now the merge, 29s and our gear and level differences. The feuds have generally been created by that gear and level difference, often perpetuated by arguments about our differences, completely ignoring our similarities. I would argue that probably the worst of those things is the imbalance, I think everything else stems from it too. No one likes imbalance, no one. Sure, some people like imbalance in their favor or in small doses but no one like imbalance against them. It's the very thing every PvPer hates. It's the thing that gets them all rallied up and sending angry Tweets to developers!
These things aside, we have a wonderful bracket with something none of the others have managed to maintain. Face it, F2P is popular. Who doesn't like something that's free? As a kid who was born to a middle class working family who has seen some hard times, I know the value of a dollar. I was taught to be froogle, some would say cheap. Hey, sue me! Maybe that's what made F2P accessible to me originally but it's not why I stayed. We have a large influx of newer players, people who come by, try it and stay. I was one of these players when I rolled on Aerie Peak and was a complete newbie. I never stopped, both being a F2P twink and... err being a newbie.
All I ever wanted was for this bracket to be fair. For the longest time, I thought the best way to do that was to get people to convert, to use F2P restricted gear. This was rather naive of me but I like to think my intentions were good. When I was on Aerie Peak horde I prided myself on helping newer P2Ps to the realm gear. I would give them things like Magician's Mantle, armor kits, enchants. I encouraged them to be restricted, they often agreed only to change their gear and or level later. At this time, I didn't play much at 20 but it still stung. I've always been passionate about F2Ps and this bracket. I saw it as a betrayal to my kindness and the bracket.
Up until now, there had never been both an easy and realistic way to balance the bracket. I could be wrong, veteran accounts might not even work how we expect (or even ruin the bracket) but they could be the answer. It was unrealistic to ask people to sacrifice their advantage, their power and make themselves
feel weaker in the name of balance. Now, we can not only make all of us stronger BUT for free, essentially. Now we have a realistic way to balance the bracket. If we all use enchants and heirlooms we could possibly make this bracket better. Does that mean F2P as we know it is changed? Yes but don't we want a more balanced and fair bracket? I really believe that, that is in fact what most of us want. We already have the activity, now all we need is the balance and with that, the respect for each other will come naturally.
I apologize for the long post and know that I probably lost most of you somewhere at the top. I just feel very passionately about this topic. I thank any and all of you who manage to make it through my long-winded dribble bracket nonsense. Here, have some funk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezowHu_nxes
. 
