White Raven earring given out at The Rising event 2018

[Nixxe]

No see, I'm feeling the exact opposite way.
People fought hard for nothing but prestige. The fact they got anything at all to show their determination makes it more special.
It's like a war badge. People generally don't complete great military tasks for a ribbon or badge, but getting them doesn't make them any less special. Giving the same badges out to everyone would be a disgrace!

Newsflash: Nobody cares about your feelings.

It seems odd to me too. But I kind of see both sides...I mean, I get that the fight was hard and you want to have something like a souvenir to remember it by. And now they're taking that away which is kind of insinuating (to some people) that your prior experience and love of and devotion to the game doesn't matter. So I get why they're miffed about this. I don't know how much of a community there was during 1.0, but I'd wager that VERY few people stuck it out and not only got those earrings but also still play today. Perhaps, on this five year anniversary of the game, they're giving us all a glimpse of what you legacy players saw and went through -- like "look how far we've come", which is something that everyone can be proud of.

It oftentimes seems like many players want a thing just so they can hold it over others' heads and brag about their skill and/or suffering.

I get why they're miffed about it too. I used to be like that in WoW when Blizzard originally decided nothing would be truly exclusive back in Wrath, but I eventually realized how childish I was being and got over it. As it turns out, the world didn't end and things still felt special to me for precisely the same reason they had before. Others just go to enjoy the cosmetic rewards that I had the privilege of enjoying first and to create and assign their own memories and significance to those things. Their gain was not my loss as I had originally feared it would be.

[Stormfur]

Their gain was not my loss as I had originally feared it would be.

Precisely. Too many people somehow have tied "my worth as a human being" to "my value of items in a video game". I'm waiting for the legacy player who has "GOT THE WHITE RAVEN EARRINGS" as his real-life epitaph.