World of Warcraft : Banishing Soul Shards

MMORPG.com WoW Correspondent Sean Cooper, a Warlock player, writes this article on Soul Shards. Specifically how he feels they have been mis-used in the past and how Cataclysm is fixing to make it right.

As a long time player of the Warlock class, I, as well as other Warlocks, have found myself annoyed by the soul shard system. In the early days, the annoyance stemmed from having our bags full of the little pink gems. We players cried out for changes, and changes were promised. Would we be getting more uses for the shards? What about the ability to stack them? No! Our beloved class was changed in the form of special soul bags that held only soul shards, albeit a larger number of them. "This was it?" we thought. After months to years we got special ammo pouches.

Future changes were hinted at, but throughout the different iterations of WoW, we Warlocks and our little pink friends could do nothing but farm to fill our ever-increasing-in-size bags. Eventually we learned that we would be able to farm multiple shards through an improved version of "Drain Soul", but our shards would be restricted to 32 at a time. This is where we stand today.