We Want a Shrubbery

Although nobody is asking for my take on the Pandamonium limited event that Retail will be experiencing, I figured I'd drop in my two cents:

Pandamonium is a hedge by the WoW team.

It's not a shrubbery, it's a hedge!
From getyarn.io, but really from Monty Python.

What do I mean by that?

Well, it's pretty simple. The WoW Classic team is all in on Cataclysm Classic, but if it flops badly, there likely won't be a Mists of Pandaria Classic. 

Let's face it: Cataclysm Classic is as big of a risk as the original WoW Classic was in 2019. Blizzard wasn't entirely sure if people would show up to play an "official" Vanilla Classic server* back then, and by throwing out the "Original Trilogy" by moving all Wrath Classic servers to the now-current Azeroth (before phasing, I presume) there's no guarantee that enough players will show up and continue to play Cataclysm Classic to make a Mists Classic viable.

So, the easiest way to present the Mists expansion in a way that will guarantee people will go back and play the content is to create a limited time event with wildly accelerated leveling in Retail. Throw in a bunch of FOMO cosmetic items, and there you go.

There is a second reason for this Pandamonium event, and it is to drum up interest for a Mists Classic.** This is a taste of what Mists was like, since it is still set in the current Retail environment, so Blizzard is also hoping that Pandamonium will generate enough interest in Mists as an expansion to counter the pushback from the bean counters should Cata Classic flop.

And that's that. For those interested in the event, go have fun. Enjoy yourself, because that's why we play games, right?

*Hindsight is a real bitch here, because looking back it seemed obvious, but there was no guarantee that people who'd been playing on private servers would actually show up to play the "official" version, and there was also no guarantee that people like me would return just to play the pre-Cataclysm version of WoW. There's a very vocal part of the player base that looks down upon Classic and Classic players, and even those blowhards aside the fracturing of the player base was a big risk Blizzard took. 

**I don't think I need to go over my own opinion of Mists, so I'll save that for another time.)

Waiting for Godot WoW-Cthulhu

To say that I'm disappointed the Big Bad at the end of another WoW expac is related to the Old Gods is probably an understatement.

Sure, it's Emo Guy Garrosh Hellscream, but come on.  It is yet another Old God-related ending to a game that simply can't move beyond the Old Gods as a plot device.  About the only expac that didn't have a heavy dose of Old God material in some form was Burning Crusade, and I've often suspected that if Kil'Jaeden wasn't around to provide a convenient villain in the Sunwell, we'd have seen yet another Old God pulling Kael's strings.

By my count, Mists' Y'Shaarj-influenced Siege of Orgrimmar will make three of the five releases (including Vanilla) that was overshadowed with an Old God-esque ending:  Vanilla, Cataclysm, and Mists.  You could also make an argument that the Lich King, while tracing a lineage back to the Burning Legion, is also heavily influenced by Yogg-Saron*; after all, what exactly does Arthas use as a metal for his devices and buildings but Saronite, the blood of Yogg-Saron itself.  And don't forget the Old God influenced quest chain in Icecrown where the ghostly child teaches you about Arthas and his heart; there's a reason why we found Arthas' heart in that strange area in the first place.

What makes the Y'Shaarj  tie-in so disappointing to me was that the entire concept of the Sha was so new and interesting that it seems a shame that Blizzard couldn't let it stand on it's own.  Just like how the Mogu had to have the help of the Zandalari Trolls, the underlying cause of the Sha just had to be the Old Gods.

I suppose you could say that Blizzard has an addiction to conspiracies.  The popular uprising in Westfall characterized by the Defias simply couldn't stand on it's own, it had to tie in to the Twilight's Hammer somehow.  The overeager and blind self righteousness of the Scarlet Crusade couldn't stand on its own as Garithos' racism and arrogance did in Warcraft III, it had to be tied back into the Dreadlords and the Legion.

Maybe that works for a while in a fantasy world, but the problem is that in the real world a lot of stuff just happens.  There is no dark conspiracy behind a lot of criminal activity; a lot of it is a crime of opportunity (or passion).  If there is a plot involved, it is very localized (one spouse hiring a hitman to take out the other spouse, for example).  Sure, there's organized crime, but you can't blame everything on the mob.  If there's a drug turf war, it tends to unfold organically, not manipulated by some master puppeteer in the shadows.

Fantasy lends itself well to that evil overlord, the shadows in the dark controlling our lives.  But when you dip into that same well too often, it starts to feel forced and loses its punch.  The most unique thing about Mists was the Sha, but it turned out to be just more Old God trickery, lessening the impact that it could have had. When all questlines lead to the same ending, all that's left for variety is the kill ten rats.

***

Perhaps that is why I've seen a lot of griping lately that WoW's high point was Wrath.  Wrath had one raid that was the culmination of a long questline that had absolutely nothing to do with the "Let's Get Arthas!" movement:  Ulduar.  Was it Old God related?  Yes.  Was it a big, tough raid?  Yes.  Did it advance the Arthas story?  No.  Not one bit.

Ulduar was part of a giant three pronged fork in the entire Northrend questline --Arthas and Malygos being the other two-- and it demonstrated that a story didn't have to be part of the main part of the expac to be meaningful.  Blizzard has gotten away from that with Cataclysm and Mists, and to add insult to injury they end up reusing the same old same Old (Gods) as a crutch.

I guess that we're going to be treated to yet another dose of Old Gods fairly soon, assuming that The Dark Below turns out to be the name of the next WoW expac.  After all, what tends to inhabit the dark places of the world but Twilight Hammer and their ilk?




*Certainly in hindsight people still talk about Ulduar as the high point of WoW raiding, and I have to admit I liked Storm Peaks much more than Icecrown.

The Stuff of Nightmares

Have you ever had the dream where you're trying to outrun something --a train, a car, or Usain Bolt-- but you feel like your feet are made of lead?  You're trying desperately to get around a corner before you get run over, and you can feel the rumble of the steam engine in your bones as that train gets closer....

Closer....

Closer....

And then you wake up, your heart pounding in your chest.

Yeah, I've had that dream a lot recently, and it involves Deepwind Gorge.

On the face of it, Deepwind Gorge is a lot like Arathi Basin and Battle of Gilneas, with the additional part of having to capture the other faction's gold.  The BG is more compact than either AB (by a lot) or BoG (marginally so), but the line of sight issues make it seem larger than it is.  But the biggest differences between the prior two and DG are the locations of the respawning points:  each faction's home base.

That alone changes the dynamics of the BG, because if you're assaulting a mine and you can kill off another faction's toon, that pretty much guarantees that toon will be gone for more than twice the normal amount of time it would take to run back from a localized spawning point.  We've all been in the situation where you're in AB assaulting the Gold Mine, and you kill off a toon just to see it make a reappearance from the GM spawning point 10 seconds later.  That won't happen in DG.

But what the respawn points also do is make Rogues' biggest advantage --stealth-- their biggest weakness.

No matter how fast a Rogue can run while stealthed, except for a few short bursts they can't move fast enough to get back to a base in peril.  You are trying to get back as quickly as you can, or to get anywhere as quickly as you can, and you feel like your feet are in mud.

There is an option, of course, which is to summon your mount and ride back, but for a class that's bringing up the bottom in terms of survivability in BGs, that's akin to jumping up and down and yelling "Free HKs!!" To ensure survivability you have to ride in a pack, and that isn't playing to a Rogue's strength either.

Rogues are at their best when they can strike when you least expect it.  They don't have the plate (or even the mail) of other melee classes, and they don't have either tanking or healing capabilities.  They also don't have a (seemingly) neverending font of mana, either.*

What all this means is that a Rogue's best bet while playing Deepwind Gorge is to either play close to your home base --defending the gold-- or spending time as part of a bigger effort.  Solo work is a risky business for a Rogue in general, and solo work in DG is potentially very nasty indeed.

Oh, and try not to have too many nightmares.



*I once hid in Icewing Bunker with another Rogue, watching a Mage spam Arcane Explosion and seeing the Mage's supply of mana creep downward like a snail.  "They need to nerf that," I whispered.  "There's absolutely no downside to spamming that for minutes at a time."

"Yeah," the other Rogue replied.  "That and a Lock's Hellfire and Rain of Fire.  When a Lock can dump Rain of Fire on the run...."

WoW Cash Shop Opening in Asian Realms

Yeah, you heard that right.

WoW will be taking another step toward having a cash shop like (just about) every other MMO out there by opening up an In-Game Store for Asian realms in patch 5.4.

Considering that the majority of their subscription loss has been in Asia, I'm sure this was a move to directly counter it.  However, unlike other MMOs out there with a cash store, Blizzard will not drop subscriptions.  Instead, they're going to offer XP buffs via the store.

Given that Blizzard has shown a) no desire to destroy their cash cow and eliminate subscriptions and b) this is at present only implemented in Asia, this sounds like a non-starter.  It seems that Blizzard is hoping that people will open up their wallets a whole lot wider and not only maintain a sub but pay for items out of the cash store.

I do have to wonder about the primary reason subs are dropping in Asia, however.  If it's strictly an economic issue (cost of internet time vs. time to play), I can understand giving a new player a boost to get to L90.  A new player won't have access to heirloom gear, and believe me, I lamented that way back when in 2009 when I was struggling to get to L80 in Wrath.  There is also the issue of trying to level a lot of alts, when most heirloom gear doesn't work in the Pandaria range of L86-L90.

Still, I wonder whether Blizzard is reading the tea leaves right.  This entire focus on XP buffs enforces the notion that the important part of WoW is raiding at Endgame, when WoW has thousands of quest between L1 and L90.

Even then, I don't see how an XP boost is going to help a player that much.  I got to L90 in the middle of Kun-Lai Summit, and I still had 3.5 zones to go.  My gear wasn't even close to being able to get into LFR (if I wanted to), so I would have to grind dailies to get raid ready.  There's not much around that, unless they provide a buff for dailies.  (And I don't see that happening, either.)

My last concern is whether Blizzard didn't get the various Asian cultures well enough in Mists.  Every time I was impressed about something they stuck in --some of the tales echo stories about the Monkey King, for example-- they'd have a quest name that made a joke using the differences in Asian pronunciation (substituting Pei-Back in place of Payback, for example).  If you turn off players because they feel you're making a joke about their culture, they're not going to be coming back.  Before you ask, no, I don't have any data.  But when I read that it was Asia --where Mists was marketed heavily-- that had the largest drop in subs, this was the first thing that popped into my head.  If Blizzard is fighting this problem, then putting in a cash store isn't going to help.

Not These Guys Again

Anybody remember when the Zandalari were the good guys?*

Now, they're reduced to the role the Nazis filled in the Indy Jones movies.

Zandalaris....  I hate these guys!

I reached the end of the "original" Pandaria quest chains, and I find myself...  Disappointed.  It seems that Blizz walked up right to the edge with the Mongols Mogu and decided that it was too risky to have new baddies out there all by themselves.  Therefore, they dug into their collection of past enemies and pulled out the Trolls.

Again.

I should have seen this coming; after all, both vanilla and every expac of WoW that has been released has featured Trolls as the baddies in some form or another:  Zul'Gurub and Sunken Temple (Vanilla), Zul'Aman (BC), Drak'Theron and Gundrak (Wrath), the 5-man Zuls (Cata).  While they don't get their own separate instance/raid, they are heavily featured in raids such as Mogushan Vaults and Throne of Thunder.

You can't go more than 100 feet in the Isle of Thunder without smacking into a Troll.  And if it weren't for a Rogue's stealth ability, I'm sure I would have.

I just feel like there was such a great chance to Blizzard to fully commit to the Mogu as the balance to the Sha in Pandaria, and they decided that the Thunder King and company couldn't stand on their own.  What's going to happen in the next expac, anyway?  Should they skip other baddies entirely and title it "Trollmageddon"?

***

As an aside, I had to wonder about the naming of Lei Shen's home.  Isle of Thunder doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but when I switched it around I realized one reason why it shouldn't be named Thunder Island:

I'm actually disappointed that nobody has created a WoW music video based on Jay Ferguson's 70's tune.  Of course, I don't think that you'll find people "chasin' love" out there on WoW's Thunder Island.

***

That does bring up another issue I had with the questing in Pandaria.  Blizz deliberately went for the darker feel in their quest writing, making Vashj'ir seem like a walk in the park by comparison.  But even then, they snuck in their traditional pop culture nods and humorous hijinks.  (Hayden Christophen as the Alliance Honor Quartermaster, for instance).  This time, however, I think that the humorous asides actually detract from the rest of the questing.  Like how Toshley's Station (and to a lesser extent Area 52) are jarring enough that you lose your immersion in the game, quests like the ones associated with the Grummies left me grinding my teeth.

At times like this, I wish Blizz would dial back the humor a bit and at least take themselves more seriously.  We already get tons of "kill ten rats" quests as it is, I don't think a spoonful of sugar humor is going to help that medicine go down any easier.

***

The ending to Dread Wastes, however, is right up there with the ending to Vashj'ir, where you watch what happens and think "Holy shit, we're screwed."**  That said you only get that sort of emotional punch out of an ending once, and if you mess it up you've lost a golden opportunity.  Blizz did a great job on that one.  And on the Jade Forest's ending as well.  For some reason, Townlong Steppes and the combined Krasarang Wilds/Valley of the Four Winds endings didn't have the same sort of punch.  And of course, Kun-lai Summit's ending is in an instance, so it gets an incomplete.

All in all, Blizz did some things right --a bit less quests on rails, although it is still quite noticeable-- which pretty much balance out the issues I had with questing.  I knew I was getting near the end when I kept saying to myself "Just hang in there, Dread Wastes has got to end soon."  The last time I was saying that, I was in The Old Republic and slogging through Belsavis.  And that's a shame, because the overall story behind Dread Wastes was very interesting.




*Or at least semi-good guys.  Hey, scholars are good.

**At least a real raid came out of this, compared to what happened in Vashj.


EtA:  I forgot Zul'Farrak for Vanilla.  That's what I get for hanging around the Eastern Kingdoms lately.

The Old Fashioned Way of Doing Things

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnameable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.
--Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching


There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force.
--The Jedi Code*

In what feels like a lifetime ago, I wrote about how corruption was a major theme in Blizzard's work.  A couple of expacs since that time, Blizzard hasn't really changed their tune very much.  In fact, you could argue that Blizzard is simply coming up with new ways to use corruption.

Okay, Twilight's Hammer was a gimme.  You're tempted by power and who looks like the winning side, and you join with Deathwing.  Even the Sha are pretty blatant.  You open your heart to those non-Zen Buddhist emotions such as fear, anger, and hate** just a tiny bit, and the Sha sneak right on in and corrupt you.  In a very real sense, the Sha are the ultimate excuse for bad behavior:  "I was possessed by the Sha!  They made me do it!  Somebody release the Sha that's inside me!!"

But the war between factions?  Garrosh?  Well, Blizz has gone on record for saying that Garrosh is simply a "bad egg".  Oh, he may eventually become corrupted by the power within Pandaria (/cough 5.4 /cough), but he was evil and/or power hungry to begin with.

O really?

Has everybody forgotten the kid in Nagrand who was so afraid that he'd turn out like his father that he let the Ogres and evil-aligned Broken walk all over his tribe?  The kid who only began to grow a spine when Thrall showed him how his father redeemed himself?

Even though that questline has pretty much dried up due to conflicts --Thrall not being Warchief these days-- that's pretty telling that Garrosh wasn't exactly a "bad egg".  He became a bad egg due to his experiences.  He saw when he first arrived in Orgrimmar that bluster worked.  That aggression worked in Northrend.  He took a strong offensive stance and freed the Dragonmaw from their Legion tainted leaders, learning that putting pedal to the metal worked.  He surrounded himself with "yes men" and marginalized those who would provide better counsel:  Saurfang, Cairne, Baine, Vol'jin, Rexxar, Eitrigg, and Lor'themar.***

In short, he became corrupted with power just like any number of despots.

If he'd had different experiences, if he'd have learned something by the way he was duped into killing Cairne, or if he'd have learned something about power and responsibility after Stonetalon, Garrosh would have turned out differently.  But he didn't.

Seduced by the Dark Side, he was.




*Good thing that the Tao espouses a lack of passion, because some lawyer somewhere would have a field day on this.

**You can hear Yoda saying this, can't you?  "The Dark Side are they...."  That said, the one thing that TOR has that Blizzard doesn't have is romance in the questlines.  The world's biggest generator of fear, anger, and hate is romance/relationships, and Blizz simply refuses to examine that outside of, say, the books.

***I didn't throw Sylvanas into the mix because I'm not convinced she'd give good counsel, and she's also too far gone with her version of total war.  If Liadrin were not consumed with rebuilding Quel'Danas and managing the Blood Knights, I'd have put her in the list as well.

Miscellaneous Thoughts on the Cusp of the Weekend

Well, that didn't take long.

Somewhere in the middle of Kun-lai Summit my rogue dinged 90 without a single piece of heirloom gear on her (that was still active, anyway; I kept the Inherited Insignia of the Alliance just because).

This was the quickest I'd leveled to max level in a new expac area, and if I'd have been a non-stealthie class I'd have finished even sooner because I avoided a lot of mobs while out questing.  By comparison, I dinged L80 in Storm Peaks on Q, and L85 in Twilight Highlands on Neve and Tom.

And while it's going to be nice for questing, PvP just got a big punch in the gut.

I mean, really.  Most of my gear is in the L414 range; what do you think would happen if I got into WSG with that gear iL?

I considered running scenarios and/or instances, but really, they didn't appeal to me.  I didn't feel like dragging down a scenario with my (relative lack of) DPS, and while instances might work, if I'm going to be spending time getting badges I might as well get Honor instead.  Okay, I have to be honest:  I queued for an instance long enough to see the DPS wait time for a normal was 45 minutes, and decided I'd much rather get two BGs in before a single instance popped.

That said, just any old BG won't do if you're not geared up for it.  A rule of thumb of mine is that the more the players on a side, the lesss impact a single player will have.  Therefore, for an undergeared toon, my best bet is to stick to the 40 man BGs and ride on some coattails.

Oh hai, Vann!  Nice to see you!

***

It feels weird walking around Neverwinter.

The last time I was in the Jewel of the North was in the video game Neverwinter Nights, back before D&D 4E and the Spellplague.  Even though she is dead now, I keep expecting to see Lady Aribeth, Paladin of Tyr, wandering around the Protector's Enclave.

I also expect --as a Cleric-- to be managing my available spells and keeping an eye on balancing healing with utility.  But in Neverwinter, based as it is on D&D 4E, all of that is out the window.  Neverwinter is far closer to a Diablo-esque game than a traditional MMO in terms of gameplay.  The commands alone feel better suited to a gamepad than a keyboard.

Still, it is an addictive game, and I recognize the Forgotten Realms lingo in the NPCs you meet.

***

Kids and MMOs, Part Whatever:

I called the kids down to dinner last night, and as she sat down my youngest got a funny look on her face.

"What's up?" I asked.

"I didn't park my Smuggler before coming down.  She was in Black Sun territory."

I headed for the stairs.  "I'll take care of it."

After moving her toon into a corner, I returned to the table.  "Kiddo," I began, "Why is your Smuggler wearing a dress?"

"Um....."

"You realize you put on gear meant for a counselor, right?"

"Oh, so THAT's why she looked weird!"

Oh, This is Gonna Hurt....

I was working on the Red Crane Temple area of Karasang Wilds with Anduin in tow* when I ran into yet another gearcheck wall:  the two mini-bosses in the separate wings of the temple.  What was more annoying this time was that I was properly equipped with as much green and blue quest gear as would be expected as someone attempting this.  If it weren't for the ads that show up when the sha bosses are halfway down I don't think there'd be as much a problem, but those ads force me to use up all of my CDs, and then I'm just a sitting duck in leather gear** trying to build up combo points.

I'd been chatting with Vidyala from Manalicious in-game, and hearing of my latest wipe offered to help.  (I'd forgotten about CRZ capability in Pandaria; it's there, lurking beneath the surface.)  I gratefully accepted her offer, and when her Mage Millya winged in, I crept around and assaulted the first mini-boss.  Two zaps from Vid and the mini-boss was a smoldering heap.

"Holy crap!" I said.

Vid laughed.  "You're still L88," she pointed out.

"Yeah, but..." then I noticed her health bar.  "You're more than twice my health!"

"Did I ever tell you about the time I tanked Elegon?"

"Yeah, but...  Wow."  I knew that she was on the current raiding tier, but this discrepancy was almost as much as the discrepancy between a fresh L85 and a Mists-geared L89 in a battleground.

We circled around to the other mini-boss --she flew and I crept over-- and repeated the fireworks.

"All I can think about is how it's going to hurt when I ding L90 and get into a BG," I said, awed, as I thanked her for the assist.

Even now, I can see myself as a smudge on the ground, with the "L2P Noob!" ringing in my pointy ears.  Just when you thought you made it to the top of the mountain....




*I'm already sick of that kid.  For a Mists release, he sure seems to be fighting with the punch of a Wrath-era toon.  I find even Corso (the Smuggler companion on TOR) less annoying than Anduin.

**With a conspicuous opening right between the breasts.  Reminds me of the old Female Armor Sucks comedy skit that Collegehumor put out a while back.  Yes, go watch it through the link; it's a classic.

Hellooooo! Anybody home??

Such was my feeling working my way through Pandaria.

I'm already on my third zone, Krasarang Wilds, having completed the first two.*  While I know two things --cross realm zones are turned off for Pandaria and I've already passed one of the big "dailies" hubs at the Tillers area-- I'm still surprised at how few toons are out and about in Pandaria itself.  I've seen more toons in Hellfire Peninsula than in the first three Pandaria zones, and that's kind of scary.

There's obviously players out there, as Cynwise demonstrated in his class distribution post, but wherever they are, it's not in Panda-land.

I am not going to jump to conclusions here, but I suspect that people like me who took their time to level a new toon are outliers, and most of the utility in the new zones is already spent.  As the "game starts at max level" people will tell you, that's not a surprise.  But think of all the effort it took to generate the data in those new zones, and you'll understand why I'm more than a bit concerned about the future of WoW.

Just like in Cataclysm, Blizzard expended a lot of effort to create new content (and a new continent), but the usefulness of that content evaporated once the big wave made it to L90.  I suppose you could make the argument that 2 years of development was useful for the majority of players up until patch 5.1 dropped, only a few months worth of playtime.  That's not exactly fair, but the dearth of characters out in Pandaria feed the perception that Blizzard would be better off spending time devising new raids and BGs.  (And pets.)

For those people (like me) who have complained about Blizzard's use of the WoW novels and short stories to advance the lore rather than develop it in-game, this is a pretty damning result.  If you were a bean counter at Blizzard, which would give you more bang for the buck:  a novel or in-game content?   And what's more, if you knew the in-game content would be tossed aside at the earliest opportunity, where would you put your development dollars at?

It's a shame, really, because when Blizz' development staff take themselves and their topic seriously they can create some really good content.




*Given my current leveling rate, supplemented by BGs, I'll be at max level by the time I'm finished with Kun-Lai Summit.  That's great for entering the Dread Wastes, but for a BG-er, that's going to be painful.

I Love the Smell of Gyrocopters in the Morning...

At the end of an Isle of Conquest battleground, my Rogue dinged 85.  I looked around the entrance to Uldum, decided there was no reason to stick around, and I went back to Stormwind to begin my expedition to the Orient Pandaria.

Having ignored most of the Beta and being baffled by most people's commentary on their own blogs (Mogu, Schmogu), I figured I was going in as blind as you could be without actually being a complete noob to WoW.  Also, I decided this would be a good duplication of my previous attempt in Cataclysm, the "Convoy to L85"*, but with my iL at 280 I assumed this would be a bit rougher of a transition.**

I flew up to the Skyfire, landed, and we were off.

About five minutes into the intro questline, I had one overwhelming thought:  why are we still playing WoW with swords and axes and bows?  WoW has gone full steampunk with Mists, and the old paradigm has become obsolete.  It's so steampunk, both gyrocopter sequences --the one you pilot as well as the one where you tag certain places in the Horde stronghold for air strikes-- felt like something out of Apocalypse Now.

Throughout the entire SI:7 portion of Jade Forest, the comparisons with Vietnam grew stronger, with the Alliance and Horde's arming of the indigenous populations echoing the Soviets and U.S. arming the Vietnamese.***

And then, things just collapsed.

We were back to the traditional WoW environment of kill ten rats, sly names with a nod to popular culture, and quest writing similar to any other expac.  It's almost as if Blizzard went up to the edge, looked over the precipice, and decided to play it safe and go back to the tried and true.  With the exception of the graphics and voice actors, if you were to drop the Pandaria quests into another expac you'd not tell the difference.

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense:  WoW is what it is, and putting an Asian veneer over it isn't going to change the core of the game.  Just like how I could tell Aion was Korean in origin by the quest text****, I could tell that this was WoW by the quest text.

Still, my first observation stands:  why are we using bows and swords and axes in a game that has become dominated by "magic tech" and steampunk?  I can understand a Rogue's use of daggers in an assassin's role, but the Paladin, Warrior, and Hunter seem obsolete in the tech that you see in WoW.  The magic oriented classes --Druid, Shaman, Priest, Warlock, and Mage-- have more utility in the New WoW Order than the melee based classes.

From a historical perspective, once one group makes a major technological leap in warfare, other groups quickly follow suit or they get steamrolled over.  When the musket was introduced and the concept of interchangeable parts introduced, all of the major powers of the day almost instantly switched to this new tech.  Blizzard went in this direction with the entire opening and SI:7 sequences, yet pulled back from the obvious conclusion of modifying the classes to accommodate new arms and tactics.  Yes, the game would have been radically changed forever had they gone through with those sort of changes, but it remains that Blizzard seems to have wanted the flash and bang of the new stuff without the natural conclusion that those changes would have wrought.

Unless, of course, Titan is really WoW Steampunk.




*Use the label to find the old posts on that adventure; I examined the transition from Wrath to Cata as a pair of fresh L80s --Neve and Tomakan-- without the benefit of having run a single Wrath raid or heroic instance.  For fun, I added Q into the mix just to compare the difference in Hyjal from someone with T10 gear vs. Wrath greens.

**Oh, I guess you're curious how my severely undergeared Rogue handled the intro zones.  It was much slower going than the transition to Cata, and the first boss, Ga'trul, proved to be a true gear check.  I'd be doing well enough until he converted to Sha form, and then I'd end up wiping.  In the end I had to go back and blow some of my Honor and Justice points to get enough gear to allow me to knock that warlock out.  Once I got past Ga'trul, however, the road was much smoother than I expected.

***You could also insert any Nineteenth Century European power here, particularly during colonial expansion.

****If there's one thing that makes me hesitate about Guild Wars 2, it's that I didn't like the tone of the quest text from Aion.  If the same company, NCSoft, makes both games, it stands to reason that I won't like feel of GW2 as well.

Did Somebody Get the License of that Truck?

I'd thought the L75-L79 BG range was the worst for leveling via BGs.  The Cata gear entering in at L77-L78 skewed the BG fairly heavily toward the top end of the BG, even more so than the average leveling BG due to the compressed nature of an entire expac to five levels.  Having gone through that range twice now, once with a Lock in Cata and now on my Rogue in Mists, I figured I knew what I was talking about.

Seems that I was wrong.

When my Rogue hit L80 and entered into this BG field, with Blizz's internal adjustments my health was about 52-53k.  I saw L84s with 84-90k health, and figured it wasn't too bad all things considering.  I knew I'd have to run through either Vashj'ir or Hyjal to get enough Cata gear to compensate for losing most of my old Wrath and BoA gear*, although I had enough Honor farmed to get some good L270 PvP gear.

Things just looked better than the L75-L79 range, and I breathed a sigh of relief.  Mists was in sight.

The first few battlegrounds I got into --Isle of Conquest, Eye of the Storm, and Warsong Gulch-- I was able to contribute to.  I wasn't a terror out there, as I wasn't high enough level or had enough gear, but I held my own and wasn't a drag on the teams.  Well, let's be realistic here:  Children's Week bringing in a lot of unskilled PvPers helped me considerably.

Then came last night.

I was in an IoC battleground, and we'd quickly stormed the Horde Keep.  I and two other people held back to defend the Keep while the rest went after Overlord Agmar.  A lone Warlock showed up and gave battle, which even though Locks are much improved over the Cata version**, a Hunter, Druid and Rogue (me) should have no trouble dispatching him.

He blew through us in 20 seconds.

"What the hell was that?" I asked as we were waiting by the Spirit Guide.

"Did you see him?" the Druid added as we ran back to the Keep.  "He had 180k health!"

"All I knew is that he one-shotted me and I had 66k!"

We made it back to the Keep and were joined by two more toons.  It didn't help, as it took the Lock a mere 25 seconds to dispatch us all.

"Skip D-ing the Horde Keep," a DK said.  "Just run in and kill the boss!"

"No kidding," I grumbled.  "The Lock is more powerful than the boss!"

Needless to say, the Lock all by himself managed to win IoC for the Horde.

I was still shaking my head over this when I got into an Arathi Basin run.  While the Horde didn't have a 180k health Lock roaming around, they had about half of their team over 100k.

"This is ridiculous," a DK said.  "I might be able to take on one of them, but not a whole side.  Just go ahead and let them 5 cap so we can get this over with."

"So Blizz didn't close that loophole in the gear that they started with Cata?"

"No, they didn't.  What makes it worse is that while they can't queue up for it, a toon can be invited into a group running a Mists dungeon so they can get Mists blue gear.  You've got guilds running their twinks through multiple runs just to get tricked out."

"And I thought L75-79 was bad.  At least I didn't get one-shotted there."

"Yeah, the gear inflation isn't linear between Wrath Cata and MoP."

Well, it looks like my prediction about the BG issues back in Cata has come to pass in Mists.  If Blizz isn't going to allow toons to migrate straight to Cata and Mists from L78 and L83 respectively, they ought to move the low end Cata and Mists gear to a requirement of L80 and L85.  While the gear discrepancy is bad enough between Wrath and Cata, the non-linear nature of gear inflation has made it progressively worse between Cata and Mists.  And while Blizz attempted to level things out a bit by raising the health level of the new L80s in battlegrounds, the L84s with access to blue Mists gear far outstrip any manual intervention Blizz accomplished.

I'm not going to hold my breath on any corrections any time soon, because this is the second expac that Blizz has let this go; obviously, they gain more by leaving things as they were than actually fixing this discrepancy.  But from where I sit, this is just as bad as how weak Warlocks were in Cata.  And we know how Blizz addressed that, don't we?





*I ended up with two Toxidunk Daggers due to the generosity of a fellow Rogue on the Ysera server, who saw I was at L78 and in AV at the time.  The Rogue didn't want any gold, he just wanted to give the daggers to someone who was going to use them in BGs.  Who said that Rogues were disreputable people, anyway? ;-)

**Apologies to Cynwise, but I felt like an old man griping that "I leveled a Lock via BGs when it was HARD, back in Cata, and all these young whippersnappers don't know what it's like to be Rogue chow!"

Where Have You Gone, Svala Sorrowgrave?

The news that Blizzard is going to stop putting out new 5-man instances for Mists seems to have caused a bit of a stir.

Those people who gear up using LFR kind of shrugged and said "no big deal".  So did those who like the new Scenario concept.  And the "I love dailies" crowd chuckled and continued muttering to themselves in a corner.

But for me, I see this as the continuation of what started in Cataclysm.

Cataclysm began the deviation from the standard Warcraft pattern by instituting Heroic-only 5-mans, and then segregated them further by separating them out in the LFG queue.  I can presume this was done so that those who wanted to either gear up to the latest tier or max their VP acquisition could do so in the most efficient manner, but as in all things there were unintended consequences.

By subdividing 5-mans like that, the queue times soared to levels only previously seen in obsolete 5-man end game instances.*  Starting with the Zuls --Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub-- people began to complain about a lack of variety in their instance runs.  Finally, the new Heroics created an "asshat divide" within 5-mans:  asshats flooded the 5-man Heroics, particularly the latest ones, while people who simply enjoyed running instances gravitated toward the baseline 5-man Normal instances.

However, those who enjoyed 5-man Normals found their options sadly lacking as compared to their Heroic brethren.  Unlike Wrath, which had the same number of Normal 5-mans as their Heroic version --16, if you were curious-- there were only 7 Normals vs. 14 Heroics in Cataclysm.**  Perhaps the statistical data for Wrath showed that not a lot of people ran the ICC Normals, but instead of making the last patch's instances Heroic-only, Blizz took their solution a step further in Cata and eliminated the Normal option entirely from all major patch instances.  It wouldn't be so drastic a step if it weren't that Cata dropped with only 7 Normal instances as opposed to 12 in Wrath.

And now we come to Mists.

Mists shipped with 4 Normal 5-mans (9 Heroic), and that's going to be it.  If you're an instance runner, you're out of luck.

While Blizzard will point out the Scenario model that is new to Mists, they are all tuned for max level and are designed for a "dungeon-lite" experience.  I look on them as the equivalent of a multi-player Daily that you can queue for, not a traditional instanced dungeon.

So what happened to the slate of instances we are used to seeing in an expac?

LFR.

Blizzard has decided to use LFR for mid-expac progression, and as a consequence instances have drawn the short end of the stick.  To be fair there were only 4 new instances post-release in Wrath versus 5 in Cataclysm, but those 4 represented only 25% of the overall total of Wrath instances as opposed to 36% in Cata.  Think about it:  Wrath shipped with 12 instances, while Cata had 9 (7 normal).  If you look at Normal instances alone, this is a further erosion from the Wrath model:  12 -> 7 -> 4.

If you only ran Normals, Blizzard didn't design any new instances for you at all once Cataclysm dropped, so this erosion isn't new behavior to you.  What is new, however, are how few Normal instances are now available and the lack of future prospects for those instances.

As much as Dave Kosak Twittered that there will be more 5-mans in future expacs, the numbers don't lie.  Instances are less important to Blizzard moving forward.  Scenarios and LFR will get the development time previously allocated to instances, and the expectation is that you will use instances to assist you in getting that initial "raid ready", but instances as a viable max level activity will be phased out.

Before someone says that Blizzard is swimming in money given the number of subs that WoW has, remember that profit doesn't translate into more development staff.  Even if there were more development staff around, items such as Pet Battles have taken up significant development time, further eroding the time to devote to 5-man instances.

Finally, let's not forget the elephant in the room:  Titan.  It could also be that Blizzard is shifting priorities to their next gen MMO.  Any low hanging fruit, such as instance development, will get put on the back burner.

I think we can safely say that the BC/Wrath era of instances is now over.  I'll miss having a lot of instances to run, as my limited playing time prohibits even LFR from being an option, and Scenarios are of little use to someone still leveling a toon in Pandaria.  But I also thought it a mistake by Blizzard in Cataclysm to not pair up Normal instances with the latter Heroics, as those Normals became a refuge from the drama that so often infected Cata Heroics.

But hey, popularity doesn't lie, right?




*I once waited 2 hours for the queue to pop for a 5-man Heroic Tempest Keep/MgT run back in Cata.  Amazing how much farming you can get done in that time.

**Since BC instituted the Heroic we can't count Vanilla, but in BC there were 16 instances and all had Normal and Heroic settings.

The View from the Halfway Point

While it seems that everybody else on WoW already has multiple toons at L90 --their main, their primary alt, their secondary alt, their cross-faction alt, and their bank alt-- my main for this expac just dinged L45 somewhere in the middle of an Arathi Basin fight.

I've been steadily moving along, splitting time between battlegrounds and skinning, and playing about 3 days a week or so.  There have been many waves of players passing through BGs on new Pandaren toons, and we're now down to seeing more traditional BG compositions --with a few sprinkling of Monks, that is.

Once I reached the mid-30s on my Rogue, BG leveling slowed to a crawl and is only now starting to pick up with the unlocking of Alterac Valley.  I don't think this is by design, because leveling via BGs is heavily dependent upon your side's ability to grind out wins.  And since the Alliance has had very few healers in the mid-30s to early 40s BGs, the wins have been hard to come by.

The bots are in vogue too, I see.

Eye of the Storm seems to be the biggest place where you'll find bots, because their behavior is so obvious.  When a toon repeatedly:

• pops from a graveyard
• runs up to the nearest base
• pivots where the buff would ordinarily be (but isn't because it was freaking used already)
• races to the mid

you know you've got a bot on your hands.

I'd like to see Blizz be a bit more proactive in zapping bots, since they can't really be gotten rid of from a BG except by being marked as away, but I guess that's something they're going to have to come up with.  Making it easier to kick people from BGs could turn out to be a double edged sword, because people could simply vote-kick players who are on the low end of the level range just because they're on the low end of the level range.  I'm not sure Blizz wants to pay enough devs support staff to watch enough BGs to make sure everybody is playing nicely, either.  It's a conundrum that I don't have a good answer to.

***

Since I've got 40 levels to go before I really purchase Mists, I've found it interesting watching the lures the Blizzard has been dangling out in the internet.  The free week in Pandaria, the Christmas sales, the recruit a friend, they're all out in force.  I have no idea how well the bait has been working, but the fact that Blizz hasn't stopped them yet is an indicator that they're fighting hard to get all of their lost subs back.  Or, perhaps, just to stay even with what they've got.

My own guild, however, hasn't recovered from Cataclysm.  In fact, while some people returned for Mists, others came back and have since disappeared.  Still others left the guild for other, more active raiding guilds before Mists dropped.  And there have been those who came back but not because of Mists, but because their work/life/whatever has finally allowed them the free time to resub.  But from the high point in Wrath where the guild was pulling in enough people to run 25s on a once-in-a-while basis, I've yet to see 10 people logged in at one time on any consistent basis, let alone raid.  There have been a lot of evenings when I've been the only one logged in.

"This server's dead," I saw someone type recently in Gen Chat.  Given that the crowds in Stormwind aren't very impressive --still averaging in the 50s on a given night-- I suspect that there's more truth to that than meets the eye.

***

Still, the game seems to be doing fairly well for itself.

Judging by the blogs I read (a subset of which is listed on our site), the most popular parts of WoW in its current state are a) Transmogs, b) Pet Battles, and c) Pandas.  Raiding, instances, PvP in its various forms, and the ongoing expac story haven't been very active topics in Mists.  Now, while people write a lot about Dailies, I can say that while the topic is popular, the activity is not.

I think it is safe to say that if Transmogs and Pet Battles didn't exist, then there wouldn't be nearly as many people excited about Mists as they seem to be.  I'm not sure about the staying power of either through the entire expac, but Transmogs at least seems to scratch the itch of a subset of WoW players well enough to last long term.  Of course, it also takes some pressure off of the Blizz art team to not repeat the BC clown gear, since people will merely transmog any "ugly" gear into something they like.

I'm not quite sure what to make about Pet Battles.  Judging by bloggers alone it seems wildly popular, yet ragging on Pet Battles is a popular topic in low level BGs.  I suspect that Pet Battles falls squarely into the love-it-or-hate-it category, with the people who don't really give a damn (like me) few and far between.  I suspect the Pet Battle mojo will last a lot longer --more than I anticipated, anyway-- by simply creating new pets as part of upcoming patches.  Pets are easier to design than raid or instance bosses, and don't need backstory like questlines, so they're incredibly easy to drop into a story as a carrot-on-a-stick for the aficionados.  "Run enough dailies, get a pet!"  "Go through this side questline, get a pet!"  This isn't exactly new*, but Pet Battles ratchets the desire up to another level entirely.

Whether that desire will flame out is the million dollar question, and I don't have an answer for that.  After all, I still can't explain the continuing fascination with Justin Bieber, and I have middle school kids in the house.




*The Miniwing quest reward in Terokkar Forest, for example.


EtA:  I thought "support staff" and typed "devs".  Sigh.

The Scenery Only Changes for the Lead Dog

Of course, a lot of that has to do with my leveling process.

The only time I set foot in an instance with my Rogue was for Shadowfang Keep, just to pick up the mats for the Rogue L20 Dagger.  When I did, I shot up two (!) levels, and I wasn't even using half of the available heirlooms out there.  Based on that experience, I can see how some people could level via instances and have made it all the way to L90 by now.  Throw in the rested XP bonus that a Pandaren gets, and the Cata-rebuilt Old World simply flies by.

But the funny thing is, I hear less and less about raiding from the bloggers I read, and more about everything else.*

I don't know whether people have been simply been distracted by all the other things to do, such as WoW-ville and WoW-emon, or that raiding has simply slipped down the ladder of priorities.  If it's the former, then Blizzard is to be congratulated for spreading out the raiding tiers in such a clever manner.**  If it's the latter, then I'm not sure what it really means for the rest of the expac.

What if Blizz had a raid and not that many people came?

From a purely monetary standpoint Blizz wouldn't care, because they're still getting (and keeping) the subs.  But given that new raids take up the majority of developers' patch activity after release, a decline in people actually using the raids is a waste of money.  By comparison, pet battles and farming are in steady state mode, where some changes could be worked by just adding a few things to an already existing framework.  This takes fewer people than designing and building a new instance, much less a raid, and the bean counters will start to ask questions about the proper allocation of resources.

The upcoming 5.1 patch won't have a new raid, so Blizz is already anticipating not needing to address the "I'm bored!" crowd.  Unlike 4.1, this lack of a new raid was by original design,*** so I'd imagine that Blizz has this all plotted out right now.  But if people still aren't as progressed as Blizz hoped, then they may take steps to increase the desirability of raids.

Like, oh, throwing in pet drops.

But you know what would be better?  Going back and fixing the timeline.  It's just a pipe dream now, but it would still be better than leaving things as they are.  Going from [2012 if you play a Pandaren] -> 2010 -> 2007 -> 2008 -> 2010 -> 2012 is a bit of a problem for new players, and telling people "the game only really begins at L90" doesn't help that initial leveling process and understanding the story in the first place.

Or, lacking that, how about resurrecting some of the raids that died in development?  Like, say, Abyssal Maw?  Or a non-raid quest chain like Quel'Delar?





*And naturally, right as I'm writing this, Rades posts about pre-raid gear.  I swear I keep Murphy in business all by myself.

**Remember, about a month in to Cata, there were people saying "I'm bored!" because they'd already cleared all the raid content on release.  By giving people something else to become addicted to, they've effectively slowed down raid progression and countered the effect of LFR.

***Unless there's a blue post stating otherwise.  I don't frequent the forums THAT much.

And I Danced on Your Graves!

I once wondered how on earth the two factions in WoW could have Warlocks as a playable class, given the history of Azeroth.  Given the perceived wickedness of Warlocks by both factions, how both could tolerate Locks in their midst was a puzzle.

However, that was the in-game perception of a specific class.  Metagame-wise, Locks are Mages with funkier pets, more DoTs, and lots of fears.*

But you want to know who are the real metagame bad guys?  Rogues.

Having spent some time playing my new Rogue, I can feel the seductive tug of being just so bad.  See that straggler lowbie bringing up the rear of the pack in Warsong Gulch?  Sap and kill.  Players respawning at the rez points?  Sap sap sap, wait for a good juicy lowbie, then kill.  A pair of the enemy trying to reach the flag?  Sap them both repeatedly until they blow their trinkets and chase me, wasting precious time.

Yesterday, in WSG, I was checking the scoreboard when I realized what I was doing.  I'd never checked the scoreboard until now.  But I was becoming the sort of player that I hated.

And yet I loved it.

And that I really liked WSG after all.

That thought gave me pause.  I've had a low opinion of WSG pretty much since the day I set foot in the place, and my experience leveling a Lock through battlegrounds only reinforced that dislike.  I can't count the number of times I'd been ganked by a Rogue while in that BG, swearing that if I ever decided to start a Rogue I'd never do any of this stuff.  And yet there I was, roaming around in the rez zone, waiting for toons to respawn so I could gank them before they could buff themselves.

***

Does the class make the player, or the player make the class?

It's a little bit of both, I'd imagine.

As my example above showed, the Rogue's gameplay is tailored to striking from the shadows.  It doesn't have the magical or spiritual abilities that other classes have, and it doesn't have the get-down-and-dirty-in-the-trenches that the Warrior has.  It doesn't have the send-in-a-pet-and sit-back-and-CC/damage that a Hunter has.  For a Rogue to be effective it has to get up close and personal, but it also has to avoid getting into a slugfest as much as possible.  That means slinking around and striking from the shadows when conditions are optimal.

Because a Rogue can do this, it also means that a Rogue can operate behind enemy lines.  Causing death and wreaking havoc is a Rogue's calling card.  In WoW's PvP environment, Rogues aren't Robin Hood.  They aren't even Han Solo.**  They're a bit more brutal:

Kids, don't try to imitate Tony Montana when you

grow up, k?  Or at least not the Rogue at the end.

But at the same time, Rogues have their admirers as performers of (un)official activities in groups such as SI:7.  I look at that as WoW's attempt to put lipstick on a pig, because no matter how you dress it up, Rogues are involved with the so-called dishonorable jobs.

This sort of class attracts a certain type of player.  And that attraction is seductive, promising the thrill of the well executed backstab in exchange for glory atop the scorecard.  A single backstab can be the difference between victory and defeat, and the trick is knowing when to take it.

***

Ironically enough, I've found it more difficult to be an evil player when the storyline explicitly gives you the option to do it, such as playing a Dark Side character in The Old Republic.

When Yoda talks about the Dark Side being "quicker, easier, more seductive," he could have been talking about playing a Dark Side character in The Old Republic.  Anyone of either faction can play a Dark Side character, but certain classes (::cough:: Sith ::cough::) are better suited than others.  The temptation to click on that side of the wheel, to KILL! MAIM! TERRIFY! and explore the dark path, is a valid game option.  And when I pull up an Imperial player, I often am drawn to that selection.  But in my case, I find that I can't make my characters take Dark Side choices very often.  In spite of my best efforts, I'm still me when I play.

This even goes for the Sith classes, the Warrior and Inquisitor.  Perhaps it is the story, and the over-the-top evil that the Sith wallow in that turns me off, but I find myself playing more Light Side Sith than anything else. I have chosen some Dark Side selections on the wheel, and they do register approval with some of the NPCs, but more often they register fear.  (Of course, that's what the Sith want, but I digress.)

My son explained it best when he tried and gave up on an Imperial Agent.***  When he saw me noodling around on a Sith Inquisitor, he mentioned that he'd deleted his Imperial toon.  "I just couldn't do it," he said.  "They kept asking me to do all these bad things, and I just couldn't do it."

***

As for my dilemma, I'm going to continue to play the Rogue, but be mindful of what sort of player I can be.  Is the victory worth the price?  Do I want to be an asshat?  All's fair in love and war and BGs, right?

Right?

Bueller?  Bueller?

*Yes, I still love playing a Frost Mage.  No, I've not drunk the kool-aid.

**Although they do shoot first.  Take that, George Lucas!

***The kids have their own free account; this is done deliberately so they don't interfere with my account.

Another Day in the Neighborhood

You know it's going to be one of those days when you login in the morning to a post-expac WoW and the first toon you see is a Pandaren named Skadoosh.*

Then I got in a WSG team with 6 Monks on our side, one named Choppnblok.**  "I'm surprised that there's a non-monk out there," one of them quipped.

Afterwards, I wandered through Elwynn just for the hell of it, and I found at least one Horde Rogue loitering outside the gates of Stormwind, stalking the occasional Pandaren.

I was tempted to get onto Moon Guard just to see what was happening at Goldshire, but my brain kind of let out a little scream and hid under the covers.

As far as activity goes, there wasn't too much of a difference at Stormwind itself (mid 40s), but there was definitely activity in Pandaria (mid 40s each in the first few zones).  I'm not sure if this bodes well, however, given that there was more activity on the server back when Cata was released.  I guess we'll wait and see how things develop.




*If you have to ask, it's a reference from Kung Fu Panda.

**We lost because the Horde side had 4 healers, two of them Druids with the AoE heals, and they kept healing each other while defending the flag.  Not much you can do there if you don't have the same number of heals.

Who's Manipulating Whom?

I realize that everybody else is busy counting down the minutes before Mists drops, and those few not doing that are waxing eloquently on the Theramore scenario.  But I can't say that I'm really all that interested with either Mists or Theramore.

There hasn't been a real event to get people excited about Mists, and no matter what people say, Theramore ain't it.  Having a sneak-peak special preview of Theramore's scenario tuned for L85 isn't the same as the Outlands invasion/Scourge invasion/Twilight's Hammer+Elemental invasion that we'd had in the past.  World events are supposed to ramp up excitement for the new expac, not leave us scratching our heads.*

Am I the only one out there who gets the feeling that Blizz is performing a Trial of the Crusader experiment on the lead-in to Mists?

If you'll recall, Trial of the Crusader was Blizz' response to the "moar boss less trash" compaints from some out there in the WoW-verse.  Instead of trash, there was boss after boss after boss.  They gave the complainers exactly what they wanted, but the raid itself fell flat.  ToC was yet another case of people  not exactly understanding what they really wanted; they didn't want no trash, they wanted no extraneous trash.  There's a big difference between the two.

Like ToC, I wonder if Blizz is simply foregoing the traditional world event because of the reaction to the previous world event.  People knew in advance that Cairne was going to die offscreen in The Shattering, so they paid a visit to him one last time.  When the Elemental invasion happened, I made a point of trying to be around Thunder Bluff, just so I could fight alongside Cairne, and I know I wasn't the only one doing it.

Blizzard took note of these little spontaneous in-game gatherings, and decided to do one better with the Mists event:  take advantage of the book to drive in-game behavior, by letting the cat out of the bag that Theramore would be destroyed, and have a reciprocal response from the players.

The problem with this idea is twofold:  Jaina/Theramore isn't nearly as beloved as Cairne was, and the circumstances behind Cairne's death was well known to the general WoW population.  Sure, Theramore bites it and we know the how, but nobody knows the why.  There's too much in the fall of Theramore that goes against the current questlines for this to make any sense, and even the book is silent as to why.**

My first reaction to this conundrum was that Blizz simply dropped the ball.  It wouldn't be the first time that I'd come across incomplete questlines or other head scratchers in the game, and it smacked of Blizz not spending nearly enough time on the transition phase and too much time to get Mists out the door.***  The more I think about it, however, the more I'm convinced that this lack of "why" is deliberate.  Blizz wants you to feel the mystery surrounding Theramore, and will use that to drive a wedge between Garrosh and the rest of the in game world.

But if that's the case, then they didn't get quite the reaction that they planned.  Like an Ed Greenwood novel, they overreached with their cleverness.

Sometimes it makes more sense to follow Occam's Razor rather than invent an even more convoluted in-game explanation.  I know that WoW's reputation was built upon corruption and the premise that the most bizarre explanation was the right one, but there are times when simplicity is better.  And no, I don't mean the ToC version of "simplicity", but a simplification of the plot.  The K.I.S.S. moniker.****

Think of it this way:  I've found that the best stories told in an RPG session are the ones where I --as the DM-- don't have much of anything to do with it.  I may play the NPCs with different motives, but the PCs are the ones who drive the story.  They interpret things, occasionally get stuff wrong, and make for memorable game sessions.  If I'm not railroading people along, the story takes on a life of its own and the players feel like they've a stake in the tale.  Additionally, I can then make the NPCs react to the players, creating new subplots based upon what the PCs did.  But my job is simple:  set the pieces in motion and step back.  Don't manipulate with a heavy hand.  If there's an overarching story to the expac, present it without making it seem like a) the players need to pay for access to "premium" content (the books), or b) the story dropped out of the sky, fully formed, onto the ground below.

Azeroth is a great place for storytelling.  It just needs to be used for that purpose.




*Or be the equivalent of a big neon sign shouting "Buy the book!"

**There's that 'read the book!' refrain again.

***If that's the case, then Mists was in worse shape when the release date was announced than we were led to believe.  I've worked in software, so I know what it looks like when a release is in danger of slipping.

****You mean you don't know this?  No, I'm not talking about the band, but "Keep It Simple, Stupid!"

A Few Thoughts from a Brain in Need of Coffee

It's a Monday, and it shows.

While I'm waiting for the coffee to hit my system, I figured I'd capture a few more thoughts from MMO space.

White Outs Abound

I didn't notice this on Adelwulf, but when I switched to my Night Elf Rogue, I discovered that the WoW graphics have indeed taken a bit of a hit.  While she was in Dolanaar*, I kept thinking that I needed to get some eyedrops or something, because she --and much of the background-- seemed to be washed out.

Then I switched to Tomakan to go transfer some of my gold and got a big surprise when I saw the old Paladin in the Exodar.  Most of the bright graphical details were washed out in a haze of white.

I can make out enough to play, but considering that I didn't change any of my graphics settings I wasn't expecting this.  While I suppose I can tinker with increasing my graphics settings, if I do it too much I definitely won't be able to play the game due to the FPS hit.  I'm kind of hoping that this is a mistake and will get corrected, but I don't hold out much hope in that regard.

Putting on my Crash Helmet

While questing in Teldrassil and learning the ropes of being a Rogue (more on that later), I'd been killing whatever I came across.  That is, until a killing blow laid my installation low.

I'd been getting concerned about the stability of my installation since the patch, especially when I opened up my bags and perusing the gear inside I could see my toon's animation visibly slow down to a crawl.  I'd been disabling all the add-ons I have to see if that improved anything, but no dice.  But still, I wasn't expecting the installation to crash during combat.

I'm pretty sure that in all the time I've played WoW, I've had the game crash maybe one other time, and that I wrote off to issues surrounding the 3.5 patches + hotfixes.  However, given the graphics problems, the sound problem with the launch window, and some other issues, the pre-release Mists patch hasn't exactly given a boost to my confidence level.  I'd actually feel better if Blizzard were bombarding my installation with a stream of hotfixes, but that hasn't been the case.  Also, I really really don't want to have to reinstall the whole damn game, either, because that could take ages.

If this instability continues, I might end up playing other MMOs because they're not behaving badly.

"Stun stun stun stun... Vanish!"**

I've discovered that the easiest way to confound a Rogue is to randomly switch direction.

Seriously.

You know you're getting annoyed when you're talking back to the screen, saying "Stay still so I can backstab you, dammit!"

Ah, the life of a Rogue.

I thought about entering a BG right as I dinged L11, but then I came to my senses.  There'd be no way in hell that I'd be useful if I didn't have Sap, and I get that at L12.

The more I play a Rogue, the more respect I have for the physical skill of playing one.  It requires more of a safecracker's touch to orient yourself prior to attacking, whereas the other classes I've played are more of the point-and-shoot/swing/blast variety.  But I can see that the fewer CC required in a situation, the less of an advantage the Rogue has.  Steamrolling through instances would put the Rogue at a disadvantage, for instance, because by its very nature a steamroll would eschew any  CC or DoTs in favor of brute force.  Sure, a Rogue could switch to Combat spec for those scenarios, but a Rogue's strengths are in poisons and CC.

Still, the skills that weaken a Rogue in PvE allow it to excel in PvP.  And really, the Rogue is tailor made for BGs, so much so that I may end up revising my negative opinion of Warsong Gulch.

Deviation from the Norm

I've been working on some alts for TOR to see what the class quests are, and I've gotten four of them (Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor, Jedi Councillor, Jedi Knight) just to the point where they get their ship.  Having gone through most of the Smuggler's campagin arc, I figured I knew how things worked.  Perhaps it's the WoW-ness of MMOs, but I was thinking along the lines of:    Starting Zone -> Coruscant -> Taris -> Nar Shadda -> etc.

But imagine my surprise when I got the Jedi Knight to his ship, used the holocommunicator, and I was to head to... Ord Mandell.

Wait, what?  The Smuggler/Trooper starting zone?  Where did this come from?

I had to remind myself that I wasn't playing WoW, and that each class quest goes differently.

Oh, and the Sith starship?  That looks awesome.  The Jedi ship, much less so.  I still think that some Corellians took the Jedi Order for a ride when they sold them that starship design.  It takes some balls to be a starship salesman to the Jedi, but like car salesmen everywhere, they somehow managed to get the best end of the deal.

I still like the interior layout of the Smuggler's Freighter the best, however.




*Yes, a female NE Rogue.  I don't want to fall into the segregated trap of having my casters be female while the melee bunch be male, and I still prefer the female NE to the male by a long shot.  I'm sorry, but green hair and beard doesn't do it for me.

**From Wowcrendor's Youtube video, Class Stereotypes.


EtA:  'for', 'from'.  They both start with 'F', right?  Just like another 'F' word....

Some More Post-Patch Notes

In the Arms Race, My Demo is Now a Pinto

The post patch damage boost has hit Strand of the Ancients (and presumably Isle of Conquest) hard. When you couple a damage boost with the L78 Cata gear, those demos go down very very quickly.  Be prepared to overload demos even more than usual, especially at the L75-L79 range.

Additionally, it seems like Hunters hit for even more than before, but Rogues not quite as much.  It might be that for the Rogues I'm seeing the impact of Health inflation, but I haven't gotten into as many BGs as I'd like to be sure.

Oh, and beware of the "bargain" part of Dark Bargain.  I don't think you need me telling you how much fun it is having a Warlock "pop a bubble" and then afterwards getting laid low by the post-bubble damage.  However, Soul Link isn't as useful as before, because the damage flows both ways and the Warlock's pet has half the health when Soul Link is active.

I still haven't won a BG since the patch dropped.  I think that's partially due to people hashing out their new abilities, but I've also not been impressed by strategy in BGs this week either.  Considering I've been tweaking things too, I'm not really complaining.  Just noting.

Being a Bit Cheeky

The screen capture for WoW wasn't working as of this morning, so I wasn't able to capture the now "normal" view of a Warlock's Shivarra:

From Wikipedia.  Who knew?

As Adelwulf walked around Dalaran with his Shivarra pet, I felt like he was in an episode of Jersey Shore.  Going from the Succubus' 1970s KISS-esque outfit to the Shivarra's adolescent fantasy model makes me wonder who is giving approvals to some of the changes.  First, they come up with Pet Battles, which definitely appeal to the Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Goh set.  Then, they decide on the Shivarra as a replacement for the Succubus, which is like dropping a spark onto middle-school tinder.  (Think how middle school boys reacted to Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? back in 1988, and you get the idea.)  Even when compared to other RPG fantasy women, such as Seoni from Paizo's Pathfinder RPG, the Shivarra has less clothing on.

Seoni the Sorceress,
From Paizo.com

I'm not exactly sure how to take the Shivarra.  Her angry/slightly insane struggle against her bonds fits the "binding a demon against their will" portion of the Warlock, but I'm more than a bit uncomfortable about that view from the rear.  In an ironic twist, I'm okay with the Succubus/Incubus g-string wearing demon that the Demonologist in Age of Conan summons, because a) AoC has a mature rating, and b) there's no gender bias skewed in favor of a female demon.  (There's a hetero bias in AoC in that female Demonologists can only summon Incubi and males the Succubi, but that's a different issue.)  WoW, on the other hand, is really marketing itself to around the tween and up set, and that Shivarran backside raises sexuality images that WoW has been carefully neutering from it's PvE in-game content.  I'd probably not feel as uncomfortable about the Shivarra if it wasn't for the "Hey kids, WoW Pokemon!" that Blizzard is using as a big selling point in Mists.  "Come for Pokemon, stay for the ass" isn't probably the tagline Blizz wants right now.

I'd imagine that more that a few people are grumbling about "Goldshire!" right now, but my point is that we're talking PvE, not player created scenarios.  With humans involved you can't expect things to stay completely clean in an MMO, and lots of MMOs have an ERP subcommunity.  But prior to this, WoW has done a pretty decent job of trying to keep the topic of sexuality and relationships out of in-game PvE content; so much so, in fact, that WoW has been occasionally criticized for ignoring that area completely.  But somehow I think that Blizz didn't intend for sexuality to pop up in quite this fashion.

Why I Need to Consider an Upgrade, Part Whatever

Switching gears entirely, I have noticed a bit of a drag on in-game performance.  I don't have the graphics turned up all the way by any means, but I have noticed a bit of a drop in fps, around 5 or so.  I'm not sure how much of an impact there is if graphics is cranked up all the way, but I'd imagine that if your PC is on the older side you'll feel a bit of a slowdown.

Just Who is the Focus of the Game, Anyway?

In an MMO, you play the hero.  Sure, you could be a grunt or a noble or somewhere in between, but in the end it is the player that is the hero.  At the same time, Blizz concentrates a lot of its storytelling and lore on the faction leaders and their interactions.  Nothing could have emphasized this weird dichotomy more than on Tuesday when both the pre-release Mists patch dropped and the book Tides of War was released.  

Tides is pretty much standard Blizzard novel fare, which I once likened to reading a David Eddings novel.  All the major players are the Azeroth-erati, and the story revolves completely around them and their impact on the world.  It works well enough, I suppose, except that it doesn't mesh with WoW itself.

WoW is the story of us, as a WoW Insider article by Matt Rossi so aptly put it.  We're not kings and queens, organizational leaders or extraterrestrial beings.  We're not dragons or powerful denizens of the forests.  We're people who rise to the occasion.  If nothing else, the game makes it perfectly clear that we are not the Azeroth-erati; we may get the occasional party thrown our way, but we are spectators when the Powerful arrive on scene.  Ironically enough, it is because the Azeroth-erati depend on the players to get things done in-game that I get this weird feeling every time I flip through a WoW novel.  The cast is so insular, I can't help but feel like a voyeur, but at the same time I wonder where the hell we are in the novels.



EtA:  the pathfinder.wikia.com link was no longer active, so I replaced it with one from Paizo itself.

Dear Blizzard....

...your tuning needs work.

When, as an L78 Affliction Warlock, I can drop into Malykriss over in Icecrown and clear out all the L80 normals without breaking a sweat, you've got some overpowered damage issues.  And yes, I do have some heirlooms on, but I also have a lot of L70 PvP gear on.

However, I will give you props for the delightfully insane sounds of the Shivarra.  I keep looking over at her, expecting tentacles or something.