What I Did on my Fall Vacation

Once in a while I get the urge to post some pics that I screenshot here and there. Not because of any real reason, but just because.

And I do get around:

From isometric RPGs:

Tyranny from Obsidian Studios.
A bit of a cult classic.

To Old Time wargames:

A blast from the past: Medieval: Total War.

To other MMOs:

 

Ah, it's always a good day on Balmorra
when I pull the Old Man out of the garage.

 

Neverwinter. I swear, I login after a long
absence and I find myself surrounded by Dragonborn.

And under the heading of "WTF?"
There's this going on in Star Trek Online.

I can tell you that having seen people cosplaying as Next Gen Starfleet at a Star Trek convention (circa early-90s), those Starfleet outfits are very unforgiving in terms of fit. But if you've the fit and figure for it, the uniforms flatter your form to no end. 

***

Of course, the game of choice these days is WoW Classic, and that's where most of my screenshots lie....

A beautiful shot of the moon while
I was crossing The Barrens.

And just because the statue is of a Kaldorei
doesn't mean that Neve wasn't inspired by it.

And if you noticed, Neve finally got enough
gold to afford a mount. So, she paid a visit to
Eversong Forest to check out some striders.

Before that, this was Neve's life.

Well, when she wasn't playing messenger
for Sylvanas to Thrall.

And it's not like Brig has been suffering from a lack of use, as you can tell here:

Dancing bears providing our pre-Tidewalker
entertainment.

And she does have some snarky commentary:

Brig: "If you're a blacksmith, I am Mickey Mouse!!!"

And surprise surprise, Illidan's Kryptonite
is hidden away by Akama.

Perusing the Landscape

I've been poking my nose into a few of the MMOs that I've tried and not really done much of anything with, such as Rift and TERA, and found that the environments are somewhat stable.

Well, kinda.

For example, the last several times I logged into Rift I was practically the only person around. Just about any sign of life would be better than what I found at the time. After it was pointed out to me that it was likely that a particular server might be more active when I was logging in, I made an effort to try various times and days of the week. Still, I saw hardly any activity.

The past few weeks, however, I've seen an uptick in the activity in Rift on both factions to the point where I can be reasonably certain that if, say, I needed an assist on taking care of a Tear, there would be someone in the vicinity to help out. I would definitely not call Rift as having a healthy population, but it's better than the "dead" it certainly seemed to be several months ago.

***

TERA is in a better situation than Rift, but that's not exactly saying much. Unlike Rift, TERA is still being actively developed by Bluehole --they recently released a new race/class combo, for instance-- but TERA still has that "shameless"* look that a lot of Korean MMOs have. For better or worse, that look tends to attract some people and repel others.

The look aside, TERA had finished server merges and gotten down to two servers: one PvE and one PvP. From my end, I think the server merges where absolutely the best thing to do for TERA, because there's a viable population in both. What I can say is that there seem to be more people active in TERA at any given time than Rift, but I'm not sure if the population is at the level that is good for the long term health of the game. Let's put it this way: if TERA were owned by NCSoft, I'd be a bit nervous about NCSoft shuttering the game.

***

Which brings me to ArcheAge.

I've been seeing YouTube videos for a couple of years about how "ArcheAge is dead" and "when will they kill ArcheAge?", but ArcheAge is still here.

I do have to wonder how much longer, however.

I have two toons in ArcheAge --one of the quirks of the game is that you get EXACTLY two toons total across all servers, unless you subscribe-- and with one parked in a mid level/upper level capital and another in the intro/low level zones, I simply don't see the population there. In Rift, at least, you do see people creating new toons in the intro and low level zones, but ArcheAge feels dead. Perhaps the decision to allow only two toons total has something to do with that, because if you want to experiment on different servers with race/faction/class combos before subscribing you have to be in a constant state of deleting toons. And lets face it; not everybody is so keen about constantly zapping toons because of that artificial limitation.

But the thing is, ArcheAge seemed a bit healthier in the intro and low level zones before the server merges** than after.

Even though the population is likely higher than Rift, at least Rift is in maintenance mode while the devs for ArcheAge are still trying to put new content together. And there are other, glaring problems that are more obvious to an English speaker than to a Korean speaker, because the English port is, well, a bit inconsistent. You have NPCs speaking to you when you walk around, and at first I thought the reason why I couldn't understand them was because I was an Elf and they were Human. It turns out that they were speaking in Korean, and the devs for ArcheAge never bothered to provide English voice acting for these NPCs. I wouldn't necessarily mind, but having to constantly check out the text box to make sure I'm not missing anything does get really annoying after a while.***

Okay, I doubt the English port is a deal breaker for most people, but the overall lack of toons to work with in the free portion of the game is. And I'll be honest, outside of the lack of toons and the English port, there's not that much that sets ArcheAge apart from its other Korean MMO competitors (Black Desert Online, TERA, etc.)**** And when you've got such a low population as ArcheAge seems to have, that's a problem.

***

Anyway, this wasn't by any means an in depth analysis of the state of those games. These are just overall impressions of hopping back in after having been away for a while, and just seeing what's around.

One MMO that I really ought to get back into playing is Neverwinter, because despite the overall generic nature of the Forgotten Realms I do look on that D&D setting a bit like comfort food. Now, if someone had created an MMO based on the D&D world of Krynn, I'd be up for that. I still have my copies of the original Dragonlance Chronicles around, and if you gave me a chance to hang around with Tanis and company....



*As Rohan put it, which is likely the best way to put the toon and clothing choices.

**They took place a year or two ago, right when I was testing the game out.

***I'm used to "make sure you pay attention to everything because you might need it later" mode you get when playing RPGs for as long as I have. Besides, if you're an Elf and you're in Elven territory, you ought to be able to understand everything said (presumably in Elven). Wandering into Human territory is a different thing, and I'd not expect to understand the language. But having a foreign language everywhere just breaks immersion for me.

****All the P2W debacle aside, you could argue that was a problem with Rift. While I found the story intriguing and the fact that Rift deliberately kept the talent trees around, if you're looking for a new game to play Rift would have a hard time standing out from the crowd. Other fantasy MMOs had better known properties (Warcraft, Lord of the Rings, D&D, Conan, Elder Scrolls) which give it an initial leg up on Rift, and that becomes hard to overcome.

The Clothes Make The Man

Several years ago, Mini-Red #2 was given a book on how to draw superheroes by Stan Lee* as a Christmas present by one of his sisters. As far as art books go, it's not that detailed about the mechanics of drawing, but it provides a short background into where superhero stories came from and the basics about creating a superhero and the surrounding cast.

Kudos to Stan and the ghost writers for
putting this promo shot of
Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland
from The Adventures of Robin Hood
in the book. (from Pinterest.)

I don't have much in the way of artistic talent, but I still found the design and technique fascinating to read. What also caught my attention was that, in his own 'grumpy old man' way, Stan was trying to make comics more inclusive.

Part of the design for superheroes is that they look like more idealized versions of ourselves. Not us personally, but people in general. They look fitter, more muscular, more attractive, more everything compared to most people not named David Beckham.** While Stan pays lip service to all sorts of body types for superheroes (giving a nod to the obscure Great Lakes Avenger Big Bertha), he does focus on the fit and muscular for his examples of superheroes, allies, and villains.

Big Bertha, Deadpool, and Squirrel Girl.
Really. (From backissuebin.wordpress.com.)

While perusing the book, I kept thinking of how players are portrayed in MMOs, and how much they fit the specific ideal for superheroes.

Now, where have I seen this before?
(From The Nerdist.)

Oh yes. From here.
(From MMO-Champion.)

Or here.

Considering the extremes of the male human in WoW and TERA as a muscular bodybuilder and the numerous examples of female Elves/Humans/etc.***, it seems that the superhero standard is the MMO standard for body image. When you come across the chunky male body image in SWTOR, the Hobbit images in LOTRO, the female Dwarf in WoW, it comes across as a breath of fresh air in the cookie cutter environment. But what I find interesting is that even the "non-muscular" male standard found in MMOs, such as the male Blood Elf in WoW and the male Elf in TERA also reference another comic standard, the Japanese Manga standard, instead.

I believe the term I'm looking for
is Bishonen. (From Anime News Network.)

And, for comparison, my old WoW main,
Quintalan, without all the Pally armor.

So in a way, the comic standard has become the MMO standard.

***

What does this mean to MMO designs? Not too much, because game artists/designers were obviously influenced by the comics they read both as kids and adults. And really, the oversexed outfits found in MMO designs are found in comics****, pro wrestling, RPG books, and anime to just name a few. And video game design has a long history of oversexed characters, so there's that tide that you swim against as well.

Long before there was Lara Croft, there was Leisure 
Suit Larry in The Land of the Lounge Lizards. And yes,
for the record, I did play the first Leisure Suit
Larry while I was in college. (from the wikia.)

But on the flip side, denying characters any sort of sex appeal in the name of fairness or reality also seems like a waste of time, because people are sexual beings, and divorcing ourselves from this reality is making a mistake.

Where would Bioware be without romance in
their RPGs? Well, they do have plenty of good
story in their games, but story is only one of their pillars.
The other two are gameplay and romance.
(From powerupgaming.co.uk.)

I think the best way of approaching character design and creation is to acknowledge and work on several things:

• People will want to play characters with all types of physical options*****, and enable those options. This is not a difficult thing to create, as we see various body styles in SWTOR and other MMOs. Just because you prefer to look at one style doesn't mean that others will too.
• People will congregate in an MMO for funny business --it's a collection of people, for pete's sake-- and that means that a Goldshire is going to inevitably appear.
  

  

  Yep, that's the Goldshire Inn. (From imgur.)

  People will go clubbing or will go off to fool around and want their characters to dress the part. At the same time, don't go out of your way to provide only clothing/gear options for the Goldshire set, but allow for more practical clothing/gear design. In this respect, Neverwinter has great practical gear designs that actually look like you'd take into a dungeon. Even with WoW you can use underclothing to make some of the more eyebrow raising designs look (somewhat) more practical. And SWTOR does a lot of good work in this regard, creating some practical and stylish designs while allowing the "don't I look hot??" set to wear cosmetic clothing more suited to Jabba's Throne Room.

• Have the NPCs actually look the part, wearing clothing you'd expect them to wear, rather than some hot and sexy little number that you'd expect in a brothel. (Unless you're in a brothel, of course.) This is where GW2 still bugs me the most, because most "villagers" wouldn't be wearing their best outfits while working in a bakery or bringing in farm goods to market. Having your villagers change clothing depending on the situation --whether for a dance or working out in the fields-- makes far more sense than anything else. If Origin Systems with their Ultima V game could figure out how to handle NPCs working vs. not working back in the 80s, surely MMOs can figure this out.
  

  

  An, Ultima V, my old friend. (From lparchive.)

  
  
• Finally, clothes/outfits are also a measure of social status. If your toon is wearing crappy looking gear or clothes, NPCs should react to that. Sure, that means having NPCs who are quite shallow, but clothing does engender reactions even among supposedly "advanced" and "mature" people today.

*What I found most interesting about the book, Stan Lee's How to Draw Superheroes, is that it's published not by Marvel, but by Dynamite, another comic book publisher. Stan and the ghost writers actually did a good job of spreading around lots of different examples of superhero design, covering DC, Marvel, Dynamite (naturally), and even Zenescope.

**Or The Rock. Or Serena Williams. Or any one of a number of incredibly attractive and physically fit people.

***It's a pretty rare MMO --or any video game at all these days-- where you find a woman not sporting a pretty decently sized chest. Even SWTOR, which gives female body shapes ranging from muscular and large to curvy to short to a medium-normal type, has the C-cup minimum chest size for female toons. And while a C-cup is being polite about it, there are plenty of MMOs where chest size goes up from there (such as Age of Conan, TERA, Black Desert Online, and others). Aion is one of the few MMOs out there that acknowledge that women with smaller chest sizes actually exist.

****Do I really need to post examples? There's plenty of them out there, from Sue Storm's "cut out" Fantastic Four uniform, to Power Girl's "boob window", to just about the entire Zenescope lineup. As an aside, I really have mixed emotions about Zenescope. They've gone full into the 90s era comics oversexed female design, but at the same time their stories are well written with strong female as well as male characters. I sometimes got the feeling that Zenescope designed their characters to get their foot in the door with the comic community, but I also truly feel that their 90's era over the top designs (and promos) aren't needed, as the stories stand well on their own. (This is also how I feel about the video game Bayonetta, but that's a topic for another post.)

*****My most recent SWTOR character, a male Trooper using the heavyset body design, has gotten more comments by far by other players than any of my other characters. Just goes to show what stands out to other people.

Wandering Around the MMO-verse

Ah, what to unpack after the past month....

Well, there's Neverwinter heading to Ravenloft, and there's WoW's Battle for Azeroth inching closer to release. LOTRO had their 11th Anniversary livestream on April 25th, and SWTOR dropped game update 5.9 last month as well. Funcom finally released Conan Exiles, and at the same time finished up their Saga of Zath server event.* Rift has continued to expand their Rift Prime offering with a new PTS server, and Star Trek Online is inching closer to their June expac release "Victory is Life", which is their homage to Deep Space Nine.**

But closer to home, I've been splitting my playing time between SWTOR (yet another Trooper) and Guild Wars 2.

Yes, GW2.

Still a bit silly wearing all of these party
type outfits, but compared to TERA's I can
handle this.

I've been making a push to explore more of the world, and also try to complete the personal storyline. It's been interesting, seeing an MMO with as many people active in the field as GW2 currently has, as I'd grown accustomed to not seeing much of anybody in the low-mid level zones in just about all MMOs I play.*** However, the neverending series of events seem to keep people engaged in the game to an extent that you don't see in other MMOs. The fact that GW2 seems to have the low level toon adjustment better behaved than in other MMOs (such as SWTOR) has an impact here too. In SWTOR, once your gear gets overleveled enough, you become harder to kill even after adjustments on low level zones. In GW2, I actually have to keep an eye on my health because I've come close to dying numerous times in low level zones I've been examining.

One thing that does seem to be the case on MMOs that adjust your level to match the zone, however, is that those low level zone visits seem to encourage some bad habits, rotation-wise. I've discovered that going from a low level zone back to a zone that matches my current level I have a more frequent history of dying than if I'd have just stuck with a current zone, because I can get away with fewer combos on those low level zones but I absolutely need them on the high level ones.

The one thing that I've discovered about GW2 that allows them to keep costs down is that it is only the main storyline that requires voice acting. It's not unusual to do this; Age of Conan had done it for years, and WoW only put a lot of effort into voice acting in the cutscenes and parts of the raids/instances, but GW2's elegance is making the interactions look involved without utilizing the cinematic camera like SWTOR does.

At its core, the interactions are kind of
bland, but they reduce development cost and
are still very effective at communicating
emotion without the cinematic lens.

I personally prefer SWTOR's cinematic camera for all quest and story interactions, but I also recognize that is not cheap at all. And if there's one area that Bioware is likely to skimp on to keep the game going, it's on the cinematic camera like they did for KOTET and KOTFE.

The one thing that still makes me shake my head about GW2 --aside from the pristine clothing people wear-- is the Norns themselves.

I understand the basic concept of the Norns, as there's a long history in Nordic tradition of the race of giants as well as in F&SF literature (Robert E. Howard's Conan stories) and RPGs (the AD&D classic module series "Against the Giants" as another example). But come on. As food becomes scarce and conditions in the frozen areas of the world get harsh, our physical growth is actually stunted due to lack of food. That makes the concept of the Norns all the more difficult to swallow.**** I wonder whether the Norns were merely created to satisfy a desire to play a giant, in much the same way you see games such as TERA or ArcheAge where you find the equivalent of succubi/incubi playable races to satisfy that specific desire.*****

But that notwithstanding, I'm actually enjoying GW2 in a way I hadn't expected to when I started playing the game several years ago. I don't mind the group events much at all, because there's no guild or specific grouping requirements for the events. I know, imagine enjoying group activities in a Massively Multiplayer Online game. [Insert sarcasm here] But the thing is, the MMO environment can be pretty toxic, or in the case of guilds, come with drama or other requirements that I may or may not have the time for. The GW2 group events, like the rifts from RIFT, make it easy to feel like you're part of a positive online community without excessive commitment.

Believe me, I can handle that.





*No, I didn't participate in the Saga of Zath server. It took me forever to reach the point where I am at Atzel's domain, so I didn't exactly relish starting over.

**I watched the first four seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but didn't watch DS9, Voyager, or the others. Something about not having a television during several of those years had something to do with that....

***It may have been several years, but even after the "don't call them mergers" WoW server merges I didn't see hardly anybody in the field once you got out of the intro and first low level zones.

****I remember watching a science series years and years ago that talked about climate change and its effect on humanity, and in one scene the presenter (I want to think it was James Burke) stood in the location of the last known written record of the Nordic settlements in Greenland, which was the remains of a church in which a wedding had taken place. The presenter had taken pains to mention at how the climate change had drastically reduced the food available for the settlements and how consequently the people living there were barely more than 4 feet tall, as was evidenced by the graves archaeologists had discovered.

*****I could say that this crosses into fetish territory, but I'm hesitant to say so. Just because someone plays a specific race doesn't mean that they fetishize that race. But I also can't deny that it happens, either, in much the same way that people fetishize the Sindorei, Kaldorei, and Draenei in WoW. (Many years ago, I once tried searching on some of the back story on Jaina and Thrall and typed in "Jaina and Thrall WoW" into Google. THAT was a big mistake, as there were things there --even with safesearch on-- that you can't unsee.)

Neverwinter Goes for the Big One

Yes, I exist.

I've been busy as hell, however, trying to keep up with work and handling stuff with getting kids to and from school. (Which includes getting the oldest mini-Red back from her first year at university.)

However, I did see that the MMO Neverwinter is going to a place that's beloved (if that's truly the word) by D&D fans:

Neverwinter Ravenloft

Oh. My. From Arcgames.com.

Let the Fall Frenzy Begin

I see Wildstar has committed to a date of September 29th for its F2P rollout, which means that the Fall release/announcement craziness has begun.

Now, let me see if I've got all this right:

• LOTRO's server transfers are presently ongoing. The first server closures are expected to begin sometime either later in September or early October. The mini-Reds have been following these developments closely, and while they're sad to see their old server go, they're kind of excited that my long suffering L15 Champion will get moved to the server they're on, so I could join their Kinship.
• Wildstar's F2P releases on September 29th. They get ahead of the rush for SWTOR's and GW2's October releases, and they're hoping to bring back some of the crowd they had that first month or two after launch. I'm planning on signing up for the game, so this is one person they didn't have at launch, but I'm realistic in that I've got a lot of games I play a little bit of. We'll see how things look, I suppose.
• GW2's Heart of Thorns releases on October 23rd. Depending on who you talk to, this could be the dawning of the apocalypse or just business as usual. Me, I'm still playing the original GW2 release --and I don't see me having money in the budget for Heart of Thorns for a while-- so I'm planning on sticking with GW as-is for the time being.
• SWTOR's Knights of the Fallen Empire releases on October 27th. Since this is my only subscription at this time, I get the expac for free, if you want to ignore the cost of a subscription, that is. As I typically do when there's a big expac in a game I play a lot of, I'll let everyone else run ahead for a while and then jump into the expac zone. Since you won't be able to go back and visit the old zones once you move to KotFE areas, I intend to hang around and enjoy things in the original areas as long as possible.
• Funcom's Age of Conan rolled out a new expac back in May to coincide with AoC's seventh anniversary (where did the time go?), so they beat the rush. That said, they're still coming out with incremental updates that are currently in the test server.
• Star Trek Online's final chapter in the current expansion (the Iconian War) is set to drop sometime in mid-late September. There's a new expac on the horizon --called A New Dawn-- will be released sometime this Fall and go through 2016. Since I'm still in the mid-low areas for STO, this doesn't have a great impact to me.
• Neverwinter released Strongholds, and that reminded me that I ought to get back to playing the game more. I'd played around with it every so often, but my problem is that I figure I'm playing for a little while and then I look up and realize it's 4 AM.
• Blizzcon is the first week of November. Given that this is Blizzard we're talking about here, expect some new surprises. After all, that's pretty much what they do at Blizzcon.

I think I touched on most of the bases of games that I follow. That said, I'd be remiss in forgetting that LEGO Dimensions releases for consoles at the end of September. Me, I'm psyched about getting a chance to play the Doctor.

Friday Musings

Right before I left for Gen Con, I received a mysterious e-mail from Syl of MMO Gypsy, which contained only a URL and the line "There are no excuses now!! :-D"

The URL pointed to a Guild Wars 2 free trial weekend, which runs from August 23rd through August 25th.

I'd been hemming and hawing over purchasing the game for a while now, and I figured that since Gen Con has come and gone it'd be safe for me to consider purchasing the game this fall.  Well, ArenaNet took that out of my hands by offering me a chance to give the game a spin before purchasing.

As of this moment, GW2's game client is busy being downloaded onto the main PC, so by the time I get done with work for the day it ought to be ready for me to try out.

And to be honest, if I get more game time out of GW2 than I have Skyrim, then the game will be worth a purchase.

***

Until GW2's trial dropped in my lap, I figured this weekend's MMO playing would consist of chain running Alterac Valley --it's AV Weekend in WoW-- and working on finishing up my Trooper's story in TOR.*

Among other interesting items is that Neverwinter added a mini-expac concerning the Feywild, which I'm curious about.  In D&D 4e cosmology, the Feywild is the home plane where all sorts of Fey creatures live. A PC can only cross into the Feywild at certain locations and/or certain times of day/month/year.  Think of it as the mythical Realm of Faerie placed into D&D.  The Feywild is also home to the three branches of Elves: Eladrin, Elves, and Drow.  The Eladrin still remain (primarily) in the Feywild, the Elves have long ago migrated into the normal world, and the Drow betrayed their brethren and now inhabit the Underdark.**

I'll freely admit that I am more interested in the D&D 4e setting than the 4e game mechanics itself, so the fact that the Neverwinter MMO is moving in this direction is a boon to me.

***

Since this is a Friday, and Saturday is usually a gaming day around the house, I'll leave you with a link to Wil Wheaton's Tabletop.  In this episode, he and his friends play Settlers of Catan.  You know, that "wood for sheep" game that drew some laughs on an episode of The Big Bang Theory:

You could have been videocapped better, Wil.  /sigh

*She's in Ilum right now, which is "the crystal planet" as my kids so aptly put it.  Yes, they are devoted fans of Star Wars:  The Clone Wars.

**And worship Lolth.  See my last post for a pic of her in her drider form, which is half human, half spider.

Some Brief Monday Thoughts

I was up late working last night, so if you saw me on WoW, that was me trying to stay awake while waiting for the "all clear" signal.  (Flying mounts are great for temporary parking.)  Regardless, my brain is in a bit of a fog, so I'm keeping this post low key.

***

For those people who are interested in that sort of thing, the new Dragon Age 3 trailer was released the other week.

It's for mature audiences only, kids.

No, I've not played the Dragon Age games (I know, I'm a baaaad CRPG player), but I do have the Dragon Age RPG box sets from Green Ronin Publishing, and I do enjoy the setting a lot.  In fact, if you're into pencil and paper role playing games as well as computer games, you might want to check the Dragon Age RPG out.  Wil Wheaton even did a play through of a Dragon Age RPG adventure on his Tabletop YouTube series:

Part 1...

...and Part 2.

***

When slogging through yet another teleported area of Belsavis, Elara expressed her frustration by pointing out that this prison complex keeps going on and on.

(You and me both, Dorne.  You and me both.)

But at least the ending to Belsavis is in sight, for which I'm eternally grateful.

I know I'm in the minority, but I still think that Taris is my favorite Republic zone, with Nar Shadda as my favorite Imp zone.  Taris just has that mysterious "what the hell are we doing here anyway" and "OMG we're all going to die!" feel to it --plus TOR Undead-- and Nar Shadda has the sort of double crosses that you'd expect out of the Hutts.

***

You can tell that Star Trek Online and Neverwinter are both Cryptic games, because the cash store design is similar.  The difference is that Neverwinter was designed from the beginning to be F2P, whereas STO endured the switchover from subscription to F2P.  However, the "success" of STO's store definitely influenced Neverwinter's design; people complain --often rightly-- about the invasiveness of the STO online store, but if it weren't for people lining up to buy items from the store Cryptic wouldn't have copied that design into Neverwinter.

Likewise, it's not a surprise that TOR's cash store has evolved the way it has.  Bioware is merely responding to what sells so they can keep the game afloat, and if people had bought different items, the TOR cash store would look quite a bit different than what it does now.

I was thinking about this when I logged into WoW and saw the latest pet for sale in the Blizzard cash store.  Sure, Blizz doesn't call it that, but that's what the store is:  a store to maximize Blizzard's profit by selling in-game items.  They don't need it like the F2P games do, but it serves a similar purpose.

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!"