I've been caught up with projects around the house, so I haven't had that much time to devote to WoW lately.
Yes, I've heard about some funky new patch thingie that dropped last Tuesday, but in typical Redbeard fashion I took a huge pass on fighting the crowd in Hyjal and putzed around with other things.
"Are you grinding rep?" a toon asked me when I offered assistance on his plea for help on the Ring of Blood.
"No, working on Loremaster." Okay, I took advange of the PvP flag being on after a BG to go and take Halaa --again, something this Wrath baby had never done before-- but I was exploring Outland as part of my ongoing quest for double Loremaster.
If a toon could look disappointed, it was this guy. "Oh."
"Well, that and avoiding the nuthouse in Hyjal."
"lol."
In addition to doing some out of the way stuff, I've also been examining yet another MMO. No, not the upcoming Star Wars MMO The Old Republic, although I'll say that what I've seen via the vid clips looks very interesting. The MMO I'm speaking of is Age of Conan, which just went F2P last week.
I'll be honest: I only have the money in the budget for one pay-type MMO at a time, so F2P MMOs hold a great amount of appeal to me. The F2P model allows me to explore different MMOs without incurring additional cost, and while I'm aware that I'm observing only a small slice of the entire MMO, the F2P MMOs give me a bit more breadth in the MMO space.
And what breadth it is.
I suppose Age of Conan is most famous for it's 'M' rating, and I'll be honest: the first thing that I heard gamer podcasters mention about AoC --even more than the graphic violence-- was the nudity. The concept of "OMG bewbs!!" from more than a few people kind of turned me away from the game, not that I'm a prude by any stretch, but nudity for shock purposes doesn't appeal to me. And now, with the recent addition of vanity armor to AoC, that also means that you can deliberately customize your toon to walk around almost literally naked.*
However, let's get something straight. This is Hyboria. This is Conan. This is Robert E. Howard's vision.
And nudity is part of the tapestry of the Dreaming West.
I've read several books worth of the original Robert E. Howard short stories, so I know a bit about Hyboria and the Sword and Sorcery genre that it helped spawn. For a Sword and Sorcery environment, you need a few things you don't typically see in traditional Epic Fantasy RPGs or MMOs: all magic is tainted to some degree or another, and rarely --if ever-- used for purely good purposes; the noble savage ala Conan or Tarzan (or even Fafhrd) as a skilled hero; an overall feel of a more primitive lost world whose time is approaching it's end (less Tolkien's Middle-earth and more Moorcock's Melnibone); that nobody has really pure morals and/or motives; and sex and betrayal are often integral to the plotline.
Judging by those tropes, Age of Conan really succeeds in capturing the feel of Howard's Hyboria. The only mages as a playable class deal with those from the tales who wielded the Dark Arts: Stygians and Khitans. The emphasis from Aquilonians and Cimmerians is on Rogues and Soldiers, with the odd Priest or Shaman thrown in for good measure. The quests in Tortage (the starting zone) focus on evils awakened by the Picts, the Stygian witch Myrelle, and the twisted and evil tyrant Strom of the Red Hand. The questlines often present choices where there are really no good answers, only varying shades of gray. Undercurrents of sex, whoring, racketeering, greed, and violence really fill out the quest lines. Consider that you become part of the Resistance against Strom, hoping to overthrow him and Myrelle so that the city can return to being a bustling pirate haven full of greed, slaves, and prostitution, and you get the point.
This is not fodder for kids.
WoW, by comparison, is pretty tame stuff. Sure, you have shades of gray with NPCs' morals, but you also have discernable good and bad guys. There's nothing like dark and darker imagery that you get out of Age of Conan. Considering that WoW is doing something completely different with it's blend of High Fantasy and Steampunk, that's to be expected. Blizzard doesn't take itself too seriously, while AoC is like the student dressed all in black sitting at a table in a dimly lit coffeehouse, grousing about 'art'.
One thing that did strike me about the environment was how AoC equalized the sexes. Sure, you've got your standard-issue damsel in distress style stuff and the omnipresent skimpily clad NPCs, but AoC is set up so that as far as profession is concerned, the sex of the NPC is irrelevant. Sure, some of the female NPCs do show an interest in your toon (I played a male toon, so I don't know what the female toons deal with), but the banter reminded me more of a Mike Hammer episode than anything else.
The graphics are beautiful in a realistic manner, but they make my PC strain more than WoW does. That's kind of a bummer, but it's a tradeoff. The character customization is something that every MMO ought to have; it does a fantastic job of tweaking your toon to just the right size and shape. And yes, for the record, the shape of the human body isn't the cartoony top-heavy look that you get out of humans in WoW.
One huge problem I noticed was the size creep in the game's database. When I started playing the game, the DB was about 8 GB. The next day, it was 12 GB. On Sunday, 16 GB. By this morning, it had ballooned out to 20 GB but seemed to have stopped growing. If it starts expanding again, I'm going to run out of disk space before too long. Additionally, the game kept informing me on startup that the DB might be corrupted, and would I like to thoroughly check the DB. So, what began as a 4 minute startup turned into a 10-15 minute startup. This doesn't lend AoC well to the "okay, I've got a few minutes, let me login and play for a bit" mode that I can slip into.
Another annoyance is that the graphics settings would need to be tweaked on game startup. I mean, every single freaking time. At first I thought it was because I was stressing the graphics card so I backed off on the settings, but it still did it the next time I booted up. Oh well.
I suppose I could talk about the Real Combat system, where combos are a succession of keys pressed in the correct order, but that's really secondary to the environment. The thing that really struck me about combat wasn't the Real Combat system, but how mobs attack. You attack one Pict in a village, and the others will step up and rally to his/her defense. You don't take on a mob lightly, because they will swarm you and attack you intelligently: take you from behind, stand at distance and conduct ranged attacks, and stay disciplined in their movement. If you move to keep the mob in front of you, the mob won't just stand there passively: it will respond to your movements to regain the upper hand. While you do have heroic combat, it's definitely a "make 'em sweat" style of combat where two of the enemy at one time can be a dicey event.
On the whole, I like what Age of Conan is doing, and I'll probably play it a bit here and there. It's not going to replace WoW by any means --I get the impression that Funcom is going to really restrict what is in the F2P area, above and beyond what LOTRO does-- but for a real Sword and Sorcery environment, it can't be beat.
Now, is it asking too much to have an MMO based on Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser?
*And don't think that people haven't done that either. After a while I started to get annoyed at the people who had created female toons with names like "Goodforyou" and paraded them around the city. By the end of the weekend, however, those sort of toons seemed to disappear as the crowd thinned, but still there was one guy in Trial chat who asked if he was "a bad man for checking out his Succubus' rack."
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Gotta Keep 'em Separated
I've been reading some blog posts recently about player advancement, 5-man heroics, and progression raiding.
Priest With a Cause: An Annotated History of the Badge System
Blessing of Kings: The Root Problem
Blessing of Kings: Blocked Player Advancement
I've found the discussion interesting, particularly when you combine these articles with numerous PUG stories out there about overgeared toons behaving badly in Heroics.*
Now, I like Rohan's idea of removing Valor Points from the game, but the problem of overgeared toons running Heroics would still exist. There is no need to run them from a gear standpoint, but that doesn't mean that you can't film an episode of Overgeared Toons Behaving Badly on a regular basis. I can think of a few reasons why an overgeared toon would want to enter a 5-man Heroic anyway: guild runs with guildies who aren't raid ready; mat runs farming DC-able gear and Chaos Orbs; and Justice Point farming runs, where a toon is farming JP to purchase heirlooms or convert the JP to Conquest Points (for PvP gear).
If the goal is to discourage badly behaving raiders from running random Heroics, isn't there a more direct method: expanding the raid lockout to include heroics? I'm not talking a daily lockout, but a weekly one. Or better yet, if you enter a Cata raid, the lockout will include 5-man Heroics via the Dungeon Finder. (Toons could still group up and enter a Heroic the old fashioned way via the meeting stone and instance entrance, however.)
Either suggestion is a very draconian method to keep the overgeared raiders away from the properly geared Heroic runners, but it does force one problem with this entire exercise into the limelight: issue prioritization.
Which is the greater problem:
Perhaps the solution to keeping the bad apples out is to increase the wait times for a random out of the Dungeon Finder, not reduce them. If you queue for an instance run via the LFD tool, you have a minimum 30-45 minute wait. No exceptions. You end up getting the people who really want to be there, who will want to work out issues and setbacks in an instance run, while discouraging the jerks from entering. The poorly behaved toons can still join groups, but their best chance of instance running is with a guild/friend group.
But what about the rewards for a guild runs? Who'd want to have a guild run via the LFD with a wait like that?
Well, why restrict the daily LFD rewards to the LFD tool? How about allowing a party to reap the same rewards via the traditional route: entering via the meeting stone and traditional instance location. Getting to an instance will be much quicker than the wait involved via the LFD tool, but would yield the same amount of rewards. It also means that people will get out in the world a bit more, rather than loitering around Org or Stormwind. Finally, it also means that people might just group up within the same server a bit more often, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. (Okay, Rhii might have a different opinion on that, given her disastrous encounter with some puggees from her own server, but those asshats will eventually get their comeuppance. Karma is a real bitch that way.)
*Of course, there are plenty of toons that behave badly no matter their gear.
EtA: Yes, I like The Offspring. I couldn't justify using "Hit That" or "Pretty Fly" as the title of the post, tho.
Priest With a Cause: An Annotated History of the Badge System
Blessing of Kings: The Root Problem
Blessing of Kings: Blocked Player Advancement
I've found the discussion interesting, particularly when you combine these articles with numerous PUG stories out there about overgeared toons behaving badly in Heroics.*
Now, I like Rohan's idea of removing Valor Points from the game, but the problem of overgeared toons running Heroics would still exist. There is no need to run them from a gear standpoint, but that doesn't mean that you can't film an episode of Overgeared Toons Behaving Badly on a regular basis. I can think of a few reasons why an overgeared toon would want to enter a 5-man Heroic anyway: guild runs with guildies who aren't raid ready; mat runs farming DC-able gear and Chaos Orbs; and Justice Point farming runs, where a toon is farming JP to purchase heirlooms or convert the JP to Conquest Points (for PvP gear).
If the goal is to discourage badly behaving raiders from running random Heroics, isn't there a more direct method: expanding the raid lockout to include heroics? I'm not talking a daily lockout, but a weekly one. Or better yet, if you enter a Cata raid, the lockout will include 5-man Heroics via the Dungeon Finder. (Toons could still group up and enter a Heroic the old fashioned way via the meeting stone and instance entrance, however.)
Either suggestion is a very draconian method to keep the overgeared raiders away from the properly geared Heroic runners, but it does force one problem with this entire exercise into the limelight: issue prioritization.
Which is the greater problem:
- Keeping bad apples out of 5-man Heroics
- Reducing wait times in 5-man Heroics
Perhaps the solution to keeping the bad apples out is to increase the wait times for a random out of the Dungeon Finder, not reduce them. If you queue for an instance run via the LFD tool, you have a minimum 30-45 minute wait. No exceptions. You end up getting the people who really want to be there, who will want to work out issues and setbacks in an instance run, while discouraging the jerks from entering. The poorly behaved toons can still join groups, but their best chance of instance running is with a guild/friend group.
But what about the rewards for a guild runs? Who'd want to have a guild run via the LFD with a wait like that?
Well, why restrict the daily LFD rewards to the LFD tool? How about allowing a party to reap the same rewards via the traditional route: entering via the meeting stone and traditional instance location. Getting to an instance will be much quicker than the wait involved via the LFD tool, but would yield the same amount of rewards. It also means that people will get out in the world a bit more, rather than loitering around Org or Stormwind. Finally, it also means that people might just group up within the same server a bit more often, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. (Okay, Rhii might have a different opinion on that, given her disastrous encounter with some puggees from her own server, but those asshats will eventually get their comeuppance. Karma is a real bitch that way.)
*Of course, there are plenty of toons that behave badly no matter their gear.
EtA: Yes, I like The Offspring. I couldn't justify using "Hit That" or "Pretty Fly" as the title of the post, tho.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Some Friday Humor
I'd always liked the Downfall parodies on YouTube, and was disappointed that they got yanked. Well, it seems that they're back, and better than ever. This particular one hits kind of close to home, since I play several Pallys as well as starting up a Warlock. Be warned, there's some strong language, but nothing that you haven't heard in the heat of battle before.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
It is... A Puzzlement!
Have you ever been in a run where you had to wonder what was going on in everyone else's heads?
I don't mean that in an asinine way, or even in a WTF OMG this-is-so-full-of-fail way, either. Sometimes I feel like General Taylor in Good Morning Vietnam when he tells the Sergeant-Major that he's out of line: "You're mean. And this is just radio."
Last I checked, WoW was a game. Sure, it can suck up a lot of your time, but no more than if you're a sports fanatic. (Or a crafting fiend.) But the thing is, in the end it's just a game. It's supposed to be fun, and if you start acting out for no real reason, maybe it's time for you to take a bit of a break.
For example, I took my lowbie Warlock out for a spin yesterday and queued up for a random instance. Out popped the new Shadowfang Keep. SFK isn't the kindest place for casters due to line of sight issues, but I've done it before on Neve, so I figured this wasn't anything I couldn't handle. To be honest, I needed the experience running through the renovated keep at-level before I get sucked into it in the Heroic queues, and I really needed to hammer out a rotation anyway.*
I was the only caster in a party which included a Pally tank and a Priest healer, with a Hunter and Warrior rounding out the DPS. The instance began in typical fashion, with everyone exchanging greetings and buffing up. After the first couple of trash pulls, however, one of the DPS asked if someone had a recount meter running. While the healer posted the numbers, I mentioned that the DPS stats weren't going to mean much. "They'll be all over the place," I said.
"Oh, I just want to see if my numbers are any better."
Okay, that's nice and all, but the surest way to improve your numbers if you're L19 is to get to L20. I can understand the desire to maximize your rotation --hell, I was planning on tinkering with my rotation myself-- but asking for Recount numbers like that is a sneaky way of showing off your e-peen.
We kept winding our way through the keep, and I was bound and determined not to be a spell sink on the healer and kept my use of Life Tap to a minimum. I'd run out of mana, and Life Tap just enough to get going again. After several sessions of rinse-and-repeat, we downed one of the Bosses so I took a short break to drink my way up to full. "Hang on a sec, mana," I said, noting that the healer sat down to drink too.
Did that stop the Draenei Pally? Nope. He kept right on going, as did the other two DPS.
The Warrior and Hunter overtook the Pally and took turns pulling instead. I was starting to wonder when everything was going to hit the wall, but we reached the antechamber before what used to be Arugal's old hideout, and I realized the instance was at an end.
Then I got the pop-up saying that there was a vote to kick the Draenei Pally. The reason? "He does nothing."
I am not making that up.
Yes, because a Pally running full tilt through the instance wasn't fast enough for at least one person, there was a vote kick entered instead.
I voted no, and the measure failed.
What surprised me was that nobody complained about either the Pally's or the other DPS' behavior. Typically, any of this would have set off at least something from someone, but people were tightlipped throughout the run. Well, the only complaint anyone had at all was when my Warlock bit it at the end. I was perched way up high atop the stairs, getting a great view for my DoTs and AoEs, when I got laid low by one of the last pistol barrages.** "Stay behind him when he unleashes those," one of the other DPS snipped at me.
Whatever.
For some hours after my run through that instance, I still puzzled over it. That wasn't a bad run, or a fail run, or even a nerd rage run, but what I couldn't really fathom were the motivating factors behind my puggees' behavior.
Nobody was from the same server, let alone the same guild, so that wasn't it. The Draenei Pally was already tanking at breakneck speed before he got abruptly replaced by the other two DPS, and the Pally didn't say a word. He was doing second most damage, so it's not like he was failing badly in that arena, either.***
I just wish I knew what the hell their motivation was.
*Yes, I'd read several of the guides online, but I believe that it's important to work some things out yourself. Besides, I'd specced as Affliction, which isn't the best PvE spec out there. For BGs, on the other hand...
**This is akin to the last boss in Vortex Pinnacle's instance-wide attack; even though I wasn't what would be considered the field of fire in any regular environment, Godfrey's attack apparently extends all the way to the roof.
***If anything, I was the one limping along with substandard DPS in my quest Whites and Greens. But I also had the lowest level of the bunch.
I don't mean that in an asinine way, or even in a WTF OMG this-is-so-full-of-fail way, either. Sometimes I feel like General Taylor in Good Morning Vietnam when he tells the Sergeant-Major that he's out of line: "You're mean. And this is just radio."
Last I checked, WoW was a game. Sure, it can suck up a lot of your time, but no more than if you're a sports fanatic. (Or a crafting fiend.) But the thing is, in the end it's just a game. It's supposed to be fun, and if you start acting out for no real reason, maybe it's time for you to take a bit of a break.
For example, I took my lowbie Warlock out for a spin yesterday and queued up for a random instance. Out popped the new Shadowfang Keep. SFK isn't the kindest place for casters due to line of sight issues, but I've done it before on Neve, so I figured this wasn't anything I couldn't handle. To be honest, I needed the experience running through the renovated keep at-level before I get sucked into it in the Heroic queues, and I really needed to hammer out a rotation anyway.*
I was the only caster in a party which included a Pally tank and a Priest healer, with a Hunter and Warrior rounding out the DPS. The instance began in typical fashion, with everyone exchanging greetings and buffing up. After the first couple of trash pulls, however, one of the DPS asked if someone had a recount meter running. While the healer posted the numbers, I mentioned that the DPS stats weren't going to mean much. "They'll be all over the place," I said.
"Oh, I just want to see if my numbers are any better."
Okay, that's nice and all, but the surest way to improve your numbers if you're L19 is to get to L20. I can understand the desire to maximize your rotation --hell, I was planning on tinkering with my rotation myself-- but asking for Recount numbers like that is a sneaky way of showing off your e-peen.
We kept winding our way through the keep, and I was bound and determined not to be a spell sink on the healer and kept my use of Life Tap to a minimum. I'd run out of mana, and Life Tap just enough to get going again. After several sessions of rinse-and-repeat, we downed one of the Bosses so I took a short break to drink my way up to full. "Hang on a sec, mana," I said, noting that the healer sat down to drink too.
Did that stop the Draenei Pally? Nope. He kept right on going, as did the other two DPS.
The Warrior and Hunter overtook the Pally and took turns pulling instead. I was starting to wonder when everything was going to hit the wall, but we reached the antechamber before what used to be Arugal's old hideout, and I realized the instance was at an end.
Then I got the pop-up saying that there was a vote to kick the Draenei Pally. The reason? "He does nothing."
I am not making that up.
Yes, because a Pally running full tilt through the instance wasn't fast enough for at least one person, there was a vote kick entered instead.
I voted no, and the measure failed.
What surprised me was that nobody complained about either the Pally's or the other DPS' behavior. Typically, any of this would have set off at least something from someone, but people were tightlipped throughout the run. Well, the only complaint anyone had at all was when my Warlock bit it at the end. I was perched way up high atop the stairs, getting a great view for my DoTs and AoEs, when I got laid low by one of the last pistol barrages.** "Stay behind him when he unleashes those," one of the other DPS snipped at me.
Whatever.
For some hours after my run through that instance, I still puzzled over it. That wasn't a bad run, or a fail run, or even a nerd rage run, but what I couldn't really fathom were the motivating factors behind my puggees' behavior.
Nobody was from the same server, let alone the same guild, so that wasn't it. The Draenei Pally was already tanking at breakneck speed before he got abruptly replaced by the other two DPS, and the Pally didn't say a word. He was doing second most damage, so it's not like he was failing badly in that arena, either.***
I just wish I knew what the hell their motivation was.
*Yes, I'd read several of the guides online, but I believe that it's important to work some things out yourself. Besides, I'd specced as Affliction, which isn't the best PvE spec out there. For BGs, on the other hand...
**This is akin to the last boss in Vortex Pinnacle's instance-wide attack; even though I wasn't what would be considered the field of fire in any regular environment, Godfrey's attack apparently extends all the way to the roof.
***If anything, I was the one limping along with substandard DPS in my quest Whites and Greens. But I also had the lowest level of the bunch.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Friendship in the Age of the MMO
"We're a guild formed from RL friends..."
"We used to play with RL friends, but decided to strike out on our own..."
"If we join, we have some RL friends who might like to join too..."
If you've been around WoW long enough, you've seen entries like that describing guilds and players alike. This isn't unique to WoW, of course; my experience with the Internet dates back to the 80's, and people would differentiate between real life (RL) friends and online/virtual friends as a matter of course. Online friends were the equivalent of an electronic pen pal, only with a bit more instant gratification. While nice, they were considered secondary to the people you met face-to-face.
The convention has continued to this day, but I wonder if by now the convention has it wrong.
How often do you get online to play WoW? Text/Tweet people? Visit chatrooms/webcams? Update Facebook? And then, the obvious question: how often do you spend time talking/hanging out with your RL friends?
You may not have all the visual cues that you get from a true face-to-face conversation, but for a lot of people their online friends are the real life friends. The transient nature of a lot of jobs --especially in IT-- means that your coworkers may be in the cubicle next to you, or half a world away. If you can work on a team with someone overseas, why is it so unusual to have a raiding buddy a continent away as a friend?
It isn't unusual at all. Not anymore.
The world has shrunk, and tech --MMOs included-- has changed the dynamics of friendship. As a shared activity, an MMO such as WoW fosters friendships where the common denominator is the game itself.
Of course, most in-game interactions are of the "polite stranger" or "general acquaintance" variety,* but it doesn't have to be. Perhaps you hang with your guildies due to a shared goal, but after raiding with people three nights a week for months on end, are you so sure you've remained merely acquaintances?
I know people in my neighborhood who would think I was a special type of crazy for suggesting that online friendships should be given equal footing with RL ones. "What sort of crackpot are you, anyway?" they'd ask, then go back to sitting in their garage, drinking their beer and discussing high school sports.** But replace the garage with a computer, and sports with Tol Barad, and what do you have?
It's important to have perspective in all of this, but the one thing that I've been struck by time and again is that WoW friendships shouldn't take a back seat to anyone.*** Don't try to put the WoW friends into a little compartment and pretend that they're inferior to your "real" friends, because they aren't.
*Or the nerd rager type. Or the OMG FAIL! type. But I digress.
**Yes, that sort of thing really does happen in my neighborhood. All the time.
***Well, except for your family.
"We used to play with RL friends, but decided to strike out on our own..."
"If we join, we have some RL friends who might like to join too..."
If you've been around WoW long enough, you've seen entries like that describing guilds and players alike. This isn't unique to WoW, of course; my experience with the Internet dates back to the 80's, and people would differentiate between real life (RL) friends and online/virtual friends as a matter of course. Online friends were the equivalent of an electronic pen pal, only with a bit more instant gratification. While nice, they were considered secondary to the people you met face-to-face.
The convention has continued to this day, but I wonder if by now the convention has it wrong.
How often do you get online to play WoW? Text/Tweet people? Visit chatrooms/webcams? Update Facebook? And then, the obvious question: how often do you spend time talking/hanging out with your RL friends?
You may not have all the visual cues that you get from a true face-to-face conversation, but for a lot of people their online friends are the real life friends. The transient nature of a lot of jobs --especially in IT-- means that your coworkers may be in the cubicle next to you, or half a world away. If you can work on a team with someone overseas, why is it so unusual to have a raiding buddy a continent away as a friend?
It isn't unusual at all. Not anymore.
The world has shrunk, and tech --MMOs included-- has changed the dynamics of friendship. As a shared activity, an MMO such as WoW fosters friendships where the common denominator is the game itself.
Of course, most in-game interactions are of the "polite stranger" or "general acquaintance" variety,* but it doesn't have to be. Perhaps you hang with your guildies due to a shared goal, but after raiding with people three nights a week for months on end, are you so sure you've remained merely acquaintances?
I know people in my neighborhood who would think I was a special type of crazy for suggesting that online friendships should be given equal footing with RL ones. "What sort of crackpot are you, anyway?" they'd ask, then go back to sitting in their garage, drinking their beer and discussing high school sports.** But replace the garage with a computer, and sports with Tol Barad, and what do you have?
It's important to have perspective in all of this, but the one thing that I've been struck by time and again is that WoW friendships shouldn't take a back seat to anyone.*** Don't try to put the WoW friends into a little compartment and pretend that they're inferior to your "real" friends, because they aren't.
*Or the nerd rager type. Or the OMG FAIL! type. But I digress.
**Yes, that sort of thing really does happen in my neighborhood. All the time.
***Well, except for your family.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Coming to Terms With My Outer Darkness
As has been well documented, I play several Paladins. You know, the Goody Two Shoes of the WoW world.* While the other ostensibly "good" class that draws power from Holy Light --the Priest-- has a Shadow Spec, the Paladin is free of any direct taint of Darkness. They are the rigidly Lawful Good characters who embody what Roland, Saladin, and Perceval strove for.** Not only pure of heart and mind, but able to kick some serious ass.
And they're also cloying. The constant preaching of the Argent Crusade and from those who hang out in the Cathedral of Light can be grating on people. Paladins have a reputation of being the sort of person that would stand side-by-side with you in a fight, but are too self-righteous to go hang with you at the World's End Tavern afterward.
So naturally it follows that I've started a Warlock toon.
If you thought that Paladins were on the uber-good end of the class listing, Warlocks have to be on the opposite end of the spectrum. Whereas the Death Knight's intro story pretty much sets up their redemption at the Battle of Light's Hope Chapel, there isn't anything so warm and fuzzy about a class that revels in wielding "true power" and "secret knowledge".
The entire concept of the Warlock as a playable class kind of flies in the face of the current World of Warcraft setting. With Guldan and the Shadow Council no longer in charge of the Horde, Warlocks would be persona-non-grata in official Horde circles. Yes, there is still an undercurrent of approval and "those were the good old days" in the Horde, but all that time spent fighting against the Burning Legion in Outland would have driven that sentiment deeper underground. The only official place --Cataclysm Era-- where the philosophy of "I don't care where it came from but I'm going to throw it all against you" would find a home is in Sylvanas' camp.
As for the Alliance, there's even less of a reason why a Warlock is a playable class. The Alliance fought not only the Burning Legion but the old Horde, and if there's any class that the Alliance would despise more than the Warlock, I'm not sure what it would be. Yes, I know that there are always people who are tempted by power, but when WoW tries to set your toon up as a hero, a Warlock is typically not what the general populace has in mind.
Considering all that, I felt distinctly uncomfortable when Genn Greymane and Co. would call my new toon an 'old friend' and a 'hero' during the Gilneas starting zone. "Hello? Can't you see the Imp following along behind me? Doesn't that make you just a WEE bit uneasy, Your Majesty?"
Dominating members of the Burning Legion like a Warlock does is splitting hairs. Really. You can't look at the Warcraft universe and say "well, they may be demons, but they're on our side." To paraphrase Azrael from the movie Dogma, "But they're f@$#-ing demons!" Warlocks are playing with the worst kind of fire, WoW-verse speaking, and I am surprised that Blizz doesn't tweak things a bit so that they are more obviously shunned a bit more.***
In spite of all that, Warlocks are a bit refreshing. Most people --virtual or real-- tend to hide their dark secrets. Locks put their own Darkness right out on display. Hell, they'd probably charge admission if they thought they could get away with it, in their own Ray Bradbury-esque dark circus.
So playing a Warlock --especially in an RP environment-- is all about power and domination.
Of course, that's not the reason why everybody plays a Lock. Some of us are in it for the DoTs.
If you've ever been in a BG, you know what it's like to have someone out of melee range dump several DoTs on you, then sit back and laugh --or maybe cast a Fear-- while you bleed to death. If you're lucky and you're playing a class that can dispel those DoTs, you'll end up wasting time dispelling them while there's a Warrior or Kitty Druid beating on you. Having been on the receiving end of that tactic enough times, I finally decided that I'd had enough and I want some of that too. After all, how hard could it be?
Um....
If you come from a melee or Hunter/Mage background, harder than you think.
The hardest thing I had to deal with during the Worgen intro zone was the waiting. Your direct attacks aren't that powerful, so you have to wait for the accumulation of those DoTs to have the desired impact. I suppose I could run around, kiting the enemy, but that could be disastrous if I ran in the wrong direction. So there you are, clad in cloth armor, watching some enemy wail on you. It's only when you finally get a Voidwalker minion that you have a viable mini-tank to take the pressure off.
But that leads into the second hardest thing as a Lock, and that's the accumulation of threat from all those DoTs. Threat spikes have always been the bane of DPS, but you can mitigate some of the danger of threat spikes by slowing down your rotation. With DoTs, however, you don't have any sort of control once you cast your spell; your only option is to determine whether or not to cast that DoT in the first place. Finding a way to control threat in this back handed manner is probably where a lot of Locks fall down in instances.
So, what's up for the little furball of Evil now?
I'm going to keep him questing through Darkshore, and now that he's high enough level to queue for Ragefire Chasm, I'm going to find out how Warlock dynamics work in an instance setting.
Oh, and of course I'll queue up for Warsong Gulch. I can't resist giving the old DoT/Fear trick a whirl!
*Blood Knights notwithstanding. And Lady Liadrin, the Blood Knight Matriarch, has since corrected things during her audience with A'dal in Shattrath City.
**Yes, I know that Roland is the chief paladin of Charlemagne's court, that Perceval was a literary construct, and Saladin was more complex than his Medieval admirers believed. Give a guy a break, will ya?
***Even though it's not in the WoW-verse, there ought to be a chance, however small, that the demon would break free from your control and turn on you. I'd tweak it such that the likelihood of a demon breaking free from your control goes up when you get into a fight; after all, your toon is under increased pressure, so naturally something bound against its will would try to break free when you're distracted.
EtA: Warlocks are a class, not race. That'll teach me to not write and edit early in the morning.
And they're also cloying. The constant preaching of the Argent Crusade and from those who hang out in the Cathedral of Light can be grating on people. Paladins have a reputation of being the sort of person that would stand side-by-side with you in a fight, but are too self-righteous to go hang with you at the World's End Tavern afterward.
So naturally it follows that I've started a Warlock toon.
If you thought that Paladins were on the uber-good end of the class listing, Warlocks have to be on the opposite end of the spectrum. Whereas the Death Knight's intro story pretty much sets up their redemption at the Battle of Light's Hope Chapel, there isn't anything so warm and fuzzy about a class that revels in wielding "true power" and "secret knowledge".
The entire concept of the Warlock as a playable class kind of flies in the face of the current World of Warcraft setting. With Guldan and the Shadow Council no longer in charge of the Horde, Warlocks would be persona-non-grata in official Horde circles. Yes, there is still an undercurrent of approval and "those were the good old days" in the Horde, but all that time spent fighting against the Burning Legion in Outland would have driven that sentiment deeper underground. The only official place --Cataclysm Era-- where the philosophy of "I don't care where it came from but I'm going to throw it all against you" would find a home is in Sylvanas' camp.
As for the Alliance, there's even less of a reason why a Warlock is a playable class. The Alliance fought not only the Burning Legion but the old Horde, and if there's any class that the Alliance would despise more than the Warlock, I'm not sure what it would be. Yes, I know that there are always people who are tempted by power, but when WoW tries to set your toon up as a hero, a Warlock is typically not what the general populace has in mind.
Considering all that, I felt distinctly uncomfortable when Genn Greymane and Co. would call my new toon an 'old friend' and a 'hero' during the Gilneas starting zone. "Hello? Can't you see the Imp following along behind me? Doesn't that make you just a WEE bit uneasy, Your Majesty?"
Dominating members of the Burning Legion like a Warlock does is splitting hairs. Really. You can't look at the Warcraft universe and say "well, they may be demons, but they're on our side." To paraphrase Azrael from the movie Dogma, "But they're f@$#-ing demons!" Warlocks are playing with the worst kind of fire, WoW-verse speaking, and I am surprised that Blizz doesn't tweak things a bit so that they are more obviously shunned a bit more.***
In spite of all that, Warlocks are a bit refreshing. Most people --virtual or real-- tend to hide their dark secrets. Locks put their own Darkness right out on display. Hell, they'd probably charge admission if they thought they could get away with it, in their own Ray Bradbury-esque dark circus.
So playing a Warlock --especially in an RP environment-- is all about power and domination.
***
Of course, that's not the reason why everybody plays a Lock. Some of us are in it for the DoTs.
If you've ever been in a BG, you know what it's like to have someone out of melee range dump several DoTs on you, then sit back and laugh --or maybe cast a Fear-- while you bleed to death. If you're lucky and you're playing a class that can dispel those DoTs, you'll end up wasting time dispelling them while there's a Warrior or Kitty Druid beating on you. Having been on the receiving end of that tactic enough times, I finally decided that I'd had enough and I want some of that too. After all, how hard could it be?
Um....
If you come from a melee or Hunter/Mage background, harder than you think.
The hardest thing I had to deal with during the Worgen intro zone was the waiting. Your direct attacks aren't that powerful, so you have to wait for the accumulation of those DoTs to have the desired impact. I suppose I could run around, kiting the enemy, but that could be disastrous if I ran in the wrong direction. So there you are, clad in cloth armor, watching some enemy wail on you. It's only when you finally get a Voidwalker minion that you have a viable mini-tank to take the pressure off.
But that leads into the second hardest thing as a Lock, and that's the accumulation of threat from all those DoTs. Threat spikes have always been the bane of DPS, but you can mitigate some of the danger of threat spikes by slowing down your rotation. With DoTs, however, you don't have any sort of control once you cast your spell; your only option is to determine whether or not to cast that DoT in the first place. Finding a way to control threat in this back handed manner is probably where a lot of Locks fall down in instances.
So, what's up for the little furball of Evil now?
I'm going to keep him questing through Darkshore, and now that he's high enough level to queue for Ragefire Chasm, I'm going to find out how Warlock dynamics work in an instance setting.
Oh, and of course I'll queue up for Warsong Gulch. I can't resist giving the old DoT/Fear trick a whirl!
*Blood Knights notwithstanding. And Lady Liadrin, the Blood Knight Matriarch, has since corrected things during her audience with A'dal in Shattrath City.
**Yes, I know that Roland is the chief paladin of Charlemagne's court, that Perceval was a literary construct, and Saladin was more complex than his Medieval admirers believed. Give a guy a break, will ya?
***Even though it's not in the WoW-verse, there ought to be a chance, however small, that the demon would break free from your control and turn on you. I'd tweak it such that the likelihood of a demon breaking free from your control goes up when you get into a fight; after all, your toon is under increased pressure, so naturally something bound against its will would try to break free when you're distracted.
EtA: Warlocks are a class, not race. That'll teach me to not write and edit early in the morning.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Go go go!
My guild and I have made some pretty steady progress recently on the raiding front, and we're close to getting 11/12.
I have enjoyed the raiding content so far in the game, but we're really feeling the pressure to down all of the current content before it gets nerfed to oblivion in patch 4.2.
We're pretty casual - only raiding 6 hours over two days each week. Only raiding so little time each week usually leaves us limited time to get attempts in on final bosses, but it all works out.
Wish us luck as we push to get everything down!
I have enjoyed the raiding content so far in the game, but we're really feeling the pressure to down all of the current content before it gets nerfed to oblivion in patch 4.2.
We're pretty casual - only raiding 6 hours over two days each week. Only raiding so little time each week usually leaves us limited time to get attempts in on final bosses, but it all works out.
Wish us luck as we push to get everything down!
Saturday, May 28, 2011
WoW in Popular Culture, Part Whatever
Yes, I've been around (so has Soul and Ehna), but I've been very busy at work and home. But yes, there are new blog posts coming.
In the meantime, here's today's Working Daze comic:
In the meantime, here's today's Working Daze comic:
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Atari to Sell the Maker of Star Trek: Online
Apparently Atari's Cryptic Studios has lost $25 million the past two years, and therefore they're looking for buyers.
Gamespot: Atari Unloading Cryptic Studios
Gamespot: Atari Unloading Cryptic Studios
What We Need NOW
After having seen the proliferation of "these" sorts of games....
It only makes sense what ought to be developed next.
LEGO World of Warcraft!
It only makes sense what ought to be developed next.
LEGO World of Warcraft!
Monday, May 16, 2011
Attack of the Pug
One nice side effect of the reduced queue time for Tol'vir has been the return of the pug story. Sure, I've got BG stories that are more interesting than your typical nerd rage variety, but I'd missed a good old fashioned pug tale. There's something compelling about a group that puts the 'fun' in dysfunctional, making you grateful for your blissfully silent instance run.
My first couple of runs through Tol'vir were uneventful. I'd prepared ahead of time in much the same fashion as people study raid videos, but of course that didn't stop me from making a few boo-boos. Once I settled in, I got the feel of how the instance flowed, and got to watch group dynamics in action. There was the tank who thought that the party could bypass the Croc boss, but that wasn't anything major. On the whole, people were efficient and courteous, pointing out what to do where without so much whining. I was starting to wonder if all the nuts had migrated to Cata heroics when I entered Tol'vir as Tomakan, proceeded to buff folks, and watched as the first pull turned into an adventure when the tank dropped.
Two of us were L85, so even if we weren't geared for Heroics we were able to put the trash down without anyone biting it. "That was annoying," I said.
"Very," the healer replied. "If he didn't like the instance, he could have dropped before we started."
So we waited.
Five minutes later, a new tank zoned in and decided she wanted to go in the opposite direction. So we reversed course and took out a few more groups of trash.
"I've gotta be honest," one of the DPS piped up. "I'm only here for the rep. Once I ding Exalted, I'm outta here."
"That sucks," the tank replied, and dropped.
Another DPS dropped as well.
"Thanks a lot, asshat," the healer griped to the DPS.
I had really nowhere to go, so I waited. Tol'vir is quick enough of an instance --think SM:Library, Blood Furnace, or Utgarde Keep-- so I figured that it'd take even longer to requeue than go grab some coffee and wait for two replacements.
About 8-10 minutes later, a DPS and a third tank zoned in and we continued our run. This time, the tank was a touch overeager on trash, attempting to pull multiple packs until the healer chastised him. "If I don't have mana, you don't get healed," she said.
Things went well until the last boss. On one of the DPS' request, the healer sketched out the strategy: kill the ads, then in the second phase go after the boss. So what did the DPS do when the fight started? Went straight for the boss and managed to get himself killed via the deflections. Luckily, the lack of DPS didn't mean a wipe, but it did mean that dropping that last boss took a lot longer.
That Tol'vir run wasn't the only one where being L85 came in handy.
I tried branching out on instances and queued for Vortex Pinnacle, but the 35 minute queue time was more like what I expected with Cata instances.
Quintalan zoned in --remember him? Blood Knight, about so tall, red hair, last seen taking a vacation on a park bench in Dalaran-- and listened in to the basics about the instance given by the Mage. "...and you have to get in under that triangle before he starts his attack," he was saying, "otherwise it's instant death."
"And don't try to release and run back during the fight," I added. "His attack is instance-wide. Don't ask how I know that."
That earned a round of chuckles.
The first couple of pulls went okay, although there was a tendency to keep attacking the air elementals that were added for "flavor". That's about all I can say about the elementals that see you and vanish without invoking my extensive vocabulary of profanity. The first boss fight went well, but one of the DPS dropped off the platform instead of clicking on the whirlwind to move to the next section of the instance. Oh well.
Then things began to get tricky. Right before the first drake, the healer expressly said to the L82 warrior tank to "pull [the drake] out of the heal zone." Well, the tank pulled, and then stopped with the drake half in and half out.
"Pull him!" the healer cried.
The tank kept the drake stationary, and then bit it.
I cursed, slapped on Righteous Fury, and started tanking. The drake dropped, and the healer rezzed the tank. Properly chastened, the tank proceeded to dutifully pull the next drake out of the heal zone without a problem.
Then we got to the section with the Neferset lackeys.
The first pull there, the tank ran in without marking or requesting that the Neferset healers be sheeped. After realizing that the tank wasn't concentrating on the healer at all, I pulled off of the tank and started dropping as many interrupts as I could on the Neferset healer.
"Let me sheep him!" the Mage cried.
"Okay...." I peeled away and stepped back. "I'm off. Go for it." I remembered to breathe when I saw Mr. Lion Man become a friendly little lamb on the ground. As is typical, once the healer went down, the rest of the mob followed suit.
The Mage then rounded on the tank. "Next time, let me sheep the Healer first; they have to be CCed or this takes forever."
"Got it."
Well, the tank didn't quite get it, because on the last of those packs he bit it again. Because he didn't wait for the Healers to be sheeped, I got to play tank again. All I can say is thank goodness for Lay on Hands.
I did not have a good feeling heading into the final boss, but I comforted myself in the knowledge that we'd covered all this beforehand.
Silly me.
On the first Supremacy of the Storm cast, the tank stayed outside the grounding field, and...
I knew the drill by then. Slap on Righteous Fury and start spamming stuff to keep my threat up. When there's a Mage in your party with more health than you, you know that there's a good chance that you'll lose threat, especially with the way Ret is specced these days. You simply don't have the tools (or mana) to swing tanking for long stretches. However, I don't think I lost threat more than twice in that fight, and each time Hand of Reckoning dragged the boss back my way. I don't know exactly what that healer did, but whatever it was worked: he kept myself, the Mage, and himself upright throughout the rest of the fight.
The Mage was thoroughly disgusted with the way things went that he quickly passed on the two items and dropped group. I can't say I blame him.
My first couple of runs through Tol'vir were uneventful. I'd prepared ahead of time in much the same fashion as people study raid videos, but of course that didn't stop me from making a few boo-boos. Once I settled in, I got the feel of how the instance flowed, and got to watch group dynamics in action. There was the tank who thought that the party could bypass the Croc boss, but that wasn't anything major. On the whole, people were efficient and courteous, pointing out what to do where without so much whining. I was starting to wonder if all the nuts had migrated to Cata heroics when I entered Tol'vir as Tomakan, proceeded to buff folks, and watched as the first pull turned into an adventure when the tank dropped.
Two of us were L85, so even if we weren't geared for Heroics we were able to put the trash down without anyone biting it. "That was annoying," I said.
"Very," the healer replied. "If he didn't like the instance, he could have dropped before we started."
So we waited.
Five minutes later, a new tank zoned in and decided she wanted to go in the opposite direction. So we reversed course and took out a few more groups of trash.
"I've gotta be honest," one of the DPS piped up. "I'm only here for the rep. Once I ding Exalted, I'm outta here."
"That sucks," the tank replied, and dropped.
Another DPS dropped as well.
"Thanks a lot, asshat," the healer griped to the DPS.
I had really nowhere to go, so I waited. Tol'vir is quick enough of an instance --think SM:Library, Blood Furnace, or Utgarde Keep-- so I figured that it'd take even longer to requeue than go grab some coffee and wait for two replacements.
About 8-10 minutes later, a DPS and a third tank zoned in and we continued our run. This time, the tank was a touch overeager on trash, attempting to pull multiple packs until the healer chastised him. "If I don't have mana, you don't get healed," she said.
Things went well until the last boss. On one of the DPS' request, the healer sketched out the strategy: kill the ads, then in the second phase go after the boss. So what did the DPS do when the fight started? Went straight for the boss and managed to get himself killed via the deflections. Luckily, the lack of DPS didn't mean a wipe, but it did mean that dropping that last boss took a lot longer.
***
That Tol'vir run wasn't the only one where being L85 came in handy.
I tried branching out on instances and queued for Vortex Pinnacle, but the 35 minute queue time was more like what I expected with Cata instances.
Quintalan zoned in --remember him? Blood Knight, about so tall, red hair, last seen taking a vacation on a park bench in Dalaran-- and listened in to the basics about the instance given by the Mage. "...and you have to get in under that triangle before he starts his attack," he was saying, "otherwise it's instant death."
"And don't try to release and run back during the fight," I added. "His attack is instance-wide. Don't ask how I know that."
That earned a round of chuckles.
The first couple of pulls went okay, although there was a tendency to keep attacking the air elementals that were added for "flavor". That's about all I can say about the elementals that see you and vanish without invoking my extensive vocabulary of profanity. The first boss fight went well, but one of the DPS dropped off the platform instead of clicking on the whirlwind to move to the next section of the instance. Oh well.
Then things began to get tricky. Right before the first drake, the healer expressly said to the L82 warrior tank to "pull [the drake] out of the heal zone." Well, the tank pulled, and then stopped with the drake half in and half out.
"Pull him!" the healer cried.
The tank kept the drake stationary, and then bit it.
I cursed, slapped on Righteous Fury, and started tanking. The drake dropped, and the healer rezzed the tank. Properly chastened, the tank proceeded to dutifully pull the next drake out of the heal zone without a problem.
Then we got to the section with the Neferset lackeys.
The first pull there, the tank ran in without marking or requesting that the Neferset healers be sheeped. After realizing that the tank wasn't concentrating on the healer at all, I pulled off of the tank and started dropping as many interrupts as I could on the Neferset healer.
"Let me sheep him!" the Mage cried.
"Okay...." I peeled away and stepped back. "I'm off. Go for it." I remembered to breathe when I saw Mr. Lion Man become a friendly little lamb on the ground. As is typical, once the healer went down, the rest of the mob followed suit.
The Mage then rounded on the tank. "Next time, let me sheep the Healer first; they have to be CCed or this takes forever."
"Got it."
Well, the tank didn't quite get it, because on the last of those packs he bit it again. Because he didn't wait for the Healers to be sheeped, I got to play tank again. All I can say is thank goodness for Lay on Hands.
I did not have a good feeling heading into the final boss, but I comforted myself in the knowledge that we'd covered all this beforehand.
Silly me.
On the first Supremacy of the Storm cast, the tank stayed outside the grounding field, and...
I knew the drill by then. Slap on Righteous Fury and start spamming stuff to keep my threat up. When there's a Mage in your party with more health than you, you know that there's a good chance that you'll lose threat, especially with the way Ret is specced these days. You simply don't have the tools (or mana) to swing tanking for long stretches. However, I don't think I lost threat more than twice in that fight, and each time Hand of Reckoning dragged the boss back my way. I don't know exactly what that healer did, but whatever it was worked: he kept myself, the Mage, and himself upright throughout the rest of the fight.
The Mage was thoroughly disgusted with the way things went that he quickly passed on the two items and dropped group. I can't say I blame him.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
iLevels and Deception
For most people out there, this particular rant doesn't apply to them. They leveled, they ran normals, then got enough gear for heroics. (Hell, who am I kidding? They're way past that now, deep into raid progression.)
The average WoW player probably grumped at bit about iLevels and the restrictions for the heroics, or they had heroic pugs where at least one puggee griped about an undergeared party member.
I, obviously, didn't follow the normal progression.
Due to time restrictions, I leveled, skipped instances entirely, and concentrated on battlegrounds. After running BGs for about a month or two (and crafting gear), I've gotten enough PvP gear on Tom and Neve to be able to jump straight into heroics, almost completely bypassing the Cata normals. If I work on my PvP gear for another couple of weeks, it's entirely possible I could queue for Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub without having set foot in a single Cata heroic.
And I'm here to say that isn't right.
The point of the iLevel restrictions for heroics and the 4.1 instances are to make sure that the players have a fighting chance in those instances. Whether you get the gear by crafting, running normals, or the auction house, once you get into one of these instances the gear shouldn't be what holds you back. But PvP gear, by it's very nature, will do just that.
I've said before that to run a BG you don't need PvP gear, and I stick to that assessment. Regular BGs have a hodgepodge of people with all sorts of quality gear --from Cata greens to full Gladiator sets-- and anybody can join in. However, if you want to run Heroics --and, more importantly, tank or heal in them-- the reverse won't be true.
The emphasis on Resilience (and gemming for spell penetration) hurts PvP gear when you run PvE content. Sure, you can compensate with skill, and iL PvP gear that is far higher than your PvE gear will be better overall, but if your gear has similar iL, PvP gear will be inferior to PvE gear in PvE content.
And that doesn't address the overall problem of bypassing most of the content to get to the latest PvE stuff.
I'd like to see Blizz fix this issue by dividing the iL into PvP and PvE tracks, much like how the gearscore app has evolved over time. PvP gear won't count toward your PvE iLevel, and vice versa. Or at least have a requirement like Magister's Terrace, where to unlock the Heroic mode you have to have run the normal instance to completion at least once. For the Zandalari Heroics, I'd suggest that having run at least half of the Cata Heroics would suffice, although by the time you get enough PvE gear to get into the Z-H's, you'll probably already have the Cataclysm Dungeon Hero achievement.
As for me, I'm not planning on using my PvP gear to sneak into Heroics. I know better; just because you've got the gear doesn't mean you can slide by. I also don't want to misrepresent my guilds this way, either.* I've discovered that normal Tol'vir has both a small queue wait and a short run time, so I've been spending some PvE time there, but when I get around to it, I'll expand my PvE immersion. But not until I feel that my PvE gear has gotten good enough will I walk into a Heroic.
*I believe that when you affiliate yourself with a guild, you represent that guild when you're out in Azeroth. It's just like in the real world, where you wear a shirt with a university or sports team or company on it, people will judge the name behind that moniker by your actions. It's not fair, but it happens. In Azeroth, if you behave like an ass, people will judge your guild and your server accordingly.
EtA: My last comment about Zandalari Heroics disappeared into the interwebs, so I had to go fix it.
The average WoW player probably grumped at bit about iLevels and the restrictions for the heroics, or they had heroic pugs where at least one puggee griped about an undergeared party member.
I, obviously, didn't follow the normal progression.
Due to time restrictions, I leveled, skipped instances entirely, and concentrated on battlegrounds. After running BGs for about a month or two (and crafting gear), I've gotten enough PvP gear on Tom and Neve to be able to jump straight into heroics, almost completely bypassing the Cata normals. If I work on my PvP gear for another couple of weeks, it's entirely possible I could queue for Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub without having set foot in a single Cata heroic.
And I'm here to say that isn't right.
The point of the iLevel restrictions for heroics and the 4.1 instances are to make sure that the players have a fighting chance in those instances. Whether you get the gear by crafting, running normals, or the auction house, once you get into one of these instances the gear shouldn't be what holds you back. But PvP gear, by it's very nature, will do just that.
I've said before that to run a BG you don't need PvP gear, and I stick to that assessment. Regular BGs have a hodgepodge of people with all sorts of quality gear --from Cata greens to full Gladiator sets-- and anybody can join in. However, if you want to run Heroics --and, more importantly, tank or heal in them-- the reverse won't be true.
The emphasis on Resilience (and gemming for spell penetration) hurts PvP gear when you run PvE content. Sure, you can compensate with skill, and iL PvP gear that is far higher than your PvE gear will be better overall, but if your gear has similar iL, PvP gear will be inferior to PvE gear in PvE content.
And that doesn't address the overall problem of bypassing most of the content to get to the latest PvE stuff.
I'd like to see Blizz fix this issue by dividing the iL into PvP and PvE tracks, much like how the gearscore app has evolved over time. PvP gear won't count toward your PvE iLevel, and vice versa. Or at least have a requirement like Magister's Terrace, where to unlock the Heroic mode you have to have run the normal instance to completion at least once. For the Zandalari Heroics, I'd suggest that having run at least half of the Cata Heroics would suffice, although by the time you get enough PvE gear to get into the Z-H's, you'll probably already have the Cataclysm Dungeon Hero achievement.
As for me, I'm not planning on using my PvP gear to sneak into Heroics. I know better; just because you've got the gear doesn't mean you can slide by. I also don't want to misrepresent my guilds this way, either.* I've discovered that normal Tol'vir has both a small queue wait and a short run time, so I've been spending some PvE time there, but when I get around to it, I'll expand my PvE immersion. But not until I feel that my PvE gear has gotten good enough will I walk into a Heroic.
*I believe that when you affiliate yourself with a guild, you represent that guild when you're out in Azeroth. It's just like in the real world, where you wear a shirt with a university or sports team or company on it, people will judge the name behind that moniker by your actions. It's not fair, but it happens. In Azeroth, if you behave like an ass, people will judge your guild and your server accordingly.
EtA: My last comment about Zandalari Heroics disappeared into the interwebs, so I had to go fix it.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
A Tale of Two Expansions
Cataclysm is the first WoW expansion since The Burning Crusade to get a pair of new playable races. This isn't exactly news*, since Cata has been out for almost half a year. Since that time, however, we've had plenty of opportunity to get used to Goblins and Worgen out there in the field, so I thought I'd do a bit of compare/contrast with Blood Elves and Draenei, and how their introduction was handled.
The Burning Crusade - Shoehorning Made Perfect
When BC came out, Vanilla was still fresh. The old content wasn't quite so old or creaky, but Blizzard did learn quite a bit about how to pace content. Outland's instances and questlines were more streamlined than Vanilla, and nowhere was this new approach more apparent than the new BC races. The Blood Elf and Draenei starting areas had a better flow to them than the old Vanilla ones, and when you finished the Ghostlands or Bloodmyst Isle you were well indoctrinated into each race's viewpoint.
Then you left those starting areas, and returned to the world of Vanilla.
Vanilla was almost exactly the same as before, with the exception of the lone Blood Elf or Draenei in a quest hub. Occasionally, that NPC would have an actual quest chain attached --the Blood Elf at Freewind Post or the Draenei at Forest Song, for example-- but mostly the NPC was a reminder that yeah, there were a couple of extra races in Azeroth. The anachronisms of the Blood Elves in Azshara remained, causing no small amount of confusion to people joining WoW in BC or Wrath. "How come the Orc is so upset about trusting them?" I once asked Soul. "Aren't we all part of the same Horde?"
"That was a Vanilla quest chain," he replied, "and it was never updated or removed."
Vanilla was --by and large-- not well integrated with the two new races, but Blizz compensated for it once you reached Outland.
BC wasn't entirely about the Sindorei or Draenei, but there are plenty of times when it sure seems that way. The new races weren't there for decoration, they were an vital part of the entire story. After spending most of your leveling time in Vanilla forgetting the lore of the starting areas, Outland was almost an overdose on the stuff. While the Orc lore took center stage in Nagrand, Hellfire Peninsula, and Blade's Edge Mountains, were it not for Kael and the Blood Elves, the Horde probably wouldn't even be there. The same goes for the Sons of Lothar and the Alliance: nice, but not necessary. The arrival of the Draenei aboard The Exodar made it necessary.
Cataclysm - Well, That's One Way of Integrating Things: Blow it all up!
After passing on Wrath, Blizz added two races into the fold for Cataclysm: Goblins and Worgen. The reworking of the Old World afforded Blizz the rare chance to seamlessly integrate the two new races into Azeroth, and they ran with it. They did a great job of fixing the problems with plopping new races into an unchanged basic game, and they are to be commended for completing the unfinished backstory on the Worgen.
Once you reach the Cata zones, however, the two new races simply become invisible.
Sure, there's Goldmine the NPC and the Goblin outpost in Twilight Highlands, but outside of that, where are the two new races given any significant face time? I think there was one --one!-- Worgen questgiver in Vashj'ir, but that was it.
Okay, I understand that the emphasis in this expansion is on the Earthen Ring, the Guardians of Hyjal, and some of the original races, but come on. Draenei (and the Taunka Shaman, Toshe Chaosrender) get more face time as members of the Earthen Ring than Worgen do in the entire set of Cata zones. And the Krazzworks in Twilight Highlands could easily have been a neutral Goblin outpost under attack by Twilight Drakes. The new races are merely there in the new Cata zones; the main storylines in Cataclysm have passed them by.
This begs the question: were the two new races even necessary for Cataclysm? After all, the reworking of Vanilla WoW, which was so vital to incorporating the Goblins and Worgen into each faction, is available to anyone who plays only the basic game. There is no Cata-specific content that emphasizes their racial story, despite the obvious potential lead-ins the Worgen could have had in Hyjal (or the Goblins in Vashj'ir, who could have had some of their shipping fleets sunk by the kraken). Instead, the new races come off as being the Scrappy Doo of Cataclysm, which is a shame.
*Yep, and my nickname is Sherlock, too! Okay, not really. Anyhoo....
The Burning Crusade - Shoehorning Made Perfect
When BC came out, Vanilla was still fresh. The old content wasn't quite so old or creaky, but Blizzard did learn quite a bit about how to pace content. Outland's instances and questlines were more streamlined than Vanilla, and nowhere was this new approach more apparent than the new BC races. The Blood Elf and Draenei starting areas had a better flow to them than the old Vanilla ones, and when you finished the Ghostlands or Bloodmyst Isle you were well indoctrinated into each race's viewpoint.
Then you left those starting areas, and returned to the world of Vanilla.
Vanilla was almost exactly the same as before, with the exception of the lone Blood Elf or Draenei in a quest hub. Occasionally, that NPC would have an actual quest chain attached --the Blood Elf at Freewind Post or the Draenei at Forest Song, for example-- but mostly the NPC was a reminder that yeah, there were a couple of extra races in Azeroth. The anachronisms of the Blood Elves in Azshara remained, causing no small amount of confusion to people joining WoW in BC or Wrath. "How come the Orc is so upset about trusting them?" I once asked Soul. "Aren't we all part of the same Horde?"
"That was a Vanilla quest chain," he replied, "and it was never updated or removed."
Vanilla was --by and large-- not well integrated with the two new races, but Blizz compensated for it once you reached Outland.
BC wasn't entirely about the Sindorei or Draenei, but there are plenty of times when it sure seems that way. The new races weren't there for decoration, they were an vital part of the entire story. After spending most of your leveling time in Vanilla forgetting the lore of the starting areas, Outland was almost an overdose on the stuff. While the Orc lore took center stage in Nagrand, Hellfire Peninsula, and Blade's Edge Mountains, were it not for Kael and the Blood Elves, the Horde probably wouldn't even be there. The same goes for the Sons of Lothar and the Alliance: nice, but not necessary. The arrival of the Draenei aboard The Exodar made it necessary.
Cataclysm - Well, That's One Way of Integrating Things: Blow it all up!
After passing on Wrath, Blizz added two races into the fold for Cataclysm: Goblins and Worgen. The reworking of the Old World afforded Blizz the rare chance to seamlessly integrate the two new races into Azeroth, and they ran with it. They did a great job of fixing the problems with plopping new races into an unchanged basic game, and they are to be commended for completing the unfinished backstory on the Worgen.
Once you reach the Cata zones, however, the two new races simply become invisible.
Sure, there's Goldmine the NPC and the Goblin outpost in Twilight Highlands, but outside of that, where are the two new races given any significant face time? I think there was one --one!-- Worgen questgiver in Vashj'ir, but that was it.
Okay, I understand that the emphasis in this expansion is on the Earthen Ring, the Guardians of Hyjal, and some of the original races, but come on. Draenei (and the Taunka Shaman, Toshe Chaosrender) get more face time as members of the Earthen Ring than Worgen do in the entire set of Cata zones. And the Krazzworks in Twilight Highlands could easily have been a neutral Goblin outpost under attack by Twilight Drakes. The new races are merely there in the new Cata zones; the main storylines in Cataclysm have passed them by.
This begs the question: were the two new races even necessary for Cataclysm? After all, the reworking of Vanilla WoW, which was so vital to incorporating the Goblins and Worgen into each faction, is available to anyone who plays only the basic game. There is no Cata-specific content that emphasizes their racial story, despite the obvious potential lead-ins the Worgen could have had in Hyjal (or the Goblins in Vashj'ir, who could have had some of their shipping fleets sunk by the kraken). Instead, the new races come off as being the Scrappy Doo of Cataclysm, which is a shame.
*Yep, and my nickname is Sherlock, too! Okay, not really. Anyhoo....
Monday, April 18, 2011
Exploring for Fun and Profit
If there's one thing that's gotten an update in the BC starting areas, it's the level of the guards. Sure, that happened everywhere, but when you can fly over Northshire Abbey or Deathknell, you just don't notice.
Until you want that Explorer achievement, that is.
I was doing just that on Neve while I was waiting for a BG to pop, cruising through Darnassus (gotta love flying up the trunk of Teldrassil), and then I hit Azuremyst Isle. Typically, it's not a big deal. The guards throughout most of the Isle are the traditional level, so I got lulled to sleep thinking that all I had to do was pop into Ammen Vale and then scoot over to Bloodmist Isle to finish up the achieve.
Neve approached, forded the river, and rode her strider up the cleft and into the guards patrolling the entrance to the Vale. She got smacked at, but I didn't think anything of it until I turned her around to head back. She was immediately pulled off her mount and pummeled.
Did you know that the L90 guards hit for damage that range into the six figures?
And that using Invisibility to sneak past the guards won't work either?
I haven't had as much an exciting time getting that Explorer achievement since I got my original award on Quintalan on the Stormscale PvP server.
While I play battlegrounds, I typically don't engage in PvP play these days. That's a far cry from my time on Stormscale, where I made a habit of looking over my shoulder and I developed a healthy distaste for the Alliance gankers in Hillsbrad. Even then, I wasn't the sort to go out of my way to go after low level toons on the other side. (Now, if I caught an Alliance player going after some Hordies, that was another story.)
Being on a PvE server means that you don't notice the faction territory quite so much as when you're on a PvP server. That first time when I ventured into Loch Modan and I saw that big red "Loch Modan - Alliance Territory" flash overhead, I gulped. I was sure that tons of Alliance would just pour out from behind every boulder and I'd be a smudge on the ground. After all, when you get ganked in Tarren Mill 3-4 times a night, you learn to expect that stuff. Much to my surprise, however, I kept moving and nobody seemed to really care that I was in the area.
If I thought it was terrifying on a PvP server to cross into enemy territory, I was extremely underwhelmed when I did it on a PvE server. There isn't a big red "hey dummy!" alert, so you really don't get that sense of "things could go really really bad" that you get on a PvP server.
Unless you're a lowbie who encounters a max level toon from a rival faction, that is.
Her adventure with the Ammen Vale guards aside, Neve was cruising right along through Bloodmist Isle when she rode up toward the Vector Coil. There, toiling among Kael's traitorous Sunhawks, was a lone Draenei. I pulled Neve up to watch as he dispatched a nest of them, and then he turned and saw her.
If a toon could have a deer-in-the-headlights look, it was this guy.
Neve paused a moment longer, nodded and waved at the Draenei, and sped on her way. Happy hunting!
Until you want that Explorer achievement, that is.
I was doing just that on Neve while I was waiting for a BG to pop, cruising through Darnassus (gotta love flying up the trunk of Teldrassil), and then I hit Azuremyst Isle. Typically, it's not a big deal. The guards throughout most of the Isle are the traditional level, so I got lulled to sleep thinking that all I had to do was pop into Ammen Vale and then scoot over to Bloodmist Isle to finish up the achieve.
Neve approached, forded the river, and rode her strider up the cleft and into the guards patrolling the entrance to the Vale. She got smacked at, but I didn't think anything of it until I turned her around to head back. She was immediately pulled off her mount and pummeled.
Did you know that the L90 guards hit for damage that range into the six figures?
And that using Invisibility to sneak past the guards won't work either?
I haven't had as much an exciting time getting that Explorer achievement since I got my original award on Quintalan on the Stormscale PvP server.
***
While I play battlegrounds, I typically don't engage in PvP play these days. That's a far cry from my time on Stormscale, where I made a habit of looking over my shoulder and I developed a healthy distaste for the Alliance gankers in Hillsbrad. Even then, I wasn't the sort to go out of my way to go after low level toons on the other side. (Now, if I caught an Alliance player going after some Hordies, that was another story.)
Being on a PvE server means that you don't notice the faction territory quite so much as when you're on a PvP server. That first time when I ventured into Loch Modan and I saw that big red "Loch Modan - Alliance Territory" flash overhead, I gulped. I was sure that tons of Alliance would just pour out from behind every boulder and I'd be a smudge on the ground. After all, when you get ganked in Tarren Mill 3-4 times a night, you learn to expect that stuff. Much to my surprise, however, I kept moving and nobody seemed to really care that I was in the area.
If I thought it was terrifying on a PvP server to cross into enemy territory, I was extremely underwhelmed when I did it on a PvE server. There isn't a big red "hey dummy!" alert, so you really don't get that sense of "things could go really really bad" that you get on a PvP server.
Unless you're a lowbie who encounters a max level toon from a rival faction, that is.
Her adventure with the Ammen Vale guards aside, Neve was cruising right along through Bloodmist Isle when she rode up toward the Vector Coil. There, toiling among Kael's traitorous Sunhawks, was a lone Draenei. I pulled Neve up to watch as he dispatched a nest of them, and then he turned and saw her.
If a toon could have a deer-in-the-headlights look, it was this guy.
Neve paused a moment longer, nodded and waved at the Draenei, and sped on her way. Happy hunting!
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
A Simple Observation
"Org is where it's at."
"The Exodar is so freaking dead, just a couple of bank alts and some noobs."
"Dal has gone the way of Shattrath."
"Everybody's in Stormwind."
Heard those lately? I sure have, whether by fellow WoW bloggers, guildies, or random instance/BG puggers, people know the emphasis of this latest expansion is on the capital cities. For some cities, their day in the sun is over; for others, they never had one in the first place.
Blizz has stated several times that with Cataclysm, they wanted to return the emphasis to each faction's capital city. In that respect, they succeeded brilliantly. Instead of having one Sanctuary where both factions congregate and overwhelm players' frame rates, they divided the crowd between Orgrimmar and Stormwind.
However, every time I pass through another faction city, something just feels missing.
Do I miss the throng in Dalaran on a Tuesday night? Hell no. After a major patch bundle, my framerate would drop to 6 fps and stay there until I got out of dodge. By comparison, Org is a walk in the park. Same with Stormwind, where your flying mount can perch on dozens of buildings and get out of the heavy traffic.
I think what bothers me about Dalaran and the other leftovers is that they are cities, and they didn't stop existing when the Cataclysm redesign happened. But nobody goes there --especially the BC faction cities-- unless there's an occasional World Event or something monumental happens like 4.0.1 drops and everyone tests out new attack rotations. They're like a downtown street the morning after Oktoberfest.
Now, I'm sure that to most people the response is a shrug and a "So what? Change is the nature of things, and as each expansion has come and gone, the center of the WoW-verse has moved on. Get used to it."
Maybe so, but I think that Blizzard can do something here to make the other cities feel more organic: more NPCs.
I've watched the Shattered Sun train, and I've watch the kids play and run through the Lower City, and I think more of that is what all of these empty cities need. With the dawn of the quest marker system built into WoW, you don't really need to hover over each NPC to find the one you're supposed to talk to anyway, so why not add extraneous NPCs to each neglected city to give it a lot more flavor? That way the apple vendor in Ironforge isn't hawking fruit to an empty room. And why on earth is there one single delegation wandering about the streets of Silvermoon City --and Champion Vranesh-- when there could be more crowds moving back and forth?
A lot of these NPCs could have a set route and a series of pauses through the city that don't interfere with any player doing legit business --like at an AH or a bank-- while making an empty AH seem a bit fuller. They don't even need to say anything out loud, just be there and make the cities feel, well, lived in.
And should a future redesign of WoW send players back to another of these cities, Blizzard could simply remove the NPCs. Their presence would no longer be needed.
This obviously isn't the highest priority on Blizzard's drawing board right now, with 4.1's release fast approaching and 4.2 and 4.3 already well under way in the design/build stages. However, at first blush it seems like a relatively easy thing to implement, if only for a couple of NPCs a week.
"The Exodar is so freaking dead, just a couple of bank alts and some noobs."
"Dal has gone the way of Shattrath."
"Everybody's in Stormwind."
Heard those lately? I sure have, whether by fellow WoW bloggers, guildies, or random instance/BG puggers, people know the emphasis of this latest expansion is on the capital cities. For some cities, their day in the sun is over; for others, they never had one in the first place.
Blizz has stated several times that with Cataclysm, they wanted to return the emphasis to each faction's capital city. In that respect, they succeeded brilliantly. Instead of having one Sanctuary where both factions congregate and overwhelm players' frame rates, they divided the crowd between Orgrimmar and Stormwind.
However, every time I pass through another faction city, something just feels missing.
Do I miss the throng in Dalaran on a Tuesday night? Hell no. After a major patch bundle, my framerate would drop to 6 fps and stay there until I got out of dodge. By comparison, Org is a walk in the park. Same with Stormwind, where your flying mount can perch on dozens of buildings and get out of the heavy traffic.
I think what bothers me about Dalaran and the other leftovers is that they are cities, and they didn't stop existing when the Cataclysm redesign happened. But nobody goes there --especially the BC faction cities-- unless there's an occasional World Event or something monumental happens like 4.0.1 drops and everyone tests out new attack rotations. They're like a downtown street the morning after Oktoberfest.
Now, I'm sure that to most people the response is a shrug and a "So what? Change is the nature of things, and as each expansion has come and gone, the center of the WoW-verse has moved on. Get used to it."
Maybe so, but I think that Blizzard can do something here to make the other cities feel more organic: more NPCs.
I've watched the Shattered Sun train, and I've watch the kids play and run through the Lower City, and I think more of that is what all of these empty cities need. With the dawn of the quest marker system built into WoW, you don't really need to hover over each NPC to find the one you're supposed to talk to anyway, so why not add extraneous NPCs to each neglected city to give it a lot more flavor? That way the apple vendor in Ironforge isn't hawking fruit to an empty room. And why on earth is there one single delegation wandering about the streets of Silvermoon City --and Champion Vranesh-- when there could be more crowds moving back and forth?
A lot of these NPCs could have a set route and a series of pauses through the city that don't interfere with any player doing legit business --like at an AH or a bank-- while making an empty AH seem a bit fuller. They don't even need to say anything out loud, just be there and make the cities feel, well, lived in.
And should a future redesign of WoW send players back to another of these cities, Blizzard could simply remove the NPCs. Their presence would no longer be needed.
This obviously isn't the highest priority on Blizzard's drawing board right now, with 4.1's release fast approaching and 4.2 and 4.3 already well under way in the design/build stages. However, at first blush it seems like a relatively easy thing to implement, if only for a couple of NPCs a week.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Imitating Budd
No, I don't mean by pretending I'm an Manataur.
If you've ever seen the movie Up, you know there's a scene where the two protagonists meet Dug, the talking dog. When he begins to describe the collar that allows him to talk, Dug is distracted by a "Squirrel!"
Well, that's sort of what I've been up to lately on Tomakan.
I've been leveling Tom's Engineering, and since I didn't feel like paying the AH prices for Fel Iron and Adamantite, I've been rummaging around Outland, farming the stuff. And in true Budd fashion, the "Shiny!" has been distracting me.
"Well," I thought, "since I'm here, I might as well solo a few heroic BC instances.
"And oh look, there's a quest here.
"And I can pick up the To Hellfire and Back achieve with a few more quests.
"And I can see about getting enough rep to get into the Tempest Keep heroic 5-mans.
"And here's some quests that lead into Draenei lore."
"And...."
Well, you get the point.
This is why I put on blinders when I was leveling Tom and Neve to L85; the lure of the Shiny! is just too great. Maybe if you've got a stable full of alts this is all old hat, but to me, this is still new. Yes, even BC, because I'm exploring things from an Alliance point of view.
One thing that I've been struck by is how perception is indeed reality in Azeroth. Take Dustwallow Marsh, for example. If you've leveled through there as Horde like I have, there are a few simple truths to the region: the Grimtotems are a loose cannon, the buildup to Onyxia dominates the questing, and Theramore dominates the area. If you get even just a little close to the place at level, the magnitude of the stone walls and cannons --and oh yeah, the soldiers-- make the place look impregnable. Brackenwall Village is your kids' backyard fort built with leftover lumber by comparison.
Then try leveling an Alliance toon and take the ship from Menethil Harbor.
Once you land on the dock, the first thing you're struck by is how empty Theramore really is. With such a frontal display of might, your mind conjures up a battalion or two of Lordaeron's finest. While there are buildings around, there are so few NPCs to match. What's more is that a good portion of them are actively trying to subvert Jaina's leadership. Once I got over the surprise, I laughed. Psychological warfare is alive and well in Azeroth.
I'll elaborate on this in a later post, but I'm struck by the parallels to the history surrounding the BC races. Both the Sindorei and the Draenei had most of their race willingly turn away from the Light and embrace the Burning Legion. Both have dealt with genocidal campaigns, and barely cling to survival. Both mistrust the other, yet would do well to examine their own ranks more closely.
Heard Around Azeroth
In Battle of Gilneas:
BL: I can't believe half of our team is AFK!
Neve: We're not. We're getting corpse camped by two Hunters, two Locks... ::dies:: and a Priest.
BL: And you can't break through that??
Neve: Not when they're on the boat with you.
Priest: And no @#$% tanks, either!!
In Honor Hold, Hellfire Peninsula:
[Tomakan (L85) is perusing the offerings by the Honor Hold Quartermaster for curiosity's sake]
Warrior: ::challenges Tomakan to duel::
Tomakan: ::inspects the Warrior, finds he's L61, and Declines::
Warrior: ::challenges Tomakan to duel::
Tomakan: WTH is wrong with you? ::Declines::
Warrior: /flexes I'm bad! I'm bad!
Tomakan: ::Mounts and flies off to a Shattered Halls run::
Warrior: ::challenges Tomakan to duel::
If you've ever seen the movie Up, you know there's a scene where the two protagonists meet Dug, the talking dog. When he begins to describe the collar that allows him to talk, Dug is distracted by a "Squirrel!"
Well, that's sort of what I've been up to lately on Tomakan.
I've been leveling Tom's Engineering, and since I didn't feel like paying the AH prices for Fel Iron and Adamantite, I've been rummaging around Outland, farming the stuff. And in true Budd fashion, the "Shiny!" has been distracting me.
"Well," I thought, "since I'm here, I might as well solo a few heroic BC instances.
"And oh look, there's a quest here.
"And I can pick up the To Hellfire and Back achieve with a few more quests.
"And I can see about getting enough rep to get into the Tempest Keep heroic 5-mans.
"And here's some quests that lead into Draenei lore."
"And...."
Well, you get the point.
This is why I put on blinders when I was leveling Tom and Neve to L85; the lure of the Shiny! is just too great. Maybe if you've got a stable full of alts this is all old hat, but to me, this is still new. Yes, even BC, because I'm exploring things from an Alliance point of view.
***
One thing that I've been struck by is how perception is indeed reality in Azeroth. Take Dustwallow Marsh, for example. If you've leveled through there as Horde like I have, there are a few simple truths to the region: the Grimtotems are a loose cannon, the buildup to Onyxia dominates the questing, and Theramore dominates the area. If you get even just a little close to the place at level, the magnitude of the stone walls and cannons --and oh yeah, the soldiers-- make the place look impregnable. Brackenwall Village is your kids' backyard fort built with leftover lumber by comparison.
Then try leveling an Alliance toon and take the ship from Menethil Harbor.
Once you land on the dock, the first thing you're struck by is how empty Theramore really is. With such a frontal display of might, your mind conjures up a battalion or two of Lordaeron's finest. While there are buildings around, there are so few NPCs to match. What's more is that a good portion of them are actively trying to subvert Jaina's leadership. Once I got over the surprise, I laughed. Psychological warfare is alive and well in Azeroth.
***
I'll elaborate on this in a later post, but I'm struck by the parallels to the history surrounding the BC races. Both the Sindorei and the Draenei had most of their race willingly turn away from the Light and embrace the Burning Legion. Both have dealt with genocidal campaigns, and barely cling to survival. Both mistrust the other, yet would do well to examine their own ranks more closely.
***
Heard Around Azeroth
In Battle of Gilneas:
BL: I can't believe half of our team is AFK!
Neve: We're not. We're getting corpse camped by two Hunters, two Locks... ::dies:: and a Priest.
BL: And you can't break through that??
Neve: Not when they're on the boat with you.
Priest: And no @#$% tanks, either!!
In Honor Hold, Hellfire Peninsula:
[Tomakan (L85) is perusing the offerings by the Honor Hold Quartermaster for curiosity's sake]
Warrior: ::challenges Tomakan to duel::
Tomakan: ::inspects the Warrior, finds he's L61, and Declines::
Warrior: ::challenges Tomakan to duel::
Tomakan: WTH is wrong with you? ::Declines::
Warrior: /flexes I'm bad! I'm bad!
Tomakan: ::Mounts and flies off to a Shattered Halls run::
Warrior: ::challenges Tomakan to duel::
Thursday, April 7, 2011
What just happened?
I'm being bribed...
"This system is meant to address the unacceptable queue times currently being experienced by those that queue for the DPS role at max level. The long queue times are, of course, caused by a very simple lack of representation in the Dungeon Finder by tanks, and to some extent healers."
"but perhaps we can bribe them a little"
What is this, I don't even...
I suppose something was necessary to address the problem, but seriously? Resulting to tactics my mother would use to get you to do what she wants? That doesn't sit so well.
I'm at a point now, as are most regular players, which I don't really need valor points except for my off spec gear - and I'm not overly concerned about gearing it up.
But wait Mr. Awesomely-Bearded Deftig, you get a nice bonus, what do you have to be upset about?
First, thanks. My beard is awesome, isn't it?
Right, I get the fine opportunity to jump out into the LFD maelstrom and do the same thing that frustrates and burns me out - tank for a bunch of randoms.
It may sound elitest of me, but I don't particularly enjoy running the dungeons anymore. The faster I can pull, the better the dps is, the more geared the healer is, the quicker I can end that dungeon - THE BETTER. My faction grind for Cataclysm is over, I don't need any gear out of there and frankly, I only have one 85 (by choice - warriors are just the best class). And I don't feel the need to help you gear up your 9th level 85 alt while you struggle to remember where you put hex on your hotbar because you rarely play that character.
"Understandably, players prefer to take on that responsibility in more organized situations than what the Dungeon Finder offers"
No shit, ya don't say?
I'm to the point now where I haven't run a heroic dungeon as a tank is roughly two weeks - and in the one dungeon I did run, it was with a guild group going because one of our members was gearing up a tank.
So is the bribe even worth it?
"offer them a chance to get some of those elusive pets and mounts "
Hey that's great and all, but I long ago lost hope of getting any of those instance drop mounts. If I'm not farming Stratholme 5 times per hour now, what makes you think I'm really going to be so inclined to throw myself onto the mercy of the LFD and HOPE I get a decent enough group to finish the dungeon, and also again HOPE I'm lucky enough to get the mount out of a bag? Do you think that would actually happen? Ya, right...
Also, say you're lucky enough to have actually gotten one of the mounts. You now have a chance to get the exact same one as before and get extra peeved!!
"Even if they don't get a pet or mount, or get one they already have"
Not to mention how cheap of a reward it would feel. My guild took a group of players through and earned every achievement to get iron bound protodrakes. I'm proud of that mount because we worked as a team and finished them out (in honesty, we did finish the final achievement once Cata was released). But none the less we still did something and that mounts carries some significance aside from the fact that I was patient enough to carry a group of people I don't know through a dungeon.
Will this ultimately result in me participating? Probably a few times, but not very happily... Because, sadly, pvp is not very fun anymore. And now that the guild is funding repairs, I don't have the need to do dailies, I haven't even been logging in. At the VERY least, this gives something to do...
"This system is meant to address the unacceptable queue times currently being experienced by those that queue for the DPS role at max level. The long queue times are, of course, caused by a very simple lack of representation in the Dungeon Finder by tanks, and to some extent healers."
"but perhaps we can bribe them a little"
What is this, I don't even...
I suppose something was necessary to address the problem, but seriously? Resulting to tactics my mother would use to get you to do what she wants? That doesn't sit so well.
I'm at a point now, as are most regular players, which I don't really need valor points except for my off spec gear - and I'm not overly concerned about gearing it up.
But wait Mr. Awesomely-Bearded Deftig, you get a nice bonus, what do you have to be upset about?
First, thanks. My beard is awesome, isn't it?
Right, I get the fine opportunity to jump out into the LFD maelstrom and do the same thing that frustrates and burns me out - tank for a bunch of randoms.
It may sound elitest of me, but I don't particularly enjoy running the dungeons anymore. The faster I can pull, the better the dps is, the more geared the healer is, the quicker I can end that dungeon - THE BETTER. My faction grind for Cataclysm is over, I don't need any gear out of there and frankly, I only have one 85 (by choice - warriors are just the best class). And I don't feel the need to help you gear up your 9th level 85 alt while you struggle to remember where you put hex on your hotbar because you rarely play that character.
"Understandably, players prefer to take on that responsibility in more organized situations than what the Dungeon Finder offers"
No shit, ya don't say?
I'm to the point now where I haven't run a heroic dungeon as a tank is roughly two weeks - and in the one dungeon I did run, it was with a guild group going because one of our members was gearing up a tank.
So is the bribe even worth it?
"offer them a chance to get some of those elusive pets and mounts "
Hey that's great and all, but I long ago lost hope of getting any of those instance drop mounts. If I'm not farming Stratholme 5 times per hour now, what makes you think I'm really going to be so inclined to throw myself onto the mercy of the LFD and HOPE I get a decent enough group to finish the dungeon, and also again HOPE I'm lucky enough to get the mount out of a bag? Do you think that would actually happen? Ya, right...
Also, say you're lucky enough to have actually gotten one of the mounts. You now have a chance to get the exact same one as before and get extra peeved!!
"Even if they don't get a pet or mount, or get one they already have"
Not to mention how cheap of a reward it would feel. My guild took a group of players through and earned every achievement to get iron bound protodrakes. I'm proud of that mount because we worked as a team and finished them out (in honesty, we did finish the final achievement once Cata was released). But none the less we still did something and that mounts carries some significance aside from the fact that I was patient enough to carry a group of people I don't know through a dungeon.
Will this ultimately result in me participating? Probably a few times, but not very happily... Because, sadly, pvp is not very fun anymore. And now that the guild is funding repairs, I don't have the need to do dailies, I haven't even been logging in. At the VERY least, this gives something to do...
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Blitzkrieg
I've done my share of battlegrounds in the past, but a couple of days ago I tried my hand at something new: rated battlegrounds.
The result can be described in two words: Ye Gods.
Although we were in three BGs that night, I think we set some sort of record for losing in the Battle of Gilneas, because we lost in exactly 01:44. The opposing team swarmed over us and took the flags as if we weren't even there. Their composition --something like 50/30/20 Healers/Rogues/Tanks-- made it impossible to get more than a few hits in before getting obliterated.
"Geez, Q," one of the guildies told me, "I only got two heals out on your mage before she bit it."
Oh yeah. Now I know what a mop feels like when you're dumped in dirty water.
I think the only BG experience that is comparable is the time I ported into Alterac Valley as Tom to find only five fellow Alliance players against a full complement of Hordies. Even then, I lasted longer in the ensuing fight against an 8:1 ratio.
If you want to run rated BGs, think about Arenas first. Trust me. For myself, I think I'm going to stick to regular BGs, because by comparison the pace is much more relaxing.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go pry a knife out of Neve's back.
The result can be described in two words: Ye Gods.
Although we were in three BGs that night, I think we set some sort of record for losing in the Battle of Gilneas, because we lost in exactly 01:44. The opposing team swarmed over us and took the flags as if we weren't even there. Their composition --something like 50/30/20 Healers/Rogues/Tanks-- made it impossible to get more than a few hits in before getting obliterated.
"Geez, Q," one of the guildies told me, "I only got two heals out on your mage before she bit it."
Oh yeah. Now I know what a mop feels like when you're dumped in dirty water.
I think the only BG experience that is comparable is the time I ported into Alterac Valley as Tom to find only five fellow Alliance players against a full complement of Hordies. Even then, I lasted longer in the ensuing fight against an 8:1 ratio.
If you want to run rated BGs, think about Arenas first. Trust me. For myself, I think I'm going to stick to regular BGs, because by comparison the pace is much more relaxing.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go pry a knife out of Neve's back.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Hear Ye, Hear Ye!
Like the font color?
Good, cause you're gonna see a lot more of it soon!
Yes, that's right, Parallel Context is going to be an official mouthpiece of Blizzard. You hear it here, it must be true!
There will be the occasional guest post by GC and others, but in general the three of us will be providing the WoW community with official updates that --due to our extensive readership-- will be disseminated more thoroughly than is currently possible on the WoW Forums.
One nice little side effect of this is that we can provide Blizz with suggestions that will be taken to the highest levels of development. For example, my suggestion to prevent ninjas in a PuG --flipping a switch so that if a player drops group after a loot roll in an instance they will be unable to roll for loot for a one week period-- has been favorably received by the development staff, and a version of this upgrade will be in the 4.1 PTR shortly.
We look forward to serving you in the future with timely, cogent updates on the game we all love: Ultima Online!
EtA: I'd be remiss in pointing out that a few of my fellow WoW bloggers have similar momentous announcements for this Friday:
Rades atOrcishDraenic Army Knife
Vidyala atManaliciousOrcalicious
EtA: I'd be remiss in pointing out that a few of my fellow WoW bloggers have similar momentous announcements for this Friday:
Rades at
Vidyala at
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Recycled content...
Never have I seen a company recycle so much content. In fact, it’s
gonna get really old if everything is always the same. However,
give it time and I’m sure we’ll see some new stuff.
You have to trust that a company as big as Blizzard has something up its sleeve.
Up until the news of the re-release of ZG and ZA, I
never thought I’d see them again. I should say I hoped that would be the case anyhow.
Gonna be fun to see how they changed the dungeons and mechanics. Hopefully, it will
let us get the mounts a bit easier this time, though I seriously doubt it.
You have to wonder though, what else is going to be recycled? Will we see MC version two?
Down to even lower dungeons such as stratholme version 2? If that’s the case I can say I’m
NEVER – ever gonna be really motivated to run them. Seriously, who’s really
gonna want to do that all again? I certainly don’t. In fact I’d be happy to
run any new themed dungeon that’s introduced. You think we’ll see any new dungeons
around path 4.2 as well? I really hope we do, because if the content doesn’t hold my interest
and burn out starts to set in, it would be a really big shame to
desert this game after so many hours put into it.
You can’t take things too seriously though.
gonna get really old if everything is always the same. However,
give it time and I’m sure we’ll see some new stuff.
You have to trust that a company as big as Blizzard has something up its sleeve.
Up until the news of the re-release of ZG and ZA, I
never thought I’d see them again. I should say I hoped that would be the case anyhow.
Gonna be fun to see how they changed the dungeons and mechanics. Hopefully, it will
let us get the mounts a bit easier this time, though I seriously doubt it.
You have to wonder though, what else is going to be recycled? Will we see MC version two?
Down to even lower dungeons such as stratholme version 2? If that’s the case I can say I’m
NEVER – ever gonna be really motivated to run them. Seriously, who’s really
gonna want to do that all again? I certainly don’t. In fact I’d be happy to
run any new themed dungeon that’s introduced. You think we’ll see any new dungeons
around path 4.2 as well? I really hope we do, because if the content doesn’t hold my interest
and burn out starts to set in, it would be a really big shame to
desert this game after so many hours put into it.
You can’t take things too seriously though.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
You Never Know
Last night my family attended the district-wide Festival of Bands held at our local high school. The Festival of Bands pulls together all of the woodwind, brass, and percussion band students throughout the entire school district, from 5th Grade through 12th Grade, for a combined concert. The concert showcases all of the hard work the band students have been putting in --my oldest, a flutist, among them-- and gives them a chance to shine on the stage. (Or in this case, gymnasium, as there were over 400 students assembled for the program.)
We left after the concert and went back home, just in time for my wife to realize that she'd accidentally a book she'd been reading behind. I went back to the high school to go hunt for the book, hoping that the building hadn't been emptied and locked for the night.
Luckily for me, I encountered one of the band directors when I was roaming through the gym, and he suggested we try the high school band's office. We crossed into the Commons area, and while he called his wife my eye was drawn to the lost-and-found shelf. I pointed to myself and at the shelf, and the band director nodded while he talked on his cell.
I searched under the hoodies and jackets and found a few notebooks which I searched through, but not much in the way of my wife's book. I set the notebooks back, and it was then that I noticed the owner's name of the topmost one:
Jimmy "Leeroy" Jenkins
"For the Horde!" I whispered, smiling.
We left after the concert and went back home, just in time for my wife to realize that she'd accidentally a book she'd been reading behind. I went back to the high school to go hunt for the book, hoping that the building hadn't been emptied and locked for the night.
Luckily for me, I encountered one of the band directors when I was roaming through the gym, and he suggested we try the high school band's office. We crossed into the Commons area, and while he called his wife my eye was drawn to the lost-and-found shelf. I pointed to myself and at the shelf, and the band director nodded while he talked on his cell.
I searched under the hoodies and jackets and found a few notebooks which I searched through, but not much in the way of my wife's book. I set the notebooks back, and it was then that I noticed the owner's name of the topmost one:
Jimmy "Leeroy" Jenkins
"For the Horde!" I whispered, smiling.
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