Don't you mess wit' my people, or there might be an accident. Capiche?

I have found the new Hillsbrad, and it is called Hellfire Peninsula.

The past few weeks, I've been hanging out in Hellfire while groups of (primarily A-52) Horde invade Honor Hold and the Temple of Telhamat, ganking everyone and everything in sight. The cold war of the Stadium/Overlook/Broken Hill has turned hot ever since A-52 and its 10:1 Horde:Alliance imbalance was lumped in with Ysera.

There are times when I'm the lone L90 in Hellfire Peninsula and I have to simply grit my teeth and take it when a group of 6-8 Horde sweep down on Honor Hold, slaughtering everything in sight. If it were a bunch of Horde L60 toons doing this, I'd probably not care, because the fight would at least be a fair one. But when it's instead a bunch of L90s wearing Conquest badge gear doing the ganking, I really get annoyed.

Some people would leave, and others would try and tilt at windmills for a while, but that's not me.  I might not be able to stop the onslaught at Alliance bases, but I can skip over to Thrallmar or Falconwing, exacting an eye for an eye.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not some lone juggernaut who is able to wipe out an entire settlement, and I do often get caught by the same Horde group rushing back to defend their own base, but I also don't gank their own lowbies. I don't sink completely to their level.

But all is not lost for the Alliance.

Eventually someone either calls their guildies or makes it to Shattrath and sends out a plea over Trade Chat, and the cavalry comes running. There was one time a few days ago when a pair of Hunters and a Shaman thought Honor Hold would be easy pickings, never guessing that myself, another Rogue, a Hunter, and a Feral Druid were waiting in ambush.

The results were messy. For them.

"AND STAY OUT!" I shouted when we'd dispatched the last of them.

Ramblings while in search of coffee on a Monday morning...

There's been some more fallout from the Rob Pardo incident.

Rades has unsubbed.

I'll miss his voice, but he insists that his decision will not impact From Draenor With Love.

Kurn, over at Kurn's Corner, has a very in-depth post talking about how social media impact the wider world. It's close in length to a Cynwise post, but very much worth the read. There's even a Ratters appearance in the comment section.

***

I don't often read Twitter, but it seems that more than a few bloggers I know have invaded Wildstar. I'm not sure how well that will go, but I wish them luck.

Also, given the whole explosion from WoW-space (see the first musing), I'm not sure how well Wildstar will hold up, either.

1927 screen icon or Wildstar character?
You decide.

***

This week is exam week at the kids' schools, so I don't really have a lot to talk about from that perspective. I will mention that two of them rolled up Smugglers and one a Trooper, and they're all loving the class stories so far. (Apparently Corso is "soooo cute". Who knew?)

***

I hope your Monday has been going better than mine has so far. I really need to go get some coffee now....


EtA: Apparently my issues with punctuation include the period. Corrected.

And Now for Something a Bit More Lighthearted

After the news from the last couple of days*, I needed a laugh.

Here's a comic from 2011 that still tickles my funny bone:

From shoeboxblog.com via geeksaresexy.net,
but you knew that from the graphic, right?

*Both in and outside of the MMO world. Like what happened at UCSB.

It's Never Boring Around Here

I wasn't exactly planning on making a second post today, but there's currently a bit of an internet kerfuffle going on right now concerning some commentary that Rob Pardo, Chief Creative Officer at Blizzard, made at a recent MIT Media Lab talk. While he made some references to emphasizing fun and gameplay over narrative during the talk, the most interesting comments happened afterward.

Todd Harper, writing an opinion piece for Polygon, covers the questions and answers he had with Rob Pardo that touched on how Blizzard portrays women:

His subsequent list of justifications, reasons and examples became increasingly problematic. Pardo argued that Blizzard works primarily in sci-fi and fantasy because they're "kids at heart," reinforcing the idea that games — specifically Blizzard games — are not a place for "real world issues" to be discussed:

"We're not trying to bring in serious stuff, or socially relevant stuff, or actively trying to preach for diversity or do things like that," he said. His example of a place where Blizzard struggles is portrayal of women.

Pardo notes that "because most of our developers are guys who grew up reading comics books," Blizzard games often present women characters as a sexualized comic book ideal that "is offensive to, I think, some women."*

There's a bit more there --particularly about Nintendo and their Tomodachi Life issues-- so if you want to follow the link below and read the article, go ahead.

Aside from the issue where it seems that Blizzard is all but saying they're not that interested in appealing to women, one of the problems with Pardo's statement is their belief that because they don't intend to write about real world issues their game has no effect. But unless you live in a bubble, everything has an impact on the wider world.

I've told my kids time and again that when they wear their school t-shirts and jackets out and about, people are judging their school based on their actions. It is most definitely not fair to judge an entire diverse community based on the actions of a few, but nevertheless it happens all the time. That's the entire point behind the term "represent" as in "Represent your school". If you act like an ass, you taint everyone with your behavior. But if you act responsibly, people will think more highly of your organization.

The same thing happens with Blizzard and WoW. For all their words, Blizzard demonstrates with their actions that they don't value very highly a substantial portion of their player base.

But the thing is, their representation issues are so easily fixed, it's not even funny.

Looking at Heroes of the Storm, for example, you could easily replace the Priest with Tyrande and the Paladin with Lady Liadrin, and you'd then have 4 of the 9 WoW characters as women.

Want to (partially) fix the lack of female faction leaders in WoW? Swap out Lor'themar for Lady Liadrin. Hell, until Mists dropped, I'd wager that most people thought she was the faction leader anyway. You could also make Moira the head of the Council of Three Hammers.

And before any lore nuts go ballistic over my suggestions, remember that Pardo also said that Blizzard emphasized "fun and gameplay" over "narrative".** Given the lack of emphasis on story and their total control over the content, there's no reason why they can't simply tweak this via a novel.

***

As I mentioned earlier, all this has stirred up a huge hornets nest in the WoW blogosphere.***

Kurn and Rades each have a take on the issue. Cynwise cancelled his WoW account.

And I can't help but think this is another black eye in Blizzard's direction when the company is having retention issues.

Maybe this won't have much of an impact with WoW, but the company can ill afford to piss off a not so insignificant amount of their player base. I doubt there will be a boycott of Blizzard, but what I do think is that some people who were considering taking a break from WoW might decide to pull the trigger now.

And really, if you feel shunted off to the side, why continue to spend money on the game?

It will prove interesting to see what happens next.





*From Erasing your audience isn't 'fun': The false choice between diversity and enjoyment by Todd Harper.

**Which kind of explains why they're not bothering to go back and fix major continuity issues in WoW.

***As of this moment, WoW Insider has been completely silent on this.

(EtA: At 7 PM EST, WoW Insider had this post by Matt Rossi on diversity.)

Mamas Don't Let Yer Babies Grow up to be Space Cowboys

The Schofield Kid: Yeah, well, I guess they had it coming.
Will Munny: We all got it coming, kid.
--From Unforgiven (1992)


The Wildstar open beta ended on May 18th, spawning plenty of blog posts about various aspects of the game. Given that I finally caved and tried out Wildstar over the open beta, I figured I ought to pen my own thoughts.

Others have mentioned the bugs (it is a beta, so they're to be expected) or the gameplay, but I figured I'd mention the story for a change. As in, how the story meshes with the rest of the game.

Or, perhaps, it doesn't.

***

If I had to describe Wildstar in one sentence two sentences, it would be "Texas crashes an MMO, causing widespread chaos. Film at eleven."

Got that, Cupcake?

The loading screen gave no indication of this. Sure, there was the cartoony aspect of it all, kind of like WoW's but amped up to eleven, and borrowing heavily from such classic SF films as Metropolis (for the Mechari) or comic books such as Guardians of the Galaxy (using Drax as a template for the Granok, with a bit of Ben Grimm thrown in for good measure).*  But that initial cutscene for each faction? It was pretty obvious we were going heavily toward a black and white storyline that made Yin and Yang look tame.

When a faction thaws you out of cryosleep because they want you to interrogate potential traitors, you know you're playing a not-exactly-nice faction.**

You could argue that the Dominion and the Exiles are best understood through the lens of a traditional Texas-sized Western movie, and you'd not be so far off the mark.

The Dominion: The bad dudes. They've got secret police, a two timing religious church that has a penchant for occasional forays into Inquisition, bloodthirsty warriors, and crazed mad scientist-types who think nothing of slaughtering so-called "traitors" in the name of "science".  All you'd need to do is throw in the occasional racist or "Federales" and you've got the long line of bad guys that Hedley Lamarr is looking to hire in Blazing Saddles.

The Exiles: the good guys. They've got Western movie style gunslingers, Ben Grimm types, Tree Huggers/Nature Lovers, and Space Zombies(tm). There's been more than one time that as I wandered the first zone after the planetfall zone and I thought that this place could fit into Cowboys vs. Aliens wholesale. Or maybe Pale Rider with aliens. Whatever.

I suppose the cartoony space western genre needed some representation, and really, the game isn't too bad on that part. But the game also spends a lot of time trying to act too hip, too cool, with some of the ways that the game is handled.

Take the leveling up graphic. You're in a serious questline, you turn in a quest about something such as saving a settlement, and you level up.

But you don't level up.  You...

From onrpg.com.

No, really.

This is so jarring that it drops you completely out of the game experience.*** And even though the two aren't even in the same ballpark, I kept thinking of a really really bad cartoon from my youth, Romie-O and Julie-8, as an equivalent. (NO! Don't go looking for it on YouTube! Just... trust me.)

***

I'm not sure what Wildstar wants to be. It could be strictly a space western and go full frontal campiness, or it could go with the Sci-Fi genre and veer occasionally into grimdark territory (which the quests go from time to time). Or it could go all hipster and try to act like it's playing you for playing the game. But trying to do all things at once ends up in a mishmash.

Perhaps a little focus is needed. Got it, pardner?




*And the Aurin? Furries. Definitely furry influenced.

**The Dominion. Need I say more?

***Which, to be honest, reminds me more than a bit of Guild Wars 2.


(EtA: I just HAD to add a Blazing Saddles clip. The post was CALLING FOR EEET.)

Weekend WoW Cosplay

I was impressed, although I still prefer the red and gold of the Blood Knights.

Pug Stories: Family Edition

"So, you wanna run a Heroic?"

I paused on the stairs after lugging a basketful of laundry up from the basement.  My oldest had that mischievous grin going, which meant she knew I would say yes if given the chance.

"Okay," I replied, hoisting the basket again, "you go login using the laptop and I'll login to SWTOR using the main computer."

Our laptop, while quicker (and with a lot more memory) than our now deceased Core Duo machine, is still slower than the i7 desktop we have, so I had plenty of time to sort some laundry and then start up SWTOR on the desktop before the laptop would be ready.  Besides, we were going to Tatooine, and I was already there on the Old Man; no travelling necessary.

"One condition," I shouted down the stairs. "I'll do one Heroic with you, one with your brother, and one with your sister. Okay?"

"Okay!"

I quickly sorted the laundry into piles, came downstairs, and logged in as the Old Man. Ironically enough, I still had Reap the Whirlwind on my list of Heroics cluttering up my quest log, so I quickly relocated to Jundland and grouped up with my oldest.

When I get into a Heroic or an instance for the first time, I have an idea of what to expect. This has been honed over several years of playing MMOs, and once you understand the basics, you can figure out how a Heroic is supposed to behave. But if you've only played group content a few times, this is all new. My oldest reminded me of that fact during the cutscene, because she was fully expecting to fight one group until the surprise boss showed up.

She then provided me a demonstration of her grasp of profanity. "What do we do with this boss?"

"Nothing special, just hit it! I've got aggro!"

She's learning how to handle different bosses.  When we ran through Athiss together, she wiped on the last boss, not realizing that she had to keep running even after he became visible again. It was a beginner mistake, and to be honest, I was pleased that was the only issue we had. She listens to me when I describe boss mechanics, and does what she's supposed to do.

***

When it was my son's turn, I took my freighter over to Taris.  I figured we'd two man Fall of the Locust, since he not only had the quest still in his queue, but it was the closest heroic to the spaceport.

Then I saw the "LFG Fall of the Locust" in gen chat.

I hesitated only a second, and swiveled around in my chair. "Do you think you can behave yourself in a group?" I asked.

"What?" He looked puzzled.

"I'm going to have us join another group for Fall of the Locust, but only if you promise to behave and let me tank."

"Geez, Dad. I'm not two. I promise."

I whispered the guy starting the group, and my son and I quickly received invites. Turns out we filled out the rest of his group, so we ran over to the ship which starts the Heroic.* "Since I've got levels, I'll tank," I said.

"Got it."

"k."

And away we went.

Ironically enough, my son was far more exemplary a group member than the other Smuggler was. While I would be circling around to start a fight with a mob, the other Smuggler would crouch down and start shooting. "Dammit, I'm not ready!" I said out loud, while attempting to get aggro back.

I could feel my son's smirk behind me. "Heh."

The worst fight of the Heroic happened shortly afterward, as I was prepared to let a wandering mob walk by so we wouldn't have extra trash to fight.

The Smuggler, however, was having none of it.

He started shooting before I was even halfway to the main mob, and I had to redirect myself to try to pick up that guy's aggro.  I grumbled something under my breath, but the main mob had miraculously not aggroed.

Then my son leapt into the fray, accidentally aggroing all the rest.

"Hey!" I yelled.

"I'm sorry! I thought they were all together!"

"We'll be okay, just run back toward me. They'll follow you back." I started healing him while he ran, and kept him upright until I could steal aggro back.

The mob finally dispatched, I finally said something in chat. "Wait on me first before attacking."

"We're still here," the Smuggler shrugged.

I turned around in my chair. "See that guy? Don't be that guy."

"Got it, Dad."

We finished Locust, and that was that. My son and I ran back to Olaris Spaceport, and he logged for the day.

***

As for my youngest, I figured that since I didn't want to run Locust again, something such as Knight Fall would be perfect. As luck would have it, she wasn't far enough along the Bonus Series to be eligible for Knight Fall.

"Well," I said, "we could just run some of these bonus series quests together so we can do Knight Fall next time."

"That sounds fine to me."

The difference between regular-ish quests and Heroics are the difficulty level of the mobs, so I ran into a different problem helping out my youngest: I kept killing mobs too fast.

"Dad, cut it out! I can't even get a swing in!"

"Um, sorry. I'll back off a bit."

I pulled another mob. "Whoops."

"Daaaaaad!!!"

"You know, I think I'll just stop attacking after a first swing."

"Good." I swear, I can still hear her derisive snort.





*I ran with the rest rather than use a speeder because I wasn't going to be a bad example.

Do You Cross the Aisle?

Given my experiences in MMOs playing both genders, I found this article on Geekosystem about men who play female avatars very interesting.

I know that when I play female avatars, I pretty much play me, just with a different set of electronic bits. However, I'm apparently in the minority, as there seem to be an abundance of flirty behavior when men cross genders and play as women.

From my perspective, it's hard to say who is who on some games such as WoW, because when you're standing around waiting for the gates for AV to open you can tend to get bored and jump around.* But given the large increase in the likelihood of certain behavior, I do have to wonder whether it is done consciously or not. I'm skeptical about trying to hold male players' attention, particularly given how skimpily some female toons are dressed**, but if it is a glorified "look at me" just for the hell of it, then I consider that a bit more likely.

And considering how much "attention" my male Blood Elf bank toon got on his run from Sunstrider Isle to Silvermoon, I think it does work both ways.





*Or you could be merely wired from a few Monsters or Red Bulls.

**If you want examples of this in SWTOR, go visit Njessi's excellent blog Hawtpants of the Old Republic for her Fashion Hall of Shame, a collection of really really bad fashion choices.

Blaming it on Video Games, Part Whatever

I'm getting tired of this.

The Register: Teen jailed for ARMED ROBBERY says he and pals had been inspired by Grand Theft Auto

Really? You don't think the alcohol had something to do with their decision to try this out?

You Know What They Say...

Given my years as a parent, I've become accustomed to the psychotherapist part of the job.

You know the drill: somebody is saying something and whatever it is is blown out of proportion. Or that there's an excessive amount of interpretation in what seems to be a simple oversight or mistake (like so-and-so not calling ALL DAY*). Or that intentions aren't perfectly clear, and I have to divine them.

If I charged by the hour for advice, I'd be a rich man.**

But one of the things I'm fond of saying when talking about friendships is the line "If you want a friend, be a friend." Don't assume that people can read your mind and understand that you're a good friend; you have to show them friendship, make that leap of faith, if you want to make that connection.

I was reminded of that the other day in SWTOR.

***

I'd made a point of bringing the Old Man to the end of Chapter One of the Smuggler story for two reasons: so I would be far enough ahead in level to help out the kids with their own toons whenever they asked, and so that I could watch the end of Chapter One again.*** However, my push to do that meant that I had a bunch of quests left over to work on.

Yeah, I know I could simply dump them, but I've got a bit of completionist in me, so off to Alderaan I went.

There, I found someone asking in Gen Chat "LFG Red Handed". I looked at the time I had free to goof around in game and decided to go ahead and whisper for an invite. I got one back almost immediately and joined the leader at Panteer Castle. The third member of the group, a Trooper, was finishing up his class quest on Alderaan and said he'd join us shortly.

So we waited.

And waited.

And killed a bunch of mobs and waited.

Finally, the third guy finished up his quest and asked where we were. "At the castle at the end of the map," I said.

Then the trooper dropped group.

"Shit," the leader said. "I've been trying to finish this Heroic for days and have had no takers."

"Well," I replied, "We're both OP for Alderaan right now, so let's try to two man it. I'm specced DPS, but I can heal in a pinch."

So we trotted off and made an attempt at 2-manning the Heroic 4.

Some Heroics you can solo if you've the right class combo, and others you have to wait until you no longer take damage to solo it. In retrospect, I suppose a stealth toon such as a Jedi Shadow or a Scoundrel (such as the Old Man) could solo Red Handed, but at the time I was thinking more along the lines of CC and healing. It wasn't a given that we would be able to finish this Heroic fighting our way through it, even though the odds were in our favor with the leader being an L37 Jedi Guardian. He may have been L37, but he was still geared with Alderaanian gear, and in SWTOR gear > levels.

But after about 40 minutes of grinding our way through, we finished.

The Guardian was ecstatic. "If you need anything --anything at all-- just let me know. You have no idea how long I've been waiting to finish this."

I assured him I was fine, but let me know if he needed an assist in the future.

***

Then, with some really old Taris Heroics still smelling up my quest list, off to the plagued planet I went.

When I arrived, I pretty much expected to blow through the Heroics, collect a few badges, and clear on out. However, Taris chat on the Republic side (and Balmorran chat on the Imp side) is often quite active with interesting discussion topics. Tonight's was no different, and centered on Heroics. Or rather, the lack of available bodies to run Heroics.

"It used to be that you had no problem getting a group together, but nobody ever responds to LFG requests these days," one person complained.

"Yeah, it seems that nobody gives a shit anymore," another added.

Properly shamed, I piped up that I'd be willing to assist if someone needed help on some Heroics, as did a few other people.

I ended up spending the rest of the evening running Heroics on Taris, such as Fall of the Locust, Knight Fall, and Fallen Stars. Since I far outleveled the content on Taris, I ended up tanking just because it was the right thing to do.

***

You'd think that after the griping in Gen Chat I'd feel a bit of resentment to having been railroaded into helping out with Heroics, but you know, I really didn't mind. I could have just blown it off as so much bitching, done my thing, and left. But really, what would that accomplish? That people shouldn't complain and just suck it up, just because that's how MMOs are?

Or is it that people want to play MMOs because of that middle "M", the "multiplayer" part of an MMO, and get disillusioned when most other people couldn't be bothered?

Remember when Blizz removed most group quests in WoW when Cataclysm dropped? Remember the bitching in the blogosphere about how Blizz is removing all group content out in the world? Perhaps Blizzard recognized that people weren't interested in questing group content, and decided to acknowledge what people were really doing in-game? That to a lot of people, the multiplayer part of an MMO resides in LFR, LFD, BGs, and guild stuff? That getting together and running a group quest was passe in an era where you could hardly find anybody else in the zone you were questing in?

But that's the thing: is it the game that dictates the behavior, or the behavior that dictates how the game is developed?

Rift operated --initially, anyway-- on the premise that they wanted to be even more WoW than Wrath-era WoW was. GW2 emphasized dynamic in-zone group content to generate multiplayer interest. Age of Conan simply made the mobs so hard that it was difficult to finish a questline in a zone without grouping up. SWTOR made group content optional with the Heroic group quests, but encouraged a culture of grouping using Gen Chat.

But what have they accomplished? Becoming niche games compared to WoW? Or have they attracted the players they wanted to attract?

That brings me back to SWTOR and Heroics.

Perhaps the complainers in Taris were right, and that the game was changing and becoming less multiplayer friendly. If so, we as players have a choice: we can tacitly accept the changing nature of the game and just live with it, or we can do something about it. We can be active, help out with groups, and get involved. We can help to make the game the way we want it to be.

If you want to have a friend, be a friend.

*And tell me, you read that with an overly exaggerated voice, didn't you?

**Well, given that they'd be paying me in my own money, I wouldn't be rich, but it's a nice sentiment.

***SMUGGLER SPOILERS (you have been warned): Nok Drayen is totally Machiavellian and totally ruthless, and I'm glad that Risha had ten years away from him to grow as her own person. I respect her far more than I ever could Nok or his ancestor (who set the damn ship in the Long Shadow in the first place).

Quick Weekend Post -- D3 Cosplay

I don't often post things such as cosplay on here very much, but I do keep tabs on various cosplay items. (Having kids who want to dress as, say, Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor or Tauriel from Hobbit Part Deux will do that.)

Anyway, I came across this cosplay of the Diablo 3 Crusader, and I thought I'd share the love. Click on the pic to be taken to the full post.

EtA: Updated the link as it broke.

Whole Lotta Slimming Going On

Courtesy of Rohan of Blessing of Kings, I found out about this little tidbit from MMO-Champion:

"Questing

• The Jade Forest quests had a very clear story, but it also had a lot of side quests that could bog you down.
• In Warlords of Draenor, your map will show you where to go to continue the main storyline, along with the locations of bonus objectives.
• The bonus objectives no longer have any story text that go with them, just a list of objectives. Now when there is quest text, you will know that it is really worth reading."*

My first, flippant remark on Blessing of Kings' comment section was that Blizz is cutting corners rather than being innovative. And really, on the face of it that sure seems to be the case. But I wonder if this is just another nail in the coffin for all previous WoW content.

Consider: you buy WoD, you can get an instant L90 upgrade. You'll also be allowed to purchase additional L90 upgrades as well. Both of these, taken together, mean that you don't have to play any of the previous content at all to play WoW. 

Now, add the quest "slimming" to the mix, and you've got a recipe tailor made for people who say "the game only starts at max level". The only way it could get easier to get to max level would be to show up in different places, watch a cutscene, battle a boss, and move to the next location.**

I'm sure Blizzard is viewing this as a win-win situation. After all, consider the following positives:

• Less time coming up with clever ways to describe how to kill ten rats.
• Shuts up the complainers who say that leveling is a bore and takes time away from raiding.
• Partially cuts the legs out from under the shadowy business of third party "we'll level your toon for you" routines.
• Focuses the storyline so that authors don't have a myriad of new names to keep track of when writing novels.***
• Makes the game seem more like Guild Wars 2, which has a similar mechanic, but on a reduced scale.
• Allows Blizzard to put more time into Scenarios and Raids for important content, rather than spending time trying to explain side quests.

However, all I can think of is one thing:

Mankrik's Wife.

Side quests give a zone a flavor just as much as art and music. Were it not for the side quests, the "kill ten rats" quests, we'd never have come to know Mankrik's Wife, one of the most well known memes in the game. The original Green Hills of Stranglethorn quest --that maddening quest that would fill up your bag space-- gave pre-Cata Stranglethorn Vale as much flavor as all the ganking going on. The old questline in pre-Cata Thousand Needles to assist Magistrix Elosai in searching for a cure for the Blood Elves' magical addition would be gone, as would Apprentice Mirveda's attempts to cleanse the Dead Scar in Eversong Woods.

Life --even online MMO life-- is filled with little quirks and oddball things. Quest slimming would eliminate a large part of that, in favor of speed and efficiency. Which begs the question: is this a game, or a job?

*MMO-Champion is referencing this developer interview held at PAX East 2014 on YouTube.

**Or you could just buy a max level toon. Opening up Pandora's Box by allowing people to buy an expac's starting level means that it's not out of the realm of the possibility.

***Any expanded universe of novels --Dragonlance, Thieves' World, Forgotten Realms, Star Wars, or Star Trek, for starters-- has to deal with this problem. And, I've been told, it's not pretty.

Channeling Her Inner Ancient

Color me amused.

My oldest is sitting next to me, playing LOTRO on the main computer while I catch up with some work e-mail. She's excited because she discovered a fantastic new pastime on LOTRO.

Fishing.

No, really.

I keep expecting her to turn around and say "Dad, who's this other person fishing and asking me if I know Redbeard. She says she knows you from the blog..."

We've been Liebstered!

I thought I'd avoided the recent blogging meme to sweep the MMO blogs --the Liebster Awards-- but it seems PC was nominated just before April Fool's Day.

For the curious, the original rules can be found at liebsterawards.blogspot.com. Just so you know, the blog is in Spanish.*

The basic concept is to follow a set of rules, like so:

1. Acknowledge the blog that nominated you and display the award badge
2. Answer the eleven questions given to you by the blogger who nominated you
3. Provide eleven miscellaneous facts about yourself
4. Nominate eleven blogs of relatively small readership that you think deserve to be better-known
5. Notify the bloggers that you’ve nominated them
6. Compile eleven questions for your nominees to answer

(Shamelessly stolen from the blogger who nominated me.)


Okay, here we go...

1. Kamalia of Kamalia et alia nominated PC for this award. Thanks, Kamalia!

***

2. And now to answer the eleven questions posed by Kamalia.....

a) Tell me about a game or games — video or table or both! — that you are really enjoying right now.

Hmm...

I'm going to break these down into three categories:  MMO games, non-MMO video games, and tabletop games.

MMO games: WoW, SWTOR, Age of Conan, Star Trek Online.
Non-MMO video games: Civ IV and Rome: Total War. (Yeah, I know I should get Civ V but I still like IV a lot).
Tabletop Games: Fluxx (various incarnations, but Star Fluxx and Monty Python Fluxx are great), Settlers of Catan (an oldie but goodie), D&D 3.0, Zombie Dice, TransAmerica, Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures, Savage Worlds. Really, there are too many good games out there to limit yourself, but I had to try.

b) What classes, races, or roles do you find yourself most drawn to in RPGs, whether in D&D, a single-player video game, or an MMO?

For video games, I don't really have much of a preference. In the Baldur's Gate games, I played Fighters, but in MMOs I've been all over the place. I'll play just about any race, class, or sex, depending on what I find interesting.

In non-video games, I tend to play Clerics. I kind of got roped into playing one on my first college D&D campaign, and I've been playing one ever since. The current campaign I'm on --the D&D 3.0 campaign that's been ongoing since 2001-- I play a Human Cleric.

c) When you make your first character in a new game, do you try to make a character that is in some way an avatar of your RL self, or do you make someone entirely different?

Um, yeah, I do. Of course, finding a Blood Elf with a beard was a bit of an issue, but it is there. Barely.

Once I get that out of my system, I tend to veer off into other toons that look nothing like me.

d) Describe a typical session of playing your current favorite video/computer game.

Depends on the game, really. If I'm not at max level, I log in and do a bit of questing, and maybe get in an instance (with allowances made for time). If I'm at max level --like Azshandra is in WoW-- I'll queue for a battleground. Either way, my play time is fairly limited due to family/work/whatever, so I try to get the biggest bang for the buck.

e) What was the very first computer/video game you ever played? How old were you?

Hoo boy. I guess this dates myself, but I remember playing the Sears version of Pong back in the mid-70s as a little kid.

But the first adventure game (not Atari's Adventure, but a "real" one) I played was Colossal Cave circa 1980, on a friend's brother-in-law's** work network, that you had to pay on a per hour basis to access. We didn't even have a computer monitor to look at, the "computer" was a terminal with a scrolling paper printout, so you'd type in a command, hit RETURN, and wait for the teletype machine to spew out the results on the roll of paper. We got in BIG trouble playing the game one afternoon, as we were told we could play one hour and played for four.

f) Do you have more than one blog? If so, what is/are your other blog(s) about? (Blog names/links not necessary, and you don’t have to include personal/family/work-related blogs unless you really want to.)

I've got an LJ account that I rarely post to, but aside from PC that's about it.

g) Name three non-WoW/game-related websites that you visit frequently.

Non-WoW or game related?  Okay...

• The Register -- It keeps me grounded in the IT world, and it's not afraid to tweak the big IT companies.
• The Mary Sue -- A geeky website that also presents things from a feminist slant, which given that I have daughters, is a good thing.
• The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County -- Just because. And that the local library system is really awesome. You really should check it out, even if you're not local to the area, because you just might find interesting things like this.

h) What was/is your favorite animal to see at the zoo?

The white bengal tigers. When the new habitat opened at the Cincinnati Zoo back in the late 70s, that was THE major attraction. Of course, the tigers kind of loafed around most of the day, but the concept of white tigers was awesome.

i) Cake or Pie? What is your favorite flavor of your preferred dessert?

Pie. If you'd have asked me about 30 years ago, I'd have said cake, but I love a good slice of apple pie.

j) What toppings do you like on a pizza? on an ice-cream sundae?

Pizza:  Pepperoni and pineapple. I only rarely get it because I get outvoted when we order pizza. You'd think that pineapple was anchovies or something...
Ice-cream sundae:  Good ol' chocolate.

k) What is your favorite writing instrument?

The computer. A long time ago I used to be able to write cursive, but after years of typing (and writing code) I've lost the ability to use cursive. Considering I was never that fast or that good on penmanship anyway, it's not that big of a loss.

Until I started using Wordstar and Wordperfect in college, I used to compose at the typewriter. It's not the fastest method of composition, but when I was finished I didn't have to revise. But nowadays, I'm grateful for the built-in editing capability of word processors.

***

3) Eleven miscellaneous facts about yourself? Well, in no particular order...

• Unlike Westley or Inigo Montoya, I am left handed.
• I once got the Evil Eye from legendary Temple University basketball coach, John Chaney. How he found me in the sea of 13000+ people when I was hollering at him "Siddown, Chaney!" after he protested a call by the refs, I'll never know. But he looked right at me with that look, the 'I'm gonna find you and make you wish you were never born' look.  "Oh my God," I breathed to my wife, "I'm SO dead."  (Thankfully, nothing happened, but that was only a few years removed from Chaney threatening to kill another coach during a press conference. He was, um, a bit of a hothead.)
• Due to my tendency to be a font of weird facts, one of my high school nicknames was 'Cliff' after Cliff Claven from the television show Cheers.
• I ran track in high school. You'd never guess at it now, given that my build resembles the Pillsbury Doughboy, but that's life.
• I'm an introvert. (Okay, stop laughing.) No, seriously. I still remember the first time I went into Orgrimmar, following Soul as he was giving me the tour, but I was stunned by the crowd of players. I kept telling myself that nobody cares, nobody is looking at the noob, but it still was a shock. And, naturally, I was found by the guy looking for people to sign his guild charter, which didn't help my sense of feeling exposed. I eventually got over that, but when I'm out in the wild and I stumble on someone after having not seen anybody for a long time, I still feel the urge to port out and get away. And I still rarely talk online, even to the people I've friended on MMOs, because I'm sure they're busy and I'd be taking them away from that, yadda yadda yadda...
• I have a dead-on impression of Kermit the Frog, but it hurts my throat to do it for any length of time.
• I once organized a water gun fight in the Chemistry/Geology building at my university. My co-conspirator and I called it Urban Warfare in Wohlleben Hall, and it was back in the pre-9/11 environment when you could pull this sort of thing off without having Campus Security descend on you. My team won, mainly because one team member hid so well that nobody on the other team could find him. He then ambushed them when their guard was down, "killing" them via super soaker in one fell swoop.
• I had a ringside seat at the "Satanic Panic" surrounding D&D and other RPGs back in the 80s. My own collection of D&D material was thrown out because it was considered to be Satanic, and I was ostracized by my fellow middle school gamers who feared that their parents would jump on the "D&D is Eeeevil" bandwagon just by associating with me. Needless to say, I have a pretty dim view of the people who promoted this sort of thing.
• I've worn a beard since my senior year of college, when my girlfriend back then suggested that I would look good in one. It must have worked, because she married me a few years later.
• It's been a decade since I last did it, but I've puttered around with homebrewing and home winemaking. My favorite beer I made was a Scotch Ale (partial mash, for those who know homebrewing), and my favorite wine was a Pinot Noir made from a kit.
• I once had a DJ shift during college. While I'd like to say that I had a hand in programming my shift, I'd be lying. Still, it was fun to work the board, punch up the music via tape and vinyl (!), and chat over the air. The bonus was that almost nobody listened to us, so I didn't have any fear of performing.

***

4) Well, thankfully the blogs I can nominate range from five through twelve, so I'm going to try to hit that sweet spot.

The devil is in the details, naturally. You're supposed to nominate people who have a small following, such as 200 followers or less. I know that PC here fits this to a 't', but the first blog I thought of nominating --a certain blog by Rades-- obviously blows past the 200 follower limit.

Therefore, without much fanfare, here's my list of nominated blogs:

• Biobreak (who might beat that 200 follower limit, but it's worth a try)
• Going Commando
• MMO Gypsy
• She's All Nerd (I wonder which of their blogging team will get to do this one)
• The Jazz Panda
• The Dacheng Diaries
• Warlockery
• Hawtpants of the Old Republic
• Null Signifier
• MMO Gamer Chick (since I already nominated 2/3 of the Battle Bards, might as well get Steph too!)
• Alts Etcetera (because Lyrestra retired Musings of an Altoholic and created a new blog)

Hmm. Looks like there were more out there than I thought....

***

5) Let the bloggers all know that I nominated them, eh? Well, I'll ping those that don't comment in the next few days.

***

6) And drumroll please, these are the eleven questions the bloggers who take up this challenge need to answer:

1. When did you first get into gaming? (It doesn't have to be computer gaming that you started with.)
2. What MMO toon is your favorite of all time? Right now?
3. What was the funniest thing that ever happened to you in an MMO?
4. Just how many toons do you have, anyway?
5. Raiding, questing, PvP, or RP: which do you like the most and why? The least?
6. When you put the keyboard and/or gamepad down, what do you do for fun?
7. What drove you to write a gaming blog?
8. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter: which season do you like the best?
9. What music do you listen to?
10. What is the best dish/dessert you cook?
11. What's the worst earworm you've ever had?

*Google Translate is my friend!

**The friend's sister was much older than us --I think about 12-14 years older-- and he was visiting her for the summer. I'm not as old as Ancient, but I'm definitely on the older side of the average MMO player.

A Blast from the Past

For those of you who --like me-- remember the Pink Pigtail Inn fondly, you were saddened when the old PPI domain name had disappeared.

However, Shintar of Going Commando and Priest With a Cause has just discovered that the Blogspot domain for PPI still exists.

For those who want a trip down memory lane, you can find PPI at http://pinkpigtailinn.blogspot.com/.

I still miss Larisa, tho.

Well, that explains a lot...

If Thrall is playing the center position,
who is the point guard?

Just What is Epic Enough, Anyway?

I've been listening to the Battle Bards podcast* while driving the kids to and from school, and we're up to Episode 21 now, which is about MMO music that moves you. Syp described it as "Oscar Bait", and Steff offered up "It gives you the Feels".

My oldest, sitting in the passenger seat next to me, commented that she calls that music "epic music", the stuff that she listens to while she does her homework (courtesy of YouTube playlists).

I'm not going to dispute those descriptions, although I believe I'd refer to what Steff was looking for was music that stirs deep emotions in the soul.

But what I found interesting was a comment by Syp about how the pieces in the SWTOR soundtrack --Alderaan: The Throne was Steff's example of the sort of music she was aiming for-- are overly long and can be tedious at times.

If you've played the game, the piece's first minute is heard when Alderaan loads (and periodically when travelling), but you might not have heard the rest without consciously seeking the soundtrack out.

But you know what that piece reminds me of? Ottorino Respighi's The Pines of Rome. Oh, not in a "it sounds like" moment, but in how the piece uses the music to paint a picture. If you're not familiar with Pines of Rome, you probably have heard the Fantasia 2000 version of it:

Yeah, I know. It's the "flying whales" piece.

But the point is, both pieces paint a picture. Pines of Rome creates a musical poem of the pines found in certain areas of Rome, such as the Pines of the Appian Way, and Alderaan: the Throne does the same thing for the planet of Alderaan, its apparent refinement and beauty, but underneath its struggles with civil war.

SWTOR's soundtrack is a bit unique among MMO soundtracks in that individual pieces for classes and planets are often in the 5-6 minute range, far longer than traditional MMO pieces. You can find individual MMO pieces that match the SWTOR ones, such as The Sindorei and Forged in Blood from WoW (BC and Wrath, respectively), but they are the exception rather than the rule. And still, the only pieces that play out in their 5+ minute entirety while adventuring in the game world --that I'm aware of, anyway-- are The Sindorei and Totems of the Grizzlemaw (Wrath again). Even SWTOR will chop up bits and pieces of their soundtrack for use in game, figuring that the KISS principle is the best one.**

I suppose that it only makes sense that when you're playing a game as visually stimulating and interactive as an MMO, creating overly complex themes would be lost on the average game player. Hell, I play WoW with the soundtrack off, mainly because you get tired of hearing the same 30 second piece when in a battleground.*** But the design intent of an in-game MMO soundtrack can be completely different than that found in the MP3/iTunes/CD version of the same.

While in-game, a soundtrack supplements the visual and interactive aspects of the MMO, but once the game exits, a soundtrack would have to stand on its own. Some games, such as Guild Wars 2, have a bunch of short pieces that have great sound and beauty, and they excel at meshing with the game itself. Alone, however, they feel too short. There's an epic feel present, but nothing sustained beyond a minute or two for all but a few pieces. But SWTOR took a different tactic, and took 5-6 minute tone poems and cherry-picked themes from each one to use in-game. This may not sit well with some, but others would welcome it.

For example, when I was playing pieces off of YouTube for this post, my wife looked up from her perusal of the internet and asked what that piece I was playing was.

"'Alderaan: The Throne', from the Star Wars: The Old Republic Soundtrack," I replied. The piece was well into its third minute.

"I like it," she said.

I made a mental note of that, because the other piece that I've played of MMO soundtracks lately that she stopped me and actually asked about it was Forged in Blood. The piano sweeps of Forged in Blood give that piece a distinct modern feel, and that attracted her attention.

***

Does this mean that I prefer one MMO soundtrack methodology over another? Not really, but it does mean that composers and game houses are tinkering, trying things out, and stretching what it means to be an MMO soundtrack. There are parts of the SWTOR soundtrack that I hear and think that the composer was aiming for the wider classical audience, rather than just the MMO gamer crowd. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, because I as a gamer (and movie soundtrack buff) am increasingly tired of hearing from certain crowds how second rate the video game/movie compositions are.

But that's a topic for another post.




*See the sidebar for the link. If you like MMO music, give them a try. You know the principals involved: Syl from MMO Gypsy, Syp from Biobreak and Massively, and Steff from MMO Gamer Chick.

**KISS = Keep It Simple, Stupid.  Come on, you really thought I was talking about these guys?

***That doesn't mean I play WoW without music, because there's often something running in the background. I personally will stream the Live365 channel Tears of Glory when playing WoW for the variety. Plus, I'm amused when I'm in Alterac Valley and suddenly the WoW cities' themes comes on.


EtA: Sorry, Shin.  I can blame that it was almost midnight when I wrote that. Corrected.

Hope you Don't Mind Waiting....

...but the WoW Facebook feed mentioned --as part of the "pre-order and get an instant L90" campaign-- that Warlords of Draenor launches this Fall.

Not Spring.

Not Summer.

Fall.

I suspected as much, given that a new Arena season just started, but this confirms it.

Commence hand wringing in three... two... one...

How the Mighty Have Fallen

For some reason I had the urge to check my old L13 Tauren Hunter, which I'd created somewhere around mid-Wrath era, so I had to switch servers to Stormscale-US.

It was then, during the server switching, that I noticed it.

Ysera-US had fallen so far in population that it now had the dreaded "New Players" tag on it.

I didn't know that an old server such as Ysera could get the New Players tag, but there it was.

I perused Area 52-US where Q and Neve reside, and it was still going strong. Actually, it was even stronger than before because I noted it was full, something that only rarely happened during Wrath and not at all during Cataclysm. But now that I think about it, that 10:1 Horde bias on A-52 probably explains its activity. If you're tired of fighting unintentional PvP such as in the Timeless Isle, it's easier to simply move to a server where your faction is the majority.

Perhaps this is the true fallout of the decline of WoW's population: the biggest servers get huge and the not quite as big suffer.

***

I guess it's not too early to consider what class I'll be playing in the next WoW expac. The past few expacs I've played classes that were natural enemies (Warlock and Rogue), the newbie special (Paladin), and the glass cannon (Mage). I'll also freely confess that a small part of the reason why I decided on a Rogue this expac was due to Rogues carving people up left and right in PvP, not guessing that Blizzard was going to nerf Rogues heavily in response for Mists.

Therefore, this next expac I'm going to choose a class that will do the following:

• Not a class I've previously played to max level (or close enough to max level)
• Hold its own in PvP/BGs
• Not be a candidate for major nerfing
• Not require a complete overhaul of my UI
• Be fun to play

I put the most important one last, but that's pretty much a no-brainer. Since Arms Warriors, BM Hunters, and Disco Priests are the current awesomesauce of BGs, I can cross those classes off of my list. I'm also crossing off a return to my Warlock because I not only suspect they'll be in for a mild nerfing but that by the time I reached L74 there were simply too many buttons to keep track of without dedicating a lot of time. I may not want the old Ret Paladin method of whack-a-mole in deciding what button to push, but there comes a point where you reach information paralysis due to too many options.

As it is, I've been looking into a Druid or Shaman for the next expac, but I'm more than a bit concerned about the UI portion of those classes. I could swing any of my previous classes with one or two UI tweaks (of course, back in Wrath era the Pally Power add-on was absolutely essential to track Blessings), but knowing both classes will require a larger investment in time for the UI doesn't exactly give me the warm fuzzies.

Time to do some research, I suppose.

***

In spite of my best attempts, when faced with choices in a video game I tend to choose the "good" option. Like how my son explained his decision to abandon his Imperial Agent in SWTOR, I have a hard time doing morally bad things.

So I have an even harder time explaining why I'm playing my Bounty Hunter more balanced between light and dark side than any other toon.

I think some of it was due to the class story on Nar Shadda, where I showed mercy to someone and it turned out that they squealed on me after all.* That surprised me a bit, and probably influenced my decisions from that point onward to not give someone a chance to shoot you in the back later. Were it not for that, I'm almost certain I would have played out the decisions in the immediate post-Nar Shadda questline differently.

And yes, I'm not comfortable making those decisions.

I definitely went dark at the end of Makeb expac (Imperial side), but that was more due to the accumulated dislike of the main antagonist, and his gloating about how we were going to lose in the end anyway. That, however, didn't change the overall outlook of my Sith Sorcerer. She'd survived through the Machiavellian nature of Sith politics and had gone primarily Light Side to do it, so this one turn to the Dark Side after a long period of trending Light wasn't going to have a great impact. But my Bounty Hunter's personality is still forming, and the Nar Shadda incident had a greater influence than I'd like.

Those people who are able to explore the dark side of a game, such as SWTOR or Baldur's Gate, have caught both my appreciation and my curiosity.

To understand where I'm coming from, I'll reach into my gamer past with one of the classic Machiavellian board games, Diplomacy. For those who don't know it, Diplomacy is a game about the great European powers in World War I, but it was really about psychological manipulation. Each player took the role of one of the major powers (Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire), and would each turn move armies and/or fleets into different territories. Movements were submitted secretly and then read out in order and placed on the board. The movements were simple enough, and you couldn't lose an army or navy unless your unit had to retreat and had nowhere to retreat to. The complexity in the game centered around the period before the moves, which is when the players would talk among themselves as to what to do. (Think of the television show Survivor, and you've got the idea.)

I used to play Diplomacy a lot in college. Initially my friends and I would play in face-to-face games that would last hours**, but then when we gained access to the VAX system on campus and it's e-mail, we migrated online. As you can probably guess, a few players were more conniving and bloodthirsty than others, and other players were just very good at manipulating others. What I discovered was that with few exceptions the people who were the best at playing Diplomacy were the people you didn't want to hang around with outside of Diplomacy. Very often, those people who were great at Diplomacy were like that in real life; they couldn't establish boundaries inside and outside the game.

This brings me back to playing a Dark Side/Evil character. For those people who can separate the game playing from real life and can play a Dark Side character, I think it's great. I'm glad you can. But I can't do it, and I wonder about some of the people who do play those Dark Side characters, and whether they're just letting their personal beliefs manifest in game form.

No, I don't mean everybody, and I certainly don't believe there's a ton of really scary people playing some of these MMOs, but there are people who I run into online who set off the "Danger, Will Robinson!" alert in my head. And when some of those people open up their mouths in Gen Chat, well... Let's just say I'm glad they don't live next door to me.





*I'm aware that the story probably adjusted to whether I showed mercy or not by inserting that extra line about "So and so was right after all", but it still doesn't diminish the impact when I heard it.

**Much pizza was consumed during those games, typically the cheapest we could find.

The WoW Infographic Puzzles Me

If you've not seen the infographic that showed up the other day, you can find it here.

While on the face of it the infographic is a celebration of the 800 lb. gorilla that is WoW, my first thought wasn't "Woah", but "Hmm...."

It began with the very first datapoint.

More than 100 million accounts have been created over WoW's lifetime, which includes trial accounts. My first thought was "Why doesn't WoW retain more subscribers than the measly amount they have now?" My second thought was "Just how many of those accounts are spammers and gold farmers?" And my third thought was "How many of those accounts are owned by the same person?"

I don't think Blizzard has the answers to #1 and #2, but they probably can take a stab at #3 if they were interested in data mining.  But #1 is probably the most vexing problem Blizzard has. It also explains why Blizzard isn't really bothering to bring in new players* but instead focusing on getting lapsed subscribers to come back.

The next puzzler for me was a bit farther down, in the "Every Day in Azeroth" section. On the face of it, it would seem that far more people engage in PvE activity than PvP, and the number of Pet Battles alone would appear to make it the single most popular thing to do in WoW. But I suspect the data is a bit skewed based on what is presented.  It doesn't show who does what, only that these things are. A person could quite easily login, engage in a Pet Battle or three while waiting for a raid, and maybe finishing it off with a couple of 2s. Think of all the people who used to fish in the Dal fountain while waiting for their weekly raid group to show up, and you get the idea. Perhaps a better use of the data is the amount of time the average toon spends doing each activity as well as the time spent logged in. If there are long periods of toons not doing any of the listed activities, that's probably the time spent BS-ing with Guildies, questing, gathering, and other non-instanced activities. That will give people a better sense of how players spend their average time in Azeroth.

The last puzzler for me was the challenge mode data. Now, given the number of PvE instances run on a daily basis, that so few people have gotten challenge mode rewards is surprising to me. By comparison, Garrosh had been offed 400k times in a very short period of a few months, or 100k times less than the number of Bronze challenge mode achievers throughout all of Mists. That seems to make challenge modes far more of a niche than anything else, unless I'm missing something here (like that the majority of 5-man instances are for challenge mode runs or something).

There are things that I read in the infographic and I want to say "tell me more!" Like the 400k kills of Garrosh, for example. How many of them are via LFR? Or the 9 million guilds created. How many have more than the minimum number of toons needed to create a guild? How many different guilds is the average account a member of?

Yes, I'm aware that the infographic was designed to get people interested in playing WoW. Still, for someone who has been playing the game for 4+ years now, the infographic doesn't seem to tell the same story I see when I'm out and about in Azeroth. That Azeroth seems much emptier and sedate than the bustling game that is presented in the infographic.





*If they really wanted to bring in new players, they'd work a bit harder on making the storyline from L1-80 line up properly. A neighbor tried WoW recently, and one of the things he said stuck with me: "I couldn't figure the story out; it made no sense to me."

Miscellaneous Thoughts on a Saturday Night

You'd think that I'd have learned by now that a lot of MMOs are in "easy mode" compared to Age of Conan. Unless you're deliberately pushing to level through questing and you jump straight into a new expac*, the average MMO's quest mobs are easily handled.

But nooo...  I have to go login as my Barbarian and rush right on into the first mob I see.  Which, in traditional AoC fashion, will also cause a nearby mob to also aggro and swoop down on me.

Scratch one Barbarian.

What was that line Conan said when he was praying to Crom? "And if you don't grant me this, then to hell with you!"

Yeah, somewhere Crom is laughing at me.

***

After my previous post about the Love is in the Air event on WoW, I discovered that Aion has a similar event. Curious, I tried searching for info on it, and discovered that you can exchange gifts as well as buy items from the store. The F2P nature of Aion does make the promotion of buying items a bit more front and center than in WoW, but it isn't too badly done. Now, if they'd get rid of the spamming...

Anyway, why don't MMOs have some events like the Olympics? Sport is fairly universal, and PvP and other competitions would seem natural for an MMO's special event. As for those who would claim that you'd want a special event to be open to even the purely PvE people, I'd also point out that the WoW events haven't exactly changed much over the years. Given their prevalence and PvE orientation (with the notable exception of one item in Children's Week), it would seem that a PvP oriented event would be a natural thing. In pre-Cata times I'd have suggested races at the Mirage Raceway, but of course that's under several hundred feet of water now.

***

I was perusing the materials for the D&D Next adventure "Murder at Baldur's Gate"** when I was struck by nostalgia. The Bioware classics Baldur's Gate I and II invigorated the CRPG genre, and reading about the history of the city in the game materials was like a stroll through the past. I spent many an hour working my way through the game, enjoying where the story went, and I can still see the influence of this game on Bioware's later works (including SWTOR).

But seeing the statue of Minsc and Boo among the artwork brought a smile to my lips.

"Go for the eyes, Boo!"

From Murder at Baldur's Gate, Wizards of the Coast.

*This is what happened when I jumped straight into Mists of Pandaria when I hit L85.  I'd just entered Uldum at the time and had maybe a couple of pieces of gear that were better than Hyjal/Vash'jir greens. For an underpowered Rogue, jumping straight into the Jade Forest was a brick wall.

**It is not edition specific, so you can play it with D&D 3.x (and, presumably, Pathfinder), D&D 4e, and D&D Next.  D&D Next is still in development, and will be released officially later in the year.

Time for that Love Thang

Ah, February.

The time when a young man's fancy turns to college basketball.* Bitter rivalries in league games are played out throughout the month as teams jockey for position for the upcoming conference tournaments in early March.  The NCAA Tournament is on the horizon, and who gets in and who is left out becomes watercooler topic #1.

What, you were expecting something else?

Oh, THAT.  With three kids in the house, Valentine's Day does NOT mean love and kisses, it means cards. Lots and lots of Valentine's Day cards. And the "who is going with who" and "who sent who an anonymous Valentine's Day card" drama.  Certainly not romance.

If there's one event that seems out of touch with your standard MMO fare, it's the Valentine's Day events.

You could make arguments about the global appeal of festivals surrounding the Summer and Winter, Harvest and the New Year, and even the Spring and Brewing (another Harvest Festival, really), and I'd only point out the Western origins of most of them.  Still, most cultures do have festivals covering topics such as those listed above.** But Valentine's Day is so much a holiday rooted in Western Civilization that any reference to it in a Fantasy or Science Fiction MMO unintentionally breaks the fourth wall.

That's doesn't mean that it's not possible for another society to have a holiday based on love and courtship, but a lot of cultures do tend to combine Spring festivals with fertility rites.*** Festivals grounded in sexual desire and a big fat party (/cough Spring Break /cough) are distinctly different than the modern Valentine's Day, yet we see the latter in MMOs (Brewfest) as opposed to the former.

You won't be seeing this sort of art out of the official
Love is in the Air material,  but it makes
for inspired fan art.****   (From Wowhead.)

WoW's Love is in the Air event doesn't change much at all from year to year. Much like the modern Valentine's Day, you're sent scurrying around for cards and candy for different people.  There's also the everpresent questline to defeat the purveyors of the "love sickness". But that's pretty much it. Kind of cute, kind of harmless, and right in line with the expectations my kids had when passing Valentine's Day cards around at school.*****

And it is soon forgotten.

It's too bad, really, because WoW is so caught up with chasing the next expac that events like this are on autopilot. I'd argue that a Valentine's Day festival really doesn't fit in with what they're trying to do with WoW (as far as squeaky clean image goes), but if you're going to do it, make it different than something my kids do on February 14th. Make it an Azerothian event, something that you don't just put a thin veneer on and call it good enough.

Hallow's End, while keeping a lot of the modern trappings of Halloween, is Azeroth's. The Midsummer Fire Festival is Azeroth's. Love is in the Air, not so much.

Now that I think about it, a lot of what I think of the Valentine's Day problem is simply that Blizzard never bothers to show us the parts of Azeroth that festivals like Love is in the Air and Noblegarden are about: love, marriage, spring renewal. They just don't exist in Azeroth. Oh, they could, but they don't.  The middle school humor surrounding the occasional marriage/courting questline (the Troll one in Zangarmarsh, for example) deflects any reality behind the curtain. Aggra and Thrall's questline in Cataclysm (4.2) is distinctive because it shows Aggra's devotion to Thrall; it is the outlier in the World of Warcraft game.

Blizzard does get into love and marriage, but not in the game itself. You have to hunt down the novels and comics to find those topics, but they are distinctly separate from the actual game.

But it doesn't have to be.

Ironically enough, one MMO that integrates love/marriage into the game story is SWTOR. Bioware has had plenty of practice in integrating relationships into storylines, dating back to Baldur's Gate II, so it shouldn't be a surprise that they did it in their MMO. Even so, it's mostly an interaction with your companion(s) where the questlines come into play. Yes, you can flirt with NPCs --and that does have an impact on relationships with your companions-- but it's not at the same level as companion interaction.

Could Blizzard incorporate a SWTOR-esque interaction in WoW? Only surrounding a questline, such as the Goblin intro story, and even then their options are limited. And to be honest, I doubt they'd even try, since they've already got a formula (raiding and PvP) that makes them money.

Therefore, if love/marriage/romance is going to be injected into a world such as Azeroth, it would have to be done by the players.

And now that I think about it, relying upon the players to fill that void is both blessing and curse. While you may have true RP interactions like that found between Vidyala and Vosskah, you also get... Goldshire.

In the end, I guess the best thing to do in this situation is to just carry on as you were, with the MMO version Valentine's Day festivities pretty much optional.





*"And woman's!" my wife called from the other room.  She grew up in Louisville, and the UofL Cardinals ("GO CARDS!") are in her blood.  As is horse racing, but that's another post.

**Brewfest is kind of the outlier here, but if you acknowledge it is more a harvest festival than anything else, then yeah, it fits.

***But not found in MMOs such as WoW very much, since they avoid the topics of sex and fertility like it was some plague, going with the squeaky clean version of Noblegarden and Love is in the Air instead.

****As someone who can sew, I'd like to point out that the open heart makes for a problem with the rest of the front of that outfit. The top would need stiffer support material built in or the heart covered in mesh to support the top edge properly. What? Never heard of a guy who can sew?

*****I'd even argue that the "love sickness" questline could have originated in discussion among boys about "girl cooties", but there's no proof of that. ;-)


EtA: Updated the pic from a link, as that pic may disappear.

Keeping your Internal Clock Going

If you put your effort and concentration into playing to your potential, to be the best that you can be, I don't care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game, in my book we're gonna be winners.

--Coach Norman Dale (Gene Hackman), Hoosiers

Before Christmas, I spent one evening watching my youngest in her elementary school's Winter music program.  Being in 5th Grade, she was allowed to take lessons in a band instrument (woodwind, brass, or percussion) at the school, so she leapt at the chance to learn the snare drum.* That particular evening, she stood in the back as the school band's lone percussionist, keeping a steady beat for the rest.

Late in the show, just as the band was to start another piece, her music stand tilted and her sheet music went splat on the floor.  Her music teacher, her back to us, looked over at her.  I could tell by the teacher's body language that she asked a question: do you want to go get your music?  My youngest, her face dead serious, shook her head once.  I recognized that face from having played against her in chess: Don't worry, I got this.

The teacher waved her arms, and the band began playing.  My youngest never missed a note and kept up with the rest of the band without a problem.

It was at that point, in a completely out of the blue moment, that I realized part of the reason why she loves playing tanks.

She has the internal clock that all tanks need.

A tank has to have an internal clock that allows them to know when certain things are coming.  Sure, add-ons are nice, but the reality is that a tank is watching a lot more than just what the timers are.  And if you play an MMO that doesn't allow add-ons, then you absolutely have to have a great sense of time.  

When I play an MMO and things seem to be going south during a fight, time for me seems to slow down. Those procs can't come fast enough, and I'm constantly spamming buttons until something happens.  But someone with a good internal clock allows the fight to operate at its own speed; in sports terms it is called "letting the game come to you". Don't press. You can be quick, but not too fast. And if that sounds weird as hell, remember that there is a difference.

Have you ever had nights where you seem to be CC-ing everything in sight, your procs are coming at just the right time, and you've got this rhythm going?  But on another night that you seem to be just off, no matter how hard you're trying, and you just can't get into that groove? That's when you're pressing. You need to back off, relax, and let your internal clock take over.

And if you can do that, you don't need add-ons. Or sheet music.

*One of her goals is to play "Seven Nation Army" by The White Stripes, because "the drummer for the band is a girl." She also loves the music, which never hurts.

General Winter has been invading my MMOs

"Nothing but snow for kilometers either way, and I already can’t feel my toes. Whose idea was it to come here again?"  --Andronikos Revel, upon reaching Hoth



On a day like today, where we got about 6 in/15 cm of snow and the winds are gusting over 30 mph/50 kph, it certainly does feel like Hoth outside.*  You shovel the driveway, and less than three hours later the winds have covered the concrete again in the powdery white stuff.

In that respect, the artists' job of rendering Hoth was spot on.  The equipment is usually kinked to one side courtesy of the winds, and the "roads" are barely there at all.  Hoth has that beaten down, worn out look to it.

Compare Hoth to Ilum, and Ilum has the brilliant stars in the sky as well as a dearth of story incorporating the icy surroundings.  Ilum is beautiful, not beaten down.

Turning to WoW, there's Winterspring.  It's more an idyllic winter scene --complete with monsters, naturally-- but the hot springs and the snow formations make for an inviting journey in the snow.  Hitch up the team to the cart and head on to Everlook, but just keep an eye out for the wolvar.

Storm Peaks is akin to Ilum, starkly beautiful, while Icecrown Glacier suffers under the yoke of the Lich King.  Nowhere else is Arthas so reflected in the scenery than in Icecrown.

The Cimmerian winter areas of Age of Conan, such as Conall's Valley and Eiglophian Mountains, skew toward the Winterspring end in terms of scenery, but the weather is second banana to the foes found there, such as the Vanir and Ymir.  The AoC regions don't have the omnipresent nature of a Lich King, but the sheer volume of enemy encampments dominate the landscape.

But only in Hoth do you see winter rein supreme as the central figure in the zone.





*I can hear the laughter from my Canadian friends all the way down here.

Hey, You Got a PROBLEM wit' Dat?

With all of the snow and colder weather than usual, you'd think that I'd be able to play MMOs a bit more. Well, that's what I thought, anyway, but I was wrong.

Seems that I've spent even more time than in the Fall being the family taxi, which boils down to schlepping kids to and from activities/friends' houses, etc.  And when the day is over, I swear that their clothes must breed in the laundry bin like some bizarre ooze or something.*

And naturally the SWTOR Rakghoul event is starting just as my workload is going up, too.

***

For the first time in a long time, I've begun hanging around an area to protect my faction.

As I'd mentioned in the last post, I've begun hanging around Hellfire Peninsula to protect the Alliance from Horde PvPers.  While I'm technically on a PvE server, the wave of PvP gankers has been on the rise the past few months.  I figured that since I'm not doing much, just waiting around between BGs, the least I could do was flip the PvP switch and protect some fellow Alliance members.

And that first week, I'm glad I did.

Somehow, somewhere, the CRZ for Hellfire Peninsula now includes Area 52.

You know, the large server where Neve and Q can be found.  And the Horde:Alliance ratio is something like 10:1.

So.  That means there's a swarm of A-52 Hordies all over Hellfire, basically raising some hell for the Alliance toons there.  In my informal scans of the area, the Horde outnumbers the Alliance between 2:1 and 3:1. While some Horde toons play nice, others, well, don't.  I've seen L90 toons gank L60 toons, Tarren Mill style, and I've seen Ganklethorn Vale behavior of an L90 toon trailing along at a distance from an L60 toon, just waiting to step in when an Alliance L60 toon swoops in for some PvP action.

I don't go for ganking the low level toons, but I do believe in fairness. And if I see you picking on my faction, I'm going to retaliate. Want to slaughter NPCs at Expedition Point? Fine, Reaver's Fall doesn't need that many questgivers. Trying to torment that L61 Mage working on quests around the Path of Glory? A few judicious sappings will convince you otherwise.  Ganking that L60 DK trying to take the Stadium with your L90 Warlock?  You might want to look behind you, someone just might be there.





*Whenever I venture into the laundry room, I keep expecting to hear Brann Bronzebeard yell "Incoming!!" like he does in the last boss of Halls of Stone.

Miscellaneous Thoughts on the New Year

One thing I dislike about getting back to work after a vacation is that the sheer volume of work awaiting you can be overwhelming.  And, like the polar vortex that brought Canadian weather to the Midwest*, my workload blew me over for several days.

I did, however, get a little bit of gaming in that didn't involve losing at Mario Kart or bricking 3-point shots in Wii Sports Resort.**

I spent one evening as Azshandra, loitering around Hellfire Peninsula to keep the Horde gankers away from the L60 toons.  I'd finished a game of Eye of the Storm and gotten up to get something to drink, and came back to find a Hunter assaulting Honor Hold.  A DK was keeping the Hunter busy, but the Hunter was skilled enough to keep the DK at arm's length.  I jumped into the fray, forcing the Hunter to retreat by air. Meanwhile, a Lock was bothering people at the Stadium, so a Worgen Hunter and I went over there and dealt with that threat.

"The guy isn't very skilled at PvP," I said in Gen Chat after we dispatched him.  "I've seen a single Demo Lock hold off 3-4 people in BGs."

"Yeah," the Worgen replied. "I don't think he feared us once."

"Well, maybe this will attract that Troll Hunter.  I want another crack at him."

"Pains me to say it," the DK added, "but I couldn't DPS him down."

I scouted around, including a foray into Thrallmar, but that Troll Hunter never came back.  (Good riddance.)

But still, I never used to have to worry about this sort of thing very much in a PvE game.  Occasionally there would be some asshat who would slice through a town and kill all the NPCs, but when the auto-leveling of guards to L90 was put in place in the Old World, that sort of thing disappeared.***  I guess it's migrated to Outland, where the lure of ganking new DKs is a powerful attraction.

***

In non-WoW news, I finally finished Makeb, just about catching me up to the current story.  Ironically enough, my Sith Sorcerer is the toon who made it to L55 (and the end of Makeb) first.  In some respects, the Sorcerer (with Lightning Spec) reminds me of my Rogue.  Oh, not with stealth, I'd have had to spec myself differently for that, but with the issues of constantly finding myself undergeared for fights toward the end of a questline.

When I had issues with the elites in the final questline for Makeb, I had to abandon the quest for a while and go run some flashpoints to gear myself up properly.  Then I was able to make some inroads on that last quest, until I met the final boss.

I suspect that a Sorcerer with the right companion would be able to solo the Hutt Boss, but I had Andronikos with me.  I didn't want to waste time gearing up a separate companion for this boss, so I ended up teaming up with a Sith Assassin and working through the boss that way.  Even though I'm specced Lightning (read:  glass cannon), I ended up spending a lot of my time during the fight healing.  The assassin dropped about 2/3 of the way through the fight, but I was able to battle rez him and heal him back up before we wiped.

That last boss fight on Makeb saw me do more healing than I've done in a long while.  I think I have to go back to some of the early instances that I ran with Tomakan as a Holy Spec Pally to match the amount of healing that I did.  Of course, that wasn't a good situation to be in given that I was specced DPS, so I guess you'd have to go back to Wrath-era WoW when I was still playing Quintalan (Ret Spec) to something that was an equivalent.

Still, courtesy of gear repair and a bit of luck, I survived another day.

Oh, and apparently my Sorcerer is married to Andronikos now.  Not sure what the other members of the Dark Council will say about that, but for now they're not saying much of anything.

***

I watched my oldest play LOTRO for a bit the other day and I got the urge to login to my old L16 toon there.  The only thing that's keeping me from doing it is the LOTRO interface.  I have issues reading the interface --and the map in particular-- and I don't want to end up with a headache over something pretty basic.

This is the one place where WoW and SWTOR have an advantage over LOTRO:  the ability to tweak the interface in a meaningful fashion and improve legibility.  WoW allows add-ons which completely revamp the entire interface, and SWTOR's interface adjustments do exactly what I want to improve legibility without sacrificing screen space.  Oh, and the coloring in WoW and SWTOR are much easier on my mumblety-mumble aged eyes.  I may not have color blindness, but I can only imagine the UI coloring in LOTRO playing hell with people who do.

Still, the LOTRO UI interface is better than that in Age of Conan, which often leaves me frustrated when I try to tweak it.

EtA:  Before anyone asks, I know that you can mod the UI in LOTRO.  However, the mods I've found a) keep the same text font, which still isn't the easiest thing for me to read, and b) the map mods don't really replace the current map with quest info into something I can more easily read.




*I've got a new respect for my Canadian friends who deal with -10F/23C temperatures on a regular basis.  Of course, having a home that's insulated for that weather helps too, which the homes in the Ohio Valley sadly aren't. I wonder if Mike Holmes does housecalls.

**If there's one thing that Wii Sports Resort has right with their simulation, it's that I can't shoot worth a damn in basketball, whether it be real life or in the game.

***I once sat, stealthed, on the entrance to Nijel's Point in Desolace and watched an L50 Troll Hunter slowly work their way up the path.  (See a pattern here?)  Once they got close enough, the guards aggroed to L90 and carved him up like he was a rib roast.  I'll confess I did the "/point  /laugh" at him.

What a way to start the new year

I wasn't planning on making this my first post of the year, but I see being an ass in video gamer space is reaching the level of interfering with emergency calls:

Hackers Harass League of Legends Livestreamer with DDOS Attacks

Calling 911 on somebody?  Really?  Just how old are these people, 10?