Not Exactly Feeling the Love

I've been watching the class changes in the 4.3 PTR, and I'm less than thrilled.  The three class/specs that I play --Ret Pally, Frost Mage, and Affliction Warlock-- have either got a big ol' batch of nothing (Frost and Aff) or a slight mix of buffs and nerfs, ending up in an overall nerf (Ret).  (Druids have been hit by a nerf bat too, now that I think about it.)

What's enjoying the spotlight these days?  Holy Spec Pallys, for one.  Fire Mages, for another.  Destro Warlocks.  Warriors.  Shamans.  Holy and Disco Priests.  Hunters and DKs got a smattering of love, too.

It's still way early, but it's not looking so good at the moment.

Well, at least Rogues don't have anything new.

EtA:  OH!  The most important thing (at least for me) in the PTR is that the Alterac Blitz achievement will no longer be needed to get the Master of Alterac Valley meta-achievement.  I just don't see how one team can get the Blitz if you've got two groups of 40, especially since it takes a couple of minutes to go from one end of the BG to the other.

Guardian Cubs and Gaming the System

Given the imminent release of the Guardian Cub in the Blizz store, does that mean that the Guardian Mount (aka the glowing sheepdog) wasn't so annoying as the Sparkle Pony?  After all, you'd think that there would be a market for the Blizzard version of My Little Pony as a pet.

I've seen enough of the brouhaha concerning the saleability of the pet on the AH, I have to ask just what the big deal is.  It's just a pet; it's not raid tier gear.  Having one won't imbalance the game any more than someone paying for a faction change just to sell pets cross faction.  Either way, the money will indirectly go for gold.  Why don't you hear a hue and cry over that?

Yes, I do get the slippery slope argument, and how blatant the "money for gold" aspect is.  (And so is selling a copy of the Collectors' Edition of the game on eBay just to access the exclusive pet, but I digress.)  But as minor as this is, gaming the system is nothing new to WoW.

There are always methods to game a system.  The WoW gold farmers are one method; faction changes are another.  Automated auction software that has more in common with day trader software is a third.  Automated leveling software, which sells prospective buyers on "the game only really starts at max level", is another.

But in the end, what all these methods do is to get a player to a point in time, whether it's with a pet, or gold, or gear.  A pet is strictly vanity, but gold and gear are a different matter.  Whether they obtain it by cheating or not, the player is then expected to actually do something with their gear.  Or their gold.  Or their newly minted L85.  Just amassing the stuff doesn't mean a lot in WoW terms, because flashing bling and a few silver will get you an apple from the fruit vendor in Shattrath's Lower City.

Failed pugs and raids are littered with people who didn't know how to play their class in that environment.*  If you gamed the system to get into Firelands raiding, your (lack of) skill will be on display for all to see.  I've been in too many 5-mans wherein poor undergeared me out DPSed toons with the latest gear found on the AH for me to think that gear = skill, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

Besides, who really cares when you flaunt your dubiously obtained gear?*  After all, vanity gear is just around the corner, and people aren't going to care if you've got T20 gear on you because people will be too busy outfitting themselves in T2 gear instead.  I mean, there will be people who will raid wearing a wedding dress, I can guarantee it.

If after all that you're expecting me to say some platitude about how someone who games the system is only hurting themselves, well, I'm not.  Because that's not true.  People get their accounts hacked in the name of keeping gold farmers' coffers full.  Raids, BGs, and 5-mans fail because of these shenanigans.  Just because you can game the system doesn't mean you should.

But in the end, the Guardian Cub controversy is a tempest in a teapot which is distracting from the more insidious methods of gaming the system.  Stop worrying about the Cub, because that's not where the action will be.




*This is different from people who leveled their way to L85 and then tried to get into instances/raids/BGs.  For starters, they know a bit about the mechanics, just not how to play a toon in a group format.  The person who let a leveling service take care of their toon from 1-85 missed out on a lot of critical lessons on how a toon's abilities work.  And believe me, it shows; we all can spot the DPS who keeps Righteous Fury on when playing.

**Remember people showing off their e-peen and their proto drakes perched on the Dal fountain?  Do you remember their names?  I sure don't, and I doubt no more than a few people do.

Is there an Adult in the House?

When you reach that magical mark of L45, the grind through BGs suddenly becomes worth it.

I clicked to join the queue, waited a few minutes, and the pic of a Frostwolf Orc and Stormpike Guard Dwarf filled my screen.

"Ah...." I sighed in content.  "Alterac Valley.  The best BG in the game."

Then my Lock ported into the loading tunnel and was greeted by farts, belches, nose pickings, and some guy yelling "I'm running around naaaked!!!"

I was playing Alterac Valley with 39 teenagers.  Yay me.

(I mentioned this to Vidyala from Manalicious, who happened to be logged in at the time, and she said "Did you see that strip from The Oatmeal about that?  Oh wait, you posted that, didn't you?"  Art imitates life, I'm afraid.)

***

For my money, AV is a great learning Battleground, and probably the best starter BG for someone who has never tried BGs before but wanted to test them out.

Before anyone points out the value of creating an alt just to try Warsong Gulch at L10, yes, I'm aware of that as an option.  That method of getting your toes wet in BGs does have advantages, namely that you start to learn the PvP capabilities of your class at the beginner level, and your skill will grow over time as you gain in abilities.  However, starting at whatever level your toon is at (presumably max level or at least L45) and queuing for Alterac Valley has advantages too:

• You are one of 40 players on your side.  If you screw up, odds are good that you're not going to drag down your team much at all.  With WSG (and to a lesser extent Arathi Basin and Eye of the Storm), one player's mistakes are far more costly to your side.  What this means is that in AV, you have a little bit of license to try things out and not worry about messing up too much.
• In a large BG such as Alterac Valley, there will always be someone more poorly geared than you are.  From quest greens through the latest Ruthless Gladiator set, all types can find a home in AV.
• AV has pretty standard strategies (zerg and turtle being the most common), so you don't have to know the intricacies of the BG to contribute.
• There is always someone attempting to complete the external AV quests, particularly at the lower levels.  This kind of ties into my first point in that AV is forgiving enough that one or two people will wander off and not impact their team so much.  Now, I'm not talking about the in-BG quests you find to go and bring back gear to quest givers at each base --I haven't seen anyone do that in a long while-- but the "Capture a mine" and "Defend a tower" quests.  While this isn't a big deal in today's WoW, back in Vanilla it was a moderately big deal to get the trinkets from the Frostwolf or Stormpike factions, and completing the quests helped get some of that rep.  Besides, if you play Arathi Basin and you complete that starter quest, you're probably thinking "oh yeah, these BG quests aren't a problem."  Until you head into gnoll caverns and have to fight your way through against monsters 4 levels higher than you, that is.
• When in doubt, help to capture a tower.  Graveyards are a bit trickier, because there are times when it makes more sense to not capture one, but towers are always ripe for picking.
• The natural tendency of a newbie PvPer is to travel in a pack, and that is perfect for a big BG such as Alterac Valley.  Stick with the pack as much as you can, and you lessen the chance of getting jumped from behind.  For clothies, I can't stress this enough.  Rogues and Hunters love clothies, particularly stragglers.
• If you're really lucky --or unlucky, based on how quickly you want to play the game-- you can witness the elemental summoning.  I haven't seen it myself, but it does happen from time to time, and there's nothing like having a raid level boss on your side.
• Honor per game is better than almost all of the other BGs.  Since there are no vehicles to worry about ala Isle of Conquest or Strand of the Ancients, Alterac Valley is a big ol' backyard brawl.  The honor will add up very quickly, particularly in a series of quickly resolved zerg games.  And yes, that means that even if you lose you'll get some decent honor so that you can buy PvP gear more quickly.  (And yes, I meant quickly.  I did say it three times, no?)

***

Back in AV, I ignored the excesses of the hormone driven crowd and followed along until Snowfall Graveyard, when I peeled off to cap it.  A feral druid pulled in next to me and asked if I wanted to stay with him to defend it.

"No," I said.  "There's no need.  It's a disadvantage for the Horde to take this; we're better off going to Tower Point instead."

"Okay.  You lead."

We reached TP to find that the rest of the group had pushed on ahead, so we darted up the ramp and waited.  A priest arrived for support just as "the Horde have captured Snowfall Graveyard" scrolled on screen.

"They actually took the bait," I said.

"Yeah," the priest replied, "you know they're going to lose when they can't resist taking it from us."

A swarm of Hordies came charging up the ramps, and all we had to do was hold out for 20 seconds.  I was spamming every fear ability I had while the priest got knocked off the ramp.  The druid got two on him and I feared one away.  My succubus disabled one and Howl of Terror procced again.

10 seconds.

I got hit and stunned and quickly used my trinket in combo with Death Coil.  The feral had two more on him, and a Tauren Sunwalker came barreling in.

5 seconds.

I cast Fear.  The cast bar crawled across the screen.

"Come on....  Come on...."

The Sunwalker turned to the Feral just as I feared him.  He ran out the room.

3...

The feral died.

2...

Howl of Terror procced just as the two on the Feral turned to me.  I mashed the button so hard I was sure I broke the key.

1...

A Judgement hammer struck me and left me with around 50 health left.

Boom!  Flames exploded around the tower, and I whooped as the Sunwalker finished me off.

"GJ on TP!" the designated tank hollered.

Ah, Alterac Valley.  Such fun indeed.

We Don't Make the Class You Play... We Make the Class You Play Better*

 It's been said by quite a few internet pundits that the Paladin is the easiest of the WoW classes to play.  While I don't know whether that's the case --I could make a good argument for Arcane Mages taking that slot-- Ret Paladins are certainly one of the least "button heavy" classes to play.

One of the big knocks about Ret Paladins in Wrath was the lack of any real rotation.  The "rotation" a Ret Pally had was the equivalent of a giant game of Whack-a-Mole: whatever ability was off CD was the button you used.  Sure, there were a few choices here and there, but in this case perception was indeed reality.  Cata actually introduced a rotation (of sorts) to Ret, which boiled down to

Crusader Strike -> filler -> Crusader Strike -> filler -> Crusader Strike -> Templars Verdict

with a few items such as Inquisition, Zealotry, and Avenging Wrath inserted as needed.

This is not very button heavy.  (Stop laughing, Arcane!)

With Ret, once I took care of some basic keybindings and a few macros, there wasn't much to do.  Since I don't raid, I'm not too concerned about squeezing every last bit of DPS that I can out of my rotation.  I know the spec, so as long as I can work it well enough I'm fine.  Even a Frost Mage isn't that button heavy, particularly once the keybindings and macros are settled into place.  In PvP, it's all about CC and driving the other side batty.**

But when I started leveling that Warlock, my laissez-faire attitude hit a brick wall.

With Adelwulf, there were not only a lot of buttons, but you get them all launched at you in quick leveling succession.

By L20, I knew my old button system was in trouble.

By L30, it was just about untenable.  My fingers ached, and I knew that if I didn't overhaul my keys I'd get a serious case of carpal tunnel syndrome, not to mention being completely incompetent.

Of course, that meant that my old keybinding setup had to be thrown out the window, which is why I balked at the task for so long.  Muscle memory was going to be a bitch and a half while I settled into something reasonable. 

My first attempts went poorly.  Oh, I knew what I wanted from a Warlock angle so that was easy enough, but I didn't expect how much trouble it would be to reorganize my Ret keybindings into something I could use effectively.  In my first run after keybindings 2.00, I ran Q through AV.  Or rather, Q bubbled his way through AV.  I'd placed Divine Shield too close to a button I hit more often, and I was accidentally spamming DS the entire run.  Iteration 2.01 didn't go so well either, as every time Art of War procced I hit the wrong key and had to look away from the screen to figure out what I was doing wrong.

Not good.

Iterations 2.02 through 2.17 were incremental improvements until I finally got to the layout I liked.  Main attacks on top, debuff removal and cc stuff below that, and rarely used spells on the bottom.  There were individual quirks about my setup, like having Exorcism and Hammer of Justice use the same finger as before --but keys on different rows-- kept me from accidentally blowing a CD on something I wanted later.  (Trust me, it all makes sense in my mind.)

Turning to Neve, I balked.  PvP and PvE spell emphasis on a Frost Mage are different enough that I really didn't want to work on it.  Like ever.  But when you can't even find your main spells once you login, you have to do something.  And I'll be honest:  I haven't really finished the job of reorganizing Neve's keys into something that feels natural, even after iteration 2.13. 

Even that half baked key setup, however, is much easier on my hands.  My fingers don't ache after a couple of games of WSG like they used to.  And when I remember where everything is, I can hit the keys more quickly.

If it weren't for trying out that Warlock, I'd probably never have reworked all of this stuff.  Amazing how something good can come out of a class that wallows in its use of evil.

I do have one side effect of all this work, however:  my left pinkie has a disturbing tendency to accidentally hit the "Sleep" button on my keyboard***.  Talk about Imps and their tricks.  /grumble



*This is a wordplay on an old series of commercials for the chemical company BASF, whose tagline was "We don't make a lot of the products you buy, we make a lot the products you buy... better."  Here's a link to a 14 year old commercial via YouTube:  1997 BASF Ad

**If I've got at least three Alliance trying to DPS down Neve in WSG, I consider that I've done my job.  When 1/3 of your team is chasing after one person who isn't a FC, then the rest of your team is freed up to do the dirty work.

***Which, naturally, won't stay disabled.

Permanent Death and Other Musings

Okay, question time:  Was there ever a time when you cared about player death, and if so, when did you stop worrying about it?

I've been thinking about this question ever since I've started GMing a Savage Worlds campaign for my kids.  When I laid out the ground rules for the pulp-style campaign, one of them asked what happens if their character dies.  I told them that if a character dies, the character isn't coming back.  They'll have to start with a new character with an appropriate amount of experience for the group.

In an MMO such as WoW that concept of permanent character death goes against one of the core tenets of the game.  The entire point of raiding is to attempt, wipe, and attempt again until you manage to down the boss.  The raids, instances, and group quests are designed with that in mind.  If you're appropriately geared for one of these scenarios, there is a great likelihood of your toon dying at least once.  And don't get me started about PvP, given that the entire point of a lot of PvPing is to "gank before you are ganked."

However, trying to switch gears and play a pencil-and-paper RPG can be a bit jarring.  Even for my kids, who play Wizard 101 and the LEGO family of video games, your toon always came back.  To say that it doesn't, and you'll just have to live with it, took some getting used to.

(Or even trying to play an older CRPG such as Baldur's Gate I/II, where you learned to save right before each battle because if you lost your main character, it was game over.)

Coming from the "permanent death" background, it took me a good long while to get over my toons periodically dying.  Conservative play?  Ha!  I played at so glacial a pace that I didn't move into the Ghostlands from Eversong Forest until my toon was high enough level that all of the enemies were green in difficulty.  Obviously, I got over this playstyle  once I started getting ganked with regularity in (pre-Cata) Tarren Mill, but vestiges of the "take it very slow and don't ever ever ever rush in" style remain.

If I were a WoW player first, I'm not sure if I would ever make that leap to pencil-and-paper RPGs.  Not because of the technology, to be honest, but the fact that my (essentially) immortal toon created unrealistic expectations about what PNP gameplay was like.  However, I would also have expectations that the Big Bads in a PNP campaign would require specific capabilities to be used at specific times, and that my party members would be required to maintain a certain level of damage output.  That's a ludicrous expectation, but if you look at WoW or LOTRO or Rift or any of the other MMOs out there, this is the design reality.

***

In a pencil and paper RPG, story matters.

Sure, you've got your hack and slash campaign nuts out there --"You enter the door to the room and inside you find three red dragons!"-- but to the majority of people who play PNP RPGs, campaign plots as well as the interaction between PCs, NPCs, and the game world are a big part of why they play RPGs.

I'm sure there are plenty of other lore nuts out there playing WoW (Hi, Rades!), but I've known far more people who play WoW who really don't care too much about the story at all.  Just give them something to kill, and they're happy.  Raids?  BGs?  It's just a 2011 version of Wizard of Wor or Super Mario.

"Hey, so this is where Millhouse Manastorm got to!" I exclaimed when I found him in Deepholm on Neve.

"Who?" a guildie asked.

"The Gnome you ran into at the end of the Arcatraz, the one whom the Sha'tar sent you to rescue."

"lol Q, I don't care.  I just want to push buttons and kill things."

In a PNP RPG, however, it does matter because your party has to figure things out and decide what to do.  There's always a different way to skin a cat in a FTF RPG, while the technical limitations of an MMO dictate that you can't deviate from a specific quest goal.

***

Heard around Azeroth:

In WSG:

(Two clothies and Quintalan (me) reached the Alliance flag.  I'm the only plate wearer and we all have about the same Resilience, so I grabbed it.  We hit the tunnel just as a Prot Warrior made it to us.)

Warrior: Give it to the mage.

Mage: No!  Don't give it to me!  You take it!

I tried to drop the flag, but because I'd been screwing around with my key bindings --and let's face it, I rarely carry the flag in WSG at all-- I'd deleted that button by accident, and popping a bubble was on CD.

Warrior:  Come on, drop it!

Me:  I'm trying, my bindings are screwed up!

Mage:  Fuck it, just go!

We headed straight out the door and blasted our way through the first wave of Alliance players.  The second wave consisted of two Holy Pallies and two Rogues.  The Resto Druid with us did his best to keep me up, but I eventually died.  However, just as I died the Censure DoTs killed off the Rogue that was on me.  The Prot Warrior scooped up the flag and raced up our tunnel to cap it.

Me (from the graveyard): Well, that's one way to drop the flag.


Warrior:  Hey, it worked.

Just Like Old World Azshara

Back in April, I compared Burning Crusade with Cataclysm and hit upon what I felt was a weakness with Cata:  the lack of a continuing story for Goblins and Worgen.  I've spent the months since then exploring the Old World under the guise of leveling herbalism, and stopping for quest lines along the way.  The more I've explored the Old World, the more I've become convinced that those new races have been my biggest disappointment with the expansion.

The starting zones held so much promise, as did Silverpine and Azshara.  But outside of those zones, there's the occasional bone but nothing really meaty to dig into. 

From the starter zone, the next logical location for a newly minted Worgen was Darkshore.  And there was nothing there for the Worgen.  Oh, there was plenty going on --hey there, Malfurion-- but nothing much Worgen-centric.  Ashenvale, the center of so much old Worgen lore, only has a couple of Worgen present, who are completely interchangeable with any other race.  If you make it all the way down to Feralas, for a few brief moments it looks like the Worgen are going to have a lot to do with zone.  But the three Worgen there, just like in Ashenvale, could be substituted for Night Elves or another race entirely.  The fight with Cho'gall?  That was all Night Elf.

Ironically enough, if you want Worgen lore in Alliance heavy zones, you have to go to Duskwood and Raven Hill.  Or you could visit the contested Blasted Lands, where there's a Worgen encampment in the butt-end of the Azerothian universe.

The Goblins fare little better, but that's also due to having to share Azeroth with the Steamwheedle Cartel.  There's only so many places you can stick more goblins, although Blizz's love of Trolls seems to dispute that phenomenon.  Blizz seems to have solved some of the Bilgewater Cartel Goblin issues by getting rid of some of the Venture Company spots and replacing them with Bilgewater Cartel instead (like, say, Stonetalon).  But the Horde Goblins end up with only a few bones, and they get the "they're the Horde's Gnomes" treatment instead.

Both races have such great and complete beginnings that it's a real shame to see them so utterly forgotten once you leave the starting zones.  It's like seeing the Draenei and Blood Elves' treatment in the Old World (pre-Cata) only to reach Outland and....  there's nothing for them there.  Can you imagine Burning Crusade without those two races at the forefront of Outland, or the Death Knights (and Knights of the Ebon Blade) missing from Wrath?  Well, I can sure imagine Cata without either Worgen or Goblins, and it wouldn't be very different from what we have now at all.

Cata was ambitious, no doubt about it.  Reworking the Old World, adding two new races, incorporating new zones/storylines, and hefty rewrites of a lot of the class mechanics were a tall order.  And I'm not even counting the things that were left on the cutting room floor, such as releveling (aka grouping with lower level toons), the Path of the Titans, and Arathi Highlands.  But the Goblins and Worgen are a lot like the post-Cata Arathi Highlands; they're incomplete. 

New races are one of those core features of an expansion that once announced, you can't back out of.  While Path of the Titans and some other areas (flying in the BC starting areas) were on the optional side of things, once you say "we're going to have two new playable races!" you can't really backtrack without a sizable portion of the player base revolting.  A playable race becomes --by its very nature-- a core feature of an expansion. 

The least Blizz could have done is add more Worgen/Goblin content in the expansions to continue the story.  They certainly seem to have no trouble doing that with Trolls, so why not with the pride and joy of Cataclysm?

Note to Self...

...when a BG pops and you've just finished fending off the Dark Iron Dwarves at the Brewfest Grounds, you might want to take a pass on that BG.  Unless you like trying to run WSG completely smashed, that is.

"There'sh four in their basesh wif the efcsh ...hic!"

(It was entertaining right up until I died that first time, which gets rid of the "drunk" debuff.)

***

Some people are never satisfied.

This morning, I finished up a Strand of the Ancients run wherein we didn't lose a single demo, but people were still yelling "fail!" in BG chat right up until we finished.

As was traditional, I checked the stats at the end, and those people were the ones at the bottom who weren't healers.

***

Rades over at Orcish Army Knife had a brilliant idea for the Naked Dungeon Challenge, which got me to thinking.  Now that you can run wargames, why not have a naked BG run between two teams?

It sounded like a great idea, until I realized what it might end up like:  The Lingerie Football League. 

(Yes, it appears to exist.  No, it's not like the Women's Football Alliance, which is regular full contact American Football.  My sister-in-law played for a year on the Kentucky Karma as a WR, and she'll tell you that the women who play in that league don't mess around.)