Monday Musings -- Brann's Trusty Pick Version

There are days when I think WoW is composed of 2 million subs and 8 million gold farmers.

Why yes, I'm working on mats for a chopper.  Does it show?

The elimination of the wait for older mats when a new expac is released, such as Titansteel (and Felsteel for you older BC types) has been a blessing and a curse.  It's a blessing because you can farm all you want to collect the mats needed to create Titansteel without having to wait a day/week/what-have-you, but it's a curse because everyone else is doing that too.  The entire cycle is compressed, and when you add the gold farmers to the list there can be days when you could spent almost all of your WoW time cruising Northrend and not find a single Titanium node.

Back in Wrath, I used to farm Titanium and Saronite for the gems, and in the wee hours on a PvP server there would be three of us (quite literally) fighting it out for the nodes.  When I switched Q over to a PvE server, that number fluctuated between 3-5 people, but it wasn't too difficult to get your share of the ore and assorted goodies.  However, in late Cata, it seems that there's a toon parked over every spawning point for Titanium or several cruising Icecrown or Sholazar for all of the spare Saronite.  The number of toons farming ore has more than doubled, and I've spent 10 minutes or more hunting around before I found a lonely hunk of Saronite that wasn't being mined at that very moment.

Strangely enough, this doesn't translate into an overabundance of gold farming in the BC zones.  Khorium and Eternium are still easily mined, while the BC herbs have been left alone as well.  (My Worgen Lock finally made it to Outland, so he's ready to get some clown gear to match up better in BGs.)  I guess you could chalk it up to not a lot of demand out there for the BC stuff, but if you read the blogs touting transmog you'd think otherwise.

Perhaps what really attracts the gold farmers is the near 5 digit price tag that a chopper or mechano-hog will fetch on the AH.*

***

Since I've been Farmer Bob the past couple of weeks, instead of running BGs I've queued up for a few normal 5-mans instead.  I figure that the time it takes for the queue to pop is better spent cruising for mining nodes than the extremely short entry times for BGs.

I still don't know what the Heroic queues are like, but the random normals are clocking in at a half an hour.  Based on that, I've been reluctant to specifically queue up for those normals I haven't done on Tom yet, mainly Stonecore and Throne of the Tides.  It's not like I've not seen Stonecore before --it always seemed to proc whenever I queued up on Neve-- but it would be nice to actually mark that as finished on a Ret Pally.  And Throne of the Tides...  Well, I think I've seen that pop once all of Cata.

Naga just aren't as popular as they were in BC, I guess.

***

I didn't quite notice this until the past couple of weeks, but leveling via BGs in WoW is cyclic.

When you start out at the bottom of the level range for a BG, you're just glorified fodder.  (Clothies, such as Priests and Locks, are even more so.)  It can be painful to drag yourself up to that next level, and you get used to dying a lot.  Once you make that level, however, then path to level after gets easier.  And the next one, even more so, until you just kind of cruise out of one level range into another.

Then the cycle starts over again.

This cycle is a lot like leveling via questing in Age of Conan.

There's a pretty big dropoff in XP when you kill a mob two (or even one) level beneath yours in AoC, even more than WoW.  What that means is when you're questing in a zone and you level up to where the mobs close to you are 2 levels below you, your XP intake drops precipitously, and your leveling slows to a crawl.  You then have to push yourself to another portion of the zone where you match up better with the mobs.  The thing is, AoC orients those mobs so that you have to be really precise about your pulls so that you don't end up with 3 or more mobs on you at once.

Oh, and did I mention they spawn more frequently than WoW?  If you enter a higher level zone, you'll not only have to fight your way in, but also fight your way out.

I'm sure this was done to "encourage" grouping, but for someone who plays at odd hours, that means that the leveling process operates in spurts:  you gain a level or two fast, then you have to go to a higher level area where your progress slows to a crawl.  Just like leveling via BGs in WoW.

***

I don't often talk about my kids' MMO playing, but I figured I had to share this little tidbit:

My oldest managed to get her L22 Elf Hunter to Rivendell last week.

The kids had tried to get their toons to Rivendell before --they play F2P, so they had to run there-- but they always would get zapped by the high level mobs once they got past Weathertop.  So it was no small effort that she managed to zip through that last zone to reach the Last Homely House East of the Sea.

She then proceeded to start geeking out.

"OMG!!  There's Frodo!  And there's Gandalf!  And Bilbo!!  And look:  there's Merry and Sam and Pippin!!!  This is just so cool!!!"

I don't think she stopped grinning the rest of that evening.




*The Battered Hilt still shows no sign of dropping in value, probably more due to transmog and desire to see the questline than anything else.  The thing is, you can clear most of the mobs in the entry area of Heroic Forge of Saron without that much trouble, so why not just do that instead until you get a drop?  You'll even get a nice supply of Frostweave to sell on top of it.



EtA: Have I mentioned that I disklike trackpads that are too sensitive?  They make "whenever I" change into "when I ever".  Sheesh.

Blog Alert - Need More Rage Has Gone Sentimental

I could try to post something about the death of Maurice Sendak, but anything I'd come up with pales in comparison to what Ratshag did at Need More Rage.

Go now, and smile.

When Rateds Attack

Last week I had an evening to myself, so I logged in as Tomakan to get in some BGs.

The first couple of runs were okay, but when I got Arathi Basin, I ported in and was greeted by groans.

"What?" I asked in BG chat.  I may not be the best BG player out there, but I'm certainly not that bad.

"The Mal'Gannis crew is here," one of my team replied.

I took a look at the Horde side's lineup and saw the telltale server name Mal'Gannis five times.  "Oh... crap."

"Maybe we should give up now," another Alliance player suggested.

"Hell no," a Rogue replied.  "We'll beat those assholes!"

Having met the Mal'Gannis Five before, I had my doubts.  They were all members of the same guild, and at the very least they were kitted out with a full set of Cataclysmic gear.*  That indicated they either ran Rateds or 5s in Arenas, and they were all used to working with each other.  Compare that with a traditional pugged BG, and the differences were obvious.

In this particular AB run, they were a roving group of five and smashed everyone in their way.

The lopsided loss took its toll on a few players.  "Alliance always sucks!" said one enlightened soul.

"Come on," I replied.  "We're a bunch of puggers up against a Rated team.  You don't think that has an impact?"

"Alliance sucks!"

I rolled my eyes.  When confronted with such logic, there's not much you can do.

Still, that does bring up the question what a Rated or 5s group was doing in a traditional pug, anyway.  I'd put it up to a "blowing off steam" or "taking a break", except that they've been staples of the random BGs for the past month.  Well, sort of random, anyway:  you'll find them in the lower sized BGs for the most part, where they can have a larger impact on the outcome (WSG, BoG, TP, AB, and EotS).  The advantages of a well-oiled machine like what they have over a bunch of puggers ought to be obvious; it would take a massive screw-up on the rest of their side to lose.  Or having a comparable Rated team on the Alliance side.

From a game standpoint, a Rated team has just as much right to run a regular BG pug as the next group, but I can't help but think of the similarities between that and an event that happened several years ago.

My son was playing baseball in an instructional league for six and seven year olds.  Each team was allowed a maximum of two eight year olds per team, because of the instructional nature of the league.  If you've ever seen six and seven year olds play, you know that you've got the wide spectrum of abilities and attention spans assembled out there on the field.  I used to pull my hair out watching my son looking all over the place rather than at the batter; on more than one occasion the ball would be hit toward him and it scooted right on by before he realized what was happening.

In one particular game, however, we arrived and I noticed several of our parents looking worried over by the sidelines.  I shooed my son over to where the coaches were and joined the group.  They'd been watching the other team warm up, and something wasn't right.  "They're acting way too mature for six and seven year olds," one mom told me.  Sure enough, that team had gotten the balls out and were warming up without any supervision whatsoever, and their accuracy was almost frightening.

Once the game began, it was clear there was a mismatch.

Their pitcher was throwing hard --and I do mean hard-- and mowed down our players with three consecutive strike-outs.  They came up to the plate, and started killing the ball everywhere.  Before the first inning was over, the score was 6-0.  I was annoyed, but I couldn't say much; I mean, the other team was just that good.  It was like watching a major league team play against a college team.

When one of our coaches came back to the dugout, however, he was mad.  He'd been talking to all of the other teams' kids when he was out at second base as an additional umpire, and it turned out that the other team was playing with a stacked deck:  all of the kids were eight year olds.  Additionally, that team had a game the next day, in an eight and nine year old league.

They were using our team as batting practice.

As you can surmise, the game was called after three innings due to runs.  Our coach put in a protest to the league about the other team, and we found out later that several other teams had done the same thing.  Nevertheless, the damage had been done.  It's kind of hard to explain to a seven year old that the ass-kicking they just received didn't count because the other team cheated, because they'd just been beaten out on the field.

Comparatively speaking, what that baseball team did was cheating, while a Rated team running regular BG pugs isn't.  However, the mismatch is very real, and can be very disheartening to someone learning to play BGs.  Spend an entertaining afternoon being corpse camped in WSG and tell me how you feel that makes you a better player.  Here's a hint:  it doesn't.  When you respawn, get buffed, and then you get stun-stun-stunned to death, you have almost no chance at actually learning to play.  Instead, you'll probably decide to not play PvP.

The hardcore EVE types will argue that it's all for the better to separate the wheat from the chaff, but there's a drawback to such behavior.  You feed into the stereotype that PvPers are all assholes who hang out with ninja looters and trade chat nutjobs.  "L2P noob!" doesn't help the community, it harms the community by making it shrink.

Am I arguing for a self banning of rated teams from regular BGs?  It is tempting, but I believe what's needed here is restraint.  Sure, you can wipe the floor of the WW with the other team's butts, but there's no need to go corpse camping.  It isn't necessary to hold onto that last flag instead of capping just so you can farm honorable kills.  The big rule ought to be "Don't be a jerk."

After all, karma can be a real bitch.



A short update:  In between the time I wrote this and posted it, I spent a half an hour in WoW.  I got into WSG, and discovered the full Mal'Gannis Rated team on the other side.  What happened?  After the first flag capture, they put us on farm.  Players began leaving like rats fleeing a sinking ship.  After another five minutes of it, even I gave up and took the debuff rather than get killed another dozen times.  Soloing the Pit of Saron seemed like a better deal.



*Remember, the Armory is your friend.  And when that doesn't work, create a toon on the server, go to the Hall of Legends, and inspect them that way.  Know thy enemy.


EtA:  Corrected a couple of grammar errors in the baseball story.

Just D... Wait, what do you mean that line's taken?

This is written for the Newbie Blogger Initiative, which is going on throughout May 2012.  You can find more info at http://nbihq.freeforums.org.



Trademarks aside, that's the best advice I can give a new blogger.

Just go ahead and write.  Don't be afraid.

Well, be smart.  Don't write things that'll get you in trouble at work, or with your family, or with your friends.  If you want guild drama, the easiest thing to do is start posting about the scuttlebutt in your guild and what you think of it all.  If you wonder whether something you're writing is going to cause trouble, skip it and come back to it later.

If, however, you really don't care what people think and you've got the intestinal fortitude to back it up, then damn the torpedoes!

I realize that people will say to write what you know, and yes, that does let a new blogger start out on familiar ground.  But for my money, the act of writing itself is more important.  You're only going to get better as a blogger and a writer if you challenge yourself, by pushing what you can do.  When I look back at my initial columns when writing PC, I cringe.  I had no idea how little I knew about WoW, and what I thought then was decent writing now seems really klunky and pretentious.  Do I wish I'd been a better writer back then?  Sure.  But the thing is, the only way I really did improve was to work at it:  I played more, learned more about the game, and I wrote.

When you write, a funny thing happens.  You gain perspective.  You analyze yourself and what you believe.  You realize that not everyone will agree with you.  Hell, you also realize that what you thought was pretty good might be utter crap to another person.  Or worse, boring as sin.

Don't go into this because you want to be an awesome! cool! popular! blogger, because that's lightning in a bottle.  You can't chase fame without sacrificing yourself in the process.  Instead, blog because you want to, and because you have words that want to come out.  When you blog like that, you're exposing more of yourself than if you were chasing fame, but in that risk lies the reward.

A blog is a strange thing.  It's composed of your writing, and it can live indefinitely if you want it to.  It doesn't need readers to survive.  What it does need is a blogger.

Don't worry about readers.  Don't worry if it seems you're shouting into the wind.  Concern yourself with what you can control, and that's the content.

Write.

PC Joins the Newbie Blogger Initiative

I found out about this initiative from Spinks of Welcome to Spinksville!, and I can't think of a better way to help bring new blood into the blogging hobby.

This initiative is being run by Syp of Biobreak, and there's a board nbihq.freeforums.org where bloggers --both old and new-- can sign up and participate.  The initiative is slated to run over the month of May, and both PC and many other bloggers will be posting encouragement and advice on blogging on their own blogs.

See you around!

Redbeard Boards the Twisted Nether Blogcast

Yes, you read that right.

I will be a guest on this Saturday's episode of the Twisted Nether Blogcast at 8 PM PST (11 PM EST).  Stop on by and enjoy the show!

(Hopefully, Hydra and Fimlys will make me sound better than I really am.)

To listen to the live stream, go to twistednether.net/live and join in the chat room.  See you there!

EtA:  For people overseas, the time is 3 AM Sunday GMT.  London is 4 AM Sunday,
while Melbourne is 1 PM Sunday.

A Few Other Random TOR Thoughts

When I started playing TOR last Thursday night, I didn't finish my first quest before I started getting a massive headache.

"Oh crap," I thought.  "You've got to be kidding me."

I've mentioned before in some other posts that I get headaches and disorientation when I play first person shooters.  I've had this problem dating back to the original Doom and Wolfenstein 3D, when the old conflict between what my eyes are seeing versus what my inner ear is telling my brain first reared its ugly head.  For a long time I assumed that MMOs would cause me trouble as well, but once I started playing WoW I discovered that the only location that I had problems was in Shadowfang Keep, with it's tight twists and turns causing the camera to constantly zoom in and out.  Rift, LOTRO, and AoC didn't cause me any trouble at all, so I didn't expect anything different from TOR.

I couldn't see anything obvious in what the game was doing that would cause me issues, so I decided to simply call it a night and go and sleep it off.  The next morning, however, I didn't have any trouble with the game at all. I chalked it up to sinuses and kept playing without incident.

Still, if first person shooters give you problems, go slow on TOR before you're comfortable enough with pressing onward.

***

Another thing happened in those first five minutes in addition to the headache:  I was invited to join a group.

I'm used to the occasional random grouping request from other MMOs, but usually you get your feet wet before you group up with someone.  With TOR, however, the group requests came very frequently throughout my free period.  I really haven't played enough to get a good feel for the game community, but at first glance TOR seems to foster a community that works together, which is a bit different than that found in WoW or LOTRO.  AoC does encourage grouping because the quest lines have a sizable number of multi-group quests, but TOR appears to have this driven organically as opposed to being imposed artificially.

Now, the higher you level, that scenario might change, but this is based on the first 11-12 levels or so.

***

Like most MMOs, TOR has multi-player quests.*

What I found interesting was where those multi-player quests --called Heroic Quests-- lay in the spectrum on MMOs.

In one end you have the group quests in Age of Conan, which are impossible to solo at level.  In fact, the L20-ish group quests for AoC are only solo-able once you get into the upper L40s.  Yes, that's a 15-20 level difference, and believe me the difference is real.

Somewhere in the middle you'll find the leftover WoW group quests and the LOTRO group quests, where the group quest difficulty can vary from quest to quest.  Some of Icecrown's quests you can solo with raid gear at level, but others are too difficult to achieve otherwise.  As a rule of thumb, a L10 difference (at low level) or an L5 difference (at Wrath level and beyond) is sufficient for soloing.

TOR, on the other hand, had 2-player group quests in Ord Mandell that were doable only a level or two higher than the intended level, and if you take along a companion there's no trouble at all.  My suspicion is that this will scale in difficulty the higher up in level you go, but I didn't get far enough into the story to find out.

Nevertheless, to an experienced MMO player the 2-man group quests in TOR are doable at level with a companion.  Just make sure your companion stays upright, and don't merely try to out-DPS the enemy.

***

The toon creation options are much greater than that in WoW or LOTRO, but most of the toons I saw had a similar body build.

So what did I do?  Create Redbeard, of course.

I didn't go whole hog and make my Smuggler obese, but he is definitely on the chunky side.  He's also tall (like the Ghost of Redbeard from the Scooby-Doo episode, not me), and he's got that full red hair and a beard.  If I tried to do that in WoW, the best I could come up with would be a Dwarf; not exactly what I had in mind, you know.

Still, my Smuggler really did stand out from the crowd.

I didn't get the try the female creation tools, but I've seen articles by Spinks on them already, so they sound a bit like what you find in Age of Conan.  Not perfect, but better than WoW or LOTRO.

So, if in case you were wondering, I did try something different than the most common models out there.




*Yes, WoW still has some group quests around, mainly confined to the BC and Wrath zones.  In Icecrown, for example, you can't complete the Loremaster achievement there by soloing as an L80 with quest greens/blues; there are too many group quests standing in your way.  When I finished that achievement on Quintalan back in Wrath, he needed T9 gear and the Quel'Delar quest chain to solo some of those group quests.