On Mists and 'The Smart Kids'

Anne Stickney stirred up a bit of a hornets nest with her post on WoW Insider The Smart Kids -- Or Why Cataclysm Failed to Impress.  Her points about the complaints with Cataclysm --that it was not what we thought we wanted-- struck a bit of a nerve with people.

I can't say I disagree with her assessment that people thought they wanted one thing, such as a revamped Old World, and it turned out that they really wanted was something new and innovative.  However, her assertions that Mists has what will cure the complainers' ills has me raising an eyebrow in skepticism.

One thing that I have to point out is that the beta people say the stuff about Mists that they were saying about Cata:  how great, new, and interesting it is.  Remember how people got excited about having to work in the new instances, and how they made you use CC, etc. etc?  Well, that excitement didn't last long in Cata, and I don't expect it to last long in Mists either.

Blizz doesn't want to sit on its laurels, because pleasing only the complainers is a reactionary thing.  They want to grow beyond 10 mil subs, but the problem is that gaining new subs is becoming more and more difficult.  To a new sub, Pandaria is all about the endgame, because they have to go from L1-L85 just to get to Pandaria.  Want to start as a new sub with a Pandaren?  It's going to cost you, because you have to buy the whole shebang.  (Yes, Blizz does specials, but if you don't know someone who plays, then Blizz' specials are an unknown item.)

If Blizz pleases only a portion of the playerbase --like they did in Cata-- they'll be hard pressed to stand still.  The race to L90 is already being plotted out, and the talent changes haven't exactly put the theorycrafters out of business, either.  Pet Battles will keep theorycrafters busy as well; anybody who watches games of MtG in action knows that Magic players (and their Pokemon kin) are out for blood.  Before I hear someone tell me that "Oh, but it's all about FUN!", I'll say this:  are you nuts?  Don't people remember the Beanie Baby craze, where collectors when absolutely bananas over those stuffed animals?  I've seen how obsessive collectors can be --just go to a flea market and watch the sideshow-- and Blizz could be unleashing something they did not intend by mixing theorycrafting with pet collecting.

What I'm saying is that Mists isn't going to be a panacea.  It's going to have good points and bad points, and there will be unintended consequences of actions.  Take LFR for instance.  LFR is going to have a much larger impact on Mists than it did on Cata, and its mere presence will cause people to burn through endgame content more quickly than ever before.  So, while there may be more endgame content at launch, Blizz may find people complaining that they're bored just as quickly as with Cata.

Blizz is also a business, so they're going to make some decisions on economics rather than pleasing the player base.  Just because WoW is raking in cash doesn't mean that Blizz is not under pressure from Activision to increase profits.  If there's one rule of today's Wall Street, it's what have you done for me lately.  "Oh, that's great, you brought in $XXX this year.  But that's the same as last year.  Where's the growth potential?  Why haven't you increased subscriptions?  What is your plan to expand into the high growth Asian market?  How are you keeping your costs down?"

When viewed through the lens of the 'smart kids', as Anne did, I really don't see any other MMO that would cause the 'smart kids' to leave and stick with, because the EQ/WoW/standard MMO model is still the dominant form out there.  Perhaps if they wanted a true challenge, there's EVE Online*, but really, it's easier to complain than to actually try something different.



*The Secret World holds some promise of breaking the traditional mold, but it's still too early to tell.

Where's my Peace and Quiet?

Anybody who has created a new toon in WoW the past several years knows that with a few exceptions, the starting zones have been empty of life.  Sure, there was the surge in Goblins and Worgen the first few months of Cataclysm, and there was the Death Knight invasion at the beginning of Wrath, but in general you simply don't see a lot of activity in the starting zones.*

The situation is so bad that Blizz is considering a specialized form of server merge to make the intro zones seem more active, on the premise that Blizz is losing potential new subs because "there's nobody on WoW".

The funny thing is, among the MMOs I've played, WoW is the deadest game at the low levels.

Sure, you could argue that the F2P nature of some games like Lord of the Rings Online and Age of Conan means that you'll see higher numbers of people trying those games out.  In the case of AoC, detractors will point out that the Tortage intro area is the best developed part of the game as well.  LOTRO has the benefit of name recognition among non-gamers, and has a more developed F2P area than AoC.

Then we come to a title like The Old Republic.

Sure, it's got that name recognition, but so did Star Trek Online.  It's also got its detractors, saying that the game is dead and a failure.

Then why are the intro and lowbie zones so busy?

When I tried TOR on one of the free weekends a month or two back, I found the intro zone for the Trooper and Smuggler filled with people (>100).  This was before any talk of server consolidation became a reality, and according to some statistical analyses contains the least played class (Smuggler) in the game.

After hemming and hawing about it,** I picked up the game last week, logged in to get access to the Smuggler I started, and found over 100 people in Coruscant alone.  Each planet I've been to since (Taris and Nar Shaddaa) has had a similar population level in the (late) evenings.  These aren't twinks, but people leveling actual toons.

When was the last time that you saw 100+ people in (Ashenvale + Northern Barrens) or (Loch Modan + Wetlands) that didn't involve a holiday event?  Outside of the first month after 4.0.1 dropped, I can't think of any the past 3-4 years.  Hell, the past month or two the population in Stormwind in an evenly divided server (Ysera) has been averaging 45-50 people a night.  That's right:  the big central home for an entire faction is averaging less population than a lowbie leveling zone in TOR.  Is it the end of an expac?  Sure!  But do you expect more than 50 people in your home city on an average night, even at this late date?  Yes!  And the week after D3 dropped, the population plunged to 20-25 people before recovering.

Getting back to the low level zones, perhaps the maturity of WoW hurts it the most in these areas, since the entire MMO is geared toward endgame.

Look at it this way:  how many recent posts geared toward Mists are talking about endgame already?  How many are saying "well, if your guild wants to raid you have to be at L90 by XXX date after launch, so you'd better get ready"?  How many are plotting out all the class changes for Mists, so you'll be ready to get to L90 and raid as soon as you can?

To me, this means that the focus of the two MMO populations is completely different.

Design intent or not, the TOR population's values are different than WoW's.  I could make a very successful argument that WoW's population is big enough that you can't make any generalizations, but at the same time the focus of WoW's expansions and content are mostly on the endgame.  When they did attempt to rework the Old World in Cata the results were incomplete at best, and Blizzard took a PR beating from people who complained there wasn't enough to do once they got to L85.

TOR suffers from the "there's nothing to do at L50!" stigma, so maybe the leveling activity is part of a desire of people to explore all of the Class stories.  I tend to doubt this, however, due to one other item:  Gen Chat itself.

Unlike the other MMOs I've played, I've noticed a lot more basic MMO questions in TOR's Gen Chat.  Yesterday, I fielded a question about using the word "drop" in MMO parlance, and I could tell by my conversation that the person on the other end was completely new to the game and MMOs in general.  People were less inclined in Gen Chat to say "L2P noob!" as well, in an almost LOTRO level of tolerance.  That doesn't mean that TOR is free of spammers in Gen Chat; on Taris there were enough Chuck Norris jokes I quipped that "Barrens Chat has been reborn in Taris."***

Does this mean that TOR is better than WoW?

No, it doesn't.  It just means that TOR is different than WoW.  Pronunciations by the suits and pundits aside, TOR caters to a different sort of player than WoW does.  Sure, the mechanics are similar, and most of the 'under the hood' character development is similar, but TOR seems to have taken over the mantle of "the first MMO you'll ever play" from WoW.****

Blizzard knows what it is good at --endgame and an expansive world that somehow works (if you ignore the story continuity issues)-- and if it sticks to that for Mists, it will do well.  If it tries to somehow 'outdo TOR' to lure those new MMO players over, it may be making a Cataclysm-sized mistake by trying to turn a game with a high intro cost into something it's not.  Mists is set to drop probably by October at the latest, and we'll see what Blizz has in mind with their marketing campaign.

Until then, I guess it's safe to say that if you want peace and quiet in your leveling, go hang out in Azeroth for a while.




*And lowbie zones.  Of course, when 4.0.1 dropped and all of the quests changed, the lowbie zones were a hive of activity for a month and a half until Cata dropped, then they almost instantly dried up.

**And running the numbers for the budget.

***I got several LOLs from Gen Chat on that quip, which made it worth my while.

****Although for my money, I'd suggest people try LOTRO first.  It's F2P, after all, so you're not out of money if you don't like the concept.

Talk to the Hand, Bub

I've been in plenty of BGs where someone --typically on the opposing team-- starts shouting something.  I watch and shake my head, wondering that they could possibly be going on in their BG chat that would make them yell like that.

Well, the other day I got to watch this in action.

I ported into Eye of the Storm on Adelwulf.  Not my favorite BG, but not the worst, either.  A lot of the game depends on how many stealthies the other side has, and whether people can adequately defend the stealth captures.*  I could see 3 or 4 stealthies on the Horde side, so I knew that I was in for a long game if my fellow Alliance players chose to leave me alone on a node.

At the start, a bunch of us went straight for the Draenei Ruins.  So did the Horde.  We found ourselves in a firefight, and in between dodging attacks by a Hunter, I kept fearing the Horde side's healers (Druid and Pally).  Luckily, we managed to hold onto DR and finished fending off the Horde when our Priest started bitching in BG chat.

"Way to keep me alive.  Jeez, learn to fucking fear next time."

I rolled my eyes, decided to not give that Priest a Soulstone next time, and scanned BET while I began drinking to bring up my depleted mana.**

"Call your damn pet, Lock.  How fucking stupid are you?"

Oh great, a real big asshole.  Just what I need.  Well, I still needed mana to summon my Felpuppy, and so I ignored the Priest.  It was only after I'd gotten done drinking and summoned my pet that he finally decided to heal me, kind of an insult-to-injury sort of behavior.

The Priest then kept riding everyone else the entire BG.  "What a fucking fail group," he declared at one point.  "You're all just a fucking bunch of losers."

Nevermind that we were actually winning at the time, and ended up winning the BG anyway.  Just before we were set to cap and finish off the win, the Priest abruptly changed his tune to a "Good job."

"Not too bad for a 'bunch of losers'," I quipped to those around me at the DR, which brought out several laughs.

I took some comfort in that I knew I wasn't going to see that Priest again in another BG, and requeued.

I got WSG, where Locks go to get eaten by Rogues.

And guess who was on our team?

I sighed and was about to take the Deserter debuff when I decided, Hell no, I'm just going to ignore him.  I've gone through worse in instances.

Thankfully, I wasn't the target of his egotistical ire.  At first it was the DK, who the Priest claimed "should never have been allowed to carry the flag at all; I've got more health than him!"  Then, when it became obvious that the DK actually knew what he was doing in spite of his not-so-great health, the Priest turned to the Horde side.

"COME AT ME, BRO!"
"COME AT ME, BRO!"
"COME AT ME, BRO!"

"I love yelling that to piss them off," he declared.

"COME AT ME, BRO!"
"COME AT ME, BRO!"

My lips trembled with suppressed mirth.  "Do you think he even realizes that the Horde can't read that?" I whispered the DK.

"Nope, and I'm not gonna tell him either," he replied.  "Just desserts, if you ask me."




*Okay, I'm shortening things up quite a bit here, because strategies change almost by the minute in EotS.  But in general, the fewer stealthies a side has, the more it has to rely upon brute force to capture an area, which depletes any push in the mid.

**I was short on health, and the Priest hadn't healed me yet, so I wasn't planning on using Life Tap.  You learn very quickly that if you make excessive use of Life Tap in a BG, that's an opening for a stealthie to come in and finish you off.

That Long Ride into the Sunset

I don't often do memes, but this one suggested by Cymre over at Blog Azeroth touched a nerve:

"If Blizzard added your main as an NPC in WoW, where would they be located and what would be their function? Give us a shot illustrating the fact."

Of course, my first thought was "which main?"  There's my old main, Quintalan, basking in retirement, and my current pair of mains, Tomakan (Alliance) and Nevelanthana (Horde), who will soon be retiring once Mists drops.  I haven't decided on a new main, but Adelwulf is probably in the mix.

Then I remembered how we used to handle our characters in the old AD&D games I played my first time around as an RPGer.  Once a character amassed enough wealth and/or power, we had the character merely 'retire' to live out the rest of life as the lord of some castle-or-other.  Essentially, our characters became NPCs in the game world.

So I was already doing to my WoW characters what I'd done all that time ago:  making them de facto NPCs.

Therefore, I'm going to take a look at each of my already retired or soon-to-be-retired mains and see what they'd be up to.

Quintalan, Blood Knight Loremaster

Mu'ru is gone, his spark used to re-ignite the Sunwell.

The Blood Knights loyal to Liadrin, Lor'themar, and Halduron Brightwing fought and defeated Kil'Jaeden as part of the Shattered Sun Offensive.  Many went on to lend support to the Argent Crusade in the struggle against Arthas.

Lady Liadrin now resides at the Sunwell, speaking to pilgrims from all over.

Therefore, it falls to the veterans of the Blood Knights, such as Quintalan, to indoctrinate the new initiates into the fold.

As the bearer of Quel'Delar, he roams Eversong Woods and the Ghostlands as a quest giver.  His quests concern the Blood Knight lore:  their creation, their fall, and their redemption.  (As a model, look at the Demon Hunter quest chain in Felwood, but spread out over a longer time.)

Initially, he is found alone, looking at the Shrine of Dath'remar on Sunstrider Isle.  

Does anybody ever read the plaque here?

Later, he wanders between Fairbreeze Village, Tranquillien in the Ghostlands, and the Farstrider enclaves in both Eversong and the Ghostlands.

Eversong is a beautiful and pleasant place.
Pay no attention to that Dead Scar over Q's left shoulder.

He gives Blood Knights quests at L20 and L40 on the history of the Order.  Upon completion of the L40 quest, the Blood Knight opens an additional quest in which Quintalan presents the Blood Knight to Lady Liadrin at a phased version of the Sunwell.  The Lady gives her approval to accept the Blood Knight as a squire of the Order, and sends the new squire on a quest chain for the purpose of atoning for the misdeeds of the fallen Blood Knights.  At the completion of the quest chain (and at >= L60), the Blood Knight receives a message to seek Quintalan out, and he initiates a special chain which takes the Blood Knight to the Sunwell for a presentation before A'dal and Liadrin.  The latter then gives the Blood Knight the Order's tabard, signalling acceptance as a full Blood Knight.

Nevelanthana, Arcane Tinkerer

Quintalan's sister was never the one for history.  She spends her days between the Isle of Quel'Danas and Dalaran, exploring the Arcane and stretching the boundaries of what it can do.  At her room in Dalaran, she is surrounded by her beloved books of Arcana and the mages whose order she longed to join as a youth.  The post-Kil'Jaeden Quel'Danas is a hive of activity and optimism as Sindorei and Queldorei work to rebuild  and cleanse the place of the demonic taint.  She refuses to get involved in factional politics, but Arcane arguments are a different matter.

On Quel'Danas, she is found among a group of Magisters and Arcanists, each arguing over who should gain possession of the recently cleared out Magister's Terrace.  (Her argument:  "I helped to exterminate the vermin in the place, so I should get a stake in administering it.")

When I get my rooms at Quel'Danas,
my books are coming with me!

In Dalaran, Neve begins a Mage quest chain that ends in the Mage learning how to port to both Quel'Danas and Wyrmrest Temple.  A final quest explores the possibility of a portal to Coldarra, yet in the end she concludes that "the ley lines surrounding the Nexus have yet to completely stabilize, rendering a portal unusable for the time being."

Come on, Celindra, it can't be THAT
difficult to get a portal open to the Sunwell!

Tomakan, the Voice of Reason

A Draenei who sincerely believes in the words "be kind to those less fortunate", Tomakan has seen everything the length and breadth of Azeroth.  To him, the greatest danger to the world doesn't reside in what's left of Twilight's Hammer, or even the Horde, but in one of Azeroth's most vexing races:  Gnomes.

The Hand of Argus is firmly convinced that somehow, somewhere, some pint sized engineer wannabee is going to be the person who accidentally opens a portal for the Burning Legion to enter the world.  And if he can help it, that fate is not going to happen on his watch.

Therefore, in a supreme act of sacrifice, he has taken up residence around the outskirts of Gnomeregan in a (mostly vain) attempt to guide the Gnomes' research away from anything resembling portals or dark knowledge.  He is a quest giver who has an Engineer make certain items to give to the Gnomish engineers nearby, giving the Trinket "Headslap of the Light" as a reward.*

And in Comic Sans, too!!

*That trinket's special ability is to stun an enemy by a slap to the head.

Allow Me to Introduce Myself, My Name is Mud

"...and remember, 'Mud' spelled backwards is 'Dumb'."
--Bugs Bunny


Leveling an Affliction Warlock via BGs has been --for the most part-- an exercise in patience.

You die a lot.  And I do mean a lot.

You also lose a lot.

Yes, I do realize that when you run as many BGs as I have, you are going to have your share of losses, but in the low level BGs especially, clothies are Rogue and Hunter chow.  When that happens in a 10/10 game such as Warsong Gulch, you're essentially giving the other team a few more players advantage.*

In the current environment of random BGs, unless you've managed to use cross realm grouping or you've got a bunch of guildies with alts at the right level, you're pretty much stuck with what you draw.  Most of the time you get players with different strategic and tactical ideas, and that can translate into shouts and recriminations on BG chat.

Sometimes, however, you get lucky.

I ported into Eye of the Storm in time to hear someone ask what the map was about.  "I haven't done this one before," the Warrior said.

Oh oh, I thought.

A DK and myself ran over the basics --capture your bases, try for a third and to control the middle to get the flag-- and I mentioned to call out incs.

"Incs?  Sorry, I don't know the lingo."

"Incoming."  Didn't this person know anything?  Well, I'd been there before, so I wasn't going to judge, but this certainly didn't look good.

"Okay."

The game started out... well... very badly.  We were quickly overwhelmed at the Draenei Ruins while most of the team went to the Mid.  Then, when everybody from the Mid came running to DR, the Horde swept into the Mage Tower.

We very quickly found ourselves down by 500 points before we stabilized things.

"Go to FR!  FR is empty!" another DK was yelling.  "We need bases to catch up!"

I found myself at DR at that point, so I could only watch at first while three people got ahead and managed to take the FR to gray.  The Horde then moved en masse from the Blood Elf Tower to FR.

"Let's go!" I yelled.  "BE is empty!"

Turned out that was a temporary situation, as a Horde Rogue and Shaman reached there just as I did.  I feared them as much as I could, but I got swept under by too many CCs from the Rogue.  Fortunately, 3 or 4 fellow Alliance had followed me over, and we were able to capture that base.

The situation remained fluid.  The Horde had built a lead with three bases and capturing the Mid, but they abandoned that to try to farm kills over on our side of the field and capture both MT and DR.  The Horde got DR and the FR briefly flickered back to Horde Red.

"Let's go get MT!" the newbie Warrior yelled.

"We've got MT," I corrected.  "We need DR back."

"Sorry, this is still new to me."

It was then that a Rogue piped up. "This BG has been around since patch 2.1.  How can you not know about this BG?"

We still had a chance at this game, but if we were going to dissolve into BG drama, it was going to slip away.  "Look," I said, "the dude is probably new."

"I'm not a dude," the warrior replied, "and I am new."

I looked at the Warrior's masculine name, and decided to let it go.  I thought about mentioning the number one rule of MMOs**, but I decided it wasn't even worth it.

We weren't able to retake DR, but suddenly FR flickered to gray and then to Alliance Blue.  We had a 3:1 edge for the first time, and we also had the flag.

But the Horde also had less than three minutes remaining, and we were down by 300 points.

"We're not out of it yet," I called out from MT as we captured the flag.  "If we capture the flag a couple more times, we may pull this off."

Our Shaman picked up the flag again and took off toward MT, with two Horde hot on her heels.  I mounted and intercepted them all, using Howl of Terror to scatter them as she slipped free to capture the flag.  The rest of the crew at MT swept onto the two Horde as I climbed back to MT and cast my DoTs from there.

Down by 100 points, and we were closing fast with a minute and a half left.

Then FR flickered into gray.

"Crap!  FR!"  The newbie warrior led the charge to dislodge the Horde from FR as our Feral Druid picked up the flag and raced toward the same area.

40 seconds.

"Don't cap until we get FR back!" I yelled.

30 seconds.  20.

I could only watch from Mage Tower as the drama unfolded.  "Come on," I muttered.  "Come on...."

15.

10.

FR turned blue, and the Feral Druid captured the flag.

Cheers erupted on our side.

"We did it!"

"Wooo!!!"

I whispered to the newbie Warrior that she did a good job, but she'd already ported out.  Well, if a certain newbie Warrior happens to come across this post, I'll raise a pint to you.  You acquitted yourself well, and didn't rise up and take the flamebait, either.

I'm also not too proud to admit that my initial impression of that team proved to be wrong.  After all, I've never been happier to be called 'mud'.




*Unless they have Locks that can be Rogue chow too, and your side has Rogues who aren't afraid to take advantage of that.

**Nobody knows your gender unless you volunteer it, and sometimes, not even then.

Fear and Loathing in Hellfire

Well, the WoW-verse seems to have righted itself once more, as crowds in Org and Stormwind are back to pre-D3 release levels (roughly 50 or so on an average night in an evenly split server).  I suppose you could post a list on a wall and throw darts at which is the best explanation why the crowd is back and you'd have as good a guess as any pundit, but it wouldn't shock me if some folks burned through D3 and are simply back to their normal routine.

I've been avoiding roving bands of Rated BGers and have been back to leveling my Affliction Warlock, Adelwulf (thanks for the kick in the pants, Cynwise!), and as soon as I hit L60 I noticed a change in the ol' Furball.  There weren't any new spells to be learned, but suddenly attacks started having a bit more punch.  At first I thought it was due to the buying spree on heirlooms that I went on*, but when I swapped them out for Outland Clown Gear (tm) I discovered there wasn't much of a dropoff at all.

I guess the tuning for Locks has finally begun to kick in.

In a moment of weakness, I decided to queue up for a random Outland instance so I could spend the intervening time farming herbs and leveling Alchemy.  That kind of backfired, because I found myself in Hellfire Ramparts before I could make even one circuit of Hellfire Peninsula.**

One thing about a Lock --especially an Affliction Warlock-- is that you're used to bringing up the rear in the damage meters in a regular 5-man instance.  By the time those DoTs kick into gear, the mob is gone.  The bosses will at least stick around long enough for a Lock to update their DoTs a few times, but that's not a recipe for high overall DPS.  However, this time I was able to pull off damage that left me somewhere in the middle of the pack.

Not too bad.

Having run BGs almost exclusively as a Warlock, I had to consciously choose not to do some things while in an instance.  For example, during the pulls up to Watchkeeper Gargolmar, a second mob swept down on our Shammy.  I was closest to her, but my instinctual reaction --Howl of Terror-- would have been disastrous.  There were simply too many other mobs (plus Gargolmar) nearby to risk using it.  Instead, I spammed Hellfire to draw aggro then kite the mob back to the tank.

This, I grumbled, will have to take some getting used to.

Another strange thing about this Ramparts run was the complete and utter absence of DKs in the group: a Prot Warrior, a Ret Pally, a Resto Shaman, and a Fire Mage were my compatriots.  The cluelessness you get from DKs in these Outland instances was still present, however, in the form of the Ret Pally.  Almost immediately after he'd complimented the Shammy on the good job she'd been doing, he rolled Need on a healer neck drop, and beat out the Shammy in the ensuing roll.

"That's a healer item," the Shammy pointed out.

The Ret Pally was nonplussed.  "Yeah," he agreed.

"It's MS before OS, or so I thought."

"That's why there's Dual Talent Specialization."

My brain melted into a gibbering pile of goo.  Of all the... I began to type, but then bit it back.  "I'm embarrassed that my main shares a spec with that guy," I whispered the Shammy, who whispered a smile back.

There's just something in the water about the Hellfire Citadel instances that causes people to act like jerks.





*All of my cloth Heirlooms are back in Neve's bank on A-52, and I wasn't planning on spending money to move them.  Besides, I had all this Honor that I was racking up and had to blow it on something.


**But it does make for a PUG story, something I've not had in months.

NBI Ending

Although the month of May has come to a close, the fruits of the NBI Initiative will continue to ripen over the years.

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