Dear Blizzard....

...your tuning needs work.

When, as an L78 Affliction Warlock, I can drop into Malykriss over in Icecrown and clear out all the L80 normals without breaking a sweat, you've got some overpowered damage issues.  And yes, I do have some heirlooms on, but I also have a lot of L70 PvP gear on.

However, I will give you props for the delightfully insane sounds of the Shivarra.  I keep looking over at her, expecting tentacles or something.

Another Shared Experience

I showed the Mists trailer to my three kids the other day.  It's become a tradition when a new trailer for WoW or another MMO we play appears; we take the time to check out what's coming.  Besides, between the TOR trailers and the Mists trailer, the production values are really incredible.  I'd like to see a full length feature with these production values.

"Oh, we've seen this," was their first reaction when the "Blizzard" logo scrawled over the screen.

I shushed them.  "No, this is the intro.  It just got released."

They watched the initial scene quietly.  Then, as soon as the Pandaren emerged, it began.

"OMG!  It's just like Kung Fu Panda!"

"Did you see that move?  It was just like Po!"

"That scene looks like right out of Kung Fu Panda!  See the flowers blowing by his face?  Just like when Master Oogway died."

I kept quiet, although their enthusiasm was catching.  I've discovered that seeing things through their eyes gives me a better perspective, and perhaps I've needed it after my skepticism on Mists.  And then it was over.

"Um...  Is that it?  I thought there'd be more."


"But where's the dragon?" my youngest wanted to know.  "I liked the dragon."

"You mean Deathwing?" I asked.  "He was the final boss in the current expansion."

"Oh."

"Did you buy it yet?"

I raised an eyebrow at my oldest.  "What, Mists of Pandaria?  It's not out yet.  Why?"

"I don't know.  It wasn't what I was expecting."

"What did you expect?"  Considering how excited they sounded about the Pandaren, I was a bit surprised.

"Well, I mean, this was cool and all, but it was like Kung Fu Panda, you know?  It wasn't WoW."

"Yeah," replied my son.  "It wasn't the same as the other trailers."

"WoW lore does have Pandaren in it, so there is a history there."

"No," my oldest said, "You know what I mean.  WoW has more to it than that."

"I guess we'll see when it's released at the end of September."

"Are you going to buy it then?"

"No, I won't need to.  I'm going to start a Rogue and level that one up as a new main.  It'll be a while before I need to buy the new expansion."

"Good.  Maybe they'll fix it by then."

I was trying to digest that little tidbit when my announcement caught up with the kids.

"You're retiring Quintalan?"

I nodded.  "He's retired and gone fishing."

"What about Adelwulf?"

"He'll be out fishing too."

"And Neve?  Tomakan?"

"The same."

My youngest smirked.  "That's going to be a big boat."

In Memoriam

The first man to set foot on the moon, Neil Armstrong, passed away today.  He, and the other astronauts of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, were an inspiration to thousands of scientists and engineers.

After he retired as an astronaut, Neil eschewed other offers and accepted a position at the University of Cincinnati, where he taught engineering.  He was a private person, and the small suburb of Cincinnati where he lived his final years respected that.

Godspeed, Professor Armstrong.

Neil with the X-15 Rocket Plane.
(Pic from Wikipedia.)

Official Photo for the Apollo 11 Mission.
(Pic from Wikipedia.)

Speaking of Tentacled Old Gods...

...and now for something completely different.

Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime joined Bill Prady (co-creator of The Big Bang Theory), Felicia Day (The Guild and Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog), and Wil Wheaton in playing a game of Elder Sign.

Elder Sign is a card game by Fantasy Flight Games based on H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.  The game is part of Tabletop, the real play series that's part of Felicia Day's Geek and Sundry web channel.  Sure, it's not an MMO, but it's got Blizzard's CEO involved.  It's a tenuous connection, but I'm running with it.

I'm Not as Young as I Used to Be

The family and I (and a friend and another relative) were up at Gen Con today for their Family Fun Sunday.

Five years ago --hell, try two years ago-- I'd have not blinked an eye about a 1.5 hour (each way) day trip and then walking around a humongous vendor/demo area for several hours, playing games and soaking in the atmosphere.  I could have gone back for more without hesitation, or sat up and talked about the experience for hours into the night.

But now, all I want to do is take a nap.

I suppose it's only natural that as time marches on, people change.  When Soul and I started this blog back in 2009, I knew very little about MMOs and WoW in particular, other than the standard jokes about "Warcrack" and "people who make RPGers look like they have a life".  But throughout the life of this blog, I've learned a lot about MMOs, and more importantly I've learned more of what I don't know.

It's very easy to sit back and start grumping like an Old Man hanging around the Dal fountain, but without purpose all it does is seem like whining.

I realize I've sounded a bit like a Negative Nancy the past few months about things, but a lot of that is driven by my need to look at things with a critical eye.  When people zig, I zag.  I am the "yes, but..." hovering around the edges of the MMO blogosphere, fully realizing that I can't buy into the hype and remain honest.

"Mists is gonna be the best thing evah!"

"Yes, but...."

"TOR is gonna be so awesome that it'll have sprinkles on it!"

"Yes, but...."

"TOR sucks major donkey dongs!  It's an unrelenting piece of trash!"

"Yes, but...."

"EVE is full of people who think that Lord of the Flies is a good learning experience!"

"Yes, but...."

"GW2 is chock full of awesomesauce!"

"Yes, but...."

Things are never cut and dried, black and white.  People who tell you otherwise are missing the point.*  Every game has pros and cons.  Some people like games that others detest; is one right and the other wrong?  No, both are right, because opinions about games are just that, opinions.  A post about what I think about a game is subjective while a post about something independently verifiable, like mechanics, can be objective.

Most of what I write is subjective, because I think it important to explore that hazy grey area between what the game provides and what I believe.  

For example, I've not been shy in my opinion that I dislike Warsong Gulch.  I've spent way too many hours being farmed by Rogues and one-shotted by Hunters on Adelwulf to have a high opinion of that BG.  It's a game where one person going AFK or getting DC-ed can be all the difference in a win or loss.  However, I do know of other people who absolutely adore that BG, and consider it WoW's crowning achievement in the development of the PvP battleground.

Who's right?  Everbody, because these are just opinions about the BG, not independently verifiable data.

However, what is really important about opinions is how well they're defended.  Any ol' Blood Elf can pipe up an opinion, but there's an eternity's difference between "It sucks!" and "It sucks because..."  Does the "because" portion of the opinion make sense?  Does it hold logical water?  Can you appreciate the position in spite of disagreeing with it?  This is what sets the intelligent "Yes, but...." apart from other net pontifications.**

What I'm hoping for is to provide a reader with some actual understanding of my position on whatever it is I post about.  I realize all too well that I can be obnoxious and stubborn when I want to be, and I have to constantly fight that tendency when I write.  Others have put the bar so high that it'll take me years to even approach it.  Still, this is a journey, and I'm in this for the long haul.

And my highly biased, totally undefended opinion about Gen Con?  It rocks.  Seriously rocks.

There were a few Old Republic fans present... ***

And I finally found one WoW cosplayer!  There's Vanessa VanCleef at 6:20 in the video clip.

*Or they are NPCs populating an MMO.

**If you want examples of really well thought out and defended opinions and speculations, go see Rades' Orcish Army Knife and Cynwise's Warcraft Manual.  Just be prepared to read; both can be very thorough in their arguments.

***From Nerd Approved's Flickr account.  Unfortunately, I couldn't decide just how many Blood Elves were actually cosplaying Link and his girlfriend.  There were plenty of folks in attendance wearing WoW themed t-shirts, however.


EtA:  Added a reference to the source of the pic.

EtA: Cleaned up some English.  Oy, my old English teachers would kill me....

EtA: Added a video clip for a WoW cosplayer.

Return to Yesteryear

Well, that's the reaction I got from the new WoW cinematic.

Ever seen the Warcraft III cinematic, where the Orc and Human are fighting in a field and an Infernal attacks (and kills) them both?

Well, you can see the similarities with the new Mists cinematic.  An Orc and Human are fighting after a shipwreck (the background is one part Robinson Crusoe and one part Treasure Island), and their battle is interrupted by a Pandaren.

There's more humor (and wuxia tropes) in the latter, but the former is more focused.  You know what you're going to be doing in Warcraft III, but Mists presents a bit more sandbox scenario, ala Vanilla WoW.  Sure, there's the voiceover talking about family and balance, but the imagery presents a different picture.

The selling points that the Mists trailer is presenting to the world?  Martial Arts.  A new continent to explore.  Humor.  Pandaren.

In short, an open book.

Given the direction that Blizzard has moved WoW ever since its inception, this trailer presents a different challenge.  I think this will resonate with people who like to explore a new culture and most especially it will resonate with people who quest and craft.  Whether altoholics can handle leveling in Pandaria multiple times remains to be seen; there's some early indication that the quest chains aren't so rigid as they were in Cata, which bodes well for leveling alts, but whether someone will care to repeat the same story multiple times is the big question.

The raiders, however, aren't necessarily going to be entranced by the trailer; the lack of an endgame pointer in the trailer suggests that Mists might actually be a transitional or bridge expac.

Blizz may have put out Mists to set up the next expac in much the same way that the second book in a trilogy sets up the last book.  Unlike Cata, where Blizz tried to pack both the second book (revamping the Old World) and the finale (the Deathwing/Twilight's Hammer story) in one expac, perhaps Mists lays the groundwork for the next expac.  Sure there will be raids, and we know that Garrosh bites it, but that's all done to set up the Big Finale two to three years later.  Garrosh as the End Boss in Mists isn't all that exciting; he's an asshat who --combined with Varian-- has kept Azeroth in an almost constant state of war since the middle of Wrath, but Garrosh as the Big Bad has the same sort of ring to it that Cho'gall had.

The trailer confirms my belief that Blizz is taking a big risk with Mists.  They're banking on the appeal of Pandaria to sustain WoW for a while, but going off of their traditional expac/raiding script might be off putting to some of the player base.  Right now, it's too early to tell.

Well, except for the humor.  They'll always have that.

Security Breach at Blizzard

Okay, I'm putting on my security hat and telling people to go to battle.net and change their passwords.

Why?

Blizz announced (in a roundabout way, via a blog post by the Blizzard President Mike Morhaime) that they've been the victim of a security intrusion.  Hackers apparently made off with passwords and some info regarding the authenticator programs, and there's the potential that your battle.net account has been compromised.

While the passwords are bad enough, it's the authenticator program breach that is the real problem.  Without two factor authentication to rely upon, your account is vulnerable.  If you use authenticator software to get your ID token, make sure it's updated to the current version.  No word yet on those people who have ID Badges (like the ones that RSA sends out), but if the breach included the algorithms necessary to generate the tokens, I presume that those will have to eventually need to be replaced.  However, at the moment Blizzard is only saying to make sure the authenticator software you use is up to date.

Here's the link to the WoW Insider entry on the issue:  Blizzard security breach, no evidence that financial data was compromised

On the bright side, Blizz is saying that they make sure the passwords are properly encrypted, which does make me feel better.  That gives people time to get their passwords changed before the old ones are cracked.