A Few Thoughts from a Brain in Need of Coffee

It's a Monday, and it shows.

While I'm waiting for the coffee to hit my system, I figured I'd capture a few more thoughts from MMO space.

White Outs Abound

I didn't notice this on Adelwulf, but when I switched to my Night Elf Rogue, I discovered that the WoW graphics have indeed taken a bit of a hit.  While she was in Dolanaar*, I kept thinking that I needed to get some eyedrops or something, because she --and much of the background-- seemed to be washed out.

Then I switched to Tomakan to go transfer some of my gold and got a big surprise when I saw the old Paladin in the Exodar.  Most of the bright graphical details were washed out in a haze of white.

I can make out enough to play, but considering that I didn't change any of my graphics settings I wasn't expecting this.  While I suppose I can tinker with increasing my graphics settings, if I do it too much I definitely won't be able to play the game due to the FPS hit.  I'm kind of hoping that this is a mistake and will get corrected, but I don't hold out much hope in that regard.

Putting on my Crash Helmet

While questing in Teldrassil and learning the ropes of being a Rogue (more on that later), I'd been killing whatever I came across.  That is, until a killing blow laid my installation low.

I'd been getting concerned about the stability of my installation since the patch, especially when I opened up my bags and perusing the gear inside I could see my toon's animation visibly slow down to a crawl.  I'd been disabling all the add-ons I have to see if that improved anything, but no dice.  But still, I wasn't expecting the installation to crash during combat.

I'm pretty sure that in all the time I've played WoW, I've had the game crash maybe one other time, and that I wrote off to issues surrounding the 3.5 patches + hotfixes.  However, given the graphics problems, the sound problem with the launch window, and some other issues, the pre-release Mists patch hasn't exactly given a boost to my confidence level.  I'd actually feel better if Blizzard were bombarding my installation with a stream of hotfixes, but that hasn't been the case.  Also, I really really don't want to have to reinstall the whole damn game, either, because that could take ages.

If this instability continues, I might end up playing other MMOs because they're not behaving badly.

"Stun stun stun stun... Vanish!"**

I've discovered that the easiest way to confound a Rogue is to randomly switch direction.

Seriously.

You know you're getting annoyed when you're talking back to the screen, saying "Stay still so I can backstab you, dammit!"

Ah, the life of a Rogue.

I thought about entering a BG right as I dinged L11, but then I came to my senses.  There'd be no way in hell that I'd be useful if I didn't have Sap, and I get that at L12.

The more I play a Rogue, the more respect I have for the physical skill of playing one.  It requires more of a safecracker's touch to orient yourself prior to attacking, whereas the other classes I've played are more of the point-and-shoot/swing/blast variety.  But I can see that the fewer CC required in a situation, the less of an advantage the Rogue has.  Steamrolling through instances would put the Rogue at a disadvantage, for instance, because by its very nature a steamroll would eschew any  CC or DoTs in favor of brute force.  Sure, a Rogue could switch to Combat spec for those scenarios, but a Rogue's strengths are in poisons and CC.

Still, the skills that weaken a Rogue in PvE allow it to excel in PvP.  And really, the Rogue is tailor made for BGs, so much so that I may end up revising my negative opinion of Warsong Gulch.

Deviation from the Norm

I've been working on some alts for TOR to see what the class quests are, and I've gotten four of them (Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor, Jedi Councillor, Jedi Knight) just to the point where they get their ship.  Having gone through most of the Smuggler's campagin arc, I figured I knew how things worked.  Perhaps it's the WoW-ness of MMOs, but I was thinking along the lines of:    Starting Zone -> Coruscant -> Taris -> Nar Shadda -> etc.

But imagine my surprise when I got the Jedi Knight to his ship, used the holocommunicator, and I was to head to... Ord Mandell.

Wait, what?  The Smuggler/Trooper starting zone?  Where did this come from?

I had to remind myself that I wasn't playing WoW, and that each class quest goes differently.

Oh, and the Sith starship?  That looks awesome.  The Jedi ship, much less so.  I still think that some Corellians took the Jedi Order for a ride when they sold them that starship design.  It takes some balls to be a starship salesman to the Jedi, but like car salesmen everywhere, they somehow managed to get the best end of the deal.

I still like the interior layout of the Smuggler's Freighter the best, however.




*Yes, a female NE Rogue.  I don't want to fall into the segregated trap of having my casters be female while the melee bunch be male, and I still prefer the female NE to the male by a long shot.  I'm sorry, but green hair and beard doesn't do it for me.

**From Wowcrendor's Youtube video, Class Stereotypes.


EtA:  'for', 'from'.  They both start with 'F', right?  Just like another 'F' word....

Some More Post-Patch Notes

In the Arms Race, My Demo is Now a Pinto

The post patch damage boost has hit Strand of the Ancients (and presumably Isle of Conquest) hard. When you couple a damage boost with the L78 Cata gear, those demos go down very very quickly.  Be prepared to overload demos even more than usual, especially at the L75-L79 range.

Additionally, it seems like Hunters hit for even more than before, but Rogues not quite as much.  It might be that for the Rogues I'm seeing the impact of Health inflation, but I haven't gotten into as many BGs as I'd like to be sure.

Oh, and beware of the "bargain" part of Dark Bargain.  I don't think you need me telling you how much fun it is having a Warlock "pop a bubble" and then afterwards getting laid low by the post-bubble damage.  However, Soul Link isn't as useful as before, because the damage flows both ways and the Warlock's pet has half the health when Soul Link is active.

I still haven't won a BG since the patch dropped.  I think that's partially due to people hashing out their new abilities, but I've also not been impressed by strategy in BGs this week either.  Considering I've been tweaking things too, I'm not really complaining.  Just noting.

Being a Bit Cheeky

The screen capture for WoW wasn't working as of this morning, so I wasn't able to capture the now "normal" view of a Warlock's Shivarra:

From Wikipedia.  Who knew?

As Adelwulf walked around Dalaran with his Shivarra pet, I felt like he was in an episode of Jersey Shore.  Going from the Succubus' 1970s KISS-esque outfit to the Shivarra's adolescent fantasy model makes me wonder who is giving approvals to some of the changes.  First, they come up with Pet Battles, which definitely appeal to the Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Goh set.  Then, they decide on the Shivarra as a replacement for the Succubus, which is like dropping a spark onto middle-school tinder.  (Think how middle school boys reacted to Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? back in 1988, and you get the idea.)  Even when compared to other RPG fantasy women, such as Seoni from Paizo's Pathfinder RPG, the Shivarra has less clothing on.

Seoni the Sorceress,
From Paizo.com

I'm not exactly sure how to take the Shivarra.  Her angry/slightly insane struggle against her bonds fits the "binding a demon against their will" portion of the Warlock, but I'm more than a bit uncomfortable about that view from the rear.  In an ironic twist, I'm okay with the Succubus/Incubus g-string wearing demon that the Demonologist in Age of Conan summons, because a) AoC has a mature rating, and b) there's no gender bias skewed in favor of a female demon.  (There's a hetero bias in AoC in that female Demonologists can only summon Incubi and males the Succubi, but that's a different issue.)  WoW, on the other hand, is really marketing itself to around the tween and up set, and that Shivarran backside raises sexuality images that WoW has been carefully neutering from it's PvE in-game content.  I'd probably not feel as uncomfortable about the Shivarra if it wasn't for the "Hey kids, WoW Pokemon!" that Blizzard is using as a big selling point in Mists.  "Come for Pokemon, stay for the ass" isn't probably the tagline Blizz wants right now.

I'd imagine that more that a few people are grumbling about "Goldshire!" right now, but my point is that we're talking PvE, not player created scenarios.  With humans involved you can't expect things to stay completely clean in an MMO, and lots of MMOs have an ERP subcommunity.  But prior to this, WoW has done a pretty decent job of trying to keep the topic of sexuality and relationships out of in-game PvE content; so much so, in fact, that WoW has been occasionally criticized for ignoring that area completely.  But somehow I think that Blizz didn't intend for sexuality to pop up in quite this fashion.

Why I Need to Consider an Upgrade, Part Whatever

Switching gears entirely, I have noticed a bit of a drag on in-game performance.  I don't have the graphics turned up all the way by any means, but I have noticed a bit of a drop in fps, around 5 or so.  I'm not sure how much of an impact there is if graphics is cranked up all the way, but I'd imagine that if your PC is on the older side you'll feel a bit of a slowdown.

Just Who is the Focus of the Game, Anyway?

In an MMO, you play the hero.  Sure, you could be a grunt or a noble or somewhere in between, but in the end it is the player that is the hero.  At the same time, Blizz concentrates a lot of its storytelling and lore on the faction leaders and their interactions.  Nothing could have emphasized this weird dichotomy more than on Tuesday when both the pre-release Mists patch dropped and the book Tides of War was released.  

Tides is pretty much standard Blizzard novel fare, which I once likened to reading a David Eddings novel.  All the major players are the Azeroth-erati, and the story revolves completely around them and their impact on the world.  It works well enough, I suppose, except that it doesn't mesh with WoW itself.

WoW is the story of us, as a WoW Insider article by Matt Rossi so aptly put it.  We're not kings and queens, organizational leaders or extraterrestrial beings.  We're not dragons or powerful denizens of the forests.  We're people who rise to the occasion.  If nothing else, the game makes it perfectly clear that we are not the Azeroth-erati; we may get the occasional party thrown our way, but we are spectators when the Powerful arrive on scene.  Ironically enough, it is because the Azeroth-erati depend on the players to get things done in-game that I get this weird feeling every time I flip through a WoW novel.  The cast is so insular, I can't help but feel like a voyeur, but at the same time I wonder where the hell we are in the novels.



EtA:  the pathfinder.wikia.com link was no longer active, so I replaced it with one from Paizo itself.

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.