Time for that Love Thang

Ah, February.

The time when a young man's fancy turns to college basketball.* Bitter rivalries in league games are played out throughout the month as teams jockey for position for the upcoming conference tournaments in early March.  The NCAA Tournament is on the horizon, and who gets in and who is left out becomes watercooler topic #1.

What, you were expecting something else?

Oh, THAT.  With three kids in the house, Valentine's Day does NOT mean love and kisses, it means cards. Lots and lots of Valentine's Day cards. And the "who is going with who" and "who sent who an anonymous Valentine's Day card" drama.  Certainly not romance.

If there's one event that seems out of touch with your standard MMO fare, it's the Valentine's Day events.

You could make arguments about the global appeal of festivals surrounding the Summer and Winter, Harvest and the New Year, and even the Spring and Brewing (another Harvest Festival, really), and I'd only point out the Western origins of most of them.  Still, most cultures do have festivals covering topics such as those listed above.** But Valentine's Day is so much a holiday rooted in Western Civilization that any reference to it in a Fantasy or Science Fiction MMO unintentionally breaks the fourth wall.

That's doesn't mean that it's not possible for another society to have a holiday based on love and courtship, but a lot of cultures do tend to combine Spring festivals with fertility rites.*** Festivals grounded in sexual desire and a big fat party (/cough Spring Break /cough) are distinctly different than the modern Valentine's Day, yet we see the latter in MMOs (Brewfest) as opposed to the former.

You won't be seeing this sort of art out of the official
Love is in the Air material,  but it makes
for inspired fan art.****   (From Wowhead.)

WoW's Love is in the Air event doesn't change much at all from year to year. Much like the modern Valentine's Day, you're sent scurrying around for cards and candy for different people.  There's also the everpresent questline to defeat the purveyors of the "love sickness". But that's pretty much it. Kind of cute, kind of harmless, and right in line with the expectations my kids had when passing Valentine's Day cards around at school.*****

And it is soon forgotten.

It's too bad, really, because WoW is so caught up with chasing the next expac that events like this are on autopilot. I'd argue that a Valentine's Day festival really doesn't fit in with what they're trying to do with WoW (as far as squeaky clean image goes), but if you're going to do it, make it different than something my kids do on February 14th. Make it an Azerothian event, something that you don't just put a thin veneer on and call it good enough.

Hallow's End, while keeping a lot of the modern trappings of Halloween, is Azeroth's. The Midsummer Fire Festival is Azeroth's. Love is in the Air, not so much.

Now that I think about it, a lot of what I think of the Valentine's Day problem is simply that Blizzard never bothers to show us the parts of Azeroth that festivals like Love is in the Air and Noblegarden are about: love, marriage, spring renewal. They just don't exist in Azeroth. Oh, they could, but they don't.  The middle school humor surrounding the occasional marriage/courting questline (the Troll one in Zangarmarsh, for example) deflects any reality behind the curtain. Aggra and Thrall's questline in Cataclysm (4.2) is distinctive because it shows Aggra's devotion to Thrall; it is the outlier in the World of Warcraft game.

Blizzard does get into love and marriage, but not in the game itself. You have to hunt down the novels and comics to find those topics, but they are distinctly separate from the actual game.

But it doesn't have to be.

Ironically enough, one MMO that integrates love/marriage into the game story is SWTOR. Bioware has had plenty of practice in integrating relationships into storylines, dating back to Baldur's Gate II, so it shouldn't be a surprise that they did it in their MMO. Even so, it's mostly an interaction with your companion(s) where the questlines come into play. Yes, you can flirt with NPCs --and that does have an impact on relationships with your companions-- but it's not at the same level as companion interaction.

Could Blizzard incorporate a SWTOR-esque interaction in WoW? Only surrounding a questline, such as the Goblin intro story, and even then their options are limited. And to be honest, I doubt they'd even try, since they've already got a formula (raiding and PvP) that makes them money.

Therefore, if love/marriage/romance is going to be injected into a world such as Azeroth, it would have to be done by the players.

And now that I think about it, relying upon the players to fill that void is both blessing and curse. While you may have true RP interactions like that found between Vidyala and Vosskah, you also get... Goldshire.

In the end, I guess the best thing to do in this situation is to just carry on as you were, with the MMO version Valentine's Day festivities pretty much optional.





*"And woman's!" my wife called from the other room.  She grew up in Louisville, and the UofL Cardinals ("GO CARDS!") are in her blood.  As is horse racing, but that's another post.

**Brewfest is kind of the outlier here, but if you acknowledge it is more a harvest festival than anything else, then yeah, it fits.

***But not found in MMOs such as WoW very much, since they avoid the topics of sex and fertility like it was some plague, going with the squeaky clean version of Noblegarden and Love is in the Air instead.

****As someone who can sew, I'd like to point out that the open heart makes for a problem with the rest of the front of that outfit. The top would need stiffer support material built in or the heart covered in mesh to support the top edge properly. What? Never heard of a guy who can sew?

*****I'd even argue that the "love sickness" questline could have originated in discussion among boys about "girl cooties", but there's no proof of that. ;-)


EtA: Updated the pic from a link, as that pic may disappear.

Keeping your Internal Clock Going

If you put your effort and concentration into playing to your potential, to be the best that you can be, I don't care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game, in my book we're gonna be winners.

--Coach Norman Dale (Gene Hackman), Hoosiers

Before Christmas, I spent one evening watching my youngest in her elementary school's Winter music program.  Being in 5th Grade, she was allowed to take lessons in a band instrument (woodwind, brass, or percussion) at the school, so she leapt at the chance to learn the snare drum.* That particular evening, she stood in the back as the school band's lone percussionist, keeping a steady beat for the rest.

Late in the show, just as the band was to start another piece, her music stand tilted and her sheet music went splat on the floor.  Her music teacher, her back to us, looked over at her.  I could tell by the teacher's body language that she asked a question: do you want to go get your music?  My youngest, her face dead serious, shook her head once.  I recognized that face from having played against her in chess: Don't worry, I got this.

The teacher waved her arms, and the band began playing.  My youngest never missed a note and kept up with the rest of the band without a problem.

It was at that point, in a completely out of the blue moment, that I realized part of the reason why she loves playing tanks.

She has the internal clock that all tanks need.

A tank has to have an internal clock that allows them to know when certain things are coming.  Sure, add-ons are nice, but the reality is that a tank is watching a lot more than just what the timers are.  And if you play an MMO that doesn't allow add-ons, then you absolutely have to have a great sense of time.  

When I play an MMO and things seem to be going south during a fight, time for me seems to slow down. Those procs can't come fast enough, and I'm constantly spamming buttons until something happens.  But someone with a good internal clock allows the fight to operate at its own speed; in sports terms it is called "letting the game come to you". Don't press. You can be quick, but not too fast. And if that sounds weird as hell, remember that there is a difference.

Have you ever had nights where you seem to be CC-ing everything in sight, your procs are coming at just the right time, and you've got this rhythm going?  But on another night that you seem to be just off, no matter how hard you're trying, and you just can't get into that groove? That's when you're pressing. You need to back off, relax, and let your internal clock take over.

And if you can do that, you don't need add-ons. Or sheet music.

*One of her goals is to play "Seven Nation Army" by The White Stripes, because "the drummer for the band is a girl." She also loves the music, which never hurts.

General Winter has been invading my MMOs

"Nothing but snow for kilometers either way, and I already can’t feel my toes. Whose idea was it to come here again?"  --Andronikos Revel, upon reaching Hoth



On a day like today, where we got about 6 in/15 cm of snow and the winds are gusting over 30 mph/50 kph, it certainly does feel like Hoth outside.*  You shovel the driveway, and less than three hours later the winds have covered the concrete again in the powdery white stuff.

In that respect, the artists' job of rendering Hoth was spot on.  The equipment is usually kinked to one side courtesy of the winds, and the "roads" are barely there at all.  Hoth has that beaten down, worn out look to it.

Compare Hoth to Ilum, and Ilum has the brilliant stars in the sky as well as a dearth of story incorporating the icy surroundings.  Ilum is beautiful, not beaten down.

Turning to WoW, there's Winterspring.  It's more an idyllic winter scene --complete with monsters, naturally-- but the hot springs and the snow formations make for an inviting journey in the snow.  Hitch up the team to the cart and head on to Everlook, but just keep an eye out for the wolvar.

Storm Peaks is akin to Ilum, starkly beautiful, while Icecrown Glacier suffers under the yoke of the Lich King.  Nowhere else is Arthas so reflected in the scenery than in Icecrown.

The Cimmerian winter areas of Age of Conan, such as Conall's Valley and Eiglophian Mountains, skew toward the Winterspring end in terms of scenery, but the weather is second banana to the foes found there, such as the Vanir and Ymir.  The AoC regions don't have the omnipresent nature of a Lich King, but the sheer volume of enemy encampments dominate the landscape.

But only in Hoth do you see winter rein supreme as the central figure in the zone.





*I can hear the laughter from my Canadian friends all the way down here.

Hey, You Got a PROBLEM wit' Dat?

With all of the snow and colder weather than usual, you'd think that I'd be able to play MMOs a bit more. Well, that's what I thought, anyway, but I was wrong.

Seems that I've spent even more time than in the Fall being the family taxi, which boils down to schlepping kids to and from activities/friends' houses, etc.  And when the day is over, I swear that their clothes must breed in the laundry bin like some bizarre ooze or something.*

And naturally the SWTOR Rakghoul event is starting just as my workload is going up, too.

***

For the first time in a long time, I've begun hanging around an area to protect my faction.

As I'd mentioned in the last post, I've begun hanging around Hellfire Peninsula to protect the Alliance from Horde PvPers.  While I'm technically on a PvE server, the wave of PvP gankers has been on the rise the past few months.  I figured that since I'm not doing much, just waiting around between BGs, the least I could do was flip the PvP switch and protect some fellow Alliance members.

And that first week, I'm glad I did.

Somehow, somewhere, the CRZ for Hellfire Peninsula now includes Area 52.

You know, the large server where Neve and Q can be found.  And the Horde:Alliance ratio is something like 10:1.

So.  That means there's a swarm of A-52 Hordies all over Hellfire, basically raising some hell for the Alliance toons there.  In my informal scans of the area, the Horde outnumbers the Alliance between 2:1 and 3:1. While some Horde toons play nice, others, well, don't.  I've seen L90 toons gank L60 toons, Tarren Mill style, and I've seen Ganklethorn Vale behavior of an L90 toon trailing along at a distance from an L60 toon, just waiting to step in when an Alliance L60 toon swoops in for some PvP action.

I don't go for ganking the low level toons, but I do believe in fairness. And if I see you picking on my faction, I'm going to retaliate. Want to slaughter NPCs at Expedition Point? Fine, Reaver's Fall doesn't need that many questgivers. Trying to torment that L61 Mage working on quests around the Path of Glory? A few judicious sappings will convince you otherwise.  Ganking that L60 DK trying to take the Stadium with your L90 Warlock?  You might want to look behind you, someone just might be there.





*Whenever I venture into the laundry room, I keep expecting to hear Brann Bronzebeard yell "Incoming!!" like he does in the last boss of Halls of Stone.

Miscellaneous Thoughts on the New Year

One thing I dislike about getting back to work after a vacation is that the sheer volume of work awaiting you can be overwhelming.  And, like the polar vortex that brought Canadian weather to the Midwest*, my workload blew me over for several days.

I did, however, get a little bit of gaming in that didn't involve losing at Mario Kart or bricking 3-point shots in Wii Sports Resort.**

I spent one evening as Azshandra, loitering around Hellfire Peninsula to keep the Horde gankers away from the L60 toons.  I'd finished a game of Eye of the Storm and gotten up to get something to drink, and came back to find a Hunter assaulting Honor Hold.  A DK was keeping the Hunter busy, but the Hunter was skilled enough to keep the DK at arm's length.  I jumped into the fray, forcing the Hunter to retreat by air. Meanwhile, a Lock was bothering people at the Stadium, so a Worgen Hunter and I went over there and dealt with that threat.

"The guy isn't very skilled at PvP," I said in Gen Chat after we dispatched him.  "I've seen a single Demo Lock hold off 3-4 people in BGs."

"Yeah," the Worgen replied. "I don't think he feared us once."

"Well, maybe this will attract that Troll Hunter.  I want another crack at him."

"Pains me to say it," the DK added, "but I couldn't DPS him down."

I scouted around, including a foray into Thrallmar, but that Troll Hunter never came back.  (Good riddance.)

But still, I never used to have to worry about this sort of thing very much in a PvE game.  Occasionally there would be some asshat who would slice through a town and kill all the NPCs, but when the auto-leveling of guards to L90 was put in place in the Old World, that sort of thing disappeared.***  I guess it's migrated to Outland, where the lure of ganking new DKs is a powerful attraction.

***

In non-WoW news, I finally finished Makeb, just about catching me up to the current story.  Ironically enough, my Sith Sorcerer is the toon who made it to L55 (and the end of Makeb) first.  In some respects, the Sorcerer (with Lightning Spec) reminds me of my Rogue.  Oh, not with stealth, I'd have had to spec myself differently for that, but with the issues of constantly finding myself undergeared for fights toward the end of a questline.

When I had issues with the elites in the final questline for Makeb, I had to abandon the quest for a while and go run some flashpoints to gear myself up properly.  Then I was able to make some inroads on that last quest, until I met the final boss.

I suspect that a Sorcerer with the right companion would be able to solo the Hutt Boss, but I had Andronikos with me.  I didn't want to waste time gearing up a separate companion for this boss, so I ended up teaming up with a Sith Assassin and working through the boss that way.  Even though I'm specced Lightning (read:  glass cannon), I ended up spending a lot of my time during the fight healing.  The assassin dropped about 2/3 of the way through the fight, but I was able to battle rez him and heal him back up before we wiped.

That last boss fight on Makeb saw me do more healing than I've done in a long while.  I think I have to go back to some of the early instances that I ran with Tomakan as a Holy Spec Pally to match the amount of healing that I did.  Of course, that wasn't a good situation to be in given that I was specced DPS, so I guess you'd have to go back to Wrath-era WoW when I was still playing Quintalan (Ret Spec) to something that was an equivalent.

Still, courtesy of gear repair and a bit of luck, I survived another day.

Oh, and apparently my Sorcerer is married to Andronikos now.  Not sure what the other members of the Dark Council will say about that, but for now they're not saying much of anything.

***

I watched my oldest play LOTRO for a bit the other day and I got the urge to login to my old L16 toon there.  The only thing that's keeping me from doing it is the LOTRO interface.  I have issues reading the interface --and the map in particular-- and I don't want to end up with a headache over something pretty basic.

This is the one place where WoW and SWTOR have an advantage over LOTRO:  the ability to tweak the interface in a meaningful fashion and improve legibility.  WoW allows add-ons which completely revamp the entire interface, and SWTOR's interface adjustments do exactly what I want to improve legibility without sacrificing screen space.  Oh, and the coloring in WoW and SWTOR are much easier on my mumblety-mumble aged eyes.  I may not have color blindness, but I can only imagine the UI coloring in LOTRO playing hell with people who do.

Still, the LOTRO UI interface is better than that in Age of Conan, which often leaves me frustrated when I try to tweak it.

EtA:  Before anyone asks, I know that you can mod the UI in LOTRO.  However, the mods I've found a) keep the same text font, which still isn't the easiest thing for me to read, and b) the map mods don't really replace the current map with quest info into something I can more easily read.




*I've got a new respect for my Canadian friends who deal with -10F/23C temperatures on a regular basis.  Of course, having a home that's insulated for that weather helps too, which the homes in the Ohio Valley sadly aren't. I wonder if Mike Holmes does housecalls.

**If there's one thing that Wii Sports Resort has right with their simulation, it's that I can't shoot worth a damn in basketball, whether it be real life or in the game.

***I once sat, stealthed, on the entrance to Nijel's Point in Desolace and watched an L50 Troll Hunter slowly work their way up the path.  (See a pattern here?)  Once they got close enough, the guards aggroed to L90 and carved him up like he was a rib roast.  I'll confess I did the "/point  /laugh" at him.

What a way to start the new year

I wasn't planning on making this my first post of the year, but I see being an ass in video gamer space is reaching the level of interfering with emergency calls:

Hackers Harass League of Legends Livestreamer with DDOS Attacks

Calling 911 on somebody?  Really?  Just how old are these people, 10?

Alterac Valley: The Spirit of Christmas, Scrooge Style

The Lock was not pleased.  "No, dammit, that's the old strat," he snapped.  "The new strat is to rush everyone to Drek, cap the two towers nearby, and then kill Drek."

"Somebody had told the Horde, then, because they're ahead of us in getting our first two towers down," I quipped.  "If we want to win, we have to take them back."

"Didn't you hear me?"  The Lock demanded as we finished recapping Stonehearth and Icewing Bunkers.  "Everybody get down to Drek now!"

"F--- him," a Druid in the backcap team said aloud.  "We've got to get DB North and South back."

We recapped the two Dun Baldur bunkers --as well as the Aid Station-- and then everybody began the trek south.  Meanwhile, the 25+ people surrounding Drek began their attack, but kept wiping.

"What gives?" someone asked in BG chat.  "You have 8 healers there."

"We ALSO have 7 Horde in the base, asshole," the Lock replied.  "We need EVERYONE down here!"

Another half dozen or so of people abandoned their watch on Stonehearth and Icewing and ran south, just in time for the Horde to begin to cap those two bunkers.

I watched from my position at DB North as a dozen Horde pushed their way up north and began crossing the bridge.  There were only a few of us left to counter them, and not enough time to get to Stonehearth or Icewing before they were captured, ending the game on attrition.

The Lock kept up a running diatribe on how badly we sucked, and if we'd have just done what he wanted we'd have won anyway.  Regardless of whether he was right or not, changing the strategy by abandoning our position in the southern two bunkers meant that we absolutely HAD to burn down Drek within a few minutes or lose.

And given the title of this warm and fuzzy piece, you can probably guess the outcome.


EtA:  Somehow the first sentence got chopped off.