What are we supposed to use? Harsh language?!?

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I was a bit distracted by Transmogrification but something else radical happened in WoW last week. Threat was essentially singled out at a bad mechanic and buffed to the point of being inconsequential. Of course, as with all things WoW, some people loved it, some people didn’t care, and some people cancelled their subscriptions immediately. *queue nerd rage*

I reposted the threat changes on my guild forums and it was met with happiness and ambivalence. No one was opposed to the change. In fact a few people responded with, well this will make randoms so much easier.

Of course, I try not to comment on things I haven’t done. The only comment I made on this was “Cata raiding, meet Wrath Tanking” because that is what it sounded like to me.

So this weekend, I decided to try out a bit of this change.

On my DK, I tanked quite a bit in Wrath. I ran a random every day on her, and used her to help guildies farm up ToC and FoS/PoS/HoR gear. I could easily go into a HHoR and tank the instance with my ICC geared buddies, who would nuke away to their heart’s content. Only occasionally did I have to use my taunt, and only occasionally did I have to use things like blood boil as a reaction. All in all, it was pretty easy. I didn’t mind doing it. There was still some skill, tabbing around, keeping my dots up, cooldowns, and the occasional army, but tanking wasn’t so difficult I was unwilling to do it.

When Cata hit and I decided to level my dk, I, of course, thought, “Oh! I’ll just queue for randoms! Insta queues, plus I am helping others get dungeon runs, it’s a win win!” I had this feeling for all of about 60 seconds and then the ugly truth raised it’s head. I was level 80, in level 80 gear. Not terrible for BRC and ToT, but not sufficient to deal with level 81 and level 82 dps who had replaced large chunks of their Wrath gear. I spent 90% of my time chasing mobs (does anyone understand what threat reduction skills are for? Does anyone understand run TO the tank NOT AWAY?) and fighting to keep threat. If I targeted a different mob, even just to taunt another mob, the first one would be ripped away. Of course, dps would die, healers would get upset and leave, and I would feel like crap. Maybe it’s my level and gear I thought. So I leveled up to 83, replaced all my Wrath gear and got down to business. Oh god, Stonecore… after about 5 or 6 runs, I was done. I sent all my dk’s gold to my main, emptied her bags, and cleared her mailbox. She was effectively going on the shelf of unused characters.

When they introduced the CTA bags, I thought, OH! I should go level her now! Surely things are better. Haha, the naivete of youth. Not only were things not better, they were arguably worse. It was a dark time for my dk. I knew how to tank, I just couldn’t actually do it. No amount of death and decay, no amount of outbreak+pestilence, no amount of runestriking and death striking. Those dps were going to pull aggro without trying and there was *nothing* in my arsenal I could do about it.

So I didn’t play her. Until this weekend. Nervous and a bit stressed, I decided not to change anything, to just go in the way I was and see if this 300 to 500 actually made a difference.

Oh did it make a difference.

The only time the dps (including one rather shockingly well geared for regular VP level 85 mage) pulled aggro was on a multi-pull and even then, as the mobs ran through my D&D they would snap over to me. I made it through VP with very few mistakes (most of which were me not remembering how to position mobs). The experience was… dare I say it… enjoyable. Imagine that, enjoying playing a game. Enjoying it enough, I queued again. I went and bought some upgrades and… queued again. At this rate, I was going to max out my jp for the week.

Of course, as with all changes, I looked at the screaming of the ragers to see what the possible “side effects” of such a change were.

“It’s going to be soooo boring to tank.”

Because pressing 1-1-1-1-2 is so exciting, amiright mages? Because staring at five green bars, waiting for them to turn yellow and then clicking on them is the height of adrenaline rush. Because doing the same dungeon for the third time that day is brand shiny new!

Okay, nothing is that bad. But then, neither is tanking without having to worry about threat. There are still cooldowns, there are still adds to pick up, there are still huge pools of bad to stay out of. Only now, the most annoying part of your job is gone. The part that not only annoys you, but also annoys the whole group. No more dps having to stand around wishing they could do their job. No more healers having to heal the sudden clothie tank. Just a meat shield doing his job, while everyone else gets to enjoy doing theirs.

“Way to dumb it down to Wrath levels Blizz…”

Why do dps have 45 minute queues? Why, even at the HEIGHT of CTA, did I still have 25 minute queues? There are 4 tanking classes: Pallys, Dks, Warriors, and Bears. That’s almost HALF of the total classes. Ever seen one of these classes wait in the dps queue? (I have.) Tanking is hard. Tanking is thankless. And tanking is generally not fun.

So there is a tank shortage. Blizzard tried the bribe. It didn’t work. So now, they had to try something else. Honestly, the difficulty needed to be nerfed. The player base simply did not have enough of the kind of people who wanted to do that job at that stress level. I don’t think it was dumbed down, but I do think that by removing one of the more annoying aspects of the equation, it made it easier to understand at do at a level good enough for randoms.

Tanking is still going to be difficult in raids. It is still going to be a challenge in heroic modes. It is not going to be a faceroll (especially since people still have their rotations). But it is easier, especially for people who don’t have the gear or experience.

This is going to solve the tank shortage problem much better than a bag with extra items. It has already brought me back into the fold of tanking on my DK.

I dug a cave

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I’m a bit late to the game. Just like a year or so, but two weeks ago, in my unending quest to play around with new games I took some time to play with Minecraft.

Or in more graphic terms, I took my World of Warcraft Alts out back behind the barn and shot them.

People have been talking about Minecraft for a year or so. And not just about the game, but also about the developer and his interesting way of releasing the Alpha of the game, for sale.

Notch, the founder of Majong, and creator of Minecraft did some very intelligent things when deciding to release Minecraft in an unfinished state. First this allowed him to start earning revenue on his game. Money allows him to purchase support, expand servers, and pay bills while continuing development. Second, they require “checking” in to the server, so each person playing Minecraft has paid to play. Third, he gave a price point and stuck to it. Buying the game in 2010 meant you got the game forever. Content would continue to update, things would be added, but you would never have to pay for updates. It’s the MMO model, on a non-mmo game.

This also allows them to do short quick updates. It helps keep the game fresh for old players and draws in new ones.

Creation, Destruction, Exploration

Minecraft is a “sandbox” game. Meaning there are minor goals, but those are unimportant. The true goal of the game is whatever the player wants it to be. Some might even go so far as to say that this isn’t a “game” per se, since it doesn’t have goals, objectives or rewards, but rather a toy.

That doesn’t make it any less awesome.

Initially any player’s goal is to create a workbench, then create tools. Tools that are then used to get better tools, and explore better.

Minecraft is perfect design in it’s simplicity. The progression is very clear in what the player is using as their main weapon material. Wood or stone? What a nooby. Diamond and Iron? They are truly a Minecraft player.

There are various types of gamers, who all come to games for different reasons. The killer, the explorer, the socializer, the achiever… they can be broken down further, but that’s the basic ones. The killer plays Minecraft on hard, slaughtering Creepers, Zombies, Skeletons, and even cows at their leisure. They use the game to improve their killing skills. The explorer stocks up on torches and goes off into caves. The socializer finds a good multiplayer server and starts having fun. The achiever plans grand structures and huge projects.

The game appeals to creation, through building, destruction, through acquiring resources, and exploration through finding resources. As the game world is infinite and randomly generated, no two worlds are the same. And all worlds can be equally interesting.

Day One – The Beginner.

I started playing and relatively quickly picked up the concept of storing up mats, digging down, and fortifying my base. One of the big issues with the game is the presence of enemies, who will spawn, find you, and eat you (or blow up and take you with them). So I dug myself into a cave and got to working on getting all settled in. I was afraid to venture outside, for fear of creepers, so I decided to build a mine in the basement of my base.

*tink tink tink*

What was that?!? I sprint back up to the doorway leading to my base, frantically looking around. That was something. Something big. Something scary. Something that very much sounded like it would eat me and use my bones to pick it’s teeth. But I didn’t see anything. My heart racing, I slowly walked back down the steps into my mine, sword at the ready.

I told my husband about it. He said it was zombies, I should look for a cavern.

*shudder* Zombies…

6 hours later…

I now have a fairly awesome hollowed out cavern for my main base, three chests worth of dirt, sand, and cobblestone, and a very nifty pool of water. My mine is about 15 blocks deep, 30 blocks across, and 60 blocks long, and well lit. There is a nifty door leading down to my mine.

But I have very very little iron. This is a problem. I certainly haven’t seen any diamond, gold, or redstone. Digging with stone takes forever. I want to dig with Iron. I still haven’t seen a zombie or a creeper.

I pop back down into my mine and decide to cut some “test” halls. I find an underground pond, but not much else. I keep hearing the creepy sounds, but I can’t find their source. I dug in the wall toward them, but never found a cave. I shudder every time I hear it though. And slap a few more torches on the walls, desperately hoping the light will keep the evil at bay. I felt lonely, and confined.

I talked to my husband some more about it, and mentioned the creepy chime like sounds I kept hearing. He was confused. That didn’t sound like zombies. I went onto YouTube and found this. As I sent him the link I noticed off to the side a link to another video. Tutorial to find Diamonds. Now that’s what I am talking about. This of course links me to three or four other videos…

2 hours later…

I have a plan. And I have now seen the face of awesome. I have also realized I was playing on Peaceful and there were no zombies or creepers. /facepalm.

I started digging out a quarry, as the underground mining was getting to me, being so lonely. 15 x 20, all the way down to the bedrock. Of course, I ran into lava along the way, discovered a huge cave system, a ton of obsidian, and lots of other materials.

I ventured into the Nether soon after for mere moments. The soul sand, the bleeding fleshy looking netherrock, the deeply creepy music. Not only did I bail, but I also walled off the portal. I might go back later. Might.

Day 30 – *tink tink tink*

My quarry is now 30 wide, 50 long, and all the way to the bedrock I am currently extending it on the one side to be 50×50. I have over 700 obsidian. A full stack of diamonds. A rail system leading to two warehouses for all the ore. A two floor palace all made of obsidian, with art, beds, bookshelves, and even jack o lanterns. My palace has a moat, with glass bridges.

I have two glass encased wheat farms. I have two sugar cane farms. I have a cactus farm. I have a smithy, for quick smelting.

But most of all, I have a monster trap. 30 wide, 2 tall, 70 long, with water forcing all the nasties into a wicked lava blade. I just stand in a spot while at work and let the loot roll in.

And I haven’t even begun to explore my world or really begin to build. I haven’t played Multiplayer. There is a ton I haven’t done. The game is as big as your imagination.

Now, some might comment on the low fidelity. Minecraft definitely rocks the pixel art. But in reality, the low fidelity is part of what allows the game to be as interesting and as creative as it is. It didn’t take me long to get used to it, even to the point that when I fell in lava and died, not only did I shed a tear for my diamond armor, but also felt fear and shock. When I edge along great heights, I can *feel* my heart beat faster and my stomach clench for fear of falling. It doesn’t matter that I play in peaceful, the sounds of a dark cave sends chills down my spine and makes me check the area around me. The dark still scares me.

Minecraft is a wonderful game. Not only because it proves that indie games can become blockbusters, but also because it’s just a great game at heart. I look forward to where they go from here and the release launch in November.

Games I Played This Week

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I really should have considered prior to deciding that I wanted to do a weekly post about games I played that it does happen I get stuck in playing several games that are very enjoyable.

I am still cracking away on DQ9. I now have multiple grottos available and am clearing out at least 2 every day. Sadly, my characters don’t seem to be leveling very fast. In other DQ9 news, I convinced my mother to purchase the game and she is *quite* addicted at this point. She keeps calling me and asking me questions so I am able to track her progress quite well. This game is definitely going on my list of games to suggest for people who have parents that play DS.

I will likely be grinding on the multiplayer while at home with her in May.

I am also still playing a game or two of the Pokemon TCG trainer every day. I finished with the Fire Deck and I am now halfway through with the Water Deck. I am also noticing that they keep having “overloaded” messages, so clearly I am not the only one who is loving it.

I have been playing quite a bit with my 3DS, mostly showing stuff off at work. Also I am loving the Street Pass, though it makes me long for PAX where there are more people to encounter.

In WoW both my Priest and Shaman are now getting in on Alt runs for Tol Barad. My server has reached critical mass for being able to field successful pugs for TB which is a huge help for my alts. Our guild has also started some TB alt runs. I managed to down Atramedes on two different toons this week, thanks to needing a healer for our 10 man run on Saturday and then needing a DPS for our OTHER 10 man run on Sunday. My guild is actively recruiting.

Joyia finally got bracers from BoT trash and exceptionally luckily managed to get the +spirit wand off Chimareon. Two upgrades in one week! We made some fairly serious attempts on 25 man Elemental Monstrosity, the RNG fight of doom. (Not from Hell, that’s Al’Akir.)

I also volunteered to get a new guild website set up for OLN. I decided to use WoWStead and it took me all of 45 minutes to get everything up and running. Bonus points for WoWStead’s usability.

Finally, I have taken some time this week to start re-reading some Julia Quinn, to inspire me to work on some of my writing. I had a fairly dramatic plot break through on Wasteland, which I hope wraps up the inconsistencies and allows the story to have a conclusion that isn’t completely depressing.

Carrots on Sticks

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Even More Update Goodness: I have read several other blogs about the subject, but here is one of the best. His whore analogy is just superb and spot on, and his arguments are valid. The thing is, I understand why Blizz would never do as asked. Maybe they will consent eventually to add raid mounts to the bag (Ashes of Alar might just be enough to drag that bear back in) but for the TCG they *can’t*. If they do, it devalues the TCG and takes away one of the major selling points of the cards. And don’t get me wrong, while I would love to have those mounts available in the bag, it will never happen, because Blizzard makes too much money on the licensing fees for the card game.

I really feel the biggest drawback of this fix is that it doesn’t allow the tank to queue with anyone else. Even allowing the tank to queue with just one other person might take the sting out of it. Pocket healer, trusted cc-er, or just that one person you always play with. You are still taking 3 other people out of the queue, so it is still a win, but seems less… whorish… than it is forcing them to queue alone.

 

UPDATE: Blizz announced that the bags WILL IN FACT BE BIND ON ACCOUNT. As I said “Make the bags Bind on Account so we can pass them off to our alts. (Then I would be 85 on Pandara in a heartbeat.)” my response to the announcement was “BRB LEVELING”.

 

I have talked about the Tanking problem a few times. Since the dawn of the Random Dungeon Finder the players of WoW have developed a skewed vision of dungeon running. I barely remember running a few dungeons on my warlock prior to the introduction of the LFD tool. They were simply too time consuming, too prone to failure, and far too difficult to find a group for.

But LFD changed all of that. Dungeons were readily accessible in a matter of minutes. Loot rained down on the World of Warcraft. It was wondrous. And it spoiled us all beyond repair. Seriously. We are spoiled rotten little children demanding more things when we have already been given the world.

The average time to get a pug group together PRIOR to the LFD tool? 4 hours. And then 2 more hours to clear the dungeon because the chances of everyone KNOWING the dungeon was slim to none. The average time I have to wait in the DPS queue for a dungeon? 40 minutes. Which is just about the time it takes to do all of the Tol Barad dailies, killing every fox along the way.

But nooooooooooo people gotta complain about something, so they chose to complain about their 40 minute queue times. To be fair, the queue times for LFD have been slowly increasing through Cataclysm. I have talked about this before. So Blizzard decided to answer the problem with a carrot on a stick. It worked for Oculus right?

Here’s the thing though… I have a tank. I have debated on leveling her. Why haven’t I leveled her despite having leveled 2 healers and 2 dps at 85? Tanking sucks. I hate random healers who aren’t very good. I hate random dps who can’t wait two seconds. I hate RNG fights where one mistake leads to me dead on the floor. So now Blizzard offers me a carrot. Am I going to level her and roll through dungeons with her now?

Nope.

But I LOVE minipets! I LOVE rare mounts! So why wouldn’t I leap at the chance to get them?!? Oh right, because like MOST other collectors, I collect my pets and mounts on ONE character. I collect them on Joyia. Who is a Pure DPS. If I could tank with Joyia, I would be all over this like a starving man on a steak. Bad DPS, rude healers, wipes would all be ignored with the joy of working towards a rare mount. I don’t want those mounts on Pandara, I want them on Joyia

There are so many other solutions… offer it as a reward for any dps who has to wait more than 40 minutes in the queue. The tanks are already being rewarded, with an instant queue. Make the bags Bind on Account so we can pass them off to our alts. (Then I would be 85 on Pandara in a heartbeat.)

Or they could fix the real problem. Wrath proved that the problem isn’t there aren’t enough tanks and healers. My dps queue during peak times in Wrath was 15-25 minutes, HALF of what it is now. Why was that? Oh right. Wrath dungeons were easier. Wrath tanks had better threat generation, gear, and to be honest, their skills were better tuned. Revert Swipe to it’s old cooldown (none). Give Thunderclap back it’s massive aggro. Increase the threat of Death and Decay and Blood Boil. Revert Consecrate back to it’s Wrath glory. Lower the CD on all tank “panic” buttons. (Just by 1/4th or 1/3rd.)

Or even give classes the ability to tank. Make Beast Mastery like Feral Druids. There are talents they take to get a tanky pet or to get a dps pet. Bam. One more tank. Make Demonology like Bear tanks. Metamorphosis is a form a lock goes into to tank. They have their “big” health pet that splits the damage through soul link, and their skills in demon form generate aggro. Bam, one more tank. Enhancement shamans – they are already halfway there! Give them a few modified skills, and a crit proof skill, bam, tanky tanky.

Another option is to change the group size going into 5 mans. How much of a change would pulling in an extra dps do? 1 tank, 1 heals, 4 dps. Not only would this eat up more of the surplus DPS, but also it would mean less caring when one dps isn’t pulling their weight.

I don’t think their solution is a solution. I think it is a bandaid on a gushing head wound. They need to address the problem, not the symptoms. The problem is role imbalance. And this addition, isn’t going to get more tanks running dungeons. It is just going to get people who *don’t* like tanking and healing to tank and heal, which just exacerbates the problem by having under or poorly geared people, filling roles they don’t know how to play, and causing frustration all around.

 

Note 1: This would be an EXCELLENT time to bring back lost pets like the vampire bat, scorchling, etc etc. It would also be a great place for rare mob drop pets like Gundrak Hatchling, Whelplings, Foxes, Sewer Rat, Crawler…

Note 2: Would it be different if they added super rare/unobtainable mounts back in? (A la ZG Tiger, ZA Bear.) OH HELL YES it would be different. Tank would be leveled and tanking like NOBODY’S business. Not only would I do it, but I would SERIOUSLY campaign for the ability to have a paid mount transfer service.

Children in Video Games

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To begin, the Article.

Go read it. I’ll wait.

All done? First and foremost – I abhor violence against children. I think people who hurt children should be subjected to all the pain, violence, and abuses they subject on children. I pray for swift retaliatory karma against these people and hope the rest of their lives are miserable, equal to, if not greater than, the pain the child felt during the abuse.

Now, violence against children in video games is a wildly controversial thing. So why does it show up at all?

1. More and more game designers are parents.

Just look at Heavy Rain, Nintendogs, and Mario Galaxy. More game designers that started in this industry as young adults in their 20s are now reaching the age where they have children. Anyone with children will readily admit that it is a radically life changing experience. So logically it makes sense that as these designers have this experience it will reflect in their work. 10 years ago an RPG wouldn’t have considered including having children as something the player can do. Children aren’t adventurous and heroic. But now, as in games like Fable 3, children are becoming a part of the game. Because the game designer parents are able to say “This is an adventure. This is a compelling reason to radically change the way a player plays the game.”

2. The social mores against things in video games are falling, just as they did for other mediums.

Do you remember the brouhaha over Fred and Wilma being shown on TV in bed? It was a huge deal that a cartoon would depict people in a bed together, thus implying sex. Now, it is common to see women in their underwear, sex, and violence on TV. Sex is coming to video game mainstream. So will all the other things like drug use and children. These are the things that define our humanity. Our successes and our failings. That is why they create drama and evoke emotion. Video Games will continue to attempt to elicit emotion from players and drama is a part of that.

3. Why even have kids in the game?

Ask any parent what their worst nightmare is. I am willing to bet most of the answers involve something with their children. The Sims allowed me the joy of having a house full of children, something I will never do in real life (I mean like 6 kids, seriously). The terror that I feel at the idea of having a game where I can gain a child, then possibly lose them… *shudder* The article brings up Bioshock as a violence against children example. However it is notable that in Bioshock they are always Little Sisters, in-human. The NPCs in the game even back this up, saying “Those aren’t little girls anymore.” But when given the option it is always Save vs Harvest. That is an intentional distinction. Despite the fact that the player knows that Harvest will kill the Little Sister, it doesn’t say Kill, it says Harvest. The interesting point is that this is a moral choice presented to the player. And at the end of the game it is revealed that the player is rewarded for choosing the “correct” path of saving the Little Sisters.

In Dead Space 2 (I haven’t played it, I am going off the article) it sounds like the designers needed a small fearsome enemy that was hard to hit, could move fast, and needed to scare the player. As a secondary effect of their story choice they even created the feeling that the player *shouldn’t* be shooting this enemy. Despite the fact that you should. That moment of hesitation can lead to the players death.

It is also worth noting all of the games mentioned are arguably Horror games. The designer’s job is to elicit horror from the player. What could possibly be more horrific and want you to bring down the whole thing than something that harms children? It never occurred to me that Andrew Ryan in Bioshock wasn’t a bad guy. Despite what the designers tried to twist into the story, here is a man willing to exploit children to further his own ends. Once that is made clear, the player no longer feels bad for tearing through this ruined city and destroying it’s people. They allowed their ideals and beliefs to lead them away from the inherent compassion and sense of right. At this point, I no longer wanted to just escape Rapture, I wanted to punch a hole in the wall and allow it to flood. To destroy it completely for the failure to retain it’s humanity.

4. But why have violence against kids in the game?

To evoke the parental emotion and all the messy feelings that come with it. In Heavy Rain I WILLINGLY took a vial of poison, knowing that the probability of it killing my character was high, knowing it was likely a trick by the designer to set me back. But I could chose no other option. I had to save my kid and if this was the hoop the serial killer wanted me to jump through, then by God, I was going to jump through it. My life for my child’s? In a heartbeat. The designers were exceptionally clever with their choices of trials. How far could they push the player to save a child? And push the player they did. It even sparks the thought that while yes, this is a game, would you really do such a thing? If this were real, what would you give up? The designer held up a mirror to the player’s soul and that is definitely going to make people uncomfortable.

5. Games are all about fantasy and being the hero.

Guitar Hero and Rock Band did so well because they MADE THE PLAYER A ROCK STAR. World of Warcraft makes me feel like this powerful and amazing hero that literally saves the world over and over again. Games are about fantasy and being the hero, and what is more heroic than saving a child? The catharsis of saving the child in Heavy Rain is sufficient to have made it a critically acclaimed game despite iffy controls, ambiguous choices, and uncanny valley.

I will admit as a designer, I am uncomfortable with the idea of putting children in harms way in my own games. But that doesn’t mean the question shouldn’t be asked or the situation explored. I am wildly uncomfortable with rape and yet I accept it’s inclusion in Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as a required event to bring me closer to the protagonist, despite her alien responses and behavior. Did Dead Island create the trailer with the express purpose of sparking the discussion to get press? Of course they did. Should they be vilified for doing so? No more than any other game like Call of Duty that does such things to spark discourse and free publicity. After all, movies have been doing this for years already.

Now, take a moment to imagine the Dead Island trailer, which I will admit is marketing at it’s finest. Everyone has a strong emotion about it, despite the fact it doesn’t show one second of gameplay. But imagine if the story the player is stepping into is this family’s story. The player assumes the role of the parents or even the child at various points in the game. The goal of the game is to get them out alive, as all survival horror zombie games are. Through a single short trailer they have given the player all the motive and drive to not only play the game, but play it at their best. To seek, to strive to save this little girl. The trailer shows the worst possible outcome, one the player should stop at nothing to change. That is a powerful emotional response. That is a powerful story over a standard and common game type. Much like movies set themselves up for Oscars, this game appears to be setting itself up for the art and story telling in video games debate. Will it succeed? I can’t wait to find out.

 

Update:

As it turns out, the trailer was in fact, pure marketing hype. It’s a shame, to use something so artistic that could have been the stepping off point for a truly spectacular story. Ah well, back to hacking zombies to bits.

 

Genius and Not Genius

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Genius idea – releasing the first info about the new expansion patch on the Rift Launch day.

Not Genius idea – the info you release is about the revamp of old raid content to level 85.

I often use WoW as my leaping off point for game design discussions. It helps because so many people have played it. It also helps because the game is sufficiently huge that they make really good choices and really terrible choices. Today they had two really terrible choices.

First off, there is the release of information about patch 4.1. This is a very very good thing. It is very important to keep people’s interest and give them a reason to keep beating their heads against the wall they have reached. It is vital to the anticipation of players.

BUT. The information they released is completely lackluster. They are revamping 2 old raids into 5 man dungeons. Revamping old content is a pretty cool idea. It brings back old stuff, makes it relevant, and gets players to see zones they might not have ever seen. However, that is not the information you lead with. The LAST thing current wow players who are feeling kind of burned out on the game want to hear is that they are going to have to be running content they have run 50 bajilion times before. I ran ZA and failed to get that bear more times than I want to count. I soloed ZG and failed to get my tiger more times than I want to count. Do I want to do those instances again? Sure, maybe. Do I want to farm those instances like Wrath heroics? Oh god no. Even Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep (SFK is one of my favorite instances of ALL TIME) are borderline mind numbing to me.

If they really wanted to draw attention from Rift they needed to have the big bad, Ragnaros, in all his glory, (not the new model, it looks stupid) and show the epic encounters of the new raid. Hook, line, sinker. Showing that they are returning old content, no where near as appealing as an entire GAME worth of new content.

They almost saved it though. Almost.

With the Zuls returning, you may be wondering about the unique mounts that were once contained therein.

O.M.G. Queue squees of joy and pleasure from every.single.mount.collector. Tigers! Raptors! and Bears! OH MY! And then the great depressing downer. They aren’t the same mounts. This is a new raptor mount. A new panther mount. A new bear mount. It’s not the old ones returned. It’s new fakers in their place. Everyone who has or has wanted on of the Swift Zulian Tigers will tell you in a heartbeat that a panther is in no way, shape or form even remotely close to replacing the ONLY orange tiger in the game. Even having an orange tiger with different armor would be better! Everyone knows that the draw of the ZA bear was the funky armor.

So not only is Blizz asking us to re-run old content that we have possibly run dozens of dozens of times before, but we aren’t even getting the shiny at the end that so many desperately want and would be WILLING to re-run the old content hundreds of times to get. This could not have been more fail.

The state of Cataclysm, and the lead in to 4.1, has simply convinced me that once more, as with BC we are at the mercy of the B Team. Clearly there are two teams working on WoW. One, the A Team, that makes things like ICC and the Dreamwalker fight, things like Ulduar and Yogg. The other makes things like ZA the Original and mind meltingly hard Karazhan, things like ToC with it’s one room and dull boss fights.

Blizz, bring back the A Team please, before you kill yourselves.

Hell is other players…

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Over the past month many a friend has left WoW. The new expansion was easily leveled and to be honest, really didn’t add much to the game itself. The new zones are fascinating. The new races enjoyable for a while. Archeology interesting for a short while then becoming locked in combat with Fishing for the most boring profession. Now we are back to the grind for gear which has slowed to a glacial crawl due to the difficulty of Heroics and Raids.

First off let me be the first to say, I enjoy a challenge in WoW… for about a week. After a week or two, I am tired of bashing my head against the same old wall and just want to move on to something else. Now, two months after Cata’s release ending up in a Heroic with players who do not grasp the basic concept of “Stay out of the stupid” just makes me get angry and annoyed at the rampant stupidity of other players. Sadly, it seems like a Boolean event too. Either the group is fast, efficient and effective, or they are completely incompetent and you wonder how they even managed to turn the computer on, much less level to 85. The amount of frustration I feel at people who can’t be bothered to learn one really shouldn’t stand in the blinking yellow stuff can’t possibly be healthy.

I try to defend WoW to people who have left, but honestly, I am not sure why I even try. I have been raiding for weeks and have managed to lose every single roll on gear. People who were unwilling to even work to get rep epics are winning rolls on the few pieces I can’t buy or get with rep. When I run dungeons I invariably get stuck with players who don’t understand concepts like stay out of the bad. All in all it is a highly frustrating experience.

So as always, I turn my eye towards the question – How would I fix this?

1. Variant dungeon difficulty, that can be clearly marked by an item level. So we already know the dungeons are “ordered” as you level from 80 to 85. You always do Blackrock Caverns and Throne of Tides first. Then move on to Stonecore and Vortex Pinnacle, then on to Grim Batol, Halls of Origination, and Lost City. Why then are they *wildly* different as heroics? Arguements could be made that Stonecore and Grim Batol are by far the hardest heroics, and yet each one has a fight that is wildly difficult and “group breaking”. This happened in Wrath too (anyone remember AN before the ToC patch? *shudder*). Would it not be more logical to have the heroics progress in the same difficulty curve as the regular versions? This way the instant someone hit 85 they could pick up enough gear to queue for heroics (329) and then would be put in a BRC or ToT, which would be tuned to be *slightly* more difficult than the level 85 regulars, but almost always beatable by a non-idiot group in full 329. Having a second number to hit (335?) for Stonecore and Vortex, then a third number (341?) for the final “tier” of heroics. Not only would it make more logical sense, but it would also help people ease into heroics, as opposed to hitting 329, queuing and getting thrown into a Grim Batol, virtually assuring your group’s failure.

2. Get rid of the random drops (to an extent). I am sure anyone who reads this knows how much I hate random, and to be fair, I usually try to contain it to vanity items. However when you run a Tol Barad and have hunter gear drop (that is items with the class limitation hunter) and there isn’t a single hunter in the 25 man raid… Well that’s just a waste. I was a part of a Halls of Origination run where literally every single item dropped was plate or mail. Much to the joy of our Warlock, Priest, Mage, and two Druids. Really? An hour and a half and not a single usable upgrade? It’s not even like it dropped something useful that everyone already had, that’s at least acceptable. We are talking about every single person in the group choosing to run this instance to get specific items and having every single item sharded because no one could even equip them. I am not saying make the perfect gear drop, I am saying “cheat” the system out a bit so if there are no plate wearers, plate doesn’t drop.

-Heading off the comment – Some might point out that there aren’t that many drops on bosses, so if they weed out all the plate/mail drops then something might increase to a 50% drop. This is easily fixed by simply having more variations of gear. Every Resto Shaman will tell you there needs to be more healy boots. Every cloth wearer will tell you there needs to be more 346 bracers. (There are currently two 346 cloth bracers for DPS in the game and NEITHER has haste.) There are gear gaps that need to be filled. And while we’re at it, what is with all the belt drops by the dozens for clothies? There are two easily crafted belts available at large for clothies and yet there are 6 346 belts, two of which can be purchased from the Justice Points Vendor, not to mention all the early purple belt drops in raids.

3. Tanks and Heals are at a premium and it is only getting worse. We have 4 classes that can heal and 4 classes that can tank. Tanking assures an instant queue. Healing assures a short queue. And yet, every week since launch my queue time as dps during peak hours has slowly risen. It went from 25 minutes at launch to 40 minutes now. During peak hours. I thought, well clearly this means I should be tanking or healing. Unfortunately, warlocks can’t do either. So I worked pretty hard to get my priest up to heroics level and finally got in to heal. And man did it *suck* on so many levels. DPS stood in stupid, tanks couldn’t keep aggro, I ran out of mana faster than a dog eats a treat, and to top it all off, when the +spirit trinket dropped that I so desperately needed, the shaman needed on it saying “Whut? Spirit converts to hit for me…” And of course won it. Is it any wonder Tanks and Healers aren’t wanting to queue?

I understand the desire for a challenge. I really do. But challenge != frustrating. And currently, that’s how it feels for heals and tanks. At the risk of saying, screw the hard core, make it easier… Well, make it easier. The more people who feel they can tank without being subjected to the ridicule of other players when they lose aggro on a mob, the more tanks we will have. In a raid, this is clearly a different situation, but in heroics, we need more tanks. The only way I can see adjusting this for both raids and heroics is to require raids to have 5 tanks, 5 heals, and 15 dps, as if they were broken down into 5 micro groups. I don’t really think that is an answer, as it is already complex enough to get 2-3 tanks geared for raids. I really feel that heroics and raids should be tuned differently when it comes to healing and tanking. A heroic should be able to get by with a mediocre tank while a raid never should. Also, to be fair, a majority of your players are DPS. So they have fun melting faces. Fewer tanks and heals means fewer melted faces.

Also, throw your heals and tanks a bone, add in the ability to offspec roll on items in heroics. When something is very clearly a tank or healing item, the tank or heals should get preferential treatment, since they are putting up with the added stress of healing and tanking. If a +spirit item drops and the healer needs, the dps should only be allowed to roll offspec. This makes it far more rewarding to run as a tank or healer if you are attempting to get that gear, as you are sure if it drops you will get it. As an added bonus this assures that tanks and healers across the board will gear consistently as well, thus overpowering the encounters and making things *easier*.

4. Give us something new. Not to sound negative or anything, because it is clearly still a challenge for some people, but so far Cata’s raiding seems to be “Don’t stand in the fire.” As much as I hated it, at least the vehicle fights threw a bit of a twist on things. But honestly we need more Dreamwalker fights. More Festerguts. Way more Lootships. This that are the norm to break up the don’t stand in the stupid. So far on this raiding tier I have seen little innovation. Omnitron is trying, but really is just 4 bosses thrown together. Conclave of Winds so far is one of the only mildly original ideas… but they drop random stated loot. Yes that’s fun, never knowing what you are going to get. Not to mention that even one death means a complete and total wipe. (Really you should be able to 8 or 20 man all raids once a majority of the people are geared to the level of the raid.)

Even if the new is something old. Deadmines and Vanessa Vancleef – amazing. Very very interesting. So where is the raid encounter? *imagines fighting Patchwerk right after running the raid through Frogger*

5. Overhaul crafting. Okay this isn’t as easy as adjusting some loot code to make loot drops worth it. But seriously. Crafting could be so much more. And it could be the answer to people who really just like to farm, play the ah, and make things. It can also fill in gear gaps, ease entry into heroics and raids, and stabilize economies. Crafting always seems to be the spot that has the most potential, and yet Blizzard seems content to let it sit. Especially if the new crafting takes time and effort, it could be a great boon to players looking for something new and Cataclysm is all about the overhaul.

6. Stack the groups for success. Towards the end of Wrath, I noticed a trend. I wondered if it was just coincidence or if it was intentional. It seems to be gone in Cata, or maybe it just doesn’t work with everyone at such low gear levels. In Wrath, more often than not it seemed like if the tank was *wildly* overgeared, the healer was not as much. If the healer was overgeared, then the tank was not as much. And invariably, two of the dps would be complete and total face melters while the third was always fresh and barely geared. It *felt* like the system was specifically putting groups together that could carry the lesser geared member. Every time my tank queued, I was always paired with a Kingslayer healer. It seems odd, but really, if the system isn’t doing this, it could be. My warlock more and more gets into groups with everyone completely geared, and so they go exceptionally smoothly, while my lesser geared priest gets stuck with people in full crafted pvp sets.

These are just a few ideas I have had on how to make WoW more fun and more engaging without inherently changing the game (except for the crafting). But even so, I almost feel like they are moot points. At the end of the day, the bad parts of WoW are directly related to bad players, with bad attitudes. The social aspects of the game aren’t quite enough to overcome the trolls, griefers, and haters. Everyone starts the expansion with their own goals, play times, and focuses. People aren’t as willing to help or play together because it is all still so new. One hopes as patches are released and players migrate back that we will have lost our singular focuses and return to the group whole. I miss my friends though, because hell is other players.

Indiana Jones and the Quests of Uldum

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That title came out much more “logical” sounding than I intended. Cataclysm brought with it 5 more levels and 5 large complex zones to gain them in. As always, controversy has sprung up around some of the content Blizzard has included. (This makes me wonder, what was the vanilla WoW equivalent?) In Wrath it was a quest that required you to torture a bad guy for information. I made my stance perfectly clear on that point. In WoW things are quite a bit more cut and dried than real life. In addition to *knowing* I was on the right side of that battle, I also had just finished a quest that had me slaughter dozens of little creatures, on top of the 73 levels worth of killing I had done to reach this point. Not to mention that he was trying to destroy the world, and you can always choose *not* to do the quest. The furor died down and then in Cata they even gave an answer to that controversy by allowing the player the option, when you have captured someone for information, you are given the option to let them go once you get it.

After reaching level 83 players are given the option to go to a zone called Uldum. Uldum has been referenced in game since the beginning, so for me, it was something of a long awaited journey for me. I really wanted to see what was in this zone. The fact that it’s art style strongly mimicked Egypt and it’s plot lines revolved around pyramids, tombs, and archeology was enticing to me. I couldn’t wait.

The lush oasis, the massive pyramids, the sky scraping obelisks, all of it just tickled my fancy. As anticipated they pulled out the well used Harrison Jones NPC (Indiana Jones) and made him the focus of about half the quests of the zone. I was shocked! No, not really. In fact I am actually a bit surprised he was only half the zone.  Anyway, you step into the role of sidekick and proceed to follow large sweeping sections of various Indiana Jones movies. They don’t even try to hide it. Plane chase where you are the gunner and shooting the tail of the plane? Check. Fighting a bald dude next to an airplane that then runs over him and kills him? Check. Artifacts? Check. Jumping into trunks (fridge) and getting blown across the area? Check. Evil dude in white hat trying to take our stuff? Check. Nazis? Check.

That last one is the one everyone is all up in arms over. Okay they aren’t real Nazis. They are goblins all following this guy named Schnotts, so they are Schnottzis. But that’s the general idea. When I encountered them, I stopped for a moment, realized I was going to be doing quests for them, was like, “Well that’s odd, I would have expected these to be Horde quest. *shrug* Oh well, what do you want me to do?” About 20 minutes later, I had destroyed the guy’s entire operation from within, freed a bunch of prisoners, and was skipping back to the north to help Indy, I mean Harrison again.

But if you read these two blogs:

http://spinksville.wordpress.com/2010/12/30/tell-me-why-i-dont-like-uldum/

http://murlocparliament.com/2011/01/05/keep-your-history-away-from-my-internet-dragons/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MurlocParliament+%28Murloc+Parliament%29

This was a horrible horrible thing and Blizzard should be SHAMED! Wait, what?

They say that Schnotts is Hilter… which is just weird. I mean, yes, he has the little thin mustache thing, but I just assumed that was making fun of it. (It was a fashion at the time.) I always felt like Schnotts was a caricature of some commander. Bad German accents… isn’t that the joke? It would never have occurred to me to even think they were spoofing real German accents. I assumed they were spoofing the TERRIBLE German accents from those kinds of movies.  Silly puns… This is Blizzard after all, do you even remember All You Can Eat? (The achievement.) Bad puns are kind of their bread and butter for being funny.

The one author claims that this is fantasy and should not include such things. Well, yeah, but this is also the game with motorcycles, helicopters, and shotguns. They argue about history and loss of immersion. Last I checked, Indiana Jones, not exactly a history lesson. History… seriously? You think this even remotely ties to truthful history at all? Of course not! It’s just a ripoff! The author even goes on about the turkey, Gobbles… To which I am perplexed. Did I miss a reference, cause when I did the quest (both times) it seemed to me it was a setup for getting Schnotts to say Nine! repeatedly. (Which did make me chuckle.) As for immersion… Well, that’s you. Personally, I never once thought twice about it. Nazis in an Indiana Jones quest? Sure, that makes sense. Wearing a Schnottzi uniform to spread discord among the ranks? Worked for Indy, why not me? Personally it breaks my immersion every time I see “Istabyoudead” and the 50 bazillion other weird and non-fantasy names that people use. It breaks my immersion every time I do a quest like “Gather hooves from these horses.” and I managed to find the 10 horses that don’t have any hooves. Even the Desert Fox quest (where you literally go find a fox) made me giggle, though as a former history major I was well aware of the obscure reference. It’s a massively multiplayer game. The other people are going to be breaking your immersion.

(Really after reading the second blog a bit more, I am just confronted with the feeling that this person is very annoyed with WoW as a whole. The ranty style mixed with the very specific and person arguments versus other players just makes it feel like someone’s blog, much like this is mine. And I really feel it isn’t a valid source for WoWInsider to pull from to talk about the controversy of Uldum’s Indiana Jones hard on.)

Are these people overly sensitive? I don’t think so. Does that mean we should remove the quests? Again, I don’t think so. Is it going to bother a specific population (ie Jewish players)? Didn’t seem like it to the guy I asked, he thought it was pretty funny. Is it going to bother a large portion of the game? I doubt it. Most WoW players don’t even read the quest text and are likely far more annoyed by the cut scenes throughout the entire zone. (I know I was. I mean, I liked some of them, but one after every quest, REALLY?) Is it “too soon”? To spoof an action movie from the 90s? No. Does it make WoW worse? Debatable, but I also believe that open world pvp makes WoW worse. I believe Tol Barad makes WoW worse. I believe having the wrong item level number on the heroic access makes WoW worse. Everyone has their opinions and with 12 million of us, we are likely going to have every opinion covered.

They have a valid complaint. They didn’t like it. That’s fair. But, as always, no one is forcing them to do it. (I love when they complain they need to do it to get the achievement or the levels, at which point I am like, both are optional.) I despise Vashj’ir from the bottom of my cold cynical heart and yet will likely do it on every toon for the rep and gold. I hate everything about it. The water, the music, the submarine, the caves, the naga… there isn’t a single redeemable quest in the zone as far as I am concerned. Do I think it should be removed? Nope, because someone else is gonna love it.

Where were you when the world Shattered?

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Where were you when <insert event here>? It is common to reminisce about “life changing” events by starting the conversation with this question. Usually these events are large, world changing things. Most people wouldn’t take note of such an event in a virtual world.

On the old WoW forums, there was a thread that asked, where will you log out when WoW ends? People had wide and varied answers, from the original spawn point of their character to the floating islands in Nagrand. Many players even listed what their character would be wearing or doing at the moment of the world ending. At the time, I really didn’t have an answer. Perhaps the Opera house of Karazhan. Perhaps the Stormwind Cathedral. Most often my answer was, in an inn, where I always log out. I never made a decision, because I wasn’t forced to. WoW wasn’t going to end any time soon.

Fast forward to November of 2010. The Shattering is upon us! (For those who persisted and don’t play WoW, today, 11/23/2010, the entire Old World of the game is being “destroyed” by the evil dragon Deathwing. Which is Blizzard’s excuse for an art and gameplay upgrade to the oldest parts of the game.) The world, for the character’s point of view, was ending. So where was I going to log out?

At this point I decided that no two characters would log out in the same spot. Each character would have their own reasons and logic for the place they chose.

  • Joyia, my main, a Human Warlock, chose to log out in Stormwind, the capital city of the Alliance. After all, she was born in Silvermoon City, and yet that place had ceased to be home. So she went to the Slaughtered Lamb for a drink, then stood in the Valley of Heroes to watch the world burn.
  • Pandari, my Night Elf Priest, chose to log out at the moonwell in Auberdine. Many people disliked Darkshore, but I hold a fondness in my heart for this night elf leveling zone, one of the first places I truly explored in WoW. Her healing arts would be needed in the tidal wave to come.
  • Summerriver, my Draenei Shaman, stood overlooking the Barrens from atop a mountain peak. Her shamanist powers telling her the source of the disturbance was here, and here was where she would be needed.
  • Feirea, my Human Mage, chose to stand by the side of Lady Jania Proudmoore. If her services were needed, she wanted to be near command.
  • Pandara, my Night Elf Death Knight, returned to the Acherus, her world already ended, but at least here, she could have some peace.
  • Birgitta, my Night Elf Hunter, on a hill in Winterspring, where she first turned level 60, looking into Hyjal, a zone that seemed to be coming to life.
  • Lumos, the Human Paladin, bringing light to the people of Darkshire. Patrolling Duskwood to cleanse it of Worgen and Undead.
  • Lindrelle, the Night Elf Rogue, battling for Southshore, against the vile Horde.
  • Dizdemona, the Human Warlock, on the hill overlooking Booty Bay. The crisp sea air blowing across the bay, whispering warning of distaster.
  • Leafdotir, a Night Elf Druid, returned to Ashenvale, to battle back the Horde, and protect the great forests from the upheaval.
  • Pouf, my Gnome Death Knight, on a hill overlooking Darrowshire. Perhaps she could help that poor lost soul, searching for her family.
  • Roivas, the Human Priest, a banker at heart, deep in the mountain of Ironforge, guarding her stockpiles against looting, with the hope of making a few gold once the dust settled.
  • Riaetha, the Draenei Priest, in Thousand Needles, watching a race.

Each of these locations are significant to the character, or significantly changed in the Shattering. It’s my way of saying good bye to all those locations, npcs, and quests that I experienced that are going to be lost in the change to Cataclysm. As odd as it sounds, I am going to miss some of this. I am sure the changes will be mostly for the better, but one can’t help but be nostalgic.

Alright, done with that. Now, on to the imagined Elitism that comes from being able to say: I remember when the Barrens was 1 zone, had a terrible chat channel, and I LIKED it.

You do your chores or I am not tanking tonight.

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Early in my time in MMOs, playing Dark Ages of Camelot, I knew families played together. More often than not, when playing DAoC, I, as a healer named Feirea, was healing Monolith, a character played by my brother. We bonded and became friends, in ways we couldn’t do at home, in a virtual world. It wasn’t until WoW though that I met a parent who played with a child.

His name was Zeus (not really, but close enough) and he had a son who *desperately* wanted to play “Daddy’s Game”. Now, Apollo, as we shall call the son, wasn’t quite 4. Which is a tad young to be engaged in most of the activities in an MMO not to mention the players. So Zeus packed up one of his toons and moved him out to the middle of nowhere Teldrassil, left the chat channels and taught Apollo how to fish. Fishing in WoW is fairly simple, you click on a hot keyed button then click on the bobber when it splashes. Apollo not only grasped the concept, but *loved* it.

When fishing in WoW, there are variant levels of skill, and at the time as you skilled up, you could move to new locations and catch better fish. Each time Apollo out leveled the zone he was in, Zeus would move Apollo’s fisher to a new zone of the appropriate level, and the fishing would continue. Of course, after a while the random character Zeus had picked for Apollo to play had maxed out fishing, a feat not many WoW players would do, because fishing was so mind numbingly boring.

By the time I met Zeus and Apollo, Apollo had reached the tender age of 6, and every single character Zeus played had max fishing. Not to mention thousands of gold from selling Apollo’s fish on the Auction House. Zeus would buy the most expensive non-combat pets for every one of his characters, not because he wanted them, but rather because Apollo liked to have a pet out while fishing. Zeus liked to brag and call Apollo his little gold farmer.

One night, Zeus signed on and told the guild, “Sorry guys, i can’t raid tonight. Apollo scored a perfect score on his spelling test today, and we promised him he could fish tonight if he did. It’s really time to start thinking about his own account.” Not only had Zeus taught his son to “play WoW” by teaching him to fish, but he had also off-loaded a very dull and repetitive task that many players complain about, was using his son’s play time to “farm gold”, but also was using this as a reward for his child for doing well at school and behaving!! Talk about a win-win situation.

These days Apollo is nearing 8 years old and is finally playing the actual game with a great deal of help from Zeus. He plays a hunter, who skins and picks herbs, and still fishes. He only tames pets that eat fish. He has acquired the turtle mount, found from fishing in Northrend pools, for all of his father’s high level characters. He can’t wait to be high enough level to get one on his own character.

I have told many people about Zeus and Apollo, and most people think it is silly or just funny. A few people have had wildly insightful comments. One friend said “How interesting. I mean, in ancient times you had children to help you fish, farm, hunt, etc. And here it is happening again, only in virtual worlds.” I was floored by how accurate this comment was. Thanks to the fish selling so well on the auction house Zeus was a very wealthy person in game, but almost all of it gained from his son!

More recently I came across a group of people who play. A father, mother and two children, both in their teens. The father had originally started playing WoW to check and make sure it was appropriate for his two children, who wanted to play. Needless to say, within a month Dad and kids were engrossed in the game to the point that he purchased computers for the kids so that all three of them could play at once, together. (Apparently before that there had been a great deal of side seat playing and arguing and Mom was convinced to approve the expenditure to keep the peace.) After a few more months, Mom decided to try out this game that had so consumed her family.

As a bonding experience Dad and Kids re-rolled and played with Mom. Dad played a tank, Mom played a healer, and both the kids played dps. A nuclear family present both in game and out of it. They generally run dungeons together, but occasionally join a larger raid. Mom is quick to point out that her kids are very smart, well behaved, and are never in any trouble, mostly because she knows where they are. They are in Azeroth, with her. Dad beams with pride as they execute a complex fight to perfection. The kids, in true sibling rivalry fashion constantly battle to top the dps charts and take less damage or die less often than the other one. Family time is WoW time. Chores must be done, or Dad doesn’t tank. School work completed and doing well or Mom doesn’t heal.

I see in them bonding between a family that is on par with my bonding with my mother, built over years of playing games, reading books, watching movies, and generally being silly together. Perhaps we are looking at a new generation of families that will bond over video games.