Category Archives: Games

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Raiding is in a hard way right now. And everyone is speculating as to why. Then recommending answers. For what must be the 3rd or 4th time today I saw a blog post on “how to fix raiding” that immediately bounded off into rather large changes.

I shook my head, as this person clearly had only a passing grasp with game design. One of the big rules of game design is meeting player expectation. Players come to the game expecting something. As a designer, you have to meet their expectations. You can’t just start one way and shift 90ft to the right whenever you want. The player may not follow you.

So, as a game designer, how does one identify what is “wrong” with raiding and then how do we speculate how to fix it?

First, identify “good” raiding.

This is a bit difficult, as everyone has a different opinion of “good”. So let’s look at what we have. I will list the raids I have experience with.

Burning Crusade: Everything but Sunwell. From Kara 10 mans to Black Temple Warlock tanking on Illiadan.

Wrath: ICC, Ulduar, and Naxx. 10 and 25, for all 3.

Cataclysm: 25 for BoT, TotFW, and BWD, and 10 for Firelands.

Okay, so now that we have that, I will say that I liked ICC/Naxx/Kara best of all of those raids. Everything else aside, those are simply the ones I enjoyed most.

Step One:

What went right in the old raids?

1. Running Old Raids – Blizzard has shown they would like us to run old raids. Weekly quests, not allowing tokens to be purchased, etc etc. They want this to be our “play” night raid. Burning Crusade did this better than Wrath though, because there were no 5 mans to gear up in. Every week, raiders were back in Kara. Regardless what people say about running the old stuff, it made it easier to go back and farm that item that might have been missed, or to train new raiders while running mildly older stuff with overgeared people.

2. Achievements – Okay, so BC didn’t have achievements, but there were so many weeks I remember raiding just for the achievements. Also it is worth noting this is not a good reason for everyone. In Wrath though, it was possible, and in fact happened often where you would get an achievement without actually *trying*. Not all achievements should be like that, but having some would remind people they are there.

3. Balance of progression – In BC I remember when I realized our 25 man guild took about 2 nights to get a boss down for the first time. But once we had it down, it stayed down. In Wrath, some of the more complex bosses took multiple nights, but as always, once it went down, it stayed down. In FL it seems like having a boss down doesn’t mean we are more likely to have it on “farm” later. In fact weeks can pass between the first down and the second down.

4. Overgearing the encounter – Some might consider this “cheating” the fight, but really what it is, is playing an RPG. This is a core game design truth in RPGs. The player can put sufficient effort into one thing and do that one thing well enough, that it allows them to over power the enemy. In both BC and Wrath there was a way to generally get gear over what your guild’s current progression was. This allowed you to be more useful when running that progression. This really worked best in the Wrath 10 vs. 25 model.

5. Split gear between 10 and 25. Everyone hated it. The fact that gear was so much better in 25 vs 10 mans made 10 man guilds feel like second class citizens. Also things like the legendary was limited to 25. Making it seem like Blizzard was saying “only people who raid 25 are real raiders.” BUT this also allowed Over gearing. It also really only worked when considering that 10 and 25 were separate lockouts. All those itemization issues we have in Cataclysm would be much less painful.

6. The ability to carry – Not the idea that a raid can have 2-5 dead weights and still pull of heroic modes, but rather that a raid can have 2-5 deadweights and do most of the normal mode. In ICC it was arguable that until Sindragosa, a raid of 20 could pretty easily knock it out. In Burning Crusade it was really only Illidan, Archimonde, and Vashji that gave guilds with “not great” players trouble. (At least on my servers.) Why is this important? Because we want to raid with our friends, NOT with elitist jerks who min-max and do everything perfectly. I would rather raid with people I know irl than with people I have never met.  The ability to carry less awesome players meant we could play with who we wanted and still do the things we wanted.

Step 2:

What went wrong?

1. Not enough bosses. I know guilds who could get all of the t11 down in a single night of 4 hour raiding… then they were left with sitting about for a week. The raids were smaller, and more manageable, but overall there have been fewer bosses. At this point we have 21 bosses. At this point in Wrath we had 33 bosses, PLUS an extra tier before we hit the final raid. Now if one thinks about 10 v 25 mans, we actually have 21 bosses versus 66. That’s a THIRD of the content.

2. Holy paladins is this tier hard. No wait, not hard, FRUSTRATING. We know we wiped on Atramedes because the person hitting the gong in searing flame was a bit too slow and the tank had too much sound. One person stand too far out on Magmaw? Gonna wipe. One person miss the jump on Conclave, start running back. The fights have too many instant kill mechanics and too many if one person isn’t paying complete attention the raid will wipe. Worst of all is that if someone disconnects, you might as well just wipe it right then.

3. Itemization – Hey casters, where can I get a 346+ wand without spirit? Seems like a rather complex question. Non-casters or those who don’t use wands would assume there are probably a large number of answers. There aren’t. There is exactly TWO epic level wands for mages and warlocks. TWO. Oh and did I mention NEITHER are boss drops? One is a boe random trash drop and the other is just recently added for valor points. There are FIVE belts though, one of which is easily crafted. Three of which are boss drops. And it’s not just us, how many people do you hear griping about shoulders and bracers? Shaman apparently have the same thing with Weapons in FL. It’s just sad how many people in my guild run with Trollroic gear because they *still* haven’t seen the drop they needed. (I have never seen the Booklight, and I have been running BWD since week 3 of Cata and clearing it since April, just fyi…)

4. It’s always been harder to wrangle 25 people into a raid. But now it’s not just 25 people… It’s 25 well geared, alert, non-drunk, non-distracted, correctly specced, and damn near perfect players. After two weeks of wiping on Shannox because if we lost even 1 person we wouldn’t beat the enrage, we had lost 5 of our long term raiders. The game wasn’t fun for them anymore. It’s no wonder people are breaking down into 10 mans.

So now what?

Well some bloggers say things like “get rid of 10s and 25s, make everything 15s!” or “more content!” or “more difficulty modes” or even god help them “make epics truly epic and have loot drop less”. It’s all I can do not the nerd rage all over their blog. Cutting raids down to 15 doesn’t support the “large scale” raiding paradigm. 10s and 25s is a nice split. The reason 25s are dying isn’t that they don’t want to, it’s that they don’t have the people. People are leaving because the content is too frustrating and they have nothing to do. More difficulty modes is too complex for the style of game. In fact, the current two are more than enough, if people are willing to accept that the variation between the two needs to be greater. And anyone who says anything about LESS loot is just insane. I hit level 85 on Thursday after Cataclysm came out. I was in BWD downing bosses within two weeks. I didn’t get Cataclysmically epic until APRIL. FIVE MONTHS OF RAIDING THREE NIGHTS A WEEK… Even counting for bad rng, that is still ridiculous. And considering the number of people I know who raid ONLY for the loot, I am not surprised subs are dropping like flies.

 

Band-aids and Long Term

1. Immediately, do not pass go, do not collect $200, revert back to the previous 10 and 25 unshared lockouts. This doubles the available content. This addresses the ATROCIOUS itemization issues. This speeds gear acquisition for newer raiders.

2. Achievements that are designed to be achieved in both regular and heroic modes. It seems like all the achievements for BoT, BWD, and TotFW are all designed for “perfect” raids. Giving people goofy and absurd things to do is fun too.

3. Re-tune raids on normal difficulty to allow for “carrying”. This allows normal modes to be for “casuals” and makes them newbie/pug friendly. No instant wipes from one mistake here. But keep heroic modes on the same level as they are now. Precision, perfection, and min-maxing all required to down the boss. The heroic modes scratch the hard core itch, the normal modes cater to people who remember they are here to have fun, not be frustrated to the point of snapping their keyboard in half because one healer accidentally walked into a crystal trap.

3.5 Accept that 10 mans and 25 mans are never going to be perfectly balanced. In Wrath 25s seemed to be easier. In Cata 10s are much easier. Determine why this was (Wrath – not tuned correctly/buffs, Cata – tuned too tightly) and then determine which is the one as a design there is the desire to support. Players will take the path of least resistance. If 10 mans are easier, like now, players will break 25 mans down to 10s. If 25 mans are easier, and there is a good reason to raid them (slightly better gear) players will run them.

4. Fix the itemization. Having a flood of belts, when there are easy and readily available ones just makes it that much more painful when those are getting sharded but that boss still didn’t drop that one upgrade you need to replace a blue. Also while they are at it, they should make it where no more the 2 of the same item can be dropped off a single boss kill. Three pairs of plate tanking boots when we only have one druid tank? Yeah that’s helpful.

5. Accept that casual players make up a large majority of your player base. These people don’t want to be frustrated. They don’t want long boring grinds. They want to have fun, with their friends, and they want pretty epics. At the end of the day it’s still a game, and shouldn’t feel like a job. People already have sucky jobs, and WoW shouldn’t be treating them like a horrid boss.

These are all “small move” changes. They don’t radically change the game at it’s core, but rather are minor tweaks on current design systems. It’s making the game better within the current game. It also compromises and attempts to balance between the two factions of the game, hard and casual.

LfNm for PST

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Raiding is in a hard way right now. And everyone is speculating as to why. Then recommending answers. For what must be the 3rd or 4th time today I saw a blog post on “how to fix raiding” that immediately bounded off into rather large changes.

I shook my head, as this person clearly had only a passing grasp with game design. One of the big rules of game design is meeting player expectation. Players come to the game expecting something. As a designer, you have to meet their expectations. You can’t just start one way and shift 90ft to the right whenever you want. The player may not follow you.

So, as a game designer, how does one identify what is “wrong” with raiding and then how do we speculate how to fix it?

First, identify “good” raiding.

This is a bit difficult, as everyone has a different opinion of “good”. So let’s look at what we have. I will list the raids I have experience with.

Burning Crusade: Everything but Sunwell. From Kara 10 mans to Black Temple Warlock tanking on Illiadan.

Wrath: ICC, Ulduar, and Naxx. 10 and 25, for all 3.

Cataclysm: 25 for BoT, TotFW, and BWD, and 10 for Firelands.

Okay, so now that we have that, I will say that I liked ICC/Naxx/Kara best of all of those raids. Everything else aside, those are simply the ones I enjoyed most.

Step One:

What went right in the old raids?

1. Running Old Raids – Blizzard has shown they would like us to run old raids. Weekly quests, not allowing tokens to be purchased, etc etc. They want this to be our “play” night raid. Burning Crusade did this better than Wrath though, because there were no 5 mans to gear up in. Every week, raiders were back in Kara. Regardless what people say about running the old stuff, it made it easier to go back and farm that item that might have been missed, or to train new raiders while running mildly older stuff with overgeared people.

2. Achievements – Okay, so BC didn’t have achievements, but there were so many weeks I remember raiding just for the achievements. Also it is worth noting this is not a good reason for everyone. In Wrath though, it was possible, and in fact happened often where you would get an achievement without actually *trying*. Not all achievements should be like that, but having some would remind people they are there.

3. Balance of progression – In BC I remember when I realized our 25 man guild took about 2 nights to get a boss down for the first time. But once we had it down, it stayed down. In Wrath, some of the more complex bosses took multiple nights, but as always, once it went down, it stayed down. In FL it seems like having a boss down doesn’t mean we are more likely to have it on “farm” later. In fact weeks can pass between the first down and the second down.

4. Overgearing the encounter – Some might consider this “cheating” the fight, but really what it is, is playing an RPG. This is a core game design truth in RPGs. The player can put sufficient effort into one thing and do that one thing well enough, that it allows them to over power the enemy. In both BC and Wrath there was a way to generally get gear over what your guild’s current progression was. This allowed you to be more useful when running that progression. This really worked best in the Wrath 10 vs. 25 model.

5. Split gear between 10 and 25. Everyone hated it. The fact that gear was so much better in 25 vs 10 mans made 10 man guilds feel like second class citizens. Also things like the legendary was limited to 25. Making it seem like Blizzard was saying “only people who raid 25 are real raiders.” BUT this also allowed Over gearing. It also really only worked when considering that 10 and 25 were separate lockouts. All those itemization issues we have in Cataclysm would be much less painful.

6. The ability to carry – Not the idea that a raid can have 2-5 dead weights and still pull of heroic modes, but rather that a raid can have 2-5 deadweights and do most of the normal mode. In ICC it was arguable that until Sindragosa, a raid of 20 could pretty easily knock it out. In Burning Crusade it was really only Illidan, Archimonde, and Vashji that gave guilds with “not great” players trouble. (At least on my servers.) Why is this important? Because we want to raid with our friends, NOT with elitist jerks who min-max and do everything perfectly. I would rather raid with people I know irl than with people I have never met.  The ability to carry less awesome players meant we could play with who we wanted and still do the things we wanted.

Step 2:

What went wrong?

1. Not enough bosses. I know guilds who could get all of the t11 down in a single night of 4 hour raiding… then they were left with sitting about for a week. The raids were smaller, and more manageable, but overall there have been fewer bosses. At this point we have 21 bosses. At this point in Wrath we had 33 bosses, PLUS an extra tier before we hit the final raid. Now if one thinks about 10 v 25 mans, we actually have 21 bosses versus 66. That’s a THIRD of the content.

2. Holy paladins is this tier hard. No wait, not hard, FRUSTRATING. We know we wiped on Atramedes because the person hitting the gong in searing flame was a bit too slow and the tank had too much sound. One person stand too far out on Magmaw? Gonna wipe. One person miss the jump on Conclave, start running back. The fights have too many instant kill mechanics and too many if one person isn’t paying complete attention the raid will wipe. Worst of all is that if someone disconnects, you might as well just wipe it right then.

3. Itemization – Hey casters, where can I get a 346+ wand without spirit? Seems like a rather complex question. Non-casters or those who don’t use wands would assume there are probably a large number of answers. There aren’t. There is exactly TWO epic level wands for mages and warlocks. TWO. Oh and did I mention NEITHER are boss drops? One is a boe random trash drop and the other is just recently added for valor points. There are FIVE belts though, one of which is easily crafted. Three of which are boss drops. And it’s not just us, how many people do you hear griping about shoulders and bracers? Shaman apparently have the same thing with Weapons in FL. It’s just sad how many people in my guild run with Trollroic gear because they *still* haven’t seen the drop they needed. (I have never seen the Booklight, and I have been running BWD since week 3 of Cata and clearing it since April, just fyi…)

4. It’s always been harder to wrangle 25 people into a raid. But now it’s not just 25 people… It’s 25 well geared, alert, non-drunk, non-distracted, correctly specced, and damn near perfect players. After two weeks of wiping on Shannox because if we lost even 1 person we wouldn’t beat the enrage, we had lost 5 of our long term raiders. The game wasn’t fun for them anymore. It’s no wonder people are breaking down into 10 mans.

So now what?

Well some bloggers say things like “get rid of 10s and 25s, make everything 15s!” or “more content!” or “more difficulty modes” or even god help them “make epics truly epic and have loot drop less”. It’s all I can do not the nerd rage all over their blog. Cutting raids down to 15 doesn’t support the “large scale” raiding paradigm. 10s and 25s is a nice split. The reason 25s are dying isn’t that they don’t want to, it’s that they don’t have the people. People are leaving because the content is too frustrating and they have nothing to do. More difficulty modes is too complex for the style of game. In fact, the current two are more than enough, if people are willing to accept that the variation between the two needs to be greater. And anyone who says anything about LESS loot is just insane. I hit level 85 on Thursday after Cataclysm came out. I was in BWD downing bosses within two weeks. I didn’t get Cataclysmically epic until APRIL. FIVE MONTHS OF RAIDING THREE NIGHTS A WEEK… Even counting for bad rng, that is still ridiculous. And considering the number of people I know who raid ONLY for the loot, I am not surprised subs are dropping like flies.

 

Band-aids and Long Term

1. Immediately, do not pass go, do not collect $200, revert back to the previous 10 and 25 unshared lockouts. This doubles the available content. This addresses the ATROCIOUS itemization issues. This speeds gear acquisition for newer raiders.

2. Achievements that are designed to be achieved in both regular and heroic modes. It seems like all the achievements for BoT, BWD, and TotFW are all designed for “perfect” raids. Giving people goofy and absurd things to do is fun too.

3. Re-tune raids on normal difficulty to allow for “carrying”. This allows normal modes to be for “casuals” and makes them newbie/pug friendly. No instant wipes from one mistake here. But keep heroic modes on the same level as they are now. Precision, perfection, and min-maxing all required to down the boss. The heroic modes scratch the hard core itch, the normal modes cater to people who remember they are here to have fun, not be frustrated to the point of snapping their keyboard in half because one healer accidentally walked into a crystal trap.

3.5 Accept that 10 mans and 25 mans are never going to be perfectly balanced. In Wrath 25s seemed to be easier. In Cata 10s are much easier. Determine why this was (Wrath – not tuned correctly/buffs, Cata – tuned too tightly) and then determine which is the one as a design there is the desire to support. Players will take the path of least resistance. If 10 mans are easier, like now, players will break 25 mans down to 10s. If 25 mans are easier, and there is a good reason to raid them (slightly better gear) players will run them.

4. Fix the itemization. Having a flood of belts, when there are easy and readily available ones just makes it that much more painful when those are getting sharded but that boss still didn’t drop that one upgrade you need to replace a blue. Also while they are at it, they should make it where no more the 2 of the same item can be dropped off a single boss kill. Three pairs of plate tanking boots when we only have one druid tank? Yeah that’s helpful.

5. Accept that casual players make up a large majority of your player base. These people don’t want to be frustrated. They don’t want long boring grinds. They want to have fun, with their friends, and they want pretty epics. At the end of the day it’s still a game, and shouldn’t feel like a job. People already have sucky jobs, and WoW shouldn’t be treating them like a horrid boss.

These are all “small move” changes. They don’t radically change the game at it’s core, but rather are minor tweaks on current design systems. It’s making the game better within the current game. It also compromises and attempts to balance between the two factions of the game, hard and casual.

Mechanics vs. Play style

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As a game designer, it is generally accepted that at least 30% of my job is getting the player to do what I want. (Some would say even 90%.) Want the player to slow down and be cautious, make the area dark and play some kind of sound off to his side. If I want the player to move, I drop something nasty where his feet are. So on and so forth.

Blizzard generally does this very well. They want people questing instead of just grinding on kills. So they make it more worthwhile to do a large number of close quests instead of just killing mobs. They want the player to limit their playtime, so they add in the rest bonus to “reward” the player for switching to an alt, or not playing for a while.

Mechanics are used to alter  play style. If a player is rewarded for doing something, they are going to continue to do it. This is especially true when the rewarded play style is the path of least resistance. Players will always find the path of least resistance. Period.

So what this brings me to is raid boss design in World of Warcraft.

Blizzard seems to have forgotten that their game is about playing with your friends. And sadly, not everyone is friends with players who are awesome at WoW. In previous raid expansions there was the “dead weight” slots. These were raid slots that needed nothing more than a warm body in it. A decent raid team could “carry” several players without too much problem. This number changed based on the size and skill of the rest of the raid. It was generally accepted to be 2 slots for 10 man and 4-5 for 25 man. There were even achievements to support this “play style.”

Why was this so important?

Because it meant that even if you were friends with a really nice, but completely brain dead guy, you could still raid with him and do well. No, you wouldn’t be bleeding progression. No you wouldn’t be getting every achievement or even hard modes. But you could fight and see the raid.

But someone at Blizzard decided he was sick and tired of carrying his brain dead buddies. So the raid boss design stopped being about play style and started being about mechanics. (Either that or was just really annoyed at Sarth 3D zergs.)

Sartharion with 3 Drakes:

This fight perfectly explains the mechanics vs. play style debate I feel is very important to WoW raid boss design.

Mechanics: The players clear out the trash, then pull the main boss, with all 3 mini bosses still alive. As the fight progresses, the three mini bosses join the fight and the players have to deal with added fire, void zones, damage, etc etc.

Sarth 3D as it was dubbed was very difficult for 10 mans. It required 3 tanks, which is too much for a 10 man raid. It caused a great deal of raid damage, which required 3 healers. Now, more than half the raid is just there keeping the raid alive, meaning that without 4 amazing dps, the fight would be un-winable for most 10 man guilds. (To be fair it was done, just by a bleeding edge guilds.

Then some enterprising raiders discovered something very interesting.

Play Style: If instead of focusing down each of the mini-bosses as they joined the fight, the players could just focus Sarth and as long as they could burn him in the 90 seconds before the second mini-boss spawned, they would kill him before he became invulnerable.

So they ignored the mechanic of the fight and brute forced it. They made the game about they way they like to play. Burn hard and fast and win, or not quite hard enough and die to purple fire. Even with a decent group, this strat was not easy. My guild at the time would always wipe 4 or 5 times before pulling it off. But we could do it. And it was fun for us. It was still a challenge because pulling that much dps that quickly was not easy.

Of course, once this strat hit the internet, everyone did it this way. It was much easier, if less consistent than the normal strat. Does that make it inherently bad? I say no.

As a game designer it is my job to get the player to kill the boss. Not to jump through hoops until the boss dies. It is supposed to be fun and challenging. Sarth Zerg was still challenging, it just stripped away all the excess “fluff” of the fight and made it what it should have been. A toe to toe battle to the death between us and this huge dragon. It also made us feel like we were playing the game on our own terms. We were playing the game the way we wanted to.

Now, in Firelands the fights are tightly tuned. No more “dead weight” spots. Not only that, if even one person fails, the entire attempt fails. Brain deads need not apply.

Even more so, the fights are very very mechanics based. There is no edge for play style changes to strats. Trying to alter the strat even the smallest bit leads to an insta wipe.

The correct answer is somewhere in between the two ideas. Where people can try to do things their way or strictly stick to the intended way. It makes it feel more like a conversation between the designer and the player.

Blizzard says “Bring the Player, not the Class” but what if the player I want to bring is not awesome? What if the player I want to bring is a good friend but only a mediocre dps? Should I replace my friend with some douche bag who can pull 20k?

The big thing to be worried about when trying to force a mechanic instead of play style is that the path of least resistance might be right out of the door and never playing your game. A bad thing for any social game.

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.

Catherine vs Katherine

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First off – I didn’t actually *play* Catherine in the strictest sense of the word. Rather I sat and watched my husband play it. I do this quite frequently. I generally have one of two reactions – 1. I determine that I would hate playing the game, stop and consider why other people like it, and then go back to playing WoW; or 2. I watch him play, engrossed, until he does something “wrong” and then I itch to yank the controller away until he is done playing then play it myself so I can do it right.

Demon Souls and Brothers in Arms were part of the first category. Valkyria Chronicles and Persona 4 were  part of the second.

Catherine is the first game that has fallen solidly between the two. The game is a action puzzle game, by Atlus’s Persona team. I was very excited about the game, because I am such a fan of Persona 4. The action portions of the game consist of what is essentially a huge puzzle block tower the player must climb. The “social” portions are of the player and the other characters in the game hanging out at a bar.

Honestly, after watching him play a few stages, I was completely convinced not only would I not want to play this part, but I would be bored to tears. The methods of moving up the tower are unchanged, regardless of the trick blocks, enemies, and boss events that try to break it up. Once you have figured out the general moves, you have figured out the game.

However, the “social” part of the game was utterly fascinating. The surreal encounters, the background characters, the strange effects thrown about, it all added up to an exceptional world that was interesting. I could crawl into the world portrayed and spent hours simply getting to figure out all the weird stuff going on. I do think however that the point of the mysterious murders will be lost on most American players.

*Spoilers*

So the Boss is killing young men who are of the appropriate age and economic status to get married and have kids, but are unwilling to do so because they like their freedom. They want to remain independent and “having fun” as opposed to settling down.

It doesn’t make a ton of sense to American Culture, but in Japan, where a negative birthrate is literally affecting the stability of their culture and society, it would seem completely logical. The Boss is taking out the men who are causing this problem. Essentially saying, “Get with it, or get out of the way.”

*End Spoilers*

The game also does some very interesting things with it’s Order and Chaos meter, in addition to using it to determine the one of 9 possible outcomes. I love that the “canon” of the game changes based on your order/chaos level and responses to questions. It makes me wonder though, if they did a sequel, would they do it like Persona, and ignore the previous entry’s “canon” or chose one to make it the “correct” ending?

While I didn’t play Catherine myself, I do believe it is an interesting game to experience. There is a demo, which should be played, but even so the game stands true with other Atlus games as beautiful, fascinating, relatively fun although possibly grindy to play, with interesting insights into Japanese culture. Though mostly it just made me want to play Persona 4 again, or think about what awesome things they might be doing for Persona 5.

L.A. Noire – How it is a poison apple.

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I haven’t played L.A. Noire myself. But I did sit and watch my husband play it. As a fan of Law and Order, CSI, and NCIS, I could not contain my excitement for this game. It was huge, ambitious, and most of all, had tons of recognizable actors to fill the roles of the people in the game. The game had some fairly serious flaws (who puts the climax at the end of the second chapter?) but those could be overlooked. It was a fun and interesting game.

But now, having read this, I wish I had never allowed my husband to buy it, and I wish I had never seen it played. Why? Because if L.A. Noire succeeds, then it continues to support and exceptionally BAD management style. (And clearly a very bad manager.) The game industry needs to break away from the lone programmer in his basement, pounding out a game in a weekend mentality. Unfortunately, if the game does well, all bad decisions are forgiven, and the perpetrator is allowed to go on to another project, with a new team, and make other lives hell.

First off, I really want to reach through the internet and smack this lead guy. So I am just going to pick apart the crap they quote him on.

“It’s my game. I can go to anyone I want in the team and say, ‘I want it changed’.”

The smallest game I worked on had about 25 people on it. The largest over 100. The minute a second designer has been added to the game, it is no longer “your” game. You can’t make L. A. Noire alone, and it is as much their game as it is yours. Especially when people are pouring their lives into getting it made. This doesn’t provide the “idiot idea” filter that the leads of a game are there for. By running everything through leads, there is a vetting process for time spent. Is an idea really good enough to improve a game? Can it be done in a reasonable amount of time? Is the gameplay improvement worth the time spent implementing and maintaining it? Most of all, it is a sanity check. It should prevent things like Duke Nukem Forever, provided you have a good studio head and good leads.

Crunch – “If you wanted to do a nine-to-five job, you’d be in another business,” said McNamara, citing routine hours from 9am to 8pm – “whatever days it takes” – with frequent travel and 4am calls with the New York-based publisher. “We all work the same hours,” he told us. “People don’t work any longer hours than I do. I don’t turn up at 9am and go home at 5pm, and go to the beach. I’m here at the same hours as everybody else is.”

This is EXACTLY the kind of mentality that lead to the EA Spouse debacle. First off you have employers who think it is okay to ask their employees to work these hours. Second you have employees who are so fearful of losing their jobs they will allow themselves to be exploited. Third you have exceptionally short sighted thinking the anything gets done any faster when all the employees are rapidly burning out.

I once had to crunch two straight months on a game. There was literally a point where someone said something to me about what I was doing on Thursday and I could not tell them. Not only because the days had blurred together, but also because I couldn’t even have told them what day TODAY was, much less when Thursday was coming around again. Why did I crunch like that? Well, mostly because I liked the job, I liked the game, and I liked the people I worked with. It was fun for me. But I also knew we had a hard line, set in stone, release date. We had to ship that day, regardless of where the game was. Honestly, by the time we reached the second month I was working at most 75% of my previous “skill level”. By the end, I couldn’t make a change without going to another designer and getting them to double check I wasn’t screwing things up. As people burn out, they get sloppier. They stop making good decisions. They stop fixing things in the correct way. They stop working at good productivity. At that point, it’s like trying to run a marathon with a thorn in your foot. Yes, not stopping will keep you ahead, but you will move slower than if you simply took the time to stop, pull the thorn out and bandage up your foot, then return to the race.

The thing that most stuck me about my experience with crunch was that everyone, from the studio head to the newest artist, we all knew that our crunch was a result of poor planning. Everyone was willing to admit it. They knew they took too long on the tools. They knew they hired people too late. They knew they promised more than they could deliver. Did that make it right? No. But It certainly made everyone feel better about it to hear the leads say “Yeah, we screwed up, but no use crying over it now, remember it, move on, and let’s get this thing shipped.”

He even goes on to say “The expectation is slightly weird here, that you can do this stuff without killing yourself; well, you can’t, whether it’s in London or New York or wherever; you’re competing against the best people in the world at what they do, and you just have to be prepared to do what you have to do to compete against those people.”

Unbelievable. All it takes is organization, planning, proper scoping, and good leads. I am currently on a triple A product where my crunch days are still in the low teens after a YEAR and multiple milestones. And even then, it was my own choice, not the company telling me to, just to get thing done faster that I wanted done already. But then we have good leads, good producers, and the ability to say to our publisher “Okay, we can do this well or we can do this fast, we can’t do both.” They chose the well option.

It is also implied in the article that they hired young people to do the work, and then just churned through young cheap labor that was willing to do the work, just because they wanted it so bad. The problem with this is that you have wildly inexperienced people making decisions on your multi-million dollar game. That’s gonna turn out well.

All in all this article shows that despite this game’s success it was poorly managed, and a result of extremely bad business practices. We shouldn’t as developers be supporting this kind of management. Games made like this, that still succeed, leads managers into thinking that they can do this kind of thing and make money. True justice would have the game failing, miserably, to show that unless you take care of your employees, listen to your talent, and strengthen your studio, you are just setting yourself up for failure. True, there can be flukes, but for the most part, I would expect this to kill a studio.

On being Legendary

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As with every shiny new raiding tier, Cataclysm has brought with it a shiny new Legendary. There are currently 8 Legendary weapons in World of Warcraft. (A few other flavor items, but no armor. Weapons are Legendary and so all Legendaries are Weapons..)

Legendaries are amazing things. Having one, even from old tiers of content, is a way of showing how amazing, persistent, and dedicated you are. At tier, they show that not only are you a hard core raider, but also that your guild is amazing and supports your awesomeness. And of course, with each new Legendary, guild leaders groan, knowing that the mere possibility of such an item will cause strife, anger, and likely a few losses, if not entirely destroying a raiding group. See, the thing with Legendaries are, they take a great deal of time, effort, and gold. And generally, it takes a few MONTHS to get ONE. That one Legendary, goes to ONE player. Not to the guild or raiding team that helped farm up the shards. Not to the crafters that help farm up the mats. The one player who was lucky enough to start the quest. In most guilds I have been in, this is usually an officer, if not the guild leader them self. Lower ranked raiders are likely to feel left out, passed over, or un-welcome.

It’s a sad state of affairs. I understand the logic. Legendaries are supposed to be Legendary. It’s not quite as cool if every player has one. But there are so many problems with them, I am to the point where I have to say, there needs to be a change.

1. Only 1. It’s sad really, that generally only one player in a raid group gets one. Despite the fact that it takes an intense amount of work from all the players in the raid group. I don’t know how to solve this. I really don’t. Part of me says make it as such that if you always run with the same 10 people, then after 3 months, you *should* have had sufficient time to earn the legendary for every person in your raid that it is specifically itemized for. To explain that and example.

I am a Warlock. That means, spellcaster DPS. I look for Intelligence, Stamina, Spellpower, Critical Hit, Haste, Mastery, and the most godly of all, Hit. A well itemized weapon for me would be +Int, +Stam, +SP, +Haste, and +Hit. Sharing with me perfectly would be any Mages. Now… having said that, if the caster item chosen were a staff (they usually are) a staff, itemized towards me would logically also be appropriate for Shadow Priests, Balance Druids, and Elemental Shaman. Now, let’s go out on the limb and say these classes don’t count. So that gives us two classes. Now in a 10 man raid, generally it is a fairly good idea to only have one of each class. It is also common to have 2 tanks, 2-3 healers, and 5-6 dps. It’s also a good idea to have dps split fairly evenly between melee and ranged. This puts us at chance of having the “correct” class for the Legendary pretty high. Even, probably, that there would be two in the raid. It’s possible to have 3 or more, but more likely that the raid would have two, provided it is a pure dps ranged staff. Let’s just say for simplicity that there is one mage and me. The staff is exceptional for both of us. We are both exceptional and consistent raiders. We are both likely to continue playing with said guild for years. Which of us gets the staff? My answer is that after 3 months, consistent clearing of the entire instance (beginning to end boss, each week), and assuming that the person with the steps is on the ball and immediately works at completing the step they are on so as not to lose any time, then a consistent raid group should be able to complete two staff Legendaries. Likely one much earlier than the other.

To round this up to 25 man, where there are 2 tanks, 5-6 healers, and 17-18 dps, then likely, a raid would have 4-5 of the proper class to take the staff. (My current 25 man has exactly 5. While my former 10 man had exactly 1. The math works out for the most part in my casual experience.)

What if it were a caster staff, but didn’t have hit or spirit? So suddenly it was viable for all 5 classes? Personally, I think this would be irresponsible design. Itemize to Caster DPS and create a second Weapon for Healing. Someone might say, well what about all the Hybrids? Do they not deserve a Legendary? Well, yes, but the assumption would that a Legendary should be created that appeals to that hybrid class more than the pure classes. So anything with spirit, but with a proc off damage.

Now obviously this means more Legendaries running about, but this also assumes a consistent group, clearing the entire instance, over 3 months. Not a simple feat.

2. Legendaries get replaced.

This is the saddest truth about Legendaries. Thunderfurys sitting in banks. Warglavies trotted out for showing off. Valynrs only pulled out to play around in old raids. After all that time, effort, gold, and destruction of guilds to have the item cease being useful is just sad.

A possible, and the one I like best, solution, is to have all Legendaries have the potential to upgrade. Let’s take Thunderfury, for example. Run Molten Core until eyes bleed? Check. Gather the exceptionally rare and expensive mats? Check. Made weapon. Yay! Now. Level to 70. Start a new quest, that includes running all the new raids. Collecting even more crap. Gather more materials. Do more bosses until eyes resume bleeding. And at the end, turn in the level 60 Thunderfury, for the now level appropriate, and amazing, Thunderfury, Level 70. Yay! Now level to 80. Rinse, repeat, and once more, Thunderfury, level 80. And for the final trip, again, eyes bleeding, pockets to let, bosses on every tier downed… Level 85 Thunderfury. A Legendary for someone with Legendary patience and perseverance. Of course, at each stage the weapon gets a bit more ornate, adding a proc, and making it a truly Legendary item.

This would also fix the third big issue.

3. With only 2 Legendaries per expansion, how does Blizzard decide which class it is intended for?

Two melee dps legendaries. A caster dps staff (now removed from the game). A bow. Two swords (for melee dps). An Axe (could be tank for DK, but really more melee dps). And a mace, specifically designed for healers. The newest is a caster dps staff. Seem unbalanced? It is.

But if the old weapons could be “upgraded” then with the addition of two tanking Legendaries, the removal of the class limitations on the Warglaives, and bam… every class, with each spec, would have a decent viable Legendary.

It would make the quality of life for everyone a bit better. There is an argument to be made that they should be super super rare, and maybe they should be so insanely difficult even hard core guilds only get one. But really, where’s the fun in that?

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.