Tag Archives: Cataclysm

Transmorgrify!

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Blizzard announced stuff about new 5 mans, a new raid, and cross-realm raiding. Is anyone talking about that? No. Why? Because they also announced a thing that changes very little, and yet somehow changes *everything*.

I remember getting an armor dye drop back in DAoC. It was black, and for metal. It sold for about 100g. A veritable fortune at the time in that game. My healer wore a rather lovely mix of dark green armor, so it was worthless to me, but amazing for someone else. When I later started playing WoW, on my very first character, I got some hideous brown robe and immediately asked my friend “Oh god, where do I get dye? This thing looks like baby poop.”

“You don’t.” He said, then explained that everything in WoW was set. I was exceedingly happy a level or so later to get a green robe to replace the other. Now, I am aware that many people think this is a girl thing, but it’s not. I even know a rather masculine man (he was a football player, so huge) who refused to wear any “of the Whale” items, because that implied he was fat. But regardless, for many of the same reasons people chose certain races or sexes in the game, we wish we could chose gear.

Guild tabards are hotly debated among officers to “look good.” People will match their pets to their mounts. (My hunter was furious when they took away her pet while mounted.) Everyone who went from Vanilla, with lovely armor sets, to the rainbow barf that was leveling in Burning Crusade had some moment of thought along the lines of, “Ugh, my character looks ridiculous.” Our characters are an extension of ourselves. We wouldn’t go out into public looking like that, why would our characters?

So why did Blizzard insist on limiting the armor colors and styles? Why didn’t they have an appearance tab like LotR Online and other MMOs? Why didn’t they add armor dyes? Why didn’t they give the community what was begged for?

They claimed the reason was dedication to the art. They wanted things to look correct. No pink hello kitty Darth Vaders here. And the Silhouette theory. This is best explained by looking at just the outlines of characters. Can you tell what kind of character it is by the outline? Then the Silhouette theory is working. The idea being that you could just glance at someone and tell, are they friend or foe. Are they Horde or Alliance? Heavy or Medic? This is why the shoulders in all the armor sets are so distinctive and large. So that player can not only tell at a glance who is who, but also how well geared they are.

It was a good argument… With a few gaping holes.

1. What about Noggenfogger? It changes everyone’s silhouette! As does Deviate Delight. Arrr!

2. What about Orb of the Sin’dorei? I love my orb. I used to be a Blood Elf. But then I faction changed to play with friends. I miss being a blood elf. So I use my orb with shocking regularity. I love using it in Tol Barad. Has it ever saved my life? Not even once.

3. Rated Battlegrounds.  For those who don’t run them, every so occasionally your team will get matched up against a team of the same faction. So it just slaps a buff on you that says “Horde” or “Alliance”. That’s it.

The other comment made was that with the armor sets being static, you could tell someone’s “epicness” just by looking at them. Which was great, back in Vanilla. But ever since Wrath, and the great design shift to allowing everyone to see raids, this has created a huge problem. Yes, those shoulders DO look cool. And everyone else and their BROTHER is wearing them. It was the sparkle pony all over again. Everyone looked the same. (I think this is also the time that “town gear” also rose to wide spread popularity, where you carried a set of gear just for wearing about town.)

Apparently though, Blizzard re-thought their stance and came up with an amazing compromise. No, we still can’t dye our armor. BUT we can make it look like another piece of armor in the same armor class. And the masses rejoiced.

I have never been so glad or my hoarder mentality of tier sets. I have never been so glad I have my bank stuffed to the gills with old and interesting armor. There is literally NOTHING in my bank that isn’t soul bound. Everything else sits on my bank alt.  Joyia has all 24 slot bags, and not a single space to spare. But she also has all the warlock sets. I will have these ugly tier 11 shoulders looking like tier 5 so fast it will make Joyia’s head spin!

Ah Corruptor Raiment, I have missed you. I cannot wait to have my shoulders bedecked with skulls once more. My hunter is gonna wear this one. And I will no longer have to deal with the fact that my dps is lower because I refuse to use one of those noisy guns! I may even try to raid with her now! I have all the starter DK gear sitting in my DK’s bank. My priest will be looking all angelic in this set. I am already excited about wearing these armor pieces again. I am already thinking of running old instances to get nifty looking gear.

But that just changes me right? That doesn’t change the whole of WoW. But it does. I already have friends who are planning on re-subbing when the patch hits. They are already planning THEIR ARMOR SETS. The invites for old school raids have already started. People are already compiling lists of nifty items and where to get them. Oh and the Destiny sword I have been listing for a month that hasn’t been selling? Gone for 500g. So I listed a Brain Hacker. I couldn’t sell it for 100g 3 months ago. Today, it went, in 15 minutes, for 500g. Lovely Dresses (despite not having stats so possibly not being eligible for the transmogrification) all sold for 100g each. This feature isn’t even in yet and people are already creating ripple effects in the game.

The best part about this change? It sets a precedent. Blizzard said no and gave reasons. Then later came back and said, okay, we found a compromise. No Pandaren? No dual faction races? There could be more compromises. Breaking the armor silhouette sets them up to break the race silhouette. This could be the beginning of a whole new World of Warcraft.

Now, I have to go stare lovingly at my t5 warlock set, sighing over the thought of wearing such lovely gear again.

Oh Noes the Sky is FALLINGS

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Okay not really. But something very unprecedented happened today. Blizzard announced the current subscriber base. And the number is lower than the previous one. By over 600,000 players. Is this the beginning of the end for WoW as the behemoth MMO?

Calm down. Put away your last log out plans. It’s really not. It is however likely the beginning of the shift.

What is the shift? Well, Cataclysm was hailed as the return to the “true essence” of WoW. Harder heroics, rarer epics, harder raids. No more sailing through heroics with the greatest of ease. No more spamming chain heal. No more buffs that are incrementally increased as you play through the expansion. Also, despite ICC being out longer without a patch, currently, we are way behind schedule in raids as compared to both BC and Wrath.

I have already talked about the problem. The shift is going to be Blizzard’s solution. Let’s hope that the designers working to “fix” the subscriber loss are a bit more in tune than Mr. Morhaime. Players aren’t churning through the content faster, they are getting bored with the content faster. There is a huge difference there.

I know people who bashed their heads against the wall of Arthas for 7 WEEKS. (*raises hand*) But in all that frustrating time, it was never boring. We were running alts, running 25 mans to get better gear, running heroics, all the while returning to our little 10 man to fight the good fight. Many of those same people have left the game, despite having bought Cataclysm and played for the first few weeks.

Why? Why are people leaving?

The game hasn’t changed. It’s still the same old thing.

The game has been artificially increased in difficulty. Dying from a random something doesn’t make the game more challenging, it makes it more frustrating.

In Wrath, if you were stuck on a boss, there were options. You could go to a 25 man and get better gear. You could farm the early bosses on 10 man. There was something easily obtainable for each slot. Now, it’s not the case. My guild has been 9/12 for over 2 months now. Despite making progress and getting a ton of gear. The truly sad thing is that even though we can’t down the end bosses of each raid, there is NOTHING we can do to improve our chances. My character has every available upgrade other than the few that drop off those bosses. We are a competent bunch. We made progress through the first parts of the raids fairly consistently. And suddenly faceplanted into the wall of Cho’gall, Al’Akir, and Neferian. In Wrath, we would just do some more 25 mans, and over gear it a bit, then bam, get the boss down. Now, we sit there, impotent, as we watch raiders get bored with wiping for weeks on end and bail.

I trust Blizzard to do what is necessary to keep players. The shift is coming. They are going to change *something* to make the game not boring. Something to decrease the difficulty. Something to bring players back. But they better do it quick.

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.

I’m sorry, Do I know you?

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It was a pretty exciting day. Patch 4.0.1 was a BIG deal. It was the change from Wrath to Cataclysm. It should have been a day of celebration, exploration, and excitedly discussing things with guildies. But the day was marred by the unexpected.

I logged in, double checked my gear and immediately dove into specing my new talent points. Alright, all done, summon up my felpuppy and start heading… wait a tic.

“Who the hell are you?”

The felhound standing at my side was called “Rhuudym”. MY felhound is called Phryluum. This… IMPOSTOR… was wearing the tag <Joyia’s Minion> below it’s name.

“You are not.”

Weirded out by this impostor, I decided to summon my Imp. Maybe Laztip would know what was going on. At the end of my spell, Paztog answered my call.

“Ahhhh! What happened to Laztip?!?” The imposter imp said nothing. I was really feeling terror now.

“Blue, don’t fail me…” Calling my voidwalker into existence. Poof!

“Oh thank the gods, Klath’dok! What the hell dude?!? Where did everyone go?”

“Sorry mi’lady. There was some catastrophic event that ripped through the nether. We all seem to be hearing different names and voices calling through the magics to us. It’s bedlam down there.” It was all I could do not to hug the big blue guy.

“I have a raid tonight. Arthas and all that. What am I supposed to do? I don’t know that felhound! He might try and take my hand off.” Klath’dok had no advice for me. I mean, I know I am a warlock. We are inherently evil and not to be trusted. Even the very demons I was trying to call were originally enslaved by my fel powers. But in some twisted form of Stockholm Syndrome we had become friends. We trusted one another. We worked as a team. We were connected, and not just by soul link, but by health funnel and dark pacts!

I summoned back the impostor, who just glared at me balefully.

“Alright you. I don’t know you. You don’t me. But I have this thing to do tonight. It’s lots and lots of killing. You should like that right?” He seemed a bit more interested.

“So truce then? I’ll take care of you for now, and we can both just muddle through until the Nether Guardians get this ‘mix-up’ figured out.” He blinked his eyes, but made no other response.

“Either agree, or I am gonna have a new felhound pair of boots. And I’ll use the imp instead.” He chuffed, and finally bowed his head and tentacles slightly. Good enough, I thought.

It would eventually take a week for my friends to return. Their return was met with joy and celebration, on both sides of the bond.

This event resonated several important things within me. First, Warlocks do have a heart, despite it being madly in love with destruction. Second, we knew their names. Not just one, but all of the demons we enslave. They are as much a part of us as our spikes, skulls, and bloody robes (not our blood). Third, despite years of howling for the ability to rename these little snots we had become accustomed to their names. We knew them. And when they were unexpectedly changed, we rebelled in one voice to change them back. There was the most heartbreaking thread on the forums, Warlocks looking for their lost minions, asking that someone, anyone care for their loved companions until at such a time this error could be reversed.

Welcome back Phryluum, you were missed you ugly little mutt you.

The Crypts of Karazhan

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As a fan of Lore and writing in World of Warcraft, I have read many of the novels and extra material written on the game. One such novel is The Last Guardian, which covers the story of Medivh and his tower, Karazhan.

In the Burning Crusade Karazhan (more commonly shortened to Kara) was added as a 10 man raid instance. It was essentially the starting point for fresh 70s wanting to get geared and get to raiding. By the time I hit Kara it was already on farm by my guild. I loved Kara. Even after 5 months worth of running Kara every single week, I *still* love Kara. It was exceptionally well designed, with beautiful attention to detail. Not to mention all of the bosses and NPCs were heavily tied to the story of Kara. Knowing Moroes from the book, then fighting him in the instance was beyond cool for me.

The only minor point I objected to was the fact that the in-game Kara had no “mirror”. In the book, the character Khadgar discovers that Medivh is actually possessed by Saragas (the biggest bad in the Warcraft Universe), and below Kara there is a mirrored version of the tall eerie tower. They must battle to the depths of this mirrored version to trap and defeat Medivh.

Then one day, browsing the main WoW forums I stumbled on a fascinating thread: The Hidden Places of WoW. It detailed out of bounds areas that a player could go and visit. These were mostly unfinished areas that had interesting areas around them like the Greymane Wall. Here I found mention of a place called the Crypts of Kara. Apparently behind Kara there is a graveyard called Morgan’s Plot, and a crypt that had a doorway, with rooms beyond it, but the door wouldn’t open. The poster explained that you could get beyond and explore the area, by using a simple trick.

By entering a duel with another player you could be feared through the invisible barrier. Once inside you can explore as you wish. I watched several videos and decided I had to go visit. So I gathered up some guidies and away we went.

The very first thing we noticed was the atmosphere, seemingly without much effort put into making it detailed. I am not sure if it was the lack of mobs, the lack of sound effects, the minor use of dark Duskwood music in one back corner, or simply the knowledge we didn’t belong there, but this area felt far more eerie and disturbing than anything else in WoW, including areas like Scholomance and Stratholm.

The first area is called The Well of the Forgotten.  I immediately noted that the name was printed in yellowy orange text. As opposed to the standard white. This room contained a well, without a barrier preventing someone from falling down it. One of my guildies immediately jumped down. The rest of us turned and investigated the next area The Pauper’s Walk.

This looked like something out of the Paris Catacombs. Niches in walls filled with bones, dirt floors, and low ceilings. It opened into a larger area, that looked like it could be a space for mausoleums and other crypts. Our guildie was messaging us about the huge pile of bones. I returned to the well, and leapt down. Despite falling what felt like a character killing distance, I landed, barely alive, on a huge pile of bones. This area was named The Pit of Criminals. Well, at least now we knew what the Well of the Forgotten was used for. The Pit contained pools of water, and huge piles of decaying bodies and putrefied remains.

We continued to explore, finding the Tome of the Unrepentant. (Perhaps it was supposed to be Tomb?) This is the first point where I really began to feel that this area was rough pass, unfinished work. This design had been abandoned before it could even be truly blocked out.

Then came perhaps the creepiest thing I have ever seen in WoW. The Upsidedown Sinners. The flooded room was filled with dark green water. Chains crossed the deep room. From these chains hang hooks, slightly animating, moving back and forth implying a slight ebb and flow to the water. There were also bodies. Dozens of them, suspended upside down. Some by their feet, with weights on their body pulling them downward, some by their hands, their arms distended with the pressure.

My guildies asked for my water breathing spell, so we could spend more time, floating about and taking pictures. After a long stay in the deeply disturbing room, we returned to the surface and swam out, to the final area, the Slough of Dispair [sic]. This room was a deep earthen pit, that clearly was designed for the final boss fight. When a player moved into the pit, the view of the door and walls passed out of view. It truly made me feel like I had been pushed down into this great gaping mass grave, from which there would be no return.

We took our pictures, said good bye to the creepy area, and returned to Shattrath, and the rest of the world. Everything seemed so much brighter, friendlier, and safer than we remembered.

The Pertinent Question

[quote=”Henghe“]So Joyia, you’re a level designer. Is it common for game designers to spend tons of time creating sounds and layouts, and to put them in games, that they then don’t give people access to? :lol:[/quote]

Yes and No. Yes, it is EXCEPTIONALLY common to spend tons of time creating areas, polishing them, pouring your heart and soul into them, only to have them violently ripped from your hands and discarded due to time, money, or just poor fit with the game in general.

No, those abandoned levels usually do not make it into a game. They are deleted from the game files usually to save space or install time/footprint. Especially for WoW where 12 million people have to download it. Yeah its only 20 mg worth of area, but how much bandwidth is it for 12 million people to download?

After looking a several videos, working diligently to overcome my WoW geekery, and inspecting the video a bit more, I have hit on a few ideas of why this level might have not been completed, and why it might be in the game. All of the following however is sheer speculation on my part.

Theory 1: Shares Space with Other Areas

So first off Blizzard makes WoW with a modified WC3 engine. These proprietary engines usually do not have an in-engine ability to make geometry, meaning you have to have a program like Max or Maya to make all of the walls, items, trees, etc in the game. Then you import these models into the engine which is an open terrain area. (In fact their terrain stuff is very similar to what is used in Unreal, very cool.) So what this means for WoW is that most of the buildings and stuff like Kara are actually created by an artist sitting next to the designer. This likely means that all of the major geometry in Kara, stuff like floors, ceilings, walls, and columns are all one piece, or at least are exported together so as far as the game is concerned are one piece. So it is possible and plausible that the Crypts were intended to be a part of Kara, another wing. However they were cut due to time and polish and could not be removed as they might share geometry with other parts of Kara.

Game developers tend to have the thought that if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. A single change can bring cascading bugs or problems. If they don’t have to remove something so the game fits on the disc, it is generally safer to leave it in.

Theory 2: The Depths of Depravity

Also as I stated before, these areas are much darker and have much darker names than normal WoW. It could just be that they decided it had gone too dark and they needed to reel it back in. It is also possible that this area was cut due to the dark tone and possible “teen” rating issue. Ratings are often based not only on the appearance of things, but also the frequency and detail. Though at times I think the rating theory doesn’t really wash, because all the human hanging models are used in other locations (like Scarlet Monastery) and they have done far worse things in Cata and Wrath. Perhaps it was merely the feeling at the time and since has changed.

Theory 3: Time and Scope

It is also possible as these areas have a very unfinished look about them that they were scrapped due to not having interesting enough bosses, not enough time, or possibly the quality of the area just wasn’t matching the rest of the dungeon. Kara was a Burning Crusade launch raid. It was the first expansion, and likely they over scoped. They got it to alpha stage, realized that they couldn’t finish all they started, and chose to pick something else instead of that (likely polish to Kara itself).

The design, while interesting, does not compare as far as quality to other WoW dungeons. With the exception of the Upsidedown Sinners room, of course, but even this room… why does it belong?

Theory 4: Lore

How does it fit? What is the lore behind this area and why is it tied to Medivh? I could see all of this much better under Stormwind’s Cathedral, which has an empty and accessible dungeon. (You can get a Scarlet Crusade quest there and in Cataclysm there is now a section of the Twilight Highlands feeder quests down there.) As it seems more likely for clerics and priests to place labels like unrepentant and sinners on something than Medivh.

On further reflection and re-reading the book, this location is not only completely wrong for Inverse Kara, but it is in the wrong location, has the wrong layout, and has the wrong entrance. The names and locations do not come close to meshing with the original idea. And even if they took liberal adjustments, this doesn’t even remotely resemble the layout of the in-game Kara, which it theoretically should.

We may never know the real reason this area was scrapped and closed off (though if I ever get an interview there, this is the FIRST thing I am asking them). It appeals to our sense of exploration, horror, and mischief. And for that, we love it, in all it’s unfinished glory.

(Note: This post was written in 3 parts over 3 years. It has been sitting in my drafts folder forever, and was only updated today and posted due to the WoW Insider post here.)

A Cataclysmic Problem

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It has become a sad little game. Logging onto WoW and peeking through my fingers at the Guild roster or my friends list. Who isn’t going to log in? How many weeks has it been since I talked to that person? I wonder if they are playing Rift. I wonder if they are okay. As far as I know, only one absence is logically explained and has assured the guild he will be back when things get straightened out. But then, he lives in Japan, so I am pretty much willing to give him a pass.

People like to point fingers at Rift. But it’s not Rift. Rift was lucky to come out at the right time, in the right place to fill a void for WoW players.  But it could have been anything, any fun fantasy MMO with pretty graphics that does any of the numerous things players have been begging for in WoW, and they would have gotten a whole slew of dissatisfied customers. People aren’t leaving WoW for Rift because Rift is a better game. People are leaving WoW for *anything* because they are simply tired of WoW and what Blizzard is doing with it.

The problems:

1. Cataclysm is too hard.

For those saying “l2play noob”, shut it, and leave. Cataclysm is too hard. It’s that simple. Fewer people have killed Nef than had killed Kel’thuzad or Prince at this point in the expansion. Call people Wrath babies all day, but that doesn’t change the fact that people like raiding, like getting epics, and like DOWNING bosses. What they don’t like is endlessly wiping for hours because ONE person screws up (and it is never the same person). In a 10 man raid, a team should be able to lose 2 people and still manage to pull off the kill. In a 25 man raid, a team should be able to lose 5 people and still pull off the kill. Take a moment to consider the fights and how ONE person can screw even a 25 man raid.

BWD: Magmaw – one person with a parasite runs into the group, probable wipe. One person jumps on the head and doesn’t know how to work the chain, probable wipe. Omni – A person gets fixated and doesn’t move quickly enough, tanks and or heals get a slime blown up on them, definite wipe. A person doesn’t control their pet, Magmatron’s shield blows, definite wipe. Maloriak – Miss an interrupt? Wipe it up, the tank just died. Chimaeron – Tank’s taunt missed, through RNG I feel the urge to add, wipe it up. Or god forbid, the raid makes it to the final push and there aren’t enough mages, warlocks, and shaman, to spawn things to distract him. Artemedes – One person targeted and doesn’t move fast enough, entire raid wipe.

ToW: Conclave – ONE person knocked off Rohash platform, raid wide debuff, wipe. One tank misaligned his jump, falls to his death, raid wipe. One missed taunt to pull Anshel off his healing thing, raid wipe because he isn’t going to die fast enough. Al’Akir – the master of RNG wipes with tornadoes spawning on healers or tanks and spawning right when wind blasts start up.

BoT: Trash – wipes if one of the cc-ers goes down. Halfus – miss an interrupt, taunt, or big heal on the tank that is holding 2 dragons? Hope the trash doesn’t respawn before running back. V&T – One ranged not moving fast enough, one tank getting sucked into the basement, one purge happy healer, one person not running the right way for fire breath… wipeity wipe wipe. Elemental Monstrosity… what in this fight doesn’t cause a wipe if it happens to a tank or healer? Cho’gall – Slimes resist the earthbind totem? Kiss the healers goodbye.

RNG is not fun, especially when it controls the success or failure of a boss fight. My issue with all of these abilities is not that they exist, because many of them show nice challenging boss fights. My problem is that the price of even minor failure is DEATH. Didn’t move fast enough? Dead. Didn’t run the right way? Dead.

So what is Blizzard’s response to this? It will get easier as the expansion ages. This is possibly even more short sighted than the “resilience will fix it” comment. Yes, out-gearing the content will make it easier, but that doesn’t help guilds who are losing raiders left and right NOW.

2. 5 levels simply wasn’t enough.

There aren’t enough new zones for 80-85. There wasn’t enough time to feel like we were going from easy to hard. Replacing ICC epics was going to be hard enough, but replacing them with greens at 81 is just painful. At least with Wrath we held on to them for 6-7 more levels. (Some even making it all the way to Naxx.) When I hit 80, I hadn’t even touched Stormpeaks or Icecrown. Only a few quests had been completed in Zul’drak, and about half of Shalozar. Sure, I was one of those weirdos who did both Borean and Howling Fjord, but still, I had a ton of content. And I didn’t do dungeons as I was leveling, so those were totally new at 80, plus heroics!

It also took me 3 weeks to go from 70 to 80. It took me 3 days to do that for 80-85. Even when leveling my alts, it takes a short amount of time. And I always ding in Twilight Highlands regardless of how many instances I do while leveling. At that point, I only have that zone left to do.

3. Old content being revamped is great, but you have to please the bleeding edge too.

There simply needs to be more to do. I am thrilled at the updating of the old world. But where is the stuff in the old world for level 80-85? Where are the quests in Stranglethorn for the bored level 85 to escort newbies down to Booty Bay? Where are the level 85 Argent Dawn quests in Eastern Plaguelands? Where are the quests at the Ironforge Airport?

4. Dye, Appearance, and Housing.

How many years have players been asking for Armor Dyes, Appearance tabs, Soulbound armor bags, and player/guild housing? As long as I have been playing the game.

Did anyone else notice that it is one of the BULLET points on Rift that a player can dye their armor? Champions touts their character customization and creator for good reason. Players like to stand out from the crowd. They like to ROLEPLAY of all things. It’s why I always hate when affliction gets nerfed. I don’t WANT to be destruction. I want to be affliction and I want to be good for my team as affliction. I also don’t want to look like a unicorn vomited on me. Many players site LotR Online as a great example of player customization because of the appearance tab. Tons of WoW players, including myself, love to collect old armor and holiday clothing. Now we have overloaded banks and every new acquisition is an exercise in torment of what to delete.

Blizzard argues that they want players to recognize instantly when someone is wearing a set of armor. They want players to see the pretty art their artists created. This is a fallacy. I play three classes at level cap right now. I played 5 classes at level cap in Wrath. I could maybe tell you distinguishing characteristics of TWO of the armor sets I wore. I could maybe spot 3 or 4, if I was looking at them in game and correctly identify them as tier 10 armor. I know for a fact I can only do it for two sets of tier 11. I am not looking at players to tell how awesome they are, I am right clicking and inspecting to tell how awesome they are.

The solutions: Never present problems without a possible solution.

1. Nerf bat or buff bat. I vote buff.

So how do they fix the difficulty? Well really there are only two easy options. Nerf the bosses or buff the players. Nerfing the bosses is bad business. Then all the “hard cores” start whining about dumbing down WoW. They can’t just toss a buff on the whole raid like ICC, because then imagined elitism springs up.

But buffing players… Now that’s fun. Big numbers is big fun. An amplified, worgen tomed, fully buffed, spell power potted Curse of Doom on Netherspite for 52,000 damage? Yes please. (My point is made by the fact I remember that SO CLEARLY.) But they can’t just go in and buff everyone 15% across the board. They have to be sneaky about it. Buff this ability on this class, buff that ability on that class, buff armor gains on tanks, buff slow heals on healers, etc etc. Stealth buffs? Even better.

2. Patch soon, patch often.

If all the content is going to be reworked old content, it’s got to be fast. Patch every other month if possible. Especially if they are going to continue updating old content. In addition, every patch needs to carry with it minor buffs, minor additions (like to archeology, stats, and achievements), and possibly a pet or mount. Any updates to Holidays and Holiday bosses are stellar too.

Also, note for the next expansion, having the amount of exp to get to 81 be less than the amount of exp to get from 79-80, is not a good thing. The time invested needs to be equivalent to the previous levels. Consistency is key.

3. &4. Fidelity vs Agency. Omg, Kent was right. And suck it up princess. As designed just doesn’t fly anymore.

First off, players are willing to accept things that are expanded over time. Look at archeology. Players are willing to accept shorter dungeons if it means more of them. Players are willing to accept getting poor loot drops if there are more ways to get the odd piece they are missing. Players are willing to accept something not being perfect if it means they get something neat. Fidelity and agency are a trade off, but far too often Blizzard seems to make the wrong choice on which one to go for.

One example of this is the linearity of a quest zone and the inclusion of cutscenes. This is exceptionally noticeable when playing with another player. Ever tried to do Uldum with 2 people? It *sucks*. When one player completes a quest and it auto ports them somewhere while playing a cutscene, the other player is left in an old phase, alone, and has to fend for themselves. I like linear stories as much as the next RPGer, but in WoW, there needs to be a feeling of open world. I can remember doing quests and deciding to not do a “thread” of quests. Just skip it, that one is too annoying, or just isn’t fun, so I will just skip over it to this other quest. Blizzard killed that in Cata though. Each quest is a part of a big long chain. If the player tried to skip over this step, they can’t progress the zone.

This goes for dye on armor and appearance tabs too. Saying this was “as designed” just doesn’t work anymore. Sure when WoW was the *only* good MMO out there, we accepted this. But other MMOs are ripping off WoW and allowing for more freedom. The Blizzard artists need to let go and accept that players want to play THEIR way, not the way an artist wants them to. Yes, someone is going to take Paladin tier 2 and turn it into Hello Kitty pink, red, and white. But just as often someone is going to leave it red, gold, and black and look just as awesome. Also dye can prop up a flailing profession or become a major gold sink.

Even quests that are fairly simple go into this dungeon and kill this dude, or go and gather these rare items for me, in out of the way, hard to reach places, will fill a need in the old world for level capped players. Anyone else remember farming to get a flying mount to get access to the Highland Pools and the Shat’ari Skyguard dailies? I do.

One final point is about Guild leveling and reputation. As I said before, Guild Rewards are a powerful thing. Being in a level 20+ guild on my main and having all my alts in a level 2 guild, I can honestly say the difference is noticeable and painful. It will be slightly eased by the inclusion of a tabard in 4.1 that will help players earn rep with a new guild, but this doesn’t help new guilds. Players aren’t willing to move on to a guild that is a better fit at the risk of losing their perks. I have heard, from multiple people, about recruiting coming to a standstill because players simply aren’t willing to start over on rep or join a guild that is lower level than the one they are in. Guilds advertising in trade that are under 15 or so are practically laughed out of the channel. I have always maintained the best thing about WoW is playing with friends. When the player feels punished for playing the way they want to play or for changing their mind, something is wrong.

It may not be dying per se, but WoW is definitely feeling some pain. I worry about what might happen if this trend continues. People can argue all they want, but the dwindling raiders in my guild and the dwindling people on my friends list speaks for itself. The really worrying thing is that for each player that leaves WoW because of any one of these problems (or RNG), another player is likely to follow, especially if they find a new multiplayer game to play. And so the negative feedback loop starts until there is no one left but the gold farmers to play with.

Respond, if you please

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Video games tend to draw controversy. It’s okay, we ask for it. We know we are asking for it and deal with it when it happens. This is how the ESRB was born after all.

The thing that bothers me though, is when a video game gets a ton of bad press, then makes attempts to correct the “problem” and receives no response from the media or sites that complained so loudly to begin with. I get why national media doesn’t do this (though really with everything on the internet they could at least make a small post). But what stops small blogs from responding?

The example that spawned the thought for me is the “Torture Quest” brouhaha in WoW. When Wrath of the Lich King launched, players tore into the content, much as they always do. A few weeks after launch, someone wrote a blog post about a quest: The Art of Persuasion and about how horrible it was and how they were going to stop playing WoW over it. The quest requires you to “torture” a captured enemy for information. For whatever reason, many players (ironically most had done the quest, but never really paid attention to *what* they were doing) latched on to this and got *bent*. How dare the developers force them to TORTURE INNOCENT PEOPLE. Rawr! Pitchforks! Torches! Bad Blizzard Devs!

To which I replied with “Really? THIS is where you draw the line?” Seriously. We are discussing a game where my main character, Joyia has 181,866 TOTAL KILLS. She has KILLED almost 200,000 THINGS in the game. (I also want to point out her kills that yield experience or honor, ie meaningful kills, are at 67,405, meaning that she has killed 114,461 creatures/humaniods/players that were only for loot and sometimes not even that.) In that same zone there is a quest to collect HUMAN EARS. In Hillsbrad they have you poisoning some farmer’s dog. In Hillsbrad again they have you COLLECTING SKULLS. These are just the thoughts off the top of my head. My first reaction was “What’s a little torture on top of the wholesale slaughter of thousands of creatures, many of whom were unarmed or non-aggressive.”

My second thought was “Well, okay, but this guy, NOT INNOCENT.” And he isn’t. He is an evil wizard attempting to destroy the WORLD. Imagine a crazy, powerful being, attempting to launch every nuclear weapon in the world at once. It’s your job to stop him. Would you step down the dark side to prevent it? Even if it meant my own death at the hands of Justice, I am pretty sure I would. This isn’t puppy killing we are discussing. This guy is a mass murder (as much as any player character) and is actively killing puppies himself.

Regardless, after a few months, the furor died down and no one really talked about it again. Fast forward to Cataclysm. Early in Hyjal, one of the introductory leveling zones for level 80 players, there is a quest to capture a harpy (a known and common enemy mob throughout the game)  and interrogate her about her master’s plans to reincarnate an ancient for the bad guys. Ancients are super powerful beings. Having even one on your side is the equivalent of bringing a tank to a knife fight. The player, once damaging her to about 25% is given two “speech” options. One to “Soften her up” the second to “Ask her about their plans.” The first results in a bit of “smacking around” and some comments from the npc holding the harpy in place for you.

This is very obviously Blizzard’s response to the fuss over the Persuasion quest. First, the player doesn’t need to “rough” the npc up to get her to talk. Just asking her she volunteers the information the player is looking for. Second, if the player does “rough” her up, the npc has 8 canned responses, 5 of which could be construed as negative towards the player for using violence. Finally, at the end of the conversation with the harpy the player is given the choice, to kill her or spare her. Both options return a “positive” response from the npc. “It’s your call, <name>. Marion brought this on herself when she attacked our matron’s sacred shrine.” and “You’re a better person than I, <name>. But I suppose the harpies are just pawns here.” if you choose to kill or spare respectively.

It allows the player to play as they chose, as opposed to following the designed path. I love it. This is a prime example of  “Player Driven Stories” as discussed at GDC this year. The player drives the story. Both of my healers let her off, sparing her life. My DK and Warlock both killed her. My DK chose to soften her up until the npc said something to the effect of  “Okay, we still need her to answer questions.”

Regardless, it was a superb response to player’s comments on the “interrogation” from Wrath so why couldn’t the detractors at the very least acknowledge that Blizzard took their concerns under consideration and made an effort to appease them. Although I still feel it is a bit hypocritical to run around ripping out skulls then get squeamish at a bit of shock therapy.

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.