mmorpg – Page 5 – Blue Ink Alchemy

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Tips for Returning to WoW

Special thanks to Aron, Anthony and Eric for their efforts over the weekend. I hope you enjoyed the guest posts. If you didn’t, well, maybe you’d like to write one for me next time I disappear for an extended period of time. Just sayin’.

So the voice of the community, here in the person of Gandalf the White, made its mind known to the king, and apparently Blizzard (Theoden) was able to snap itself out of the money-grubbing stupor. Apparently the potentates of the great gaming company do, in fact, listen the concerns of the people and make corrections when necessary. We must all hope that Wormtongue will take the hint and stop dumping poison in the great king’s ear.

Coming back into the game after a long weekend knowing this issue’s been resolved was like meeting a friend for beers after an unfortunate miscommunication’s been cleared up. As I played for a bit last night, I remembered why things had started to feel a bit tedious for me.

As with many aspects of my life, I’d been trying to do too many things at once. Hodir dailies, netherwing dailies, dungeons, PvP, hopping on this alt or that one… it was getting to be too much. They were all things that, for some reason, I felt I had to address now. But what’s the rush? Cataclysm won’t be hitting shelves for a while, so it’s better to pace myself. With that in mind, I think I’ve gotten a grip on how to get the most out of my WoW play-time, especially now that a second PC capable of playing the game is about to be introduced to the Loomis-Piche household.

And yes, “Loomis Peach” (that’s how it’s pronounced) sounds like a cocktail my mother’d really, really like.

Characters have day jobs, too (Dailies)

One of the first things I need to do is stop worrying about raking in as much gold as possible per day. This is supposed to be relaxing for me, not a test of how much repetitive questing I can tolerate before my head explodes. The nice thing about how the gathering of faction reputation works is that there are a few quests one can do per day that not only pay well but eventually yield better rewards. Currently, my main character’s working on his reputation with the ice giants known as the Sons of Hodir. Following that I can return to Outland and continue my quest for the staggeringly awesome nether drake, only to come back to the frozen land of Northrend to work for either the Oracles or the Frenzyheart Tribe. However, the key to enjoying all of this is to only do one set at a time.

A character can do up to 25 daily quests per day. That is a LOT of dailies. If I didn’t have other characters or concerns, I might tackle all of this faction-based work at once. But there are other things I need to attend to. The fact is that no matter how much gold I earn, I can’t use it to buy the better equipment I need to stand a chance in an end-game raid.

That means going into the dungeons, and I figure that I can do two, maybe three of those per evening. The Random Dungeon system that teleports you instantly between a given location and the dungeon in question is ideal for someone like me, who is doing daily questing in between dungeon runs. The process and somewhat tedious repetition of daily quests is broken up by quick runs into random dungeons. You never know what adventure you’ll be heading into until the loading screen appears.

Well, it’s fun for me, and that’s what matters, isn’t it?

One Multiple Personality At A Time, Please

I tend to come down with a condition called ‘altitis.’

Altitis is a serious affliction that strikes many players of World of Warcraft. Symptoms of altitis include rolling far too many alternate characters, spreading alternate characters between various servers, having a dozen or more characters below level 30 with only a handful anywhere near maximum level and dry mouth. Altitis can severely cripple a player’s ability to experience or enjoy end-game content. If you or someone you care about seems to be suffering from altitis, please remind them that dinging 80 is not the same as actually defeating the Lich King. Thank you.

I need to address my alternate characters the same way I do daily quest sources – one at a time. Heirloom items will make leveling them easier, so if I wrap up my dailies and dungeons, then switch to an alt to grind out a level or two, that should make a for a rather complete evening’s game play.

I know it also makes me something of a sad bastard and takes away from writing time, but I ride the train most days for a reason, people.

Playing is Optional

That said, it’s just a game. I don’t have to play it. I could write. I could fire up Steam. I could watch a movie with my wife, play with the cats, toss a console game in the X-box.

As long as I like it and continue to find ways to get the most out of my monthly subscription, however, I think WoW will be sticking around for a bit longer, now that it’s over that embarrassing little bit of bad advice it nearly swallowed.

The Rise & Fall of Blizzard

July 7, 2010 / BlueInkAlchemist / 14 Comments

Let me tell you a tale, friends. Stay a while, and listen…

I tell the tale of a software company that once could do no wrong. They took some time rousing themselves to craft their stories, but when they did, they were epic. I tell the tale of Blizzard.

Blizzard, before the dark times

Warcraft. Starcraft. Diablo. Even the nearly-forgotten The Lost Vikings spun a story that is remembered and loved by those who played it. The worlds that Blizzard forged in the fires of fantastical imagination and occasional touches of dark humor were all memorable, but arguably the most impressive was the expansive world of Azeroth. Blizzard then rocketed into legend by inviting players to become a part of that world, instead of simply an aloof sky-dwelling controller of its armies, with World of Warcraft.

There was no question that the game broke new ground in the MMORPG market, immersed players in a world they’d only seen from afar previously, and rocked people’s faces clean off. Clean. Off. But the good times were bound to not last. With a successful expansion was released and expecting another, top-level executives decided that Blizzard could no longer rule alone. Foisted upon these tellers of stories was the guitar-peddling duty-calling peddlers of software snake oil, Activision.

Activision, long after the Atari days had passed

Activision wasn’t always the way it was when it began to rule alongside Blizzard. Once upon a time, games like Pitfall!, Starmaster and Kaboom! were the order of the day in the heady bygone age of the Atari 2600. The first few acquisitions Activision made after that, like Infocom and the Mechwarrior license, did not seem to be bad decisions. But Activision could not stop. More and more studios fell under its control, until very little of the original game-creators remained, smothered under big-name franchises and weak sequels.

It was not long after this decision that things began to change in Azeroth, as well. More of the game’s content seeped out of the in-game realms and into places like the Armory. At first, this was not a bad thing, as players could interface with their beloved characters more often and more freely. However, soon Blizzard began to offer more services and even in-game items with the exchange of even more of the hard-earned cash players were using to maintain their connection to Azeroth. And then, the announcement came that the newly-implemented RealID would be used not only to allow players separated by realms to communicate with one another, but to remove the anonymity of players posting on Blizzard’s forums by displaying their true first and last name. It seemed that Blizzard had forgotten who we were.

Blizzard today

What caused this change? How did something that started out so heroic, epic and simple become so mired in these changes, these services, this utter nonsense? A full day of rage consumed the Internet, but slowly the truth began to come to light. Playing in an MMO is something of a social activity, and the most titanic money-spinning scheme on the Internet, even bigger than anything Blizzard could ever concoct, was the presence of social media. To produce even more revenue from the already embarassingly profitable world of Azeroth, Activision Blizzard was moving that franchise in the direction of the sort of constant bombardment of advertisements, updates and links that typify the social media quagmire.

A little research makes things all too clear. Very quietly, at least to the ears of some (like me), it had been announced that Battle.net, the online service allowing players of Blizzard’s games to interact with one another before World of Warcraft ever came along, would be integrated with Facebook. Now we see the truth: Facebook is unsatisfied with its Farmville and Mafia Wars players. It has seen the amount of attention, money and time given to Azeroth and looks upon those figures with envious eyes. It must increase its base of power, and do to so it is slipping into World of Warcraft by any means necessary, bringing those who play it further into its clutches.

Facebook, contemplating its future power

How do we stop this, one is left to wonder? Is it possible for Blizzard to shake loose the presence of these vultures, make some sort of return to what made them great and earned them so many fans? Or is all hope lost, the descent of World of Warcraft into a very pretty & Facebook-integrated version of Evony inevitable? The end which I foresee for this tale is too woeful for me to put into words. I wish to hears yours, however. How do you think this tale will end? Are there still good days ahead for Blizzard? Or is now the time to fully embrace the cleansing power of Steam?

(And which Lord of the Rings character should represent Valve in all of this?)

EDIT: It appears that the crisis has passed. The voice of the people has been heard by Blizzard. The aftermath of this announcement is discussed, in brief, here.

DPS Delivery Man

June 7, 2010 / BlueInkAlchemist / 5 Comments

So following yesterday’s WoW discussion and my request for advice, Rick Carroll said the following:

DPS is easy to find. DPS is everywhere. Good, smart dps is not. Any doofus with a computer and a connection can spam buttons at an enemy – smart dps knows what they are doing, how it works, and when to do what. That is really, really rare and very appreciated when it is found. If you like dps, ranged or melee, stick with it. Perfect it, own it. (…) Tanking is strategy. DPS is an adventure. Healing is forty-five minutes of boredom with fifteen minutes of brown undies time.

Like I said, feeling like I’m helping the group succeed, getting the last shot in on a boss and contributing to a great gaming experience for everybody is what keeps me going back into dungeons – well, that and the loot. And maybe it’s just me, but the few times I’ve tried melee DPS I’ve felt like I’m getting in the tank’s way. It’s just a personal thing, I don’t like to crowd other people if I can help it. Even when playing a medic in TF2, I try to keep my distance from the Heavy or Demoman or whomever I’m following. Of course, that’s due to me not wanted to get killed by splash damage, but I digress.

Ranged DPS seems to be where I do the best and have the most fun, and for me, that narrows things down to three classes: hunter, mage and warlock.

Hunter: Azeroth’s Very Own Sniper

I have a lot of experience playing a hunter. More to the point, I had fun doing it. I know there are a lot of fans of a specialization called ‘Beast Mastery’ out there, and while I can’t deny the appeal of a big red kitty nomming on things that offend me, most of my participation in combat while I was a Beast Master involved spamming a particular macro over and over again. Anybody with a pulse and a spasm in their keyboard hand can do that.

So when I switched to Marksmanship, having to go from a macro spam to a shot rotation, something clicked for me. I was having more fun. I was becoming more involved in the process of combat and became more aware of my surroundings. Switching again to Survival sealed the deal, as I now had to pay attention to my abilities as well as everything else, waiting for the right circumstances to trigger for me to deal out my maximum potential damage. I have to admit, I look forward to doing this again, and since my hunter’s my one character at max level and I’m a ~~lazy~~ busy guy, I’m likely to spend a lot of time with him once again.

Mage: The Master of Sheep Magic

I have a soft spot for finger-wigglers. Maybe it’s because they’re the alpha-nerds of the fantasy genre, but wizards have always appealed to me. Mages in Warcraft have always had a bit of whimsy about them, what with their polymorphing spells turning would-be assailants into harmless sheep. They also, at later levels can turn them into turtles, kitties or piglets.

Oh, and there’s also the tossing of fireballs and hurling of ice lances.

This would be another class that would require me to pay attention, and not just to aggro & DPS meters. Being aware of possible incoming threats, the amount of time left on a particular polymorph and what enemies are vulnerable or resistant to fire & frost spells will be the difference between me shining as an example of magely might or getting kicked from the group for being made of fail. I’d probably have to learn the most about what spells to use when if I pick up this class, but it’d be a really interesting change of pace from the pet-using gear-oriented hunter. Of the three classes, this would be the one I’d be most likely to roll on the Alliance side of things.

Warlock: Proving Once Again That Evil Is Sexy

I remember my days and nights in EverQuest. My character was a smooth-talking, intelligent and thoroughly devious dark elf necromancer. Unfortunately, “necromancer” is unavailable as a player class in World of Warcraft (as awesome as it would be) and the closest approximation would be the class called ‘warlock’. Functionally, it’s something of a hybrid of a hunter and mage, with the primary damage from the player being based on magic spells while the character uses a pet for a variety of purposes.

Besides the fun I’d have role-playing such a character, it’s difficult to say if I’d prefer this class to the other two I’ve mentioned. It’s a slightly different playstyle from the mage (unless I specialize in Destruction) but could be pretty rewarding, especially in PvP. The impression that I get is that warlocks do very well in battlegrounds and arenas, though not as well as rogues. But I’ll leave that sort of excellence to those better suited for it. My wife, for instance.

Any contributions you care to make in my decisions? Any experiences of your own you’d like to share? Hit up the comments section.

(and no, the fact that all three of these classes are available to the blood elves has nothing to do with it. At all.)

…

(I like being pretty, shut up.)

Starting Over Is Hard To Do

June 6, 2010 / BlueInkAlchemist / 6 Comments

So my wife and I have returned to Azeroth. Kinda. Starting brand new characters on a brand new server is a great idea on paper. But there are a few issues with it that are making things, for my part, somewhat confused. Since this is a blog just as much about gaming as it is writing, here’s the latest haps in our Warcraftian lives. It’s this or a bunch of petulent whining in my LiveJournal about how all the energy I had yesterday for writing non-stop seems to have slithered away to hide under a couch in Burundi somewhere.

Highs and Lows

When we left World of Warcraft, we had top-level characters. We delved into dungeons, slugged it out in arenas, the whole nine yards. I participated in daily quests to earn some cash while she wondered why in hell anybody would bother role-playing with somebody who thinks being the bastard offspring of the Lich King and Sylvanas Windrunner is an innovative idea that’s bound to get them immortalized in the constellations of Azeroth, or maybe just some cyber-sex. Anyway, what I’m driving at is being maximum level in an MMO tends to spoil you.

Not just because it’s easier to find something to do that isn’t questing or grinding to the next level, but also you can help other characters you create in various ways. Gold, heirloom items, raw materials for crafting, you name it, a character with nothing to do but beat up boss monsters and pounce on unsuspecting members of the opposing faction is likely to have extra resources on their hands. Those resources can easily get funneled into an up-and-coming character that’ll play a different role in group endeavors, have a different story or just be a change of pace.

While starting over on a new server allows you to try a different play experience, find new people to play with or disassociate yourself with bad memories or people made of fail, it also means you’re starting literally from scratch. Doing things the hard way isn’t necessarily bad. I mean, my wife leveled her paladin on the Protection tree, so she seems to thrive on doing things the hard way. But spoiling characters on one server can leave the new one on another feeling like an unwanted step-child. Without a high-level character’s support, a low-level character can feel quite low indeed.

Pee Vee Pee

We rolled on an RP-PVP server. For the uninitiated, that’s “role-playing player-versus-player”. From what I understand, most of the servers of Aion fall into that mold. I’m going to paraphrase my wife’s take on the experience of being on those servers in that game.

Epix: I would be going along doing some kind of quest or gathering X amount of flower Y for NPC Z or some shit, when half a dozen Asmodians would pop out of nowhere and pound me into a quivering mass of bloody Elyos gibblets. That was so much fun! It was challenging and made it feel dangerous for me to even think about leaving camp! I miss that!

I suspect that being on an RP-PVP server, she’s looking for something closer to that experience, being interrupted in handing in a quest by some Alliance jerkoff stabbing the quest-giving NPC, laughing, and then stabbing her for good measure.

Yeah. Sounds like a real treat.

Epix: If you’re going to complain, why don’t you go fight Professor Coldheart with the rest of your Care Bear friends?

She probably wouldn’t actually say that, as I said I’m paraphrasing, but it seemed funny at the time. I love you, darling.

The problem with this is that Blizzard has introduced a system that bypasses needing to quest out in the world pretty much altogether. The Random Dungeon Finder, or whatever it’s actually called, matches your character with a team of others from throughout the various servers clustered in what’s called a ‘battlegroup.’ You can stay in your home city, wait for the system to match you with a group, and work on your tradeskills or roleplay or go get yourself a snack in the meantime. You’re surrounded by high-level NPCs who will flatten any individual opponent looking to shank you on sight, and a concerted effort to break through the guards in order to down the boss-level administrative character means you’ll just get steamrolled while you’re waiting for your metal to smelt.

It seems to defeat the purpose somewhat.

What Is Your Quest?

The question I ultimately have to ask myself is, “What do I want out of playing WoW?” Getting my hunter to 80 was kind of a big deal for me. I worked hard to earn him titles, rewards and sometimes just the notion of “I survived this dungeon with the highest DPS output, and I wasn’t a dick to anybody in the group so they’re bound to invite me along for bigger challenges.” Do I just want to do that again, perhaps with a magical cloth-wearing finger-wiggling class like a mage or a warlock?

Maybe.

I mentioned in the Cataclysmic discussion that I’d be rolling a Forsaken mage, and that’s what I did. I’m liking it, but in the back of my mind I know I’m filling another DPS role. I get some great crowd control and everybody loves a mage’s conjured food & water, but how different will it ultimately be from a hunter, other than not having a furry friend to take all that nasty damage for me? Unless my wife’s playing a tauren or is in bear form.

I’d be waiting for Cataclysm to come out for my blood elf ~~warrior~~ spell breaker which I’d be aiming for a tanking role. Maybe I could roll a warrior on another server to learn the ropes in the meantime? I haven’t played a dedicated tank since before Burning Crusade came out – my first Horde character was a Forsaken warrior. The death knights I’ve played tended towards tanking, but I never got one to max level.

I’ve done a bit of healing in the past, and I’ve enjoyed it. Maybe I should give a hybrid class a fair shake, such as a paladin or druid. And there’s the question of where all of this would be taking place – which server, which environment, etc.

I guess my problem is I’d like to try a bit of everything. Doing that means not sticking with something long enough to get it to max level. And my max level character, whom I like playing both from a gameplay and roleplaying standpoint, has to wait until we decide to play on his server or we get enough disposable income (HA!) for a transfer.

I like contributing to the success of a group. I like getting the kill shot in on a nasty boss. I like people feeling like they can rely on me. And I like helping people not suck. Does that mean I’m better suited for a tanking role than sitting in the back dumping damage on things?

Help me, Intertweeps. I’m having trouble deciding, here.

A Cataclysmic Discussion

May 15, 2010 / BlueInkAlchemist / 5 Comments

I mentioned in my latest PvP post that I’m thinking of returning to Azeroth in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. My wife has discussed it as well. Let’s take a look at what Blizzard is doing that’s actually got my attention, and might possibly earn them some of my money, as well. If nothing else, it’s worth considering that this is how my wife & I met, so they must’ve done something right at some point.

Azerothian Gravel Pit (Kinda)

‘Gravel Pit’ is a map in Team Fortress 2. My wife discussed the rated battlegrounds coming to World of Warcraft, and I was immediately reminded of the potential for rated matches in that game, as well. There’s also the fact that, on the superior PC version I’ve yet to play, playing TF2 for any period of time allows you to unlock new equipment. When you get right down to it, how is this any different from rated matches in World of Warcraft?

(Other than the two games being completely different on a fundamental level, yes, I know, shut up.)

One of the things about TF2 that works is when players work together for a common objective. Gravel Pit, for example, is a territory control map where one team (RED) defends while the other (BLU) attacks. You get that in battlegrounds in WoW, but to a lesser extent, since nothing’s really at stake other than personal rating and badges. Arenas do away with the whole overarching objective entirely, since the only real objective is “See those other guys? No, it doesn’t matter who they are or where they’re from. Just beat ’em into a pulp.” It’s not bad in quick bursts now and again, but doing that over and over, for me, gets a bit tedious.

Battlegrounds mix things up. They focus the efforts of a faction on an objective, and while they won’t quite reach the scope of huge open battles in world PvP (or RvR if you will), they still invoke more of that feeling of esprit de corps I talk about. And with the introduction of ratings and the promise of end-level gear every bit as good as what you’d get in arenas, there seems more incentive for me to hop into the queue with the promise to the Alliance to be “a grim bloody fable with an unhappy bloody end.”

Controllers Are Useful Again

Sheeping a dragon would be nothing short of epic, to say nothing of funny.

One of my biggest complaints about playing end-game content in World of Warcraft was being a damage dealer tended to be a bit boring. Now, granted, I was playing as a hunter and, according to some, it’s a class that requires the least amount of skill to play. However, in trying to play the class well, I’d worked on things like managing aggro, shot rotation and savvy use of traps.

Most of the end-game dungeons in Wrath of the Lich King took most of those things and threw them from the top of Icecrown Citadel with a deep-throated laugh. Aggro management doesn’t mean squat when the tank generates so much aggro that you could drop a tactical nuclear strike on the mob, or the mob’s hometown, and they’d still have a bigger bone to pick with the tank than with you. Shot rotation still sort of mattered, but only so you wouldn’t have to slow the group down by asking for time to recharge. And traps? Pfft. Who needs crowd control when the tank’s laying down area of effect damage that makes the TF2 demoman’s grenades look like water balloons?

Thankfully, Cataclysm seems to be addressing these issues. In fact, it seems like damage-dealers are going to have to think a bit more when going into dungeons (a scary prospect, I know). Like healers, as my wife mentioned, you’ll need to pay attention to the world around you instead of focusing on the ever-expanding numbers of your DPS meter. There’s a big difference between the knowledge that you’re doing the same thing that 3 other people in the group are doing, and knowing that you need to keep that really ornery ogre over there locked down or else it’ll grab the healer and start beating up the other party members with him or her. It makes the damage-dealer feel more useful, dungeon encounters more exciting and reaching the final boss and blasting them into next week more rewarding.

A Fresh Start

I hear the banshee’s call.

Ever since Warcraft III, I’ve really liked the undead. The unique aesthetic, macabre sense of humor and unorthodox means of waging war all appealed to me. My first Horde character in World of Warcraft, if I recall correctly, was a Forsaken warrior. But I haven’t played Forsaken, really, since Burning Crusade, mostly because when the blood elves were first introduce I went a little bonkers. The blood elves were the faction I liked most in the Frozen Throne, though Sylvanas forming the Forsaken was a very close runner-up in terms of story. Which brings me back to what I’ll be doing when I return to Azeroth.

I’ve never really given the mage class a fair shake. As much as I love the World of Darkness game of the same name (both of them, even if the new one’s thicker and more difficult to digest than a badly made Yorkshire pudding), mages and I have had a tumultuous relationship. I think most of it’s a failing on my part, i.e. being unable to grasp the nuances of handling more than one mob with crowd control spells. With crowd control making a comeback, and considering the likelihood that my wife and I will be playing on an RP-PVP server, it’s time I cleared my mind of other class choices, actually engage my brain while playing the game, and give mages another try. Guns, bows, knives and hammers, to me, will never have anything on “giant laser beam face melty death.”

So I’ll be returning to Azeroth in the slightly decaying skin of a Forsaken mage. I might try a blood elf warrior (they’re spell-breakers, dammit) or a tauren priest at some point (because cows in a dress are hilarious) but getting back to the roots of what I enjoy in Warcraft while trying something I never quite got the hang of before feels like the right way to go.

You May Be Right, I May Be Crazy

I have a lot of nostalgia for WoW. I’m hopeful that the proposed changes and updates will move the game back towards what it was when I first started playing, when I met my wife, when I really enjoyed it. I know that Blizzard is continuing to homogenize the classes (eww) and some of the race/class combinations don’t sit well with the established lore and its proponents, like myself (NIGHT ELF MAGES EEEEWWWWW) and I’m definitely staying Horde-side to stay out of the inevitable “Edward or Jacob” discussions that’ll take place between worgen and human players. Ick.

Anyway, the comments section awaits you. Give me your thoughts. Tell me Blizzard just wants another yacht. Offer me and my blushing bride Scrolls of Resurrection. Promise me cake. Even if it, like the idea of 25-man dungeon disappearing being the worst idea ever, is a lie.