Lack of healers

I find it funny that groups at 80 complain about lack of healers. Who has the easiest time of leveling? DPS. You rushed to 80, most likely not helping out any healer you passed by on your way to the end. What did you expect?

As someone still fairly new to the dps side, I see firsthand how it is now. We have it easy in the leveling department. Our gear is made for maximum dps, our spec is, our class is. So Mr. Warlock, quit pressuring Mr. Priest to hurry up and level. Instead invite him to one of your killing sprees. Mr. Rogue are you doing a quest you could solo? See if a healer has that quest too. Or has spending hours in LFG left you uncharitable?

Wrath

Lack of posting means Wrath is upon us. The good kind.

Quick list of what I like about WotLK:

Cutscenes, interesting quest lines, new types of quests, the visuals.

The addition of cutting away to further the story line is a nice addition. New twists on kill x quests in the form of "vehicle" quests. Ones where you jump in a tank, into a plane or onto a rocket. At some point I even wished there were more kill x quests! BC was interesting visually, but Northrend has the Outlands beat.

You're not as good as you think you are*

*Disclaimer: I don't think I'm good at all.

This statement made by Tobold has got to be a joke just to provoke discussion:

The hardcore raiders often talk of raids being all about "skill checks", or even "idiot checks". But if every guild suddenly gets much further in the raid circuit after the nerf, it proves that much of the raid difficulty is strictly numerical. The bosses all still have all of their abilities, they just have 30% less health. So if guild which couldn't kill them before now can kill them, it is hard to argue that these guilds suddenly acquired a lot more skill, or that they were "idiots" before to not be able to kill that boss. One good example for a pure gear check is the first boss in Black Temple, who hits the whole raid for 8,500 damage. If you don't have 8,500 health, there is nothing you could do, you simply need the gear with the stamina that gives you enough health to survive. Of course there are other cases where you can compensate lack of gear by playing better. But I haven't seen any encounter yet which can't be made trivially easy by being much overgeared.

I keep re-reading it and yeah this has to be a joke that he really believes this.

Using a very simplistic example, but I figure one more players would be familiar with. How did we use to defeat General Drakkisath in UBRS at level 60 in blues? We had to have an actual "strategy" that involved first killing the Beast so we had kiting space, then have someone kite him while we killed the guards. You also may have wanted someone to be able to pick up Drakkisath when the tank was conflagged. These things are what I would compare to skill, idiot check.

Later with more gear you skipped the Beast, and just killed them all where they stood. Because you had enough stamina to tank them and enough dps to kill them. You didn't have to do the other things involved. It doesn't prove that you are (or aren't) skilled/idiot.

That's what I meant by all the guilds cheering about Kil'Jaeden kills, and how they went into places and one shot bosses on their first tries. I bet my precious gold if you removed the nerf, put one of these guilds in the same gear competitive guilds had they would fail. Because it does require skill, organization, awareness, attention, etc. all those things that guilds like to believe they have and would be able to do just as well as top guilds if they "just had time and/or gear".

It's not meant to be a slam toward anyone, but I just never imagined anyone in their right mind would face nerfed content and think suddenly they conquered the same thing SK Gaming faced months ago.

Ranking achievements

Can we surmise from achievement points what Blizzard thinks is "important" to do in-game?

I imagine the level of time or difficulty went in to deciding how many achievement points an achievement would reward for completion.

Completing 3,000 quests garners you 50 achievement points. While completing a litany of arena requirements nets you the same.

Achievements involving questing, pvping, raiding, exploring and doing lots of seasonal events all can get you 50 points. So no surprise, this useless exercise proves all areas of the game are equally important. :)

Down the beaten path

I spent this past weekend sinking a sickening amount of time chasing a few achievements. One I didn't complete at all and one (a 2-part achievement) I finished only one part of. Each of these achievements depend on random drops.

Essentially it is possible I could never complete them, ever. Yet there I was staring at the screen hoping this time I'd get lucky... as hour after hour ticked away.

I saw the fun achievements could bring, I truly enjoyed taking part in them and now I've already sensed the irritation it can cause (of my own doing I freely admit).

Some achievements you'll reach by simply playing the game but others require that dogged obsessiveness that saps the amusement out of the overall activity.

Of course one could choose to not pursue these activities, but the activities are what this game is. And, at least for me, playing for only a small amount of hours makes me feel like I might as well not play at all. Because in the scheme of things you just can't get much done with only a few hours of play (the initial achievements, yes - but not most of the rest). You can quit smoking cold turkey, you can't quit eating cold turkey so to speak.

So once again, I feel like I should not purchase Wrath. My ambiguity made evident by my lack of pre-ordering. A friend of mine on the other hand has pre-ordered the Collector's Edition, no doubt spurred on by the various achievements you can reach only by being an owner of the CE.

Would I like playing Wrath of the Lich King? Without a doubt. Will I purchase it? I'm wavering once again. In the back of my mind I keep thinking about Adam Betts' comment as he quit back in 2006, "It attracted you with fun then turned it into a job."

To deserve an achievement

There is a really nice reward from the achievement "What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been", a violet proto-drake with 310% flight speed. Other than A'lar and the gladiator pvp reward mount I don't think any other mounts are this fast coming in at 280%.

No one will be able to get the reward for a year, because the achievement depends upon you completing seasonal events over the course of a year.

In theory it should only ever take anyone a year to complete this regardless of when they start playing. However since the seasonal Brewfest achievement - Brewmaster includes an achievement Brew of the Year which, surprise, lasts over the course of a year. If you missed this year's Brewfest you have to wait two years to get the proto-drake.

Over at the General Forums many have said you are simply undeserving of getting the reward within a year if you missed taking part in this years Brewfest. Mention of "poor planning", "no preparation" and "lack of research" keep popping up. Those commenters think either you should have been aware of what getting a proto-drake entailed and forgoing all and any obstacles completed the Brewmaster achievement or that perhaps you may not have known about the reward but should have completed the Brewmaster achievement for its sake alone and thus you are undeserving of a proto-drake if the only reason you wanted to do the achievement was for the proto-drake.

Many runners run with no intention whatsoever of being first, second or third. However I think achievement rewards in WoW are not gold medals and oversized checks, instead rewards are more like the t-shirt everyone gets simply because they paid way more than an actual t-shirt costs in their entry fee.

I don't raid on a consistent basis anymore, haven't for a while now. Yet, over the course of a few days, I was able to join some runs through some Azeroth instances like BWL and AQ40 and get the Classic Raider achievement. I didn't help learn any of the fights on my character in particular. I didn't spend hours and hours over the course of weeks and months and years. Did I really "deserve" the achievement?

That's why I think we need to get out of this line of thinking that any of us should be deserving of things in-game. At least not when it comes to making an argument for why someone should or shouldn't get something.

Baron mount

Baron Rivendare's mount used to arguably be the rarest drop in the game:

Just to get an idea of how rare this is.. (taken from the WoWhead comment)

As of 2/2/2008, Wowhead has only seen 1 drop out of 5290 kills...

(1/5290) * 100% = 0.019%

For one run of a given instance, the odds are higher that...

*
Ashes of Al'ar drops (90x more likely)
*
Swift Razzashi Raptor drops (63x more likely)
*
Swift Zulian Tiger drops (31x more likely)
*
Baron's Runeblade drops (9x more likely)
*
You are audited by the IRS
*
You die from slipping in a bathtub
*
You have a life


Personally I've been playing on and off since release and have only seen it twice across two servers. I've seen the black bug mount (the reward for a lengthy quest line involving 40 man raids at the time) more than that.

Well recently they changed it to be 1 out of 100 chances. Since then I know of 2 people that have gotten it to drop. Now people are farming it like they'd farm herbs. I've tried a few times, don't know if I have it in me to keep at it. I believe it's an achievement as well so that will make it more popular.

I can see now whatever they make an achievement they tend to want to make it more possible that people can nibble the carrot. If you keep it on a pole on a string too far away players just get angry.

Rhinovirus

Some lament one thing missing from virtual worlds is the fact most of what happens has no lasting impact.

You kill the abomination wreaking havoc over a small town only to come back later to see it there again.

You kill a dragon and go back next week and kill it again.

WoW has changed, Dalaran and Naxxramas have "moved" for the expansion. But everything is pretty much the same since when you started.

So it is with a surprise I see complaints and even threats of cancellation due to the recent zombie invasion!

I must admit I grumbled as I searched for an npc to turn in a quest only to find out it had been zombified and died. It was a minor annoyance as I waited a few minutes and it appeared again. What should have been the Black Plague was a cold. God forbid you couldn't put peacebloom up for 5 gold a stack because your auctioneer had fallen victim.

It really made me think we've forgotten what is fun. Are our playing habits so ingrained we can't take a break from quest, raid, pvp rinse and repeat for a few days and enjoy something that probably won't occur again?

And honestly the "remove this or I'll quit" is a bit of a weak threat. Blizzard has just passed 11 million subscribers worldwide.

Achievements: The end of alts

I wanted to cut back on playing my army of alts in an attempt to cut back playing WoW so much.

But now my alts are getting neglected because of the introduction of achievements. Why level up my alt by running Razorfen Downs when my main needs to run through it for an achievement? Why bother getting some "easy" gear for an alt by going on to Karazhan when my main needs more rep with the Violet Eye?

So far I've heard two players specifically tell me they aren't interested in achievements. The rest of us are running around doing things we probably never would do for our dose of daily ding.

Maybe I'll play an alt after I become an Loremaster.

Nerfed content and Achievements

I'll search through my blog later (maybe) because I'm sure I talked about this before.

Blizzard should adopt a policy of creating really hard raid content with the intent on nerfing it on a schedule.

This would, perhaps, keep hardcore players and less hardcore players happy alike.

The reason why I thought of this again was because of the enjoyment guilds are having currently at finally killings some new bosses. This is occurring because of the massive nerf of TBC instances.

One common sentiment I see is along the lines of "Yes it is nerfed content but it felt good to kill X!"

It is easy to giggle at the guilds who assumed they could have done this even without the nerf. But why rain on their parade, all you uber guilds just give them a soft pat on the head and let them have their fun.

I think boss achievements should look something like
Be first to Defeat Kil'jaeden in Sunwell Plateau Worldwide
Be first to Defeat KJ EU, USA, etc
Be first on your server
Be first Alliance or Horde on your server
Defeat KJ within week of 1st kill
Defeat KJ within month of 1st kill
Defeat KJ within (1st nerf)
Defeat KJ within (2nd nerf)
Just Defeat KJ at some point.
etc...

Okay that may be overkill with the variety of achievements from one single kill. But Achievements come with points and the higher up on the list could get your more points. Or maybe a boss appropriate title and/or 310% mount?

It's along the lines of being rewarded something regardless of what pace you play. But those who progress faster would still get something more. I'm not sure this would keep the really hardcore happy because I think one of the major complaints is their boredom between raid releases.

My point is to make a earlier planned schedule of nerfing content. I imagine the content was nerfed because of Wrath.

But why not nerf it earlier? From what I've seen if you are going to kill the boss in its first incarnation, you'll kill it and relatively speedily within the first few months. But it is almost like it isn't until a nerf that a few more guilds flow through the floodgate. And it isn't until it is massively nerfed that the rest of the guilds are able to come out and play.

I guess I want a playground for all. If the less hardcore don't mind knowing they are making castles in the kiddie sandbox and the hardcore don't mind sharing their courts it might work.

Back to WoW....again

I uninstalled Warhammer. My main reason was the choppy play on my low end computer.

I'm playing WoW again. Running around chasing achievements. At first I jumped from one to the other. I fell victim to "guild chat syndrome". Anytime a guild member's achievement popped up in guild chat, I clicked on it and felt the urge to try to do whichever achievement it was. I think I've finally reined myself in, instead making my own list of achievements that mean something to me (from a roleplay aspect or some other made up reason) and trying to tic off* that list.

*I've been trying to not use the word work. As in I'm working on my achievements. I'm working on my list.

Maybe keeping the game of WoW a game involves consciously not treating it like a job.

In case I hadn't mentioned it

I unsubscribed from Lord of the Rings Online for the second time. I'm pretty sure this time it is for good.

My friend doesn't like the combat and has probably logged less than an hour with me total out of all the months we've both paid for. Here's what's interesting he doesn't want to unsubscribe because he wants to support the game. As I mentioned before he's the LotR fan, not me. Too bad neither of us just couldn't find it fun enough to stick with.

And now with Warhammer I'm thinking I'm not going to subscribe to any more months either. :/

Yet there's WoW calling me back with it's siren song.

Decision 2004

Let's forget about the presidential election for a second and take a look back to Decision 2004 when gamers were deciding between World of Warcraft and Everquest 2 along with Kerry vs. Bush.

As the then preview mentions:
*400,000 players, the count the original Everquest had at the time was considered massive.

*EQ was the "one to beat" and the "front runner" as none of the other games came close. Just like WoW now, people wonder who would be the "EQ killer"

The writer compared 5 areas, PvP, Challenge, Combat, Game world and Game mechanics.

EQ2 at the time didn't offer any kind of PvP, so WoW won that round. Funny now considering some PvPers consider WoW lacking and flocked to Warhammer.

As far as challenge the write gives point to EQ2. At the time no one really knew what WoW's endgame would be like so he was basing it on leveling. WoW definitely went the easy route. But in the end "challenge" (if you go by subscription numbers) was not what most wanted.

Combat: Heroic opportunities in EQ2, mimicked in LotRO I think gave EQ2 the edge. I'd say they were about the same, although its been a long time since I've played EQ2 but I can't remember complaining about combat like I do with LotRO and WAR.

Game world. Writer said it was too close to call. From what I've read, EQ has a larger world and I assume EQ2 would as well. But I never got to max level to know for sure. I've felt WoW's world was small.

Game Mechanics. Writer said it was up to the player. I think WoW took existing mechanics and improved upon them. I personally think WoW won that round.

Tradeskills. EQ2 had "depth and utility". But if you'd taken part in it, you realize sometimes too much is too much. WoW's professions are pretty simplistic and could use a boost, but not to the extent that EQ2 took it.

Solo playability. Writer said it perfectly "WoW allows for that experience to be a lot less painful". Arguably though, that same solo playability has made wow a less social game and perhaps that's a bigger loss to this genre than talked about.

Quests. The author gives WoW the win on this one. Did wow originate the symbol over and npc's head to let you know whether there is a quest or not? I don't know but there is no going back.

And Community. The author said this remains to be decided. A smaller community can be more close-knit. But the last time I went back to EQ2 it was so dead. Small doesn't always equal good. WoW's reputation isn't the best if you base it on General forums, Barrens chat and Trade chat. But when a new game comes out and someone goes back to wow they usually say it was because of their friends and guild.

The article ends saying the final result is too close to call, but 4 years later WoW won overall no contest.

One of the reader's comments unwittingly foreshadowed WoW's success: "The game is fundamentally flawed for anything but casual people with very little time on their hands."

*My* Life in Azeroth

Continuing on with my "thinking about wow too much" line of thought...

One thing that is missing from World of Warcraft's armory and achievements and I believe Warhammer's tome of knowledge or Lord of the Rings Online's deed log are dates. Dates when you accomplished something. WoW's armory has your date of last logon. And Everquest's character sheet goes as far to show how much you've played.

But as far as I know there is nothing that shows a history of your character. And what I mean by this is, there is no easy way to tell a 4-year old WoW character from a 30-day old WoW character. There is no stardate for when you first looted a green upgrade, or when you killed the Baron within the time limit. Yes achievements are covering some of the bases here. But what about doing something pre-nerf or level appropriate, dates would take care of that.

Warcraft realms is the closest you'll come to having a time line.

There would be costs for maintaining that data I'm sure. And the risk of being able to stand apart due to time played is bad for overall business when it comes to recruiting players (Sure *you* have 150 AAs, but that looks like Mt. Everest to a new player). And...it's not something players have been clamoring for.

So maybe it's not such a great idea. I'm just an "old" player pining about the days when I first started playing. Ought Four 'twas.

See-saw

Maybe it is too soon to throw in the towel, but I don't think Warhammer is going to be the methadone I was hoping it would be.

I often think how it would be easier to just jump back into WoW and I don't immediately remember the reasons I decided to quit.

I've been thinking about resubscribing, luckily refer-a-friend doesn't work for renewing old accounts or I probably already would have. My excuse was going to be that I wanted to give my friend a Zhevra.

I toyed with the idea of coming back with the next patch because some WotLK things are going to be included. Namely Inscriptions. Then I went back to wondering if I should wait until WotLK to come back.

Yet in the back of my mind, I still have a part of me saying I should never go back. It's been over a month since I quit but it feels longer. WoW needs to be flushed out of my blood stream completely before I make any decisions about coming back.

I hate that this all sounds so like an addict talking. It makes me a bit ashamed.

To paraphrase Bender, "I don't need to play, I can quit anytime I want!" Took me forever to quit if I count how far back it was I started first thinking about it. And now it's taking me a while to really move on from it.

I don't mean for this to be an act of accountability, but maybe it would serve me well. I honestly can't say in the upcoming months if I won't read this post again while donning woolies in Northrend.

Warhammer: Second Impressions

It's okay.

I haven't thought about it too much to give any concrete reasons.

Maybe I'm not enough of a pvper to enthusiatically enjoy it.

Maybe the days of an MMORPG knocking my socks off are gone forever.

Maybe (most likely) the feel of combat is off. LotRO had this issue for me too.

Maybe I haven't found the niche (right guild) to give it that "This is awesome!" feel.

Maybe (most likely) I need to upgrade my computer or buy a new one (no plans to make this happen any time soon) to fully enjoy what WAR has to offer.

Maybe it's just me.

But it should be telling that I'm making this post instead of playing at this very moment.

Bitter

I'm bitter with World of Warcraft at the moment. How could I be resentful of a game I'm not even playing?

Well I still have ties to the game through a close friend who still plays. I'm kept abreast of the goings on in Azeroth. For example Brewfest: I hear you get a chance at getting your own kodo for Alliance. And achievements that if you don't get them during the seasonal event you won't be able to unlock again until next year. Makes me kinda want to play it again - NOW - or I'll miss out. You will not suck me back in Blizzard.

It is messing up my other gaming experience as well.

Warhammer is a decent game, but it has a few bothersome little bugs.

Why do I keep seeing certain messages twice. "You are logging out. You are logging out." "You have been killed by X. You have been killed by X."

I blame Blizzard for being successful and making money and fixing issues. I've come to expect my character's body will not run around twisted with her legs facing one way, her face yet another direction like the medical malady that has befallen my Witch Elf on occasion

Are these gamebreaking issues? Of course not, these bugs will most likely get fixed with time, but it is annoying to go from a polished game to a game that locks up every time I exit.

Warhammer Public Quests

I like the idea of public quests. However there is a drawback and I didn't expect to experience it so soon. If there isn't a "public" around you can't finish the public quests.

I'm logging into full servers but the low levels areas are sparse. I'm sure everyone is pushing toward the higher level stuff. But for someone like me who isn't playing much I'm unable to keep up with the herd. I'm still haven't hit the teens yet.

I guess it's not a big deal, because you don't *have* to do public quests to advance. However not being able to even take part in something considered innovative is a let down.

PvE to PvP transfers

WoW is allowing them now.

The move was obvious according to some, as you'll be allowed to create level 55 deathknights on any server you want regardless of whether your qualifying character is on a pve server currently or not. So the whole notion of needing to level from the ground up was thrown out of the window anyway.

Good idea on Blizzard's part because, whatever the cost, it may get some to think twice about spending money on warhammer around the same time they'll spend money to transfer.

This was one of a few holdouts Blizzard's given in on though. If I were to name the posts that receive the most Blue "we aren't considering it at this time","we have no plans to change this at this time" it would be:
1)Respec Costs
2)Flying Mount Costs
3)PvE to PvP transfers

Not that one has anything to do with the other, but forum prepare thyself for the onslaught of "You changed your mind on xfers, now lower the cost of flying mounts".

Warhammer concern

As I waited for a scenario to begin the other evening I got a furrowed brow. How in the world...aww I can't use my meme here...will Warhammer keep populations balanced? How are they going to manage to keep players on both sides so the larger side won't have horrific queues and the smaller side won't get zerged all the time? Warhammer touts itself as a PvP game. It is much more important to have a plan for how to handle this than it would be in WoW where battlegrounds were initially an afterthought and is a subset of the entire game.