Weekend tanked away

Oh. My. God.

First of all, noticed just now that I have fought in one thousand battles in World of Tanks. My son, who is a wizard in all things FPS and related - heck, what ever game you get your fingers on! - has 'only' 700 battles under his belt!

That said, I have fought so many only because I have mostly switched to another tank as soon as possible. I have ran most of the lower tier tanks to elite status (except US based ones...) and thus wasted games and experience in vain.

Lesson one (if you ever start in WoT): choose your tank tree by the feel and stick to one or two tanks till you reach your goal. Spread yourself thin only after that.

I was in a good winning streak before last weekend. My win ratio was 54% at 800 battles, but then the in game match maker (MM which is cursed in WoT forums in so many ways) started evening out the odds. I think I was in the winning team in one every ten battles over the long weekend. Which really sucked and hurt, made me cross allover. Thankfully my wife was not at home, so I was able to joke my frustration away with the kids. Thankfully I got over it all by going to see Sherlock Holmes with the kids.

Yea, I liked the movie. Guns, bigger guns and Little Hansel.

The weekend was crowned by the fact that I got into the Clan I applied for. It will take some time to get accustomed to the fact that I can join a group of complete strangers fellow clanners to frag enemies. In a way I'm a bit jealous for the fact that a)I'm so old, b)I have a family to support and c)thus I have not enough time to devote to the game and enter the Clan Wars. Then again, taking into account the fact that the Clan War combats occur every so seldom, I could make the time.

The only thing is actually the fact that I don't have high enough tanks.

I really should concentrate on something. But I like going from a heavy KV-series to agile scouting T-50 to sniping sharpshooter of T-34 to supporting artillery role of Grille and back, so it's kind of difficult to settle down for just one gaming style. I master artillery best, at least according to statistics, but I like the other roles as well.

You know, it can get lonely at the back, too.

Shoot sharp and aim straight!

Revisits and some more

It was in August, 2009, when we met with this enormous whirling monstrosity last time. Many corpses and their pieces have floated under the bridge since that fateful encounter, even the main characters of the Three Stooges have changed their appearance. Some even their gender altogether.

But there we were, Three Dunces, sons and daughter of the famed Three Stooges who are still waiting for the challenge to take at level cap, to go and blunder in a five man instance in trio.

We cleared the Auchindoun instances in one run at gentle level of 68 for the Paladin tank and the gender-bender Rogue, and 72 for the hyperactive dwarven Shaman. What a disappointment it was to see how time has raped this instance, how the grand designer gods had ravaged the game mechanics and - well - the whole experience to something we didn't even recognize at first. Considering the fact that our first visit to the instances were almost ten levels higher (!) and were still a bit challenged. Our tank was then lv76, healer as well, and the rogue 'only' 72, and I wrote earlier that the challenge seemed just right then.

Nothing has changed, really, except the difficulty level of the game. We are playing completely different characters, I'm messing more with my Shaman than Bishopgeorge with his priest, but still we're coping with relative ease with the stuff presented in the game. I fear that when this troupe hits Northrend, the instances there are going to be total pushovers.

I don't really fear that. I know it already. The few hours more to played with these unknown classes hones the excessive edges off of our game and everything becomes smooth as butter.

On the other hand, my tanking experiments in World of Tanks are progressing nicely. I'm in the stage of the game that I feel that I'm still learning and what I'm learning contributes to my playing. In fact, it contributes immensely, making my fights fun even if I'm losing. Mainly because I can feel how I am doing my best, pushing myself a bit further and finding a new way to use my tank's abilities. As I'm progressing four lines at the same time - and the tanks are completely different and fill different roles - I'm not succumbed to the grinding people are complaining about in the forums. Oh, yes, they are a loud bunch, they are.

Anyhow, I'm applying to a clan, offering the few hours a night to achieve higher goals with a group of people. I hope I can bring out the best of things into the team.

Wish me luck!

The beginning of 2012

Happy New Year to everyone.

Not going to make any predictions nor any promises. That taken out of my chest, I have the following in mind for the next year (in games).

Three Stooges will be riding weekly, as often as life permits. That much has been said and decided so far, as it is the most fun in WoW anyhow to do things which are easy to others in a way that is hard for us. Might also pick Gnomore up and see if I can arse myself into the pacifist way of life again.

World of Tanks seems to be the 'non-pacifist' part of the day. The game sucks me into a new random battle after another, which makes it hard to just quit. Now sitting on a tier IV scout I'm starting to find all new ways of annoying those huge tier IX tanks which makes life very interesting (and usually ending fast in a BOOM!). On the other hand, my artillery unit is progressing through the harder random battles with blazing guns and mostly with one or two kills under it's belt, so I'm seeing both sides of the play, so to speak.

Skyrim has still some achievements worth unlocking and some strings not yet tied. In a way I'm already waiting for the first content pack to spice the world a bit up, even though I still haven't joined the civil war at all. I'll check all the other storylines before making the 'big' decision (which I think I have done already).

Otherwise I think the year will be pretty much the same: skipping from one F2P to another while trying to keep up with the news and craze of the new and upcoming things.

As life otherwise permits, of course.

Official Tanking post

I got lured to tanking again. This time with full plate, tower shield and a huge weapon spewing death and destruction beyond sight.

My sons got me into World of Tanks.

Luckily I was able to take some advantage of the Holiday bonus, so I kind of skipped the training sessions in the starter fights by gaining enough experience to research tier III tank in a blitz (pun intended), even though I went for the Soviet tanks with the famous T-34 in my mind. It's iconic tank in Finland, in a way The Tank for everyone who has ever gotten into WWII over here.

My initial notes about the game are covered with sugar crust, which is slowly starting to crack. It is very easy to get in, you just download the game, create an account and join a random battle with any of the three tier I tanks you are given. You will gain experience and money out of every battle, experience to research better modules for your tanks and opening new, improved tanks and money to pay for the repairs and ammunition.

Simple, eh? I dare you to try it, for WoT has cleverly induced an addictive element not too far from the kind you get from old coin-ops, Tetris or Bejeweled: I can do better in the next match. I. Can. Do. Better. Next time. Just can be done. I will.

The only gripes so far I have with the sudden increase in the price of the modules and module research. All is fine in the first three tiers, the research costs reasonably for the amount of experience you get from a battle, but then - as you try to go from tier III to tier IV - you hit this incredible increase which rises the cost from 1250 points to 5600 for one single module. And it gets worse in the IV to V, where the highest module research goes above 20k.

The module in question is the final of the research before you get to the next tier tank, which makes it extremely frustrating: you are not getting more experience from a battle, you just have to grind more. On the other hand, you will learn to use that particular tank better, but in most cases so far this has proven to be in vain as the next tier tank usually performs completely differently from the previous one, even though they might have similar function on the battlefield.

Now I'm progressing in two branches of the tech tree for the Soviet tanks: one to go for a fast and agile scout (T-50 at tier IV), another for the forementioned T-34 (nickname Sotka) for some fighting action. But as I'm sitting at tier III on both sides, it's frustrating as hell to have that one experience hurdle in front of me while I get about 250-300 exp for a fight. And experience is not transferable from one tank to another...

Anyhow, were I a bit better with my scouting and shooting, I might make more. Then again, the game is so addicting and so much fun when played with my sons in platoons that I may even forget that. Note on platoons: in free to play you can pair with your friend (form a platoon), but only with one. You have to purchase a premium account to be able to form bigger platoons, and the cheapster in me is not willing to do that. We will just switch our platoons as fit and have helluva time on the battlefield.

World of Tanks is fun, suitable for quick battle every now and then, but can you really restrict to that one or two randoms at a time?

I can't.

Playing, gaming...

We've had some nice discussions with my son over the Christmas. This is the oldest one of them, at the tender age of 16. He's pretty clever - I know, I'm his father - and a pretty avid player of games of all sorts. A bit too avid would his mother say, to which I can only add my last words in any such discussion. Being "Yes, dear".

Anyhow, we've been discussing about the current games and how people play them. In fact, he brought up how he's being sick and bored of the people complaining about how MMO's are this and that and how they dig and tweak their characters to a point where they can take on any boss they like. In his words "that's not playing the game, that's playing for winning the game!" To which I can only add that it's the way you play any game to see the 'Game Over' screen and take heed on the signs to continue life.

The most recent incident of the sorts I have encountered comes from the new favorite of the MMO world. Yup, guessed right, it's SW:TOR with it's shining...whatever (yes, haven't played it and most probably won't in a while). I was kind of shocked to learn that people are getting anxious about the end game already, as they have capped their characters already. Come again? The game has been out about two weeks, has eight archetype based advancement lines and accompanying stories to go through?

And people have already 'won the game', gotten all out of it there is to have?

This is the thing with all MMO's out there, thanks to the competitive nature of current day people. Instead of taking the time to enjoy the game/life/hedonistic pleas, we take for granted that we always have to win. In MMO's there is nothing to win except the enjoyment of playing the game. Not gaming the living daylights out of it!

In a way, I would say to the designers of MMO's only this: make the content during the levelling the best content in the game, with fluff and extra doing for the people who enjoy it. They will stick with your game no matter what as long as there is new crafting skills to cover, new discoveries to make, new anything to gain or experience. Let the players blasting through the levelling up to the cap be disappointed, because they are the ones who get bored first and leave your game at the first sign of not being 'challenging' anymore.

Hecklers! In any MMO (I wish I could add the RPG in there, too...) the character who gets to the top of the levelling curve should be a revered hero and ought to retire. Instead, s/he will be living in eternal middle age crisis, trying to prove her/his worth to anyone who wants to listen.

Which isn't many, except the lot of similar failures out there.

Like I've said, I love to play the games for their content: 'end game' content is artificial and there should be the GAME OVER sign above the end bosses lair. But when I want to play a game for winning, I choose something else than a MMO to do it.

I'm more in favor of playing than gaming anyhow. What's your choice?