Genuine emotion

I've been guilty of putting my focus around me and looking for how the game is screwing the newcomer, guildless, homeless player who has the aspiration to become the hero the story in WoW tells about. And -contrary to my beliefs- I haven't been alone.

I know a certain goblin character just got a sore itch in his backside, but I full agree with Guntroll's post. That's how I see the game should be. But as long as the social tools and effect of player/character behaviour is not hardcoded into the game's core, the sociopath will rule the game and the single player aspect will rule the levelling game, making it harder every day to compete at the cap without the social contacts.

Maybe this is the reason why Cataclysm is going to destroy the original content, and bring in new requirements for grouping and levelling? We really do not know enough to even speculate with the Cataclysmic changes about to happen in the gameplay, but I'm hoping the expansion brings something to the social side, too. Like making it worth while to level in a group or to stick with a party for a bit more than just through an instance.

Then again, the changes in 3.3 seem to hint completely different approach: LFG/LFR takes away the possibility of social stigmata of being a jerk on a server -a very slight chance on a server level, even, but still. Instead of making the grouping more profitable to all, the group leader gets the benefits. Sure, a party needs a leader, but what happens when everyone wants to be a leader and there are no one to lead? It's like a certain superhero game: when everyone is a superhero, then no one is super anymore.

Anyhow, from time to time I give a netherweave bag to a complete stranger in WoW. Only once I haven't been thanked, once I got thank you again when I logged next time in with my toon, and mainly I have been thanked a lot. All I have told these lucky ones has been to pay it forward: I can only hope that they have remembered, that a little kindness goes a long way.

Sometimes all to the level cap.

A pet is a pet, a mount is a mount, but...

You can carry around tens of pets with you in WoW, and pull your huge mammoth mount out of your pocket, where you have dozens of other mounts with it -including drakes and such- but as a hunter you can have only one combat pet around you at any given time.

What?!

Betting is open

Blizzard Store's vanity pet sale micro transactions haven't gone unnoticed. Several bloggers have posted for and against the mere idea of Blizzard beginning a micro transaction system through their Battle.Net tied Blizzard store and all I can say is what did I tell you. The list ranges from Tobold to Leafshine to Kiasa and so on, so I won't even bother to link them here: all having their own approach to the issue.

One thing is sure, however. The Store wasn't opened only for the vanity pets. It will have more content soon and as time passes it will contain xp scrolls or potions, cloths, mounts and -like it or not- gear: not at the epic level not to 'disturb the game experience' but to help the newcomer/casual without the time to grind the gearing game to take part in the revered End Game concept. 


The question really is, how long will it take for the basic raiding gear to enter the store?


Granted, like it was mentioned in the comments of my earlier posts this week, that the pets sold at the moment are just a continuation of the TCG loot cards, but making them more easily attainable is the main thing in this: taking the obstacles from the purchasing off, making the buying easier for the consumer is the key. Like Melmoth (I think) in Kiasa noted, now there is no excuse for all, each and every MMO to have a micro transaction store, as the main player has opened theirs. He also pointed out (I think) that whereas other games like DDO have the stuff sold in the Store available as rare loot drops in the game, Blizzard has refrained to do so. Why might that be, and when will the Marine Marine for example be for sale in the store? Or the mini-diablo from the collectors edition?


Do I like the idea? As much as I have liked the gold sellers and micro transactions in any games I've seen them. Does it effect my playing? Not as long as the game itself offers the possibility to acquire the same 'benefits' as the Store. 


Does it matter to me? Not as long as the game is as it is. But when the stuff acquired from the store become a norm like achievements as an requirement for grouping, then it will.


Why do I feel cheated, then? Beats me.

I beat the system by a day

The posts I wrote about DLC, F2P and micro transactions and Payable content with their extensive discussions in the comments section just got a new twist, as Blizzard added the purchase able in-game minipets to the Blizzard Store. Leafshine purchased herself the Pandaren Monk minipet, and reported that it was a surprise that Blizzard added this option to the Store.

Well, it's something I can easily sign off as what did I say moment.

How long will it take till we see more fluff items in the store, shiny gear and other options which will 'enhance the game experience' in the Blizzard Store?

Not long is my bet.

Two different issues in one post

I was listening to the Twisted Nether Blogcast this morning and found myself thinking about one thing. And later on when I read the comments on the last few days postings about micro transactions and paying separately for different content I noticed that I could combine these two into a single post (and stop posting for the rest of the week... clever!).

The one thing that started to bug me was that how far the level capped people have separated themselves from the beginning player and how different the actual starting zone game is from the much famed 'end game'. For me the illusion has always been that 'the game starts at the cap', but I have come to notice that actually the game is what you make of it. For me -and for several others, I've noticed- the game almost ended at the gap between the levelling game and end game. And it still is at a standstill, even though I get geared up at almost each heroic run I get into. There just isn't any drive in the gearing game like there was in the levelling game.

What bothered me in the Blogcast was that Daewin told how he had levelled from 1 to 80 within the free trial period. For a content and quest enthusiast I am this seems more of a travesty, as he has been running through the main content in the game by 'power levelling' and completely discarding the background. In my mind, he has exactly played the game to win, maximising the 'win the content' mentality and completely discarding the RPG elements of the game. The race, class and talent build have been just mechanics to use and nothing more.

This sounds to me as extremely alarming in the sense that the content Blizzard has become renown of has been discarded so easily. On the other hand, the preaching that the end game is where the game is does the same: it doesn't matter why we are trying to get to Arthas, it only matters for as long as he is the 'final boss'. What happened to Kael'Thas or Illidan? Where did all the earlier end bosses disappear? And why?

The second thing that struck me was that in fact the game has been changed so that the journey doesn't matter anymore: to be honest, the emphasis of the content has been increasingly in the end game content anyway for at least for the last expansions, and the next one is trying to make a slight shift in there by destroying what we have learned to be a persistent world.

I'm completely disillusioned about the fact that we're playing the game instead of playing the character or role. There is no story to the characters, only the story of the gear and where we got it. The game's levelling design at the moment enhances the illusion that you MUST hurry to the level cap to even experience something within the game, which already has a huge amount of both solo and group content before that. Due to the fact that everyone is ushered to the level cap by the speeded up levelling, the group content is greatly shunned and empty, and next to no new players (and certainly no new alts) experience the group content as a challenge or interesting content.

The disparity between the rich background content of the starting areas and the earlier content and the end game content (both gearing and raiding) proves to me that the RPG aspect of the game is dead to a large extent, and that Blizzard is serving mainly to the level capped population. And is making sure that the newcomer to the game gets this from the beginning levels on, that the actual world of Azeroth doesn't mean a thing in itself: the only thing that really matters is the highest level raid instance, to which the access has been made easier for everyone to try to enter. If they are lucky or persistent enough. The sad part of this is that the players forget the immersion aspect of the vast lore of the world and play the game like it was a some sort of Mario Bros in fantasy land.

WoW has all the content, lore and adventure, but we're playing it for the game mechanics.

Sad.