I've had the first weekend without WoW for a long, long time. In a way I feel a bit uneasy, because I haven't blogged about anything for some time now, especially after the great discussion we had some weeks ago about the current status of roleplaying and my views of perfect game.
But then again, considering we had the lure coursing season start last weekend, I cannot feel bad about it. First of all, our two main dogs won the Finnish Cup 2009 competition (male won, bitch was second), which is an invitation only competition for the last season's best dogs. Secondly, our newcomer who ran her first competition won on Sunday, even though she didn't finish the final trial. What makes these wins even more sweet is the fact that our dogs, all four of them, had a severe case of kennel cough in the beginning of this year, taking three months and as many antibiotic strains to kill. Our male was closer to dying than we even want to think about.
And now they are already in the striking condition even though we think they are just recovering.
I have to add something about WoW to this post, too, because otherwise I'm fooling myself and you, dear readers. I truly believe that this 'hiatus' is going to do some good to my playing whenever the weather doesn't permit lengthy walks in the woods. Then again, if the weathers turn out good, I will be spending even less at the computer: my main obligation is with the family and the dogs, especially now that they have shown to be capable to be trained for the next European Championship later this summer.
Azariel commented my earlier post by asking if it would be viable to limit the speed at which the players advance in the content. I've thought about this for the last week or so, and IMHO there are several things in WoW which have been decreased in effect and lessened in impact to the players: levelling experience is one, the dumbing down the quests is another and most certainly, the effect of rested bonus is another, too. When I first started, I didn't pay any attention to the rested bonus. None at all. In fact, I even wondered why my exp bar was of different color from time to time, until I found about the resting.
Still, the effect of rested bonus, or in fact, the lack of penalty for not resting, is alarmingly low. You can blast through the current content in a few days of /played without paying any attention to the rested bonus. It's a nice bonus if you stay away from the game enough to gain it, but lack of rest doesn't affect the toon at all.
This is a clever thing in a game where the crafting and trade skills are more or less button clicking annoyance. In others, where trade skills can be considered worthy -or at least entertaining- like EQ2 this wouldn't be so clever as the players would be skipping the crafting minigame in search of levels and fame.
The moral of the story: simple small changes in the game's ruleset at any stage will change the whole game in the long run. Just look what has happened to WoW from TBC to WotLK and you'll notice.
