Invasion continuing

I took a hint from Tobold's comment on his own post about the Invasion epics and took my lv62 (I checked...) Tauren Druid off from dusting and -after a while of tweaking and addoning- took off to hunt some Lich King Minions.

Only to notice that the event is steered only to lv70's and guilds in which lv70's take care to equip their lv65+ up and rising members.

The mobs are all lv69-lv71, the highest being the rares. And I got pwnd, heavily. Ok, I could scratch their skin a bit, and when I pulled accidentally one, I just ran amidst of the other players and ... scored a kill, as they finished the mob! This happened twice, because I felt it was cheating, big time.

Then again, taking into account the events progress, it might not have been. Every minion which gets killed damages the crystal, the main focus of the event, and when it's damaged low enough the 'repairmen' get summoned. So in a way the party clearing the event area benefits from all minion they kill. And to lv70 only the Necrotic Runes matter, not the exp the mobs give.

Whatever the case, I would have preferred to see some variation in the mobs, just for the sake of making this event available for wider range of people. Even the way that if the 'landing zone', the area around the crystal, is unattacked or just appeared, the initial mobs would be of lower level to accomodate us not-so-well-versed in the game, and their stats would get better the more they are harvested. At this point of the game, it doesn't matter a bit how difficult the mobs are thought to be, as the toons harvesting them have most probably pretty high end gear to compensate. I mean, I saw the palladins, mages and hunters cut the minions down faster than my druid could say cheese. And that's pretty fast.

My only hope is that the next stage of the event is more of a WORLD event like the zombie infection. People in my Alliance levelling guild didn't even know about the Necropolises except the one outside Stormwind nor about the invasion even. They had been wondering what the skulls meant in their maps.

That's the kind of guild my Alliance toons are, and I like to help them to learn the game, the lore and the guild. And for them I wish -mainly- that these events were made applicable for all players, not only for the burned out lv70 raid machines looking for change. Damn, they have the dailies already! Blizz could make them more varied!

When expectations are not met

Title actually describes the varied reactions of people towards the WoW zombie infestation and 'Invasion' world event. Tobold wrote about it in a pretty nice way, and the comments on that post really show how different views people have on this.

I'm mixed. When I entered today with my Horde lv62 druid to run through the Halloween event quests, zombies and zombified players ruined the fun. Then again, when I entered the game with my lv16 Alliance warlock, I had the time of my life. And in Friday I had a blast running Stockades as a zombie with my lv45 warrior and my brother. Absolutely hilarious session with loads of 'BRRRAAIIINS'-shouting and fury. 

This difference in experience got me thinking the reason.

It's all about expectations. About the activity you are about to engage with. About the fun you are about to experience. About the entertainment. If these expectations are not met, but are altered in a way the player cannot change, the reality doesn't conform with the expectations and most probably the overall experience is ruined. If you go to a movie to see a light comedy and end up watching Coen brothers' "Fargo", I bet you are not going to be very happy. Fargo is a great movie, but it isn't exactly light comedy.

I loved to play as zombie on my lv16 toon, because there were other people engaging in the similar activity. It was a bliss, and I could easily get away from it. My expectations were different with my horde toon. I expected to be able to do the Halloween quests -for the achievements, I admit- but was denied of the fun. With the Ally warrior I expected to be running as a zombie and eating brains, and it was hilarious.

This can be taken a step further. Players are like any consumers in that they are ready to tell different things in surveys than what they really want. AoC was marketed as a completely different experience than WoW, and players were jumping in joy. In the end, it proved to be too different, causing the game to be next to abandoned (yea, yea, nevermind the technical issues etc. It's a simplifying example, ok?). War didn't even try to change the mechanics, but made the change in the way the game was played. And was very much easier to digest.

We are slaves to our expectations. When they are not met in full, we feel cheated.

But I also came into a conclusion with the world event. I just love the unexpectedness of them. Nevermind the fact that the Invasion is in fact aimed for the bored level capped people: I couldn't touch the Lich Kings stormtroopers with the Druid (well, I could but not solo). Never the less, I had fun with the fact that everything had to be taken as it came.

I'm off to see if I can contribute in the Ally side. CHARGE!!!

Next big one to look foreward to

I told earlier that my brother (the rogue) got married some weeks ago. The ceremony and the celebrations were as great and pompous as should be, needless to say that the bride was handsome and the groom beautif... the other way around, naturally.

I met an interesting person over there, who is deep in the tabletop miniature gaming. And I learned an interesting piece of information from him. I haven't checked the RPG news for this, but apparently there is coming a Warhammer 40k RPG sometime soon. I'm sucker for WH40k, the original small group skirmishes in the original rules, so I started drooling right away.

While driving to work today two things just clicked. Will we see WH40k MMO someday? Now that Mythic has excelled an excellent PvP game in WAR, what is holding them from creating similar from the 'other IP' of WH40k?

Imagine: you start as a Marine in training. Or an Space Orc. Like in the original set, where there were no Genestealers, Necroids or anything. Just the Marines and Space Orcs. And other greenies, naturally. Ok, not the Squigherder, but almost all others.

The specialisation would be the arms to which the character would specialise: Power Glove, Power Sword, Heavy Flamer, you name it. Bolter would be for all. And the similar on the Greenies side.

Unleash the havoc and see! We have WAR in Space!

The thought went on. The Marines could be confined to troopships, to travel to distant planets to combat. Add Chaos Marines on one planet (new expansion!). Add Tyranids. Add Eldar.

And you have a soup. With spoon. And baquette.

The RvR would be of domination of a planet. The planets could be servers, from which you could travel to another (provided your faction has a landing zone cleared).

I'm having wet dreams already. *drool*

Oops! There goes a week and a half!

Woopie. Didn't think it would take this long when I left for a short Autumn vacation. I was away for a week and then I had one hell of a headache for three days. And nights.

What a bliss it is to be without constant pain. It's really one of the minor things you don't notice when you are ok. But when the pain starts to bother your everyday life, it easily destroys every joy you have in your day. For me it effectively took away my playing, as I couldn't sit and watch the screen even for ten minutes without hoping to die.

I had enough time to check the 3.0.2 patch of WoW. And after an hour of play (including the darn addon scherade) I can say that I love the new Achievements. If only I knew what I can do with the Achievement points... they are a pointless e-peen enhancement, I think. But it would be nice to be able to use them for something. Like the Honor points, for example?

I'm also a bit torn about the Blizzard style of making the achievements tied so tightly to whole of the content. There are only few meaningfull achievements that cover the Old World content, but combined with Outlands (later Northerend) they yield concrete rewards. To me this seems that Blizzard is enforcing people to purchase TBC and WotLK... coercion which I do not like. But like any good addict I'm going to comply with this.

I have been having good, clean fun with the browser based MMO I mentioned earlier, The West, which has already launched the third world for players to explore and conquer. The frontier life has never been so fun and furious. And the best part of it is the fact that the quests and jobs take real time to complete. I can put my character to dig graves for 2 hours, play something else during that time and return and reap the benefits! What an easy way to make things work.

A comment on the 'news': people are already burning out from WAR, nothing major but Tobold already quit, Hudson is having difficulties to motivate himself to only WAR and some other CoWs have claimed similar things. To me it seems to be the forerunner's dilemma: there is always something new and spanky around the corner. It was AoC, then WAR, now Fable2, next Fallout3 then WotLK... and they all fight for our gamers' spare time, not giving nor yielding for the others. And the forerunners have to be in the front line, experiencing it all before others. Are they the Explorers or the Achievers in Bartle?

Oh, and obviously the next 'Big One' is also around the bend: Star Wars: The Old Republic. Or SWTOR for short. Will it be the next hype mill ála WAR? Time will tell, but for me the combination of BioWare, LucasArts and Star Wars is really something to keep eye on. Especially as they promise Story-driven MMO, in which every decision counts and converstations have multiple outcomes... Did I mention something earlier? I think I did...

Anyhow, I'm back, maybe twice or three times a week. Time to run.

Are bloggers the trendsetters?

After reading several blogs from my blogroll about the copying/tweaking issue risen by the Tigole post in WoW Forums, a thought surfaced. Just like a slowly growing irritation in the back of the mind, the thought had formed itself into a solid being after I quit my lunch. And -like all good reasons to write- it compelled me to hear it's call and write about it.

Being the newcomer to the MMO's and especially blogging, and generally being one of the followers of trends rather than the trendsetters, I'm a bit slow and late. I rather am late and safe than early and apologetic. And I take my time to consider things before making a decision.

But it seems to me that majority of the active bloggers aren't. People seem to make their decisions pretty fast, take their stand and defend it with fervour rarely seen in real life. When Age of Conan was about to be launched after so and so many delays, it was the flavour of the month: each, every and then some bloggers readily discarded their other chores and booked a trip to sunny Hyborea. Only to return later 'in the wait of the next gen mmo'.

Weeks before the Open Beta of Warhammer: The Age of Reconing launched, the buzz was already there, and as the early entry started, the blogosphere was full of entries of WAR, it's mechanics and how fun it was to bash real player characters in the scenarios. Well, honestly speaking this is still going on, even though there are some reports already that this may have been just the initial rush to the new, greener pastures.

And here I am. Newcomer to the MMO's, befuddled by the buzz and hype on the next great shiny MMO, hearing how the game I'm just now playing is 'old news' and 'so passé'.

Of course, the buzz before the launch of AoC or WAR was mainly due great marketing, but the voice of the blogosphere -especially in the small niche of MMO players- turns the tide for better or worse. The enthusiastic reviews of the game and it's mechanics are sure to suck players who have nothing to complain in their current game to the next big hype.

The sad part is the fact that no-one seems to remember that there are still newcomers to the older game. Especially in this case, where WoW has been around for 4 long years and the ones who have been burned out by overdoing the content have gotten their friends, spouses, siblings and youth interested. The bloggers -the über-gamers- show clearly that the newcomers are noobs because they do not understand how inadequeate the game of their choice is. And the newcomers clearly feel it as the MMO of their choice -if it's not the current flavour of the month- is void and empty, without the MM part of the whole definition.

I have played, on and off, for a bit over two years, mainly WoW. From the beginning I witnessed the terrible urge of people to level up the content to the cap, to 'enter the game'. And all the while I have been wondering the reason to that, as I have not had the possibility to participate in the 'end game grind'.

Instead, I started to enjoy the game the instance I started to play the content. When I decided I want to read the stories and find the longer story lines.

The more I'm wondering the terrible rush to the cap currently, because I'm encountering more of the newcomers to whom the basic concepts of the game are completely lost. But they are convinced that they have to level up as fast as possible, nevermind the content or the scenery.

Sure, the great majority of the players have their toons capped and are at the top of the pecking order when the WotLK launches. The more the newcomers to WoW will feel obliged to level up as fast as possible, and the less they will understand their class or playing in groups when they reach the cap someday.

During that time the bloggers who have overplayed and burned out by WoW will blog about WAR, their accomplishments and bewildering thoughts on how much better their gaming experience is than what it was in the earlier game.

Till the next flavour of the month comes with a bang and boom.

Fallout MMO? Starcraft MMO?

Who knows, but the next one is lurking already.

Are you ready?