Public service announcement (yawp)

I didn't login to any games over the weekend. The only thing I did was to watch the Stargate Universe's latest episode on sunday.

Otherwise I was being educated on the other hobby I have.

I feel tired and refreshed.

Normal activities will resume as time permits.

Thank you.

Fun and games...

I know I have written earlier about this issue, but the recent experience of pure fun without any pressure on performance incited the idea once again. This is more a flow of thought kind of post, without any actual analysis of anything and is based on my thoughts (unless otherwise mentioned).

WoW is still designated as a game, even though there are no real game-like elements in it. You cannot win WoW, except if you count killing the final boss as "YOO WIN, DOOD!" screen. You cannot score a high score in WoW, except if you count the superficial arena point score or a gearscore-like scoring system as a valid scoring system. And you can replace any desired game name acronym on the place of WoW, even MMO, and the earlier sentences are true.

For some people fun comes from winning and being better than others. That is actually quite a western way of looking life, always striving to best others. In MMO this comes in the form of besting the bosses or the raid content in a group. The raid leader - being the leader - is considered to be the one who knows and understands the way the encounter works and thus can be taken as the best player in the group. (Yup, that was a gross generalisation.)

The competition in raid content comes from the competition between guilds, as the content is impossible to do as a single player. The most revered guilds are those that get the server first, or even world first, kills of the newest and 'hardest' end bosses.

But getting the world first doesn't mean you have won the MMO in question, as there will be a next one within short time.

I have a competitive enough job and other hobby to say that this kind of competition just for the sake of it doesn't interest me. Sure I would like to see the end game content as well as any other player out there, but that is not the reason I'm playing the game. And that is why I've had so hard time in understanding why I'm not enjoying the game as much as the other people playing it.

My concept of fun is different from the group I try to 'belong'.

For me the whole concept of min-maxing and trying to beat the content seems too serious and ... well, not fun as such. Formerly the fun had come from the exploration and finding new things in the game, while levelling reaching the new talents and skills to learn and use. At the level cap the development started to go through the min-maxing route and you can easily find many texts around the net (starting from the official forums) about people who don't have The Spec for their character or their gear composition isn't exactly what is considered to be of canon with the build or role their toon is supposed to have.

I bet the players are still having fun, despite of the people in random groups picking on them, making ridicule of them and calling them by names. Why would they be playing if that wasn't the case?

I have serious enough job as it is, and I prefer a contradictory entertainment after I get off from the office. Good old laughter, tears and silliness. Not grumpy, stern tweaking to fit the suite and current flavour of the month.

I just learned yesterday that my main's gearscore is about 4800 and then some. I have acquired that by running heroics and gearing up the way I have felt being the way I want my character to be. To be able to fill the spot in the group he's supposed to. Now the game has advanced so far that this doesn't seem enough, for the gs requirements for yesterday's weekly and pug raids called for gs above 5200. I would like to take on the weekly and pug raids, but because of the fact that I couldn't care less about the gs I have, I'm effectively cut off. And because I've never raided any of those places, really, I cannot fathom even trying to lead them or put up my own PUG.

I know this sounds strange to most of the people reading any kind of blogs, but I feel that this isn't the way the game should be played or how I should feel about my situation. I should take the lead, not care about the others and take what I want.

That's not how I want to do it.

I know I could take any tanking position with the skill I have: I have no problem in following a plan and winding it when necessary. Because I don't know the instances I just cannot see myself failing the 10 strangers who I will never probably meet. I wouldn't mind wiping and progressing slowly, but I would mind failing the others by not knowing how to handle the situation.

That wouldn't be fun, you see, and I would feel bad about it for a long time. It's too serious, that level cap raiding, it seems.

At the other end is the pure fun without any pressure. Do as you please and how you wish others to do. That last weekend's fabulous gnome event which SAN-EU arranged was exactly that. Pure, clean fun without any expectations (everyone was at the same level there) and without requirements (except being gnome and acting gnomish).

Who is to say which thinking is right or wrong? The people playing the game at the cap and hitting their head against the pre-scripted boss night after night for the kill or the people roleplaying at the mid levels, raiding for their character's story and taking the blows in verse?

It's not any players desire to perform poorly, I think. But I think that every player wants to have fun with their game, be it whatever. No fun is better than other, and fun is very subjective matter.

So I will keep whining about how I'm excluded - like so many other casual and time restricted players - from the end game content. I want to beat the final boss just as much as anyone playing WoW, but feel that "I am not prepared" or feel excluded from this due to the artificial requirements other players set. The result is that we take the alternative route, enjoying playing the stress free roleplaying character seeking his roots. Why?

Because that's more fun for me. What's your fun?

Who gets and what

I stumbled across a list of features of the forthcoming Guild Experience system hinted to come in Cataclysm. I read them through and forgot the whole thing until the other day, when I found myself comparing the guilds I've been associated with. I've seen quite a few different styles of running a guild, from very much military style organisation of the first guild I was in to the completely open and plutocratic system of SAN. Also the aims of the guilds have been very different: from the 'do as you please as long as you're having fun' of SAN to very much achievement and achieving oriented approach of the first guild I've been in. In between there are several different kind of mixes which have been somewhat successful to combine the parts of both ends.

The Guild experience system will do some damage to all of this, I think. Now the system which Blizzard presented in the Blizzcon last year is far from set in stone, but the overall idea of having all of the members of the guild to contribute to the guild sounds very nice. However, if we take the average casual, social raiding guild (tm) into consideration, what will happen?

Guild has two 10 man teams, which combine for the odd 25 man run once, twice a week. Regular schedule, so there are 30 raiding members in the roster. As this is casual and social, there are some 30 more casual players who either enjoy the company, hang around because of the cool name of the guild or are in because they think they have a chance to raid with the raid teams one day or another. So a 60 players in the guild, quite reasonable.

Currently the situation is such that the raiders would have to support their raiding by themselves, and the guild would help by disenchanting the gear not needed or distributed by the raid attendants. The casual part of the guild would just help when they are asked to and would happily be chatting around.

With the guild experience system, the guild gains experience from everything any member does, so the more active the casuals are, the more experience the guild gains. The raiders will continue as they are doing currently, logging in half an hour before the raid and chugging out as it ends, as well as the casuals would be logging in to do their quests, dailies, chatting and achievements. However, there was a mention of the guild experience and achievement for internal trading.

The optimist in me would like to see this mean that the raiders, who are the experts of the game by far, would trade with the casual members and lower level members of the guild. But if they continue doing what they usually do (because of being casual raiders), they login half an hour before the raid to get ready and log off right after the raid for the night is done. There is no connection to the social casual group of the guild, so the raiders would do their internal trades among themselves (I can see a lot trades in consumables and enchants on the way...), where as the casuals would have to do them by themselves. In the end, the casual group would be supporting the raiders in the guild, widening the separation even further.

There will be a huge recruitment spree because of this even before the Cataclysm hits: each and every guildmaster of a raiding guild can see the benefit of having as many slackers in their midst only because they generate the Guild system currency while the raiders are away and not attending to anything.

The question is, how can Blizzard be sure that this is going to be fair to all participants? I mean, the casuals are already paying for the content the raiders are consuming at ever faster rates.

The casual gamer, who I think are the biggest group in the game, are the ones who are paying for everything.

That's what I think.

..

Problem with level 10

As I have now been levelling up totally new characters in the RP server (Argent Dawn-EU), I have been experiencing the first 10 levels. The 10 level experience is important factor in making people to stay in the game, at least according to Blizz who has made their trial last for so long. The players -trial players- who make it beyond lv10 are only 30% of the people who activate trial, which is something that caused a slight stir in the blogosphere. And quite naturally at the Blizzard Marketing Division.

Leading to several changes to make the initial 10 levels as easy -and compelling- as possible.

The result.

The initial starter area where the character begins its journey to heroic deeds is way too easy. There is only one red -aggressive- creature in this area, where as there were earlier several. Heck, there were areas in the starter area where you wouldn't have gone right away because of the fact that all the creatures in there would have jumped on you and eaten you alive!

Now it's a stroll in the park. The aggressive monster is as easy as earlier neutral ones, posing no threat to the survival of the newly created character. The same goes on in the adjacent area, where the neutral and aggressive mobs are mixed together. However, the aggressive one are so weak that you have to make a terrible mistake to get killed. Like fighting your way into a campsite of the mobs and get jumped on by respawns. It happens, but... not likely.

However, at this point you get into the first capital city and enter the first 'contested' area. And that's when the drag starts. First of all, the first five levels in the beginner area come in such a rapid succession that it doesn't even feel nice. The level up seems more an annoyance than a reward, as the actual progress in the power level of the character comes more from the -poorly itemised- gear than from the few skills. Levels five to ten change this the other way around: the game becomes a constant struggle to get enough money to get all the skills, especially if you enter the tradeskills. The levelling becomes very much slower than it was. At level 7 I struck a kind of soft wall with all my toons, a situation in which the levelling seemed to slow down very much. The next such wall comes before level 15: the game becomes cyclical in progress.

The reason why level 10 is such a barrier IMO is the fact that the beginning is too easy: it poses no challenge, and no social contacts. Its the epitome of a massive single player game. Where the beginning area is too easy, the next stage of the game is too demanding for a player who has never set their foot on an adventure game or MMO: the challenge changes abruptly from super easy to the level where it should have been in the beginning.

The progression isn't smooth, it's erratic.

If I started WoW now with the knowledge I had when I first began, I doubt I would progress past the beginning area. It's just too lame, easy and unchallenging.

Here's my fingers crossed for Cataclysm to make it right again.

March of the Gnomes

New beginnings and new experiences.

SAN-EU had an event for the forthcoming Gnomeregan rally: we had a group of gnomes spreading the news across the Alliance capitals. Needless to say, we marched from IF to SW in perfect order (ehem?) and gnomishly perfect formation (a mess is a formation, right?). The event had everything in it: laughter and tears, great comedy and parody, as well as excitement and fantastic death.(Pictorials here and here)

We had great fun. In fact, I mentioned after the event that it might have been the most fun I have ever had in the game. Sure, downing a boss is fun for the first time, but it's not the same kind of fun: its the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction of a job well done. This event was all fun and games, no hidden agenda, no GS requirements, no achievement pressure. 

Just fun. Go along and play a gnome. 

It also showed me something shocking about the player base of a RP server (yea, yea, a gross generalisation): there are distinct racial tensions and - one might say - racism in the game. As we entered Stormwind in our amazement, merriness and cheerful need for beer, we encountered a guard of Stormwind (played one, that is), who stated that we should leave the city because we're... not welcome in there!

Come again?

As the event progressed, the leader of the player driven guard stated the same. That we were causing trouble and unrest, and we should leave as the human population was getting nervous. Nervous! How about the gnomes who had lost their home in Gnomeregan?!

It became clear that the human population of the Stormwind were gnomists (gnome-haters). In real, this is no roleplaying in here.

You see, when we went to Darnassus, the Darnassian Guard didn't throw the gnome party out of the city even after they had had a swimming (and bubble fart bath) competition in the Moonwell... Strangely tolerant people those night elves.

Onwards, for Gnomeregan!

On the other hand, I ran a PUG or two with my lv76 priest. Or tried to run, because neither of the runs finished. The same happened with my DK, now lv72. The PUG started fine, but the run didn't finish as people just quit after the first wipe.

It seems that the PUGs are becoming more and more failpugs (or PIGs as we in SAN named them) the further down the expansion we go. The people in the PUGs showed all the signs of speed levelled toons who have no idea of how to play the toon, what skills or talents they have and/or how they fit into a group. I would guess that the heroic PUGs at the level cap are getting more and more facerolled because people who are running them for their alts are pulling the whole weight of the group. And at the same time the PUG raids are devising more and more restraining requirements in the lines of "GS 5.3k and achievement on all is a must" to make it even harder for the newly dinged players to even try their wings in the raids.

One could say that there is much Cataclysm could fix. But as it hits shelves sometime in the Autumn, all this content is completely voided and the Lich King himself will be chuckling while people just fly past his Citadel.

"Fools!"