Pages

Thursday, September 18, 2008

When information mounts

There comes a time when information about a certain issue builds up to a point that a lot of previous knowledge is needed to understand a single piece of it. Hmm. That sentence turns my mind into a knot, but let me explain.

My brother, the Rogue, is the least experienced of us three in WoW. He has been soloing his Rogue up and got into the instances with us. Well, not for the first time or anything. But the nice part of this is the fact that almost all that he knows about the game comes from his experience in the game. Not from a guild nor a guild forum. Not from a class site or Thottbot. But from the game.

He was so dumbfounded when he saw the Priest's and the Warrior's gear for the first time. The few blues from DM (at that time) and select few greens from quests. He had gear that was green at the most with few pieces of white in the mix.

He did what any of us would have done. He started looking for more information, sacrificing his precious playing time for the search for the Truth. About Rogues.

We went through DM together, and he got a nice upgrade. From the Stockades another, even though we didn't find the rare mob inside. This was the time I had this small bell ringing at the back of my head. He had found some information, but he took it all for granted. Everything was in the game, all the time, no matter what. If a site X said it was there, it must have been in there.

The next day I got an email: he had found the dagger he wanted. The Widowmaker. Easy world drop from Qiraji Major He'al-ie. At least thats what he read from the Net.

It made me frown. Sure, 3.28% drop rate would be great grinding in Thousand Needles, but how to tell him that the mob was a rare one even when it was alive before the Gates of Ahn-Qiraji were opened?

And that's what I mean about too much information about a subject may cause the one searching for one specific thing to lose the conception of the whole. Especially in constantly evolving MMO's like WoW, where today's big item is tomorrow's trash.

Oh, yes, we settled the issue and will continue our adventures in the Old World next week. We're having his batchelor party tomorrow, so no games this weekend.

If we're lucky.

No comments: