Summertime schedule

Ah, summer.

It means two things. First, the schools are out and the Wold of Azeroth is constantly full of students on leave. Material prizes fluctuate more than over the rest of the year, you can score great deals both buying and selling and generally the population is more on the jerk side.

Secondly, the summer vacation of the blogger. As a working dad and all, the summer weather poses serious hazard to the game time, even though there are a few projects I've taken to keep myself occupied over the furious outdoors living.

I - the one who resents PvP in all forms and functions - have started new toons on a PvP server. And I've locked already a rogue to lv 19. My baby warlock is about to be locked at 14, just to accommodate a more casual bracket. So the big, big project will be to level up that DK who will provide materials and money to these two. I'm now contemplating over the professions for the DK to a) generate nice nest money, b) to help the twinks gearing and enchanting and c) create a nice income to accommodate more toons in different brackets.

The second project is to level up an enhancement shaman along with my son, who's warlock is going to join the Three Stooges on their scheme of world domination. As soon as that addition to our team is geared up, the Three Stooges and Son will take on heroics and Wrath raids (stay tuned for more spectacular failures!).

Of course there is always my pet, Gnomore. I've played him once or twice now, without an update, but rest assured, when I need to slow down my pace in killing things and ... bigger things, I will return to him.

As a recap, summertime causes some delays in the posting schedule. Despite of this, the toons are going strong and my banker is now sitting on 280k (again!!!) with over 250 stacks of Cataclysm herbs in his mailbox, waiting to be milled.

Wishing you a warm and relaxing summer.

C out
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Major confession

by Copra


I've found out a peculiar thing in myself. I love dailies. I can't wait to get home, login to the game and do the daily.

Sadly I'm not referring to WoW, but my new sidetracking love in FPS PvP, CrossFire.

The major points of interest are:

1. My son plays CrossFire, too.
2. He plays a lot better than I do.
3. I learn everytime I login and play.
4. The rewards are mainly tangible and really help me later on.
5. Did I mention that I learn to play better every time?
6. Even though the maps are always the same, the daily challenges are different.
7. Even though I'm just a newbie and beginner, I can participate in a game of pro's.
8. In a game full of pro's, I have a chance to survive and even pull kills.

Yup. If the PvP or dailies would have a part of that in WoW, I would be hooked. But no, the dailies and PvP are governed with different set of rules which for me cause frustration and boredom.

Besides, CrossFire loads a lot faster than WoW and there is always a game starting. The only toon who gets right into the action in WoW is my warrior tank, but the daily heroics are what they are.

Too bad I don't have 3 hours a day for WoW to raid. I have 30 minutes to run a couple of CrossFire matches.

Good enough. And getting better.

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What a joke

In my desperation I took my son's challenge... and installed Battlefield Heroes. He's quite a cracker in FPS it seems, and I just cannot match his (chaotic) skills in the game.

But - to my surprise - I enjoyed immensely the first ten games I played through. The gameplay is fast, furious, free and very balanced. The commando isn't unbeatable, the Soldier isn't overpowered and the Gunner can be downed by the other classes. The game is fun because it's so balanced.

Then comes the comparison. As it has been said all over the blogosphere for as long as I have been reading it, the WoW version of PvP is a joke. After the few games of BH, I can only concur with this. What a joke WoW PvP is.

Sure, it feels fun, when the battleground teams are equal and/or your side is winning. But for the most of the time, the teams are not teams, but groups of individuals trying to gain as many kills as possible. In BH this happens, too, but those games are the poor ones: everyone knows and aims to gain the objectives (at least as far as I've seen) because that helps to advance your character more than the individual kill count.

As everyone is offered the same - or similar - toolset to work with, BH is much more a contest of skill and speed, rather than that of who's got the best gear or most tweaked skills. The main gripe I have with WoW, actually: min-maxing wins always.

Which was proven yesterday, when I ran the battleground finder for the first time: first game was a nice one because we played as a team to win the game, but the second was a terrible mess because we played like a group of teens in drugs. In the second game the opposing side had vastly superior gear, which was seen in the amount of hp, the average damage they generated and in the way they just danced away from the midst of damage dealing opponents.

Even though I liked and enjoyed BH for the few games, I still do not like PvP as whole. The mere competition doesn't drive me as much as a good lore and story.

But then again, I knew that already.

Shellshock

Logged in to my main -prot warrior- yesterday after almost two weeks of real life induced hiatus from the toon.

I was shocked.

There he was, standing outside Dalaran bank, all geared up for action, and I didn't have a clue on what to do!

Really. I was shocked by the fact that there was nothing which a)interested me, b)called me to do it or c)no-one asking for a group. Granted, it was kind of early for guild activity, but still.

The guys in Channel Massive gave this thing a name, sort of, when they described how WoW changes from 'lore-content' to 'raid-content' (or it might have been even 'grind-content' in some context) and the whole concept of the game changes at the level cap. I wholly, totally sign this definition: as there was no 'lore' reason to go about, I felt this character had nothing to do! Sure I could quest the greyed out quests just for the fun of it, but at the level cap those quests provide no challenge, their rewards are questionable (apart from the gold part) and -because of the fact that the quests are designed for levelling up- they do not further the lore for this character anymore.

So -encouraged by my recent low level PvP experiences- I did the unimaginable. I went for BG's. But, due to my nature, I changed by basic keybinds before that, to accommodate more of my important buttons around my moving keys. So whereas the 'old' movement was in WASD, I switched that to ESDF, freeing QAZ for more action packed fun. I also got around to create macro for my panic button (Shield Wall, Last Stand, Frenzied Regeneration combo), which got a perfect place to reside besides my little finger.

So off I went.

I have some old Arathi Basin quest pending, so I decided to go for that first. What a mess. The first round we got around to possess only one area and lost fabulously to the more organized horde group. The next round we were faster and capped all the control points right from the beginning. Only to lose them one by one to the -obviously more organized and clever- horde.

Note that I stated at the beginning of the former paragraph that I have a quest in AB. I still have, because we just couldn't win the game in the two tries I got myself into. I just couldn't continue watching the mindless running around of the alliance troops when horde was working in pretty organized groups of three. In the first match we got to keep that one control point only because I and two other players stayed to protect it (paladin and hunter): the rest of the 'team' just went on from flag to another with no mind on defending the points.

In the second match it became even more evident that the alliance troops just ran from one flag to another with no idea of defending.

So I decided to see what it would be in some other bg. And I went for one I hadn't seen before.

The Strand of the Ancients.

Honestly speaking, I didn't have a clue what to expect. Heck, I didn't even know what I was supposed to do, but thankfully there were enough people to fight for and against, so it didn't matter. It seems that I entered the first SoA pretty late in the game, as it was lost pretty soon after I joined. Still I made myself into the middle of the roster, which is amazing considering my button smashing tactics.

The second run was better: I got in from the beginning. It proved to be more fun than the AB, mostly because everyone seemed to know the objective. Then again, the alliance people split up to strike both sides at the -approximately- same time, and that cost time. Horde, however, pushed to the same gate with all their force, disregarding the other, and were able to push faster to the final gate.

Needless to say that we lost.

What I learned from the foray was really that it's complete chaotic mess.

And that my new keybinds didn't help at all, as I was more or less at a loss with the keys to push as soon as something started to happen. In PvE encounter I still have some time to think, but in PvP environment the buttons should be hardwired to the nerves so deep that you do not have to think.

I made it to the top half of the rosters, though, so this experiment didn't go too bad. Considering that I was in my PvE tanking gear and protection spec, I might even say that it was a good show.

Now I have even more reason to hope for my schedule to clear up and that I can get into guild run events. They suit me better, for sure.