Both sides agree on one thing

I cannot help giggling while I think of the topic of this post. You see, it seems that both a blogger who loves WoW and a blogger who doesn't like WoW agree on one thing.

They both suggest that people quit playing WoW. (Yes, unless you have read the posts I suggest reading them now)

The lover, Larísa from the Pink Pigtail Inn suggest that the bloggers should cease blogging about WoW because of the fact that everyone and their granny is becoming burned out and bored with the WotLK content. In her words

However, we have now come to This Time of The Expansion Cycle when a lot of the links in our feedreaders and blogrolls suddenly turn into a nasty purple color. Yep. It’s the seasonal Curse of Boredom, Burn-out, Bitterness, Lost faith and Godknowswhat that strikes again, just as it did towards the end of TBC. It is remorseless, the victims are countless and unfortunately it isn’t as easy to click off as the in game-version.

And she suggests that:

There isn’t any quick cure from this, so you’d better treat it as a bad case of battle rez sickness. Rather than writing about what a miserable state the game is in, blaming your guild, Gearscore, Ghostcrawler, the Casuals, the Elitists, your ISP and your Wife, I would suggest you to take a break, not only from WoW, but from blogging and podcasting about it.

Log out from the WoW community, clear your brain from the fog, go do something else. You have NO obligation to anyone. Do not feel forced to rant about something you don't enjoy anymore.

And if you ever decide to come back, like for Cataclysm, I would dare say that you’ll be stocked up with rested energy, spitting out posts like never before.

Oh well. That sounds like some sort of censorship to me: what is better time to really look at the state of the game, the state of the community and the state of the whole state of things than the time just now? When the glamour and glitter has worn off (except from the sparkling pony farting stars) and the content has been seen by most of the players. Or the ones who have deemed the content as something not worth pursuing anymore or have seen it a couple of times too many have already left the game.

I cannot condone that kind of 'abandonment' of the blogging about the game. Sorry, I've been writing about the miserable experiences when others have been gloating with joy and glee, so why should I stop now? Because everyone is starting to feel like I have felt for so long?

Nah.

Like I stated in the earlier posts this week, I feel even more that WoW is a lovely SPMMO, Single Player Massive Multiplayer game. You can be alone within the group of anonymous people, never chatting with anyone and still accomplishing whatever you seek to do within the game. Well, as long as you are as ruthless and selfish as the guy/gal behind the next toon, taking every opportunity to shine with your achievements and GearScore. And making use of the fact that people who really don't know jack from ass read the Gearscore like devil reads the bible rather than recognizing that the arbitrary score is supposed to be a tool telling you that the guy with gs of 4700 is as ready to the ICC10 as the guy with the gs over 5000. The main difference is whether the guy in 4700 does want to learn the fights beforehand or not: he may even be a better choice than the bored gs 6000 guy coming to the PUG.

Like Wolfshead, the one with not as rosy picture of WoW stated:

As long as is there are copious amounts of reward with almost no risk, as long as content remains static and non-dynamic, as long as players have no sense of ownership in their world, as long as players have no need of other players, as long as player freedoms keep getting curtailed, as long as extracting money from subscribers is the end all and be all of game design — you will have the disease that is World of Warcraft.

Anyhow, as Tipa of West Karana just wrote, WoW is the kind of entertainment someone might prefer: something you don't have to pay attention to play. At the lower levels the game really is such, as you can read from her post.

So while I do not approve the reasons Larísa stated for not blogging and playing WoW, I still agree with both Larísa and Wolfshead. That we should stop playing WoW till Cataclysm comes.

There is only one reason to that, and Wolfshead put it very nicely:

We need to stop playing the same unoriginal MMOs out there and cancel our accounts. We need to stop supporting lazy companies that refuse to innovate and reinvest adequate funds into their MMOs. We need to stop playing MMOs until something worthwhile comes out.

Well, to know if there is anything worthwhile out there is to take the money from the Crack of Warcraft and put it into something not-so-familiar. If you really need to play over the summer months, pick a genre or game you have not tried. Or have tried a long time ago. Or that is new or forgotten till now.

Shake off the mantle of your first (or longest in terms of time) MMO for a while!

In my trials and wanderings I've noticed one peculiar thing.

As long as I test, try and explore, it's always more fun to come back home. Even for a short visit.

I hope this post made at least a bit sense to you.


...

Rise of the second rate raiders

Wrath of the Lich King has matured to the stage where the hard core raiders are starting to get bored with mister Lich King himself and are bailing out of the raiding mouse wheel. Here and there in the blogosphere you can see posts describing this in a way or another.

The more stable and steady guilds are replacing their A and B teams the rate they can to keep the raiding rolling. It's the rise of the second rate raiders in the sense that the people who earlier had a snowball's chance in Hell to roll into the raiding core of the progression guilds are now asked for the raiding just to keep the progression of alts and preparation for the Cataclysm going.

If you didn't have any chance to be included into the raids earlier, now it's time to start grinding the Icecrown 5-mans and Weekly Raids for that shining, spiffy ICC level gear.

In a way this also will be reflected on the PUG announcements for ICC, because there will not be enough people to fulfil the obscene Gearscore and Achievement requirements, and even PUG's must yield to the lesser experienced players attending.

All casuals, now it's time to rise and join the constant onslaught of the Lich King! Forget Cataclysm, the end is neigh!

Turning the table: Calling out WoWers!

Syp from excellent Bio Break called for all EQ2 players blogging to list "features or aspects that were better in EQ2 than in World of Warcraft".

I want to turn the table around: I'm calling on all WoW players/bloggers to come up with as wonderfull lists of features, aspects or things which make WoW so much better than EQ2!

If the stars had been differently, or the phase of the moon the other way, could this current situation be the other way around? That we'd be asking why EQ2 was better than WoW, and that EQ2 had more subscribers, still?

The launch, as far as I have come to understand, was a disaster for EQ2, but afaik it wasn't smooth on WoW either. Could this disparity in 'fame' come from the long living IP of Warcraft RTS compared to the EQ's earlier success in MMO genre?

So I challenge thee: come up with features or aspects that make WoW better than EQ2, explaining why EQ2 could not replace WoW even over time.

Maybe, just maybe, we'll do this with other games later on. Who knows?

Doing what they are best in doing

WoW's next expansion  has been written about here and there (and their cousins), but I still decided to put my spoon into the mix. Cuppy wrote about how Blizzard finally is breaking the mold of taking parts from other games and polishing them in their own mix. In her words:

Finally, we can see Blizzard use their gigantic budget for something experimental, new, and exciting – an old world revamp.  It’s ballsy, it’s gutsy, and I cannot freaking wait to see what happens to the Azeroth that I love.

In a sense that's true, but then again isn't that exactly what Blizzard is best in doing? Taking parts and ideas from other games and making something polished in their own? How come SOE's disastrous attempt on doing the exact same in EQ2 comes to my mind in such a vivid imagery?

Because the idea is the same: the same world but after cataclysmic changes. Where SOE made a sequel to their former best seller (EQ), Blizzard is doing exactly the same by bringing the sequel of their best seller into the game itself! If you ask me, I think Cataclysm is the secret MMO project as it changes the ruleset and updates the game to the current standards. Well, more or less.

It's like in old Pen and Paper RPG's, when Advanced Dungeons and Dragons was upgraded from ruleset 3.5 to the current d20 set: the game stayed the same, the rules just got upgraded. It is a sequel, yes, but within the same world and generic ruleset.

The rest of the expansion is full of copy-polish-paste. Guild experience comes from EQ2, which has the best guild system currently in use (ok, the only I have tested so far). Worgen satisfy the need to play 'dark and sinister' race on the Alliance side: somehow I see this as a counter (or reactive) solution to the possible World of Darkness MMO by CCP. Also the kind of Victorian era is a bit missing from the MMO scene, if you think of it, so there must be some need to expand that way, too.

There has been discussion in this blog also from the beginning how the Old World is void and empty, and even some bloggers have suggested earlier that the Old World could be wiped. Well, Blizzard listened to that and does it.

But can someone explain to me why Northrend isn't affected by the rise of Deathwing? After all, it's shores are at least as near to the upheaval as Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor...

Do we see a recurring cycle of expansions?

I achieved something

I sat down by my computer yesterday and got an achievement I hadn't even thought about. It said something like "Level 70" and all of a sudden I noticed that Laiskajaakko could fly! Well, being a warrior, he required a mount and skill, but that 800 g for the skill and 100 g for each mount was pebbles for the ability to explore the areas in the Outland without setting a foot on the ground.

So I also got Nagrand and Shadowmoon Valley explored and I was feeling pretty spiffy about it. But then I thought how easy it is to get the exploration done in Outlands compared to the same in the Old World and it made me cringe. Also the quest achievements are way easier in Outlands than in Old World, even if you take the total needed to cover the whole area. I bet I'll be having Loremaster of Outlands way before either Loremaster of Kalimdor or Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms due to the fact that the Outlands seem to be so much more achievable, both time and effort wise.

Next stop... well, I don't know! It'd take 5000g to gain the Artisan Flying skill, and at this level the money making possibilities seem a bit limited. I guess I'm sticking to the exploration achievements till I get enough time and courage to step into Northrend.

That will be a completely another story...

Step back and take a new look

I haven't been playing lately: during the last week or so I've logged in only three times, only to check AH and guild bank development. Obviously the rest of the guild has done the same, as there are only few toons which have logged in within the last month or so.

What ever the case, I noticed a nice thing yesterday as my trader toon was standing at the Auctioneer in Darnassus: It seems that I'm paying more attention to the details in the scenery than I have since my first run through the big city. I wonder if this is true with other toons and other places in game.

So I'm bound to challenge you all: forget the mechanics, forget the excessively grinded quests and quest lines and especially forget the fact that you've seen it all a million times. Take a step back from the adventuring/levelling up grind you have succumbed into, and take a new look into the game: Look it in the eyes of a newcomer, taking nothing for granted.

I was surprised of what I saw and what I noticed. How come I had missed the slowly swinging bags of the Auctionhouse?! Or the changing colours of the leaves around the Sacred Grove?

Open your eyes and see WoW through the eyes of a newcomer, and you'll be surprised.

Oh, and this goes with all other games, too: just forget the mechanics and the grind, and the world the game is depicting will change completely. If not forever.

Just wondering

Just read Amava's hunter guest post in World of Matticus about healing hunter's pet and how that makes sense. Not to delve into it any deeper, it has caused some interesting debate and mudslinging, almost as much as the newer guest post of a Discipline Priest without Penance. Interesting to see how much emotions these kinds of posts bring up, really. I think it's mostly because these are guest posts which are not exactly like Matticus' and his team's posts are, and they clearly have their own voice to them.

Great reading for the day, anyhow.

What the Amava's post stirred, however, is continuation of my former thoughts about huntards and retardins. As I read the post and commentary -and thought about the last dungeon PUGs I have endured- I felt that there is a question I want to ask from others, too. And there simply isn't enough space in Twitter to make it, sadly...

How come there are these certain classes of which the majority of the players are below -way below- average in their knowledge and ability to play the class in a group, but at the same time there are the very few excellent players performing top notch runs with anyone? I mean, the majority of hunters I have run dungeons so far have been awfull: not even the worst warlock has succeeded to ruin pulls as repeatedly as the mediocre hunter. (Maybe because he's afraid to let the mobs hit him...) The same with retribution paladins: I have seen only one very good in the levelling game, the rest of them, tens, being selfish idiots with no understanding of group play, tanking or aggro management.

I don't say that I'm perfect or even good player, but I at least want to learn to be better. Whereas the ones I'm referring to have decided that others are the ones lacking skill, not they.

So what is it with these two classes that lure the worst players into them? Are they too easy to solo? Too simple to play to get to the 'end game'?

If that's the case, then the end game is going to see a huge drop in PUG quality when that wave hits the level cap... God of Azeroth help us.

Please, comment. Shed your understanding on this, as I cannot make any sense of it.

Why is it so hard?

I'm still a bit crossed and angry over last nights WoW session. First of all, I cancelled the guild run, as no-one was interested in going to ST. That's ok, people have real life, too.

However, I joined a PUG when I was begged to. Pupunen, being the Holy Priest, is pretty comfortable in healing role, and I know from my BG experience by now that I can heal pretty decently, even in hard and fast situations. Granted, my gear isn't up to the healing profession, as I haven't been able to gain any replacements for my shadow-era gear.

So, into the SM we went. Hunter, Paladin, Warrior and Pupunen. Piece of cake, I thought, all being over 31. Even with a total f**k up group the Graveyards and Library should have been manageable.

And then they went directly for the Library. All was well when the warrior was tanking, but at the same instance the hunter started his combo the whole hell broke loose. The warrior and the paladin couldn't keep the aggro which that hunter created. Never the less, we cleared the corridor to the Huntsman's Cloister, the first yard in there. I should have been warned at the point when the hunter started to ask for shield... because he started to play melee-hunter.

After the yard and the beast tamer we got a new member, and the hunter and the warrior took off to summon. Thankfully, we cleared two encounters with that paladin, without a hitch, until the hunter came back and started pulling extras. Pupunen went out of mana in no time, and this caused a wipe. And I did something I have never done before.

I quit in the middle of an instance.

I was furious. I was in 'holy rage'. My mana burn was flaring. You get the drift.

I logged out and back in, this time with my Tauren druid. Quick run to Thunderbluff, respec for free (?! WHAT?!) and Copra is an asparagus. Cool. The whole action bar setup went anew, as Copra had been in deep feral thus far, and honestly speaking, the gear... well, it's feral to the blue.

Hearthstone to Shattrath and off we went with my brother's newly specced lv63 Fury Warrior. Killing machine to the top. Like Copra was hitting 1700 - 2200 points with Starfire, when the warrior Executed with about 3500.

I felt gimped.

Add to that the fact that the Zangramarsh quests are killing, killing and killing again. I resent the whole place because of that. Because of the fact that 5/0/46 Druid isn't suited for killing, per se. I'm a healer, for crying out loud.

The only thing I liked about the Outlands this time -compared to the experience about 8 months ago- was the fact that it was ALIVE! There were more players around than ever I have seen. The negative side of this was the fact that mostly they were in groups lead by a 70+ toon and choo-chooing through the mob infested areas and killing the quests away.

I was angry. I was mad. I was tired after I logged out.

First of all, how the heck it is always hunters in the lower levels you have the most complaints about? In my case this guy represented the total neglect of other players in the group by taking the aggro time and again. He didn't even notice my OOMs and direct telling that I need mana to be able to heal and that the tank is my priority. I hate to say it, but it's people like these that are the real burden to MMO's, with their total lack of understanding that they ruin the fun for the others by the way they are acting.

Learn to play your class, noob. Thanks.

Secondly, I'll be damned to return to Zangramarsh. I hate the visuals, I hate the killing, I hate the mobs. It's awfull. Disgusting. And the speeded levelling doesn't lessen the impact at all.

Whence I login with my beloved asparagus, I'll be beaming out distress signals to be saved to Hellfire Citadel or somewhere else. But no Zangramarsh. I do anything to avoid that cesspool.

Oh, yes. I have a guild on ally side. Well, I'll play with my brothers as the priority, guild on the second place and ally on the third.

HORDE FTW!

PS. Made 160g overnight again, with Pupunen, lv33. More to come today, I bet.

I'm neglecting the blog

Yes. It's not intentional, though. Last week was a disaster as whole, starting from a trade fair in Moscow and getting my wallet stolen and ending in a heck of a headache caused from stiff and sore neck and back. Don't ask me why, but it happened again.

Anyhow, they opened a new realm in EU area, Chamber of Aspects. This caused me to transfer some of the extra toons to the new one, leaving only my main toons on both sides on Thunderhorn. Bye Coprah, Feyrex (my oldest son's toon) and Sarvijaakko (my youngest son's toon)! More to come as soon as I get the mailboxes emptied.

The Guild is picking up. It's amazing how much there are people -mature, adult (minded)- on the server, looking for guild. I have already proven my point that there is need for a guild which is more based on having fun while playing rather than aiming for progression. Let's call it a guild for old bores or something. A retirement home... crap, that would have been a good name!

"Retirement Home is recruiting! Join the ever growing ranks of old bores who don't give a *BLEEP* about raiding, progression or gear."

There you go, whoever wants to steal that one.

I'm having doubts about the guild forum site, though. It's very messy, complicated and not easy to handle. If anyone has any suggestions for a ready, free but expandable and working guild site service, all information will be readily accepted. I would like to have a forum, calendar, auto-updating roster and option for Vent. Thank you.

On playing. After I sent the forementioned toons to obli... other server, I launched my Horde mage. First time in ages, only to learn that I cannot play mage anymore. Even though she's frost, she is squishy. And I don't remember the spells anymore. Just to make the disaster even worse, I grouped with a druid and a warrior, whose definition of fun in chat was to spell 'penis' in all different variations and with /lol or /laugh emotes. This clearly shows the fact that the factions aren't any different, but because of the fact that Ally overnumbers Horde, the Alliance seems to have more immature populace. Heck, all my kids wanted to make Horde toons, but then again, I know they know how to behave.

Ran with Laiskajaakko the most of Sunday. Well, couple of hours anyhow, as the headache made everything a collection of pain and misery. Had fun chats with new guildies who were actually old friends (thanks for popping by, Azariel) and completed some quests just for the reputation. Like I have been saying, I'm progressing very, very slowly, so I'm looking forward dinging on the next guild run planned on thursday. Be that Ulda or ST, I don't care. I've quests for both.

I'm also having second thoughts about powering the transferred priest to the cap. Why? Some part of my being is craving for challenge, something not even the (mis)management of the Guild hasn't been able to answer. Something Matticus -who just emailed me his answer to the post which resulted Sydera to write a whole post in Matticus' blog- rubbed on my face. He stated that because the Old World and Outlands (!) instances have been nerfed, the real challenge of the raiding lies within Northrend. What is really the real challenge?

At this point of life it's finding time to play in the first place, let alone plan according to the raid schedule made by others.

Now that is a challenge.

Crash course

I started reading World of Matticus just a few weeks ago, and already I have gained a huge amount of information about priestly raiding and guilds from this site. Incredible how someone have the stamina and will to pour out all the information in such a beautifully concise format.

As I'm also following Matticus' Twitter, I have been very much following his thoughts about this and that and all I can say is that I like his way of thinking about the game and all, even though he has commented here in my blog that he wants to rip the content and raid it to the fullest. Which contradicts my view of playing the content and stories to the full.

When I wrote him a personal email (through their contact form at the site), I didn't expect the kind of response my mail got. Sydera, one of the three regulars writing in there, took my main question and wrote a full blog entry of it, answering the question very nicely. I would say that the post serves as a crash course to the newcomer on how to become raider fast. Even though my initial concern was about the lack of skill of the power levelling newcomer at the raid level, the post covered that very neatly.

However, the concept of passing the story and content in the void parts of the game (Old World and Outlands) left me cold. I'm having too much fun on my own and on my own pace, even though I'm severely missing the company and grouping for instances with a steady group. The guild I'm currently in is dying, and this has been going on for some time now. I think the Wrath killed most of the alt-garages because there is now something more important to do with the level capped toons.

There is no way to enter the Old World instances anymore, except very severely overgeared and overlevelled. No-one wants to take the effort to even visit the sites anymore and the same is happening to the content in Outlands. It's not about Blizzard neglecting the content, but the players putting more effort on the capping and level cap raiding. I'm actually putting more of the blame on the player base for trying to achieve the cap as if that was the main achievement of the game.

I'm seeing the Achievement system as a starter for activating the whole content. It would be nice to see the raid instances in one form or another, and the only way to activate the capped people to visit the 'old instances' is to generate incentives to do so. Achievements are one way. Variable difficulty and loot tables would be another.

Never the less, I'm following the pace I'm feeling comfortable and I hope to see new players who do the same. The World of Warcraft is such a huge and beautifull place to explore that it's such a shame to see it go to waste by power levelling through it all.

Stay tuned for more on the subject. ;P

’twas the night before Wrath...

The Three Stooges got together for a rerun through Scarlet Monastery. Because of the lack of flight points any closer than Hillsbarad Foothills, the meeting at the Monastery was ‘postponed’ by a half an hour, including the late arrival of yours truly. Real life meets virtual commitments.

The three Stooges stood at the doors to the inner parts of the Monastery. “Where to, oh brothers”, asked the Priest, all in Shadowform. “I dunno”, responded the warrior, honing his sword and axe in anticipation of slaughter. “I have an appointment with the Marshall in the Cathedral”, stated the rogue, who was nervously smearing something vile on his daggers, which quickly lost their luster under the rag.

We decided to check the Graveyard first, however, because of the fact that I had seen the Scourge there earlier. Of course we were late, I should have known, reading Hudson’s report on the Herald of the Lich King earlier that day. But we went in, looted the chests and downed the boss.

“Are we there yet?”, asked the rogue, more or less anxious to make closer acquaintance with the Marshall and his lieges. “No, dear brother”, answered the Priest, quaffing a potion. “We’re in the next door. Just wait and see.”

So, to the Cathedral we went. Directly to the yard before the Cathedral doors we went and cleared the yard for the pulls from inside the glorious building that had fallen to the wrong hands. At that point we noticed that not all mobs were grey anymore: we started gaining exp from the kills! Rogue, being lv44, got some and Laiskajaakko being lv45 a bit less.

Then the fun began. We did pulls in twos and threes, clearing the passages and the back rooms. Some nice drops came from the mobs and the ‘mini-bosses’ until Marshall himself. Bishopgeorge, the priest, had severe connection problems from time to time and we had to rely on alternative healing methods, but the encounters went nicely and Förgelös got his quest completed.

“Oh, wait! I have to retrieve a tome for a dwarf in Ironforge from the Library”, yelped the Warrior, as the three Stooges stormed out of the Cathedral. “Ok”, said the Rogue grumpily. “Why didn’t you remember that the last time we were there?”. “I met the dwarf after that, dunce”, replied the Warrior and led the way to the corridor leading to the Library.

We were already running towards Undercity when I noticed that we hadn’t gotten the Achievement for the Monastery! We were lacking two boss kills: Herod from Armoury and Archivist Doan from Library. And I had one quest in Library, which I had missed earlier. We all knew we had killed both of them, as I had a weapon from Herod and we had the Scarlet Key. But then again, the Achievement called us back to the foray.

Library was even less interesting because of the lower level of the mobs. The tome was found easily, as the game’s dumbing down had it’s effect on the quest items: even a blind player would have seen the blinking book mile away! Archivist Doan was a quick hit in the dark and then it was off to Herod.

Herod lost his head and we ended the trip in laughter: as his disciples entered the scene (yea, the lots of them running in lines, swarming the ‘arena’), Bishopgeorge dropped into the middle of it and blasted them away with his Holy Nova! He in fact one shotted the whole lot. Hilarious.

Off we went, all on our separate ways and that was the night. I still put the BoE stuff on sale in AH, visited Stormwind to see if the Herald was there causing havoc, but was disappointed. King Vrynn had disappeared, though, but there was nothing else to see except the beautifull sunset in the Harbour.

I thus logged in with my Horde toon to see if there was any action in Orgrimmar, but nothing there either. What a disappointment, though you could see something was brewing up: both in Stormwind and Orgrimmar were swarming with high end people, as if waiting for something. What on Azeroth could they have been waiting on Wednesday 12th at 22.00 o’clock?

Not the Lich King, for sure?

PUGging weekend

Ewww...

What else can I say: had a weekend from hell, something to have nightmares over. Needless to say, but it involved WoW, too, and mostly because of that it was a crud.

Attended to two trainings which took most of my daytime both on Saturday and Sunday. Meaning that the play time was restricted to night, of which I just didn't have stamina to utilise to the fullest. After all, I had spent former week on work trip and hadn't been with the family: what the heck happened to 'Quality Time' in my life?!

Never the less, to cut the long story short, here is the recap of the weekend's endeavours.

Friday. I logged in as Pupunen, my NE Priest, lv27 then. She started off as my AH mule, but has grown to one of the toons I like the most to play. Ever since I changed her from full Shadow (with appropriate gear) to Disc/Holy healer spec (with Shadow gear, still...), I have noticed how much I like tanking and healing. Both being aspects I liked while levelling my former Tauren Druid to Outlands, where he has been stuck at level 62 ever since.

So I logged in, kicked the LFG tool into high gear (BFD, Stock, SM-Grave) and went to scan the AH. To my surprise this time the first invite to a group came before I got half way through: in other words, it took only 7 minutes for someone to notice this silent seeker. As customary to me, I whipered to the sender "Where to?", because no-one ever asks if you would like to join their party going to [enter specific instance]. No, people just spam invites in the suitable level range in the list and hope that some fool catches. Well, this time they were going for Stockades, which suited me well: had several quests there (4 I think) and knowing I could heal the lower range easily I didn't even flinch.

I should have known better when it occured to me that I was there first, and two of the party of four were in SW already. I mean, I came to the instance first, and I left from Darnassus!

Two pallies and warrior. One would think that healing would be ok, and tanking would be easy to settle. You couldn't be farther from the truth, trust me!

Warrior was the lowest of us, clearly someone not too fluent with english. Silent, Leroy Jenkins kind of guy, living in a land of "do as you like". One pally was clearly set for tanking, dps'ing and holding the aggro SO well I was amazed. Not even heavily twinked, from the gear, regular blues from DM and BFD, but nothing special. The other pally... well, he thought he could do this, and he thought he could do that, and in the end he couldn't decide what to do. I guess he was well versed in the game, as he knew about everything, too.

First encounter in the passage went well: I healed, as was decided outside, the warrior tried to tank and the tankadin took the aggro all the time. Easy kills. The second...

Well, warrior and the healbot went for one room, I went with the tankadin to another. Only to notice that I couldn't heal both instances at the same time and that the other duo couldn't make it as easily as we did. So they ran to us with all the mobs! All of a sudden the first cell room was full of prisoners and foray, but we managed to go through with it.

Both I and the tankadin tried to say that we should concentrate on the same area and stay together, but the next rooms proved this to be in vain: the warrior either didn't understand, listen or care about what we told him. Also the healbot started to get nervous and insisted that he should heal. I didn't comment: how could I, disc/holy PRIEST be of any help in dealing damage?! Or taking it, as the next turn of the events showed.

We took to the left at the end of the passage, and went down. I know, the main boss, Bazil Thredd is in the right, but I wanted to get the bosses. And show that I can heal in the heated combat. That went well, till we came back: I had started to take care of the tankadin, making certain he could use his mana for killing instead of healing. And -if I may say so- I did a pretty good job.

Until someone, the warrior most likely, aggroed adds on us and the patrol from behind took on me. The wipe which resulted was the healers fault. I should have kept the warrior alive, even when I was pounded to pulp. Well, that wasn't a wipe, as the paladins got out alive and came to ress us. At that point the tankadin made the first whisper: "we can do this together" and "wanna try?"

No, I didn't, knowing the last room and Thredd's awfull habit of calling his henchmen to arms. But I was flattered, as this tankadin had thanked my heals earlier.

We managed to do it all, wiped only after killing Thredd, though. Got the achievement and all the quests done, resulting level and a half. And got a friend from that tankadin, whom with I promised to go on quests at some point. Nice.

Saturday.
By habit, I kicked the LFG on and all of a sudden there was someone offering boost in BFD. Knowing that the blues from there would be great for me, and the price was peanuts for my AH deals, I settled to meet this other guy at the summoning stone.

As I was flying and running there, my brother with his BishopGeorge logged in and... well, I asked him to come with me. Told the initial booster that I had found a group and in we went.

Shadow Priest as tank we went in and at the same time the wife aggro started to grow in the house. We just pushed through Gamoora (?), Lady Sarevass and the murloc boss, and were just about to enter the room before Aku'Mai when I had to quit.

Got nice gloves from the instance and the dice were on my side on the rest of the blues we got. Oh, and level up. That was nice.

Sunday. Logged in amidst of house full of wife aggro. It was Father's Day in here, and I had been most of the day in training. Logged in, with the intention of rising my trade skills - FA especially - up to the appropriate level. Ran to and fro in Darkshore and Ashenvale, doing old, grey and green quests. Mostly I returned quests I had done already. And that was all.

Only then I understood that I had to run all the way to Arathi Highlands to get the recipe for Silk Bandage. Well, off I went, chatting with my brother who was online, too. Without problems I got to Wetlands, returned a quest here, took another there, gained rep and progressed to Dun Modr for more. Dinged 30 on that trip, which made me grin.

But just as I crossed the bridge to Arathi, the connection froze. Which also made me grin, with anger this time. I was certain the computer had broken and it took me half an hour to give up trying to fix the connection.

Well, three levels in about five-six hours of /played. I had fun even though at the time with the PUG I cried inside, adamant to learn my priestly ways.

Oh, yes, the connection was cut as the service provider had lost a server. The connections were cut for half a million connections and the breakage took them several hours to fix.

Should I ask for recuperations for lost playing time?

Another weekend

And what a weekend. Played several toons over several hours and... well, achieved nothing worth mentioning. A couple of achievements, some reputation, nice gear. The same, would the bored out veterans say.

But the main thing is that I had fun.

With my Ally priest I healed through Stockades: holy/disc priest with shadow gear managed pretty well in a pug which consisted of pallies who didn't know how to play pally. They refused to heal even themselves and adamantly refused to listen to my oom's and manabreaks. Yea, we wiped just before the achievement and the group disbanded. I got nice blues from the run and one friend to my list to quest with later on. Not bad.

With my Horde mage I set my talents so that I'm aiming for 61 point Frost. Yea, and it shows. It's a killing machine: three levels higher mobs were eaten alive. Constantly. So the questing for this poor mule took a nice turn for a change.

With my Horde main, the druid, I tried and tried the world event, but... I got pwnd so bad I just hearthed him home to Sattrath and he'll be waiting there.

And my 'new' main, Laiskajaakko. I quested a bit for draenai reputation, got a nice chunk of the starter area covered, when I got a call for an Uldaman pug which I had been asking for. I have several quests in there, waiting to be done, so I jumped anxiously into the party. I'm just over the level range, so I cannot use the LFG tool for it, so I had to travel there as the darn summoning stone wouldn't work. Got there to help summoning the other's though.

Only to see how the party leader left the party as soon as he had teleported to the stone. We started to hunt a new priest to heal us and the leadership was tossed from one to another until the original healer came back. And one other toon left. And another came and another left and...

This all took over an hour before we got into the instance. Where it came very clear for me what was the name of the game: I, being the highest toon and protection, would rush into the mobs and kill them, while the others stood at the background and helped at the last moments.

I was getting angry. It's my first time in an instance, and I'm supposed to do all the work.

Well, we cleared one area a a time, I returned a quest here and there and took the follow-ups. And tried to cope with the adds that our warlock and priest aggroed when I was engaged with the mobs. Oh, yes, and we ran out to summon another toon as one left again!

I was so pissed when we found out the first 'boss', the ancient stone golem or something. And that is when the crap hit the fan. I tanked the boss, and took him down, but at the same time the rest of the party aggroed the lot of them and got the priest and shaman (yea) killed. I scored however: I got the nice blue gauntlets, which improved Laiskajaakko's defence a lot.

I was already ready to leave, and we had spent over an hour INSIDE the instance at that point. Not even started, really.

We went through the tunnel areas and finally caused a wipe in the troggs. The warlock aggroed ten more and the group wiped. I was tanking five to seven those elite troggs at the same time without help from the rest. Ok, they had their share of the adds, granted, and they couldn't cope with them either.

I got ressed, acted like an ass and left the group. Got free hearth to the Inn of my choice and honestly speaking I'm going to avoid the ones I remember from that group. The worst ones were the "I have seven lv70s, but I haven't been in here for ages" and "don't you know how to play your toon, noob". Usually combined in one and same sentence. The only one worth mentioning in the group was a super twink rogue who played like a dream. Then again, the elite troggs could take a one outburst of damage from him, whereas I had to work to down them.

Ok. The last pug wasn't fun. But it proved me one thing: we cannot manage Uldaman by ourselves, not yet. Three lv 45's are not prepared for that.

But we will. Oh, yes, we will.

PS. There will be no posts this week. Work becons and it's travelling time. Take care.

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!!!

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?

Copying on copying

I had just a brief run on WoW yesterday, only to notice that I really hate when I have to wait for the battleground to start. The thought occured to me already last night, but it condensed while I was driving for work: if you can queue for scenarios from anywhere in WAR, why can't that feature be copied to WoW?

And how on the spot I was. Seems that the great minds think alike. But then again, I had commented on copying from WAR already in another fine blog.

But not to delve into the issue Syp so nicely pointed out any more than to say that from merging the best ideas and most working concepts of the former generations something beautifull will emerge. There will not be any leaps in MMO's until the technology moves on to new ways to play or poses new ways to interact within the game or UI. The generic concept will be the same: player creates -or is given- a character, alter ego if you please, to venture in a make belief world of fantasy/science fiction/fable and progress through the content. What could change except the outlook and perhaps the way this concept is presented? Majority of the whole 'new game' would be copied from the former ones anyhow.

It's not the copying I would be worried about, but the quality of the copying. If some crucial element is copied fully, but executed more poorly than the original, then it's something to worry about, as then the original idea of the concept must have been lost by the copier.

The only way to 'copy right' in MMO's, movies, tv-series, programming etc. is to copy the concept and make it work better. With the 800lb mammoth gorilla as the benchmark, how could you not copy the most renown parts of it?

Enough.

I just noticed that I don't know how to play Warlock. And I'm not sure I want to know how to play one, either. I have never been too keen on the pet classes anyhow, and to me this is just one of those. I'm willing to stand at the back seat, keeping people alive, or at the front row getting up close and personal. But not inbetween, like pet classes seem to be.

I'm out for the day.

Recent activities

First of all, I have been surprised that I have been linked to... and quoted by someone like Zubon from KillTenRats. That in itself is a merit, but let's not settle for that.

What I've been up to? Nothing good, sadly. Ran a half a marathon in the weekend, where my only aim was to run the whole distance of 21 km. Well, I did, and now I'm trying to cope with the sore and stiff muscles. Which are slowly getting better, thank you.

Haven't been on WoW, except for a couple of WSG's with my gnome-lock. I surprised myself of being in the middle of the roster in each of the battles, being only lv14 among the lv19 twinkies. I think I should be really proud of myself, being the PvP hater that I am. I still do not quite understand why should I bother, as all the stuff I can purchase with the tokens are available only at lv60? Will that limit be set higher at the dawn of WotLK?

Most probably we'll be having a brotherly questing tonight, or tomorrow. Maybe I will get some ideas from that for new posts. Though I have some on my memory stick, I haven't been able to finalise them for publishing. Maybe later...

Instead I have been spending my few online minutes in some other ventures. Got invited to the Beta of Freaky Creatures. Because it's Beta under NDA, I'm not saying anything about it. The other things I'm involved with are browser based games Molehill Empire and The West. First of which lets loose your inner gardener and some garden gnomes, while the second is a brand new browser MMO set in... well, Wild West.

The West is still in development and it's getting new features all the time. It has the same sort of idea as Star Wars Combine (damn you Werit for inducing this on me!) in the use of time, that jobs really take time in real and there is only so much you can do in 24 hours. The central focus of the game is the founding and building of a city, which is populated with players. This brings up the social aspect, as there are four character classes available: Adventurers, Dueler, Workeres and Soldiers, all which have crucial skills to benefit the city. In a general sense, you have to have players who deal with construction, others for resources and some for protection. It seems promising, but let's see what happens when the game matures.

So far I have been having fun in The West.

Otherwise the time flies, especially as the real life keeps the speed up.

But like Jack wrote: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy...", there has to be games and fun every now and then.

Every day. Azeroth, here we come. *grin*

Matured out MMO

I'm not sure if the title describes the content best, but that's what comes to my mind on my yesterday evening's roamings in WoW.

I finally got around and joined a 'newbie guild'. So far I have been avoiding guilds like a plague, because I know I commit to them till the end. In Horde side I have been in three guilds so far: first one was temporary till the second one was formed. Second one died out. Third one is on another server and is still keeping me as a member even though it's been over seven months since I have actually played my horde characters.

Horde guilds have been mature. Both in real member age and in the mentality. Set for a job.

Now on the Alliance side I have been in one earlier. It was closed down as the GM moved to another server. Well, boo-hoo, there was no activity in the guild anyhow. So I was more than cautious when I was presented with the current Guild. Newcomer oriented; low level entries preferred; guidance, instances and boosts scheduled; and so on.

After first hours I was sold.

The GM really is practicing what he's preaching. The members are -especially the higher level ones- helping each other out. And the instance runs, both boosts and normal, are really scheduled, but that's not excluding the spontaneous ones. Which means that with over 80 characters in the guild already, there is no real need for PUG's as there is always some people around to run instances with.

Of course the level range is more difficult to accomodate.

But. There is always the 'but'. In this case it's the enormous drive of the newcomers to push through the content to the 'end game'. I ended up helping a lv12 to complete a quest which has the level recommendation of 18. Well, I got a quest for reputation done while at it, but it made me feel bad. Another newcomer to the game insisted, really, that I should give him money so he could repair his gear and continue playing. And later insisted that I should help him to do the same quest as the other one.

No manners.

This only shows to me that the publicity of the end game content being the game has paid out. People coming to the game for the first time are rushing through the content to see what the fuzz is about, not understanding that the fuzz was originally about the content they are neglecting!

I'm afraid that WotLK will be a sad occasion for WoW as we know it, both game and lore wise.

Then again, I had some real fun in the game yesterday, roaming around Loch Modan and Wetlands with my lv40 warrior. I know, I know, not much of a challenge, but I really got into the role of explorer and mentor. I helped at least three or four players to achieve their goals while just being around, I chatted at /guild about levelling and helping people and over all, I was enjoying the helping part more than the playing itself. Which consisted mainly killing dozens of Ogres at the north-eastern corner of Loch Modan area. I'm missing that one crushed crystal from the ogres to complete that 'last mission' in Loch Modan...

I'm camping over by the caves, so I'm ready right away I login.

Ram mount, here I come!

Ding 40

I want a Ram. For my warrior, naturally. Which is a question of reputation, as Laiskajaakko is a human warrior, and Ram's are Dwarves' mounts.

So I have been playing in the starting zone of the dwarves for the last few days, and I've progressed in Reputation instead of experience. I don't see too much difference in the two, except that the progress in experience seems a bit more tangible because of the new skills coming closer all the time.

But with Reputation the rewards are in the end, not on the road.

Anyhow, I had some real fun plunging through the sub-lv10 quests with the bulldozer, roaming through the same content I had worked so hard with my warlock in training earlier. And because of the lower risk I did take a good explorative look around Loch Modan - an area I have earlier just skipped because I hadn't found any relevant quests in there.

To my surprise the quests and stories were very good, evolving from nothing to some really interesting 'plots'! I don't know how I have missed all the fun in the area: maybe it had just felt like a place in between the adventures and I had just went for the Wetlands.

But now those quests are done. For my warrior at least, and it's time to enter the Wetlands for more reputation. Of course, there is Uldaman waiting just around the corner in Badlands, where I already visited and finally dinged 40. What a feeling to get Plate trained at last, knowing that the real tanking period has started.

Maybe I could solo the Cyclonian finally?