BullCopra

Instance re playability

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:23:00 +0000

Had a quick visit in Zul'Gurub to see if the mounts would have dropped. In fact there were four of us, all from the guild, and for me this was the first visit in the instance ever. It was kind of interesting and sad to hear the explanations about the instance from others as we plunged straight to the mount dropping bosses, like this was hard due to that and this fight was interesting because of this and so on. The instance is beautiful and I remember back in the day when I was starting my first real toon in WoW that this was one of the culmination points of the raid progression.

Now it's an empty shell, pretty but neglected. With no re playability what so ever.

As it happens, I was listening to Van Hemlock Podcast (episode #77) this morning and Tim mentioned something that struck a chord with the Zul'Gurub experience. That in Guild Wars there are instances which they know by heart by now, but run just because they are fun. And he made the reference that in Borderlands there are similar instances, too, which you really do not need for the story to progress (after the first run) but which you run for the heck of it only because they are fun.

There are no such instances in WoW. You run them once to get past the content and then you are -at the cap- forced to run the daily heroics time and again, not for the fun factor (as it happens the least fun instances get neglected after a few runs, anyway) but because they are dailies and reward you with badges.

And because the instances are static in their challenge, the ones you pass in levelling are forgotten -and I bet in some cases the newer players do not even know about some of them- just for the sake of getting to the top level.

Cataclysm comes, and changes the world. The instances which have been forgotten from the old vanilla content are getting revamped and changed, and will be no more. Instead of shaking the crust of the Azeroth the instances could have been scaling from the beginning. I'm not putting my head on the platter that the instances of Azeroth will get a scaling challenge levels after the Cataclysm, but I can hope for that.

Because there are no such instances which you would run for fun anymore. Without the glint of a new badge gear or a new achievement in your eye, only for the fun factor of the instance being interesting, beautiful or just pure fun run.

Or are there?

Separation anxiety

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:15:00 +0000

Life takes it's toll. That's something I've noticed as of late to be more than accurate description of the current global situation. The more pressure there is to save, the more pressure there is to do your work properly. And beyond.

But that is not enough for a parent with family obligations. Same kind of pressure comes down from the school through the kids performance -or lack of it- and the pressure to keep the family unit going is something you have to experience. Add to that the typical issues with which a home owner (with loads of debt) has, and you have the 'normal' life I'm living in.

Which in turn has resulted that my in game time has dropped down severely lately. I thought it might be refreshing to come back to the game after a few days 'off' of my dose of the crack. But now as those few days have become few more, I'm starting to feel a some sort of anxiety over one thing.

What if my expectations are too high and I'm disappointed -yet again- on the elements I'm missing so much?

I know -in the conscious level- that the game or the community doesn't chance overnight. I also recognise the fact that people tend to forget the unpleasant and irritating things very fast and the 'good' gets the bigger part in the memories. Even in such a short time I think this may be the case.

So how can I avoid the probable disappointment in the repetitive game mechanics, poorly behaving community outside the guild and the incapability of myself to commit to longer term pursuit in the game (thus making me feel like a failure in the guild/community I belong)?

Any ideas?

((note: this is exaggeration and mostly in sarcastic tone))

Genuine emotion

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:29:00 +0000

I've been guilty of putting my focus around me and looking for how the game is screwing the newcomer, guildless, homeless player who has the aspiration to become the hero the story in WoW tells about. And -contrary to my beliefs- I haven't been alone.

I know a certain goblin character just got a sore itch in his backside, but I full agree with Guntroll's post. That's how I see the game should be. But as long as the social tools and effect of player/character behaviour is not hardcoded into the game's core, the sociopath will rule the game and the single player aspect will rule the levelling game, making it harder every day to compete at the cap without the social contacts.

Maybe this is the reason why Cataclysm is going to destroy the original content, and bring in new requirements for grouping and levelling? We really do not know enough to even speculate with the Cataclysmic changes about to happen in the gameplay, but I'm hoping the expansion brings something to the social side, too. Like making it worth while to level in a group or to stick with a party for a bit more than just through an instance.

Then again, the changes in 3.3 seem to hint completely different approach: LFG/LFR takes away the possibility of social stigmata of being a jerk on a server -a very slight chance on a server level, even, but still. Instead of making the grouping more profitable to all, the group leader gets the benefits. Sure, a party needs a leader, but what happens when everyone wants to be a leader and there are no one to lead? It's like a certain superhero game: when everyone is a superhero, then no one is super anymore.

Anyhow, from time to time I give a netherweave bag to a complete stranger in WoW. Only once I haven't been thanked, once I got thank you again when I logged next time in with my toon, and mainly I have been thanked a lot. All I have told these lucky ones has been to pay it forward: I can only hope that they have remembered, that a little kindness goes a long way.

Sometimes all to the level cap.

A pet is a pet, a mount is a mount, but...

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:52:00 +0000

You can carry around tens of pets with you in WoW, and pull your huge mammoth mount out of your pocket, where you have dozens of other mounts with it -including drakes and such- but as a hunter you can have only one combat pet around you at any given time.

What?!

Betting is open

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:42:00 +0000

Blizzard Store's vanity pet sale micro transactions haven't gone unnoticed. Several bloggers have posted for and against the mere idea of Blizzard beginning a micro transaction system through their Battle.Net tied Blizzard store and all I can say is what did I tell you. The list ranges from Tobold to Leafshine to Kiasa and so on, so I won't even bother to link them here: all having their own approach to the issue.

One thing is sure, however. The Store wasn't opened only for the vanity pets. It will have more content soon and as time passes it will contain xp scrolls or potions, cloths, mounts and -like it or not- gear: not at the epic level not to 'disturb the game experience' but to help the newcomer/casual without the time to grind the gearing game to take part in the revered End Game concept.

The question really is, how long will it take for the basic raiding gear to enter the store?

Granted, like it was mentioned in the comments of my earlier posts this week, that the pets sold at the moment are just a continuation of the TCG loot cards, but making them more easily attainable is the main thing in this: taking the obstacles from the purchasing off, making the buying easier for the consumer is the key. Like Melmoth (I think) in Kiasa noted, now there is no excuse for all, each and every MMO to have a micro transaction store, as the main player has opened theirs. He also pointed out (I think) that whereas other games like DDO have the stuff sold in the Store available as rare loot drops in the game, Blizzard has refrained to do so. Why might that be, and when will the Marine Marine for example be for sale in the store? Or the mini-diablo from the collectors edition?

Do I like the idea? As much as I have liked the gold sellers and micro transactions in any games I've seen them. Does it effect my playing? Not as long as the game itself offers the possibility to acquire the same 'benefits' as the Store.

Does it matter to me? Not as long as the game is as it is. But when the stuff acquired from the store become a norm like achievements as an requirement for grouping, then it will.

Why do I feel cheated, then? Beats me.

I beat the system by a day

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:53:00 +0000

The posts I wrote about DLC, F2P and micro transactions and Payable content with their extensive discussions in the comments section just got a new twist, as Blizzard added the purchase able in-game minipets to the Blizzard Store. Leafshine purchased herself the Pandaren Monk minipet, and reported that it was a surprise that Blizzard added this option to the Store.

Well, it's something I can easily sign off as what did I say moment.

How long will it take till we see more fluff items in the store, shiny gear and other options which will 'enhance the game experience' in the Blizzard Store?

Not long is my bet.

Two different issues in one post

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:45:00 +0000

I was listening to the Twisted Nether Blogcast this morning and found myself thinking about one thing. And later on when I read the comments on the last few days postings about micro transactions and paying separately for different content I noticed that I could combine these two into a single post (and stop posting for the rest of the week... clever!).

The one thing that started to bug me was that how far the level capped people have separated themselves from the beginning player and how different the actual starting zone game is from the much famed 'end game'. For me the illusion has always been that 'the game starts at the cap', but I have come to notice that actually the game is what you make of it. For me -and for several others, I've noticed- the game almost ended at the gap between the levelling game and end game. And it still is at a standstill, even though I get geared up at almost each heroic run I get into. There just isn't any drive in the gearing game like there was in the levelling game.

What bothered me in the Blogcast was that Daewin told how he had levelled from 1 to 80 within the free trial period. For a content and quest enthusiast I am this seems more of a travesty, as he has been running through the main content in the game by 'power levelling' and completely discarding the background. In my mind, he has exactly played the game to win, maximising the 'win the content' mentality and completely discarding the RPG elements of the game. The race, class and talent build have been just mechanics to use and nothing more.

This sounds to me as extremely alarming in the sense that the content Blizzard has become renown of has been discarded so easily. On the other hand, the preaching that the end game is where the game is does the same: it doesn't matter why we are trying to get to Arthas, it only matters for as long as he is the 'final boss'. What happened to Kael'Thas or Illidan? Where did all the earlier end bosses disappear? And why?

The second thing that struck me was that in fact the game has been changed so that the journey doesn't matter anymore: to be honest, the emphasis of the content has been increasingly in the end game content anyway for at least for the last expansions, and the next one is trying to make a slight shift in there by destroying what we have learned to be a persistent world.

I'm completely disillusioned about the fact that we're playing the game instead of playing the character or role. There is no story to the characters, only the story of the gear and where we got it. The game's levelling design at the moment enhances the illusion that you MUST hurry to the level cap to even experience something within the game, which already has a huge amount of both solo and group content before that. Due to the fact that everyone is ushered to the level cap by the speeded up levelling, the group content is greatly shunned and empty, and next to no new players (and certainly no new alts) experience the group content as a challenge or interesting content.

The disparity between the rich background content of the starting areas and the earlier content and the end game content (both gearing and raiding) proves to me that the RPG aspect of the game is dead to a large extent, and that Blizzard is serving mainly to the level capped population. And is making sure that the newcomer to the game gets this from the beginning levels on, that the actual world of Azeroth doesn't mean a thing in itself: the only thing that really matters is the highest level raid instance, to which the access has been made easier for everyone to try to enter. If they are lucky or persistent enough. The sad part of this is that the players forget the immersion aspect of the vast lore of the world and play the game like it was a some sort of Mario Bros in fantasy land.

WoW has all the content, lore and adventure, but we're playing it for the game mechanics.

Sad.

Payable content

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:28:00 +0000

I pointed out my thoughts about the dlc and microtransactions in my last post, and I thought to continue on the same train of thought with this one. You see, it occurred to me that I have been paying for the raiding 'elites' instance development and raiding without even visiting those instances myself. In WotLK I have been one of the many who has been paying for the development and use of Naxxramas (which I 'lost' in the vanilla already) and Ulduar, neither of which I will not see in a meaningful context anymore. Not with the current toon nor with the up and coming alts, due to the fact that Naxxramas is already 'outdated' gearwise and Ulduar will soon be, as 3.3 hits gold.

So in this sense I could easily see that the content in those -and upcoming- raids could be bought separately from the rest of the content. Granted that Icecrown will be yet another raid which is supposed to be easy enough to enter for the 'casuals', I doubt that everyone will have the opportunity to run it at the designated time before Cataclysm hits Azeroth: we have to remember that there are still new people beginning their journey in the World of Warcraft, who may never experience the vanilla, tBC or WotLK end game content.

So why must they pay for the content they will never see? Much like Outlands for me: why have I been obliged to pay for the content of which I over levelled way too fast and way too easily and was -in a way- forced to move on to Northrend to be able to progress in the content and story?

Genda wrote an excellent piece about the same issue, but he projects his thoughts to the time Cataclysm comes and the new WoW-players are -probably- forced to purchase and pay for the then extinct expansions, too, to enter the game at it's last legs. I would like to as bold as to project this same concern over the current situation with the 800lb gorilla in the room: why are the people who will never see the top part of the content forced to pay/purchase the content anyway?

It's all good money to Blizzard, of course, but is it fair to make majority of the player base to pay for the entertainment of the top tier raiding minority?

That is the age old question which hasn't been discussed for some time now. But which hasn't been answered properly as of yet.

Little charity goes a long way

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:00:00 +0000

Being part of the Azeroth United community it's my 'duty' to bring out the ongoing Hearts, Hands and Voices charity event ran by the Azeroth United people. This being said, go and do the good thing either in this or any other charity event which concentrates to helping kids in need.

Thank you and we'll return shortly to the normal schedule.

DLC, F2P and microtransactions

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:30:00 +0000

Dungeons and Dragons Online didn't do too well when it was in subscription model, so Turbine released the core game as free to play. Within that package they introduced also DDO Store, from which you could purchase stuff with Turbine Points, which -in turn- you bought with real money. They transferred the core game into the micro transaction payment system, which is very well known in the Far Eastern MMO's.

Turbine has reported huge increase in the subscriptions in addition to the amount of players of the game.

In effect the game has now extended -free to play- core game up till a point, and people are free to try, test and find out if there is something in the game to keep them playing. And according to the figures there is.

Now Warhammer Online has released their free to play endless trial, in which you can play the tier one as long as you like. I think there is also some sort of store kind of service involved, but I'm not sure. Is Warhammer going for f2p, too? I wouldn't mind, haven't tried it yet even though I love the Warhammer setting and tabletop games.

But the other trend in the console side is the downloadable content (dlc) for single player games. You can download -for a fee, of course- more content to your game after a while. This additional content contains new areas, new gear, new opponents and/or new stories to go through. For us MMO people these are the normal content patches, which we wait with much anxiety. But the payment is included in our monthly subscriptions.

Except that in DDO it's possible to purchase this content separately, just like in dlc payment model.

So my question is, is dlc just another way to introduce microtransactions into single player/console games?

Of course it is. But why are the microtransactions so hated and shunned in MMO genre compared to the console games? In a sense they offer the same flexibility: you pay for what you enjoy doing. If the game sucks so far, you don't get the next dlc patch.

In WoW I could imagine the raid content being an example of potential dlc content. Majority of the player base still will not enter the raid content at all. I wouldn't have paid for Naxx nor Ulduar yet, if it had been an option. Then again, it might well be so that I wouldn't have paid for the ToC/ToGC at all, even though the instance is a loot piñata of the best (and worst) kind. So I would have been content with the instances, heroics and dailies for the time being.

But as the content and challenge lies up ahead anyhow, I would have gotten to the point where I would have purchased the additional content. As all the accounts are now tied to Battle.Net, it would have been possible to purchase a raid instance as you enter the instance itself...

Scary thought. But most certainly something that has been calculated in Blizzard for some time already. How acceptable would you think this kind of situation? Or how possible do you think is the day when WoW turns into a micro transaction based game, considering the current trend of payable name, faction, server, race or class changes entering the game?

Will WoW stay strictly monthly subscription fee based, or will there be 'payable' content somewhere in the near future?

Gearing makes perfect (yawp)

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:26:00 +0000

Two nights of playing and I'm more than adamant about the fact that it's all about gear and getting the right one. This may be a subjective and biased, but it's based on my current experience in the game.

Friday kicked off with another nice Ony10: isn't it sad to see the old girl go down week after week? This time the action was more contained and I felt like I could follow the flow of the encounter. Though I didn't feel I performed anywhere as well as in the first run... Maybe I was trying too hard to contain the whelps or something, because more got through my sieve than was supposed to. I noticed during this encounter that there is something awry in my UI or buttons, as my Challenging shout just wouldn't go off with one click.

Never the less, I got a nice trophy to change for a perfect trinket. And a great helmet to gem accordingly. Great run, both loot and entertainment wise.

As entertaining and fast the Ony run is, it is not enough to call it a night. So people pulled out a group for Obsidian Sanctum for the achievement Less is More: 8 man run in the 10 man content. Off we went, Laiskajaakko was off tanking the adds and it was a blast. Granted we downed the drakes first, so it was effectively a Sartharion without the drakes (Sarth+0), but still. This granted me with a nice bag to put my future super loot into, a memento to remember this one later on.

And after that the mandatory daily heroic and ToC5, both which were just a blast.

My friday night was so fun I was grinning the majority of the Saturday without understanding why myself. This caused a bit discomfort in the Kempo training, as the rest of the guys thought... well, they had their doubts about my sanity. As if there was anything to doubt about.

Sunday afternoon was yet another game session. I started out with doing the cooking daily and now I can Cook with Style (got my chef's hat), followed by getting the trinket from handing in the Head of Onyxia. The Purified Blood of Onyxia is excellent and for some peculiar reason I hadn't even noticed that it has a huge boost in the def: this caused the fact that I can easily switch at least two of my lower rated def gems to something 'more productive' ones, something I have to spend some time to think about. I was about to get the enchants to my new helm when I got into a guild run of VoA: again a new instance for me to experience.

I made two mental notes in this run. The first one was that I must start upgrading my dps set. This is because I was running the instance as dps because I had never been there and I had no clue on what is happening. Thankfully I had just started testing the Deus Vox Encounters boss addon, which actually told me where to move, what to avoid and when to expect the next nasty thing to land, so I was pretty much secured in that sense. The bosses fell one after another without deaths and by a stroke of luck I got a chestpiece to start building my dps set. That I took as a some sort of guidance from the game to take this endeavour seriously.

The second mental note I made in this run was to keep from meddling with my UI while in a run. You see, I tried to move the main tank bar in my UI before we launched on the second boss, but that bar got stuck to my mouse pointer!! I couldn't release it for one reason or another and thus I couldn't click on anything on screen, not even my action buttons. So the fight went by keyboard (well, I seldom use clicking anyhow, but I couldn't select the target either), while I was trying to find ways to release the bar.

The only solution was to reload UI, which mean't I missed the best part of the last boss fight, contributing only a minor part of the dps there.

Never mess with the UI while in an instance.

Long story short, we went through daily heroic in a group of four: we actually flew through Nexus and found some interesting ways to keep the healer occupied, and I got even more parts to my dps set... which even more felt like the game was trying to tell me something. This feeling was forced even more upon me as I went to turn in a quest in Wintergrasp (yes, Alliance was holding it still), where I first got my Black War Mammoth mount -I needed the fluff this time!- and noticed that there was only 2 minutes for the WG to start!

What a fight that was: I died only once during the whole fight, and that was only in the last minutes before the defence failed. Only because the game next to froze on my computer due to excessive amount of moving things on my screen. But it was fun and furious, and reminded me to check the other battlegrounds if they are anywhere as fun as this one. (I guess AV or AB could be even better as my machine might cope with the smaller amount of players better...)

After the WG ended I decided to head to Borean Tundra to complete the daily fishing quest (which had failed on me three times already: I hadn't caught any of the fishes from the Blood Pools for the Blood is Thicker quest, from three separate pools of blood), and started flying there through Sholazar Basin. My idea was to go along the rim to see if there are any mining nodes to use, and follow the 'shortest' route from SB to the fishing spot.

Sure there were nodes around. At the third one I landed only to notice a Tauren Warrior in there, just finishing the looting. And naturally I didn't realize I was in pvp mode after the WG...

It was the battle of the titans: this tauren was using a two hander, so he was in his dps spec and gear, while I was in my protection one. His strikes caused so much pain and misery, while mine were mere nuisance to him, but my damage mitigation was somewhat better than his. So the ebb and flow of the battle was pretty much on his side and finally Laiskajaakko kissed the ground while I was grinning and giggling madly.

Holy crap. I have to check the pvp side more closely.

And yes, get that dps set going for real.

It's all about gear, rather than skill: if I hadn't had the gear I currently have, I wouldn't have been able to attend to all the three raids I went in, I wouldn't have been able to perform in them the way I did and I wouldn't have felt good about what I was doing in them.

And if I had had the gear, I would have beaten that tauren warrior. I know I would!

Bane of anonymity in WoW

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:41:00 +0000

The player in an MMO is in fact anonymous being, hiding behind the mask of the avatar name. This leads to the fact that a huge MMO suffers from the same problem with anonymity as the internet: the decent, nice Average Joe turns into a virtual troll and sociopath goblin due to anonymity and wide audience. In an MMO, however, the name the player gives to the avatar is a kind of personality to the character and is a bit slowing down this approach: you are worth your name and your name is all you have in the game.

But still, like Azariel wrote yesterday, the anonymity and not knowing the people you group with leads to similar conduct: if you are not satisfied with the performance of someone in a PUG, you can kick them out without a word (provided you're the group leader). This doesn't help the person to improve their performance due to the problem in the system: you do not get any kind of response or evaluation on how well you are performing unless you are doing so good that people are thanking you for that. In a case of 'poorer' performance, you are called names and told you're either noob or crap player, without telling what to do or how to improve.

No constructive criticism or capability to give such exists in the majority of the PUG's, anyhow.

Now add to this the possibility to group over server boundaries: the audience grows wildly, your anonymity increases immensely and -like Spinks posted-

You don’t need to talk to the other people in your group if you don’t want to – you won’t ever meet them again.

In the future cross-server PUG system Blizzard claims that they have thought about the jerk factor and tried to find ways to prevent the excessive ninja behaviour this system gives a great thumbs up. However, even though I can see the benefits of being able to PUG fast I cannot see a way to make this viable and reasonable way to improve the game experience. The initial issue is with the Interned Dickwad Theory and the implications it has over the amount of players submitted to the cross-PUG community. The secondary issue is with the lack of criticism and advice you -as a player- will face even more strongly in this system.

But it all comes down to the fact that anonymity brings up the beast within. I can see the conduct which Azariel reported in his post escalating to the point that you get invited into a group, get kicked due to factor or another, get immediately replaced and you never know what hit you, why you were kicked and who you were grouping with, whom to avoid in the later groups. Sure, Blizz instigated that they are expanding the ignore list and that you will not be grouped with the people in the list, but you can already have a name change in the game? Hello?

Or then you get into a group in which there are two friends who are working together: they decide the loot and effectively ninja the instance. You get out, get in again only to group with guildies or friends of theirs... Guess how that will work out?

I suppose that WoW Jackass took a head start to help people avoiding situations like this... but then again, if this kind of system is needed, there should be something to be done on the game mechanics' side.

We are having problems with jerks, ninjas and antisocial PUG groupers already in the smaller, server size scale: the problems are there within the 'confined space' of one server. What preventive approaches can be taken to avoid these problems from escalating in the cross server PUG system?

And will the cross server PUGging be the saviour Blizzard thinks it is?

The behavior of the anonymous

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:46:00 +0000

((This is the first quest post in this blog, written by my old friend and former 'guild master' of sorts, Azariel, whose opinion I have come to respect very much over the years I've known him. He wrote this 'post' as a proposition for a post of my own, but I think it has it's own merit in the form he sent it to me. After reading this I found out that there are some issues which I can -and will- comment in a separate post myself.

Without any further ado, I present to you, Azariell, Undead Destruction Warlock, Thunderhorn EU)

I would like to start by posing a question, the same (well, somewhat the same atleast) as the one I asked last night in Guild chat which sparked a rather ferocious barrage of comments by several (loudmouth) guildies.

The question is this, well more of a hypothetical situation then a question: You are the raid/party/group leader and one of the members of said group is not performing according to the requirements. The ‘logical’ (yeah, that’s debatable, I know) next step would be to remove that player from the group in order to find a suitable player to try and advance.

The question now is: Would you find it acceptable to kick that player without further communication with him about possible reasons or solutions? In other words, would you have the courtesy to tell him face to face that it isn’t enough, or just press the kick button and be done with it?

Now that I’ve given you something to think on, I’ll explain the situation. It was my first TOC-10 man run last night. I’m not a raider as you might know and only do occasional raids (ow and before you think that I was the kicked player, I wasn’t). So I have no real raiding experience or anything of that order.

So, first TOC-10 man run, group was complete, we all moved there and after a brief tactics explanation by our tank (I’m a Lock btw) we started the encounter. The first DK tank died pretty quickly causing a wipe. Second attempt ended in the same manner: wipe. Next healer assignments were switched, and guess what, another wipe. Between the second and third wipe, there had already been some murmurs on Vent that one healers HPS was low. And within seconds of the third wipe, the healer was kicked, and a new healer was brought onboard.

The question that formed in my mind immediately was, did he kick him without saying a word? Or would he have taken the time to whisper him saying that it just wouldn’t work. I posed that question in the Guild chat, and was greeted with statements like “Of course he just kicked him, he didn’t perform, hence kick” and “toughen up Az, that’s the way it goes”. I responded to it that it was just plain rude and that we are playing a game afterall, which should be fun for all. That statement was counter by the responses “Then go play a Dora game” (children’s animation for those who don’t know Dora) By that time the fourth attempt was already started so I couldn’t respond anymore, which was a shame. But is it true? Did we let this kind of behavior become the standard in games?

Now don’t get me wrong, I know that if you want to advance, you need to know what you’re capable of, and when one person does not achieve, they need to be replaced to make the group stronger. If I would have been the player that was kicked because of that, I would have been fine with it, but just as long as they had taken the time to tell me politely what the problem was. Otherwise I would just have been offended by their rude behavior. I think not all guildies understood what I meant with my question. Luckily others did understand as one response was “yeah that was too blunt, but the healer really did have to go…”

Now, I’ve noticed this in more games I’ve played over the past. The internet brings out the worst in some people. Some people apparently believe that they can act any way they want as long as its online. Behavior they would never resort to in real life, all of a sudden becomes completely ‘normal’ online where they can hide behind their toon/account. I’ve been in games where leaders were back-stabbing each other at every turn, thinking up the most devious plans to ‘win’ the game, no matter the consequences.

So, what is it that makes ‘us’ change our behavior when we transcend our mortal existence and step into the digitized anonymous world? What makes ‘us’ go into a flaming frenzy where in the real world we might have just said “I do not agree with your statement”

I consider myself to be old enough to no longer be influenced by the behavior of people online. But what will it do to the minds of the young game-players, who are still learning what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’? Will they copy this behavior from the online world to the real world? Making the behavior of the anonymous the behavior of the individual?

Will the behavior of the anonymous one day be elevated to the behavior of the masses?

Random thought: Game in MMORPG

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:34:00 +0000

Why do we insist calling MMO's -especially this thing we dubiously call MMORPG- a game? There is nothing game-like in the whole concept. Well, as much as there is game-likeness in normal pen and paper RPG, which is neigh, too.

So, why on Earth do we call MMO a game? It has no winning condition, it has no game like rule sets and it's -well- endless, ever continuing.

MMO is not a game in the traditional sense for lacking the specific win condition/end of game. Role-Playing, yes, if we take into account the fact that we are basing our decisions in game on the possibilities our character has. But game, no.

But what is it then?

Chain of successes (yawp)

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:37:00 +0000

What a weekend in WoW for me. And I survived and feel pretty good about it.

First of all, I missed yet another daily on Friday. As it happens, there was something very strange about my computer during that day, and the darn machine decided to lock up about 25 minutes before the 10 man Onyxia raid was about to start. Panic, desperation and restarting the computer I logged back into the game 15 minutes before the due time, only to find myself again at the wrong swamp... I should have taken the other turn right there, I know.

Thankfully the invites came and summons as well, all the while I was panicking over my UI which was being cranky in addition to the rest of the computer. WTF is going on with my machine?!

Onyxia. Like I responded to Scarybooster in Twitter (as he asked how the Ony10 went), it was fast, furious but that the best part of the run was that I wasn't being carried along. I actually think I carried my weight in the over geared group pretty well, even managed to do over 1.3k dps as protection specced warrior in there. Granted, majority of that came from the AoE damage of Thunderclap and Shockwave, only to be followed by Devastates and Shield Slams. But yes, I enjoyed the run so much I signed in for the one next week (even though I didn't get anything from the broodmother for myself, except the Emblems of Heroism, which I was lacking from my Clutch of Fortification. Which I got right after the run!).

After that run we did a fast guild run, but being what I am and after stressing and anticipating that Ony run (and being relaxed and relieved after it went well) I forget completely what we did. All in all, it was great, I had one fun Friday night with the guildies and got my Holy Grail of a ring.

Saturday went more or less slacking due to rl commitments (my father's birthday, so wasn't really able to login except late). But still I got myself to spend several, curious hours in the game doing this and that. But Sunday of all... We did a guild run hc daily (UK) which went in a breeze and took one hc ToC with the same momentum. The funny thing was the fact that as I was tanking, I thought I was making a mess of the UK: for some reason that totally eluded my mind I just couldn't keep the mobs in me and there were more strays than normally (but yes, my worst fear of that place is gone, and I fully agree with Kadomi: the entry corridor is furious and funny chain pull excercise, provided the rest of the group is up to it!). The reason was simply that our retribution pally had unbelievable dps and he took what mobs he liked, just for the sport! So, because I thought I wasn't performing well, I was kind of amazed to see that the group wanted to go on directly to ToC, and took that as a compliment. Really, it felt great to be part of that team. So I guess I'm the social which Gevlon curses, as I like to belong and feel I'm contributing to the whole instead of basking in my own awesomeness.

Then again, I think that it's not the tank way to bring one's greatness forward. Either you do your job as a tank, or you don't. There is nothing to brag about in being the one taking the blows, anyhow. It's the humble superiority aspect which I've seen in the tanks everywhere: thank you sir, may I have another so I can learn to do it better.

And that's what I like about in our guild: this mentality goes far beyond the tanks and healers. It's all pervasive. Everyone I've been running the instances with have this way of thinking, more or less. I'm doing my job, but if there is anything I can do to do it better, I will try at least.

What I learned this weekend? Running with guildies is a blast, but it's starting to be my comfort zone. But as long as I learn to do my job better, I will do my best to run with them.

Immersion and quests, again

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0000

In last post I touched the topic of MMO quests being impersonal and not involving. I stated that the quest system and level of involvement are not working in MMO's. In single player games you are immersed to the game's overall plot and quests by involving you -the player- through the direct contact with your character, and the quests in a way come to you unnoticed and tie you as a player in personal level to them. In MMO's the quests hubs have NPC's with exclamation marks just waiting for you to collect the quests and there is nothing that would involve you to do those quests except the rewards. MMO quests are impersonal.

Several bloggers have written numerous postings about how absurd and stupid the quest giver mark is, and how it simplifies the questing process immensely. At the same time in single player games you get into conversations with the NPC's who may -or may not- invite you to do a chore for them. And more often this simple task leads on to another en route, so you really do not even have to come back to the same NPC before you have unlocked the whole chain, which is in fact a story within the game. In WoW there are few excellent quest chains, like the Missing Diplomat, in which you are being led from one quest giver to another and piece by piece you unravel the mystery of the missing king... Who has returned now, but still, the questline is a longer story, spanning across the two continents.

Why and how the quests have become so stupid in WoW? And why do we want to see those incredible absurd exclamation marks and question marks in our game?

I was a very happy camper while playing Oblivion, without the marks denoting the quest givers. And without having any kind of quest help besides the discussions with the NPC's in the game. The real question is, how viable such a questing system is within a MMO.

The other thing completely involving the immersion part is the fact that when you come to a quest hub in WoW (or any other MMO after WoW's launch), you go on and collect them all and start working through the list of quests. The rewards do not matter, nor the stories in them, just as long as you get the experience. But how different would the game experience be if the quest system was such that by choosing this quest over that other, the other quest would become inaccessible to you? So that every choice you made in selecting the quests would close some doors and open others? The choice of quests would become more a multiple choice thing rather than quests being the mandatory advancement route in the game.

I'd even like to see this go one bit further: the reputation you have within the faction would also open or close quests. The faction could be as small as the village (or quest hub if you like), making the re playability of an MMO even bigger due to the fact that each alt would have completely different set of possibilities at hand. Sure, this would mean that there would be a huge amount of content which would be used more than the rest, but then again the tweaking of such content would be pretty easy by balancing the returns (rewards) of the quest chains over time, making them all more or less equal.

What would this mean in grouping? Of course, the grouping would be an issue, if the quests wouldn't have common ends in the group content. The objectives wouldn't have to be the same: one chain could require collecting something from an instance, the other killing some mobs in there and the boss would still have the loot table to satisfy the participants.

The current quest system in WoW is more or less the lazy interpretation of the whole questing system. It works but it's dull and outlived by the possibilities presented in the single player games. Wouldn't it be fair towards us players, that the quest system was as interesting and intriguing as the graphical content of the game?

Especially now as the tools like phasing are making the unique player experience possible?

Alt or not?

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:56:00 +0000

Alt, or alternative character, in MMO is something that most of the players will create at one point or another. Be it a bank mule or a seriously played toon of another class or race, it's all the same: it's not the main character the player is playing, or planning to play, for the imminent future. Some stick to one character, some get a case of altitis, requiring them to create several alts to accommodate their moods for

Jason from Channel Massive blurted out in episode #109, that he had a hiatus from MMO's during which he played only single player games. Now that he's returned to his favourite addiction, MMO's (Champions Online to be precise), he has found out that he is concentrating on one character instead of his earlier (severe case of) altitis. He also states that this has somehow slowed down the urge to clear all content from all angles in the game. And that he's enjoying the game.

This commentary in the podcast got me thinking the issue with alts and the possibility to play several toons in a game. It's quite clear that in strongly PvP based games it would be kind of cheating to have a toon on both sides of the PvP factions, and the new and coming sandbox sci-fi game Earthrise has already asked the members of their forum about the possibility to have more than one toon on a server, clearly concerned about ruining one element of the game (in game spying of another faction) by allowing toons on both sides.

I also connected this with my recent spree of Oblivion: somehow it didn't even cross my mind to start a new toon in the game. I guess it's the same in Fallout3 and other Bethesda games, and hopefully in the forthcoming Star Wars: Old Republic MMO, in which the questing is supposed to be reminiscent to the one in the Fallout/Elder Scrolls games.

I myself am playing three toons at the moment: warrior Laiskajaakko, priest Pupunen and banker. The time spent on Laiskajaakko is easily three or four times the time spent on the others, so I can easily say that I have only one toon in the game. Then again I have several toons of my own on other servers, too, and three on Horde side on the same server as these three.

The question is, is it necessary to have more than one toon in a game? And how much does a crew of alts affect the overall immersion in the game?

My answer to the first question is that no, it's not. Really, in the 'old days' of the computer gaming you plunged through the games with one toon till they died. You still play single player games with only one character, even the games where you create the character yourself, and you are completely happy with it! So why would an MMO be any different from those games?

Like I stated, I have several toons, but I enjoy the game most when I can jump into the shoes of one character only and follow his advancement through the game. I've already seen how hard it's to take on the lower levelled priest and remember the quests which my warrior has done... only to notice that the priest has completely different quests on the area. The immersion is broken in a way for the second toon, and I cannot imagine how little of the RPG part you really can put into the nth alt you're levelling.

And there I gave my answer to the second question. I don't think that running around with several alts can be immersive: it's bound to be more a game of finding out how this or that class works and functions, not like writing the story for the character at all.

Big part of this problem comes from the fact that the quest system and the level of involvement in the game are not working. (But that's another story.) In single player games you are immersed to the game's overall plot and quests by involving you -the player- through the direct contact with your character, and the quests in a way come to you unnoticed and tie you as a player in personal level to them. In MMO's the quests hubs have NPC's with exclamation marks just waiting for you to collect the quests and there is nothing that would involve you to do those quests except the rewards. MMO quests are impersonal.

Anyhow, what do you think? Do you really need the option to create several alts from the beginning or should this possibility be 'unlocked' by playing your 'main' to certain level first?

Watch and tell

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:31:00 +0000

Okies, now I've done it. I've enlisted into the first raid in the guild, that being the normal Onyxia 10. All I can hope is that there will be enough people attending and making me feel uneasy and inadequate.

The only thing I want to achieve before that is just one daily heroic. That would earn me that one Emblem of Triumph I'm currently lacking from my Clutch of Fortification, the Holy Grail in my current set. Then I'm ready to begin the hunt for a new shiny headpiece, thrown weapon, shoulders and helmet. Goodie.

The game, however, is currently such a lag fest, that I do not have any interest in doing anything in it. Last night I spent over an hour emptying my mailbox (3 full mailboxes, 147 post items), when it normally takes five minutes. Add to that any need for crafting (sssslllloooowwww) and the day is done. No thank you.

It all came from the beginning of the Halloween event and it doesn't seem to get any better as the event goes on. I for one haven't done any of the Halloween quests and even though I couldn't participate in the Headless Horseman runs last year, I don't have any interest in plunging in. For some reason or another, I share Gordon's view in the seasonal events: they come too often and are too similar grind fests. I would much rather see something along the lines of the pre-WotLK zombie invasion, which came more or less without a proper warning and caused some real activity in the world. Well, maybe not as devastating incident, but still, something more surprising and different than the same old as last year. Besides, the events seem to be massing to the end of the year anyhow, so could we have some breathing space, please?

But this is just my opinion. If this keeps the games we play, MMO's, alive, then, by all means keep them coming. I can go and live under a rock for their duration and hopefully will be able to play outside the events without the infuriating lag they seem to create.

I will be reporting my ventures in the end game content as soon as that happens.

Anticipation

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:26:00 +0000

There is only a link in this post. Instead of watching endless stream of boss fight videos, this single post will ease your mind on the next boss fight you are preparing to. Or raiding in general in my case.

Enjoy.

How broken is it really?

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Had a long discussion with my brother, Bishopgeorge, the other day. The main thing about the discussion was the difference of the 'end game' and the 'levelling game' in WoW. Or in any MMO I suppose nowadays. And how broken the game in level cap in WoW currently is.

How much more broken can it be?

Larisa from The Pink Pigtail Inn wrote a nice post about how easy WoW currently is. Or isn't, according to her. She points out that the people whining about the easy mode raiding in WoW are mainly the people who haven't downed Yogg-Saron or the rest of the rowdy bunch in Ulduar (even in normal, let alone hard mode), and that they have no right to say that the game is easy. In her own words:

Hands on heart, how many of you have actually killed Yogg-Saron 25 man? Not quite that many. As a matter of fact, people seem to have given up about him altogether. I haven't got any scientific evidence that this is the fact, but from what I read on the blogs, it appears that most raiding guilds have stopped aiming for an Ulduar clear. They make ToC, Onyxia and not much more than that.

I think the main question is, why people have given up on the real raiding in WotLK and resort to the 'easy mode' gearing instances instead?

Because the raid progression is broken.

I know, that is harsh from someone who has never even raided, but there is nothing new in that statement. And certainly nothing I haven't said earlier either.

If the raid progression was working, people could progress through the raid content in orderly manner: Heroics to gear up for Naxx to gear up for Ulduar to gear up for Icecrown. It just doesn't work like that. People do not work like that, in the sense of 'taking up the challenge': instead they go by the route of leasts resistance, accepting the 'welfare epics' to be able to take on the harder content. If at all.

The difference between Naxxramas gear and Ulduar content level may have been too large, because Blizzard decided to create such an utter waste of space as the Argent Tournament, which -let's admit it- is just a loot piñata for the people who cannot for one reason or another raid the Naxxramas content for the Ulduar content.

Now the situation is such that you can get way better gear through grinding ToC Heroic and then ToC 10/25 than you can ever get from Naxx. Add the daily heroics Emblem of Triumphs and Emblems of Conquest gear to the mix and you can skip Naxxramas completely.

Why would anyone in their clear senses take on the challenge of Naxxramas (other than for the Achievements), if they can get better gear easier and through more simple encounters?

As the patch 3.3 is nearing, you can be sure that Ulduar is going to suffer the same fate as Naxxramas: it will be forgotten before Icecrown is done, and I'm afraid that Blizzard is going to apply some more welfare epics into the game (in addition to the 'new' emblems...) to ease the gap between ToC/Ulduar gear and Icecrown difficulty.

In effect, Blizzard is voiding the content in the end game the same way it has voided the 'old' end game content of the former expansions.

Where does that leave us, newcomers to the game? In a situation where we pass huge amount of content without ever setting our foot in it and leaves us wonder what the fuzz about that content ever has been.

So, how broken is the end game, really? And how broken will it be, before Cataclysm comes and repairs all (not likely, but a nice thought...)?

What a week and end

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:40:00 +0000

I'm back. Not necessarily in the same schedule as earlier, but back none the less.

Last week I sat at home with the kids and dogs and did absolutely nothing. Nada. Well... played some games, some with kids, watched them play and rested. And suffered one heck of a head ache lasting three days. And rested.

What I played? (Shameless rip-off from Van Hemlock podcast!) WoW, Dawntide and Oblivion.

Let's start from Dawntide. It's a new and coming sandbox MMO which has open pvp, 'meaningful' crafting and interesting background. And no NDA for the Beta I got invited to.

Dawntide beta is beautifull and surprisingly solid for a beta as such. It's by no means finished, yet, but what I have seen is pretty, working and interesting. Remains to be seen how the combat and crafting develop from here, but there is a huge promise to those who are looking for an open sandbox fantasy game (aka EVE in fantasy). Might post something about this later.

WoW. Well, playing WoWduring day just... doesn't suit me. MMO should have people around, bustling alive and feel alive. During the days I logged in it was a kind of disappointing, resorting back to the soloing up my priest for having nothing else to do. Alone in Zangarmarsh she flew and fought the forces of evil (/yawn). Like I have stated, if I want to play a solo fantasy RPG, I play Oblivion.

Which I played. Boy did I like what I found! The stories are there, the graphics are there and the overall atmosphere... just fantastic. I had forgotten how good a game this is and how great stories Bethesda can tell through a computer game. If you haven't played Oblivion, leave your world behind and travel in that world for a while. Step into the shoes of the 'unwilling' hero and experience the world, do not play the game to win.

Then again, this suits for some and not all (I hear yoo, Az). Granted, it's a bit more twitchy than WoW, but the stories and the advancement of the character is uncomparable to me, still, after all these years.

There is one thing I have to put into this post still. If you, dear reader, are playing WoW and are not in a guild you feel comfortable with, are suffering in or are not in a guild, go find one you can call home! I have found out that the guild I am is more than that, a group of extremely welcoming people who play the game for entertainment in earnest. You see, I logged in to accompany the other Stooges (Bishopgeorge and Förgelös) in Utgarde Keep to gear our resident rogue a bit. But before the loading screen had finished I heard the familiar bling of a group invite. Naturally I thought it was either of my brothers, but no: instead I found myself in Nexus on a guild daily hc run!

The run went great, all laughter and funny things involved around Laiskajaakko (I still manage to find some interesting solutions to the fights...) and everything was... Great!

After that we finished UK normal with Stooges, in duo with Bishop for the final part due to 'domestic dispute' which disconnected Förgelös from the game, quite abruptly, I might add.

So, the lesson of last week is: if you are not enjoying what you play, with whom you play or how it is played, move on. You'll return to the fun part of what ever game you left, sooner or later.

For me that is WoW. Still.

Customer service at it's best

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:39:00 +0000

(First of all, this is the first time I feel pressured to post. Not only because I got some 'demands' from the guildies, but also because I have cut the promising daily posting routine. Explanations follow.)

Customer service is a peculiar beast. It's always depending on the personal contact with the customer service person. Those who have been working in such a position (in a customer service post) know that the customer is always right even though they seldom are in real. We've had some interesting encounters in the last few years because of the new internet solutions, especially payment systems.

The first was when our electricity was cut off without a notice. Thankfully our mobile phones didn't need charging that day, because otherwise the furious calls to the a)bank, b)electricity company's customer service and c)the accounting department of the electricity company wouldn't have been possible. The bank customer service (always happy to oblige) told that the payment had been processed as requested and that from their side everything was in order. The customer service simply stated that there were no payments made within the last few months (!) for our electricity and (after another confirmation call to the bank) directed us to the accounting department. Who simply told us that the reference number we had used was void and the account which we had been paying for the last few months didn't even exist anymore. And -due to being accountants and no customer service professionals- told us to scram it and settle to the fact that the electricity wouldn't be connected until the payment came to the right account.

Long story short, we got it returned in few hours, right after threatening to contact the consumer awareness organisation. You see, the accounting department didn't see anything wrong with the fact that they had changed the reference code and the account without sending any notice to the customers. Their claim was that as so few people were using the automated payment service and the internet payments, their customers would notice for sure that the numbers had changed!

Hello? That was in 2006, and the company had been promoting that their payments came fast, cheap and easy through the internet payment service!!

Out ISP -which is also our mobile service provider- launched a new payment portal, their OwnPaymentService (OPS from now). Through OPS you can see your account status, pay the bills, set the user restrictions and blocks on service numbers and so on. So we've been using that from the beginning to make it easier to follow our kids' mobile bills. We learned this from our daughter's first crush, when she a) sent thousands (at least!) of SMS' to her 'boyfriend', b)downloaded ringtones from (blocked) numbers and c) caused one heck of a phone bill. The funny part was that we had applied service blocks to the account through the web service and put a limit to the expenses on her account too. The bill was voided on one call, with a splendid customer service person.

That was about a year ago. Fast forward to today. This new OPS has been just launched and it's a heaven sent: it's fast, it shows all the billing information and works like no tomorrow. Payment is easy and precise and there have been no problems.

Except that the connection was lost on Monday morning. A phone call to the customer service person who clearly didn't have his best day -or he was a technician with no customer service background- confirmed that there was no payment on this service. Come again?

After a short discussion it became imminent that the OPS system didn't work and the payments made through it shouldn't have been done! The payments for the mobiles worked alright, but the ones for other services -like internet and normal telephone connections- do not work. The response was along the lines that 'everyone knows that this service shouldn't be used'. Then again, even our 8 year old can recite their advertisement stating that you should make all your payments through the system...

Alls well that ends well: after a heated discussion the connection was opened on Tuesday morning and the issue is still up. On ISP's side, since it's their job to find out where our money paid to their system has gone. For our bank confirms that the payments are processed immediately when we use the OPS site and thus they are in the custody of the ISP.

Suck that!

Now comes the WoW part, thank you for following up here. Everyone and their cousins know that Blizzard just released the information that each and every WoW account must be merged into a Battle.net account. There is nothing strange in this, actually, as other companies have their central game hubs already. Most know I think is the SOE's Station Launcher system, which has integrated all their MMO's into one launcher.

But I think this is the first time that Blizzard has underestimated the effect of the announcement, because the registration and the merging was -at least for me- a real pain and torture. I had to fill all the information twice for registration, as it returned the forms to the first page after I had confirmed the information. And with the merging of accounts I had to do the same, as if the system had forgotten what I had entered. And then...

WoW didn't work. It just couldn't connect to the server and so my joy of being merged to the Battle.net so I could get my Oswald the Penguin fluff pet waned into Oblivion. Which I had been playing during the time I couldn't login, anyhow.

Oh, well. I hope the customer service people had their spirits high after the Battle.net announcement, for there must have been loads of calls from satisfied customers on that one.

End note: I'm on vacation this week, but I may put a post or two still. Right after I can return to the game.

Social explorer learning to dance?

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:11:00 +0000

Gearing game is one real bag of surprises: at one time you are really in the dumps for lacking emblems or money to replace your obsolete gear, and the next moment you're hilarious over a piece of gear which drops from the daily heroic you're running with your guildies. Like yesterday, we had a lovely -though I saw it as messy on my tanking part- run through the daily Halls of Lightning, which really elevated my spirits and made me love certain guildies even more. Ok, the one PUG member we had -a rogue- made his contribution too, whispering me that he thought I did remarkably good tanking effort, for in his guild their main tank/guild leader cannot hold his aggro in Onyxia from this rogue, whereas I could keep the aggro through the whole instance.

I tank. Really!

The dumps came from the fact that instead of costing 25 Emblems of Triumph my Holy Grail -Clutch of Fortification- costs 35... Cursed be my excellent, though short, memory!

As I was sitting in the Lagalan Dalaran, I read some posts in the general chat: something I have woved not to do anymore. I dare to take the chance now, as I'm getting more confident over my skill, though my gear is at the moment disagreeing with my ambitions (below def cap again with immensely better gear, go figure...). And I understood what had been bothering me for a while already, something my brother Förgelös had said way back when earlier.

As an explorer I enjoy more about learning the steps than dancing in some other's steps.

Currently Laiskajaakko (prot warrior) is stuck in the gearing game by running heroics, heroic dailies and ToC. Mostly that is a mental barrier, because the other -not necessarily more profitable- option would be to PUG the raid instances like Naxx, VoA, Onyxia or normal Ulduar. This poses the problem (and explains my earlier sentence): entering the entry raids I would have to learn the boss encounters and know them before I even see the boss! In our Shadow Labyrinth run the most fun we had was when we had to figure out how the bosses should be handled and the reward was -instead of leet loot- the downing of the said boss. Now the 'gratification' factor would be to be able to follow the steps someone else has laid out before the instance hit gold.

I agree that most of the heroics I run now would have required some ideas on how they work, but the overpowered guild teams I run them with lower the barrier of the lacking knowledge a lot. Like yesterday.

This wasn't enough for me to realize: If I was to enter the entry raiding PUG's, I would be required to know ALL the boss dances before entering the PUG! Let's see what I would have to memorize to be even slightly comfortable with them (and not making myself the village idiot, loser and noob in the group):
- Obsidian Sanctum, no drakes would be a start... and what the heck does it even mean?!
- Naxx, all wings, 15 boss encounters, 18 bosses
- Vault of Archavon/Koralon, two bosses
- Ulduar (Don't even know where to start!!)

And in signing in to a PUG to run Naxx for example, I wouldn't know even which wing to start with...

Perhaps it is easier for a new player just to skip the obsolete raid content and aim for the highest content available, gearing through emblems and loot piñatas. I fear not, because someone will be doing an addon which tells you what happens when and what to do (DBM and BigWigs are on their way to this direction) in no time. And if there is another way to experience the content as it is (in addition to the Goblin way of purchasing the raid), I would be happy to hear about it and tell the world.

Because for the moment I'm not too happy to start learning the steps before knowing whether I even get to dance. This is effectively the same as being invited from the local soccer team of friends to play in a world league team without prior notice, only to be standing in the field and being pushed aside during the game.

That would not be fun at all.

Short recap of some blogposts

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:03:00 +0000

I have to make some pointers to interesting blogposts that have popped up within a few days now. First of all, Tobold makes a very nice and -I think- precise review of WoW after 5 years of gameplay, pointing out the good and the bad and the ugly, though being IMO a bit soft on the bad side. For example he doesn't point to the gearing game which has changed the end game over the time, even though he mentions that the content is too easily overcome to the hardcore gamers. I also found the mention of an average gamer a bit odd... makes me feel that I'm something not so average anymore and my sense of being average somehow degrading. Oh, well. Keen from Keen and Graev's Gaming Blog pours even more salt to the wounds in his excellent post about how the developers want us to perceive the game world our avatars explore. Really made me think about how I have perceived the game worlds I've visited and what has been missing I have not seen in them.Great reading.

And after I read Gordon's post (We Fly Spitfires) about raiding being the end game of MMORPG's I realized that the angst I have had with my newly capped lv80 isn't just mine or affecting me alone, but is a more widely perceived 'problem' of sorts. This combined with Kyrilean's (Casual Hardcore) notion that the new emblems are making the new raid content more accessible but are making the old raid content obsolete summarises nicely the feelings of a newcomer lv80 in WoW, who wants to experience the content the way it was supposed to be experienced. Instead of voiding the content Blizzard should -IMO- create systems which would reward people to progress the toons and make that progression more accessible. Matt from Wildwhine writes about the same thing.

There was yet another post I was trying to find to complete this recap, but I couldn't find it. To be honest, I don't even remember anymore what it was about after reading all the posts mentioned up there. Needless to say, they are worth the read.

And the blogs mentioned are worth their place in your reader, in case they aren't there yet.

What if WoW wasn't anymore?

copra.CWM@gmail.com (Copra) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:53:00 +0000

What if WoW would be cancelled in a week and your guild would move to another game as whole with different kind of social/guild tools altogether, would the guild itself survive the switch?

What if WoW ceased to exist, would the guild you are in survive and find a new 'home' in another game? Providing of course that the guild has own forum and/or other means to stay in contact outside the game.

Just some what if's to think.