Mystic Worlds

Holy Shit! Complaints about AFKers in BGs Take Over the PVP Forums

Wow, I dont think I've ever seen this many posts about the same topic consistently.  Screams to nerf Warlocks don't count. *hehe*  I've posted here recently about it too, as it's a real pain in the ass to deal with when you're trying to maximize your honor gain sessions.  And the smaller the battle population, WSG or EYE, the larger the impact of these idiots.

I wonder if Blizzard is going to do something about it.  I can't imagine that they can continue to ignore the outrage from the players on a topic that is well founded and not the usual forum tripe.

WOW Crafting 3.0 – No More Production Professions

I’d like to see the crafting system in WOW re-designed to be fully committed to the “no production skills needed” nature of its current implementation.  I think it’s safe to say that the majority of the WOW players aren’t really interested in having an in-depth crafting system like EQ, SWG, LOTRO or many of the other MMORPGs.  WOW is the first game that I played where the production portion of crafting was click-n-go – absolutely no interaction on my part needed to ensure the successful outcome of the product.  The crafting system implemented in WOW is all about the components and grinding to get them, along with the rarer recipes. 

I enjoyed the crafting in EQ2 where I had to actively participate in the production system, and my careful attention or lack there of, affected the quality of the item produced. I liked it even better once they removed the subcomponent combines which greatly streamlined the process, but still left the meat of the activity.  I can’t say this is a fact, but it certainly felt like my gathering took a lot less time in EQ2 than it does in WOW.  That of course would make perfect sense because the bulk of my activity was spent in the actual production phase.  During my short visits to EQ2, I met many people whose primary role in the game was crafting – no more, no less and they enjoyed doing it.

A player can’t subscribe to WOW and expect to only craft.  Not only do you have to farm for the best recipes for each profession, Blizzard also implemented character level requirements for the various tiers of recipes.  Therefore unless you level, you won’t be able to get to the more lucrative recipes for your given profession.  I can’t imagine anyone deciding that all they wanted to do in WOW was craft since you don’t really “craft” in the first place.

With the exclusion of primary subcomponents, I think they should remove the production aspect of crafting from WOW all together.  For all the value add of player interaction, or lack there of, we should have NPCs craft the actual items and turn the player professions into gather or pre-process.  For example, a tailor will continue to farm humanoids for cloth and produce specialty bolts and threads, which they then place on the Auction House for sale.  Someone who wants Robe of the Void purchases the necessary components and heads off to a major city to have it crafted by a Master Tailor NPC.  Every profession as it stands today can easily be fitted into this model.

What I’m proposing isn’t some far-fetched idea either.  Pirates of the Burning Sea isn’t going to have players running around crafting items and neither will Conan. And given that the production part of it in WOW is negligible anyway, I say off with its head.

Most players argue that crafting in its current state is a time and gold-sink except for perhaps Alchemy.  The other professions make little or no money until when and “if” they acquire the rare recipes which are found by grinding instances or faction.  To me it’s very obvious that crafting has little to do with production, and succeeds or fails soley based on your luck or effort at grinding – be it for components or the recipes.  If they still feel the need to have some aspect that would distinguish the effort someone has put into “crafting” then have rare collection items or components instead of the production recipes.

There would be some global player benefits from a shift toward this model.  First off, every player would have the ability to get any item they so desired crafted, if they had the materials.  They wouldn’t be bound to finding the player that has the ability to craft that item.  The cost of crafted goods would center exclusively around the components, and not the arbitrary production fees of players.  Since grinding for the mats is mostly what we crafters do, let’s just focus on that part and be done with the “white noise” aspects.    We can still have Bind on Pick-up (BOP) items from the vendors for epic crafted goods, but instead of only a tailor being able to wear the Robe of the Void, anyone who wears cloth can have it made to wear.  Instead of Engineers sucking wind to keep up with that profession for the engineer-only gadgets, everyone can have engineering items made for their use.  Personally, I don’t see the value in making a player tie themselves to a profession just for the BOP items. 

Remove that false incentive of BOPS and instead let people do the kind of gathering they most prefer.  Do we still need two professions in this scenario?  I’m not so sure.  They could diversify the components farmed enough that you’d only want to do one or let people still have two.  And while they’re at it, Cooking and Fishing need to be turned into primary professions as well.  Hell, do away with secondary professions all together. 

Another benefit from this scenario would be the stability of item cost.  I guess people could jack-up the cost of the harvested items but not sure they could do that for long, when anyone would be capable of taking up that profession and providing the mats.  Instead of having to nerf professions to keep the costs of consumables reasonable for raiding, AFTER players have sacrificed time and gold to attaining max levels, the cost of production would have been controlled by the game.  I’m all for player controlled economy but that’s just a myth in WOW.  When Blizzard thinks the cost of something is out of line they intervene anyway – change the nature of the item’s use, alter drop rates, change production cool-downs, etc.  I’d rather have them doing this on the end that wouldn’t affect the player crafting side of things.  Some of the changes to certain professions recently were drastic enough that it could have swayed someone’s choice in selecting that profession.  But it’s much too late to not choose it when you’re level 365 and Blizzard swoops in for the kill.

We all know that the gathering professions are the money-makers – it’s a clear cut fact in WOW.  Let’s eliminate the grind on one side of the equation then.  We’ll keep grinding for materials and rare items, but let the NPCs handle the production and they’ll have access to everything.  They could of course take it a step further and have player, guild, city, race, class or faction quests that have the players unlock the rare recipes on NPCs.  All sorts of fun activities could be implemented for those types of endeavors.  And no, I don’t mean the War Effort grind-fest they did for the Gates of AQ to be opened.  That was some horrid BS.

I’m sure there are lots of creative things that can be done to make having harvest-only professions work.  I just don’t see the point of the production aspect.  It’s just an artificial boundary and cock-block to items.  The system as it stands now is so predicated on grinding, that we might as well do away with the queue-able click-n-go production pieces.  It would also remove the, “please do something for [insert profession here],” forum posts.  All players would have equal access to all crafted items, without being put into a choke-hold to choose a profession based on a couple of BOPs.  More importantly, all professions would be viable revenue streams without the pre-requisite gold-sinks.  Doesn’t that sound like more fun?

There is No Casual Raiding in WOW

I’ve raided hardcore, semi-hardcore and so-called casual.  There is no difference between any of these except that one of these raiding styles isn’t going to be getting anywhere, at least not as far as progressing in the content is concerned.  You might have been able to do casual raiding in pre-TBC content but that’s not really possible now, regardless of any efforts Blizzard has tried to put into place to make raiding more casual-friendly. 

I don’t know if they just went about it wrong or if raiding and casual are just oximorons that can’t be fitted together in a coherent way that is going to satisfy people at both ends of the spectrum.  And as surprised as I am at coming to this conclusion post the disbanding of the 40-man raids and the recent removal of attunements for some of the upper tier raids, I’m even more certain now than I’ve ever been, that you can’t raid casually in World of Warcraft.  I’m not for or against this view.  I’m just of a mind that this is the current state of affairs.

Let me preface this with a small definition, that raiding is more than just poking your head in the instance and meeting the immediate wipe.  Raiding is the measured ability to be able to clear trash and eventually the instance bosses – and this is what can’t be done casually.  I thought the demise of casual raids first appeared with Blackwing Lair, for it was certainly the content that started the divide in the casual guild of which I’d been a member, since day-one in the game and even before WOW.  For it brought with it a required steadfastness that many casual raiding guilds didn’t possess.  It also required massive amounts of consumables above and beyond the standard Fire Resistence.  And even if you attempted it on a casual pace, let’s say two attempts per week, you still had to face down the farming for another evening or two as prerequisites.  So a two-day guild even becomes a three or four day commitment and this is where any thought of “casual” must exit the conversation.

For our guild, it was the instance that started the cracks in the dam, as some wanted even more of a commitment – along the lines of three to four nights raiding + your two farming and now you’ve wrested five days from guild members.  So the war between the casuals and the hardcore began, and so did an exudous of people on both sides of the coin.  I left as a casual or better yet, a person who refused to allow someone else’s sense of urgency comendear five days of my time.  Once that commitment became required, I was out the door but sad to be saying goodbye.  Flip forward to where that particular guild is now and they’ve fallen from being in the top three guilds on a monster popular server, to being among the barely recognizable.  That’s a high price to pay for a family guild – losing long time members for a quest that couldn’t be sustained.

Now we have the raids of The Burning Crusade that offer 10-man and 25-man instances.  I won’t open the debate on how downsizing to such a degree killed many guilds – that’s fodder for another day.  What I will offer is that although the number of people required was reduced and they toned down consumables, what has been raised significantly, are the skills required to master the instance.  Not only does Johnny need to be there on time, in decent gear and have his consumables, he needs to intimately know the strategies and more importantly, execute them flawlessly.  And it is the latter that really puts much of this content out of the reach of the casual player.  Being a good Warlock is one thing.  Knowing how to be the perfect Warlock in a Prince encounter, is a whole other story.

I know you have to be prepared to raid – that’s nothing new.  But what hit me like a sledgehammer, was watching us faulter in our guild attempts at Prince, night after night after night, ad nauseum.  It wasn’t that we didn’t know “what” to do and “when” to do it.  It’s that it must be so precise, that when we changed out a couple of people here and there for each attempt, it became impossible to be impeccible.  Why? Because Harry as MT Priest does things just a tiny bit different than Lisa the MT Priest, and as a healing trio, Lisa, Harry and John, do it just enough different than when it’s Lisa, Geoge and Linda, that it causes a wipe.  And on and on, as tonight it’s this Warlock because of the kids or that Mage because it’s someone’s late night at work or this tank because of exams.  You can’t win at encounters of precision when they players must be continually changed out.  Yet this is what casual players need – versatility and the option of coming and going in the raid activity.

You could if you chose to do so, continue wiping and changing, wiping and changing until everyone has played with everyone enough, that it doesn’t matter and you’ll eventually get a boss down.  Then wind up and start all over for the next boss.  However, I think in most cases the players will give up long before that day arrives.  I mean – this is supposed to be fun, not someone’s second job.  And if all they get for weeks on end are repair bills in between racing off to farm so they can jump in an instance and fail… Well, I think you can see my point.  Some people will elect to pass on that oh-so-fun little adventure in Raid-land, and instead opt to play a different character or progress their main down the PVP trail, which is by the way, much more casual friendly.  Today I’m here but tomorrow I’m not.  Today we won, yesterday we didn’t.  So what?  The repair bills don’t stack up as quickly, basic consumables can be purchased with marks and no need to farm more than a couple of hours – not days per week, if at all.

Now that I’ve been in Karazhan several times my impression is that the content is good. It’s certainly exciting and it’s thrilling to down the bosses.  Prince is down yes, but do we have it or farm?  No, we don’t but we’re thinking of starting a second raid group so that other members can see this new content.  However, for myself, I have to consider if I really want to be on either raid team.  When I came to the realization that what was getting us closer to downing Prince was the consistency of having the same players, it hit me as, “Oh shit, that’s going to suck.”  What’s going to happen when so-n-so isn’t online?  In case you haven’t been there yet, the consistency is important because it builds a rhythm that can be counted on and helps to offset the random trash and special attacks that they’ve built into each encounter.  You can’t win these encounters in our old maverick devil-may-care style of just keeping the tank up and aggro off the healers.  That will not work now.

This collective heartbeat and synchronization is so strongly intertwined in Kara, that once we had the same group together and we’re on our A+ game, we started whizzing through the trash with seven and eight people, while waiting for the other raid members to login. No new gear yet acquired and Prince not downed yet, and we could get to him in ¼ the time it had taken us the week before, all because we’d nailed the core people and we were moving as a single fluid unit.  That’s hard to come by in casual situations.  On the third night of finally having the same people with the exception of one person, Prince went down.  If we tally it up, it took the guild as a whole three weeks just to make it to Prince’s door, then two weeks of hammering at him, then five days in a row with pretty much the same group and finally it culminated with that same group needing three nights in a row together, to get him down.

Looking at this scenario and knowing all that is required to raid, I’ll contest that it’s in any way, casual friendly.  So here you are at level 70 and you’ll have to ask yourself, “Is this what I want from playing WOW?”  Can I honestly make that commitment, knowing that if I agree to go as the [insert class here] to help my guild, that when I can’t make it, they’ll be screwed?  People will die, waste consumables or just flat-out not be able to go when the key classes aren’t available.  That’s what WOW raiding is now.  When it was forty-man, we on occasion started with less hoping to get to thirty-eight at least before any boss encounters.  You won’t be trying to down bosses with less than the 10-man required, until your gear has progresses above it, by which time, you’re already in the next Tier of content.

Now that the excitement has worn off, I can be honest and say, “No, I personally don’t possess the same level of desire or commitement to playing WOW that I once held.  And that being the case, it pretty much excludes me from being raid material.”  Personally, I’m okay with that fact.  If I could raid one or two nights a week, and not have to grind or farm much to support that schedule, I do it.  Sadly, that is not the state of raiding in WOW.  I’ll return to PVP and if I get called on to pinch hit, I will, but I won’t be attempting to join the static raid teams.

AFK Players Destroying WOW Battlegrounds

If you've been visiting the WOW forums lately, you'll see many posts in the General and PVP forums begging Blizzard to do something about AFK players in the Battlegrounds.  We're all used to a handful of people going AFK in the entrance areas leeching honor without participating in the event.  For some reason the numbers have gone from a half-dozen odd people doing it, to a couple of dozen people when things are at it's worse.  That's HALF of a faction's fighting force in AV who are too lazy, stupid, inconsiderate and bad sportsman, ruining the game for other players.

Let’s get real. Playing the BGs isn’t hard if you don’t care about winning.  So if you don’t, then you don’t have to rush.  You don’t have to take unnecessary risks in encounters.  Don’t do anything much – just follow the flow and pitch in a little.  If you’re stuck in a group of idiots then just farm Honor Kills until it’s all over.  But for God’s sake, don’t just AFK.  You ruin the experience for the other participants and impact their opportunity to gain bonus honor.

Blizzard’s stance is that as long as the player isn’t using an illegal program  to prevent them from getting removed for being idle, then the player isn’t doing anything wrong.  So if Johnny just sits in the cave pressing his spacebar every few minutes, he’s playing the game his way and within the bounds of game rules.  It doesn’t matter that his behavior is in direct conflict with the spirit of the game.

Fine, if they can just sit there and do nothing, so be it.  However, what real PVP players want Blizzard to do, is to only grant the honor and the marks to players in the encounter who have killed the enemy or healed players taking damage.  Anything – something that shows they actually participated in order to gain the honor and the marks.

This can’t be hard to do.  Blizzard already does these kinds of checks with PVE encounters.  If you’re in a party, you have to be within a certain distance of the mob killed in order to gain the XP.  If you’re in a party you have to be within a certain distance of the kill to gain faction.  They can easily do the same for BG honor.  Why don’t they?  Perhaps they don’t want to piss off some fraction of their customer-base who deems this as acceptable behavior?  Maybe they feel it's the so-called casuals who are gaining their honor in this fashion?  Who knows what their reason is for not addressing this problem.  And quite frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass about their reasons. 

What do I care about, is the fact that PVP as it stands now, is a piss poor excuse for player conflict anyway and any more deterioration of it’s game play, makes it borderline worthless.  PVP is supposedly the other white meat – that other end-game option if you don’t want to raid.  If that’s the case, then how dare they let a portion of the player population decide to break its intended use?  Would they allow some rogue group of players exploit how end-game bosses work?  Hell no!  Anytime a raid boss or instance exploit is discovered that shit is patched up and nullified ASAP.

Yet they continue to allow AFK players to gain unearned honor points, while causing others to lose bonus honor when they lose the encounter, thereby increasing the amount of time it will take them to earn their rewards.  A whole guild got banned for using an exploit to skip trash mobs they’d already proven they could clear so they could get straight on to pwning the boss.  Who did those players hurt?  What they did had no negative impact on any other raids.  Yet they were sent packing.  In fact,  theirs was actually a victimless crime, whereas the AFKer’s in BGs, negatively affect hundreds of other players.

We already know PVP was tacked on to WOW as some light night after thought.  We already know that raid content is king in WOW and if you’re not down with that program you’re a second-class citizen.  We get it.  It's alright that you can't figure out how to fix PVP in general.  We’ve gotten over it and moved on, so don’t let these worthless people ruin the little PVP that we do have in the game.  You got rid of the Gold Farmers now get rid of the BG AFKers!

In my mind, if Blizzard chooses not to address this issue, they are saying that end-game is only about organized content.  If you can't find a static party to raid with or at this point, also PVP with, then you're just subject to the PUG bullshit and people purposefully going AFK in your Battleground.  If you can't roll with a guild or group of friends, then I guess you get what you get.

Down the Rabbit Hole into Karazhan

A couple of weeks ago I joined a guild with my Warlock and Paladin.  It wasn't by design.  In fact, it was merely as a result of trying to improve communication between the members of our 5v5 Arena team.  While running around healing the mayhem in AV, I was invited to join a 5v5 and 3v3 arena team as the healer.

Until now I've not been very interested in playing the arenas even though the gear is vastly better than the standard BG fare.  For one, I wasn't in the mood to start a team of my own.  Secondly, I wasn't sure that I wanted to commit to playing WOW on certain days, at certain times.  But after the first couple of days playing with this team, I enjoyed their company and since they were all in the same guild, it just made sense to be in it too.

Our schedule is to do our required ten matches on Thursday evenings starting at 8 PM server time.  I was on and ready to go when I received a whisper from our tank that we wouldn't be able to go because three of our five members were raiding.  I was a little disappointed but no matter, we could get the matches in on Friday instead.

With nothing else to do, I decided to pop on to my Warlock and use my tailoring cool-downs.  Surprisingly, doing nothing but PVP still costs gold.  I don't use any potions other than the ones I buy with spare marks, but you still need food, water and have repair bills. I've also been slowly buying gems for my sockets and putting enchants on the gear that I will keep a while longer.

My Paladin has no professions yet to speak and farming on him would be a royal pain in the butt.  Consequently, when I need cash for him, I farm or craft on the Warlock.  I'd only just logged in on my Warlock when someone whispered asking my spec. I told them and asked who they were.  It turned out to be one of the guild leaders, and he asked if I'd come DPS for Karazhan.

At first I hesitated.  I hadn't played the Warlock in a raid setting in many months.  Other than farming mats, I hadn't done anything on Vellora (used to be Saylah but had to rename when I brought her back to my account) in at least six months.  I was relunctant but since this was Kara and likely to be my only time seeing it I said, "Sure."

As I headed to Duskwood from Shatterath, I told the raid leader that I hadn't play the class in a long time and had never done Kara.  He told me to go to the guild raid forum, read the strategy and watch the related video while I was on my way.  When I landed in Ironforge I hurried to the bank to grab some potions, bandages and a bag of Soul Shards that I always keep full in case of emergency - old raiding habit.

You can well imagine my nervousness when I heard they were on Prince.  I'd only been in the guild for a couple of days, had never spoken to anyone other than the people on the arena team, and here I was about to walk into their most important raid goal at the moment - pawning Prince.  My hands were perspiring and I had to turn on the fan to keep from breaking out into a sweat.  This was a PVP guild that had recently decided to take on raid progression, so this was rather improtant to them.  This maybe nothing more than a game but raiding is serious business. *Smile* 

I arrived at Kara to find the area swarming with Horde. "Just great," I thought to myself.  "Now they'll have to wait while I make the slow death walk to the entrance."  You know the drill.  You race to get as close to the entrance as possible, knowing that you're going to die.  Each time you resurrect yourself, you try to gain a few more feet before your next death.  Until little by little, you can rez close enough to step into the instance portal.

I was rattled by having to die three times to make it inside, conscious that they were all standing around waiting for me.  Plus once I was inside, I had no earthly idea how to find Prince.  Geez, I felt like such a nub.  When I said as much in vent, they told me to talk to the NPC and select to be ported to the Library and someone from the group would come to meet me and show me the way.

All too soon, I was standing outside the massive wooden doors leading to the chamber (more like a terrace), where Prince was anxiously pacing in circles.  "Good, he's nervous too."  I exchanged greetings with the raid members, buffed up, accepted the "Ready Check" and began the encounter.  So many things were running through my head I couldn't enjoy the scenary.  I was focused on what "to do" and "not to do" based on the video I saw.  I kept checking my aggro.  God forbid I pulled Prince of the tank and wiped the raid.  I think I'd have to /gquit from embarrassment and shame.

We ended up wiping anyway but not because of anything I'd done.  We attempted it several more times and continued to wipe at the phase two transition.  Given that they'd already been at it for a couple of hours they decided to call it a night.  People were tired and they clearly needed a new strategy for that transition.  No point in dying over and over for nothing.

It was fun to be in Kara and facing a boss I've read so much about on the forums.  It was a thrilling fight where you had to be on your game every second.  I felt that old familiar rush of adrenaline pumping through me.  And even though I died and used up a lot of expensive consumables, it was worth it. 

Everyone thanked me for coming at the last minute and I thanked them for the invite.  Just before I hearthed out the raid leader whispered me and asked if I'd be interested in coming back to try again tomorrow.  Just like the first time he whispered, I hesitated before answering. 

Sure, I'd had lots of fun and they seemed like a nice group of people.  But I already knew where this kind of story would go from here... Raiding schedules, farming mats for consumables, the hamster wheel of farming reputation to get the better gear needed to take on raid bosses, only so that you can kill them for even better gear and making commitments that if broken, negatively affect other players. 

Worrying about raids and guild progression goals hadn't been my WOW "story" for a long time.  Is that really something I wanted to do?  What about my Paladin?  What about the arena team?  What about my stance that I'm above all this and am only a casual player?  For as long as I've not raided, I haven't missed it.  I think it's like crack what Blizzard has done with their phat loot, the prestige of killing infamous lore charactrs and the need to feel l33t.

Hadn't I already denounced all of this as evil?  Hadn't I proclaimed to be above it?  I've thumbed my nose at it for months.  Yet after a small taste I weakened, succumbed to the WOW-beast and replied, "Sure, what time?"

LOTRO Tops the List

I'm tired.  Just one more day to go and I can hide out from work for the weekend.  Too exhausted to play anything, I decided to mosey on over  to MMORPG.com.  I haven't been there in many weeks. Figured it was time to see some new screenshots and videos of upcoming games.

I'm not much for their commentary.  It and their podcast always strike me as too biased toward the gaming development and publishing companies.  But they do keep the site stocked with photos, interviews and lots of videos.  In the past, EVE Online and GuildWars always topped the "Highest Ranked" MMORPG.  I mean, for as long as I can remember, EVE has been the top game according to that site's readers.  Imagine my shock and surprise to see LOTRO now occupying the top slot, followed by EQ2.

That's some kind of shake-up if you ask me. EVE has some how tumbled it's way into a two-way tie for sixth place with City of Heroes.  Something tells me that CCP's game has been tarnished by the continued accusations against their staff for assisting friends and favored corporations, in receiving ill gotten gains.  I don't enough about the claims to say more than that.  I liked the game but the learning curve was a bit steep for my time and tastes, so I don't keep up with the in game politics.  But whatever was or wasn't going on, has been conversed about all over the Internet.

No surprise the WOW isn't anywhere to be found on the list.  As I recall, it never ranked high with that particular audience.  But my, oh my, LOTRO - who'da thunk it?  I'm glad that the game is doing well.  I think many of us need a break from WOW and although I haven't found my vacation away from Outlands yet, I'm sure it's coming 'round the bend.

Is Harry Potter the Next Big MMORPG IP?

Excluding games currently in development, what Intellectual Property (IP) would you love to see come out as a next generation MMORPG?  My answer is easy and to some it will be cheesy, but I’d like to walk around in the world of Harry Potter. 

I’m a big fan of the books, listen to the popular podcasts and own all of the movies. For literary value alone, I give more credit to The Lord of the Rings.  However, the characters in HP are more compelling.  One of the criticisms leveled at LOTR when it was first published, was that Tolkien’s characters were very one dimensional – a little too stereotypical in nature.  I can agree with that to some level.  I don’t feel as though we know the central characters on a deep and intimate level, whereas with HP characters, I do feel as if we know them.

I’d be much more fascinated by roaming the rooms and halls of Hogwarts or strolling in and out of the shops in Diagony Alley, than seeing the locations of Middle Earth.  Not that the world of HP is any “better”, it’s more that it’s a road less traveled.  I’ve read LOTR so many times, re-watched the movies and every fantasy world that I’ve ever visited was to some degree, a road from Middle Earth.  For that reason, I don’t find the idea of seeing it’s sights and sounds nearly as compelling, as being a fly on the wall at the Weasley’s.

Any attempt to bring HP to the gaming masses would face the same issues as LOTRO.  You can’t have a thousand variations of Harry, Ron, Hermione and Voldemort clogging the hallways.  And since there can be only one, they have to somehow set the players in parallel paths to the main storyline.  You won’t be Harry or Dumbledore.  I’m certain of that fact.  No, you’ll just run into them some where along the way.  You’ll turn a corner or enter a room, and there one or all of them will be, mumbling repetitive non-sense to the adoring masses.  It’s rather demeaning in a way.  That in order to be a part of their world, we must trivialize them – almost dethrone them from the pedestals on which they should rightly stand alone, so that we may stand along side.  Similar to the player killing of Illidan in World of Warcraft for epics, I do and don’t want to be a part of it.  I want to see Illidan but I don’t want him pwned for phat loot.

Hmm, so maybe as much as I’d like to be a young wizard learning her craft in Hogwarts, and racing to the aide of Harry and his companions, it’s probably better for them, the books and Rowling’s legacy, that I never get that chance.

Sword of the New World and Why I'm Jaded

It should come as no surprise that I'm just waiting for something to replace WOW.  I'm not a WOW hater, but lord I need something new.  I'm not playing LOTRO either because as much as I want something new, I'm not investing the time to level in a game that I have no intention of staying in for some length of time.  So even though I'm whittling my time doing PVP on a Paladin in WOW, my eyes and ears are open until WAR arrives.  In walks, Sword of the New World.

I recently remembered that I have a premium FilePlanet account.  Duh.  I know what you're thinking and I'm not nearly that stupid, but oh how the details of my life spin 'round and 'round.  While cleaning up my "Favorites" I saw the FP link and decided to have a look-see. It didn't dawn on me that I had an account until I saw that it auto-logged me in, which served to jog my memory.  If not for that, I still wouldn't have recalled the purchase.  Anyway...I see the advert for Sword and decide to take a peak.

The graphics look really nice, and I'm nothing if not a sucker for graphics.  That aside, what intrigued me the most about Sword was the period in which the storyline takes place.  In addition, when you build other characters you add them as family members. But the coupe de gras is that you can control up to three of the members at once.  Hey now, GW mechanics without the stranger sidekicks called henchmen.  All sorts of interesting back story ideas immediately popped into my head and I thought, "Whoa, I could like this." And, "It sure would be nice to play something with some role-playing value."  I immediately decided to avail myself of my special privileges and downloaded the client.

While it's downloading I'm playing WOW in the background, sucking up the drama of AV weekend when the AFKers and nubs decide to pay a visit to PVP and turn an otherwise pleasurable pastime into soul-sucking pain in my ass experience.  Sword of the New World is looking better and better, as I tell these idiots for the 4th time to abandon Galv.  And instead of engaging the attempt to turtle, move on to take the graveyard.  But will they listen?  Of course not.

/OCC In case you're wondering what a "nub" is, it's not a typo.  It's the most derogatory form of noob in my book.

The download and install were painless enough.  Creating your characters, although limited in visual selections, was still fun because of the variety of customs.  But that's about where the fun ended.  First off, I can't play a game where the text and buttons are off the screen or chopped off in the dialog box frames.  I've done SW development.  I've managed SW localizations and translations teams for commercial products.  And with that experience, I know that all of that is avoidable if you test appropriately and have a quality team.  Not being able to read choices, make selections or even use some aspects of the interface because it's chopped off is just soooooooooooooooooo unacceptable. 

Yet I persevere because I'm intrigued by the promise of Sword.  That and because it's only Saturday, leaving two more days of dealing with nubs in my AV.  Oh the injustices I will endure because daddy needs a new chest piece and a pair of boots.  The idea of playing something fun, interesting and free, looms large.

I create my little family of four characters: Wizard, Elementalist, Fighter and a Scout.  They're all cute little vixens except for the Fighter, who is a male.  After all, every family needs a little testosterone - hence the male fighter.  Except that this male, with his over the eye hairdo, is actually prettier than the girls in a Prince, he who has no name, kind of way.  *Hurl*  I pick my Elementalist to use in the tutorial and it’s all downhill from there.

It isn’t until I’m in the tutorial that I realize it’s all “click-to-move.”  I’ve only dabbled in Asian import games and that has to be the most annoying aspect of that genre.  For goodness sake, is it really that hard to program the damn thing to let me move with the keyboard?  Arrow keys – I’ve never seen an Asian keyboard but have a hard time envisioning that they don’t have arrow keys.  I tried all sorts of reasonable combinations and nothing would move the character or rotate the view except the mouse.

I might have decided to deal with click-to-move if all the NPC dialogs weren’t cut scenes.  It felt so old school and it immediately takes you out of the game, or at least one that is supposed to be MMO.  Cut scenes in Fable, sure – no problem.  The sprinkling of cut scenes in LOTRO, which add very unique and personal encounters are very acceptable.  But every NPC interaction?  Sorry, I don’t think so.

By this time I’m sort of miffed that I bothered to download the client and make my four pretty people.  I try to make it through the rest of the tutorial, disembark the boat and head into the local town/harbor.  But it was more of the same – too much moving around with the mouse, cut after cut as I checked out the NPCs and no one other my Elementalist seemed to be online.  Or at least, I didn’t run into another soul in the starter area.

I wanted to hang in there long enough to try some combat but then I realized that the toolbar I couldn’t see much of at all was where my skills were placed.  I fiddled with the interface for a few minutes trying to move the thing into view, until I got really aggravated and decided to just give up.  I logged and immediately removed it from my hard drive.

I’m getting rather jaded about trying new MMOs.  Perhaps I’m too naïve.  I get all excited by the marketing hype and expect it to deliver something close to what they’re claiming.  When they don’t time after time, it brings me right back to WOW – a quality game that delivers mostly what is promised.  At least in WOW, I know what I’m getting and I’m already at the top of the dung heap.

Like Vanguard, the promise was there.  I wanted to play what they described but I couldn't even make it through the starter area.  This game might do well in it's native land, with clickers or people who can actually see on their screen what needs to be seen.  For me, it was just three hours of my life that I can never get back.

The Final Sopranos Episode: WTF

Okay, today I hate HBO more than I've ever hated Blizzard.  It's 7 minutes until one of the greatest drama series of all times comes to it's conclusion.  My heart is in my throat as they arrive one by one in the diner.  I can hear my heart racing, I have my hands covering my  mouth just in case I scream.

One by one, they pan to different people, each of whom looks a bit dubious.  I'm just waiting for one of them to pull out a pistol and BLAM, SLAPT...Tony is dead.  Carmella, his wife arrives, and I think, "Oh, no," please don't hit her by mistake.  Oh wait, there's A.J., not him.  He's too simple minded to be killed now. 

Here comes Meadow who can't parallel park, so I think, "Oh shit, she's going to miss the litte massacre owed to her inept parking skills."  But we watch her try to park once, twice, three times.  I think, "Oh, God no, they're going to do a Godfather III and take out the daughter.  Run, Meadow.  Run!"

She finally parks her car and hurries across the street without looking both ways.  "Damn, they're going to hit her with their get away car by mistake. Shit!"  As she approaches the diner, I'm just waiting to see who will get whacked.  I mean, they can't all live.  They are owed a little bad karma. No?  C'mon, I love Tony and all, but he killed his own nephew, had a hand in killing said nephew's fiance who also happened to be good friends with his wife, and had a hand in killing his wife's best friend's son.  With a history like that, can we really expect Tony to live?  Of course not, Tony is goin' down.  Bobbie's dead and poor Sil, well, he's as good as dead.  Tony doesn't have to worry about the Feds, he's going to be in a pine box before the night is over.

Just when I think I can't stand the anticipation.  When I think I might have to cover my eyes because I just can't stand it anymore - the screen goes black.  My jaw drops open, "Fucking Comcast!"  No picture.  No sound. WTF.  I just know my son is going to run in here any minute ranting about the cable going out on the last two minutes of The Sopranos finale.  Then the titles start rolling. I'm like, "Umm, 'cuse me, what exactly is this bullshit?"  You'll have to pardon my french but somebody or somebodies - snot nosed screenwriters the whole lot of them, have lost their dayum minds.

The answer hits me like lead pistol, this "is" the ending.  And I thought Seinfeld's ending was crap after all those years I poured into Jerry.  This shit just takes the cake.

KAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Choosing Professions for the Paladin

Dweeb that my son was about professions, he didn't level any on his Paladin that I inherited.  I'm thinking that when I gave him an equal level character in exchange, I definitely got the raw end of the stick in that regard.  He got a maxed out Tailor, Enchanter, Fisherman and Cook!  I got a toon with 75 First Aide.  Granted getting a Paladin to alleviate my angst over the botched Holy Priest I had at 70 was a blessing so I'll have to get over that he has no professions.

My first thought was Herbalist/Alchemy.  I always needs potions for myself and potions sell well.  The only concern I had was that the lowbie potions, the range of which are now extended with the raised cap, don't sell worth a crap.  Then I thought about doing two gathering professions - skinning & mining or skinning & herbalism.  Either pair is probably a safe bet.  Then I asked myself, why not try something new?  It's not like I'm jumping for joy to still be playing WOW (topic for another day), so why complicate matters by doing the same ole same.

I've dabbled in engineering on an abandoned hunter and know that it's a money sink - money that I don't have at the moment, but is supposed to be a nice perk for PVP.  Then it occurred to me that there is one profession that I never touched - Blacksmith.  Having recently availed myself of some crafted goods on the AH to quickly get the Paladin out of his remaining T2 gear after spending the Honor I'd gained before I took my little break, it occurred to me that BS might be a nice profession to have has a Pally.

Do I go for the tried and true two gathering professions or try for Mining and Blacksmithing?  Thoughts?