Coming Back for Cata?

It's been awhile since I've done any real talk about World of Warcraft; mainly because I haven't been playing it at all recently. I quit a number of months ago, and I’m glad I did. The main problem with MMO games for a person like me is that I hate to have a schedule for fun. I don’t mind schedules for work or sleep or anything like that, but when it comes to having fun there should be a start time and an end time. There should not be a place I have to be at a certain time, or something I have to show up to even if I’d rather do something else.

I feel that Blizzard has been moving closer to casual gamers since the creation of their game, and while at some rare points I’ve complained about it, I’ve mostly benefited from their approach without even realizing it. Thinking back, I’ve always been a casual gamer, even when I’ve pushed myself to the limits of hardcore gaming.

Even with all of that said, Cataclysm is looking incredibly tempting for me to start playing again. 10 man raiding becoming a polished part of the game is a major plus. 10 man raiding was badly designed in TBC, it was a lot better but still mostly untested in Wrath, and I think that in Cata we’ll see a huge rise in its ability to generate a good experience with less effort than the 25 man raids take. Raiding is time consuming, but it’s also incredibly fun. It’s like winning at soccer, without having to actually leave your house or do anything physical. Plus there’s no “losing”. You just keep doing it until you’ve won.

That of course alludes to the well known psychologically addicting aspect of MMO games. There’s no such thing as losing or failing in an MMO; at least not with any real consequences. Players are barraged with rewards for doing the littlest thing. Almost all gaming is like that these days though. Take MW2 for example. An FPS, incredibly popular, players get rewarded points for every individual kill they complete while losing nothing but a 5 second respawn timer if they get killed in turn. Endless rewards, without consequences, constantly thrown at your feet. There is of course the very real consequence of not doing anything else but playing these video games, one that more gamers need to think about.

If I do start playing WoW again, it will be in a casual 10 man guild that maybe raids 9 hours a week tops. So 3 days of 3 hours each. I only have one friend that actually raids anymore in WoW. Creating online friendships with other people through an MMO can be satisfactory, but they aren’t real relationships. When a guild breaks up the majority of people do not stay in contact anymore. Even if they’d been spending 20 hours a week together online, all of a sudden they split ways and it’s done. It’s hard being successful and yet also anti-social in an MMO at the same time, but I’ve pulled it off before.

If I do go back I’m either going to continue; with my Ret Paladin, the lovely Dyse; shift back to my original character, Averice the hunter; or level a Worgen mage, which I’ll probably name whatever my low level mage alt is named currently. I do have a high level warlock now though, so we’ll see what happens. Zoomba’s her name.

I could not stand playing a hunter in WotLK, even though I love the class and played it through Vanilla and TBC. The changes watered down the class incredibly I felt, and a lot of me coming back to the game depends on what kind of changes are made to hunters for Cata. Only time will tell.

Until then I’m trying to beat FF12 before FF13 comes out, but it’s slow going. The game is so much larger than I originally thought it was just a few days ago. I’m actually getting lost in the world now trying to move forward; so it’s both a good thing and a bad thing. I thought I’d be able to beat it in a few hours, but after I realized how much longer it was I just had to stop. I’ll try again later; I have until March before FF13 comes out.

I beat Dragon Age, but I’ll make a separate post about that. That game is incredible. I’m playing Assassin’s Creed on and off, and also planning on buying Mass Effect 1 for the sole reason of figuring out what the hell is happening in Mass Effect 2. ME2 does a terrible job of introducing you to what happened in the last game, and pretty much just assuming that you played it. It shouldn’t run more than $20… unlike FF13 which would cost a console + the game. My time would be better spent looking for a job than trying to beat FF12, which is what I’m doing actually. Still no luck.

I’m also reading a few books right now. Each one is actually a trilogy collection stuffed into one big book. It was cheaper to buy them that way; The Deed of Paksenarrion, Chronicles of the Black Company, and lastly a somewhat cheaper series, The Icewind Dale Trilogy. All fantasy, but all very good; though it’s easy to tell the difference between a Forgotten Realms quality fantasy and a, I would consider, real fantasy like Paks and Chronicles. Honestly, I’d go so far to consider Paks and Chronicles of higher quality than LotR. They paint worlds just as vividly, if not more so, than that classic. Though the quality of LotR was never its selling point, from what I understand. The series selling point was the fact it was original. And I haven’t come across any arguments against that, and it’s a fair popularity reason. Though if all it had spawned were Forgotten Realm type stories… then I’d be a bit more skeptical.

How I got into MMO's

Today I thought I'd do a rough history of how I got into MMO games in the first place. It all started when I was going into highschool and one of my friends younger brothers was playing Everquest. The first one. I loved video games, but all I had was a computer, no console systems. And beyond that, I didn't even actually own any computer games that you paid for. I got Diablo one christmas, and then a year later finally got the computer able to play it. Up until that point I had been surrounded with Commander Keen 1 and 2, Duke Nukem, the original Doom, Tie Fighter, and a lovely little CD called Games for Daze, which had over 60 demos of various games on it. Half of them didn't actually work, but the ones that did... magic carpet ride... oh man. Anyway, that's kind of turning this short history into a long one.

So I saw him playing Everquest, and I sat down and played for maybe 10 minutes. I enjoyed it, it was strange, a new computer game. None of my friends were into computers, just this friends younger brother, and it was great to play a new game on the PC. So did I go out and buy EQ? Hah... no... still haven't actually paid for any games up to this point. To be honest, I never made it past killing a couple rats. I think I died once too. To rats.

The years went by, I'm at their house a lot, and he's playing a new game called Dark Age of Camelot. Wow... better graphics, a much smoother interface, hey, I can actually play this game. I couldn't stand the FPS mode of EQ. At this point I had started playing a few other games, Diablo, Comand and Conquer Red Alert, as well as got my first console system, a Sega 32 bit I think... maybe it was 24 or 64 version I can't remember. I loved Dune on that thing...

So I sat down and played some DAoC, I actually managed to hit level 16, and since I was so used to copying games over back and forth I nabbed a copy of his files and stuck them on my computer. Once again, my computer wasn't capable, so I missed out and didn't play anymore. He eventually leveled my level 6 Paladin thing, I forget the name of the actual class, all the way to max level and he used it as his main. Dysideron was its name. That later became how I started using the name Dyse, not because of Dice, but because Dyse was a feminine version of Dysideron.

Well... I've got the internet by now, I didn't originally though I left out when I did get it, and I'm playing WC1 and WC2, games I also didn't pay for. Well, Warcraft 1 was the demo version, and WC2 was a gift I got about the same time WC3 was about to be released... So I'm reading up, checking out game sites, what have you, and lo and behold, a Warcraft MMO?!

I don't even try to get in the beta, I don't know enough about what's going on to do that. I just read the beta forum boards, daily, for like, ever. I wanted to post so bad. I probably make up for it now that I actually can post, how badly I wanted to tell those idiots how wrong they were. They're in the beta, I'm not even in the beta, and I know more about the game then they do, it was so painful.

So I go over to my friends house again this one winter, and his younger brother has WoW installed on his computer. He doesn't like it though, goes back to DAoC, and me? I get his account for free, plus 6 months paid, for $20. It was... awesome. WoW was awesome. And that's how I got into my first MMO.

Druids Gaining Maelstrom Weapon

Predatory Strikes now has a 3/3 20% per combo point of removing the cast time of the next less than 10 seconds cast time nature spell. Instant cast cyclone cc anyone?

Feral druids have always been limited in crowd control viable abilities due to the ones that they have while in caster form. The problem with giving feral druids a deep talent CC much like Repentance for Ret paladins was that they would still have access to the other two major CC's of their class. Blizzard could have turned both Cyclone and Roots into low end Balance and Restoration tree talents, but that just looks way too complicated and it still wouldn't solve the issue of ferals not having any.

Blizzard went with the best solution here. Feral druids are allowed to keep their damage and healing and forms while at the same time now gaining the ability to effectively use CC at the cost of additional mana, much like most of the hybrid classes right now. This change will allow feral druids a much greater amount of freedom in 2v2 arenas, and should let them compete near high end in 3v3. I don't see feral druids popping up in tournaments any time soon, but I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the number 1 3v3 teams on a few servers started having them. Because what else does a feral druid bring to the table? Yeah, Innervate. Throw an Innervate on your disc priest after covering him in hots and everything imaginable, or just setting up the recharge, and you have incredible longevity. I may be wrong on Innervate, and feral druids need to use it on themselves... but just having the option of giving it to your healer instead of yourself is major.

Ferals have needed this CC to put them on par with other melee DPS classes. They now have all the necessary tools to be great at arena PvP. High damage, defensive CD's they can burn through, major mobility in both feral charge and shifting out of snares, passive stun defense while in their vulnerable cat form, and instant cast CC at a rate of every 6 to 9 seconds. And they still have Mangle and bash as interrupts.

I wish I wasn't so tired so I could write this up better. Feral druids are about to outclass Rets. There may be more Rets playing at the moment, but power wise, feral druids are now stronger.

Rated Battlegrounds in Cataclysm

The biggest news out of Blizzcon for me was the addition of rated battlegrounds in the upcoming Cataclysm expansion. I was pretty much ecstatic. I have long rallied for the arena system of old where by there were no rating requirements, but ratings determined how many points you achieved a week. Those with poor ratings often could not gain more than 200 or points a week, which meant 6 to 8 weeks of arena just to get a pair of pants!

Blizzard got it completely wrong, I'm not afraid to say it. They blame the failure of interest in TBC raiding on the easy access of arena gear. TBC raiding failed because of the massive system shock to guilds, both from the initial cut of numbers from 40 to 25, and then the progression path that involved a 10 man raid. The jump from easy mode Karahzan to SSC/TK definitely didn't help the issue.

Gaining gear through arenas was often called "welfare", but it was damn hard to get at the same time. By their own word, the majority of players were at 1500 rating. The system was a bell curve. If Blizzard felt that players were getting gear too quickly, then all they had to do was raise the cost of pieces of arena gear. Instead they added the horrible rating system, trying to promote raiding by removing access to weapons. The archaic concept of raiding in order to gain upgrades to weapons was pulled straight from someones ass.

Honestly, not much has changed with the inclusion of the rating system. The same players still gain the same approximate amount of upgrades as if there weren't rating requirements at all, they're just limited to gloves and legs instead of getting to choose from the entire 5 peice set. The bigger problem is the removal of accessable weapons to players who don't want to PvE.

Back to the topic though. The rated battlegrounds aren't actually worth... anything. So far there's no conclusion on if players will gain seperate rating for bg's then their arena ratings, but the general consensus looks like it is tied to your arena rating. Many people are throwing around the idea that rated bg's will up your arena rating, and that's how you will gain bonus arena points. I can't believe that that is the system, but knowing Blizzard, these people may be right.

Two huge problems with rated battlegrounds that I can't believe Blizzard is stupid enough to implement. 1) You are only allowed to play around 6 game a week. What? What in the world is the point then? Why only 6 games, the entire point of rated battle grounds was to let players enjoy battle grounds and get back into the PvP progression path that arenas blocked them from. Then there's the even bigger issue. 2) No PuG's. Only full teams of 10, 15, or whatever the number of people play an AV match is, can queue for a rated BG. So close Blizzard, so close yet so stupidly far. All that is needed is the no rating change if you lose concept, coupled with a BG MMR and normal rating system, and you end up in a situation where people can PuG to their hearts content and progress in your game.

Rated battlegrounds at this point in time are nothing more than a gimmick. They aren't meant for the casual player to have a means of end game progression, they aren't meant for BG lovers to have a means of end game progression, it's nothing but hot air to make their expansion look better if you don't do your research. Just reading the info on MMO-Champ about rated BG's will leave you nowhere near the actual idea.

Blizzard, you need to bring back PvP progression for casual players. Does everyone deserve all the best gear? No. Does everyone deserve a chance at that gear? Yes. I still feel that Season 2 arena was the best PvP progression path WoW has ever shown. The old argument that shoulders are seen and worth something is actually really bad these days, with how horrible and small the shoulders look, they just aren't as big as they used to be back in Season 3. Rating should determine how many arena points you gain, the speed at which you can aquire PvP gear. A 1500 rated player should be able to accomplish 2 pieces of season gear through arenas by 80% of the way through the season if they play every day. An 1800 rated player should accomplish 4 pieces by 80%. A 2k+ player should accomplish all 5 pieces by 75%. And that's not even including the weapons. An arena weapon for a 1500 rated player, back in Season 2, would take over 50% of the season to gain enough points.

It looks like I'll be picking WoW back up anyway, and I'll try my best at 3v3 arenas, hopefully my priest will take me back and they'll kick their rogue, but who knows. I can just BG too, and thankfully they're reintroducing a PvP honor weapon this coming season... last I heard anyway. It's always fun wrecking max pvp geared arena players in BG's because they're terrible at anything outside of a box. Just like I'm terrible inside a box.

New Server

So I'm on Zul'Jin now. No longer guilded, no longer raiding. Just there to do 2v2 arenas of all things. WoW, for myself as well as many others, has lost a lot of its charm over the past couple of years. This is probably at no fault to the developers, as many people I've talked to have come to the conclusion that MMO's can only keep a person entranced for so long. Sure, you'll keep playing them and paying for them, but the game is never what it was the first time you played it. Managing to harness that excitement of New is something nobody has ever really managed to do. Not that I think anyone has really tried. Most games seem to focus on replayability, not a continual growth where you as the player, as well as your character, is going through a never ending eye opening increase of awareness.

That's one thing that maybe makes gamers feel comfortable with games. In the real world the rules are always becoming new, if not changing outright. Sure, the basics are all there, money buys things, death, etc. But the person grows in new awareness every day, their emotions constantly changing. In the game world, my characters emotions don't grow, and if they do, they stop once the story ends. My emotions to the character grows, but the thing about that is that it is obviously artificial life. That's probably a decent argument against video games causing violence. If people thought video games were real then when their character died in it they'd expect it to not come back. And if the person believed that if they died in reality that they would come back... well that's an obvious mental issue as opposed to video games causing violence.

The new Furious weapons, the 2200, look amazing, and they are actually equivalent to Ulduar hard mode 25 man. Which needless to say, is great for me because I don't plan on doing Ulduar, let alone on hard mode. Whether or not I can actually get 2200 rating... well, we'll just have to see. I'm hoping I can hit at least 2000, and then by some stroke of luck Blizzard will patch in the changes to Exorcism and that will push me up 200 points for 2 weeks before they revert the changes. Sad, but that's what I'm going for right now.

Still looking for work. Another reason so little time is spent on WoW now. This isn't the best time to be blogging, while searching for work, but I figure if I put in a plug about what I'm looking for it will be alright. Anything writing, editing, research, analysis, whatever, I can do it. Just need something. I am still corresponding for MMORPG.com. But that's $20 a month... so... right. It is fun writing articles for them though.