Thursday, May 17, 2012

Awesome

So as an ally and I run to go get Farm from BS, I notice one guy who sees us and is trying to beat us to the point. And that point I just start casting cyclone, hoping beyond hope it will work. It does. The enemy is trapped, sitting watching my teammate cap Farm.

All to win the game. I was so stoked. Then I had second most honor in the BG and I was pleased.

This came after I singlehandedly held off at least 5 or 6 people off of mine, preventing them from capping for at least a minute longer than I should have. This prevented them from assisting other points most importantly. The resources gained from those couple seconds aren't important. It's bringing the enemy out of position that's key.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

No Kills

I just want to write up the story of this BG before I forget. Typical BfG, and my whole team goes WW. I am a feral cat, so I decided to try and go for the LH, since its easy to Ninja, since there's usually no one there. I watched this warrior cap it and then stand there. So I was in cloak, so I went to the place where his back was turned and then started capping. He didn't notice until I had capped it. At which point, i started fighting him. When I realized he would beat me, I flipped on entangling roots, waited until he hit me, then I put some stacks of lifebloom on me. I ran around and then another enemy joined the battle. I switched to bear mode. I love bear mode, because I have so many "oh shit" buttons, including one that lets me gain health for rage. As a bear, I am basically perfectly equipped for holding points. I can melee multiple people with swipe, then if I'm really in a pinch, I can flip berserk and melee multiple people with no cooldown with mangle. Then, if I'm dying I can flip Barkskin and Survival Instincts for less damage, and Frenzied Regeneration for health. So basically, in this game, I ninja'ed a point, held in by myself (until help showed up, which to their credit, this whole role/plan wouldn't work without them actually being able to take out the other team. I also think there was a healer healing me, so that helped a lot) and I did really well. But funnily enough, as you can see, I didn't score any killing blows. But I got the highest honor on the team.

I mean you could see it if my computer could screen shot. God damn it. Well, I had 0 killing blows, but the most honorable kills, 1 assault and the most honor.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Rainy Day

Hate when my computer cant take a screenshot. Thousand Needles. Gloomy rainy morning.

Not Bad

 Not bad for 0 resil
 Not bad

Gates

 Gates

My Father

 "My Father was a gate humper"

What Blizzard Needs to Do

What Blizzard needs to do with World of Warcraft is similar to the thing that the music industry needs to do in order to become profitable again. World of Warcraft is arguably, being ruined by the fact that we can fly. This has many reasons to it, like the fact that we have flying makes us consume content at a faster rate, it makes the game easier, and it detaches us from the world itself. It allows us to pick and choose our battles for the most part, and this leads to a detached feeling from the world. When we were ground bound, it took longer, because we had to get there. It's weird going back to an alt without flying, because actually getting there is like half the battle until level 60. What Blizzard has also done, that has made this game easier, and therefore more boring (to some. not me, but some) is they had reduced the number of items required for something, like material gathering quests or kills for reputation gains.

Now that the game is easier, how will Blizzard sustain its playerbase and not lose people because they either dont like it or run out of things to do? Blizzard will have to innovate. It will have to make content interesting enough that we will want to experience it. And so far from what I have seen, they are. They make quests that make intricate use of the flying mount, and I can tell you it's really fun to be able use my flying mount for the quests. But they have to create new game mechanics that are entertaining and engaging enough that are not the old style MMORPG quests. I don't know if I can think of another MMO that uses flying like WoW. WoW is an old school MMO at heart, at least when it began. It took a turn after Burning Crusade and the release of flying mounts. At first, flying mounts were hard to obtain, but because of the nature of expansion packs, they became the norm. By nature of expansion packs, I mean,  by being an expansion pack, one assumes that the characters will be advanced in level beyond the level cap of the previous game. So, when Wrath came out, everyone needed to get to level 80. If the flying level is 70, its necessary that everyone who experiences new content will have obtained flying at some point. So, therefore, flying becomes normal. If flying makes the game easier, that means that everyone will have an easier game. After everyone experiences this easier game, no one is going to  want to go back to the hard game. You can't go back. It will always be seen as a downgrade, and not up to the game's full potential.

What Blizzard needs to do is make us want to play the game for other reasons than the traditional MMO reasons. The tradition of old MMOs is wanting to collect something for the purpose of being a compulsive collector. What WoW needs to do is make the MMO fun. They need to make you want to collect things, but for different reasons. They have to make us want to keep playing after we've collected the things. That is something that the Star Wars: The Old Republic and (probably) The Elders Scrolls MMO haven't figured out yet, and this is why they failing. WoW is making it easier to play (Dungeon Finder, Mounts, PvP queues from anywhere, less reputation for factions), so that if you want to collect, its so much easier. We've all been trying for so long, we should just be given what we want. Why make it hard?

I don't have any suggestions really for how to make it better. But I do think that Blizzard recognizes this fact and is acting upon it. Like I said, I think their questing mechanics reflect this trend. Deepholm makes good use of flying mounts, as does the Twilight Highlands. Especially the parts with the city on the rock, The Krazzworks. They use vertical space well, and they make it useful, but not impossibly easy to complete the quests there. I think adding fighting to flying would make the game a lot different. It would add that sense of danger back into the game. It would make it so you can't AFK in the middle of the world.

Of companies I know that may be up to the challenge, Blizzard is one I expect to rise to the occasion. They needs to innovate, and that's what I see them doing. But I think most importantly, they have to deal with this flying problem.

New Ally Strat

 New Ally Strat: let Horde take everything and then HK farm us in the keep

Thursday, May 10, 2012

On Vanilla Nostalgia

In my own opinion, Cata is far more fun than vanilla. As being a player who has played since Vanilla (but couldn't raid because it required too much time), Cata is far and away the most fun the game has ever been, at least for me. I don't have lots friends who play this game, and I've had a busy schedule since starting College at the launch of Wrath, so I don't really have time to find a guild and raid with anyone. The game caters to casuals, and, shockingly enough, that's the vast majority of the player base. The vocal minority of prozone raiders are correct, in that this game is a lot easier now, but I would have it no other way. The game is fun constantly now. There are so many different things you can do at any given moment. I just think that people who say Vanilla is better are being nostalgic for that time, not actually looking at the game that existed. If Vanilla WoW released now, it would bomb.
  1. Lack of Endgame content 
  2. No dungeon finder/raid finder 
  3. No Dual specs 
  4. (this is really old) but no connected Auction Houses 
  5. Reputation was impossible to get
  6. No Mounts till 40 
  7. Gold was very difficult to make 
  8. No Achievements (debatable if this was good or not) 
  9. BG queues took forever (and you had to run to the battlemasters to join) 
  10. Sunken Temple was impossible to figure out to navigate 
  11. Have you ever tried to coordinate 40 people to do anything?
Cata is the only reason I've convinced my friend Dan to play, as he tried WoW many times before, but got bored with it. He plays now, because it's fun. I trust Dan's taste on everything (music, movies, TV shows, video games) and so I'm inclined to value his opinion on this too. So when people talk about how Vanilla was better, I'm a little hesitant to believe them.

Rose tinted goggles, yo.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

MoonGuard Goldshire

So today we went to Moonguard Goldshire while in vent with Dan and Marc. And I have some observations:


  1. Why are there so many people there? How many people are paying $15 a month to simply stand around in an Inn. Some don't even respond. A lot of them were giving lap dances
  2. It was very funny that people were mad when we would walk up to them and dance. Especially people who were homophobic about it
  3. Marc, Dan and I all tried to make ugly characters, and they all ended up being black with blonde hair
  4. People get mad when you follow them around
  5. Shouting that you're a train and shouting chuuglin sounds is rather amusing

Stuff That's Better to Buy

Elementium Ore
Whiptail

Things To Do Daily (Cata)

Transmute with Alchemy
Northrend Inscription Research
Jewelcrafting Daily
Craft Dreamcloth (weekly)