Hardcore Casual Gaming and the MMO Experience

Title's still in the works.

So this week has been hell, and I'm not even through it yet. I have one of those jobs where you get lulled into a false sense of idleness, where you joke about getting paid to sit and read webcomics, and eventually start to really question why you came into work today, before suddenly all deadlines converge into one massive, inconceivable cluster#$@! (known as the Day of Reckoning) and you can't remember the last time you were able to sleep without quivering in terror-induced stress.

That may be overdramatizing it a bit - I'm still a little out of it today.

What does this have to do with WoW, you ask? Well, if you're an avid player like myself, the better question would be what doesn't this have to do with WoW? All that time I've been spending these last few weeks working long hours, staying up later than is healthy to finish projects and cranking my massive brain trying to find to solutions to all my company's problems is time that I'm not raiding, farming and theorycrafting. It's a travesty, I tell you.

So it just figures that right in the heat of the moment (tellin' me what your heart meant...) Blizzard goes and kicks off the craziest world event evar. Zombies, plagues, invading floating fortresses of DOOM (which surely can only be taken down one way), and of course, phat lootz.

And I don't have time to get any of it.

I could go into a whole diatribe about Blizzard's treatment of casual gamers vs. the hardcore never-leave-the-basement community, but there's so many sides to both arguments that I imagine the world event would be over before I even finished the post. But I don't believe the WoW community is so black and white as to say that players either spend every waking moment on Azeroth, or log in once a weekend. Most people, like myself, find the game to be one of their primary hobbies - the source of all activity that takes up "leisure time". And for a lot of people, myself included, the actual scheduling of that leisure time isn't always set in stone.

So it's kinda aggravating when something totally sweet happens outside of that schedule.

So what's a player to do when free time is limited and you want to get the most out of your WoW experience, now so very much enriched for a limited time only?

Prioritize.

I may not be able to play all the time, but damnit, I can figure out exactly what I'm going to do as soon as I get the chance. And naturally, something that's around for a specific time only would take a pretty high ranking, but when you look at the current state of the game, pretty much everything has a time limit right now.

- Scourge Invasion Activities
- Hallow's End (less than a week! D:)
- Badge loot
- The sweet sweet taste of being well-geared, before it all comes to a crashing halt.
- Battleground insanity

I can go on. My point is, for those of us who have to budget our time, this world event comes bittersweet. I'm impressed with Blizzard's groundbreaking efforts in MMO storytelling and overall immersion into the new content. I'm a little pissed off that I'm barely going to have a chance to see it.

Coldridge Mountaineers

So, in a fit of fun, Aidnan and I (Flintcrack) made a Guild, with a snaz tabard, and a bitchin' theme. We promptly filled it with characters so that one of everything is present. However, it is a guild of dwarves striving to protect the mountains of Dun Morough, and in a meditative exercise of consciousness striving to protect the little people everywhere, which of course gives them the excuse of having other races in their motley crew, and to travel outside the confines of the Mountains around Iron Forge. 

Not that we're, you know, Roleplaying, or whatever. Cuz we're not. 

But anyway, I have a Dwarf Priest, and a Night Elf Druid, and of course they are small frys. Which brings us to the point where I don't have to call them Bank alts anymore, because the fun of all this is the bank space. I mean goodness. Talk about an improvement over having bank alts. 

At first, I filled it with everything my Hunter didn't need. What did I need stacks of Netherweave and Primal Fires for anyway? My bank cleaned out quickly, accept for the silly stuff like clothes to wear to special events, or soulbound equipment I haven't quite given up yet (just in case). Of course this led me to cleaning out the Guild Bank, which is now down to bare bones. And at the end of all things I finally recognize that you don't really need all the crap you collect. I mean, I have a hunter item that you can't even see on me even if I equip it, and it doesn't actually improve my stats at all now days: Toss.  I have a flower: Toss. I even had a picture of a gnome from Un'goro and his girlfriend: Toss. A boomerang?! TOSS. 4 Halaa Battle Tokens: TOSS! (I don't even World PvP!) About fifty or so things later, I have a neat, organized, clean set of banks. 

However, this wouldn't be TDaaB if I didn't talk about my pets. 70 Chimera, 70 Cat, 70 Gorilladin, 70 T-Rex, 70 Wasp. Can I just say the Wasp is very fun with Swoop? The sound CLANG is super!

Bring me the head of... oh wait!

So I've seen the Horseman's Blade drop 7 times, and I haven't won a roll yet. Not that I need a one-hand sword. But it's neat, you know? It looks kinda fun. I'll definitely want it for my Death Knight's town sword. Heh. But, alas, this post isn't really about all that.

It's about pets.

Lots, and lots, and lots of pets, all named after geology, or really just rocks. I've leveled a bear, a wolf, a cat, a turtle, a devilsaur, a raptor, a spider, and some others to 69 and 70. On the Island it takes about an hour and a half, really. The Gorilla was the fastest. My top count of Gorilla killing at a single time is fourteen. The trick is that you can't thunder stomp with each new mob you add, otherwise the older mobs actually die before you can apply damage. Unless you plink at them here and there to make some damage that'll stick for if they die (so you can get the pet xp and loot them). I think I'm reviled by Paladin farmers everywhere. They spit on me and make rude gestures. I don't get the hate, frankly. Every class has its own little AoE tricks, and they shouldn't feel somehow diminished by someone else getting a chance.

I hate the raptor skins from Outlands, so my Raptor is from Dustwallow Marsh. (I could link these but that would be telling. You should find what makes you happy!) In fact, all my pets are rare or rare elite. From my dinosaur King M, to my Gorilla from Stranglethorn, to my Chimera from Netherstorm, I've been a busy bee. If the Core Hound comes up again (that was just... messed, going in for it), ok, I might toss a dino. But frankly I think I need to narrow it down somewhat.

So, so far, my rare Winterspring frostsaber is my cat. She's beautiful, she's enjoyable, and last night she tanked Onyxia for a solid third of the fight without breaking a sweat. She's just mean.  The Devilsaur, frankly, doesn't come close. Yes, he grows in size, yes he's entertaining, and he's loads of funny. But he just doesn't eat enemies like you'd want. Bleed is where it is at. And no I don't think it's over-powered, not when compared to the speed of everyone else's damage in comparison to my own. I think we're right spot on. Good job Blizz.

I am 1/2 way to getting an elephant pvp mount. I am 1/2 way to getting a frostsaber mount from Winterspring. I am 1/2 way to being so cool it's epic!

So when you see me riding around on my elephant, and fighting with a gorilla or a dinosaur, know that I am in love with the game all over again, and finally feel like Blizz has rewarded me for all the money I've spent month after month when we were in the 4 year suck phase.

Hee.

Thoughts from the 3.0.2 Login Screen

- Okay, no expectations.

- I dunno if I can adjust to not having the Dark Portal greeting me at the login screen. I mean, there's not even anything framing the textboxes now.

- Oo, dragon.

- Yeah, stuck at Retrieving characters. This is gonna take awhile.

- Digging the new music. It takes awhile then it totally comes back to the themes we all know and love.

- Aw, come back dragon!

- That spire right in the middle of the login info is kinda distracting. I wonder why they did that.

- Man, this music really goes on for awhile. That's cool that they beefed it up, but honestly, how many people are gonna sit and listen to the whole thing? I mean, besides today?

- In retrospect, maybe having 9 alts on one server was a bad idea.

- Holy crap, it's the Auctioneer scanning theme! Or whatever is was supposed to be originally.

- Where does the dragon go? You never see it (her?) come back around. Is she flying behind my head or something?

- Okay, soprano choir's getting old after the second run through. Still digging the Stormwind theme thrown in there. It's like, what the hell, Barrens music. Nobody's gonna hear it anyway.

- Shut up you stupid dragon! God I can't wait to farm you!

- Oops, now we've lost authentication. Blizzard is not having a good day.

- I wonder how much OT they get paid for this.

- I was thinking about checking the other servers I have alts on but now I can't even do that!

- Okay, can't take any more choir music. Trying again in 30 minutes.

- ... What the hell did I used to do with my free time before WoW?

- There's thing on my desk. A 'Wii'? The hell?

- Okay, now the song's stuck in my head and I don't even have WoW on.

- And I'm on. 10 till 7 PM. Not bad.

Patch Day '08

Another patch, another day's worth of barely concealed anticipation while I sit at work waiting with baited breath for the horror stories to start flooding in on what does and does not work, what's OP, what's nerfed, and which additions of content are truly awesome in standard Blizzard fashion.

I remember a time when that sentence would have made absolutely no sense to me.

So far the biggest piece of news prior to the servers coming back up (and it remains to be seen if they'll actually be up on time) is the fact that the patch's class changes are "not complete." There's so much irony in this news that it's honestly hard for me to talk about it without chuckling balefully to myself in my elitist meta-gamer way, but I'll try to summarize.

That anybody actually thinks the changes to classes, all the tweaks and outright upheavals to talent trees, new and revamped skills, and various other mechanics will ever reach a "completed" state are in clear denial of how this process works. I blame console RPGs. You never get updates to the game mechanics of a Final Fantasy. But when was the last time you saw a D&D source book that said "Final Version"? It never ends. It just grows. Such is World of Warcraft.

So people are hemming and hawing, as they are wont to do, about the fact that the patch isn't "done" and therefore is "broken", because we're not getting all the changes we've been reading about - and subsequently hemming and/or hawing about - in beta. I honestly think it's the best thing that could happen, because the scope of the changes in beta is huge. Trying to unload all of the modifications on a community so saturated with veterans would potentially cripple any activity that happens between now and November 13th. Blizzard has some big plans for the game - broad, sweeping plans to reign in what's been left out of control for too long - and it needs to be a phased approach. Pruning the big changes that drop today - spellpower, hit/crit merging, base mana costs - before throwing in all the bells and whistles on the roster is going to give them a much higher chance of getting things working in time for Wrath to come out.

The thing that cracks me up about it is how so many people are quick to jump on the bandwagon of claiming that Blizzard has no idea what they're doing based on these events. But it's typical for those with any strong personal opinions on things they love to assume that if they don't know all the rationale, no one else can. Which is why, even though seeing various QQing and griefing on the forums about Blizzard's lack of organization or instability-inducing changes gives me some aggravation (because I disagree), I still enjoy seeing all of the furor because it's clear that it's coming from a community that's passionate about this pastime we share.

So rage on, nerdragers.

Meanwhile, I will be sitting here waiting in my stupid WoW-less cube for 5:00 to roll around so I can go home and gleefully tear my Poisons hotkey off my action bar, never to be seen again.

Casualties of Wotlk!

So with the supposed pre-Wrath patch dropping tomorrow, if all rumors prove true, we're having massive changes to pets, what with being hunters and all. Well, Aidnan doesn't, but I do. (You know, he's a Rogue.) So at any rate I have 3 pets, Onyx, Sapphire, and Emerald. Now I have one pet, being Sapphire. First, I did this because nostalgia has it's place but when you get right down to it I don't need 3 out of my 5 possible pets to be cats just because they're pretty. Granted, I think ultimately I'll go back and retame Emerald, and replace Sapphire. And Onyx is all good and fine but frankly a see-through kitty that doesn't seem to grow as you do and seems dainty and small and I feel like less of a dwarf playing with her. 

Which brings us to what I want now. So many choices! I'll have Hozzer within an hour. I've wanted a bear for years, since 2004. I had a bear when I began playing, but being a Huntard (yes, I used the actual term) I ended-up giving him up going for any old pet each zone I zoned into. And by 50 I was all over the place with pets with no Loyalty and it took all of 2005 to settle down and stick to a pet. Heh. (That was my big pet learning year.)

I'm considering a crow. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. Granting that they're ferocity pets and so are cats, it seems redundant, despite the attack power nerf they have. 

I was considering going and getting King Mosh. But I've always disliked dinosaurs. Heh. And given that he is also a ferocity pet again with the redundancy. So it comes down to which does more damage, the special ability of Moshy, or Kitty, and Kitty cuts past armor with its bleed, so it might just be Kitty.

If I switch out of Beast Mastery (which is what I like the most) I may go for a snowy wolf. 

I'm definitely getting a Whooly Rhino. Stampede just seems like entirely too much fun not to have.  Nuff said.

For future reference, when I hit 76, I will be getting this beautiful creature here. There's no question. I'm all over that skin like fuzzy on a snowshoe bunny. 

I haven't really looked at cunning pets like the bald eagle. But it does sort-of make me feel a little patriotic. 

So, let's recap. I'm going to try out two ferocity, one tenacity, one exotic, and 1 cunning pet, and as I sift through the data I get out of them I am going to try to narrow it down to 1 or 2 pets to level with come Wrath of the Lich King. And I'm almost 99% positive its going to be a bear.

Now, what's funny is I'm sitting here in the other window in agony over what spec my cat should be for the day. It's so silly. 

The BlizzCon Deprived

It's interesting that I choose to start my World of Warcraft Blogging career on Sunday the 12, simply because I've spent the week leading up to BlizzCon 2008 reading blogs like BRK's BigRedKitty and listening to Podcasts all weekend.  Going to College and looking for a job (sort of) will do that, make you all envious!

My career as a dwarf hunter on the Perenolde server was sort-of at a pre- Wrath of the Lich King

sticking point but that's fine, because frankly everyone else is in the same situation. I've been presented with the usual pre-anything variety of crap. Here's the short list:

Leggings of Beast Mastery dropped in a Crypts instance (which I had decided to change things up from doing my Daily quests to do a Daily instance). I asked in the Party chat if anyone mind if I took it, given it's a massive update for me going into Wrath and the party leader, a Paladin named Pronne, he says no, everyone gets to Greed.  Now, I'm no ninja, I'm a pretty nice guy, so I hit greed, and I was overwhelmed with anger at myself for not sticking up for myself. What was anyone going to do with it? Sell it on the AH? Probably. So they can buy their little battle wagons or what not. But long story short I left the party just because to me taking that update (huge update!) out of the hands of someone who could use it, over someone who just wanted to sell it for profit, flew in the face of the spirit of comradeship that used to be WoW.

Do I get angry like that often? Not really. I mean, I do. But I don't. Because I know that things get replaced and you're always crawling forward. But I've had the same pants for about 9 months, and it would have been fun to have something different just to shake it up. I was more frustrated that as soon as that tank got the item I knew it's fate and it's a fate so stupid. Little #s next to his Gold in his primary inventory bag.

When I first started playing WoW it was a very community-oriented game with a lot of people helping one another but of course gold sellers and economists have somewhat destabilized the nice. Now people are guarded, jaded, and frustrated with one another. I remember the days when a purple would drop and people would rush to Ironforge to give it to the first class representative who showed up on the bridge at the bank. It's impossible to find a guild (I really need to work on finding a way to raid end-game Wrath) that doesn't just fall to pieces over any little overly dramatic thing. But! I can't complain. I really love being me. I'm not only the only me on my server, I'm the only me on the whole of WoW! Not many players can say that. Not many, no. And I didn't have to use any fancy naming characters to name me either. Just the sound my blunderbuss makes when I pull the trigger at some Scourge scum.

So that's my short list. I'm pretty positive that these sorts of things are just 'we are all frustrated waiting for the next stage of the game to drop so we can change the hair styles we've looked at for 4 years'. Mwa-hah. The Barber Shop, the feature I know I've been waiting for since, well, forever. That battle wagon can drive off a tall cliff for all I care. 

My current goals are to update my belt, my trinket, and pants. Oh, and stop blowing all my gold on alts. Heh. 

My current focus in Interspace is to listen to Podcasts that are discussing organizing Hunters all over the world so that they can join raids. I am trying to track down the player who's organizing this service, and see what I can do as a player to maybe join in, offer moral support, and hell mail her all the pennys on my bedroom floor.