WoW » The Grouchy Gamer

MMO Elitism and You!

Community, Design, Opinion, Rant, What I'm Playing 13 Responses »

May 252010

Elitist Last week, Wolfshead’s thoughtfully written and nicely crafted article about Why the MMO Industry Needs a Real Cataclysm set me to thinking. First of all, I don’t have nearly the industry pedigree that he has. Second of all, he took an idea from mid air and fleshed it out with cogent arguments. Third, it was thoughtful and passionate. Good on him. Let me tell you why he’s wrong.

He’s not wrong for the same reason Tobold says he is in his rebuttal Blizzard and McDonalds. Tobold’s rebuttal is also well written and uses an analogy that is very apt to rebut the ideas that Wolfshead presented. Don’t misunderstand, Tobold is right on, but his analysis is different from mine and is largely from the company’s point of view.

I wanted to address this even before Tobold did, but his article got me wanting to post.

Let’s look at this from a player’s point of view first. Then I’d like to address the evident contempt that is out there for Blizzard from others in the development community.

First Wolfshead starts out with a section called The Farmville Curse. I couldn’t agree with him more on that point. Those aren’t “MMOs” and I think I would say that Facebook games in general are pushing the definition of “game” to it’s limits. I have no argument with him there.

Darren is going to Blow A Gasket

Business, Gaming, What I'm Playing 4 Responses »

Apr 152010

Forgive me Father, it’s been almost 90 days since my last post.

A while ago, you might remember Darren over at The Common Sense Gamer losing his mind a little when one of the publishers had the audacity to ask for $10 for an in-game horse. Well Darren is going to absolutely flip over this then.

Blizzard is selling a mount on the Blizzard Pet Store. You can get your Celestial Steed now on the Blizzard Store for only $25 US. What a deal, right? I know Tarkheena is looking for her credit card right now. I think they are going to sell a TON of these. What do you guys think though? How much is too much?

I still think that any of this stuff that is not germane to game play is fair game. I don’t need it to craft, or to store items, or to access content. It’s purely cosmetic. As a matter of fact, reports are that the mount will scale to the speed of your fastest mount. So it’s almost literally just a skin on whatever you already possess. I’ll probably end up with one. They are pretty cool looking.

There is some understandable Nerd Rage about this, but I go back to the fact that it’s an in-game collectible, and nothing more. If Blizzard starts asking for money for unlocks, or crafting goods, or bag space, then you will hear more from me. Until then I think I’m going to enjoy seeing what they come up with next to separate us from our money.

Healing the Anitsocial and My Role in it

Community, Gaming, Opinion, What I'm Playing 11 Responses »

Jan 152010

I’ve been making some observations lately in WoW regarding healing and the Dungeon Finder. I’ve been thinking about writing about it for a few days, but Spinks and Syp have both beat me to it.

Spinks article is about “You can’t heal stupid,” which is absolutely correct. Syp writes about the unwritten rules that healers have in “The Secret Life of Healers.”

Both of them allude to or outright point out that most healers in the game (I play a Resto Shaman as one of my dual mains) have a set of rules for healing people, particularly people in Random Heroic Groups. We probably all had rules that we had in our minds from doing PUGs, but not many people did as many dungeons doing PUGs as we do now with the Dungeon Finder. This has amplified our issues as healers and brought them to the forefront of our thinking. Before this I never really thought that much about them but over the course of the last few weeks I have had time to consider this quite a lot.

For the benefit of all the ADHD tanks, fire-and-forget ranged DPS, and don’t-quite-know-they-aren’t-the-tank melee DPS folks out there, here are some things to consider should you be lucky enough to be in a Heroic I am healing. I am willing to bet that there are even some other healers who will agree with these, so think of them as rules to live by.

We're Getting the Band Back Together!

Community, TGG, What I'm Playing 9 Responses »

Jan 132010

So on the Casualties of War (CoW) (www.casualtiesguild.com) forums the other day I noticed that a few of the folks in there were interested in getting going in WoW again. And I said to myself; “Self, YOU are playing WoW. Wouldn’t it be great to get a CoW group together again over on the Rexxar server?” So that is what we are doing.

Daevilchylde, whose idea it was to get going again in the first place, has graciously allowed the reigns of the Casualties guild over there to be thrust upon him.

We would love for anyone who is playing WoW or is thinking about playing WoW who has had anything to do with CoW or The Grouchy Gamer or I’m Talkin’ Games to get over there and help us get stuff running again.

So what are you waiting for? Make a character (or fire up an old one) and do a /who casualties and see who is on (there aren’t many of us yet) and ask for an invite.

Let’s find a way to play together again! Looking forward to seeing more people on in the near future!

I'm an Idiot

Business, Opinion, What I'm Playing 11 Responses »

Nov 052009

I may have used that title before, because let’s face it.. In my case it’s pretty recyclable.

I’ve ranted here before about microtransactions, and the negative effects of RMT on today’s games. I’m not a big fan. But what I don’t like is the type of MT that gates or changes game play. So when Blizzard announced this week that they were adding the Pet Store to their Blizzard store for use in WoW, you might expect that I would have a problem with that as well.

Instead, as you can see here, I now own one. It’s actually fun, as people can come up and bow to him, and he will bow back. He’ll also do some animations that are kinda fun.

I’m still not a fan of changing game play with MT. Even the moves that SOE made this week rubbed me the wrong way, converting Free Realms from a Free To Play to a Fee to Pay. But to me, cosmetic things like this are harmless. If you think they are stupid, you don’t have to buy one to remain competitive or able to play. So you are free to take a pass. To those who say that they are too much money, I say the same thing. If it’s too much money, don’t buy it. You don’t need it to raid/crawl/craft or whatever you like most in the game. It’s really something you can ignore if you think it’s overpriced.

Me, I’ve already got my $10 worth out of the little guy. Had some fun parading him around Dalaran tonight and watching others interact or try to interact with him.

I’m interested to see what else may come along for this kind of thing. Armor dyes, color swatches to match up all your armor, other pets? All of this kind of thing are the least objectionable form of MT to me. The first time they ask me for cash for a key to a dungeon or the like I’m gone though. How about you guys?

Blizzard: Game Development-Just Slow Down

Business, Design, Gaming 5 Responses »

Sep 192009

All of us love our games (I assume you do too, and that is why you are here) and most of us want exciting new games to come along. We want them fun, we want them nuanced, we want them polised. Oh, and we want them right damn now. Why does it take so long to develop a game anyway? While I suspect that most of us have ideas why games take so long, I think that most of us don’t really think about some realities that govern whether a game is polished (seemingly a large yardstick for measuring the success of a game), fun, and attractive to us. I don’t think most of us have any idea of the scope of these games or the resources required to develop or operate and manage them.

During AGDC this week during 2 separate events Blizzard Entertainment shared what they think makes them unique in this regard.

The first, a Gamasutra interview with Blizzard lead content designer Kevin Martens is relatively simple: Iteration. Taking something and playing and testing it over and over. Tweaking it and playing and testing it over and over again. I suspect that many of us would expect that this is the essence of “polish”. How can something be polished without lots of testing and lots of adjustments from what you found while testing? Of course all of this iteration costs money, so that excludes some studios who may be operating on a shoestring or are under time-pressure to release a game. It’s also clear that this is why Blizzard takes so bloodly long to get anything out.

Blizzard Proving Willing to Make the Big Change

Design, Opinion 5 Responses »

Aug 232009

When we are talking about the events in MMO history that have caused a company to become reviled among the player base, the Star Wars: Galaxies NGE is frequently brought to the forefront. SOE still hasn’t lived down the whole debacle. It’s not even entirely clear that it was their idea, as I hear a lot of people who should know such things point their fingers at LucasArts. SOE would still be to blame for the timing, just days after an expansion shipped that a large percentage of their player base paid for. SOE or LucasArts, it’s hard to argue against that event being the nail in the coffin of SW:G’s hopes of world dominance.

With that as a background, Blizzard announces this week that they are going to make sweeping changes to their Goose in the hopes that it will continue to lay Golden Eggs at the same or an increasing rate. For the most part, other than the Horde getting screwed with gobby’s as a race when the Alliance is getting effing Werewolves, the player base looks at it and says a collective; “Hells yeah.”

What’s the difference?

Well there are many and fundamental differences. I won’t rehash what SOE did too much other than to say that they changed the fundamental nature of the game, some even say the genre. Blizzard is continuing it’s tradition of changing and rebalancing classes on a continual basis, but overall the fundamental game play will stay similar. There are going to be a LOT of new features in Cataclysm, but most of them are net-new stuff and won’t likely be viewed as take-aways. Blizzard is also giving us something that no other MMO company in my (admittedly faulty) memory has done, which is to go back and try to make the old, tired, and trivial content usable and playable again. I think this makes a lot of sense, because you can redevelop and area and make it good a lot faster than you can go and make new areas, and adding new stuff doesn’t address your abandoned content problem.

I don’t know how the Cataclysm is going to work out. I am willing to be they will sell a ton of it, but it remains to be seen how the whole things comes together. A lot can definitely go wrong. Blizzard’s track record suggests it probably will be mostly solid. We’ll see, I guess.

For now, I have to say that I’m impressed that they are willing to take a chance and do something bold. This is certainly bold, if nothing else. I hope it works out for them. There’s nothing I want more than a dilemma about whether I should be playing WoW or SWToR, or even Copernicus, if that is out during that time frame. Choices are what it’s all about. It’s going to be a while before we find out if this is a good one for Blizzard.

Big Class Changes to Accompany Cataclysm

Design 5 Responses »

Aug 212009

In addition to the huge changes coming to the game world, it appears that WoW 4.0 is going to bring some pretty substantial changes to the way the classes work. I’m going to reference an article that I’ll link from the live blog at Blizzcon’s Class, Items, and Professions Panel today. Here are the major points…

Goblin Racials will be Rocket Jump (20 Yard jump, 2 minute cooldown), 1% increase to attack and casting speed, Pack Hobgoblin (calling a personal servant to run your bank errands every 30 minutes) and +15 to Alchemy.
Worgen Racials are Darkflight (sprint, on a cooldown), Reduced duration on curses and diseases, Flayer (bonus to skinning, no need for skinning knife), and of course Worgen form. You can choose to be human or Worgen out of combat, but in combat you are always Worgen.
Soul shards will not take up bag space. They are reworking the shard mechanic completely, may end up being generated on a cooldown.
Summoning demons will no longer take soul shards.
Lots of changes to fears and instant casts.
Hunters will no longer use mana. They will have a stat called Focus, which you may remember if you were in the beta. It’s a similar mechanic to Rogue energy.
Ammo may become an item, rather than a consumable.
MP5 is probably going away. Spirit will inherit it’s functionality. (I’ve always thought it was odd to have both. Very confusing for a lot of people.)
Healers will get “Meditiation-like abilities.”
Spell power and attack power are going away completely.
Intellect will scale both your mana and your damage.
Agility now provides AP for rogues, hunters, shaman, and druids. ”No more plate-wearers stealing your gear”
Defense will be gone.
Tanks will recieve anti-crit via abilities.
Armor penetration will be gone. (Yay!)
Adding a stat called Mastery, which sounds just as confusing. More on that tomorrow.
Haste will speed up casting for casters, and energy/rage/etc. for melee. No attack speed increase.
Block will now mitigate a percentage of the damage.
New legendary item, “Shadowmourne”, a 2-handed Axe. ”Obviously a Hunter weapon” they joke.
New profession archaeology. Still a lot to be decided there. Evidently you will use it to open “Paths of the Titans”.
Looks like it will unlock titles, vanity pets, maybe other special abilities.
Reforging will allow you to “increase customization of your gear”
Making fishing more fun. They’d almost have to.
Planning on making racials more interesting.
Trade skills will increase another 75 points, new title: “Illustrious”
There will be a caster legendary item in the first WOW:C raid
Talk about making Shaman better AE healers, toning down Priest and Druid group healing.

There will be another panel tomorrow. I’ll keep an eye out and if I see anything interesting, I’ll let you guys know.

Original Live Blog here..

It's True! It's a Cataclysm

Business, Design, What I'm Playing 4 Responses »

Aug 212009

All of the rumors turned out to be true.

It's a Cataclysm

Which means they weren’t rumors at all. That means someone seriously stole Blizzard’s thunder by leaking that information. We reported it here a few weeks ago, and MMO-Champion took the report to a level of detail that turned out to be very factual. They claimed that people found this by data mining, and some of that might be true, but it sure looks like they got some inside information. It’s turned out to be true, almost verbatim.

So what does that mean for WoW players? In my opinion it creates what has to be the most exciting expansion yet. But this expansion is certainly not without risk.

When the news broke officially today I was at work without access to the Blizzard web site or this one. Of course, I had to comment so I did what everyone else seems to be doing today and turned to Twitter. Here is what I said;

We’re all excited about Cataclysm now. What’s the over/under on the date that people will call for “classic” servers?

You know how we are. And when I say “we” I mean us MMO gamers. We clamor for something when we like the romantic notion of it, but we don’t necessarily like it when we get it. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that this one is going to be a little different. I do believe that there will be those who long for the “old” Azeroth once it’s gone. I can totally see Branyanu and I running around somewhere in the old world the last days before the patch hits, soaking it in one last time. We did that at the end of beta, parking our favorite beta characters up on the top of a mountain as we watched the server click down to the end, never to see them again. I’m sure that nostalgia will strike again.

But in reality, the old zones have served their purpose, and now lie mostly dormant. The ones that don’t are often the scene of level 80′s murdering level 30′s. Maybe in the post-Cataclysmic Azeroth there will be mechanisms that make that harder to do. If you’ve read this blog for a while you know I’m no fan of Wolf vs. Sheep PVP. But I digress. The old zones will now be filled with new scenery, monsters, and challenges. Blizzard has already said that the monsters are “leveling up” as we speak. Sounds like they are planning on shaking up the old bestiary too, at least on how tough they are.

I’m not going to report all the new features, you all probably already know them. If not click the graphic of the new logo above to be taken to the Cataclysm official site.

Are you guys looking forward to this as much as I am?

Painting With a Broad Brush

Community, Opinion 2 Responses »

Aug 142009

Antisocial Much?

I’ve been reading Tobold’s series of posts since his un-retirement (from blogging) that all share the “Why we play” theme. I think his posts are thoughtful and incisive, although I don’t always agree with him.

One thing I’m noticing is that there seems to be a distinct “what’s wrong with WoW” tint to the series. For example, in the current post, Why do we play? – Social interactions. Tobold points out why the social temperature in WoW is poor, while it is better in “free2Play” games. Specifically, he points out that raiding guilds are like professional sports teams;

But a professional sports team isn’t a group of friends who decided to play together, but rather an assembly of people each talented for whatever position he is playing. And WoW raiding guilds are designed around the same principles: Guilds don’t recruit nice players, they recruit a “healer with epic gear”. There are guilds where you can get kicked out for crimes like taking a three-week holiday. And good luck explaining to your guild that you are retiring your raiding priest, because you’d rather reroll a hunter.

Noah, party of 2 please...

Gaming, Opinion, Prediction 5 Responses »

Jul 072009

Hi everyone. Genda asked me to take a few moments and post some thoughts on the end of the world as we know it. No, I’m no a preacher with a wooden sign over my shoulders screaming about Armageddon. No, I’m not talking about people paying 5 grand to watch Kobe Bryant talk at Michael Jackson’s Memorial (And really, Kobe? why?). And no, I’m not talking about Star Wars The Old Republic’s release date (which we all know we’ll be clamoring for).

No, I’m here to talk about The Cataclysm. Not “A” Cataclysm. THE Cataclysm.

The cataclysm is the Greek expression for the Deluge, from the Greek kataklysmos, to ‘wash down’ (kluzen “wash” + kata “down”)* – Source Wikipedia.com

This past week, Blizzard decided to file for copyrights to the name regarding computer games, paper based products, and, lo and behold, online entertainment services. COUGH wow COUGH. Everyone knows with Blizzard you take it as it comes. Some people have already looked at this as the name of their next Generic MMO, rumored to be working on the Xbox. Others have seen it as something to do with Daiblo III or potentially Starcraft II.

One smart guy though saw this… and said, oh wait…

Swirlies for the win... or complete wipeout

Swirls for the win... or complete wipe-out

Yup, that’s the center of the map from your friendly neighborhood WOW MMO. It’s been like that since pretty much day one. Speculating that this is truly the name of the next WOW expansion, and taking into consideration some facts about WOW Lore, here’s the short run down.

Blizzard Expert at Prolonging Game Time

Design, Opinion 1 Response »

Jun 302009

So you have been plodding along playing WoW. You’re over the group that you have been playing with or your guild disintegrates. One of your friends (or a blog writer) convinces you to restart on another server and on the opposite faction. You level that character up, all the way to max or near-max level. You fall in love with the new class you are playing. Then that deal falls apart too.

You get talked into going back to your original faction, but you miss your high-level (insert class here.) Oh, that character also has a few thousand gold. What do you do?

Fret not my friends. Blizzard has sensed your malaise and has offered a solution. According to an article on WoW.com Blizzard will soon be offering a new Faction Switching Service, for a reasonable fee I’m sure, that will allow you to turn your gnome into an Orc or your Tauren into a Space Goat. This wow.com article was derived from this post on the WoW forums, which now has over a hundred pages of responses. People definitely have an opinion on this service.

I opined earlier that a lot of the catering to the user base is bad for the game. I’ve reconsidered. Exploiting a title for all it’s worth is management’s job. So in spite of all the altruistic qualities we gamers would like to see our fearless leaders espouse, at the end of the day they report to their stakeholders. How well they deliver what we want is what is going to drive the revenue to satisfy those stakeholders, so it’s a blade’s edge they walk. This is something at which Blizzard has become expert.

As soon as I brought this up in guild chat, people started thinking and every one of our core players mentioned not one but two high or max-level characters that they would bring over to the guild from the other faction. Myself, I have a Lock and a DK over on Rexxar that I wouldn’t mind playing more. I loved my DK but I haven’t had time to start leveling a new one over on Jaedenar where I play now.

Older Entries

The Grouchy Gamer

MMO Elitism and You!

Darren is going to Blow A Gasket

Healing the Anitsocial and My Role in it

We're Getting the Band Back Together!

I'm an Idiot

Blizzard: Game Development-Just Slow Down

Blizzard Proving Willing to Make the Big Change

Big Class Changes to Accompany Cataclysm

It's True! It's a Cataclysm

Painting With a Broad Brush

Noah, party of 2 please...

Blizzard Expert at Prolonging Game Time

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