Friday, March 27, 2009

Wintergrasp For Teh Win!

Lummy's latest interpretation of what Kaplan said about vehicles had something to do with Wintergrasp... I found that to be inaccurate. I do however believe this is to do with vehicles in Quests. The one thing I hated about the vehicles in some quests is that the vehicles were not all designed with the same functionality. The ones made earlier on in development were more difficult to operate then some of the later versions. The controls are not always obvious to the driver. Someone like me with a Warlock, already has a million icons on the screen and may not notice a couple they slipped in there.

Wintergrasp, is Blizzard's first attempt at merging the two end game arenas of PvP and Raiding. The awards for both of the higher end stuff can be obtained through raiding and then there is the arena awards, but that is really for the hard core folks that like to fight for glory rather then phat lewts.

Every 2.5 hours, you have to fight for the right of being in Wintergrasp, and the honor of getting to the raid dungeon for the really phat lewts, called VoA.

The only thing I can come up with is that maybe Lummy doesn't like Wintergrasp because he is playing on an RP server, and is in a large raiding guild, which I am sure has it's downsides for PvPing. Getting Wintergrasp for them may not be as much fun if they have a lot of resistence from the Hordie side, but I just can't see that as the problem.

Now, I play both Hordie, and Ally on a "normal" server. They are always fighting in huge raid groups to take control of Wintergrasp. Not because we like to fight, well I do, but they do it because they need access to the vendors in WG as well as the VoA dungeon which has some good stuff in it.

I have just changed my Ally to a raiding guild, and I asked them if they ever fight for WG or just access the dungeon and vendors, and my suspicion was confirmed. They don't care about the fighting, they just want the raid available.

But as far as I can tell, Blizzard has found a way to merge all of us together whether we need it or not. I find that although people may not want to do the raid part, like myself, or they may not want to do the PvP part, they deal with it and everyone really gets geared up and plays WG all day and all night.

I mostly agree with Kaplan's complaints, but I will be back to you on those later...

That's my 2GP, Cya!

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Okay, One Last Thing, Then I Will Go Play WoW!

As usual there was a little negative feedback to Lum's latest Darkfall post. To which Lum made a small comment that made my eyebrow raise...

"You know, no one threatens stuff like this when I talk about WoW or SL. I love how PvP games generate such *militant* loyalty!"

To that I say militant my ass! Those "Carebears" that Lum so gleefully defended back in the day were every bit as vicious as the most elite PK. Not only that, but they were so vicious that UO decided to jump ship and make a land dedicated to them.

Hey man, don't be so suprised. You wanna know why they get so fricken mad? Because developers with a similar mindset to your own keep taking the damn rattle away.

Stop shaking the baby! Then your life might see some relative peace and harmony.

Changing Gears... Fear Goes RAID!

RAID 0 at this point, well, not really. I switched to a raiding guild to see if I can't get this whole PvP in the raid dungeon gear situation ironed out.

The guild I was in previously is great for level builders, but is terrible about keeping it's level 80's active, thus they all leave for more productive guilds.

I have done the same here, and I want to take a stab at doing this raiding thing everyone seems to enjoy so much. It seems a little scary actually. In BG's dying is a "good" thing. In raiding, they seem like the dying part is "unacceptable"...

Oh well! I am all about seeing some end-game content, and now maybe I will have my chance.

Being Biased Has It's Advantages, For Everything Else, There's Mastercard...

Poor Darkfall... I haven't even played it yet, but the hits just keep on comin'.

Lum aka Scott is still cooking these guys over an open fire, and to be honest, Darkfall has a lot of hard acts to follow. I guess the bright side is that Lum has now bitched enough about the game for me to become interested in taking a look at it. Well, that is when I can find a copy of it to install.

I mentioned before, 1999 is back and the rise has come again. This time is a bit reversed then before, because last time, UO came first, then EQ. This time EQ (WoW) is there, but UO (Darkfall) has burst on to the scene to give those old PK's something to smile about again.

I am not so sure I am ready to re-live the pain that was UO, but I really did enjoy it when I played for FOUR YEARS... So, maybe I will just have to give these guys a chance at making this old PK smile once again.

If their maint schedule is not on Tuesdays, they may have a deal!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Flying High Again!

Just PvPing for gear is all I can do right now. I haven't decided to what guild I might go to for some action around here. Seems at least for the DK, all of the Epic PvP gear is only given in 25 man raids or something which I think really sucks. I don't know if you can get valor emblems from VoA, but I am thinking probably you can.

Not much else happening. It's of course, Tuesday, my day off that I can't play normally until after 11:00 AM if all goes well and we don't have to wait the rest of the day.

Anyway, just checking in.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate... Again!



What the hell is that thing Earl?

So I saw this last night while I was attempting to scavenge some more PvP gear for my DK. I haven't ever seen one of those birdie looking things before so I took a picture for the children.

I am geting confused by Scott these days. One minute he is ranting about how much Darkfall is going to fail, but then he turns around, admits he has an issue with PvP, and then explains why Darkfall must succeed.

Yes, we all know Scott was traumatized by Ultima Online... Believe me, I have been reading his crazy thoughts since 1999. I know him better then he knows himself.

So, to pick apart some things here, in Scott's previous post about how Darkfall will fail, he says: "So, a more serious look at Darkfall’s incipient release.

Most of the traffic on the boards and blogs recently seems to be doomcasting Darkfall pretty harshly. It’s not a AAA MMO, its ruleset is ridiculously hardcore, and it is doing its level best to minimize the number of people that actually *can* log in (no NA release, limited number of boxes sold, etc).

I actually disagree. I think it will have a groundswell of excitement, some people will be pumped about “a hardcore game not for carebears!!1!”, and we’ll see some ridiculous eBay auctions of Darkfall boxes.

For three months. Then… it will collapse upon itself.

Why this curve? Because every PvP-centric MMO released to date has seen this. Even PvP-specific servers, released to great fanfare with their users, see this curve. And the reason is pretty simple - because people enjoy hardcore PvP in the abstract. Or, to put another way, many more people believe they are ‘hardc0re’ than actually are. And they dislike being proved wrong pretty powerfully."


I don't know about you, but even WoW has about 40 PvP servers and most of them are full right now in the middle of scheduled maint. Now I know those servers have been around way more then 3 months, AND from what I could see this morning there were at least 5 newer or less populated servers online. That doesn't seem like a groundswell to me. It seems like a revolution... I don't even need to mention the world-wide arena tournaments going on every year for the last 4 seasons. I mean, Scott, it's already out there in the very game you play today.

Is it just because Tom is throwing his PvP weight around and trying to trick everyone? I doubt that. People vote with their wallets.

I've talked to about 10 people in person about WoW and the different servers. I have found out something very special. Most of these people do not know the difference. These people have been asleep the last 10 years and when I say something about farming on a PvP server, they are astonished that this is something you don't do. When I ask if they are on a normal or PvP server, they can't answer this question.

There has always been a market for a PvP based MMO with Swords and Sorcery. UO was a major player in that market, and EA decided to cut it out like a cancer. Those people that played UO Siege Perilous, Shadowbane, Mordred in DAoC, Darktide in AC, and others are STILL around, and still trying to be the best they can be. According to the number of PvP servers in WoW, I would say they are growing...

Yea, many of them are self righteous and pompas, but that is no different then the Raid group leaders that only allow certian levels and specs into their Raid groups. There is a market for all of it, and I am glad to see that someone (Darkfall) is getting balls enough to try and do something outside the box.

I also, just want you guys to know, I was actually the first to discover precasting in UO! I know, it's hard to believe, but you know Darwin can't even argue with this.

I am not as into the UO ruleset as I was 10 years ago. Not enough time and probably because I am getting too old to compete with Tommy Tu-Tone or whatever badass is out there these days. I like my game laid back, and I will tell ya, UO gave me some damn tense moments back in the day. I don't know if I really want to re-live those moments of old.

It's not the first time Scott would be wrong, however, I believe that if Darkfall can keep from crashing it's way to oblivion will be around a very long time.

UO had the bar for an MMO upstart pretty darn high, and I don't think WoW has even got that far yet. All WoW has shown us is that you can starve the people as long as you have phat lewts. They are still lacking in areas including trade skills & housing. There is much to be done, and why it takes so long with that many people working on it, I have no clue.

I just want to know how to get that bird in the picture above! HELP!