World Of Warcraft BG's - Rogues, Warriors, Paladins all Cheat!

http://www.shatteredcrystal.com/code.php/wow___world_of_warcraft/~126289#world_of_warcraft_cataclysm_north_america_and_oceanic_edition - Fear talks about what's comming soon to BV, and then moves on to accusing all Rogues, Warriors and Palidans of cheating in the WoW battlegrounds. Followed up by a little commentary about the new Battlestar Galactica game.

I was out with the Flu all last week, so hopefully we can get the train rolling again this week.

World Of Warcraft - Vash'ir And The Blood Elf Warlock

http://www.shatteredcrystal.com/code.php/wow___world_of_warcraft/~126289#world_of_warcraft_cataclysm_north_america_and_oceanic_edition - Fear talks about his adventures in the under water zome of Vash'ir. Please feel free to comment, subscribe or like this video. Check the end of the video for links to other great videos made by Fear of Battle Vortex!

Gettin' my epic battle on in Eye of the Storm!

This was probably my best battleground encounter ever! I describe all the tactics and information you need for this battleground as a Warlock...

Wow Has Me Back Enjoying Myself For A Minute...

As you all know, WoW's newest expansion Cataclysm was released at Midnight last Monday, and as far as I know, everything went alright. I didn't hear any bitching about the game crashing or anything like that this time around, and so with that, I have to say Kudos to the Blizz folks!

Blizz released the major parts of the patch and a hotfix the weeks just before the official release. I had already pre-ordered and installed before hand, so I didn't experience any problems. I wasn't around at the actual launch, but I was on for a few hours afterwards and I had some really exciting experiences which I will get into later.

Anyway, I have started on several paths, which is just the way I roll. I of course have a couple level 80's I can work on to get to level 85. Which, by the way, several people have already made it to level 85 in less then 24 hours on my server according to some messages I saw on my screen while I was playing. How the hell did they do that? I thought I was sorta hard-core, but I didn't even make it half way to 81 on my main character.

When I first came into the expansion, my first mission was to get my flying license for the old lands and do what anyone would do... Fly above Orgimar and Stormwind and see what the heck is up there. We all spent a lot of time trying to climb the highest points in those cities to see what we could see before, but now we were actually able to do a vertical climb and a 360 degree check.

In a word, the Stormwind view was breathtaking. I could really find myself appreciating the actual size of the project that these folks had put together. The city is amazing to look at from above. I flew around some places I had always seen on the flight path from Stormwind to Ironforge just to see what was up there. I had always seen tents and camp fires on my flights but no actual mobs of any kind. I thought they might do something with them now since we can finally get there. Nope, they didn't really change too much, but I did also find this interesting patch of sheep with one in particular that I would love to find out more about the story on.

So, I found this little dude way up on top of a mountian with nothing but a bunch of sheep and an empty house way above Stormwind. I imagine this is just stuff that was left over or forgotten about from back in the day, but I am sure it would make for an interesting story of why he is there. I didn't bother killing him, I wasn't sure if he would respawn.

Not to discount Orgimar, as it is also a beautiful view, but we have always been allowed to walk on top of that city, so my curiosity about it was not the same as the birthplace of my first character.

My next mission was of course to take my main character and go check out the new quest for well, the next level and whatnot. My main was recently transformed from Alliance to Horde, so I am getting a bit of a double dose of interesting. I have been in the new Zone Vashj'ir (Dont't even get me started on trying to pronounce that one). The entire zone is under water, which is awesome that they did that, but I am not the best swimmer in the game. I would have rather done some kind of on top of the water battles, but who knows, maybe that's later on. Anyway, the idea is the same, go kill and collect stuff and report back. All of your old armor is just about poo compared to the new greens they give you for doing quests.

One thing I would ask for here is that it needs to be easy to get rid of junk or sell it to a vendor. I am sure I am like many others that have been on the pack hording society for the last year or so, and I ran into a problem with my packs getting full. As far as I could tell, there is nowhere to dump stuff to a vendor and obviously no bank. I eventually, just hearthed out and went back to Orgimar to do some business and then had to find my way back via a portal. Fortunately, the guard knew what I was looking for and had it on his list of things for me to find. The only downside is that I was into the story, and this was a detour I don't believe was intended although, it was nice to have the option. I played my main for a few hours, but I was ready to get into the new races so I switched gears a little.

My next step was to create a Worgen. Of course I would.. They are crazy looking creatures with fur and change from Human to Wolf. Not to discount the Gobblins, but I don't do short and chubby races, I am already there in real life. Now, the Worgens have of course the option to be Death Knight, but I wasn't going to go that route this time around. I want to see the new areas and run the quests like a newbie. I don't completely understand the story behind the Worgens, but the zone is beautiful. I made it up to level 11 on my first day before I found a way to get myself some Bind On Account shoulder pads and a couple of bucks for upgrades. Hey, I want to see the new stuff, but I will take any advantage I can get so I don't have to live there forever.

Blizz did a lot with the phasing on this expansion, but I would have to say I was less then pleased with the way it worked out. I think they got a tad carried away in some places and others would allow multiple people to start a quest with someone speaking over the top of themselves. One quest I was on where we get to ride a horse and blow stuff up is started by clicking on a guy, then phased where he starts on this explanation of what we need to do, but there were like 40 of them all talking at once. Kinda made me not want to be there. Other times, they phase a bit much in the Vashj'ir zone, they even showed us a horde putting on different armor and stuff after you went and got it for him. I guess that would be cool, but there was a pause where it phased and it made me break the emersion. I guess, it should just be more fluid if you are going to make it something that small in my opinion.

Other then that, I had some fun, it's still a little grindy to me, but at least they are short bursts, and you can see where you need to go on the map. The experience for me this time around without any add-on's was much better.

Here is my latest video to go with my lengthy update! Please watch and enjoy as I teach you how to do the King Tut!

World Of Warcraft Commercial on various networks...

I saw the new commercial for Cataclysm to be released on December 7th. The commercial was great, but when I started to think about it. I think they were demonstrating what was going to happen to the servers...

Better not plan on re-subbing to WoW until the 15th.

Yo'Ville Has Castles, I'm Down With That! & Other random thoughts.

The only real reason I even tried Yo'Ville was because I had some 7-11 rewards that I had turned in so I stuck them in my appartment on Yo'Ville. Later I was looking at the buildings you can purchase and found a castle. That made my decision to get one and play at least in a minimal fashion.

I do like doing the "jobs" or quests they give you to make money. It is easier to pick up energy in Yo'Ville then it is in Frontierville, so I can play a little longer.

Frontierville has made a few things easier, and really the only complaint I have is when it interrupts you to share things with your friends while you are collecting bonus items. Now, farmville does this too, but not when you have 5 seconds to pick up bonus items off the ground... They either need to give you more time to pick things up off the ground or my idea is to wait until you clear the bonuses before bothering you. Better yet, find a better way to bring up the sharing like off to the side, blinking or something that doesn't stop gameplay so harshly. I really get mad when I have to publish and miss out on my little stars and energy bonus items.

Farmville has been getting so jacked up every time they update, it is making us crazy. However, it's still the primary game I play simply because I have a ton of friends playing it.. Certianly more then I could convince to purchase WoW and play.

Is it just me or do these browser based games remind you of the 80's? Is it just an excuse for people to write really cheezy games to milk people for money? At least in the 80's you only had to pay once.

That's all I got...

Living in the country, certainly changes one’s perspective…

Many of you that know me, know I am not a “Country Boy”. I have always lived in the city until about 2006 when I moved out to the country to be closer to my family. I still don’t visit them enough, but that is another story.

I have been so frustrated with WoW lately, that I have been taking a break. I am currently playing a game I never thought I could see myself playing in a million years.

So many of my co-workers and friends have been going on about this game, that I finally decided I needed to check it out, and I did. I am still playing, and I am no longer afraid of change or Free-to-play (F2P) games with the option for Real Money Trading (RMT).

Farmville… There, I said it. A year ago I would have killed anyone who asked me to play. Now, I am looking at level 34 going, “what the hell just happened here?”

One thing that I still don’t like about the game is the focus on making you log in at a certain time to make sure you get those crops harvested. It wasn’t until I started playing the game that I realized that you could fudge on the critical nature of that particular part of the game. You can let your crops sit for some time before anything can happen to them, and there is always the revive option if you really need to collect that cash.

It is incredibly easy, and of course with the cash option, you can get most stuff any time you really want it. Some items go on sale for coins later on down the road, but for impatient people like myself, it is nice to have the option to buy your way to the top.

I don’t really play Farmville for any type of challenge. The real fun for me in FV is that I can help other folks, get stuff they want and get to talk with friends that I might just otherwise not talk to as often being as most of our high school buddies and co-workers don’t have that much in common outside of the past, and work.

I am still not a fan of spamming my friends with everything I do in game, but at least now days people can shut off the feeds from the games and keep their friends “important” comments in tact. Its nice to play something my friends can actually talk about rather then me trying to explain how World Of Warcraft works. Its really just a matter of being able to have a more open dialogue with people rather them thinking I am just some crazy computer geek that has no life.

Now we can all have no life together. Weee!

Anyway, just thought I would throw out an update. I am on hiatus from WoW at this time, but I will probably return when FV gets too boring. I am already slowing down, but my farm is very cool. Well, I think so anyway.

That’s all I got…

The Grass Is Greener?

Well, I suppose since my friend found out that I had moved a character to Moon Guard that I can talk about it a little bit.

I was on a secret mission to build a level 80 DK on Moon Guard so I can play with a friend that has some high level characters there. Well, I still have time to get to 80 before the date I had planned, but my friend saw that I had moved my main character Myd there because I left the confirmation page on the browser screen and forgot to close it.. DOH!

A few things are different here. First it's an RP server, which is very different then a normal server. You have people that actually RP and this server is also said to be the most popular server which seems right since it is FULL most of the time, and often you get to wait in a que to even log in.

I joined a small casual guild, and the GM isn't hardly past level 40 yet. He doesn't seem to know a whole lot about how things should work yet, but between myself and another guildie, we are keeping him on the right path.

There is a bit of ERP going on here which I was suprised to see, but it's like a train wreck. You want to close your eyes, but you can't tear yourself away from the entertainment value of it all. Goldshire here is loaded with duels and a bunch of naked people inside the inn. I have never seen so many people in one place anywhere before, and they have everything including table dancers and prostitution from what I can tell so far. Guild names like "Barely Legal" and "X-Rated". Now, I am not sure how far this rabbit hole goes, but that's not the only place this kind of thing goes on.

Silvermoon also has an inn like this with some ERP, however it is not as populated. Actually, Silvermoon here is really populated everywhere else. There are Blood Elves all over this place, which again, I had never even seen more then one or two Blood Elves in Silvermoon on my normal server, so this was quite the experience.

Outside of that, Moon Guard is quite fun with the exception of the Dungeon Finder. It takes a lot longer to get a PUG going here, but the BG's are lightning fast. I have not seen much of the inside of Wintergrasp here however. The Allies just don't seem to have their ducks in a row here like the did on the normal server. Horde seems to stay in control there most of the time.

Anyway, it's good to be here on MG... I'll have some stories later I'm sure. ;)

Stop With The Sissie La-La Already...

In direct response to Tobold's latest ballistic attempt to tear down EvE for its PvP Game... I just have to say, "Breathe man, Let it go!" Yea, the PvP there is pretty rough man. That's why they don't have Eleven-Million subscribers dude.

One post on the subject was enough to give me a headache, but now we are on like the fourth or fifth one and I don't even want to read the comments anymore.

All of the elitists of the world unite! Who fricken cares? I sure don't. I can't remember where I saw it, probably Lum's site, but Raph Koster who was once one that had a vision of the perfect game, now turned Facebook application micro-transaction king, said something to the effect that we are all just a bunch of elitist snobs. Sticking to our little corners, only playing with those that see everything the same way we do. Ya know what, he was right... Most of the tripple A gamers are a bunch of snobs. Quite frankly, we should just play single player games and get over it. Eveyone that doesn't see what we see is obviously wrong. It's kind of sad really. Even though I was slightly offended by his comments, the guy was right about that.

As a blogger, I don't think it is our job to be objective, or even say that we like something at all. As a matter of fact if my whole gaming experience was all good, I wouldn't write at all. It's about making things right or making them better that interests me. I certianly like to post about things I have done that are fun, but I am also very passionate about things that make me angry.

Tobold's postings about how he got ganked do not bother me in the least. I get beat up all the time in World of Warcraft. The thing is "how do you overcome the odds, and are you willing to put the time in to do it"? There are certianly many times in WoW's "balanced" battleground skirmishes where the team I am on is outnumbered by the enemy. Many reasons include, the lack of communication, the fact that we don't all stay together, or just simply that people don't see the same goals during the battles. There are many times different objectives in a battle, and people decide which is important to them. So, to say EvE is unfair, but WoW is far would be completely false.

I don't play EvE, wait scratch that. I played EvE for about 4 hours once, and deleted it because I knew I didn't want to go through the process of finding out what the hell was going on. Too much confusion for me, and ya know what? I don't feel bad for leaving. If I had stayed, and I ever got ganked like Tobold did, I would spend every waking hour rebuilding and going back to kick those guys asses that did it to me. Oh yea... PvP is all about the revenge baby, and if you get me enough times, I will focus all of my energy on you and how to make you pay.

Tobold obviously doesn't have that gene built into his programming... PvP is for people who like to be competitive with others on a forceful playing field. If you can't hang with that, then my advice would be to walk away, find something else to do.

It's hard to take comments from someone who openly doesn't like PvP and apply them to "constructive critisism". It's painfully obvious that if someone doesn't like PvP, then there is nothing good that can be said about it. I don't particularly like PvE, but I still do it. I do it and try to imagine why someone would put themselves through such torture, but for someone that won't engage and learn about it constructively, it makes no sense. It's like talking about something you shouldn't even be engaged with. It's okay to say you don't like something, but to try and tear something down that obviously you don't want, but works for many other people is somewhat silly IMHO.

That's all I got...

Okay, I'm In... Just Make Sure I Get My Castle!

New combat video from SWTOR... Impressive looking. I still don't want to be a bounty hunter, but I like most of what I have seen in this video.

However, I am a bit dissapointed I didn't see Darth Adrick... ;(

I don't remember who said it, but someone mentioned that the combat will be more geared towards beating incredible odds, and barely making it through the fights. Well, it sounds good, and that is fun, but I don't know if I can take that every time. Sometimes I just want to kick some royal easy hineys...

Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't... Just FYI...

I am still playing WoW. I have a lot of stuff going on there, but I haven't revealed my evil plot to take over the world just yet. I am riding my Celestrial Mount to vicory. That's all I have to say about that.

That's all I got.

Fear Is Back Where He Belongs...

Not to say that I won't do both PvE and PvP, but I am once again enjoying PvP with the new battleground finder.

The queues run like lightning, and I don't have to wait for a tank or a healer to show up. Although things go much better with a few healers around. I haven't had to wait even 30 seconds on the random selections, and I am getting to play arena's I normally wouldn't just because of that wait.

So far so good. The arena points addition was very helpful. Although it will take me forever to make enough of them to buy anything, I will still collect them. I am not sure if they will be wiping arena points after each season like they did before, but if they are going to, I can see some issues cropping up with the people that don't know the points will be wiped.

I haven't decided which is the best way to go for gear, but obviously weapons are still easier to get from dungeons, while most everything else can be bought from the bg vendors. I have started building my new PvP set, but with the stuff I have already aquired from dungeons, I am pretty buff.

I still can't keep those rogues off my lock, but once in awhile, if I am fast enough, I can get my succubus pet to freeze em long enough for me to turn round and fear spam the wholey bejesus out of em. :)

Anyway, just a quick update, I still have STO installed, but the game time has slowed a bit. I got a new ship, and she is pretty cool, but I don't know how long I can hang in there and wait for the game to show up.

Anyway, that's all I got.

Crafting? You Mean Item Grinding (Pt. 2)...

Well, before I could get more of a response out the door... Lum has spoken the holy word and said some of the things I didn't.

Just to set the record straight. I am not a crafter by design. I much prefer the company of "Corp Por" to sitting around tailoring or popping potions for a living. However, in WoW, killing players doesn't pay as well as it did in UO since we could actually kill the crafters and take all their loot. Ahhh, the good old days... ;)

I do like to craft more as a hobby, and I like to see what is going on out there so I can talk about it and empathize with those poor folks that have to do this stuff on a regular basis. I also don't like dungeons, and I don't do raids for similar reasons, and because these days, I don't have 25, like minded friends to go play with either.

So, to continue now using some of Lum's comments as a refrence. I didn't know SWG had crafting designed by ex-UO designers. I was on my ten year vacation at that time, so I didn't get to play, but a lot of the things Lum mentioned, are in fact the same issues I have with WoW. Items are important to be valuable. I don't know exactly what the definition of being tedious would be, but the chance to fail, and difficult to find mats are pretty tedious in my opinion. Fishing is pretty tedious, and that's the trade I think has the best design for building around.

I noticed AION had a pretty nice selling system where they had an Ebay like WoW, or you could just plop your toon out front of a heavy traffic area and sell yourself. That system reminded of UO a little bit, but in UO, you could set your vendor outside your house and just fill it up with goodies, and then empty the virtual piggy bank vendor when you needed cash. You could then go out and continue playing the game and not be stuck like a statue out in the middle of a city.

Another thing I liked about AION and even Star Trek Online MMO, is that they try to give you a reason to wear "off duty" or clothes just to hang out. They do it different ways, but there are some really nice outfits you can obtain with the correct amount of cash on you. In WoW, its just not cool to wear a tuxedo or anything but the latest in Raid fashion. Everyone at any particular level will be wearing the exact same armor they get from the dungeons now. Since there is not much of a social side to WoW besides the trade chat from hell, we don't even want to see each other.

A crafter with the given skills and a wide variety of things to make could change all that. Even in UO, with limited options, people found ways to be different and hang out. WoW just doesn't seem to have that same loving feeling about it. Its a shame really.

Oh man, talk about memory lane. I have brought this up before, WoW for some reason skipped a couple of the most important trade skills and I have no idea why. Lumberjack and Bow Fletching are highly useful and since we have bows and arrows in this game, I don't see why we don't have anyone making this stuff. I killed so many birds in UO, that when I would be outside and see a bird flying around I actually wanted to kill it in real life. Just in my mind, I never actually would hurt a bird. Running around chopping wood for bows and arrows was also something that was sort of fun to do since you could get killed while you were out there. Blizz decided to go after cartography, which was also in UO, but it was one of the last trade skills they added. At least as of 2004 when I stopped playing MMO's.

Lum is not the only one that remembers this stuff. He's got the number of played titles on me, but I know where he is comming from.

I have more, but I have to go to work. =( I will leave you with this though. WoW, please hire an ex-UO craft designer, have them come in and fix your crafting game. Ask Tom Chilton, he should know a couple of these guys.

Thanks and happy hunting!

Crafting? You Mean Item Grinding...

Most of what I would talk about here is in response to Tobold's latest troll for using "Cool Downs" or "CD's" to craft items.

For the easy answer, the cool downs are not casual friendly, so my first response would be to say that it is a bad idea. Cool downs tend to make us feel forced to log in, and those types of things make us casual players uneasy.

I do find myself wanting to log in to get that precious gem transmuted every day and collect the 130-190 Gold. However, when they took the cool down from the high-end tailoring cloth, I found myself not having anything to do. I don't really like doing dailies, so the cool downs were about all I would handle many times when I log in.

So, here's some of what I like and dislike about crafting. First of all, they should be about the same. I really don't like that some crafts are way more profitable fun then others, and I think all of them need to be more important and corrected in the game.

Fishing has the correct skill building. You should gain from just using the skill, not by where or what you are fishing for. Don't force us to fish where we might otherwise not want to do so. I don't have a problem with a chance to fail or fish up vendor trash, although it is not really needed.

Alchemy has the "discovery" option built in so that we have a chance to find new recepies. I think they should have this with all of the trade skills, and it would be nice to include more of the recepies in the chance for discovery.

Tobold mentioned the "hard to aquire" recepies, and I don't like those very much at all. I am not a person that wants to go through a rep grind or searching the entire planet for stuff to make. Most of those items are not worth it, because there is a limit to what will sell.

I also don't really like the items I can craft only for myself. I think anything I can make should be available for me to sell to potential customers. I think enchanting has the best set up with the vellium's and they should expand that more to tailors and leatherworkers.

Recepie drops in dungeons and on monsters are nice. I almost always win the roll on these for tailoring in the ICC heroic dungeons, and it is a nice perk to be able to get something for yourself while you are risking your life to destroy the Lich King.

Tailoring in general is about completely worthless. There are only two or three items I have ever seen that you can even craft that anyone will buy on a regular basis. I have tried several times to sell Item Level 200 items on AH, and those things just don't want to be sold. There are some Royal Moonshroud items, and Merlin's Robe which are very nice, but I don't have the recepies for those. At 5000 Gold a pop, it's not likely I will see those any time soon.

A couple of the problems have to do with the fact that there is no reason to keep any of the lower level stuff around. There are recepies for each colored item, instead of just crafting an item and then dying it a color you or the customer can choose. Items with stats are somewhat silly since that forces it into a level range for the customer. Who ever designed that system obviously never played UO. All items including leather in UO could be dyed a different color. That alone opens up a lot of options.

If we were allowed to create scaled items similar to the Heirloom items that would grow with the customer, that would give us at least some potential market value for our crafted goods. Not all items need to scale of course, I am mostly talking about armor. If the items can adjust to each individual, and if there was a real reason people could wear something besides to stand out front of the bank, then we might have an economy starting here.

On a different note. Why don't we just have bandages? Why make it a cloth fest to train up a skill that everyone will get anyway? I think you should just be able to buy bandages or make them if you are a "tailor" for example out of whatever cloth you want and then sell them. Bandages should scale with the user. Does a level 80 character really bleed more then a level 1? Well, in health maybe, but comon. You should gain skill in first aid by applying a bandage, not making them. Again, this makes tailoring a little more important if they have something they can sell. You can always make them available on some sort of vendor for say "regular" bandage. Maybe let the tailored bandages have other bonuses or do extra healing.

Some of the cloth is too hard to find. Wool comes to mind. Fortunately we don't really need it unless we are training up First Aid.

So, this is just my first pass on this subject, but some things to chew on. Crafting needs a lot of work, but please don't make it take more time, lets work on making it worth doing and "fun"...

That's all I got.

Cataclysm Snails, and Pink Pigtails...

Oh, I may have spoken about this before, but recently Larisa came up with an idea for those of us burned out old vets waiting for Cataclysm to come out so we can see something new.

PvP was one of her suggestions and it is supposed to be one of the many end-game ideas Blizzard stuck in the game for us. I, on the other hand, want to point out my own Cataclysm. "Tauren Jumping". Often when I am waiting in Org for my dungeon que to open up and let me get my bag of goodies, I search in front of the bank and auction house for idle Taurens. These guys are really big, and if you start at the top of the hill, and run down on a mount like the Red Skeletal Warhorse, you can get some really good airtime.

Seriously, my guild is small, but when I tell them I am Tauren jumping they just laugh at me. I have tried to explain just how awesome it is when 4 or 5 Taurens line up so you can jump them like a motocross racer, but somehow they just don't believe me.

A lot of what is lacking in WoW to me is the ability to do stuff outside the box. I mean things like housing in UO. You could decorate your house with stuff that you found out and about in dungeons or off of monsters. If you wanted, you could set out tables, chairs, and even food for friends to come by and visit. We would use cloth and other things to make designs on the floor or swiming pools. The number of things people would do in a 2d world with items was just amazing. So, my point is that there was always something you could do, even if it wasn't trying to accumulate more stuff or reputation etc.

There are many examples of things you can do, but I think Tauren Jumping should become a meta-game with a score board and a leader system on the Net like Arena PvP... No seriously.

Actually on the Alliance side I also play, Climb the Statue. There is a big statue in front of the bank that we love to climb to the top if possible. Sometimes I can get up there, but lately I haven't been able to get on top of the guys head. Once you are up there, the next fun thing is to see how much higher you can get so you cast something like Black War Mammoth to give you that extra boost into the sky.

I guess that game will be ruined once we can fly in the old lands. Ahh well...

That's all I got...

I'm not the only one thinking about Farmville...

I have been meaning to write something about this for awhile. Farmville, and games like it really piss me off. His Lumness, put up an article about how the traditional MMO Developers and the Facebook Application industry peeps are at war.

I've noticed that many of the pioneer type MMO people have moved into the realm of making games for Facebook. Recently I recall Raph Koster, Anthony Castoro, and even Richard Garriott going down this path.

I'll tell you that I don't like some of those kind of games because they use some cheezy tactics to get you to play. I also don't like running out of moves or stuff to do for the day, or the next few hours or whatever. I like to just do what I want, when I want, period.

I have a friend that is one of those 20 million people that likes Farmville. Now, we do live in the country and all that, but besides not wanting to play a game about farming, I don't like games that force you to bug other people. I asked her why she played the game so much, and her response was that she would lose all of her hard work on her crops if she didn't harvest in 3 hours or something silly. I was completely beside myself with disgust! How could they do that to someone's stuff? Well, I am not going to play that game to find out, but I think that sort of tactic sucks. She didn't mention anything else about the game, like "because it's fun" or something, she was just afraid to lose all of her hard work. Clicking on 300 or more squares to plant veggies... What a waste!

I don't want to send out 100 direct email spam messages to people about my game, and try to get them to play. I don't want to play a game that makes you log in every few hours to make sure your virtual goods are still safe and not losing money. I am not saying all of those games do that, but many of them like Farmville do, and it thrives on people being scared of losing virtual stuff.

One could argue that WoW does the same thing with "Cool Downs". You have a cool down that you can use every day or three, but if you don't use it, then you could miss out on some money. Well, you could, but when you get back, you can still get that money, and nothing is really lost. You don't lose your crops, have to rebuild the empire, or lose your dog.

It is similar to the way some casinos in Colorado try to get people to come play by offering to match the amount you must spend, but only if you come play every week. If you miss a week, then you "lose" that money they are "giving" you. It's a trick works on a lot of people, but to me it seems that these types of tricks are not a good way to do business.

Most of the traditional MMO's allow you to just come and play whenever you want, everything is still the way you left it when you return, and typically, you don't need to feel like you've lost everything.

I think Lum's point in his article that Farmville and games like it are simply the next step in an evolution of games. The trick is for you Traditional MMO folks is that you need to make your games accessable in the same fashion as the Facebook guys.

World of Warcraft is already starting to do this with Facebook and they have a new Auctioneer app of some sort coming out. I think we will see more of an integration of the two rather then a replacement from one to the other. You can still have people buy your game and play as they see fit, and you can offer a lot of the content through things like Facebook and MySpace that will cover a huge number of the problems and concerns we see now.

I am looking forward to seeing how this topic unfolds, because I truly believe the most successful MMO will be the one that puts this marriage of Application, and Traditional together...

Oh, and make it accessable to Twitter, Bling, Yahoo Mail, and on the cell phone too. Mkay?

That's all I got.

Blizzard: Silent Watchers...

I was reading this post on Kill Ten Rats, and thought about it for a minute...

So, they were saying Blizz is tight lipped with talking to the public, news or rant sites like this one because of various speculations. I think it's more because we could or would likely find a way to make whatever they say turn into a controversy and possibly get them fired.

Tom Chilton, one of my now "WoW Rockstar" friends from Battle Vortex back in the day, when we did podcasts, doesn't even talk on the telephone or respond to emails with more then two lines of meaningless text. I wouldn't ever try to get someone in the industry in trouble, but I am sure that the company line is that if you think there is even a 1% possibility of something getting repeated to the public where Blizzard can find it, then don't do it.

I have talked with and interviewed many of the Executive people in the MMO Gaming industry, one of my favorites was Gordon Walton. Sometimes, we even had to sign an NDA or other confidentiality agreements to speak to or read what these folks had to say. I am sure that by now, Blizzard has a huge, well lined out confidentiality agreement that employees have to sign. I wouldn't be suprised if they don't have a "PR Coach" in his own office they have to visit once a week to be reminded of how they can be replaced in a moments notice if something slips out that shouldn't. Back in the day, talking too much got someone in trouble, and I think now days it's just better that they shut up and make lots of money. It would be nice if they would fix their games, too, but one can't be overly concerned about that. Most of the games have actual community people, and those people know how to deal with the player issues more efficiently and less static gets through to the developers.

In any event, I think that even if they don't speak, that doesn't mean they don't watch and see what is going on out there. Mostly it is probably talked about at the water coolers, and made fun of at the large gaming expos. I really believe they are not just locked in a room coding all day, more like a cubical, but I do believe they see us out here, and they do listen.

If they would listen to me more, they wouldn't have all these problems, but that is another story...

That's all I got.

Trip Like I Do…

I am somewhere in the level 43 range now. Finally, have a mount, and can move at just above turtle speed. I joined a PVE (leveling) guild, and these guys are just crazy. They know every single quest for every class, and can usually run you though anything in under one hour. It is insane watching these guys work. They go so fast, that sometimes I hardly have time to dot or sick the pet before it is all over.

They really make me laugh, because they will take me to a place I have never been, tell me to get all the quests, and them BAM we are flying all over the place doing all of the quests. Then, when it is all done, we all go back to town and chill for a couple of days sorting through eight million piles of stuff we acquired during the quests. I really enjoy that more then anything. I never had people so eager to go out and help in EQ. As a matter of fact, I think EQ restricted the levels or experience you could play with or something which ended up making me not able to play with my guild most of the time.

So, when I get done with my stuff I try to help others. I am making some decent cash now since I got over 225 in tailoring. I just wish I could ship bags to my horde characters. BUT NO!!

Warlocks are just the coolest! Anyway, see ya round…

Note to Lum, Tyrant, Evocare... I HATE YOU ALL!

Not really, I just thought it would be an attention getter...

Well, I will get to why I hate them in a minute. I have some time since all the Goddamn WOW servers are down for "extended" maint... GIMMIE MY CRACK!!! LOL just kidding.

I was reading Lum's interview with TTH, and I have to say that I am glad to see Lum getting up there and saying something negative/positive about specific games and not just generalizations about the genre. It was also nice to see him speak on PvP, which as you know, he was the defender of the PvE back in the day. Maybe not because he wanted to, but hardcore PvP people came here, he got the rest. hehe Please read the article, so you can see the context. I may not have a movie or a book, but I did my small part. *wink*

So, anyway... He just got me thinking about some things. Lum says:

"There are going to be a good group of people out there who are able to compete with the big name games on a much smaller budget. And they’re going to make an insane amount of money."

I agree and those people are out there, but all the really good people want to do their own thing. In every game publishing house there are those that have been around the block in MMO's and those veterans are really good at what they do. The downside is that once you become an MMO veteran, you want to do it "your way". I guess you could call it the "Frank Sinatra Syndrome".

I also believe there are, and will be those games created by veterans and new teams that can make a lot of money. Most of the big vets have their own companies now, and hopefully, they can make something just as good if not better. Everyone has friends. If you have enough friends that like what you are doing, you will see them in your games. Some of us players have friends too, and they know we will work hard to bring them more people. Spending the big money helps, but I don't think that determines "success" or "failure" in every instance.

Lum also said this about the game he is working on "in secret"... (I hate that when they don't tell us what is going on... Don't you? Even Adrick used to pull that crap on me...):

"Yes, it is going to be a fantasy MMO. But it’s going to be a fantasy MMO that is done by a lot of veterans that have a fairly good grasp on making these types of games."

I think if you could find a team of vets that don't have "Frank Sinatra Syndrome", and can put together something cool, then I applaud you. I would still want to get some cutting edge newbies in there for a little flavor. I mean, before EA and Mythic started hiring all of my friends, they were only veterans at "Playing" MMO's, not necessarily making them. Now look where they are. Lum, and Evocare are doing well in their respected areas. I can't even tell you how many people I know out there that used to just be playing the games and visiting sites like BV or LTM that are out there making a difference because of the platforms we created back in the day. I guess all of you vets will just have to "group" and hopefully not fight too much among yourselves.

You take WOW, and you just can't help but see so many things that we bitched and complained about in the past that have come to light! I probably notice it more then others because I was there back in the UO/EQ days, and I left MMO's for awhile. When I came back, it was like a magic wand had been waved over a game casting "less suck, more crack". Don't get me wrong, I already do have some issues with WOW, and I will get to those once the crack pipe gets a little worn, but OMG what a difference four years can make.

I don't think WOW wants to get away with anything. I just don't see that too many folks are pushing the right people. If you remember even in the days of UO, when you talked to the right group of folks, you got results. Hell, Lum could manipulate an emergency game fix or bulletin board wipe, in two seconds when he pushed the right buttons. Even I got those guys to make changes if I played real nice and didn't call them dirty Dread Lord posers. They just need the right push, and one day a new bunch of crazy people like us will come up and give it to them.

The point is, don't give up on your game. If you pay them each month it is your right to let them know how they are doing wrong. It is a "service" industry after all. If you aren't happy, they are gonna do something about it. Even though WOW makes more money then God, they are greedy bastards and will do things to keep each one of our crack lovin' booties playing their game.

I hate Evo and Lum for getting to live the dream. I hate Tyrant for always being so damn RIGHT!

See ya!

Happily grinding my way to victory!

Now, grinded to about 15.5 or so, we are at the point where I am starting to like others around to help out. It just goes faster… I am now starting to get some decent special items, and I even figured out how to get more bags so I don’t have to go to town as much. It’s just never enough though is it? How much storage should one need? I can’t really afford much, so we are going with the 8 bag slots for now. One of these days I need to rob the bank or something.

So, I was in Stormwind the other day and I saw this bizarre deal where a lady was guiding a bunch of children on a tour of the city. My first thought was “What the hell is this?” What were these guys thinking? I don’t know, but there is a lot of humor and snark built into this game, and I find it to be funny. My little pet Voidwalker frequently announces that he is “Void where prohibited”. My little Imp pet is always trying to break up with me. The Imp is more comical, but I want to know who did the voice for that character.

So, with all of the major headaches taken out, I think WOW was the perfect EQ killer. I can’t get over how much they put into taking some of our pain away and saying… “Hey, we love your money, come spend it here.” I just love it when they ask nicely for me to play the virtual slot machine.

DSL should be available here any time now. I have no clue about cable, but I would at least have a better connection on the wired DSL instead of the air card. For the most part, the aircard does okay, but there are a few times where things have gotten shaky.

Another interesting feature I liked last night. If your pet dies immediately after you make it, then you get your soulshard back. I found that to be quite the bonus.

Anyway, I am off to see the wizard, err the warlock…

Still Wow’d by WOW…

Anyway, I have been happily grinding my way to level 13. I am impressed with how much has changed since EQ. I am mostly self-sufficient at this level, I can heal myself, I have a pet, which makes me very happy. I always loved Dark Elves, but Warlocks seem to fit the bill just fine. It doesn’t take as long to learn in this game, which as a casual player makes me even more excited. Now, most everything I could want to know is tracked somewhere on the net.

There were some other things I liked. At least up to this point, I haven’t had to bother with where to put “points” and stuff. That always bothered me in EQ. I am more likely to just want to play the game and get my cookie, then worry about where to add points. In many ways they really dumbed things down. Although, I may not have liked that in the past, I find that it keeps me more interested in doing the busy work and not so much about screwing up my character.

Of course the second character is always better then the first. I had to go figure out what to do with the first one, then quickly built up another on of my own in half the time. I have been running a couple of characters because they seem to do maintenance on the servers in the early morning when I like to play. The system is so easy to do. If you stay close and do the quests, you will advance quickly. They will move you on when you are ready.

Maybe it’s just me, but I can help but want to find out what happens next. Four years of downtime did me some good.

On another note…

I was reading the Massively's ION notes over at Lum’s house. I was amazed that people are still arguing about players causing grief in games. Enough grief to make some folks leave the game. I don’t know that there will ever be sufficient tools to keep people in line in the game. But, when you have a game with over 10 Million subscribers, they still must be doing something right.

Some equally funny stuff...

This is older, but if you haven't read Amber in awhile, she is making a comeback!

She is talking about games targeted towards "Boomer Women" My favorite quote here is "“Wedding dash?” Sweet Jesus on a Maxi Pad, I think my ovaries just asploded." Oh, my sides are hurting! I think they are talking more about busty babes, but who knows...