Does Gear determine who is a good player anymore?

Is the game too easy mode?

Some how I had forgotten that Emblems of Triumph were the new tokens to get until I did the heroic daily to finish off my Proof of Demise achievement. Then I was like "Sweet, I wonder how many it will take to get a new helm?" A lot. As in, some heroic dailies won't quite get me there. I will still have to raid, and that is totally fine with me.

But it got me thinking, after looking at the rash of applications we got recently, that just looking for purples don't cover our needs anymore. VoA, emblems, the new dungeon offering item level gear similar to Naxx means that folks who are up and coming now are getting geared faster.

This is great news for our newly invited folks. We take the approach of Low Maintenance, meaning as long as you keep your head down and do what needs to be done, we are willing to over look some lack luster dps and carry you. With the changes to how gear is acquired, we expect to see those guys start to catch up in some areas.

Double Edged Sword

One thing about some other MMO's is once the population is out of your level bracket, it becomes difficult to get anything done. Without a guild or some friends, it is like pulling teeth to even get a group going. WoW is not immune to this problem, but they tackle it with Recruit a Friend. The normal on my server at least is running noobies through dungeons they have no real right to be in. Quests are easier, traveling is easier, acquiring gear is all much easier than when I first started playing. This is not saying a whole lot since it was pretty easy compared to my EQ days of leveling off rats for a week.

Many players don't even set foot in dungeons at the lower levels. Some of it is because of the community and some of it because it's slower and the gear that is there will just be out leveled in a few days. Many folks don't see a dungeon until they hit 80. I don't know how many VoA's I've seen with people in greens. Some who have done dungeons are hitting VoA in T4 or T5, which boggles my mind.

This leads to a severe lack of understanding of the game and one's role in it. I recall a blue poster (and I believe it was GC) who said that players are getting smarter. Really? Which players was he referring to, because as I see it, the general population is not. It does not help that Blizz rehashes some mechanics, but I see more and more people choosing to ignore their surroundings or even take a moment to think critically about an encounter. It is a pet peeve of mine to hear over vent "OW, what killed me?" Sigh. Do me a favor and look through your logs or recount before spewing that. Even the question "What happened?" is starting to annoy me. But I will stop there before I start to digress.

Many PuG leaders are stepping up and trying to tackle this problem. Setting requirements like "If you are not pulling 2 or 3k dps by the time we get to the boss, you will be booted." Then folks QQ. But is is a start, even if it's a rather blanket requirement. If you can pull those numbers in your greens, then props to you. I met a druid who did as much healing as I in blues which made me step up my game. It was healthy competition.

Instant Gratification

I had opened trade channel to get some pug time in (yes, on my server, trade is the LFG channel), and after the patch I had to shut it down. The amount of lame ass questions was large. So many people didn't either look at the patch notes or research any of the information that has been out for a month. Why bother when you just ask in open channels what you need to do. Hell, don't know how to update your addons? Ask the channel (true story).

Playing in Aion Beta did make me miss WoWhead. After running around for 20 mins looking for a quest item, my boyfriend said "I bet it will be right under our noses" and sure enough, after asking, we realized we walked right past it. Some things in various games are pretty vague, and for that some help is appreciated and given out willingly. Simple things are not.

Taking the good with the bad

The many minor improvements the game has made since launch I wouldn't ask to be taken away (Remember when we didn't have marks and people had assist macros? How did we kill anything?). With the game being as old as it is, and some servers just as old (mine is one of the early ones) you need something in place in order to allow the new folks or rerollers a way to catch up to their friends. But the downside to that is the dumbing down of the game on many levels which I feel is a slippery slope.

Summer Time

As things heat up outside (it is supposed to hit 100 in the PNW) sitting at the game feels less exciting.

Almost every weekend this month, I have been making road trips up and down I-5 to visit family and friends for all sorts of reason. This weekend, I visit my neiec for her 8th birthday. Two weeks ago, I visited friends from Georgia.

I am not too much of an outdoor person but I do enjoy the relaxation my summer vacation brings. Catching up with family and friends, catching up on T.V. I missed during school, catching up on sleep (zzzzz) all factor in on what I do with my days.

One slight side affect of all this non gaming time: little things about WoW are starting to get to me.

I feel a little blasphemous discussing my disenchantment of World of Warcraft. I blog about a game that in some aspects I am pasionate about. I love my role as a druid healer, I like the social aspects of raiding and the thrill of downing mobs alongside people I work hard with each week.

But little by little, changes into WoW have started to get under my skin. I don't want to spend a lot of time going over what bothers me about the game. Usually that kind of thing leads to comments like "Just quit if you don't like it" or "No one is forcing you to play this game." and I agree with those comments. But then again, ranting is a cathartic form of expression and I often use that for many other things this game has, namely raiding and dealing with Blizzard's changes.

I am nervous about the fine balance WoW has to walk between PvP and PvE. The latest Q&A over shapechanging and the overbalance of the resto druid is partly driven by PvP issues, but also because of developer vanity.

I worry that each patch is in effort to keep balancing classes while also homogenizing classes so everyone can have a chance to play equally.

I also worry that in effort to keep 10 million players happy, WoW is bitting off more than it can chew in doing so.

Do I want to quit? I recognize the social aspects of being in an MMO. I don't want to lose that or jeopardize it. A break? Perhaps, but a break for me usually doesn't last a week but actually longer.

I am choosing a compromise. My boyfriend has been doing this strategy for about year now and it seems to work well. My compromise is to spend time on another game for a change of pace. Casually playing something else can offer a fresh perspective on the game I have playing for four years.

So what game do I have my eye on? Aion. It has it's gimmicks and it has potential problems and potential success. But at first blush it is refreshing and is doing what several games in the past couple of years hasn't managed to pull off: launch with a polished and ready to play game.

I am in a funk that happens from time to time. Regardless of how I feel about 3.2 it will be a short term shot of interest I need to keep me going. And in two months, school will start up again and I will have less time to anything, no matter game I play.

Something to do with the Achievement Points

I've thought for a while now that a neat thing to do with all those Achivement points would be to spend it on player housing.

Consider that player housing is the only thing WoW has not implemented that other games have.

I really enjoyed how DOAC did their player housing. Aside from guild halls, but player houses were customizable and could hold things like trophies from kills.

Granted, there would have to be a special zone for all this in a WoW setting, and maybe it doesn't go with the lore all so much.

But, imagine your titles, raid achievements like killing Ony, or pvp accomplishments. Others could see what you have done in a more physical way than looking up a list on the armory.

An argument could be made that it would be a time sink, but achievements already are time sinks. PvP in WoW in a sense is a time sink.

However, people like to show off what they have done and others like to see what their friends and competetors have accomplished.

Now, I don't think points should be spent in order to buy things like housing, but all the housing things (special hearths, ports, banks, trophies) could be unlocked as you gain more points, no matter how you gain them.

Embrace the time sinks and let us show off what we have done in the game with pride.

Humor in WoW

While trolling Blog Azeroth for blog stuff, I ran across the latest Shared Topic idea. My take:

Does it work to add pop culture and outside-the-game references in a video game? I think so, but it depends on how it is done.

Take Tabula Rasa for instance. This futuristic, sci-fi MMO interjected a fair bit of product placement in the form of Dell computers at all the terminals. Seriously? Our planet was wiped out by space critters and machines but Dell remained as our tech source? This ruined a little of the game for me; this small non-lore reference didn't really need to be done.

WoW is steeped in pop culture, and in many cases its fantastic. I totally got giddy when I saw the hatch reference from Lost in Shalozar Basin (crap, does this explain why we couldn't visit Northrend 'till now?) or Linken's quest line in U-Crater (that boomerang stayed in my bags for as long as I could).


DO NOT PUSH THIS BUTTON!
Things get a little weird when you see them in boss fights, though I think what makes the Mimiron fight so much fun is his emotes:

"Gaze upon its magnificence! Bask in its glorious, um, glory! I present you... V-07-TR-0N!"

MEDIC!

Not only does that fight toss in some fun and levity, but also a Voltron reference, which my 6 year old self can't resist. Of course, I tend to stop listening to them as my grid lights up with Napalm and Plasma Blast icons. At least I know when someone has died early!

Spending a lot of time working out strats and wiping on bosses gets old, so for me, some interjection of fun into a raid helps lessen the pain a bit. Sometimes, these references are an icebreaker on a raid. More than once, we have had raiders say "I do not think it means what you think it means." or, "Kill the one in the dress!" which gets folks laughing and breaks the tension.

In fact, the game is full of what is referred to as Easter Eggs (click to see 12 pages of 'em) which the designers have added numerous references to everything from classic literature to movie characters and the list keeps growing. I like the subtle references (read: anything in Undercity) and sometimes the not so subtle ones (Chasing A-Me)


Am I in the game or not?
Unlike some other games, WoW never really went out of it's way to be immersive. The sense of wonder and awe kind of get lost when you are fighting mobs that hold a cartoonish quality.

WoW has strayed a bit from the original idea- putting yourself inside a real-time strategy game- to taking a little bit of our RL world inside our game world. It flows back and forth, as well.

The books Arthas: Rise of the Lich King and Day of the Dragon are rather popular. I poured over the compilation book which featured the story of how Kara was formed. It was kind of cool reading the back story based on the place I spent my nights online. Then again, I also enjoyed the Myst books as well. This flow between the game world and the so-called real world intensifies and enriches my game.

I will argue that while the fun and humor in the game is a nice change of pace from the Hack n Slash, some of it does go a bit overboard. He Feeds on Your Tears and I Love the Smell of Saronite in the Morning names are just silly. I do worry about the time and energy spent into coming up with achievement names.

Blizzard intends to keep the light-hearted humor coming, and I hope it doesn't degrade to cheese too much.

hardcore, casualcore, softcore, whatever.

It's not your fault.
Being casual is not killing WoW. Being hardcore is not either. Neither is being a pvper beast, habitual farmer, 5 man junkie, or alt fanatic. How you play the game has about the same impact on how Blizz designs and treats the game as much as the next guy.

See, the debate was posed on a more than a few blogs, notably Tree Bark Jacket and Jacemora between casuals and hardcore.

Being in a guild that's somewhat in between, I find it hard to choose a side (not between them, but in the debate as a whole). I have never really cared too much. I have only been in a top guild once and the schedule was too demanding. I have been in a "casual" guild and there wasn't enough action. Hence, my participation in a casual-core guild (my brother's term, not mine) where I can have that balance of both. If I need to step away for a few days because of classes, my guild will let me. If I want to raid every night of the week, someone in the guild has posted a raid or I can form my own.

However, what makes someone a casual, at least for our guild, is someone who would prefer to not raid at all or raids so occasionally it ends up being more headache and work for them to try to fit into our rotation. Taking this definition further, let's look at the state of the raider right now.

Because Blizzard has put in parallel progression, being in a 10 man guild is not long considered casual. Period. Done. 10 man guilds all over are busting out progression just like 25 man guilds. So, what makes them casual? The fact that they are happiest as a smaller guild? That they choose to not merge with another guild or leave for a larger guild entirely? Their gear ilevel is not the same as others--which I argue hard mode 10 man is higher ilevel that regular 25 man and the item levels and itemization are very similar in many cases--or they don't have legendaries?

Casual:
1. Occurring by chance.
2. a. Occurring at irregular or infrequent intervals; occasional
b. Unpremeditated; offhand

This is not to say those who play casually don't care what they do inside the game. Raiding casually does not have to mean flippant or ambivalent raiding and playing.



I want it all!
I disagree that WoW should be accessible to everyone if the reason is entitlement. Just because I pay for the game does not mean I am entitled to everything for that reason. Blizzard has chosen, from the start, to make the game more user friendly that its predecessors and continues to stay competitive in the market because of this choice.

Reminds me of a learning curve chart a friend posted on our guild website last year.

Some games just prefer to have a sharper learning curve than others and that works for them. Other games like to have complicated combat systems, while others have tried other "hooks" to make their games stand out. All of these are choices and those who play the games can either accept or reject those choices. I am not sure I could say because I played a certain game I should expect to see everything the game had to offer. Maybe that's just how I look at things. But that goes back to my oldschool days. Sure, I may have beat the game, but did I get that damned Golden Chocobo? No. Did I try? Yes, but I didn't and does that mean the game was somehow less enjoyable because of it? Not for me and I am ok with that.



Not an island.
What we might want to look at is how we all fit into the larger picture. Putting on my sociologist hat, I can't help but to see our game as a large social system. I mean, I already feel that as gamers we are part of a subculture.

There are over 10 million subscribers all over the world who play this game. And through out this large game, subsections of the social structure play their parts. Blizzard is now not just a developer but also a government managing everything in order to keep where we play fun and enjoyable. They have chosen to pay a nod to each group of folks.

This also means managing a lot more in terms of game mechanics and game design. Holy Dueg! mentioned that WoW is special from other MMO's because it actually takes in a lot of feedback from it's player base. Again, this may be due to the accessibility of its forums and the money they is willing to spend on hiring people who look at forums all day. The fact remains, it does want to listen to the players. Downside to this is when one group gets more attention over another group, tempers flare and jealousy abounds.

"Well, its my 16 bucks a month! I am paying for this service!" I am sorry, but this has grown to be much bigger than you. Yes, Blizzard is providing a service, but each one of us represents a separate section of a population.

All of these changes: mounts, traveling, leveling, gear acquisition, raid access, are all things the designers are doing to enhance the way each player interacts with the game, and ultimately, each other. I am not saying I am on board with all the changes every time. Please believe, the mount change makes me sad as does the ease of which getting gear will be. But looking at it in a different light, I can at least understand why the changes get done.

(Small rant: Don't ever complain about traveling until you have played EVE Online. Seriously. Getting from Minmitar space to Gallante the "safe" way beats anything I have done in WoW.)


In short.
Whether or not you are here for the social aspects of the game, chances are what you do in here affects others around you, thus making you part of the social structure. What Blizzard does also affects not only the game play, but how we feel about as a collective group of people. While you may have the right to get all hot and bothered over something, how you deal with it ripples far wider than you might think.

Roots: Where I came from

I am considered a "old" gamer in many senses of the word. Demographically, yes, I am older but I have also been playing games since I was in gradeschool. How old, you ask? My first game was Frogger, like many others I know.

Lately, I have been getting a strange desire to see the old games I loved so much. In addition, I started to think back to those old games and how they influence how I play my games today.

In part, I blame my dad. We had this old game for the Intellivision called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin in which you would walk around hallways and rooms getting gear and powers to defeat bigger monsters further down the dungeon. It was possible to keep playing this game for ages by not collecting the game ending treasure but to keep going further (255 levels in all). My dad would go on sprees and I sometimes would wake up the next morning with him still playing the game. Resilience, my dad had.

This is what my dad would stare at for hours.

Of course, when NES and SNES came out, my dad found a way to get us one. Thus began the gaming mentality slowly embedded in the brains of my brother and I. Faxanadu and Final Fantasy sparked my love for RPGs, but also the need to "collect" everything.

My brother and I would take turns on the games; one to fight the monsters, the other to look up the abilities and "strats" to defeat them. Without the lovely internet, gaming magazines and long hours of trial and error were what you needed to complete most of these games.

Looking back, I can see where my brother got his min/maxing from. Gameshark and cheat codes started to become his staple, whereas I didn't mind spending hours running in circles hoping for random mobs to appear.

The Final Fantasy series really did it in for me. I remember spending hours collecting all the gear in FFIII (or IV depending on how technical you wish to get) only to have my brother lose the Moogle Charm during an arena match! Or, later, trying to get a Golden Chocobo.



Storylines and unfolding game mechanics highly appealed to me. Suikoden and Chrono Trigger are probably two of most endearing games for me. I loved the concept of what you do in the game affecting the ending, thus encouraging you to play them again to see how it turns out differently.

The journey has been a long one to my WoW days: Nintendo, table top RPG, UO, EQ, DOAC.

So what does all this influence accumulate to? I am considered by my guildies as a Completion-ist. I have a sickness with pet collecting. I am a lootwhore at times. Seeing wolves run off to kill rabbits never gets old for me. I don't mind letting Brann ramble on about dwarves and titans. Every time I do my fishing dailies, I wistfully remember button smashing in order to reel in large fish.