Posted On Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 By Jay
First and foremost, I’ve been taking my time to get to 80. The raid content will still be there. I may not participate in the guild first, but I’ll get there.
I’ve really been enjoying the slow trek. The quest hubs are in small digestible chunks, roughly about 30 minutes to complete an area and move on. The lore is interesting, although I care nothing for the tuskarr, they happen to be a means to an end.
What I am enjoying is the new equipment, instancing and class balance. I’m spec’d holy with 11 points to shadow for mind flay and 2 points into meditation from disc. It rocks! This is the first time since Warhammer Online that I’ve been able to effectively level as a healing class. And man is it awesome!
Instancing is by far the creme de la creme in WotLK. The encounters are well done and will prep the majority of players for 10 mans. Following that, I hope the 10 mans train the player to accomplish the 25 mans. Hopefully, we’ll see raiding be a larger part of the average players play schedule than last expansion. If raiding becomes the norm instead of 5 mans, many studies in Continue Reading
Posted On Monday, November 17th, 2008 By Jay
DISCLAIMER: Let’s leave Muds out of the equation. We know MMOs as a genre are catching up to MUD in tech.
DISCLAIMER: DK spoilers
Dynamic character state, or RPG, is easier then dynamic world state. Historically, looking at the amount of MMOs with dynamic character progression is par for the course. World events, that actually change the world, ala Final Fantasy 3, are extremely rare. In addition to rare, they almost never affect the game world in a permanent way.
Imagine my surprise, while firing up a Death Knight that the new phasing technology actually creates the impression of “affect” on the game world. Progressing through the story line began with a town being scouted byt he scourge. Continuing to the final conflict where the town is burned to the ground. This happened while I was playing. Yes, it happened LIVE!
This is fairly significant. And I also realise this happened COMPLETELY under the radar for the average player. No one knows and very few people are talking about it. I wanted to point out that Blizzard has some interesting technology that has the potential to put the player in control of their world.
With a new blizzard MMO around the corner(3-5 years), my hope Continue Reading
Posted On Friday, November 14th, 2008 By Jay
Over the past quarter there have been many news stories about studio closings.
Flagship Studios, developer of Hellgate:London and the acclaimed Mythos was recently closed over a year long fight. Emsemble Studios, developer of the critically accalimed Age of Empire series, was closed by Microsoft, with a new studio to form. THQ is also closing 5+ studios in the past quarter, due to fiscal reasons. And there are plenty more.
With all these closings, its a wonder that video game sales are up and projections look great! Ultimately, we’re asking the question; What does this mean?
What does it mean when a studio is closed? What products were they working on? Who was formally employed? Was it a necessary closing?
As the economy continues to correct due to global market corrections, it was only a matter of time before the video game industry felt a little pinch. And that’s what’s happening. We’re feeling a little pinch.
You see for the longest time many studios were putting out crap, and many studios continue to do so. Here’s a list of really questionable titles, released in the past 6 months. None of that list are over a metacritic score of 50. Here’s a number that many game Continue Reading
Posted On Monday, October 27th, 2008 By Jay
I just hit 14 on my swordmaster and 13 on my zealot. Going from tier to tier is a lot of fun except a few minor issues.
First, where are my flight paths? Seriously, there’s like 1 per region, what’s that shit about? What it does is penalize me the player for wanting to experience new content. Let me illustrate an example:
Last night, my guild wanted to get together for some early tier 2 PQ action. So, I flew out to Shadowlands in the dark elf territory to start gathering the troops. My guildies had the option of travelling to two points; (1) the first war camp which is a 10 minute run from the previous tier and (2) the mid point war camp in the Shadowlands which was again a 10 minute walk to the location. Royal pain in the butt. Total tiem to get the group together, 30 minutes! 30 minutes of travel time! Pitiful.
Second, is class disparity. DPS classes in War are REALLY fun. By their nature DPS is more fun than the support. Missing a healer means you can’t complete PQs at all. Missing a Tank means you can’t complete 50% of all PQs. That’s 50% of Continue Reading
Posted On Friday, October 24th, 2008 By Jay
With the Hallow’s Eve event in World of Warcraft, players abound are becoming infected, turining into zombies and in general having a hoot! Or are they?
There is a facination social phenomenon occurring. Many players ask for a way to “change” the world. The zombie event provides an opportunity to do just that. Why then would so many players be upset with the zombie event. One word: consent.
Historically, the opening of the gates of AQ40 participation in the global world changing event lead to rewards for all, riches and titles for some and unique equip for a select few, one per server to be exact. Players felt like they were joining a global effort! Contributing much needed resources to the war effort. If you didn’t play original vanilla WoW, this was a great event. Let’s move on.
Conversely, the recent zombie event is non consental. You’re participation in the zombie event is at the whim of other players. Much like truly open world PVP, Your experience may change due to online play. Your enjoyment of the zombie event is dependent on whether:
You enjoy being a zombie, unable to perform regular tasks in the game world.
You enjoy griefing to an extent. All friendly Continue Reading
