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, 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
Posted On Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 By Jay
I’m not playing discipline again until 80. I’ve had it! Gone are the days for me where I will happily sit behing the front line of various DPS and keep people alive ( healing ) or try to get everyones attention so my buddies can do their stuff ( priest tanking ). Each of these actions are gone for the priest for many reasons.
PVP players are already used to stacking 2-3 dps on a discipline priest to take em down. Pre-3.02 a D priest could certainyl live with that and excel! Since we’ve trained the player base to do this, post-3.02 2-3 dps on a tanking discipline priest takes me down in 5 seconds. I don’t even get to heal myself most of the time.
Yes. I am whining about priest tanking!
On the other hand! Shadow is WAY fun. 4 dots, dispel still works and as long as I’m on my game, a longer mass dispel is no longer detrimental. Haha, get it?
Overall, I applaud Blizzard for the change. From what I can see, they’re pushing raiding and pvp to be more frenetic, more decisive and more open ended. Everyone has a little bit of everything with one or two specialties. Continue Reading
Posted On Friday, October 17th, 2008 By Jay
There’s a lot of subtle differences when it comes to the new discipline.
You’ll spend the majority of your time at 35% mana. Its wierd but it happens.
You MUST live through the opening burst. If you can survive for 5-7 seconds you’ll live through the encounter.
Mana burn is much more important.
Shield + Aegis + Many damage reductions = Your heal target will not die if you chain flash heal. This in itself is a HUGE change.
Range and pillar dancing is even more important then it was before.
I really want to be fair to you guys and give you a full review of the new talents and changes to Disc Priest PVP. I’ll need to run more BGs and more Arena matches to get a true(er) feel for the changes. Next week I’ll have a full talent run down. Stay tuned.
This is what I’m running right now. Be wary of disc priest tanking. Offense overall for everyone, including YOU, has increased.
Posted On Monday, October 13th, 2008 By Jay
When the lady leaves town this is what happens. 4 straight days of World of Warcraft. From 46 to 60, an epic tale. Fully cleared BRD and BRS to go from 57 – 60. Time for a short break!
