l337 epixx

Young, Shifted and Black

2011-01-20T02:57:00.000-08:00

You are young, shifted and black
We must begin to tell our young
There's a world waiting for you
This is a quest that's just begun

(with apologies to Weldon Irvine)

I'm rather enjoying levelling Kododancer through the post-cataclysm world. Even though she was level 20-ish when Deathwing made an appearance, which means that I missed all the spiffy new starting zones. Now, I know that a lot of Blizzards love-slurry has been dribbled over the 1-20 areas, but even the rest of the old world is sticky with it. I got a rattly cart ride from Ashenvale to Stonetalon just so I could join the army. Now that's recruiting. And I've even been phased after saving some group of centaurs from demons. When I'd finished the demons were actually dead. For good!

Generally, though, it's fun playing a tauren druid, a moodrood. It's nice to be able to pick any role in the game and run with it (although Kododancer was born feral - deal with it!) Also it's quite calming and peaceful being a cow. Most of my other characters are scheming wicked forsaken with bony elbows and poison in their back pockets. It's nice to be able to kick back in the Cenarion enclave, and really feel that these folk are PLU. Moo!

I luv Deathwing too

2011-01-16T00:38:00.000-08:00

My basic problem with WoW is that I don't like repeating stuff.

I like repeatedly shooting cartoon figures in the face until they fall over in a suitably amusing manner. I quite like repeatedly making the same bit of clothing/food/pretty gems or whatever, because that levels me up in a small way. Elite Super Grandmaster of Flowers! Yakawow!

I even slightly like wandering around picking up the same flowers or bits of rock. It appeals to the hoarder in me. And I like the scenary.

What I don't like is repeatedly going down the same dungeon with a random group of mostly indifferent and occasionally rude strangers to kill a boss that I've killed many times before. Unfortunately, this is known as 'knowing tacs' or 'having the achi', and reached its nadir with WotLK. It's about making sure you've done it plenty of times before, so that you can do it over again. Efficiency prioritised over fun. WoW as a second job.

Happily, though, Deathwing turned up to change all that. I imagine that the normal mode dungeons will devolve into the usual rinse'n'repeat fest for the lootwhores, once the first flush of excitement has worn off. However, the Heroic modes, being really heroic, will hopefully be more like mini-raids, with all the excitement of having to actually worry about dying and crowd control, and getting the giddy thrill of progression. Maybe actually talking to people. That sounds like fun.

I luv Garrosh

2011-01-14T12:37:00.000-08:00

I've decided that I love Garrosh Hellscream and I want to have his babies. He's just so masterful, but he obviously has his sensitive side. I encountered him first in an air raid at the beginning of Mount Hyjal, where he was barking orders like a good 'un. but even then I could see that beneath his shouty orc exterior there beat a soft nature-loving heart. Megeara's too much of a bony biatch to notice though. He fell into the sea but was okay. He's so butch.

But then! When his renegade general had just bombed a load of innocent nelf babies and laughed about it, Garrosh turns up and drops him off a cliff for disgracing the horde. "Honor" he said, (misspelling it of course, but thats just orcs for you). And some other stuff, but KodoDancer was too busy admiring his pecs to listen.

He was thinking of dropping Kodo off the cliff too, but he was soon convinced that she was innocent and was in fact a hero of the horde. He's so reasonable. And dreamy. Here's a picture of us holding hands.

Kodo and Garrosh sitting in a tree K I S S I N G

2010-12-16T02:41:00.000-08:00

So, my thoughts on Cataclysm:

1. It's Very Linear

It really is. Larísa at the Pink Pigtail Inn compares it to the conveyor belt at the Tower of London. Blink and you miss the cutscene. I cut my MMO teeth on Ultima Online (actually waay before that) which didn't even have quests, so I find this a little strange. I find self-completing quests and hunter pets just appearing violate even my minimal suspension of disbelief. Mind you the world has never been very internally consistent, as James Wallis noted in his seminal study of Azerothian Physics

2. It uses lots of phasing

Finally, the actions you take actually have an effect on the world, despite the fact that there are 13 million other people running around. No more finding Manrik's wife, then watching him send other people off. Kill those nagas, and as long as part of a scripted bit, they stay dead. This is, of course dependent on the Linearity. It would be a nightmare to test all the possible paths through various levels of phasing if people could just do what they wanted.

3. It's very pretty.

Despite being remarkably old, I was sorely tempted to take some serious psychedelic pharmaceuticals when I first hit Vasj'ir. Look at the colours! whee! That's deep man.

WoW has always been more of a game than a sandbox or a virtual world simulation, and it's moving even more in that direction. However, that's not necessarily a problem, since the linearity allows for Story. Finally, your level 80 hero can do heroic level 80 things. You just can't decide what heroic things you want to do.

2010-12-16T02:24:00.001-08:00

Haven't blogged for a while, because truthfully I haven't played for a while. Being effectively guildless and time-poor, combined with a dislike of pugging meant that my last experience of WoTLK content was of running away from the lich king after having hidden around a corner to gank his lieutenants. Not terribly heroic, 5 mans.

Anyway this is all history now because we have moved into that country from which no man returns - Cataclysm. So I can start levelling seriously and toss my tatty tier 8 armour aside for shiny new greens.

Nidhogger is now half-way to 85 and wondering where to go after Vasj'ir. He's sticking to shadow spec for now and enjoying Mind Spike a lot. There's been a certain amount of whinging about the way Mind Spike drops all your dots, but my solution is simple: don't bother with them. Mind flay for a couple of shadow orbs, then 3 Mind Spikes for a 90% chance of a crit on your Mind Blast. Finish off with a Power Word:Death and there hasn't been much that's still standing while I levelled.

Free Starcraft II Beta Keys

2010-04-29T12:22:00.000-07:00

Last night my guildmaster and I went to the launch of the Sci-Fi London film festival, Life in 2050. This is a 5 day extravaganza of Sci-Fi films based at the Apollo Theatre in Piccadilly Circus in the centre of London. The festival is sponsored by Blizzard, amongst others, since the imminent launch of StarCraft II, Wings of Liberty dovetails nicely with the futuristic theme of the films.

Since my GM is a srs journo, Blizz wined and dined us royally* before taking us across to the venue, ready for the prestigious Arthur C Clarke Award, which was being presented. Apparently China Miéville swept the boards. Why apparently? Well, being the geeks we are, we spent the whole time drinking free beer, and playing the Starcraft II beta which Blizz had thoughtfully provided, instead.

So what's StarCraft II like? To be honest, it struck me as being much like StarCraft I, but with considerably prettier graphics. By which I mean, of course, that I got my arse royally kicked by all and sundry (just as I used to 10 years ago), until I retreated, chastened, to single player mode. It's not surprising that the gameplay isn't drastically different, since StarCraft is a national obsession in Korea, and presumably a huge cash cow for Blizzard which they don't want to overturn. (That last sentence gives me visions of Korean water buffalo-tipping which is not really relevant.) The beta was very stable, and to all intents and purposes the same as the release, unless you are a Korean e-sports gladiator.

Anyhow, notwithstanding my ramblings, Blizzard are offering 500 beta keys for StarCraft II, 100 per day, free, gratis and for nothing, so you can try out it for yourselves. All you need to do is to turn up at the Apollo Theatre and actually play a bit of StarCraft II. That's it. simples.

Of course this isn't much use to anyone outside the M25 London orbital motorway, but for those of us who live or work in God's own country - fill yer boots!

*full disclosure - assuming the royalty like kebabs and beer.

Waving my wowcock

2010-03-25T05:36:00.000-07:00

On a recent heroic run:

and on the same run:

That is all.

Discovering my inner cow

2010-03-22T11:37:00.000-07:00

I've been playing my new mage in SAN and enjoying the social side of it a lot. Bloggers really are a verbose bunch. Hardly surprising I suppose. However, I wasn't enoying the gameplay so much. Both of my main characters are deeps who rely on dots for most of their damage, so playing a Mage wasn't very different.

I've played 2 mages before. One of them made it to level 35 (and became a bank alt), the other languishes at level 15, unplayed and unloved. I'd forgotten about that.

At heart I'm an evil undead poisoner who consorts with demons from the deepest nether for relaxation. And can only fulfil one role in the LFG tool. So, I thought I'd try something different. A tree-hugging nature-revering herbivore. One who can tick any of the LFG boxes.

So my second SAN character is Kododancer, a fine black angus druid. Long may she tank/heal/dps. Whilst revering both nature and the elders.

Slowly dotting him to death

2010-03-13T06:52:00.000-08:00

I ran a lot of heroics yesterday on my priest, Nidhoggur. Normally, I only do the LFG thing with 4 of my RL friends, so that I don't have to mingle with the great unwashed out there in pugland. However, this time we were short a tank and a deeps, so the 3 of us decided to spin the wheel.

I originally levelled Nidhoggur as a healer, since I already had a deeps as my main character, but over the course of time it has become apparent that my friend the Shaman is actually better at healing than I am (not least because he's better geared), and I'm a better deeps than he is. So gradually I've become more entrenched in my shadowy ways. This came to a head a week or so ago when I was forced to choose between spending my precious EoT's on Zabra's Circlet of Conquest (the deeps one) or Zabra's Cowl of Conquest (the healy one).

I went for the circlet and turned to the Dark Side.

So, there we were in Heroic PoS, a hunter, a healy shaman, a pug warrior, a pug death knight tank and Nidhoggur. This was the first time my group had done Heroic PoS, although we'd been through it a few times on normal mode.

Nidhoggur was a bit undergeared for the place, as he still has a few blues, and even a quest green, but the RNG gods had obviously decreed that one faildeep wouldn't make much difference.

I got the impression that the deeps warrior had been there before, as he was discussing how often the battered hilt drops (0% as far as I can see from 1 run), and his GS was about 2K better than the rest of us scrubs. Dunno about the tank, as I don't remember him saying anything.

We went through the trash reasonably quickly, although Nidhoggur's damage was a bit on the low side, until we came to Forgemaster Garfrost, the giant who can't decide which weapon to use.

First time through the tank died at about 30%. "sorry guys", said my shaman to a deafening silence, as we flew back.

The second time, Nidhoggur got hit by a saronite boulder, but I don't think anyone really noticed, because the tank and healer both died in quick succession soon after. Garfrost was at at 60% health this time. We were getting worse!

"What's killing you?" asked the uber warrior quite reasonably. Strategies were discussed, (essentially moar hiding behind boulders) and off we went again. This time it was looking good. The giant's health dropped steadily down to about 5%. Then the shaman died. Somehow. The tank did what he could, but it was a lost cause. He died soon after. The uber warrior tanked for a bit more. He died. Garfrost went for me. I refreshed my dots and Dispersed into a cloud of shadows. And down he went!

To say I was surprised was a bit of an understatement. I sat there open-mouthed for a minute or so until someone reminded me to rezz.

Final comment goes to the uber warrior:- "I've never seen that technique before; slowly dotting him to death."

Meta-Cognitive Naming

2010-03-07T00:07:00.000-08:00

I can just imagine Tam's thought processes, although of course I haven't actually asked him about it.

What would be a good guild name, one that that hasn't already been taken? After all, Argent Dawn is an old, full server. What I really need is a single abstract noun to describe the guild and its purpose.

'Vengeance' - taken
'Violence' -likewise
'Perfidy' - gives the wrong impression (and is it even a word?)
'l337ness' - no, no, no, just no

I know! I'll move up a meta-cognitive level. I shall have a phrase to describe the word that describes the guild and its purpose. In fact one that describes ALL guilds with a single abstract noun for their names. One guild to rule them all! And ideally in the darkness bind them.

Thus was born Single Abstract Noun, the Argent Dawn guild for bloggers, their readers, alts and assorted hangers on. Tam's the GL, in another fruit-based incarnation. Tobold's there, Larisa's there. Miss Medicina isn't because she's a silly American, so she's started a chapter across the pond. Pretty much everyone I've ever heard of in the WoW blogosphere has an alt there, and now so do I.

In keeping with the meta-cognitive naming theme of the guild, and due to the fact that Megeara (the fury of jealousy) was taken, I've created a character meaning 'the kindly one'.

So, welcome to Eumenide, my new baby mage. Long may she pew pew.

Oh the Irony

2010-03-06T03:35:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned previously, my characters don't have much luck with epic wands. You can't make them and they don't seem to have a great drop rate, at least not for me. Wherein lies a story.

So there I was, running 5-man PoS (which always makes me think of PoS) with my priest, Nidhoggur, who recently dinged 80. Nidhoggur was in shadow spec, trying hard to break the 3k barrier. Bosses and trash were dying beneath our furious deeps whilst the Dark Lady hung around making enthusiastic comments, and not helping at all. Things were going well (mind you, we weren't even on heroic, so it wasn't hard) when I disconnected fighting some trash.

My connection is usually pretty solid, but this evening it decided to play silly buggers, and it took me a few minutes to reconnect. Upon reconnecting, I was greeted by the roll-for-an-item popup, for the coffin nail, a wand which would have suited me perfectly both from a deeps perspective, and from an RP one (Nidhoggur means 'corpse-eater').

Ooh, ooh, finally, a decent wand, I thought as I checked the stats, and reached for the 'need' button. But fractionally before I clicked, the timeout on the window kicked in (I'd been disconnected, remember). The wand was automatically rolled for, and handed over to another party member, who in turn automatically D/E'd it. My lovely wand was turned into a bit of enchanting stuff for someone who didn't even want it.

And the ironic bit? I was the only enchanter in the party.

The toons, they are a changin'

2010-02-04T03:44:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted for a while because there hasn't been much to say. The folk Megeara was raiding with decided to up sticks for Aion, leaving her full of frustrated yearning to kick Freya's large but perfectly-proportioned ass.

Life has been a little bit slow for Megeara since then. I like the people in my guild, and I've been there a long time, but they are uber-casual, logging in for a spot of wintergrasp or a quick heroic, and passing the odd bit of RP double-entendre in guild chat.

Consequentially, I've decided to shift my attentions over to Nidhoggur, my baby priest, whom I have been levelling on another server with a few RL friends. He's a good, holy, priest who just can't help being drawn to the dark side. More of him anon.

playing at roleplaying

2009-12-12T04:56:00.000-08:00

When Megeara was just a young warlockess in her mid 40's she switched servers to follow her toyboy, a lithe young Orc who promised to take her up the wailing caverns and show her the time of her unlife.

Little did she know that the fit teen would become a porky crime-lord and confirmed ladyboy afficionado, eventually succumbing entirely to the debached lure of the pleasure pits of Silvermoon.

Yep, Meg had joined an RP server (or arrr-pee as the pirates say). She gained a backstory and became a blood dancer in the service of Lady Sylvanas. She ran slaves the length of Stranglethorn and presided over gnomish gimp fights in Gurubashi arena.

Eventually she rose high in the opinions of the great and good of the server, and even represented her guild in the high council of the Blood Pact. The fat orc became Guild Leader. All was well in ye landes of Azeroth.

And then the lich king struck. It wasn't the zombie plague, or even the frozen northern lands that caused our downfall. No, it was the curse of accessible raiding.

Most of the senior members of the RP guilds went off raiding the exciting new dungeons of Northrend. In order to progress, they joined Proper Raiding Guilds who had no time for the thees and thous. No time for a bit of casual erp in the Silvermoon pleasure pits. No time even for gimp fights. Our guild withered to a rump of a few people who weren't online much. You can't RP or raid with folk who aren't there.

So what went wrong? Actually I don't think that anything did. It's just that roleplaying in WoW is less interesting than raiding. Mostly I RP in wow when there's nothing better to do. Outside of WoW it's a different story. Last year I had the dubious honour of being named 'roleplayer of the year' by my pencil-and-paper gaming group (a rare example of being both a winner and a loser at the same time).

I think that the difference is that WoW role-playing has no effect whatever on your character. Your character doesn't get better items or improve their stats, or get richer in WoW through RP. And it doesn't affect the world, which is essentially static (there's a fine article about Azerothian Physics which bears this out). It is just mental masturbation, without the payoff.

Whereas in p-n-p roleplaying you really are playing characters in a story which may change the game world, and will certainly change your character, even to the point of perma-death. The Story is the point.

I don't really see how you can create Story in a static world, except to use it as a backdrop, and then you may as well be playing p-n-p.

All of which is to explain why, despite being a role-player for over a quarter of a century, I can't be arsed to RP in WoW, and am much happier down a dungeon doing my l337 DPS and picking up purples.

Decisions, decisions.

2009-10-01T03:16:00.000-07:00

Last time we were in Ulduar, I managed to pick up this rather lovely staff. But wait, for all it's loveliness, it has no +hit on it. This rather sucks, because I'm a bit low on +hit. Even wasting 3 precious talent points on suppression I'm barely hit capped, and everyone says that hit capping is the best thing since slice'n dice'd murlocks.

So what to do? In the end, I went down to Usuri Brightcoin in the sewers. With the stench of Dalaran's ordure in my nostrils, I held my nose and converted all of my shiny Emblems of Conquest, and even a few of my gleaming Emblems of Triumph into 40 dowdy old Emblems of Valor. It hurt, I can tell you, but I got a pair of sturdy-looking boots which almost made up for the hit I was losing.

I'm saddened by the fact that looking like Putress will now take rather longer, but at least I'm nearly out of my crafted welfare epics. And I've now got 20K hit points. Yay for being less squishy. Only that dratted wand to lose now.

I, Locktard

2009-09-27T02:10:00.000-07:00

(h/t to I Deathtard for the title). One of the things that I've noticed about raiding is how incredibly squishy I am. My life, and frequently the lives of those around me, tend to hang in the balance just waiting for someone to make a mitake. So here, in no particular order are Megeara's list of Things Not To Do In Ulduar:

Do not stand too close to XT-002's boombots whilst you are AOE'ing. Unsurprisingly they go boom.
Do not stand too far away from Ignis's guardians. When they charge, it hurts.
Wait until a tank has aggro'd (aggroed?) a Dark Rune Guardian before pew pew'ing it.
Do not AOE Freya's Detonating Lashers. The hint is in the name.
Do not fall into Kologarn's hole. Oerr, missus.

I am sure there will be more.

Performance problems

2009-09-26T10:28:00.000-07:00

It's a funny thing, performance. Last time we were there, the first two bosses in Trial of the Crusaders went down (fairly) easily. We were trashed by Varian Wrynn's hand-picked heroes, it's true, but the Beasts of Northrend and Lord Jaraxxus died helpfully beneath my flaming blasts of chaos. Pew pew! And we got Emblems of Triumph.

Tonight was different. We wiped repeatedly on the Jormungar, until with practice, we managed to wipe repeatedly on the previous boss, Gormok the Impala instead. We just sucked. Mind you, we had a different raid composition and were down one warlock (only two warlocks in a 10-man group, tut, tut). We couldn't do a thing right. The tanks died repeatedly. The healers died in pairs. One time I had the poison debuff on me, and ran to what I thought was someone with the fire buff on, which turned out to be someone in exceptionally glowy armour. So we both died. It was carnage. Our skeletons were piled high, and I'm sure that Varian Wrynn was laughing behind his hand at us. No Emblems, no phat lewt, no Triumph.

And I loved every minute of it.

Be careful what you wish for

2009-09-21T12:02:00.000-07:00

So, we went back to Ulduar last night. We went into the Antechamber and I died a lot. I never realised just how squishy I was until I started raiding.

I spent most of the fight with Aurayia dead, but still managed to get the worlds silliest shoulders. They look like a pair of steaming hams on my bony undead shoulders. They are Just Ridiculous, but a significant upgrade for Megeara. They're sufficiently absurd that one of the other warlocks kept wanting them for RP purposes (yes we have 3 warlocks in a 10-man raid. So what. You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too many warlocks).

Where we came unstuck was Freya. Not only did we not really know the strategy, but our DPS wasn't up to killing the waves of mobs before the next wave hit. And we didn't down the glowy trees fast enough, and the adds kept resurrecting and we kept wiping. It was all a bit depressing, so just to finish off, we went back and killed Ignis with no problems. It's always nice to end on a high note.

Back to business

2009-09-19T08:02:00.000-07:00

It's all been a bit quiet for the past few weeks, but now the summer break is over, the kids are back at school, and everyone's hunkered down in front of their screens waiting for global warming/climate change to freeze them in. And that means that it's time to go raiding again! My raid group now has Naxx pretty much on farm status, so we've progressed a bit. Last night we hit Trial of the Crusader (a first for most people) and Ulduar (a first for me).

Trial of the Crusader

I'm the first to admit that the rationale for TotC is pretty silly. As Tamarind pointed out, why would you want all your best fighters killing each other, rather than killing the scourge. Still, when all's said and done I'm not much of a lore geek, and it drops some phat lewt. When I say it drops good loot, I mean for other people, obviously, since I'm still in tatty looking ilevel 200 stuff whilst everyone and his dog who have been pugging heroics are in shiny new ilevel 245 gear. Not that I mind really except when the Leet Warlock shows off his steaming new shoulders to me, and tops me in the DPS meters.

That all sounds a little grumpy, but I'm not really. What I really like is experiencing new content and the gear is really just a means to an end. This was particularly apparent in the Trial of the Crusader.

We downed the Beasts of Northrend, after wiping a couple of times on the Jormungar. The consensus was that we needed to down Acidmaw first and stay close enough for the healers to get to everyone. After that it wasn't too tricky.

Lord Jaraxxus went down in a couple of tries, after our off-tanks understood just how fickle the Mistresses of Pain were. There was lots of high level discussion about taunting and healing as well, which, as a simple DPS, I largely ignored. I just wanted to be able to summon him myself! We got the usual plate healing gear for disenchanting and I lost a roll for a l337 ring.

This was all well and good, so we were feeling pretty cocky when we met the faction champions. Where we were unceremoniously handed our asses on a plate. I've never been a terribly good PvP'er, and this had very much the feel of being ganked in Stranglethorn by a gang of higher level characters. I haven't PvP'd in a while, and all my buttons were in the wrong places. I was stunlocked by the rogue and with a resilience of 0, swiftly had my forsaken face pushed into the dirt. As Heidegger would have said, this finite determination of undeath achieved its own definition. If he played WoW.

And to top it all off, Varian Wrynn called us scrubs! Frankly I'm surprised that he didn't come down to /spit and teabag us.

Ulduar

On to Ulduar. I've never been there before, but you can see that a fair amount of love has been lavished on the place. I'm not an enormous fan of vehicle quests in general, but watching iron dwarf minions being crushed beneath the tracks of my lumbering great tank was a lot of fun. We didn't do any of the hard modes or anything and the Flame Leviathan went down, even though I briefly disconnected in the middle. Hmm. Perhaps I wasn't entirely crucial to the whole affair...

Anyway on XT-002 I was assigned to AoEing the adds, plus my usual nuking. They all blew up in a very satisfying manner, and gave my cold dead heart a little lift. Why does a big metal monster sound like a little girl though? What with his heart popping in and out I found it all rather surreal. It went down though. No! No! No! No! No!

It was getting late by then, so after we wiped a couple of times on Ignis, we called it a night. I'm pleased that we've made the move to Ulduar, since it means that I might actually get my hands on a decent wand and get my Epic achievement.

N00b Raider Alert!

2009-08-17T00:28:00.000-07:00

Its been a while since I last posted. It's this damned idleness, you see. I just can't shake it off. Megeara is now level 80 and raiding Naxx-10 on a fairly regular basis. As a result, she's now decked out in pretty purplez right down to her wand. Well, actually except her wand. I'm still waiting for the Wand of the Archlich to drop.

So, from being the world's worst PvP'er, I am now one of the world's worst raiders. I can barely get above 2K DPS on bosses, I invariably die during Heigan's safety dance (I should probably take my hat off), and periodically my imp takes it upon himself to attack random groups of monsters because my tab-targeting has gone wrong.

However on the plus side, I try to be punctual, read up on the encounters, and make sure that I'm appropriately begemmed, beglyphed, beflasked and befooded (befooded?). I've loaded DBM, and I'm rather enjoying myself. I can see why people get hooked on it, and I think if I wasn't burdened down with the drudgery of home and family life, I'd be hardcore, man.

Third (and final) Impressions

2009-05-15T12:37:00.000-07:00

So Megeara has finally dinged 80. I've taken a long time, and effectively levelled through the whole of Northrend without setting foot inside an instance. This is basically because I'm a total slacker, but also because I've been levelling Nidhoggur, my holy priest, of whom more at a later date.

I found levelling a bit slower than the Burning Crusade, which isn't a bad thing, as I vastly prefer levelling to dailies. And many of the quests were pretty inventive - unlike some other people, I enjoyed the Wrathgate event, and having Arthas pop up periodically.

High Points for me:

Warning: some assembly required

I loved this quest. controlling abominations and then exploding them in showers of blood guts and filth to kill off some folk you've never heard of. What's not to like?

Did you think we had forgotten? Did you think we had forgiven?

It would have been fantastic to be able to join Grand Alchemist Putress in betraying both the Horde and the Alliance at the Wrathgate. I'm not asking for the forsaken to become a whole new faction (though that would be great) but it would have been nice to pick sides in the retaking of the undercity. I'm on an RP realm, and Megeara is an undead alchemist. I want to be Putress, damn it! Mind you, it appears that I'll be able to wear his armour, even if I have to kill Yogg-saron himself for the shoulders. And why does he have a girl's name?

I'm sure there's more, but those two stick in my mind.

Second Impressions

2008-12-21T10:15:00.000-08:00

I'm still pretty positive about WoTLK after having played on and off for another month. I seem to be about the slackest person I know since Megeara is still only level 73. I'm basically a Bartle-type explorer, and there's been lots of fun stuff to see.

In particular I've enjoyed being a forsaken alchemist, since Northrend seems to be filled with evil alchemists spreading the plague over the hapless inhabitants. There are purple-hued enclaves clouded with drifting poisons, and cackling forsaken hacking up bodies to create hideous undead monstrosities. It speaks to something deep in my undead soul.

Muahhhahhhahhha!

First Impressions

2008-11-14T05:19:00.000-08:00

I played around in Northrend for a while and was reasonably happy. It feels more like a real place (if you know what I mean) than the Outlands which always felt like an asteroid floating in space. That was good fun to jump off though. Dropped about 200 gold in the first 2 minutes buying up all the grand master skills, though.

The initial quests actually seemed very reminiscent of the starter quests for levels 1-5, I thought. Vengeance Landing feels like a noob zone despite the war going on. I suppose it's for everyone whose got out of the habit of levelling. Speaking of which, I noticed that there were level 74 death knights running around 18 hours after the release. Way to go guys. There's a feeling in some quarters that Blizzard really ought to have an 'I Have No Life' achievement for the first person to hit the level cap, but I think that first anything is actually pretty cool.

One difference that I noticed was that the levelling truce that seemed to be in force in the early days of the Burning Crusade was off. We got ganked and corpse camped by the allies whilst looking around Utgard Keep. Ah well, onward and upward.

Arthas is my bitch

2008-11-14T01:40:00.000-08:00

I went to the UK launch party for Wrath at HMV and previously at the Ice bar in London. A friend blagged me a press pass, so I got to hang around with the journo's. Free drinks and nibbles abounded. Good fun, and by the time I was introduced to the guy from Toxic Gamer it had become well weapon. Although the goodie bags were a bit sparse, I got a free copy of the game. Sucking up to the press FTW!

Anyway I took a few piccys, just to prove we were there!

Test ten rats

2008-03-29T15:29:00.000-07:00

Relmstein has a post up offering a solution to the problem of useless loot dropping in instances due to the random nature of drops. He's essentially suggesting that items be deeply customisable via the gem socket bonuses, which I guess could work.

Where we part company is whether randomness is in fact desirable. At first glance, probably not. Players find it annoying to have to repeatedly run instances just on the remote hope that the Axe of Ultimate Leetness will drop for them. They like to be able to work towards a goal, getting tokens and knowing that each run is getting them closer to their prize. A nice predictable progression as we have in pvp, where I can calculate with a mathematical certainty how many AB's I need to lose to get my Vindicator's Dreadweave Belt.

Blizzard seems to take this view, with the Badges of Justice dropping from instance bosses. But I think that people have it wrong. WoW is essentially a Skinner Box, dishing out purple goodness to the player for pressing the lever enough times. The eponymous Skinner tried out many different reinforcement schedules on his rats, and found was that the very best way to keep them pressing the levers was to give them random rewards at random intervals.

And lest you think that games players and Skinner's rats have little in common, just step into a casino or play a slot machine. Random rewards at random intervals is how most gambling works. Regular, predictable, rewards just don't work as well.

I think that one of the reasons why WoW has been so phenomenally successful is that it taps into the primitive reward centres in our brains better than any other MMORPG. Blizzard shareholders should probably be opposing any moves towards greater predictability in WoW.

These boots are made for walking

2008-03-28T02:37:00.000-07:00

So I've hit the battlegrounds, especially Eye of the Storm, with a vengeance. And yay, I have my first Welfare Epic: Vindicator's Dreadweave Stalkers, a nice pair of boots that no-one can actually see on my paperdoll. I wondered whether I should get myself a pvp trinket instead, but decided that since the battlegrounds are mostly a means to an end, I'd go for the pretty boots.

I'm no longer the world's worst pvp'er, though I'm still only about half-way up the damage board (despite being told that I was the 'worst warlock ever', and 'no help at all' by some 'tard in EOTS). Battlegrounds really do bring out the most juvenile behaviour in people. Or maybe it's the juveniles who like battlegrounds.

I think that's enough pvp for a few days. Time to grind a few quests and primals for my flying mount, I think.

this character may be improved

2008-02-22T12:13:00.000-08:00

I found this character auditor for my warlock Megeara. Pretty isn't she, for a walking corpse? Sadly she is not very imba at the moment. The site recommends that I stick to Karazhan and 5-man heroics. Hurrah! I'm ready for Kara.

However there's a problem.

I find instances tricky because I don't generally get more than about an hour undisturbed by the drudgery of work and family life. By the time we've got a group together I'm off cooking dinner or whatnot. Plus my guild is down to about 35 people after a change of leadership, which makes getting groups together a bit tricky at the moment.

Tobold has an interesting piece on why PVP rulez, which I basically agree with. The thust of his argument is that its easier for casuals like me to get their epic gear through Battlegrounds and Arena's than from raiding, purely because of the time constraints. So, despite the fact that I'm the world's worst PVP'er, it's off to the Battlemaster for me.

Welfare epixx FTW!

l337 Epixx

2008-01-12T12:12:00.000-08:00

l337 epixx, for those who don't speak leet means 'Elite Epics'. If you still don't know what this means then you obviously don't play WoW!

This is going to be an occasional blog on the subject of MMORPG's, including but not limited to WoW, Eve Online, RMT and anything else I fancy.