Training delay, SOE down, SotNW grinding.

Posted on September 26, 2007 by SynCaine

Bit of EVE stupidity on my part a few days ago. I bought a +4 implant from the Ministry of War Loyalty Point store, having finally saved enough LP to get one. I proceed to unplug my +1 implant and go to plug in the +4. EVE informs me that I need cybernetics level 4. Ah crap. I should have checked to make sure I could use the new implant with my current skills, but sadly did not. So now my main pilot is sitting in a station waiting for his cybernetics skill to catch up, which delays all his gunnery and engineering training. The goal was to train those up a bit and give level 3 missions another shot in my Ferox, but now this has been delayed for two more days while cybernetics finishes. Overall delay of 5 days, but I guess I would have had to train cybernetics up eventually, and the +4 implant will speed up training after that. Still, I’m eager to get back to running level three missions, as I’ve been doing level 2’s for a long time now.

EQ2 was down all day yesterday, so no update in that.

In SotNW my team is still happily grinding away. One nice thing about SotNW is that each zone in the world map has a level range under its name, letting you easily see which areas you should head for next. Nothing earth shattering, but you wonder why other games don’t do this.

Posted in EQ2, EVE Online, SotNW | Comments Off on Training delay, SOE down, SotNW grinding.

AFK leveling.

Posted on September 25, 2007 by SynCaine

Just a quick post today, but Sword of the New World is very… well different. You can AFK level yourself to basically 100, and the game does nothing to really stop you. It’s just one of the many differences between SotNW and ‘traditional’ MMO games. Still trying to wrap my head around it all. Short term, its been an enjoyable enough game so far. Long term I’m not sure its going to have enough to really keep me, but we will see.

Posted in MMO design, SotNW | Comments Off on AFK leveling.

Sword of the New World I love you. No wait I hate you. No just kidding I love you.

Posted on September 24, 2007 by SynCaine

Thanks to a PCGamer demo DVD, I installed Sword of the New World over the weekend to give it a go. Seeing as how the game is Free2Play (stupid marketing trend word) and got a 90% review in the same issue, I figured it was at least worth a shot. Amazingly when the install completed and I logged in, the patching took less than 30 minutes (compared to EQ2s 5 hour marathon) before I was ready to play.

I’ll be honest, the first impression SotNW gives is great. The graphics are fantastic without being a system hog, the music gets you into the theme instantly, and the character models look great in terms of detail and style, with good animations. Character creation is as simple as choosing one of five classes, picking male or female, entering a name, and picking how your character looks out of 10 or so outfits. That’s it, a few easy clicks and you are in the game, on a ship starting the tutorial.

So for the first 15 minutes or so I loved SotNW, which is a major plus for any game in today’s market. I hated the next two hours. And now, perhaps four or five hours in, I’m back to loving it. If you look at a site like gamerankings.com, you will see SotNW has gotten a varied mix of reviews, from 40% to 90%. Both low and high scores have come from fairly reputable sources, and in a way both are correct. Let me explain.

As I mentioned above, the graphics are great. The view is Diablo-like, but with a good range of zoom and tilt features. The camera is also easy to manipulate and never gets in the way. The style of the graphics is where the game will either gain or lose points with people. Personally I like them, if nothing more than a change of pace from the usual dwarf/elf stuff I’ve been looking at in WoW/EQ. The style is a mix of anime and renaissance. Yes, it’s an odd mix, but it works for me. The characters are highly details, if a bit on the pimp/hooker style, with the males sporting some fur lines jackets and the females wearing gravity defying dresses. Again your taste might vary, but at least it gets away from the ‘level one potato sack armor’ you usually find yourself in from level one to ten in most games.

Up next is the sound, and mainly the music. The music separates itself from most MMOs (other than EVE perhaps) in that it gets in your face and makes itself a very noticeable addition. It’s a crazy mix of techo/classical/opera/other, sometimes all mixed together into one track. As the game is separated into large zones, each time you enter a new one another track plays, and the variety so far seems to be great. It also sets the pace of the game, as the music is quick and upbeat, as is the gameplay, but more on that later. Again you can either rate the game very high in music if you like it, or it will be a huge pain if you don’t, since it’s so loud and in-your-face. Personally I like it, and again it separates SotNW from the ‘traditional’ MMO.

Finally we have gameplay, which I guess is a big deal. In short, SotNW is Diablo on crack. Actually it’s more like cocaine, very pure cocaine. SotNW is VERY confident in itself; it aims to be a certain type of game, and does not cut any corners to achieve that, good or bad. In a world of ‘mass market’ and ‘broad appeal’, it’s nice to play a game that up front says ‘this is how I play, hope you like it’. Another huge plus of course is that the game is free, so if the games very distinct style is not for you, you don’t end up feeling cheated by having to drop $30-$50 on a box. The major feature the game boasts about is its Multi-character control (MCC) system. Instead of just one character, you control three at all times, very similar to a single player RPG like Neverwinter Nights or Final Fantasy. It’s nothing major for an RPG, but in an MMO, it’s something new. Finally you can have a tank, a healer, and dps all in one, without it being some bastardized hybrid class that we all know is going to get nerfed and buffed weekly from release to the day they shut the servers down. With a three member team, and five classes, a good bit of variety exists in terms of how you want to field your team. I’ve so far seen everything from what I will assume is a basic team of a fighter (tank) scout (healer) and one of the three dps classes, either a wizard, musketeer or elementalist. I’ve also seen some oddball combos, like three wizards, or a scout and two musketeers. The nice part is that many of them ‘work’, and making changes is easy enough, as you can create new characters and switch up as you go.

Now, here is why I hated the game in before I hit a certain point. Due to the games fast pace, normal mobs go down in 1-3 hits, and a well placed AoE can often kill 10+ mobs. In a normal MMO, that would mean you clear an area and wait for respawns, in SotNW the respawns are already on you, the rate is that fast. Many reviews have stated that you could park your team in a room, go afk for the night, and come back to find yourself up a few levels still happily killing away. This is true, you could do that, as the game will indeed play itself if you so choose, and fighting mobs your level or slightly below is almost never a contest. Mobs die so fast in fact that it almost makes it impossible to use any character skills; before you can target something its dead. In the very early game, you get the sense that you do nothing more than move from one zone to the other, collecting item x and going back, with whatever might be in your path being an afterthought. It looks good, sounds good, but it’s very shallow and unrewarding. If you don’t push on and continue, you can easily get the impression that SotNW is a mindless grind fest.

Fast forward to level 15, and my opinion changes. I was mowing my way through another dungeon still thinking nothing can stop me and whatever I do really does not matter. You wade into a room with 30+ mobs, grab agro, hit an AoE, repeat in the next room. Then I died. To be honest I don’t even know what happened, but somehow my scout got killed, and shortly after my fighter and elementalist go down as well. I figured something oddball must have happened, and quickly went back into the same dungeon and again started the mass slaughter on my way to the final room. I guess I’m a bit slow here, because once again in one of the rooms my party goes down. This time I was paying more attention, and I noticed that my scout had agro on him, stopping his healing, and enough mobs were attacking everyone to interrupt my AoE. I figured it was just a case of pulling one too many mobs, so the 3rd time I came back I made sure to pull only 20 or so, and things went better, I made it to the final room with the boss mob. I got destroyed. Horribly. Here was this ‘easy’ game kicking my ass left and right, making me look like a noob. It should be noted that the boss was level 13, my team was level 15, so it’s not like I was going after something out of my level just to raise the challenge, if anything I was a bit ahead on levels for the area. I had to go back to the final room and you know, actually use some strategy to come out on top. Using all three characters individually, and using all their skills, I was able to clear out enough space to get the boss into a manageable situation, where my tank could hold his attention long enough for the elementalist to take him down. And when he did go down, it actually felt very rewarding, my characters striking very silly ‘we win’ posses before being warped out, Final Fantasy style.

I guess if I had to sum it all up, it would be something like this. SotNW is NOT a traditional MMO. It does a LOT of things very different, and you will either love it or hate it. Looking around the net, it seems very few reviews are middle of the road as well. It does contain a level of strategy and skill, but that depth is hidden behind a very thick curtain of mindless killing with flashy effects going off left and right. It does bring a lot of new features to the table, many of which I have not touched on today (I think this post is long enough as it is), and like I said above, it’s very confident in itself, not cutting corners to appeal to more people. I’m looking forward to putting in more time with SotNW to see if it indeed does get deeper and more complex. It has crafting, enchanting, and PvP, features I have yet to even touch.

In other ‘games I play’ news, no EQ2 this weekend and EVE is moving along nicely, saving up ISK to get a battleship. I’ll give level 3 missions another shot shortly in my Ferox, as my skills are finally catching up with the ship and it seems to be putting out the dps it SHOULD have when I bought it.

Posted in EVE Online, MMO design, SotNW | 5 Comments

Friday randomness.

Posted on September 21, 2007 by SynCaine

Bit absent minded today, I blame it on today being Friday. EQ2 is going well, level 13 now. Heroic Opportunities still confuse me, I mean I get that you use the skill that is blinking to get a greater effect, but the NPC who tried to explain it referred to some kind of chaining effect. Perhaps with more time, I’ll figure it out.

As for EVE, still running missions and doing some occasional mining. I finally have enough LP to buy a +4 attribute implant, now I just need a little more cash, as it also costs 12 million ISK to purchase. I’m leaning towards Perception, but might go Intelligence. Currently my pilot sits at 22 Perception and 16 Intelligence, and that’s with all +1 implants. Considering he is going to focus almost exclusively on combat skills, Perception seems like the safe bet.

I’ve sadly had to go back to level 2 missions for now, as even in a Ferox I was having too much trouble with level 3s. The ship itself is fine, but I simply don’t have the skills to support it correctly. Soon enough however I should have enough of the combat related skills to level 3 to give it another go. I think I also drew some bad luck in getting “Massive Attack” as one of my first level 3 missions, as that mission can be a monster. “The Blockade” did not really help either. Good thing both times a Corp member with a BS was around to give me a hand and help me finish each mission, so thanks to Tao and Mord for that!

Posted in EQ2, EVE Online, MILK Corp | 1 Comment

Lifestyles of the rich and MMO famous.

Posted on September 20, 2007 by SynCaine

Quick question about EQ2 that hopefully someone can comment on and answer. Are most quests voiced, or only some/few? I noticed the first two camps all the quests had voice actors reading the quest, but the last camp that we reached last night did not. The NPC would say a simple “hello” and the quest was all text. What percentage of quests are voiced?

Moving on, a (hopefully) interesting thought crept into my mind as I was listening to the latest Virgin Worlds podcast. The topic of designing more content for casuals came up, and how WoW did a good job of this, and that perhaps future games should push this even further. That the ‘hardcore’ players will plow through whatever amount of content you give them quickly, and then complain for more. So if you ignore that small population, and design for the casual player who goes at a much slower pace, you will appeal to a much larger base, leading to greater sales.

Seems simple enough, right? While the base of the idea is decent enough, I think it ignores one important aspect of human behavior, the pursuit of greatness. Given the choice, most people would want to be the best at something, or at least great at it. Be it sports, acting, math, etc, we try to be the best at something. Problem is reality usually sets in and most of us realize we will never be the MVP of a sports league, star in a major movie, or publish a top selling book. What we do instead is follow the lives of those that do; we feast upon celebrity news, and get all excited when we meet one of them in person. If we can’t have it ourselves, we at least want to see what its like through the eyes of someone else.

MMOs mimic society in a lot of ways, and I believe the above also applies. I believe most players would love to be in a top tier raiding guild taking down world firsts if they could. Reality again sets in for most and we realize we don’t have that kind of skill/time to commit to a game, and instead play at our own pace, whatever that may be. Yet we still inspect that decked out raiding when we see them in town, we read about a guilds journey to defeat the final boss of some instance, and we sometimes go to a database website and search out the best gear for our class, just to see how it looks or its stats.

While many of us will never raid, it is still something that we MIGHT attempt at some point. Just like you are not likely to star in a movie, you might be an extra in the background, and we all know you will point that out to all your family and friends when it comes out. It’s just something we do, and that’s ok.

MMOs need that type of endgame, in some quantity, to provide that ‘dream of what could be’ quality. It should not dominate the developer’s time, and it should not force the majority down that path, but non-the-less it should be in the game. Just like in real life, a MMOs world needs its superstars.

Note: I’m not saying raider or hardcore players are ‘better’ than the casual player when I say superstar. Just like I would not consider some Hollywood stars better than the common man (looking at you Paris, Lohan, Britney, etc).

Posted in EQ2, MMO design | 5 Comments

Look at me when I talk to you, damnit.

Posted on September 19, 2007 by SynCaine

Last night the gf and I hit level 11 in EQ2, and so far so good. I’m cautious not to get ahead of myself, since we all know the first few levels of most MMO’s are generally the best part, but so far EQ2 is doing a few things I really like.

For one, as soon as you level, you get new skills. Having played WoW for as long as I did, where you have to go buy skills once you level, I forgot how nice it is to be out in the middle of a quest, level up, and have new skills instantly at your disposal. It gives far greater meaning to one of the major aspects of an MMO, leveling up. Bonus points for putting the new skills into your hotbar, so you don’t forget about them and can instantly check them out and drag them where you would like to position them.

Next up is the voice acting. I must say, as a causal player who takes his time and is not rushing to max out, being able to sit and enjoy listening to a quest adds a huge level of immersion. I now understand the back story of every quest we accomplish, which makes all the ‘kill x, collect y’ quests a little more enjoyable. The base of the quests is the same old thing, but the wrapping around them is just a lot nicer. Plus I no longer have to skip over all the strange names in the game, as now you get to hear someone else say it first.

The animation of the characters; hand movements, head tracking, mouths moving when they talk, all further that level of immersion. It’s a small thing, but it’s noticeable to see a quest giver turn their head towards you when you talk to them, or how your character will look up/down depending on the size of the monster you are fighting. A good example of this happened last night; while fighting a skeleton my Dark Elf character was looking straight ahead at him, but my gf’s Ratonga character had its head tilted up, being shorter. Again, very small touch, but noticeable.

We plan to continue our adventure tonight, hopefully gaining a few more levels. So far everything has been fairly easy, but that’s expected at our low level. I’m hoping around level 15 or so the difficulty picks up. I’ve already noticed we received a few quests higher level than we are, so perhaps we can tackle one of those for a challenge.

Posted in EQ2, MMO design | 5 Comments

Class discrimination.

Posted on September 18, 2007 by SynCaine

Over at Keen and Graev yesterday a great post was made on why the majority of MMO players seem to gravitate towards DPS classes. Here are some clips, along with my thoughts.

“Big Number Syndrome, or BNS, is the addiction some players have that leads them to think that unless they are dealing huge numbers their character is worthless.”

I agree with this, but I think it applies to most roles, not just DPS. Healers are known to brag about that major crit heal almost as much as the dps classes boast about crit hits. The base of BNS though is that the bigger ‘result’ you get, regardless of what it is, the higher your character has grown, and everyone likes seeing character growth.

“The lack of responsibility also draws many players to play dps roles. Your job is simple: dps the mob. You aren’t worrying about keeping aggro, healing, or crowd control.”

I somewhat disagree with the above. In many games DPS classes also have support functions, be it crowd control, trap disarming, support healing, etc. Rogues in WoW sap and stun, burglars in LoTRO start combo attacks, rogues in DDO must disarm traps and find secrets. If a MMO allows a dps class to simply sit back and do nothing but dump out max dps it not only makes for a somewhat boring class to play, it makes for a shallow character. One major function of high level dps classes is also watching your agro. If you are someone who constantly pulls mobs off the tank, you won’t be getting many group invites in the future.

“Dps classes level faster in almost every single game!”

The above is true, and is a major problem. As Keen and Graev point out, the general way of leveling up is by killing things, and since high dps = dead stuff quick, it’s not hard to see why a top dps class would out-level others. This has more to do with HOW you level in most MMOs than the dps classes being ‘broken’. A great example would be EVE Online, where everyone can train skills at basically the same rate, regardless of what you decide to focus on. A miner/trader will gain skill points just as quickly as someone who plays a pure combat pilot. EVE aside, most games however are still in “kill x mobs” to advance mode, and the above dps problem will still be an issue.

One age old problem that often arises in a MMO world is the abundance of dps classes, with a major lack of tanks and healers. When you go to form a group to handle a tougher encounter, what classes are you always waiting for? Yes indeed, either a healer or a tank. Almost never is a group lacking in dps classes, and if a dps member ever leaves midway through, they are easily replaced. This creates the problem that everyone wants tanks/healers around, but no one wants to play them, as they are perceived to be less fun solo. I think it falls to the developers to fix this problem, not the player base. The players will do whatever they deem to be fun, since that’s the reason we pick up and play these games in the first place. The developers have only themselves to blame when their community finds healers/tanks uninteresting to play.

WoW did a decent job with this by giving priests and druids some offensive abilities in the form of shadow and feral builds. The tanks of WoW have the option of going arms or fury spec to increase dps, at the cost of tanking ability. While a good start, this only delays the inevitable. As soon as a priest joins a raiding guild, they spec for healing, and if a warrior is brought in to tank they won’t be doing it with arms or fury.

Instead of delaying the less desired but necessary aspects of these roles, developers must find a way to make playing a healer just as appealing as a dps class. Gameplay must go beyond watching x number of life bars and topping them off as they hit 50%, completely oblivious to anything else going on. No class should ever be regarded as a buff bot, useless beyond a pre-fight spell or two.

LoTRO made a decent attempt to break the old mold by giving more classes the ability to heal, which in theory should have decreased the demand to always include a pure healer. This fell short however, as the class based healing was too weak, and for all tough encounters a group did indeed have to drag along a healer. Had they increased the power of each classes healing, and given the pure healer more function beyond just healing, a good balance could be reached and the old paradigm of tank/healer/dps might have been broken.

It sounds like Warhammer online is also attempting this approach, and it will be interesting to see if they succeed. Healing is invaluable in PvP, yet the life of a healer on a battlefield is often even more frustrating than when he is roaming around solo completing quests. It’s one thing to have to run away from an npc monster, it’s another to stand around helplessly as another player beats you down. If done right, the battlefields of WAR will feature a nice mix of classes all playing their part. If not, we might see the same 3-4 pure dps classes dominating repeatedly.

Posted in Combat Systems, EVE Online, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 6 Comments

EVE GMs, EQ2 graphics.

Posted on September 17, 2007 by SynCaine

Just some quick notes today, as the weekend was mostly sports filled. (Patriots wiping the floor with the Chargers and the Redsox… well the Redsox are 4.5 games up)

A big ‘thank you’ to a GM of EVE who reset a mission for me within 15 minutes of submitting the petition; that must have been the fastest response and quickest resolution I’ve received in a MMO. No questions asked, no ‘fluff’ text slowing the resolution down, just a quick note that the mission has been reset. Also of note was the EVE help channel, in which I got a few quick responses and ultimately got pointed towards submitting a petition. It’s a nice breath of fresh air in an MMO to actually receive help when you ask. Playing WoW for as long as I did, I forgot that’s a possibility.

I also went out and bought two copies of EQ2 Complete, marking the official start for me and my gf in that game. One Dark Elf Inquisitor and a Ratonga Brigand ready to go. Somewhat interesting is that EQ2 runs at around 25fps on my high end comp at the ‘max’ setting no matter the resolution picked. I started it at 1280 x 1024 just to get a baseline for the FPS, and finally increased it to 1900 x 1200. Oddly enough, the FPS difference was less than 4 fps according to FRAPS. It seems that the EQ2 engine has a few features not yet fully optimized, such as a fauna option that if checked chokes the FPS down to 10fps, regardless of anything else. (I forget the name of it now, but the one that makes fauna move when you pass it) Even the highest setting leaves this features disabled however, and leaves a few of the graphic sliders near mid, not max. Just to play around, I maxed and checked everything possible, and the game was close to a slideshow whenever more than 5-6 characters were on screen. Very odd for a game that is now 3 years old, especially if you compare it to WoW or EVE, which run at 60 FPS with everything maxed for me. The graphic style however is starting to grow on me, and I must say the combat animations are top notch, along with the few spell effects I’ve seen. I’m curious to see how the game expands into the higher levels, when more skills and options are made available.

Posted in EQ2, EVE Online | 2 Comments

Looking in the mirror; the sickness that was WoW raiding.

Posted on September 13, 2007 by SynCaine

Recently I was thinking about the time I put into WoW, especially the last year that I played when I was basically logging on to raid or prepare for a raid. At the time I knew it was a major commitment, but thinking back on it now I can’t help but realize it was basically addiction in the worst way. The more I thought about it, the more the rush of feelings and emotions crept back into my head, until three pages later, you have what is below. My goal with this post is not to condemn raiding, or to say all those that raid are fools. Simply put, its just something I needed to get off my chest, to put in writing so I could re-read it and fully realize what happened during that time in my life.

I was one of the main tanks for a top tier raiding guild, as well as an officer. At this time I was a senior in college and had a joke of a class schedule, having already completed my core classes. Our guild would raid 6 nights a week, 7:00pm to whenever we were done, which was usually 1-2am. The one night ‘off’ we did Onyxia/ZG/MC. At this time we could one/two night clear BWL, speed clear MC, 1 shot Onyxia, and we were working on AQ40 4-5 night a week. Along with being an MT, I was also one of the officers running our DKP mod, updating it when it had errors and generally doing all the behind the scenes stuff for the guild along with the other officers. This generally took anywhere between 1-3 hours BEFORE we organized the raid, and during the raid often ran the waitlist mod managing who goes in/out during the raid. My raid attendance was somewhere around 90-95%. The only time I would miss a raid would be if I was on vacation (rare) or due to some emergency (also rare). I planned movies/dates/dinners/etc around raids. If the guild had a good week and had made progress, we would sometimes call for a night off, and I would then fill up that night by going out, otherwise I was online. My character at the time had close to 2000 hours played, and if I remember correctly that came out to just under 4 hours a day, 7 days a week. That’s an average of 28 hours a week, basically a part time job, and during the more drama filled weeks being an officer, it certainly felt that way. I maintained this type of schedule for about a year and a half, including close to 6 months out of college, when I was working full time.

And yet at the time, I always felt I could be doing more, that our guild was not progressing fast enough, that we were not learning encounters as quickly as we should be, or that our membership was not stable enough to push faster. I spent a good amount of time on our guild forums discussing ways to improve our progress and increase our pace. I remember getting frustrated with members who would not log on consistently, or who had to leave a raid halfway in. We knew exactly who our best healer/dps/support players were; we had the guild all-stars and we had the rest. I could take one look at a raid and know if we had a chance for progress or not, simply based on how many of our ‘key’ players we had that night. The players who like me were consistently online and put in the extra effort to read up on strategies and farm up potions/buff items. It was a constant effort to find those types of players to replace those that ‘only’ raided 3-4 nights a week, those that did not put in the 2-3 hours to farm up potions or read extensive strategy write-ups.

Whenever I did miss a raid, I would hear about it the next day; and at worst find out that the raid had not gone as planned due to lacking a tank. This guilt factored in heavily in making me log on. I felt that if I take a night off, I would be letting 39 others down, people who depended on me to be there. I prided myself on my consistence. Most of all, I did not want to act like the people who I was trying to remove, the ‘casual’ raiders who did not dedicate 5-7 nights a week to the guild.

At the time, downing a boss for the first time with the guild was the greatest of highs. When after weeks of attempts that stupid little life bar goes to 0% and we got our shiny epics. Vent would explode in a cheer from everyone, and not long after a post on the server forum would be made showing off our latest accomplishment. At the time, that feeling made all the work seem well worth it.

The next night, it would be on to the next boss, rinse and repeat until the instance was cleared. And then we would run it again and again, over and over, gearing everyone up so we would be ready for the next raid instance, to collect our next set of shiny new epics, so we could stand near the mailbox in Ogrimar and have ‘lowbies’ run up to inspect us, ask us where we got item x, or in some cases just flat out tell us they thought we are gods.

Ha, if only they knew…

And then one day, after a week of pure drama over progression or items or who knows what, I quit. I had had enough, and I realized, sadly so so late, that WoW was now 99% job, 1% fun for me. The only time I really enjoyed myself was when we downed a boss for the first time, and that happened perhaps once every two weeks or so. Near the end, everything else was work. Dealing with guild drama, judging new recruits, repeating a strategy in raid chat for the 1000th time, updating DKP, it was all work. I would often sit in our officer channel on vent, away from the rest of the guild, and along with the other officers just bitch about all the shit we do for the guild, and how the guild always asks for more. The phrase ‘if they only know how much effort we put into this’ was said so many times in officer chat it was not even funny.

After I quit, I transferred servers and joined another raiding guild, one that from the outside looked like it was more organized and filled with hardcore raiders. No more dealing with the ‘casual’ raider who misses raids; or any of that at all really, since I was no longer an officer. I figured I could just log on, join a raid, and have fun. Problem was, raiding itself was no longer fun for me. Even though I was seeing bosses I had never seen before, downing them was not fun. I felt like an outsider in the new guild, and really could not relate to them. After having played with the same guild for close to two years, I realized joining a completely different group of players on a new server removed that need to please others. A server first was ‘there’ accomplishment; I was just along for the ride. I slowly logged on less and less, until one day I just stopped caring all together and quit WoW.

It was at that time that I first realized how much of my time was taken up by the game. Suddenly I had all this free time with nothing to do. I would wander around the house like a zombie, looking for things to interest me. I played some other games, but nothing could hold my attention for very long. I started watching TV, something I had basically never done when I was playing WoW, and found it very boring. I would flip around looking for god knows what, and ultimately find nothing. Going out was fun for a time, but not being someone who is social 24/7, I soon found I needed that solo time to myself. That solo time that was now a void. It took a few weeks to ‘recover’ from WoW, to get my life back to where I felt normal. To where that feeling did not creep up that I need to log on, that it was getting close to 7pm and I needed to be home ready to raid. I’ve never been addicted to drugs, but if I had to guess, it feels something like that. That little voice in the back of your head telling you to do something, that itch that reminds you of what you once had, the feeling to log on and once again feel that rush you get from a server first. It’s sickening really.

Months later, I would go back and read the raiding forum, amazed by the pure stupidity posted. Reading about people doing insane things for marginal gain, jumping through a million hoops for a shred of carrot at the end of a very long stick. I would laugh, until I realized not long ago I was that person making the post. I was the one on the inside looking out, looking at all the ‘casuals’ and cursing them for their lack of dedication. And then I would feel sorry for them, because I knew at one point or another, they would realize what the game was doing to them, and that in the end, it meant nothing. All those server firsts, all the things that seemed so damn important at the time, they all mean nothing now. Instead of a trophy of accomplishment, they now represent a sick addiction.

I now look and wonder how many people are still stuck in that addiction? How many guilds with how many members are out there pushing the limits of raid content? Contend designed to be painfully slow, requiring crazy amounts of dedication and sacrifice. Because simply put, you can’t ‘casually’ raid. It’s just not possible if you want to make progress. It’s designed that way, and every developer knows it. They know that in order for the player to see Ragnaros, Nefarion, C’Thun, etc, they must put in the insane amount of time and effort it takes to reach them. The same is true now for the raid bosses of The Burning Crusade, including Illidan, the ultimate prize.

I’m very grateful I escaped that cycle, and would never go back to raiding. Even the thought of it sickens me; the thought of all the things I would have to give up to go back. Yet at the same time, I completely understand why those that raid do it, why they jump through those hoops. I’ve felt the rush of that success, and like anything in life you pour so much effort into, the feeling of success is powerful indeed. But like so many other things in life, it can consume you to the point of addiction. If gaming is a taste, raiding is the overdose.

Posted in MMO design, World of Warcraft | 50 Comments

The list bug, plus some Evercrack.

Posted on September 13, 2007 by SynCaine

So PotShot, in his infinite wisdom :snicker: links me today in his blog, which is always cool, so I head over and check out why exactly I’ve been linked. To my amusement, it seems the ‘fun with lists’ bug is going around the blogsphere (ooh, nerd term), hitting TAGN, Common Sense Gamer, PotShot, and now me. Fair enough, here goes…

Four jobs I have had in my life (not including current job):
1) Waiter at Frendly’s (first job, when I was naive to how aweful it actually was)
2) Tech recruiter for 3 days in Boston (phone for 9 hours straight, no thanks)
3) Granite countertop salesmen
4) Did not take it, but I was offered a job at Turbine to work on LoTRO, back in 2005.

Four Movies I have watched over and over:
1) Army of Darkness
2) Terminator 2
3) Braveheart
4) Office Space

Four places I have lived:
1) Warsaw, Poland
2) Boston
3) Winchester
4) Wayland

Four Shows I love to watch:
1) Entourage
2) Family Guy
3) Sport Center
4) Random MTV reality shows (yes, sad but true)

Four Places I have been on vacation:
1) Tunis, Tunisia
2) Cancun, Mexico
3) Milan, Italy
4) Dominican Republic

Four of my favorite foods:
1) Nachos
2) Hamburgers (every Monday)
3) Chili (on Sunday)
4) Steak

Four favorite drinks:
1) Sam Adams Oktoberfest
2) White wine
3) Lemonade
4) Gaterade/Powerade

Four places I would rather be right now:
1) Not in a cubical
2) On the beach in the Caribbean
3) At the movies
4) Playing poker at Foxwoods

There it is, done and done.

Moving on, I was able to put in some quality time with Everquest 2 finally, girlfriend in tow. I’ve settled on an Iksar Inquisitor, she went for Half Elf Brigand. I went Inquisitor because I’m sick of always looking for a healer whenever a group forms, and it has been a while since I played a traditional healer. The gf went with the brigand to give our duo some nice dps. Hopefully that combo works well, but if for some reason it will be a disaster, please comment and tell me why before we get too far into the game.

Last night we managed to high level 6 and finish up most of the starter island. The graphics still irk me at times, but I’m trying to just ignore them and focus on the gameplay, which so far has proved entertaining. Did something get messed up, or do the NPCs on the island not have voice? I know when I started a Fae character the quest giver spoke the quest dialog, but on the starter island this is not the case?

One odd departure from WoW and LoTRO is that resource nodes are everywhere, almost to the point of looking a little silly, as you literally trip over them they are so numerous. I’m unsure if either of us will get into crafting, as the gf hated it in LoTRO, and I’m personally a bit jaded myself after drudging through it in WoW and LoTRO. Chalk it up to one too many thorium ore loops in the Burning Steeps I guess. Perhaps I’ll give it a shot later, but for now we are focused on questing and getting our levels up.

Posted in EQ2, Random | 4 Comments