Guernication

My thoughts on games and the issues around them.

Author: Guernica

I've been taking advantage of the lull in WoW activity this week to catch up on some console gaming. There's not much to do in Azeroth - I've got my Shatari Skyguard mount and the Brewfest dailies take up about 10 minutes of my time, so its time to see what I've been missing on the 360. A bit of GTAIV (got the 'Let Sleeping Rockstars Lie' achievement with my first ever kill on multiplayer!), some Battlefield BC, and a whole lot of The Force Unleashed (which is really good by the way, despite the repetition of cutscenes every time you die on a miniboss).

I'm playing TFU on the hardest setting available on purchase. Normally I play games on normal difficulty the first time through so I can see the most content as fast as possible. Then I go back to the beginning with a harder setting if I have time. But for some reason I just figured I'd make life tough for myself from the getgo here. Maybe its memories of how easy previous Star Wars games have been - Battlefront and Republic Commando for examples.

Its definitely a tough game - in places. Mini-bosses or staging areas and Bosses all take a few goes round to get the strategy down. I died many times at the hands of Rahm Kota before I mastered dodging his attacks, staying off the burning floor, and then forcing him onto it before administering the manually eas but visually impressive coup de grace. It struck me how different this experience is to WoW.

I have died during Boss fights in instances and sometimes it was even my fault the whole group wiped. But on the whole groups I am in prevail. I don't think I have ever been in a group going into a fight where at least one member knew the way the fight should go - someone always knew a winning strategy. Quite frankly, there are few really challenging fights available to me in WoW. I can get into a Kara group and generally do fine. I haven't tried higher riads yet, mostly due to not being in a good raiding guild right now and not feeling I am geared well enough to go for a pug. But even in Kara, the fact I have all purple gear, means I am rarely stretched in my role as a healer.

An exception to this occurred this morning. I went with a pug to kill the seasonal boss for Brewfest. I've done this fight one three days previously, each time with a pug. On every single visit we wiped the first time. The reason - lack of coordination between the DPS and tank as to who was going to pick up ads. But on every subsequent attempt the group has been successful. Except this morning where we wiped once, won once, then wiped again. The group immediately fell apart. One guy just up and quit. Then all the others started saying goodbye. We still had two attempts left!

This makes me wonder - have we WoW players become so used to success, so accustomed to being overgeared and rehearsed, that we can no longer stand it when something doesn't work out perfectly first time? Has our patience for pug's run out? Does noone understand anymore that sometimes the run doesn't work out 100% every time and that you have to keep trying at it until it clicks?

What's going to happen when WotLK ships and folks find themselves trying to complete quests that aren't in Alakazham or Questhelper yet? When they attempt bosses in instances noone has killed before and wipe a few times? I can see tempers being lost, toys being thrown out of the pram, and insults and blame quickly hurled around pugs - 'you should've DPS's more!', 'L2P huntard!', 'L2heal!', that sort of thing.

I am looking forward to the release of WotLK. I'm just not looking forward to all the frayed tempers and bad manners new content and challenges seems to bring out in some people.

I'm feeling like WoW's a bit of a deadzone right now. There just doesn't seem much point in doing anything. And its not just because of the usual summer slump. Its the expansion.

My main, a 70 pally, has been almost at a standstill since I got into the beta. Blizzard promised another gear reset, and sure enough, I found I have barely made 71 before my welfare epics were being replaced. What does this mean? Well, it means for one thing there's no point spending any more honour points on a gladiator's shield. Its going to be replaced soon after the expansion releases by a green. That just leaves me with more than 20k honour and a bunch of tokens burning a hole in my pocket.

And there's not much point raiding either. Sure, I could grind Kara a while to gear up for Gruul and Magtheridon. But now we know WotLK is just a couple of month's away, it seems unlikely I'll get sufficiently geared up in time to make a difference. I saw someone ask in chat the other day why noone wanted to do heroics. The answer was badges of justice will be effectively worthless by the end of the year.

I think Blizzard makes a major slip up here by not allowing players to switch off XP gain. If they allowed it, we would be able to keep some toons at 70, keep running heroics, keep gearing up, and have a stab at seeing some the TBC endgame content we otherwise never will. I understand why they set thigns the way they do - progress is important because it keeps players buying expansions, a major windfall of cash. But just as TBC made much of Azeroth worthless, so WotLK will make Outland something like the Coventry of WoW - somewhere you sometimes have to go through on your way to somewhere mroe interesting, but not somewhere you really want to live.

The game experience may still be great. I know for a fact Northrend offers more inspiring and entertaining sights and experiences. But it seems such a shame to cheapen so much of what the developers put out previously - to relegate all the hard work put into Coilfang, Auchindoun, and Hellfire to places you might go to once to finish a quest or farm to gear your 69 twink.

Its almost as if the term 'expansion pack' is actually quite inappropriate. Its more like a cheap sequel - WotLK will not make WoW a bigger better game as much as it will just replace the things we do already with more colourful versions. Instances, levelling, crafting - all will be much the same but with different skins. Azeroth and Outland won't be more fun - they will be obsolete and we will all decamp to Northrend.

If only Blizzard found a way of keeping the WoW/TBC factions relevant - make dungeons or quests in Northrend give rewards from the Aldor or Scryers or Netherwing.

In the meantime, there's not much to do in the World of Warcraft. I need a few thou rep to get a War Hiipogryph and a few to get Exalted with the Skyguard. Maybe I'll log in an hour a day to do Netherwing Dailies when I have the other mounts.

Blizzard announced the release date for the WotLK expansion today - only a couple of months to wait. It should arrive about the same time as my firstborn child. They also gave out details of the content of the Collector's Edition and I'm disappointed. Its the exact same content as the TBC CE that came out two years ago. Art book, soundtrack, mousemat, an ingame pet. Its all nice stuff to look at, well, except for the particularly uninspiring mousemat, but it might have been nice to see something truly novel in there. I mean Blizzard have made a lot of money and continue to do so on a daily basis by putting together novel and entertaining content. Its one of the things I love the most about WoW - there's so much different stuff to do and see. But when it comes to the CE boxset - same old, same old. Bah - how about a t-shirt? Or a cap? Or some branded pens/desk tidy/stickers/calendars or any of the myriad of branded crap thats available today. I used to work in sales - I know there is cool stuff you can put a company's name on for little cost!

I was particularly dismayed to see the box will contain yet more trading card game cards. I hate these things. They are absolute rubbish to someone like me. I'll maybe play some Monopoly or Scrabble with the wife when she's feeling particularly pregnant and tired. But I'm never going to sit down with some kids and play the WoW card game. Let's face it - TCG giveaways are aimed at teenagers and are intended to get them hooked on the game so they spend more of their cash on more crappy cards. They only give Blizzard a few pounds a month in subscription fees, so Blizzard is looking for ways to get more of their cash. MMO's aren't like crack - its the TCG's that they give away free initially and then charge you through the nose for, no pun intended, when your habit is formed that are the true drug for gaming teens today.

They did this same crap at the WWI - gave us a 'goody bag' full oof promotional items for Blizzard spinoffs and other companies' product. If you give away stuff, give away stuff people actually want - don't give me adverts and call them gifts.