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.