[WoW] Attunements: All for one, and one for him/herself.

As the blogosphere buzzes about Attunements I feel compelled to add my two cents, but instead of just throwing out a "Yay!" or "Nay!" I think it is important to examine attunements contextually. Attunements often became an issue because they required a collaborative, group effort, for something that would benefit a single individual...or even just a single character.

"Professionalism" in gaming Part 2, or, "How intensely do you play?"

A week or so ago when I first thought to write this entry and claimed I would I had some ideas in mind about how each player is devoting a different level of time to the game and views their responsibility towards other players differently. Then the other night I was reading a thread on the World of Tanks forum about XVM (a mod that displays player stats in game, letting you see who on your team has a high win rate and a calculated "efficiency rating") and spotted a comment in there about playing to win. It dawned upon me that in a sense everyone (with few exceptions) IS in fact playing to win, but their criteria for winning and the INTENSITY in which they try to win differs and is one of the prime causes of friction between players of differing levels.

Putting the Multiplayer back in MMO

Recently I was reading Rohan's defense of the trinity, and while personally I do think it is possible ot have a successful game without the trinity, it got me thinking. I'll save my case for the trinity-less game for another post, but for now I'll dive into the issues Rohan and the comments to the post brought up. Of all the issues with the trinity as implemented in 4-6 man groups there are two big ones I want to highlight: the role of DPS and the role of the "Excess" people. After the break I will tackle these two issues: What turn the third role (DPS) into, and making DPS more of a cooperative activity.

Calling it right now...

So MMO-Champion has posted a slew of Mists of Pandaria information as the press tour gets kicking, and while a full post on my opinion on the issues is forthcoming (sneak preview: Its basically the same optimism I looked at the previous expansions with) I thought I'd get a few things out of the way right now:

Death Knight Talents in Mists, or, "Death Pact is the Renegade choice" Part 2

Continuing from part 1 we get to the aptly named "PART 2!!!!!" which I personally find to be among the more interesting choices compared to 1. The best part of this whole talent experiment is that so far, even though there are only six choices, I feel as though I am actually making decisions.

Death Knight Talents in Mists, or, "My Ghoul vomits nyancat rainbows" Part 1

I've hit that awkward time in WoW's cycle when the current expansion is coming to an end and all I really find myself thinking about is the upcoming one. I find it hard to feel motivated playing systems I am not happy with when I know something new (and hopefully better) is right around the corner.

In anticipation of that I'm doing a few little posts on what I see coming down the pipe for the classes I play (which is most of them)...and first, DEATH KNIGHTS. To keep it from being ghastly long I am splitting it into 2 parts (15/30/45 and 60/75/90). Also, I am not much a fan of WoW PvP at the moment so this analysis is aimed at the PvE game, but my opinion of PvP may change in Mists!

Putting WoW on Hiatus

Though World of Warcraft was at the outset going to be one of my primary topics here, I am finding lately that I am preferring other games; in the past few weeks I've bounced around Tribes: Ascend, Mass Effect 2 and 3, Killing Floor and a little bit of Skyrim. I mainly just log on to WoW during my groups weekly raid night....we're a fairly close group of RL friends and it's a way of keeping up, we're not exactly progression focused. For various reasons the game just isn't holding interest...it isn't compelling or engaging.

I have no doubt I will return to it with Mists of Pandaria, but outside of the aforementioned raids I don't see myself doing much with WoW...everything I have left to do in WoW besides that feels more like a chore than fun....I was logging in to do LFR because I felt like I had to use up my lockouts, not because I was enjoying it.

I still plan to discuss the game however, and as the March news of Mists comes trickling in I'll see about adding some posts.

Healing away the Symptoms

Just yesterday I was reading a post by Liore at Herding Cats about Guild Wars 2 and it's attempt to eliminate the trinity. Like any avid MMO player I find myself skeptical about anyone who claims they will eliminate the holy trinity; but it got me thinking about just how fragile the trinity is, and how really it is just a few small innovations away from non-existence.

The Twilight of Pures

At this point in WoW’s development I am beginning to think that Pure classes are one of the issues holding back the game’s development.

Nerfs over time

Rohan at Blessing of Kings recently wrote a piece on why nerfs are good for the game and in the comments I asked why it matters to more serious raiders if this optional debuff exists.