[WoW] WoD LFR changes, it's Montague and Capulet all over again

This past week WatcherDev has released three blog posts explaining the history and forward vision of raiding. In the third entry he threw a bloody morsel into the pool of piranhas they call a playerbase. While we’ve known about the changes to raid structure for a while, this was the first confirmation of lockouts and rewards. Needless to say, feathers were ruffled, jimmies were rustled, and the WoW-ternet exploded.

The main point of disagreement as I saw it was the change to LFR rewards. As it stands, in Warlords of Draenor, the LFR raids will drop their own set of loot separate from the regular raids. In other words LFR will not drop the raid trinkets, rare pets, or class sets. Unsurprisingly, players for whom LFR is the primary form of endgame gear acquisition were not pleased. On the other side of the debate, players who felt forced to run LFR to complete set bonuses or get specific trinkets were overjoyed.

Both took to the interwebs to tell the other side about why they were having fun wrong, harsh words ensued. Each forgot that it’s actually possible for both sides to be “right” and both to have legitimate concerns because in the end we’re talking about subjective enjoyment of a game.

[WoW] The Ladies of Draenor, or "Don't judge us just yet!"

Back at Blizzcon people were highly critical about how female characters would be treated in Warlads of Dudemore when its primary advertising had a solid 1:1 X-Y chromosome ratio. But wait, Blizzard assured us, there will be meaningful female characters, just wait and see! They made vague promises about a Draenei warrior named Yrel, but aside from a name we got precious little.

So we waited, and we hoped, and we speculated…

[WoD Spoilers ahead]

[WoW] If you haven't finished Heroic SoO, you aren't allowed to be bored

With roughly 4-6 months before WoD, players are starting to get burnt out on SoO content. As Rohan points out, the delay before WoD is one of the longest content gaps WoW has ever experienced. Plenty of players are claiming that they have nothing left to do but stand on the Timeless Isle waiting for Huolon (or whichever rare you’re farming) to spawn.

[WoW] Dreams of Diablofication?

Though it still may change going onward, at this point Blizzard appears to plan some sweeping itemization changes for Warlords of Draenor. Among them is the random chance for an item to have one of three qualities: warforged (high item level and presumably slightly better stats), gem slots, and "tertiary stats" (movement speed, extra durability). The response to this is mixed, but some of the more hyperbolic have begun claiming that Warlords is adopting the often loathed itemization of Diablo 3...and to a degree, rightfully so.

[Blizzard] No, you're not running for President, but...

Rock Paper Shotgun held an interview with Dustin BRO-wder regarding Blizzard's upcoming MOBA, Heroes of the Storm. The interview went mostly well and covered mainly their strategy going forward and how they intend to distinguish themselves from competitors...then it took a sudden turn when RPS asked about some of the depictions of female characters. I've reproduced the "uh oh" section below.

[WoW] Blizz Drops Dailies, or, "What to do at 100?"

So few to no Daily Quests at level 90, that's quite the change and upsets a paradigm that's been around since ye olde days of Burning Crusade. Originally they were an answer to limiting the acquisition of reputation-based rewards without having to hide them behind massive grinds. I was skeptical at the time but I learned to love it to a degree that now I find large rep grinds distasteful. (I'm looking at you Emperor Shaohao...) They also conveniently gave max level players something to do aside from sit in Shattrath and try to kill Aldor/Scryers before getting teleported.

[WoW] So Warlords of Draenor...

Blizzcon has come and gone, with the most major news being Blizzard's new foray into the MOBA genre, which I'll save for another post, and the next WoW expansion; Wailords of Crymore "Warlords of Draenor". I find my feelings about it could not be more mixed. Throwing us back to Outland...er..Draenor, on the somewhat flimsy story excuse of Garrosh going back and messing with the timeline (and apparently forgetting about the Time Traveler's paradox)...

[WoW] Blizz Trademarks "Warlords of Draenor"...so what?

Edit: Name confirmed at Blizzcon, chalk another one up for Boubille!

So MMO-Champion has posted today that Blizzard has filed a trademark for "Warlords of Draenor," but, being a student of law I thought I'd do a brief post explaining what it means. As a quick disclaimer; it is very possible that this application is fake. Only a month or so ago a fake "Halflife 3" trademark was dug up and was later debunked. So I write this under full knowledge that tomorrow we might find out that this is completely false. Still, with luck I can shed some light on what this application means.

[WoW] You...disappoint me, Garrosh.

Thrall hasn't cornered the market on disappointment in his former protege, for when I spent 3 hours wiping on him killed him and reaped the benefits I looked back to Blizzard's first attempt at LFR, Dragon Soul, I found myself a little disappointed with the end-all boss of Mists of Pandaria due to his, of all things, loot table.

[WoW] Timeless Isle? More like Time WASTE Isle!

So the Timeless Isle appeared on the scene in patch 5.4 and, true to its intent, promises content for those with nothing left to do, and an easy way to gear-up alts for those new to the expansion (such as me). It is not without its flaws though, and two of them have become glaringly apparent after the first few days of playing. The first is the crazy level of grind the Shaohao rep can be, and the second is the mixed multi-tag/single-tag enemies in the zone.

[WoW] How to be a d**k on the Timeless Isle

As my somewhat perturbed tweets indicated this morning, I encountered an unfortunate exercise in dickish-ness this morning while doing my Shaohao daily. Another player acted in a way that fell somewhere between callous cruelty and outright selfishness. Before I judged I tried to apply Hanlon's Razor, and yet the blade couldn't seem to cut it.

[RP] What good is a Background?

I am of the opinion that a character's background in an RP is one of the most important parts of the character. Certainly their base personality and concept is important, but both of those are informed and honed via the background. I once met another player who genuinely wondered "Well what's the point? It's all the past." So I thought I'd address that. I'll use references to WoW because they are very familiar to me.

[WoW] Looking for Repugnants

So a luck Burden of Eternity drop resulted in my eligibility for the Siege of Ogrimmar LFR. Eager to see the newest, shiniest raid I jumped in this morning. I can't entirely complain about how things went given that we only wiped once on the Sha of Pride. Still, what never ceases to amaze me is how much verbal abuse goes on in LFR and how generally unnecessary it is.

[WoW] Aaaaand...I went back.

Okay so I am a hypocrite; well not entirely, the mulling and dithering I experienced did eventually result in me returning to WoW. However the return was through the 10 day trial, wherein I made a panda monk and I punched, kicked, and rolled my way through the old world, Outland, and much of Northrend before the trial expired. Downside is I didn't actually make it to Pandaria.

[WoW] I won't go back, I won't go back...

So I read the other day about some of the new features in WoW 5.4; namely the "Proving Grounds" which are a living incarnation of ideas I saw discussed on the forums back in the days of Wrath, as a means of training newer players. Interesting as they sound, I find I keep reminding myself "I won't go back". That got me thinking, games like WoW are constantly trying to win players like myself back, which is not helped by us adopting a stern (perhaps even unreasonable, if the game were to be in fact fun) determination not to return....so why do we do it?

WoW 5.4 Garrosh Cinematic, "You still don't matter" Edition

So while I have not played WoW at all throughout Pandaria, I have occasionally spotted a headline or two on reddit. Today was one of those days, announcing the release of the new cinematic for when the players defeat Garrosh Hellscream. I'm not going to pretend to be good at analyzing the voice-acting work (which felt wooden but that is not out of place for WoW), but the part that got a genuine laugh out of me was the resolution.

AVAST MAYTEE, THAR BE SPOILERZ AHEAD

[RP] Injecting your own Lore

One of my pet-peeves when roleplaying in an MMO are the people who have decided to create their own lore and abide by it rather than the setting of the game. While certainly, they have some right to do that, and if their circle accepts that it seems fine. However I find all too often that in MMO-RP this person wants everyone to accept their revisions. I think this irks me most because the way I see it, Roleplaying in an MMO or other game is akin to co-writing some fanfiction....there's give and take.

Guild Wars 2, a month plus some

Guild Wars 2 represents an oddity for me; it's the first time I have been able to keep myself off the hype train preceding a major release. Ironically, the result of me essentially becoming unaware of it until just before release is that I do not seem to be suffering the same feelings of disappointment as some other bloggers. I feel as though people build these games up to be some great thing, to offer them a sense of wonder they felt long ago (that frankly can never be replicated), and then they find any reason to hate the game when it fails to provide that. After the break, a few improvements I think the game could use, and some comments on the common criticisms.

[GW2] Blowing Blizz out of the water

I have played WoW since a few days after its release and in that time I got used to hearing "Soon"tm from the CM's with regards to features that to me felt like they could be fixed in a matter of minutes. Blizzard is extremely reluctant to make changes outside of a patch unless the issue is substantially game-breaking. I recall PvPers eagerly awaiting a patch that might balance their class (or nerf another) and sitting through months to wait for something to be fixed. The typical expectation a player learned was that any fix beyond changing a number (and sometimes even that) would be a few months down the line.

[Game Econ] Competition isn't fun

 "Most Businessmen don't like their competitors, or for that matter competition. They want to make as much money as possible and getting a monopoly is one way of making a lot of money." - R. Posner, Olympia Equipment Leasing Co. v. Western Union Telegraph Co. (797 F.2d 370, 1986)

In a previous post of mine, a commenter asked why I considered WoW's auction houses to be "flourishing" and not Diablo 3's. In retrospect, I should have said "fun" not "flourishing".  I notice that lately a few other bloggers have taken on this similar issue, mainly sparked by the GW2 Trading Post.