WAAGH um, wow

So I've been playing WAR all afternoon and one thing right off the bat I noticed is how much more of a resource hog the WAR client is compared with the WoW client. In fact it's on the order of twice as large as the WoW client, which I found very surprising. Especially since my poor HP Pavillion DV9000T (Windows Vista Premium Home edition 32 bit, 3GB ram) kept popping up memory allocation warning errors almost the entire time I was running WAR. I ended up shutting a lot of things down and turning off my side bar. That relieved the problem somewhat, but would still occasionally get the allocation error messages. My laptop actually has 4GB ram installed, but since I'm running the 32 bit version of Vista, I can't tap that extra GB. I'd hate to have to upgrade an operating system I really don't like all that much just to get to that extra GB of ram to play a game. Especially since I love WoW and it runs quite well on my laptop.

So anyway, I played all afternoon and hit level 5 before parking in whatever the name of the town is that starts chapter 2. I like the fact that most of the game controls are the same as in WoW, and generally like the other things I've seen in WAR that aren't in WoW yet. But there are a couple things right off that I'd like to see improved. Like reporting gold sellers that were spamming general chat the entire time I played. In WoW you simply right click on the individuals name, report the spam and it then throws that account on ignore. Perhaps I missed it, but I didn't see anything of the like in WAR and so I sat annoyed at the two or three accounts spamming their gold sales all day. The jury is still out on the chat channel and chat system. It seems remarkedly similar to WoW, yet different enough that I'm not sure if I liked it or not. I'll have to play around with it a bit more before I make up my mind.

Since I'm only level 5 and have only played one class thus far I certainly can't make any opinions about class balance, and about the game as a whole. I do sort of like the Swordmaster combat techniques though. Certain skills are only usable in succession to lower level skills through what the class terms "balances". Leads to a very linear form of combat whereas in WoW everything is more or less non-linear.

So day 1 down. I've much yet to learn and much left to write about.

WAAAGH

So I broke down and joined the bandwagon after all. Actually my son has been thinking about playing and I told him I'd play with him. So I'm not really a bandwagon fan. No, rather, I'm a dutiful father spending quality gaming time with his son. That's my story and I'm sticking with it!

So anyway, I just loaded up WAR and I'm waiting on my son to create his character and finish logging in. I've been doing some reading this morning and WAR looks like it could be quite the fun game. So here is to a fun time! If you happen to be on the Ironclaw server and feel so inclined, stop by and say hello.

So what are you doing in WoW right now?

With the WotLK expansion looming in the not so distant future, and most bloggers (and a lot of players) playing WAR these days, I was curious what those of you still playing WoW were doing lately? You can really tell that things are in that pre-expansion lull lately. The game has that same feeling it did prior to the Burning Crusade, though there are still quite a few guilds (at least on my realm) charging hard to complete the Black Temple prior to WotLK. I see people attempting to sell a lot of their excess inventory on the AH, and I know I personally am levelling two alts. One of which hit 60 last night, and the other hit 60 the night before. So that's largely what I'm doing right now.

Actually I'm enjoying the time levelling my alts. I ended up creating a guild for my bank toon, and all my lowbies and alts who were un-guilded. So it's been relatively quite lately. No guild drama and no auto-invites by every guild officer who happens to walk by my toons.

Mechwarrior Online

Though I'm an avid WoW fan and player, my first love in video games is and always has been Battletech/Mechwarrior. I first started playing Battletech with pen and paper back in the late 80's and very quickly bought every Mechwarrior game that came out, spending hours and hours playing. Even the old clunky Mechwarrior 1.

Since I graduated to playing MMOs I've been impatiently awaiting someone--anyone--to make a Mechwarrior Online MMO. I'd be so there! And I'm absolutely sure that hundreds of thousands of others would be also. I've written about this subject at least twice before on blogs long since deleted (don't ask). While I don't have those previous posts to link back to, I've never really stopped thinking about the game I want to play above all others. So let me use this humble blog in an attempt to chide WizKids to kick it in gear, and describe how I would construct it.

First and foremost my MechWarrior online would favor PVP, though there would also be a very strong PVE end game. Set in the decade just prior to the clan invasion (classic time frame), Mechwarrior Online would be centered firmly in the intra-family wars that had been ongoing in the Mechwarrior universe for decades. PVP would primarily take place in the border regions, though that PVP could spill over into deeper zones. In fact that would be encouraged. A key component of the game would be taking and holding enemy territory and would bestow benefit to the outfits and faction taking territory. All of Mechwarrior Online would be built upon a strong player created economy, though strong central anti-inflationary measures would be built in. After all, taxes are as fundamental to life as death is.

Instead of static class systems that we see in games like WoW and other MMOs, I would instead create a system that starts with a small selection of core classes that each character would be able to choose from. Each of those core classes would have sub-specialties that players would gain access to as they advance in "level". And instead of "levels", characters would have ranks and steps. Ranks would open up technologies, assignments, and capabilities to the players, and steps would be loosely analogous to levels in current MMOs. With steps would come talent points, stat point increases, and minor abilities. There could be 10 Major ranks and each rank could have 10 steps (level 1 - 100) as an example.

Core classes could be something like Soldier, Scientist, and Tradesman. With each class enabling a vibrant career path to the player. In a PVP centric game, the obvious draw would be the soldier class, though there would be strong enticement to players to play a Scientist or Tradesman as well. The Tradesman class would be the basis for the economy, and Scientists would be fundamental assets to those tradesman by bringing new technologies and production efficiencies to the game space. I envision mercenary groups and factions keenly vieing for the services of tradesman and scientists.

As an example of how I would envision the rank/step system working, I offer the diagram below. As a new character is created you must choose one of the three core classes. If you choose Soldier, you would then be asked to choose a faction, or become a mercenary free to start your own mercenary group or become a member of an existing group. Either way you will be tied to a rank system that offers more and more to you as you rise through it.

As a basic soldier you would rise through the lower ranks until you attain an arbitrary rank, at which time you would become an infantryman, or some other sub-class. In infantry, you would continue to rise through the ranks until you again attain an arbitrary rank, at which time you could specialize in Armor, Anti-Armor/Mech, or Mechwarrior. Because Mechwarrior would obviously be the big draw here, there would have to be strong inducements to follow the Armor and Anti-Armor career paths. Those specialties would have to offer key capabilities that would be sought after in PVP.

The game would feature a strong factional system that would discourage faction/guild hopping. At character creation you enlist in one of the major factions, or become a mercenary. Mercenary groups are not tied to any one specific faction, though they're reputations are effected with the various factions depending on the contracts they take. Following that out to its logical conclusion, they could of course become de facto factional groups in this manner, though not tied directly to it.

PVE end game would closely parallel PVP end game. PVP end game is about intra-factional warfare, and the taking and holding of enemy territory. While that is envisioned as the primary goal of the game, players would not be tied to it if they did not wish to participate. For PVE players instanced battles of up to epic proportions would be created. All instanced and accessible to any faction. The faces and names of planets would obviously change depending on which faction you were, but the battles themselves would be the same.

I envision PVP being a little more on the brutal side. A la EVE online style. Destruction of a Mech means exactly that--destruction. There is a chance at salvage depending on battle conditions, but if you are on the losing side of a battle, which is run from the field salvage would most likely go to the victor. Mercenary groups and factional units would be able to recoup some of their losses through the PVE endgame however. As well as through the fees they will earn doing them. The higher stakes in PVP would encourage strategic thinking, and battle conditions more akin to reality than we normally see in video games. There are consequences to decision making after all.

As I said, I would start Mechwarrior Online in the decade prior to the clan invasion and would like to see expansions every 12-18 months. The first expansion would see the very beginning of the clan invasion and would grow from there. Each bringing new technologies and capabilities to the game. Including aero and space combat. Notice how I included Anti-Air in class graph above?

Of all the MMOs I've played and heard about, nothing rises to the level that Mechwarrior could. I'm almost positive that I am not the only person to have ever thought of this, so I can only surmise there are some legal impediments standing in the way somewhere. Whatever the real reasons might be that have apparently stopped something like this from even being thought about, I hope they are worked out sooner rather than later.

MMOs and NDAs

If you've been playing MMOs for even a short period of time, and haven't heard the term "Non-Disclosure Agreement", then you've probably been living under a particularly large rock. And so the topic of NDAs in general has been raised in my mind again this morning. And I'm sure will again in the not so distant future as we start to look forward to the release of Star Trek Online, Knights of the Old Republic Online, and others.

Generally I'm against NDAs because they stifle the free flow of information. In a game setting, they stifle valuable information that other gamers are keen to gain. I understand all the reasons why companies use them. At first NDAs are used to stop the release of information that could potentially damage opinion about a game. Especially in the very early stages when it is particularly buggy, un-balanced, and there is limited content and scope. I personally never bought that argument, because as most NDAs stipulate, the game is a BETA and blah, blah, blah. I think most players understand that specifics about balanced game-play, end-game, and everything in between can't really be gleaned from early betas. But there are also other nebulous reasons NDAs are used. They're also tools used to shape expectation and create desire in the player base to learn more. By withholding information, you stoke the fire in the gaming populace to learn more about your game.

Whichever side of the fence you may fall on in the debate, there are very real consequences to gamers who release information prior to the NDA being lifted later in the beta process. If you are a well known blogger your postings will garner greater attention than others and anything you say will most likely be attributable to you as a specific player by the company. That may get you kicked from the beta. And it also could lead to you not receiving beta invites in other games if if were to become known that you break NDAs. So generally bloggers follow the rules, or they blog about their experiences anonymously somewhere. I can think of at least one very well known blogger who has been doing exactly that in WoW since the inception of the game. He always seems to have the most up to date information, which leads to some interesting questions about the individual in the first place. But for the purposes of this discussion illustrates my point.

In the end NDAs have another effect. They stop people like me who might otherwise be giving glowing press to a game that is at a stage when it could really capitalize on it, from getting it.

Stargate Worlds pre-beta stress test to begin soon

There has been a lot of talk on certain MMO blogs lately regarding the upcoming Stargate Worlds Online MMO. And since I'm an avid Stargate fan who fell in love with the story when the original Stargate movie was released and spent 10 years watching the original Stargate SG-1 show, and now 4+ years watching Stagate Atlantis, I am overjoyed by the prospect. Low and behold I wake up this morning to an email from the fine folks at SWO inviting me to the pre-beta stress test, which will begin on the 24th.

Stress testing is about putting load on the servers to see how they stand up to the rigourous pounding they'll take when a few hundred or more people are doing their thing on them. In the email I received this morning they ask me to log in twice a week during the load testing and quest, fight, or what ever I feel like. And I will certainly oblige by doing so. Personally I can not wait to make my Asgardian!

While the email doesn't state any privacy or non-disclosure requirements, when you then log into the beta site to download the client you are greeted with a confidentiality agreement. So unfortunately this will probably be the last I post about this for a while. I'm generally not a big fan of hiding details about MMOs from fans.

Anyway, for those who also got the invite, see you in SWO!

Vanilla WoW and the quest hole from 50 to 55

I really wish Blizzard would put some of their developers to work redoing aspects of vanilla WoW. In addition to the quest hole between 40-45, there's another hole from 50-53 which I'm just not nearing the end of on my Shaman. While there are some quests that fit into that small bracket--particularly in Ungoro crater, I detest that place with a passion. Nearly all of the quests there are collection quests, and the drop rates on it all seem to be vert low. For the longest time I would only do the first slate of quests available there, and now I can't stand to set foot in the place let alone run through the quests. My wife and I attempted to last night and promptly dropped everything and decided to bounce between Burning Steppes, Felwood, and Western Plaguelands. There's a considerable amount of travel involved, as you might imagine, but it's either that or spend hours upon hours in Ungoro. Sorry Blizzard, that's simply not my idea of fun.

In all honesty, while the quest hole from 40-45 is very wide and apparent, the hole from 50-53 is more self-imposed. Which of course by saying, would be seized upon by Blizzard in rebuttle of my contention. To that I say they'd have a point. But only to an extent. In all the quest brackets, with the exception of the 40-45 bracket, and the 50-53 bracket there is a wide assortment of quests. Even if you have to travel around a bit, you can generally run them as green because of it. You flow easily from one quest to another, and from one zone to the next.

Yet in these two particular brackets you seemingly have to travel much more than in other brackets, and don't generally run into green quests. Everything is yellow or even orange. The quests are your level or slightly above, meaning you will generally run through them a little slower than you otherwise would. And you will generally have more downtime in between fights.

In the 50-53 bracket It's Ungoro crater which I think causes the majority of the problems. If Blizzard would take a good long look at the zone, and redo some of the quests, and fix the drop rates on several of the quests the zone might be much more enjoyable and would go a long way in filling in that hole I see. Ideally I'd like Ungoro to fill the zone people generally go to from 50-52, with a couple quests added to Felwood between those levels to break up the crowds. And from 52 upward people could flow right into the lower level quests available in Western Plaguelands, Burning Steppes, or stay in Felwood.

The quests from 55-60 all seem to gel quite nicely--not that anyone stays in old Azeroth past 58 any more. So you really only worry about 55-58 at this point. And quite frankly, there are tons of quests in that bracket. So much so that you won't get to them all before you part ways with Azeroth and head through the portal.

Blizzard, if you're listening, Ungoro could use some of your attention. Sooner, rather than later would be best for all involved.

WAR expects 1 Mil subs in year / 3 mil at peak

Some times you really have to smile when game producers say things. But Paul Barnett is on a slightly higher pedestal than others are. And when he says he expects upwards of 3 Million subscribers at some point in WAR, many people will listen and believe. He's careful coaching that figure, and doesn't indicate a time frame as far as I can tell. But he does say he believes WAR will have 1 Million subscribers within the year. Now that I can believe. Massively recently announced that Mythic had shipped 1.5 million copies of WAR. Which doesn't necessarily mean that many will sell, but there is a lot of pent up anticipation for WAR right now.

I myself have been tempted to try WAR out, but I wasn't very happy with the requirement to order WAR to try it out. So I've sat on my desire. And frankly, I'm glad I did because reports from various bloggers are beginning to circulate that WAR is really so-so. That it doesn't have the massive appeal most expected afterall, and based on that I expect any WoW players that try it out will be back in mid-November when the Wrath of the Lich King ships. In fact I expect in the week or two prior to the WotLK release, that we'll simply stop hearing about WAR all together.

Lets be honest here. What have we heard about WAR that we haven't heard about every other MMO that's debuted in the past two years? Nothing, really. The last one, Age of Conan, has been such a dismal failure that it's lead developer has recently "resigned". Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Conan fan. Read all the books growing up; have both the movies; and would have loved to have played Conan. But I was put off by the system requirements, and the utter lack of content outside the starter zone. And that's sort of the feeling I'm getting from WAR writers as well.

WoW offers a vibrant end-game. In fact, more than one. Raiding is a huge part of the end game. But it's not the only portion of it. Players can ignore PVE raiding all together and can simply PVP instead, in the form of battle grounds and arenas. If anything people gripe about the amount of time between expansion, instead of what's in them. Players are generally happy with raiding or PVPing, but the most hard core of raiding guilds move through the content entirely too fast. What does WAR offer? I'm still kind of confused about it myself.

WAR appears to be a PVP oriented game. However that PVP has been labled as "care-bear" (and here). Which doesn't speak well for those hard core players that otherwise would have been most interested in WAR.

I'm happy that EA/Mythic is releasing WAR. But I don't think it'll rise to the level that Paul hopes it does.

Upcoming beta changes will reverse some of the recent nerfs

This isn't a very unusual experience in a beta, so why post about it? Of course there will continue to be changes as the beta winds down. But with the date for the expansion now officially announced (Nov 13th), and patch 3.0.2 already on the PTR I think Blizzard will focus more on tweaks than on major changes to anything from this point forward. So what we see right now, and discussed in the two posts I'll be quoting shortly are more or less what we should expect to go live.

I am extremely happy with what I read this morning regarding Death Knights. There are now very few gripes left unanswered by the beta Death Knight community.

DPS changes

-- Death Coil, Frost Strike, Death and Decay damage increased.
-- Strikes that scale with diseases changed so that the weapon damage, not just the flat damage, scales with the disease.
-- Double rune abilities damage increased: Obliterate, Howling Blast, Scourge Strike, Death Strike.
-- Unholy Blight no longer causes Blood Plague, but had its cooldown removed.
-- Several attack power coefficients increased.
-- Bloody Strikes and Scent of Blood swapped places.
-- Bladed Armor now turns armor into Strength (which then is turned into Parry).
-- Master of Ghouls' Ghoul now lasts until killed or similarly dismissed.
-- Ravenous Dead no longer affects Ghoul duration, but grants your rotting little buddy 60% more of your Str and Sta. (Stam goes from 30% of yours to ~50% of yours. Strength goes from 100% to 160%.)

Tanking changes

-- Frost Presence now grants 10% total health in addition to its current bonuses.
-- Blood Gorged, Rage of Rivendare and Tundra Stalker all grant 1/2/3/4/5 expertise.
-- Veteran of the Third War increased to 6/6/6 Str / Sta / Exp to match warriors.
-- Will of the Necropolis no longer grants expertise and now lowers Anti-Magic Shell cooldown.
-- Pestilence has no target limit. (It still has a radius limit.) Pesilence glyph now increases area.
-- Death and Decay no longer has a cower component, but a glyph can add that back.
-- Frigid Dreadplate now has a 100% chance for 2/4/6% miss but only on the DK.

Rewards for the selfless buffer

-- Abom's Might now grants 2% Strength at all times.
-- Improved Icy Talons now grants 2% haste at all times.
-- Ebon Plaguebringer now grants 3% crit at all times.

Runeforge changes

-- Lichbane now does 2% weapon damage as Fire, and double damage to undead.
-- Swordbreaking and Swordshattering add disarm duration reduction.
-- Spellbreaking and Spellshattering add silence duration reduction.
-- Cinderglacier reduced to 2 charges.

No doubt many awesome small tweaks I am forgetting.

AWESOME SMALL TWEAKS.

Yes, truly awesome tweaks all.

On the Druid side of the house, GhostCrawler reported yesterday that on there own internal build (obviously with changes not on live beta yet):

We looked at tank mitigation in Naxx this morning, and guess what? Druid armor was approximately 10k higher than warrior armor and health was perhaps 7k higher. (I say "perhaps" because bear has such a big multiplier on stamina that your exact buff situation can swing this amount a lot.) Warrior avoidance is higher (if you count block as avoidance), but flat damage reduction was about the same, except for the extra 6% spell reduction warriors get from Imp Defensive Stance (druids were a little higher on the physical side). Expertise and crit were much higher for the bear. The warrior had to spend a lot of gems to reach 540 defense, while the druid could stack all health. This was in all blue and purple PvE gear -- nothing from PvP or BC content. All in all, the relationship was much closer to BC than I at least predicted.

Now these are just numbers. It's possible we'll discover something different when we do more tests where the tanks are actually getting beat on. We also didn't look at dps or threat at all.

Furthermore, I also toally buy the argument that you can be a good tank but not have fun doing it. Different problem, but not an invalid one.

I am less worried about the bears having mitigation scaling problems at higher level content, though that armor cap that originally seemed so far away is a little closer now. :)

FWIW, Paladins were very close to warriors -- tied in almost every stat. Death knight health and perhaps armor were a little low. It's possible their numerous cooldowns can make up the difference and it's also possible we'll have to buff them a little.

There isn't a great deal any feral could take issue with over that statement. Obviously it's been the topic of considerable debate for the past several weeks. However, these changes in no way address the issue that I, and many others have been frothing over these past several weeks as well. Creation of a virtual fourth talent tree, that separates DPS and tanking talents. As I said in opening, this is basically what we'll see go live, so there is virtually no chance of rolling back the virtual tree at this point. Much to my chagrin. So let us move on.

It is more important now than ever, that Feral tanks match Warriors in tanking ability. It appears we'll continue to have a single line of mitigation (Dodge), so extra armor and health to absorb the extra damage we'll continue to take over Warriors will continue to be as important in WotLK as it was in BC. And Blizzard has about six weeks left to make sure that they get it right.

WotLK Expansion Date Official

It's official! Blizzard announced on their official site today that the WotLK expansion will be released on November 13th. That's 10 days later than other sites like GameStop, Best Buy, and Circuit City had been advertising though.

So now we know, and we have a definitive time frame to finish preparations for the expansion.

Also, Blizzard has finally announced what will be included in their Collector's edition (CE). Looks to be exactly the same as the Burning Crusade CE. Unlike the first expansion, I personally do not plan on ordering the CE.