WotLK and Championing

Blizzard announced some time ago a plan to add what is now being called "Championing" to the game. Championing is a process through which you would earn rep from a particular faction depending on which tabard you were wearing, while running through an instance that might give a different factional rep. In order to earn a different rep than is given from an instance you were running, you'd only need to don the faction's tabard you needed to level. I recall thinking this was a fantastic idea at the time, and would go a long way in helping out with one of the more problematic areas of WoW. Not being able to get groups/instance runs, yet needing desperately to level a rep to get rewards at the higher levels of that factional rep.

When I read World of Raids explanation of how it's been implemented, I can't even begin to tell you how dumbfounded I was by it's limitations. WoWinsider spoke more about it today. Why are the Burning Crusade factions not included in this plan? We all know what's going to happen when WotLK hits the streets. People are going to burn through the Outlands like they burn through Azeroth now. And they're not going to pause long to run many instances along the way. Which of course will make attainment of Revered or Exalted with any of the Outland's factions excruciatingly difficult. I can live with the limitation that you can only earn one rep at a time while Championing. But it's mind-boggling why Blizzard isn't enabling Championing of the Outland factions as well.

Big PVP changes coming?

It's one of the two things from WAR that I've previously commented I'd like to see Blizzard implement in WoW. Low and behold Tigole mentioned yesterday they were looking at XP gain from PVP. He said other things also, but "We're also going to explore EXP gain through the PvP system as well as low level itemization to support that." is what stood out in his entire post to me. All they would have to do in order for this to go live NOW would be to scale down (and up) the existing level 60 PVP gear like they plan on doing for the Heirloom Bind on Account gear. Voila, done, implement it already!

I've been playing WAR the past week and I love the fact I can level almost entirely through PVP. In WoW I don't PVP much until I hit the level cap because I'm one of those players that hates taking time away from levelling. Earning XP from PVP would solve that to a large extent. When I feel like PVPing, I'd PVP and still earn XP. When I didn't feel like PVPing, I'd quest/instance and guess what; I'd still earn XP. Of course people who play twinks wouldn't be much of a fan of this plan, but I think there would be many multiples of those who would.

Tigole made another comment yesterday that should make people looking to earn XP via PVP even happier. Go head, read his comment. Now that you're back, can you imagine how this will play out for Rogues, Prot Warriors, Prot Paladins, Resto Druids... hell, everyone? Of course this particular plan isn't just applicable to the PVP crowd. It also has deep significance for raiders who right now might have to pay through the nose for respecs in between raids. Or have had to level and play an alt for farming.

Incidentally, the other thing from WAR that I'd like Blizzard to implement is the group XP bonus you get in WAR, but do not in WoW. In WAR, if you group, XP for any given creature is divided by the number in the party. Same as in WoW. But in WAR you get a bonus on top of that amount which encourages grouping. In WoW you do not. In WAR you end up getting nearly half again as much XP in a two-person party than you do in WoW, and that can add up to a considerable amount. Blizzard should implement this immediately, since their stated goal on many occasions is to foster a social environment. Right now there is little reason to group up, unless you simply can't do a quest on your own. You're penalized for grouping, and that to me, is just plain silly.

What makes an MMO fun?

What makes an MMO fun? What keeps players coming back, day after day? And ultimately what causes the game's user base to grow over the long term? Interesting questions, yet no single answer seems to answer them. Really what I'm driving at is what made WoW into the titan among MMOs that it has become, and why have its competitors not been able to catch up? I ask this because another stalwart competitor has come along--WAR--and many people have expressed opinions that it's the WoW killer. Something that has been said of almost every other MMO that has been released in the last year and a half that I can recall. Yet WoW is still the titan, and most of those other MMOs have faded into near forgotten status. EA and Mythic released WAR, and if you were to judge by the amount of press it's received over the last several weeks, people were flocking to it by the millions. And yet in my own very informal poll of various WoW realms, they seem no less populated than they did prior to WAR's release.

So again, what makes WoW the titan it is, and why can't others seem to catch up? Why, for instance, will WAR not supplant WoW as the 800 pound gorilla on the block? In WoW the main "end-game" is raiding, with a PVP mini-end-game added on. It caters to both types of players, though I must say that real PVP only happens on PVP servers. That being world PVP, where ganking is the norm and leveling beyond the 20-something zones can become a real pain in the rear. I haven't played WAR all that long--a few days all told really--yet I can't really glean what awaits me at "end-game". WAR is really not about gear, and raiding doesn't seem to be an end-game in WAR. Which leaves us with capital city-raiding. WoW, on the other hand is very much about gear. And invariably, where you get gear is through raiding and instance runs. Unless of course you are strictly a PVPer, in which case you get your gear entirely through PVP. And I think that point begins to touch on why WoW was able to attain the position it did, and has yet to be supplanted. In games like Star Wars Galaxies, which I used to play many moons ago, and WAR, where the central focus is PVP related, that focus relies very much upon there being enough people to keep people occupied. If you play during off hours, or if the player base drops below a certain threshold, then the game quickly becomes boring. Case in point, I played a Rifleman/Doctor in SWG and would spend hours every day trolling through all the cities on the major planets looking for PVP. In the last several weeks I played, that PVP was very hard to find. I grew bored and desperately sought for a release which just couldn't be found in other aspects of the game. I wonder if the same thing will happen in WAR in the coming months.

Yet that largely doesn't happen in WoW. The population has remained high, and the game has a different focus, based on time sinks. While PVP can and does happen, and you can always run instances or raid, the focus is on gear progression. Which gives you something to do over the long term. And there is almost always something bigger to strive for. So the utter boredom that results in games like SWG doesn't seem to happen on the large scale in WoW. People came to WoW in droves because of it catered to multiple play stles, and because most of the game was accessible to the average person. With the release of the Burning Crusade, even more of WoW became accessible to the average player, and that accessibility was extended further late in the Burning Crusade when Blizzard removed the vast majority of attunements. And now we know there will be no attunments in WotLK. Access to raid content now focuses on gear issues, which are somewhat easier to attain now. Is that the case in other games? Is the "end-game" in WAR as accessible to players as it is in WoW? That of course remains to be seen.

From my point of view, what makes an MMO fun is its focus and accessibility. What keeps players coming back, again in my view centers around the focus and accessibility issues. And likewise, what enables an MMO to grow into the size that WoW has centers around those issues as well. I don't believe PVP-centric games offer a broad enough focus to attract and keep enough players to keep it vitalized, though they might be very fun during the hay-day, so to speak. All-in-all, I think what we'll be seeing in November is a great many of the players who are playing WAR now will come back to WoW. And even if some of them again leave WoW, I really don't see the current player base shrinking any time soon. In a world where MMOs are now pervasive, that indeed says quite a bit.

People still play Star Wars Galaxies?

I don't read Massively every day, so I've apparently missed previous mentions of SWG. Today's article regarding the upcoming addition of the Battle of Hoth to the SWG universe caught be somewhat by surprise. SWG was my first MMO, which I started playing in Jul 2002 and stopped playing in Mar 2005 (the day the first "Combat Upgrade" went live). And I generally look upon it as exactly what an MMO should not espouse to be. I also look upon it's customer relations, and customer support as exactly what a company--in this case SOE--should not be like, as well. Those feelings I walked away with that day in Mar 2005 are what continue to keep me from playing any other game hosted or developed by Sony.

Believe it or not I gave SWG another look last year, and used a free pass to reopen one of my old SWG accounts. I played it for an evening, then logged out and uninstalled what remained a horribly buggy and unfun game. My sense then and now was that SWG hasn't received a great deal of development support, though I might be completely wrong on that subject. Shrug.

Be that as it may, I was somewhat surprised to see the announcement regarding Hoth today. I wonder why anyone still plays the game, and hope someone can explain it to me.

Do you believe the "tank" shortage will dissapear in WotLK?

Tanks will be in high demand and should be pretty plentiful when the WotLK hits the shelves, and for a number of weeks after ward. But if WotLK follows the same path as BC and vanilla WoW, tank availability should begin to dry up when the majority of guilds start to raid seriously.

Having played two different tanks nearly the entire time I've been playing WoW (since Mar 2005), I know precisely why there is and was a Prot Warrior shortage. And it is exactly why I retired my Warrior in the Fall of 2006 and rolled my Druid, who remains my "main". Once you went Protection as a Warrior you couldn't really do anything else with him except raid or run instances. It was miserable trying to farm or solo play, and that just isn't much fun. As prot Warriors started to raid seriously they either stopped PUG'ing and ran with guildees only, or stopped running instances all together once they were able to start getting raid gear.

Prot Paladins are in a slightly different boat, in that they can largely solo and raid/instance tank regardless of where they're at. It's just that there are far fewer of them than Warriors. And Feral Druids; well they didn't really have an issue with spec in regards to raid/instance tanking and solo play because their tree pretty much gives them everything they need in order to be successful at either. That is until WotLK however. Enough on that for now!

Blizzard has finally claimed to have heard the long spoken complaints regarding the situation. And has addresses some of the problems by raising DPS of Warriors and making them much better AOE tankers than they were. It remains to be seen if Prot Warriors will be more fun to play solo than they are now though, and that is essentially what I feel will play directly into the tank shortage debate.

Of course, what ever Blizzard does with tanks in general will have zero impact on whether someone decides to drop out of the PUG scene. I know I stopped tanking PUGS a very long time ago simply because I got tired of wipes and repair bills caused by silliness.

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.