We are often plagued by nasty participants in pugs - above Pharthing demonstrates how she "stays on top" of them.
“Street [Greg ‘Ghostcrawler’ Street, lead systems designer for WoW] identifies three main reasons for bringing the apocalypse to Azeroth. First, shock value was a crucial component. Deathwing’s awakening is an explosive event for Azeroth. “We were trying to stage an apocalypse here,” he says, “and we wanted some crazy things to happen and we knew there were sacred cows that might shock or upset players a bit.” Many players will certainly be upset to see Stormwind ruined and Thousand Needles flooded, not because they were poorly designed but because Blizzard simply wanted to show the extent of the cataclysm’s impact. As Street says, “Life will never be the same there.” – from This is the way the world ends, by Steve Butts in The Escapist
There is a point in the movie Dogma in which the character Rufus (Chris Rock) is given a note by Christ, shortly before his crucifixion and resurrection, that says see you in two years. “It sort of took the mystery out of the whole thing” complains the character. If you had the ability to see your whole life laid out before you, would you do it? Or would you rather experience it? If you knew exactly what was going to happen it would be like opening a mystery novel and reading the last chapter.
Yet that is what usually happens before the impending release of any highly anticipated new mmo or expansion.
The second the NDA (non-disclosure agreement) is lifted the mmo community is flooded with all the details – so much so, in fact, that it often reaches the point where you know exactly what is going to happen before the game hits the shelves (or the release page on Steam). In the case of Cataclysm, the announcement that the closed beta NDA had been lifted was almost always followed by “we hadn’t expected it so soon.”
It’s always nice to see a few screenshots of course. Maybe even get a few details later on such as what are the new races? What are some of the new classes? But that is rarely where it stops. The community becomes like a little kid, determined to find out exactly what is in a present ahead of time, not realizing the truth related by the immortal bard…
“You may find that having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting. This is not logical, but it is often true”
The “bard” in this case is not Shakespeare, but whoever it is that wrote the lines for Spock in “Amok Time”. Yet, each time a new World of Warcraft expansion is released there is a rush that rivals the last lap of the Indy 500 to see who will be the first to hit the new level cap – the first player to reach level 70 took 28 hours , the first player to reach level 80 took 27 hours . Of course the reason for the rush is to try and grab a bit of Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame. Still, the race seems representative of race through content each time a new mmo or expansion comes out, followed closely by a clamoring for something new like Oliver Twist on crack pleading for more.
In my case the Wrath of the Lich King was released way back in November of 2008 and I still haven’t burned through all the content. Yes, I will admit to being driven away by the asshatery in pugs (pick up groups) but Fran and I have found good ways to deal with it (see technique demonstrated by Pharthing above). To me there is nothing like that new mmo smell, that old beta magic . There is nothing like the excitement and the mystery of those first steps into a virtual world, wondering what is just beyond the next horizon.
Ghostcrawler tells us all about that life will never be the same in Azeroth. Just like the old song, everything old is new again. In the mean time I will try my best to avoid the deluge of Cataclysm news so I can enjoy that new MMO smell.
See you online,
Julie Whitefeather
[posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster]