Posts Tagged ‘World of Warcraft’

So, this is one of the few times that Sr. Fran is actually writing an article! I’ve been long skirting the issue, having been asked many times to write something, and I rarely given in. The reason for me dodging the issue is I don’t think of myself as a “gamer” per-say. I am what Paul Barnett calls, “a non-gamer gamer”. For me, gaming is fun, it’s a hobby, an activity I do to blow off a little steam, and share some fun with other people online. I game usually at night, about 2 – 4 hours, but not every night. I seem to go through cycles, I give up games for a while, then I go back just a couple hours a week, then increasing to many hours a night. Last year for Lent, I gave up gaming COMPLETELY for 40 days (the 40 days of Lent) and then when Lent was over, I really didn’t go back right away, because I had found many things that needed my attention over the course of the 40 days. But the lure of World of Warcraft just was too much, I went back, and now I’m on it every night, which makes me a little aggravated. Aggravated because I thought I had “licked” this addiction! But no matter how long I stay away, it always seems to lure me back, like the sirens call to the sailors at sea. Recently, there is an even bigger reason I enjoy going back, night after night…I AM A TANK!

I have 4 toons actually, an 80 DK (death knight) Blood Elf, an 80 Troll priest, a 72 Blood Elf Warlock, and my latest toon, a 60 Tauren Warrior (tank spec). Well, the toon I’ve had the longest has to be my warlock, she is over 4 years old. WoW just recently had their 5^th anniversary, and she was created after WoW had been around for about 8-10 months….so she’s definitely my oldest toon. I remember when Sr. Julie and I first started the pod cast, and we were discussing Death Knights because they were just added to WoW, and we were talking about that quest you have to do as a Death Knight, where you have to kill a bunch of villagers. I was appalled! I was saying how “I could NEVER do THAT!” Julie just laughed at me and said “how can you justify being a nun playing a WARLOCK then?” and I replied that my warlock is like “Glenda the good witch!” much to the amusement of Sr. Julie and our listeners. I played my warlock and I enjoyed it to a certain extent. What I didn’t like was being so squishy that I got “one shotted” all the time in battlegrounds, and if a boss ever hit me it was over. Battlegrounds were actually such a sore point with me that a few times, I ranted pretty bad in battleground chat, and got myself kicked out of whatever guild I was in! I guess you can’t use the “f-word” in WoW without someone noticing (needless to say, no one knew who was actually saying those words, or they would be horrified)! It got to the point with me and guilds that every week I was in a different one. Plus it didn’t help that in every patch WoW was nerfing Warlocks into the ground. Then with that whole “keying” thing [EDITORS NOTE:  For those new to WoW she is talking about getting the keys to instances in outlands] and everyone pulling out their measuring sticks and shouting at me that I was supposed to be the top of the dps chart and wasn’t, well that didn’t help me want to play my warlock any either.

So, maybe 2 years ago, as a reaction to all the grief I was getting, I rolled up a Drenai Warrior. I liked seeing the new Drenai lands, but once I was out of the new lands into the “old” lands grinding away, it was hell. It got so bad that I abandoned my warrior completely when DK’s came out. Well, I got over the whole killing the pixels/villagers thing and rolled up a Death Knight. I rolled Blood Elf, in the new, “good” guild I was in, The Older Gamers, or TOG as known to many. I was REALLY happy with my DK! Finally, I had STAMINA, AND STRENGTH, AND PLATE ARMOR!!! Woo Hoo…I could even TANK instances and not get us killed!!! I was having fun, especially in Battlegrounds! But then Blizzard went and nerfed DK’s to the point where they make terrible tanks, and their dps is usually the lowest compared to mages and warlocks…so here I was again…stuck without a tanking toon. So, I went back to my “old” Drenai warrior. Almost as soon as they allowed faction changes, I went from Alliance to Horde. I do think that Horde is the side where it seems more reasonable people play. I have run into a few pugs that want to make kick them all in the butt, for the most part however, I really am happy I changed to Horde. Plus I changed from a Drenai to Tauren.

I had tried Tauren when WoW first came out, but didn’t like them so much. But with my Warrior, it’s different. Taurens LOOK like Warriors/tanks! They are big, they have that stomp ability that stuns the targets – it just works. I was also leveling up my priest, which I still play for raids, since priests are ALWAYS needed for raids. But aside from raiding with my priest, I’m playing/leveling my warrior. I never realized that the toon I really wanted to play the most was a tank. Now that I’m horde, in a good guild, and playing a tank, I’ve never had so much fun in WoW! I’m sure that other Warriors will tell me the drawbacks to being a tank, but so far, I can’t see any. Probably the ONLY thing that irritates me to no end is when I do PUGS and they pull out the measuring sticks. I’m always second to last on dps charts. But then last night I had a realization…tanks are supposed to TAKE damage, NOT GIVE damage. They need to hold aggro, which can be a challenge with some of the AoE happy mages/warlocks out there, but once I realized that, it didn’t bother me about them pulling out the measuring sticks. And what I have found is that when there are others who want to “off-tank” or more like “be the tank” but don’t have the stamina, gear, or talents for it, I just back off and let them tank…see how long they last…usually it’s not too long resulting in the complaint that I “didn’t hold aggro”! Well I’m not the one who charged in there wearing cloth armor, am I? The best part about being a tank, is that I just don’t have to put up with the BS that pugs give. Too much BS from someone in a pug and I’m outta there…faster than you can say “pug”!

You know, I have thought about it, and it seems to me that each of my 4 toons in WoW have some part of my own personality…I can be, and have been a healer in my life. I CERTAINLY have been a witch a time or two! I’ve got a side of me that I don’t like to show, which is the vindictive Death Knight side. But who knew, that I would most like, and most relate to being a Warrior/Tank! Years ago, I was going through probably the most difficult period in my life. I had been dumped by my fiancé who left me for a married woman he worked with, who’s own marriage was failing. I had dreams of being a wife and mother, and a graphic designer…it just all crumbled to the ground like old buildings in an earthquake. I remember very fondly, my mother who I had a strained relationship with before, came to my rescue. She couldn’t walk very well, she couldn’t breathe very well, and here she was at my Chicago apartment, struggling, puffing, up 3 floors of steep stairs in order to help me clean out my apartment and move back home with her. She helped me pack, she washed and cleaned, she held me while I cried, she was this tiny, frail, thin, sickly, monster-warrior soul of a woman who just would NOT let life’s troubles beat her down, nor her precious daughter! She put up with so much abuse from me in the past, yet here she was by my side, fighting off the depression that might have killed me if she had not been there. She showed me then, how much she loved me. But it wasn’t until I was her caregiver in the last 5 years of her life, that she showed me what a TRUE warrior is…she suffered ailments, and humiliations because of those ailments that would make most people crumble into a pile of insanity! Yet, she handled it all with such Grace as I have never seen. Yes, she had her bad days. She even yelled at me in a restaurant one day, something that made me burst into tears. But I realized that I was the ONLY safe target she had to unload on. All the suffering that life was throwing at her, she had no way to unload it, except onto me, the daughter she loved and fought with, and fought FOR …for so long. I forgave her; because she forgave me for all that I had done to her. That’s what a warrior is…someone who can take a beating and still smile – Someone who can take a beating and realize that we are all only human. Someone who knows that forgiveness is NOT just an option…it’s a shield, not just for the warrior, but for the person who’s hitting as well. So, of all my characters in WoW, I think I like being a Warrior/Tank the best, because I was shown by my mother, what it means to be a good warrior, to fight the good fight, and not let the sadness or suffering make you bitter and angry and mean.

To my mom, the best warrior I’ve ever known. Mom, I only hope that I can one day, be as good a warrior as you were! I love you.

Sr. Frances

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Sour Grapes

With a pot shot at The Ancient Gaming Noob (with whom we don’t always agree but always respect and find interesting) Syncaine from Hardcore Casual (whom we rarely respect but always find interesting) beat us to the punch, so to speak, but in sort of a twisted, glass is half full of toxic waste sort of way, about part of today’s subject – last nights 25 person Naxramus run.

We will let you read his latest article here.

And while we understand that the article was his attempt at “biting sarcasm” we will whole heartedly agree with his accessment that “EZmode = happy masses”, although we might couch it in terms that Scott Hartsman did when he was a guest on our show – we would call it “accessible”.  The funny thing is, everything I have read coming out of Activision/Blizzard these days would seem to indicate that they would couch it in much the same terms.

Now while the No Prisoners, No Mercy team (including one person helping behind the scenes you never meet) are not in a “progressive raid guild and wiping to learn a new boss” we are in a guild that gets together on Wednesday nights for a 25 person shot at Naxramus and regular runs at Ice Crown Citadel.

Yes, the time was that the highest end instances were hallowed halls only trod by players who considered themselves “the best of the best.”  Only those who were among the “cutting edge” guilds could wield the oft sought but rarely obtained “uber sword of uberness”.  Rarely was the average player who, not always possessing super-human abilities beyond those of mortal men, able to see the inside of places containing such rarified air. In fact Jeff Kaplan spoke about the same issue some time after Wrath of the Lich King came out. While some of us here at No Prisoners, No Mercy would rather drill our own teeth than pug an instance, it is for an entirely different set of reasons – not the least of which is we rarely enjoy having a truck load of sour grapes dumped on us by a pre-adolescent who decides we are not “leet” enough for his liking.

Yes, we will admit it.

We are just plain folks here at No Prisoners, No Mercy.  We are the sort of people who enjoy the company of guild members and just love getting out and trodding the soil where the greats of World of Warcraft once strode like the mighty giants that they are.  We had great fun seeing so many guildies together at one time, having all those hunter pets charging into battle.  Whether or not the next Naxramus boss whipes the floor with us or begs for mercy we always have a good time. We are truly sorry that the folks at Activision/Blizzard have chosen not to cater to the whims and fancies of those who feel their talents and abilities have set them head and shoulders above the common folk that we will admit to being. However, we are incredibly grateful they have chosen to do so. Let us finish this article with our own version of how syncaine chose to start his…

“Accessible mode = Fun”

See you online,
The No Prisoners, No Mercy team.

*edit*

Then again…

I start to feel happy about the whole thing and say “well why not try a pug or two with Fran” – and asshat after asshat reminds me of why I quit pugs and WoW in the first place.  And the system says “hey your armor isn’t good enough for this other instance you were all going to do.”

“But then how do I get the good armor?” you say to the screen.

And the screen stares blankly back at you with its glow and you can almost hear a small voice in the background…as if the grunting from a large blizzard gorilla in the distance. You listen carefully and it says:

“Who cares…shove it up your bum”.

Oh yes…thats why I quit and went to Fallen Earth.  Go back to WoW? I think it’s time to lay down until the feeling goes away.

* close edit*

What put me in mind to add my own personal interjection into the work by our team are yesterdays posts by Syp over at Bio Break.  If you have not read them you should. They are about what seems to be a love/hate relationship with the new Dungeon Finder tool (something I have, in the past referred to as the “looking for abuse” tool). They are here and here.

As our listeners and readers know about us (at least about the “out front” part of those who make No Prisoners, No Mercy what it is – there are others but we won’t tell you who they are unless they want us to)…

Anyway, as they know, despite my perennial stance that Rob Pardo is both “The Man” and “In League with the devil” I had to be dragged kicking and screaming back to World of Warcraft (read Fran asked me so many times I relented).

Lately the “Dungeon Finder” tool seems to have changed its feelings about me. At first it was telling me “looking for anyone but you” (I could only surmise why and I may be wrong at this point). Lately however, whenever members of The Older Gamers (TOG) get together for a random heroic  things seem to go much better.  Why? I don’t know (maybe Rob Pardo listens to our podcast…I know other game publishers do I just don’t know about him).  All I can say is things seem to have changed around. (Heck I am even getting invites to Naxramus these days).

Syp may find that the dungeon finder tool makes him less timid. Me? I have never had a problem in those areas – usually I am too wrapped up in what is going on to notice the banter.  I am so busy with shot rotation and keeping tabs on my pet that I simply don’t have time to type comments and I am not sure how other people do (ToG uses ventrillo).

Ironically, the dungeon finder tool doesn’t break immersion for me.  I say ironically because using ventrillo always does. I just like being able to click two buttons and away I go…and gently placed right back where I started when it is all over. Anyone who has ever been through trying to organize a 40 person raid back in the days when Molten Core was the “it” place to be will find this feature a breath of fresh air.

Now as far as damage meters are concerned I have never used one and I never will.  If there is a built in damage meter somewhere I don’t want to know about it or how to use it. I completely agree with the quote from Syp:

“This is a pet peeve of mine from back in my TBC raiding days.  I simply, completely, totally and undeniably loathe damage meters.  I curse the day that the damage meter mod creator was ever born.  I would be completely fine if the mod would cause any computers using it to simultaneously melt down until their owners learned their lesson.” – Syp from BioBreak

In fact the whole “My epeen (or ebra in my case) is bigger than yours” and the gear snobbery is why I refuse to participate in a pug any more. Even in those instances when we have had to substitute in a fifth pug member it rarely seems to turn out well. 

But the one feature I really appreciate the most is the whole “vote to kick” feature.  My introduction came when a new tank joined our group (otherwise a ToG group) and, as was described in an earlier post, decided the best place to tank a boss was on top of the healer. After the expected wipe occurred (I can still see the boss running back toward my hunter in the last row) he initiated a vote to kick the healer. Isn’t it always the case…yup the healer is always at fault.

But for me, the high point of my return to the game was the addition of a spirit beast to my stable of pets.  After long periods of searching for one before I took a break there it was…just waiting there. No one else was around to try and kill it while I was taming it.  There was no race with another hunter to try and tame the beast first – Just me, the snow, and the spirit beast.

And that’s my two gold pieces worth.

Julie Whitefeather

There be dragons here!

Rob Pardo is in league with the devil.  I have been playing my hunter and enjoying the raids and instances. I have had a chance to raid Naxramus a few times and have even earned my dragon mount.  And having earned one’s dragon mount it is, of course, necessary to hover over Dalaran in celebration – followed by a bit of bank sitting.

I must admit, it never occurred to me, as suggested by R.W. Harper, to put the members of a pug that feel it is necessary to be an asshat on ignore.  But, as you can see from his comment on an earlier post, it seems to work just fine.

Now up and onward to the next milestone!

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

Ah the sweet siren song of World of Warcraft…regular readers and listeners both know that our own Julie has always maintained that Rob Pardo is in league with the devil. After all, that is  the only thing that can explain not the enormous popularity of the game, but why Julie would ever return to it at all.  Our own Fran, as you all know, is a hard core, dyed-in-the-wool World of Warcraft (WoW) player. But Julie? Recently she has told us how she felt WoW buried her hunter under a ton of dingo dung and told her to eat her way out. Yet here she is back in WoW playing her beast master hunter.

Yes, it must be very cold in place that is normally very hot.

The original incentive was an invitation she received by another member of the staff to run Naxramus with an all TOG (The Older Gamers) group.  Time was, when Naxramus was a place that only the “best of the best” went to raid. Time was when it took a mountain of preparation. Now, of course, you can throw together a group and go play in the floating pyramid from hell.

Now we are all aware that there are certain factions of players that bemoan how easy the high end instances have become in WoW.  We have carefully researched the matter, considering all possible angles and opinions and have come to one simple conclusion:

Bite us.

We enjoy the new “approachable” WoW. We are having fun in it. Well, at least until a pug came along last some time Friday afternoon. Then that old black magic (and we mean black as in dismal) came flooding back. The reasons why Julie quit were brought to the forefront of her mind like a smack in the face with a dead mackerel.  The No Prisoners, No Mercy team was running Occulous and was forced to go to outside resources when two of the group members had to go.  The new tank was fine until suddenly an elite mob (monster) came running back to Julie’s Hunter, and Fran’s Healer in the back row – lead by the PUG tank who felt the sudden and inexplicable desire to tank the mob on top of the healer.

Now we understand that not all tanks are created equal. Not all players are the M1 Abrams of the gaming world.  We don’t mind wipes when the Tank lets the aggro slip through his fingers like a fifty dollar bill at the craps table in Las Vegas.  What we DO mind, however, is when that same tank who decided the best place to lose aggro was right on top of the healer then turns around and tells everyone else in the group how bad they are. At that point, one thing ran through our minds:

“A bit unclear on the concept are we?”

So at least for the moment, Julie is back where she said she never would be…World of Warcraft. Now when she manages to raise the 2,000 gold to buy that dragon she earned? Well that is another matter. Until then…

See you online,

The No Prisoners, No Mercy Team

Nothing says happy holidays like a shot from a 45!

In between breaks from wrapping presents, decorating trees and plowing snow this last weekend, I stopped to ponder some of the virtual Christmases I have experienced.  Everquest 2 regaled me with an instance filled with rainbows, reindeer, frolicking elves and Christmas crafts.  World of Warcraft (WoW) had me unwrapping gnomish toys, baking cookies and rescuing reindeer for an Azerothian Santa.  Eve Online was a bit better – they had snowball launchers to replace missiles (although I always seemed to miss out somehow).

Yes, the saturation of sweetness that fills virtual holidays is enough to sicken a herd of Yak. It puts me in mind of the time that the master of horror fiction, Rod Serling, appeared on the Tonight Show back in the days when it was hosted by Johnny Carson.  Rod Serling spoke of the challenge of creating the proper mood, building up the suspense to a crescendo only to have it ruined by a commercial break with “10 bunny rabbits dancing around with toilet paper.”

And then there’s Fallen Earth…

If there is no place like home for the holidays, there is no place like post-apocalyptic Arizona for the virtual holidays. 

Now our listeners are used to the interaction between my co-host and I…in fact it is one of the strong points of our show.  Our long time listeners have often heard Fran complete my sentences; so often that I have wondered if I have a glass head.  Yet we don’t always agree on everything when it comes to gaming, and World of Warcraft is one of those places where we often hold diametrically opposed viewpoints.  For example, while she may now laud the praises of the new “Looking for group” tool, it is that same tool that has (at least when I use it) become a “Looking for someone else besides you” tool.  It’s bad enough for other players in a pick-up group to tell me I don’t have good enough armor, but when the system itself does as well?  Let’s just say that not only does it feel like Activision/Blizzard has buried my hunter under a ton of dingo dung…now they aren’t even bothering to tell me to try and eat my way back out.  Now it is as if Jeff Kaplan and Rod Pardo have personally teamed up to send me a special delivery telegram that says “We don’t want YOU. Just leave your money on the counter and get the hell out!”

But when World of Warcraft and Activision/Blizzard doesn’t want me, Fallen Earth and Icarus studios welcomes me with open arms. Not only do they welcome me, but they have give me the perfect way to feel better about not being wanted by WoW – a Fallen Earth holiday season.

Yes, there is nothing that says “Happy Holidays” like a shotgun blast in the back of the head to one of the post apocalyptic ELFS (Emissary for leaving free stuff).  Or as I summed up my session of holiday revelry and mayhem

“HO-HO-HO THAT NIGHT ELF!!!”

See you online,

The No Prisoners, No Mercy team.

Artwork credit:  The wonderful montage of images, and accompanying artwork is by our own Fran Kosac…note the shadow the nun casts (the nun and the elf weren’t in the picture to start with). Note the highlighting of the night elf and the oh so appropriate (in our opinion) pool of blood under the night elf!

Looking for Grief Channel

Like many people there are a few things in life that turns our collective stomachs here on the No Prisoners, No Mercy team: Fran hates slow drivers, Julie hates coffee without cream, and both hate eight legged pugs.

Eight legged pugs?

No we are not talking about some mutant pug that has somehow made it from Fallen Earth to Wow.  What we are referring to is the sort of pug that comes in the variety of four other people and runs through instances (4 people, 2 legs, an 8 legged pug…” natch”) As you can no doubt tell from our column of November 5 this year (“This Homey doesn’t like Pugs”) we have had more than our share of bad experiences with pick up groups.  And although Julie has always maintained that Rob Pardo is in league with the devil, it has always been because WoW is just that good – not because the Activision/Blizzard gorilla is intent at making our endgame hellish. But now, it seems all that is changing.

When Fran logged on last night she was met by an awakening that was so rude it was as if the 800 pound gorilla itself had taken the time to slap her back to the curb.  It seems that despite the fact that the gaming group to which we belong (The Older Gamers) has about 14,000 gamers and is usually one of the largest guilds on any server they play on that grouping with guildies is not good enough for Blizzard. Now it seems, with the advent of patch 3.3.0, Activision/Blizzard is adament that we should pug instead of grabbing four other guildies and heading out toward the daily heroic.

“The Looking For Group chat channel has returned and can be accessed in all major cities (similar to the Trade chat channel) without the use of the Dungeon Finder interface”.

It has returned alright…and with a vengeance.

Now if we want to pursue the proverbial “uber sword of uberness” (our personal favorite pastime) we are forced to get our “uberness coinage” (now called “emblem of triumph and emblem of frost” in two cases). Not only that, we take our death knight (we all have one don’t you?) that can do either tankage or dps we get assigned to a particular role without so much as a “by your leave”.

Now we do appreciate the fact that when Fran backed out of the instance (to which the system promptly whisked her after she accepted the group that was forced down her throat) she was instantly teleported back to Dalaran. That made leaving the pug so much easier when, within the first 10 seconds of her appearing in the instance one of the pug members started bitching about the armor she was wearing.

Now on the face of it there might be some people who took our advice and read the article by Daniel Kromand, “What Gamers Think about Microtransactions” over at Gamastustra. If so you would have noted how it benefits publishers to facilitate social interaction between gamers…

“It is commonly accepted that having online friends motivates players to play more, but does this also cash out into a greater willingness to pay for microtransactions? Several of the interview respondents had in fact bought goods because of social obligations or peer pressure…This makes it crucial to facilitate social connections between players,” – Daniel Kromand

Like Tipa asserted on No Prisoners, No Mercy shows 48 and 49, Julie has also stayed in games that she would have left earlier for the sake of online friends.  We understand, however (see comments below – thanks Ravenesque for enlightening us) that there is indeed a way around the new Looking for Grief…er…group channel. If so, we shall certainly avail ourselves of it (both Julie and Fran).  After all, you know what they say:

“An older gamer in the hand is worth two pug members in the instance.”

See you online,
The No Prisoners No Mercy team

TWO BATTLEFIELD MOMENTS:

Since we brought you Friday’s article on Thursday we thought we would balance things out by bringing you Saturday’s article on Sunday (OK – we will admit it, we where all busy yesterday).  Welcome to the “SAY WHAT?”  issue…

They said what?

(say what?)

O.K. We admit it. Captain Pike was a star trek captain before captain kirk.

“We didn’t want to have interiors at launch,” said “Star Trek Online” executive producer Craig Zinkievich. “We thought it was just a little bit too much. We really wanted to make sure we delivered a really deep experience, but your bridge not being in the game, it really felt like a hole in the game, and it was just something that we had to put in.” – Craig Zinkievich, Executive Producer, Star Trek Online

Once the game goes live (or if you are amongst the lucky few in the beta  – which we dearly wish we were)  we will all get to choose from among 20 bridge designs.  Mr. Zinkievich said they are to function as social hubs but that’s alright with us. We happen to know Trekkies from all over the world and we have  ALOT of socializing to do!

SAY WHAT!!!

If you are like us, you love down loadable content (DLC)  for your stand alone pc games. Games like Fall Out 3 come immediately to mind.  If you are also like us, you get so tired of having to jump through hoops, open multiple accounts (which invariably generate spam) all just to buy said DLC.   We also get just a bit tired of having to buy content for ”points” which never seem to come in the same increments in which the content is sold (here is looking at YOU Microsoft).  Always, of course, necessitating buying more “Points” than is necessary to purchase the game. 

Wait! 

Gamestop to the rescue!!

According to a report in Arstechnica (who gets their information from Variety Magazine) “ the retailer will start selling digital content in its stores starting next year, and it already has backing from Sony and Microsoft. The new service will allow customers to pay for the content in store and then download it when they return home.”  You can read the article here.

SAY WHAT?

Remember how, just before the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (MW2) was released, Activision/Blizzard head honcho Bobby Kotick caused a bit of a stir by saying he would  “raise the price [of MW2] even further if [he] could?”  Now that many players are up in arms (or not up in arms if they didn’t buy MW2) we all know why Mr. Kotick wanted that price raised. Here is an excerpt from article (below) over at Gamesindustry.biz (available here):

“Activision CEO Robert Kotick has exercised options on just over 1.93 million shares this week, allowing him to buy them at a price of USD 1.03 and sell them at between USD 11.43-11.54 each.” – Phil Elliott, Gamesindustry.biz

And a quick note, that puts the stock mentioned above worth around $20 million.

SAY…IT ISN’T SO…

Say it isn’t so…the endless trial (and tribulations) of Warhammer Online.  We had such high hopes! Paul Barnett was on our show several times! As we have said before, Paul Barnett could sell ice to polar bears in the dead of winter.  We are wondering if even he can sell the general gaming public on this:

Endless? We hope!

Warhammer Online is one of the subjects we discuss with JMO and TIPPA on Show 48 (due out soon…we promise). Even though we are always ones to say “don’t nail the coffin lid shut just yet” on any game, this confirmation of the “endless trial subscription” coupled with the news of the 80 layoffs over at Mythic (we hoped that news wasn’t true either) doesn’t bode well for the future of the game.  While any discussion on the WarhammerOnline and what happened between the glory days of launch and now could fill a book (or at least several articles) the general feeling at the end of show 48 was that Mythic tried too hard to please World of Warcraft customers and not enough to please fans of the table top game.  

In the end, what we here at No Prisoners, No Mercy hope is that Mythic (or what ever EA calls them these days) will take a hint from Turbine and go the way of DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online) and be free to play with some sort of micro-transaction business model.  The big question here is, of course, how do you keep them down on the virtual warhammer online farm after they have seen the latest MMOs.  THAT, my friends, is always an enormous task.

See you online,

The No Prisoners, No Mercy team.  

THIS Homey doesn't like pugs!

Let’s talk about Blizzard – after all, just about everyone is today.  But let’s not start where everyone else does. No, let’s start with pugs. Not those cute little dogs with turned up noses and a sweet disposition. Instead let’s talk about the kind of pug that has 10 legs, averages six feet tall and has a nasty disposition.  That sounds like one heck of a beast doesn’t it?  And let me tell you, these days when I run an instance with a “pick up group” (PUG) they DO have one nasty disposition.

Julie has a rule. She never groups with anyone outside of her guild (No, Julie hasn’t suddenly start talking about herself in the third person, this is Fran). Now you may think that having a rule about not running with anyone outside the guild is an imposition, but considering the gaming group we belong to has 14,000 members that’s not all the big of a hardship. What has started to become a hardship, is running an instance with a pick up group (pug).  Now, as many of you who listen to our show know, my game of choice is World of Warcraft, so that is the context here.

Having finally reached level 80 on my Troll priest I assumed that filling half of the oft heard “looking for healer, looking for tank” would put me on a pedestal when it came to running an instance, especially a heroic instance. These days, however, that appears not to be the case…

Sherman set the wayback machine for 2 nights ago. The setting is right after our instance wiped because the Tank took off on his own, and ran out of range of the person keeping him alive – ME!

Tank:    “Way to go priest, how long do we have to carry you?”

Me:      “You’re carrying me? And here I thought you had your hands full with just being the tank.”

Tank:    “What?”

Me:      “Well you must be quite the player who can tank, heal himself and the entire party at the same time. Wow, talk about an ‘army of one’! You really ARE an army of one. With that sort of talent all the rest of are sort of extraneous aren’t we?”

Tank:     “Did you buy your character? Why did you let me die?”

Me:       “Is it my fault you decided to tank a Northrend Instance by way of Tanaris desert? Next time you might want to at least stay close enough so I can see you with a telescope.”

(The boss is looted and cloth armor with a healing bonus drops. I roll need)

Tank:    “What you doing? Why did you roll need?”

Me:       “We started with need or greed loot rules. I’m the only class here who wears cloth armor, and the only healing class. What’s the problem?”

Tank:     “I wanted to roll on it. Listen homie, we don’t roll need on blue items here.”

            (long pause)

Me:       Did you just call me “homie”? That strikes me as being a little like Pee Wee Herman calling Will Smith homie”

Tank:     What if I wanted the gear?

Me:      “Cloth healing gear? Too bad it’s bind on pick up, otherwise I would give it to you – as a protection spec’s fighter you make a great healer.”

And that’s why THIS “homie” doesn’t like pugs either…

Now let’s turn from pugs to pets – not the four legged kind, the cute cuddly furry kind (although the first two pets in question only have four legs between them). Here is the quote of the day that has so many people up in arms:

“Today we’re pleased to introduce the Pet Store for World of Warcraft, a new way for players to obtain in-game pets to join them on their adventures in Azeroth. Two brand-new companions are now available for purchase exclusively at the Pet Store in the online Blizzard Store: Lil’ K.T. and the Pandaren Monk.”  – Blizzard poster, Nethaera (available here)

Whether or not the 800 pound Blizzard Gorilla gets it’s big furry behind kicked out of China, I can’t say. However, Bobby Kotick (Director of Activision/Blizzard) doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who takes even the slightest chance that there will be the words “fourth quarter loss” in a financial report.  As anyone who knows business will tell you (and even if he isn’t a gamer Mr. Kotick knows business) if an investor sees the word “loss” in a financial report, it won’t matter if it is followed by a profit and loss statement that reports a net profit the size of the gross national product for an entire nation. All they will see is the word “loss” and, especially in today’s economic climate, will run around screaming “all is lost, all is lost.”

I have noticed that Blizzard has tried to soften the blow to the egos of its more suspicious consumers with the following:

“For every Pandaren Monk that finds its way to a player’s side between now and the end of the year (December 31, 2009 at 11:59 PDT), we’ll donate 50 percent of the $10 purchasing price to the Make-a-Wish Foundation in an effort to brew up a little hope, strength, and joy in a child’s life.” – ibid

Now it is unlikely that the Blizzard Gorilla will be swinging high forever. Still, no matter how many bloggers and columnists are upset about the opening of a new virtual pet store, the chances are that nay sayers will have about as much effect as the “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2” boycott!  Go ahead and tell me that you won’t be there to at least check out the “Cataclysm” expansion because of a micro-transaction or two – I will know it’s a lie!

Bless you all,

Fran

Tourists or searching for something different?

It has been one month since Aion Online has hit the shelves and about the same for Champions Online.   This is right about the time where a gamers mind turns to “virtual tourism”  – the end of the first free month. The following was in the recent release of the “October Community Address” from Aion Community Team:

“You’ve told us that it’s difficult to advance within certain level ranges. To address this issue, we’re planning to raise quest experience, in addition to reevaluating the experience rewards characters gain for individual kills. We understand how frustrating it can be to repetitively kill enemies. Our goal is to limit the need to mindlessly ‘grind.’” – The Aion Community Team (full address is here)

Both gamers and those who make the games expect potential customers to come and take a tour of the new game world. And it is certainly expected that not all those who arrive in that first free month of a games life cycle will make the virtual world one of their new homes.  The question still arises, however, what happens when a game fails to turn a “virtual tourist” into a new “virtual resident”.

This was one of the questions that My Co-host Fran, and I will be discussing with Tipa from West Karana and JMO from MMO Voices on an upcoming No Prisoners, No Mercy (NPNM) show.

When Paul Barnett discussed the matter with us, he likened the process to someone who leaves a girlfriend, hoping to find someone better, but always ends up yearning for the “love of their life” – whatever that first game or mmo happened to be.  There certainly must be something to that; for the “first love” of many players is World of Warcraft (WoW) and that is the game against which all others seem measured. Yet while investors and “triple AAA” developers alike hesitate to do anything other than what is expected, that can be one root causes of virtual  tourism.

What exactly do games “expect”?

Take 1 million gamers and ask them what they are looking for in a game and you are likely to get one million different answers. In the end analysis, no doubt the gamers themselves aren’t sure what they are looking for but will merely know it when they find it.  If the product you create is “approachable” as Scott Hartsman told us on an earlier there will be any one of a number of players who view themselves as the “core” of your customers and say “its too easy” (as happened in WoW after the Northrend expansion).  If it takes too long to level, for whatever reason (see Aion Online comments above) there will be yet another sector of gamers that will react as if you shot their dog. To paraphrase the great U.S. President Lincoln…

You can’t please all of the people some of the time so you had best please a few of the people most of the time.

As you will hear TIPA point out on a future show, many players take a tour of a new game world hoping to find something different and end up finding the same game they just left.  After all, who needs another WoW when you still have the WoW icon on your desktop? Mythic Entertainment started with a tabletop game named Warhammer where a great battle will often find three armies pitted against another, the survor always ready to pounce on the weakened victor. What they gave us (all considerations of art style aside) was  a game with one side pitted against the other…more of the same game mechanics used in just about every game that hits the shelves.

Aion Online, on the other hand, can’t seem to decide what it is. Yes, they have called it a PvPvE game.  An interesting approach but it is still a two sided game because the third side is controlled by the AI (the “E” in PvPvE).  If a gamer, such as myself, joins looking forward to new and innovative pvp I end up dieing on the vine as I try and wade through 25 levels until I get to pvp (Yes, I know about rifts but that isn’t pvp, that’s a slaughter).

This is why I will always applaud the independent game developer who dares to do something different.  There may be those in the gaming community who, in their ignorance, will sneer and call such games  a “niche of a niche”. What such games present to the mmo community are something that is desperately needed – someone who marches to the beat of a different drummer.  When a developer finally breaks out of the mold of game mechanics that are tried and true, we can finally go out looking for something different and find it.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather*

*Brought to  you from a bed in a convent, somewhere in Illinois.