Mists of Pandaria, Pets Battles, and Family Gaming

My daughter's panda in Loch Modan

Mists of Pandaria offers many different options of ways to play the game, and, in particular, more options for casual players including children.  I suspect there was more conversation about this when Mists first came out, but since I wasn't playing then, I'm late to the conversation.

I have taken the week off for spring break for school and so I was able to spend a few hours playing World of Warcraft with my eight year old daughter.  Right now, the only rule we have is that she can only play when I am around to help her.  My wife and I are concerned about people on the internet and what they'll say but as long as I'm there with her, I feel like it is fine for her about her to play online.  Other parents will have different rules and I don't pretend to know what is right for them or their children, but I'm hoping it is helpful to hear about my experience.

This is the same daughter who was playing Lord of the Rings Online with me last year.  She likes pets in games so it's not surprising that she wanted a hunter here.  She and some of her friends at school pretend to be pandas, so it's not surprising that the offer to play a panda in WoW was exciting for her.

At eight, I don't think it makes sense for her to have her own account.  Possibly at ten I might consider it, but I realize different parents have different tolerances (and different amounts of disposable income) and some children can be allowed more freedom than others.

She also has been steadily playing Pokemon White and White 2 since she received it for her birthday last March.  So it's not surprising that she is enjoying the pet battle subgame. I decided with my limited time, I would limit myself to crafting and questing at first, so this was my first to see the pet battles as well.

It's fun!  I think it was great that my daughter was able to get 5 achievements related to pet battles in less than two hours of playing time.  She also has an older computer with no video card, so it is nice that she can take her time to decide what she wants to do.  She started with 'Mojo' as her first pet (I'm not sure why) and she promptly renamed him 'Mojo Jojo'. ;)  After getting him to level 3, she decided she wanted to play with different pets and at this point she now has three pets levels 4 - 5 and has defeated two of the pet trainers.

I'm not sure if the parents at Blizzard were behind this or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were at all.  This is an almost ideal way for parents with children who want to play with them to be able to play without worrying about others and in a fun, relatively stress free setting.

Questing in WoW One Night a Week

Flying on a dragon is a good thing

I bought Mists of Pandaria about a month ago and finally finished the first zone, Jade Forest, this week. I did spend some of that time finishing leveling my Mage so I could disenchant, but still, I'm sure that seems like an incredible slow rate for most of the people who play WoW.

I remember when Burning Crusade came out, while some people were done in less than a week, I took about a week for each level.  I'm significantly slower than that now, but I've learned to accept it.  However, there are some difficulties.  There were a few times when I lost the train of what was going on.  I try to have one significant (2 hour) play session a week, but it doesn't always happen.  I did last weekend which got me very close to finishing the first zone and I was able to finish it in a relatively short session this weekend.

Even though sometimes I lost the train of the quest line, I was able to enjoy most of it.  In particular, the relatively short quest line within the Temple of the Jade Serpent (not including the instance) was finished in one session and it had the nice payback of a ride on the back of the Jade Serpent at the end.  I was also able to appreciate the horror of what happens at the end.

My thoughts now are how to get the most of the questing.  I'm close to level 87 and I certainly won't be able to play even half of the quests while leveling my first character.  I could just play the rest at max level, but I know I'm going to want to level at least my priest.  My plan now is to get to level 87 in Valley of the Four Winds and then switch to Krasarang Wilds.  This will allow my priest to switch to Valley of the Four Winds at level 86 and I'll see this content with her.

I went to Krasarang wilds once to turn in a special fish with Nat Pagle and it looks like I need to quest some there to get a closer flight path to him.  However, after that, I can pretty much quest in any area.  I'd love to get suggestions for people favorite zones to quest in, so I can at least finish one of the more enjoyable areas on my hunter before I reach 90.

Critical mass when playing one night a week

Working on my farm

There is a lot of excitement when starting a new game or a new expansion for an existing game.  However, when you are only playing one day a week, it doesn't keep you going, it is more a reminder of how far behind you'll be soon.

I've discovered that there is a 'critical mass' I've reached playing World of Warcraft that makes it more enjoyable to stay with the game than to start a new game.  I know people who are playing.  I'm not an expert, but I'm comfortable with the way the game works, the way the crafting works and I don't feel like I am missing too much.

I tried to play Lord of the Rings Online and you'd think it would be a better fit for a person playing one night a week.  There is no monthly charge, the cost for adding the areas for questing is minimal given that it would take me quite a while to complete them at my current rate.  However, I played a couple of characters to around level 10 and I've stopped.

If my daughter or wife were able to play at the same time I could, that would probably make a big difference, but I just didn't have the motivation to keep going.

Most MMOs are difficult to play one night a week.  Even with World of Warcraft, although it's easy enough to finish the quests, it is difficult to remember what I was doing one week to the next.  However, it's much easier if you know there are people there you can chat with or to whom you can ask questions.  It's easier knowing that there are only 5 levels (3 now) until I can advance my status with the Tillers and play around with the different cooking and farming options.

So, here I am some days not playing at all, some days only planting.  However, about once a week I do get a session where I have time to play and enjoy the game and, hopefully, see some of the people I've played with these last 8+ years.  That's longer than I've been with two of my three daughters.  Although I don't get to see them often now, that does count for something.

Crafting One Night a Week

Back in Pandaria fishing

As I started in Northrend, I was notified by Wow-pro that I would eventually need an Overcharged Capacitor for a quest.  I looked briefly at the auction house and saw they were available at a high price.  I then looked to see how soon I could build one myself and  saw it wouldn't be difficult.  I had great pleasure discovering that I (barely) had the cobalt I needed on a Warrior who is a miner/blacksmith and it was just a matter of building the items to get my Engineering skill to 375.

Even though I don't play that often, I have Grand Masters in every profession except Leatherworking and Skinning.  The crafts for my main character, Herbalism, Alchemy, Cooking, and Fishing, will probably be max level again once I focus on him.  

For some people, this would be total waste of time.  Even though there is little challenge in crafting in World of Warcraft, I find it to a lot of fun to plan out the leveling and be able to produce what I need myself.  To me, and, I believe to many, there is great value in offering a variety of activities in a MMO.  Spinks discussed this at length is his recent post.

Even when playing infrequently it is nice to be able to do different things.  For me, I alternate quests and crafting.  Sometimes I want to level, sometimes I want to complete things, sometimes I just want a distraction.  When I played more, I played through dungeons and even did raids one night a week with my guild.  Playing different classes provides variety as well.

Most MMOs today are generalists.  Keen suggested that more MMO games need to focus on what they can do that other games can't, I suspect he is correct.  World of Tanks is a great example although others wouldn't consider it an MMO.  However, for me, I love fantasy games and I love being able to switch between different tasks I enjoy as I like, so I'll probably be playing generalist games, and, as long as I'm playing one night a week, only one at a time.

Oh, as a side note, Mists finally went on sale so now I'm able to fish and farm again and improve my skills while doing it.

Back in Outland

Feeling at home with the gnomes in Northrend

My plan is still the same.  I HATE not being able to disenchant items and since Blizzard has decided that you need to be level 75 in order to get the 475 enchanting skill to disenchant Pandaria greens, I'm in the process of leveling my designated Disenchanter/Banker/Engineer to level 75 (who just happens to be a mage named Kantria).  She has sat at 65 for more than a year (more than 2 years?) since that's the level she had to be to disenchant Cataclysm greens. Once she gets to 75 I'll hopefully have the components she needs to get up to 475 enchanting skill.  At that point I'll go back to playing "Mists", assuming it's on sale.

So I'm still waiting for a sale on "Mists of Pandaria."  Amazon has lowered the price to approximately $29 with free shipping, and if it doesn't go down before I level my "Disenchanter", I'll go ahead and buy it at that price.  It's still $40 on Blizzard and it would be nice to be able to just install it, but I can wait a few days to save $11.  It's still tough to pay $29 when it was $20 not long ago.  Maybe it'll be there again soon, but $9 isn't enough to stop me while $20 is.  I expected Blizzard to have lowered the price by now, but I guess they know more about the economics of these things than I do.

The good news on leveling is that even though I don't play much, I'm already on level 69 and should be able to go to Nothrend after my next play session.  I could go there now, but I'd rather be 70 since I should be able to level more easily then.  I also am trying to finish questing in Nagrand.  I'm not sure how I didn't finish it on my Hunter and I'm guessing I'm only a few quests away on him, but I might as well get the experience for it (since I'm almost done now).  Well, I think I'm almost done.   I'm using the Wow-pro addon to make leveling even easier than it is normally and it's telling me I need to do some quests in Shadowmoon Valley in order to finish the Nagrand quests.  It's possible I'll need to do the 'Ring of Blood' and I won't be able to solo it at 70.  In worst case, I can't imagine I won't be able to do it at 75 though.

When I first started leveling at 65 in Zangarmarch, it felt very slow.  Everyone says leveling is so fast, but it was dragging enough that I went ahead and bought the three guild heirlooms that boost your experience by 25%.  I might be able to buy others (I haven't checked), but between this and moving to Nagrand, I seem to be moving at a good clip now, but not too fast.

Although it's going fast enough now to be enjoyable, there is nothing new.  I have 3 toons above level 70 so I've seen it all before.  I guess if I wanted to do dungeons it would be a little faster, but I need to be able to leave quickly in case my family needs me and I don't want to have to desert a group.  I've also seen enough drama in LFD and I'd rather avoid it.  Gear really doesn't matter and it's nice to be able to just do things on my own with occassional chatting with the guild.

If I'm trying to tie down why its enjoyable, I guess it comes down to familiarity and preparation.  I don't mind doing something a little boring so that I can better enjoy what I'm doing.  I'm sure there are members of my guild who would be more than willing to disenchant for me, but I want to have that independence and I know once I have it, it'll make leveling in Mists more fun.

New Year, Old Game

Happy New Year!

Blizzards 10 day trial worked on me and I'm playing World of Warcraft again now. I waited until after the holidays when I was less busy but that meant that all the sales on Mists of Pandaria are gone now.  However, that's ok, because I found it extremely frustrating that I couldn't disenchant those Mists of Pandaria items and so this is the perfect opportunity to level my (Dis)Enchanter (who just happens to be a Mage) who was left at 65 since that's where she needed to be to disenchant Cataclysm gear.

Since this is pretty much all about reaching the magic level and I don't play a lot, I invested gold in some Heirloom items.  Hopefully with their help, and despite my minimal play time, I'll get to 75 in a few weeks and by then I'll find a sale so I can go back to leveling in Mists.

One thing I've discovered that probably shouldn't be so surprising is that it is difficult to start a new MMO when your play time is limited.  However, playing a game where you've already invested the time is much easier.

So, back to Outlands and Wrath briefly so I can see some new things and not be frustrated that I can't get sparkleys from them.  It's odd the things that frustrate people, but I've learned to just accept them.

One Week back in World of Warcraft

I received 10 free days to play use World of Warcraft including the new expansion so I took advantage of it last week.  I still didn't get to play much, but there is something comforting about coming back to a game that you played for a long time, particularly with all the new content (for me).

The best part was being able to chat, even briefly, with a couple of guild members that I used to play with regularly.  Besides that, I was able to almost complete a level, complete the beginning Tiller quests and farm every day, complete the first major quest chain and get the flight paths so I can get to my farm without having to run.  This last part was more difficult that it should have been, but I think the expectation is that you can get that first quest chain done in one sitting and for me it took all week.

I am still hoping I'll be able to play either Lord of the Rings Online or something else with my wife, but with preparation for Christmas and people getting sick, it wasn't going to happen over the last month.  Given that, I suspect I'll probably resubscribe to WoW now that the expansion is pretty easy to come by for $20.  I'm not sure exactly why, but I can't justify $40 for the amount of playing I do, but I can justify $20.

Now, if I'm talking about value, I'm sure either playing LotRO or Star Wars the Old Republic again would make more sense.  I could access a lot of content either for free or for cheap and there is no required monthly fee.  However, my time is much more valuable than the amount of money we're considering and the huge amount of time I've spent on my two level 85 characters and the assorted alternate character wouldn't happen for years in another game.

There is a certain momentum that happens with Massively Multiplayer games that I don't think happens so much with single player games.  Even though combat, abilities, and all the activities that go with a MMO game are constantly being changed, it is still much easier to rejoin a game you have been playing, particularly if you still have friends that are playing it.

Now there is a difference between playing and being dedicated to a game.  The Godmother recently posted about her experience with players who don't care in a raid.  I was able to raid in vanilla WoW and Burning Crusade, but never got to the point of being able to do it afterwards.  I doubt it'll happen with this expansion either, even though my guild is very open to bringing people up.  I just know I don't have the time.  That doesn't mean that questing or crafting or any of the other numerous activities in WoW won't be worth the $15 a month for me.  Since I do care, unless somehow I end up with more time, I know I won't even try to raid.

There are a lot of different ways to play these games. A lot of them don't hinder others enjoyment of the game, but some do.  I know, for me, I can't enjoy the game in ways where pretending to be good enough to participate in activities when I know I'm not.