So Many New Games to Say No to

There are a lot of games coming out soon that, in theory, should interest me.  I may post more about individual games later, but it really should be an embarrassment of riches.

Diablo III Reaper of Souls - March 25,2014

Not an MMO, but certainly of interest to me.  I played a lot of Diablo and bought both Diablo II and the expansion almost as soon as they came out.  However, this goes into the 'not safe to have a 4 year child looking over my shoulder' category and with my limited time, I'd rather play something where I don't have that concern.  (And no, I haven't bought the original game)

Elder Scrolls Online - April 4, 2014

I have both Morrowind and Oblivion but have only played them briefly.  Arena and Daggerfall both came out when I was still playing RPGs a lot.  Skyrim has received great reviews and I've considered getting it a couple of times.  However, somehow none of these games including ESO are really of interest to me.

Wildstar - June 3, 2014

I like the style of this game (more stylized, doesn't take itself too seriously) and I really like that they are explicitly trying to adapt to different styles of play with the Paths (as an aside, I recommend subscribing to Richard Bartle's blog).  Of all the games on the list, this is probably the one that interests me most, but I still think it is doubtful that I will ever play it.

Everquest Next Landmark - 2014 (?) but Alpha available now

Seems more like a toy than a game to me and therefore holds little interest to me.  I also don't like the idea of paying to alpha test a free to play game, but I can't blame SOE for doing it.

Shroud of the Avatar - Q4, 2014

I may have spent more time playing Ultima VI and VII than any other RPGs.  I lived in Austin, Texas longer than any place else (19 years?).  I think Richard Garriott does have some good ideas and I did watch the reveal video the day it came out.  I am glad it is in development and I hope it is successful but I just can't get excited about this game.

Star Citizen - Early 2015

I loved the first two Wing Commander designed by Chris Roberts and space combat MMOs are very rare (Eve Online is the only successful one that I'm aware of and I'm much more interested in the style of gameplay being offered by Star Citizen).  Even more than Shroud of the Avatar, I hope this game is successful (and not just at raising money).  I can imagine myself getting this game after it comes out, but not on the first day and certainly not as a pre-order.

Any prominent MMOs expected to be available in the next 12 months or so that I've missed?

It's a game, it should be fun

Kantra on her Jade Panther

I mentioned my plans to try to get the Mekgineer's Chopper on my Engineer, Kantrina, by grinding rep at the Argent Tournament.  I did this for a few days and stopped.  On reflection, it just isn't fun and so I'm not going to do it any more.

I have quite a bit of tolerance for daily quests.  Kanter is even exalted with all four of the original alliance factions because he kept doing the Tournament quests.  I happily farm on three characters every day.  However, what was fun several years ago isn't fun now.  World of Warcraft is a game and it shouldn't be about grinding or doing it right, it should be about having fun.

I am still enjoying Archaeology.  Just yesterday in my pursuit of the Vial of the Sands, I completed the Crawling Claw.  It happened to my 100th unique pet so I also got Nuts as a bonus.  I had thought that I was getting close to 100 pets and 100 mounts, but it is much nicer to just run across them as I am doing other things.

That was my intention with the Chopper.  As I was leveling, I was going to pick up the recipe, not realizing it was behind a reputation wall.  I will continue to level Kantrina and pick up the Engineering recipes as they come.  Maybe someday I'll go back and run some Wrath Heroic dungeons at level 90 solo to get the reputation needed for the recipe, but only if I enjoy it.  If not, there are other things to do and other games to play.

A Week in an MMO Life: Professional grinds

Kantrina visits Behsten to stop experience (briefly)

I still have no desire to participate in LFR so I am continuing to work on professions.  Kanter is excavating 2-4 Pandarian Archaeology sites so that he can eventually get his Vial of the Sands from converting Pandarian finds to Tol'vir ones.  He has searched four Canopic jars so far without finding the recipe.  I believe it is about a 10% chance, so if he gets to 10 without finding it, I'll be disappointed.  I had also been doing the Lorewalker dailies at the same time, but I realized that the one that uses 20 mogul shards was slowing progress, so now I'm only doing the one to that provides valor when you complete an artifact.

Since Kantro is safely harvesting ore on his farm that gives me time to work on something else.  I enjoyed getting Jeeves, so I thought I'd start working on more of the Engineering toys.  The Mekgineer's Chopper was my first goal since I knew the recipe was in Icecrown.  Kantrina, my mage Engineer, was already at level 77 and I happily and quickly leveled her to 80 in Storm Peaks.  I made what I thought would be a quick trip to Howling Fjord to pick up the recipe but she couldn't buy it.  It turns out that it requires Exalted status with the Alliance Vanguard.

My first thought was to try to get it by doing 5-man groups with my reputation going to Aliance Vanguard.  I tried to get both regular and heroic groups, but since people are generally switching to Cataclysm 5-mans at 80, only the regular groups would ever form and the experience from them was small.  I visited Behsten (see picture above) to stop my experience just before I hit 81 so I could continue to do the normal 5-mans, but I eventually decided it wasn't worth it.  He is more difficult to find than I expected.  He is described as being in the 'War room' but the room isn't labeled (it is the room to the King's left in Stormwind castle).  He is stealthed at a table in the back to the left as you enter the room.

Reading up on the reputation, it looks like the quests are spread in different areas, so it didn't really make sense to do a bunch of old quests I've already out leveled.  I saw two suggestions, either three dailies spread around Icecrown or the Argent tournament dailies.  I am already exalted with the Silver Covenant on Kanter so I don't have a lot to gain with having another character, but at least I thought I could build up some tokens for pets and mounts that I don't have.

So this is my grind now.  It seems I spend most of the time on the farm.  Kantra is farming cloth and doing the two cloth dailies. Kanter and Kantro are farming ore and Kanter is using the trillium to produce the daily Living Steel.  I have a lot of ghost iron so I was able to build the Jade Panther on Kantra.  The Jeweled Onyx Panther that requires building the other three panthers is so expensive, I'm not sure it is worth doing but if I earn enough gold, I might.  I will see if I can stick with the Argent Tournament grind on Kantrina or if I'll have to move on to something else.  In worst case, I could come back at 90 and solo the heroics, but that doesn't sound like much fun either.

Warcraft, Wolfhead and What should an MMO be

I started reading Wolfhead after he had already stopped posting as much as he used to, but, even though I don't often agree with him, I always find his posts thoughtful.  He wrote a late response to Blizzcon in December and this is my delayed response to that post.

I played Ultima VI and VII in the early 90s and remember some fascination with the idea of an Ultima world where multiple people could play together when Ultima Online came out in 1997.  I also remember reading about EverQuest in Computer Gaming World when it came out in 1999.  However, I never seriously considered playing either game.  It seemed like a fascinating experiment, but it didn't seem that much like a game.  It reminds me of my wife's response to the first SimCity.

However, when I read about World of Warcraft (WoW) in 2004, it seemed like something different.  I had played Diablo I and II (and Lost Vikings) but the Warcraft games weren't of much interest to me since I never enjoyed real-time strategy games.  I had played many role playing games besides the Ultima games and if I had to pick my favorite genre, it probably would have been RPGs.

World of Warcraft was something that, unlike Ultima Online and Everquest looked more like a traditional RPG.  I was used to the pattern that I guess was originally established in Dungeons and Dragons where there was a plot one followed, minor battles and new places to explore interspersed with large battles.  I played the beta, found a guild and started playing on the release date and have played with some breaks ever since.

I believe Wolfhead wants something much more like the Ultima Online or Everquest experience where there is a world to play and explore in, but most of the content is driven by the players, not by a plot dictated by the designers.  He is correct in saying that this is more easily sustainable than the plot driven model of WoW.  However, I believe he makes the mistake in thinking most MMO players want the same thing he does.

To me, much of it is a matter of convenience and time.   I don't have the time or inclination to generate our own content or depend on the content that others have created.  I want to be able to follow the breadcrumbs and make progress on our own or join with our friends when it is convenient.  At one point, when you finished the breadcrumbs, about the only options were new characters, raiding, or pvp.  Pet battles have provided a new way to spend time (and help level a character if that's what you want to do).  I am enjoying Archaeology and Engineering as ways to build or gather toys, pets and mounts.

I believe there is a significant market for the kind of game that Wolfhead and many others want, a game that allows for real exploration and the sense that you are living in a dynamic world that you can influence.  I hope many games of this type get created.  However, my belief is that these will always be a relatively small market compared to what a more structured game like World of Warcraft.

Maybe I'm wrong.  The 33 million Minecraft users is many more than the 12 million maximum that World of Warcraft had.  Maybe there is a giant market for a sandbox game that some team will find the right formula.  Maybe there is a third way that some team will find in the future.  Maybe MMOs will all but go extinct like other genres.  I don't think either of those things will happen anytime soon.  Wolfhead keeps focusing in his post on the millions of users lost by World of Warcraft.  The other way to look at is that 7 million users in still many times more than any other subscription MMO and that having that many users for a 9 year old game is quite remarkable.

I believe we can learn more from people with different opinions if we allow ourselves to be open to our differences.  I also believe that World of Warcraft will thrive for many more years.

A Week in an MMO Life: Uldum

Kanter finally has a camel

When I was playing Cataclysm, I spent a lot of time farming herbs in Uldum and would do the daily mallet quest because it was fun and thinking I'd eventually get to Exalted with Ramkahan.  I made it to revered and figured I'd eventually make it to Exalted by finishing the regular quests there.  I finally got back to working on it this month, with the Vial of the Sands still being my final goal, but I thought I would advance Archaeology and my Ramkahan reputation at the same time.  I found three jars, but still no vial, but I have now completed all quests in Uldum and have my exalted reputation along with my two camels.

Accomplishing multiple things at the same time is quite satisfying.  I spent a lot of time rather mindlessly visiting sites in Kalimdor hoping that a Tol'vir site would spawn, but that meant I collected most of the Troll, Fossil, and Night Elf rare items including a wolf helmet that sort of matches my Pauldrons of Primal Fury that I've loved since I got them while Zol'Aman was still current.  One of the fun things about being a casual player is that it was a happy surprise along with the many toys I collected.  When I did get Tol'vir archaeology fragments, I would finish quests in the area I hadn't done and collect herbs and Volatile Life.

Once I finished all the quests in Uldum I was quite short of exalted with Ramkahan, and I noticed there were quests in Lost City of the Tol'vir that would get me reputation so I got out my Ramkahan tabard that had sat in my bank and decided to try to solo it heroic so I would get the heroic reputation bonus as well.  All went pretty well until I ran into High Prophet Barim and his birds.  There might have been more I could have done, but it seemed to take too long for me to kill the birds and I would die before the prophet was dead.  Fortunately one of my guildmates was willing to help me with the last two bosses, so I was able to get the achievements and the reputation.  However, I knew there must be an easier way to get the reputation I wanted.

The internet being an introverts best friend, I looked and found that Halls of Origination gave Ramkahan reputation at normal and, after my experience with the stupid birds in Lost City, I was happy to be able to gain reputation in an easier fashion.  Halls of Origination was pretty simple in normal mode, though having to run down to push the levers on Temple Guardian Anhuur was annoying.  

After a few dailies and a few visits to the Halls, I was able to happily hop on my camel as seen above.  Of course, I still don't have my Vial, but at this point since I have most of the Kalimdor rares archaeology items, I will start performing archaeology in Pandarea and turning in Restored Artifacts for Tol'vir fragments.  I'm not sure if I'll work on that first, or try to get my warrior, Kantro, to 90 so he can fly, have an easier time gathering ore, and have more than 4 plots on his farm.

I still have many things I want to do and that doesn't include running Looking for Raid.  This is in contrast to Wolfhead's latest anti-Wow post, but my reaction will need to wait for another post.

A Laptop for a Casual Gamer

Mushrooms and Moons in Outland

I don't usually talk about why I am a casual MMO player, but I will today.  As mentioned before, I have been playing World of Warcraft off and on since it started and was casually raiding during the original game and the Burning Crusade expansion.  My first daughter was born approximately two years before the WoW was released and she was diagnosed with PDD/NOS when she was three and that diagnosis progressed to Autism.

Different children with autism have different needs, but mine requires pretty constant supervision.   She often doesn't look like she is paying attention, but she immediately notices if she isn't being watched and will usually get into something she shouldn't if she isn't supervised.  It isn't malicious, she is just compelled to get into things and, though she generally wants to obey us, without immediate supervision, she does what she wants and that usually leads to getting into food she shouldn't (such as candy or sodas) or destroying something even though we think they are well away from where she can reach.

I won't go into details, but there were times when my playing WoW meant that I wasn't there when she needed supervision.  She didn't hurt herself or anyone else but it put me on notice that I can't be involved in anything that I can't leave when I am at home.  Ever.  At one time I thought there would be times when someone else could supervise her and I could focus on playing, but I have found that if I'm home, I need to be available in case something happens, no matter who else is there.  More than anything else, this led me to the times I wasn't playing WoW but also to the desire to find a way to play so I could leave whenever I needed to.

This wasn't a simple conclusion.  I denied it for a long time and I probably still deny it some days now, but I have found that if I deny it, I will regret it, so those times are few and far between now.  The biggest change has been in my attitude to playing.  However, there is one simple change I have made that makes a huge difference in being able to play:  a gaming laptop.  

For years I have said that I needed a desktop PC so I could have an up-gradable graphics card.  However, in the last 10 years, I have upgraded my PC twice and only upgraded the graphics card once outside of those PC upgrades.  Finally earlier this year, my PC stopped working, my graphics card already needed upgrading and I decided to look at laptops.  We don't have a lot of extra money, so I was looking to spend under $1000 if possible.

I ended up with a Asus G46VW laptop and I'm very happy with it.  They have taken the spot where the DVD drive typically is and have replaced it with a GeForce 660M graphics card.  I bought an external DVD drive for about $20 and I don't miss it.  The biggest downside based on reviews seems to be the screen, but it is fine for playing casually while doing other things.  If I ever get the time, I can hook it up to my 23 inch monitor, and the games do look much nicer there, but that hasn't happened recently.  

I now have a way that I can play plugged in wherever my children are, watch them.  If needed I can unplug it and take it with me, though for the most part, I just play with it plugged in.  It also is allowing me to write this blog post while moving between the den and kitchen to watch my daughter.  I try to be careful with it, but it also seems pretty sturdy, but still portable at 2.5 pounds.

It won't satisfy the person who needs a large screen at all times or the faster processor, but as the main machine for a casual gamer, or a second machine for a more serious gamer, I would highly recommend it.

A Casual Alternative to MMO End Game

Hanging with Jeeves and a new Engineering pet outside the Auction House

It is that time of year when people are looking back at the last year and forward to the year ahead.  Ocho wrote two posts, one listing the 5 games he is looking forward to and another about the 5 Games that don't interest him.  Number 1 on the list of games that don't interest him was World of Warcraft.  I find it interesting because I feel like we have some of the same interests and I can completely understand why he doesn't want to play World of Warcraft, but at the same time it is the only game I am looking forward to next year.

I used to raid on a weekly basis in both vanilla WoW and Burning Crusade.  I took a break at the beginning of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion and never really raided after that.  I was never comfortable with my play style in either Wrath or Cataclysm and went searching for another game that fit my play style better.  While Ocho points to discontent with the WoW end game for his reason not to play the game, I have finally decided that my discontent with the WoW end game will cause me to play the game differently.

Godmother just today (you don't know how shocking for me that is to be able to respond to a post the same day it was released) posted about how her achievement of the 'Mount Parade' was so significant for her.  I had a similar reaction to my creation of Jeeves.  While questing in Icecrown, Kantrina found the Jeeves recipe, and though I highly doubt it will be worth the cost in components, I love having it.  For those that don't know, you can call on Jeeves to appear and he will allow anyone in your group or raid to sell things, repair or buy certain common items.

So I declare myself a proud member of Team Faff (Godmother's word for spending time doing things in game that don't serve the normal end game goals).  For me, it isn't about gear, or achievements as the game defines it, it is about setting my own goals and working towards them.  Right now since Jeeves is done, I've started working on getting my Miner, Kantro, to a high enough level so I can send bars to Kanter to transmute.  Will I ever use those bars?  Probably not many of them, but I want to be able to do it.  After that, I will either level my Mage, Kantrina, so I can work on higher level Enchanting and Engineering, or go back to leveling Archeology on Kanter so I can get the Vial of the Sands.

Because of the need to be able to drop what I am doing any time, I need goals where other people are not depending on me.  However, I love being able to help people and I've found a way I can have fun and still be able to do that.  Other people have other constraints and play the game very differently.

Godmother made the provocative statement "I reckon what Warlords should be doing, as a first priority, is actively discouraging as much solo play as it can."  I disagree with that.  I believe one of the lessons that Blizzard learned in Mists is that more options is a good thing.  If you want to raid or want to have the best gear, yes, you'll need to play nice with others.  However people can be happy working on their farm or Garrison, or battling pets, or using their professions, or competing in the Brawler's guild and pretty much do these things solo.  It benefits the players if they have multiple ways to keep busy that match different interests and time availability.  And, if it keeps people playing, Blizzard has the incentive they need to keep offering multiple ways to play their game.