Lich King Talent Observations - Arms Warrior

My first alpha-talent breakdown comes at the class I have the most experience with in World of Warcraft; the warrior. My first set of talents will be in the Arms Tree. For those who have yet to see the proposed Alpha Lich King Talents, head to http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent. Here are some thoughts on the proposed arms warrior talents in their current incarnation.



Arms

Sudden Death - 0/3 - Your melee critical hits have a 10% chance to allow the use of your execute ability regardless of the target's health state.

This ability has the chance to provide an arms warrior with some pretty impressive burst damage in the form of additional executes. There are several issues I have with this talent. First, it is difficult to justify three points into a talent that does nothing 20% of the time (i.e. the time one can use execute anyway). Second, this talent is gear dependent and RNG dependent in that, the better the gear, the greater the likelihood of an execute. The overall effectiveness of this talent will need to be thoroughly theorycrafted but at a first glance, it seems reasonable for a deep arms PVP build or level grinding and an occasional rage dump for PVE Arms.

Trauma - 0/2 - Your normal melee critical strikes increase the effectiveness of bleed effects on the target by 15% for 15%

This increases to 30% with 2/2 and seems to be targeting PVE arms warriors as this talent's prerequisite is Blood Frenzy. There is so much ambiguity with this talent that for now, I will reserve judgement. Obviously, theorycrafting will need to be done with this to truly estimate its effectiveness (how good is rend in WOTLK? Does it stack with Mangle?, etc). The thing that really gets me with this is the way the tooltip is worded. Most notably, ..."normal melee critical strikes...". Does this mean only white damage or any melee strike? Why word it this way if its the same as flurry which is worded as follows?:

"Increase your attack speed by 5% for your next three swings after dealing a melee critical strike"

Notice it is not a "Normal" melee critical strike. What's the difference? Who knows?

On a personal note...

I still have absolutely no idea why Blood Frenzy is an Arms talent. I understand that Arms warriors would bring just about nothing but DPS to a PVE raid environment but as it stands now, Blood Frenzy single-handedly unbalanced warriors as it places Fury warriors on the sidelines in raid scenarios that are void a full time Arms warrior with the talent. To me, this is the quintessential example of imbalance and what Blizzard usually does well; focuses a class spec on it's primary function and provide that spec small degrees of flexibility. Based on Blizzards track record Arms = PVP, Fury = PVE. Giving the best PVE dps talent to Arms warriors makes no sense. Arms already has the vast majority of outstanding PVP talents.
To further qualify the position, Blizzard has already adjusted talents in the past when this kind of issue has arose. Blizzard took Improved Intercept, a clearly PVP ability, and moved it to the Arms Tree, despite the repercussions it had on Fury spec's PVP viability. I see no reason the same precedent should be set for fury warriors.

At any rate, back to the evaluation...

Unrelenting Assault - 0/3 - Reduce the cooldown of your Overpower and Revenge abilities by 1 second.

This seems like more of a filler talent than anything else. I find that the only time I really look to use Overpower is in arena when fighting a rogue. I use Revenge significantly while tanking but no one who is raid tanking will be this invested into Arms. These are only linked in this manner because the abilities share a cooldown. There are some combos that one could set up with improved overpower and maintaining flurry via crits but overall, this just doesn't seem worth investing points into.

Bull Rush: - 0/3 - Increase the stun duration of your charge and intercept abilities by 0.4 seconds.

It scales .4 to .7 and then to a full 1 second duration. If there was one thing that PVP warriors and rogues taught us in arena is that stuns can be difficult to overcome. Sure it's cheesy and void of skill but they are ridiculously effective. Still, 3 points for 1 second additional seems like minimal value for talent points. Regardless, this may be something warriors consider for arena play.

Strength of Arms - 0/5 - Increase strength and total health by 1%.

Perhaps I expect too much at this venue for talents but this just doesn't do it for me. Sure, it does scale with your total health as opposed to just stamina but at this point, I wanted something a bit more original. This talent is boring and its just more filler to get to the 51 point talent. Nevertheless, the extra strength and health never hurt so people will take this just to get to prerequisite to test Bladestorm.

Bladestorm - 0/1 - Instantly whirlwind all nearby targets and for the next 4.5 seconds, perform a whirlwind ever second. While under the effects of a bladestorm you can move but cannot use any other attacks or abilities but you do not feel pity or remorse or fear and cannot be stopped unless killed.

So most of the first impressions on the forums are less than impressed with this talent. I can sort of see why. It only lasts for 5 seconds and you can't do anything while using it. Sure, you get to whirlwind every second or so but 4.5 seconds goes by quick. Classes that can CC can out range this and wait it out and classes with exceptional mobility can simply run from it. With that said, there are some decent things about this ability. The cooldown is very reasonable at 90 seconds and will be used frequently. I know how annoying The Beast Within works for hunters and I imagine this will be just as annoying for arena participants. My major question is do the whirlwinds this ability generates going to net rage? If that is the case, the 25 rage spent here will likely translate into a rage gain once the Bladestorm ends. This could be very useful in sequencing attacks, particularly with its short duration. At any rate, this is an ability that will likely need theorycrafted quite a bit to make a good decision about.

Miscellaneous Changes to Arms Talents

• Iron Will is now 0/3 and scales to 10/20/30%
• Sweeping Strikes and Death Wish have switched places once again.
• Sweeping Strikes now only effects the next 5 melee swings as opposed to 10 as it did in the Fury Tree.
• Improved Rend has become Bloodletting 0/3 and increases the effect of rend and bloodbath by 25/50/75%
• Mace Spec can only trigger once every 6 seconds.
• Overpower now has one rank and does only weapon damage.
• Poleaxe spec now increases both critical strike chance but also increases damage done from critical strikes.

The big changes here are with Sweeping Strikes and Death Wish again. This time they nerfed both before returning them to their original trees. Sweeping Strikes now only affects the next five swings as opposed to ten. This could be a mild adjustment from a two-handed build versus dual wielding but either way dropping from ten to five is significant enough to mention. Death Wish took an even bigger hit but we will get more into that next week =)

By in large, most of these change seem to be adjustments to game play. Adjusting Poleaxe to increase crit chance and damage was a logical response to resilience for PVPers who use axes. Improved Rend is thankfully gone and replaced with what appears to be a better version. Time will tell on that front but overall, nothing else really struck me as game altering.

As a whole, I can't say I am really excited about these talents. They seem to focus on PVP with minimal PVE except for the ridiculousness that is Blood Frenzy and now its counterpart, Trauma. Bladestorm and Sudden Death will be interesting to test but nothing here truly makes me want to spec Arms for any degree of time. Quite honestly, I am a bit disappointed. It's been over a year and a half and this is the Alpha test talents? Sure, these can and will likely change in the next few months but I certainly would like to see some more original talents. Blizzard has had plenty of time.

Next up....Fury Tree

Return to Activity

As many avid readers have noticed, it has been nearly two months since any blog activity. This has been for several reasons and while many of these same things are still ongoing, this blog will once again, return to active form. To better qualify what has taken place, here is a list of the issues that have been responsible for the silence the past two months:

• The largest infiltration of my time has been a return to the classroom. Well, at least the online classroom. Most of these classes are easy but they take up large volumes of my free time.
• As it stands now, my commute to work is a three hour round trip. Part of the return to the classroom is geared to obtain qualifications to change jobs. I enjoy my work as a corporate trainer but given the travel and salary, I need to find something closer to home.
• My daughter is now 10 months old and has taken to crawling and the basics of walking early. As a result, she is high maintenance and requires constant supervision.
• We are also in the process of obtaining a mortgage and filing the appropriate paperwork and information has been yet another topic of contention.

Even with all that has been going on, I still have made some time to play World of Warcraft although not nearly as much as I did during the spring. My goals are to prepare my characters for the upcoming expansion and to try new things with renewed vigor. This has meant a return to the realm of WoW PVP and arena. More on that to come in future blog articles.

One other note of interest that I wanted to mention is that this blog may receive a boost in readers as this blog is now listed on the Virginworlds website (link to the right). Virginworlds is the premier MMO news website, loaded with blogs, podcasts and links to most major MMO games and it is very much appreciated that Brent was kind enough to add us to his blog roll.

For the time being, readers can expect a new article at least once a week for the immediate future. This schedule will be maintainable for myself and should still produce the quality of articles that have been published in the past. For any new readers to the blog, feel free to read any archived content for a feel of the blog itself. Until next time....

Observations Regarding Wrath of the Lich King News

Earlier today, WoW Insider (http://www.wowinsider.com), published a slew of new Wrath of the Lich King information for the general public. As many others have indicated, the timing upon which this information is released is "coincidentally" just before the Age of Conan release. At any rate, the depth of the details include some specifics regarding Death Knights as well as some zone videos but the major changes published today have to do with PVE raiding. While I won't publish the Death Knight Specifics, here are some headlines regarding PVE game play:

• All 5-man dungeons will have a Heroic mode
• Heroic dungeons will have a separate loot table than non-Heroics
• A new token system will be used, similar to the Badge of Justice one used now
• All raid dungeons will have both 10-man and 25-man versions
• The 10 and 25-man progressions will not depend on each other
• There will be no attunements or keys necessary for any raid
• The 25-man loot will be a tier higher than the 10-man loot
• The 10 and 25-man versions of the same raid will be on different timers so that each can be attempted on the same day by the same people

It's quite clear that Blizzard is constantly adapting the game. Here are some observations from the changes listed here.

1. It is rather obvious that Blizzard has segregated its population with regards to game play intensity. The PVP crowd has been largely given a very hardcore environment upon which to progress while by contrast, the PVE element of the game has largely been watered down and made very casual friendly. This isn't to say there is no room for a hardcore raid guild or a casual arena team but Blizzard's intent for those demographics have been definitively established.
2. I am still on the fence with the Death Knight although the information provided in the articles do make them sound fun to play. Still, while there are obvious differences with game play mechanics, there does seem to be a lot of functional redundancy between Death Knights, Warriors and Paladins. More information is needed to really get a good understanding of the class and its capabilities.
3. With the introduction of a new class, there are always players who abandon a character to begin a new "main" character. Will this be at the cost of core classes, most notably healer classes who get burned out or former protection warriors who want to be able to dps and tank? Impossible to speculate for now but it is something to keep in mind down the road.
4. The changes to the PVE raiding system were alluded to in previous statements by Blizzard, which indicated that Blizzard wished more of the player base was able to experience the upper echelon of game content in Burning Crusade versus the ~2% of players working on Sunwell encounters. Providing both a 10 and 25 man option to every raid instance in the game allows guilds of large numbers and small numbers to participate in game content.
5. Furthermore, the changes to raid composition may result in more social and guild stability by giving players in a smaller guilds a platform to advance without high degrees of regular recruitment. This lessens the dreaded "feeder guild" phenomenon where smaller guilds gear up good players who hit a wall progressionally that can only be scaled by moving on to a larger, 25 man capable guild. The only potential downside is that current hyper focused 25 man raiding guilds may have more difficulty recruiting in the event a core, high attendance raid member suddenly vanishes. This isn't to say there won't still be guild hopping; it's just that if the motivation for guild hopping is to experience content, the likelihood of a player making the commitment to end game raiding is less likely.
6. It's clear that Blizzard learns what works and what does not. While I too grow weary of the same daily quests, there is no better way to accumulate gold in a reasonable time frame. Badges of Justice allow the disparity in gear between casual and hardcore players to a minimum but still keep the hardcore player ahead with more options at their disposal. 10 and 25 man raid templates have been very successful. All of these things have been expanded upon in Lich king. By contrast, the process of key flagging players necessary to field a 25 man raid consistently is the kind of "time sink" grind that generates burn out. These have been removed from Lich King.
7. While this is just speculatory, it is reasonable to assume that the consequence for no key quests to enter raid instances is that the first encounter in every new 10 man and 25 man instance will be quite the "gear check" encounter. The days of being indirectly rewarded with encounters such as Attumen, The Loot Below and Loot Reaver are over. In fact, don't be surprised to see an encounter like Brutallus as we venture into new raid content for the first time, where a raid of players will need optimal gear from every member just to defeat the encounter.

There will be certainly more news ahead and rest assured whenever the chance to enroll for the open beta arrives, I'll be applying. Until next time...

The Five Most Undesirable Group Members

Greetings! It has been over a week since the last article. This has been in large part due to an online class I have been taking. All of the work for the class was due this week and of course, I had procrastinated and hadn't looked at the assignments required. It is rather sad that the same stupidity I did at 20 has carried over to age 30 but at least this time around I can blame my apathy on a full time job and an 8-month old baby (That's my story and I'm sticking to it). At any rate, all of the work for the class was completed in two days and my goal is a "B" in the class. The class itself was not difficult but it was the kind of topic that doesn't really translate to academia very well. It is the kind of class that would be better taught using kinesthetic learning but online classes do not lend themselves to this kind of learning except on an individual basis. Regardless, on to this week's article...


Exactly how many of us enjoy pugging? I know I sure don't. It's not that I am a recluse but more that I have a limited amount of time to play and wasting time on incompetent groups incinerates that time in a non productive manner. I also have an intolerance to stupidity and that intolerance shuns me away from the roulette wheel of pick up groups. With that in mind, I have a list of the five least desirable group mates in the game. I am sure we can all pick out one of these people in our travels throughout Azeroth. In my gaming experiences, here are the five player stereotypes that have facilitated my disdain for pugs.



5. The Emo Caster


This is the 20 year old second year college student playing in his dorm room in the dark. The world doesn't understand him so he immerses himself in the world of Azeroth, only to discover that he truly doesn't understand himself. The backlash is seclusion. He plays a warlock and solos most of the time, in dark, deserted places while listening to Flyleaf and Linkin Park via Itunes. In the rare instances he does unveil himself to group, he is the guy who fears mobs at every turn and instinctively death coils anything that gets near him only to meet an unfortunate demise by the seven mobs who his feared mob have now pathed and brought to the group. After his death, he begins lamenting about his "miserable" life and how he cuts himself when he's alone. The immaturity and self loathing suck the fun out of the experience like a vacuum. The group disbands and logs as C-SPAN 2 suddenly seems uplifting.


4. The Stoner Healer

This is the 22 year old college drop out who spends most of his life under the influence of illegal drugs. He starts the group off with mildly entertaining group chat but as he smokes more dope while playing the game, becomes less and less focused and begins drifting. As he drifts, his attention to detail and reaction times become slower and slower and eventually net persistent wipes. His once entertaining banter has become incoherent rambling and grinds the group to a halt half way through an instance. In the end, the group has to boot him because he is no longer responding to chat and his toon isn't moving. He has either fallen asleep or the munchies have sent him on a quest for twinkies.


3. The Patchwork Tank

This is 15 year old Johnny's pride and joy; his level 70 warrior creatively named Taurenwar. He gets to play two hours a day after his homework is done. As a result, his gear is a mish mash of battleground gear, auction house fodder and a few quested greens. Unfortunately for Johnny, his gear has no focus to it in any aspect with some pieces having dps statistics while others having defense. He even has a ring with spirit and agility because he got it as a random drop while fighting in Nagrand. When this guy gets in a group, that group is in for a long night.

Within the first pull, it is readily apparent that this guy has no clue how to tank. Furthermore, even if he did know how, his gear is so god awful that he couldn't hold aggro if you super glued it to his head. He keeps his two hander equipped at all times because his shield is in the bank and because it's a "sucky green". The rogue and enhancement shaman inherit the role of tank and are killed many times over as a result. The group attempts to keep going but there is no hope with him in the party. His dps sucks. His tanking sucks worse. He doesn't use battle shout. He doesn't use commanding shout. He used retaliation on trash, thinking the pretty swords that fly around him might entice monsters to hit him. His first aid is leveled up but he doesn't have the cloth to make bandaids. This guy is a cancer, sucking up coin and loot. He is eventually replaced as the group cannot progress with his presence after which he begins spamming the group members asking why he was kicked. After futile attempts to reason with the group, his mom tells him time's up and he logs off till tomorrow.

2. The Omniscient Advisor

This is the 23 year old guy who joins the group with his level 70 mage in full green garb. At first the guy is harmless but as the group gets configured, it starts. He begins instructing the druid how to heal, the rogue how to fight and the warrior how to tank. Not only is his advice unwarranted, in most aspects, it is completely wrong. Things like mortal strike is the best skill in the game for threat and full resto druids are uber dpsers with wrath spam. Meanwhile, he is so busy telling every one else what to do, his performance as the mage is miserable. His dps is garbage due to his amazing green gear and his 250 spell damage. After focusing on the other members for the first 25 minutes of the instance, his haphazard play wipes the group. This begins the whining about how if the group listened to him, they would have been done by now. After 30 minutes of his bitching, the warrior in the group gives him the infamous "STFU" and the fighting starts. The warrior intentionally stops tanking in an effort to get the mage killed. After two deaths, the mage finds the largest pack of mobs in the instance, frost nova's them, ports out and disbands. The group may wipe but assuming they can replace the mage, they are far better off.

1. The Ebayed Character

This is the story of 16 year old Mikey. Mikey's dad is too busy with his business to really deal with Mikey and Mikey has been telling stories about how all the cool kids at school are playing this game called World of Warcraft and little Mikey wants to join. In an effort to compensate for being a marginal father, Mikey's Dad buys him a level 70 priest from Craigslist for $500 and tells Mikey to enjoy. Little Mikey jumps right in and begins looking for his friends. Unfortunately for Mikey, his friends are on a different server but Mikey has no clue. He begins the futile quest for looking for his friends on the wrong server. After spending an hour figuring out how to log in and press the buttons. Mikey begins searching the world. He has some of the best gear in the game with Memento of Tyrande and Full Tier 6 healing gear. He gets random whispers from people saying "Awesome gear, man" and "Dude, I wish I had your stuff" but Mikey has no clue how to respond. In fact, Mikey has his combat log up and never sees these whispers. Inevitably, Mikey dies 22 times running around the world looking for his friends only never to see them. After a while, Mikey begins to click his interface and discovers the chat channels. He begins reading the general and trade channels frequently.

After messing with the channels for a while, Mikey begins to understand how to talk and communicate. After a few days, he gets invited to a place called Karazhan. Mikey has heard his friends reference this place and thinks, "Hey, I might find my friends there!" and promptly joins the group. The group gawks at Mikey's gear with phrases such as "OMFG, your gear is ridiculous!" and "Damn man, why the hell are you coming to Karazhan with T6?" but Mikey is oblivious to any of this banter. Instead, he asks if he will find Aaron inside. The group replies "Ya, Aran is a few bosses away but we will get to him." Delighted by the response, Mikey says "Thank god - I've been looking for him for a few days." The group ignores this and begins to start. The group asks Mikey for Fort and he tells them that the last fort he saw was back in the Orc city. They ask him for Spirit and he guides them to the spirit healer, a place he is most familiar with by now. The group laughs as they think he is being sarcastic. He has no spells on his bar as he doesn't know what spells are in the first place. The raid starts and Mikey watches the group kill stuff and begins to melee mobs but then he sees the other priest in the group summon a shadow fiend. This intrigues Mikey to figure out how to do that so he begins clicking on buttons. Meanwhile, the group has begun to fight Attumen. Mikey is far, far away and dies to Attumen's repeated charges. Pleas by the group to collapse on the tank go unnoticed by Mikey who is still enraptured by locating a way to summon a shadowfiend. Regardless of Mikey's epic failure, the group defeats Attumen and moves on to Moroes. That's when it happens.

Mikey clicks on the spell book and finds his spells. While he doesn't click on the shadow tab, he does open to the holy tab. One spell sounds exceptionally interesting; Holy Nova. He figures out how to bind a spell to his casting bar and now begins spamming holy nova throughout the entire raid. He runs up the stairs to a host of aoe mobs where his holy nova is met with a zerg. The group asks what Mikey is doing but Mikey doesn't respond. The group presses on and urges Mikey to wait for the AOE pulls before using Holy Nova. He has no idea what AOE means so he just keeps using it for every pull. After clearing the trash for Moroes, the group gives him the healing assignment of the main tank. This turns out to be a bad idea.

Even with his ridiculous amount of overgear, Mikey's holy nova's can't keep the main tank alive. Worse, his holy nova's have broken the shackle and the frost trap, thus resulting in the death of the hunter and second priest (go go no threat from Holy Nova!!!!1!). The group now understands what they are dealing with and put Mikey on raid healing the rest of the night, where he spams Holy Nova over and over and over again until he is OOM. By the end of the night, the group only can get to Nightbane, where Mikey repeatedly dies to Charred Earth and his lack of healing ensures the main tank's death. The group disbands and blacklists Mikey from further raiding. In the end, Mikey never finds his friends and begins to hear the ramblings of 10th graders about Halo 3. After telling his dad about Halo 3, His dad once again buys him the game and Mikey never plays World of Warcraft again.


So there we have it. My questions to the masses are as follows:

• Which one of these do you fear the most and why?

• Is there a stereotype that I missed that you feel is more undesirable than one of the five mentioned above?

• Why do you hate pugs (not the dogs)?

Trampled by the Engine of Progression

Earlier today, I was reading the MMO blogosphere and came across Tobold's article:

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/

followed up by this article:

http://potshot.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/fixing-wows-progression-problem

Tobold's article was a follow-up to a previous article regarding guild hopping and a rather radical way to prevent it from occurring; having the raid epics from a guild member vanish and enter the previous guild bank when a member /gquits. Tobold presented a follow up to his article today which was a bit more reasonable by providing some numeric ways to track guild loyalty and tenure. Potshot wrote a follow up on the second article with more potential game play changes done in an effort to level off progression and keep people gearing up at roughly the same tempo. Both articles are well done and provide solid solutions to the problem. Nevertheless, I don't agree that game play changes are the answer to this issue.

The fundamental problem with guild hopping stems from an issue that has been touched upon this blog before and will continue to be a point of contention. The issue at hand is that players value the binary code over the people who made the binary code possible. Once the flow of more binary code decreases, these players ditch the guild that made the first set of binary code possible so more binary code can be accumulated. The cycle rehashes itself from this point forward. There is a way to solve the issue or at least make the advent of such an issue unlikely. It is the responsibility of the guild leaders and officers to curtail this issue by inviting the best quality people to their guilds.

To some degree, the player base has created this issue in and of itself. Many guilds evaluate the basis for inclusion to a guild only from a game play and gear standpoint, requiring a gear minimum. While this can be necessary for the content, using this as the only requirement for guild membership is an invitation to failure through e-bayed accounts and these lewt mongers who hop from guild to guild leeching as many upgrades as possible before bailing to the new flavor of the month. From a personal standpoint, I will invite someone to my guild who shows a true interest for people but is in all greens versus the individual who is epicced out but does nothing but talk about pushing content. I can teach the newer player what to do and feel good about it. I can't change the ways of a lewt whore who will leave after he gets what he wants at the expense of my guild members.

But, by in large, WoW manifests this behavior by its design. The whole game can be soloed if desired. While this in and of itself is harmless, it does harbor a lone-wolf style of player who only plays the game to upgrade their character, without cause or concern for anyone else. Guild hopping in WoW is significantly more prevalent than I recall in EQ simply because in EQ, you had to have a guild to progress. The group aspect of the game bred more friendships and more concern for the fellow gamer. People knew just how hard players worked for gear, with countless wipes and late nights with no loot to distribute. While WoW can certainly bring about this style of game play, the ratio of players who engage it is considerably less.

Given this environment, the players are ultimately responsible for who they include in their guilds and this should be more than a check of the armory to ensure an applicant has all their gear enchanted. Talk to these people. Interact with them and gain an impression of what their motives are and if they will mesh with your guild. Behavioral based interviewing isn't required but some form of true interaction and social grouping should take place. Guilds that don't live by this creed will find themselves trampled by the engine of progression.

Observations of Age of Conan

I've had some people ask about this game and if I recommended it or had interest in it. As such, I did some reading and I can't say the game peaked my interest. By no means do I think the game will be a failure. To the contrary, the numbers the game is posting with regards to sales are outstanding. Nevertheless, I have two major concerns with the game as a whole.

The first issue I have with the game isn't really a fault so much as it is the intellectual property of Conan being redundant with games like WoW, LoTRO, and EQ2. I've played EQ1, EQ2 and WoW extensively and the advent of learning and playing another fantasy MMO doesn't appeal to me. Sure, I do find the combat system as a solid innovation to the traditional fantasy MMO but the game play isn't what I find redundant despite the hot key based system to which most gamers are accustomed; What I find needs changed is the fantasy genre in general. We can only grind casters, tanks and dps classes for so long, despite the innovative combat system the game employs. Something different as far as setting would have peaked my interest more. Most of the classes in AoC, by in large, seem to be rehashed versions of EQ and WoW classes (e.g. Dark Templar = EQ Shadowknight). Perhaps this is a product of my apathy more then a flaw in the game but this article really isn't written to point out flaws with the game; it is simply a list of things that concern me about the game as a whole.

The second concern I have with the game has to do with the overall system requirements. This is something that Tobold touched on today and I agree with him in most aspects. Something I have said with persistence is that World of Warcraft is the pinnacle of MMO marketing and that creed rings true in most aspects of the game, including the minimum system requirements. This allows more casual gamers, who aren't in the habit of updating their computers frequently, with a game that can operate without issue. By contrast, the system requirements for AoC are amongst the most demanding I've seen in a game to date. My current desktop, purchased in 2004 (NVIDIA GEFORCE 6800GT 256 meg, 3.4 single core p4, 160gig hard drive and 2 gigs of ram) could barely run the game using the minimum AoC requirements. These kinds of requirements relegate a game to only the most tech savvy of the populous at release. Nevertheless, this will not deter hardcore gamers from obtaining the game. Past history has shown that dedicated players will upgrade their systems to run a game they feel passionate about. My primary concern is that the game will still fail to operate with minimal latency even with a system that meets the required guidelines. In a game as twitch based as this combat system appears to be, an optimal system with little to no graphic lag or latency seems paramount to the game's success. This is my primary concern.

Does this mean I won't attempt to get into the open beta? Probably not. I will in all likelihood attempt to download it although this will be quite a download. By in large, I don't expect to purchase the game unless I find the game to operate without issue on my machine and the game surprises me in fun value or game play. Perhaps the open beta will change my preconceived notions.

Format Change

Avid readers will notice quite a format change from before. This comes after receiving some feedback from several people, one of whom has one of the best MMO blogs in circulation. The comments are almost all the same. The writing is fantastic; the page format is not. In an effort to persistently make the site better, I made a change to the format. At first, I was simply going to adjust the HTML code to expand the original page template into a more reader friendly size, particularly for those running 1280 X 1024 but the template did not take well to my adjusting the width of the page. So, I decided to change the template altogether. This layout definitely maximizes space efficiency and as a whole should be easier to read. The only thing I dislike about this template is that I wish the Date Header and Post Title had a space between each other. I tried to adjust the code using basic HTML but alas nothing worked. A long as it is legible, I can live with it for now. Any comments on the new format are most welcome!

Evaluation of the Five Problems with WoW

Earlier today, I ran across this article from Mobhunter http://mobhunter.com/001564.html. The individual who wrote this article is Loral Ciriclight. He is an old school EQ player who happened to play on the same server that I did. The guild he ran with back in the day was one of the most friendly on the server. He is also an exceptional writer and has been writing on MMOs far longer then I have. He is someone who's opinions I value and respect so I felt it necessary to provide some insights about his most recent post.


Here is Loral's article:


Weakness 1, A Focus on Solo Gameplay

Early on in the days of Everquest, the game designers stated that one of the strengths of their game was a requirement for group play. Characters would be very good at a particular slice of gameplay but not at others. Warriors could tank well but did only moderate damage and had very little ability to heal. Clerics could heal but were not able to tank or dish out a lot of damage. Rogues could pour out the damage but couldn't take much and couldn't heal at all. These dependencies forced players to work together which led to the true strength of an MMO - getting people together.

World of Warcraft built itself around soloing. Players can log in, play for ten minutes, finish a quest, get some experience, get a new item, and log out without worrying about leaving others behind. Characters can level from level 1 to level 70 without ever grouping with another player.

There exists a distinct lack of social interaction in World of Warcraft. Friendships aren't as easily forged. Relationships aren't as easily built. You're not very likely to meet someone in World of Warcraft the way you were in the old days of Everquest.

We have seen what sort of success a group-based game would have these days. Take a look at the popularity of Vanguard or the lack thereof. MMO philosopher Richard Bartle states that World of Warcraft has broken the ability for a new MMO to build the sort of world that conducts the formation of rich relationships. No one can make another game that forces groups and expect to succeed.

The ability to solo in World of Warcraft is a great strength, but for it we pay a heavy price.



While I certainly agree with this statement, I have to disagree that it is a weakness of the game. Players have the option to group or solo at their leisure. It is a matter of apathy. It is easier to solo in WoW. It is easier to log on, grind out quest content and log off. With that said, I think it is safe to say Blizzard has made it too easy to solo however they are simply catering to the player base. Players are inherently lazy and will do whatever is easiest to better their character. Others may live a lifestyle that doesn't allow much time for gaming so the solo option best fits their needs. It is much the same reason why people don't have time to sit and eat a family dinner. The "on the go" lifestyle has become status quo. Perhaps worst of all, players will go into great detail about just how bad casual grouping in World of Warcraft is. The consequence of a high volume of players soloing is that basic group dependent skills go unused and render players unqualified for group play.


The reality is that the social networking aspect of online gaming has largely been replaced by websites like Myspace or Facebook. It is unfortunate that the most successful online game has such easy soloing that it has come to this but it is simply more evidence that WoW is more an exercise in marketing that it is in MMO innovation.


The advent of social interaction exists in WoW but the players must take the initiative and embrace it. As it stands now, it is simply easier to go it alone.


Weakness 2, A Focus on Player Vs. Player

Unfortunately, one of the few ways players do meet in World of Warcraft is to kill each other. Many players enjoy the battlegrounds full of fast and furious battles but what sort of social interaction exists when the goal is to kill the other players? Player vs. Environment (PvE) is one of the great strengths of an MMO. That becomes broken when one of the primary reasons players play WoW is to fight each other. It has taken one of the deepest games and turned it into Halo.

Players also behave at their worst in the battlegrounds. Unless one forms a select team of people they already know, likely from either a guild or people they know in real life, they are likely to face completely silent allies who are there strictly to farm some honor. There is no longevity to the relationship and no interest in discussion. One simply kills the enemy and moves on to the next battleground.

Battlegrounds is the rotten core of World of Warcraft.


I have to agree with Loral here. Players go here to obtain resilience gear necessary for Arenas and that's it. Players don't go here to interact on a social level. Hell, they don't even go to battlegrounds because they have fun. They go there to earn points to better their character. A battleground that requires group tactics and interaction does "sort of" exist in Alterac Valley but too many people just go there to farm honor kills and not actually interact with the game strategy. The scale of the zone is designed to compensate for that but the attrition of so many "commando" types and honor farmers has rendered this compensation useless.


Battlegrounds are a means to an end, a redundant timesink to obtain necessary gear to participate in arena play at a competitive level, and more marketing tactics to keep players paying subscriptions. In essence, battlegrounds represent the worst in WoW on every level.


Weakness 3, Redundant Quests

World of Warcraft prides itself on the incredibly vast array of quests. When people saw how many quests World of Warcraft offers, they had to question Everquest's choice of name. There are more than enough quests to move through all of the levels in WoW. The quest system is very robust and easy to use. It is the single path that moves players through the game, often tying them to the lore and giving them reason to do what they do.

These quests are also often sterile and boring. Many of the quests revolve around killing some number of creatures and retrieving some number of items. Many of these quests have drop rates far too low to make them worth while or stories that seem scripted out of a fortune cookie. Sure, a player can quest through the entire game but how many of those quests are unique and interesting? Many are, but many are not.


I understand his view point on this issue and while I too get sick of doing the same quests from time to time, I will play Devil's Advocate and say that it could be construed as a strength of the game in a sense that players have a strong and viable leveling path to get from 1 to 70. In Everquest, the path needed to go from 1 to 65 was a long, hard road of grinding. There was no easy way. The only option was to spend countless hours grouping in dungeons or grinding mobs. A somewhat interactive script through the zones is at least an upgrade to the mindless EQ grind.

Is the WoW quest grind perfect? Not at all. Is the WoW quest grind better than grinding an inordinate amount of Plane of Valor mobs? Absolutely. Is there a better way to do it? Most likely although I find it as the consequence for a linear path to leveling a character and if this allows players to create new toons for more options during their gaming experience, I find this as a comparable trade-off.


Weakness 4, Long Duration Dungeons

The dungeons in World of Warcraft could be the one area that truly brings players together and helps them build the lasting relationships that a MMO should allow. However, after getting players used to completing quests in about 20 minutes, having dungeons that require a two-hour commitment is too demanding.

World of Warcraft should cut all of its single-group instances down to an hour. It should also include a few half-hour instances that can bring players together but ensure there is enough freedom to leave when needed. Longer instances should be limited to ten-man raids such as Karazhan. We have become spoiled by the instant gratification of World of Warcraft's quest system. The gap between the ease of solo questing and the heavy time requirements of WoW's instances is too great.


I can't really see how the dungeon experience translates into a weaker game. We touched on the fact that WoW instancing is a source of player pain largely because there are so many players that grind from 1 to 70 completely solo and as a result, are not qualified to play the class effectively in a group scenario. The results from this are that players will either go it alone or will only group with a select group of players. Once again, the typical Min-max WoW player will go where the easiest path to advancement takes him. Perhaps shorter dungeons would entice players to interact with this content on a more frequent basis both post 70 and during the leveling experience. Regardless, I don't classify this as a weakness of the game.


Weakness 5, No Console Support

This is the weakness that will likely raise the most eyebrows. With the ease of play of World of Warcraft, the beauty of its design, and the simplicity of the gameplay; it already feels like a console game. However, the complicating factor of the PC will always get in the way. Right now Blizzard spends a fortune tuning World of Warcraft to run on a nearly infinite array of possible machine configurations.

Were it a console game, WoW would only have to focus on a hand-full of possible configurations. While WoW would have to be substantially different on a console, the console world is clearly ready for a good WoW-like MMO and if Blizzard isn't careful, such a hit on a console system could steal their crown.

Ten million players is a lot, but there are currently 20 million Wiis and 18 million Xbox 360s in people's homes all networked and waiting for the next big MMO. If Blizzard is smart, they will begin using their talent for MMO game design on the next generation platform. If they don't someone else will.


I think at some point, Blizzard will go down this route but these kind of numbers are misleading. Sure, there are 20 million Wiis and 18 million Xbox 360's in circulation but does this mean that half of all users, the current WoW subscriber base, would gravitate toward the consoles for MMORPGS? I find that unlikely. Sure, it would increase the already incredible player base Blizzard has for WoW but to water down the already elementary world of Azeroth into something that would function on the console level would be something too simplistic to hold interest. I would assume the console world would attract a younger crowd and dilute the server population into too many kids and that may detract interest from the current player base. Rest assured, if Blizzard believes they will profit from it, it will happen. It is something that I personally don't wish to be a part of. Perhaps World of Diablo can make its way to a console system but I'll pass on the demographic that permeates that platform. WoW is already bad enough in that regard and I think there are a significant volume of players who agree.


So what have we learned? I think it is safe to say we have learned that WoW is by no means a perfect game. But I think the major lesson I take from it is that the WoW rewards system as a whole has ruined the social aspect of the game largely because the motivation to play World of Warcraft revolves around improving character gear versus the social manifest of the MMO. It is a recurring theme throughout this piece. Battlegrounds are done for gear. Quests are done for experience and gear. Soloing is done to leveling a character individually. Sure, there are avenues for the group player but those require organization, initiative and drive, things that a smaller percentage of WoW players gravitate towards versus the masses that honor or quest grind. Even then, the end game can attract players that just value gear versus friendships. Blizzard will take stock in what the majority of its players want and tailor the game to that end. This means more easy quests for gold, relatively easy level grinding and minimal required social interaction. There is no change in sight to this other than player interaction. This to me is the glaring weakness of World of Warcraft.

Time is Money, Friend - Part II

Nearly a month ago, I posted an article entitled "Time is Money, Friend" asking the readers the following question:

Is there a way to market an MMO that does not require an extensive time investment to progress?

Let me go on record saying that finding a defensible prototype for a time friendly MMO has been surprisingly difficult. In retrospect, I see why. Normally, when designing an MMO, one doesn't base the design exclusively on a demographic. But in this scenario, the primary objective was to design a game that above all else, allows progression without incredible time investments. At this time, I do not have a finished product, however I do have an outline to follow with regards to the most important components for a time friendly MMO.

First and foremost, the game must be fun and the game must have replay value. While this can be said with all MMOs, the issue at hand is that a game that doesn't have huge time investments and that doesn't have replay value is doomed. Whatever is created must above all else, fit this mold.

From a game play standpoint, the biggest challenge in this game is to create tangible risk versus reward that doesn't require major time investments yet can still be entertaining, rewarding and provide a general sense of accomplishment. In traditional MMOs, players will eventually achieve their goals after sufficient time is invested. The greater the reward, the longer the quest or progression sequence necessary, from running a particular instance to dragging a raid around to complete an epic quest. Our goal with this exercise was to remove the time requirement from the equation. This doesn't necessarily mean no player loot but if everyone eventually has all the best gear necessary in a week, why keep playing? Having the infrastructure of traditional MMO player motivation largely removed is the consequence. As of now, this has been the primary detriment to creating a prototype.

A major lesson from games like Vanguard is to create a game in and of itself. There is no reason to try and become a "WoW Killer" and modeling a game to attempt such a task is foolish. The majority of the blogosphere has correctly stated over the course of the last year that WoW will die a death of 1,000 paper cuts, slowly bleeding players of the course of its lifetime. The rate at which this occurs will largely be determined by Blizzard's ability to create new content and adapt to player desires and other gaming companies ability to create games that lure the current WoW crowd to new games. Our goal with a time friendly game was not to set out to attack the WoW player base. It was simply designed to take advantage of a potential niche in the MMO consumer base.

One could make a case that Blizzard has made an effort to take advantage of this niche. Easy to complete daily quests, lower leveling curves for new characters and tier 6 quality gear for easy to obtain Badges of Justice have made WoW more casual friendly than ever before. Something I've said repeatedly is that WoW is more a marketing success than game play innovation. This falls right along those lines. The marketing team sees a potential leak in the ship and plugs it up. Nevertheless, this is good for most gamers as it removes much of the time demand needed to reap rewards.

I have two other ideas to truly brainstorm for a time friendly MMO before I throw up the white flag. The challenge of keeping players paying monthly subscriptions without forcing time sinks has been the most difficult obstacle to overcome. Once again, any input from the readers is most appreciated. I should have the final two ideas hammered out by next week and should conclude this series at that time. Until next time...

Knowing When

This weekend, we had one of the cornerstones of our guild abruptly quit playing World of Warcraft. This retirement was sudden and unexpected. He was one of our more prolific players with 3 level 70 characters and he was one of the best players on our server. He played all three of his characters at a high level, had a high knowledge of the game and was a great guy and influence on the guild. No real explanation was provided but it is presumable that something drastic took place in his life to warrant such a quick action. This brings up an interesting question for the masses:

How do you know when it's time to quit playing your MMO of choice?

This topic has been breached by most who write about MMOs but the obvious answer is the correct answer. It is the responsibility of any adult player to know when to move on.

The first skill necessary to balance real life and gaming is time management. Without time management, it is difficult to regulate game time and as a result, could infringe on real life obligations. This is a difficult task in respects to high level MMO play in that many guilds require attendance. This isn't necessarily a bad thing although it does put a minimum time expectation on anyone engaging in this content. One must ask themselves if their lives are able to balance the minimum raid requirements.

The second really isn't so much a skill but a realization. Players must realize when the game is no longer fun. I know people who played EQ long after the game held no real fun value for them and as a result, were miserable people playing a game. How utterly ridiculous! Why on Earth did they keep going? For some, it was a sense of obligation to the guild. For others, it was to maintain online friendships. For a select few, it was because they had nothing else to do. The purpose of all MMOs is to have fun. When the game no longer feels fun but feels more like an obligation, in my opinion, it's time to move on. Obligations are reserved for work, family and to one's self; not to an online game. If one holds a position of importance in a guild and burns out, then they need to take the steps necessary to fill the role and exit gracefully. Think of it as a smooth transition from one job to another. It fills the "obligation" to the guild while moving on with your time.

From a personal perspective, I try and play a little each night although there are days when I simply don't have the time to log in. I have a 7 1/2 month old daughter, a wife and two step children. This will often relegate playing the game difficult if not impossible. The key is that WoW is a great game but it's biggest downside is that it requires a fair time investment to progress. I know my life scenario doesn't lend itself to full time raid detail but it does allow me to play a few nights a week and I can still enjoy the game even if it means I don't get to raid Illidan. Sure, I'd enjoy the opportunity to take on some 25 man content but if this doesn't occur because I have things to do outside of WoW, then that is the sacrifice necessary. For the time being, I am enjoying the game. If there ever comes a time when I can't enjoy the game or circumstances don't allow me to enjoy the game, I'll move on. One can take a vested interest and do things right without losing touch of what is important.

I know I have written an entire article about this but it bears repeating; Once the WoW servers come down and no one plays, it doesn't really matter how much Black Temple loot has been accumulated or how much DPS can be achieved with a given spec. In essence, the games are fruitless for not the company kept during that tenure, regardless of how much time was invested. Once again, illustrating the point that the people you meet along the way are the only tangible "gain" you'll ever have the potential to keep in Virtual Worlds. The rest is binary code.

The bottom line is that MMOs are a game. And while they are fun and can be incredible time sinks, it is important to keep it in perspective. And despite what the media would like to portray with addiction allegations, it is all of our responsibility as adult gamers to set a limit or outright quit when necessary. While I am saddened by the departure of my guild mate, I hope he finds solace and success outside of World of Warcraft. I know that the guild of people he left behind will continue to keep in touch, long after World of Warcraft is no more.

Endangered Species

"A group of intrepid heroes gathers around and discusses a plan of attack for a newly unveiled evil in Magister's Terrace. A powerful fire mage, a stalwart holy priest, the cunning combat rogue and the uplifting enhancement shaman all prepare for battle. However, they notice that there is a piece of the puzzle missing; a brave soul needed to encounter the evil doers head on in melee combat. The quartet set on a journey to locate such a hero."

At first, the group starts by interviewing potential candidates for the role...

Enhancement Shaman to Random_Warrior_1223: Hey, would you like to join us in Magister's Terrace? We need a tank.
Random_Warrior_1223: lolz prot sux - i'm arms.

10 minutes later....

Fire Mage to Paladin_Bob: Hey, can you tank Magister's for us?
Paladin_Bob: Sorry, I'm Ret.


20 minutes later....

Enhancement Shaman to Dr00d_342: Hey, we need a tank for Magister's. You want in?
Dr00d_405: I'm in a group already -thx.

30 minutes later...

Priest: Afk kids

45 minutes later....

The combat rogue skulks away into the depths of the Arathi Basin never to be seen again, the priest has been afk dealing with her kids and eventually times out and DCs and the mage is trash talking people in trade channel about the most important topic in WoW; Chuck Norris. All warriors asked are dps. All paladins asked are either holy or ret. All druids asked are either resto pvpers or are already in a group. Ultimately, the band of intrepid heroes is defeated by the quest for the tank. Deep within Magister's Terrace, Kael'Thas laughs at their expense.

Sound familiar? This seems all too common on Twisting Nether. Blizzard has surely made some adjustments to the warrior, paladin and druid classes but why are people not taking this role? What is causing tanks to be an endangered species?

Let's start by saying that tanking isn't easy. There is some math involved and there are as many bad tanks in the game as there are good. Not all warriors can hold AE threat, taunt when needed or have taken the necessary time to collect the required gear for the role. This makes finding a good tank even more difficult as players have to sift the wheat through the chaff. For the purposes of this article, we will stick with examining exactly why there are so few people specced protection, the skill of the player aside.

The first reason that comes to mind for the lack of protection warriors, pallies and feral tanking druids is that a PVE tanking role is so focused that it doesn't perform optimally in the solo aspect of the game. I can't really speak about protection paladins with much expertise so I'll refrain from making any judgements about them. However, I have a 70 druid and a 70 warrior so I can comment with a fairly high degree of experience about both. With the protection warrior, I can stack Shield Block Value and grind or I can dual wield and devastate spam. I have about 600 Shield Block Value which is about average these days and grinding is slow although most mobs never hit me. Dual Wield spamming trades significantly more efficient killing with extra downtime due to eating more frequently. I normally sub out most of my protection gear and wear fury gear for dual wield grinding. Devastate scales with attack power so it only makes sense to gear accordingly. My big issue with this is that grinding becomes spamming one button; devastate. Sure, I can toss a whirlwind in but it's not required. It's functional but it's not optimal and it's boring.

The druid is in the best position in solo content. Currently, my druid is a resto healbot however she was leveled primarily feral and did a fair amount of tanking at all levels of play. The major upside the feral druid has over both the prot warrior and prot paladin is that Mangle, the primary feral tanking tool, is also a hell of a dps ability in cat form. All the druid needs to do is collect a feral dps set and he's good to go. I'll go on record and say Mangle is the most overpowered ability in World of Warcraft. Sure, its a 41 point talent but the degree of flexibility it provides the feral druid is something I'd just kill for on my warrior. Clearly, if shield slam was doing bloodthirst kind of damage, there would be QQers crying about "balance" issues but druids can get away with it, primarily because there is nothing to compare with Mangle. Each druid talent tree is so different from the other, it makes any sort of "balance" issue without tangible comparison. I don't have concrete math to back this up with but I'll guesstimate there are more tanking druids at this point then there are tanking warriors or paladins in part due to this issue.

Another issue with being protection specced as a warrior comes when involved in world PVP. With the druid, I have far better success simply because mangle can pump out some respectable damage and whenever a feral druid is out soloing, he is normally equipped in cat dps gear. Druids also have a significantly better survivability rate as well as more escape methods (root, Cyclone, cat form, dash, prowl or simply run in travel form till out of combat and fly away). However for the warrior, players see a Kings Defender and some Tier 4/ZA tanking gear and they smell an easy kill. Some protection specs are more PVP friendly then others but if a player has one of the two most popular choices for PVE tanking (12/5/44 or 8/5/48) neither are designed for PVP. This makes the solo experience even worse. Resilience is now the primary survivability PVP stat, rendering the high armor and HP values protection gear less useful. Players with high resilience will be nearly impossible to damage down with the mild damage protection outputs. Thus, as a protection warrior, players have very little strengths in PVP and a high volume of shortcomings. Players on PVP realms usually feel better with some degree of confidence that they can fend off a ganker. Most protection specs don't provide that confidence.

These two issues result in the worst case scenario for Blizzard:

In the many aspects of the WoW experience, particularly on PVP realms, the protection warrior in it's current manifestation has too many instances where the spec is simply unfun.

In a nutshell, this is why there are so few tanks, let alone good tanks.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking. Here is the natural response to this is:

"So, if it's not fun, don't play protection. Go respec arms or fury and enjoy the game."

This line of thinking is flawed in that, this is what the warrior community is doing and it's why the same people spouting this dribble are the same ones begging for a tank and crying that there's a tank shortage. Hypocrisy? You bet. Let's try a more proactive approach.

There are some options to work with the strengths of the spec or overcome it's disadvantages in various game play scenarios. The first is obvious; respec when required and use a dps spec when grinding solo. This is all well and good but even with the plethora of daily quest gold in circulation, this could potentially get expensive. The second is a bit more difficult. If possible, be proactive and get involved with an active guild or a small group that plays together regularly. This ensures an instance group for every evening and a group doing daily quests together on a PVP realm is a much safer group then the players who goes it alone.

The lesson is that for the foreseeable future, there will be a tank shortage, particularly on PVP realms. There is nothing from Blizzard in the way of change as noted by the minimal changes for warriors that came from 2.4. Remember to take care of the warriors in guilds who tank often as it can be a frustrating experience. This is why tanks burn out so quickly. Keeping the game fun is the key. The consequences for not doing so may be the difference between tank endangerment and tank extinction.

The Concept of Balance

Perhaps the most discussed forum topic with regards to World of Warcraft is on or focused on the concept of "balance". This primarily has to do with PVP but can also spill over into the PVE experience. Many of these advocates of "balance" have some legitimate disputes but a larger portion are QQers, asking for a specific class to get nerfed, most likely due to their inability to adapt or the inevitable frustration of losing. In World of Warcraft, the concept of "balance" should be metaphorically compared to Captain Ahab and the White Whale. The lesson being that obsessing over such a glorified ideal to a degree where one begins forsaking everything else will inevitably have this coveted experience be their demise.

For those who are unaware, The aforementioned reference is that of Herman Melville's classic story Moby Dick. The story revolves around an obsessive sea captain, driven to slay the elusive and vicious white whale who maimed him on a previous whaling venture. The whale is named Moby Dick (duh). The captain's pursuit turns to obsession and eventually leads to the destruction of the ship and the death of all but one crew member. The same fate would befall World of Warcraft if many of the forum goers would have their way by the sheer fanaticism some players have with "balance". I am here today to clarify exactly why WoW is as balanced as it possibly can be.

Let's start first with an actual definition of the word, Balance courtesy of http://www.dictionary.com/:
Bal·ance –noun

1. a state of equilibrium or equipoise; equal distribution of weight, amount, etc.

2. something used to produce equilibrium; counterpoise.

3. mental steadiness or emotional stability; habit of calm behavior, judgment, etc.

4. a state of bodily equilibrium: He lost his balance and fell down the stairs.

5. an instrument for determining weight, typically by the equilibrium of a bar with a fulcrum at the center, from each end of which is suspended a scale or pan, one holding an object of known weight, and the other holding the object to be weighed.

6. to bring to or hold in equilibrium; poise: to balance a book on one's head.

There are several other definitions of Balance (mainly from the world of accounting) but the definition we are interested in is listed here, most notably number 6; to bring or hold in equilibrium. While Blizzard isn't holding a book in balance, the concept of balance in this context is simply a level playing field where both sides involved have an equal opportunity to win. This seems simple but in the realm of MMO's it becomes a massive undertaking. The issue is with MMO's, there are an incredible amount of variables. These variables create disparities between game mechanics and the art of balance is managing these disparities to a degree where one side does not have an overwhelming advantage over another.

The first variable on Blizzard's list would be character level. There is little in the way of regulation with regards to world PVP but from a controlled PVP aspect, arena combat is only available in the live game servers at level 70. This removes the level variable from competitive based PVP.

The second variable is the easiest to conceptualize and sadly remains the most important with regards to PVP in WoW. That variable is gear. Gear is nearly impossible to regulate on an individual basis. Blizzard can't control how much time a player invests into each character. In a sense, the amount of "work" a player invests usually pans out in more options for equipment. So what does Blizzard do for balancing a variable that seems relatively uncontrollable?

As most are aware, Blizzard didn't throw WoW together haphazardly. They took their time and did a fair amount of research. Not only does Blizzard balance the gear issue but in a way, they use it to their advantage. This started with Burning Crusade and it's the answer to a very poignant question that burns the forums frequently. That question being what's the point of resilience? As most know, most PVP gear includes healthy amounts of Resilience. This statistic reduces damage from critical hits and has segregated PVE gear from PVP gear. This statistic provides a distinct advantage in PVP combat but most classes and specs have very limited options with gear that includes resilience. This limitation is done to a degree where most of the geared PVP players are wearing roughly the same equipment. By limiting the options available, Blizzard indirectly balances gear by pigeon-holing every class/spec into roughly the same equipment, effectively neutralizing the gear variable from the equation at high levels of PVP. This culturing of gear has limited effects at the lowest level of organized PVP (battlegrounds) and resonates further as players advance into higher PVP brackets, with the pinnacle of arena combat, sporting players in virtually identical gear.

The third variable seems to be the variable Blizzard has the most control over however the complexity of this variable makes it nearly impossible to perfect. This variable in and of it self is a collection of variables. This has to do with the individual class match-ups in PVP as well as the two versus two, three versus three and five versus five arena metagame. The amount of testing in this aspect is mind boggling with a high degree of personal variance, circumstantial interference and luck. There is no real exact science to this but its apparent that Blizzard does test the metagame. The changes to mana drain and resilience reflect that Blizzard felt mana drain teams were overpowered if done correctly so a change was made to keep the field level.

The final variable has to do with individual skill. Skill in this sense is knowing what abilities to use when and the reaction times and recall memory of keybinds dependant on the scenario. This is the one variable Blizzard doesn't really attempt to balance. Instead of balancing, they simply reward players for success by awarding more arena points. If you lose most arena matches, you just gain arena points slower.

The forums are a bust with players crying for changes, adjustments or flat out nerfs. These days druids seem to be the most complained about class with warriors and warlocks second and third respectably. The issue is that this persistent QQing does nothing. Not only does it do nothing but it makes the average WoW player who posts on those boards look foolish. Worse yet, the balance that these players crave would be catastrophic to the game.

Picture WoW in a state of balance that these QQers want. Either they wish a certain class to be blatantly over powered or another class nerfed into irrelevance. Why not just make everyone on even ground, same spec/same class/same level/same gear? That would achieve the complete and total balance that these forum QQers whine about, wouldn't it? The issue is that taking all the variables out of an MMO render a game uninteresting. WoW in that state would be exceedingly vanilla and would render the game to an incredible bore. Games in the 21st century have options and are complex and with complexity comes small degrees of imbalance. In the long run, these small imbalances average out. In some instances, players will have an advantage and in others, the opponent will have an advantage.

In Moby Dick, Ahab wanted control over nature and his obsession cost him everything. For World of Warcraft forum QQers, craving balance at all costs will ruin the game because it will never meet their self-poisoned expectations. The game is as balanced as it can be. It's a game. Enjoy it. Stop crying for a white whale that's neither attainable nor desirable. Let it go.

Blizzard Announces New Progression Based Servers

This is cut and copied from Blizzard's website. Enjoy!

[Irvine, CA] Blizzard is proud to announce the introduction of a new type of World of Warcraft server called Progression Based Servers or PBS for short. We have been given permission by the developers to provide some information regarding how these servers will work. We do not have an ETA as to when these servers will go live however we do anticipate the first set of PBS servers to activate prior to the expansion, "Wrath of the Lich King".

• PBS servers will come in all current server formats PVE, PVP, RP and RP-PVP
• Characters created on a PBS server are identical to current World of Warcraft Servers except that the level cap is decreased to 60 upon server conception.
• Characters must progress through the game to unlock content. For example, defeating General Drakkisath in Upper Black Rock Spire will allow players to begin the quest for Molten Core attunement.
• Various Milestones exist throughout the game and further game content will be unlocked at each interval.
• NPC's at each major city will allow players to track progression.
• Quests have been added to unlock each Battleground. A very special reward awaits the first player on each server to complete the quest for each Battleground!
• New progression encounters have been added to provide a dynamic feel to the world of Azeroth.
• New rewards await the victors!

We believe these new servers offer a fresh and exciting new return to previous content as well as alllowing new players to experience game play that may have been missed. For more news, log on to http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev

WoW Perspectives #3 - 2.4 Patch Changes and a Personal Crossroads

While continuing to work on a follow up for my previous column, Time is Money, Friend, I wanted to provide some thoughts on some observations over the past two weeks of my WoW experiences. I know that a few select bloggers such as Tobold have been given some degrees of negative feedback when discussing his characters and his experiences in the game. I really have no idea why people would get so hostile about his observations. Observation provides insight and without asking questions about these observations, one can never better themselves. This rings true in all aspects of learning, from WoW to University studies. As a corporate trainer by profession, I can say with a high degree of certainty that people learn in various methods and if Tobold wishes to use his blog as a sounding board for learning, then I'm all for it. Those who feel otherwise should simply stop reading his blog. The same will apply to my blog for this article. This article will be as personal as it is editorial.

Of all previous WoW patches, I have to say this patch has been the most exciting for me since the game started. The addition of a multitude of daily quests, non diminished returns for battleground combat, a new instance to explore and new 25 man raid content for raiding guilds make this patch a complete winner in my eyes.

The first major observation I have is that it is quite clear Blizzard is making a major step in eradicating or at least severely damaging RMT activity with regards to coin by adding super easy and relatively fast daily quests that require no prerequisite reputation grind. In most instances, all that is required is any flying mount. I have always struggled saving coin as a protection warrior due to potion costs, rep costs and a sheer disdain for anything grind related as the lack of efficiency combined with the lack of PVP survivability means a frustrating and unfun experience. In just a week of daily quest grinding, and when I say daily quest grinding I mean, I log on, do the dailies and log off, I've made about 1,200 gold in a week. This is roughly 90 minutes each day and I usually do it in small bursts between dealing with my daughter and work. This includes some primals from the Throne of Kil'Jaeden and Blade's Edge dailies and many greens turned Arcane Dust or Planar Essence from Sunfury Supplies. It's really hard to place any negatives with this for all players. Hardcore players can burn down as many as 25 dailies a day. I normally get 13-14 done depending on the Battleground daily (for whatever reason, my Battlegroup never wins WSG but nearly always wins Basin). With the new gold available, I can now afford to finish Blacksmithing and an epic mount in a reasonable time frame. If I ever get some extra time, I could even grind the dailies on both toons. From a math standpoint:

14 daily quests per day at roughly 10g per quest = 140g

Value of miscellaneous items accumulated through daily quest circuit = 25g

165g per day times 7 = 1,155g

Doing this with two toons per week = 2,310g per week using two toons. This is an epic flyer in less then two weeks.

What if we did all 25 dailies per day?

25 daily quests per day at roughly 10g per quest = 250g

Value of miscellaneous items accumulated through daily quest circuit = 45g

295g per day times 7 = 2,065g per week

Doing this on two toons = 4,130g per week. This is an epic flying mount in roughly 9 days.

The second major change I took with the onset of 2.4 is for the first time in at least a year and a half, I respecced out of protection for over a one day time frame. For a while, I was toggle respeccing for arena using an arms build but that was just to grind points and return to the land of tanking once 10-20 matches had been completed. This week, I respecced 17/44 fury and stayed that way for an entire week. The results were mixed to say the least.

Positives

Even with a marginal array of fury gear, grinding mobs has never been more fun and easy. Having been used to devastate dual wield or sword and board for so long made seeing four digit white damage swings and 2k bloodthirsts just awesome.

For whatever reason, a protection warrior in the world environment seems to attract gankers, particularly casters. Resilience renders high hp and armor values useless in PVP thus taking the only real strength a protection warrior had out of the equation. My spec was also highly PVE focused and as a result, I would take a long time to kill, but inevitably, I would die versus most classes simply because I couldn't damage them enough to make a difference. While fury specced, the number of gankers even in Quel'Danas was down and the wins and losses were much, much better simply because even with people in full resilience gear, I could do enough damage to dent their health.

Negatives

In the last year and a half of being a primary tank, I have received a very small number of those infamous tells with the words "R U tank?" or "Tank?". However, I've had 14 of them in one 90 minute span and at least 30 of them this week alone. The saddest part was, over half were from other warriors. Clearly this was because people wanted to run the new instance Magister's Terrace and needed a tank. Needless to say, I have yet to see Magister's Terrace as a result of my week of fury fun and I find this as the only negative but this day qualified two concepts that were otherwise rhetoric spouted through various blogs without much in the way of qualification:

1. There truly is a tank shortage on Twisting Nether, if at nothing else, in the warrior population but likely applies to Paladins and Druids as well.

This leads me to believe the following is also true:

2. The mechanics of the protection warrior, while improved, are still flawed given the small percentage of players involved in this role.

Perhaps I will write an entire article devoted to it but it would be third on my list of projects at the moment. Regardless, I think this will be a topic at some point in the future.

I think it is safe to say I hit some tank burnout in the last few weeks. This is due to two primary reasons:

Lack of Guild Progression: One of my previous articles asked the question progression or preparation. Unfortunately, the disappointing lack of guild progression has me thinking that at this point, it is probably better to simply gear up for the impending level grind versus improving tanking gear via badges. At the rate of guild progression, gearing with t6 quality badge gear will render itself pointless. My gear as it stands is good enough to tank anything up to Halazzi in ZA, much less what we currently raid on a weekly basis. In all likelihood, a mix of badge and Karazhan gear will suffice for the first instances of WoTLK just as PVP/tier 1 served for BC. Using that logic as a basis for gearing, I am better suited buying t5 and t6 equivalent fury gear to allow the easiest level experience possible.

Lack of Diversity: Farming as a prot warrior can be done in one of two ways. If the gear is available, stack Shield Block Value, hit shield slam with a bunch of devastates and win. The other option is to equip the highest top end damage one handers available and spam devastate ad nauseum. From a practicality standpoint, stacking SBV is difficult without access to tier 5+ gear so that only leaves the dual wield devastate spam option. From a tactical standpoint, devastate spam is just miserably boring. It would be like moving the same pawn every move for every turn in chess indefinitely. At least with fury, I have to be cognisant of my Rampage timer, my whirlwind cooldown and my flurry procs, not to mention its just better for farming anyway.

I would be lying if I didn't say that I currently have more fun playing fury then protection. This is likely due to being protection for so long and seeing how easy it is to farm the daily quest circuit using a fury spec. So, for the time being, I will most likely split time between the two specs; Protection for raiding when necessary and fury for fun outside of raiding. The cost to respec given the amount of gold I can make per day is trivial. From a gear perspective, I will begin focusing on fury gear for the level grind, seeing that additional protection gear isn't necessary until further progression is made. I certainly still enjoy main tanking and if gear upgrades for main tanking present themselves, I'll pursue them; I just wish I could expand horizons with regards to the content I tank and at this time, I don't see much chance of that happening before WoTLK.