Daily Thoughts: MMO Death & Consequences

I’ve always found there to be something wrong with a lack of consequences for any given action. In the real world there are plenty of repercussions for bad decisions and failure. If you gamble and lose, you lose money and possibly go into debt or face other personal problems. You wouldn’t likely run in the middle of a gang shootout or busy intersection without good cause. In traditional video games, dying usually means reverting to the last saved location, but in multiplayer online games, there are varying and often insignificant consequences. Game developers have a tough job of balancing the feeling of risk with keeping the game fun.

There was a poker application on myspace that I played for a little while. There was “chips” that you could bet and collect but had no real dollar value attached. Most players played in a similar fashion to how a realistic game would go. You don’t bet big unless you have a good hand or really think you can bluff your way through. Ocassionally though, a player would join a table that would simply max bet every hand. Complete disregard for the normal consequences of betting all your money. Unless they were challenged and lost quickly, it would pretty much ruin any table. Other players would fold, leave, or sometimes call the bet and be taken out completely in one fell swoop. Of course, there is a chance someone feels ballsy and goes all-in, but not every hand or that commonly. The realism and fun of the game was hurt because losing the chips meant nothing, a player could log back in or re-install the app and be good to go yet again. In other types of multiplayer games, specifically WoW, the lack of penalties for dying or losing sometimes can hinder the behavior and strategy of some of the players.

Daily Thoughts: Freezing Frost Mages Batman!

I have to be honest: I hate frost mages. Not quite as much as I hate the fear mechanic, but pretty fiercely nonetheless. That said, mine is level 74 and I’m having a blast being a royal pain in the butt to countless alliance that dare cross me!

Frost is Broken

My 74 mage is dual spec frost and fire. In full heirloom gear (head, chest, shoulders, weapon, trinks, back) and a mix of quest/dungeon gear otherwise I’m finding myself pulling about 2300 dps in fire. This isn’t a difficult rotation but does involve a handful of buttons and paying a little attention to DoT timers. On the other hand, frost can do 2100 single target DPS while pushing only frostbolt and ice lance during a fingers of frost proc or while moving. I hear the problem isn’t so bad at max level.

On the other hand, in PVP the issue is magnified. I can ice lance crit other players for 70% of my HP repeatedly if they’re frozen. Frost nova + ice lance is brutal. Not to mention adding deep freeze (a 5 second stun) plus a counterspell that is also a 4 second silence. I can often easily kill a healer of equal level and greater health without giving him the chance to even cast a spell. If there’s already a HoT or bubble on the target, spellsteal makes it mine. I got to witness an exaggerated version of this in arena at max level. Two weeks ago my druid/warrior 2′s team had 6 wins 3 losses with 2 of the losses against teams with frost mages. The week after that, we went 7 wins 10 losses, 9 of the losses being teams with frost mages (including a team that was dual frost mages). We did beat 2 teams with frost mages though. There is of course a possibility that our comp or skill just doesn’t have the tools to beat a frost mage, but I don’t feel like the problem should be that substantial. Finally, players tend to gravitate to what is most EZmode or over powered. So, 11 teams with frost mages out of 17 matches total? Seems a bit excessive. Wonder why the players are gravitating that way?

Frost is also freakin’ fun

There is another pretty strong reason players have decided to rock out with their frost out in PVP. It’s really fun! I’ve been spending most of my leveling time between 40-70 leveling and up until almost 70 I was playing with the fire spec. The talent points on my frost off spec slowly grew and grew, unspent, unloved. Until finally, one evening, I had my face repeatedly beat in by frost mages while pvping on a different toon. I decided that there must be something to this frost mage thing – and I’ve been slowing, freezing and murdering alliance as they try to feel in terror ever since. Leveling frost is definitely a solid choice for anyone bring their mage up. Although all specs can bring something interesting to the table, frost has a great skill set for preventing getting beat on by mobs or other players and makes it ideal for a class not running around in plate.

Daily Thoughts: Resto Druid PVP

In Wrath, Resto Druids were arguably the most over powered healing class in PVP. While that title is now often thrown at Resto Shamans or Holy Paladins, we former trees of HoT-ty goodness can still definitely hold our own. Aside from that, playing a resto druid in PVP is fun as all hell. There’s almost nothing like jumping into a large mass of players fighting, rolling HoTs on your team and turning the tide as, suddenly, the enemy can’t kill your teammates. Combine that with having a host of instant-cast spells and being able to break snares when changing form (something only resto druids can do now) and they can be really, really hard to bring down.

Daily Thoughts: A Brief History of Me – TBC

I started WoW midway through The Burning Crusade after a friend/roommate offered to buy me the game if I’d play. Prior to this, the idea of spending reoccurring money to keep playing a game seemed ridiculous. Although I enjoyed Warcraft 2 and 3, I thought, “why would I keep paying for one game when I could just buy a new one every few months with the money I’d be spending”? But, given that the initial cost was zero and the first month was free, it became a fairly no risk decision to give it a try. So I created my account, made a warrior, and was a terribly bad noob.

My recruiter was horde so naturally I followed suit. This is something I am eternal grateful for because who wants to be dirty alliance? (At first I wondered if bashing alliance could be bad for reader retention, insulting half of players and all… then I remembered Alliance can’t read – they only communicate through garbled letters and occasionally say “me luv u”.)  My class choice was fairly split between Paladin and Warrior. I wanted a beastly, 2-handed axe wielding monster of damage output and eventually decided on an Orc Warrior. My first choice was ThornDrumheller after a character from one of my favorite book series, but it didn’t work out. I had recently watched 300 and took my next choice and named this fresh orc “Threehundred” on account of not being able to use numbers in a name. This was a first among a great many bad decisions that I made on my noobish trek through beginning WoW.

The warrior began (and still is actually) as a fury warrior. Without too much direction after the first few levels (and a couple of RFC runs when able) I eventually learned dual wield and promptly ran around with a dagger and a shield. In my defense, the dagger had the best damage I’d found at the time, and it just seemed to make sense that I’d live longer wearing the shield. He struggled all the way to level 26, eventually dual wielding daggers, and found himself in Hillsbrad. After 26 grueling levels, having to stop and drink repeatedly, I parked him in the Tauren Mill Inn and never played him again. Ok, so I did eventually, but that’s a later story. I liked the overall feel of the melee damage dealer but wanted self heals. Naturally, I moved onto my Paladin.

Back in TBC, you didn’t have to declare a talent tree ahead of time. You could sort of pick points as you went along. I sort of picked points that seemed immediately good regardless of the tree I was going down. I ended up mostly holy and the eventually had a proper holy spec. Of course, this was awful. I just didn’t know it yet. I quested about 40 levels in holy spec. This was a long, long grind. At some point real life got a little too busy and I ended up taking a long break from Wow. I think I was level 63 at the time. I never participated in any raids during this time. I did watch a friend of mine do kara and thought it looked pretty cool, but , level 63′s can’t raid.

Before taking my break, I also did a great deal of PVP both as holy and ret. I honestly probably would have hit max level during TBC instead of not getting there til later. Instead I left Paladin floundering in Outlands for a good several months, awaiting the day I’d return and bring it to greatness!…or at least max level.

Daily Thoughts: My Favorite Part of 4.1

OK. So we’re getting a new raid – the Firelands. We might even be getting a second new raid in patch 4.1, which some theorize is the War of the Ancients raid. My main, a Paladin, is finally going to see Divine Storm add holy power, which should solidify our ability to put out competitive AOE numbers. These changes and a host of others don’t excite me near as much as a pair of little changes for rogues. Did I say little? I meant supermassiveomgforpvpfuntimes.

Daily Thoughts: Alts

I love alts. My characters other than my main have for a long time been a driving force in keeping my interest in WoW. I keep a stable of max level alts to gear up or for crafting. I often won’t feel like running more than one heroic  dungeon on the same character per day, but a heroic on a resto shaman doesn’t feel like the same heroic on a ret paladin. One of the great things about WoW is the sheer variety of stuff to do.

Some days I feel like accomplishing, or working towards, an “end” character goal. This might be something like farming heroics in hopes for best-in-slot pre-raid drops or gear from points to rep farming for epics or actual raiding. This is gearing up my toon with equipment that should last it a while and help my end goal of a character – being raid worthy. Other days I just want to accomplish something. There’s really no guarantee to pick up a specific drop from a dungeon and sometimes you’re just too many randoms or quest away from having enough points or rep to buy something nice. On these days, I might take up one of my leveling toons. Especially at lower levels, but even closing on level cap, it’s only a matter of time to get a few levels. With each level comes new talents or spells and can feel like a little accomplishment for the day. This is especially great after a run of bad luck on a max level toon.

Daily Thoughts: Fear the Reaper

Yes, fear the reaper. My rogue hit 78 last night and although he isn’t the one-shotting-everything-that-moves powerhouse that he was through most of the leveling process, he is still a stealthy ninja-like force to be reckoned with. I can top the meters in instances in my combat spec, but what I really want to focus on today is the fun of the subtlety spec and the new PVP brackets.

PVP as a Subtlety rogue is fun. Sub is the spec that has always played the way I feel a rogue should. Sub emphasises effectiveness and deadliness from the shadows. We get the +30% to stealth movement speed in sub, which is absolutely essential to not being horribly frustrated trying to catch people in a battleground. Of course, we can’t forget to mention sub’s signature ability: Shadow Step. It is buckets of fun to teleport behind an unsuspecting victim and slash him with Ambush, using the increase damage bonus from SS. Further, SS gives a run speed bonus for a few seconds after it’s used, making it a mini sprint that talents to a 20 second cooldown. Not only does this make Shadow Step a great offensive skill, but it can be used when running away from a large pack of enemies by teleporting to the furthest player and then using the run speed to get away. Hopefully this gives you time for Vanish to come off cooldown. Sub rogues just have such a cool toolbox for pvp play, but they suck at PVE right?

Daily Thoughts: Hallow’s End and Bad Queues

I spent most of my WoW time last night working on achievements for the Hallow’s End holiday and hopefully the “the Hallowed” title this year.

See WoW Insiders Guide to Hallow’s End 2010

I got my GNERD Rage (50 honor kills with the candy buff active) achievement almost entirely in one wintergrasp. Horde is pretty over populated on my server, so we farm the alliance back to their flight path most times. Poor ally. Most of my time though, was spent getting the Tricks and Treats of Azeroth. That requires you to run around to most of your factions Inns in Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms and Outlands and loot their pumpkin. It’s a lot of running/flying. Each pumpkin does give 6 or so gold, so my friend and I were up 200 gold after the night.

The quests that require horde players to run into south shore and cause shenanigans were pretty fun because there was a bunch of alliance there trying to kill us. My 1100 resilience paladin and my friends 1k resilience warrior said, “No ally, you can’t kill us”. I didn’t claim our battle taunts were creative. Not much better than some open world PVP while getting achievements. Today I’m going to have to do the achievements that rely on drops, including the Sinister Squashling pet and the pumpkin helm.

…And the bad queue part

During the course of this adventure to gain my holiday achievement, my questing parter and I were constantly queued for random battle grounds. Over the course of 3 hours or so of questing/running around, we got only 3 battle ground queues. Do the math, it’s taking forever. I’d love someone to comment if they happen to know why for certain. I had heard before the patch that battle groups were supposed to expand or function as if they had, though after seeing the limited server selection inside the battle grounds we were in, other possibilities such as smaller battle groups make more sense. Any ideas?

4.0.1 – Part 2!

As promised, I’ve come with a little information about subtlety rogues in pvp in WoW patch 4.0.1. One word – superfunawesomelolcoolshadowstep. This will be a little more geared towards people wanting to start a new rogue or are considering PVP while leveling. I don’t claim to be a rogue expert, for that I’d suggest checking out Elitist Jerks. Sub spec for rogues in PVP currently is so much fun in fact, that I’m considering making it my main pvp character over my long-standing main, the Ret Paladin.

Ganked – With decent gear I’m running around (well, by running I mean sprinting, and by sprinting I mean sprinting while in stealth with sub’s increased run speed in stealth) one shotting poor under geared folks and 2-3 shotting most anyone if I can land a couple good Ambush/Backstab crits. For those who are unfamiliar with rogue skills, shadow step teleports you a decent distance directly behind your target at which point, if you’re stealthed (and you better be) you can open up with an ambush for high damage or cheap shot for a decent stun. Follow this up with backstab spamming and they’re probably dead. At 5 combo points you can eviscerate and if they aren’t dead even still, you’re probably playing wow drunk and you’re actually attempting to kill a rock.

Vanish – A key factor in my 25 kill to 0 death AV tonight at level 69 is the new mechanic to vanish. As of 4.0.1 when a rogue uses vanish, it now has 3 second guaranteed stealth time that cannot be broken by damage or other annoying things, this was not the case in the past and everything AOE or otherwise would make you exit stealth. And did I mention you gain a 3 second sprint after using shadowstep. You can just taste the talent synergy. Vanish and the sprint component helps an aspiring rogue get out of tight spots after trying to make short work of an enemy [see Gank].

I’m pretty excited about seeing my rogue to 80 and eventually to 85 when rated battle grounds become the next big thing in PVP. I will most certainly keep you updated. As a quick comparison between sub and combat in PVP, the few times I forgot to change specs before accepting the battleground queue, I didn’t manage more than 4 killing blows in combat spec, everyone could see me without my improved stealth, and other rogues laughed at me while tea bagging my corpse. It was unpleasant.

Glyphs, gems, and the auction house.

Although it’s a little late for this information to help anyone, I wanted to talk a little about the money I’ve made on the AH since patch. Keep in mind, with auctioneer broken, I find myself far too lazy and frustrated using the default auction house interface so I’m only using the remote auction house which has a 200 per day transaction limit. A few months back I bought a ton of herbs to either mill for inscriptions or use for potions/flasks as I leveled alchemy on an alt. 2-3k herbs all in total, I’d guess. The night before 4.0.1, I milled the majority of my herbs into pigments for inscriptions and made somewhere in the range of 500-600 glyphs. 2 days into the selling of the glyphs and a few gems I made (will get into the gems in a moment), I’m up 200% profit with at most half of my glyphs sold. If you don’t have a good stock of glyphs made before 4.0.1 when 1 ink could make a glyph, spend some time farming the herbs which seem to be selling 2x their normal value now.

As for gem sales, epic gem costs are up 50% on both servers where my toons live. With the demand so high, an alchemist should be using every transmute cool down to make an epic gem to sell. I’m working on that now. I’ll let you know how it works it all works out. Tomorrow I should have some updates for Holy or Ret Paladins in ICC 10m.