Category: World of Warcraft

.

Промоакции для игроков не только в шутерах — воспользуйся промокодом Vavada от наших партнеров и получи бонусы, которые подарят азарт и атмосферу, сравнимую с игровыми победами.

.

Too Many Tales of One Mid-Game Experience

I have completed a run through what was the mid-game of classic WoW, levels 20 to 40 Alliance side. our last installment ended around level 22. That would make 40 to 60 the classic late-game, with content at 60 having been the endgame back in the day. I suppose the mid-game has shifted to where I am just entering, but until I add Burning Crusade, I am playing classic WoW, darnit. Except for my frostweave bags, many huggles for my frostweave bags.

When we last left the Paladin, she was exulting in having gone from very strong to overpowered with the taunt/Exorcism pull combo. (Our friend Tobold has just entered there.) It gets more extreme in the 20 to 40 range.

Continue reading Too Many Tales of One Mid-Game Experience

Airlocks

Continuing through classic WoW, the zones have great diversity between them but little within. You notice that each zone has its own palette, although it may take some reflection to notice how thoroughly and well that is done. I will get back to within-zone sameness another day, but let’s discuss for a moment how you execute the palette swap.

The problem is non-trivial. The seasons change as you cross onto a new map, but few comment on the walk from the perpetual winter of Dun Morogh to the perpetual spring of Loch Modan. You must have noticed at some point, but did you notice when the transition happened?

Some of this is gamer suspension of disbelief: we are used to having everything change when we get to a new level of the game, and moving to a new zone is the MMO equivalent. The game environment also facilitates this the same way it keeps you on the theme park quest path: channelization. How many zones have wide-open borders that you can traverse, rather than walls of impassable mountains with narrow openings?

Those openings can become rather like tunnels for about a draw distance, so that you see big rocks covering the transition point. The transitions to and from Loch Modan really are tunnels, enclosing you so that you cannot see the set being swapped, like taking an elevator in Portal. In other zones, see bridges and rivers serving a similar purpose. You may note this as a problem at the border of Westfall: river and bridges, yes, but it is brief enough for you to see the transition. On the way in, there are quest-givers to distract you, but Duskwood makes it look like the world ends across the river.

Touring through some other games of my acquaintance: City of Heroes does the same thing, complete with loading screens. Asheron’s Call never does, since you can run everywhere from anywhere, and there are large areas over which you can watch the land change. The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ Volume One: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ is mostly open, with channelization into the lategame zones and the ones added post-release. The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ Volume Two: Mines of Moriaâ„¢ channels everything, but it is set in caverns anyway. Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates has separate islands, with boats as loading screens (WoW does the same at points). A Tale in the Desert takes the same approach as Asheron’s Call, with some really impressive geography reflecting years of effort from volunteer world-builders.

: Zubon

Impassable hills are also good for hiding the Potemkin village nature of most of the landmass. Cataclysm needs to re-do the whole landmass anyway so flying mounts cannot show that there is nothing behind the backdrops.

A Tale of Three Early Game Experiences

Starting WoW, my intended main character was a Night Elf Druid. Good damage, heals, and tankability, I had read. They turn into bears and cats and sea lions and trees, which is all the awesome I need. I connected with my triple-xp partner, and we rolled to Darnassus the first night. I messed with trade skills, then we rampaged across Darkshore later that week. The weekend saw us questing to the Deadmines, where we hit a technical outage. That was almost enough to cancel my account, not because I was outraged about inconvenience, but because it stopped the forward momentum. If the game does not get a chance to sink its claws into you, you never form the habit, and I have a dozen “meh” options before me. I always harp on the new player experience because it is essential to hook new players now. As it is, his courses re-started and he has not logged on for a week. If I had been depending on that, I would be done with WoW by now. She is parked at level 22, waiting for her sempai.

My intended alt was a Gnome Mage. I already had my support class covered, so I could go with my other great love: ranged damage. Let’s be direct: Mages are horrible at low levels right now, and Loch Modan is a horrible second zone. Continue reading A Tale of Three Early Game Experiences

The Zero-Button Phase

I finally tried a Paladin. I had not realized that they start with no direct offensive abilities. The starting buttons are a buff (click once per level), a heal (not used before you get rank 2 of it), and auto-attack. Then you get more buffs. While in the newbie area, you work your way up to one direct offensive ability, and you use it once per fight.

This means that, aside from renewing your buffs every 10 or 30 minutes, the entire Paladin newbie experience is walking up to enemies and right-clicking them (or hitting 1 once). Once they are dead, right-click to loot. Even when you visit the enemies that will aggro (red, not yellow), you can easily survive fighting three at once, so it is still right-click once per target. Once you get that offensive ability, you can hit that button instead of right-clicking or hitting 1. Again, one press, once per target.

Despite that, it is still somewhat compelling to crush your enemies with a giant freaking hammer.

: Zubon

eAsk

World of Warcraft seems perfect for scratching that Achiever itch. This may just be part of the newb experience, but there are more flying numbers, color splashes, and dinging bells than I have seen anywhere else.

When I fight, my chat box gets blue text telling me how my weapon skills and defense are increasing, and I can switch between weapons to get even more blue numbers. After the fight, numbers fly over my head, indicating experience. A purple bar keeps me updated constantly on that. I click the body to receive cash and loot. I may be able to skin the enemy, and if not, walking around is probably rewarding as I find other things to gather. I have two trade professions and three secondaries, with a fourth coming next year. Back to the enemies, they may relate to a quest, so I get more numbers for each kill, plus maybe more numbers when I check the body. The quest numbers update on the right side of my screen, and if I have Quest Helper, they even change colors. I have various factions that like me more with each quest. I have pages of achievements, most of which come naturally as I do other things to get numbers and colors above my head. There are clarions and splashes of color for everything. All of these things let me buy new skills, ranks, and other things that will add a number or line, with the accompanying animation and sound.

On the Explorer side, I do not see much. I mean, I can wander around and look at things, but I do not think of touring through Disney World as exploring. It is funny that The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ out-theme parks WoW in the early game, but it feels like one for Explorers. Continue reading eAsk

Casual Hardcore

I have yet to be able to play in moderation, and my gaming time has hardly decreased, but I am not a hardcore player of anything in particular at the moment.

I am a recent World of Warcraft newbie, but it is not enormously sucking me in. When my triple-xp referrer friend wants to play, we play a few hours, although we have not since hitting the “instances do not work” wall. Other than that, I solo a character for about half an early quest hub before logging. As part of the hardcore player’s optimization, I am cycling through characters and using that rested xp. It still has that new game shine, so I am playing a couple of hours most days of the week.

I have a lifetime Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ account, and I play a couple hours a few times a week. We have a Casualties static group, I get a level on an alt, I run the bounty IXP chain, or I farm and craft. It usually lasts about one expedition: if my packs are full, I will most likely warp back to town, sell, train, and log.

Team Fortress 2 appears a few times a week for several hours. I know and like a few maps, and I have not felt like being a newbie again to learn new ones. Friends have invited me to several Facebook games, and some are amusing once you get 4 or 5 running at once. Visit Kongregate twice a week to check on card challenges. Plants vs. Zombies still gets a little time.

That adds up to quite a bit, but it is widely scattered. This, plus my web-like conceptual map, explains why I write about one game but end up mentioning four others. There is no “one game” at the moment, and I would enjoy more time to binge a bit more on each or add more to the stack. I frequently find myself wanting to like various games more than I do.

: Zubon

Additional instances cannot be launched, please try again later.

keep jumping through maybe it will work We spent half a night this weekend running around for the Defias Brotherhood quest chain, which showed me a bit of the world. It culminates in the Deadmines, where we spent the other half of the night waiting at the door until everyone gave up and left. Two groups came after us; I don’t know how long they waited. A few of us hopped servers, made new characters, and took them to level 9. Checking that instance portal before leaving for the night, nope, still no dice.

I know it is hard to get good servers and architecture with only $100 million per month or so, and I give full credit for how quickly and easily I can log into the game without queues, but being about to log into the zones is important too.

: Zubon

Update: the last update seems to have worked, at least for me, at least so far. I have yet to be rejected at another instance portal.

A Tale of Three Newbie Experiences

I tried WoW way back during the open beta. I hit all the newbie zones and completed most of them. Surprisingly little has changed in the past four years.

I decided to try the experience three ways. First, we have the completely unaided game. Enter with no pre-reading, no add-ons, no guides, nothing. Play the game as it presents itself and read the quest text. Second, play following a guide. Third, play with a friend under refer-a-friend triple xp, along with an add-on to help locate quest spots.

Before going through those, I want to mention how primitive it felt. I expect that many features have been added through UI mods and add-ons, but the basic WoW game and client have that “so this was cutting edge a generation ago?” feel. Except that it wasn’t, because I kept looking for things that City of Heroes had before WoW launched. WoW has the famous polish, but it is missing things that you expect to be there from other games, little quality of life things that are minor but constant irritants. And then there are the quality of life details that WoW has and why haven’t more games stolen them?

Continue reading A Tale of Three Newbie Experiences