100k passes and silence

Are you one of the Annual Pass holders who wishes to get your Beta for Panda-rama-rama? Cool, so am I, because I want to try out a Monk. Yay for this:

Melbourne Video Games Unplugged

Video Games Unplugged is an orchestra playing game music while the screens show the graphics. Darn cool. What surprised the heck out of me was that the side-bar ad on Penny Arcade was actually relevant to me, and interesting. Click-Marketing actually worked.

Well not quite, as I can’t go that night. But sheesh, it would be grand. So I’m sharing this as an ad for Video Games Unplugged.

Melbourne Convention Centre on April 12th 2012, 7pm.

I saw opera as a movie, have watched classical perform movie theme songs, and happily bounded through all of them, getting my geek on. This feels the same.

Too soon: DKs in Panda Beta Testing

No news is, well no news. I’m waiting the feedback on beta testing for MoP to see where the classes are headed and if my beloved Death Knights will be fun or not. As a side distraction I’m also watching Warlocks, Paladins, Druids, and Warriors too as I enjoy those classes.

What I’ve found after reading around the regular wow news haunts is that the Beta process is still too early imho to trust that the information will be similar at launch. A case in point is the rather good Lichbourne column on WoWInsider, which has a summary of the current state of play for DKs in beta.

“With the Mists of Pandaria beta test under way, I’m reminded of an interesting discussion I’ve seen going around the death knight community. Coming out of Wrath, we were most definitely seen as overpowered, and starting a few patches later, we started off on a balance roller coaster we’ve never quite disembarked from, getting nerfs, de-nerfs, tweaks, and even the removal or redesign of entire spells and systems….”

The TLDR version is: still unknown on most items, its all about balance, and fundamentals are unresolved. But don’t trust me, go read for yourself as Daniel Whitcomb does a good job on the column.

What does this mean?

Well my guess is that its now the end of march and we have no clarity on DKs as either Tanks or DPS, so MoP is many many months away. If DKs are this unknown, then other class roles also could not be expected to be finalised either, as WoW will be aiming for “balance” between the classes as they work in a role.

Back to the distractions of blogs, games, and non-DK lives. Happy Killing.

Trial games and distractions

Recently the temptation to play Star Wars ToR for 7 days came up, and I happily took it. A free trial period is exactly what I need from a publisher so I can determine if their box is worth the money, or if the game is worth the subscription (see the later part of this post for the Star Wars thoughts). With no trial period I’m very unlikely to even try a game.

Overall my gaming philosophy at the moment is:

“I’m planning a short return plunge into WoW briefly before playing Diablo 3, and possibly SWToR. I’ll wait till Panda-randa is released, then decide if I pick it up.”

This is odd for me as I’m an avid fan of Warcraft and the games. I still enjoy WoW when I get to play it, but that is not often enough now. I have mixed feelings about Pandaria. I asked a long time ago to play a Monk in WOW, but the entire Panda expansion leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I didn’t think it was time to introduce “cute” into the game setting, and without much more information it still feels like a cute game trying to be Warcraft instead of just being Warcraft.

That said, the idea of killing Garrosh is appealing, and having a number of options on how to level in terms of zones is a flavour from Wrath that I liked. In fact if WoW wanted to get an easy $80+ from me they’d release an expansion very similar to Wrath. It has been my favourite so far. Some folks felt like the Death Knight was catering to the kiddies or was illogical, and I respect that view – but disagree. Death Knights are the coolest class in wow. Perhaps I’ll think Monks are that too eventually.

Given I’m an annual pass holder I am expecting to be able to make my assessment of the next expansion as a late Beat test. get in, decide or not if I buy it, and get out.

Diablo 3 is out in a month or so, and that means I’ll have a game to distract me for a fair while. I expect a very large amount of the WoW population (well 1,000,000 annual pass holders at least) to be playing, so the population should be good initially. From what I’ve seen and read it will be D3 in a way I like.

Looking forward to it. How many folks leave WoW for D3 and never return will be interesting.

Now onto Star Wars – The Old Republic.

Playing a game on trial account in SW-ToR was a blast. It was enough time to see that the story-telling basis of the leveling experience really is a great experience, and one that is well worth spending money on. Honestly it is that good.

I played a Trooper to level 10, a Sith Inquisitor to level 10, an Imperial Agent to level 7, and tortured a Jedi Warrior to level 3. Its a darn healthy game, which is in the most part exactly like Warcraft, except the Star Wars Universe. So honestly well done Bioware, excellent job.

Out of those four classes I think the Sith Inquisitor was the best to my taste, a bit of range damage, a solid melee call, and some nice knock-backs and buffs. The bloody Jedi felt like he was resource capped, and the “built your energy” approach felt just like why I hate Rogues in WoW – I’m not patent enough to build energy.

Conversely, you need a killer PC to run Star Wars as intended. I played with a lot of the settings on low and sometimes it looked like my character was cell animated on top of a moving backdrop. Almost a green screen add-on the the environment, rather than actually being “in” the environment. That is not the game’s fault at all – my cheap ass can’t afford a dedicated gaming PC and I’ve no room in the house to put it it. Laptops just don’t go fast enough.

I wish I had more time to play games.

Wow Blizzard Survey

Today I received one of the survey emails from Blizzard about my World of Warcraft impressions and gaming in general. They’re asking about competition with other games like SWToR and Bioshock, and also about their own products like DotA and Diablo.

I’m honestly impressed that the survey questions were so openly seeking feedback, and that the company was gutsy enough to clearly ask about their competition, and as people to rank them. Draw your own conclusions about the effect of the competition. I ranked all sorts of things I liked and disliked about the game, an the interview app has some sort of funky (meaning irritating) repeat questions that looks to validate the high low choices against each other multiple times. Many times.

It was irritating to click through 13 screens of the same features and hopefully further versions of that survey tool will offer different choices for product features or subscription options. It really felt like the survey was asking between 3 choices on a range of features which were all very similar (lfr vs lfd). Frankly it’s the same feature to me, in terms of “back of the box” features and expectations.

An odd question was how often I am playing, and how many hours. Blizzard know this if they bother to look. They could know what proportion is raiding, and how often I use the AH. The survey is clearly not linked to the back-end, and I’m wondering just how many people will fudge their answers, after all nobody ever lies on surveys.

Interesting overall none the less.

SW TOR Downunder – March 1st

Looks like SW ToR will be available in Australia on March 1st. Damn it! The fact it was not local was a reason to not play. And yes, free transfers for Aussies to the new servers. Full press release.

I’d love a D3 beta key!

Just saw the news that D3 betas have started the second round of offers; a lazy 100,000 keys – wow. As a player with an “annual pass” its fragg’n disappointing. I’m not playing wow much at the moment as I need to be distracted often, but D3 is a game where I think it would be plausible to play in small blocks (based upon D1 and D2).

Kudos to the lucky 100k folks, and to Blizzard – make with the key gents. Ta.

A modest charity effort – Iron Man Mode

Here is a tale of a group of gamers who are nutty enough to play popular games in Ironman Mode – that is using only 1 life. All so that folks will be chuffed, amused, and then donate to the excellent charity called Child’s Play.

“Clueless idiots playing the best games ever made…with only one life.”

Yup, they’re gamers being gamers, for a good cause. Go read about them – Iron Man Mode. Anyone who is willing to be that self deprecating is ok by me.

Sharing SOPA Rant

I’ve made a rant about the anti-piracy bills in the USA and the SOPA movement. Its important enough that I want it shared here too so it reaches a different readership.

What to do if SOPA Passes

Now returning you to some more rants about RPG, Warcraft, and pugging as a casual with no patience.

Hate: Constantly moving tanks

Today’s post is a little rant to get something off my chest: Tank moving mobs too much. I hate it. A lot.

Recently in a LFD run the tank was constantly moving the creatures. Now I don’t mean slowly moving them in a reverse circle to gather them up (bears do this, it makes sense), or a tank moving so that nothing is flanking them. Or even adjusting because shitty dps don’t know not to stand in front while the baddies cleave or use flame breaths – I mean constant changing where they stand randomly.

This idiot tank walked forwards, backwards, and sideways through the monster’s hit box so that both he and mobs needed to switch facing all the time. The entire fight against multi-mobs, he walked around constantly. Showing his flank to the mobs, switching around, even bloody jumping from time to time. It was like watching a pvp battle. What made it funny (in a sad way) is that he totally ignored the two melee asking him to stay still. That request just seemed to make him spin and dance more, which made the fights longer, and I suspect he took some serious damage from it too. Yup, an idiot.

I don’t get it, and think its a sign of a bad tank and a player who does not understand the mechanics of tanking.

The tank tip: Gather the melee baddies so they are all in your face, none behind you, and preferably all your team are behind them. ie:

(Tank)–> <— (Angry mobs) <— (melee) <— (healers and range)

This way the melee can hit from behind happily, you can see when the mobs move away, your healers are protected by the melee, and nobody has to move anywhere. All cleaves and spells will only affect the Tank.