Pet Battles and HearthStone are distractions

I think Pet Battles and HearthStone are distractions. Darn good, but distractions. I’d try and play these games on my iphone or ipad, but can’t take it seriously while actually in World of Warcraft.

I will certainly try HearthStone when it is live, and perhaps when this expansion is ending I’ll try a pet battle too.

I have a fair pool of pets all of whom are level one and never been used. It seems a waste in a way to have some rare stuff but never use them in game. Alas time online actually playing my main is rare enough for me, so spending that time swapping cards or poking pets is not justified.

But on a portable device while I wait for a late trains or have a quick lunch? Ohhhh yeah, I’ve got time for that. I know HearthStone is going to be delivered to portable devices, and I’d think that Pet battles could be valuable there too.

Helping a player, or facilitating laziness?

While wandering through some daily quests on the weekend a random player asked me about where to find motes of harmony. I thought it was funny that I’d written a post about this, and that Google keeps telling me it is one of the most popular (or at least often clicked) items I’ve written.

When I tried to speak to the player I found him a little…(ahem)…daft.

Where you get motes? .. Try the farm. Or kill the turtles in Karasang Wilds.
What farm? … The Tillers faction farm.
What do I do? …. Plant the songbell seeds
Then what? ….. (at which time I decided that the player was pulling my leg and I stopped responding)

Arrogant or not, there comes a point where I think a reasonable person will just stop responding. I was not sure if I was helping a player, or actually facilitating their ongoing laziness. If that player cannot google an answer, and also knows so little about the current expansion to know how to use a seed on the farm, then I’m not sure there is a point of reference.

It also makes me consider how many of these things I have, and so far I’ve crafted well over 5 items, which take 6-8 of the Spirits of Harmony. Then I have a bank with 100, and about 140 which I carry. That is around 240 motes left after spending around 350 motes on gear; total around 500 motes. If I’d actually been farming each day the number would be in the thousands but I gave up long ago after the gear was almost meh.

I think that a player should have found a use for them, or looked up where they come from after having them drop from random creatures.

Helping or hurting, I’m not sure.

Popular content observation

I read recently that WoW will be concentrating on scenarios rather than 5 mans. It started a pleasing debate over on the wow forums.It is worth a read through.

Quick thought – I think that the only reason people do scenarios and even 5 mans more than a few times is because they reward Valor points. The time/valor point is good, the experience is repetitive in the extreme. I know this is how I play, because as soon as I cap my Valor points each week I stop doing 5 mans and Scenarios.

Not true? So test this by removing the Valor reward from Scenarios and 5 mans for a patch and see how many people do them every day. Just because people are doing the content does not mean it is good, it means it is a means to an end.

(this was interesting from that thread – Sharmarli):

At this point I’m not really doing Scenarios or Heroics.  I have never done heroics this expansion (total of 9 I think when I got drug into guild runs) While I did a large number of scenarios initially to help gear up this Char the only reason I’ve been running since about the end of  November has been for quick valor points.

With the release of 5.2, however, I haven’t even been doing scenarios for the most part.  If I need extra VP I just go and kill the Isle rares for the 15VP books (made 135 VP last night in about 30-40 min of actual play time:  killed 6, went and made dinner, came back and killed 3 more).

Building new content should be an inbuilt part of the expected dev cycle. I know there is less money in the pot then before, but 8.5 million players is still a heck of a lot of players by any stretch of the imagination.

The devs have done great things by giving players more choice on how to earn these points, but we still need them. The old statement that Valor grinding is not “mandatory” is as silly today as it was before, we just have a wider range of ways to perform than grind.

TyphoonAndrew

Warcraft subscribers drop

Blizzard revealed that it has lost 1.3 million subscribers to its flagship game World of Warcraft in the first quarter of 2013, a 14% drop.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrggg, run in circles, fleeeeeee, who’s got the lifeboat and flares? Quick, set something on fire!

Yup WoW’s numbers dropped again. I think any current subscriber will agree that the population is slowly dropping and it is making some things harder in-game. Other things are fine. Blizzard to their credit have added more ways to play with previously divergent groups, which helps players get to content but is in no way going to reverse the trend that the player base is dropping.

• Is it the end of the world? No.
• What can we as current WoW players do? Not much. Keep having fun and playing. Just because something is less exciting for most people has never been a reason I’ll like it. Like sports for example – I’ve always thought that chasing a ball was a somewhat futile endeavour.
• Are new games the culprit? I don’t think that is a major factor, but maybe a small one. D3 didn’t much dent the population for long. Neverwinter might be worth a look, or many of the free-to-play games arriving soon. Such is the way of things.
• Could you play the same game for years and years? No, eventually I think I’ll leave. At the very least I’d consider returning for a new expansion, but everything has a ending. Just accept it and enjoy.
• Somebody pointed out that if the rate continues then the game is really dead by late 2014. Um, yup, could be true. So what?
• Will Titan and the next WoW expansion line up to help Acti-Blizz keep the revenue rolling in? Yes, I’d bet a coffee on that. That makes sense, and that is something that we should be expecting. They are a company for pity’s sake.

I still like the game, its fun. Factually this tells us something that we already knew. Emotionally this tells me that I don’t care, but is a little depressing to see in black and white. No biggie.

(snark) Is it possible that WoW will become hip when the subscriber numbers get so low that only hipsters are playing it, and then only playing ironically? Well maybe, but those hipsters would need to stop playing SWToR first; ironically.

Or was it Age of Conan / Warhammer / LOTR / Rift / etc.. that killed World of Warcraft and it has just taken this long for it to finally die? Dumbass.

Via – Warcraft numbers plummet; 14% drop in Q1/13 – Boing Boing.

I need to save 2175 Justice Points

MMO Champions’ screenie of the caster heirloom shield, hopefully arriving in patch 5.3

5.3 will apparently bring us the heirloom shields, effective up to level 85. That means (a) they are moot for my shield using Tanks which is a shame, but (b) my Shaman toy might get some bling.

Well honestly I’ll probably buy both eventually anyway in the grim hope that one day another class is added. So make that 4350 Justice pts. And a pony.

Good news though. It is something to spend Justice points on.

35 Reps achievement screenie

Getting to 35 reps is something that I’d not planned on. Fundamentally now that Exalted does not grant a mechanical benefit, it is just something that might happen. Still a very long way to 9000 pts.

The Ultimate Boss Strategy

The Ultimate Boss Strategy. I love it. Perfect.

Mogu Rune Cost reduced from 90 to 50 Lesser Charms

WowHead has some news on a change in patch 5.3 for WoW, the primary change from the list I really like is the switch of 90 down to 50 lesser charms to buy Mogu Runes (src).

Less charms means more coins and less daily quests. Well potentially.

wow Loot Specialization Menu

MMO Champ reports a fine new feature for Patch 5.3 in WoW:

The new Loot Specialization menu is in, allowing you to choose what spec you want loot for when getting bonus rolls, Raid Finder gear, and Pandarian quest rewards

Yehaw. Darn good feature. Its very welcome. A good step toward getting a friendly loot system. It might be seen as a change which makes World of Warcraft more friendly to casuals, which is true and not a bad thing but it is also something that makes the loot system more friendly for hardcore players and those player who love Alts.

I cannot see a drawback which is not related to a whine about “back in my day…”

Related articles

• World of Warcraft Patch 5.3 PTR Patch Notes (wow.joystiq.com)
• The Azeroth Ethicist: Is it cheating to trick the LFR loot system? (wow.joystiq.com)

Thoughts on … my most coveted items

Joystick & Nethaera wants to know my most coveted and unusual items?

I choose Thunderfury and Sulfuras, the Hand of Ragnaros legendary weapons.

I know that is predictable and boring, but hey I worked like a mule for each of them over many years – they mean something.

Next to those is the Haunted Memento, as the free ghost follower is still pretty cool. After that I still have my Onyxia Scale Cloak banked, an Argent Dawn trinket, and the Orb of Deception waiting to be used.