KABOOM!

That is my unofficial, not-adopted-by-anyone-else motto for my guild, Casualties of WAR. Casualties is kind of a "blogger" guild, and was meant to be for bloggers and anybody who wanted to be in a guild with bloggers. Of the current (roughly) 175 members, 32 are bloggers.

When it comes (and some day it will), I predict the Greatest Guild Breakup The Internet Has Ever Seen. Imagine thirty-two bloggers tearing into each other! KABOOM!

I just love all the wonderful ticking time bombs that the WAR blogging community has offered us. Guilds full of bloggers! Blogs dedicated to a single class the author might not even like! Fifty-plus blog entries written for a game you've only played for ten hours!

Castle Crashers came out today and it looks fun. However, my wife is playing Puzzle Quest right now, and last time we talked about buying Braid I said "let's play through Puzzle Quest first, I want to actually beat a game". Now I've kind of been hoisted by my own petard.

Today was really quiet in the world of WAR blogging, I don't know why. Not a lot to write about if nobody else writes anything. Maybe I'll troll the WHA forums for a while.

Here's one of my old favorites (only in a brand new post) :

Remember in EQ when the game first came out. 6 months after launch there werent many lvl 50s but it was impressive. You knew that if someone was lvl 50 they knew how the hell to play their class. In WoW, you have a 70 hunter on a raid and ask him/her to MD to MT and they look at you like your speaking farsi.

This post just works for me, on at least ten levels:

1. The way it suggests that anything should be copied from EQ into a modern MMORPG. This is awesome.
   
   
2. The way he said "Remember in EQ when the game first came out".
   
   Yes, the 25k people that played EQ when it first came out totally remember when it came out.
   
   
3. The way it talks about "impressing" people. I remember being impressed by level 75's in FFXI. I would always think "Wow, that person is Japanese and got the game like 18 months ahead of me."
   
   
4. How it totally misses the point that modern MMORPG's don't do this because leveling is boring. And it's far less boring in modern MMORPG's than it was back then.
   
   
5. Two words about EQ : Group Leveling
   
   
6. Hey, I have an idea! I'll play the game with my guild. Oh wait -- I'm level 25 and my friends are 32, 40, and 50, guess we can't play together. Bummer we can't play a game like WoW, where I'd be a fresh 70, and my friends are in all-blues, arena epics, and raid epics and legendaries respectively. Because then I could play with them anyway!
   
   
7. The thing that really gets me is that WAR, more than any other recent game, gives you a million ways to impress your friends and acquaintances. You can get your statue in town. You have The Tome. Renown levels are supposed to be hard to get, so you'll get to play with your friends while you all have vastly different renown levels.
   
   You know what would make that better? How about not playing with your friends?
   
   
8. Yeah, it's so surprising that a level 70 might not know how to use an ability they'd only use in a group or raid.
   
   You know, it's almost like they weren't forced to group with other players for 70 levels. Maybe they even got to level at their own pace instead of constantly waiting for groups!
   
   
9. "There weren't many level 50's" -- in other words you play to 50, then you have to think about how much better you are than everybody else, as you wait several months for enough other people to hit max so they can play with you.
   
   
10. And once again, what's my favorite pet peeve? Mistaking bad game design for difficulty! Yaay we have a winner!
    

This is like my most bitter post ever. What I really need is another blog to vent about writing this blog.