Who's Failure?

Syp pointed out Wolfhead's critique of WoW that I'd missed.  I'm probably one of WoW's most ardent defenders so I'll take a crack at it.

The WoW of 2010 is a MMO where community barely exists if at all. Players don’t even talk to each other anymore as they mindlessly farm so-called heroic dungeons. Players are happy to use each other like cheap whores in order to farm more emblems in order to get more shiny purple pixels.

There's this thing that used to happen in the WoW forums, not sure if it still does.  A player would make a post and say "Hunters were supposed to be about powerful pets" or "Raiding was supposed to be about 40-man raids", or more generally "X was supposed to be about Y."  It was never clear why the player thought X, a priori,  was supposed to be about Y, but something shattered the illusion and the player had decided the game was now broken.

I'm not sure why community doesn't exist if people don't chat in heroics.  And I'm not even clear on why community is important to an MMO.  Certainly social interaction is.  But not community.

In general, the easier it is to log into an MMO and do something fun or productive, the weaker the community will be.  Both because that sort of design is more inviting to casual players, and because serious players are playing the game instead of talking about it.

This fun game where it is easy to be productive is the sort of game I'd like to play.  Some derisively call this "Instant Gratification", but I prefer the term "Video Game."  I want to have fun on my computer, Community can go hang.

We traded in the important exhilarating virtues of being part of a virtual world — community, camaraderie, danger, player interdependence, role-playing and player freedom– and instead opted for a safe and scripted amusement park ride.

Most comprehensive critiques of WoW as a game boil down to : WoW is not a sandbox game.  X is not Y.  Certainly. though, theme park MMO's have more to give us.

Whither Archaeology?

Though we've received a lot of preliminary information about Cataclysm, we're still waiting on solid information about the Paths of the Titans, Rated Battlegrounds, and Guild Leveling.  All fascinating, I'm sure.

Archaeology, though, is what I'm waiting to hear about.

In my mind, here is how WoW tradeskills were conceived.  Somebody made a list of everything fun to do in WoW, and then said "Let's make sure tradeskills have nothing to do with any of these."  You don't kill dragons to do tradeskills, you generally don't do quests, you don't do combat, and you don't explore.  Tradeskills are just dull.

Archaeology might be an exception.  We know very little, and that very little is subject to change.  But what little we know sounds interesting.

Archaeology will involve travel around the world.  Travel is not necessarily the most fun part of WoW, but if Archaeology puts you out in the game world it would be an improvement over the current tradeskill model of buying mats off the AH and then watching a progress bar fill.  Blizzard has even mentioned that a mini-game might be involved which would be another nice bonus.

Everything I Know About Dark Fantasy I Learned From Dragon Age

With the effective end of raiding for me I've had a little more time to get back to the stuff I missed in my Year-Long WoW-Fueled Stupor.  Dragon Age is up first, and it's my introduction to the world of Dark Fantasy.  Here's what I've gleaned about the genre so far.

Checkpoints Suck

I've beaten every major boss so far at least twice, and it's just my first playthrough.  This was both awesome and Dark Fantastic.

Gear Sucks

The best, awesomest gear I have right now gives my characters like two points of stamina.  I realize it's all relative.  But then why not make those relative numbers a little bigger?

There is No Jumping in Dark Fantasy

You press the space bar and, not only do you not jump, the entire game just stops.  The world of Dark Fantasy actually refuses to accept your jump, and the world remains halted until you unjump (by pressing space again).

People Totally Don't Care About Blood On Their Faces in Dark Fantasy

In Dark Fantasy, you would expect the hacking, and slashing, and the resultant blood spatters everywhere.  What's surprising is that nobody seems to care when they are covered with blood.  After your battle your characters will have blood all over their faces.  And if it's time for a long talk (it always is), your characters just do it.  When times are so Dark there's no time to wipe off your face.

Thanks Blizzard, You Rock

So, going back on my previous resolution I decided to try Children's week.  I decided to do the hardest part first : capping the Flag in Eye of the Storm, which I had actually never done before.

Nearly every alliance went to the flag at first, and after a long fight with both sides whittled down I decided to click the flag and see if I could cap it.  Amazingly I was not attacked by horde the whole "grabbing" time and managed to get the flag, and after a harrowing run back I managed to cap it, not forgetting to have my orphan out so I could get part of the achievement.  The Difficult part of the achievement, right?

We won EoTS then, and feeling pretty good I decided to check the next part of the achievement.  Hmm.  Somehow I didn't get credit for having my orphan out while I capped my flag.  Wonder why not?  Oh yeah -- the achievement says "orphan", but it means specifically the Stormwind Orphan, not the Oracle Orphan I had.

Join me for an evening in EEB Online

Tobold lost his favorite hat (I'm guessing) and has been taking it out on EVE Online all week long.  I've spent enough time complaining about what EVE is, but instead let's imagine what it could be.  I hesitate because I know my first MMO was not much of a success.  Nevertheless, I present you "EVE if EVE were made by Boat", aka EEB Online.

First off, EEB Online is About Space Combat.  There will be Small Spaceships blowing up Big Spaceships,  Big Spaceships blowing up Small Spaceships, and even Medium Spaceships blowing up Medium Spaceships.  There will be Spaceships being blown up by Missiles, torn asunder by Torpedoes, shredded by Guns, eviscerated by Lasers, and even occasionally (but not often) protected by shields.

If you die in combat you do not lose your ship, because earning the scratch for a new ship would take valuable time away from blowing stuff up.  No, in EEB Online you can upgrade your ship and your skills often, but when you die you never lose them.  You just have to wait 20 seconds to respawn, which is excruciating because it is so much fun to Blow Stuff Up.

Speaking of skills, what kinds of skills would you like to have?  You are probably thinking "Boat I would like to learn skills that would help me blow stuff up" and EEB Online totally has you covered.  Goodbye Conflargian Ooze-Mining VIII, Hello Supernuke-Gatling Guns III.

Wow, Supernuke-Gatling Guns.  I bet that would take a long time of offline learning to pick up right?  No!  You learn combat skills by participating in combat!  You are rewarded for doing things instead of waiting for things.  Look Gipetto, I'm a real game.

There's more to EEB Online than Space Combat.  Just not much.  Trade still exists, but it's now mostly tied to minigame-based tradeskills.  You can still upgrade your ship but now you upgrade by doing whatever you want to do with that ship (space combat, hauling, mining, space combat, etc.)  Corporations can still take and hold resources, but this is based on the outcome of periodic ad hoc mini-campaigns and is not reliant on scheduling 24-7 "coverage" of corp assets.

Can you tell I"m still waiting for my theme park space combat game?  Come on Jumpgate.

Children's Week vs. Children

This week is the Children's Week holiday in WoW.  I just need to complete this event and the next one (Midsummer) and I'll get my 310% speed mount -- currently I'm stuck with the uberlame 280% mount with the other normals.

Of course, it's always Children's week in the Boat Household, especially since Gnome 2 joined us just last Friday (yaaay).

So there comes a decision.  Of course I'm not neglecting the needs of either Gnome 1 or Gnome 2 -- but in the brief windows when neither Gnome 1 nor Gnome 2 need assistance, do I even try to do Children's Week?

I've decided "no", I'm just not going to try.  I'm fairly certain that 310 mounts will become more commonplace in Cataclysm, and either way I don't need the stress.

Also, you know, Chaos Rising.