What’s New?

Hey folks, I am struggling these days to find things to write about. I am currently down to one MMO subscription (EQ2) and I am playing it somewhat sporadically. I have been spending a lot of time doing “other stuff” and haven’t found anything in a game to keep me all that interested. I really wish that Rift would have struck a chord with me, but I really couldn’t get into that game. Now I feel I am playing EQ2 for lack of anything better to do.

On the EQ2 front, I just managed to reach level 71 (yay!)  and have entered the Rise of Kunark content. I am hoping that this content will get me enthusiastic about playing again because it seems like it is better designed than the Kingdom of Sky content that I just left. For the first time in close to 30+ levels I actually ran into some other people doing the same quests that I was. Sometimes that is a pain when you have to fight over mobs, but I was pleased to see that someone else was actually playing the game.

I plan to write a post about EQ2 specifically, because I have a few things rolling around in my head here, but the purpose of this post is just to say I am alive and still playing even if in a lesser capacity. I am looking forward to playing SW:ToR so much these days, all the other games I look at on my computer just can’t compel me to click on their icons. Even fewer are compelling me to write about them.

I got an Android phone the other day and I have been playing Angry Birds a lot. That is pretty much the amount of effort I want to put into a game these days. I hope I am not getting too old here! I hope that you all are gripped in a wonderful game at the moment. I hope I will be again soon!

-Pid

[WoW] The Tanking Topic

I know I am a bit of a Johnny-come-lately with this, but I figured I’d chime in a little bit on the WoW Tanking/Healing incentives in the upcoming patch. If you haven’t read about it there are plenty of blog posts about it, but the details can be found here.

I’m not going to weigh in on whether the idea of giving out extra rewards to the less played class roles is good/bad/fair/gimic/etc. Rather I wanted to talk about the root of the problem being why Blizz is trying to put a band-aide on a gushing wound.

Why aren’t people picking the Tank/Healer roles in DF PUGs? I know why I stopped doing it. Not because it was too hard or I didn’t have the skills, but rather I didn’t have the knowledge of each and every dungeon that I was playing for the first time. Couple that with the fact that I play these games to relax and have fun and running a dungeon for the first time as a fledgling tank often involves ridicule and group disbanding. Combined, you have the recipe for Pid leveling to 85 as a DPS paladin.

Now I know a lot of this is well out of Blizzard’s control…ass hats will always be ass hats…but why are people going to bother to learn if there is not an avenue to do so that doesn’t involve griefing and an intimate knowledge of the dungeons before you even run them for the first time. Ugh.

It just seems odd to me that a game that is largely composed of casual players doesn’t have a venue for the casual player to learn how to tank well. The easiest way to reach level cap is to grind quests, which last I checked, needed no tanking skills whatsoever. After 85 levels of fighting trash world mobs how is one supposed to magically know how to hold aggro or turn a boss or go in the right direction in a dungeon?

Honestly Blizz, if you want more tanks, rather than give them a cool mount or gold, give them an ability to mute jerks or instakick them from pugs. LOL

-Pid

Sharing the Wealth

I recently had someone from money.co.uk ask me to highlight an article that they wrote about game currency being sold as RMT. The article is pretty neat and worth a look if for no other reason to see the number of countries in which the revenue for WoW gold selling exceeds their GDP. Scary thought! Anyway the site itself is trying to sell its wares, but the specific article is pretty harmless.

-Pid

[EQ2] Next in Line?

I was looking at the server status for EQ2 today and I was a little disheartened with the number of servers for this game. Not because I think they are too crowded, but rather that the population of this game is so small. My server recently was merged with Crushbone, and the server is pretty populated now. As I was looking at the other servers though one of them stuck out to me. If there be another merge in the  near future, what are the odds that Oasis is the next victim? Here’s a little clue:

One of these things is not like the others…

Just a word of warning to all you Oasis folks…be prepared as I wouldn’t be surprised if your number is about to be called for consolidation.

-Pid

[EQ2] Slowing Things Down

Just Horsing Around

Lately I have really slowed things down with my gaming. I haven’t trimmed the amount of time down that I have been playing, but more the pace at which I am doing things in game. I have been almost exclusively playing EQ2 as of late and it has been good. I really haven’t even been gaining adventure levels. I am taking things slow and enjoying the revamp to the crafting experience system.

For those not aware of the experience revamp, here is a small breakdown. Gaining crafting levels in EQ2 works  much in the same way as gaining adventuring levels and as a matter of fact, you can reach the same crafting level in game as the current adventure level cap. The great thing is, you can craft to cap and still be level 1 adventure-wise.

Previously, crafting worked in such a way that you would gain a small amount of experience from doing combines, but got a large bolus dose of XP when you crafted things for the first time. This made leveling up for some classes a heck of a lot quicker (if you had the cash for components) than other classes. As an example, a class like the sage which crafts spell upgrades would easily get in excess of 15 – 20 spells to craft at each crafting level. This meant the class got 15 – 20 bonuses to crafting. On the flip side of things, a provisioner who makes food and drink would only get 4-6 recipes per level.

In order to level up the classes with few recipes per level, you were required to perform crafting writs ad nauseam. Crafting writs are the equivalent of quests on the adventuring side, but sooooooooo much more boring.

So what did they do to the XP? Well the bad news is that every class pretty much now has to grind crafting writs. The good news is, it is cheap to do so (the writs more or less pay for the crafting materials except for harvests) and they modified the XP gain so that each combine is worth more XP and each writ completion is worth a ton of XP. At this rate you can gain a level in just 4-5 writs. This is very much faster than before.

So due to this XP revamp I have been leveling up all my alts in their respective tradeskills and really doing very little in terms of adventuring. The great thing is, that is about what I want out of an MMO right now. It may sound boring to some, but it is good for me. I really am quite pleased with EQ2 that it allows for alternatives to standard adventure/questing grinding. It might be grinding of a different nature, but I can watch TV at the same time or listen to a podcast or whatever and not have to pay a great deal of attention to the game. I am progressing in the game and I am only partially playing it. It is the ultimate in casual play, and right now that is what the doctor ordered.

I took some time out to do some of the Bristlebane Day quests, but now it is back to business. Oh a crafting I will go, a crafting I will go…Hi Ho! The dairy-o…a crafting I will go.

-Pid