[WoT] Listen Up Lightweight

Quick word of advice…if you are driving a light tank, scout or support a med/heavy tank. Don’t try to go mano a mano with a heavy and expect to help the team.

[SW:ToR] Koona t’chuta, Solo?

If you haven’t taken the time, read the post over at Darth Hater about the topic of a solo end game for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Then come back here and the rest of this will make more sense.

… … … …

Ok, now that you are back:

So apparently there is a big to do about whether SW:ToR will have a solo end game or not. My guess is that it won’t, because most MMORPG’s don’t, but I really hope they prove me wrong.

If you read a lot of the comments and if you dare to wade into the 2500+ comments of the SW:ToR forum topics, you will probably hear this debate.

Soloer: I want to have an endgame that is fun and gives me something to do that doesn’t involve raids or group PvP. I have soloed the whole way to the level cap, why should it stop now? Why can’t I get really cool gear, titles, and achievements too?

Raider: Soloers should not be allowed to have über characters because clearly MMO’s are all about multiplayer content. It’s even in the name, Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game. If you don’t want to play as a group go play Dragon Age or the Witcher.

Soloer: I’m not asking for gear that will allow me to raid, I’m asking for content and gear that will allow me to progress in that solo content. Keep the raid gear for people who raid.

Anyway, as a predominantly solo MMORPG player, I can say that a number of the arguments that the grouper/raider people mustered really fired me up. I hate the fact that because they like group content and raiding and have an outgoing personality that they think everyone who plays these games should want to do the same thing they do. I mean really, the reason people can raid at endgame is because that is what the developers made for them to do. If they created more options perhaps people would enjoy doing something else. As it is now, some people like to do group PvP and not raid, does that make them wrong?

Why can’t there be content at end game that is for the soloer? Not just stuff like crafting (not that I think crafting is unimportant) but real adventuring content. Why can’t there be solo dungeons or exploration zones? Why can’t there be boss battles that are tough to live through; battles that require tactics and something other than pressing 4-3-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1? Why can’t the solo player work really hard and get some cool gear without grinding factions or daily quests?

The answer is plain and simple, there is no good reason.

If developers implemented solo endgame content it could just be another option players have to enjoy the game they want to play. Not the way the raiders/groupers think they should play. I am sick of reading about people telling me how I am supposed to play a game, what build I am supposed to use, or that I am going the “suboptimal” way to accomplish something, noob. Clearly people have me confused with someone else. I pay my $15 a month to enjoy the game however the hell I damn well feel like. Not that I do, but if I wanted to play the game without ever typing a word in the chat box, then that is my prerogative and you have no basis for telling me that I’m wrong.

As far as gear goes:

Should solo end game content give you gear that will allow you to be able to raid?

No

Should raiding give you gear that will allow you to get through the solo end game content?

No

Why can’t they be different?

There is PvP gear and PvE gear, why can’t there be PvE-S and PvE-G gear? Can’t the soloer have elite “Solo gear?”

Sorry for the rant folks, but at the end of the day I want to log into a game and do things when I want and how I want. I don’t want to have to worry about Bill being late for the raid or Cindy having to “AFK for a smoke.” If I have to stop because my wife got a phone call and my daughter kicked my son, I don’t want to interrupt anyone. I have very little free time and the last thing I want to have to do is fit it to a schedule, and even less to another player’s schedule.

Give me a reason to stick around in your game after I reach the cap and I will keep paying you every month. Do you as a developer really care if I am playing the game one way or another? I’m having fun, not bothering anybody, and putting your kids through college. Throw me a bone here will ya?

-Pid

[WoT] A World Apart

Recently I posted about how I felt listless in a sea of meh when it comes to MMORPG’s out there right now.

Then I played World of Tanks.

It is clearly not an MMORPG, but it is an action packed frag-fest that has – it pains me to use this term – RPG elements. You can “level up” and upgrade tanks and whatnot that gives you a little bit of that MMORPG feel without the setting. Anyway, I spent pretty much all my free time, and some of my time that wasn’t supposed to be free time, trying to kill the enemy tanks before they could get me. I have not had this much fun since Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory back in graduate school! Needless to say, if you need a break from the usual, try WoT on for size. You may be impressed!

-Pid

[EQ2] Trades-killin’

I have logged into EQ2 twice since it has risen from its ashes. In that time with the help of rest XP, a Fortune League double XP potion, and the Welcome Back double XP I managed to crank out the last 8 levels on my necromancer’s Scribing tradeskill. Yay me! Sadly, that is about all the interest I have had in playing it. It is sad because this double XP deal will be running out in a little over a week, and I am having a hard time finding the will to log back in. I think I may be suffering from a lack of momentum similar to what TAGN was saying in his post about the topic.

It’s not like I blame SOE per se, but I just had the wind knocked outta my sails and there wasn’t a gale force wind there to begin with. I have found myself playing WoW and I just downloaded World of Tanks for the hell of it. I am listless in a sea of meh. (Sorry, couldn’t help that one.) I am not sure if it is because I have SW:ToR in my sights and I don’t want to invest too much time into anything and get “hooked” on it, or if it is just that I have hit the solo play wall, or if I am dead inside. (Sorry, couldn’t resist that one either.)

When is a game going to come out – not necessarily a MMORPG, but any game – that captivates me and makes me want to play it for months straight without the need for something else. Variety is the spice of life, but I want to have an extended relationship with a game and not have to tell it “It’s me, not you” as I break it off after a couple months. Someone needs to wow me, not necessarily WoW me.

-Pid

Greetings Human

I am writing to inform everyone that Pid no longer exists as he has been assimilated by his new Android phone. As a matter of fact this post comes from said phone with the newly installed WordPress app. Sadly posts in the future will be devoid of human content.

Sincerely,
0111001110110101

Screencap ‘O the Day

I have been playing around a bit with a WoW Death Knight as of late, and I am finding it a bit weird yet cool at the same time. I really do wonder though, how fast does a skeletal dragon have to beat its wings in order to generate enough lift to stay in the  air. I guess I just don’t understand the physics of it all! 😀

-Pid

What if SOE Can’t Recover?

I was thinking about this today and a post by Wilhelm over at TAGN is in a similar vein.

What if Sony decides that it is so far up the creek without a paddle that it needs to close SOE altogether? Honestly I doubt this will happen, but stranger things occur these days. I mean if it can’t open the doors for as much as a month, maybe it will be the straw that breaks the camels back. Seriously, SOE is not doing great these days and this could push them over the brink.

Plenty of subscribers will likely jump ship after this for a variety of reasons. Couple that with the amount of incentives that SOE will have to give out to retain the people that don’t go running away and Sony might just cut its losses and drop the whole thing. Focus on making more overpriced 3D HDTVs and their ilk.

So assuming that this does occur, what then? There will be somewhat of a vacuum left where the SOE lineup was. Obviously it would not be a huge vacuum (i.e. if Blizzard shut its doors), but it would leave a significant hole in the MMORPG landscape. What would fill this hole? Would it be a good thing or a bad thing for the industry?

Sadly, I don’t think it would be a horrible thing for the industry as a whole. Sure all the people who could lose their jobs might argue with me, but overall it might free up the industry to grow. A little pruning might make room for some new shoots and eliminate some dying branches. It might allow for another company to buy the rights for Everquest or one of the other titles and take the franchises into a new direction that SOE was not intending or capable of doing. Some new leadership on existing titles might bring them back from obscurity. If EQ2 had a decent F2P model, I think many more people would play it. What if Turbine bought the rights to the game and worked their freemium magic on the game?

I wish I had a crystal ball to see what this predicament portends for SOE and its games. I wonder what the aftermath will look like. Maybe my ideas are way off base, but then again…

-Pid

The Cheers Effect

Clo lending a helping hand.

It has been a while since I have been actively playing WoW. I had no real intention of going back for the foreseeable future, but SOE’s recent hacker debacle has made playing EQ2 rather difficult. So having an itch to play something, I noticed that I had a game card laying around so I figured “what the heck,” and resubbed to WoW. I really didn’t have anything I wanted to do on my old characters and the now virtually disbanded Walk the Plank guild was not doing anything for me, so I decided to roll a Worgen character to see what that starting area looked like.

Along the way I noticed that Clo (a.k.a. Kaozz) popped online on the Alliance side and I said Hi. She invited me to join the guild she was in and needing a place to hang my hat I accepted. Although I do a lot of solo content, I really forgot how much I really enjoyed being in a guild where there is an active banter in the chat window and where someone is sure to say hello when you log in. You may never run into them “face-to-face,” but you hear from them all the time. I referred to this as the Cheers effect when I was talking to Kaozz and I really forgot how much this makes a difference to a game.

This experience also made me realize just how lonely my time in EQ2 is/was. I don’t regret being a virtual hermit; however, it really did make it obvious how much I was missing. Even if you don’t like to raid, group, or talk to other sentient life forms you are really missing out on a lot of what the MMO in MMORPG has to offer if you don’t have at least a couple of people around who “know your name.” Remember that the next time Lolapaladin or Eyecdedppl logs in, be sure to say heya. It truly does matter.

-Pid

PS Happy mother’s day to all the mothers out there; in whatever capacity you mother!

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

Shae Vizla

My wife walked in the door the other day with a package in her hand. I assumed it was something she ordered because I wasn’t expecting anything. She shoved it towards me and I was puzzled. It clearly had my name written on it. It wasn’t ticking…always a good sign. 🙂

So I opened it up to have this little darling staring me in the face. Hello Shae! I had ordered this thing so long ago that I had completely forgot about it. Anyway it is a limited edition figurine of the bounty hunter that appears in the Deceived SW:ToR trailer. Only 900 of these were made, and mine is #480. Not too bad. Anyway, amidst all the MMO grief I have been experiencing, this was a bit of coolness.

-Pid

A Comedy of Errors [EQ2] [WoW]

C’mon!

I can’t win for trying it seems.

I decided to relax a bit with a leisurely play style and focus on a single MMO until SW:ToR is released. I really plan to throw myself at that game. I decided that EQ2 was the place for me for the time being. My main character is very solo friendly, I can craft when I don’t want to adventure, and I can decorate my house when I don’t want to do any of that. I have been playing when I feel like it and not feeling guilty when I don’t log in. It was a great match for my play style at the current time.

Then Sony gets hacked.

I am not pleased in the least about my personal info being stolen, but I can mostly forgive SOE for it. Nothing is safe these days it seems. I am simply frustrated that the course of action that I have chosen, and was quite happy with, is not viable at the moment. Not only have I had my pants pulled down by the hackers, but SOE managed to punch me in the junk to boot. I want to do the only thing in my power to do at this point and unsubscribe from EQ2, but stupid me paid for a year sub. It seemed like a good idea considering the decisions I had made about being a monogamist MMO gamer.

To add insult to injury, I decided that I would use a WoW game card I had sitting in the drawer and play some Warcraft today. Oh yeah, I forgot Tuesdays are server maintenance days that last until I get ready to go to work. You know work, that thing that honest people do to make money. Not scam it out of people by hacking their accounts. I have very little free time these days, and I really can’t stand the fact that I have to jump through these hoops to try and do what I want to do with it.

Perhaps the people that hacked this did it just for fun. Well, I hope that the folks that investigate this find them, and then send them to prison. Just for fun of course.

-Pid