Your Place in the World of Warcraft.

I was reminded of why I love this game this weekend.

    World of Warcraft seems to have a niche for every single player.  There is opportunity for players who just want to log on, see the story of the expansion and log off.  There is room for those who want to run dungeons, raids, and PVE content all day long.  If you like to level characters, and play different classes to keep your experience more fresh, there is a place for you as well.  Even those of you who like to PVP and cut your teeth against other players can log into the world, shed some virtual blood and log out.

    And we can all experience this on the same platform, generally without having to worry about what the folks in the other bubbles are doing.  There is of course a lot of crossover.  Some people like to touch all aspects of the game, others like their own little corner and there is nothing wrong with either approach.  I prefer light PVE and leveling myself.

    This weekend I tanked a couple of Mythics for the first time.  (Well there was that one other time...) I really hadn't dipped my toe in yet, and was pleasantly surprised to find out they weren't all that bad.  Of course we were going for level one, no stone, so it was roughly equivalent to heroics in the last couple of expansions.  Haven't not done much of this however, I found it rather enjoyable and will be looking at tanking some more soon.

    This once again makes me wonder about what my particular role is right now.  I have not been playing consistently with much focus.  My horde rogue has actually gotten more attention lately than the rest of my characters, but I have tried not to ignore my Pally.  With the time investment required by artifact weapons, I don't see myself working seriously on another toon soon.  I do want to finish the class hall campaign for my demon hunter however, though I have fallen slightly out of love with her.  Which is kind of sad to me, because it's the class I've wanted forever but I find it somewhat lacking, but I can't explain why.

     By the end of the expansion I would like to find the time to play through all the different class hall campaigns.  (I probably won't but a guy can dream) I want to see the story wrapped in each and see how it effects the overall layout of what is going on. I want to experience the changes in all the classes and the specs I like to play.  Blizzard was wise to give each class it's own story this time around.  It makes people want to play multiple classes despite the new hurdles to doing so.  It makes a bit of the leveling experience different each time.  Which is good, because leveling multiple characters otherwise feel repetitive through each zone.

    What is your role in World of Warcraft and how do you play?  What drags you to your keyboard and into a virtual world?  I know I eventually want to get to raiding again.  I don't know if I will raid lead after this point, but I do miss the team dynamic of taking things down together.  Heck, one of my big frustrations is that I have to do some normal raids to go further into my artifact weapon quest line.  Gate like that are frustrating when you don't have the time to commit to a regular raid team, and if it wasn't partially a lore thing I wouldn't care.  But as it furthers the story I find it highly annoying.

    What do you all think?

Lag.

If you would like to support Ben Marble and his devious plans to teach penguins to polka consider buying one of his short stories at Amazon.com including his new short, "The Trap."

The Wheel Keeps Turnin'

And the players keep playing.

     We are in the middle of many changes for World of Warcraft.  Content is flowing like never before, developers and keeping even the static content such as world quests flowing and changing.  There are more ways to get rewards and develop your character than ever before, and it feels like the world is full and populated with other players again.

    So the question becomes, looking forward how can Blizzard keep up this momentum?

    New and fresh ideas need to keep coming.  We know what the near future holds.  We are going to get mini-holidays, three full tiers of raids, and more throughout the expansion.  We are going to eventually go to Argus and take the Legion on their home ground, and we are going to have fully powered artifact weapons that we have spent hours on while doing so.  At the end, we will be looking at 8.0.  The next expansion.  And yes, it is a little soon but I am wondering what will come next.

     I don't think we will have another Legion based expansion after this.  It will probably be old God based, or maybe we will have to deal with Bolvar as the Lich King.  He has obviously changed in the role he now inhabits.  Whether he is truly on our side or not, defeating the Legion was probably in his best interest.  Whatever those interests are... I am not sure it will be in the living's favor.

     We could also find other stuff in the universe.  What about exploring the remains of the titan's homeworld(s).  We could have an outer space adventure that is completely different from anything we have seen before.  We may not beat Azshara this go round, and if so the naga may be something we have to deal with on a larger scale.  If she pairs up with the old Gods then it might be a bigger struggle.

    There might even be something new, something we cause if we defeat the Legion, because nature abhors a vacuum.  If they are gone, what will take their place?

     What features will the future hold?  We already have an option for Horde and Alliance to be mercenaries in PVP, will we eventually be able to blur the lines while raiding?  Will we see the end of the faction divide eventually as it ceases to make sense as we keep having to fight these bigger enemies?  Players are still, and will always, ask for guild housing or player housing, will Blizzard give in eventually?  If so how will that look?

     What do you all think the future holds?  How long do you think the game will go on?  I firmly believe if they keep releasing content like we have now, it is possible, not necessarily probable, that WoW could hit twelve million again.  What would that be like?  And would Blizzard even tell us?

So fellow players, what do you think?

Lag.

If you would like to support Ben Marble and his fear of drunken line dancing, please consider purchasing one of his short stories at Amazon.com

 

My Warcraft and Waning Passion.

This is something I think about a bit.

      What is the drive to run around in Azeroth swinging a big sword in a virtual environment?  I will be honest, I have tried other MMOs, but none have been able to pull me in like World of Warcraft has.

     Of course, I pushed myself to get into this at the beginning.  It was something my siblings where doing that looked interesting.  Many first toons where created and deleted as I leveled and played around.  As a matter of fact, if I hadn't been this way my first main character would have been a warlock.  Or a rogue.  Those where the two classes That interested me the most at first.

     Then I decided to try a gnome mage.  Pyreknight was born and leveled as fire.  He didn't level cap until Burning Crusade was live, but he was the first character that I kept pushing until he made that far.  When I got there I was able to learn to dungeon it was with the help of me brudderplaying his then warrior Llyria as a tank.  Gwen would heal on her druid, Me, my wife, and my brother-in-law would dps on rogue, mage, and hunter.  There was a lot of stumbling and figuring things out as we went.  But it was good times.

     About the end of Burning Crusade, beginning of Wrath is the first time I think the story actually started mattering to me.  Before that it was going in, lighting stuff on fire, and getting out was my game.  I was going into fights not caring about backstory or why this big dude in front of me deserved a fireball to the face, or an arrow as my hunter Lazyeye eventually started to take over being my main.  I just cared about the fun of the fight.

    Arthas changed that.  I knew his name, I'd played a little bit of Warcraft III and now I had a villain I was a little familiar with.  I started paying attention to what was going around me and the who and why of things.  I bought Warcraft III and played through to get a grasp on the "what happened before."  Then when our tank defected from the raid team I power leveled a DK to learn to tank on to keep us going.  (Quick note, the tank defecting was not my brother.)  The dose of story in the DK gave that character a little bit more meaning to me.  However, in Trial of the Champions I got sick of the fact my DK would just die in three hits with some bad RNG from the boss, and I started leveling Lag.  My mostly main ever since.

    Lag had started out as a joke.  He was a dwarf who would get into trade and complain about how nobody like "Lag" and all he ever wanted to be was loved.  It was fun to see people virtually roll their eyes at the bad joke my character was.  He would even get mad and say things like "lag has killed more players in this game then you ever will..."

     Not liking the animations of dwarfs (and lets be honest, they aren't that great to look at) I rerolled as a human.  This time leveling I payed attention to the dialog of the quests.  I made sure I understood what was going on around me.  The story was important.  I refused to leave areas until I finished their quests and I still managed to climb quickly to a point where I could take over for my DK as the tank.  Lag was geared and ready before we stepped into the bastion of ICC.

    Since that time the story had driven my passion as much as the game play itself.  While I love my guildies, I am mostly a solo player.  I enjoy a good raid, but I enjoy just leveling and poking at things on my own quite a bit too.  I have a bit of social anxiety in the game as I have a hard time getting to know new players, or trying new groups because it just makes me nervous.  This is why I have characters in AIE and Convert to raid, but I don't talk much.  I just listen to what people have to say and pay attention.  I haven't grouped much with either guild as well because I just haven't gotten that comfortable in there.

    Warlords has strained my passion a lot as well.  I feel the endgame story has been severely lacking compared to what we saw in Pandaria and it has effected my desire to play.  I felt there was not clear drive going into Highmaul.  We are going to fight ogres.  Cool, why?  Iron horde member is in there.  Well we killed him first, why not leave?  Story wise while the Ogres where a threat, they didn't feel like something we needed to completely focus on.  When we went to the Blackrock Foundry and decided to kill Blackhand that felt more like it.  We where fighting Iron horde and this felt important to the story.

     But we were not getting story outside of the raid.  The legendary quest involved us having to raid.  The dailies and garrison quests where all the stuff we where doing from the start of the raid cycle.  There was the weekly garrison quest, but once you finished that, then what?

      When the current raid Hellfire Citadel dropped I was looking forward to more.  Tanaan Jungle here we come!

       But all we got was a drop.

      There was a quick shipyard quest which soon became more dailies to manage that was just clicking a button, oh and this time you can be punished by not succeeding and you can lose that ship you worked so hard to level up.  Ha Ha.

     Tanaan Jungle had little story in it to me as well.  Cool, we are here.  We have a base, and now... now just sit there and hope something interesting happens.  Oh, you've explored everything.  Well at least you have the raid.  You wanted storyline?  Raid.

      No isle of thunder where different objectives unlocked things.  No Krasarang wilds where we where involved in an unfolding story line as we brought our armies to a new land.  Nothing to pull me in for more then a few hours of grinding.

      Needless to say my passion for this game has waned a bit.  Going back to school and having less time hasn't helped.  I am looking forward to Legion but if the story is left on the ground like this, I will continue to struggle.  I won't quit.  I have my guild and my friends.  Logging on to do extra things though, we will see.

     I have high hopes because Cataclysm which was largely complained about led us into Pandaria which is my second favorite expansion, after Wrath.

      There will be other challenges as well.  With my new job raid nights are going to shift to Monday, and Tuesday night.  The other nights I'm going to be working.  That means another shift and another hope that folks will be able to shift as well.  School is going to be a thing for me for at least another year.  That means my time is cut down significantly.

     Blizzard, I love your game.  Please draw me back in again.  Give me more than one or two NPCs I can care about, (Bye Yrell) and let me have the story outside the raid.  Feel important to me.

Lag.