Blizzard Needs a Different Approach.

I love Blizzard entertainment.

      Honestly, if they weren't in a place so crowded as California and I thought I had the talent my goal someday would be to work for them in some capacity.  Everyone I have met from the company, the way the love their own games, and the quality they aim for all impresses me.  They make me happy.

     Now I know that all seem contrary to the comment I made above.  I mean, I'm sitting here fan boying a bit, and you know I'm a fan since I run this blog, but my title implies something different.  The truth is after my last post on flying in Legion my mind has been on the big flight controversy in Warlords.

     I stated at the time and I will state it again.  I'm a firm believer that the biggest issue with the announcement of no flying was the way in which it was handled.  At the beginning of the expansion we were told flying would be added in a later patch, and then right before the final patch there is an interview where (I believe it was Hozzikostas) casually mentioned they had decided not to implement flying.  And the roar from the fans shook Azeroth.  Or at least Draenor.

     Much of the problem was with the way they presented it.  This should have been something aimed directly at the fans.  A post or a video you click on in you Blizzard loader that has Hozzikostas, or Metzen, or one of the other recognizable heads address the community head on and say "hey, we have decided to removing flying, and this is why..."  Instead having it said in the interview made it feel like it was something Blizzard was hiding and that it may have been a slip.  It raised the question, "If they hadn't said it here, would they have said it at all?"

     I admit to having a short term memory, because I don't remember many other outroars that were that big.  I know there was the moment when Blizzard decided to post on the forums your real name would be shown, but beyond that, nothing.

    It does feel however that when it comes to Warcraft we are not getting as much communication as we used to. I remember there being blue posts and messages constantly through other betas/alphas but both the betas for Draenor and Legion have felt quiet.  After Warlords dropped it felt a lot like Blizzards focus was on their other games.  I believe it's part of the shift where World or Warcraft used to be Blizzard's #1 property, and now we are sharing the spotlight.  It however does not feel good when it feels the focus has gone away and it leaves people wondering.

     Here is where I give some suggestions to Blizzard (I know, I'm a short fat dude and they have no reason to listen to me.  I'm going to speak anyway.)

    First of all, next time you have a decision that may be controversial take a moment and discuss it with the community rather than just making the decision.  The flight issue would have been mitigated by a lot if there had been some threads in the forums by blues saying "This is what we want to do and this is why, but we want your opinions."  Yes I know there would be a lot of whining and pointless crap to sift through, but you could also take the pulse and get the feedback from the community before making a change.  If it's something that would effect flying or another major mechanic you have given us, hold an open discussion with your fans.

    My other piece of advice could work for all your games.  Make sure you are talking to all your fan bases on a regular basis.  I don't know if having a monthly update on the state of the game is the way to go, but fight the feeling the community gets of, "well, we are in Alpha, I've got months before the next expansion and Blizzard doesn't care, I mean they are focused on Overwatch."  Make sure the doors of Blizzard tower feel open.  Find ways to communicate that you do care.  There is a reason that there is a #threetiersinthreeyears hashtag.  It's painful, but there it is. Warcraft needs to continue to feel like it's important to you as well as the community.  Long silences get interpreted by the community as you don't care.  Even though I know for myself that is not the truth.

    I know it seems over simple.  But this is a relationship we have with you Blizzard.  Like any relationship, you need to let the important people know you think they are important.  Otherwise overtime you loose them.

    Anyway, until next time.

Lag.

Flying into Legion.

It wasn't long ago we had "Flightgate" in Warlords of Draenor.

     Now let's be fair here.  There was little or no doubt after the community explosion over flying in Warlords that we would be getting flying Legion.  I myself am a fan of flying, but as I stated earlier, if it was removed from future expansions it wouldn't be a game breaker for me.  I think there are valid arguments on both sides, but that isn't the issue at hand.

     It was revealed that when patch 7.0 drops you will have your requirements for flying in Legion.  Like in Warlords it will be an achievement based.  What the achievement will be, I think it's pretty easy to guess.

     Plan on finishing all the main quest lines in all the areas relevant to your faction.  One of the main reasons Blizzard wanted to remove flying was to make sure everyone experienced the content in a good grounded fashion.  This meant not flying over mobs to kill the main baddy in a quest or skipping important content.  They are going to want you to experience the world in a way you have to interact with it.

     Plan on having reputation with factions.  This is where I pray faction reputation isn't the grindfest that it was in Warlords.  I never bothered focusing on any this last expansion because there were no rewards worth wasting my time pounding mobs.  The only factions that mattered to me were in Tanaan Jungle simply because that was how I had to earn flying.  Other than that I simply didn't care. This time around I hope that doing all the quests gets you most of the faction rep you need, otherwise I see this as a point of whining contention from some members of the community.

      Plan on doing class quests.  Part of getting flying on Draenor was the garrison quest lines and the dailies from there.  I would expect there will be some sort of quest line, maybe given on a weekly basis, that you have to finish to get flying, along with daily achievements.

    Don't plan on getting flying in the first patch.  From what has been seen the achievement thus far is part 1.  I do believe they mentioned on Convert to Raid that finishing part one will give you a speed increase on your ground mounts, but you won't get flying just yet.  This is going to be one of those things that we are probably going to get a few months into the game at the earliest.  I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they didn't release flying until the last patch of the expansion again.  I hope not, but it's possible.  This also means I won't be leveling as many alts initially as I normally do.  I like the ease of flying/questing when I've already seen the story.

    I do have some questions though.  Say they release flying earlier in the expansion.  Is it going to include all of our alts again? Or just the character who earned it?  I hope it will effect all of our alts but since in Draenor it was introduced at the end of the expansion, I could see Blizzard implementing it another way, and then opening it up to include all your alts later.

    What will happen with those who didn't earn flying in Draenor.  Obviously after the expansion ends people aren't going to want to hang around and earn the achievement for the most part.  There are exceptions here, but if you have a friend who gets the game and starts playing now, that means if you want to go run retroactive dungeons in Draenor with him, he is going to have to walk.  I am honestly hoping they open up flying in Draenor to everyone when Legion drops.  Or at least make it included if you get the Legion achievement.  I don't think this is a big deal, but it's a question I feel is at least worth asking.

   So, anything I miss or anything that needs to be added to this discussion?  Post below.

Lag.

Legion: From Alpha to Beta

So, as you have heard the Blizzard Beta is opening soon for Legion.

     Blizzard has officially closed off the Legion Alpha, and tomorrow as long as there are no unforeseen circumstances Legion Beta will be opening.

     Now, I've been vocal before on my opinion that the Alpha felt a lot like the Beta to me.  There was as expected a lot of unfinished business to play through.  Bugs and broken things.  However, it didn't take long to feel like it just needed to be polished from the little bit I played through. Now I have to admit that I didn't play far or extensively.  But I really think that a large  part of what Blizzard called Alpha would have been Beta in past expansions.

      So now the gates are opening to a larger crowd.  More folks to test what Blizzard has built so far.  This means that there is a lot of confidence on their part they are getting close to a finished product.  I am imagining a month or two of Beta as they start to put some meat on the bones of their product, and then Anywhere from end of June to end of July the pre-patch will drop.  I would love to say end of June, and of course other Betas recently in Warlords and Pandaria  the patch betas seemed to last about a month or so, but there is more work to be done here than in a standard beta for a patch.  While I would like to think we are getting our pre-expansion content sooner than later, I would put more money on later.

       What does that mean for us now?  Watch your email to see if your invited in for the Beta.  Be aware that there are scam artists out there that will be banking on folk clicking links in emails or signing up through such links.  Don't forget your internet safety.  If you get an invite check it out through your battle.net account.  Don't let excitement push you into something you regret.  Don't trust any Beta keys unless they are given through a reliable source.  Even then, make sure you don't fill out anything or click on any links.  Just take said key, if received and enter it in at the battle.net site.

     We are finally approaching the doorstep to the new expansion.  Very soon we will be breaking forth and fighting the Legion once again.  After that, who knows.  I have a guess from reading the book Illidan where we may go next.  Of course, at the same time I don't think the possibilities offered  would be great for the next expansion.  We need to have differences in expansions and the paths offered there would be a definite similar note if they followed those branches immediately. I think it will more likely be a second trip to Northrend as there is the Bolvar as Lich King and that story line I feel will need to be explored before we go  on anymore outer space adventures.

     So with three months left I'm going to work on getting my characters to that level 100 mark.  I want to have my options in line when the next expansion drops.  I am debating swapping to Demon Hunter as a main, but Lag will still probably get leveled first, as he is and has been my main unless there is a good reason to swap right away.

    So, what is everyone else's plans?

Lag

     

In and Beyond Legion

So, looking forward here.

       I've been openly critical of some of the things coming in Legion, I have also been happily optimistic over others.  This here is what I'm hoping that Blizzard will focus on a bit in Legion, and beyond.  I know this won't be the last expansion, If you have read the book Illidan I would hazard a guess from the end on where we will be going next.  however, let's take a quick look at what I want.

     Story is a big thing for me.  The last couple of expansions have been amazing (mostly) on story.  Pandaria was probably the expansion that sticks in my mind the most as a great example of story telling.  There wasn't a raid from Mogu'shan vaults, to Siege of Ogrimmar that had us wondering why we where there.  Story was given over the course of the expansion in good doses.  This made the expansion feel constantly fresh and interesting.  Every major patch had a minor event or something you interacted with that made what you character felt like what they did mattered.  This is what we need more of in Wow, this is what made Warlords feel so flat.  There was nothing outside of your garrsion in Warlords to interact with after the first bit.  Well, there was Tanaan jungle, but it was more of run around than participate in a story.

      I want more meaningful story in Legion and here on out.  Use Pandaria as your template.  I've said this before, but from the slow opening of the Isle of Thunder to Krasarang Wilds and landing your army everything you did felt driven and purposeful.  They lost that magic this last expansion, and I hope they see that and figure out how to fix this.

     Speaking of storylines, I want to see the different factions move and evolve.  Blizzard has a tendency to introduce a race and then just leave them there... in limbo.  I mean, what has been the major change for the Worgen since the beginning of Cataclysm?  Nothing.  Goblins, Worgen, Blood Elves, most of the races stay static.  Even the old races.  Forsaken, Dwarves, most of them feel like there are little advance behind the lines but there isn't much progress.

      Every now and then we get to retake gnomergon, or some such, but those events are rare.  Personally as a Forsaken I would be really worried since if we ever defeat the Legion, and the new Lich King/Scourge, and the Old Gods in the world, what then becomes what is most likely to destroy and threaten life on Azeroth?  I'm looking at you undead.  Unless something changes to give your race a place in the world you are poised to be the next big bad.  Even to most of the horde races.  Good luck with that...

     I want to see leaders and heroes step down without being corrupted and dying.  I would love to see a grey haired Varian Wrynn living peacefully in retirement while Anduin rules Stormwind.  However, in Wow everyone has to have a heroic death.  (O.k. there are a few exceptions.  Looking at you Saurfang) If they don't have that they have a tendency to be corrupted and go mad.  I'm hoping that in Legion Illidan will get a good redemption story arc, because lets be honest.  The reason people worry about Jaina Proudmore becoming a villain is because when a character in Wow is faced with personal tragedy and they get mad, they tend to slip down the villain path.

      I want a cast of side characters that stay with us.  Seeing the members of SI:7 re-appear in Warlords was nice for me.  Even though it was only a glimpse here and there it was nice to see familiar faces from Pandaria.  I would love to continually see some NPCs that go everywhere with us.  Along with characters that don't just disappear after being majorly important in an expansion.  I will be giddy with joy if I take Lag to the Paladins Class hall and Yrell is there.  Yes, we should have left her back in old Dreanor, but I don't see us just closing the portals off and pretending it doesn't exist at this point.  (I'm still for Blizzard blowing it up slowly and having us absorb the refugees that make it to Azeroth before every things gone so we can use the important characters some more)

     Last but not least, I want some new enemies.  The Legion, Orcs, and Undead are fine but one of the things that made Pandaria stand out was the Sha.  (Yes it was Old God essence, but still) Having a new threat that didn't resemble what came before was awesome.   So many enemies in Pandaria felt new and fresh that I think part of the issue we are having is that a lot of bosses lose their uniqueness when it's all orcs and ogres, all the time.  Give me Klaxxi (still want them as a playable race by the way) give us Mogu and Sha and all sorts of things we haven't seen.  Don't retread ground.

These are the things I'm hoping for not just next expansion, but going forward.

What do you all want?

Lag

Illidan- A book review.

So, I read the book Illidan by William King.  And of course I have opinions.

There may be spoilers... so quit now if you don't like 'em

Serious, spoilers ahead.  IF you read, your own fault

Spoilers.

Alright then.

     So, for those who haven't read my blog much, or haven't heard me rant, Illidan to me is one of my favorite villains in Wow.  however, I have never seen him as a villain.  To me, with the lore I've read and playing World of Warcraft III I've always felt he got forced into the position he inhabits by his own people continually turning their back on him.  Yes, he make questionable decisions, but he also made some pretty big personal sacrifices as well.  

     He infiltrated the burning legion for his people, loses eyes, gains power, but is punished by his people for taking the wrong side.  I can't defend his choice to make another Well of Eternity in Hyjal, that was a complete power play.  I also don't think his being locked up for 10,000 years by his own people was a good decision either.  I think in that case the Betrayer was betrayed.

    Then in Warcraft three he is freed and fights the burning Legion for his people despite their incarceration of him.  Of course he is a bitter character at this point.  When he takes the power and transformation for the skull of Guldan to fight the burning legion more effectively he is again punished by his own people.  Once again you can argue whether this was a "good" decision. Whether it was or not he continues to fight against the Legion and in the end is rewarded with exile.

    After that his decisions are not very good, but I feel everything after that point would have been different if his people had treated him as a hero who had helped them defeat the Legion rather than acting as if he had betrayed them again.  Which, I would argue he didn't.

    This book takes place after this, right after he has first arrived in Outland after he was rescued from Maev.  It details what happens between that point and when we killed him in black temple.  It gives some insight into his motivations, why he made some of the choices he did and what Illidan's goals were.  It also somewhat explains why he wasn't very present as we moved through that expansion unlike Arthas who popped up every other moment in Lich King.  Simply put, he was focused elsewhere.

     His motivation in this book is simple.  He wants to find a way to take the fight to the burning legion rather than waiting for them to come for him.  While he makes several decisions in this book that would be defined as evil (creating fel Orcs, sacrificing souls for power) over all his interests align with ours.  Making me think, once again if he hadn't been exiled, things would have been different. Then again he is so obsessed with his goal he might have done similar things on Azeroth.

    You basically get four point of view characters in this book.  Vandal, a demon hunter that allows you to see the Demon Hunter process, Maev who is, well Maev, and Akama.  Out of the four unfortunately for me I felt Vandal had the most interesting story arc.  In a book named Illidan it should have been Illidan but instead If felt the "sidekick" was a little more interesting.

    That brings me to my first complaint.  This books is really serious to the point of making it dry.  You have Illidan who is very serious, Maev who is essentially a female version of Illidan in seriousness and obsessiveness, Vandal whose also driven by revenge and seriousness, and then Akama, once again very serious.  We needed someone or something to put some bright points in the book or some levity.  Instead it is all a dark crawl to the end page.

    My second complaint is there is underutilized side characters in here.  Prince Kael'thas and Lady Vashj are in there on the side, but have no real interesting dialog or even part in the book. They kind of show up in the beginning, then are mentioned a few times on the side.  Maev has her small contingent of night elves, but even the two main ones (I forget their names, they were that important) never get a moment to shine.  Those two should have been built up so when they are killed later you actually care rather then going, um... ok, I'm over it.

     My third complaint is this book should have been longer.  Instead of digging into details it feels it gives you a quick path of what happened with Illidan in outland.  They could have dug in and gone into greater detail in several places.  They could have build more character into several folks but instead we get just enough to tell the story.  I feel there is a lost opportunity here.

     That aside I did enjoy this book.  I found seeing Illidan's point of view on things interesting as he amassed power in Outland.  He does have several choices that do put him in the villain box including betraying Akama and planning on torturing Maev when she's captured at the end.  He had a definite "the means justify the ends" problem.   At the same time you see his motivation is that he has seen the Legion for what it is.  He has seen the fate of the worlds they have destroyed and he is driven in a desire to stop them before they lay waste to Azeroth.  His belief of course is that the only way to do that is to go defeat them on their home turf, rather than waiting for them to show up and invade.

    I enjoyed that right before the end there is a promise of redemption shown to him, not that he believed it was possible.  We of course know he's coming back (if you've played the Alpha you know a little more about why)  I for one, want to replay the Demon hunter campaign and look for a couple of names now.  I am pretty sure after reading this book he will be on our side completely, if not trusted by the rest of our leaders.

My rating on this book is 3 of 5 stars.  It's good and worth reading, just don't get your expectations up for something new or a thrill ride.  If you don't play World of Warcraft, I would look up know your lore articles from Matt Rossi or Anne Stickney on Illidan before reading so you know the background that will help this book make sense.

Please note, this is the first World of Warcraft novel I have read.  I have a couple in may stack but I moved this one to the front because of Legion's approach.

Lag

Legion Has a Date, Death of Vanilla.

First big news, Legion has it's release date.

   We will all be grabbing our swords and girding up our loins for battle on August 30th 2016.  A little over half a month before their released by date of Sept. 23rd.  This I believe is a good thing.  I'm a little surprised they are announcing it at this point, the game is still in Alpha but hey, I trust they know what they are doing.  And I'll be honest, I think a lot of the Alpha has served the purpose the Beta has in past expansions.  I think the only reason they are calling it an Alpha and not a Beta is to keep folks from making assumptions about how far along the game cycle is.

     This means folks I haven't seen in a while in game will be coming back together.  We will be gathering up our forces and hitting the raids and hopefully downing a few baddies along the way.  I really want to hop in on a Demon Hunter... The class has been fun to play around with, but Lag may still be my main just for consistency sake.

    I am hoping, as they said this would be a longer pre-patch then other expansions this means we will get our 7.0 drop in June.  That is a month and a half away for those who are counting.  While I think the overall game won't be ready by then, I could see the class specs and other such things being ready to ship at that point.  I imagine if you prebought the game, Demon Hunters might be released at that point too.

    The other news is the fact Blizzard shut down a big private Vanilla server.  Nostalrius was a server based on the original implementation of the game that was being run outside of Blizzard's purview, and Blizzard finally stepped in and shut it down.  Now fans are up in arms over this, and there is now a petition going around for Blizzard to open up a Vanilla realm of their own for players to play on.  Which is fine.  What is not fine is the uproar.

     I'm sorry, a private server using someone else's technology and code is illegal.  Yes, I'm sure it was nice to have a Vanilla server to play on, but you are playing on code that was stolen from Blizzard so if they step up and say "No!" you have no ground to stand on.

    If I befriended Brandon Sanderson, got ahold of one of his first drafts of Mistborn, and started selling it I would be stealing his intellectual property.  (Now, to be fair I'm not sure anyone was making a profit off Nostralrius) He would have the right to sue me for distributing what wasn't a finished, or optimum work even if I left his name on it.  The fact Blizzard just shut these guys down, but doesn't seem to be making a bigger smack down, which I'm sure they could, is points to them.

    That being said, if you want to petition Blizzard for a Vanilla server I'm behind that.  Go play a Vanilla server for a while.  Other than the fact you will be forced to build a stronger community to find groups etc... you will also be reminded of the grinding and pain.  But I would love for Blizzard to host a couple of servers of pre-iterations of World of Warcraft.  That would be cool.

Anyway, that is my rantings for this Week.

Lag.

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.