Friday night in America - as I remember it and therefore we assume is fact - is a night for games. Entertainment in general, as some people prefer the non-combative plays and movies and concerts over competitive endeavors, but primarily games.
Every high school in America that has 11 healthy lads fields a football team and they take assault the turf to beat or be beaten by the opposing squad. Friday night is also a popular night for boxing matches, basketball games, and anything else competitive that can be done after a quick dinner and before a night hopping bars.
Friday night is celebratory. It's exercise and liberation and jubilation and competition and showboating and flirting and drinking and relaxation. It's an after-lunch game of hoops, an after-work game of darts, an after-dinner game of scrabble, an all-night wargamer session of Squad Leader or the Longest Day.
Online games have communities, and there are some people who vastly prefer to spend their Friday night online instead of on the town. Some guilds schedule their raids for Friday nights because they don't do things with friends IRL, at least they have no need to participate in the dating scene that usually accompanies these events, so they celebrate with a beer in cyberspace and relax with friends by raiding Icecrown.
So things can get a little messy on Friday nights in Warcraft. People can get a little emotional or odd and do things they wouldn't ordinarily do, unexplained and bizarre behavior. People who are mild-mannered might suddenly ninja something. A notorious skinflint might start handing out gold. Guilds can suddenly explode (this especially). Friday has some heightened expectations to it because, especially for the younger single folk, there is the feeling that if they weren't logged in then possibly there was something more significant waiting for them IRL they could have done that would lead them to find the person of the desirable sex that they could get addlepated with and wake up with on a confusing Saturday morning.
So if your raids fail on a Friday and your guild has a backlog of angst, you might be headed for a split. If your friends don't log on and you level/gear past them you might end up running with a different crowd. If there's no one on that you know at all and you're bored, you might end up rerolling completely to meet people and try something new.
But there's a hidden energy there, on Friday night. You want to win and earn an upgrade, a trophy, a title or mount, and ride slowly through Stormwind so everyone can see it.
And they'll say "Hey dude, very nice mount."
And you'll say "Yeah, pretty cool, ain't it?"
And maybe that cute elf in the corner will see you in your position of esteem and you can sneak over later and buy her an ale. It's Friday night, anything could happen.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Remembering my first time
Misleading title FTW! If I took a poll of WarCraft players and asked them if the character they play the most is the first character they played, I would guess that the result would be somewhere around 20%. The people on the forums are more devoted and exploratory than the common player and are more likely to be playing a 2nd or 3rd choice (or more). The ordinary player usually picks one character and runs with it, for better or worse.
My first character ever was a Tauren Warrior named Glue on Khadgar server. I got the game one weekend and started playing and didn't expect much. It turned out to be far more interesting than I expected, and the Barrens was a relaxing place to play and it made the whole game feel gigantic. I got him up to level 20, and then recruited a couple of RL friends to play the game and I re-rolled so we could all start together. We wanted to be able to group early on, so we limited our choices to Orcs and Trolls. One picked Orc Warrior, one picked Troll Hunter, and figuring that we might need a healer eventually, I picked a Troll Priest. This ended up being my first main, Kadoo.
Back in vanilla warriors were pretty durable, and could do some ok damage. Hunters were lol-easy to level (send out your pet, shoot the target once, wait, loot, repeat). Priests on the other hand - and holy priests especially, as I was specced - were the nexus point for everything that was difficult about leveling at the time. I wore cloth, so I took lots of damage. I could cast a shield on myself, but it only lasted for a few hits before it was broken down, and my DPS was a total joke. Using wands back then was almost impossible because they didn't autofire, you had to click on it each time you wanted it to cast. My offensive spells were limited and did terrible damage and ate up a lot of mana, so I was drinking after each pull. It took forever to level, and my friend the hunter was always complaining about how slow I was.
But the group situations almost made up for it. We found a couple to play with - another hunter and a mage - and the five of us did all of the 5-man dungeons together. I remember very clearly going into Blackrock Depths the first time as a level 48 priest (still lagging behind the DPSers in levels) and trying to heal our 5-man party through the mob pulls. Our warrior wasn't an expert (who was back then, really?) so occasionally the hunters would pull aggro and I would keep them alive until they could find the feign death buttons, and then the aggro would dump on to me. I was running everywhere, trying to fade and occasionally fear and toss heals and keep my ass alive on every pull. It was a nightmare, but it was fun at the same time. I died many many times and quickly memorized the ghost run from Thorium Point to Blackrock Mountain.
I might still be playing the character, but two things happened that shaped the way I play now. First, we had a bit of a zerg guild. We were inviting people left and right into the Orgrimmar Outcasts, and some of the people were really obnoxious. Eventually I got fed up with guild chat and started kicking people out. It was a real power-trippy moment, and I'm not proud of it, but when I logged in every day and these morons would beg me to heal them through things and then not be civil in guild chat, it eventually spilled over.
The second thing that happened was we had decided to pug with a couple of other guilds and go to Molten Core to clear some trash to farm materials for fire resist gear. I ended up being the only healer in a 40-man MC raid. If you've never played a healer before you don't understand that they tend to feel a little responsible for the health of the people they group with, and sometimes they even take it personally when someone dies. Well, I got to watch 40 health bars go from 100 to 0 and I spammed out as much healing as I could before the raid wiped. It was a horrible experience.
The realization set in that since I was an easy kill in PvP at the time, my only role was to heal other people while they did fun things and got the glory. Meanwhile the best I could hope for was to get better gear... to heal other people with... while they had even more fun. About a week later I deleted my priest and left the guild to play a mage. Some months later I asked a GM to undelete it, but I really didn't want to play it anymore. There was just no appreciation for healers, and they could barely even farm to get gold for repair bills because back then healing power was different than spell power and didn't help us kill things. It was awful. Anyone who says they long for the days of old vanilla WoW and the way things used to be: Shut the hell up. The game is much better now. I wouldn't wish the life of a vanilla WoW healer on anyone.
I still have that Troll Priest around somewhere, and he eventually made it to level 72, but he's associated with so much past pain that I never want to play him again. I might roll a priest again but I'll never go back to him. He represents the way the game used to be and the playstyle of vanilla WoW and I'm happy to put both him and it behind me.
My first character ever was a Tauren Warrior named Glue on Khadgar server. I got the game one weekend and started playing and didn't expect much. It turned out to be far more interesting than I expected, and the Barrens was a relaxing place to play and it made the whole game feel gigantic. I got him up to level 20, and then recruited a couple of RL friends to play the game and I re-rolled so we could all start together. We wanted to be able to group early on, so we limited our choices to Orcs and Trolls. One picked Orc Warrior, one picked Troll Hunter, and figuring that we might need a healer eventually, I picked a Troll Priest. This ended up being my first main, Kadoo.
Back in vanilla warriors were pretty durable, and could do some ok damage. Hunters were lol-easy to level (send out your pet, shoot the target once, wait, loot, repeat). Priests on the other hand - and holy priests especially, as I was specced - were the nexus point for everything that was difficult about leveling at the time. I wore cloth, so I took lots of damage. I could cast a shield on myself, but it only lasted for a few hits before it was broken down, and my DPS was a total joke. Using wands back then was almost impossible because they didn't autofire, you had to click on it each time you wanted it to cast. My offensive spells were limited and did terrible damage and ate up a lot of mana, so I was drinking after each pull. It took forever to level, and my friend the hunter was always complaining about how slow I was.
But the group situations almost made up for it. We found a couple to play with - another hunter and a mage - and the five of us did all of the 5-man dungeons together. I remember very clearly going into Blackrock Depths the first time as a level 48 priest (still lagging behind the DPSers in levels) and trying to heal our 5-man party through the mob pulls. Our warrior wasn't an expert (who was back then, really?) so occasionally the hunters would pull aggro and I would keep them alive until they could find the feign death buttons, and then the aggro would dump on to me. I was running everywhere, trying to fade and occasionally fear and toss heals and keep my ass alive on every pull. It was a nightmare, but it was fun at the same time. I died many many times and quickly memorized the ghost run from Thorium Point to Blackrock Mountain.
I might still be playing the character, but two things happened that shaped the way I play now. First, we had a bit of a zerg guild. We were inviting people left and right into the Orgrimmar Outcasts, and some of the people were really obnoxious. Eventually I got fed up with guild chat and started kicking people out. It was a real power-trippy moment, and I'm not proud of it, but when I logged in every day and these morons would beg me to heal them through things and then not be civil in guild chat, it eventually spilled over.
The second thing that happened was we had decided to pug with a couple of other guilds and go to Molten Core to clear some trash to farm materials for fire resist gear. I ended up being the only healer in a 40-man MC raid. If you've never played a healer before you don't understand that they tend to feel a little responsible for the health of the people they group with, and sometimes they even take it personally when someone dies. Well, I got to watch 40 health bars go from 100 to 0 and I spammed out as much healing as I could before the raid wiped. It was a horrible experience.
The realization set in that since I was an easy kill in PvP at the time, my only role was to heal other people while they did fun things and got the glory. Meanwhile the best I could hope for was to get better gear... to heal other people with... while they had even more fun. About a week later I deleted my priest and left the guild to play a mage. Some months later I asked a GM to undelete it, but I really didn't want to play it anymore. There was just no appreciation for healers, and they could barely even farm to get gold for repair bills because back then healing power was different than spell power and didn't help us kill things. It was awful. Anyone who says they long for the days of old vanilla WoW and the way things used to be: Shut the hell up. The game is much better now. I wouldn't wish the life of a vanilla WoW healer on anyone.
I still have that Troll Priest around somewhere, and he eventually made it to level 72, but he's associated with so much past pain that I never want to play him again. I might roll a priest again but I'll never go back to him. He represents the way the game used to be and the playstyle of vanilla WoW and I'm happy to put both him and it behind me.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Bon Appetit!
Here's where Julie & Julia and EG cross over - it's time to level my cooking skill on Diagnose.
There are three 'secondary' skills that every character can pursue in addition to their professions: First Aid, Fishing, and Cooking. My First Aid level is high enough to be making heavy netherweave bandages at this point, so there's no rush on that. I've been leveling it regularly as I went along because as a rogue the bandages come in pretty handy. I can't quite ambush and eviscerate mobs to death, so they get in a few shots on me and after a few mobs (or a bad pull) I tend to need a bandage.
I'm in no hurry to level fishing, but as it turns out, fishing is an excellent companion skill to cooking. You can level quite a long way from cooking the fish you catch and you can almost do without animal meat altogether. That brings up an interesting thought... I bet I could get away with role-playing a vegetarian character. I'll save that thought for later.
So right now I'm somewhere around 230 cooking I think, the most difficult recipe I can make is the Monster Omelet and that turns green at 262. After that I'll need new recipes to level from. If I don't level up my fishing, the easiest way to get from 262 to 300 is by cooking the Juicy Bear Burger (turns yellow at 285) and Smoked Desert Dumplings. So my to-do list looks like this:
There are three 'secondary' skills that every character can pursue in addition to their professions: First Aid, Fishing, and Cooking. My First Aid level is high enough to be making heavy netherweave bandages at this point, so there's no rush on that. I've been leveling it regularly as I went along because as a rogue the bandages come in pretty handy. I can't quite ambush and eviscerate mobs to death, so they get in a few shots on me and after a few mobs (or a bad pull) I tend to need a bandage.
I'm in no hurry to level fishing, but as it turns out, fishing is an excellent companion skill to cooking. You can level quite a long way from cooking the fish you catch and you can almost do without animal meat altogether. That brings up an interesting thought... I bet I could get away with role-playing a vegetarian character. I'll save that thought for later.
So right now I'm somewhere around 230 cooking I think, the most difficult recipe I can make is the Monster Omelet and that turns green at 262. After that I'll need new recipes to level from. If I don't level up my fishing, the easiest way to get from 262 to 300 is by cooking the Juicy Bear Burger (turns yellow at 285) and Smoked Desert Dumplings. So my to-do list looks like this:
- Head to Winterspring and farm giant eggs off the owlkin until my cooking hits 262
- Travel to Felwood to get the Bear Burger recipe and kill bears until my cooking gets to 285
- Travel all the way to Silithus to get the Dumpling recipe - quest reward - and then farm up the worms until I hit 300.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Level 2000 Altaholic
I've been playing World of Warcraft for a long time, and I do spend a lot of hours on it because I enjoy it as a pasttime. The reason I find it acceptable is because I play it in a way that lets me turn it off or look away whenever I want so that I can interact with the family. At one point when I was gaming I was heavily into raiding, and it took time away from the family and required my active concentration for too long. I refuse to play that way anymore. I am a casual, and I am happy.
Warcraft has its fast and furious parts, but when you're flushing out all the finer points of your character - fishing, cooking, lockpicking, exploring, grinding mobs for a mount, etc. - there are a lot of times when you're doing repetitive or mindless tasks. These things are optional for a character, truly. You don't need to level those professions to play the game and more than you need to play solitaire on your PC in order to complete your TPS reports.
Last night I leveled up my lockpicking to almost 300, and I got distracted from that and focused on watching Die Hard 3 and Auntie Mame. (Yeah, we have diverse tastes in movies.) I didn't get any levels on the rogue, but the character progressed, so I got a little buzz from feeling like I was building something. That's all I ask, really. Give me a way to relax and feel productive instead of destructive, and I'm a happy player.
And If you're like me, the game just doesn't grab you at 80 the way it does from 1 to 79. As you level up there are an insane amount of challenges in all directions, things to explore, and people to meet. When you hit level 80 though a majority of all the challenges are behind you, and only the heroic things are ahead of you. It doesn't take long to face them all either. Back in February when I stopped playing my druid we were clearing all of the available 25-man raid content in one night - the hardest challenges in the game.
So what do you do the other six days of the week? If you have other hobbies, go for it. If you're sorta tied to home and you don't have a lot of spending money, creating a alternative character in warcraft (an 'alt') and starting a new story can be fun. Well, the leveling suits me more than playing at 80 does. I've raided at 60, 70, and 80, and I can honestly say I've found my preferred style of play. I am an altaholic. I like creating new characters on different servers and making a new adventure out of it.
I may have done it a bit more than most people I guess. I have a total of 1,983 levels over 50 characters on 28 different realms. Most of the time I create a new character on a realm by itself, this makes it a little harder to carve out your own space, but it makes everything you have more rewarding because you know that you earned it and it wasn't gifted to you by one of your alts. Anyway, I'm closing in on a career achievement. At some point when I get Diagnose to L80 I will officially hit 2,000 total levels on my account. I'll probably celebrate by starting a new alt and watching a good movie with the family.
Warcraft has its fast and furious parts, but when you're flushing out all the finer points of your character - fishing, cooking, lockpicking, exploring, grinding mobs for a mount, etc. - there are a lot of times when you're doing repetitive or mindless tasks. These things are optional for a character, truly. You don't need to level those professions to play the game and more than you need to play solitaire on your PC in order to complete your TPS reports.
Last night I leveled up my lockpicking to almost 300, and I got distracted from that and focused on watching Die Hard 3 and Auntie Mame. (Yeah, we have diverse tastes in movies.) I didn't get any levels on the rogue, but the character progressed, so I got a little buzz from feeling like I was building something. That's all I ask, really. Give me a way to relax and feel productive instead of destructive, and I'm a happy player.
And If you're like me, the game just doesn't grab you at 80 the way it does from 1 to 79. As you level up there are an insane amount of challenges in all directions, things to explore, and people to meet. When you hit level 80 though a majority of all the challenges are behind you, and only the heroic things are ahead of you. It doesn't take long to face them all either. Back in February when I stopped playing my druid we were clearing all of the available 25-man raid content in one night - the hardest challenges in the game.
So what do you do the other six days of the week? If you have other hobbies, go for it. If you're sorta tied to home and you don't have a lot of spending money, creating a alternative character in warcraft (an 'alt') and starting a new story can be fun. Well, the leveling suits me more than playing at 80 does. I've raided at 60, 70, and 80, and I can honestly say I've found my preferred style of play. I am an altaholic. I like creating new characters on different servers and making a new adventure out of it.
I may have done it a bit more than most people I guess. I have a total of 1,983 levels over 50 characters on 28 different realms. Most of the time I create a new character on a realm by itself, this makes it a little harder to carve out your own space, but it makes everything you have more rewarding because you know that you earned it and it wasn't gifted to you by one of your alts. Anyway, I'm closing in on a career achievement. At some point when I get Diagnose to L80 I will officially hit 2,000 total levels on my account. I'll probably celebrate by starting a new alt and watching a good movie with the family.
Level Name - Realm
80 Moonclover - Wyrmrest Accord
80 Archeologist - Wyrmrest Accord
80 Vaalin - Illidan
80 Susse - Cho'gall
80 Goatwaggle - Area 52
78 Aquaux - Cho'gall
72 Foff - Nesingwary
71 Wickerman - Exodar
70 Heedmartin - Wyrmrest Accord
70 Invulnerable - Moon Guard
68 Lorebreaker - Wyrmrest Accord
64 Taxidermist - Cairne
63 Diagnose - Wyrmrest Accord
63 Vanbracken - Area 52
62 Bonypony - Trollbane
61 Taxidermist - Moon Guard
61 Latte - Fenris
61 Florentine - Exodar
60 Teacher - Ysera
60 Kadoobound - Khadgar
50 Butler - Wyrmrest Accord
46 Evade - Hydraxis
43 Ax - Exodar
42 Owl - The Venture Co
33 Diagnose - Illidan
29 Deadhorse - Tanaris
29 Horde - Anvilmar
27 Feral - Shandris
27 Epicmount - Hydraxis
26 Calvïn - Gorgonnash
26 Deadhorse - Gnomeregan
25 Hammercraft - Gorgonnash
24 Hexaddict - Cairne
24 Aermoss - Blackhand
20 Zulysses - Wyrmrest Accord
19 Jadesparrow - Moon Guard
17 Heed - Undermine
17 Hogan - Terokkar
16 Vanbracken - Borean Tundra
14 Easygoing - Madoran
12 Rabies - Ghostlands
10 Bonypony - Tanaris
9 Hammercraft - Velen
5 Vandergelder - Whisperwind
3 Cleavage - Velen
2 Vanbracken - Hellscream
1 Macys - Illidan
1 Economics - Cho'gall
1 Paypal - Borean Tundra
1 Diagnose - Azjol-Nerub
Monday, January 25, 2010
Monday Memory: Populous
There wasn't anything like it. You weren't a soldier or a hero or an avatar, you were a god, an actual out-here-in-space making-miracles-with-my fingertips supreme being, creating fortune and disaster for the citizens of a small planet.
Populous put you in charge of a faith - the tiny citizens of your realm worshipped you - and they had compete faith in your random works of creation and destruction. You could flatten out the land so your people could build houses and procreate, and the more people that joined your cause the greater your powers would get.
At the height of power and in command of a large population you could summon floods and earthquakes to smite your enemies, demolish their cities with volcanoes, or submerge the land under their feet and drown them in the sea.
The people never gained much technology but they did have a couple of different unit types - soldiers and priests (who could convert the enemy into friendly units), so it had a very Old Testament feel to it. The only mode of transportation for these people was walking, and the gods were alive shaping the ground under their feet. But it was more of a Monty Python old testament than Charlton Heston, the graphics were somewhat comical and there was less violence than two colonies of ants fighting.
Each planet had a different scenario on it starting from the extremely simple to very hardcore, and after you conquer all the planets it would take you to a new solar system to conquer. If it were still playable on today's hardware it would be just as playable now as it was then, with the difficulty being somewhere around Lemmings - hard enough to challenge, too easy to be baffled for too long.
It was the first of the "god games" and in a lot of ways it was the best. It was fresh, it had an easy-to-understand icon-based interface, and plenty of puzzle packed into a few variables. If I still had a copy I'd probably play it every once in a while, it was fun.
Populous put you in charge of a faith - the tiny citizens of your realm worshipped you - and they had compete faith in your random works of creation and destruction. You could flatten out the land so your people could build houses and procreate, and the more people that joined your cause the greater your powers would get.At the height of power and in command of a large population you could summon floods and earthquakes to smite your enemies, demolish their cities with volcanoes, or submerge the land under their feet and drown them in the sea.
The people never gained much technology but they did have a couple of different unit types - soldiers and priests (who could convert the enemy into friendly units), so it had a very Old Testament feel to it. The only mode of transportation for these people was walking, and the gods were alive shaping the ground under their feet. But it was more of a Monty Python old testament than Charlton Heston, the graphics were somewhat comical and there was less violence than two colonies of ants fighting.
Each planet had a different scenario on it starting from the extremely simple to very hardcore, and after you conquer all the planets it would take you to a new solar system to conquer. If it were still playable on today's hardware it would be just as playable now as it was then, with the difficulty being somewhere around Lemmings - hard enough to challenge, too easy to be baffled for too long.
It was the first of the "god games" and in a lot of ways it was the best. It was fresh, it had an easy-to-understand icon-based interface, and plenty of puzzle packed into a few variables. If I still had a copy I'd probably play it every once in a while, it was fun.
Friday, January 22, 2010
A road twice traveled
World of Warcraft has been online for over five years now, and somewhere between 1 and 11 million people have spent crazy amounts of time pretending to be adventurers in a cartoon medieval world hacking monsters with swords, casting spells, raising the dead, and dancing on mailboxes. By now, every semi-serious player of the game has at least one character at level 80.
I've met a ton of people playing this game, and I'm always interested in hearing about their playstyle and what interests them the most. Some people are single-story driven, and they've only played one serious character the whole time, and that's enough for them. Some people play an endless string of different characters and level, group, and even raid with all of them. Some people have a "main," and then an alt or two to dabble around with.
I will be the first person to admit that I am a server locust. I enjoy leveling new characters without help on different servers. I have 5 L80's I could be playing and raiding with at this point, but none of them interest me as much as starting a new story, and I don't mind if the other characters change, so I have no regrets moving from community to community.
Lately I've been playing Alliance characters instead of Horde for two reasons - I've played the Alliance side less so it's more interesting, and the Alliance players seem to be much nicer right now. That changes somewhat, before the Burning Crusade expansion the Horde had more mature players, but the addition of the Blood Elves brought with it an influx of immature players. Most people expect that to shift back in the other direction for Cataclysm when the Alliance get Worgen (werewolves) and the Horde gets Goblins as playable races.
So I'm happy playing solo, and using the game's grouping features to find group situations for me. It creates a set of expectations that I can live by, and minimizes the amount of interaction required with other players. Sometimes it's nice to chat with people, but when extended grouping situations require extended conversation, it gets kinda boring. I like watching them though and seeing what they do. That's made my latest class choice very interesting - I'm playing a rogue.
Rogues aren't the king of the hill in either PvE or PvP settings right now, but they allow a person to bypass a lot of barriers because of their ability to stealth. I can eavesdrop on conversations, sneak into enemy territory, and complete a lot of group quests alone because I can get in and out of trouble areas quickly. I like being a sneaky little thief, and choosing when and how people see me.
Some people just can't stand leveling characters though, and I feel bad for them because the nature of the game dictates that you can never grow too much stronger than anyone else, so there's a limited amount of things you can do at 80. Mind you there's still a lot, but if you play with a min/max attitude and absolutely must be the best, at some point there's not much left you can do to improve yourself. They get frustrated at the slowing pace of progress, yet they are bored to tears with leveling new characters. If that's the case maybe MMOs aren't for them - at least until the games start allowing players to create persistent items in the world, and then they can tap into that empire-building spirit.
Meanwhile, I'll be in the shadows watching.
I've met a ton of people playing this game, and I'm always interested in hearing about their playstyle and what interests them the most. Some people are single-story driven, and they've only played one serious character the whole time, and that's enough for them. Some people play an endless string of different characters and level, group, and even raid with all of them. Some people have a "main," and then an alt or two to dabble around with.
I will be the first person to admit that I am a server locust. I enjoy leveling new characters without help on different servers. I have 5 L80's I could be playing and raiding with at this point, but none of them interest me as much as starting a new story, and I don't mind if the other characters change, so I have no regrets moving from community to community.
Lately I've been playing Alliance characters instead of Horde for two reasons - I've played the Alliance side less so it's more interesting, and the Alliance players seem to be much nicer right now. That changes somewhat, before the Burning Crusade expansion the Horde had more mature players, but the addition of the Blood Elves brought with it an influx of immature players. Most people expect that to shift back in the other direction for Cataclysm when the Alliance get Worgen (werewolves) and the Horde gets Goblins as playable races.
So I'm happy playing solo, and using the game's grouping features to find group situations for me. It creates a set of expectations that I can live by, and minimizes the amount of interaction required with other players. Sometimes it's nice to chat with people, but when extended grouping situations require extended conversation, it gets kinda boring. I like watching them though and seeing what they do. That's made my latest class choice very interesting - I'm playing a rogue.Rogues aren't the king of the hill in either PvE or PvP settings right now, but they allow a person to bypass a lot of barriers because of their ability to stealth. I can eavesdrop on conversations, sneak into enemy territory, and complete a lot of group quests alone because I can get in and out of trouble areas quickly. I like being a sneaky little thief, and choosing when and how people see me.
Some people just can't stand leveling characters though, and I feel bad for them because the nature of the game dictates that you can never grow too much stronger than anyone else, so there's a limited amount of things you can do at 80. Mind you there's still a lot, but if you play with a min/max attitude and absolutely must be the best, at some point there's not much left you can do to improve yourself. They get frustrated at the slowing pace of progress, yet they are bored to tears with leveling new characters. If that's the case maybe MMOs aren't for them - at least until the games start allowing players to create persistent items in the world, and then they can tap into that empire-building spirit.
Meanwhile, I'll be in the shadows watching.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Class Personality
There are ten classes in World of Warcraft, each with its own unique abilities and characteristics. There are exceptions to every rule, but here are the stereotypical personalities for each.
Warrior - When he's playing he's playing, when he's not he's not. He has a space carved out to play in the study/basement, and there shall be no interruptions. He'll tank your heroics as long as the beer holds out, and he's three deep into a 12-pack of Budweiser. Eventually he stops talking on vent, and if you keep him on past 2am he may forget he loaned you that gold.
Priest - Her fingernails are all bit down and when it's not raid time she's logged in on an alt no one knows about because she's tired of being begged to heal everything. Gets tired easily, and more pissy as the night goes on. Has quit the guild and rejoined several times.
Mage - Doesn't see why this game is so hard, just point and click and blow things up. Has tons of gold, and dies at least 20 times a raid. One day he will suddenly disappear. You suspect he just got bored and quit, but there's also the nagging suspicion that maybe the Feds caught up with him.
Hunter - He's not your ordinary huntard, he's been playing the class since launch and has the spell gear to prove it. Better pull fast, or his pet will show you how it's done -when it gets back from pulling trash from the other side of the instance.
Shaman - Loves the shaman class, and hopes one day to be able to use 99% of the class abilities in a raid situation instead of spamming (x). He follows all the upcoming changes in beta, and complains often about the endless string of class nerfs.
Rogue - The kid is always on vent, usually scamming something, and can talk endlessly about gear and specs and drops and unlike people who say they can watch TV and listen to music and do their homework while they raid, he actually can. It must be the drugs.
Warlock - No one knows his first name. He said it once on vent but you couldn't tell what he was saying through the accent. His DPS is excellent even though he lags horribly, and tends to hang out in a private channel with the priest.
Druid - The druid is insane, as all druids are. Enjoy this one while its here, and make sure you're always recruiting a replacement because this one is about to explode in a burst of drama.
Paladin - Is the best player in the guild, just ask him. He's better than you at your class, but why bother? Paladins are the only class worth playing, because they remind him of himself. He's also better than you at life, which he can attribute to clean living and daily doses of Rush Limbaugh.
Death Knight - Lazy friend of the GM who continually looks for shortcuts and hates "finding out" that he needs to show up for raids, do daily quests, or pretty much anything other than grief lowbies.
There ya go, the 10 personalities of warcraft.
Warrior - When he's playing he's playing, when he's not he's not. He has a space carved out to play in the study/basement, and there shall be no interruptions. He'll tank your heroics as long as the beer holds out, and he's three deep into a 12-pack of Budweiser. Eventually he stops talking on vent, and if you keep him on past 2am he may forget he loaned you that gold.
Priest - Her fingernails are all bit down and when it's not raid time she's logged in on an alt no one knows about because she's tired of being begged to heal everything. Gets tired easily, and more pissy as the night goes on. Has quit the guild and rejoined several times.
Mage - Doesn't see why this game is so hard, just point and click and blow things up. Has tons of gold, and dies at least 20 times a raid. One day he will suddenly disappear. You suspect he just got bored and quit, but there's also the nagging suspicion that maybe the Feds caught up with him.
Hunter - He's not your ordinary huntard, he's been playing the class since launch and has the spell gear to prove it. Better pull fast, or his pet will show you how it's done -when it gets back from pulling trash from the other side of the instance.
Shaman - Loves the shaman class, and hopes one day to be able to use 99% of the class abilities in a raid situation instead of spamming (x). He follows all the upcoming changes in beta, and complains often about the endless string of class nerfs.
Rogue - The kid is always on vent, usually scamming something, and can talk endlessly about gear and specs and drops and unlike people who say they can watch TV and listen to music and do their homework while they raid, he actually can. It must be the drugs.
Warlock - No one knows his first name. He said it once on vent but you couldn't tell what he was saying through the accent. His DPS is excellent even though he lags horribly, and tends to hang out in a private channel with the priest.
Druid - The druid is insane, as all druids are. Enjoy this one while its here, and make sure you're always recruiting a replacement because this one is about to explode in a burst of drama.
Paladin - Is the best player in the guild, just ask him. He's better than you at your class, but why bother? Paladins are the only class worth playing, because they remind him of himself. He's also better than you at life, which he can attribute to clean living and daily doses of Rush Limbaugh.
Death Knight - Lazy friend of the GM who continually looks for shortcuts and hates "finding out" that he needs to show up for raids, do daily quests, or pretty much anything other than grief lowbies.
There ya go, the 10 personalities of warcraft.
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