What Turned into a Really Long Post

So, my trial subscription finally ran out (you will note by examining the dates on my posts that it has by no means been ten days--colon frowny bracket) so it looks like its going to be back to the dreary looking forest as an undead. However, my roommate needs to update his account, so until then I'll address the issue I mentioned in my last post (okay, two posts ago) and never followed up on, IE the whole ghost death thing. So. My thoughts.

In short:
I really really don't like the whole ghost death thing.

In long:
So I have spent at least a little time in each entry unnecessarily gushing about the visuals of WOW. Yes, it is beautiful, at least as beautiful as a video game can be at this point. However that doesn't mean I'm not going to get bored wandering around the same patch of land again and again. While I'm still alive the repetition feels a little more justified since it sort of feels like punishment for being too stupid to figure out whatever quest I'm trying for at that time, but whenever I die it is a completely different matter. First, you have no control over your re spawn points so if some malevolent animal decides to eat you then the game might unceremoniously throws you a ten minute walk away. Second, everything gets all blurry which I will admit was cool looking the first time but which now not only obscures all the stunning visuals I'm always gushing about but makes it really hard to find my way back to wherever my body is, especially if my body happens to be on the other side of a cliff. Finally, the only times I have ever died is when I encountered an animal which is way more powerful than me (a fairly good assumption, I think). Then, when I get up and the same animal inevitably kills me again, only more easily now since Blizzard conveniently started me out with half health. I'll make the token obnoxious reference to Runescape: while I appreciate that I get to keep all my items (and believe me, I really do appreciate that), Runescape would always respawn you in some safe, friendly place, the message being not to go back. Yes, it was a pain to have to wander all over the map, but the learnign curve was fast. Now, I have all of the same inconvenience of slowly trecking from here to there, but now I have no choice but to go back to the same monster that killed me the first time. Its like the worst of both worlds (minus the item thing). Really what it all boils down to is that the game is telling me to stay in the familiar, and to by no means leave my comfort zone until I have enough levels and weapons to take whatever that place can throw at me. What is completely backward about that is that exploring the world is by far the most fun aspect of the game. Don't punish me for on a whim abandoning my quest and going on a journey up north, Blizzard! That is the whole point of your game! If I can't do that then all I'm paying hundreds of dollars a year for is running errands for animated cow people.
I was curious what reviewers had to say about it, and I was surprised to find that they had the exact polar opposite reaction. In this gamespot review (pause for link): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyQhcFa9yEs
(okay, continue) the nerdy guy says that the death system actually boosts the players ability to explore. I suppose its possible that all MMORPG games before WOW were linear, claustrophobic exercises in boredom and depravity, but that would frankly surprise me.

I'm not sure exactly what I would want to happen. Every game struggles to hit the Challenging/aggravating sweet spot, but it's hard to come up with something that doesn't do the most irritating thing a game can do; take the player out of the action for a while. This could be an area where the races could differ I suppose. It would be neat for example if undead couldn't die, but just got weaker and weaker the longer they fought and would have to buy new limbs and stuff, whereas the night elves would turn into an animal for two minutes and would have to hide while their enemies got distracted before resurrecting. Sometimes I wish Blizzard would remember that Starcraft is the best thing they've ever made.

One last though: I was curious what other people thought of all this, so I googled "World of Warcraft Death". The first five entries were all describing people who died while playing the game. Ironic, since for me the main challenge is staying interested.

A Heartbreaking Post of Shattering Genius

This really doesn't deserve its own post but what the hell its been bothering me.


After playing the RTS for all of middle school, it is SO nice to see buildings that are proportional to the locals supposedly inhabiting them.


Thank you.

Appalitch is Cheating!

So, I'm still in Kalimdor as a Tauren, which right now I'm enjoying. The visuals are still managing to string me along, and there is enough of a story that I can feel invested in the character (though it is peculiar to be invested in a character who keeps dying, espeically when I have to stare at my rotting carcass every time--more on that later).

I discovered a really useful site.
http://wow.stratics.com/content/features/guides/mulgore/index.php#riteofvision2
This is a website that goes through systematically describing how to win all of the quests in my area. While this feels startlingly close to CHEATING, I feel like the game designers intended for users to constantly be huddling and discussing strategy. After all, that builds on the community aspect that this game supposedly does better than most, and allows them to make quests as challenging and complicated as they like. And besides, Warcraft allows you to explore an entire continet, or if you get high level enough and entire planet--it isn't fun in the least to look for a single glowing needle (or in my case, a wellstone) in an entire world. Yes, wandering around is rewarding simply in the stunning visuals you will encounter, but the longer that is all that keeps me playing the more I want to just go outside.

After thought: I was re-watching some of these videos recently, and noticed that Yatzee actually said that WOW is as good as MMORPGs are likely to get. Huh. Here's the link: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/9-Tabula-Rasa

An excursion into Kalimdor

Today my suitmate (who has WOW) was out, so I decided to try the ten day trial where I am likely to remain for...the next ten days. I chose to play as a Tauren for a change of pace.

I have to say that day two was much better than day one. The landscape is truly beautiful, and I frequently found myself distracted from the long stretches with no action when I was required to walk somewhere. There were certainly slow bits, and the whole ghost system has the potential to be really frustrating, but I would say that the overall experience was much better the second time around.

We'll see if it stays that way when I return to being undead.

Wowblog: Day One

So, I finally gave WoW a spin. My character is an undead. I was hesitant to choose what seemed to be the absolute least palatable of my choices, but there seemed to be some perverse pleasure in shambling around as something which probably smelled like compost. After all, since the premise of the game is that you have this second fantasy life, I would think that the pleasure would come out of doing all the things you could never do in real life, like murder a dragon or...hunt...fezboars. Anyway, playing something I can't relate to will at the least encourage me not to take the game too seriously.

Jumping into the story so far was nostaligic. I used to play Reign of Chaos, so the old characters and setting was comforting. In terms of actualy game play I was less impressed. Playing the old RTS, the real fun was always inhabiting that wonderful and intricate world. The people at Blizzard are great story tellers, and I was willing to forgive some poor gameplay mechanics just to follow along as Lorderon fell or the Orcs wandered across the desert. However the game I jumped into had a stark, isolated quality to it. I didn't have any sense of the weight or beauty of the Warcraft world, and instead just felt like another character running erands in some anonymous forest.

In the same vein, the fact that I chose to be an undead didn't really make itself aparent. What seemed exciting about that template in the first place was the novelty of it. We all love zombies, and being one is almost as fun as running away from them, but if it wasn't for my avatar I could have been a human. I realize creating different game mechanics for each race is ten times as much work for the developers, but one would think that would be the whole point. Reign of chaos had the same problem; the idea of four races is alluring, but in the end all you are choosing is a few tweaked abilities and a different paint job. If (like in Starcraft, a much better game) each race was completely different from one another, it would help create that sense of scale that I think is what they are going for.

I realize its a little early to jump to conclusions. We'll see what comes my way.

The Bloggening

Ah College. 

Back in twelfth grade, there would have been no question as the the format of an english class. We would read classic literature, discuss the plots, and occasionally write a paper. If a teacher deviated from that course then they would in small cases receive a terse email from the administration or in extreme cases get fired. 

But, only two terms into College, and I'm being assigned to play World of Warcraft. By a grad student none the less. 

That is not to say that this is going to be an easy class. These blog entries are being graded believe it or not. And there will be a large paper do at the end where I will have to rhetorically asses the game, the blogging world and you, the world of warcraft community. 

But that doesn't change the fact that I am playing a video game for four credits. 

My blogs are going to be looking at the game itself by and large. I'm a born RTS/Platformer person (I realize that those are essentially the opposite of one another), so MMO's are going to be a new experience. 

When I judge the game there will be one main question on my mind: is it better than Runescape?  My only stint with an MMO, Runescape falls in the same category as Tim Burton and Green Day in that I enjoyed it until I turned 12. So. Is WoW going to be a new step in multiplayer games, or simply Runescape with updated graphics? You probably already know, but I'll see.