Blog Posts from "The Swayze Express" - Gameriot.com

Embracing the Cataclysm

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:20:01 -0400

World of Warcraft is getting old.

Correction: World of Warcraft is old. In just a few months, it will be celebrating its 5th anniversary. It seems like only yesterday I first hit that character creation button and began exploring the vast continents of Azeroth and Kalimdor. With 40 zones between the two there was plenty to explore... but the lack of end-game content had my fellow players and I fiending for an expansion well before The Burning Crusade was released.

But as the existing zones were rendered largely obsolete, the game seemed to feel smaller. As if with the introduction of Outland you were being stuck into a small corner of the game world. It, along with WotLK, was a batch of content stacked on top of what was already there - separate rather than integrated. By expanding the game in this fashion, Blizzard failed to create the experience of playing in an ever-changing environment. After all the events and encounters that transpired over the last 5 years of WoW, should the original continents look (and operate) almost identical to how they did when you first hit that button?

This "stacking" of content that I speak of goes beyond the zones themselves. I wrote an article months ago as I lost interest and quit the game about how in WotLK Blizzard failed to change how we fundamentally played WoW. While TBC at least introduced the Arena system, WotLK simply added new features and more of what we already had. I was not surprised when I grew tired of the game within the first few months. The game did not need new content - it needed a facelift. Instead, Blizzard chose to take the safe route. Yes, safe. Like all humans, WoW players are adverse to change (perhaps even moreso). Even the slightest alteration brings about cries of ______ from the WoW community - regardless of its impact. For better or for worse, we are drawn to familiarity. An expansion that builds upon, but doesn't change, the status quo is a sure thing for Blizzard. On the other hand, an expansion that shakes this up is destined to be met with some opposition.

Pee-Vee-Eee Gear... Again?!

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Fri, 15 May 2009 09:54:41 -0400
"Is there a reason to raid anymore?" Serennia asks in a recent blog.

I don't play WoW anymore, but when I actively blogged and did play I wrote all kinds of articles that never made it to 'publish'. Maybe the idea was stupid and conceived while I was still half asleep, or maybe I just got bored half-way through and had another idea. Either way, rarely did I get back to them. Current boredom, however, has driven me to an old piece reflecting Blizzard's constant balancing of PvE gear's impact on PvP.

Five Things I Prefer to Playing WoW

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Tue, 12 May 2009 11:11:36 -0400

I probably shouldn't have bought the expansion. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and I have to admit... I almost enjoyed leveling up. Hell, I even enjoyed my first run through each of the new instances. But by the time we started disenchanting half of the drops in Naxxramas, I myself was becoming disenchanted. It wasn't the easy PvE content or the state of PvP, it was a game that grew stale long before I had stopped playing it.

If nothing else, the grind to 80 left my account with some residual value - quickly gobbled up by a nameless reseller. I am now $200 wealthier, and some sucker is probably $600 poorer. I should probably feel ripped off that my account is hardly worth more than the price of the game discs required to play it, but it's hard to feel the loss of that which has no value to you. Finally free of the shackles known as World of Warcraft, I find myself taking notice of how little enjoyment I actually derived from the game.

I mean really, I'm not sure if I played WoW from 2008 onwards because I enjoyed it or because I thought I enjoyed it. How many times did I play an extra few hours of Arena until 3:30 in the morning, only to end up with the same rating and far less sleep than I needed? How many times did I resort to pulling the power out of my router and claiming no internet as an easy excuse to go out (sad yes, but not as sad as the guild officers who don't consider "I need to get laid tonight" as a valid excuse)? For years I've weighed the fun of WoW against the 'work' involved, and failed to calculate the fun that could otherwise be had doing other things.

And so, in WoW's absence, I've discovered a number of activities that I never knew could bring me more enjoyment than WoW.

Socializing leads to drugs, alcohol and sex which are quite agreeably awesome. I was one of those players who thought he wasn't missing out on anything by playing WoW. I adhered to a principle - if someone calls me up, and I'd otherwise be playing WoW, I'd go out. Of course, this principle in no way holds me responsible for initiating social contact. Since quitting, I've spent at least twice as much free time out of the house and in the real world.

What do you give up? Being cooler than people IRL is certainly more satisfying than beating people in Arena, and spending hours on progression trying to take down a dragon is no different than going to the bar and trying to take down a hot blonde.

And let me tell you, there are some rewards much better than Tier 8.

Catering to the Hardcore: Blizzard, Money and the Future

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:03:56 -0400
World of Warcraft is an interesting phenomenon. Even as a retired player, I have my fair share of interaction with the game between friends and frequenting of this Gameriot site. The one thing that puzzle's me most is how Blizzard hasn't balanced the game yet, because every player knows how. I mean seriously. Find someone on Gameriot, a real life friend, a guildmate on vent, or even a player in trade chat - these individuals all know exactly how to fix and perfect World of Warcraft. From balance to game design, the answers are in the heads of these very people.

At least they think they are, but the rational among us know better. We know that good and bad are subjective, and that even balance has a degree of subjectivity. Gameplay geared towards the casual player is not necessarily worse than that geared towards the hardcore, except in the mind of the latter. The irrational in the community (read: the vast majority) deplore game design and call Blizzard on selling out. Why? Because money is objective. In game design, a world of subjectivity, the only quantifiable motivator for Blizzard's decision making is financial.

I think catering to the casual base is a mistake. Not because I'm a hardcore player. Not because I think Blizzard owe's their core demographic. Not even because I think casuals are dirty, greasy mustard tigers who exist solely to suck away my dev time. Rather, I question the direction on the same premise used by critics as justification for casual content - money. The common philosophy is that we all pay $15 a month - there are more of them than there are of us, thus it is more profitable. But is it really? Though there is far more to the breakdown of WoW's playerbase than this blog suggests, there are two really key demographics we're dealing with (those who fall in between are easily satisfied).

Core Customer - The core customer heard about WoW when it was initially announced. They followed the game through it's development, bought it immediately upon release, and played for a long time. I consider myself a core customer, having played from release until the new year.

Casual Customer - The casual started playing more recently and has little past experience with Blizzard games, or MMOs in general. Essentially the new customer base that Blizzard appears to be marketing/developing for.

We may pay the same box price and subscription fees, but we're very different customers in terms of profitability. Whereas the core customers learn about the product and spread it around themselves by word of mouth, the casual customer is reached through promotional endeavors and a very pricey multinational television advertising campaign. Of those customers who try the product only a select few will actually continue to use it, not because of the quality of the product but because of the nature of WoW's increasing subscription base:

Blizzard is not growing by expanding their market share, they are expanding the market.

And when when doing so, one must understand that eventually you finish expanding and the market matures. Growth in terms of subscriptions is not necessarily healthy growth, kind of like humans; if your kid grows 20% in a year, it could be a good thing... but if it's 20% in the waist, probably not. There are many more dimensions to healthy growth, and I'm not convinced that WoW fills them. As long as the conversion rate from casuals to core customers is greater than the rate of attrition, subscriptions will grow so long as the supply of new casuals is consistent. But what do you do when the market has matured and there are no new casuals to convert? Eventually everyone who would reasonbly be willing to try WoW will have tried it.

Consider a game with a million core players, which has now become "casual". Every month, 200 000 people try out the game. How many of them play in 2 months? How many in 6? By the time you create a long term customer, you're looking at maybe 20 000. With a monthly attrition rate of 1% amongst existing core customers (10 000 / month), your subscription base steadily increases. We're just now starting to see a slowdown in WoW growth as the market has expanded and casual players who never developed that long term interest in the game start to drop off.

Its clear that only a limited number of the casual playerbase can ever be converted into long-term MMO players and core customers. While rapid expansion into the mainstream market yields great short term gains, the real objective needs to be long term market share. Once the market has expanded, what chunk of the pie will Blizzard have? Satisfying casual players, even if they pay the bulk of the subscriptions, means catering to a crowd with no long term value. For casual content to be profitable, it has to improve the rate at which casuals become core gamers faster than players are being lost. To use my previous example, keeping the 200 000 new players happy is irrelevant in measuring if the choice is profitable. If the casual content causes 10 000 to leave, it means that of those 20 000 new retained players, at least 10 000 need to have stayed because of the casual content. Otherwise we assume that as the market develops, they would have become core customers to someone anyway.

I'm willing to bet that if you look at Blizzard's financials and ignore fixed costs, their profit margin has dropped substantially from where it was 3 years ago. Growth in the market will slow down considerably and the size of Blizzard's subscription base will contract as fewer casuals are leaving than are coming in. Blizzard is paying the price now to expand the market, but in 5 years they will inevitably be looking back to the tried and true gamers who may or may not have stuck around. While Mr. Casual and Mr. Hardcore might be worth $15 a piece now, only Mr. Hardcore is worth $15 a few years down the road. There is a strong financial incentive to cater the your minority customer base if they're the only ones with any lifetime value.

Time well spent? A look at the MMO.

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:42:23 -0400

Is 3.1 Redemption?

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:09:52 -0400
I thought I was enjoying myself until I began running through the Stonetalon mountains. Sparse quests with great distances in between them, and with a level range so broad it seems like the developers actually intended for you to come back here and quest in several distinct bouts. I got my Hunter to level 24, then I stopped. This is about the extent of how much I've played since Christmas.

It got the the point where I discovered I'd rather stare mindlessly at the Facebook logo than play World of Warcraft. But then I realized that activity on Gameriot was up, and that it was because of not only the TR but the impending release of patch 3.1. This, my friends, is a chunk of code with a lot of responsibility. Three-point-one, as I like to call him, provides the only hope of instilling optimism in a group of gamers already disenchanted with a relatively new expansion. Bloggers everywhere have spent 5 months citing easy rehashed content and glaring PvP balance as the problem. I point to the fact that the expansion offered relatively nothing new, and more of the same. Either way, it was clear that WotLK was a failure in that it failed to live up to expectations.

I started listening to Three-point-one. He made proclamations of Change and Hope. Sceptical as I was, I decided to give him a shot. While I'm not so convinced as to blindly follow him regardless of where he goes, I can't help myself from becoming a little more optimistic. Ulduar looks nice. Like, really nice. The artistic design almost excuses the fact that Blizzard completely reused another instance at the release of the expansion. The difficulty seems closer to what the entry level raid dungeon should have been. While it doesn't appear to be as tough as I would have expected, it does show that Blizzard can follow through on their commitment to making PvE content progressively tougher.

Significant class balances changes are finally being made. I wouldn't go so far as to say things are fixed. Or that we've reached Mission Accomplished, but from a Paladin's perspective I like where they're going. Broken and gimmicky mechanics have been dealt with - Divine Purpose on Holy Paladins, Holy Shock crits followed by .7s Holy Light casts, and keeping Sacred Shield on 5 people. In their place we see a shift from the Holy/Ret hybrid to the traditional Holy/Prot support healer. I like that Prot finally has an 11-pt talent (though I really do think they could have been more creative). Holy having an activated ability is equally awesome. I wonder what they'll change it do, considering the current Aura Mastery is outrageously overpowered.

What interests me most is the Argent Tournament. While it generally uses existing mechanics to provide more of the same, the mounted combat is actually very well designed. It essentially uses vehicles and offers the rider a nuber of abilities (4-5 IIRC), making for a relatively fun and surprisingly complicated system. Sure it will get old and it's largely a rehash of existing stuff, but it holds a great deal of potential for expansion in the future, adding world-event content and building PvP and PvE into a city-state representative competition. Sure the prizes now are relatively lame, but I can see this becoming a very casual friendly facet of the game, and Blizzard being free to balance more PvE/PvP content to the hardcore gamer

How 3.1 affects the game remains to be seen, and I don't expect it to fill all the holes present at release, but it does have me a little bit more excited for 3.2, and almost willing to come back and play...

until Starcraft II comes out.

WoW as a sport? Lol

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 22:23:15 -0400
I'm posting solely to relieve you from the forum quality blogs I've been reading here lately. I'd been given the impression that some of GRs "top" bloggers were going to participate in this month's contest, but as it goes it seems they've cracked under the pressure.

Speaking of pressure, I enjoyed following ESL results during this weekend's blogs. It is always a gratifying experience to see someone humbled. If there is one thing I've noticed about video game competition, it's that the competitors display some of the worst sportsmanship I've witnessed in "sport". Sure the professional leagues have their divas - Terrell Owens comes to mind - but regardless of their skill level, these athletes largely end up failing to meet their full potential.

Of course, I don't think sportsmanship is an innate quality. It's something developed over years of competition. I started playing soccer when I was 4 years old, and I kept playing until the end of my second year at University, 16 years later. As an aggressive player I had my fair share of clean, but rough, tackles on players from teams I wanted nothing more in the world at that moment than to beat. By the time I was 12 years old, my first instinct when I'd knock someone down was to turn around and help them back up.

Why do real athletes act this way? Two Hockey players may be fighting in the middle of a game, throwing insults at one another, but at the end of it they shake hands and congratulate each other. Seldom do you find the winning team kicking it's opponent when they're down. Sure there are isolated exceptions to these, but in WoW the exception has become the rule. Maybe it does just take time - WoW has been out for just over what, four years? Even the younger professional athletes have generally been playing their sport for 14+.

We all know WoW wont last that long. Believe it or not, the closest World of Warcraft ever came to being a true sport was when it was WLD vs. WLD - how can any game claim to be competitive when it isn't a mirror match? The very idea of WMP vs. PHD inter-comp balance seems ridiculous when applied to any other sport on the planet. Blizzard's constant efforts to achieve this balance destroy any viability WoW has at becoming a truly competitive game.

Unfortunately, video game success doesn't seem to transfer between games. In fact, it seems to hardly even transfer between classes (or even specs). Each new game brings a new group of social inadequates who do a terrible job of giving people any reason to take their "sport" seriously. What surprised me even more than the pathetic interaction between teams has been the interaction within them. How often do you see athletes on ESPN blaming their loss on a member of their team? If I had done that in the locker room I would have been wrung out by the coach, and if I had done it publicly I would have been benched. I see this sort of behavior consistently.

Has WoW peaked, not only as a game itself but as an "e-sport"?

World of Casualcraft; The Experiment

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 10:42:59 -0500
World of Warcraft is a casual game. Right? I mean, between recent trends in game design and proclamations from all of the game's elite, we have no reason to believe anything to the contrary, do we? I elect not to differ, because certainly Ghostcrawler isn't lying when he claims that most of the players in WoW have yet to reach 80 on their mains.

But what is casual to us now? Certainly it has changed - if I played soccer for 3 hours a night 6-7 days a week, would you call me hardcore? I would, considering when I was playing varsity we only practiced for a total of half that. But in Warcraft? 3 hours is nothing, it's a drop in the pan. Spread that out over a day (two 1.5 hour periods) and you hardly have time to do a couple heroic runs let alone get some serious PvP in or raid. No hardcore is defined by the Serennia's of the game; the people who put in enough hours that if it were their full time job, people would think that they're workaholics.

And it's these players who define the pace of the game. Being good at Warcraft means having good PvE gear and/or good Arena ratings. That's basically it, and while I don't deny skill is involved, the amount of time you commit is really a determining factor. I've seen many mediocre players hardcore their way to victory, in both aspects of the game. It's hard to be the kind of player who must be at least in reach of the top, like me, and not play this game very much. I can only imagine then what the truly casual feels about this, and what enjoyment they derive from the game. If Blizzard's statistics are a valid indicator, they seem to spend a lot of their time leveling.

Of course I hated it. I re-rolled a BE Paladin at the beginning of TBC and leveling it up while people were entering the new content was brutal. Every day I didn't have time to commit to XP farming I felt that I was falling behind. Quests become nothing more than a kind of healthy vegetable (I pick broccoli), and any progress not made directly towards the goal of attaining epix felt like a waste of time. But still, I find myself wondering how the process would be if I didn't have an 80 to look forward to.

So I made Keiths. Three years ago I wanted to make a Hunter but I didn't then have the time if I wanted to max-out my Paladin, so it was abandoned. Keiths is a Blood Elf Hunter on Mug'thol, named after the best beer in North America and the pride of Nova Scotia. I wanted to roll a Dwarf, but the access to BoAccount items was too great a determining factor. I equipped him with the new heirloom gun, sword and shoulders. He has FPs to the major cities, bags, and ammunition. 100g is all I've sent him and he will receive no more. Because Keiths is an experiment - a test of the casual perspective - a character that levels for the purpose of enjoyment rather than end-game. Every quest will be read, and every instance will be run with a group of similar leveled individuals. Of course I'll be stoned senseless from beginning to end.

But there's a catch.

I will hit level 80 and after two weeks of end-game content, I will delete him. Keiths, Mug'thol's first openly heterosexual male Blood Elf Hunter, will cease to exist. The prospect of turning him into my new semi-hardcore main at the end of the experiment would destroy my objectivity and circumvent what I'm trying to achieve! No, this will be for the process alone. It will be 1:30-2h a night, and if at any point I go over that 2h I have to add an extra kilometre onto my every-other-day run for every 5 minutes spent playing the game. This is waived for the remainder of the week while my girlfriend is at home for spring break. I will need to employ self determination comparable to that of the fox in order to maintain gaming vigilance.

I will never force myself to play. The moment I'm in such a position, the experiment is over. What are my expectations? The prospect of enjoying this game the way I did the first time I played it is pretty awesome. Of course it's entirely possible I won't enjoy it, and the spirit of the last 4 years of playing hardcore may be too strong. I just want to see if this game really is rewarding and enjoyable from beginning to end when the end isn't the ultimate goal, and I'm playing just to have fun. I'll post about it at the end once I reach that point, and maybe a couple times along the way.

In fact , I may be persuaded to post RP blogs in a narrative/story format .

Oradol's Oscar Picks

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 23:20:11 -0500
I always enjoy doing these things, so here it is. For each category I've picked my projected winner, and I challenge you to beat me by posting your own. I've also picked what I deem to have been the deserving winner, because we all know the politics involved skew the results. For a few of them I'm throwing in a "really should win", for films that weren't nominated and should have been or really were the best in the category.

comes out on time for me again here. Based on it's $3 million gross (which is insane given the people in it and the critical success of its director[Charlie Kaufman]) I can bet you probably didn't see it. The problem with Synecdoche is it went too far in it's depth and complexity. I love movies like Kaufman's Eternal Sunshine/Adaptation that leave you without complete understanding - they give you things to ponder, a lasting impact, and have a lot of repeat viewing potential. The problem is after you see them for the first time you walk away being able to piece most of it together. Synecdoche didn't start to reveal itself until the second viewing, and to be honest most movie-goers aren't going to make that commitment. Oh well.

Giv'er

PS: I'm looking at getting back into WoW by rolling a Hunter and leveling it up casually. If I go Horde I have access to Heirloom items. If I go Alliance I get to go through the questlines I missed having abandoned my other Paladin at TBC release. If I deem the latter to be worth it (personally I always enjoyed playing Alliance more) I need a guild of competent players to surround myself, who don't mind a casual player with little ambition to raid or PvP. If anyone has one on a good server, let me know via PM.

Being Cool

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 13:30:44 -0500
I'm only writing this because I want to get in on the drama too.

I've composed a step by step guide for certain WoW players to improve how they are perceived in real life. It isn't hard, but it may involve logging out of WoW for more than 15 minutes a day. If you aren't willing to make that commitment, look no further.

Step 1) Wash Your Clothes - This no-brainer does seem to elude many. As your body perspires, it also releases oils into the clothing. Alongside the many scents you are exposed to on a daily basis, they begin to... well, stink. The best course of action is generally to wash them with some regularity. If this is ever not an option, spraying them with a deodorizing body spray can provide a temporary solution. Note: if people see you in the clothing three days in a row, they will know you haven't washed them and the body spray is irrelevant.

Step 2) Brush Your Teeth - If your breath smells, brush more often. I brush morning/afternoon/evening as a rule, and always brush before I go out to interact with other human beings. Brushing your teeth is crucial to social acceptance - the only thing grosser than yellow teeth and smelly breath is when the gaps between said teeth are full of white residue. Visible lack of tooth-brushing is a serious no no. Avoid at all costs.

Step 3) Shower - In our modern society, there is very little reason for anyone to stink. Excessive odor is reserved for the homeless, post-workout athletes, and residents of trailer parks. If you have a computer, you should have a shower, and regardless of your physical excertion you should use it on a daily basis. I shower for approximately 10 minutes - wash hair, apply conditioner, wash rest of body with body wash (don't forget armpits specifically), and rinse. If you complete this along with step 1/2, and people still say you stink, start again at step 1.

Step 4) Dress Well - There are certain things that went out of style a long time ago, like cargo pants. If you are wearing khaki cargo pants, you have failed. Replace those with some blue jeans (not the same kind of Levi's your dad wears). Don't button your shirt all the way to the top. Finally, your shoes should match your outfit. Khaki's and cross trainers don't go together. Get a nice pair of Nike AF1s as they go with just about anything. Personally I recommend going out and buying some nice detailed boot cut jeans, some nice sneakers, a white t-shirt (long sleeve in the winter) and a nice polo to wear over it. That's just a generally nice outfit in any situation. Just don't wear it for 3 days in a row.

Step 5) Learn How To Drink - There are some people who just don't drink, and I totally support them. Then there are those who willingly drink, but make a fool out of themselves in the process. This goes from the person who pukes before they're drunk to the person who is drunk before they're finished a pitcher. Otherwise, practice. Drink alone if you have to, it's definitely better than having the few people you interact with laughing at you. Beer can be hard for many people to start with, so take it easy with something simple - rum and coke, vodka lime, and other mixed drinks are all much easier to stomach.

Step 6) Face Reality - WoW is not cool. Being good at it doesn't make you cool IRL, even in the presence of other WoW players. This must be realized because unless you come to face this fact, you risk ignoring all other steps and going out to social events smelling like a fish. WoW is a video game. A video game. A video game. A video game...

Step 7) Be Confident - This is important. If you seem like a weasel, people will treat you like a weasel. Confidence is all about thinking you're awesome (or acting like it) because you can. Take me for example, I'm ******* smart. Probably not genius smart, but while my classmates are failing classes like Introductory to Accounting I can get a 97 without trying. Thinking about this makes me realize I'm awesome. Confidence doesn't mean you talk down to people though, it just means you don't put up with ****. It means that if someone tells me my opinion on a matter is wrong, and I know it isn't, I make sure they know how stupid they are. The key is not to openly give away the reasoning behind your confidence, because if it's something they don't care about you lose validity. Being a Gladiator, for example, is not something to bring up.

Step 8 ) Basic Social Skills - Most people acquire these during elementary school. Those who were over-nurtured usually get them in high school. Those who are total outcasts during high school get them by the time they hit university. Those who go to university and would rather lock themselves in their rooms playing World of Warcraft than go to the innumerable co-ed parties available to them may not get them at all.

First, you don't call out people (like co-workers) that you should be sucking up to or at least tolerating. It makes you look like a stupid child. While you should be confident, you also need to realize that you're probably not as awesome as you think you are and that everyone else is laughing at you. In fact, this should be at the back of your mind every time you open your mouth. Only speak when you have something worthwhile to contribute, and treat other people the way you would expect to be treated. Everyone on the internet insults people behind the security of the screen and firewall - none of those people are the same IRL. If you are, then you have a serious problem.

If someone attacks you personally, and your response has to do with how bad they are at WoW, you should probably use this list.

Fixing WoW; The Ascention of the Azerothian Empire (Part 1)

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:12:59 -0500
The Decline of the Azerothian Empire can be read here.

I said I would never complain about things without providing solutions, as I did in an article of similar name a few weeks ago. Regardless of my not playing WoW, I have a number of friends still talking about it and I'm still theorycrafting about it. It's like a sickness. Following through on what I had in mind when I subscribed to GR, I'm going to provide some suggestions to fix the game. There will be some more in another post once I get more thoughts together.

Keep in mind, these aren't really balance changes. None at all. There are infinitely better people, like Serennia, to make suggestions there - and I think it's well established that things will eventually get better, even if far too slowly. These are things that would get me excited to play WoW. The sister article to this was about how WotLK added plenty of content, but it didn't change the entire game the way Arena did two years ago. More of the same is fine so long as the same is good, but when the same gets old, no amount of new content is going to satisfy. They need to change the game. Here are some ideas.

.

Sharing time; eight favourite films?!

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:13:41 -0500
Ever wanted to inflict torture on someone with no fear of repercussion? Find someone who loves movies and ask them to name their favourites of all time. They will be utterly unable to resist the opportunity to discuss and reminisce about the films they truly love, but the inner turmoil many experience when trying to choose them brings about a level of frustration that even cause an anneurism.

There isn't much I enjoy more than movies; video games, sports, and even music fall by the wayside. Every night, I crash with some sort of DvD playing on the TV across from my bed. My bookcase holds a respectable 150-200 movies, all purchased through legal means - making it very hard to pick eight that stand above the rest. Why 8? Because 10 is too many and 5 belongs to Slapnuts. This list was not a spur of the moment creation but something I've been working on for a week, sorting through my potential candidates in an effort to come to a conclusion. I've watched about twenty films since last Thursday, and I'm fairly pleased with my conclusions. If there is one peculiarity it's that there are no old movies here. I wont try to rationalize, and I know that The Godfather and Shawshank Redemption are probably the greatest of all time. I think our favourites are partly a product in the circumstances we find ourselves in when we first see them, and it's no surprise mine are more recent.

While I try to explain my infatuation with the listed films, the beauty of a favourites list is that no justification is really necessary. Like and dislike are entirely subjective, unlike good and bad, and there is no real need to list the evaluative criteria because, to be honest, they're non-existent. The odds of a two lists being the same are slim to none - and this is where you come in. I challenge you to post your list here just as I have done, in the hopes that you might post something I haven't seen and should go hunt down. Feel free to comment on my choices and open up discussion - I'm interested to hear what you think. I'd like to see everyone who enjoys movies share their top 8, or at least their #1 (with some description why) - Slapnuts, I'm looking at you too!

(And +1 for the cause!)

I'm calling you out; put up or shut up

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:21:25 -0500
I've played WoW once in the last 3 weeks. The rest of my /played during that period is from logging into the game out of boredom, an subsequently idling until the server boots me off. Why? Because the game isn't fun for me right now. It has nothing to do with the PvP system - hell, I'm playing the most overpowered class in the game. It has nothing to do with the ease of PvE content - I've never really enjoyed raiding all that much anyway. It has everything to do with a stale game that requires fundamental changes to peak interest.

This is why I haven't been blogging about WoW; if I'm not actively playing, I don't see it as being prudent for me to go ahead and comment on the state of things. This is irrelevant though, because whatever criticism I provide will just get lost in the sea of noise that is Gameriot - endless blogs about how much the game sucks and how it isn't going to be better. So do you know what I did? I quit. There is no better way to tell Blizzard to fix their game than to cancel your account - especially one that has been consistently active for over 4 years - and tell them why you're done.

I know that I have far better things to do than play a game I'm not enjoying, and I'm one of the few who believe that positive changes are incoming. This doesn't seem to be the universal case, however, as there are plenty of hardcore players with endless complaints about a game they play 40 hours a week but claim not to enjoy. Are they masochists? If the game is so bad and broken, why continue to play it extensively? There can only be two rational answers;

A) Their time is worth absolutely nothing.

B) The game isn't nearly as bad as they say it is.

So I'm calling them out. If the game really is as bad as you claim, then quit. If it isn't as bad as you say it is, stop complaining. It's time for people to put their money where their mouth is because as far as I am concerned, Blizzard is doing a perfect job if they can create a game that caters to casuals while keeping the addicted hardcore masses paying their $15 a month. I've read claims that the game cannot survive if it fails to appease its hardcore following, or that the existence of high-profile players like Neilyo and Serennia is integral to the games success. I've always chosen to disagree.

The only way to prove these claims is for their proponents to follow through on the claims of dissatisfaction by cancelling their accounts, in a very public fashion. If a large chunk of the Pro-PvP community (or prominent raiding guilds) cancelled their accounts, the message would be clear.Â My subscription has been terminated, I've told them what I think - now let's see if the others are willing to put up and follow through on their claims of disillusionment.

Of course they wont, because either A or B is true - and to be honest what would the 40hr+ a week crowd do with that much extra free time, besides put a little more effort into personal hygiene.

3.0.8; Change we can believe in?

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:04:37 -0500
I haven't posted in a week because there hasn't been anything worthwhile to post about, especially since I haven't even logged in since Thursday. Just as I've decided to wait for the patch before taking Arena seriously, I have been waiting to see the bulk of the changes before chiming in on them. I think we're seeing the very last of 3.0.8 changes on the PTR, and a few of them find me asking questions that we may never know the answer to. This is a stream of thought rather than what I would submit as a typical article, take it for what it is.

RNG is often a deciding factor in any given Arena match. Dispel RNG, Mace Stun RNG, Imp. Hamstring RNG have all made us jump for joy or facepalm at some point in our Arena careers. This horse has been beaten to death and I have some reservations about reviving the topic, but 3.0.8 opens Pandora's Box again with the changes it brings to dispel mechanics. For the record the last Arena I did, just over a week ago, involved us losing because Polymorph resisted 5 GCDs worth of Cleanse while my BoP (with Blessed Hands and Stoicism) fell off on the first try.

I do like what we're seeing with these changes - Cleanse has been almost completely devalued and is often seen as a waste at times when it should be the most viable option. I do feel there should be more protection on 2-minute cooldowns than on spammable abilities like Slow, but if this is a philosophy shared by the developers than why don't they change the mechanics so that RNG is no longer the deciding factor at all? You can still remove my BoP first try, or not remove it on the 5th. Why haven't we reached a point where a where a charge-system is assigned to abilities and the number of the dispels is a set value?

Thankfully some other changes have been brought to RNG-reliant abilities - Death and Decay Glyph, Sudden Death, etc. are all seeing changes for the better. I still stand by what I said before about the changes required to balance Arena being simpler than otherwise suggested by well-known members of the PvP community. The list of balancing Serennia suggested was as extensive as a new expansion and would have thrown things even further off if implemented word by word. Remember when Fel Armor was made to be indispellable? On paper that sure looked pretty inconsequential.

The real problem at this point is not Resilience or overall damage being too out of control. More than anything it is a few specific classes whose RNG potential is still more or less immune to anything but drastic changes to RNG. Mages fit the bill here more than any other class - an AP PoM Pyro crit is unavoidable and too great a single source of damage. This is the one ability I'm surprised hasn't been addressed. If I had to make a suggestion it would be to throw a 30s shared cooldown on Iceblock and PoM, which I don't think is particularly unreasonable. This is what has been done for Avenging Wrath and BoP, no?

Deadly Brew. Who thought this one up? As DR is applied to Silences, I keep asking myself who actually feels it's reasonable that a Rogue prevents any target they attack from casting a single spell. Applying Would + Mind Numbing was possible before this talent existed but actually required skill. Rogues poisons used to be unreliable as a consequence of their not needing to be actively applied. They have been buffed consistently to counterract abilities like PC Totem and Abolish Poison, both capable of removing poisons without any concerted effort. I think that these counters should have been adressed rather than buffing poisons themselves, and using Fan of Knives in conjunction with Deadly Brew might not prove to be a deciding factor but is still inherently overpowered.

I'm impressed that Blizzard hasn't throw any nerfs at Paladins yet besides a well deserved cooldown added to Turn Evil when Glyphed for instant cast. Why impressed? The dominance of Paladin healers is, more than anything else, the result of an Arena system that currently favors zerging over controlling. Nerfing both the class and the source of its strength would likely leave it broken much like during TBC. I'd like to see Paladins emerge as a strong healer alongside the others, and I can't help but believe that being an "ungibbable" target while playing alongside Death Knights (practically ungibbable) makes Paladins inherently overpowered. I predict a sharp fall in Paladin representation when DKs take a hit.

As Paladins fall, Druids and Shamans quickly move up. DK's drop (as well as Hunters) and Warriors start to climb. Warlocks will start to carve out a niche once some changes are made to the versatility of Demonic Circle. Go to the SK-100, look at the numbers and remove the class icons from your field of vision. Those little blue bars representing class balance don't appear all that different from how they looked at any given point in S4. What do you think things will look like after 3.0.8 drops?

The Decline of the Azerothian Empire

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:22:48 -0500
Yes, this is an article about WoW.

While the title for this article may be borrowed from a 23 year old film by Denys Arcand, the French-Canadian filmmaker best known for the Best Foreign Language Picture winner The Barbarian Invasions, the inspiration is from a newer work; Gonzo, a documentary chronicling the life and work of Hunter S. Thompson.

The Decline of the America Empire, through Thompson's eyes, began with the Vietnam war. I feel that to him it represented a turning point in the American ideology. Following independence the United States grew in both scope and relevance through its creation of a new way of life; a new form of democracy that embraced freedom and gave power to the individual. This idealism spread, fueled by the success of the nation that founded it and the undeterred faith its citizens held in the endless opportunity. People from around the world flocked to embrace the American dream. Vietnam was a definitive moment where the government, elected to represent the people, decided that faith in freedom and democracy was not enough. War was deemed necessary to continue the dissemination of the "American way" throughout the international consciousness.

This is important to keep in mind when talking about the decline of World of Warcraft, because this decline is neither numerical nor sudden. The economic influence of the United States has not dwindled, and immigrants still line up at the borders keeping population on the rise. The decline is not sudden. It is intangible; beginning at a point where the dream doesn't change but the determination to further it all but evaporates. A point where the status quo is deemed to be acceptable and the focus shifts to maintaining it.

Despite subscriptions having hit an all time high, we are now in the midst of World of Warcrafts steady decline. This has nothing to do with an increasingly casual-friendly game, easy PvE or a PvP in dire need of solution. The latter is just our current economic crisis - a brief storm followed by an inevitable return to form, leaving us only slightly worse or better off than before its arrival. Nothing less than a fundamental change to the national consciousness, or in this case to the design process, will turn things around.

Many of us disliked Wrath of the Lich King for any number of reasons, on this site it was quite simply that the time commitment was reduced as a result of the content being easier. Regardless of what new rep. grinds are introduced or how difficult Ulduar is, the decline will continue. Wrath represents the turning point, but not because of anything it changed for the worse. Wrath marks a point of complacency within Blizzard's ongoing design processÂ - a point where the status quo is accepted as being adequate and it is assumed the outsider will migrate to their server for the same reasons you or I did years ago.

This expansion, and anything forthcoming in patches, are nothing more than an infusion of content. The development team has arrived at a point where they are comfortable with traveling in the current direction indefinitely, assuming that success is the result of a polished finished product rather than a product perceived as being ever-changing. The Burning Crusade introduced new and fundamental changes; Heroic instances and Badge loot, and the introduction of Arenas, represented complete shifts in the game-play paradigm. We didn't get this in Wrath. The Death Knight? The class we play represents nothing more than how we interface with the game, and the addition of this new class offers nothing beyond a new window through with its players view the game. Perspectives quickly grow old, especially when whatever is being perceived remains unchanged.

Championing, dual-specs, and 10/25 man instances are merely improvements on existing, already adequate mechanisms. They aren't unappreciated but they add no longevity. Nothing in Wrath does. Wintergrasp lacks the dynamic nature of Arena and 10-man dungeons do not change the game any more than upgrading Karazhan loot would. What Wrath needed was rated Battlegrounds or player housing, not siege engines. Something completely different, changing both how we view the game and how we play it.

No number of new Battlegrounds or Raid Instances in the world could change the fact that interest in the game is dropping amongst players such as myself. Too few alterations in the 4 years of playing have caused disinterest that extends beyond a lack of content. Prospective new players will see the slow exodus and growth will scale downwards as subscriptions are simultaneously canceled. Like in politics we will see proclamations of "Change" made by Blizzard, but they will be solely rhetorical. Are we past the point of no return? I'm not sure. I'm just glad I was there while it was still good.

Please if you enjoy the blog.

Where did the trolls go?

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:52:43 -0500
No, I'm not talking specifically about Gameriot (before you post with some reply like "wtf r u talking about ther r lots of trollz here"). Over a month ago, driven by nostalgia, I blogged about the Golden Age of WoW. Thinking back to that time now begs another question;

Where did all the trolls go?

Do you remember your realm forums circa 2004-2005? I know that on Bleeding Hollow they were a beautiful place to go read. It was not unusual to read drama threads so powerful they destroyed guilds. For the ex-BH amongst you, does this look familiar?

"Alaena of bop deleted mypostso."

It was a universal story; player leaves his guild, joins another guild, gets the Eye of Sulfuron over long-time members, quits guild and goes back to his old on. The thread grew so large it broke. What do we have to show now for the lessons the great trolls behind these works showed us? Nothing. Look at the pathetic attempts here on Gameriot, where you'd hope the better trolls would migrate. The only person here capable of any sort of originality is Lusitania, and his trolling is its own different breed.

The art form developed by the original trolls has been lost. Why were they so different? Unlike modern trolls they didn't try hard. They didn't exploit every possible opportunity for drama, only those that would yield results. Now they use no discretion, taking constant stabs in the hard in the hope that they might eventually strike gold. Many of the greatest trolling efforts of old were made by individuals who didn't even think of themselves as trolls.

Take me. I'm by no means a troll. When I rerolled on Jaedenar my guild decided to let a girl in; she played a Priest, and she was awful. One day during Karazhan her performance was critized to the point where she was brought to tears (for which she was further made fun of). I went to the forums, jumped on an alt, and boom. Instant magic. It was effortless. The alt-troll tactic has been all but ruined - it was once used by individuals in a guild to post drama about without ruining the prospect of retrieving more. Now it's a facade wannabe's hide behind because they're scared to insult someone to their virtual "face".

Then there were those consistent trolls who posted on their mains. I haven't seen a troll on any forum or site in the last 2 years that measures up to a 10th of the greatness of these trolls of old (except Lusitania). They were larger than life personalities, so assured in their replies that they could not be countered. They weren't always negative, but when they were they were unrelenting. Nothing was off-limits. Now? The trolls are unrelenting, but their reactions are so predictable that they come off as stupid. They will argue points where all onlookers can see their fallacies, destroying their own credibility.

Every day I check the Mug'thol forums I wish that I could open the page and see someone step up to the plate. I'm constantly disappointed. Where the hell did they all go?

TossÂ a if you enjoy the blog!

Slapnuts'... er, Oradol's Best Movies of 2008

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 22:47:07 -0500
It's no secret that I love movies. I love them more than any other form of entertainment. I have an extensive collection in my room of about 150 legit DVDs, and see essentially every movie released over the course of a year. In fact on New Year's Eve I gave you a list of all the films I thought were worth your time to watch over the course of 2008. I had intended on listing the top five and Slap beat me to it... so I'm going to go ahead anyway because our lists are a little different.

Some movies leave you in awe while others reveal their greatness in the value they bring upon repeated viewings. Those I have chosen are not necessarily the most popular, most acclaimed, or even ones you will (or have) enjoy(ed). In my opinion 2008 was a great year for movies, with fantastic blockbusters and incredible independent films. So here are my 5 favourites, preceded by my favourite five in 2007 were (yes I'm ripping off Slapnuts here);

The Darjeeling Limited
No Country for Old Men
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
The Bourne Ultimatum
Juno
(Honourable mention for There Will Be Blood)

What so wrong with taking it easy?

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:09:26 -0500
I read the forums. It's true. I don't often post there, but it certainly provides an eye-opening experience every time. It's as if Gameriot represents my local high end clothing store and the WoW forums represent Wal-Mart; when you go to the latter you see those who are on the lowest end of the totem pole. You forget by shopping at that nice place that there are far, far more of the Wal-Mart types than there are of you. The fat, ugly, trashy girls at Wal-Mart wearing those tight fake-velvet track suits find their WoW-counterparts in the terrible QQers of the forums. The ones arguing Warlocks need overall nerfs, because Fear can cause you to DC in Orgrimmar Arena. The ones who played a Hunter in the 1400s for three seasons and truly believe that the dominance of their double BM Hunter 3s team has nothing to do with broken mechanics.

GC made another one of his comments the other day, where he says something without adequately explaining himself and leaves it far too open to interpretation. Bromsius made a nice post about them already. The source can be found here, and the TL;DR is that as often as possible the developers will opt to take the easy solution when posed with a problem. As you can imagine the standard forum rhetoric ensued - Blizzard is lazy, Blizzard doesn't care, Blizzard just wants to make more money, etc. Reading all of this leaves me with one question:

What's wrong with taking the easy route?

Of course this isn't the first time such criticism has been directed at Blizzard for acting in such a way. Whenever balancing is done that is less extensive than players demanded or expected the same accusations have been made of "taking the easy way out". From a short term design standpoint I agree with the QQ, it may be more effective in any given case to completely revamp the mechanics of whatever isn't working. But what about the long term? Not only does the frequency of new problems scale with the complexity of the solution, but what happens when a future concern that could have been easily fixed can't, because so many changes have been made to the mechanics.

You're building a new road to get from point A to point B more quickly. You come to a mountain with a town built on it, which you can either build around or built a tunnel through. What do you do?

Here is a case where the goal is getting somewhere quickly, and the more expensive and complex solution will be more effective. You need to consider the externalities; in the immediate there is the issue of what happens to the town. In the future you need to consider that the mountain is speculated to contain gold, what happens if this turns out to be true? Likewise Blizzard must immediately consider what happens to other aspects of the game, and how this compicates things for the future. As any city-planner can tell you a complex and more efficient roads-system only makes future construction much more difficult.

Take the current PvP issues. Could extensive changes to class mechanics be the most efficient route of balancing? It's quite possible. There is a lot to be said, however, for attempting to solve as much of the problem as possible simply through changes to Reslience mechanics. Changing things one piece at a time helps isolate the problem in the event that it doesn't work. Not being developers puts us in the fortunate position of not needing to worry about anything beyond the immediate, because future changes to aspects of the game beyond that which we're interested in are not our concerns.

I do think that we are in a frustrated position right now where we will criticize Blizzard for just about anything. I've seen raiders complaining about the lack of emphasis on stacking raids class-by-class because it caters to casuals. Really? Did anyone not cheer at the prospect of not needing to bring a ****ty Shadow Priest because you needed a mana battery? I wrote a blog recently in which I stated that even if Resilience doesn't fix the bulk of the problem, as I predicted, the best course of action would still be to see how things turn out. There are certainly reasons to be critical of Blizzard's actions but I don't think that taking the easy way out is necessarily one of them, unless it means doing nothing.

If you enjoyed feel free to... well, you know

WOW SO SERIOUS?!

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 15:24:22 -0500
Sorry for the title. I had to do it. It's like when you come up with a really sweet your mom joke and while on one hand you know that they stopped being funny in the seventh grade, you really can't help yourself from letting it burst out.

How seriously do you take WoW?

I come to you today with a question. It's something many-a-player has asked themselves over their time in Azeroth, myself included. Why now? At some point in the last few weeks I came home after a long Sunday at work; I work for an energy company and the weather had caused our storm accounts to overflow, meaning a lot of accounting work needed to be done before the end of the year. I woke up at 5:30, worked for 10-12 hours, took a girl to a movie and came home. I logged on to use my transmute CD and got the proverbial "let's do games" message.

I reluctantly agreed, failing to mention that tiredness is my cryptonite. Drunk? High? I can handle it, and some might say I play even better. But when it comes to mental accuity, and let's face it 10+ hours of straight accounting work will numb anyone's mind, you may as well introduce me with a "bring on the fail banner". And boy, did I fail. I got gibbed against RMP without bubbling, because I felt it prudent to run into LoS and HoJ the Priest. Yes, it's possible to be that bad. And one of my teammates raged like I have never heard rage before.

ARE YOU ******* CLICKING?! HOLY **** YOU'RE TERRIBLE YOU SHOULD KILL YOURSELF I MEAN IF I WAS YOU I WOULD PUT A SCREWDRIVER THROUGH MY HEAD. GOD YOU'RE BAD, DID YOU GO WAKE UP THIS MORNING AND DRINK A GLASS OF "I'M GOING TO PLAY LIKE ****" JUICE?

I'm paraphrasing there, but it's fairly accurate for the tone of his screaming. I mean that literally, I had to take my headphones off and was still listening to him. Rather than yelling back as I would have done if this had been during, say, a soccer game... I laughed. This bothered him even more, but I couldn't help it. The sheer absurdity of someone getting so worked up over a video game... a video game, was laughable to me.

So what causes this vast variation in how seriously we play the game? I'm sure personality plays into it, but as easy-going as I am IRL I've been known to have a short fuse in similar situations. I'd say the level at which we play the game plays in there too, but I've seen plenty of baddies raging and plenty of "pros" taking things in stride. Perhaps the biggest factor is the investment we have in the game.

I'm not talking necessarily about time investment. There are people with an awful lot of people playing this game, but it's still secondary to them when contrasted against their real lives. From what I can tell it's the emotional investment in the game. Is there any question that some of the most infamous nerd-ragers in the game are those that play the most excessively?Â Or rather, those that have the least going for them outside of WoW? Naturally if you derive a great deal of your self-worth from WoW, and I have little doubt that many people do, then that would be the choice medium to demean and self-aggrandize.

Or is there no correlation at all between rage and emotional investment? Do you dismiss the "it's just a game" argument in light of the fact that your time is still time, and you don't like havig it wasted? How seriously do you take WoW?

Don't forget to if you <3 this blog!

Why I Pay for Movies

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 23:27:20 -0500
I woke up this morning to discover that my entire bottle of 18-year Glenlivet had disappeared, and I'm fairly certain that no one else touched it but me; the result of a great NYE that I hope you all shared. As I mentioned last night I don't really care for doing off-topic entries. I have something in mind but this headache persists and I don't think I can articulate it now, so I'll wait. Right now I'm going to touch on a topic which was a lengthy point of discussion last night following a little "inspiration".

As I mentioned yesterday I love movies, a sentiment I'm sure many of you share. Last night, I found myself nearly alone on one point; I spend a lot of money on them. I see a movie in theatres every week or two, and rent a movie at least once a week. It feels like I buy one every second week as well. Rarely do I download movies, and rarer still do I burn them. To some people this practice is laughable.

Why do I do it?

For some movies the medium through which you watch it is irrelevant. Others are meant to be seen in theatres. The Dark Knight? If you waited to see this on your computer screen you seriously missed out. Forgetting Sarah Marshall? Movies are flat out better when you're laughing alongside a hundred other (respectful) people. Personally I've been to theatres in the US and now greatly appreciate that no one has ever made me want to leave a movie at local cinema, but nonetheless somethings are meant to be seen on the big screen.

Except for Pineapple Express. As the (awesome) commercial states, this is meant to be seen "on the couch". But theatres are only one part of the equation, since most people are willing to pay in this case. What got me going last night was why I pay to rent and buy movies. And there is a very good reason;

The art form of film is dying.

One of the most incredible things I've watched this year was a film called Synecdoche, New York. When writer/director Charlie Kaufman is asked in an interview do describe his movie he replies "I won't go there". Synecdoche attempts to encapsulate the entirety of life, death, and the relationships we have with those around us. It really defies description, and I can only say that it is the most reaching piece of film I've ever seen. I've seen it twice and have yet to entirely absorb it. Roger Ebert says; "It will be viewed and valued decades from now. You mark my words."Â

Synecdoche, New York holds more substance than nearly any film ever made. It cost only 12.6 million dollars to make. It only grossed 2.6 million.

I'm not trying to push one movie on you. This is an anecdote that is ringing frighteningly true across the entire industry. The actors in this movie aren't anyone to laugh at; Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Michelle Williams, etc. are all well known. The problem is that films that want to make a statement or do something unconventional are not commercially viable unless they operate on minimal budgets. For an unconventional movie to be profitable, it has to be written in such a way that it at least generates Oscar buzz. It's a dangerous gamble for studios, and if movies like The Dark Knight become nominees (as it should be) things will only get worse.

Those of us who enjoy these movies can see the impact. The number of films making their way to theatres/DvD from Cannes, Sundance and the Toronto Film Festival are fewer every year. While it does bother me on many levels that Marley and Me grossed $36 million last week, I understand that The Wrestler will never appeal to that audience. But what do we lose? Memento by Christopher Nolan was his breakthrough film. It was independant, and that it was offered distribution is largely the reason why we got The Dark Knight and The Prestige.

The irony is that it is largely those who enjoy the unconventional who download. Those of us who love movies to the point where we couldn't reasonably afford to pay to see them all. The sad reality is that as movies like Synecdoche fail, the trend towards safety continues and only generic and terrible films will be made. I download my music; any person with a computer and some gear can create their vision. It will exist whether I pay for it or not. I do not feel the same way about movies, and I do honestly believe that unless we make a contribution we will see less and less worth watching.

/endrant

IRL patch 2009 inc!

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 18:55:21 -0500
It's unusual for me to write a blog that has little WoW content to it, but it would still be great if you could embrace the spirit of the New Year and

A Different Perspective: Blizzard's

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 10:39:24 -0500
I want you to clear your mind meditation-style. I want you to reject any preconceived notionsÂ you have regarding Blizzard's motivations for changing the game the way they have. I want you to try to look at things in the most objective way possible as I am trying to do here, void of skepticism and rage. None of us are satisfied with WoW as it exists, myself included. Some are more optimistic than others (myself again), and some are on the verge of quitting the game two weeks into S5.

Console gaming, not so bad!

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 10:21:32 -0500
Because I haven't been posting, and because I just got to work and there is no one here to give me anything to do, you get two articles today! This one is just randomish ****. For Christmas I got a few things worth noting. My new Roots sweatpants make me wish it were socially acceptable to wear them in public. Seriously, I mean working at camp in the summerÂ I live off them and even wear them to the bar. I think I'm going to take a stand. If you're American and like good pants (or just good clothes in general) Roots makes the highest quality stuff available.

Back the the point. I picked up a 360 as well as a nice new TV for Christmas. My old TV was a 19-20" one I picked up 6-7 years ago, so this was long overdue. Like I mentioned before I haven't really been much of a gamer, the last console I owned was an N64 I got back in Junior High. Even then I had little time to play between Hockey and Soccer, and video games have always taken a back seat to anything else. Those first few months of Nintendo during the off-season involved a brief but lustful affair with Ocarina of Time. With myÂ 360Â I got Fable 2, and the other day I picked up Fallout 3. With WoW about as boring right now as it was 3 months ago, I've spent the last few days on the Xbox. I touched on Fallout but I don't want to ge knee-deep into that game until I've finished with the first, so I've been playing through Fable.

Playing this game makes me notalgic for Ocarina of Time. Not that I would try to put it on the same level, because it doesn't have near the lore or anywhere close to as involvingÂ a story line. The visuals are lush and incredibleÂ while the gameplay is fairly basicÂ but enjoyable. It'sÂ clearly designed to be played at your own pace; but it does remind me why I loved playing that N64.

When I turn off Fable, I hit the save button and I'm done. Sure I might want to play some more, but that compulsion is limited to a wanting to play. While I'm off doing other things I'm not missing out on anything or, more importantly, falling behind. Not that this should be a factor in your WoW playing, but it is. If you don't log in and play your Arena games you don't get points. Take a week off and your team might need to replace you. If you don't log on and use your transmute, you lose your cooldown. If you don't log on to raid you lose your DKP. And in the long term if you don't log in for a while, you fall behind and are left to catch up when you do decide to log back on. A lot of success in WoW is contingent on being online even when you don't want to be.

When I first started playing WoWÂ I had a lot of fun. I remember thinking how cool it was to play in an environment that exists past your involvement. As timeÂ has went on my compulsion to play has been related more and more to a feeling of needing to play.Â I realized this the other night when I logged on WoW to do Naxx, and didn't want to turn off the 360. MMOs are great and all, but there is something to be said for logging out of a game and having theÂ game stop too.

PS: Fable 2 is pretty sweet.

Rational PvP Suggestions

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 22:27:27 -0500
I hope the holidays have been treating all your Gamerioters well! They've prevented me from posting for several days. I've been shut away playing Fable 2 and, assuming I can pick it up tomorrow, that combined with Fallout 3 should cut into my WoW time heavily for the foreseeable future. No complaints because this increasinly casual-friendly game is likewise becoming increasingly boring, and I find myself running out of things to do.

If you want to get me a late Christmas present, please !Â

A lot of suggestions have been floating around regarding "fixing" the current state of Arenas. As I've stated before I still think that Arenas will end up being fine once participants are in full Hateful/Deadly gear. I believe higher damage discourages the use of PvE gear, and minor class changes will end up solving most of the balance issues. Nonetheless, I'm not opposed to a short term solution. The only problem is that they suck. Well, suck is the wrong word. Irrational is better. They won't happen because they include;

- Sweeping mechanics changes.

- Sweeping itemization changes.

- Creating a defined PvE-PvP line that Blizzard clearly doesn't want to exist.

- Sweeping class changes.

Let's face it; Blizzard doesn't make sweeping short term changes. Regardess of whether you think they're necessary or not you can go ahead and throw that idea out right now. Reducing damage taken by 10%? No chance in hell. No, what needs to happen is something that can be easily adjusted at the will of Blizzard with only minor changes to itemization. This leaves us with one rational suggestion, and that is modifying Resilience.

It has been suggested that Resilience reduce damage taken by the same percentage it reduces your chance to be crit. It's an interesting proposal, but I'll rule it out right now. Blizzard does not like instituting changes they expect to reverse in the near future, and I see this as one such change. This would be something they would try if full-PvP geared opponents are still experiencing the same issues, so in the short term I'll rule it out. Rather, my suggestion is simpler;

Reduce the item budget for Resilience, split the free item budget between Resilience and Stamina. Change Resilience values as each new set is released.

One problem Blizzard encountered pre-Wrath was that players capped on Resilience S1 and subsequent sets contained no more of the Stat. As a result each of the new sets has a different Resilience value, and all of them combined still fail to reach cap. I think this outlook is a fallacy. A more intelligent solution would be to change the value of the Stat each time a new set is released, so that the Resilience cap is always reached by using the best set attainable at the time. The effectiveness of Resilience can be even further changed immediately to deal with the current burst, and reverted once things settle down.

The second part of the solution, again, comes in the form of modifying Resilience values. This is a long term solution rather than a short term one, should it prove necessary. By modifying the value of Resilience in terms of item budget, the extra points freed could be spent on Stamina and more Resilience. Personally I see the first one as being the most viable of the two changes. The value of Resilience can be changed at any time, including when people have obtained PvP gear and altered values are not required.

Resilience will be the only thing modified by Blizzard because it is the only existing mechanic that is 100% PvP oriented. Any changes will be simple and easily subject to change like those I have outlined here. If you have any yourself, add them in. I'm sure there are developers reading this site (it's a far better source of theorycraft than the forums, believe it or not), and we ought to be working towards something that we actually see as reasonable rather than something we see as ideal.

I almost forgot...

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:59:32 -0500
Having not started Christmas shopping until about 3 hours ago, I totally forgot something important in my last blog. Citizens of Gameriot - rich and poor, young and old, I'd like to wish you all a;

Happy Festivus!

From the bottom of my heart I hope you enjoy Festivus dinner tonight with those you love, not forgetting to take part in the Airing of Grievances and, more importantly, the Feats of Strength. May your aluminum Festivus Pole shine bright and Festivus miracles touch you all!

Warning: Incoming Nerfs!

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 12:09:21 -0500
Alright, so yesterday I blogged about how much fun I had in my first few days of Arena. Last night the frustration started to seep through; don't get me wrong I still prefer it to being locked out for 20 seconds by a Druid who can heal his party while he does it, but losing to poorly skilled players on the sole basis of class/gear detracts from the fun of PvP.

So, we're going to play a game. Ladies, and Gentlemen I welcome to you all to this weeks episode of Who's Going First! The game show where you get to guess which class will be first to get smacked by the nerf-bat Blizzard is inevitably going to swing in the coming weeks. Some of these candidates already have incoming nerfs, and I've taken them into consideration when making the list.

The Ideal Candidate

In today's contest the ideal candidates are those who are capable of killing their opponent during the duration of a single CC with little or no help from their teammates. They can be played with nearly equal effectiveness by both pros and scrubs, and perhaps benefit disproportionately from PvE gear. This is based primarily on the 3v3 bracket.

The Death Knight

A newcomer to the contest! This class has survivability through the roof coupled with incredible control and great damage. With his pet the DK has 4 Interrupts at his disposal, high damage, and one of the most powerful abilities in the game in the form of Death Grip. Many a healer has fallen to their perpetual lockouts, and many DPS have experienced the frustration of actually trying to kill one. The reduction to Bone Armor/Icebound Fortitudes mitigations will help, but will it be enough?

The Retadin

The spec we all love to hate. Is it the 20s HoJ cooldown? Maybe. Or maybe it's the 8k Judgement crits. The Retadin's sustained damage isn't quite so out of control, but the potential for burst and lack of dependency on Rage/Energy lets the Retadin unload everything at once - a prime candidate for nerfs. Divine Shield allows the Retadin to stack PvE gear, and he gets to unload all his damage even in the bubble. Will the changes (50% damage in DS) be enough? Will Resilience and higher stamina marginalize the class?

The Arcane Mage

The King of Skill. The Arcane Mage has the good fortune of being able to validate his position on the team by hitting a single button. He really doesn't need to cast anything but Polymorph and gets an anti-gib measure almost on par with Divine Shield. Slow is to Arcane Barrage what Mark Messier was to Wayne Gretzky; the over-shadowed debuff that is better than CoT and CoEx combined. Can this one possibly avoid being hit like a home run?

Hunter

When a Mage pops AP, you try to CC him, lock him down, and maybe even attempt to heal through the damage. Bestial Wrath? Not so much. The BM Hunter is second only to AP Mages in the "requires little skill to use" category. What was our strategy? Run and LoS until it's over. Of course, you can only LoS to such an extent while being attacked by a pet that can dish out thousands of damage. Many games were lost to Hunter RNG, ending in absolute frustration. Sure double BW might disappear, but are the damage nerfs really enough to help curb this literally unstoppable killing machine.

Rogue

Reading WoM articles almost had me believing that this class might not be blatantly overpowered come Wrath. Almost. The highlight of last night's games had to have been seeing a Warrior in d-stance with a shield dropping to Mutilate during a Cyclone. The Rogue did have help though; he only did 80% of the damage. It is nearly impossible to keep Mind Numbing/Wound/Crippling from being on simultaneously, and any Rogue worth his weight in feces can prevent a caster from using anything but instants. At this point Rogues are surpassing DKs in the volume of receiving QQing, but the real question is does Blizzard dare touch them in the World of Warcraft.

This is your chance! Cast your vote now for who you think will be the first one to get smacked with nerfs in the next round of balances. Or will it be someone else? No one really knows how these decisions are made - I personally believe it involves some combination of a Ouiji board and a voodoo doll stuffed with Kalgan's pubic hair. Only time will tell, so make your best guess and put your name in contention for the secret grand prize today!

And don't forget to if you're feeling it!

Arenas are... fun again?

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:05:41 -0500
It's kind of difficult to write this while being distracted by the battery on my computer ticking away. 98. 97. I lost power last night around 9, woke up without it this morning (in a near freezing house), and went to work only to discover I don't have power here either. Ironic considering my company owns the power utility! The outage caused this post to be delayed until today because I was busy using my free time to, amongst other things, PvP. And let me tell you, it was awesome.

Before the flames, hear me out. There are any number of problems right now; insane damage, teammates dying inside a blanket Counterspell, certain classes requiring next to no skill to play, and the insurmountable advantage of PvP gear etc. I understand this and I don't really care for them either, in fact my teammates are in blues. I want you to put this out of your mind for two minutes, tone down the rage, and think about what Arena was like for nearly a year before this. I'm sure it's largely a matter of what class you play, and as a Paladin doing 2v2 and 3v3 there was really nowhere to go but up.

But being overpowered only gets you so far, and I had my fair share as Retribution in the weeks leading up to WotLK. No, it wasn't this. When I tried queuing in S3 and entered the game, I stared at that Proximo screen waiting to see what would come up. WLD? RLD? RMP? Shadowplay? RRD? WRD? For each team we had a formulated strategy down. Sometimes it was executed well and we won, sometimes it was executed well and we lost due to team comps, and sometimes it was executed poorly and we won solely by out-comping them.

I played Hunter/Mage/Paladin to 2100 in S3. It was a terrible comp, but what it did do was throw people off. Face rolling double-melee teams with terrible Druids got steamrolled, WLDs got outplayed, and even some RMP teams fell to us because they didn't know how to adapt. Their knowledge of strategy was limited to reading Gameriot and watching videos, and when faced with something they didn't have a preplanned strategy for they fell. And herein lies the beauty of this first week. Sure it sucked losing to sub-par players with KT weapons and superior comps, but on the rare occasion we met them again after having the chance to adapt I don't recall losing. More often than not, the each queue brought a different team.

SPriest/Priest/Rogue, Boomkin/Mage/Restoshaman or any number of random compositions waited at the opposite end of the Arena. It was genuinely fun to see something you've never encountered before, and come up with a strategy in the 10 seconds before you engaged. Adapting mid-game and shifting strategies is a great skill to develop, and learning to play your completely revamped class now under the pressure of 3 DPS teams in PvE gear will give you a huge advantage as things become more controlled. Preemptively casting Hand of Sacrifice to absorb burst when I'm anticipating a Blind (and having it work) brings a whole new kind of satisfaction.

Despite all of current problems with Arenas, try to think back to S4 and ask yourself if that was actually any fun. I sure don't think it was, and despite all the current cheesiness I'm enjoying the Arena more now than I have in a long time.

As always, don't for get to throw a at the top if you feel so inclined! ______________________________________________________

The money from the GR contest tops of my "new computer" fund as well as my "new TV" fund, and means I'm probably going to get an XBox 360 for Christmas. With that in mind;

I am not a gamer.

I don't really know anything about video games for the most part. I haven't owned a console since N64 and I've bought 3 games in the last 4 years; WoW, TBC, and WotLK. I'll probably just pick up one game for the 360 at first so I'm looking for suggestions on what to get. I'm torn between; Halo 3, Left 4 Dead, Fable 2, and Fallout 3. I want something relatively mindless with a fairly low learning curve. Help me out

As a side note, I'm still looking for a banner for my blog, and if someone can help me out I will love them forever. Just post here or PM me.

Epic Fail 12/19/08: Baddies, Terribads, and more!

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 12:14:32 -0500
Oh, we've all played with them. Those players who are so bad they cause you to lose faith in humanity because, as we all know, your ability to play this game is directly proportional to your awesomeness IRL.Â Have you everÂ gone to Wal-Mart and seen those fat white chicks with corn rows? You know, the ones wearing the tight $5 fake velvetÂ track suitÂ that says Hot Stuff on the ass? I generally assume that they contribute more to society than the players I'm talking about.

You first notice when they do it. "It" can be anything; from anÂ outrageous comment to a fail of epic proportions. At first you assume that they bought the account because no one could possibly be so stupid.Â The sad reality is that they didn't. With all the Gameriot angst about the current state of Arenas, I'm going to give you a break from that today and share a few stories of the best terribads I've had the (dis)pleasure of playing with. I ask that you share yours as well!

at the top if you enjoyed!

Coping With The Burst Pt. 1

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 10:28:30 -0500
I didn't make an entry yesterday because I was really hoping I would get the chance to do more than the handful of Arenas I had time for on Tuesday. Between Naxx and our schedules we didn't play, and as much as I would love to write about my first impressions I'll refrain until I've actually taken the time to develop them. What I can talk to you about the good deal of BGing and dueling I've done in the first few days, particularly the latter. If you've read my blog you know that I don't hold dueling in high regard when it comes to class balance, but it does give you some insight into mechanics and capabilities of the other classes.

I've had the change to go head-to-head with just about every class in the game, and most specs. My spec is the 49/0/22 I've been favoring so far. I won't go through the classes one-by-one but the only classes that I can't beat solo are Arcane Mages, UA Warlocks, Enhancement Shamans (most of the time), and Moonkin Druids. Rogue damage seems to be healable as a Paladin, Warriors and Death Knights are easily kitable by JoJ. Hunters can dish out damage but it's largely LoSable, avoidable, and they have no reliable damage mitigation. Retadins lose against Divine Purpose and even Watershielded Elemental Shamans run out of mana trying to burn me down. Shadow Priests suffer from DoTs being dispelled and Mana Burn seems to be very inneffective. There are some classes that I see as being the biggest problems. Of course, the Moonkin Druid is the worst.

All I can say is WOW. For a while I was able to survive. I didn't do anything offensive while Trees were up, switched to Retribution Aura to take them down (they are very easy to kill) and crossed my fingers. I cleansed all DoTs, with Insect Swarm ticking for over 1000. I LoSed them during Starfall and didn't let myself get into a position to be interrupted by Typhoon. I'd say I flat out outplayed them.

It didn't matter.

I got hit by a Wrath. I Holy Shocked to full, got a Sacred Shield proc and ran towards LoS.Â I got hit by another one, non-crit for about 2700 after absorbtion. Then he hit me with a Cyclone before the cooldown came back up. "I'm fine" I thought while debating trinketing, seeing as how he had no more cooldowns. I was wrong. As the Cyclone came up and there was still a 1 second CD on my HS, I was crit by Starfire for 13700. At best he had a +SP trinket proc. This is the worst damage I've seen from a class that wasn't using full cooldowns.

How does this all apply to Arena?

I'm currently running Holydin/APMage/MutRogue. Even as a healer based comp we're able to gib very quickly, and games are usually about picking the right target. Healer's aren't totally invalid right now, butÂ success relies onÂ throwing conservative gameplay out the window. Playing defensively is viable against some teams, and I believe that any class I was able to handily beat 1v1 can be played against in such a way. Kiting Warriors, DKs, and Rogues is one example.

Healers are going to need to realize that conserving mana is is neither beneficial nor advisable. I was using essentially every GCD. If no one was taking damage, I was putting Sacred Shield on everyone or dispelling DoTs and diseases. Pre-casting heals is game breaking and overhealing is fine. I know that my team, designed to kill quickly, is going to kill someone or die themselves well before I run out of mana. I'm casting Holy Lights on people taking damage thatÂ could be healed with a Flash. In many casesÂ a Mage at 80% will take a crit down to 30, and casting that unnecessary Holy Light saves a death. This sort of game play applies to all classes running teams such as mine.

Matching offensive cooldowns with defensive is another safe bet. From previous seasons I'm used to reactively popping BoP or Bubble. If I see a Mage targeting my Rogue pop AP, he's getting a Sacrifice. In the game I did so it saved him by absorbing 3600ish damage from the Pyroblast. If I see a Rogue open on the Mage and not be stuck in Iceblock, I'm not afraid to BoP the Mage at 90%. For a damage heavy team, not being able to execute that initial strategy can be detrimental. Don't always rely on your Mage to Iceblock, they aren't always watching their health and a "safe" 80% does nothing to prevent a death 2 seconds later.

Pick the appropriate targets. The targets that are most dangerous are also often the easiest to kill. Resto Druids, Resto Shamans, and Disc Priests are all easily killed. If you'd rather just CC the healer (easy for anyone but a Paladin) pick someone with no defensive cooldowns. Death Knights and Paladins are poor targets. Boomkins, Shamans, Priests, WarlocksÂ are all reasonably good ones. If you can keep a Stun on a Rogue he is easily dropped. If a player is intelligent enough to use their cooldowns early (50%+) switch targets and go back once it's down. If they're at 20% it's easy to kill them anyway. I know this stuff should go without saying, but the emphasis right now has changed.

Hopefully I'll get some Arena experience in the next day or two and can come back here to post something more substantial. Dueling does give you a good idea of what classes can be reliably healed through, and how to cope with cooldowns and mitigate damage.

Who do you think are the worst culprits? What steps have you taken to deal with the burst?

As always, throw a at the top if you feel so inclined!
_____________________________________

For Paladins

In both BGs and Arenas, I'm finding the damage to myself fairly managable. I'd like to equip some more PvP gear of course, but healing others is proving more frustrating than healing myself. I don't feel nearly as pressured to farm honor or buy things I'll quickly replace.

I probably won't be picking up the Boots/Belt/Bracers at all until I really need them, because of the terrible itemization (no +crit, just MP5). The first items to pick up are those you'll be using long-term like the Hateful RingÂ and the new PvP trinket.Â The cloak and neck are very good and will be next. As for the sets, I won't be wasting honor or arena points on the Hateful/Savage gear unless I absolutely need to. We fare pretty well in PvP gear and be looking at needing these items until our teammates are well-enough equipped that we make better targets than them.

If you're curious as to what I'm wearing, my Paladin can be seen here (PvE spec).

Why Damage in Arenas is Fine; Contest Results

no.spam@gameriot.com (oradol) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 09:10:53 -0500
I'm like David standing in the face of Goliath. One of the lone members ofÂ a greaterÂ PvP community who thinks that, beyond the next few weeks, the outrageous damage found in commonplace 8000+ Crits is fine.Â I've touched on this before and failed to articulate it. Here is a better explanation.

Healing is OP too!

I crit with Holy Light for over 15000; that's 90% of my current health pool.Â Yes I'm wearing mostly 25Man PvE gear and guess what? This output isn't going to change. As I covered in an article earlier this month comparing the Paladin PvP and T7 sets, I pointed out that when moving to the PvP set I actualled gained 6 +SP. As DPS stacks on PvP gear and I stack on Resilience, their damage is going to drop significantly while the size of my heals stays the same. Damage is only really overpowered when compared whenÂ healing can't keep up, and with Resilience in the game.

So why is damage so OP now?

When you have 16000 hit points, an 8000 Starfire crit is overpowered. No doubt about it. It's irrelevant that I can Holy Shock crit you for the same amount because you can drop in the time of a stun or before I can react. Even with you wearing full PvP gear and the target Resilience capped, this is still a 5500-6000 crit; but there is a difference. 8000/16000, or half your HP, is not the same as 6000/22000 HP. There is a buffer there that lets you survive without heals or gives me time to make a move.

Look at the sets themselves. I lack both the time and motivation to look at every set for ever class but I've picked a few pieces of S5/T7 and S3/T6 for comparison as they're of equivalent item levels. On average a piece of S5 has 50% more Stamina than its tier 7 equivalent, compared to S3 gear having 35% more than T6. Most people are ignoring this. Well I shouldn't say ignoring it, but failing to recognize how potent healing is.

Why the **** do you think this is a good thing?

Enter the word dichotomy; where the two aspects of gameplay and their respective gear branch off into a clear division. ForÂ four seasons of Arena we watched as the advantage of PvE gear took hold. Between class abilities, HP, and the relative damage and healing it became possible to wear a lot of PvE gear without being dropped hard like we're seeing now.Â Dozens ofÂ complicated solutions were suggested such as causing Resilience to increase/decrease the damage done/taken against other players, etc. This solution is far simpler.

Make damage so high you force people to wear PvP items. Put more Stamina on their gear and make them wear it. If it comes down to it, they might even need to gem and enchant for Stamina. In the short term (now) this is going to make things miserable; in the long term it only makes sense to reduce the viability of PvE gear by punishing people for doing so. I think in the short term they could have instituted a +X% HP buff to all players in Arena, but I doubt they care that much.

In 3-4 months, if you're a die-hard PvPer who hates killing monsters, you're going to be glad that damage is so out of control.

As always, don't forget to up at the top for like!

Edit: It seems that to some extent, my point has been missed. I don't think healing is going to be balanced and viable until people are wearing full PvP gear. I don't think we're going to be "fine" during at least the first half of Season 5. What I do think is that down the road this will help PvP gear reign over PvE gear for many classes which found the latter advantageous in TBC.

___________________________________________

November Blogging Contest

Until the day the list of finalists was revealed I was barely awareÂ that there was a contest, and never would have expected to be nominated let alone win some money. Congratulations to Mortale for wtfpwning everyone (combined) as expected, and GibTehStix for a well deserved admission and winnings. I never expected to get as many (or more) votes for you and I have some doubts that I would have done as well had your name been there in the first place.

Thanks to both the people who voted for me, and the admin(s) who nominated me. I came here with too much free time on my handsÂ and the intention of writing blogs about WoW rather than drama, a commitment I think I've done a good job of keeping. I'm far from the best writerÂ or player out there, and if anyone has suggestions for me please make them.

Thanks again, hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy writing.