The MMO Notebook

Posts Tagged ‘World of Warcraft’

The huge backlash against Blizzard’s plan to have players of World of Warcraft post on the official forums with their real name has caused them to change their minds about this dubious change.

Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime posted on the forums to announce that they have changed their mind and that posting with your real name will not be required. A huge cheer was voiced by many in the community.

Personally, I wish they had kept the plan in place. I think it would have resulted in a much more civil and productive discourse about the game and I think that was what Blizzard was trying to accomplish.

The internet has exploded with the news out of Blizzard that their forums will begin using a system called Real ID. What this means is that anyone who posts on the official forums will do so with their real names. Posters will not be able to hide behind their character names any longer. The massive thread on the WoW forums about this subject is monumental.

Naturally, people are up in arms over this for a variety of reasons. The biggest reason is player privacy. If another player does not like what you did in-game, or did not agree with what you said in a forum post, they are now armed with your real name and the potential for harassment is greatly increased.

My biggest worry is for female players. We all know what female players go through with the crude remarks, verbal sexual abuse, and general idiotic in-game stalking. Now imagine those idiots having that woman’s real name. In theory, the potential of some crazy love-struck guy could track her down in real life is very possible.

I am not sure what Blizzard’s real motivations are for this change. Are they tired of the official forums being a repository of the lowest common denominator? Do they think a more civil discourse will ensue once people are required to use their real name? I don’t know, but it sure is going to be fun to watch the outcome of this one. The Real ID system gets turned on just before the upcoming Cataclysm expansion.

As a side note, parents can opt their children out of using RealID. You can find instructions on how to do that right here.

If you happen to roam around the MMO blogosphere and news sites, you might have seen some hints and whispers about the possibility of Everquest 3 being a reality.  Some say that has been in production for years while others think it will never be made. People seem to be split on the idea of Everquest 3 seeing the light of day. Personally, I would welcome another Everquest title into the marketplace, but only if it was created in a certain way.

I have mentioned before that the original Everquest is and always will be my best gaming experience of my life. Be that as it may, I can’t see myself ever returning to Everquest, even though I have friends who would like to see me return. The reason is game mechanics. Back in 1999, Everquest was the best game you could play. During those early years, the game played mostly as you thought it should. Due to the lack of other MMO games on the market, we gamers did not have a large frame of reference as to how things could be done.

Other games did eventually come on the market, with Everquest 2 being one of them.  It met with lackluster success at best. It did improve many things over the original version, but it also left many things to be desired in gameplay and UI experience. It took World of Warcraft to show all of us how an MMO can be done right.

If Everquest 3 is indeed on the horizon, I would like to see it play like a cross between WoW and Lord of the Rings Online. Give us a UI that blows our socks off. One that is super simple to start using yet easy to delve into the deeper parts of what is possible. I would also like to see the game go in a much different art direction than current Everquest games. The environment does not need to always look super-realistic. I want the designers to use their imagination and surprise me. Show me something that has not been done before and let me see it without needing to buy a new computer to experience it.

Everquest 3 should take me back to its roots. Don’t take me to a future reality or magically transport me to a moon. Show me the “old west” of Norrath, one that I envisioned in my mind as the game taught me about the Combine Empire. A world more barbaric and yet more civilized at the same time. In other words, show me the lore I have only read about and never seen.

Is there room on the market for another Everquest game? It is difficult to envision three Everquest games operating at the same time. Original Everquest turned 10 years old this year. It obviously is still making a profit or Sony would not keep it running as long as it has. EQ 2 has more subscribers, which one would think brings in more money than EQ 1. Should Sony shut down EQ 1 to make room for EQ 3? It is a tough call, but as they say, it all comes down to money. Just how profitable are these older games? Would a new version generate more revenue?

I hope that Everquest 3 will be released. I also hope that they do it right. Only time will tell.

Yeah, I am still waiting for my new computer to arrive. Not being able to play any game for more than a month is making my fingers itch.  I have, however, had plenty of time to think about what games I want to play going forward.  I am a litle torn on the subject.

My World of Warcraft subscription is still active, even though it is not being used right now.  The easy road says to go back to playing it, but I am getting urges to play other games.  I have a lifetime subscription to Lord of the Rings Online, a game I have not logged into for a long time.  The urge to play LOTRO has been heightened lately by the fact that I have been listening to the LOTR audiobooks again.  I do this every couple of years because I love the books so much.  My only complaint with LOTRO is that I grew weary with all the quests, but if you are not questing, you are wasting your time.  The experience gained from grinding mobs is a pittance compared to what you receive from a quest.

Another option is the Sony Station Pass.  As you probably know, the $30 a month Station Pass allows you to play any of Sony’s MMO’s that you own the software to.  Everquest will ever be my first MMO love.  I played Everquest 2 for awhile, but none of my friends followed me there, so I gave it up.  I also played Pirates of the Burning Sea for a short while.  It grew stale fast.  Star Wars Galaxies is another that I played from launch, but the game destroying NGE update had me running for the exits.  I tried Vanguard again, but as I mentioned on this blog earlier, it still is way too buggy for me.

It could be because I am older now, but nothing in the MMO space gets me very excited these days.  After playing so many of them, it all seems like I’ve been there, done that.  I don’t see much innovation anymore.  Are all the great ideas used up?  I don’t think so, but you can’t tell that from the latest crop of games to be released.  Conan, Warhammer, and Darkfall are more of the same tired ideas that have been used over and over again. The only thing that sets Darkfall apart is the fact that it is so hardcore that most people will never want to play it.

So what is a veteran noob supposed to do?  I think I will start from scratch in LOTRO and see how it goes.  I still need to decide if I stay with WoW or go with the Station Pass.  My computer isn’t due for another couple of weeks, so I have plenty of time to decide.

I gave myself a treat this Christmas.  I bought an Alienware M17 gaming notebook computer.  I have done away with my desktop computer and I now use this notebook for everything.  It is a powerhouse that can handle anything I throw at it.

The Alienware M17 is not built with portability in mind.  It is a desktop replacement machine that weighs around 10 pounds.  Needless to say, not many jet-setters will be carrying this thing around.  If you are looking for a gaming notebook and portability is not that important to you, then you need to take a serious look at the M17.

The M17 can be customized in many different ways.  I chose the 2.53ghz Core 2 Duo processor.  It can be easily upgraded to a quad core processor later on, so I didn’t feel it was necessary to pay the extra money for it now.  I also choose to get 4gb of RAM, 320gb hard drive, 17″ screen, illuminated keyboard and more.  You can really make the M17 your own.

The most important feature available on this notebook is the SLI graphics card option.  I went with dual ATI 3870 graphics cards, each with 512mb of RAM, and running in Crossfire mode.  That is two full video cards with a total of 1gb in video ram – in a notebook computer!

I haven’t had a ton of time with it yet, but I can tell you that this thing screams!  It plows through World of Warcraft at max settings with ease.  I also love how quiet it runs.  Even with the GPU fans at full speed, the noise is very acceptable.  I expected it to sound like a jet engine but it absolutely does not.

I’ll report more on its gaming performance as I get back into playing.  I am very interested to see how it can handle Vanguard’s hefty graphics engine.

Wow, it has been a long time since I have posted anything here at the MMO Notebook.  Unfortunately, my job took a strangle-hold on my life and all of my MMO playing time with it.  The past months have been rough and tumble for me, but things are finally starting to settle down a bit, which hopefully will get me back to playing the games that I love.

First off, I was laid off from a job that I very much enjoyed. Needless to say, all my recreational expenses had to come to a quick halt.  I had to say goodbye to my MMO subscriptions.  It was necessary to do so, but that didn’t make it any easier.

It took more than two months to finally find a good job.  I was happy to be working again, but I was also working a crazy amount of hours, usually six to seven days a week.  As you can imagine, there was no play time to be had.

Now, months later, the job is starting to slow down some, which has allowed me time to play again.  I am not sure which game I will settle on as my main, but I am currently back in World of Warcraft.  I am also taking advantage of the free play time that Vanguard is offering former players.  This will last until the end of January.  Chances are that I will keep both World of Warcraft and Vanguard and split my time between them.

A friend of mine wants me to come back to Everquest, and while EQ will always be my first and best MMO love, I just can’t see myself doing it.  Everquest requires more play time and it usually requires several people to get anything done.  My play time is casual at best, so Everquest doesn’t really fit what I need right now.  I wish it did.

So, I will slowly start posting on this blog again.  My adventures in World of Warcraft and Vanguard will mostly be lower-level stuff, so I am not sure how interesting it will be for most people playing these games.  I will do my best.

Look on any online gaming message board and you will always find at least one thread about how good or bad instancing is.  Some players prefer lots of instancing while others would rather play in a world full of static content.  Each style of game has its merits, but I am here to say that both styles suck.

I started my online gaming career in Ultima Online, but Everquest was the game that really hooked me.  EQ had no instancing at all when it launched.  In fact, I don’t think instancing had been invented yet in any form.  In my opinion, this is what made EQ so great.  If you wanted to go adventure in Lower Guk, you had to go to the same zone as every other player.  You didn’t have the entire zone to yourself.  You had no choice but to interact with other players.  This allowed for the making of friendships (and enemies) that lasted for years.  The social and guild drama brought on by no instancing made the community unique and more aware of itself.

The downside of static content is that zones can get overcrowded.  You may be relegated to camping one small area for hours at a time because the zone is full.  Sometimes people would start lists and you had to wait your turn before getting a group.  Doing that, however, caused even more socialization and communication between players.  It also pissed off a great many players.

The addition of instancing greatly changed the social dynamic of online gaming.  If you want to go crawl a popular dungeon you simply went to the zone and entered your very own instance, where the only people in it are your group or guild.  You have run of the place to do exactly as you wish for as long as you wish with no interference from anyone.  This naturally speeds up progression and ease of advancement.  It also prevents the waiting in line for a spot in the zone.

The downside of instancing is that it removes much of the player socialization that you see in non-instanced games.  Players, for the most part, stay within their guilds and rarely to speak to non-guild members.  I found this to be especially true in World of Warcraft.  Unless I was in a group or a guild, I would have sworn that every player was deaf and mute.  It was also much more difficult to find long lasting friendships in games like these.  Most everyone stayed to him or herself because they could. Reliance on others is at a minimum.  I think this greatly diminishes the social possibilities in a game.

So both have good and bad points to them.  Everquest is the greatest example of a game with static content (although later updates added instancing), while World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, and others go the instancing route.  As much as I prefer static content, I know that we will never see a full static content game again.  Humans, as a whole, are incredibly lazy, and games that utilize instancing will always draw more customers.  The games are easier, you don’t have to interact with others as often, and let’s face it, most players think everyone else sucks.

For good or ill, instancing is here to stay.  Any game that uses only static content will fail miserably.  There will not be any going back to the good ol’ days where we walked uphill, both ways, with 1000ms lag, to the zone of our choice.

There is an interesting article over on the West Karana blog that got me to thinking.  It talks about the nostalgia we old gamers sometimes get about the games we used to play.  I agree when it says that you can never get that old feeling back.  Nothing is unknown.  There is no mystery, and that is what made that first game you played so great.  You had no idea what to expect.

The article also asks if it is possible to play just one MMO exclusively for an entire year.  I think that is becoming ever more difficult to do because I think people get bored more quickly with the MMO games that they play.  There are so many options available to the online gamer that if one gets even slightly frustrated or bored, it is easy to move on to the next thing.  Add in the fact that the Sony Station Pass allows you to play many different MMO’s, and the difficulty increases even more.

I played Everquest exclusively for over four and a half years.  Once all my friends and I moved onto Dark Age of Camelot when it released, that was all she wrote when it came to new and mysterious experiences.  Even though DAoC was brand new, we now had a good idea of how these games worked.  We understood the dangers in an MMO game and we knew how to, for the most part, avoid them.  When we moved on to World of Warcraft, we were hardened veterans and very few things surprised us.  Our MMO virginity was long lost.

The article also suggests that people should blog about their gaming experiences.  Since I am blogging about the games I play, I can easily say that I echo those sentiments.  It is fun to write about what I do in-game and I hope others either get some enjoyment or some information from it.

I loved Everquest dearly, but my days of playing a single MMO for a year or more are long gone.  I now bounce from game to game in an attempt to keep boredom a bay.  Vanguard is my main focus, but some friends are going back to Everquest, so I will join them for some adventures every now and then.

So no, the nostalgic feelings I get are only that – feelings.  It is impossible for them to be anything more.  The games have changed, our knowledge of them has greatly increased, and getting older plays a large part in it for me. My nostalgia manifests itself in this blog at times and in the banner graphic of this blog.  It is a shot of Surefall Glade, where my EQ character first came to life.

I will always cherish my early days in Everquest, but those magical times must live on only in my memory, because they can never be re-lived again.

–Wolfen

Hello and Merry Christmas to all!

I suppose it’s a strange day to start a blog, but it is as good a day as any for me. As a bit of introduction, my online gaming name is Wolfen. I am a 38 year-old casual gamer who likes to play MMO’s. This blog will chronicle the playing of certain MMO’s from a casual playing point of view.

For a bit of my history, I started playing online games with Everquest. I played it starting with beta and continued to play it for more than five years. After that, I quit the game, returning rarely to play from time to time. I am currently playing it now. I have played many more online games as well. Those include Dark Age of Camelot, Everquest 2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Vanguard, Planetside, and others.

Two games that I will be picking up again will be Everquest 2 and Vanguard. My plan is to report the current-day newbie experience in both games and see what has changed since these games first launched. This may not sound all that exciting to you, but I’m curious to find out how casual friendly these games can be. We all know that World of Warcraft is the god of casual games, but I want to see how these games compare. Should someone even consider starting up with one of these two games? We will see.

I was fartin’ around in Everquest last night and ran across some Frostfell NPC’s in Qeynos. Who knew that Santa was an ogre?

Ol’ Santug gives out a couple of quests. One of them sends you off to kill invisible grimps that drop pieces of his Naughty and Nice list that he lost. The reward given is a single use breastplate that turns your character into an ogre. Seeing my ranger as an ogre was a neat novelty, but having only a single use was disappointing.

So, my first post is done. I will be starting up EQ2 and Vanguard very shortly after the first of the year. I have a new computer on the way that will allow me to run them better than my current machine. This will be especially true for Vanguard, which is high on graphics and low on optimization.

–Wolfen