Looking some more at Warhammer

Yeah, it intrigues me.  WoW… doesn’t.  ‘course, right now I’m playing none of them, and won’t till things get a lot more stable.  But it doesn’t stop me from looking.

Today I want to look at another thing that caught my attention, and made me wistfully wish it had been in WoW.  That’s how WAR treats guilds.

See, in WoW guilds are, well, they’re just social benefit societies.  Oh, there’s a shared chat channel, and you can have your tabard and your bank.  And that’s about it.  In WAR, on the other hand…

You level your guild.  Just like characters, your guild can have a level of 1 to 40.  The amount of experience the individual provides depends not a little on how many people in the guild – the more people, the less experience anything provides.  So, what do you get for your levels?  Well, let’s look at a few things.

1) all the heraldry gets fun.  Now as you may have heard, you can dye your gear – you’re not committed to the original color.  If you’re in a guild, you can have your cloak show your guild’s crest.  Yep, you just check the block and “poof” it’s on there.  If you’re high enough to have a standard (a banner with your crest), you can claim keeps you’ve won — and that is the crest that flies (till the other side takes it, of course).

Oh, about standards and keeps.  when you get a standard it provides buffs to all your party that’s in range.  As you level, it gets more buffs.  Just like abilities (called tactics) on the player, these can be swapped out prior to the engagement.  (To use a standard, it can be set on the ground or carried.  If carried, the player carrying it can’t use his own skills, but gets some other skills from the banner.  No, I don’t know how well this works, but it intrigues).  Anyway, back to keeps.  If you capture a keep, one of your guildies carrying a banner can put it on the keep.  From then on, it applies its buffs REGION WIDE.  Not just to you, but to your allies.  (I’m still not certain if that’s everyone in the order/destruction group, or if it’s a smaller subset.  Still…)  These buffs can be combat, or they can be, well, “+5% to all money earned.”  “+5% experience”.  Yeah – like the PVP towers in Outland, only YOU get to pick the effect.

As your guild levels, it gets access to the various guild facilities – the leader’s room, the tavern, etc.  These have special vendors – no special points needed, just silver, but you can’t buy them till your guild is high enough to let you in.  Oh, and at certain levels you gain… call it a teleporter to these places.  So a level 17+ guild can transport to the guild tavern – voila, hearthstone alternative.  One last item – level 40.  At that level, if your guild is one of the top ten in Renown Points, its banner is one of the ten that fly in the street near the guild taverns.  Yes, EVERYBODY can see that your guild is Uber.  (snicker)

So, your guild can grow, getting buffs and other goodies.  It’s an interesting idea, and I look forward to seeing how well it works.

thoughts on memes

My last post was an attempt to start a meme.  And it was met with enthusiasm by four of the five (one has yet to post, one has yet to respond at all).  It also taught me I’m an idiot.

A lesson.  If you’re starting a meme, remember to add one Very Important Point.  Tell the people you tagged that they have to tag five more people.

Not one of the three, who wrote very thoughtful responses, forwarded the list.  mea culpa.

A reader challenge

Not a darn thing here that’s WoW or WAR or game related.  And if you read my other blog you’ve already read this.

Banned Books Week approaches – September 27 – October 4, 2008.  What follows is the list of the 100 books (and in some cases series) that were most frequently challenged here in the United States from 1990-2000.  I’m going to discuss the whole issue after the list – feel free to jump to the bottom to continue.  But for now, I have a challenge for you.

What I’d like you to do, reading this list, is a couple of things.  I’d like you to count how many you’ve read.  If you want to mark your copy, please feel free to do so.  And then… I challenge you pick at least one to read during Banned Books Week, and mention it on your blog (if you have one. And, as these things always go, I ask you to pass it along.  Yes, I’m tagging some people (after the list).  This may fly, it may not.  Let us begin…

1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
15. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna
20. Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

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I’m a professional librarian.  One of the Big Issues for us is banned books.  Banned Books Week this year is September 27 – October 4, 2008.  Look, if you don’t think YOUR child should read this book, that’s your right and responsibility.  But when you say MY child shouldn’t read it, you’re overstepping your bounds.  It’s tremendously easy to get caught in the “morality trap” – to get falsely trapped into feeling ashamed because you’ve raised your kids to be smart, capable – ADULTS.  Does this mean I believe we should put copies of Playboy in the children’s reading section?  First, don’t be an ass.  That’s an argument of absurdity, absolutely childish and NOT what’s being argued in most cases.  The reality is that there are concepts that are too confusing and overwhelming if the reader is too young.  However, some of those issues are… more twisted in the minds of adults than the kids.

I just gave you the American Library Association’s list of the 100 books more frequently challenged from 1990-2000.  There are some books on there that I despised.  I thought them poorly written and not worth the ink and paper on which they’re printed.  There are at least two that I would be very uncomfortable seeing in the hands of a ten year old – and a couple which in some states would risk crossing certain obscenity in the hands of children laws.  (Stern’s book, for example.)  Nonetheless, provided the book was selected in accordance with a solidly developed collection development plan, I’d fight you tooth and claw if you tried to remove any of them from my library.  “For the children” is terribly abused, and far too often a flat lie people make even to themselves.

What I’ve discovered over the years is that most of the people who wish to ban the book haven’t read it.  They’ve been told of it, but haven’t read it.  There are exceptions, but they are EXCEPTIONS.  So in my own little way I’m trying to change that.  I don’t ask you to like the one you read.  Just… read it.  Think about it.  And realize that pretty much every book on here is considered GOOD by someone. (Sigh, yes, there are a couple written solely to shock.  There’s always the test…)

Challenge goes out to the following:

BigBearButt of the eponymously named site
Ratshag of Need More Rage
Sid, the Serial Ganker
Breana, the Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chick
and Dagashai the Renoobed.

(I hadn’t realized how hard it was to stick to ONLY five candidates. There are so many friends of whom I want to see what they say about th is. If you didn’t get picked, never fear – surely your time shall come.)

Surfacing for air

No, I’m not back to WoW.  I’ve been watching discussion of Beta and discussion of the… interesting release of WotLK elements into BC, and find I have no interest in returning.

I’ve also been watching Warhammer Online.  Assuming things come together and I’ve time and will to play another MMORPG, this one is tempting me.  It’s tempting me enough that I’ve been doodling with theorycraft.

If I do jump onto the ship, I’m down to a “short” list of characters.  Black Orc is the only Destruction side.  On the Order side, there are Ironbreakes, Rune Priests, Shadow Warriors, Warrior Priests, and Engineers.  If I play I’ll play the one that looks fun.  That said, some things I found intriguing that I wish had been in WoW:

Everyone talks of the Public Quests.  I’ll add my vote too.  Lovely mechanism that brings players into groups without forcing grouping actions ahead of time. And while we’re at it a great way to get some of the big story done.  Consider for a moment having had Mor’Ladim as a PQ.

A mechanism I think is huge, though subtle, is “collision detection”.  Players can run through friendly players just as WoW.  Players can NOT run through opposing players, however.  Picture, just for an example, WSG, but a couple of tanks can stand at the door of the tunnel and pretty well prevent any enemy from passing (and getting rear shots or continuing as the case may be.)  Let’s make that a more explicit tactic.  I grab flag and start running down the tunnel.  Three of my bestest buddies stand just down the tunnel in a row.  I run through them.  Pursuers have to stop and move at least one if not all three of my buddies to continue pursuit.  (Note that most characters in WoW WAR have a knockback attack.  It just needs to be on cooldown, and you need to activate it before the other guy does.)

Another mechanism I like is that they’ve done something about Taunt in PVP.  Now i’m not sure I like that particular mechanism, but at least it exists.  Basically, if I taunt you, I hit you at +30% damage until either time is out OR you hit me three times.  Now, I’d have appreciated one more thing – a reduction to your damage if you hit anyone else.  And I’ve seen some notes saying that used to or does happen.  But the only definitive thing I’ve found is that you, the taunted, are more vulnerable to MY attacks.  Still, it does make Taunt a PVP skill.  And in fact that’s an across the board kind of thing.  There are pretty much zero “PVE only” spells/attacks.  Yeah, a few things like monsters or animals only exist, but they don’t apply to players because players aren’t monsters or animals.

Will I buy it and play it?  Not soon.  It’s interesting, but I’m still a bit burned out on the whole MMORPG situation.  But it does intrigue me.

pondering expansions

Yes, I know, “I thought you were done?”  Yes, i don’t play.  But I still read a few of the blogs because THEY are fun – they write well, they are thought provoking, things like that.

BBB had a post today about his guild doing an Onyxia run – well, actually, finishing the attunement and then doing Ony.  And it got me to thinking about the problems with Blizzard’s expansions.  Actually, the problems with several games’ expansions.  Warning, longwinded ramble ahead.  (Like that’s a surprise.)

Currently, all the expansions tend to be vertical.  It’s somewhat necessary given the way the whole thing progresses – your reward for experience is more power, not more skill.  (I think I’ll chase that digression in a different post.)  The problem existed even in the original though it was ignored – a level 60 rarely bothered to do Mor’Ladim series (to name but one).  The consequence is that these great stories – and they are great, and required extraordinary effort and cooperation and time both to design and to accomplish – are completely ignored.  I saw – still see – much bemoaning of this.  And I’ve been wondering what could be done to “fix” this particular problem.  I’d like to propose, just for a bit of thought, some options.  Not so I can play, but so later designers of other games might consider alternatives when stuck in a vertical integration system.

The first option that comes to mind is integration.  Let’s run a simple example.  Let’s assume, just for a moment, that there’s a quest or such involving the blue dragons, and part of what they need is something that drops in Onyxia’s lair.  If your group is attuned, this is a 15-20 minute battle for 15 level 70s, so I’d guess about the same for a ten-man raid of level 75 or so – and if you’re pushing level 80, it’s probably going to be a 5-man exercise.  If you’re not attuned, it’s back to BRD and (U/L)BRS.  We can do the same thing with a LOT of the old Epic Runs and Instances and Stories – a handful of Lava Cores from Molten Core, bear a Master Dragonslayer’s Orb/Medallion/Ring (Head of Nefarian), perhaps have to have won the Battle of Darrowshire, …  For what it’s worth, this is the easiest solution.  It forces the players back through one of the old series, but doesn’t particularly change anything.

Another route is scaling.  This is trickier.  On the other hand, it’s in line with changes already announced for WotLK.  Basically, instead of a +number or +range, you get a +percent (+/- a bit) of the appropriate base skill for certain rewards.  Let’s take for example Anathema/Benediction – the priest’s ‘Proof of Skill’.  Let’s modify it so that instead of Benediction increasing Int by 31 and Spi by 12, it increased them by a percentage.  Two sub-avenues here: either a rate that would apply to the base stat such that level 60 would (recognizing racial variances) give I+31/Sp+12; or a lower percentage using nominally expected gearing which would do the same after other + flat number gear.  As a balance, the toughness of various opponents would shift with percentage as well, based (if part of a group) on the highest level participating.  There are two difficulties here, of course.  The lesser is that difficulty of opposition is somewhat synergistic, and making them hit harder isn’t the only factor.  The greater is that if most gear were adjusted to reflect percentages, it’d encourage a lot more retention of lower level gear.  (+1 spi at level 10 is HOW MUCH at level 70?  My ballpark says +5.)  In the long run, this would be better.  Its difficulty, however, means the integration method is more likely.

Now in the long run, I think a game that thinks and so expands horizontally is more likely to have endurance – provided it can cross the necessary beginning threshhold of fun and engagement.  It requires so significantly different a mindset than what you’d find in WoW, however, that it won’t be found in this game.  It’s…  ok, for the old-time game players, it’s Traveller vs D&D (first or second ed, both games.)  Your core numbers never increase, you just increase skill/profession levels – which have diminishing returns, themselves.  Of course, horizontal expansions tend to increase story instead of epeen.  Early D&D was, well, like WoW.  At a certain point you could just walk into low-level mobs naked and leave without a scratch – not much in the way of reward, either, but if you’re helping a buddy get ready for the tough times what matter is that?  Yeah.  In balance there are major problems with horizontal as well – I’ve got some ideas and if I were a programmer I’d try to write them as a game, but… shrug.

I have noticed, reading a bunch of WoW-blogs, that many longer-term players are running into many of  the blahs that caused me to leave.  I think WotLK will fix some of those, but only for a little while.  And in the process it’ll make the death of the old story more obvious.  New content won’t be as extensive as the old content, but nobody does the old because it’s Level 30 clearing a kobold cave – er, I mean Level 70 visiting the other faction’s starting area.  (hmmm, that might have some fun opportunities.)

Have fun.

(probably) final post

As you’ve all probably noticed, I’ve not written much.  Mostly, that’s because I quit playing World of Warcraft.

No, it’s not a bad game.  No, it’s not a refutation or a complaint or anything else.  I just got tired of playing.  In fact the only reason I’d continued was that my daughter was still playing.  About a month and a half ago she decided she, too, wasn’t having fun and quit.

Will I play another MMORPG?  Someday, maybe.  I have more projects and things to do than I have time, however.  And one of the things I’ve discovered since quitting is that I’m getting things done – things that were lingering on either my wife’s honey-do or my wanna-do list.  That’s… pretty nice.  Do I miss the folk with whom I visited regularly?  Some.  But most of the ones I really liked?  I got their email, and in a couple of cases their phone numbers, and we still visit.

Will I complain of it?  Will I call others out for wasting their time?  HECK no.  If it’s fun, keep at it.

It just quit being fun.

I will be leaving this up for quite some time.  I figure parts of the blog posts I made will be relevant at least to WoTLK, maybe more.  If the hits approach zero, I’ll consider dropping the blog entirely.

If you think there’s an article or two that should be saved, you’re welcome to copy.  If you do, please attribute.  I’m not going to earn any money, but I do appreciate the credit.

It was a good time, folks, but, well-

Go have fun.  I will.

If it’s so dead, why play?

Yesterday I pointed out that for 70s, the only way to see pretty much all the nifty stuff not already seen is to be part of a raiding guild – which means 20 hours or more of WoW per week.  Note again, as I’ve pointed out in the past, that I did NOT say 20 hours of raiding.  I said 20 hours of WoW.  There are rare exceptions – as individuals, not as guilds.  And again, what if you don’t WANT to do 20 hours of WoW a week?

First, there is a LOT of content to World of Warcraft.  If you’re willing to set aside your level 70, you can level a few other characters.  I say a few, because in addition to the stories only accessible to horde or alliance, there are lines only available to certain classes – healing the land in the druids, the Organization in the rogues… you get the idea.

Second, while I don’t like PvP, a lot of people do.  And if that’s your bag, you’ll have a constant flurry of different foes, all with varying skills – oh, not the ones the game gives you, but how the player USES what the game gives.  Humans are just more varying than we can afford to program into games, so far.  So there’s a great of fun to be had there, which doesn’t require 20 hours of play a week.

Third… people.  I wrote some time ago how regardless of the guild, it’s still a volunteer organization.  Nothing ties it to you but your desire to be part of it.  And as a consquence, you’re going to have things in common with more than a few of the members — or you’re going to leave.  I know of very few guilds where members don’t converse – type-chat or voice-chat – outside the raid or other purpose of the guild.  All guilds are social – they’re a natural outgrowth of the nature of a MultiPlayerGame.  And Just Visiting takes as much time as you want to take.  And sometimes there are people you find in your guild who, if they lived nearby, would probably be the person you hung out with all the time.  $15 a month to have pretty constant access to friends you’d never have otherwise?  Cheap, really.

These are a few reasons why people hang on even when they can’t do 20 hours a week.  And if that works for you, great.  Do it.

Have fun.