We Fly Spitfires – MMORPG Blog

Work is pretty insane at the moment so I’m trying to convince everyone that once it calms down we should all reward ourselves with a trip to Mount Midoriyama, Japan to take part in the world’s most grueling and extreme obstacle course. It’s called SASUKE (サスケ) a.k.a. NINJA WARRIOR! And it’s awesome.

Incredible. I thought I had just invented the term ‘altaholic’ but one quick Google search later (is there nothing these guys can’t do? Apart from screwing up my Adwords account, that is… Eh, double negatives anyone? In your face, Ben Affleck!) and it turns out it’s been in popular use since, well, a while.

Here’s the definition of altaholic.

Here’s an entire blog about being an altahole altahol.

Here’s a complete World of Warcraft add-on for altaholics.

Looks like my problem isn’t very uncommon. To be fair though, I’ve been pretty good in WoW compared to some of my other MMO experiences. My main is level 64 and I’ve played him pretty much solidly since I started him back in October… and I every intention of getting him to level 80. So I think I’m justified in starting a Priest alt. And a Shaman alt… Yep, this entire post was some convoluted way of me saying “I’ve started a Shaman alt everyone cause I just wasn’t sure about the Priest”.

Don’t ya love the Internet?

I got an iPhone a couple of months ago and since then I’ve been installing apps like crazy. Of course, as I play WoW, one of the first things I did was check if there were any apps for it. I didn’t expect to find any so I was very surprised to find several had been made and that some of them were actually pretty good. Here’s the lowdown:

WoW Talent

http://www.orzware.com/wowtalent/

Probably the app I use the most, this is basically a talent calculator for your iPhone. It’s pretty decent and lets you save and load talent builds which is handy if you want to tweak your talent setup on the move or fancy checking out the talents of another class. Since I’ve been contemplating some WoW alts, I’ve been using this quite a lot. The only downside to the app is that it’s quite slow and cumbersome to use. Unlike a talent calculator website, you can’justt  mouse over a talent to read it’s description but, instead, you have to press your finger on one for a few seconds before it opens in a new window. Maybe I’m too impatient but I find that kinda slow and annoying.

WoW Talent screenshot

Warcraft Characters

http://rudip.com/iphone-apps/characters/

This app lets you look up characters on any server and view all of their statistics and information. Pointless, I know, but it’s quite fun none-the-less if you want to spy on your guildmates or pretend to your friends that you actually care about their gaming experience. It’s free, as are all of these apps, so you’re only hurting yourself by not getting it.

Waracraft Characters screenshot

Warcraft Chest

http://sednalogic.com/

A handy little app that lets you view items drops from raids, dungeons or as rewards from badges, reputation or PvP. Not massively useful but still pretty fun if you want to satisfy your curiosity about what’s available where or if you’re just bored on the train and want to see what’s available.

Warcraft Chest screenshot

There are a couple of other apps available as well but I don’t have either of them. One is only available in the US so I can’t get it (WarcraftStat) whilst the other isn’t free and looks a bit rubbish (WoW News).

Now, where are the Everquest 2 apps?!

I started a Draenei Priest alt in World of Warcraft a few days ago as I fancied trying something a little different to my Warrior. I role-played a cleric in Everquest about 8 years ago (has it really been that long?!) and thoroughly enjoyed it and have kept meaning to try a proper healing class again since then (I also started an Inquistor in Everquest 2 but that’s another post).

The first thing I noticed about my Priest is just how tough, or rather, slow it is to quest and level up. Killing mobs takes forever compared to my Fury spec’d Warrior and I have to stop and drink and eat after every 2 kills or so. I’m also extremely fragile as I can only wear cloth so I die easily when a 2 or 3 opponents gang up on me which can be a little frustrating sometimes. Priests in WoW are interesting because they lend themselves more to classic mage casters than to the usual Cleric dipiction. In many fantasty MMOs and roleplaying games, Clerics are able to wear plate armour which makes them more sturdy and they focus their offensive capabilities more on melee than magic.

All of this has meant I’ve started to spec down the Shadow talent tree just to try and make my solo life a little easier and I’ve heard they end up putting out some respectable DPS. I’m a little annoyed at this though because I want to be a true healer and group as much as I can and do all of the dungeons I missed with my Warrior. I’m hoping that my native healing abilities will be enough to see me to level 40 even as a Shadow Priest and by then the dual-talent system will have been released.

My predicament makes me understand exactly why grouping is so uncommon in WoW and why good groups are so hard to find compared to other games like EQ2 – everyone specs down the DPS talents just to make their solo life easier!  I have a Fury Warrior and now I’ll have a Shadow Priest! I feel pretty guilty too because I want to be a true tank and a true healer… but I’m just too lazy to give up my soloing ability. I think the dual-talent system is going to have a huge impact on the WoW community.

Despite my struggles with leveling, I’m enjoying my Priest and plan to invest a decent amount of time in him – if for no other reason than the high level armour sets look awesome. I’m also planning on posting about my experience with a low level Inqusitor in Everquest 2 and hopefully it will provide an interesting contrast.

Here are my predictions for MMOs in 2009:

Star Wars: The Old Republic, Star Trek Online & DC Universe Online

Won’t be released this year. They will all be delayed until 2010.

World of Warcraft

Will continue to power on as usual but, as before, it will eventually lose subscribers to other games after a few months. This won’t really have any impact on the overall WoW subscriber figures though and players will return in droves in 2010 when Blizzard releases the next expansion. The dual-spec talent system will be delayed until late Spring but it will be much appreciated when it arrives.

Everquest 2

SoE release another new expansion in November, increasing the level cap by 10 and adding a new continent, the moon of Luclin. Unfortunately, the expansion doesn’t include any new low level content.

Everquest

SoE open a new server in March, similar to the Stromm server back in 2003. Lots of people go back and try it out for nostalgia’s sake.

Lord of the Rings Online

Continues to power along steadily but absolutely nothing exciting happens with it…

Age of Conan

Funcom release an expansion in the Spring with a new race, new content areas for all levels, a deity system, a handful more fatalities, some raiding zones and increase the level cap to 90. They make the Tortage starting area optional for all players who have a level 80 character or above.

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

Mythic work hard to fix all of the technical issues in the game has and focuses on improving the RvR experience. They increase the leveling speed again, making it quicker to get to T4 and reduce the all of the ‘requirements’ for PvP and RvR in Tiers 1-3 (i.e. reducing the number of people required to siege a keep). They add some new T4 PvE dungeons and, in the Spring, release the Choppa and Hammerer classes in a world event. They make scenarios cross server. During the summer they announce that they will release an expansion in 2010.

Vanguard

Vanguard eventually gets an expansion and proves that it just… won’t… die. The expansion focuses primarily on new areas for high levels and raiding.

Tabula Rasa

The games closes in February, only 15 months after having started. Real shame cause I actually liked the game – if only it had more depth and content.

Darkfall

Eventually releases this year and, despite a lot of fanboi hoo-ya, never really amounts to anything as all of the hardcore players return to WoW after trying it out for 1 month.

The Draenei are my favourite race in World of Warcraft and, not surprisingly, my Warrior is one and I’ve also just rolled a couple of Draenei alts – a Priest and a Paladin. I was toying with the idea of making Blood Elves (they are probably my second favourite race) but I decided to keep all of my characters on the Alliance side so I can stay in contact with people I know.

I like the Draenei race for a variety of reasons, not least because they actually look cool and unique and are very well rendered in the game. Along with the Blood Elves I think they are the best looking player models and don’t suffer from hideous ‘gangly limb’ syndrome like the Night Elves or Trolls and don’t have any severely debilitating posture problems like the Humans and Orcs. Request to Blizzard: you added barber shops, now add chiropractors.

I don’t like small races (being tall in real life has made me unable to play anything that might be considered a midget) so the Draenei immediately appealed to me. They also look unlike any race I’ve seen before in other MMOs – score one for Blizzard being original. Probably the best thing about the Draenei though is their lore and background. Blizzard did an amazing job of giving them an interesting history and creating a truly deep, original, and involving storyline which ties in nicely with everything else that’s going on.

I won’t recite the whole history of the race – you can read about that on WoWWiki here – but I’ll summarise it briefly: they are aliens! Awesome! They were originally from a planet called Krypton Argus which was overtaken by what would be become the  Burning Legion and, after doing a ton of interstellar running around for thousands of years,  they eventually settled down on a nice looking fun planet. They called it Draenor. Alas, the Burning Legion eventually found them and all heck broke loose. Long story short, they tried to escape again in their spaceship, the Exodar, but those pesky Blood Elves sabotaged it and they crashed on Kalimdor, Azeroth. Whew.

Typical Blizzard style is there actually a ton more stuff to it than that but this gives you a brief round-up of their history and a flavour of their race. I have to take my hat off to Blizzard for managing to successfully create and blend in a sci-fi-esque race with the standard fantasy universe of Warcraft. It’s also great to see Blizzard try something a little different and branch out into new territory. Hats off to them for the Draenei.

2008 saw the release of two highly anticipated games – Age of Conan and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. I remember at the start of year reading the usual threads on forums about how they will conquer the universe and destroy World of Warcraft, making Blizzard cry and us laugh with shottenfreud. Never happened. In fact, both games are now getting severely panned by the blogging community whilst WoW is growing ever stronger. However, it seems to be the general consensus that WAR will eventually become a great game and challenge WoW whereas AoC will die a vicious, combo-orientated, death.

I disagree.

Although I think WAR is a decent enough game, it’s basic design is flawed deeply enough to prevent it from truly evolving. AoC, on the other hand, may be lacking content depth but it’s core game is excellent and it’s world is truly rich and satisfying. And I’m not talking about gorgeous graphics here, I’m talking about the feeling of the game when you play it and the immersion it provides. AoC really feels like a virtual world and, most importantly, it feels like Robert E. Howard’s virtual world. WAR, on the other hand, just felt a repetitive tiered t numbers game with no soul.

A Wall of Text has a good article up about why they are quiting WAR and I agree with everything. To me however, the scariest thing about WAR is the dying population and how it will effect gameplay. My original server, Karak Hirn,used to have a queue of 1-2 hours and yet, a mere 6 weeks after starting, the population was marked as ‘low’, even on peek times on a weekend (I haven’t checked it out recently). For a game which relies on large amounts of players to create the fun (PQs, RvR, scenarios) this is the kiss of death.

Mantooth fighting during a keep seige

Keen and Graev are rather harsh towards AoC in their 2008 summary but, to be honest, I don’t think they ever liked the game. I haven’t played AoC in a few months but I still feel an affinity towards it and I honestly believe it will develop and evolve into a great game, much like EQ2 did. All AoC really needs is a good does of content, bug fixes, class balance, and new armour models (please, I want the variety!!!) – sounds like a lot but it’s all possible and doesn’t require huge reworks to the original game. It’s core gameplay is great and I have to commend Funcom for pushing the boat out and trying new things with their combat system. I have every intention of picking this game up again after their first expansion this year.

Mantooth: old man, big sword