Burning Crusade: Final Thoughts

As much as my rose-colored glasses want me to laud Burning Crusade as the best period in World of Warcraft's history, I don't think that statement is true.

A big part of why Burning Crusade has a special place in my memory is because so many of the experiences I had that expansion were new ones. I hit the level cap, ran dungeons that couldn't be beat by outleveling them, lead a guild, raided, made vides and so much more all for the first time. It's not surprising that a period of intense discovery would engender unfair nostalgia and acclaim.

But in reality Burning Crusade was still deeply flawed. The improvements it made over Vanilla were considerable, but it still bore a lot of baggage from what came before. There were classes and specs that were unequivocally superior while others were worthless. There were design issues with quest chains and bottlenecks. Itemization was still awkward and confusing. Burning Crusade was better than what came before, but it wasn't the best that WoW could be.

However, I think Burning Crusade is unique in that it is the only expansion that was arguably a universal improvement. There are a couple of contentious topics, such as raid sizes and badges, but even there Burning Crusade had fewer of those than the expansions that followed.

Overall I think Burning Crusade was the second best expansion, and I'll be discussing the first shortly.

Burning Crusade: Progression Retrospective

Burning Crusade didn't only attempt to improve questing, but dungeons and raiding as well. A big part of this was the new Heroic difficulty of dungeons. Rather than have an extremely small set of endgame dungeons, every Burning Crusade dungeon could now function as end game content!

A great idea on paper, in practice there were issues with the implementation. Not all Heroics were created equally in difficulty or loot distribution, which essentially halved the number that were practical to run. Some Heroics were harder to get access to than others as well. The result was that the planned progression of Normal->Heroic->Raid was a rocky path with a few stumbling blocks.

Nevertheless the progression path was still functional, and the act of progressing was itself a means by which player excitement was stoked. Each surmounted challenge was an accomplishment, and as players overcame each one they felt that budding thrill as they stepped nearer and nearer to being raid-ready.

This thrill continued as players progressed through each raiding tier. Though, again, the logistics of shifting from 10-mans to 25-mans was another unfortunate implementation issue, the thrill of finally being good enough to enter and acquire gear from Serpentshrine Cavern or The Eye was real and powerful.

Where I feel Blizzard has erred, perhaps irrevocably, is in demolishing this sense of preparation and accomplishment. This first started in Wrath of the Lich King, as the revamped badge system essentially made old raiding tiers obsolete as new tiers were released. The problem has expanded in Warlords of Draenor as running dungeons, even Heroic dungeons, has become strictly optional; within a day of reaching the maximum level I had sufficient gear to queue for raids in the Looking for Raid system. The feelings of anticipation and accomplishment for simply walking into a raid instance are gone.

Bringing them back into WoW isn't something that can be done easily, but as I play through Burning Crusade's content one last time I can't help but wish for those feelings to return. They needn't be reserved only for those raiders who challenge the new Mystic difficulty for raids.

Burning Crusade: Questing Restrospective

The other day I was enjoying the nostalgia trip of leveling an alt through Burning Crusade content, and as I did so many, many long forgotten memories came to the surface. While I could spend this entire post reminiscing about the first time I saw Outland's breathtaking sky, was obliterated by a Fel Reaver while running in terror, or flew free from the tyranny of flight masters, I'd rather analyze Burning Crusade from a game design perspective.

There are number of aspects of Burning Crusade's design which were significant improvements over Vanilla, one of which was quest design. Quests changed in a couple of ways.

• Quests increased slightly in number while decreasing slightly in grind.
• Quests were split between several hubs in a given zone, rather than tied to a single large hub with a smattering of random quest-givers elsewhere.

While not as obvious as improvements that would come with later expansions, these changes had an extremely noticeable impact at the time. Both dramatically improved the questing experience even if most players weren't analytical enough to explain why questing was better. Less grind is rarely unappreciated, and not having to trudge across the entire length of a zone to find or turn in quests over and over again is a dramatic quality of life improvement.

Burning Crusade questing still had flaws. Quests were designed with the assumption that a player would pick up all the quests at a hub, complete them, and return. Players failing to complete all the quests at once often ended up going back to the same areas of the zone over and over again as quest chains became desynced. Moreover, the area covered by hubs was still extremely elastic to the point where multiple hubs would have quests in the same areas, requiring players to create complicated roadmaps for optimal leveling. This was a mess that Wrath of the Lich King would clean up, but at the time was still a marvelous step up from what came before.

Sometimes you only need slight changes to make vast improvements. It's unfortunate that this lesson wasn't one Blizzard applied in other areas followed Burning Crusade.

Warlords of Draenor: Garrisons

One of the major reasons I started playing World of Warcraft again was a lot of positive buzz about Warlords of Draenor, and in particular Garrisons. I've enjoyed the Garrison, but it is in many ways flawed and I've been exploiting these flaws rather severely.

When I quit all those years ago the "minimum wage" of WoW was daily quests. Each day your average player could complete 25 of these, generally taking an hour or so, for a reasonable amount of gold. Savvy players could make far more gold by manipulating the Auction House, selling dungeon/raid runs, or crafting/farming rare items to sell, but daily quests were the primary source of gold income for the vast majority of players.

One of the more interesting aspects of the Garrison is that it replaces daily quests. Rather than require players to spend more so much time each day completing repetitive quests to secure their gold income, players can now send followers on missions that yield gold and other rewards. This takes mere minutes, and thus allows players to engage in the activities they actually enjoy.

This change is a fairly smart one, as much of WoW's original player base is aging, having kids, and losing hours of time they once spent player WoW to other tasks, goals, and needs. However, it has some unintended side effects.

With the time commitment for this income essentially non-existent, securing it on every character a player has is now fairly trivial. The time commitment, and repetitiveness, of daily quests made trying to complete them on alts prohibitive; few people had the time or patience to spend 10 hours a day on daily quests. Now that the same income can be achieved in less than a minute per character altoholics like myself are exploiting this quality of life improvement like crazy.

This only became worse when Blizzard recently introduced a follower trait which doubles gold rewards from missions they complete. Doubling one Garrison's gold income isn't a big deal, but doubling 11 Garrisons' gold income becomes silly quickly.

There are other aspects of Garrison design which obviously did not account for multiple characters. Each Garrison comes with a mine and an herb garden that fill with resources daily, but with just a couple of alts you get more resources than you can possibly ever use. Even more casual altoholics can become wholly self-sufficient, never needing to actually leave their Garrison at all save for dungeons and raids.

Garrisons are fun. I enjoy sending my followers out on missions and I enjoy the rewards I receive, but they were never designed with alts in mind. It's an oversight I expect Blizzard won't be able to correct until the next expansion, but in the meantime I'll enjoy these Halcyon days.

Still Alive

I'm back, with a very specific purpose in mind.

It's no coincidence that after I quit World of Warcraft updates to this blog slowed and eventually ceased, and it's no coincidence that a new post here appears in the months following the release of Warlords of Draenor. I am playing WoW again, and looking back on the game after almost four years away I've made observations I intend to share.

Initially I had thought to simply post them to various forums, but eventually I decided that the sheer amount of analysis I wished to do and thoughts I wanted to share precluded forums as an appropriate medium.

So I have returned.

Six Years.

Six years. To call that a long time may be laughable in the cosmic scale, but my feeble human intelligence struggles to make a concrete notion of the abstract concept described by those two words. Six years, six rotations around the sun, six birthdays, six iterations of yearly rituals, six spans of time on a continuous, unceasing forward movement. Six years are all these things, but how do you turn that evasive concept into something with form? How does one hold six years like an apple, taste it, and digest it?

Six years ago I built for myself a computer for the first time. There's a strange pride in the delicate piecing together of carefully chosen parts, and it compelled me to put my work to the test. I installed World of Warcraft and sat awed at the smoothness with which my computer handled the rendering of that virtual world. It was a small triumph, but an important one for a computer science major standing amongst throngs of peers sporting their own custom built machines.

Six years of World of Warcraft came to an end yesterday, as I logged out for the last time and uninstalled the game. In that time I was a newbie, a veteran, a casual, a hardcore, an explorer, a raider, a layman, a leader, a nobody, and a community figure. I've been everywhere from bottom to top, and the experience has taught me as much about life, people and myself as anything else I've done. Closing that chapter of my life is neither easy nor unnecessary.

Six years from now I wonder who I will see when I reread these words.

Cataclysm: Second Impressions

I've had more time with the expansion, a full week in fact, and some of my initial concerns have smoothed over significantly.

Since my previous entry on the subject I have come across a number of cases of simply good music which, though it wasn't always zone/area type specific, were memorable. While I feel a number of pieces remain below standards I'm much more willing to give them some grace as they constitute a lesser proportion of the game's music than I previously thought. It still stands that even though there is more good music than I supposed not all of it catches you in the moment the same way previous expansions have.

Archaeology as a profession is both mindless and addicting. My only frustrations with it so far have come from game glitches which have prevented me from pursuing it to my fullest abilities.

The greatest improvement and crowning achievement of the expansion, however, is that thus far the dungeon encounters have learned from all of the mistakes made in Wrath of the Lich King and offered an experience which is difficult in a way which rewards more than bigger numbers and optimizing spreadsheets.

The subtle difference in Cataclysm is that the challenges often require you to spend most of your time trying to squeeze your primary role in between other important actions. There are also a few straightforward numbers checks, but those are fine when they aren't the majority of encounters. Having to think on your feet, make decisions on priorities, and trust your own skills is extremely refreshing after two years of largely brainless play where failure means you should just come back later with different equipment.

We'll see if this bears out in the larger scale raids, but I'm very hopeful and optimistic.

Cataclysm: Launch and Initial Impressions

Cataclysm launched yesterday, an event I stayed home for. Both of the previous expansions drew me out of my hermetic cocoon to local video game emporiums in the dead of night. This latest installment offered a digital presale, allowing one to download the expansion ahead of time and be ready to play the moment it was all enabled at 12:01 PST on the 7th.

Well, in theory anyway. In actuality digital download combined with Blizzard's plan to delay the activation of Cataclysm content on all servers until 12:01 PST meant that rather than hourly waves of players shuffling in as their ability to race home from stores in their respective time zones allowed, the entire playerbase attempted to log on simultaneously.

The end result invites a host of titular puns relating to Blizzard's beleaguered login servers.

My first impression of Cataclysm is that the leveling experience is less immersive than was the case in Wrath of the Lich King. This impression is deeply colored as my first 24 hours of Cataclysm play all came in the first 24 hours of Cataclysm, whereas it took nearly a month for me to put a similar amount of time into its predecessor. Still, I can't shake the feeling that the Wrath of the Lich King leveling experience was more polished.

Oddly, I think geography is a major culprit. In previous expansions the high level zones were segregated from the old zones on a new continent. This empty slate made it easy to learn the new geography and feel a sense of progress as one essentially explored the uncharted land from end to end. It's an effortless process that happens naturally for everyone except those truly gifted at getting lost.

Cataclysm's content is completely different, scattered around the old world seemingly at random. At the same time, the expansion revamped old areas and essentially redrew the geographic map. The effect is essentially akin to dramatically altering the system of roads around your house and at the same time moving all the notable landmarks around, all overnight. It's a cartographic nightmare that creates the constant, inescapable feeling of being lost despite knowing exactly where you are.

That and trying to compete with a thousand other players for quest objectives makes it significantly harder to immerse oneself into a game.

As a final note, and pun, I'm less impressed with Cataclysm's music thus far compared to the previous expansions. The music in both Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King set tones and themes for each zone very effectively, with signature sounds for each. You could often tell simply by the music what zone you were in. Cataclysm has sadly been far more hit and miss, with the majority of music being at best nondescript.

Just so you don't get the wrong impression, it's been definitively enjoyable thus far. These are just the matters which stood out most in my mind initially.

Cataclysm Comes

Less than 24 hours until the next soul-sucking release from Blizzard.

Headlining!

My guild made the front page on Wow.com.

First, Wow.com. Next, the world (of Warcraft)!

Wrath of the Lich King: Leveling and Lore

Three steps away from the level cap, I am astounded.

Looking back on all the questing I have done I realize now that Blizzard has held true to their promises. They wanted story to be a big focus this expansion and by golly they threw the whole nine yards into it. It's wonderful.

The Burning Crusade was, and remains, Blizzard's huge gameplay fix. For the most part they tore up the foundations of the game in order to rebuild it all better. The job they did was superb and the expansion reflected that. Burning Crusade was built to test the new gameplay mechanics, to require the playerbase to learn them, understand them and love them. For those who could it was awesome.

For everyone else, or those who were tied down by everyone else, the expansion was half-baked. Blizzard's big mistake was assuming that all players, or at least most of them, would eventually come around and learn the esoteric intricacies of their carefully designed game. They found out the hard way that this was just as huge a barrier to entry as the required overhead of organizing forty people. Huge swaths of content were left undiscovered by the vast majority of the population because they could not, or would not, min/max to the extreme levels required.

On top of that, there really wasn't a cohesive story to Outland. It was steeped in history, brimming with interesting peoples, and had many memorable bosses. However, none of it really held together. The Burning Legion opens up the Dark Portal, forcing the Horde and Alliance to work together and push them back. Upon doing so they... wander around a marsh, help some ogres, relive Jim Henson's Dark Crystal, fight alongside mana sheiks, scale Medivh's tower back in Azeroth and generally fail to encounter any centralized threat from the Burning Legion. Oh, and Illidan dies somewhere in there.

Wrath of the Lich King is quite the opposite. Upon landing in Northrend you're surrounded by Scourge forces. While there are quests along the way which divert from battling them, everywhere you go the touch of Arthas can be seen and felt. The quest text that was occasionally interesting but mostly ignored in the Burning Crusade carries far more character and depth. With the simplification of many game mechanics the whole thing is in some ways an about face from the Burning Crusade.

I am only now nearing the completion of the third of nine zones (ten if you count Wintergrasp). It is likely I'll only have completed four before I hit the level cap, but I intend on completing them all. Meanwhile my Death Knight languishes.

Wrath of the Lich King: Death Knights and Dungeons

I haven't had much chance to progress much farther through Northrend, partly because of real life fun and obligations and partly because playing a Death Knight with my brother is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I'll start there.

The Death Knight starting area is amazing. The first half hour we played was spent running around Acherus reading all the books and scrolls lying around. Some were humorous, some were informative, and some were dripping with the juicy lore and story that I love so much. The quests that followed were very story driven, interesting and fun. The slow and careful pacing of talent points also alleviated the possibility of being overwhelmed. The "Phasing Technology" which sounded very much like hype actually lives up to the press. While I can't see it being universally applicable, it truly makes the Death Knight starting area one of the best experiences in the game. Even if you're perfectly happy with your current class of choice, you owe it to yourself to run through the Death Knight starting area at least once.

Some highlights include receiving quests from raid bosses straight out of Naxxramas, the haunting whispers of the Lich King urging you to destroy everything, the incredible voice actors behind Darion Mograine and Tirion Fordring, and more.

Outland is now overrun with Death Knights. We know this because it's impossible to go anywhere in Hellfire Peninsula without standing knee deep in them. My brother and I were a part of Ramparts group starring almost exclusively Death Knights (one Warrior tagged along) that would have functioned better if we weren't the only competent members of the group. It was still fun, but also pretty psychotic (I can't count the number of times that if it wasn't for the direct actions of my brother and I, the group would not have succeeded).

So in short, Death Knights are extremely fun, particularly when played with your sibling.

I did manage to do some grouping for instances in Northrend, both Utgarde Keep and the Nexus. There were many complaints that the Burning Crusade's instance design was uninspired, linear, and largely boring. I don't think we'll find such problems in Northrend.

Utgarde Keep is linear, but it is also awesome. The trash isn't interminable or uninteresting, the instance itself is rustic yet engaging in style, and the bosses are non-trivial. The last boss in particular was incredibly fun. I can't think of another boss where the tank was required to flee periodically or face certain death.

The Nexus was stunningly beautiful, it is also the first instance I've encountered where the very first mob you see is the last boss. There are three interlinked paths to take each leading to a boss which, when defeated, will release a lock allowing combat with the final boss. The trash in this instance is also perfectly proportioned and interesting. One path involves unkillable flowers that will continue to pester you until the boss is conquered. The last boss is a huge challenge, sporting a debuff that requires you to move constantly or freeze to death. We wiped several times before mastering the fight.

One notable difference between the two runs was that I respecced away from putting my spare points in Protection to throwing them in Arms. This meant I lost Improved Thunderclap, which I noticed immediately upon multi-mob pulls in the Nexus. It wasn't terribly difficult, but it was noticeably harder to keep mobs attentive to the meat shield rather then my squishier comrades.

I'm really looking forward to the level 80 instances and whatever else I encounter along the way. Alas, more familial obligations and important events are looking to continue to keep me away from the frozen realms of Northrend. My virtual snow fix must wait.

Wrath of the Lich King: Initial Impression

This will be short, since I need to be asleep an hour ago.

1. Leveling is slow. It probably feels this way because I'm now adjusted to the mondo crazy leveling from 1-70, but it definitely feels sluggish. In a way, this is a good thing as it means I'll be able to savor everything better. At the same time, looking at my 6 other 70s and my Death Knight makes me wonder how long that joy will last.

2. It's subdued. Hellfire Peninsula was very much in your face at first, with such an alien landscape as to really draw your attention everywhere to its sharp contrasts. The Howling Fjord is far less brazen, feeling very much like just another zone in Azeroth. This is also, in some ways, a good thing though I'm disappointed that I'm thus far unable to capture the innocence I longed for.

3. The quests are very well designed such that it's easy to complete them even with competition.

All in all so far so good. I'm still waiting for that tingling awe moment, I wonder if I've simply become to good/calculated when it comes to the game.

WRATH

BLOGGER NEEDS EXPANSION BADLY.

People and Places

I've stated numerous times that the reason I'm drawn to World of Warcraft over other games. While I am an introvert, I need a human presence in my gaming. My dependency on my fellows is continually rehighlighted as I play.

Sometimes it's for good reasons. Downing a boss for the first time as a guild is always an adrenaline powered high. Running around an arena having a massing FFA is also quite exciting. Often it's just the simple, if hilarious, guild conversations. Usually I can ride these waves through levels, grinding, and more mundane activities.

Other times events happen that completely stymie my ability to play the game at all. Someone leaves the guild for selfish reasons, a member displays a bad attitude, a miscommunication occurs, and many other events can sap the will to play.

The people in WoW are what make or break the game. Whether they're your friends, the bums vandalizing trade chat, or the gold farmers, I can't escape the connections personal and impersonal within the game. It's both the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of the game.

We'll see how this double edged sword cuts this summer.

Druid Haiku

I like writing poetry. Unfortunately, the following haiku are entirely topical to WoW.

Seeing Treants burn,
only you can prevent them,
wisdom from Bear Form.

Start with highest rank,
with second best repeating,
proper Moonfire spam.

Great saga of durid,
knowledge ageless and humble,
teaches Alamo.

As an aside, I spend some time debating the proper syllable count for "Moonfire". The way in which "Fire" is pronounced makes it difficult to peg. It's technically one syllable, but it's pronounced (at least by me) as Fi-er. It doesn't feel smooth enough rolling off my tongue to count as just one. However, I deferred to the dictionary to maintain the phrase.

A Nerd Power is Rising!

Playing World of Warcraft is nerdy enough as it is. However, I can now claim Mr. T and William Shatner among my peers.

Thunderdome: Hellgate vs Warcraft

Before we begin, allow me to indulge in a brief preface. Hellgate will not be the end of the World (of Warcraft). Despite popular perception, it is possible for MMORPGs to coexist, especially ones with vastly different settings and gameplay styles. All other technical reasons aside, such talk is nonsense for these reasons alone.

That said, we begin our match.

Round 1: Launch

Warcraft had a number of issues at launch, some of which were so severe the game lost several awards it had received. In summary, there were numerous minor glitches and rampant server stability and reliability problems. By the time I picked up the game these had been dealt with, but that was six or so months later.

Hellgate, similarly, has issues as well. While it shares in the numerous small glitches, Hellgate lacks the rampant server issues of Warcraft. Instead, Hellgate has various minor nuisances throughout its user interface and instruction.

Judgement: Draw.
Explanation: By all accounts the glitches are pretty equivalent, leaving the judgement to a measure of server issues against interface problems. Here Hellgate might seem to come out ahead, as server problems prohibit play entirely while a slightly unwieldy interface only makes play more difficult. However, server issues are more readily repairable. A later judgement may be able to better weigh this contest, but for now it shall be judged that the one is even to the other.

Round 2: Character Creation

The character creation systems in both Hellgate and Warcraft are remarkably similar. There are very minor differences, but someone who has seen one can very easily understand the other.

Hellgate has several advantages, and a small disadvantage over Warcraft. Rather than cycling through hair and skin colors, Hellgate has a drop down palette that makes such choices far easier. Where Warcraft has races to differentiate height and breadth, Hellgate has sliders to allow for that kind of differentiation. Both games have class and faction descriptions present.

Where Hellgate errs is in the depiction of the character. Rather than show what your character will look like initially, the game shows them as they might look in higher level gear. This can be confusing, as it isn't clearly stated anywhere a casual person might look. Some people might see this as an advantage, but for the most part it is more of a hinderance than a help.

Judgement: Draw.
Explanation: The color palettes are nice, but it's as minor as the depiction mistake.

Round 3: Initial Impression

Warcraft treats you to a sweeping tour of your character's starting area at the offset complete with dramatic voice over explaning your backstory and place in the world, before dropping you in front of your first quest giver. From there, you are asked to embark on your first genocidal quest to cleanse the area of some unfortunate animal, and slowly familiarize yourself with the game's basics. Any tutorials are in the form of tips at loading, or clickable during the game.

Hellgate's backstory is almost completely conveyed by the game's opening cinematic. Your place in the grand scheme of things is explained only in the manual. However, Hellgate's tutorial is somewhat more proactive in helping you get a feel for the game. It's very friendly, very helpful, unrestrictive, skippable, and short. Basically, everything you could want from a tutorial. There's are a number of things that aren't covered, but Warcraft is more than guilty of this as well.

The impression Warcraft impresses upon you is one of awe and an eagerness to explore. Hellgate, on the other hand, is more content to let you be excited about your character and their abilities.

I'm going to fault both, however, in that neither really take care of their own. Beyond the very most basics of the game, very little is explained. It's enough to get a player unfamiliar with MMORPG conventions up and going, but it leaves them to flounder about every which way. Each has their highs and lows in this area, but neither really comes out on top.

Judgement: Draw.
Explanation: While we could argue that Warcraft's interface is more intuitive and thus user-friendly/impression making, that's a separate round unto itself.

Round 4: Interface

Mods are excluded from this round as outside parties. I will not delve into them, nor into the ability of either game to support them. Should it come up, it will be in the inevitable rematch.

Hellgate's interface, as one might guess from earlier notes, leaves a fair amount to be desired.

First and foremost, the game has issues remembering your account name. It will only keep track of it so long as you do not exit the program. Even in this case the cursor defaults to the account name field, meaning it must be moved lest one absent mindedly start typing their password in the wrong place.

The next obvious failing is that of the helpful tips on the loading screen. Specifically, their propensity to burn through several hundred of them in less than a second during the loading process. This, however, only obscures the complete lack of any visual measure of loading progress for a minute or two. While the loading screen is aestetically pleasing, it would be nice if some indication of the current status of the effort were present.

Also vexing the user is the method of logout. If one wishes to stop playing, the "Exit Game" option is chosen. Rather than exiting the game, however, it only pushes you back to the log on screen. This appears to be some deranged compromise between actually exiting the entire game, and providing an option to exit to the character selection screen. As it stands, a player must "Exit Game" and then log in again in order to switch characters.

The other notable nuisances are the lack of any efficient system to trade items between characters, the unintuitive and obfuscated choices in console commands, and the similar difficulty in item management. There isn't any way to transfer items between your characters save for handing them off to a trusted friend and relogging. The console commands, while following the standard /[command] syntax are longer in name than necessary and are not described either in the manual or in the game. Lastly, Warcraft has a universal key one can hold down while clicking to move the chosen item into a bank, buy or sell from a vendor, or trade it to another player; Hellgate only has this function for vendoring.

Meanwhile, Warcraft boasts mailing systems, an auction house, helpful guards, and will soon sport an enhanced minimap to make finding quest givers, trainers and vendors easier. As a whole, the Warcraft interface is also intuitive and consistant. If something functions in one place, it functions the same way elsewhere. It also mimicks standard operating systems enough that there aren't any surprises for anyone.

Judgement: Warcraft wins the round.
Explanation: Hellgate's glaring errors don't impact actual gameplay, but they make getting to the good stuff significantly harder than necessary.

Round 5: Gameplay

Warcraft and Hellgate come from two vastly different schools of thought in terms of MMORPG gameplay. Warcraft follows the tried and true Everquest paradigm, while Hellgate sticks to the roots of its creators and takes after Diablo. Both styles of gameplay have their merits and their detriments.

Warcraft's gameplay is much more forgiving to the player, but much less so towards the player's time. Most notable accomplishments in the game take a significant investment of one's free hours. It is possible to spend hours just preparing for some other task, and getting nothing done other than "housekeeping".

Timewise, Hellgate can be played in short spurts or over large sessions. While it has similar directives to Warcraft, the time between setting out to complete a quest and returning victorious is far shorter unless you are going in over your head. The lack of a cohesion in Hellgate means the game doesn't suffer under the need to establish a sense of distance in a persistant world. As such, all of the traveling around to find vendors and services is absent. The presence of instant teleportation to other party members, and to and from town, significantly shaves off the time investment required.

Additionally, the pacing of each game varies as well. The actual meat of each game, quests and killing of monsters for loot, experience and glory, follows the same pattern. Warcraft has a much more leisurely pace, while Hellgate is more action oriented without necessarily being more difficult. Hellgate's leveling curve is far more forgiving than Warcraft's as well. They both start out even, but where Warcraft's begins to slow Hellgate continues to charge forward at relatively the same rate.

Hellgate is also far more forgiving when it comes to items. There is no concept of "soulbound", items can be freely traded and reused. Items are easily upgraded, customized, added to and more. While Warcraft has significant crafting advantages over Hellgate's professionless system, the freedom Hellgate offers is an unavoidable advantage.

Warcraft, however, is more forgiving in one area. Hellgate offers no ability to reselect skills and spells after they have been allocated. Once you have made your character choices in attributes and proficiencies, there is no going back. This does, however, suit Hellgate as it did its predecessors. While for a beginning player the time necessary to level a character will be significant, experienced players will likely be able to reach "high" levels over the course of a weekend.

Judgement: Hellgate wins the round.
Explanation: While actual judgement of the respective gameplay styles is subjective, Hellgate has a key advantage in allowing you to get from login to gameplay much faster and without as much effort. The "Time to Fun" as it were, heavily leans towards Hellgate.

Round 6: Social

Warcraft is an odd duck when it comes to matters of society. It seems to preclude having a social life, while at the same time being a heavily social game. It encourages bonding with other players, while seemingly attracting the kinds of people who fail to realize that "plz" is not an endearing subsitute for "please".

However, the kind of bonds that form from grouping and raiding in Warcraft are not easily replicable in Hellgate. There isn't content in Hellgate that makes deep friendships a commonplace thing. You don't have the same kind of dungeons, raiding and group questing that bring people together. Rather, Hellgate is more oriented towards incidental fun with friends you already have.

Judgement: Draw
Explanation: To summarize, Warcraft is a much more social game but comes at the cost of social life elsewhere. Hellgate may not have as much social depth, but it does allow for it in a more casual sense and at the same time does not have any draw to preclude other social engagements (beyond basic addiction).

Bonus Round: Overall

We could try and compare Warcraft as it was against Hellgate, but that's a bad comparison. Whatever Warcraft was, it has since evolved. Telling people that Warcraft was a fun game nearly 3 years ago is about effective a suggestion as telling people how wonderful this town was before all the carpet baggers came. The suggestee can't take a bus back to yesteryear.

As such, Hellgate must face off against the Warcraft of today.

Judgement: Warcraft wins the round.
Explanation: The amount of content, it's quality, the long fixed bugs, the smooth servers, and the excellent interface come together into something spectacular. Should Hellgate improve on its shortcomings the same way Warcraft has, it could easily boast a victory later. For now, Warcraft is the better experience.

Zombies, Friendships, and Warcraft

I'm simply amazed at the artistry some people are capable of when using video games as their palette. Yes, similar things have been done with Anime before. Yes, Anime Music Videos can also be awesome. No, that doesn't dilute my point.

I think what draws me to these videos, beyond the familiarity I have with the game engine they're using to create them, is both how much and how little control they have. The in game models can only have so many faces, hair styles, forms of dress, emotes and other such visual elements, and yet people are able to take them and make artful videos ranging from amusing to insightful and all artistic adjectives in between.

While much of the merit can be based on the choice of music, (e.g Jonathan Coulton's Re: Your Brains) some are simply artful in and of themselves.

Particularly, the following:



I'll admit that for someone who doesn't play World of Warcraft, a number of the elements in that video may be confusing. Still, I felt I had to share.

Fury of the Winds

Warning: Another World of Warcraft related post.

Blizzard has hotfixed the Windfury totem such that its effect no longer activates on 'yellow' damage save for 'On Next Swing' abilities. This has caused another uproar on the forums.

I made a thread defending the change, arguing that the totem was a crutch. All Melee DPS was depending on that one buff, and as such there was a single point of failure. Most Melee DPS classes arguably were overdependent upon the totem, and now can receive buffs to increase their individual capabilities.

I did acknowledge that no such buffs have been received, and that there are no details on buffs for the Warrior class which was the most dependent on it of all Melee DPS. However, I still happen to have faith that Blizzard knows what they're doing (this change is evidence in my mind).

My thread generated a rather large amount of interest/flames, and now sports 3 posts from a 'Blue'.

What is interesting is the utter hostility I received, although it isn't surprising. While there are many factors, I believe that in any situation where a mass of people are upset about something any dissenting view that they're overreacting will quickly be punished. The idea that anyone could be content with the horrific change is one to be eliminated immediately. Hence, I was on the receiving end of a fair amount of anger, ad hominems etc.

Personally, I'm excited about the possibility of buffs to offset this.