Artwork Styles of WoW and Lord of the Rings

I've been slowly exploring the Shire in the new Lord of the Rings MMO and getting familiar with what few differences it has from World of Warcraft. My first impression of the game is that only the graphical style of the artwork and the Tolkien storyline makes it stand apart from World of Warcraft. The artwork is amazing and at times has an almost photo realistic look to it. However, this works against the game in certain areas since gamers have been accustomed to the grand exaggerated style in World of Warcraft.

The one place where Lord of the Rings definitely beats WoW is in the rendering of landscapes. The water, grass, and trees all look much more impressive in the newer game and adds a nice layer of immersion. Part of this is due to the more advanced graphic engine but most of it probably lies in how the terrain artists took advantage of camera shots from the movies. Either way it makes traveling through the forests and mountains in Middle Earth more pleasant then in other MMOs.

Unfortunately the man made structures in the game don't seem to benefit from this artwork style as much as the landscapes. I guess because I've been playing World of Warcraft for so long I expect dungeons and buildings to portray a twisted and surreal feeling. Picture traveling through the Dark Portal into Outlands then compare it to any type of gateway in Lord of the Rings. When you compare structures between the two games you will almost always find Middle Earth more utilitarian and realistic while Azeroth seems to have a stronger sense of visual fantasy.

Which game has the better weapons and armor seems to come down to a matter of personal preference. Both games have a wide assortment of different models for both but I've notice a couple of things. One is that WoW weapons and armor are often too stylized to be believable as actual combat items. Just look at some of the end game weapons in the Burning Crusade. On the other hand Lord of the Rings sticks to more believable models but from what I've seen so far makes little use of exotic colors or particle effects. This has the result of LOTR items appealing more to realists but having less desirability as a trophy to other gamers. In simple terms it looks less cool.

Enemy models are similar to other MMOs that use a realistic artwork style. The early animals mobs (bears, wolves) that seem to be a requirement in the fantasy genre are definitely better portrayed by this style. However, the heavy use of weird color schemes and misshapen forms seems better at portraying actual fantasy creatures. For example just compare the murlocs in WoW with any of the low level humanoid mobs in LOTR. The bright colors and hunchback nature of the murlocs do a much better job of portraying a dangerous creature then the assorted goblinkin of Middle Earth.

The character creation screen is impressive in LOTR even if it is not quite up to par to City of Heroes. Still it offers many more selections for facial and body features then WoW players aren't used to having. Some people might be put off by the very human looking faces which brings up the uncanny valley problem of computer animation. Despite this risk most players are going to like that its almost impossible to make an ugly looking character in LOTR. One of the common complaints with WoW especially with women is how the entire horde side of the game comes off grotesque in nature. I think in general that those gamers who prefer playing the human race are going to like the character creation screen better in LOTR.


Graphic Style Rating

Landscapes: LOTR
Architecture: WoW
Items: WoW
Mobs: WoW
Characters (Avatars): Tie

Terrain Effects on Arena Combat

With patch 2.1 just going live most PvP teams are starting to experience the Ruins of Lordaeron which is the newest arena introduced by Blizzard. Unlike the Blade's Edge arena this one is relatively free of clutter with only a central fountain providing any major cover. A few areas on the peripheral of the arena might provide some cover for the shorter races but in general it will be a fight to the finish in the center. Even the Nagrand arena with its four pillars probably provided more ways to use line of sight to your advantage.

Of course the design of the Ruins of Lordaeron is in response to the many complaints about the Blade's Edge arena which some say offers an unfair advantage to range classes. In particular is the strategy utilized by hunters where they would ground freeze the center part of the map and then jump onto one of the pillars. This prevented most opponents from being able to make the jump onto the pillars which then became the ultimate sniping position. For arena teams heavy on the popular warrior and rogue classes this is devastating.

While utilization of terrain is part of most PvP games it often seems to have a huge impact in World of Warcraft. Blizzard is very cautious about reports of cheating using terrain and can take quite awhile to fix an issue or even send out a response. Notice the long delay in fixing several areas in the WSG map where flag carriers could become invulnerable. And to this day some people blame the dominance of the Alliance at Alterac Valley due to the placement of the graveyards.

World of Warcraft unlike most games which have a PvP component does not offer an equal chance for all players. Its not really Blizzard's fault since range weapons allow for more favorable use of terrain then melee ones. If you look at most competitive PvP centric games everyone uses the same type of weapon which are most often firearms. Mankind sorta replaced the sword a few centuries ago. Still in a fantasy PvP game the developers have to respect that some people want to swing around a sword and might appreciate a chance to win.

This is why warriors have some of the highest burst damage available in the game and rogues have so many stuns. Still both of these traits are useless if they two classes can't reach their opponents. Thus I expect in the future that any new arenas introduced into the game will keep with the less cluttered feel of the Ruins of Lordaeron.

Does Starcraft 2 mean no Starcraft MMO?

Starcraft 2 was announced last Saturday and most gamers around the world took notice of the event. Blizzard especially made sure everyone who played World of Waracraft was aware by including several advertisements on the WoW homepage and login. While some people were annoyed by the promotional announcements most players were happy to hear about the sequel. Even if a gamer isn't a fan of the RTS genre they will still probably pick up a copy of Starcraft 2 due to the buzz about the game. Blizzard redefined the genre when the released the original version and the sequel looks like it will also have a huge impact.

The week before the announcement had seen a lot of rumours flying around as people speculated the nature of Blizzard's new game. The two most popular rumours were claiming it was either Starcraft 2 or a Starcraft MMO. Since the announcement was to take place in Korea, which has a well known obsession with the decade old game, most rumours accurately guessed which Blizzard universe was being revisited. However, just because Starcraft 2 turned out to the be the winner in the rumour contest doesn't mean that a Starcraft MMO is out of the picture.

Look at how Blizzard made use of Warcraft 3 to expand the warcraft universe and add multiple characters and story lines to the franchise. This fleshed out the RTS game with enough background that the transition to MMORPG was possible. The early warcraft games had a nice complicated plot but were missing the massive amounts of names, places, and races that a MMORPG requires. Most MMOs require this critical mass of story lines and characters to construct a tangible fantasy world. Think epic fantasy series like The Wheel of Time, The Sword of Truth or even Tolkien's books which all seem to create a semi-believable universe.

In my opinion Blizzard might have decided to go with Starcraft 2 so that they had plenty of time to add more lore so that a Starcraft MMO would be possible. I'll be keeping a close eye on the plot lines from the single player campaigns to see if it looks like they are expanding the starcraft universe. Already I can see how Blizzard might have different races within the factions of Starcraft. The Protoss are the most obvious since they have very different "light" and "dark" units. The Terran and Zerg are a bit more difficult but could be based around which leader they followed. For example there could be Terrans with better technology from the United Earth Directorate and Terrans with better survival bonuses from the Colonies.

Its all speculation at this point but I firmly believe a Starcraft MMO to be Blizzard's hidden weapon against Warhammer which looks to be a strong up and coming opponent to WoW.

Back in the Saddle

I've been busy at work for awhile since I managed to land myself on several projects which required 7 day work weeks. After my little code-a-thon I got a nice vacation week which I used to pack my bags and head somewhere warmer. Think beaches, theme parks, and sunshine. So far this has made my posting very limited for the month of May but I hope to change this now that I'm back and well rested.

The daily traffic for the blog has become much more stable and no longer fluctuates as much when I post an article. Most of this traffic is from search engines but I know I have some regular readers out there who aren't sent my way by Google. I'm currently in the middle of trying Lord of the Rings Online while keeping my WoW account. I hope playing the two at the same time gives me enough ammo to get back in the habit of regularly posting and perhaps shooting for a once a day schedule.

I should have a nice theory post up by the end of the day.

City of Heroes gains Loot and its baggage

This is old hat news but last week City of Heroes pushed a patch or issue as they like to call them which introduced loot into the game. Now a salvage system for base creation was already in place but it did very little to increase a player's power or standing. This new system allows the looting parts and patterns from enemies which can be used to create temporary powers, power enhancements, and costume accessories. It's a very big change for a game that use to pride itself on keeping the MMO experience as simple as possible.

Its been a long standing position of the City of Heroes developers that loot was unnecessary for their game and could in fact detract from the game experience. Mostly this line of thought comes from the idea that item acquisition introduces more dividing factors into a MMO. We've all heard stories about ninjas and scammers who use devious methods to acquire items or money. City of Heroes has enjoyed a dearth of such stories due in part to the limited emphasis on currency and item acquisition.

Another problem that City of Heroes had managed to avoid with their "no loot" policy was major differences in power between players of the same level. The amount of free time players have is often quite different and this often causes steep increases in power to those who could track down every item at a certain level. Early attempts to avoid this in games such as Ultima Online basically made it so that improvements through loot barely effected combat. As a result most people fought naked and equipment wasn't sought or used very much.

On the other end of the spectrum is when items have a huge effect on combat and start causing problems with the creation of new content. Once there exists a difference in power between players of the same level then developers start having problems balancing new content. Should they prepare a new zone based on a player having only a few items or should they expect every available slot to be filled with the best? Most games in the past have balanced new content based on the upper end of the curve and alienated a large portion of their playerbase.

With City of Heroes adopting a more normal loot/item policy they are opening their doors to the same problems Everquest and World of Warcraft experience. However, both of those games have been much more popular then the superhero MMO and one has to wonder if the "no loot" policy had something to do with it. Maybe gamers inherently want more methods to improve themselves over their peers despite the problems it introduces into a game? I often plan ahead about what high end epics I would like to get for my characters even though I know by the time I get them they will be obsolete. Still, its the fact that such carrots exist that most people find themselves continuing to play the game.

Karazhan: The roadblock to modern raiding

Karazhan is the first raid zone in the new expansion and actually requires very little effort to get attuned. You simply talk to the NPC outside the tower and then complete some level 70 instances. The last part of the attunement requires a succesful Black Morass run but that isn't as hard as it used to be for most players. The reason Karazhan is a roadblock is not because of the attunement or the difficulty of its bosses but instead with the fact that its the first raid instance in the new expansion.

The difference between the gear requirement for normal level 70 dungeons versus the first 25 man raids is simply too great. Guilds have to gear up in Karazhan if they wish to advanced to any of the large raiding content. However, since Karazhan is a 10 man raid with a week reset timer it slows down the gearing process unless multiple raids are formed. This is impractical for the most part though since the top players in a guild tend to stay together for a single raid. Leftover players often form 2nd or even 3rd raids but often have problems clearing anything after the Huntsman due to class balance.

Thus a lot of guilds have fractured because of the gear imbalance caused by trying to organize multiple teams. In a perfect world a guild would rotate well geared players among the different raid teams so that all of them could finish the zone. However, the varying class balance requirements for each boss in Karazhan makes rotating people a nightmare. Its been suggested that Karazhan be moved to a three day timer like Zulgurub but that would cause even more problems. The reset timers for each team wouldn't necessarily be on the same day and would cause even more of a headache.

Some other factors also lead to Karazhan being a bad "first" raid zone for the Burning Crudsade:

1) Bosses that require unique class balances for an average guild to be able to beat.
example: Range DPS for the Maiden, Melee Interrupters for the Shade

2) A couple areas of fast spawning trash before a hard boss.
example: large groups of undead before Monroes, mana feeders before the Shade

3) Loot often set for primary raid specs only
examples: Fury Warriors, Retribution/Protection Paladins. DPS shamans and Hunters have very little loot in Kara.

A better introduction to raiding would have been to make a slightly easier zone for 25 people as the first raid zone. At the moment as soon as a guild wants to raid in TBC they have to split themselves up into separate teams for Karazhan and farm for a month. This really hurts some of the camaraderie of the guild especially if the "A Team" has a lot more success then the others. An easy 25 man encounter before Karazhan would provide a nice weekly event where the entire guild got to participate in a victory. It would also help distribute the loot out better since multiple Karazhan teams would be participating.

How to Make an Old World Heroic

I've had this sitting around in my notes for awhile and decide to post it today. Its a little rough around the edges but I think it gives a good outline how a old world dungeon could be turned into a heroic one. It takes less time to make a heroic version of a dungeon then it does to create a new one from scratch. Thus while in-between expansions releasing new heroics would seem to be the quickest way to get a more steady stream of "new" content out to your end game population.

Target:
Uldaman

Mob Upgrades:

Scorpions: Made into level 70 non elites with poison similar to carnivorous bite from the ramparts

Bats: Made into level 70 non elites with AoE silence + dmg ability

Troggs: Made into level 70 elites and grouped in threes or fours. Warriors would be able to enrage and gain 50% damage. Shaman Troggs would make use of earthbind and fire nova totem.

Earthen: Made into level 70 elites whose attacks would hit comparable to other heroic mode casters

Stone Golem + Earthen: The Golem would be linked to the earthen and have to be destroyed first else the earthen would respawn from it

Shadowforge Dwarf (shadowcaster): Made into 70 elites which would use the improved Soul Drain found in the Botanica

Shadowforge Dwarf (melees): Made into 70 elites which would use mines and grenades with a silence component

Boss Upgrades:

Ravelosh:
The first boss in Uldaman with two adds could be a fight structured much like the Watchkeeper in the Ramparts. In the case of Ravelosh I would recommend that instead of charging the 2nd person on the hate list he would throw a boulder and stun that person for 2 seconds instead. His adds would also heal him so they would have to be dealt with first.

Ironya:
The second boss in Uldaman should play out like a mini Maiden of Virtue fight. Give her a consecration ability and the paladin ability to put one person to sleep. If you want to get real creative give her a large aoe lightwell like ability that will heal her unless the main tank pulls her off of it. This ability would be much like the shadow well ability the large voidwalkers in the Arcatraz have.

Galgan Firehammer:
This dark iron dwarf needs a few more tricks to be challenging. I suggest giving him the ability to drink some whiskey and do a dragons breath type attack. Give him some more hunter like abilities like a burning net that does damage and scattershot.

Obsidian Sentinel:
The perfect way to make this boss fight heroic would be for him to summon a group of eathen whenever he went down 25% in life. He could be structured like the giants in the Outlands so that he got smaller after each group. At the end the earthen he would be a little tiny stone golem. If him summoning a full group of earthen makes the fight too hard then simply have him spit out two or three instead.

Grimlock:
The King of the Troggs already has some nice abilities on the non-heroic version. To make him a true terror though I suggest giving him the mind control totem that Jindo uses in ZG. That combined with his little basilisk friend should make things interesting especially if you gave him the ability to cleanse crowd control effects.

Archaedas:
This guy was already impossible for most groups of mid 40s to kill. Still would need something special to spice the encounter up for an heroic run. Just to be demented I think he should be able to channel a spell on the earthen which stuns them for a couple seconds then explode for AoE fire damage. He can even shout out something nice like "Return to the Makers and take these trespassers with you". Add in a increased spawn rate on the earthen statues so that two come to life at the same time and you got yourself a nice hard end boss.

Loot:
All boss mobs should have improved blue loot that have stats comparable to heroic Old Hillsbrad. Also make sure that some of the loot has off spec stats so that every class will want to come. One of the worst things about Karazhan is that almost all the loot is focused on raid spec builds only, examples: Prot Warrior, Holy Paladin.

Each boss should have a chance of dropping an epic gem. While the final boss should always drop an epic item, and two of the blue loots from the previous bosses. A major frustration with dungeons is when a boss refuses to drop that one item you need. By making the final boss also drop blues which could be from any of the other previous bosses you reduce this frustration a little bit. This loot system might not work in the smaller 3 boss instances of the Outlands but in the bigger old world dungeons I think it makes sense.

How to drive your Healers away to another MMO

Step 1: Make sure that only specialized healing sub-classes can heal end-game content.
Check: Have you met a shadow priest/retribution paladin/feral druid who could heal black morass or arcatraz?

Step 2: Make sure these same specialized healing sub-classes can't solo.
Check: Being a healing specced class is like being in Kintergarden again, your not allow to do anything or go anywhere unless you have a buddy.

Step 3: Make sure healers have to constantly watch health bars because of insane burst damage.
Check: In Heroics/Raids just pretend every class's health bar has only two states: full life and almost dead.

Step 4: Make sure end-game healing requires intense concentration and provides no graphical stimuli to the player.
Check: Yup, still just looking at health bars in raids. Maybe I should reroll a dps class so I can actually see content while in a raid.

Step 5: Buff a healing class while ignoring the crappy holy priest talent tree.
Check: Well priests have lightwell so lets give paladins something just as good, "How about free mana on all crits?"

Step 6: Nerf the same healing class a few months later while ignoring the crappy holy priest talent tree.
Check: The priests have all been forced to specced shadow to feed paladins mana and now they can't use lightwell. Well we know what to do.

Step 7: Issue a major nerf patch to your now primary raid healers right before the release of a new PvE centric MMO.
Check: Hey where they hell did all our healers go and how did LOTR get 1 million people into their open beta?

While I don't believe Lord of the Rings is that much better then World of Warcraft it has a couple of things going for it which are going to make it stand out. The first thing is that because of its focus on PvE its classes are going to be a lot more stable. As it stands now each set of WoW patch notes oftens causes a class to have to change their primary raid role or start collecting a new primary stat.

While change is good, it shouldn't affect the current work a player has put into their character. Frankly at this moment Blizzard depends too heavily on releasing content way overpowered then nerfing it until it fits the current game balance. This "we can nerf it later" methodology is getting old and isn't a good idea when decent competition exists. Every nerf causes resentment against Blizzard and makes a fresh, new game look more and more likea good idea.

Upcoming Casual Content probably not instance based

The In-Development page for World of Warcraft was updated recently to reflect some previously unknown content in the next major patch. The update also gave some new details on the druid epic flight form and the netherwing drake mount. These have been hinted at previously but very little information had actually been revealed. The surprise content on the update page is definitely the addition of three new areas which are being advertised as solo and small group content. The descriptions on the webpage for the three areas make them sound more like quest hubs then new instances but interpretations differ.

The Three New Areas:

Ogri'la: An ogre based area with new quests and a new faction based in Blade's Edge Mountains. Supposedly has epic and rare item rewards though details are scarce on how you earn them. Since this is a confirmed new faction I'm going to guess that you have to do repeatable quests and perhaps an instance to grind to get your reputation with them to exalted.

The Etherium Prison: A prison for one of the outcast ethereal clans which is apparently owned by the Consortium faction. Since this is already an established faction with many quests I think this one has the highest chance of being a world dungeon filled with elite mobs.

Skettis: The resident bird people of the Outlands have a grand city in the mountains of Terrokar Forrest which is already in the game sans quests. Apparently the area is somehow associated with the yet unrevealed flying mount which is looking more and more like it will be the owl/crow model the Arrokoa use for pets.

The descriptions for all three state themselves as content for solo and small groups. The Skettis and Ogri'la areas state that they have new 5-man bosses while that part is missing in the Etherium Prison description. Its very doubtful that any of the new areas are complete dungeons like the ones that currently exist in the Outlands especially since those take awhile to develop. I'm guessing because of the time factor that the developers most likely implemented these new areas according to number 1 below though I like to dream that three new group instances were about to be put into the game.

Most likely ways the new areas will be implemented:

1) Quest Hubs with new chain quests which eventually result in having to fight a 5-man boss. This would be very similar to the way most quests are structured in Netherstorm and Shadowmoon valley. I would expect Ogri'la quests to give reputation while quests for the other two areas might give tokens in a manner similar to Halaa. This is because Ogri'la is the only confirmed new faction thus the epic rewards can be locked behind exalted status.

2) Quest Hubs which require you to go to a non instanced area filled with elite mobs. In a couple places in the old world a cave or a dwarven fortress would be filled with elite mobs with several quests requiring you to go into them. Since the rewards for these areas were usually sub par people ignored them. However, if good up to date rewards were given then I can see these being popular except on PvP servers where the most populous faction will constantly hold them.

3) The least likely but one I hope for the most is that each area has a single small instance which has group content inside but single person quest objectives outside. Think of the way the Wailing Caverns is set up in the barrens and you can picture how such an area would work.

Blizzard cuts upgrades on Heroic Instances short

If you are familiar with Heroic Instances in World of Warcraft then you know the main concept behind them is one of Risk vs. Reward. Choosing to do an instance on Heroic mode raises the risk since it makes the mobs hit insanely hard and often gives the bosses extra abilities. The room for error in such places tends to be close to zero since most mobs can kill anyone not wearing plate gear in one or two hits. However, the rewards for a heroic instance are on par with items from Kharazhan so they tend to be very popular.

Normal bosses in heroic instances drop improved level 70 blue items while the final boss also drops one epic item. This makes heroic dungeons a nice way to gear up which is equivalent to raiding Kharazhan. The only difference being that Kharazhan requires twice as many people and is perhaps a bit easier then some of the heroic instances. However, as casual players slowly started completing all of the heroic instances reports came in about non-improved loot tables. Its seems if the level 70 instances do not improve in loot on heroic mode except for the final boss which drops one epic. Of course all the trash mobs and bosses in the heroic version still have their difficulty increased.

This means that these instances still require a group to make almost no mistakes but don't reward players until the final boss. This can be especially frustrating since the one epic drop from the final boss can be of a type that no one in the party can use. Even the blue drops off the final boss in these instances are from the old loot table and have very little chance of being an upgrade for anyone. The logic behind this is so mysterious that some speculate that Blizzard simply hasn't created the upgraded blue items for these instances yet. Some however think that the old loot tables were left in on purpose to keep non-raiders from gearing up as quickly as raiders.

If you look as the epic items from most of the Heroic dungeons its easy to see they are equivalent to most of the low end raid gear from Kharazhan and Gruul's Lair. However, raiders are starting to conquer Magtheridon and Serpentshrine Caverns where the gear upgrades increase exponentially in quality. While Blizzard never hid the fact that raiding would get a player the best gear in the game, they did promise us less of an inequality between raiding and non-raiding gear. By not including upgraded blue items in the 8 highest heroic instances they increase the time for non-raiders to gear up.

At the very least Blizzard could have included blue items from the earlier Heroic instances that way players would have a chance to get items they might have missed. I know I've killed the Heroic version of the dragon in Hellfire Ramparts a million times and have yet to get the blue item I need from the chest. Instead the developers at Blizzard decided to provide basically no reward unless a group could clear the entire dungeon. This makes no sense in some instances like heroic mechanar where the Nethermancer boss is much harder but provides no upgraded items. As result people often simply skip her since a single badge of justice is not worth the effort of the fight.

Farming the higher end dungeons for the reward of a single epic item that according to Murphey's Law will probably be for the one class you didn't bring, is not my idea of fun. In fact its such a slap in the face to non-raiders that it makes the tier 0.5 questline look like free epics. I wouldn't be surprised if the same developer responsible for the 0.5 money sink I mean questline is the same idiot who told everyone "Ok, No more new blue items after Old Hillsbrad". I even have my suspicions who this person is .... cough Tigole. Still I can't think of a quicker way to alienate your hardcore audience who has limited time to raid. I truly hope that Blizzard patches in some improvement in the high end heroic reward system otherwise people could interpret it as a "Go Raid" message.

Heroic Instances with non-upgraded loot tables:

Setthek Halls
The Steamvaults
Shadow Labs
Shattered Halls
Black Morass
The Mechanar
The Botanica
The Arcatraz


Update: The Addition of casual content and new quest hubs might do a little bit to offset heroic instances running dry on loot at the higher levels. Check the In-Development page.

The Most Hated Class in WoW

Everyone has their own prejudices about that one class in World of Warcraft that they don't particularly like. Before the expansion this prejudice was concentrated on the shaman and paladin classes since both could only be played by opposing factions. This allowed the strengths of both classes to be viewed as overpowering by the faction who couldn't use them. However, now that we have the new races the horde knows paladins shields only extend the inevitable and the alliance knows that shamans leak mana like spaghetti strainer.

Thus the calls for nerfs on these classes have decreased and the title of most hated class should now swing evenly between everyone. However, this is not the case since there are still classes that receive more nerf calls then others. The main driving force behind these calls seems to be the different experiences a player has with a class in PvE and PvP. In general players tend to like classes that are bad at PvP but perform well in PvE. The forums often reflects that since certain class and talent combinations can severely limit a class's utility in a dungeon while granting them the extra burst damage which turns the tide in PvP.

Based on these trends I tried to highlight what I believe the five most hated classes are in World of Warcraft. Remember that I'm treating each talent tree as a separate class and that these are just generalizations. Also some of you might be wondering why feral druids and retribution paladins aren't on this list. The last patch chased away most of the PvP feral druids and most people feel they have been "balanced". Retribution paladins can still heal non-heroic dungeons and continue to not kill people fast enough in PvP to be hated. In fact the only reason paladins might be on the list right below arms warriors is because of bubble hearth.

5) The Arms Warrior: A very old target of the nerfbat and now left mostly alone in the forums this class dominated the most hated class title for a long time. The reason behind this was warriors received the most benefit from gear upgrades so there was often a huge boost in power gained from end-game content. Combined with the ease in getting a high base damage 2-hander the warrior became the most played class for quite awhile. However, a string of nerfs targeting rage generation and secondary abilities reduced their numbers till by the time the expansion came out the main tank class was actually rare.

4) The Elemental Shaman: Elemental shamans are not thought to be as overpowered but they still get some attention from the nerf threads. This is mostly because of the utility of their totems in PvP combined with instant shocks that do high damage. Shocks while slightly mana inefficient in PvE are devastating when used correctly in PvP. In particular earthshock can destroy most healing classes while frostshock is particularly useful on melees. Shamans also have a harder time trying to heal while not healing spec then the paladin class so often receive more complaints. In general though nerf threads tend to target their lightning bolts and shock spells.

3) The Fire Mage: A newer target of nerf calls but now approaching a moderate level of unpopularity. Fire mages sacrifice the ice block ability which groups love so well in favor of squeezing some more fire based damage out. In general non-experienced mages already have a problem controlling aggro and the thought of a mage gaining more damage just makes most tanks cringe in terror. Plus add in the new Dragon's Breath talent which seems to be the only true AoE crowd control ability with high damage and you got a class that earns many an enemy on the battlegrounds.

2) The Rogue (aka The Rouge): No matter how a rogue chooses their talents they are still pretty good at dealing damage. However, some recent changes have raised the hatred for the class more then all the lame stealth ganking on boats. One change is cloak of shadows which has created a situation where rogues can still win a battle against casters without having to get a successful ambush. Warlocks and Priests are particularly mad since they are the most common targets of rogues in world and instance PvP. Add to this the overwhelming use of Cleave and AoE spell damage in the Outlands and the overall PvE usefulness of a rogue has been seen as dropping. The next patch's change to cleave better guarantee rogues take less damage in dungeons or else they might start to get warlocks a run for their money.

1) The Warlock: The class has consistently been the most targeted by players for nerfs since the beginning of the game but has always managed to dodge the nerfbat for a majority of reasons. One reason is that fear's utility in PvE can't really be increased so the developers feel okay in letting it be overpowered a bit in PvP. Warlocks are perhaps one of the rarest classes so Blizzard will always be slightly cautious about nerfing them. They do have great PvE utility with banish and charm but most players trying out the class tend to stick with the PvP side of the game. When a new warlock who has been focused only on PvP crosses over into a PvE group it can often be a disaster on scale with Chernobyl. Unfortunately this is how they tend to be remembered and the stereotypes becomes reinforced.

http://blogs.parc.com/playon/archives/2005/06/server_sample_r.html

Do Heroics Hit Melees too Hard?

Based on a series of posts I've seen on blogs and the WoW Forums I sensing that a lot of people agree with my take on Heroic dungeons. Namely that melee dps classes are being overly penalize by the heavy use of area of effect abilities. These abilities while annoying on normal mode can become instant death in the majority of heroics. It's especially dangerous on boss mobs who have had their damage increased 5-10 times on AoE attacks. This is in stark contrast to the boost on their normal single target attacks which are often only 2-4 times as damaging.

I believe that mobs were redesigned in the Outlands to have more area of effect abilities to compensate for the increased availability and improvement of healing gear. It was quite easy for healers to gather Physician and other types of green healing gear that made healing one target in a dungeon easy. Thus I think the developers decided to make more use of area of effect abilities so that healing was a more appropriate challenge. This is especially seen in Hellfire Citadel by the heavy use of Rain of Fire and Cleave. In fact Cleave has become a staple of all warrior based dungeon trash.

Clearing trash on a Heroic dungeon is supposed to be dangerous and wipes are too be expected. But I'm noticing that a lot more partial wipes occur because melee dps classes are getting hit by a lucky string of area of effects. The 360 cleave is perhaps the worst but spell based AoE still serves up a large amount of damage. This is very noticeable on the boss fights: Omor from the Ramparts and the Hydromancer from the Steamvaults. Both do a high damage AoE that requires quick movement on the part of melee dps. Still no matter how fast their reflexes, chances are they will get hit by one tick of the spell. This one tick on Heroics usually does around 5k damage.

Changes are in the works to change mob Cleave, which is the most common overpowered AoE. The current mob version of the ability has a 360 radius and about a 5-8 yard range. Tseric has confirmed that both the radius and range will be changed to something more similar to the player version of the ability. This should allow melee dps classes to stand behind mobs and avoid getting hit. This will greatly improve the survival rate of rogues who were suffering the most from Cleave in the Heroic dungeons. Other melee dps classes with higher ac gear were having better luck against a critical strike on Cleave.

Still all four melee classes have the problem of massive AoE spell damage which occurs in Heroics. These abilities are usually centered around the very target they have to be near which makes melee dps basically stop. This allows range classes to really outshine melee dps since they continue to do damage while melees are doing the hokie pokie. It wouldn't matter so much except that Heroics often come down to the wire and you need to squeeze out as much dps as you can on some fights. Hopefully, Blizzard will realize this and retune some of the Heroics so that melee classes are just as useful as their range counterparts. In general it has been hinted that many of the Heroic dungeons are going to have their difficulty nerfed in the future.

Upcoming Cleave Changes
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=263836810&sid=1

MMO Math Madness

If you've read my blog before then you know I tend to gravitate to lists and logical explanations about game mechanics in MMOs. I enjoy the min/max challenge of a MMO and gaining new equipment to change my stats to see the result in combat. However, even people who aren't necessarily number or logic oriented also seem to get a kick out of the mathematical emphasis most MMOs have built into them. Discussions between players always seem to be about stamina, crit ratios and the most efficient use of talent points. Its like every player of a MMO is a fanatical expert at statistics.

The best comparison I have for this trend is how sports fans memorize the stats of their favorite teams and players. Some of them even play games like fantasy football which are based on the stats of the dream teams they choose. It seems the trick to turning anyone into a expert at number crunching is simply to attach the numbers to something they enjoy. A pure numerical algorithm by itself is too abstract for most people to get excited about. But if that algorithm is about how to best maximize spell damage or calculate a batting average then you got an audience.

The positive side of this is that in general a person's math skills tend to pick up once they start playing a MMO. Every time you get an upgrade you have to compare all the numbers to your old equipment and make sure its better. You also learn a bit of subjective reasoning during the process since different stats have different values. Thus even though +5 str is less then +8 attack power the str is still better since it provides more then +8 attack power.

Pretty much all the lessons you learn in college statistics/algebra are included in the background of most MMOs. The best part is that since its entertainment to the people playing, the math just sort of seeps in. People tend to scoff at the use of virtual worlds for teaching children but some visionary educators see the potential. After all how many times are kids told that learning is fun then been forced to read the same type of textbooks that have existed since the 1950's. The truth is that the best way to make learning fun is to put it into a game.

Mysterious Opt-Out Option for the Armory

There's been rumours going around that certain guilds were being exempted from the armory and that their talents and gear profiles were being hidden. Most accusations revolve around the guild Fires of Heaven which was the old stomping ground for Furor and Tigole back in the EQ days. This connection to the lead developers is always used whenever a really juicy conspiracy theory is posted. Though the guild did do some beta testing for WoW a while ago they really aren't that involved in testing cutting edge content anymore. There is a lot of hate for the guild though because of the guild's status of a cross-game hardcore guild and the tendency of their members to be outspoken aka assholes.

Investigating the claim I was able to find the guild roster of Fires of Heaven in the armory and inspect their member profiles. Some people suggested that the armory had just been buggy and someone mistook poor Ajax programming for an in-game conspiracy. Still there has been some fanning of the rumours spawned by cryptic forum moderator responses. Netherea is on record as saying no one is exempt from the armory but that some options might be included later on due to player suggestions. The exact meaning of this is a mystery but a lot of theorycrafting has suggested that guild rosters and talent builds might soon be able to be hidden.

While most people are happy with the armory it seems that people are still coming up with really wild scenarios to sway Blizzard to do away with it. I just heard someone recently complaining about factions being visible in the armory. They were apparently afraid that someone could see that they were scryer faction and be asked not to roll for the Fel Armaments that drop from the Shadow Labs. This situation is unlikely for a number of reasons especially since high selling items like armaments and tomes are almost always treated as vendor trash with everyone rolling. Still it seems as if the paranoid can't help but think of the worst case.

Adding another member to the Class Trinity

If you are familiar with a MMORPG then chances are that you're familiar with the idea of the class trinity. Back in the 70's when the creators of D&D were laying down the framework for pretty much all fantasy based RPGs they originally came up with only three roles. These were the infamous tank, damage, and healing roles that are still used today as the basis of any class oriented MMO. Over time more classes that fulfill these rolls have been created but very few improvements or differences in the classic roles have been made.

Current MMOs have been using the class trinity system for so long that things have become a bit stagnant. Numerous attempts have been made to abandon it and go with something a bit more free form like a skill based system. However, games based on free form skills usually come across as unnecessarily complex to average gamers and have limited appeal. Most MMO companies have instead adopted several ideas over the years to modernize the class system and try to add some freshness to the fantasy combat genre.


Ideas that have been added to the Class Trinity

Hybrid Classes:
Hybrids were created to try to blur the roles and allow players to be able to fulfill more then one role in a group. However, developers quickly found out that idea of hybrids didn't really work out as intended because of the imbalance in class popularity. Hybrids that could deal damage would often stick with that role over their other options simply because most people found it more fun. Hybrids that could heal were often pigeonholed into that role since the pure healer role was so unpopular.

Crowd Control Classes:
MMO developers have always had a problem designing complex encounters and usually fell back on just including more mobs to make a fight more interesting. A couple games introduced crowd control classes like bards or psionists in an attempt to give groups a chance at these harder encounters. This slowly caused crowd control classes to be required by groups at the higher levels and caused group formation times to increase. One of the best design decisions World of Warcraft made was to give every class a limited amount of crowd control.

Buffing/Debuffing Classes:
The idea of the buff class was to provide an additional role to the class trinity which would augment the abilities of fellow players while limiting the abilities of their foes. Classes meant for this role were usually given a wide assortment of spells but had limited survivability (armor and hp). Often the class was given a pet to allow some solo utility when not in a group. Most modern MMO's have since turned this idea into a pure damage class with some limited abilities to buff or crowd control.

You can see how these three ideas have changed the class system since the early days of table top gaming and early text based computer games. However, within the last five years not much has been added to the class system. World of Warcraft has introduced perhaps the biggest change by allowing almost all of its classes some hybrid and crowd control functionality. This was done more as an attempt to achieve a fair pvp system then to increase popularity of the class system but has seemed to pay off for the company.

My own ideas for introducing something fresh into the class system revolves around a class which would handle threat or aggro. Basically they could produce some threat themselves but their main area of expertise would be taking it from others and giving it to the tank. This would allow a unskilled group a chance at higher end encounters as long as their Threatmaster was skilled at partitioning off the aggro produced by heals and damage. Plus if the game allowed the class to view how much threat he was moving in numeric format it would give much the same sense of accomplishment as causing giant damaging crits.

While the class would have some greifing potential it would be a great boon to a casual oriented MMO where players often find themselves grouping with people of differing skill levels. How many times has a group you've been in had its damage classes pull mob aggro by either accident or through bad luck? In such a situation the mob usually ping pongs back and forth and settles on the healer if not taunted off. A threat based class would be able to prevent such situations and thus could guarantee large groups of mobs would stick on the tank. Tanks might not losing the threat management aspect of their class but at least this is not a class that would compete directly with them.

Anyways I'm sure there are many other ideas out there for making a completely new class or even introducing a new role into the class trinity. Either way leave your suggestions in the comments and try not to include any ideas that might have been used in EQ, AC, DAOC, DnD, or VG.

Why would anyone want to play Vanguard?

I started to see a couple blogs and forums referring to a incident in Vanguard where characters were losing experience when they crossed into a different zone server. The bug was rare but rumours started circling that a couple of bans were passed out when players discovered they could regain the lost xp by re-zoning back. Apparently a GM simply noticed the 9% jump in experience and thought it best to simply ban the player for cheating. Some are using this incident to try convince the few people who play Vanguard to abandon ship. One post I read asked with all the bugs, errors, and lag why anyone would even want to play Vanguard?

It made me think a lot about what reasons I might have for picking up the game. While I did beta test Vanguard for awhile, I have yet to pick up a copy. This is mostly because I saw how unfinished the game was three months ago and doubted they would have it ready in time for January. Despite this the game does have some things going for it which have definitely peaked my interest more then the other MMORPGs which are releasing this year.

4 Reasons Vanguard Peaks my Interest:

1) Its Large
Vanguard is huge from what I have seen and has more square footage in it then any game I've played since classic Everquest. Now while most of this area is bland wilderness it at least allows room for the developers to expand. In the future they could allow player towns, new dungeons, or farms to be placed in these areas. A lot of MMO's don't like to plan ahead by including areas for future growth which is why they are always having to introduce newly discovered continents.

2) It has a higher Barrier of Entry then WoW
While I'm not a hardcore player I do miss the playerbase of classic Everquest sometimes. The barrier of entry for World of Warcraft is so low that anyone can cross on over. This has had a profound effect on player skill levels, guild loyalty, begging, and the general stupidity that is general chat. A lot of players think they are entitled to being run through a dungeon, given money, or given information for free. Basically, they treat everyone else as a NPC and themselves as the only "real" player in the game.

3) Its focused on PvE
Too many developers think they need to implement a PvP system but underestimate the amount of work it takes to integrated it with the rest of the game. Often this causes a near constant state of nerfs and buffs based on issues where the PvE and PvP side of the game overlap. A MMORPG needs to be balanced for one or the other and not yanked back and forth depending on who whines the most in your forums.

4) It has more Classes and Customization
The nature of class based games is that the complexity of group interaction depends on the variety of classes. A lot of the newer games such as Lord of the Rings and Warhammer are trying to stick with a small amount of classes in hopes it makes balance easier to achieve. However, I believe this will have the effect of squeezing too many players into classes they might not like. I predict much higher burnout in any game with under 7 classes to play as players might have problems finding one that fits their particular playstyle.

Honestly, at the moment I'm simply waiting for the developers to finish debugging Vanguard and fill in some of the empty spaces. I still have a lot on my plate with the Burning Crusade which has a decent amount of content left for me to play through. The way things currently stand I see myself being done with the Heroics and Kharzhan around the beginning of the summer. Since I don't plan on rejoining the full time raiding circuit I will probably pick up another MMO then. Here's crossing my fingers that Vanguard becomes a game worth playing by then.

Difficulty Ranking of the Level 70 Instances

I had a comment on my last post asking about the relative difficulty of the level 70 dungeons and it got me thinking about making a list. In general its easy to follow the order of the earlier Outland dungeons since the levels of the mobs tell you if its easier or harder then the last one you ran. However, once the mobs start being around level 70 the difficulty is set more by bosses and the size of the pulls in the dungeon. As a result people can often set their sights a little high and end up getting stressed out by repeated wipes.

My ranking of the 70 dungeons is based on the number of mobs in each pull and how hard hitting the boss fights are. Some boss fights have a trick to them that might cause you to wipe until you learn it but aren't actually that hard. Without providing too many spoilers I am including a single sentence explaining why the dungeon got the rating I gave it. If you check out the raid and instances forums you'll see that there are most people agree with the relative ordering.

Easiest

Old Hillsbrad Foothills: Very easy to run if you just heal Thrall who is basically an extra warrior for your group.

Steamvaults: The first boss has a very damaging and sudden AoE which is wipe-tastic. The other bosses are easy though there is a trick to the last one.

The Mechanaar: Very short and easy dungeon, just use polymorph or mind control in the final hallway and avoid the elevator bugging on your group.

Botanica: Almost all of the bosses summon adds. Most of the larger pulls were recently nerfed so the death and decay ability shouldn't wipe groups as often.

Shadow Labs: T pulls start to get tough here with a couple of 5 mob pulls. Bring 2 CC classes and watch out for a assassins who love to spawn at the beginning of a pull.

The Arcatraz: Most pulls are a single mob but have abilities like a mini boss. Watch out for AoE Gouge, Meteor and Incubate. Take two healers for the final boss.

Shattered Halls: Pulls are insane with many of them numbering around 6 all of which can hit hard. The 2nd boss can't be taunted and he aggro dumps so have a strategy to keep your healers and dps alive.

The Black Morass: Constant fighting where one death can often force you to reset the instance. The second boss needs to be dispelled or your tank needs to be able to block all special attacks until the healing debuff wears off.

Hardest


While the 70 instances are difficult they are not impossible for most groups. Just make sure you have an advantage in one of three areas: gear, PvE talents, or vent coordination. You don't even need to have all your group members have the same advantage since different classes work better in the three areas.

Tanks tend to profit the most with a gear advantage allowing them to survive longer and handle the bosses that love to throw on burst damage. Guarantee your tank a gear advantage by running the highest level instance you can until some defensive plate gear drops.

Healers tend to profit the most from having PvE talents which allows them to conserve mana better and produce less threat. Asking your healers spend their talents only on PvE usually keeps them from being able to quest effectively though. As a result you might want to make sure that your healers know they can call on you to help for their questing or grinding.

DPS and crowd control classes tend to gain the most benefit from having a leader call out targets over a voice server. Coordination is usually good at making sure that dps classes only take damage from AoE effects and avoid aggro. Having your main tank use the raid markers is almost as good as a voice server though it does add extra effort on his part. Doing damage is perhaps the easiest role in WoW but doing damage without pulling aggro is perhaps one of the hardest.

Relmstein graduates BC Dungeon Running 101

This weekend was big for me in that I finally beat the last couple of level 70 instances with my small guild. We've been farming The Mechanar and Shadow Labs for about two weeks now and managed to get some serious upgrades for our main tank. The two zones we've been having problems with before (Shattered Halls, Black Morass) have become relatively easy with a tank whose defense rating is fast approaching our druid's +healing. Also being full protection has enabled him to get several tricks that work well against multiple mobs and getting rid of the -healing debuff used by Temporus.

Besides the tank being upgraded our other players have learned to play their classes much better. Our mage uses frost nova to stop our healers from dying and ice blocks regularly when he has aggro. Our shadow priest is ungodly and often keeps us all healed with just vampiric embrace while doing massive damage. Also his mind controlling of mobs tends to make him the highest on our damage meter. Our paladin while retribution has a large enough mana pool to assist the healing of vampiric embrace and clear most dungeons. Our rogue always has some blinding powder ready and has become a master of kicking casters in the shin when they try to cast.

Its a combination of everyone improving and gear upgrades that allowed us to finally beat Shattered Halls. The dungeon had been taunting us with constant wipes ever since we tried it soon after hitting 70. Thinking back, it really was a poor choice for our first level 70 instance but we had just stumbled upon the key quest and were cocky from clearing Setthek Halls repeatedly. We would have avoided if we knew what it was like inside but we had no idea of the relative dungeon difficulties. Anyways we'll be doing a lot more runs of Arcatraz and Shattered Halls to gear out our people but we are already eyeing Heroic Ramparts. If we recruit a few more people I'm sure we'll even be seeing the inside of Kharzhan since about 7 of us are attuned already.

How will the Armory change WoW?

The recent outcry over privacy violations about Blizzards new character information tool are slowly starting to be outpaced by praises for its utility. Not all the suggested uses for the tool's utility are positive though since the information provided could be used against players in certain situations. However, most of these situations are rare and actually only involve revealing when a player might be lying about their spec or gear. The positive uses for the Armory far outnumber the negative and could go a long way to providing guidance on gear and talents to newer players.

The Main Arguments against the Armory

1) Increases Guild Control:

The main and most powerful argument against the armory is that it allows guilds to know the talent builds and gear quality of their members. A lot of the more hardcore guilds have policies which limit members to only having talents points spent to fulfill their raid role. These policies usually aren't enforced too much and oftentimes guild members can simply lie to avoid being harassed by guild officers. However, with the addition of the armory it would be very easy for officers to track member talent points and make sure they follow policies. Hybrids and healing classes would suffer the most since they often take damage talents to help in solo fighting but are expected to have only have tanking or healing talents.


2) Prevents Casual Gamers from getting into Groups:

The next most common complaint with the Armory is that allows players to very quickly check a player's gear and could effect invite decisions. For example when a Pick-Up-Group is forming the leader could easily check a player's gear to determine if they would be owned by a dungeon. So if a 70 warrior wanted into a Shadow Labs run the leader could bring up their gear and find out they were wearing mostly level 66 greens and only had 10pts in protection. What do you think the leader would do? If you said not invite the warrior then you get a cookie. (mmm cookies)

Now that I described the situation I need to clarify that there are two groups of thought about it. One group thinks that this is a bad situation and that the warrior could be a very skilled player who would miss out on an invite. The other group thinks that this helps prevent wasting two hours of your life finding out that even outland greens can't keep a noob alive in the Shadow Labs. And lets be honest here the average PUG player in WoW breaks out into something like the following.

50% chance of being undergeared
20% of not understanding basic tenets of their class
20% of being both
10% of being omg you rock, have my babies

So if I can have a tool that makes my PUG sessions have a 70% better chance of success by early filtering of the severely undergeared then I'm all for it. Even if it means I might skip over the rare gamer who kicks ass but is geared like your retard cousin who wears herod's helm despite being level 60.


3) Allows Spying on Super Secret Specs:

The third most common complaint is that talent point combinations are unique enough that people want to protect their own spec. Some people honestly think they might be copied and their talent selection could become a new cookie cutter build. Realistically the only ones at risk of this happening are the top leaders in arena brackets and raiding guilds but most of them are going to be using cookie cutter builds anyways. The only valid worry is that arena teams gain a slight advantage by studying the talent builds of their opponents. Though as long as their is no opt out option for the armory then the advantage is shared among all the players with enough smarts to plan ahead.


These are the major arguments against the armory I found on the forums though I'm sure they're numerous variations of the three. All of them are knee jerk reactions to worst case scenarios in the three areas of World of Warcraft: raiding, grouping, and pvping. This means this is one of the few issues that won't simply turn into a hardcore vs. casual argument though casual raiders might be the most anti-armory. Still I hope this doesn't force Blizzard to include an opt-out option since I think that would slowly force most players into removing their profiles. After all if people can hide their profile then allowing yours to show would just be a weakness if you ever seriously started pvping. This would destroy a lot of the actual utility of the armory and would just make it into the new pvp ranking page.

Blizzard Backs Off: Riots Die Down

The negative feedback on the priests forums increased into such epic levels that the developers at Blizzard took notice and have pulled back on some of the priest nerfs. The riots that made their way through several servers also might have had something to do with it as customers gathered in large groups of level 1 alts and attempted to crash major zones while protesting. At least three reported servers apparently had large scale protests by priests which required GM intervention. The riots themselves did little to sway Blizzard in the matter but did draw the attention of many game blogs and news sites which may have had an effect.

Druids who were the major target of the nerfs have put up considerably less negative feedback perhaps because only their tanking ability was affected. Also the druid changes are mostly seen as a necessary balance nerf by the other classes. The fact that the WoW community recognizes a needed nerf does a lot to fight the notion that MMO customers don't understand the idea of game balance. Community Managers in WoW are often influenced by the many trolls on the forums and often get in the mindset to ignore any feedback on nerfs. Unfortunately, the trolls win at causing frustration in this case because forum posters often boil over into in game shenanigans when they think they are being ignored.

The paladin nerfs which were undocumented in the patch notes have been confirmed as being dropped for the next patch. However, Eyonix has been quoted as saying that a nerf for pally burst damage is being planned in the future even though complaints about paladin burst damage are almost non-existent. Paladins are even more confused when they look at the canceled nerfs which actually increase burst damage but made their shields have some greifing utility. As one poster summed up "It seems as if they simply want to nerf the paladin class in general but haven't quite decided how they are going to do it or justify it." On a side note paladins and druids are both classes that received large increases in dps which might be the major influence on the decision to nerf them.

Despite some mishandling on the part of Blizzard it looks like the spikes of tension about the last patch have been smoothed over. The problem is of course that it just takes one misunderstood and not well documented nerf to drive the WoW community nutty again. When you have around 8 million people playing your game, news travels fast and your customers can quickly become your worst enemy. Blizzard needs to stop taking lessons in community management from SOE and learn to gently manage their customers. This means explaining the reasoning and logic behind every nerf and buff they are making. Sure it takes longer and the min/maxers will try try to disapprove you but it prevents forum meltdowns

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=79669544&pageNo=3&sid=1#40