What matters more in WoW machinima? Production or Script

If you are like me and check forums and websites related to your favorite MMO then you've probably stumbled across more then your fair share of machinima videos. A few years ago these videos mostly consisted of people putting together clips of their greatest in-game kills while playing Linkin Park in the background. This has been slowly changing as series like Red vs. Blue showed that game engines could also be used to tell a decent story.

With the release of World of Warcraft many machinima enthusiasts made use of the extensive emote system to produce better quality videos. Instead of threatening lawsuits Blizzard embraced the use of their game engine and created several contests for machinima videos. This practice caught on quickly and now several different gaming companies sponsor machinima contents each year. All of this attention has been great for the budding art form and numerous new studios and individuals have gained Internet fame.

Studios tend to have many people to work on a machinima video and they split the work between puppeteering, voice acting, and special effects. Individuals tend to work on a funny and zany script while leaving most of the production work to a simple fraps capture. Both styles of making machinima have merit though studios tend to make videos nicer on the eyes and ears. Still, individual work often seems to capture a classic Space Ghost/Adult Swim feel to it that can make it beloved by many fans.

Now I'm going to stray from general comments and go into a specific example here of where the two styles can clash. Specifically I'm talking about a machinima video called Time Gnomes 2 where the director made fun of the studio Myndflame for spending an absurd amount of time on production for their Escape from Ogrimmar video. Perhaps one of the most popular WoW machinima series out there Illegal Danish: Escape from Ogrimmar has been in limbo for over a year. The studio founders have often been criticized for releasing very short but highly polished videos while fans wait for the release of a video originally promised more then a year ago.

Recently at Blizzcon sever members of Oblivious films, who release under Myndflame, criticized that the fast release of machinima like Time Gnomes without polish was in poor taste. Some people agree with this sentiment while others continue to stress that special effects and polish take a back seat to a original script and a fast release. One has to wonder though since over the last year the rough style of WoW machinima does seem to be getting rarer as more people join studios/groups.

So I'm ending this post with a question of what sort of WoW machinima do you favor?

Videos without much polish like Big Blue Dress and Jimmy a World of Warcraft Story
or
Semi-professional Studio work like The Grind and Snacky's Journal.

P.S. All films can be found on Google Video or Youtube.com

Will Wrath of the Lich King hit the gear reset button again?

I've been hearing a lot of speculation about the future WoW expansion especially with the tidbits released by the developers over the last couple of gaming conventions. Most of the player discussion has revolved around the new hero class, the death knight, though some discussions on dungeon design have been making appearances as well. Still the one issue I haven't really heard brought up is how much more powerful the gear in Northend will be compared to that found in the Outlands.

In the Burning Crusade we saw a huge increased in the power of items. Randomly dropped greens from the first first zone were often on par with old world raiding gear. Quest rewards earned at 61 would replace epics that had required countless hours of raiding or grinding battlegrounds to attain. Blizzard developers had announced this jump in power in advance but it still came as a shock to many. Truthfully though the disparity between raiding and non-raiding gear had become so pronounced that it was impossible for non raiders to participate competitively in player vs. player combat. With the introduction of the arenas and more world PvP objectives it became imperative for Blizzard to balance the playing field. However, many players saw this as a blow to the amount of time they had invested in their characters.

Fast forward six months and most players now feel safe that the great gear reset of 2006 will never be repeated. After all casual players can now keep up with raiders by earning decent epics through arenas, heroic dungeons, and battlegrounds. So chances are high that the expansion will only have progressively better gear instead of the huge jump we saw with the release of the Burning Crusade. Yet this is based on the assumption that raiding and arena gear stays balanced as higher end zones are introduced.

What troubles this assumption is that some Blizzard developers are pushing for changes to the arena system to extend the time it takes to earn rewards. The original design for arenas called for a low time investment but a high degree of skill to earn rewards. However, with the introduction of daily quests developers forgot that the cost of forming a new arena team isn't really that high. Now what we have are a lot of players who simply reset their rating by forming a new team whenever it drops too low.

This is incredibly ironic because the majority of players who do this are mid range raiders who simply desire the arena weapons. Hopefully, the developers don't overdo the nerf to the arena system or we could see the same disparity in gear quality we saw back before the Burning Crusade. If a situation like this arose in the months before the WoW expansion then we could see another gear reset especially with Warhammer putting pressure on Blizzard to maintain the PvP side of the game. After all any real or perceived favoritism of raiding is going to make it hard for Blizzard to hold onto players against a shiny new MMO with the same style of artwork.

Top Ten Dangers of a 48 hour Server Maintenance

10) Your significant other mistakenly believes you have finally quit and un-installs WoW from your computer.

9) You log into the forums and pass out from exposure to high doses of stupidity.

8) You call your friends on the phone only to discover that their servers are still up and running. You spend the entire next day answering questions for the police.

7) You emerge from your room only to find out that you have been declared legally dead and your younger siblings now own all of your stuff. You are really pissed about it for about 2 days.

6) You attempt to organize a raid in real life but are thwarted by the federal government. Oh well its not like Canada would have had any good loot.

5) In the off time you make the tragic discovery that you now suck at arm wrestling because of muscle atrophy. You spend the next two days hiding from your sister who just won't let it die.

4) You get drunk and make a naked, level-1 gnome named "Shortnsexe" on one of the few realms that is up and running. You wake up the next morning with 400 gp, a severe hangover, and a dirty feeling that even the shower won't clean away.

3) You go outside and are mistakenly attacked by a Vampire Hunter since you now have no pigment in your skin. Fortunately, for you the Van Helsing wannabe notices your "Rogues do it from Behind" t-shirt and figures you for a WoW player.

2) World of Warcraft terms start to sneak into your normal everyday conversations at work during the 48 hours. Luckily the boss laughs his ass off when you accidentally suggest "It melts faces" as a new product slogan.

1) Bored to tears, you log into your blog and post a top ten list.

Would SOE misuse Micro-Transactions?

While Blizzard was holding its ritual display of product teases and developer roasts called Blizzcon another major MMO publisher was doing the same. I speak of course of SOE's Fan Faire which has been an annual tradition since the early Everquest days. But while Blizzard focused on actual products, SOE introduced yet another method to show how devoted they are to getting your money. Their new plan involves a virtual card game where players can buy booster packs online and compete in a game which sounds a lot like Magic the Gathering.

For those of you who never experienced the money sink that was Magic the Gathering, I'll go ahead and explain the basic premise. Basically players could buy a 15 card package that was guaranteed to have a ratio around 1 rare, 3 uncommon, and 11 uncommon cards. Rare cards were needed if a player wished to have a competitive deck since they tended to be overly convoluted and powerful with effects that often modified the basic rules of the game. If you've every flipped to FOX in the afternoon think of the last card that spikey haired brat, Yugioh, always pulls out at the last second.

Unfortunately for most players half the rare cards in these types of games tend to be useless or only useful in a very specific and unlikely scenario. Thus players are forced to buy more packs or try to trade with other players until they can get the collection of rares they need. Companies have perfected this formula into a science over the years as Magic, Pokemon, Yugioh, and others have robbed players of their cash in 3$ intervals. What makes SOE's online card game one step worse is that players won't even be able to trade cards with each other only buy them in virtual packs from SOE.

The truth of the matter is that if you look closely enough at collectible card games you see the father of the micro-transaction. Anyone can start playing a collectible card game at almost no cost but to actually compete you need to spend a lot of money in small transactions to raise your chances at winning. This is the exact type of payment plan that some MMO publishers would love to push on us if they could get away with it. I see this virtual collectible card game being hosted inside a MMO as SOE testing the waters for a micro-transaction market.

Now I can see some areas where micro-transactions might be a useful payment method. Twitch based MMO's like Auto Assault and probably Tabula Rasa would definitely benefit more from a hourly subscription rate then a standard monthly fee. Other games like Second Life seem to make a decent living by selling virtual land (piece of the golden gate bridge anyone?) and cosmetic changes to their avatars (genitalia anyone?) by using micro-transactions. It works well for games that are based on players only spending a small amount of time in the game each week.

However, the incorporation of micro-transactions into a long term MMO where most players put at least 12 hours a week into the game is only going to result in people having to pay more money to get the same amount of entertainment they get now. They are a million ways a smart and greedy publisher could incorporate micro-transactions into a game without seeming to give an advantage to the rich. Imagine having to pay a quarter every time you killed a boss who dropped loot. You're of course guaranteed one rare item but who knows if its a pair of leather pants of the Bandit or Spirit. One's useless but the other would start a fight to the death between the rogue and feral druid. Sounds a lot like opening a booster pack doesn't it?

Changes Down the Road for WoW PvP

I've been reading several articles and posts coming from people who attended the different Blizzcon panels. Most of the the discussions seem like they were insightful and provided a multitude of facts on how Blizzard approached class design, dungeons, lore, and future content. My eyes caught several nice tidbits about upcoming changes for the different PvP systems in the game. With such a wealth of information out there I thought I would draw attention to these tidbits since some of them will probably be introduced much sooner then the expansion.

Just like any other list of changes in a MMO there are some negative and some positive.

The Good

1) First Tier of Arena gear will be available through the honor system in Arena Season 3

2) An Alterac Valley Anti-AFK buff. Will use a method similar to the spam report option. Once enough players have reported a person as AFK, a short debuff appears on that person. If that person doesn't move during that time (perhaps a minute) then they gain a very long debuff which prevents honor gain.

3) Looking at making battlegrounds playable at 15v15 or 20v20 brackets.

4) Honor Distribution changes: Battleground objectives will start rewarding more honor towards the end of a battleground. Developers hope this will encourage players to finish battlegrounds.

5) The option to join Alterac Valley as a group will be put back into the game.

6) Developers are looking at putting in a guild versus guild battleground option and perhaps some system to track each guild's wins/losses.

7) Siege Engines are coming to the new Outdoor PvP zone in the next expansion. Developers are also looking at reworking old battlegrounds so siege engines can play a role.

8) Some Arena Class Balancing. Rogue's viability and mobility in Arenas are being examined by the developers. Expect something to help them deal with range dps. Prot Warriors and Ret Paladins told that Arenas are still not for them. Mana regeneration (Spirit) will eventually be improved which should help the offensive casters who aren't Warlocks.


The Bad

1) Developers think Arena loot is easier to get then Raiding loot and that is bad. Instead of increasing the amount of drops per raid boss they are going to be looking at the rate at which arena points are gained. In the future look for an increase in the cost of Arena gear or a reduction in the amount of points earned per week.

2) The developers feel that too many raiders are simply saving up points just for the Arena weapons and this is also bad. I guess they feel that they are not actively participating in Arenas if they are just getting their 10 games a week for one item. Whatever the reason expect a minimum rating requirement for purchasing Arena Weapons in the near future.

Thanks again to WoWInsider whose Live Blogging provide a majority of the information here.

Guesses About the next WoW Expansion

The excitement players experience when a MMO expansion is announced can sometimes start a chain reaction of speculation which can easily get out of control. With World of Warcraft the announcement for the next expansion hasn't even been made yet and already every MMO site is guessing on what title, races, and classes will be in the game. Rumours are flying around the Internet at light speed and some have already traveled so far they've become facts. The amazing thing is that this feeding frenzy of gossip and bad investigation was sparked by just the vague assumption that an expansion will be revealed at Blizzcon this year.

True this assumption makes so much sense that its 99% likely that Blizzard will unveil the next chapter in Warcraft this weekend. But some of the other rumours making their rounds through the Internet are considerably less certain. Still its fun to gossip and add your own opinions to the melting pot of the rumour mill. Since I'm not one to control my impulse to have fun I guess I'll join in. I've divided the most common guesses about the expansion into the three categories and given reasons why I think they are likely to be implemented or not.


1) Likely to be Included in the Expansion

- At least one new class
Probably the most desired feature by players. The sales numbers for the expansion would suffer horribly if no new classes were included.
- Level cap raised to 80
I'm afraid raising the level cap by 10 each expansion is now part of the formula. Blizzard has stated before that they have a formula for increasing the power of gear for several hundred levels.
- Takes place in Northend
Hints about the Northend continent have been appearing for the last 8 months.
- Death Knight as a new class
This class has a relation to Arthas and the Scourge plus it might provide an outlet to the scorned retribution paladins out there.
- 3 month extension on the announced release date
Its Blizzard.

2) Might be Included in the Expansion

- New races
A new race would require a new starting zone. This was done in the last expansion but home cities take up a decent amount of development time so Blizzard might not want to repeat the same process.
- Multiple new classes
Blizzard might try to achieve class balance by introducing multiple classes to counter balance one another. God knows they have enough class ideas to pull upon.
- Necromancer as a new class
Fits with the Northend and Arthas theme but might play too much like a warlock. Then again most players would simply appreciate the newness factor.
- New content for the mid-levels
Very desired by players and necessary for once again leveling up new characters without going crazy in Stranglethorn Vale.

3) Playable Murlocs more likely to be Included then

- Blizzard stops making raid zones only 2 guilds per server can do
Jeff Kaplan still works there, right? Unfair to Jeff but the upper raid zones are a waste of development hours when only 2 out of 100 of your players can ever see it.
- The Expansion releasing this year
The time tables would probably make the expansion available February 2008 at the earliest. Plus Blizzard might want to time the expansion to compete with the Warhammer release.
- Hero classes making an appearance
The balance necessary for allowing a class to transform into another would probably be overpowering and give an advantage to long term players. Eventually I suspects Hero classes from Warcraft 3 might come into the game as entirely new classes.
- 40 man raids making a come back
Blizzard can be stubborn and the breaking of almost every major guild on the shores of Karazhan is still recent. Since development of this expansion probably started before the release of TBC, I'm guess that Blizzard hasn't made a decision to bring back the larger raid size yet.

Whats makes up good ambiance in a MMO dungeon?

Dungeons or Instances are one of the key parts of any fantasy based MMO. As much as jaded gamers like to make fun of the men in tights genre there's just something to be said about exploring the depths of a tomb or the heights of an ancient castle. It worked back in the age of pen and paper RPGs, it worked for console RPGs, and it still works for massive multiplayer RPGs. A good dungeon gives players a feeling of tension and danger as they slowly make their way through the bosses to the final encounter. Of course over time the challenge of a good dungeon may fade as you repeat it for loot but its overall coolness factor never entirely disappears.

Thinking about my favorite instances in World of Warcraft I came up with four main areas where well thought out design contributes to making an excellent dungeon experience.

Music:
This is perhaps the area where game designers do the most experimentation. Sometimes developers try to inspire the roleplayer in their customers and put something stirring and heroic into a dungeon soundtrack. I prefer the opposite approach when the developers choose music that conspires to put you on edge and makes you check over your shoulder. In the Burning Crusade I think the Mana Tombs does this best with a dark, slow melody that sounds like someone slowly sneaking up behind you. However, if you want to hear the best dungeon music ever check out some of the early zelda and megaman games. These two genres produced some of the best dungeon crawling music ever and it shows by how often its remixed on such sites like www.ocremix.org

Visuals:
Every dungeon consists of walls usually constructed of stone with a limited view of the outside world. Popular settings include tombs, castles, caves, and the occasional lost city. How believable such settings are usually comes down to the art of including the proper visuals. If you're in a tomb you should be surrounded by other stuff then just undead and graverobbers. You should see rats scurrying in the corner and have to walk through cobwebs. The details of a good dungeon brings the place to an almost electronic life. Well, at least a Hollywood version of what we expect such places to look like. Take some time to look at the details in Scholomance and you can spot all sorts of cool little visual effects which add up together to make the place especially spooky.

Interactive Features/Puzzles:
One of the reasons that Adventure games tend to be more popular then most RPGs is because their dungeons are more interactive and puzzle based. The best example of an interactive feature in World of Warcraft is Dire Maul north where you can use all sorts of tricks like Ogre Suits and Frost Traps to leave the guards alive. At the end of the dungeon once you kill the boss you get more loot depending on how many guards you managed to avoid. In games like Tomb Raider and Zelda you are constantly having to interact with the environment to proceed to the final boss. WoW is starting to experiment a bit more with interactive content like the Simon type game involving the crystal shards in Ogrila. Still its a shame that we don't see more interactive group puzzles in MMO dungeons.

(sidenote): Dire Maul was the last non-raid dungeon content that was patched into WoW. All free patched in content since then has been raiding dungeons which I think accounts for a lot of animosity between raiders and non-raiders. Demand for new dungeons is higher then most other content.

Boss Encounters:
The make or break part of any dungeon run is of course the boss encounters. Dungeon bosses should be challenging and cool looking while giving out good enough loot to keep players coming back consistently. One of the best encounters in World of Warcraft was Ragnaros the Firelord which met all of this criteria. He had the first piece of the T2 set which kept higher level guilds clearing him and provided an amusing opening dialogue whenever you fought him. About the only mistake Blizzard made was making him a require ultra high fire resistance for the main tank which slowed down raid progression.

In the Burning Crusade Blizzard made great strides in improving single group dungeon encounters by making sure most bosses weren't simple tank and spank fight. As early as the first dungeon, Hellfire Ramparts, they had complex bosses which used dragons and weird aoe curse auras to confound adventurers. About the only thing that seem to go downhill in the expansion were the raid bosses which often required strict class balance with little room for mistakes. Still with the future release of Zul'Aman which is supposed to be the spiritual successor to Zul'gurub hopes are high for some fun boss encounters which don't pound new guilds repeatedly in the face.

Need before Greed except when it says BOE

The title for my post summarizes the problem with the current loot system in Lord of the Rings Online very nicely. The majority of the system is exactly the same as World of Warcraft with one small modification. Most items dropped by mobs are Bind on Equip instead of the more common Bind on Pickup found in other MMOs. This means that items earned in dungeons and random world drops can be transferred between players until someone actually equips it. This was probably done to end the frustration of killing a boss only to find it dropped loot no one could use.

The unintended consequence of this design decision though is that players in Lord of the Rings Online are starting to find it more acceptable to always roll need on items. All it takes is one bad string of no loot for a class to cause a player to start picturing other people's gear as giant checks to be cashed at the auction house. The worst part is that sometimes gray areas in loot distribution can make this problem even more severe. For example say an earring with "Will" dropped which is only a sidegrade for the group's lore-master, do the melee classes get to roll on it? If the guardian won the earring what are the chances that the lore-master would roll on the next item for the melee classes?

Despite the problems, some people like the cutthroat economic system caused by BoE items. Basically they argue that if everyone rolls on a item then everyone can have a chance of selling it in the auction. Players can then use money earned in this manner to buy gear they can actually use from the auction house. This makes the auction house and player trade much more important in Lord of the Rings since it becomes the primary method of distributing items. Honestly this argument might have some validity since MMOs with strong player run economies tend to be more stable then those dependent mostly on NPC merchants.

One can see though how this trend of using the auction house to distribute items could backfire. If everyone uses game currency to buy gear from other players then the game becomes much more attractive to professional gold sellers. In my short time playing LOTR I can already see that the in-game gold spam has greatly increased in the last few months. Yet would changing items to Bind of Pickup be an answer to fixing the social and blackmarket aspects of the LOTR loot system? It might make it less likely that someone would win your upgrade but honestly if your in a group with a rude person its just as likely they would roll need on a BoP item also.

In the end, the issue comes down to your personal opinion on what you think is more fair for distributing items in a MMO. Should everyone share the chance to sell an item for money? or Should everyone automatically get an item if its an upgrade for their character? One leads to the degradation of politeness/fun while grouping while the other one can mean hours wasted running the same dungeon trying to get an item your character can actually use. Hopefully in the future we'll see more thought put into loot systems to prevent both these issues.

How to Add New Battlegrounds without increasing Queue Times

This week in the forums CM Nethaera posted that Blizzard was considering additional battlegrounds but was worried that it would cause queue times to increase. At the moment with four battlegrounds available to players the queue times can become long enough to affect player retention. Many a battleground starts with one side having a full compliment of players while the other side suffers from having AFK players in the queue. Honestly with queue times of fifteen minutes its easy to see how players can become distracted and not realize their queue has popped.

However, I do have a suggestion on how to add more battlegrounds without affecting the queues too much. Based on what Blizzard has done in the past it's probably even possible without too much development work. Simply group a new battleground with one of the older ones so that they share the same queue. Blizzard could even make the reputations and marks of honor the same for battlegrounds that share a queue. This would allow players to gain the specific marks they need for PvP gear without worrying about having to gather a new type.

Picture a new forty-man battleground were the Stormpike and Frostwolves fight over the Ruins of old Alterac. The battleground could have new and exciting game mechanics and not increase the average queue time for Alterac Valley. True players might want to try out the new Alterac Ruins map instead of the older Alterac Valley one but Blizzard would have discretion to how the games were created in the queue. Perhaps in the beginning two Alterac Ruins games could be created in the queue for every one Alterac Valley. As long as similar amounts of honor were awarded I don't think it would effect balance very much.

After all the arena system uses multiple arenas with different layouts without letting players choose which one they want. The battleground system might also need a similar randomness to make matches more fair. At the very least it would offer new content to PvP players without making the older battlegrounds ghost towns. Plus it would preserve the four week cycle of battleground holidays.

The Art of Rock, Paper, Scissors PvP

Its no deep dark secret that World of Warcraft PvP is based more on what gear a player has then their skill at the game. Players strive to improve their gear first since it makes the greatest impact on their chance to win. Only after obtaining the top tier of arena or raid gear do most players even stand a chance of moving through the rankings. And it doesn't stop at just virtual gear since most serious pvpers are known to use programmable keyboards and mouse controllers to gain an edge. But with all the mods, expensive hardware, and epic items sometimes it just comes down to your class.

Blizzard follows classic DnD combat which means players are forced to choose a class which has a specific role to perform in group combat. A player's role determines what kind of abilities and spells they get as they level through the game. The problem of course is the classes were originally designed around fighting NPCs not each other. Thus something like a standard heal spell becomes incredibly powerful in PvP since most classes can't regain their own hitpoints. Then again classes which can silence or spell lock a healer have the advantage over them since their opponent has only weak dps.

A very basic way to break down the pvp system in World of Warcraft is to compare the classes to the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Basically the spells and abilities of each class work extremely well against some of their opponents but not all of them. For an example a warlock may be able to dot and fear a druid or priest to death but can easily fall victim to a patient rogue. This balance hasn't come around by accident since Blizzard has nerfed abilities and even introduced new pvp abilities like Cloak of Shadows to maintain it.

To continue with the Rock, Paper, Scissors metaphor you can see some interesting pvp stereotypes if you map the primary description of a class to one of the objects in the game.

Rock - Melee
Warrior
Rogue

Paper - Healer
Druid
Priest
Paladin

Scissor - Caster
Mage
Warlock
Shaman
Hunter

Rogues and Warriors are good at taking down low armor class targets without the ability to heal.

Druids, Priests, and Paladins can heal themselves against melee opponents.

Offensive Casters all have some form of silence which is devastating against healers since the pvp trinket doesn't remove it.


Of course this is just a basic overlook at the classes in pvp. Some classes can't really be locked into one role and you have to know their talent tree to guess what abilities they will use. Plus some matches are always going to be a close call since the classes are about even in offensive and defensive power. There really is no one overpowered class in the game despite the constant calls to nerf warlocks.

What's in Wow's immediate future?

We've had a decent amount of patches and updates in World of Warcraft over the last month or two but nothing really ground breaking for new content. The quests that were supposed to provide new solo and group content have turned out to be simple grinds requiring hours killing the same type of mobs or gathering quest items. In fact the only real impact of these new quests and factions has been the free gold offered by the daily bombing run quests. Not a total loss for most players since spending 20 minutes on a flying mount for 25gp is not that bad of a deal.

Still I'm sure most long time fans of WoW would like something a bit more impressive and fun to be added to the PvE side of the game. The infusion of new rewards into battlegrounds and arenas has revitalize the PvP side of the game and greatly decreased the time of the average queue. However, with the current population imbalance one faction is going to quickly earn all the rewards then quit playing. Plus its still the PvE side of WoW that is the most popular and the one that most players are eagerly awaiting new content.

So based on rumor, hints, and late nights on the forums here's what I think we'll see in the next four months.

1) Zul'aman:
Probably the first new content that will be added to World of Warcraft will be the new 10 man dungeon that was advertised to ship with the Burning Crusade. General consensus is that the dungeon will offer a raid experience similar to Zul'gurub which provided a stepping stone into the Molten Core for smaller guilds. However, most disagree whether this means Zul'aman will be harder or easier then Karazhan or require the same kind of strict raid balance. Also interesting are the rumors that Zul'aman will be the place to go for offspec raid gear. Moonkin Druids, Ret Paladins, and Fury/MS warriors are eager for that piece of gossip to prove true.

2) A New Five Man Dungeon - Ulum perhaps
Blizzard simply cannot wait until the next expansion to put a dungeon into the game for casual players. True I said the same thing after Naxx was released but this time Blizzard is not gaining subscriptions but losing them. The more new content released the better and lucky for Blizzard there is already a method to make a 5 man dungeon friendly to raiders and casuals. They can simply make the normal version of the dungeon tuned for blue wearing level 70 players while keeping the heroic version for the most geared out of raiders. If they increase the difficulty more then they did for the other heroics then they should be able to allow each boss to have a chance to drop epics. And nothing attracts players to a dungeon better then a chance at epics.

3) Better Guild Management Tools
Its been a long time coming but Blizzard is starting to realize how difficult it is to manage a guild especially with the tougher raiding requirements in the Burning Crusade. I expect several different guild tools to be released before the end of year with probably the guild bank being the most likely. Other tools probably in the works are a guild calender to plan events and the functionality to track raid ids so you can see which members are locked into which instances. Another much desired tool that has long been the realm of 3rd party web sites is the ability to set up a DKP system to better handle loot. A CM on the better moderated European forums let the plans slip about the guild tools with other sources having confirmed they are in the works. No timeline has been hinted at which Blizzard might be saving them so they can billed as a feature in the expansion.

4) New Battleground Changes
While Eye of the Storm was just added with the Burning Crusade expansion, the battleground system tends to only get any use right after new rewards are put into the game. True some of the rewards are impressive for non-raiders but the smaller faction always earns them quicker then stops playing. This make the queue time shoot up for the other faction which can only earn rewards at a much slower pace with longer queue times.

Blizzard knows the only way to fix this situation is to spice the battlegrounds up by adding some kind of reward not dependent on arena seasons. Plus the rewards can't be better then the arena rewards which honestly are much more fairly handed out. Based on all the suggestions in the forums Blizzard has a lot of options to improve the battlegrounds and I wouldn't be surprised to see some changes down the pipeline. Probably no siege engines though.

Suggestions:
-allow factions to fight each other to avoid population imbalances from causing huge queue times
-allow factions to start at either position on a map to add variety to matches
-allow battleground tokens to be turned in for gold or potions that can be used anywhere
-put more titles into the game that can be earned through battlegrounds

Why were Attunements there in the first place?

It's the talk of the town at the moment and I can't resist adding my two cents into the discussion. Of course I'm talking about the decision of the World of Warcraft developers to cut attunements from their raiding game. Now at the moment only the Serpentshrine Caverns and the Eye attunements have been lifted but I suspect that from now on new raid zones will lack any attunement requirements. We'll know for sure in a couple months when Blizzard releases the much anticipated raid dungeon, Zul'aman.

The original decision to put attunements into the Burning Crusade raids zones most likely had a lot to do with the small power difference between raid and dungeon gear. The old world raid zones were linear since the difficulty of each zone got progressively higher and required gear from the previous raid zone. Since raiding was the only method for getting better gear the raid system became almost a straight line from Molten Core to Naxx.

However, in the expansion the developers realized that they would quickly break their promises to casual players if they greatly increased the quality of gear in each progressive raid zone. Plus rewards from the different PvP activities were now sufficient to allow players to jump into most of the raid zones. With a lot of the higher end raids filled with bugs and not well tested the developers definitely wanted to encourage guilds into a linear progression starting at Karazhan.

With the amount of developers originally from Everquest now employed by Blizzard I'm sure it was only a matter of time before someone raised the idea of an attunement system. It worked beautifully and kept all but the most fanatical guilds from doing anything after Serpentshrine Caverns. However, what Blizzard failed to calculate was that the MMO playerbase is much different from what it was during Everquest's Planes of Power.

A lot of guilds simply fell apart from knocking their heads against attunements and creating multiple teams for Karazhan. The MMO market is simply bigger then it was 4 years ago and many non hardcore raiders simply said "screw this" and left for another game. Good timing by Turbine placed Lord of the Rings Online in a position to pick up a lot of these ex-WoW players. I'm sure their initial good numbers were in part due to the short lifetime of the Burning Crusade and its horrid raid game.

Now with Blizzard taking a step backwards and scrapping parts of the attunement system they might be able to salvage some of their end game. The problem is that the majority of their subscription losses over the last couple of months probably game from disgusted raiders. The faction grind quests for Ogri'la, Skyguard, and Etherium was a kick in a face to most casual group oriented players who actually desired more 5-man dungeons. If Blizzard is seen as doing more development on raid content for a much smaller player sub-population then they are going to tank further in the subscription numbers.

I think the only real hope Blizzard has is to make sure Zul'aman is very friendly to casual players. This means making it so pick up groups can complete the entire dungeon. A 10 man raid shouldn't have to have a very delicate balance of classes be able to proceed to the last boss. As long as the raid has a decent tank, healers and dps classes they should be fine. No more bosses that penalize a raid for not having a specific class ability like blessing of sacrifice or shackle. Blizzard needs to introduce Zul'aman as easier then Karazhan if they want to create new raiders.

Should the PvP trinkets be made more powerful?

In the upcoming patch planed for June 20th one of the major items will be the upgrade of the PvP trinkets. Currently the trinkets provide a means to escape a limited amount of crowd control effects for each class. For some classes the trinket dispels effects like polymorph while for others they can use it to get out of fear. However, with the next mini patch Blizzard is planning on changing the mechanics of the PvP trinket so that all crowd control effects can be dispelled by each class.

As World of Warcraft has progressed over the years more short term crowd control effects have been given to each class in an attempt to balance the PvP side of the game. This became necessary as the amount of players participating in PvP combat increased due to reforms in the honor system and the introduction of arenas. The developers most likely feel there are too many crowd control effects now in the game to limit what the trinket can dispel, thus the upcoming change.

Like most game changes there are those on the forums who oppose them. This is especially true for those who have crowd control effects which are particularly hard to dispel. Abilities like sap and cyclone which often can decide games will become a lot less powerful with an universal dispel available to every class on a short timer. Druids in particular are mad that cyclone, which is resistant to paladin shielding, will soon be dispelable by every class.

Cyclone is one of the few crowd control abilities available to a druid besides the very mediocre root ability. While root is practical in PvE situations it tends to suck in combat against other players where spells with a cast time are of limited use. Since healers in PvP are primary targets they often have trouble casting any non instant spells which means crowd control effects like root almost never get a chance to land on opponents.

Even if you don't focus on the impact to any one class the introduction of a universal dispel mechanic is a big change for the game. In the past World of Warcraft's system of PvP has always depended on a rock, paper, scissors approach. Basically the developers looked at single player combat and balanced abilities so that every class had another one they were weak against. Abilities like flare, mass dispel, and mana burn were designed to specifically give advantages over a certain class.

With the changes to the PvP trinket it seems as if the developers are trying to back away from their previous approach and perhaps offer classes a more even chance against one another. Still some posters complain that a universal dispel trinket ruins the chances of classes dependent on crowd control. Yet no one agrees on the definition of a crowd control dependent class. In my opinion the fact that most crowd control effects are instant cast are more then enough reason to increase the power of the PvP trinket. Whether it benefits one class over another we'll just have to wait and see in Arena Season 2.

Could a MMO be made for the Wii?

Sometime during the summer the popular Dance Dance Revolution will be released for the Wii and will probably be a smash hit with most of the console owners. DDR makes use of a dance pad which bears remarkable resemblance to the track and field mat first pioneered on the classic Nintendo. Unlike the overpriced gimmick of the 80s though this game has actually skyrocketed in popularity among all age groups. And this appeal is only expected to increase on the Wii since hand motions will be added to the game to correspond with the tricky foot maneuvers.

What's exciting is that if DDR does become popular enough on the Wii then other studios will probably start including the dance pad in their game design. Picture a fighting game where your footsteps actually control how your character dodges and attacks. From there its not a far step to have your footsteps replace the standard W, A, S, D keys used for movement in most MMORPGs. Such a MMO would have to be slightly different to avoid exhausting its players but could present a very unique feel especially in a first person perspective.

The newest version of Zelda released on the Wii already proved that basic adventure/rpg actions can be done with the Wii remote. The most common mechanic in modern MMOs is the hot bar which could easily be manipulated by the nunchuk controller. The main remote controller could then be used for sword swinging or targeting a player's spells. The major block would be communication but this could be bypassed by including voice chat in the game. With World of Warcraft eventually planning to add voice chat capabilities you can expect it to quickly become standard in MMOs.

The first MMO released for the Wii might be a bit basic but could still be quite fun since players would interact more realistically with the virtual world using hand and foot controls. This limited control method might discourage some but then again games like Guild Wars and Diablo 2 have allowed rich gameplay without the complexity of a million UI buttons. Still for such a game to be published there has to be demand for a more "virtual reality" experience inside a MMO. The popularity of the .Hack series might convince publishers that there is such market but it might take awhile for one of them to take the first step.

Why the Yellow Journalism against MMOs?

It seems like video games have been a favorite target of politicians and mass media since the early nineties when the fighting genre started to get a little too realistic. The outrage over Mortal Kombat fatalities was quickly forgotten though with the introduction of Doom and other first person shooters. Most "family values" groups switched targets and started protesting the FPS genre much like they had earlier quit their protests about the Simpsons once Bevis and Butthead came out. You think about it now and it seems insane but a lot of people were upset with Bart Simpson fifteen years ago and wanted the show canceled.

In the case of both cartoons and video games, older generations didn't understand that the audience age was increasing for the medium. Unlike previous generations where games and cartoons were enjoyed during childhood then put aside, these new youngsters wanted to keep toons and games in their lives. Corporations picked up on this and slowly started introducing content that was more appealing to teen consumers. True, this content was mostly fart jokes and violence but it was nothing worse then what was found in movies at the time. However, since these mediums had traditionally been the domain of childhood for so long there was some outrage at the more mature content.

Unfortunately, the maturation of video games has became a magnet for yellow journalism which specifically targets older generations with misinformation. News media in general has become excellent at exaggerating the content and mechanics of video games to provoke an extreme reaction from those unfamliar with them. Just look at the recent article in the Washington Post which described World of Warcraft as lawless and filled with roving gangs who mug players for their virtual items. If you're as confused as me then you realize that this reporter has only a limited idea of how the game works. Still by lying and claiming ignorance on the specifics the journalist can get away portraying a game in whatever manner gathers more attention.

The behavior of journalists towards video games is increasingly becoming symbiotic with politicians wishing to garner votes from older and ultra conservative constituents. Often an article will set off a round of legislation or public denouncements as politicians seek free political capitol that elicits little corporate backlash. Mass media makes the suggestions and then the politicians feed off the fears of the uninformed. Over the years this scenario has played out in response to novels, comic books, dungeons and dragons, rock music, and rap. Video games are only the most recent target in the chain. However, they are being more aggressively attacked then previous scapegoats perhaps in response to their effect on television viewing habits.

Just recently a lawsuit was filed by watchgroup Families in France against Linden Labs and ten ISPs for allowing access to Second Life. Second Life is the Las Vegas of the MMO universe and currently allows its users a lot of freedom in what they wish to do in the game. The watchgroup says that since Linden Labs does not provide well enough protection to prevent underage users from entering the game they are liable to litigation. This is despite the fact that age verification checks are used to control access to the adult grid. Still the portrayal of the seedier sides of Second Life are often used to implicate all MMOs as cesspools of immorality. Before online businesses became so popular a very similar accusation was often made against the Internet.

http://gamepolitics.com/2007/06/04/french-watchdog-organization-targets-second-life/

http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/06/03/roving-gangs-that-steal-your-stuff/

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.