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

Making Money in MMOs

No matter what type of massive multiplayer online game you are playing there are certain rules which effect the value of that game's currency. Good old fashion economics implies that if demand is high and supply is low then the price of something goes up. Developers can set an artificial value for virtual items by having NPCs buy them at a set price but its almost always going to be worth more to a player. Why is this? Well most games use a spawning system to generate currency for their game which has to be offset by charging players for items, skills and equipment. When these money sinks don't match up evenly to the currency generated then the value of the game's currency drops.

Thus NPCs in most games are set to buy items based on the currency value at the start of the game. This means that eventually most game currencies become inflated enough that selling items to NPCs is almost worthless. Its at this point that the player economy starts to form since most items can be used by players in some form or another. In fact in a lot of games the best way to make money is to target a mob which may drop little actual currency but has a chance of dropping an item in high demand.

In World of Warcraft I'm currently saving up for an epic flying mount mostly so that I can quickly get around the Outlands without being dependent on crazy flight paths. If I just went and farmed mobs that drop cash and vendor trash I would have a long way to go. So instead I copied most professional farmers and head out to areas with mobs that drop items with high player demand and have a low cost to put up in the auction house. If you play WoW then you know about the primal essences which are the arcane crystals of the expansion. Because these essences are used in almost every tradeskill the demand is constantly high and they sell very quickly in the auction house.

If you really wanted to make money quick then you could also pick up two gathering tradeskills which could work in conjunction with your farming. For my main character I chose enchanting and mining. Enchanting allows me to turn green items into enchanting materials which are in high demand and have no deposit to put in the AH. Mining allows me to scour the landscape with track minerals while farming. While not as profitable as enchanting it does allow me the chance to mine ore which still sells well. Plus while mining there is a random chance to gain motes of a primal essence and perhaps even get a rare jewel.

Other people I know use leatherworking and herbalism since areas that have skinable mobs usually also have herbs. Rare herbs sell much faster then ore though they often have negative debuffs associated with picking them. Whatever your professions the real way to make money is good timing. Just like playing the stockmarket you don't want to sell until the price is at the highest point. In WoW this means saving your merchandise until none are up in the auction house which allows you to charge top dollar or price gouge if you feel lucky. If you make your price too high though you will attract people with auctioneer who will quickly undercut you by a few silver and steal your customers. Its a fine balance that constantly changes every few hours depending on how many people are watching the auction house.

Conclusion:
Every scammer, begger, and account hacker knows the quickest way to make money is from other players and not grinding hours against mobs. If you play smart and track the prices of items and make sure you get top dollar then the money should roll in at a steady rate. Just remember that unlike the scum mentioned earlier your reputation plays a big part in affecting your profits. If you overcharge and haggle over prices all the time then you'll eventually find people less likely to buy your goods when people match your price. Just look at the problems farmers have when they put a bunch of items up under one character.

The Nerf Bat Cometh

The first major patch after the Burning Crusade is getting ready to hit the servers in a week or two and with it comes the first round of dreaded class nerfs. Druids are getting hit the hardest which isn't too much of a surprise since every class has been calling out for druid nerfs. Its not just the bear-bomb maneuver either as tanking, healing, and dps classes have all felt threatened by the druid's recent improvement in tanking and healing. Also up to bat are priest and paladin nerfs which destroy some pvp utility but generally leave pve abilities alone. Its fun to see that the major influence on this patch seems to be the arena which is creating havoc in class balancing with its 2v2 and 3v3 brackets.

Nerfs for Druids: The druids are getting hit hard with Bear and Dire Bear only granting 25% bonus to stamina instead of overall health. Also armor class bonuses and damage abilities like mangle are getting reduced. Most people agree the damage the bears were outputting was ridiculous when the health and armor class bonuses were added in. Druids having been limited to healing for so long are sad to see a lot of their pwnage ability going bye-bye but hopefully they will still be able to put up a decent fight.

Nerfs for Priests: Priests are getting a 5% reduction to vampiric embrace which should make their shadowform healing a little less powerful especially since it will longer crit. Prayer of Mending got zapped with a 20 second cooldown which as Tobold mentioned makes it useless for soloing.

Nerfs for Paladins: The Avengers Shield snare component can now be removed with dispel. Priest's mass dispel now targets and removes Divine Shield first. *Stealth Nerf Alert* Testers are reporting that Avenging Wrath and Divine Shield now share the same 5 minute cooldown and that all paladin shields give forbearance which reduces the target's damage output by 15% for an entire minute. This is specifically made to address paladins throwing blessing of protection on warlocks and mages in arenas. Drysc will neither confirm or deny if its a bug but it is currently on the test server.

Small Buffs for Shamans: Shamans are getting some of their spells adjusted to generate less threat when used. Also their stoneclaw totem now has a chance to stun and clearcasting will now go off more often since it procs off every spell crit.

Big Buffs for Warriors: Rage normalization is up by 15% - 20% for warriors along with an overall increase of 1% to their critical strike rating. Thunderclap is now usable in defensive stance and generates rage allowing warrior tanks to compete with the paladin's consecrate aggro. Also planned to be hotfixed in when they get the code right: charge, intercept and intervene will remove snare effects.

Second Life Strife

Seems that all the media attention Linden Labs has generated for itself is starting to boost their user base higher then they can actually support. Huge amounts of latency during the weekends and other prime timeslots has forced a policy change for the free to play game. Now during times of high latency the game becomes restricted and only players who have actually payed for land or currency can login. For those of you unfamiliar with Second Life, the sims like game is free to play but uses micro-transactions to support itself.

The use of micro-transactions in Second Life combined with accusations of exaggerating its user numbers has offended many fans of more game like MMOs. Despite this negative publicity in the gamer community, a large following of journalists and academics have adopted the game and created great word of mouth for it. As a result Linden Labs has received a decent increase in concurrent users over the last few months. This apparently has created friction between established players within the game and those who are just playing tourist because of the publicity.

The established players have started to organize and use some of the unique features of Second Life to make it difficult for anyone just starting to learn the game. Second Life has a large amount of tools which allow the creation of objects which can have all kinds of different effects in the game. Usually these objects are just virtual merchandise or seedy toys but they can also result in greifing tools. Items can replicate to trap and confuse players, explode and create chaos, or even teleport and knock back player avatars. Recently items that create the game effects of a nuclear bomb are being used to disrupt the land of new players and corporations that have opened up virtual item shops.

The root of all this angst seems to stem from Linden Lab's lack of revenue for upgrading hardware to support more concurrent users. After all most people who try out Second Life only explore the different islands and don't actually spend any real world money on the game. This is why a policy of restricting access to paying members was established during peak latency spikes. However, even with the policy change Second Life is still gaining more users and players are still going to feel more crowded. It seems like a game which used to be just a small time town is slowly starting to grow into a mid-size city.

http://gamepolitics.com/2007/02/26/nuke-sl/

Arena Point Calculation and Team Brackets

Just a small update about the WoW arenas. Blizzard took a surprising step recently and released the formula used to convert team ratings into points each week. While most players were ecstatic about knowing the specifics of the math some grew bitter. It was quickly realized that the ratings for 5v5 teams convert into more points then the 3v3 and 2v2 teams. As one person pointed out on the forums losing 10 matches as a new 5v5 team actually gained you more points then wining 10 matches as a 2v2 team.

The forum moderators were quick to point out that this was true for the first week but that the scaling became different as team ratings change. This would mean that the following week the 5v5 team would not earn more points then a 2v2 team if they lost every match. While this helped alleviate some pains it still points out a obvious advantage to the 5v5 team bracket. Blizzard defends the position by citing the domination of crowd control in smaller team brackets. The developers feel that having 5 people on a team gives a chance to offset the advantage of crowd control spells and abilities.

Despite the developer's logic there is still some animosity about the team rating inequality. Issues such as the cost of the 5v5 charter and the higher membership requirement doesn't sit well with some players. A lot of couples and small groups of friends are annoyed since they basically need a small guild to guarantee always having 5 people on to fight in a arena. On the other side it seems like guilds are embracing the idea of arena teams and are often fielding multiple teams at the same time. Also if there is one thing that the arena point system shows is that its quite easy to earn epic rewards in the space of 5-6 weeks without putting in hours and hours of grinding. You don't even need that high of a win average.

Rating to Arena Point Calculator
http://www.boxspherical.com/arena/index.php

Group Instance Bosses Gain Some Smarts

I'm coming back from a nice long weekend today in which I probably spent way too much time playing WoW. However, I did use the time to my advantage and managed to beat several level 70 instances which had earlier kicked my ass. This time around though me and my friends came armed with better knowledge and some of our own homebrewed strategies. Its necessary to have a specific strategy since a lot of the boss fights in the Burning Crusade aren't simple tank and spank fights. Instead the developers took the tricks and annoying abilities of the old world raid instances and spread them around generously in the 5-man instances of the Outlands. Heck, they even came up with some new tricks.

As I noted in a earlier post about PvP, the MMO industry has a real problem with simply increasing boss stats to increase difficulty. In the original game the developers usually saved the clever boss fights that required coordination and communication for raid content only. This could have been an early design decision or simply the result of most of the raid content being patched in after launch. Whichever the case, with the coming of the Outlands the decision was made to include more complex fights in the 5-man content.

This increased complexity can be annoying sometimes when your group is facing something new and you die very surprisingly. (Hungerfen's exploding mushrooms) Yet the encounter is more like a puzzle and less like a grind when the developers put some thought behind it. Even if you look a strategy up online it still takes some practice and good timing to put it into execution. Plus while a strategy might work for one party it might not work for another that has a different class composition. All of these factors come into effect to make the average 5-man instance in the Burning Crusade a lot more fun then their Azeroth counterparts.

The majority of this fun factor comes from bosses having a lot more help during encounters. After all adventurers are showing up in groups to kill them so why shouldn't dungeon bosses also have a group of compadres to help defend themselves. A lot of the hard encounters involve minions which can heal, do damage, explode or even lay down blazing trails of fire you can't cross. If you're an old time gamer then the Nethermancer Spethra fight has to remind you a bit of the Tron motorcycle game. In Shadow Labs there's even a Ogre mage who mind controls your entire party and makes you duke it out against one another for 15 seconds. As I said before, "Fun".

As more dungeons are introduced to extend the life of the game it will be interesting to see if the developers can pull more challenging encounters out of their skulls without going to far. There is already some negative posts on the scripted encounters in Kharzhan which complain about the difficulty when compared to the Heroic mode dungeons. Basically the Kharzhan encounters are longer and harder but don't really give much better loot. With the quality of rewards being so close between raid and group instances developers are going to have to walk a thin line when designing encounters or risk making the 10 man raid instances as empty as AQ40.

Does PvP hold a MMO back?

One of the most controversial choices developers have to make when designing a MMO is determining what type of PvP game play to include. If they avoid any type of player vs. player combat a sizable amount of online gamers will avoid the game because they see it as having little challenge. After all artificial intelligence in games is very hit or miss especially in MMO design where it is common for developers to increase difficulty by simply increasing mob stats. Most players enjoy the challenge of fighting against a human opponent but want rules which set up a fair competition. However, if the combat is constant or non-consensual then the game starts to get a bad reputation.

Once the mechanics are laid down for the game's PvP combat there is still the issue of making it a viable source of character advancement. Do the developers wish to give items for achieving PvP goals or simply award empty accolades like character titles. If PvP has no rewards then it will only be used sparingly and most of the hardcore will leave the game quickly. Yet the instant character advancement is made available through player killing you have intensified the balance issues the game will have. This is why so many early MMORPGs like Everquest, Final Fantasy, and Asheron's Call had very little support for PvP.

Balance is something that is usually maintained on the class scale and is done to ensure fairness in the character progression portion of the game. If a class is imbalanced this usually means they can attain experience and items quicker then other player classes. This almost always leads to an increasing spike in the numbers of this class as players try to gain an edge in the game by switching to the more powerful class. Even if players are not directly fighting each other there is still an indirect competition to accumulate items, power and fame which encourages this min/maxing.

Additionally the standard group mechanic in MMORPGs is very sensitive to player distribution. Since the early days of fantasy games the idea of the tank, damage and healer trinity has been used to organize classes into specific roles for group encounters. However, if PvP progression favors a class too much they tend to spend less time in group combat and their spot in the trinity becomes harder to fill. This effects everyone in the game especially if one of the rare trinity roles becomes a favored PvP class.

Its because of this that MMO's which support PvP tend to resolve balance issues by using three methods:

1) Severely limit the number of classes which reduces the amount of balancing they have to do between PvP and PvE.

2) Make PvP rewards which affect character power (stats) very rare or non-existent which decreases the viability of anyone doing PvP full time for character advancement.

3) Avoid the use of experience points or alternative advancement options at the max level to place a ceiling on character power. This prevents huge differences in character power at the max level which would destroy any concept of fair combat.


So how has the developers use of these methods affected World of Warcraft?

1) New classes have been desired greatly but have yet to be introduced into the game because of the time cost of balancing them with the current classes. New classes would have to fulfill one of the three trinity roles and not be a carbon copy of any of the existing classes in the same role. So if a monk dps class was added it would have to play differently from a rogue and have its damage on par with all the other dps classes. Yet it would have to look exciting enough to entice people to play the class.

2) No PvP rewards at first then a ranking system which only allowed a few people each week to gain items that weren't quite as good as the high end PvE raid items. As the new expansion was being prepared the PvE side of the game became stagnant so the developers made it easier to earn rewards on the PvP side. Now that dungeon crawling and raiding are back the PvP rewards are seeing more of a lock down. The arena PvP rewards will be controlled by a rating system which will probably set a much slower accumulation of items then PvE. Still at least now its viable to do both raiding and arenas since only 10 matches are required a week.

3) Options for increasing character stats or abilities through continued experience gain at the max level are going to be forever denied in World of Warcraft. The use of Hero classes also fits into this category since most likely they were going to be a special class choice that opened up at the max level after accomplishing some goal. Blizzard controls the current advancement of max level characters with raid reset timers and the arena rating system. Having a third method of advancement might be too much especially if it was something as complex as extra class abilities. Think of what could happen if a rogue could use 2 handers and you get the idea.


While PvP combat has set boundaries on World of Warcraft it has also intensified the competitive nature of its players by having two factions. Things would definitely be much more boring if combat between the Horde and Alliance was sparse and granted no rewards. Some future MMORPGs are set to capitalize on this excitement and intensified player competition by making PvP combat the main focus of their game play. Both Warhammer Online and Age of Conan will have more PvP combat then any previous fantasy MMORPG and will hearken back to the days of Ultima Online. It will be fun to see what issues these games might have especially in comparison to the mostly PvE centric titles that are currently out.

Enter into the Arena and let the Games begin

Its a little early to be talking about the official Arena season which doesn't start until this Friday (Feb 16th). However, based on the volume of traffic I'm getting to my Arena posts I'm guessing its on a lot of people's mind. A couple of months ago someone linked my posts about the Arena rules onto WowWiki and I've been getting increasing traffic since then. Recently I've gotten a couple emails reminding me about the season kickoff and asking some general questions about what to expect.

Scoring Structure

Well on Friday we should be able to start participating in official arena matches instead of just using the practice option that is currently available. Your team's arena rating should change immediately after any official match since the calculations are based only on you and your opponent's rating. At the end of each week your team's rating is used to award a specific amount of arena points. At the end of an arena season the ratings are reset and the process starts all over again. A season is supposed to last 3 months but expect the developers to change it at their discretion.

Your team is matched against other teams that have a similar rating on your server's battlegroup. If the queue is taking too long the computer might allow a opponent with a higher or lower rating but you will earn more or less points as appropriate to your opponent’s difficulty. Winning against opponents with a higher rating will advance your rating much quicker then fighting a lower ranking team. Losing against a lower rank team will hurt your rating greatly. Remember you could find yourself fighting horde or alliance but will be prevented from communicating with them regardless of your faction to prevent throwing matches.

Arena Team Structure

Arena Teams are formed like guilds except instead of a tabard you get a banner which you carry around during matches. Teams are composed of 3, 4, or 5 people and can have double the players for alternates. This means a 5 man team can have 10 people in it so you don't have to worry if someone is out sick one week. To get your teams rating turned into points you have to fight at least 10 matches a week. For a member of your team to get points they must have participated in 30% of the matches. Points are awarded equally to all members of the team that meet the 30% participation rule. If you are in more then one type of arena team you only receive points from the team that did the best that week.

Arenas have very specific rules that you can fully explore in the practice rounds. Before the start of the match all buffs are removed but you are given full mana to recast and prepare any spells. Potions and most disposable items can not be used during a match. Most cooldowns on a long timer can not be used so you don't have to worry about Paladins using lay on hands during the match. If the match goes on too long items will start spawning that allow players to view stealthed opponents at the cost of a small debuff.

The Rewards

Arena points are awarded each week and can be used to buy items from the Arena quartermaster. Just like honor points there is a maximum amount which a player can hold to prevent hording. Expect items that are available from the quartermaster to change from season to season as the developers try to match pvp rewards to the current raid awards. Seasonal awards are also expect to be award to the top teams in each arena team category. Its been confirmed that one of the awards for the first season will be a the netherwind drake mount.

Predictions

Expect most teams to play a lot of games in the beginning of the season often going over 10 games each week. As the season starts to get close to the end expect the queues to get longer as teams try to hang onto their rankings.

Expect most of the members of the best 5 man team to also be in the best 3 and 4 man teams.

Expect very fast queue times since the horde and alliance imbalance will not come into play.

Expect a very low chance of running into better geared players as they should quickly increase in rating.

Expect the battlegroup forums to get a lot more popular

The Level 70 Instance Spike

As me and a couple of my friends had just recently hit level 70 we thought we would try some of the harder 5-man instances in the game. The healers we group with were running a little bit behind 70 but it was mostly because none of them were mains. In our little dungeon crawling group those of us with the most free time on our hand play a secondary character who is a healer so we can trade off on healing duties. No one really likes playing the healer so round robin helps minimize the pain. Unfortunately with our priests and druids at level 67 we ran into problems in most of the level 70 instances we tried.


The Black Morass

The Black Morass was our first stop on our quest for better loot and we had done some actual research on the event so we knew basically what to do. Our first attempt was jinxed since we had forgotten to clear out some sheathed jaguars who of course aggrod our healer on the second riftkeeper. For those of you unfamiliar with the Black Morass you basically have to kill dragonkin of the infinite dragon flight as they pop from void rifts that form around Midevh. The area around Midevh also has regular animals such as spiders, crocs, and jaguars which will aggro if you don't clear them out before approaching Medivh.

Our second attempt went better since we used our time-beacons to help take down the void rift keepers. However, we noticed that if we didn't use a time-beacon it took us too long to close the rift and another one would form. We got at a point where the next rift was already releasing dragonkin and we wiped it up. On our third try we spaced out the beacons and quickly got to the first boss. Unfortunately the bosses had the ability to auto kill the guardian from the time-beacons and we wasted two of them. We almost had him down but then he got a lucky string of crits on our tank. Needless to say we were fed up at this point and headed over to Shattered Halls where we wouldn't have to reclear every time after wiping.

Shattered Halls

Shattered Halls was easier then the Black Morass even though we had to handle large groups of elite mobs. It starts off in a long hallway filled with about 7 groups of elite fel orcs. In each group is a Legionnaire who auto revives his buddies if you don't kill him first. Guess which mob has the most hitpoints and armor class? Also sometimes you could get stuck with 3 hunters in the groups who would all use scatter shot. A lot of fun and death followed but we made it to the first boss who was actually a piece of cake. He's a warlock and would create small puddles of voidstuff which would do damage if you were near them. We just used the Hungerfen strategy and kept the tank moving around. At 25% he surprised us and started spinning around throwing shadowbolts non-stop. Luckily we had enough mana to burn him down because it was a very damaging attack.

After the first boss we got cocky and decided to keep going. The next hallway was straight from BWL and copied the suppression room. Only one of us had gotten that far into BWL so it was a learning experience. The respawning non-elites surprised us a couple of times and the fire arrows being shot at us were very annoying. After that fun hallway we were rewarded with yet another one. Only this hallway had groups of Orcish Gladiators along the side who were engaged in a Battle Royal. Its very easy to aggro the Gladiators while pulling the groups from the center of the hallway. So easy that even a orc hunter using scatter shot and running slightly out of range can cause aggro. After a couple pulls of 9 mobs we decided to try our luck in the Shadow Labs.

The Shadow Labs

The Shadow Labs started out the most promising out of all the level 70 instances. The pulls were easy and the mobs didn't seem to hit too hard. Then as we started to approach the first boss we ran into some Fel Overseers which are almost like mini bosses since they can take a hit like a Fel Reaver and fear every 30 seconds. Finally after clearing them and then some groups of channeling warlocks we got to the first boss with no wipes. Ambassador Hellmaw was a pushover just like the Grand Warlock in the Shattered Halls. He came close to killing us once since he had eliminated the majority of our warrior's armor class but we had plenty of mana to keep up the healing.

Right after this fight was probably the hardest pulls I've seen in the game. These pulls were composed of 5-6 cultists and casters and came complete with some warlock pets. That wouldn't be so bad accept that the malicious developers decided to make it so that assassins spawn and wander around the room your pulling from every 10 minutes. Thus when the assassins first appeared they cause a partial wipe and then ten minutes later the respawn caught us even more by surprised and caused a wipe. At this point we realize that even with our hunter using flare the assassins were always going to cause a wipe since we couldn't kill the groups fast enough. We decided at this point that our tank still required too much healing which was causing our healers to get aggro.

Looking back, these three instances really remind me of our early attempts at Scholomance and Stratholm. Both of them caused us numerous headaches and at the time we thought pulls of four mobs were especially difficult. They had just been revamped at that point so we thought the two instances were too hard for a single group to finish. We eventually got our warrior some better gear by doing DM and BRD and were able to handle the two undead instances much better. Of course having everyone level 60 at the time also helped and we soon picked up our Tier-0 pants and helm. Its funny that about a year from then we find ourselves in a very similar situation. It just goes to prove that no matter how new the content is in a expansion certain truths about the game tend to stay the same.

The Cost of Leveling in the Burning Crusade

If your anything like me then you've probably been on a slow but steady pace to reach level 70 since the Burning Crusade came out last month. Most people don't seem to be in that much of a rush to get a flying mount and are happy exploring the new zones and quests. However, as my character has added notches to his leveling belt I've started to notice a heart breaking trend. My critical strike and hit ratings are suffering huge drops every time I reach a new level. Its really taken some of the anticipation out of leveling since it seems I am getting a ridiculous amount of hitpoints at the cost of being attacked by the nerf bat.

Even my warrior friends are complaining. Well okay they are always complaining but this time they have a valid reason. Out of all the classes in World of Warcraft they seem to depend the most on the non-attribute stats of Dodge, Parry, Block, Crit, Hit, and Resilience. These are the bread and butter of a tank's ability to mitigate physical damage and they are basically being nerfed each level. Before level 60 the nerf is small and hardly noticeable to the average player. However, in the expansion because of the way the gear scales up so quickly Blizzard decided to multiply this penalty. Now some classes are seeing almost a half percent decrease in the non-attribute stats each level.

All in all this penalty is just a good trick to fight the mudflation of items in the expansion. Blizzard introduces these new items with much higher stats and power in an attempt to get players to buy the expansion and invest more time in their game. Yet Blizzard is a bit smarter then the average MMO company and they know that mudflation can quickly result in ridiculous numbers and overpowered players. So they make the impact of these stats mean less at the new levels in the game. Thus a warrior might squeal when they get a +45 critical strike sword without realizing that at level 70 this is only about 1%.

Now while I don't necessarily like to see my combat stats drop I do realize that Blizzard has a reason behind their madness. Basically they increased the amount of hitpoint/stamina itemization while decreasing the critical strike and hit ratings at each level for one important reason. They want to slow combat down. Previously in PvP combat it was very easy for classes with high burst damage to kill others without even giving the victim a chance to respond. By slowing down combat and giving more hitpoints to each class they are trying to prevent this scenario. After all every time someone is attacked without any chance to respond they go straight to the forums and start a nerf thread.

Still an enterprising individual can see a couple of loopholes in the current system. One of the major ones would be to equip level 57-60 characters with the green drops that come from the level 60 mobs in the Outlands. These items have the increased stat itemization and can be equipped by characters without any major penalties. Not only would a character in such armor rock through the old world content but they would also get quite the advantage in PvP combat.

Still despite the loopholes and overbearing penalties the new system might be beneficial in the long run especially if Blizzard starts releasing an expansion each year. Several games like Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot have already killed the ability of new players to join by letting expansion mudflation go unchecked. At least Blizzard is trying something proactive. And truthfully as long as the new items have higher numbers and better graphics I doubt most players will care about the penalties.

Vanguard: Example of why modern MMOs need an IP?

Vanguard launched last week much to chagrin of its beta testers who have repeatedly been on record as saying the game was not yet ready. Reviews for Vanguard invariably mention its empty locations and half implemented combat/diplomacy systems. Its not that the vision behind Vanguard was bad just that it was never really defined well enough for Sigil to deliver on. The constant rehauling of its design is what chased away its original investor and forced the company to come back to SOE, who they didn't really leave on good turns with. Now, despite being in development for five years the game still has an unfinished feel to it. Well as Tommy Boy would say "A lot of MMO's are in development for five years." And as Richard would responded "Yeah, They're called World of Warcraft."

All joking aside my horribly butchered movie quote puts a big glowing arrow directly on Vanguard's major dysfunction. It has spent way too much time in development for what they have to show. Other fantasy based MMORPGs have produced a much more polished product for far less money and in far shorter time then Vanguard. This by itself wouldn't hurt Vanguard's chances at getting fixed in production except that most of these other fantasy MMORPGs are coming out this year! As a result Vanguard's chances of pulling a Everquest 2 and slowing fixing itself in patches becomes highly unlikely. Sigil most likely won't get enough initial subscriptions and cash to fix things fast enough before the average player quits.

But why does Vanguard need so much fixing and content addition? Well to answer that question you need to know about the evolution of modern MMO games. The first generation ones that came out right after the Multi-User-Dungeons of the early nineties were unique fantasy worlds based on their own mythos. Both Ultima Online and Everquest lore were originally written as the games were being built from the ground up. Game designers had to depend on their own imaginations and what they could successful steal from D&D to create a framework for a virtual world. The art and storyline could sometimes be harder to create then the actually game mechanics.

Eventually game developers realized that buying the rights to publish an existing IP as a MMO was fairly cheap for the benefit it provided. Movies, books, and even existing console games were all turned into MMOs with varying degrees of success. Despite having different financial results these games all tended to go through production much quicker then the ones created from scratch. Only in a few cases where the developer didn't have creative control was the IP a liability rather then an asset. If you look at the line up for MMO releases this year you can see the point I am trying to make.

The Burning Crusade: Video Game IP
Vanguard: Original IP
Lord of the Rings Online: Book IP
Age of Conan: Book IP
Warhammer Online: Game IP

Vanguard is one of the few MMO releases this year not to be based on a pre-existing IP and I'm sure this has slowed down their development. Admittedly Vanguard had other factors which affected the amount of money and time they spent developing their game. However, for a game with a nebulous vision which was not well defined an IP could have provided some well needed direction. Now just because a game is based on a IP doesn't mean it will be as good as its parent. However, to be truthful game designers aren't always the best storytellers as seen in the overuse of the kill ten rat quests. Yet to hire professional writers and artists and create a virtual world from scratch costs a lot of money and time. In fact I would guess that probably the first two years of Vanguard development was spent on this process.

The only other MMO release I can come up with off the top of my head which is also a original virtual world is Tabula Rasa which shares some eerie similarities with Vanguard. Its also being headed by a lead developer of a first generation MMO and being plagued with a long development cycle. However, in the case of Tabula Rasa the funding is probably secured until the end of time due to the financial muscle EA is providing to Richard Garriott. Still one has to wonder if in the future all modern MMOs will have to either be based on a pre-existing IP or backed by an overly wealthy benefactor.

Relmstein Slaughters the Slave Pens

The Slave Pens is the first instance of Coilfang Reservoir and is located to the far left if you are facing the meeting stone. They are a lot of hard pulls in the Slave Pens so crowd control is a must have for your group. All of the mobs are humanoid so rogues and mages are going to be very useful. The instance requires less clearing then the Blood Furnace but the groups of mobs and bosses are much harder. Upon entering the Slave Pens you'll have to fight a couple groups of wandering crab people or as they are called in Illegal Danish, "Sand Lobsters". They move fast and wander all over the first cave room so its best to take them out first.

Afterwards you'll have a few stationary groups of "Broken" slaves and Naga Slavemasters. Its here where you will have to make the choice of killing the slaves or not because once the Slavemaster dies they will be become non-targetable. If you kill the slaves first you get Cenarion Expedition reputation so if you don't mind being cruel, go for it. As you clear to the tunnel at the end of the first cave beware of a patrol of two Naga warriors. After dealing with them make your way to the second cave which is much larger then the first area.

Here you will find groups of Naga and groups of Sand Lobsters. You can head to the first boss by either going left and clearing through groups of Sand Lobsters or straight ahead and clearing through the Naga. The Naga are a pain with Warriors that can fear and Enchantresses that can charm/root. The Sand Lobsters are in large clumps of five but have no real special abilities. A chest sometimes spawns to the left so I usually use that to make the decision for my group. Either way you will eventually find yourself at a building on the left side of the cave. Its guarded by two Naga Defenders which are basically warriors with spell reflect. Don't warn your mage and get a good laugh when he nukes himself for 3k.

Once in the building you will find yourself fighting elite "Broken" shadowcasters and Naga Slavemasters. These groups are a lot easier then the pure Naga ones and you should have no problem clearing them. The first boss Mennu the Betrayer walks up and down a long ramp inside the building which has several groups of mobs at its base. Every time Mennu walks up the ramp pull a group away from the base. Eventually you'll have a nice area clear for your battle with Mennu. Mennu is a shaman who lays down three types of totems. All of them are bad but the healing and fire nova ones are the worst. Have a rogue or dps warrior be on totem duty and hit them as they spawn. Everyone else can stay on Mennu who only auto-attacks and occasionally uses a shock spell. If your main tank has spell deflect the fight is very easy.

Afterwards head up the ramp onto a catwalk that reaches over into the next room. They are two patrols of Naga that wander the catwalk so take care of them first before moving into the next room. Once you get to where the catwalk reaches into the next room you'll find some patrols of Naga and Broken. Take care of them and then you can follow the catwalk until it drops down into a pool of water. Right outside of the pool you will notice another ramp with three groups of Naga around it. One group is on the ramp and two are on the sides. They all path towards the pool and then away in a short cycle. Use this timing to isolate and attack one of the groups on the side. After killing both groups on the sides you can then clear the ramp since a quest objective is at the top of it.

On the left side of the ramp with the quest objective you'll find the tunnel entrance that leads to the second boss. Take care of the two Naga Defenders by it and then proceed cautiously into the next room. The second boss Rokmar the Crackler is a giant sand lobster and has a couple groups of mobs near the area where you fight him. Pull these groups of Sand Lobsters and Naga into the tunnel so you can clear out some room. Rokmar paths back and forth on a long cycle so its easy to time the pulls not to aggro him. The Spore Bat pet and Naga Warrior will fear so its best to pull far away so a feared party member doesn't start the fight early.

Rokmar is a hard fight for this level and can quickly wipe a group. He hits hard and uses an AoE ice bolt which does around 1500 damage. He also infrequently uses a single-target damage debuff that will make the tank's life go down quick. On the good side his hitpoints are only moderate so if you can keep the dps and tank alive he will go down. If your group is only around 63-64 its best to make heavy use of healing potions so a well timed icebolt doesn't kill your casters. After Lobsterfest be prepared for the hardest pulls in the dungeon which all involve four or five Naga with special abilities.

To beat these groups of Naga without dying you'll need to have at least two forms of crowd control. Also if you have a druid healer they can sleep the Spore Bat pet which allows you to even the odds a bit more. The Naga Enchantress at this point tend to charm more often so they should be top priority. My groups usually sheep and sap the Tempest Nagas and try to burn the Healer and Enchantress down. The attack power bonus of a charmed party member is huge so beware if any dps classes get charmed.

After the four groups of annoying Naga pulls you'll find yourself in the last chamber of the instance. The first order of business here will be to take care of the two groups of wandering Sand Lobsters. They move very fast and have a weird path that makes it so that both groups will sometimes rush to the entrance of the chamber. Learn the timing then pull when a single group is near and you should have no problems. Afterwards you'll see another small group of Naga and a Night Elf in a cage to the left.

After killing the Naga you can release the Night Elf from her cage which will trigger an ambush attack. With her help the ambush is easy to win as long as your casters have mana at the start of the fight. The former prisoner will give you a Nature Resistance buff and fulfill a quest objective when you talk to her. The buff is useful for winning the final boss fight but she is usually killed if you wipe on him. So don't mess it up. Have everyone talk to her and if you have a hunter have him turn on his nature aspect.

Quagmirran is a beast who doesn't hit as hard as Rokmar but has a more damaging AoE attack. Luckily his poison based AoE is a cone spell so if the tank can keep the boss 180 degrees from the rest of your party you'll be fine. Beware that Quagmirran likes to knock his target back a little bit so be careful that your healers don't lose line of sight if the tank gets knocked into the water. Also he will spit a poison out randomly at people but it can be dispelled. This fight is easy as long as the tank can hold aggro and Quagmirran doesn't spew his bad breath on everyone. Believe me, it stinks.

The Instances of the Burning Crusade

The new instances in the Burning Crusade have kept me so entertain that I have found a couple of my last posts basically turn into walkthroughs for them. To get this out of my system so I can talk about other topics and perhaps even a MMO besides World of Warcraft I've decided to post the basic order of all the new instances in World of Warcraft. I am going to structure it on recommended level from WoWwiki starting with the five man instances. I've also done the Slave Pens and Underbog a couple of times since hitting 65 so don't be too suprised to see walkthroughs appear for them also.

Hellfire Citadel: Hellfire Ramparts.com (60-62 mobs, 5 player groups)
Bosses: Watchkeeper Gargolmar - Vazruden & Nazan - Omor the Unscarred

Hellfire Citadel: Blood Furnace (61-63 mobs, 5 player groups)
Bosses: The Maker - Broggok - Keli'dan the Breaker

Coilfang Reservoir: The Slave Pens (62-64 mobs, 5 player groups)
Bosses: Mennu the Betrayer - Rokmar the Crackler - Quagmirran

Coilfang Reservoir: The Underbog (63-65 mobs, 5 player groups)
Bosses: Hungarfen - Ghaz'an - Swamplord Musel'ek - The Black Stalker

Auchindoun: Mana Tombs (64-66 mobs, 5 player groups)
Bosses: Pandemonius - Tavarok - Nexus-Prince Shaffar

Auchindoun: Auchenai Crypts (65-67 mobs, 5 player groups)
Bosses: Shirrak the Dead Watcher - Exarch Maladaar

Caverns of Time: Escape from Durnholde (66–68 mobs, 5 player groups)
Bosses: Lieutenant Drake - Captain Skarloc - The Epoch Hunter

Auchindoun: Sethekk Halls (67-69 mobs, 5 player groups)
Bosses: Darkweaver Syth - Talon King Ikiss

Caverns of Time: Opening the Dark Portal - (70 mobs, 5 player groups)
Bosses: Chrono Lord Deja - Temporus - Aeonus

Tempest Keep: The Mechanar (69-72 mobs, 5 player groups)
Bosses: First Layer: Gatewatcher Gyro-Kill - Gatewatcher Iron-Hand - Mechano-Lord Capacitus - Nethermancer Sepethrea - Pathaleon the Calculator

Hellfire Citadel: The Shattered Halls (70-72 mobs, 5 player groups)
Bosses: Grand Warlock Nethekurse - Warbringer O'mrogg - Kargath Bladefist

Coilfang Reservoir: The Steamvault (70-72 mobs, 5 player groups)
Bosses: Hydromacer Thespia - Mekgineer Steamrigger - Warlord Kalithresh

Auchindoun: Shadow Labyrinth (70-72 mobs, 5 player groups)
Bosses: Ambassador Hellmaw - Blackheart the Inciter - Grandmaster Vorpil - Murmur

Tempest Keep: The Botanica (70-72 mobs, 5 player groups)
Bosses: Commander Sarannis - High Botanist Freywinn - Thorngrin the Tender - Laj - Warp Splinter

Tempest Keep: The Arcatraz (70-72 mobs, 5 player groups)
Bosses: Zereketh the Unbound - Wrath-Scryer Soccothrates - Dalliah the Doomsayer - Warden Mellichar Event

Karazhan: (Key Quest Requires Shadow Labyrinth/Steamvault/Arcatraz, 10 player raid)
Final Bosses: Nightbane

Zul'Aman: (TBA, 10 player raid)

Gruul's Lair (No Key, 25 player raid)
Bosses: High King Maulgar - Kiggler the Crazed - Blindeye the Seer - Olm the Summoner - Krosh Firehand - Gruul

Magtheridon's Lair (No Key, 25 player raid)
Final Boss: Magtheridon

Serpentshrine Cavern (Key Quest, 25 player raid)
Final Boss: Lady Vashj

Tempest Keep: The Eye (Key Quest Chain, 25 player raid)
Final Boss: Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider

Caverns of Time: Battle on Mount Hyjal (Long Quest Chain, 25 player raid)

The Black Temple: (TBA, Full 25 player raid zone)

Burning Crusade Dungeon Key Guide

Turbine Tries something New

Turbine the maker of the new upcoming Lord of the Rings MMO is offering some surprise subscription offers for those who sign up early with their game. One of their options is a 9.99$ a month subscription plan which is the lowest MMO rate I've seen since about 2000. The other plan is even more mind boggling since its a lifetime subscription for just 199$. Both offers require you to sign up and probably pay before release but guarantee you a spot in their open beta in March. Also noteworthy is that they will move your beta characters to the live server in April when the game is released.

I don't like the idea of beta characters getting a head start over everyone else but with Turbine wanting a monetary commitment before release I can see a need for the punch and pie. And believe me, when you start doing the math of how much your spend on an average MMO their offers start to sound really good. Especially, the lifetime subscription offer which could allow you to move from new game to new game while still maintaining a presence in Lord of the Rings. Most casual gamers aren't going to pick up on this offer but I think every hardcore gamer who tends to stick with a MMO for over a year just had an epiphany.

Turbine is thinking smart with this lifetime subscription plan since it basically guarantees a constant population of hardcore gamers in Lord of the Rings. Most big subscription MMO games charge around 15$ a month which puts a yearly charge of around 180 for playing. Hardcore gamers are going to see that the game will keep them entertained for at least a year and drop the dough for the plan. Then as expansions and new patches are released for the game they will keep coming back since their is no barrier of having to re-subscribe.

So why is that important? Well the hardcore might not make the most amount of money for MMO companies but they have a habit of making or breaking any game release. Their reviews and word of mouth tends to spread through most internet forums and gathers huge anticipation for games from the general gamer population. If enough hardcore gamers become lifetime residents then Turbine can see this digital word of mouth spread very fast for their game and any future content for it. Of course this could be a bad thing if they start turning out less then stellar content but so far reviews for the initial game look good.

Of course Turbine has had some rocky history in the MMO world and has never really seen the wild success of a games such as DAoC, Everquest, or Final Fantasy XI. Their most popular release to date was the original Asheron's Call which hit its peak of around 125,000 subscriptions back in 2001. Since then they have had the lackluster launch of Asheron's Call 2 and the slow growth of Dungeons and Dragons Online. Still the company does have at least three MMO games under its belt and every one of them went over 45,000 subscribers. No Auto Assaults in their history. If practice makes perfect then maybe Turbine might finally be ready to really grab a large share of the MMO market.

What Controls the Nerf Bat?

A few thread discussions have sprung up on the World of Warcraft forums talking about what the most nerfed class is in the game. Every poster has their own reasons why they think a specific class is the most nerfed and surprisingly enough its not always because they play that class. A few point to the warriors which have been the most consistently nerfed since the beginning of the game. Still others point to classes that have received fewer nerfs but ones they argue were more devastating to damage output and survivability.

All the arguing and trolling made me stop and think about what probably directs the nerf bat to hit a class in a MMO. Despite what most players think its not that the developers have their favorite classes or that they listen to whoever whines the most on the interweb. Instead its most likely a combination of statistics, abilities, and flexibility which determines where the feared foam covered instrument strikes. Thinking about the current class checks and balances I came up with six categories where I see developers introducing nerfs and on rare occasions, buffs.

The Balance Categories

Burst Damage: How much damage can the class deal quickly in a short amount of time?

Damage Mitigation: How much melee and spell damage can the class receive and still survive?

Crowd Control: How effective are crowd control against the class and how effective are their own?

Casting Times: How many instant cast abilities and spells does the class have?

Range Damage: How damaging are the range attacks of a class?

Hybrid Viability: Can the class assume more then one role in the trinity of Tank/Healer/DPS?

Making a decision to nerf a class ability often revolves around balancing the power of these six categories so that if one is high another is low. The developers want classes which play very different from one another but still have the same power.

Burst Damage is very effective in PvP since its hard for a players to react to suddenly losing most of their life. Also its effective on boss mobs since they have a habit of using enrage or other special abilities near death.

Damage Mitigation is important since the longer the class can stay alive the more effect they have on the battle. The type of armor a player is allowed to wear plays an important part in damage mitigation along with base hit points. Also healers are treated as having slightly more mitigation then non-healers.

Crowd Control is important since it allows increases the likelihood of getting spells and abilities off on a target. Also the ability to escape crowd control abilities plays an important role when fighting certain classes since its almost as good as having damage mitigation.

Casting Times determine how often a spell or ability can be interrupted or stopped. The longer the casting time the higher the chance for the spell or ability to be interrupted. Instant spells or abilities are often of lower power or require a sacrifice in one of the other categories.

Range Damage effectively lowers the amount of movement a player is forced to worry about to keep his target within damage range. It also can be combine with surprise attack or crowd control abilities to create a huge advantage.

Hybrid Viability is the category that causes all of the problems when balancing classes. Certain classes can choose talents or gear that changes their role in the holy trinity and allows them to have greater flexibility in combat. This greater flexibility often causes hybrid classes to be gently tap by the nerf bat every patch as developers try to balance their power with their flexibility.

Some Class examples of the Balance Act

Paladin
Burst Damage: Bad
Damage Mitigation: Good
Crowd Control: Medium
Casting Times: Good
Range Damage: Bad
Hybrid Viability: Good

Rogue
Burst Damage: Good
Damage Mitigation: Medium
Crowd Control: Good
Casting Times: Good
Range Damage: Bad
Hybrid Viability: Bad

The exact effectiveness of each class in the six categories can change depending on how their talent points are spent but developers make sure there are trade-offs. For example a paladin can chose talents all the way into the retribution tree and gain crusader strike but will lose either the quicker casting of the holy tree or the added mitigation of the protection tree. The categories can even be broken down into sub-categories. Priests trade the damage mitigation of being able to heal themselves for mitigation against melee attacks in shadow form.

Since this is just a quick run through of what directs the nerf bat I am sure I missed a category or two. Feel free to make any suggestions in the comments.

Relmstein blows through the Blood Furnace

My Blood Furnace Walkthrough

The Blood Furnace is the opposite of the Ramparts in that the bosses are easy but clearing through it can be a pain. The instance takes about half an hour longer as there is also a lot more trash to kill. Before heading there you should have the quests to explore the Blood Furnace and the quest to collect 10 vials of Fel Orc Blood. Both result in good blue rewards for level 60 players. The majority of the boss drops are healer items though a couple assorted other items can be found.

At the start of the Blood Furnace are a couple of pulls of standard warrior mobs without any special abilities. Right behind them are groups of warlocks complete with non elite imp pets. Take care of the imps first since they have a quick cast fire spell that does around 1200 dmg. Behind these warlock groups you'll notice a closed off tunnel entrance which will open when you defeat the final boss. After taking care of the first group of warlocks turn left and clear your way up a huge ornate ramp. Be prepared for surprise attacks by pathing Fel Orc Rogues which are impossible to spot when your in the low sixties.

At the top of the ramp is a glass corridor filled with several groups of warlocks with imp pets. Use line of sight or silence to pull one of the groups unto the ramp way to avoid the single pathing warlock. Keep in mind that if a warlock is pathing and doesn't have a pet then most likely he will summon a succubus that will seduce someone right away. So its in your best interest to disrupt their summon spells. You can now go into the corridor and look down to get a view of Magtheridon and the final instance boss in the center of a pentagram.

Continue clearing the corridor making sure to kill imp pets first until you get to the room at the other side. At this point you will be introduced to the pain in the ass of the instance, the Fel Orc Technician. These mobs throw dynamite and set down mines which are very reminiscent of Gnomeregan. In the following room you should use what crowd control you have so you only have to fight one Technician at a time. When they lay a mine down back up a good 10 yards since they explode for 1800 dmg and silence. The only way I have found to clear the mines so far is to set them off with full health or have a rogue disarm them.

Once the room has been cleared its time to engage the first boss the Maker. Its a fairly simple fight with the boss using basic melee attacks. About once per fight he will charm a party member so be prepared to have someone grab aggro if the tank goes AWOL. The charm only lasts for a few seconds so a short term crowd control ability is the best way to counter the renegade. After the fight you can look forward to another hallway filled with Technicians, Rogues, and brand new Fel Orcs. These non-elite Fel Orcs don't have the hit points of their experienced cousins but still hit just as hard so target them first.

At the end of the hallway you'll find yourself in a room similar to the one where you fought the Maker. Use the same techniques to clear it of mobs until you are at the lever in the center of the room. Make sure to have full mana and hit points then pull the lever which will start the second boss encounter. The second boss Broggok is easier then the Maker but you have to fight all the captive Fel Orcs in the cages around you first. A total of four cages will open one after the other and spit out quite a large amount of orcs. They are mixture of elite and non-elite orcs so make sure to use your crowd control on the elite ones since they take longer to kill.

After the hard part of the fight when the last orc is dead Broggok comes out of the main cage. He looks like a mix between a Beholder and a Metroid but has only a few special abilities. If you are familiar with the snake priest in Zul'gurub then you'll recognize his AoE poison and keep out of it. He's goes down fairly quick which is nice since killing all those orcs beforehand has probably depleted your mana. A trick some people make use of is to keep the last orc of the fourth cage crowd controlled while everyone regains mana/bandages in combat.

After Brogguk you'll have to clear through a room filled with more warlocks with imp and fel reaver pets. The Fel Reavers hit hard and have a nasty habit of ignoring standard aggro gaining abilities. Especially watch out for Fel Annihilators since they tend to live up to their name. Once through the room you will see a hallway that leads down to the pit you saw from the upper glass corridor. At the beginning of this hallway is a nasty group of 6 imps and a warlock. Use line of sight so that all the imps charge through the doorway then start nuking. This will group them up so that you can make use of any AoE spells you might have. One mage should be able to kill them fairly quickly.

Continue down the hallway dispatching a couple more fel reavers and warlocks until you get to the final boss room. Keli'dan the Breaker is another easy boss who just happens to have a lot of friends. His five friends who make up a pentagram prison for Magtheridon are all shadowcasters. They have a nasty debuff which greatly increases shadow damage and they all love casting shadowbolt. Open the fight up with your crowd control abilities and have anyone who can dispel, concentrate on getting rid of the debuff. Once all five casters are dead Keli'dan will attack.

He's a very simple boss with only one deadly ability that is a point blank AoE. When he shouts out "Come Closer" run away since he's about to use a 2,000 fire dmg spell. Other then that the fight is fairly simple and goes quickly. Afterwards thankfully Magtheridon does not reach up through the floor and kill you. However, a the tunnel to the instance entrance does open up allowing you to easily reset and try again for the loot that didn't drop for you. Its nice to see Blizzard designing better dungeons and no longer leaving people trapped after a boss fight like in the popular Marudon instance.

Relmstein rocks the Hellfire Ramparts

My Hellfire Ramparts Walkthrough

The first instance in the Burning Crusade is a short one and only contains three boss fights. Its about as challenging as Dire Maul North with the mobs hitting about as hard as the Ogre Reavers there. The big difference you notice in the dungeon is that the boss fights are a bit more challenging then the ones commonly found in Azerothian (yes its a word) dungeons. Before going in make sure to do the quests from your faction's respective tower/base near Hellfire Citadel. This will eventually lead to the quest "Weaken the Ramparts" which has good blue rewards. For the Alliance do "illfire Omens" then go to the castle in Honor Hold to talk to the lieutenent in there for the quest.

The path to the first boss (Watchkeeper Gargolmar) is paved with small groups of fel orc hunters, warlocks and reavers. Also present are non-elite dogs which don't hit very hard but stack a bleed effect much like the infamous hounds of Molten Core. While clearing through these small groups make sure to kill the dogs first since a fully stacked bleed effect does over 700dmg a tick. At one point while clearing groups, a small pack of 3 dogs will be sent against you so be on the lookout for them. When you get to the Watchkeeper be relieved that he is not as nasty as he looks. Simply make sure to kill his two gurards first as your tank keeps the Watchkeeper busy. His special ability is a charge so keep everyone close to the tank during the fight. The boss also has a reduce healing effect so its in everyone's best interest to burn him down quickly.

After the Watchkeeper you have a fun group to kill at the top of a spiral rampway. Its comprised of 4 warlocks and a warrior and is situated so that its easy for the warlocks to fear you into the next group of mobs. To avoid this use line of sight to pull most of the warlocks onto the spiral rampway. Make use of any crowd control and interrupts your party has to stop the Warlocks from casting Rain of Fire. After that fight clear your way to the open area ahead and turn right. You can see the final boss flying on his mount at this time but you'll want to kill Omor the Unscarred first.

If you have silent shot or another way of pulling casters then the two orc warlocks in front of the Unscarred can be pulled first. The Unscarred himself is probably the toughest boss of the instance but has no range attacks which makes the fight fairly easy if you have non melee dps. His special abilities are: a gravity flux which will send one member of the party high into the sky, a DoT life drain, and felhound summoning. He also hits especially hard and almost always uses the gravity flux on the tank. Get ready for someone to grab aggro when the tank all of sudden finds himself with a good view of Citadel.

After providing Omor with some battlewounds go back to the open area and get ready for the final boss. The two guards in front of the bosses Vazruden and Nazan trigger them to attack when they die, so be ready. One is a fairly simple warrior boss without many hitpoints who will attack from the ground. While doing this his dragon looking mount will throw fireballs that explode and burn on the ground. This is very similar to the the Bat Priestess encounter in Zul'gurub so simply avoid stepping onto the patches of fire.

You'll want to quickly kill the warrior boss since eventually his mount will land and start using a cone of fire attack which hits for around 1500. Its quite common for the mount to land and catch everyone in the cone of fire and wipe the party. To avoid this have someone run down to meet the dragon mount and turn him away from the rest of the party when he lands. Once the mount dies a chest will spawn after a couple of seconds with two blue items in it. Also an Ominous Letter can be found on one of the bosses which provides a nice quest for the next instance, The Blood Furnace.

My First Day in the Burning Crusade

9:00am-5:30pm: Work

5:30-6:30pm: Eat and Drive at the same time on way to Best Buy

6:30pm: Find a million copies of TBC at Best Buy and feel foolish for rushing

7:00pm: Scream at 2.82mb patch stuck at 89%.

7:02pm: Download patch from a mirror and feel foolish again for not trying a mirror first

7:04pm: Make way through the portal and fly to Honor Hold

7:08pm: Make friends go to the first instance since the lag in Hellfire Pennisula is bad

7:10pm-12:00am: Run Hellfire Ramparts over and over again trying for Warrior/Paladin loots

12:01am-1:00pm: Try to Figure out how to get the Weaken the Ramparts quest.

1:00 am: Go to Bed, have dreams of red orcs who continually deny me plate gear

Things to do this Weekend

In an attempt to stop the madness and try to regain some order I decided to share Relmstein's list of things to do before the Burning Crusade. Most of these items are centered around improving your financial situation and preparedness (probably a word) for the expansion. I hope that I can a lead a few of you bored souls away from the path of ganking and onto something more helpful to society, like AH price gouging. Anyways here's what I'm going to be doing this weekend. You can ignore it, copy it, or canonize it and make it your religious text. Just don't complain of boredom and kill low level alts. I've got a hunter I need to get to 58 by Tuesday.

1) Clean out your Bank - you don't need your old resistance gear or the hundreds of items being saved for quests you are never going to do. Also get rid of items for faction grinds that don't matter anymore like scourgestones and cenarion badges.
You are about to get all new faction grinds and believe me there will be new resistance gear that will be much better.

2) Liquidize your Armor and Weapons - the expansion will eat up your gold very quickly as you try a new tradeskill or buy that awesome new armor at an inflated price. Sell any non soulbound weapons/armor quickly before the economy becomes unstable with the new expansion. You don't want to be bankrupt when you see an upgrade or when it comes time to buy new spells. Chances are that very few people will be buying any level 50-60 items until the new crop of Drenai and Blood Elves get that high.

3) Save your Tradeskill Materials and Low Level Items - A lot of trade materials are expected to jump in price with the expansion especially those connected with jewelcrafting. Save up the stuff that you think will sell well to people in the future. Remember that currency drop rates increase at higher levels so expect the prices of most items to go up. Also expect a billion low level alts to soon appear as both the horde and alliance get to try out a new class.

4) Visit the Old 60 Dungeons - This might be the last time you can ever find a group to do them. If you can manage to find someone who needs an upgrade from the dungeon, bring them along. The more friends you have who are well equipped the better your chances are in the first couple of instances in the expansion. Do not camp lower level dungeon entrances to try to find some PvP action. Instead go to the dark portal for that kinda of stuff.

5) Find a Leveling Buddy - With the concentration of horde and alliance in the new zones and their linear nature of leveling you can expect to be running into the opposite faction constantly. A lot of quests are going to require PvP objectives and some of the towns will switch factions depending on those objectives. After the first batch of people have hit level 70 things might get less crowded but if you are going to be playing the expansion any time this month expect to be ganked and have your mobs stolen.

6) Research the New Dungeons - Try to find out which instances are keyed and which ones are especially hard in the expansion. Believe me no matter what information you find the dungeon will still seem brand new compared to Stratholm or Scholomance. Loot tables are especially nice to look at since they make you yearn for that one drop that would complete your character. Of course it wll never drop for you but its dreams that keep us going. WoWwiki and the Warcry sites are pretty good for information along with assorted forums. Note: Not the WoW forums.

TBC Anticipation Leads to General Craziness

I've been busy at work this week and my blog posts suffered as a result. Luckily from what I have been reading I didn't miss much. The Dark Portal event is a huge dissapointment and is only memorable in that the horde and alliance are both trying to hold it for bragging rights. On servers with horrible alliance queue times this is quickly becoming the PvP hot spot. Other goodies from the last patch include warlocks getting hit with the nerf bat and a bunch of annoying little bugs with game textures and sounds. My favorite is the battleground bug which causes the ding sound to go off every 2 minutes when you're in a queue.

With the expansion still a couple days away I know most World of Warcraft players are going stir crazy from the waiting. I've seen some weird things lately as the anticipation for the expansion is drawing more players to return to the game early. Just look at the new milestone of 8 million players and you know the population flood is starting. However, it seems that once in the game these returning players are having trouble finding any real goals they can accomplish before the expansion. As a result they are falling back on the time honored goal of annoying other people.


Some Signs that Azeroth has gone Crazy:

1) VanCleef has apparently hired groups of Tier-3 horde to guard his not very secret base. Reports are in that the Fanglords have a similar aggreement with the alliance.

2) An enchantment link which disconnects players the first time they click on it is making the rounds of every chat channel in the game. Avoid unfamiliar links and never, ever, get into a car with one.

3) For the first time ever the alliance Arathi Baisin queue was seen to be longer then the Alterac Valley one. Relmstein upon logging in and discovering this decided to take up an employment opportunity with the Fanglords.

4) Highlord Kruul can be regularly found outside Stormwind eating millions of alliance newbies. The only guilds that have managed beat him have had to distract his fuel source (newbs) with promises of a free Hogger raid.

5) The Mr. Smith Effect: Because of the unequal battleground queue times large groups of identically geared horde now patrol Azeroth. The only way to tell them apart is to closely inspect the different Smith's belts which are an eclectic collection of crappy greens.

6) The chances of being randomly mind controlled while roaming the countryside is now much more common. Make sure to learn what the word defenestration means since bored priests seem eager to explain.

Expect a short list of real goals you can accomplish before the expansion comes out to be posted soon.

How High will WoW's numbers go with the expansion?

The time is growing near for the first expansion of World of Warcraft to be released and most fans are holding their breath in anticipation. Many people have grown overly familiar with the current content in the game but stuck it out since the expansion was just around the corner. But for every person who stayed with the game, another left and vowed not to return until there was new content. Now a lot of people are starting to wonder, "Just how many players will come back?"

Its an important question since a high amount of returning players could effect server stability. Around the time of patch 1.9 Blizzard announced 7 million subscribers with about 2 million of them being in North America. Since no new milestone markers have been announced since then, we can assume that the numbers have probably fallen or stayed the same. With the release of the expansion though a good majority of ex-WoW players are expected to return. After all no new games are scheduled to be released until Vanguard in Febuary. This leaves a good period of time for the temptation of new MMORPG content to work its magic.

With the upgrades in game servers, patching, and account management Blizzard seems confident they are ready for the increase the expansion will bring. Sources from the WoW forums give information that Blizzard is preparing to handle up to a 25% increase in traffic. Of course the problem is that not only will the server traffic increase but that it will all be concentrated in the new Burning Crusade zones. Hopefully, this trend has been taken into effect and Blizzard has special ways of dealing with said population concentration without zone crashes and crushing latency.

Based on previous trends in the subscriber base I'm predicting sometime in March that Blizzard will anounce the 10 million milestone for World of Warcraft.

Most Horde are Done with PvP for Now

For the last week or two I noticed that the queue times have worked their way slowly back up to pre patch 2.0.1 numbers. There still seems to be a million alliance players wanting to earn the pvp rewards but they seem to be having trouble finding opponents. The near instant queue times for the majority of horde players has quickly gotten them all the rewards. In fact from my horde character's experience the major roadblock to earning equipment was not honor but Alterac Valley tokens. Luckily most of the epic armor only requires Arathi Baisin tokens which are easy for my orc warrior to earn.

However, the majority of horde players have already completed their epic sets and stopped participating in battlegrounds. This is bad for most Alliance players since some servers now have 17-25 minute queue times for AB and WSG. This makes it harder to form PUG premade teams. Plus long queue times guarantee that some people will be AFK and not join a battleground when it starts. Arathi Baisin is especially terrible since some games will start with only 7-9 alliance and a full 15 horde. WSG and AV are less effected by this since the first few minutes of the game does not effect the outcome as much as it does in AB.

The only good thing about most of the horde population having already earned their rewards is that it has significantly reduced the number of well equipped horde playing. I see end game items on my opponents a lot less often now then I did a few weeks ago. Though yesterday I did run into three tauren warriors with Askandi, Dark Edge of Insanity, and Thunderyfury. Still for the most part the remainder of the horde seem to be those with blue and tier-1 who missed out on the pre-nerf honor rush. So my pvp forecast for the future until January 16th is:

Alliance: Queue times back to normal but with a better chance of winning battlegrounds. Chance of raiding guild pre-mades around 20% for the most part. Expect queue times to increase as more horde complete their pvp sets.

Horde: Queue times down from a couple of minutes to instant. Chance of raiding guild pre-mades around 40%. Expect a large range of gear quality in your opponents since many hardcore alliance have yet to save up to the 75,000 honor point limit.

New Year's Resolutions from the MMO Industry

Our massive amount of subscribers will no longer prevent our patches and expansions from being playable the week they come out. Also the honor nerf is being rescinded.
-Blizzard

We will try to to retrict some of the general sleeziness of our user base and prevent press conferences from being invaded by flying genitalia.
-Linden Labs

This Lord of the Rings liscense cost us a fortune, please play our game and we promise not to suck.
-Turbine

We promise that we ignored most of our hardcore crazy beta testers and that our game will not require degrees in catassing and spawn camping.
-Sigil

We swear to god that we can handle having Vanguard and EQ2 on our all access pass. Heck, EQ3 will probably join them in a couple years.
-SOE

We promise that we are not just making the PvP game that World of Warcraft left out.
-EA Mythic

Tabula Rasa will not be the next Planetside. We have Lord British and a way cooler name.
-NCSoft

I know Spore is an icky name but I promise I'm a fun-guy.
-Will Wright

Areae is not Neopets with the Star Wars Galaxies crafting system
-Raph Koster



Found the idea of MMO resolutions from a couple of places like Amber Night and Penny-Arcade. Note that these are fake New Year's resolutions so yes the WoW honor nerf is still in effect and Areae could indeed have the SWG crafting system.

What determines Skillz in MMORPGs?

When you defeat someone in online player vs. player combat just how rewarding do you find it? In Real Time Strategy games those who can multitask and click fast seem to have the advantage. In First Person Shooters the players with good hand-eye coordination and knowledge of the maps dominate. It seems that depending on the genre of online gameplay different traits come into play for determining the better player. So what traits define "Skillz" in Massive Multiplayer Online games?

The number one trait that seems to give an advantage in MMO combat seems to be time spent playing. Unlike the other genres its not just that players learn the subtle nuances of combat by practicing. Players also attain statistical advantages to combat by increasing both their level and the equipment on their characters over time. As a general rule characters that have been played more often are going to beat players that have been played less.

Some roadblocks are thrown in during the end game of most MMOs to try to slow down those with large amounts of free time. But they never seem to work. Despite the ridiculously high time cost of end game items many players will eventually pay it. After all MMOs are popular since they are relatively cheap for the hundreds of hours of entertainment they provide. However, players with the less time intensive gear are forced to work on improving other traits to be competive in PvP.

1) Time Spent Playing: Time played = Quality of Gear, and better gear provides the statistical advantage in almost every aspect of combat. A tier-3 equipped player can be half asleep and playing against good players and still win if they are only wearing blues. In my opinion the gear advantage from having a high /played time will offset two of any other traits I've listed.

2) Timing: Patience is a virtue and being able to know the cooldowns of your spells and abilities keeps you one major step ahead of your button mashing opponents. Know which spells take too long to cast and aren't likely to go off during combat. Plan your crowd control abilities around your other spells. Rogues aren't the only ones who can time abilities to lock down a player.

3) Teamwork: Combat is almost never 1v1 and being able to integrate your character's abilities with another makes you both stronger. I'm not just talking about having a healer following you around. Knowing when to leave an enemy alone cause they have been crowd controlled or already about to die because of dots can be crucial. Having a chat channel can artificially boost teamwork but people truly skilled in this area will know what to expect from good players and be prepared to react to their abilities.

4) Preparation: For player vs. environment combat this mostly means researching information to know the outline of a quest or raid boss before you begin the fight. In player vs. player combat this generally means having the consumables and trinkets to break out of someone else's good timing. Fear, root, snare, and critical strikes can all be offset off by consumables and trinkets. Its amazing how many times a cheap pvp healing potion from the AV vendors will save your life in the battlegrounds.

5) Interface: Old MMO games had interfaces set in stone which often required players to use special programs to modify. But newer games often include macro and scripting languages which allow players to reduce the amount of keys they need to press. Thus a player's favorite combo attack or complex spell sequence can be put into a single key. Then it just becomes an issue of reaction time since the computer is really doing all the timing. And I hate to say it but a computer is always going to win in a contest of timing abilities.

Five Things You Didn't Know About Me

So I take a nice vacation from work for two weeks and what do I find when I get back? Apparently I've been called out by a chain post that has been making the rounds of MMO bloggers. So thanks to Tobold on my first day back I got to come up with weird facts about myself. Oh well if anyone else has noticed I have a natural tendency to make lists on this blog anyways.

1) I was the world's youngest poolman.
My dad ran a pool cleaning business in Florida and thought that doing chores around the house wasn't enough for an allowance. Thus as far back as age seven I have memories of cleaning pool filters and testing water samples. It was kind of a drag and convinced me that working outside in the sun was deffinitely not for me. On the other hand I did learn cool things like mixing Cholrine and Muratic Acid makes mustard gas. Kids don't try it at home.

2) I earned a sports varsity letter in high school.
Despite being a hardcore nerd now, I used to play sports in High School well enough to make it on Varsity. Of course by sports I am talking about bowling which qualifies as a sport as much as synchronized swimming. But then again you do compete against other people by doing a physical activity. So it has all the technical qualifications of a sport. You just have to ignore the french fries and beers that always seem to be in our hands.

3) I've almost been eaten by water beast.
On a canoe trip off a tributary of the St. John's River me and my brother managed to piss off a 16 foot alligator. We hit him pretty hard when we were paddling and to return the favor he decided to almost tip our canoe. Luckily he decided from all the screaming and cursing that he had evened the score and left. The thing that really sucked was that my brother lost his paddle in the commotion so I was stuck paddling solo. After going upstream for a mile I wish the gator had bitten my arm off.

4) I got through undergrad and grad school debt free.
I know I suprised myself also by doing it. I had been saving up money in high school forever and instead of getting a car decided to keep on saving. My savings combined with a good part time job actually allowed me to get a Masters without the indenture servitude of student loans. Of course I did eat ramen and macroni for 6 years straight but I make it up to myself by having steak at least once a week now. Hmmm steak.

5) I'm at war with wasps and bees
Its not that I'm afraid of them but they tend to really piss me off. Like waving red in front of a bull, every time I see a wasp nest I search for the biggest bottle of Raid and go to town. Apparently, I was stung once when I was a toddler and instead of crying, I spent the next 10 minutes stomping the little bugger to death. Since then I swear the little monsters seek me out for revenge. I hate needles and it goes double when they are attached to insect ass.

I am calling out Saylah, Kinless, and the KTR Guys to continue this post or beware the curse.