Where Videogames Go To Die

Posted on by Gazimoff

Back when I was a kid, one of the first videogames I remember playing was Horace Goes Skiing. I was about three years old, playing this basic Frogger clone on a computer with a dead-flesh keyboard. It was great, even though it was frustrating trying to steer this character down a virtual slalom course. There were a number of other games that hallmarked my youth, from Fantasy World Dizzy through to Shenmue, stopping off at Sonic the Hedgehog, Doom, Unreal and Half-Life on the way.

It’s awe-inspiring in a way – as I’ve grown up over the last thirty years this whole new form of entertainment has grown up with me. It’s something that simply didn’t exist before my generation, yet it’s something I’ve lived with all my life.

And yet I can’t help but feel that somehow videogames are the only form of entertainment that has a built in shelf-life. I’m not talking about things like DRM or anything as draconian. It’s much more fundamental. Videogames are the only form of entertainment that is almost welded to the hardware it was created for. We expect that in time to come we will move on to better hardware, and with it newer videogames. Those older ones, the classics of forgotten generations of hardware, are abandoned and rarely see the light of day again.

Let me try and give a clumsy analogy. I have a bookshelf, on which lie a collection of books. Most of them I’ve read, some of them I’ve yet to start. But I’m in no rush – a book is a book is a book. I won’t open it one day to find the book technology has changed, or the book server has been shut down and my book service closed. It’s a kind of comfort, knowing that they will still be there and that I can get round to them, some day.

It’s the same with music – I listen to music every single day. Sometimes it’s on CD, sometimes it’s on my iPhone, sometimes it’s on computer. Sometimes I make my own music, cranking out badly plucked half-tunes on my cheap Squier Strat. But music is transient in nature, being easily movable from one medium to another. Notation on paper to bytes on a magnetic platter, it’s all the same. But I can still dig out the music I was listening to ten or twenty years ago and pull it forward, making it play on my latest gadget or gizmo. It never goes out of date.

I think it’s my fast-approaching wedding that’s thrown this into the forefront for me. One of the biggest joys in my life is being able to play videogames with other people, be they in the same living room or a different continent. I want to be able to share and pass on those experiences, and I don’t know why but I feel it all the more as I grow older. But although I can share the stories that shaped my youth and the music that inspired me as a teenager, the videogames that defined my gaming life will probably stay in the past.

Think about the games you’ve played, the characters you’ve created and the experiences you’ve had. In the case of Warcraft, you might have characters that you’ve been playing for five years or more. They have their own stories, their own paths. Even if you’ve never roleplayed, you’ve still fought battles and overcome the horrors of the world. There’s a history there full of memories.

One day the game will end. The servers will shut down and the hard drives scrubbed. Our characters will probably be long gone by then, probably only recorded in blogs like this one or merchandise like the plastic figurines or posters. And unlike a book that you can pull of a shelf and pass on to the next generation, a videogame is like a fixed point in time that we cluster around for a brief moment before moving on to the next one. Then the next one. Again, and again.

Consider that the creative endeavours of a single person might last for over four thousand years, it seems such a waste of effort that something touched by several hundred people might only live for a few years. For some reason it feels broken, as if a videogame is like a Nexus-6 replicant trying to live out beyond it’s dedicated lifespan.

In the meantime, I can only imagine that one day there’ll be a time when I’m asked about the Big Daddy figurine or the Wind-Rider plushie, and where these creatures came from. And I’ll reply:

“From worlds that once existed, but that exist no more.”

See you in-game.

Mage Cataclysm Preview

Posted on by Gazimoff

On the early hours of Saturday Morning, Bashiok unveilled the planned changes for Mages in Cataclysm. Some of them represent light touch changes, while others are fundamental changes to the way the class will work. As a response, I’ve stepped through each of the key changes and highlighted the changes that they’ll bring to the class.

New Spells:

Flame Orb (available at level 81): Inspired by Prince Taldaram’s abilities in Ahn’kahet and Icecrown Citadel, this spell allows the mage to cast a flaming orb that travels in front in a straight line, sending beams that cause fire damage to passing targets. Once it’s cast, the mage is free to begin casting other spells as the Flame Orb travels. While the spell will be useful to any spec, Fire mages will have talents that improve it, possibly causing the Flame Orb to explode when it reaches its destination.

In this copy of a raid boss mechanic, I’m hoping that this will be a targetable spell. I’m also hoping that the augmenting targets will increase the damage it causes while passing as well as the final damage it does when it arrives. I’d also really like to see some interaction between this and Living Bomb.

Time Warp (level 83): Grants a passive Haste effect much like Bloodlust or Heroism to party or raid members. It also temporarily increases the mage’s own movement speed. Time Warp will be exclusive with Bloodlust and Heroism, meaning you can’t benefit from both if you’ve got the Exhaustion debuff, though the movement-speed increase will still work even when under the effects of Exhaustion.

Although this initially feels useful, it’s essentially a tweaked copy of a Shaman’s Heroism or Bloodlust abilities. It’s also a copy of the Chrono Lord Deja’s ability in Culling of Stratholme. It’s unfortunate that it’s further ability homogenisation – unless there’s a reduction to the duration of Exhaustion we’re unlikely to see both Time Warp and Heroism being used at the same time.

Wall of Fog (level 85): Creates a line of frost in front of the mage, 30 yards from end to end. Enemies who cross the line are snared and take damage. The mana cost will be designed to make Wall of Fog efficient against groups, not individuals. This spell is intended to give mages a way to help control the battlefield, whether the mage is damaging incoming enemies (Blizzard can be channeled on top of Wall of Fog) or protecting a flag in a Battleground. 10-second duration. 30-second cooldown.

This feels like a situational spell more than anything else. I can see this being used heavily in battleground PVP (as will Fire Orb), but the raid uses aren’t as clear at present. If anything I feel that it brings back an old Mage role of add management – snaring, kiting and bringing errant adds back to the main or offtank. These old-school skills used by Hunters and Mages seem to have been dropped in favour of off-tanking.

Changes to Abilities:

Arcane Missiles is being redesigned to become a proc-based spell. Whenever the mage does damage with any spell, there is a chance for Arcane Missiles to become available, similar to how the warrior’s Overpower works. The damage and mana cost of this spell will be reworked to make it very desirable to use when available. This change should make gameplay more dynamic for the mage, particularly at low levels.

This is an interesting standout – in essence it’s extending the arcane endgame raiding rotation. It also means that there will need to be a replacement for the primary Arcane nuke for mages to use as they level up. If anything I think that this will make playing a mage more entertaining – having this mechanic interact with a Fire Hot Streak spec or Frost Deathfrost spec (I’ll touch on this later). I’m also expecting the Arcane Tree to act as a modifier on this proc chance.

We are planning to remove spells that don’t have a clear purpose. Amplify Magic, Dampen Magic, Fire Ward, and Frost Ward are being removed from the game, and we may remove more.

This seems a little dissapointing – I’d prefer to have more buttons than less, and have an increased use for this. The biggest knock-on effect for this will be Incanter’s Absorption, which will struggle to remain viable. I’m also dissapointed to see Amplify/Dampen Magic go – in pure physical fights Amplify Magic was a huge boost to healing, while Dampen Magic was a great help to the solo mage farming spellcaster mobs. The biggest resistance to using these was the duration and application of the buff – if it was party or raid-wide I think it would have seen a much higher use.

The ability to conjure food and water will not become available until higher levels (likely around level 40), as we’re making changes to ensure mages generally won’t run out of mana at lower levels. Once mages learn how to conjure food and water, the conjured item will restore both health and mana.

This is another dissapointing touch – seeing a core mage mechanic being pushed out to the middle levels. One of the appealing aspects of playing a mage is the strong level of self-sufficiency, and this changes push this aspect to one side. I’ll wait to see how a new mage levels before making a final judgement, but I’m not convinced by the mention of mana regen at low levels.

Scorch will provide a damage bonus to the mage’s fire spells. Our goal is for Scorch to be part of the mage’s rotation and a useful damage-dealing ability, even if someone else is supplying the group with the spell Critical Strike debuff. Scorch will provide the mage with more specific benefits, which can also be improved through talents.

This seems to be a hark back to the original scorch mechanic, where you had multiple Fire mages ramping up the Scorch debuff on a target. I’m also hoping for some use of this by Destro warlocks as well. The two specs used to complement eachother well, and I’d like to see a return to it. I’m hoping that it’ll work by applying a debuff to the target, rather than the debuff on the player that Arcane Blast creates.

New Talents & Talent Changes:

Arcane Focus will now return mana for each spell that fails to hit your target, including Arcane Missiles that fail to launch. We want Arcane mages to have several talents that play off of how much mana the character has and give the player enough tools to manage mana.

I like this change, mainy because it ditches the +hit component of the original. I’m hoping that we’ll see Precision go the same way, either by being modified or removed completely. Depending on it’s location in the Arcane Tree, it might be something that mages with other specs will pick up.

The talent Playing with Fire will reduce the cooldown of Blast Wave when hit by a melee attack, instead of its current effect.

Blast Wave is currently one of the spells that tanks hate mages using, mainly because of the knockback effect. Having said that, it’ll be great in PVP. It’ll also be great to augment with a Frost Nova->Blink, particularly by players with an elementalist spec.

Pyromaniac will grant Haste when three or more targets are getting damaged by the effects of your damage-over-time (DoT) fire spells.

This is a really interesting mechanic change. Currently Blizzard rules the roost when it comes to applying AoE to packs of targets. This will bring the Living Bomb Tab Flamestrike back into play, with multiple targets being dotted up before dropping the big AoE. I’m also hoping that mages will benefit from haste on DoTs in the same way that Warlocks and Shadowpriests will.

The Burnout talent will allow mages to cast spells using health when they run out of mana.

This is another steal, this time from the Warlock Lifetap. It’s going to be interesting to see how the health-mana conversion works. It’ll probably best be used while waiting for an evocation or mana gem cooldown to pop, but it also presents Mages with a new way to kill themselves. As if Spell Reflection and Standing In The Bad wasn’t enough to worry about…

Mastery Bonuses:

Mana Adept: Arcane will deal damage based how much mana the mage has. For example, Arcane mages will do much more damage at 100% mana than at 50% mana. If they begin to get low on mana, they will likely want to use an ability or mechanic to bring their mana up to increase their damage.

This is going to hit Arcane Mages hard, and probably push them back into the Arena PVP role of burst damage. In a raiding situation the Arcane Mage is going to be running out of mana towards the end of a fight, and with that drop in mana we’ll see a drop in damage. When you have players warming the floor and only a few left standing, this will not help.

Ignite: All direct-damage fire spells will add a damage-over-time (DoT) component when cast. The flavor will be similar to how Fireball works; however, the DoT component will be much stronger.

This will work brilliantly with the Pyromaniac change. I’m hoping for some stacking DoTs, so that we won’t see clashes between more than one mage. I’d also like to see these interact positively with other DoT enhancing abilities.

Deathfrost: Casting Frostbolt places a buff on the mage that increases the damage for all frost, fire, and arcane spells. The only damage spell that won’t be affected by this buff is Frostbolt.

Again, this looks like an interesting spec. I’m hoping that this will play well with Brain Freeze and Master of Elements, and that the new Arcane Missiles proc will work well with this. I’m also hoping this will encourage more Elementalist specs, bringing Frostfire Blot back into play. Having a spell that would benefit from Frost talents as well as being affected by Deathfrost will be incredibly useful.

All in, it’s a mixed bag for mages. Some good, some bad, but mostly a step in the good direction. As always though, the devil is in the detail, and we won’t see that until Beta. Till then, it’s all theory, guesswork and conjecture.

UI Quest: Cast Bars and Cool Downs

Posted on by Gazimoff

In previous episodes of my UI quest, I’ve covered how to configure your own action bars and set up your own target frames. For this instalment I wanted to focus on two areas that are crucial to caster classes – casting bars and cooldown trackers. When used well, both of these will help to maximise your performance without needing any equipment improvements.

To start off with I’m going to cover how to replace the default cast bar. The cast bar is the small rectangle that appears on the screen whenever you cast as spell. When you use a spell like Arcane Blast it slowly fills up, with the spell being cast once the bar is full. For channelled spells like Arcane Missiles or Blizzard, the spell has a continual effect until the bar is empty. As a side note, the mana cost of a channelled spell is spent immediately, while the cost of a cast spell is only deducted when the spell goes off.

Although there are several cast bar replacements, the one I tend to use is Quartz. It’s a fairly lightweight addon that provides a range of functions that are useful to different classes. For mages, the main thing we’re interested in is how our spells are casting, what our target or focus is casting in case we want to counterspell, and what our pet is casting in case you’re frost specced. The configuration window can be found by typing in /quartz in the chatbox or by selecting it from the addons part of the interface menu.

There are four main cast bars: the Player bar, the Target bar, the Focus bar and the Pet bar. If they’re not already present, you can make them visible by unticking the Lock option on each bar’s configuration pane. You can then move them around the screen and position them where you’d like them. I’ve stacked mine, my target’s and my pet’s cast bars in the centre of the screen, while my focus target’s cast bar is above the focus frame on the far left. You can play around with the scaling and transparency of each bar so that they blend in with the surrounding frames.

I’ve also disabled the Buff bars from showing via the Buffs section of the menu on the left. I’ve already got buffs covered by the way Shadowed Unit Frames is configured, and I’ll also get alerts to key buffs or debuffs through raid warning addons like Deadly Boss Mods. Mage-specific addons like MageAlert also provide audio cues on when buffs are ready to use, but I’ll be covering these in more detail later in the series.

To get the most from Quarts it’s worth spending a little bit of time looking at how the new cast bar works. With Quartz, the latency between yourself and the server is already factored in. There’s also a sweet-spot just before the latency cushion that you can use to cast your next spell. By queueing up spells in this way, you can daisy-chain them without having to wait for the server latency between each cast. An even better method is to press the key down early, but then release it just before the cast bar hits that red cushion. Once you get used to it, it’ll increase your DPS because you’re working around whatever server latency you normally face.

The second part of this guide is about tracking cooldowns. In previous episodes I talked about using OmniCC to show the cooldown of spells on your action bars. It’s also possible to add to this by showing trinkets, procs and other effects that have an internal cooldown that’s not always visible. Again there are a number of addons that do this, but for lightweight performance I prefer Sexycooldown.

You can see a configured Sexycooldown bar configured between the two unitframes. It’s showing the internal cooldown of my cloak enchantment and a trinket I’m using, as well as how long before I can use another mana gem. It also helps to track long cooldown spells such as Mirror Image.

Configuring Sexycooldown is pretty simple. Type /sexycooldown to bring up the config window, with which you can move the bar around and adjust the size. You can also give it a skin and change the colour as I’ve done.

If you want to track separate cooldowns on separate bars, Sexycooldown does support this but needs to be configured to add it. Similar addons like ForteXorcist do all this as standard, but also use more resources. If all you need is a simple cooldown tracker, you’ll probably find that this will do the job.Mages will probably be fine with the default configuration, while Warlocks and Shadow Priests will probably want to break out a separate bar to track their debuffs on their current target.

The reason tracking cooldowns – even internal ones – is important is because it means that you can pop your trinkets and abilities at the same time. If you know the internal cooldown on your trinket is over soon, you can time it so that your trinket procs at roughly the same time as the rest of your abilities. This can result in an even higher surge in DPS when you need it.

The UI Quest Series (in progress):

Starting the Engine

Posted on by Gazimoff

I finally managed to get the Mekgineer’s Chopper made on Curio. I’m really pleased with it – he finally has the mount that suits him. It’s taken a while, but it’s definitely worth it. So to celebrate, I’ve been doing laps round Ironforge, laps round Dalaran, even laps round Mirage Raceway.

Thing is, doing laps round anything gets a bit mundane. I needed something more extreme. Something more dangerous. Something… with Dinosaurs. Like some grotesque hybrid of Mad Max and Jurrasic Park, I went to Un’Goro.

To make it even more interesting, I brought along a friend of mine called Theo. She’s been roleplaying a gnome locked at level 1 in anticipation of Gnome priests becoming available in Cataclysm. She was interested in getting the Noblegarden achievement Hard Boiled, so I figure it’s an ideal time. Besides, with a level 1 character in a jungle full of raptors what could possibly go wrong…

First, it was the raptors that spotted us…

Then the dimetetrons and these fiery elementals start trying to gang up on us. They think that they can corner us, but I manage to slip around them with inches to spare.

We finally made it to the hot springs and pick up the achievements. The area seems quiet. Almost a little too quiet…

With moments to spare, we realise why the area’s devoid of life –  there’s a devilsaur roaming around! There’s nothing I can do but drive!

Luckily we made it back to the flight point unscathed, with only a few minor scratches on the bike. Theo seemed to enjoy the trip too, although I’m not sure she’ll be heading back there in a hurry.

The Flow of Gold

Posted on by Gazimoff

Gold is something that we pretty much take for granted. We get rewarded when we turn in quests, we loot it from our fallen enemies. We spend it when we want to buy something from the auction house or when we want to get our equipment repaired. It’s all automatic – a few mouse clicks and we’ve either earned or spent thousands of coins. But do you ever think about where the gold you have comes from, or where it goes to?

I started writing this as a response to Tarinae’s Shared Topic, about how Blizzard is pushing account security and how it seems to be matched by the efforts of gold sellers. But in order to explain why gold selling is wrong, it’s worth explaining the problems it causes in the first place. Before getting into the meat of the topic, there’s a few things you should consider:

  • If you are a Guild Master or Officer, you owe it to your guild to ensure that you have an authenticator registered to your account. You should also ensure that anyone with access to anything of value in the guild bank also has an authenticator. If there is anyone in these positions that does not, you should revoke their guild bank access immediately.
  • You should ensure you practice good computer hygiene. Ensure that you have a virus checker installed on your computer and make sure you keep it up to date. If you use FireFox, install the NoScript addon. If you do click on a dodgy link by mistake, NoScript will make sure that the site cannot install anything onto your computer.
  • If you are a Guild Master or Officer and see one of your members get repeatedly hacked, question their computer hygiene practices. If they don’t do anything about it, you may want to consider suspending them. Do your best to help them, but ensure that they take responsibility for their situation.
  • If you use an email address for your World of Warcraft account, don’t use the same one when posting on blogs, registering on Warcraft-related/Guild forums signing up for other game betas and so on. Hackers harvest these sites for addresses to send scam emails to. Keep your Warcraft email address to as small a number of people as possible.
  • Get an authenticator. Seriously. Either get the key-ring, the free iPhone app or the cheap mobile phone app.

In almost any MMO there are two economies working in parallel. The server economy is designed to regulate the flow of gold into and out of the game. Gold enters the game when you vendor an item, when you loot gold from a creature or when you get rewarded for completing a quest. It also exits the system in much the same way, in repair bills, food/water purchases and so on. By contrast the player economy is based on the trade of gathered materials and finished items, either via the auction house or a fee/tip for crafting. The theory is that the server economy should provide a steady inward trickle of gold, while the player economy should ensure a constant circulation of gold in exchange for goods and services.

The theory is that the two economies work at an even pace to keep the player economy relatively constant. The price of materials stays relatively static from one day to the next, meaning that the price of crafted items is fairly easy to predict. Although the price of goods would tend to decline as demand gradually dries up, the constant of influx of gold from the server economy provides a steady rate of price inflation.

All well and good you might think, but what happens when you start to disrupt the economy by introducing gold farmers and hackers? It’s worth splitting out the two here, as they have a subtly different effect on the economy.

A gold farmer is interested in maximising the amount of gold they accumulate while spending as little as possible on armour repairs and consumables. Although this might mean that they don’t consume much (if anything) from the player economy, they do want to make sure that their auctions sell for the best possible price. They’re unlikely to severely undercut existing server prices, instead making sure that their materials are competitive. Of course if gold farming gets out of control then it heavily deflates prices, meaning that players can’t compete against the gold farmers.

It may also mean that players struggle to gather materials themselves as they’re forced to compete with gold farmers. As resources are limited, a high number of gold farmers means that there are fewer resources available for players to harvest. It can become so problematic that players are forced to buy materials from the gold farmers at the auction house purely because they are unable to gather them themselves.

A hacker by contrast wants to sell everything as quickly as possible before the account owner regains control. Anything that they sell at auction will be priced up to shift quickly, and can often crash a market. Think of the times when you’ve seen titanium ore or eternal elements being sold at a very low price – chances are they were being offered by a hacker. On a server where hacking is a regular occurrence the market can be continually flooded by “fire sale” items.

You might think that this isn’t really a big deal. You probably play the game in a specific way – you might be a pure-bred raider or a determined PvP’er. You barely touch the economy – only picking up the occasional flask or uncut gem from the auction house. But by the same token, you want to be able to make sure that the cost of what you’re doing stays roughly the same. It’s great to know that 50g this week will buy the same number of flasks as 50g next week, or that the gem you need for your latest gear upgrade will cost roughly the same. If you need a quick bit of cash you’d like to know that your spare herbs or ores will sell for roughly the same amount, week in and week-out.

Why do the gold sellers bother to hack at all? Surely they know that they’re damaging their own reputations and annoying the very people that they hope to sell their services to? It’s true that some gold sellers do take their reputations seriously, but not all of them. Eurogamer recently ran a series of articles on gold trading, explaining how the industry was structured.

A hacker or gold farmer will sell accumulated gold to a Collector. The gold collector might employ farmers or hackers directly, or they might subcontract or freelance it, paying the agent a fixed value for the gold they provide. The collector then passes the gold on to the Seller, again at a fixed value. Once the seller has the gold, they then offer it to the player by running a website through which gold can be bought, as well as customer support. As a result the person you see spamming trade chat might work for a completely different company to the gold farmer or hacker.

The increase of account hacking guides on the internet means that the person stealing your account could come from San Francisco instead of Shanghai. Either way the effect on the economy of an account hack is the same – freefall prices, guild disruption and loss of an account for several days. The gold might not end up being sent to a gold seller, but might just as easily end up in the coffers of a rival guild on another server.

Finally, hacking a computer is a crime. In the UK the Computer Misuse Act covers everything from unlawful access to obtaining information. From there it becomes a grey area – the gold you buy from a seller may have been partly obtained through illegal channels. There’s the potential of being in receipt of stolen goods, or of complacency or conspiracy to commit a crime. It’s not been tested in court, but in these litigation-happy times it probably won’t be long until we see the first account-hack related lawsuit arrive. By buying gold, you run the risk of leaving yourself open to being sued later down the line. Regardless of the legal risks, it also perpetuates and endorses the damage to the economy, degrading the game experience for both yourself and other players.

So there you have it: why gold selling damages the game, why hacking increases the problem and why buying gold is legally dubious. I’ve also covered what you can do to ensure than your guild and it’s members are protected, and what you should do to maintain their trust in you.

Still feel the shortcut is worth it?

The Impossible Saronite

Posted on by Gazimoff

I’ve been setting myself goals for my characters recently in order to give me more of a reason to play them. For Curio I’ve decided to go for the Mekgineer’s Chopper, as it’s the only character I have that would suit it. As a result I’ve started this long grind of mining ores, making titansteel and selling anything I can on the auctionhouse.

I sometimes wonder if I’m strange by saying that Curio should have the motorbike, Shaemus should have all the pets and my other characters should have stuff relevant to them. It’s as if I have a picture of them in my mind about how they go about their lives and the kind of things they would obtain given half a chance. I see Curio as being in a workshop surrounded by gadgets and always having something to tinker on, so the bike is a natural fit for him.

Managing the auctionhouse is proving to be a bit of a slog. Price things too low and they get bought and relisted by someone else, while pricing things too high means that they never shift. I’ve seen the price of Frozen orbs drop from about 70g each when 3.3.3 came out to about 14g now. It’s got to the stage where I can by the orbs, exchange them for Frost Lotuses and sell them at auction for about 10g profit a time. Crazy.

In order to get stuff to sell, I’ve been mining. It started off as a way to gather enough Titansteel to make the chopper, but it’s now been a way for me to gather items to then sell at auction. I’m getting a fair supply of Saronite and various types of Eternals. Gems and titanium ore go to my fiancée’s jewelcrafter for prospecting, with any epic gems being sold. It means she gets to keep the blues and greens, as well as any titanium powder.

So far it’s not been a bad process. I’ve made about 3,000 gold so far with which to buy the remaining parts I need. It’s something I’m able to work on when things are slow, as well as being one of those gentle activities that provides a balance to pugging or raiding. I also feel like I’m achieving something with every gold coin that gets me closer to my goal.

It has got me thinking though about the overall crafting process within Warcraft. I’m not so sure what it’s like in other MMOs, but in order to be able to craft in this game you also need to be a sufficiently high level to gather the materials needed. Items that are difficult to craft require special patterns or plans that commonly require a reputation grind or raid instance farm in order to obtain.

I’m beginning to wonder if it would be viable in an MMO to have crafting as a different levelling path that would work independently of character level. Is it feasible to allow players to focus on adventuring, PVP or crafting as a way of increasing skill and providing different taught skills for each path. I’m sure something like this has been tried before in other MMOs, but I’d be interested to know if it worked or fell flat.

And why the Impossible Saronite? On my mining route around Icecrown, there are a couple of ore nodes that are impossible to harvest safely. Most of them can be cleared away without too much trouble. There’s the odd one though that pings up on my map, only for me to leave it as soon as I see what’s surrounding it. Having to battle four 80-elites just for a scrap of saronite just isn’t worth it.

I’ve always been a fan of crafting in MMOs, as I love to create items that are useful to my character and others. I ended up maxing out Tailoring back in vanilla before I hit the level cap as I was that keen on getting all the patterns I could. I’m still a collectionist, trying to get as many recipies, patterns etc on as many characters as possible. I just find it a touch irritating when my professions are made useless either because far better gear can be collected in dungeons or because the best patterns are rare drops from raid dungeon bosses.

Still, at least I can make a chopper. You can’t say that isn’t cool…

A Moment to Review

Posted on by Gazimoff

It’s been an interesting first month blogging about Warcraft. In that time I’ve covered the patch changes, UI design and addon choices, quirky graphs and diagrams, and roleplay choices and ideas. I’ve also rambled on about my in-game experiences and achievements, and how those experiences have shaped my opinions. I’m still a noob though when it comes to this, so I thought it was time I turned to you for advice.

I’ve learned a lot about blogging and how being passionate about something doesn’t always translate into something that’s entertaining to read. I’ve tried a range of content to work out what people like to read, and it’s fun to find out what’s popular. Having said that, it’s been a bit of a scattergun approach – I tend to write about whatever comes into my head rather than staying focused in particular areas. The only thing that I’ve been focused on is the series on UI development (which is still ongoing).

Seeing as how it’s been a month since I started, I thought it would be an ideal time to ask for general feedback from you! What do you make of the story so far and what would you like to see more of? What doesn’t work so well for you, or would you like to read less? What would you like to become a regular item on the blog?  Is there anything you’d like to see me tackle, or any question you’d like me to answer?

  • More mage related stuff? Maybe more caster stuff in general?
  • More roleplay, maybe even some stories or IC posts?
  • More UI or addon discussions?
  • More charts/graphs?
  • More general experiences/opinion?
  • Anything else?

I’d like this to be a conversation, so I’ll try and discuss any comments I get. If you prefer to contact me directly, you can always send an email to me@gazimoff.com. I read every email I get and respond to nearly all of them. I’ll be taking all feedback I get seriously, so that while it’ll still be fun for me to write it’ll also be more interesting for you to read. It’ll also mean that I can plan articles ahead so that they appear more regularly.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Cheers!

The Campaign for Cheese Sculpting

Posted on by Gazimoff

Tired of finding your bags full of Stormwind Brie? Desperate to find a use for your Darnassian Bleu? How about invoking the magical properties of Dalaran Sharp? How about making these overlooked consumables useful? Read on and discover how Cheese Sculpting could be the profession for you.

Since time immemorial players have been confused by the cheese they’ve looted. Some believe that it’s a conspiracy by the Tauren to invade their diet with this perplexing produce. Others feel that the diminutive delicacy has no place in their bags. With the announcement of Cheese Sculpting as the new Secondary Profession in Cataclysm these items will finally have a use.

Unlocking the mysteries of the fascinating fromage is something that all players with the new expansion will be able to pick up, with the ability to cut and chisel the cheese being skilled up in much the same way as other professions. Uncut cheeses will be available from vendors and creatures in the same way that they are now, with the rarer (and more potent varieties) only being available from specific creatures.

Cheese sculptors will also be able to use a variety of different milks in order to prepare their own crafting materials. These milks, once suitably prepared by being left in your personal or guild bank for a period of time, may even evolve into rare cheeses that give further modifiers when sculpted.

But what can cheese sculpting do? A number of carvings have already been unveiled, each with their own formidable powers:

  • Proudmore’s Potent Sharp: Increases spell power by 150 when washed down with a Flask of Port.
  • Fermented Brie of Horror: When exposed to the air, causes all beasts and humanoids to flee for 5 seconds. Any undead within 50 yards will be drawn to the smell.
  • Battle-ready Darnassian Bleu: Fortifies you and your allies, increasing stamina by 50. May cause monsters to flee when attacked due to halitosis.

More carvings are promised, with the ability to combine two or more cheeses making more intricate carvings possible.

Sitting alongside Fish Feasts and Flasks, Cheese Sculptures are sure to be a key part of both heroics and raids as we reach the endgame phase of Cataclysm. Although the thought of skilling up another profession from scratch is daunting, the idea of going through the revamped game world as I go should make it worthwhile.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to my raid leader shouting “DEPLOY THE CHEESE” over vent though…



Finding Our Place

Posted on by Gazimoff

As we drift towards the end of Wrath and eagerly await the launch of Cataclysm, I’ve been taking the opportunity to reflect on how magecraft has fared. From the new spells the expansion brought through to the talent changes each patch, we’ve been through considerable change. And yet I can’t help but think that we’re not as special as we once were.

What started this all off was the movie Yesterday’s News. It’s about how the Meeting Stone crafter copes with a changing world where the LFD tool makes meeting stones redundant. It struck a chord with me – I’ve been seeing increasing numbers of mages struggling to get groups with both PuGs and their own raidgroups. Even my own raidgroup only tend to miss a mage when they don’t have any free strudel – other than that, there’s not really an issue.

The current state of mages was really brought home for me by Larisa’s great analysis of Paragon’s world first kill of Arthas in 25-man heroic mode. If you look at their raid setup you’ll notice that they decided not to bring any mages. There’s a thread explaining the choice on Paragon’s forum, where they pinpoint the slightly lower DPS output as the reason. A pure DPS class would get benched, with other DPS classes and hybrid classes specced as DPS being used instead.

What about the other tricks that mages have? With the homogenisation that’s taken place during Wrath, mages have only two unique tricks left up their sleeve – polymorph and strudels. Arcane Intellect can be swapped for Fel Intelligence, while even the recent Arcane Empowerment buff can be matched by Retribution paladins and Beastmaster hunters. Crowd Control has been sidelined for much of Wrath, with AoE tanking being the preferred method for the majority of trash pulls and offtanks used for adds during bossfights.

Larisa is right to be concerned – even though the difference is slight, she’s worried that raid groups will look to Paragon’s results as a reason why their own groups are underperforming, and may choose to run without mages as a result. This argument only stacks up when each player is equally skilful at their class and you’re purely relying on statistics to minmax, but that point may be missed on those looking to form groups, raids and so on. They’ll point to the Paragon forums and say that it’s official: mages don’t cut it any more.

The whole situation is compounded further when you have scenarios like the one described by Krizzlybear on their blog. Considering that with a mage’s three talent trees that you have one that still doesn’t compete against other classes and another that’s laughed at completely, you begin to wonder what the point of playing a mage is. Even the skill of the player is discarded entirely, despite when they demonstrate that they’re just as capable of keeping up.

I’m not trying to encourage anyone to change their spec; I had to go through Molten Core as a Frost mage even though I much prefer Fire. Rather, I’d prefer to see the three specs brought in line with each other so that they all bring solid DPS but also provide additional benefits depending on the chosen tree. I’m hoping that this will arrive with the complete talent revamp for Cataclysm, so that the differences between each tree aren’t in terms of damage output but in terms of playstyle and what else the mage can do besides damage.

These things are cyclical – I remember when Warlocks, Paladins and Warriors were all in the same position that mages find themselves in now. I’ve also got faith that thes problems will be resolved and that once again all three specs will be matched on a spreadsheet (even if the skill of the players can vary wildly). It’s an agonising wait though, considering that we’re currently at the end of March and Cataclysm is predicted to land in October. We might be looking at six to eight months before the pre-expansion patch is released and all the talent trees get revamped.

Till then, mages have a job to do. It’s up to us to show the rest of the Warcraft-playing public that in the 99.99% of cases that aren’t a Lich King heroic world first kill that we still have something worthwhile to contribute.

Hitting the Reset Button

Posted on by Gazimoff

Videogames seem to be full of choice these days. It could be the moral choices presented by games like Mass Effect 2, or the theoretical choices of gear selection in World of Warcraft, Heck, it can even be something as straightforward as choosing a driver in Mario Kart. But if you lost your saved game or started a new account, would you make the same choices? Would you choose the same character and take the same path, or would you try your hand at something new?

I’m trying to tackle this question for the BlogAzeroth Shared Topic this week. For me it breaks down into three chunks – would I still play a mage, would I still do the same things at endgame and would the character be roleplayed differently? I’m only going to try tackling the first one this time round – I’ve already covered how my playstyle has changed, while my roleplay histories would be another post entirely!

I’ve tried three other MMO’s while I’ve been playing Warcraft, and with each of them I tried something different. My mage was sitting unloved and unplayed while I saw healers and tanks become the heroes and stars. I decided that when I started a new game that I’d play one of these roles – that I would be the one that everyone would be wanting in their party or raid. As a result, with Lord of the Rings Online and Age of Conan I thought I’d try and be clever.

With LOTRO I tried playing a healing Minstrel, while with AoC I rolled a tanking Dark Templar. Both ended up as dismal failures – my minstrel felt unwieldy under my fingers, while the Dark Templar didn’t have many opportunities to actually tank leaving me with a boring solo grind.

After three months of play in both games I ended up cancelling my accounts. To this day I don’t feel that I gave the games a fair chance. I’ve since tried to go back and give LOTRO another go since but keep on getting stuck on a known issue between Windows Vista and the client software.

Aion was a different story. I rolled a mage and had a great time. I levelled up, specialised for even more damage and killed things even quicker. I felt like I was in my element, and general game engine clunkyness aside it kept me entertained for a while. The problem emerged when I started looking outside of magecraft and towards other areas like professions, crafting, dungeoneering and so on. It’s strange, but although the “mage” aspect was solid, the other aspects of the game weren’t sufficient to hold me. As with the others, I eventually unsubscribed.

So if I had to start over, would I stick with what I have or would I try something new? To me it’s pretty clear that when playing MMOs I have an affinity for a particular role. I’ve even played all the other classes in Warcraft to some degree and still keep coming back to my mage. That’s not to say that the other classes aren’t as good, but it’s because I know who I am as a player. I’ve tried to prioritise other roles in other games and it’s harmed my enjoyment of that game as a result. I’ve come to learn that being honest about what I prefer to play is better than trying to be tactical about what role I select.

I think that there are other players who feel the same –who have a core role or class that they’re happiest playing, but might occasionally dabble in other roles in order to try something different. Even though we might be playing a priest or a paladin, we always know that there’s a class that we’ll go back to.