Sub-Humans and the Shallow End of Gaming

Posted on by Gazimoff

I know that a couple of other bloggers have mentioned this, but I think its important that as many people as possible read about this shocking tale.

Apple Cider Mage is a blogger that I’ve followed on numerous occasions. I’ve had a laugh talking with her on the Obscurecast podcast a few years ago, and as a fellow Mage blogger I’ve enjoyed reading her insight into the class. She writes with strength, conviction and passion and is an absolute joy to read.

She’s also been subjected to an ongoing campaign of harassment from a single person. For years, Apple Cider Mage has been the victim of abuse so bad that she’s been forced to take out a restraining order. Her tale of trying to fight against one man is frankly staggering and I seriously encourage you to read it. She’s shown tremendous strength and courage by continuing to blog in the face of it all, as well as posting about her ordeal. If you do a single thing today I’d ask that you read her tale and give her your support.

Standing beside someone who is being harassed like Apple Cider Mage is not an easy thing, but I implore you to do it in support of stamping out this kind of abusive behaviour. I’ve been on the receiving end of his crude tongue myself for daring to stand up for her, and you might make yourself a target for his particular brand of hatred too. But it needs to be done.

The guy tormenting Apple Cider Mage is a sick individual that needs professional help to protect himself from the ramifications of his actions. He simply cannot be allowed to continue spewing his hatred, not against her and not against anyone else. Society needs protecting from his abhorrent compulsion, not just the online gaming community.

The incredible thing about this is that Apple Cider Mage hasn’t given up: instead she’s put together a guide on how to deal with in-game harassment, including how to approach GMs and what kind of information to record. It’s something that every gamer should read just in case it starts happening to you.

Putting yourself on the internet shouldn’t make you a target for harassment. Apple Cider Mage must be allowed to carry out her online life without having to live in fear and intimidation. Show her your support.

My Annual Pass Regret

Posted on by Gazimoff

Warcraft Annual Pass Banner

Back in October last year I made a bold move and signed up to the Warcraft Annual Pass. I figured to myself that it’d be a great deal – I’d still be playing Warcraft, I’d get a free copy of Diablo III and I’d get access to the Mists of Pandaria Beta without having to strike it lucky or jump through hoops. All I had to do was keep paying what I was paying and keep my subscription alive for a year.

After a single quarter-year, I’m really regretting making that decision.

It’s partly a time thing – I don’t have the time to log into Warcraft nearly as often as I’d like. But there’s another aspect to why I feel I’m done with the current expansion pack. My opportunity to pick up the Mage Legendary Staff was cut short with the release of the Dragon Soul raid, with the resultant consequence that my desire to raid was deflated like a misfiring zeppelin. The next tier was little better for me, with Deathwing And Friends lasting all of two weeks until I’d managed to pug my way to LFR victory.

Continue reading “My Annual Pass Regret”

And Now We Are Two

Posted on by Gazimoff

Another year, another anniversary! It’s now been two years since I started Mana Obscura, intending to share my views on mages in World of Warcraft. Since then it’s been an adventure through several different MMOs, from Lord of the Rings Online through to the upcoming Guild Wars 2. There’s never been a dull moment!

It’s been all change here as well. I’ve since handed the Obscurecast podcast over to the very able Razerbug and Damarai. They’ve since been joined by Sil, with the trio doing an excellent job with the show! My old co-host Pewter has also been busy starting up her new blog under the great title Decoding Dragons.

Then there’s the third piece of news: I’ve recently joined ZAM.com as a staff writer! I’ll be covering new and upcoming MMOs, as well as providing the odd piece of comment and opinion. It’s an interesting role as I’m now writing for an editor, agreeing assignments and having my articles copyedited before they’re published, but I’m learning a huge amount about writing as well.

I’m not going to be sitting back though – the MMO landscape is constantly changing and there’s always going to be something new to write about. There are new games and new designs constantly being revealed, providing a continual feast of material to dissect and chew on. Any hopes of me going quiet are sadly dashed.

I’m honestly grateful to you all for joining me through it thus far, and I really hope that you’ll stick with me for another few years yet. There’s a long way to go on this MMO adventure and I’m only just getting started.

All my thanks,

Gaz

The Movement-Based MMO of the Future

Posted on by Gazimoff

If there’s one thing that the recent MMO betas have shown me, it’s that I need to raise my game. The days where I’d be able to casually stand at the back, throwing out spells and dodging the occasional bad stuff are fading fast. The new world order is in keeping characters moving purely in order to survive.

For those of us brought up on a diet of Warcraft, Rift and Star Wars, spellcasters have been in a priviledged state where most of the PvE combat is managed for us. We have a small selection of abilities to choose from, a list of easy-to-spot things to stay out of and a simple role to do. It also makes for boring combat – once you have a fight memorised you’re laughing.

But changes are on the horizon. In the future breed of MMOs roles are more loosely defined and combat systems have been revamped. Instead of staying at range and just flinging spells, Spellcasters are likely to be taking a much more active role in the future. As I’ve found to my cost recently, this isn’t going to be an easy one for many of us to adapt to.

Continue reading “The Movement-Based MMO of the Future”

MMOs: The Changing Social Context

Posted on by Gazimoff

When I started playing MMOs there was a general feeling that the game itself was the social hub. You’d log in and chat to people while playing the game, making new friends in the process. The game would support everything from building a core network of friends through to being able to group up and defeat tough content together. For many of us, the game world also represents our social world.

All this is changing. As our preference shifts from one game to another we’re faced with two options: try and take our social network with us or abandon it and build a new one. As Azuriel mentioned in the comments last week, this continual relationship building can become frustrating. In the absence of portable social tools in our MMOs, many of us are turning to low-friction networks like Twitter instead.

But are MMO developers missing a trick here, or should they accept that gamers are migrating their social networks away from the games?

Continue reading “MMOs: The Changing Social Context”

Becoming The Nomad

Posted on by Gazimoff

My approach to MMOs is changing. I used to be someone who sticks to a game for several years, but now I consider changing every six months. It’s something I first felt back in August last year, and explored further when I thought there might be a limit on the number of subscription MMOs that could coexist. But is this change a natural thing that all MMO gamers go through, and is it healthy when MMOs are banking on years of subscription revenue to break even?

Back when I started playing World of Warcraft I made a promise to myself – this would be the game I would stick with until the servers were switched off. I was young, fresh and naive in the ways of MMO gaming. I honestly felt that this would be the game for me.

Since then there’s been a few distractions. Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, and Aion have all managed to tempt me away for a few weeks, but it’s never been anything permanent. Even during my time in Rift there was an understanding that Warcraft was still my primary game.

Over the last six months my perspective has been changing. I’ve been shifting my stance from someone who has a primary game with an occasional dabble in a secondary title. Instead I’m becoming the MMO nomad, charting a route through the upcoming releases without any plans to stick to a particular title.

Continue reading “Becoming The Nomad”

SWTOR Endgame: Fixed!

Posted on by Gazimoff

I’ve been talking with a couple of people about the state of endgame in Star Wars: The Old Republic and we pretty much all agree the same thing – it’s good when you can get into it. The lack of an LFD tool and low number of raiding guilds mean that a lot of players are left choosing between PvP or daily quests.

That isn’t such a great choice for me – my PvP skills are slightly worse than my ability to paint the Mona Lisa using tarmac, with my feet, and blindfolded. Daily quests have a tendency to get very old very quickly, leaving me looking at raiders like a kid with his face pressed up against the toy shop window, peering in at all the goodness without being able to take part.

So we had a think about what else we could do, and we think we have a solution that everyone will enjoy.

Continue reading “SWTOR Endgame: Fixed!”

Replacing the Superficial Intelligence

Posted on by Gazimoff

I have an opinion on Non-Player Characters. It emerged in the days of the first escort quest I attempted, when the computer-controlled NPC I’d be chaperoning would sprint ahead to certain death at the hands of hungry skeletons. If they weren’t sprinting ahead they’d probably stopped to admire a particularly intricate pebble and forgotten all about me. Either way you’re probably looking at death or failure, or more usually both.

At that point my opinion of NPCs was cemented: dumb as a bag of bricks.

Since that day we’ve had Warlocks and Hunters in World of Warcraft trying to order around pets and minions. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Spin the artificial intelligence roulette wheel and find out if your trusty sidekick is going to help or just stand there like a lemon. And although things have improved over the years, the lemon is still on that scoring board.

Continue reading “Replacing the Superficial Intelligence”

Getting Started with MMO Blogging

Posted on by Gazimoff

In the time since I started blogging about MMOs, I’ve learned a huge amount about writing, sharing and being part of a staggeringly huge community. In many respects though I’m still a noob, bumbling around and making mistakes. Things like the blog going offline due to setup or configuration errors because I’m too stubborn to use a free service, or losing my entire blogroll moving from one host to another.

I also look at the other bloggers and still feel amazed. How on earth does Tobold manage to come up with a new topic to write about every day? Where do Psynister and Cynwise find the time to put together their detailed, well researched guides? How does Spinks manage to read all the things and pull it all together into a well researched reflection of both the community and her own opinion? What inspired I Like Bubbles to convert the rant into an entertaining art form? How is The Daily Blink regularly and consistently funny?

When MMO Melting Pot mentioned that people felt intimidated by long-standing bloggers I was surprised to see my name listed there. I guess I still see myself as a newcomer to blogging compared to a lot of other people. It also reminds me how lucky I am to have created something that seems to work, even though I have no clue how I managed it. Part of me puts it down to trial and error, while another part reasons that it’s just fluke.

Even so, when I started out with MMO blogging I was given a bucketload of advice from a range of different people. There were many good lessons that I learned, but the four most important ones were these. I don’t know if they’re common sense (something I don’t have) or based on old proverbs, but they’ve worked for me. If you’re starting out as an MMO blogger or you’ve been doing it for a while but you’re struggling with it, I hope these are helpful.

Continue reading “Getting Started with MMO Blogging”

My Struggle with Sandboxes

Posted on by Gazimoff

I’ve been having a bit of a Minecraft kick lately, after finally getting enough time to enjoy the recent(ish) updates. The world generator now spawns features like abandoned mines, subterranean strongholds and populated villages as part of an Adventure Mode overlay.

The great thing about this Adventure mode is that it’s entirely optional. You can either spend time building the huge mine cart roller coaster you’ve always wanted, or you can build the portal, traverse the Nether and defeat the Ender Dragon. Or you can do both at the same time.

It’s also convinced me to check out the limited selection of sandbox MMOs currently available. After digging into EVE, Wurm Online (a previous Notch creation) and the Glitch beta, it becomes pretty obvious who these games are aimed at: builders. Go to this location, harvest these resources. Go to that location and build something with what you’ve gathered. Sometimes there’s a “kill ten rats”, but before you can do that you have to find a tree, cut it down, mine some iron, learn how to blacksmith, until finally… the rats have gone home for the weekend.

Continue reading “My Struggle with Sandboxes”