Cataclysm Beta Starting
Blizzard dropped the NDA for Cataclysm and officially kicked off the beta today. I actually got my invite yesterday and have been downloading and patching the client ever since. The initially client download is currently about 2.5gigs with an additional 1.5 gigs of patches.
My goal is to transfer my paladin to the beta to play through the level 80-85 content as well as play 1-60 on a Goblin and a Worgen so that I can hit up all of the changed zones. Expect a lot more posting from me over the coming months.
DDO: The Path of Least Resistance
My time lately has been split between slowly leveling my character in Dungeons and Dragons Online, a new alt I started on a different server on WoW and spending some time playing a game I am not allowed to talk about yet.
I have found it interesting as to how game design decision can affect player behavior. Everyone knows that if a player can avoid something on the way to their goal, they generally will. In Dungeons and Dragons Online you do not receive experience for killing enemies. Experience only comes from completing quests.
Now when most people think of quests nowadays, they think of the "kill ten rats" style of questing. All quests in DDO are essentially mini-instances. Some can be as short as 5 minutes, some have taken me over an hour solo. Many of these quests have scripted elements or special tasks you need to accomplish within the instance. Occasionally the quests will have optional "Kill n enemies" tasks but not always and generally the amount of xp is not worth the amount of time spent accomplishing the objective. What this boils down to is that in many quests, you can complete the entire adventure without killing a single enemy.
A few days ago, I was running a crypt adventure Delera's Tomb adventure module with some guildmates. While there was heavy fighting in some sections of the quests, in other sections the party leader would just tell us to keep running past everything. Unlike in World of Warcraft, in DDO's instances enemies will not follow you for the entire instance.
All in all, it just feels incredibly cheap. I have never been a fan of speed running instances.
With the dungeon finder in WoW and the introduction of daily instance rewards, speed running has greatly risen in popularity. They just want to get to the final boss, get their frost badges, and get out. While this is somewhat of an annoyance, there is still reason to go fight other bosses since other bosses still drop loot that can be disenchanted or used by fresh 80s.
"Bosses" in DDO instances drop not loot. In fact, there is no real loot comes from enemies in the instances but instead from the quest completion. The experience rewards for killing the optional objective enemies in the instances are minimal. It is a very low experience to time ratio. You get far more experience in far less time by just rushing to the end and rerunning the quest instead of doing all the option objectives.
Example: A fully completed quest (all optional objectives completed) may give 8000 experience and take an hour to do. Just rushing to the final enemy may only give 5000 experience but will only take 20 minutes.
It is an unfortunate result of a design choice, but I never see any reason in doing anything but rushing to end of each instance. It is sad though, because every instance is unique and most are very interesting. One thing developers have to always remember is that if players can skip something, they will skip something. Instead of just accepting that, give them a meaningful reason not to skip content.
Dungeons and Dragons Online: Unintuitive
If I had one word to describe Dungeons and Dragons Online, it would be 'unintuitive'. Despite this, I am still playing the game and enjoying it.
I have been playing an hour or two a night and in my mind taking it a bit slow. I just hit made it to level four last night. Up to this point, I have soloed every quest except for a handful. At these low levels there is really no need to ever group up it seems.
From what I have experienced so far, the game does a fairly terrible job of explaining some of the mechanics. As I said before, I think that people who are unfamiliar with Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 will have a near impossible time with this game and will probably screw up a multitude of characters. In the past few days, I have asked countless questions on certain mechanics of the game that should have been easy to understand. The game also showers you with loot which you have no idea what to do with.
I am enjoying the game, but the game fights you for that enjoyment every step of the way. If I had not been in a D&D mood lately, I might have given up on the game already.
I think some of the problems with the game can just be blamed on the D&D 3.5 ruleset itself. DDO came out about a year or two before the 4.0 ruleset was announced. The 4.0 ruleset goes a long way to streamline the 3.5 ruleset. A lot of people call it the "WoW version" and say that it is dumbed down too much, but it is in my opinion that they just made the game less of a chore to play.
Another small complaint, which is more of just a personal preference, is so far I have seen a lack of a 'world story'. The compartmentalized nature of this game has made it so you have numerous unconnected quests. In the newbie area, there is a central plot but that only lasts for about an hour. The adventure packs have central plots but those last for only an hour or two as well. There, so far, does not seem to be a central story to the world itself. That was always my favorite part of Guild Wars. Even though you went on a multitude of unrelated minor quests, there was always the central storyline to the world.
While the game is far from perfect, it has been interesting to see how the free-to-play model is integrated into the game. I think that if you are the type of person who has altitis and loves playing many different characters, the free-to-play model might be the way to go since one you buy the content, it is open across all characters and you can go and create a new character in six months from now and still have all the purchased content open for you. If you play heavily or you focus on just one character, the subscription model might be the better choice.
Dungeons and Dragons Online – First Impressions
So I already broke a rule I made in my post yesterday. I have already spent about $20 in Dungeons and Dragons Online. Now this was not for potions or for vanity items. I purchased the Favored Soul class and the ability to make 32-point builds (vs the standard 28 points). Both of these are obtainable in game, but they essentially take a maxed out character to do so. In essence, I am just paying for them now so I do not have to level a different character to obtain them.
Before I could even log into the game, however, I had to overcome a roadblock. The game requires you to have a Turbine account. Luckily, I had a Turbine account from my days playing Lord of the Rings Online. That was not good enough though because you also needed to have the account enabled for DDO. When going to the DDO website, the only option is to create a new account and there is no option on the Turbine account page to just add DDO to an existing Turbine account. After reading about it on the forums, it was said that the only solution is to contact account services via phone or e-mail for a DDO key that you can enter into the account page.
Not wanting to wait for an e-mail response, I called the company. It was almost 5pm central time and there was zero phone queue and the man on the other end of the phone instantly sent the key to my e-mail. This was a little bit of an unnecessary hassle, but it was quite painless to be honest. At least you do not have to wait in queue for hours like with Blizzard account support.
The first thing I noticed when playing DDO is in standard Dungeons and Dragons fashion there is a ton of customization that can be done. And if you go through the full customization route, it seems like it would be very easy to gimp your character. When talking with some friends about builds for my character, I was pointed towards the the class discussion on the forums. I found a build that is what I want from my character, but to anyone not familiar with D&D, it reads like gibberish.
When I finally got into game getting used to the control system took a little getting used to. The game is more action oriented. In 'mouselook mode' your mouse basically becomes a targeting reticule at the center of your screen and your vision automatically follows the mouse movement. There are hotkeys for spells and abilities but just clicking your mouse will swing your equipped weapon.
In the time that I played, I went through about five or so quests solo. I still have not much dived into the looking for group interface or many of the other options.
I really enjoy the narration in the quests. You get zero experience for killing monsters. All experience is gained from doing quests and all quests seem to be instanced. If you bail on a quest before it is completed, you leave with zero experience. While in the quest, there are often optional tasks you can accomplish to increase your end experience gains, such as killing a multitude of the monsters or smashing most of the breakables in the instance. I know many people hate heavy instancing but I have always been a fan of it. Especially with the way DDO does it, instancing and questing feels more personal.
Although it was a little bit of a rough start, I am very much enjoying my time with DDO so far. I do not think I could ever see myself playing this game as my 'main game' but it is a nice side project. My main point of curiosity is how fast, if playing casually, I will burn through quests and content. I am a bit of a content junkie so I like new adventures and they seem to run about three to five dollars each on the Turbine store. I believe that if you are a subscriber, you have access to them all automatically.
The DDO subscription fee is the standard $15 a month and I think that even if I see myself spending $20 a month in the game, I might just stay as a free to play account because then the content will be forever unlocked to me whereas I would not be able to access it if I ever ended my subscription. If I ever saw myself going more than $20 a month, I would probably just rather switch to a subscriber account.
I want to play a lot more this weekend because I have had a real bad Dungeons and Dragons itch lately. I had recently been listening to the newest Penny-Arcade Dungeons and Dragons podcast and since I do not have a group to play locally, this game is working as a fine substitute for the time being.
Dungeons and Dragons Online
Between the Lord of the Rings Online Free-to-Play announcement and my current gaming ADD and wanderlust, I decided to take Dungeons and Dragons Online for a spin.
This is not the first time I have play DDO. I tried the game during beta many many years ago. It was a time right before I had jumped into World of Warcraft. At the time, I was using a very outdated laptop and the game barely ran. It was not the fault of the game, but due to my laptop's low specs, even at the lowest graphical setting DDO was basically unplayable. That laptop was barely able to run World of Warcraft at its lowest graphical setting. Needless to say, I soon picked up WoW and basically pushed DDO from my might for a while.
I have always, however, wanted to hop back into DDO. I am a huge Dungeons and Dragons fan. My problem was that I did not know anyone who played so I could not justify the subscription fee when I did not have any online gaming buddies. I thought about trying it out right when they made the free to play move last year but that was about the time the new patch came out in World of Warcraft and I was dragged back into that game.
I ran the downloader overnight so I will be able to get my feet wet later this evening. I am essentially going into this game blind. I have not looked at any details of the game and I do not even remember much from my time in beta. I also have no idea how the free to play implementation was done but am very interested in experiencing it. This seems very much like the 'good' free to play vs the 'bad' free to play style of Runes of Magic or Allods Online.
I am not that familiar with the Eberron world since when I played D&D it was always either in Forgotten Realms or a custom world. I do plan on reading the DDO wiki a bit to decide on what race and class I want to be. I believe Warforged have to be purchased for free to play players and Drow have to be either earned on another character or purchased. I am not sure as to if there are any classes that must be purchased for free to play accounts.
If I do end up enjoying the game, my goal is to set a money limit of $10 a month or less. If it looks like I may end up exceeding that, I may eventually switch to the monthly subscription. I do not see that as likely though because I do not plan on playing a excessively like I would with other games. I want to try to take this game slow and savor the experience.
Sword and Poker 2
I have been spending a great deal of time playing iPhone games lately. Overall I would say that over the last month I have spent more time playing games on the iPhone than all other games on console and PC combined. Most of the games I play have the addictiveness of a good flash game but the portability of the iPhone means I can take it anywhere. And I do.
The game I have been dumping the most of my time into is Sword and Poker 2. The game is a turn based RPG that is played with poker hands. The plot is so paper thin that it really is not even there, but the gameplay is what keeps me coming back. This is one of the most addicting games I have ever played.
Within the game, you traverse the dungeon map and fight enemies. Each fight consists of a 5x5 grid with the center 3x3 initially populated with cards. Using the random cards you are dealt, you try to make the best poker hands you can. The better the hand, the more damage it does. As the game goes on, you can upgrade your weapons, your shield, and obtain spells. Weapons increase damage and can inflict status effects and shields provide an initial HP buffer at the start of every round as well as protect from certain status effects.
If you have an iPhone and like RPGs or poker and other card games, you are doing yourself a disservice not buying this game. The game is currently $3.99 in the iTunes store (I had purchased it on discount at $1.99) but even at that price, it is a steal. I have easy put 10+ hours into this game and I am only 75% done. You need to get this game.
Free to Play Lord of the Rings
I am really excited for this announcement. I have had multiple forays into Lord of the Rings Online in the past and I often think about returning to the game. I really do love that game and the atmosphere that Turbine created in it. My problem was mostly that I did not have the time to commit to yet another MMO subscription so I would always stop playing after a while.
When the free to play model launches, I am really considering trying to start a weekly adventuring group with friends. I know many other bloggers or people in communities do weekly adventuring groups and Lord of the Rings Online would be one of the best games to do that in.
Games of May
May has been an amazing month for games. As for me, I have been playing a little old, a little new and a little REALLY old.
World of Warcraft - A large group of friends server transferred after four years on Bleeding Hollow. Another group quit. I did start a new character with a real life friend of mine that we plan on leveling together. I am considering it my "farewell to Azeroth" tour. I am anxious for Cataclysm and even more anxious for the beta.
Mount and Blade - I have had this on my Steam games list for months now and I finally gave it a try. I should have tried it sooner. The game is essentially a medieval combat simulator. You build armies and charge into battle on foot or horseback to fight enemy armies and take their land. It can be incredibly tough at times. There are two ways to play the game: autosave or manual save. Manual save is your traditional save method. You can save at any time and reload from saves if you wish. Autosave saves after every action you make. Every action becomes permanent and there is no taking anything back.
Nethack - The autosave gameplay of Mount and Blade brought me back to Nethack. The game is over 20 years old and I still get lost in it for hours at a time. One thing that constantly amazes me about Nethack is I never feel cheated. I never feel like it is the games fault that I died. It always feels like my fault. Every mistake is a learning experience.
Alan Wake - I do not usually play horror games, but since Alan Wake is set in the pacific northwest (my favorite area of the US), I could not turn it down. I do not like horror games or movies so the game honestly scares the crap out of me at times. I prefer to play the game in short bursts during daylight hours only. The atmosphere the game creates is phenomenal.
Red Dead Redemption - This game is the next evolution of Grand Theft Auto. I generally do not like western movies but I am very much enjoying this game. It is a very solid game in the Grand Theft Auto vein but I am enjoying it more than any of the recent GTA games (my favorite GTA game is Vice City).
iPhone Games - I am going to have to dedicate an entire post or even multiple posts to all the iPhone games I have been playing. The list includes Angry Birds, Final Fantasy, Sword and Poker 2, Siberian Strike, Fruit Ninja, 100 Rogues, Skee-Ball, Zen Bound, Doodle Jump, Fling, Peggle, Words with Friends and Mega Jump.
This month has really been a case of too many games, too little time. I still have to finish Darksiders (I'm about 60% done) and I have Super Mario Galaxy 2 here still sitting unopened. Absolutely no one has the right to complain about gaming this year. We are still in the first six months of the year and we have had more fantastic games released than are often released in an entire year. I just wish I could add a few extra hours to each day so I could play them all.
I’m Not Dead Yet
Sorry for the radio silence here. My life has been a flurry of activity. Between being busy at work, having finals, my room mate moving out, and a few other things, it has been a perfect storm of me not writing.
I hope to write get a couple things out this week.
Unintended Consequences of Cataclysm Raid Changes: Tank Shortages
I do not really have much to say about the Cataclysm leaks right now. Yes, they look awesome. Yes, I am excited. I am just hoping I can get into beta again to try this stuff out myself.
I was thinking further on the 10/25 man changes coming with Cataclysm and wondering if it might bring any unintended consequences. Currently, the main thing I worry about is the tank shortage in game and I think this change could actually make that worse.
Death Knights were introduced to the game because there was a tank shortage throughout Burning Crusade. Well, it did not do much to help and, at least on my server, there continues to be tank shortage. I cannot count the days I see people advertising in trade chat that they just need a tank or two to finish filling their group. I think that with only being able to raid 10 or 25 each week, the problem will become worse.
It is my personal belief that tanks will more likely choose to run 10 man raids instead of 25 man raids. 10 man raids have less chance of failure. The problem rises when you see that 10 man raids suck up tanks at a greater percentage than 25 mans.
A 10 man raid usually consists of 2 tanks, 5-6 DPS, and 2-3 healers.
A 25 man raid usually consists of 3 tanks, 15-16 DPS, 6-7 healers.
In a 10 man raid, tanks make up 20% of the raid, DPS make up 50-60% and healers make up 20-30%.
In a 25man raid, tanks make up 12% of the raid 60-64% and healers make up 24-28%.
When you use the 10 man percentages to scale the numbers to 25man, you would have 5 tanks, 13-15 DPS, and 5-7 healers.
So you can see that 10 man raids use a higher percentage of tanks, a lower percentages of DPS and about an equal percentage of healers. If a large percentage of players decide to just focus on 10 man raids in Cataclysm, tanks will be used up faster and DPS will have a harder time finding a group because less are needed for the raids. On the other hand, if people focused only on 25man raids (which I doubt will happen) there would not be so much of a drain on tanks and it would be easier for DPS to find a raid slot.
It will be interesting to see how this ends up playing out with the Cataclysm launch. Will more people have to roll tanks or will more people currently playing Warriors/Death Knights/Paladins be forced into a tanking role? No matter what happens, tanks will remain a rare commodity.