I still don't know who half the people are

It’s been quite a while since I last posted so I figured I’d enlighten my lovely readers (anyone still there?) with a glimpse of what I’ve been up to recently. It’s nothing exciting. As much as I would like to enthrall you all with some sexy tale of sexy spyness or something (I did watch Skyfall the other week, I guess that’s something), I’ve pretty much been consumed by work. Yep, it keeps me busy. That and I don’t actually think there’s been a huge load of excitement in the MMO world this past month. I suppose it’s just that time of year.

Anyway, here’s some tidbits from behind the scenes.

What I’ve been playing

Still WoW, I’m sure you’ll be happy/ashamed to hear. As much as I never developed a taste for raiding, I have somehow in the past couple of months grown to really enjoy the Raid Finder feature. I never thought I would and I’ll admit I was incredibly cynical when I first tried it out with my new minted level 90 monk but I have to say it is rather wonderful. Y’know, standard PUG complaints aside. It does pretty much what it says on the tin and I really enjoy the fact I can get to experience almost all of the WoW content now instead of feeling that I always missing out on the endgame. Hats off to Blizzard and their mission of bringing content to the masses.

I also picked up Heart of the Swarm this week and it’s fairly decent. I’m enjoying it but haven’t been blown away like I was with Wings of Liberty. Part of me just dislikes the whole concept of splitting the game up into three components and keeps wishing it was a single contained game as opposed to this weird expansion trilogy thingy. Kinda sad to think that I will have to watch another two years to play the single player campaign for my favourite race, the Protoss.

What I’ve been watching

Game of Thrones season two. Call me a sucker for HBO’s graphic violence, adolescent banter and soft core pornography but I can’t help but love it. C’mon, you’ve got to give credit to the makers for sneaking in full frontal nudity at every unlikely opportunity. I suppose boobs and willies are cheaper than computer generated dragons. Anyway, it’s almost made me want to finish Dance of Dragons except I still I have no idea who half the characters in it are.

For those closer to home in the UK, my wife and I have also been captivated by the Great British Menu. I know cookery shows are so incredibly passé now but this one still manages to engross, especially when you’re tucking into a pizza as they whip up some two Michelin star masterpiece. The critics are also a blast. I’m surprised the chefs never punch them in the face after watching back some of their comments.

What I’ve been reading

After re-reading the entire Wheel of Time saga bar the last and latest book (still awaiting its arrival on the Kindle… I refuse to punish my feeble arms by trying to hold up a 1,200 page hardcover monstrosity whilst reading), I went on a Brandon Sanderson binge. Simply put, The Way of Kings is amazing and I’m actually squealing with anticipation over the next volume. The first Mistborn book? Not so good. Sacrilege, I know, but I just felt the whole thing was a bit contrived and Sanderson’s prose far from elegant. There’s only so many times you repeat the phrase ‘X rolled his eyes’ in a single novel. Or chapter. Or page. Let’s keep Brandon untouchable though and blame it all on poor editing.

Finishing my Sanderson affair, I’ve just now moved onto the Vorkosigan Saga sci-fi series, starting with the Warrior’s Apprentice. It’s pretty good. The series has been written by Lois McMaster Bujold since the mid-80s and this particular book is nothing if not well-written. She has a fantastic way with words, for sure, and nothing to roll one’s eyes at (see what I did there?). Still, sci-fi has never been my preference over good ol’fantasy. I think I will move onto The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie next. Is it any good?

So that’s me. Now you pretty much know my entire life. Next article, what I had for dinner.

Original post from: We Fly Spitfires - MMORPG Blog

What I’m Up To

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The modern incarnation of Mario appears in Call of Duty as an illegal immigrant

My brother, part time gamer and full time noob, is only 35 years of age but to hear him talk you’d think he’s approaching pension age fast. “Those young whipper snappers”, he mutters under his breath whilst shaking his head at the folks in their late twenties who idly wander through his middle class suburban habitat. I’ve never know anyone to skip straight form sulky teenager to lecherous old man before (although admittedly it does come with some rather wonderful family related benefits). I, on other hand, feel pretty great being 31. I feel in my prime, a proper adult with enough milage behind me to give me confidence and enough road ahead to give me hope. No sir, I don’t feel old at all… except when I play MMOs.

I realised the other day when talking to my new guild in World of Warcraft (I finally found one that’s comprised of people who actually like to chat) that most of them had no clue to the prior existence of any other MMORPG. A discussion about how it would be nice if WoW encouraged more grouping almost got me on my high horse about how lucky we actually are now that it’s not a mandatory component of progression à la the original Everquest. As nostalgic as I sometimes get, I’m delighted that in most MMOs today a play session doesn’t require four hours out of your life and a bucket under your desk to pee into (AFK biobreaks are for whimps). It dawned on then that I’ve been enjoying this genre since 1999, a staggering 14 years. A lifetime for some of my fellow gamers.

Granted, like any good addict, I started young. But there can be little doubt that we’re seeing an emergence of new gamers in all aspects of video gaming society. Perhaps as I primarily play MMOs, I notice it more there. Trends are changing, customs are altering and social interaction is slowly creeping further away every year from what I was used to be familiar with. Gameplay mechanics are altering too. Back in November I wrote about the mechanics of combat in MMO and how in a few short years it went from ‘auto attack and gossip’ to ‘hammering keys and silence’.

My newly discovered love for raiding in WoW has made me realise just how incompetent I am at these new fangled gameplay mechanics. Move here, jump now, dodge this, run through that, I just can’t cope. How do people remember all this stuff? Well, actually, judging by the number of player corpses that start to pile up, not many. Good to know not everyone finds it a breeze. I’ve taken to raiding with my iPad in front of me, strategy guide open so I can read through the mechanics as I undertake the fight. Some bosses are a blast, some are just plain confusing, some makes my fingers bleed and my mind scream. Sometimes I just wish I could stand still in place whilst I DPS and exchange meaningless banter with new friends I’ve never met before rather than being worried about being chastised for standing in the wrong puddle of glowing goo at the wrong time.

PvP makes me feel old too. “Now, now kids, it’s just a game”, I say as the little bastards slaughter me in seconds whilst my “team mates” make horrendously obscene slurs in the process. I take some solace in the knowledge that I’m a happily married, well adjusted, reasonably successful and fulfilled person and videos games don’t actually matter. That and the thought that I could probably beat them up in real life. Still, every time my finger slips because I lack the nibble dexterity I used to have, I cry a little inside.

I know I shouldn’t feel bad about ageing and should recognise that I’m still in that peak video gaming demographic of 18 -35 year olds that everyone keeps yammering on about. I should be happy that I don’t have to deal with issues like pocket money, parents and home work that the young gamers out there have to deal with. I’m my own man who controls my own life as I want it. Still, I wish some MMO would make a server for over 30s only. And devise a PvP battlegroup system based on eye-hand-coordination. And set mandatory pee breaks in raids.

But what about you? Do make MMOs make you feel old? Or am I just turning into my brother?

-Gordon

Original post from: We Fly Spitfires - MMORPG Blog

Do MMOs Make You Feel Old?

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I've been playing far too much Mists of Pandaria

The week before last (Christmas Day, to be precise), this blog turned four years old, an incredible feat considering I can vividly remember the day I started it and wondering to myself it would ever survive a year or prove to be even the least bit popular. Well, as fortune would have it, We Fly Spitfires (honestly, I don’t know why I picked that name) is stick alive and kicking and enjoyed (I’m assuming that at least some of you aren’t complete masochists) by thousands of people from around the world. Amazing, really.

Of course, it takes no sharp eye to realise that my blogging schedule has slowed down dramatically from one my once rather ambitious post on every day of the week. It’s even been almost a month since my last article which, yes, I realise does completely suck and I can only blush profusely about in some lame attempt at an apology. Let’s just blame the festive holidays for that one, shall we. Still, I think my posting schedule now is much more likely to be weekly or biweekly, not because I don’t still feel the urge to blog or game (I still play MMOs a lot, as my wife can attest to), but because real life keeps having this handy way of keeping me busy.

Long time readers will know that I started a web company called Primate almost two years ago now and, as any small business owner knows, it’s kept me busier than I ever imagined. It’s very satisfying and very fulfilling though and we’re growing nicely with a lot of high quality work under our belt that makes me very proud. I’ve even had the pleasure of working with a couple of other businesses both run by readers of this very blog. How awesome is that?

However, between work, gaming, spending time with the missus and some reasonable attempts to just plain get some space away from computers, it doesn’t leave a whole lot of time left to write. But I’m OK with that. I believe blogging is a hobby to be enjoyed and it doesn’t matter if you blog five times a day or once a month, so long as you have fun doing it. Ironically, I actually like the way I write more now that I’m posting less and have more time to think about it although that’s probably very subjective.

Anyway, it just leaves me to say thank you to each and every one of you, my wonderful readers. You folks keep me on my toes, motivate when I’m fed up and verbally abuse me when I cross the line (as you should). I always love reading your comments and I honestly wouldn’t still be writing if it wasn’t for all your fantastic feedback. Thank you all.

So I guess it’s time to look forward to 2013. I think it’s going to be an exciting year both for blogging and for the MMO industry. And I promise, no more mad theories about religion, gender equality or my own personal sexual frustration. Probably.

Happy birthday me!

Original post from: We Fly Spitfires - MMORPG Blog

Turning Four

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Is that a bazooka or are you just pleased to see me?

It’s almost the Christmas holidays and I can’t wait. I love running my own business but geez, does it keep me busy. Although I take some holidays throughout the year (I still have 12 days vacation time remaining which says a lot though), the festive period is the one time of year when most non-retail businesses either slow down or shut up completely meaning I should have a pretty long, uninterrupted break from Christmas Eve to the start of January. Bring on the MMO gaming.

Although I downloaded Planetside 2 today, I’ve purposefully ignored everything about it along with Guild Wars 2 and Storm Legion, the RIFT expansion. All are games I’m itching to try and, by all accounts, all are excellent and come highly recommended… but which to play? They’re each very different, one being an expansion to a traditional style MMO, one being hailed as a completely new MMORPG experience and the other being a massive, fast-paced FPS. I’m finally growing weary of dabbling in WoW and I think it’s time to get stuck into something new.

Planetside 2 is maybe the easiest to call given it costs absolutely nothing to get started with and has no subscription. I’m sure I’d probably end up buying stuff and actually spending money on it but it seems like the type of game I could dip into occasionally without having to commit too much to. The FPS nature of it also seems to suit that approach and, as much I want to see different takes on the MMO genre, I don’t see this as being something I could ever play seriously long-term.

Now the tough call. Guild Wars 2 or Storm Legion? I like RIFT a lot and feel like I never gave it the time or opportunity it deserved. I know it’s not exactly a radical departure from the traditional MMO gameplay model but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The only thing that puts me off is that the expansion seems geared to high levels only and I’m not sure how much of it I would actually get to experience with my lower level toons.

Guild Wars 2, on the other hand, intrigues me tremendously and I’ve yet to experience any of it. It released far too close to the Mists of Pandaria WoW expansion for me to purchase it but it’s definitely on my wish list. I’ve heard a lot of good things about it and I’m keen to give it a shot. However, I’ve never been a stickler for money but, if I’m honest, the price point does put me off a little. £50 for a digital PC game seems a tad excessive especially considering I will likely buy in-game items as well. I appreciate there’s no subscription fee but it’s going to be hard to convince me that the F2P model is necessarily better value for money than a flat subscription.

Anyway, it’s a tough call and I don’t want even to think about other games like The Secret World or EVE (CCP keep sending me offers to resubscribe and it’s very tempting). Maybe I should wait and see if any magical Amazon gift vouchers wing there way to me from Santa and splash out on all three. It is Christmas after all. Failing that, I really should make my mind up.

Guild Wars 2, Storm Legion or Planetside 2 – which one would you pick?

-Gordon

Original post from: We Fly Spitfires - MMORPG Blog

Guild Wars 2, Storm Legion or Planetside 2?

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I miss the days when the most exciting part about combat was reading the damage output text

Perhaps having grown up playing the original Everquest, I’m spoilt with combat in MMOs these days. I mean, one of my most beloved character in Everquest, a Warrior, had only two buttons to press when fighting, Taunt and Kick. And Kick was useless. People aren’t joking when they say that combat used to be a case of pulling a mob, turning on auto-attack and then going to make yourself a cup of tea. I drank a lot of tea in my late teens.

Still, on reflection, to call combat in the MMORPG of the late nineties or early naughties (I hate that term) mindlessly simple is probably doing it a disservice. Grouping was mandatory, pulling was an art, managing aggro was important, crowd control was a skill, maintaining a rhythm in order to chain fights was essential and death was inconvenient enough to make it all matter. Plus, in the time between button pressing (which for a Warrior was quite a lot), there was plenty of opportunity to chat, discuss, gossip and roleplay.

But don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that those days are over (mostly) and now I actually have attacks and maneuvers to perform during melee. Aside from giving my fingers a workout, it adds a lot more complexity and thought to fights than I ever experienced in 1999. Even if such once fundamental considerations such as threat, crowd control and a death penalty are a lot more diminished than they used to be, we still have a more factors and strategic decisions to make than ever before.

Of course, I acknowledge that soloing in most MMOs (particularly at lower levels) doesn’t exactly require a lot of thought due to its inherent lack of challenge but what about other activities like grouping or raiding or, in particular, PvP? I personally don’t think combat there is any less fundamentally complex or any more hugely tedious than any other type of video game. Perhaps I’ve been blessed with nimble reflexes and reasonable finger dexterity, honed during my childhood years on every type of game from Street Fighter II and Super Mario World to Doom and Command & Conquer that I don’t rate reaction time to be enough of a differentiating factor. Indeed, when you put eye-hand-coordination aside, these genres of games, whether it be modern incarnations like Call of Duty or Starcraft 2, are pretty basic for all intents and purposes.

Maybe my view is skewed though. As much as I enjoy leveling up characters in MMORPGs, my primary focus for many years now has always been player-vs-player. Whether it’s battleground matches in WoW, RIFT or SW:TOR or open world PvP in Everquest 2, fighting real opponents is my thing. I’m not a particularly competitive chap either, bothered about always winning, I just really like the challenges and decisions this form of gameplay comes with. I suppose fighting against other real people will always be more rewarding than the even the most challenging AI but to me, the decisions I’m forced to make on both a micro (when to use my cooldowns, when to counter spells or crowd control) or a macro (what flag to capture, who to attack, when to retreat) level are truly satisfying and deeply complex.

I wonder if the issue isn’t that MMO combat is bad but rather that, due to the long standing nature of these games, we simply become bored of it so much quicker. There’s only so many times you have play the same encounter over and over again before you get fed up, no matter the genre. Even combat in fast paced games like Call of Duty or Halo starts to become predictable and dull after you’ve beaten the AI multiple times – the challenge being the player-vs-player combat, something I would contest PvP in a MMO is just as strategic as.

I’m curious to get other people’s thoughts. Does MMORPG combat really suck? Or do we just have a perception that it’s less exciting than other types of games? Depending on the activity being undertaken, I’m probably in the latter camp and would recommend to any skeptics to give PvP a proper go.

-Gordon

Original post from: We Fly Spitfires - MMORPG Blog

Is MMO Combat Really That Bad?

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WoW starting areas are now reasonably populated. The horror!

I remember the first time I ever logged into a MMO. It was 1999, the game was EverQuest and I was on a 64kb dial-up modem connected via a, get this, pay-by-the-minute ISP (cue accidental £300 phone bill). What seems old hat now seemed incredible to me then and I still recall the first few moments of stepping into Norrath and the surge of excitement I felt at bumping into my first ever MMO player. I’ll never forget jumping up out of my seat and shouting over to brother that a completely random person, a fellow Erudite in the starting city of Erudin, had said ‘hi’ to me.

Ever since then I’ve been hooked on the social aspect of MMOs, not because I’m a lonely chatterbox who seeks constant communication but because seeing, interacting and playing with other people from all over the globe makes me feel like I’m partaking in a virtual world… and not just sitting in front of my computer at home in my underwear (my selection of clothes varies). Personally, I find that MMOs make all other offline single-player games just feel lonely and deserted and there’s nothing more precious than the social aspect they bring.

So colour me surprised when I read some of the backlash against the new Cross Realm Zone feature Blizzard has been implementing in WoW. Surely, being able to play in zones that are actually, y’know, populated, is a good thing, right? Apparently a lot of people disagree and prefer their MMOs as barren and devoid of human interaction as Skyrim or any other offline RPG. Technical issues aside, I just don’t get it.

WoW Insider even recently ran a poll asking if people would opt out of the CRZ feature if they could to which a large 60% responded that they would. Indeed, it seems like the majority of WoW players dislike the notion of having to share their questing experience with others or, heaven forbid, actually encounter another living soul on their PvP server. I’m sympathetic to ganking issues, of course, but as someone who’s played a lot on PvP servers in the past, isn’t random combat the entire point of them?

I don’t want to sound to critical about those who are against the CRZ feature but I do wonder if we, MMOers and WoW players in particular, have become so accustomed to our Dungeon Finders and Battleground queues and Raid Finders that we’ve forgotten that the whole point of these games is to mingle with others. I mean, isn’t there something wrong if we’re starting to treat other players as obstacles in our path to progression rather than as opportunities for friendship and camaraderie? Are so we used to instant gratification that we’ve come to ironically dislike the entire social point of MMOs? I’d like to think not and, to me, the CRZ feature in WoW is a technological step in the right direction for making our MMO worlds bigger, better and more social.

Plus, y’know, Blizzard has already foreseen the issues surrounding competitive questing and implemented an ingenious feature called ‘grouping’, a facility that allows two or more players to form a party and complete the same quest together in half the time. Of course, such facility does usually require some form of communication, guttural grunting or otherwise.

Perish the thought.

-Gordon

Original post from: We Fly Spitfires - MMORPG Blog

Do MMOers Dislike Being Social?

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We don't know much about EQNext but I'm pretty sure its box cover art will feature women warriors in metal bikinis

Word on the street is that Everquest Next is going to be a sandbox MMO, a huge one by all accounts. Colour me surprised. Just as I thought SOE were out of tricks, they go and play a blinder on us. I was honestly prepared for the next installment of my beloved EQ franchise to be yet another attempt at a themepark WoW clone. Good for SOE.

Of course, I’m sure some will say that there’s no room for sandbox MMOs in the market any more, citing the failure of any previous one to make a huge impact in the same way WoW did. This may be true and perhaps the themepark model will always reign supreme but I’m glad that at least one developer is willing to give the sandbox model another decent shot. After all, it’s not like we’ve actually had a huge number of them to pick from anyway, at least ones that weren’t missing half their features, riddled with bugs or akin to watching the Sopranos via a spreadsheet. I was referring to EVE online there.

I still remain convinced that a sandbox style MMO is worth pursuing and that it’s not succeeded before due to any fundamental flaw in the concept but rather issues with its execution. As time has proved over and over again (one only needs to look at SW:TOR), there is no magic formula for creating insanely popular MMOs and copying WoW piece-by-piece doesn’t seem to matter one iota either. Honestly, I think success is an impossible factor to predict, a result of a combination of critical mass and some unquantifiable extra ingredient, a special factor that we can’t measure, capture or duplicate, a certain I don’t know what as the French would say.

So I remain optimistic and tentatively excited about EverQuest Next. I’m glad to see SOE pushing the boat out and going back to their roots of not being afraid to try new things, pushing the boundaries of the industry forward a little. As much as I like WoW, it’s success has damaged in the genre in a way by making everyone obsessed with the idea that the only way to make something else as popular is to recreate it exactly. With any luck, a modest victory in the sandbox department would go a long way to encouraging developers to be a little more creative in their MMO ventures.

Now let’s just pray that SOE doesn’t screw it all up and release a a half-finished game 12 months too early. *cough* SWG *cough*

-Gordon

Original post from: We Fly Spitfires - MMORPG Blog

EverQuest Next: Return Of The Sandbox

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Tanking in WoW should come with free counselling

I’ve been playing a lot of World of Warcraft recently, probably more than I should have. All-in-all, I think it’s a testament to the strength of the new Mists of Pandaria expansion and between the new continent to explore, the hundreds of quests to complete, the new battlegrounds and the rather addictive side-games, there’s a lot to keep one occupied. Still, playing with my level 90 Warrior and low level Monk, one thing is starting to become clear: tanking has less of a place in the game than ever before.

As someone who used to be a die hard tank (and still considers himself one at heart, I’m proud to say), I feel slightly sad pondering the future of tanking in MMOs and it seems that the majority of activities for the majority of people in games now, WoW in particular, revolve around everything other than tanking. I can’t say I’m hugely surprised at this thought either as, with the increase in more casual orientated offerings, there’s less of a need to form a group and traverse through a dungeon than ever before. In fact, questing and PvP are two of the biggest components in WoW now and neither really has any place for a tank (healers at least have a hugely important role in PvP).

I admit it would be an exaggeration to state that tanking is completely dead in WoW because running heroic dungeons are still a mainstay of high level content in the game and someone still has to tank them… even if those players seem more reluctant and harder to find than ever before. As a fairly occasional tanker myself, the less than grateful welcome you sometimes receive from fellow PUGers combined with the need to dedicate a lot of time and effort gearing up for it makes the whole thing a bit of unappealing ordeal. Plus, you’re then faced with the crazy conundrum of how to gear up for a DPS position in raids if you’re tanking heroics instances constantly (and only being ‘allowed’ to role on tank gear as a result).

Perhaps it’s just the particular mechanics of WoW and the fact that tanking requires a whole different set of gear from DPSing that makes it so inaccessible but the constant lures and rewards that Blizzard seem to offer in order to entice people to do it suggests that it’s not a very popular activity. The introduction of scenarios, three man DPS group instances, further compounds this fact and honestly makes me believe that we’re going to see fewer and fewer opportunities to tank as the game progresses. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if, in five years time, every dungeon in WoW was a scenario and the sacred role of tank was reserved for elite raids only.

It’s not just WoW that seems to be spearheading the decline of this gaming mechanic either and if you needed any more persuasion that tanking was dying out you need look no further than Guild Wars 2 which, by all accounts (I haven’t played it yet so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here), has removed the concept completely. It truly is starting to look like the traditional holy trinity roles are becoming a thing of the past.

I know some people would welcome the Final Death for the old style trinity model of tanking, healing and DPSing whilst others would vigorously oppose it. For me, as much as I love both the playstyle and roleplaying aspect of being a tank, I appreciate the evolving nature of MMORPGs. Call it dumbing down, call it simplification, call it appealing to casual players or call it whatever you like, the people who play MMOs are changing and the games are changing as a result. Just like the idea of a Dungeon Finder would’ve horrified MMOers 10 years ago, perhaps the idea of tanking will do the same to players in another decade.

Of course, as much as I’m happy to embrace change, I would honestly miss being able to tank. Still, I guess I’ll always have my fond childhood memories of being beaten in the face by an Orc to keep me reminiscing.

-Gordon

Original post from: We Fly Spitfires - MMORPG Blog

Tanking – A Dying Mechanic?

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The moment when all of Blizzard's planning failed

Like a lot of people, I’ve been playing Mists of Pandaria pretty full on since Tuesday. Well, technically, Monday night since I was there for the in-game launch at 11pm British time but considering it took me 30 mins just to target the NPC (see above) and then the whole Jade Forest zone crashed before I finally gave up, I’m not going to count it. Nice to know that even the biggest MMOs still have launch woes even if everything has been running pretty smoothly since then.

Although I was feeling pretty lackluster about the expansion for the first couple of days, I’m deep in the throws of it now having explored loads of the new continent, run several dungeons and being well on my way to level 88 with my Warrior main. I’ve even found time to dabble with Pet Battles and roll a Pandaren Monk alt and, overall, I gotta say I’m really enjoying it. Yes, there’s nothing hugely special about the expansion and no, it’s not going to rock the MMO industry with its innovation but it is everything you would expect from Blizzard and the traditional polished WoW experience.

Whilst the new level 85-90 content initially appears to be quite linear, I actually found – much to my pleasure – that once I got past the initial intro quests, the game opens up and grants you a lot more freedom to run around the world and quest as you will. This was something that people complained about with Cataclysm as the whole leveling experience was very much on rails there so it’s good to see that Blizzard have avoided it again this time (for the most part), letting you roam and explore as you will. And what sights there are to behold.

For a game that’s almost eight years old, I have to say that Blizzard do make exceptionally good use of their game engine. Traversing through zones (if I can call them that), watching how the environment and landscape changes is incredibly immersive and occasionally breathtaking with some wondrous and beautiful sights to see. The huge size and scale of the areas truly do make you feel like you’re part of a virtual world and Blizz put their technology to very good use, none perhaps better than when, during the Pandaren starting area, the camera pans out to reveal the giant turtle the whole island is resting upon (note to Blizzard: Terry Pratchett called and wants his IP back).

The quests are hugely fun as well and varied enough to keep you interested as you level up (did I mention how bizarre it feels to be leveling my character who’s been sitting in Stormwind running nothing but dungeons and battlegrounds for the past two years? Well, it feels bizarre), the patented WoW humour being put to good use. Whether taking down huge demons or washing yaks, there’s more often than not something enjoyable to do, Blizzard obviously striving hard to stay away from the traditional ‘kill X foozles’ quests as much as possible (although there are still plenty of them kicking about).

As a quick side note, regarding the humour, I have the say that I was surprised how much I liked it. Sometimes the WoW tone can be a bit juvenile but I swear the early Alliance SI:7 quest with the raccoons Gizmo and Socks had me chuckling away to myself.

I know it’s still early days but I do think the continent of Pandaria is a triumph for leveling content, the only negative so far being that you seem to end up fighting the same damn vermin and monkey mobs constantly (I swear if I ever see another giant comedy rat or drunk monkey, I’m going to scream). Likewise, it’s a shame the whole experience is going to come to end when I hit level 90 and my Warrior main will be neglected to residing in Stormwind and running instanced dungeons and battlegrounds over and over again, just as before. I honestly think they need to add a mechanic where quests reward Justice/Honor Points at the level cap to encourage you to keep exploring through content that was, no doubt, a huge amount of time and effort to create.

And finally, a few worlds on Pet Battles, Pandarens and Monks: Pet Battles are actually a lot more entertaining than I thought they would be and a nice distraction that doesn’t revolve around crafting or the hideously grindy Archeology skill; Pandaren players just look weird and I can’t decide if I like the race or not – they look rather out of place somehow, perhaps something to do with the fact they have a much higher depth of animation and design than the other races; Monks are a novel concept but I’m not sure I like the implementation. I’ll need to level mine up more to properly get a feel for the class but right now their abilities seem more gimicky than anything else.

So in conclusion, Mists of Padaren is jolly good and well worth the buy for anyone currently playing WoW or thinking of getting back into it. If anything does make me feel sad about it though is that I’ll be completely finished and bored of it by Christmas and will have to wait another two frickin’ years for the next expansion. I guess Blizzard just can’t churn them out fast enough.

-Gordon

Original post from: We Fly Spitfires - MMORPG Blog

Pandaren Ponderings

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There's nothing like wielding a huge cannon to make me feel like a man

Torchligh 2 is better than Diablo 3. There, I’ve said it. And yes, I know it’s not professional to compared games to each like that but considering I’m just a hobbyist blogger, I figured I can get away with it. So I’ll say this: Torchlight 2 is everything I hoped Diablo 3 was going to be.

This isn’t to say that D3 was a bad game ’cause it wasn’t. It was good, very good in fact, but ultimately, for me at least, it lacked something that Torchlight 2 has in spades – soul. It was like Diablo 3 was so polished, so perfectly inspected, considered, trimmed and balanced that in the process Blizzard forgot to give it any sort of personality or identity. They were so busy trying to force people down their singular vision of gameplay that the game ended up being slightly hollow as an ironic side effect. From its ridiculously easy nature and lack of character customisation to permanent online restriction and game-breaking Auction House, D3 was over-thought and over-worked. Torchlight 2, in comparison, is rough and ready, a by-product of a smaller team and a lower budget and, as a result, it’s a better game for it.

From the minute you load up T2, you’re absorbed and (purposefully) knowing very little about the game, I spent a good 30 minutes on the character creation screen just fiddling around with different customisation options and trying to decide on a class to play. The feral Berserker, the cool and calculating Embermage, the maverick Gunslinger or the steampunk inspired Engineer? I went with the latter and rolled Miles Mayhem (5 geek points to anyone who gets the reference), a Victorian-esque Engineer (I just couldn’t resit that hammer) accompanied by his faithful bulldog, Thompson. Two minutes later I was smashing stuff with a giddy sense of glee that I never got in that other game of a similar nature, a feeling of excitement that built up into a full-blown yell of delight when I realised that I could also wield double-barrel shotguns and massive, devastating hand cannons as well.

And that’s one of the many reasons why T2 is so great. Instead of trying to craft the perfect Skills and Runes system, it sticks to a traditional skill tree approach and gives you novel, fun and unusual combinations instead. The Engineer class is everything from a two-handed melee machine to a sword and board tank to a group support specialist to a huge gun totting Victorian nut job. Likewise, the game doesn’t patronise you and let you endlessly respec on the fly – instead, you can only go back and undo the last three skills chosen so you’d better make those selections count. It’s almost seems brutal in this day-and-age but it creates so many more considered decisions because of it. I miss those in games.

I could also go on about how T2 is actually challenging to play, superbly paced, and beautifully stylised and designed but I won’t. I imagine you can already tell that I think it’s a great game. Of course, it doesn’t redefine the genre or bring anything particularly original to the table but then not many games do these days. Instead, it takes the hack-and-slash action RPG concept that we all know and love and produces one of the finest games the genre has ever seen, a true successor to the Diablo franchise in every sense. Indeed, if there’s anything that makes me feel slightly sad, it’s wondering what the guys at Runic Games could’ve done if they’ve had their hands on that nostalgic IP instead of being forced to invent a new one.

Finally, did I mention that it’s only £14.99/$19.99? Well, it’s only £14.99/$19.99! That’s an entire third of the price I paid for of Diablo 3. A third. But it’s not like I’m the bitter type who would make a big deal about that. That money also buys you LAN support and DRM free offline play. What will they think of next?

So, to summarise, Torchlight 2 is great. Go buy it.

-Gordon

Original post from: We Fly Spitfires - MMORPG Blog

You Should Buy Torchlight 2

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