How to get more tanks in WoW

Tanks. A perennial shortage. A new tank-capable class didn’t fix the shortage. Dual-specialization did little to address the lack of role. So what now?

First up is to analyze why. Now, most people would blame it on Protection being poor for solo PVE, and while I’d normally agree, Dual-specs changed the landscape. A tank can now hop into his DPS spec and off he goes butchering mobs aplenty. So this can’t be the problem. The next logical conclusion is that tanking is too hard. But in reality, it’s easier than ever. Bar a few really challenging gimmick fights, there really shouldn’t be any reason no-one would want to tank heroics. They’re faceroll territory.

There are two reasons, I believe, that tanks are still rare. One, they need two vastly different sets of gear. Contrast this with caster dps/healer hybrids, which can share many pieces of loot between roles. It’s clear that something similiar needs to happen with tanks. There should be less of a need to stack defense, for example. Being able to switch to a prot spec while utilising much of your current DPS ghear would go a long way to making tanking much more accesible to the common man.

The second reason is PVP. Despite some strides, tank specs still perform poorly in PVP in WoW. PVP has become all about burst damage, cc and heals. Now, obviously, you can’t give tanks burst damage. But I think WoW could take a lesson from WAR, and consider making tanks better at CC and perhaps damage prevention. Tanks in WAr had a buff they could place on a friendly player that would divert a percentage of damage taken by that player to the tank. Coupled with the powerful CC that WAR’s tanks have – knockbacks and knockdowns and powerful, debilitating debuffs – made tanks in WAR highly valuable in RVR. There’s little reason I can think of that the same cannot be done for WoW.

Fact is, many if not most WoW players tend to dabble in both PVE and PVP, and the type of playstyle that they enjoy in PVP is generally echoed in their PVE gameplay. DPS is relevant in PVP. Healing is downright godly in PVP. But tanking is rubbish. This is a huge disparity, one that needs to be addressed.

 

Ego

Ego. A simple word. It’s also the biggest reason WoW remains such a runaway success. In WoW, every action you take is done in an effort to inflate your ego. Gear, Recount meters, being the Best Tank(TM), etc. Everything else takes a back seat to the all important Ego.

People complain about the old content being outdated? What made it outdated? The mechanics are still the same, and at the appropriate level they’re still a challenge. The simple reality? People won’t go back and do old content – no matter how amazing it is – for the simple reason that doing so inflates their ego in no way. No gear upgrades. No phat lewts that make your e-peen that fraction of an inch larger. No cool, exclusive mount to flaunt. I’ll bet 50 bucks if Heroic Dungeons and Riads didn’t drop the better loot and extra badges, that they wouldn’t be anywhere nearly as popular as they are.

Again I realised that human nature is all too often an ugly, evil, selfish thing. Something as simple as petulant human greed can invalidate so much quality content, so much hard work, and so much potential fun to be had. So many new players wil lgo through this game never experiencing the awesome of facing down the Firelord or battling the Old God of Death. Why? Because there’s nothing in it for them? Apparently, cool experiences are no longer enough. Then again, have they ever been? The fact that Blizzard even got away with ToC, a single-roomed bland 10mx10m square block of grey as a raid encounter, illustrates this so clearly, so matter-of-fact poignantly. The reality is that Blizzard could, in the here and now, package a box of excrement and the general public would eat it up. As long as it dropped Fat EpixXxXx…

Today, in re-realising this, I lost a bit of the sense of wonder and magic of World of warcraft. And it’s nobodies fault but our own. Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride. Oh yes, we’ve got the bases covered, yes sir. And it’s a tragedy of sorts. There’s nothing noble in our fascination with this game. We like to think we indulge out of a sense of community. To help our fellow man. To progress as a team. To fight great evils buried beneath the earth. But when the chips are down.. when you scratch away the gloss, it’s only the ugliness of humanities most basic evils that oozes through.  All in the pursuit of Ego.

WAR, the next Tabula Rasa?

Well, the news hit the fan yesterday so to speak, with word of Mythic losing 80 personnel, around 40% of it’s staff, to layoffs courteousy of EA aka The Great Satan. Word in the grapevine is that this compromises a large chunk of people responsible for content, and that the RvR MMORPG is going into ‘maintenance mode’.

I believe this is a death knell for the game. An MMORPG without constant injections of new content is an MMORPG that is effectively a Dead Man Walking. The reality is that most of WAR’s subscribers are already bored of the existing content. What the game needed now, as soon as the major bugs and issues got fixed – which they were – was an expansion. A third playable faction (Skaven or something), the readdition of the missing capitals, and an overhaul of the PVE (more Gunbads and Lost Vales, a lot more) to bring it in line or at least close to something like WoW or LotrO.

But that won’t happen now. With Mythic losing effectively almost half of it’s workforce, the writing’s on the wall. In fact, I expect the studio to simply be absorbed into Bioware sooner or later. Great for Bioware, bad for the rest of us still hoping to see a resurgence of WAR.

I guess it looks like I’ll be letting my subscription lapse once more. This time, it looks like it’ll be the last time. The final nail in the coffin.

GG EA, what we really need, after all, is more Madden. Amirite?

Holiday seasons are not MMO seasons

It seems, to me at least, that this holiday season seems destined to be bereft of new-mmo-goodness. The titles we were all looking forward to (and which have, arguably, dissapointed in delivering what they promised) have been released, have been running a month or two, and there is little to look forward to for the remainder of ‘09. On the flip side, we’re facing a deluge of quality single player content. Borderlands, Dragon Age:Origins, Torchlight, Modern Warfare 2 and much, much more coming up have resulted in many seasoned mmo vets hanging up their grinding-boots and having a go at a good old solo adventuring.

It seems to me that MMORPG’s tend to capitalise on the between times, those hollow stretches of time in between the latest and greatest, glitzy big names in the gaming industry releasing their latest testaments to cinematic storytelling and gorgeous graphics. Am I on to something here? Is there a reason that almost every MMO I can think of in recent history, has released just prior to the end of year or well before Spring Break etc, instead of smack in the middle? The only title I can think of that bucked the trend, was Wrath of the Lich King. It really does seem that, as much press as MMO gaming gets these days, unless you’re playing WoW, the genre remains something of a niche, grabbing at the coattails of big daddy Xbox/PS3. We’ve still got a looooong way to go.

Borderlands. Do we even need MMO’s?

So I recently clambered aboard the Borderlands bandwagon, a little late but better than never. It’s too early to do a review, and frankly there’s little point – everyone loves this gem of a game. But I will say this : Borderlands oozes fun and addictability.

And of course, multiplayer. You can experience Borderlands in 4 player persistent co-op and enjoy a complete romp through the campaign with between 1 and 3 other friends.

And the thought struck me. Why do we even need to play MMORPG’s in a world where a game like Borderlands exists? Think about it. Most of the time we play MMO’s solo while levelling. When we group up, group sizes are usually around 5 to 6 people. With Borderlands, we can enjoy a group experience of 4 people, all the time. And we can do it while enjoying all the regular draws of playing an MMORPG. Phat loot upgrades. Levelups and XP. Customizable skill trees. Quests. (Re-)Spawning mobs. Everything. Borderlands plays like an MMORPG in first person perspective… except it’s not. In many ways, it’s better. It has no subscription fee. It has an offline single player mode. And by it’s very nature, you can exclude all the random idiots that plague MMORPG’s.

So, why do we play MMORPG’s, when we could boot up Borderlands, grab a couple of friends and hook up online or even over LAN? The only conclusion I could come to is that MMO’s give us three things. (1) Endless replayability and almost limitless lifetime. (2) A community larger than merely a small group of friends. (3) And competitiveness. My Axe is Bigger/Purpler than Yours.

With Borderlands, You’d finish the campaign co-op and probably never give the game a second thought, and if your buddies aren’t available you’re kinda left to your own devices. And there’s a lack of e-peen because once the ride’s over.. what’s the point? All the game needs to rectify all of these, though, is an ‘official’ ladder mode ala Diablo via Battle.Net, complete with an ‘LFG’ lobby system where you could hook up with people in your level range online. Hell the game has it’s own form of gladiatorial PVP. Implement ranks and pvp ladder, and you’d suddenly give people a reason to keep at it, keep grinding more levels, better gear. It’s really simple. Diablo was an online multiplayer smash hit for decades. It had no crafting. No massively multiplayer open world. No fancy quests. But it had that whole ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ vibe along with reasons to compete that seeps from every orifice of an MMO like WoW. If Borderlands had that…I for one would find little reason to log back into Azeroth.

And this is why I think that Diablo 3 and Battle.Net 2.0 is going to have a major impact not only on WoW’s subscription rates, but the MMO industry as a whole. I think Borderlands already might have, but none have really realised or acknowledged it.  Have we possibly witnessed the birth of a precedent? Of a new age? I think we may have. I’ll go out on a limb here – if, in a couple months, maybe a year or two, we find ourselves spoilt for choice for co-op rpg games? I’ll point to this post.

“Massively Multiplayer”? I think, maybe, it’s overrated.

Whats been goin on

Been a while since I’ve blogged, so here’s a quick and dirty update as to why

-Been trying to learn the guitar, which eats up spare time.
-Been playing mainly WoW on the mmo front (WAR’s on the backburner, Aion got cancelled), and went back to my mage from my DK. Respecced Arcane for both pve and pvp. Fun and powerful spec.
-Bought Borderlands. I’ve got a post lined up on this, and how it ties into MMORPG’s…watch this space…

Aion : Shortest honeymoon ever

Allow me to link The World’s Shortest Aion Review.

This is pretty much how I feel about the game now. It’s ironic, when I started out I thought to myself, ‘hey this is a pretty game and looks pretty solid.” It’s ironic because Warhammer took most people at least a month or even three to lose hope (hope which is slowly returning…). But Aion? I was over it in 3 days.

Take WoW. Remove the Blizzard Secret Recipe. Add a copypasta’d third party graphics engine, some goofy asian design and reduce the world/zone size and content by 200% and you’d be left with Aion. Toss in some extra doses of lag, weird disconnection issues and avatars that all move the same & chant the same words while casting spells etc, and ladle in tons of goldspam and lousy translation/localisation for extra, ahem, ‘flavour’, and this is what you’re left with. A weird, alien mashup ‘mess’ that completely and disastrously fails to inject you into a world. It’s a pretty fun and attractive game, sure, but as a virtual universe for you to spend your hours developing your character and spending time with friends? I just… don’t know. There’s something missing from this game. WoW has it, WAR almost has it (just a pity about the bugs/balancing/etc issues that persisted for way, way too long), but Aion doesn’t.

Scratch away the shiny veneer and you’re left staring at a gaping, pustulant boil of an experience. Save your money, go outside and wait a couple months for Cataclysm or w/e.

WAR 1.3.2 to bring massive performance improvements?

Werit has some video and commentary up on his testing results on the 1.3.2 PTS server, and it looks very, very promising indeed. This may be the swinger, because as much as I’ve enjoyed Aion’s look and feel, some of the quirks and particularly the PVE grinding aspect and tiny, crowded, linear zones do not appeal. The more I play Aion, the more I want to just play WoW instead, and that’s a bit of a problem. Whereas the more I play WAR, the more I wanna go out there and thump skulls. The more I want to play WAR. It’s an entirely different kind of experience, and the only thing holding me back from dedicating more time to it was the bleak outlook of a laggy, unbalanced Tier4. If the performance issues are fixed and if they sort out the AoE balancing…sky’s the limit I think.

But don’ take my word for it – go ‘ave a looksee.

The Enduring Allure of the Death Knight

Patch 3.3 is coming and with it some rebalancing of Unholy, but little else for Death Knights. Meanwhile mages are getting single-stack Scorch and permanent Water Elemental Glyph, among others. It’s increasingly tough for me, from a powergamer point of view, to stick with the DK rather than going back to my mage.

For the past few months it’s been the same, many other classes getting buff after buff while Death Knights get nerfed or ignored. Now, this ain’t a QQ post – most of the DK nerfs to this day have been deserved and the class has needed some finetuning to get it where it is now. And yet one would have expected a lot of angry rerolls by now. I’m sure some have. But DK’s continue to be the most over-represented and popular class in WoW. Why is this, considering it’s no longer the most overpowered class in the game (not by a long shot). In fact, DK’s are posting very poor numbers in Arena PVP, and in PVE they no longer make the best tanks or top DPS.

Three things. Aesthetic, mechanic, and ease of entry. Most people who rolled their first toons, would pick a paladin. And invariably go Ret. The allure of a plate clad spellslinging 2-hander wielding warrior is probably the first thing on any male’s mind when they roll a toon. At least, any powergamer. Pallies seem to have it all – tough, strong, can heal. Death Knights are simply the ‘dark’ paladin of the game and share much of the same aesthetic, except all spooky and evil like. The flip side, mechanic, means that some of the abilities that a DK has, regardless of whether they’re OP or not, are incredibly fun. Most anyone who rolled a DK alt for the first time and Death Gripped something likely immediately fell in love with it. Being a  plate wearer and having a pet also seems like it’s too good to be true. These mechanics of seeming-overpoweredness attract people to the class in droves. Lastly, ease of entry. When picking an alt, being able to pick one 54 levels ahead of any other class is a huge draw card. It’s incredibly hard not to click on that DK icon on the start new character screen.

Death Knights will continute to be the dominant class in Wrath of the Lich King, but with Cataclysm all that may change. Well, at least here’s hoping.

Aion First Impressions

After yesterdays brief intro to the game and the subsequent bit of gushing, I spent the most part of yesterday playing Aion and getting a better feel for it. Mostly thanks to EU Battle.Net being borked and me not being able to log into WoW. Nice one Blizz.

Anyhoo, Aion is nice. I’m not going to say great. I’m going to say.. nice. It’s quirky and weird in terms of it’s world – this doesn’t really feel like your traditional fantasy MMO even though it clearly is fantasy – perhaps more so than WoW (you won’t find any mechano-hogs for example – no steampunk). The feeling I got was a sort of, Final Fantasy (the single player games) meets WoW. Now, I’ve never played Final Fantasy Online, so I don’t know if Aion bears any resemblance to it.

At any rate, I’m liking the feel. It’s all very pretty. And while I’m loathe to say it’s better than WoW in terms of the looks department – Blizzard still nails texturing and has their own patented stylisation that scrathes a certain itch most of us share – it is deliciously psychedelic. Aion’s developers weren’t afraid to splurge on colour, and as a result one feels like you’re skipping through a magical world of ponies and unicorns while on acid. Except the unicorns are voracious carnivores and there’s likely a legion of Asmodians hiding behind that rainbow waiting for the right moment to jump you and remove your spleen.

I’ll come right out off the bat. This game is not better than WoW. It’s not more polished than WoW. It probably struggles to maintain even the hint of the same ballpark. For an established eastern game (it’s been what, nearly a year now?) this game seems to struggle with it’s netcode (I suffer some rather unpleasant rubberbanding), some text/fonts look broken, and what I’ve seen of the early world thus far looks themeparkish and linear (as opposed to WoW’s Azeroth which has never, ever given me that feeling – as a noob I’d routinely get lost simply exploring the starting areas, not so in Aion). I was also treated to my first queue, a lovely 20 minute wait. Hmmmm.

For it’s foibles, the game gets a lot right. For one, cahracter customization is a blast. I saw some really cool, some really weird looking characters out there. While technically the game sports only 2 races, the degree to which you can customize your avatar means you can create something quite unique. Naturally most people go for the perfect looking prettyboy/girl, but at least the possibility exists for you to play the wildcard. Secondly, animations and movement are top notch. I spoke about ’stickiness’, and I’ll stick to my guns on that (har har). Lastly, everything just seems to work. I didn’t encounter any broken quests, retarded NPC AI(nothing to write home about but at least it’s functional), server instability, major bugs or anything of the sort. The game is Not A Beta(TM). Whether or not I’d called it polished though, that’s another story. 

I’m in a bit of a quandary right now because I can see myself playing Aion quite a bit, it has grabbed me, something Champions Online simply couldn’t do. On the flip side, I’m still highly invested in WoW, and Mythic has been promising so many good things with Warhammer that I’d like to see them deliver. But 3 MMO’s? Simply unsustainable. Something has to give. Right now it looks like WAR might be the one losing out, but I still have a month of time left, which is coincidentally how much free time I got with my Aion purchase. So the next 30 days decides which of the two, Aion or WAR, becomes my ‘mistress’ MMO.