The Adventure Begins

So I’ve gotten off my too sat upon ass to brave the elements, mostly the sun, and drove to the nearest game store to buy another MMORPG. It doesn’t matter which one I choose because they will all start of the same. Upon getting back home I can open the shiny box with its grand promises of PvP and raids and a vast fantasy world to find a sad lonely DvD case and a small fat book. Upon inserting the CD into my computer it will ask me multiple times if I wish to install the game, eventually it will giving in to me clicking Yes multiple times in a row and finally start an installer window with a progress bar. While installing it will flash me screenshot of epic fights and faraway lands and a whole load of other bullshit that no player will ever seen done so artistically. At first one might think that installing the game is enough, but HA they fooled you didn’t they because you gotta patch that sucker up before they let you play. At this point its best to hope they made their patcher window pretty because its all you’ll see of the game for several days, and just like a strip teaser it lets you think its ready to finally pull off the patcher and show you the game, but that never happens because it downloads each update as a separate file rather than in one big chunk.

Now when the patcher has finished doing its job tormenting your mind and making you want to strangle the life out of it, the game can be launched. Whenever I launch an MMO for the first time I prepare to see the logos of everyone who ever so much as sneexed in the direction of the game during developement, each logo has to be animated and shiny too just like a 60s diner. After the logos comes a prerendered cutscene that has two jobs: first it must show the game’s graphics to be amazing, second it must show the game’s combat to be viserval and awesome. And while this cutscene is busy humping my head and ejaculating into my eyesockets I can only sit there on the verge of tears knowing that this is the most story I’ll ever get out of the game. After the cutscene is over the gerbil powering the story wheel dies off and starts to spin the wheel on inertia alone until its fury little body becomes too light and it just flops down and stops moving.

The Art of Crafting

The Art of Crafting

Let me be the first to admit it. I HATE crafting in MMO’s. Pure and simple.

I have really tried to love it. Honest. But, crafting? She is a cruel mistress. Tedious gathering, tedious button pushing, tedious thumb twiddling as you wait for a bar to move across the screen…yup, I have seen all kinds.

I have heard there are some great versions of crafting in some MMO’s, but I thought that initially about Everquest 2 and its mini game. Eventually I grew to hate it.

Yea, I hate crafting overall I guess.

Most games have a simple “get your ingredients, press a button, and let the item be made” system (World of Warcraft). But, WHY must I do it?

WHY must I craft?

It has been stated that it equals several things in the MMO.  It is a “downtime” attribute to the genre. It creates something to do while not adventuring or looking for groups. It allows you to make goods for you to sell or use. It also is a time sink, which helps the developers get your hard earned cash. And a money sink for the economy for people to throw away their cash for as they play (buying the ingredients or the gear being made).

A lot of times though, I never get anything that useful from crafting that a reward from a quest or drop from a boss has not been able to outdo.  Yes, I know there are some great items you can make…but, man oh man…I like killing more than twiddling my numkeys staring at myself fondling some crafting station.

Recently in my MMO of choice, they have taken a different tactic to crafting that actually does not make me hate it (too much). Age of Conan (AoC) has a crafting system that does not kick in until level 40 (there are 80 levels in the game BTW). There is no need to make gear or other items that mean nothing to you until you hit level 40.

I like that.

You can start gathering materials and exploring the “resource” instance at level 20 though.

Yes, you read that right. You enter a “Resource instance” to gather. Yes you can do it in the real adventure zones, but why do that when you are actually playing the fun part of the game…adventuring.

Anyways, a person enters a specific zone, and can run around to gather the materials accorded their level. You complete quests for specific types of resources (woodcutter, stonecutter, etc.). As you gather, you may be accosted by various mobs, which you then must battle to get back to the resource. But, that is it until level 40.

Now, some people question why wait so long? I don’t, as I rather enjoy not needing to find out how to get started crafting, how to do all the gathering and making the goods, as I am still learning my class (oh yea, and doing that fun thing again…adventuring).

Crafting also has this nagging problem, to me anyways, of taking me out of my adventure. Oh…I mentioned that…he he.

I am the hero of this adventure, yet I must stop saving the world to waggle my hands around in the air to make some potions or complete tasks for others to get them their gear. Are there not NPC’s for that?

Guild Wars did this successfully.

Guild Wars to me, was another game that got crafting right. The simplicity of their system just made the crafting part of the game a gem. Why is it awesome? I don’t have to “waggle” “fondle” or get out of adventure mode.

I get junk as I quest, and I can use purchased equipment to break down that junk to core components and then trade them in TO A CRAFTING NPC, and get what I want.

I am not involved except in gathering junk. In the field, I can break down that junk to pieces of wood or iron ingots, etc, etc., and move on. I do not need to pretend to cut trees or mine ore, etc. which can prove to get boring after a bit.

Cue AoC. Did I not say I must enter an “instance” to go gather? Again, I am relegated to gathering, but in a different way. Remember what I stated earlier? The gathering involves some risk as you may be attacked in the field or even run into various groups of mobs camping specific areas,,(even some higher level than you, and one instance also has a RAID BOSS *gulp*).

This takes away from the tedious nature of gathering my goods and helps alleviate boredom as the attacks wake you right from watching that bar moving across the screen which represents the time taken to gather the resource. I know this can happen in other MMO’s also as you adventure in the “real” zone and mobs are strewn about and may be near your resource…but, what is the difference? You start to learn ways to avoid those mobs, and eventually it becomes tedious trying to avoid to get the resource…while in AoC, it can happen at any time… no warning, you are jumped.

The instance also acts as a hub of XP, as you are always attacked by your level of mob. AoC uses something called Fresh Kills (which is like Rested XP, etc in other MMO’s) . You can have up to 20 Fresh Kills of mobs matching your level. This doubles their XP given when killed. I will usually wait until this activates before heading to a gather instance, so I maximize my kills as I gather. Novel eh?

I know some Crafting apologist will read this and go “But Crafting is fun?”. Yep, so is watching paint dry…but at least I had the fumes there to make me feel like it WAS fun…*buzz*…

Maybe I need to be medicated to craft? (*Calls his local psychologist* More Vicoden plz!)

In all actuality, I wish crafting would go away. I just keep looking back at all of my experience in single player RPG’s and hardly remember a time I NEEDED to craft (the closest may be socketing a gem in Diablo or something..), but, so far, I have yet to find a “perfect” implementation of crafting that makes me go “Gee whiz, this is awesome sir”.

If it has to exist, maybe we need to look at the two simple implementations noted above in Age of Conan or Guild Wars, and mix it with some EQ2 mini game fun. But maybe less tedious?

For now, if I can get away with it, I will not craft. But, if I NEED to, I wish they would make it less tedious (Guild Wars) or less of a grind (Age of Conan).

Now, back to the real fondling…uh, I mean ADVENTURING!

Let me be the first to admit it. I HATE crafting in MMO’s. Pure and simple. I must NOT be an artist.

I have really tried to love it. Honest. But, crafting? She is a cruel mistress. Tedious gathering, tedious button pushing, tedious thumb twiddling as you wait for a bar to move across the screen…yup, I have seen all kinds.

I have heard there are some great versions of crafting in some MMO’s, but I thought that initially about Everquest 2 and its mini game. Eventually I grew to hate it.

Yea, I hate crafting overall I guess.

Most games have a simple “get your ingredients, press a button, and let the item be made” system (World of Warcraft). But, WHY must I do it?

WHY must I craft?

My Experience: Naxxramas

My Experience is a column about first time experiences in any MMO events such as; raiding, PvP, siege, and etc…

Today I finaly got a chance to blog on here. It is my first time and so far from what I see I’m enjoying it. It has a nice set up yet is really simple to use.

Now back to the topic, I am a lvl 80 warrior from Zangarmash Alliance. My guild has just started raiding and for the first time in Naxxramas we got two quarters down (Spider and Plague Wing). Sadly for that raid I was not invited because I did not have the gear for the run.

Finaly today I got in the raid and it ended in one whipe on Grobbulus. It was not a bad whipe though, I understood the main concept of the fight. To my surpise it was fun and not as easy as everyone says but I beleave the main reason why it was hard for us because we had about three under geared raiders. For my gear, I was pulling 1.7k DPS without trying.