I bought Battlefield Bad Company 2 for 6.75! And Now I'm Done With It! :)

Of the modern warfare, unrealistic, fun fun in the Sun multiplayer shooters, Battlefield Bad Company 2 is critically considered the best. This is so because the NYTimes video game critic Seth Schiesal said so, and he is God.

Gleefully I waited four hours for BBC2 to down and load onto my PC, and, after playing it for ten hours, I am glad to say that I am never going to play it again.

"Why?" I, my only reader, ask myself as I read this post I've written. Well, it's because I get it. I played it, played every map, understood that the weapons you unlock are pretty similar (with the main difference being that some are good and some are suicide). The game sounds great over a sub-woofer. And the coolest thing about the game is that you can blow up everything except people. Wait. Actually, that's lame. Also I just remembered that, even when I played badly, I ranked among the top five on my team because I'm awesome (this is not good because it means that basically I'm at the top of the game and have no skill-based progress to make. Being awesome sucks :(

Anyways, I'm done with it. I don't want to learn how to fly the helicopters. And also I don't like how the game makes me feel sick after playing it for an hour (this is a big turn off for some people). I think it may be because, now and then, the frame rate dips under 30fps. Or maybe it's because I keep feeling disoriented while playing, since everything during battle constantly changes, causing me to focus super intensely, causing me to stop breathing, causing my brain to have damage. Could be that.

Any who, I'm done with it. I'm not going to play it ever again. Unless one of my friends wants to play it with me, or until I can get its Vietnam War-themed expansion for a discount. My friends and I could form one of those four man squads, and not talk to each other because talking is too distracting and leads to failure.

Why I won't finish off Super Meat Boy

I stopped playing Super Meat Boy (no it's not what you think Chrystal) because, after a while, it evolved into being the same experience over and over again. And it's too long (no Chrystal). But it's not really too hard (Chrystal).

It just gets too samey over time. I don't care that it has an original story (it has squirrel genocide); I don't care how good the music and artwork are; I don't even care that the gameplay is super tight.

Actually, one of the problems is its celebrated gameplay! Which has one, big, throbbing inadequacy: Succeeding in Super Meat Boy means, to a large extent, memorizing the various positions you must get your avatar to, and at what exact moments. You have to memorize and precisely, PERFECTLY jerk your controller's buttons to get Super Meat Boy from one position to another, until you cross the map; and you will do this a billion times, going back and forth, back and forth -- restarting and doing it again! This is the case on most maps. And the game is entirely composed of maps. And I think there are 300 of them.

Although my desire to suck this hard game down prematurely came to an end -- Those of you who have an XBOX 360 controller, I recommend that you buy Super Meat Boy, and beat him! Because, as gratuitously hard and long as it can be, Super Meat Boy has a lot of love to give you, and for a low price (15 bucks, and sometimes less!).

The Problem with PC Gaming

In comparison to Console gaming, I usually say PC gaming kicks console ass. Because it does. But! there is one area where it doesn't kick console gaming ass. (Or two areas if you count the Rock Band factor)

I'm talking about the way PC gaming makes you sit. Yes. Many PC gamers consider the way PC gamers sit one of the master race-making qualities of PC gaming (this I learned from Computer Gaming World, a defunct magazine). But let's be real, bitches. Most of us sit like PC gamers too much in other activities! For example, work stuff. Or me typing this (actually I'm in bed sitting on my heels). Driving. Getting your social security number stolen so that once you get back from volunteering in Costa Rica for one year, you realize that you have to spend like three months freeing yourself from fraud. Etc.

Console gaming doesn't have this problem. The stereotype image of the person lying down on the couch, all comfortable, is not necessarily the most beautiful image, but it's healthier than hours of back pain-creating sitting, each day, followed by X more hours of back pain-creating sitting.

In short, the problem with PC gaming is that: Back pain can be painful. For your back.

(But some games are better on PC)

Company of Heroes Online Vs. StarCraft 2

I still think SC2 multiplayer is more fun than Company of Heroes Online. SC2 matches are faster paced, and that game has more players with which to make balanced matches; these qualities make it much more likely for the SC2 player to get into a perfect state of Flow [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology) ].

Plus, StarCraft II may actually become a balanced game. Company of Heroes Online will always be like this: If the German players survive long enough and get enough resources to upgrade all their units to veterancy lvl 3, than the American players are at a disadvantage, as each American unit or squad gains veterancy only by killing enemy units, and when a squad gets veterancy-upgraded, only THAT squad gets THAT veterancy upgrade, the one it has earned. The Germans buy their veterancy in bulk while the Americans earn their veterancy per unit. Relic's balancing answer seems to be that: the Americans have a stronger early game, so they can contain the German players into a smaller part of the map, making it less likely for the German players to be able to afford veterancy upgrades; plus the American players, while they dominate the map, can set up traps all over the place. Also, the American players tend to have better access to artillery.

But despite SC2's fun and balance advantages, Company of Heroes Online (this free game I recommend you not play because it is half as addictive as Diablo and WoW) has more tactical depth than SC2, better sound design, realistic graphics (not necessarily better), and is 90% micro, 10% macro (while SC2 is half and half); the nice thing about this is that the 10% macro is pretty much spent on actual strategy, an ideal difference from SC2's pressing-buttons-a-zillion-times-to-get-more-units-building or getting unit-producing structure #10 built; although, many players LOVE mashing those buttons.

I'd say that the artificial intelligence of both games is equally smart. Both games feature a retarded unit (the German's motorbike, the Protoss's Immortal). Neither game features a useless unit.

I read somewhere that the original Company of Heroes took Relic Entertainment as long as it took Blizzard to develop StarCraft II. Five years. That's a lot of life dedicated to making an RTS game! Good thing both games turned out awesome

Company of Heroes Online Final Beta Review: MMORTSRPG

StarCraft was my favorite RTS until Company of Heroes was my favorite RTS until StarCraft II was my favorite RTS until Company of Heroes Online didn't become my favorite RTS but rather got close 2nd place. And now that that introduction is over, I say: Relic (the developer who made this game) is unleashing on we non-Asia RTSers this MMORPG after a year of testing in the East. Will this game blitzkrieg its way into our hearts? Or will it lick balls?

(Random animation of children.)

If you haven't played Company of Heroes before, then you were really smart, because Company of Heroes Online is FREE. It features basically the same graphics as that game, and it comes with the great Company of Heroes singleplayer campaign. So you should play it now! Stop reading!

Uh I mean basically, you were smart to see into the future and say, "This almost-perfect, $50.00, man-killing game will be free and not incredibly annoying to play online (I'll explain your reasoning later)." CoH Online even includes a non-existence of the balance-destroying Panzer Elite and Brits (it only comes with the Americans and the Wehrmacht) and thus, the CoH multiplayer experience no longer feels like pulling out your own teeth, especially because people have better PCs now; people lag out and drop out a lot less now; Relic Online may be more sophisticated this time. (This is not a Games For Windows game, by the way).

I mention the multiplayer so much because it's CoH Online's meat and replay value.

Like most good games, CoH Online is built on its gameplay, which is the same gameplay (and same multiplayer maps) as the previous Company of Heroes-es. Every multiplayer match begins with you and your enemy on opposite sides of a map; everyone begins with a headquarters building and a builder unit (two or three manly men) who can do many a thing, like build other buildings, lay barbwire and tank traps and mines, garrison civilian buildings, capture sectors. Capturing sectors is the way by which you increase your resource-getting rate (captured points passively augment your resources). And sectors are, essentially, parts of the map, and in the middle of each sector is one of the three types of capture points: a manpower one, a munitions one, or a gas one. All infantry can capture these points. And the manpower ones are the fastest to capture and recapture (and uncapture), while the gas ones take the longest. The catch is: your opponents can capture your points from you as you can theirs; and the sectors you've captured must be connected by another sector(s) to your base in order to augment your resources, which means intense battling. This catch can be upped a notch if you play a "critical points" match, matches in which there are three critical points that can be captured, but instead of yeilding resources, tick down, from 500 to zero, the points of your opponent. (The other way to win is to annihilate your opponent's buildings).

And there are many other catches/cool war things that make the games even more interesting, such as: units can use cover (light and heavy cover); units can fight from buildings; units have special abilities like mine-laying and grenage-throwing and barbwire-laying; you can use armored cars, tanks, off-map and on-map artillery, King Tiger Tanks, Tiger Tanks, German tanks, etc. All these make for intense, non-stop, unit-on-unit, vehicle-on-vehicle action, with realistic graphics (a mid-range PC is needed for massive battles with ultra settings), great sound effects, AI soldiers who crawl to cover and say useful things like "TIGER!" when they are being attacked by a tiger, and blargh!

It's basically the 2006 game, except now you can bring hero units and special abilities and stat-boosting things into a battle, if you've earned them, or bought them (with or without real cash). You level up your hero units in battles (and they can level up five times, and stay leveled up from one battle to the next), and you yourself can level up; the higher you are, the better and more expensive the RPG stuff you can wield. And leveling up allows you to increase the efficacy of your special abilities as well as get new ones. [Note: I paid 10 dollars for 1,000 CoH points; I've found that, with battles potentially garnering little XP and stat-building progress, it's best to spend your real money on the things that (1) you can only get with real money and (2) on the shwag that doesn't cost much.]

Unlike CoH, in CoH Online, you gain XP for your commander from game to game. I'll explain:

When you start up CoH Online, you select a commander from six commanders. Three German. Three American. All sorta-lively animated in 3D. Every commander wears a different sort of dress but, in their 3D, living portrait, share the same backdrop as their fellow commanders. The German commanders, with the exception of the Blitzkrieg commander, wear either a horse-riding uniform (the Terror Commander) or a wine-drinking contest uniform (Defense Commander). These Germans stand behind a bunker under overcast skies next to a French beach that looks like it could use invading. Meanwhile the American commanders wear homely rags (except the airborne commander, who wears a mohawk, unless you tell him not to, although I haven't tried). These guys stand on the set of Bambi. You can customize your commander's head and skin a little. My Blitzkrieg commander is level 24, and his name is "DeathFart."

When you play the biggest part of CoH Online, the play-with-people-you-don't-know "Rewards" games, which give you extra XP and "requisition" (the stuff you use to heal your heroes and restore your depleted stat-intensifyers), when you play these games, you can't help comparing CoH Online to StarCraft II. It's because, whenever you search for a Rewards game, the Relic cloud looks for the player closest to your skill level (somehow). It can take from zero to five minutes, and when a Rewards match-up is predetermined by the Relic cloud to be unfair, the lesser team or player gets more XP and stuff than their opponents do (and the game tells you to stay alive as long as you can before the match begins). This is actually an ingenious way to keep the few existing CoH players from feeling bored or frustrated from winning and losing too much.

CoH Online has custom games (games you can set up with friends or with the computer or both). They are not very custom-like; it's not the StarCraft II editor.

It's easy to compare CoH Online to StarCraft II. These games represent the best of the genre. They both have their minimaps on the bottom left and their interface, unit-directions buttons on the right. They both require lots of micro. They both feature unit caps. And more! Both games are so well-designed that I can't really say one is better than the other; at least, once CoH Online gets its replay system working ... Well actually there is one thing: try to avoid going into CoH Online thinking that you will be playing it because of how much of an e-sport it is (and not just because going into battles with or without your heroes and stuff basically wrecks balance). Even though you could just set up a game with someone who is about your skill level, and agree not to bring heroes and stuff, nothing nullifies the fair game-destroyer that is this: CoH cannot produce fair matches because it uses chance-based systems (heavy cover, for example, lowers the chance of a unit of getting hit by most enemy fire by 50%). This is a game where luck is important. StarCraft II doesn't do so much chance. In that game you see things like, "6 damage," and "3 defense."

Personally, I find StarCraft II more fun than the Company of Heroes games. But with Company of Heroes Online around, SCII won't be the only RTS I play.

Company of Heroes Online: MMORTSRPG

I've interrupted my getting-the-expert-achievements-in-the-Left-4-Deads-for-PC-Of-Course! by trying out the CoH Online Beta. It's a beta in the sense that you can now pay actual cash in it to buy virtual things, and also in the sense that it's not really a beta, BUT A FINISHED, FREE PRODUCT! Or at least, as finished as an RTS can be without a decade of balance patches. (I'm looking at YOU everyone who isn't Blizzard!)

Anyways, I wanna write something deep and wet about this game, so I'm going to play L4D(2) less and play this game more, for a bit.

I Don't to Write a StarCraft II Review

Paul's Review of StarCraft II:

It's pretty good. Except the writing.

No seriously I'm vacillating right now. Should I write a StarCraft II review? Have I played enough of it?

So far all I've done are: played more than a billion multiplayer matches, played some of the custom maps, played the campaign on hard difficulty, 'played' all the training stuff for noobs. Yes. Not enough.

But yes. You, my dear existing reader — my real problem with writing a StarCraft II review is: I just don't want to play it anymore (i.e. finish the campaign on brutal and do the missions I missed). I mean, I might play StarCraft II with my friends. Or, if I abandon my dreams, then I may wander into StarCraft II after a few too many. But yeah, basically I don't want to play it anymore because of its story telling.

I just can't get over how boring and uninteresting almost all of the writing is.

You can tell what's really going on as it's imposed on you. Only the few good and bad lines are memorable. The cliché characters are okay (except the stereotype nerd guy; I hope he dies.) The moral choices are, fortunately, evocative (unlike the ones of the Mass Effects, which basically say: this choice is good, this choice is bad); any you choice you make creates good Karma. The cinematics are good, not because of their writing but because of their mise en scène. All the sentences are concise, yet many sentences should not exist. The story features ninjas, (Star Wars Episodes 1-3) Yoda, pirates, zombies, bar fighting, cowboys, Native Americans, the old south, genocide, Giant Mech Suits, Sexy Women with guns and tentacles, etc.

StarCraft II (Wings of Liberty)'s story, you realize, was written to allow 29 missions as the Terran faction, and to appeal to more of the masses.

That is why I don't want to finish it. I'm too much of a snob for it. I'm not sure if I want the expansions anymore. The game is, at this point, merely great.

Nothing in StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is written as well as, for example, this speech from StarCraft:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s48CJL6nMnw&feature=related

The only bad thing about the writing in that speech was the cliché at the end.

Torchlight is not fun

I can't stand it anymore, which means that I won't finish it, which means I won't review it. I sent this email to my friend about it:

"It feels like a grindfest; the story is terrible; and even though it's a game to play once, it's not worth playing once (I say a 24-32 hour game on hard difficulty; I don't want to grind for that long).

The voice acting sounds like it was meant for children (lame children).

And the fact that it doesn't have multiplayer doesn't help it; no one to share the pain with.

Good things about the game: good graphics, levels are easy to navigate without constantly staring at your map (improvement on Diablo II); good music; decent sound effects; cool magic and passively-used skills; cool pet."

Blizzard Global Writing Contest

I'm entering it! Yay! I don't think I'll win, but I don't care because it gives me the excuse I need to write my little story about a Terran Marine officer and his pet Zergling, Zergie. (A tragicomedy)

And if I do win, then it will be awesome because: one) I'd win via my story about a Marine and his pet zergling, and two) I will get to go to Blizzard (for free) and get a Frostmourne Ludicrous Sword of Displaying.

Where have Me Bin?!

In short, the reason why I have not written on Stage Zero lately in the last 8 months is that I've been really really really really really sorta busy. I just haven't had time for games or Stage Zero writing.

And I've really felt this hard, this dearth of computer gaming in general. I've felt it so hard that, since my last blog post, gaming ended up permeating all my papers, including the ones on Shakespeare ("Why StarCraft is better than Hamlet").

Since September, the only games I've been able to play are:

Mass Effect

Mass Effect 2

Left 4 Dead 2

Uncharted 2

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Bayonetta

Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts

Street Fighter 4

The StarCraft II beta (only 1 month of it)

God of War III

some of World In Conflict

some of BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger

some of Virtua Fighter 5

some of Metroid Prime

some of Silent Hill 2

some of Dawn of War 2 with Chaos Rising

some of Rock Band 2

some of Super Smash Brothers Brawl

most of New Super Mario Bros. Wii

most of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Fallout 3 + 2 expansions

A couple dozen hours of Team Fortress 2

So yeah, I just haven't been able to play much. BUT FROM NOW ON things will change. Now I will...end up having to read classics of literature and helping people and then, in December, going abroad to help small, Spanish-speaking children...But don't worry! All is not oppression and pain: a friend just gave me a copy of Torchlight, which is supposedly the best singleplayer, Diablo-style game; this I will play in between teaching children to speak our superior language.

And until the abroadness begins, I will blog every now and then (and probably about gaming). And I will counter my compatriot's WoW obsession with my own oncoming StarCraft II obsession! This way we will feature thorough Blizzard whoring, I promise.

And it's nice to be writing here again. I hope you dear readers have been eating well and stuff.

Revisiting the Auction House

Remember about a month and a half ago when I made that flowchart on how to make money from the auction house? Turns out I still don't have a clue about what I'm doing.

I say this because since I made that flowchart I've made approximately 500 gold in game. That seems like a good chunk of change until I started comparing income with some other classmates. The amount of money they currently have is around 4,000 gold.

So much for my technique huh?

So our in-game assignment for the past week or so has been to manipulate the auction house and try and earn some money. I decided to take advantage of this project by experimenting with my selling style. I started out by buy some wool cloth from the auction house and selling it back at a higher price. Wool cloth was a safe investment because it's always in demand. This is because the cloth can be used to gain reputation with a faction, which allows players to buy and sell items at better prices as well as give them access to special faction specific items. So naturally, I made a decent earning from the cloth I sold. However, I was still unsatisfied with the profit I was making. So I tried something else.

My mage currently holds the professions of herbalism and alchemy. For those who don't know professions are skills characters can learn that allow them to make and sell special items using specific "ingredients." And sometimes these ingredients will sell for larges piles of money at the auction house. Since I had a surplus of herbs that I had yet to use, I tried selling some of those. Within a matter of minutes, a player had bought about 70 gold worth of herbs, which was about 3 times the amount I earned with buying and reselling wool. I immediately began farming some more herbs and made even more money. As for my alchemy profession, I tried selling the potions I had in my repertoire. Let's just say the results left something to be desired.

My experiments with the auction house have left me with a few questions. It was obvious to me that I should keep my herbalism profession because it seems to be making me a decent amount of money. But I'm not sure what to do about alchemy. The reason I picked it was because of how well it works with herbalism in terms of making potions, and supposedly the two professions become vital for mages once they start raiding full-time. But I'm nowhere near raiding level yet with this character, nor do I really plan on raiding for a while (that all really depends on how many people continue playing WoW on the ICAM server after this class is over). Therefore, taking on a more lucrative profession might be better for me.

But what about Lizezul, my main character? He has the same professions, and I plan on raiding a lot with him. And yet, he has less money right now than my ICAM character (although I did spend about 260 gold for Lizezul's flying mount). I'd like to at least say my main has more money than my alt, but leveling another profession at that level would take forever. Something tells me I still have a lot of experimenting to do in the auction house.

And yes, I still hate you Rachel. :p

FOR THE HORDLIANNCE!

The latest assignment for ICAM 120 involved cross faction questing with classmates. This meant that we were supposed to complete quests with another person on our rival faction. And as with many sitcoms about two people who are polar opposites, hilarity ensued.

The first player I grouped with was a classmate by the name of Tephillot. It was through this exercise that I learned how truly difficult Blizzard made it for players to help others in the other faction. The first obstacle was the fact that I could not actually form a group with Teph. In order to actually get any leveling done, we alternated on different quests we had. This often involved killing random creatures, and the first person to attack a mob gets the xp and the loot. As a result, Teph and I had to let the other attack first before we could even help defeat the creature.

And then there's the little fact that Tephillot wasn't protected from my spells. There were several instances where Teph or I were surrounded by creatures. When I'm in a situation like this I usually cast a spell that freezes enemies in place so I can back away and cast a large area of affect spell called blizzard. Unfortunately, when I first tried this method, poor Teph was also frozen and nearly died from my blizzard. I eventually adapted my play style to be more helpful after this incident. Other awkward moments included running away from NPCs who attacked us while the other play turned in a quest, random alliance people killing me before they knew what Teph and I were doing, or even an NPC I had to help on an escort mission chasing after Teph while I had to take down an elite creature by myself.

These are relatively small issues, but it makes me disappointed that Blizzard has put absolutely nothing in place to allow players to quest together across factions. I understand that the factions are designed to encourage PvP competition between players and it makes sense within the Warcraft lore. However, it also limits the possibilities of the virtual space, leaving players with less to do. Also, wouldn't one assume that even in Warcraft lore, there would be characters who could see past faction loyalty and work together towards the greater good for all (player characters, not the NPCs who actually do work together)? Just a thought.

MUDs and WoW

One of the first examples of online real-time virtual worlds were games called multi-user dungeons, or MUDs. These MUDs allowed users to play in a fantasy world in the same vein as games like Dungeons and Dragons, and are considered a precursor to MMORPGs. Despite the advent of games like World of Warcraft, some MUDs are still in operation today. One such MUD is the online game Dragonrealms, which is one of the oldest MUDs still hosting servers today. The biggest difference between a game like Dragonrealms and a game like WoW is the game’s interface. Dragonrealms, and MUDs in general, are entirely text-based. The game presents its world through descriptive text that forces the player to use their imagination. Likewise, every action the player can take must be correctly worded into specific command line arguments the game’s engine can decipher. While these design choices were understandable in times when computers were not powerful enough for color displays, the fact that Dragonrealms remains virtually untouched today is odd. The lack of a GUI gives the game a rather large learning curve as people learn the language and structure necessary to complete any task in the game. As a result the rate of failure in the game is much larger than in WoW. Also, the amount of detail used to describe a player’s location is often rather dense and confusing. Because the player has no visual aid to determine where he is, or where he needs to go, it’s easy to become lost amidst the text. These are all issues that do not exist in WoW thanks to the flow of the game, which is informed by its graphics.

The gameplay and social structure of both games is also incredibly different. World of Warcraft is a much more streamlined experience. The world is already defined through the game’s visuals, and NPCs only exist as merchants or quest givers. Players travel from one region to another, killing enemies, collecting items, and working with other players in order to level their characters. Because Dragonrealms does not have the advantage of pretty graphics, the NPCs play more of a narrative role, describing world elements and teaching the player how to play the game. Grinding in Dragonrealms is almost nonexistent. During my adventures I found no random monsters to fight and I was not forced to collect specific items. However, when I wasn’t grinding, I was struggling with how to squeeze important information from an NPC, so I was still spending ample amounts of time doing nothing.

Socially, WoW is a superior game. The game’s smart use of raids, and group quests encourages players to join together for a common goal. Even though Dragonrealms is a multi-user dungeon, there is little interaction with other players. Not once did I connect or chat with another player. The only clues I got that other players were online were occasional updates that a player entered a room, or was killed. To make matters worse, if I entered a room or town that was actually heavily populated, these updates would zoom past me in the game window, causing me to lose information about my location or what I was supposed to do next. And still nobody said a word to anyone else. It’s true Dragonrealms is WoW’s predecessor in many ways. But the problems found in the game are evident of a genre that desperately needed to evolve.

Adventures in Azeroth #2: Traveling the World or Are We There Yet?

World of Warcraft's travel system sucks.

There's no way of getting around it; of all the critiques and praise I have for the game, traveling is one of the biggest complaints. It makes the game incredibly slow, in places where it really doesn't need to be slow. As a result, players become easily bored or fatigued because it takes forever to get anywhere. So why does Blizzard insist on keeping this system intact? I can think of a couple of reasons:

1. It adds to the game's atmosphere

There's a reason why the game is classified as a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. Part of WoW's design philosophy is to simulate a living, breathing, massive world. When a player travels from place to place, they're not always traveling to the town down the road. Their journey takes them across three continents and another dimension. Making travel time between places long adds to the sense of scale the game is trying to build. Traveling from the top of a continent to the bottom shouldn't be instantaneous because it would make the player feel like each location is crammed next to each other.

Prolonging travel times also serves the purpose of showing off Blizzard's art design. Depending on one's mode of transportation, the game treats the player to some wonderfully done locales, each following a unique motif. This includes:

Dalaran's previous location in the Alterac Mountains complete with weird ethereal aura;

The alien and barren world of Outland with two moons (planets?) in the sky;

Or the Jurassic jungle of Un'Goro Crater where giant dinosaurs will try and eat you if you so much as look at them funny.

Of course Blizzard wants you to take your time and check out all the cool locations, so forcing a player to slowly explore each place allows them to really take in the scenery.

I understand that the game is pretty, and I get the fact that Azeroth is supposed to feel like an entire world. But here's the problem: the structure of the game undermines both of those design elements. Players must constantly backtrack to parts of the world in order to do quests, buy spells, run an instance, etc. If a player must travel to the same places over and over again, they will enjoy their scenic routes once, maybe twice. After that traveling becomes a chore. During long travel times, many players will surf the web, get a snack, or even play another game while they travel to their destination. I'm not trying to say WoW needs to do away with travel times altogether, but something needs to be done so this doesn't happen:

Yep. I'm guilty of that last one too.

2. Traveling as a reward system

Despite these complaints Blizzard does offer in-game items that expedite travel. Every player starts the game with an item called a hearthstone, which allows players to instantly travel to whatever town they've designated as their home. This can reduce travel times between places dramatically if used correctly. Likewise, mages can eventually learn to teleport themselves and others to their faction's capital cities which is especially useful when a player needs to run errands like buying spells or making posts to the auction house.

The mount system also allows players to buy transportation that lets players travel across the world at a much faster pace. As a player levels they can purchase faster mounts as well as ones that fly. Some players also have the opportunity to earn mounts specific to their class or profession. For example, engineers can build a motorcycle complete with a side car so friends can travel with you:
With options like summoning spells, flight points, and mounts, traveling through the game shouldn't be that much of a problem right? Then why does it still take forever for me to get anywhere?

One night some fellow ICAM students and I decided to run an instance with each other. The problem was that we were all spread out across the world. I was on another continent and my hearthstone was not set to the continent I needed to be on. Another person had to walk there because he already used his hearthstone, and hearthstones can only be used once every 30 minutes. To make matters worse, he didn't have the correct flight point for our meet-up. Finally, nobody in our group had mounts at that time and nobody had learned group summoning spells yet. We couldn't summon everyone together until one person made it to the summoning stone just outside of the instance we weren't at. We lost 20-30 minutes of our play time simply because getting everyone to the proper destination was a convoluted mess.

The issue is that these fast travel items are practically useless because of the limitations placed on them. Yes you can instantly transport yourself to a capital and yes your epic flying mount can travel 3.8 times your walking speed, but there's always a catch. These limitations are supposed to balance out travel times but when five players all have a limitation on their mobility and are separated by continents if not planets, then getting anywhere in the World of Warcraft is painstakingly slow.

I just think there is something very wrong with the fact that you can be riding a bear who's driving a motorcycle and it still takes forever to get to your destination:

Plus the damn murlocs are always trying to bum a free ride.

Adventures in Azeroth #1.5: Revisiting the Past or I Remember Doing the Time Warp

Because of this ICAM class I'm taking, I've been forced to start a new WoW character again at level 1. There is one big difference I've noticed this time around though: I actually know what I'm doing. Leveling has been much easier than it was the first time I played the game. Part of this is because Blizzard has made the first 10-20 levels easier to play, but the other half is thanks to the knowledge I've gained in leveling a character all the way to 61. I now understand important in-game concepts like aggro management, talent specialization, and how to work in team situations. As a result, I die substantially less than I did when I was just starting. Also, starting from scratch has taught me to appreciate the usefulness of later spells. I went 20 levels before I acquired my blink spell, and you have no idea how much I hated not being able to distance myself from enemies so quickly. I can definitely appreciate seeing how much my skill has improved over the course of 41 levels.

Of course, none of this is really surprising. One of leveling's purposes (aside from making you pay more money to play the game) is to teach you how to play the game. Once you understand the rules it's easy to start over again. That being said, despite the fact I'm 61, I still have 19 levels of learning left to do. However, I'm curious about what these observations say about the way the game encourages or discourages types of interaction. If a person is completely new to the game, is it better or worse if everyone around them knows what they're doing? Will they learn from their elders, or is there some important element they miss out on by not learning the system themselves?

I don't think this would matter so much if the ratio of new players to old players making alts wasn't so one-sided. Playing with a group of noobs would offer a rare chance at group exploration. Not only would they not know where to travel or what the best plan of attack is, but they could all learn this information together and have a stronger social connection with each other. Having a WoW veteran simply telling you where everything is or explaining the rules to you loses some of the magic of finding things out for yourself. Everyone makes a new character eventually, but it'd be nice if the players that were actually new had a chance to make their own WoW experiences instead of bumming someone else's.

Auction House Flowchart

I've never fully understood how to earn my virtual fortune from WoW's auction house. I typically just put the item I want to sell through the auctioneer addon, and it does all the guess work for me. However, a quick look through the WoW wiki provided me with some basic tips on how to buy and sell efficiently at the auction house. I took the key points of these articles and created a simply flowchart to illustrate proper AH use.


If you'd like more advanced tips and tricks on how to make lots of WoW gold I strongly suggest you check out these links from the WoW wiki: Auction House; Auction Guide; Working the Auction House; Guide to making money.

Or you could always just ask Rachel for help because she's already made over 300g in the auction house.

I hate you Rachel. :p

On Simulacra and Simulations

The following is a response to this reading. If you're not in ICAM 120 none of this will make sense unless you read that article.

In general, Baudrillard discusses the way in which simulation has taken the place of reality. The idea is that a simulation either reflects reality, or masks it. If the purpose of a simulation is to mask reality then the simulation, as well as the values and rules it expresses, becomes the reality. Suddenly the real world is ignored or in some extreme cases wiped out completely. Baudrillard uses Disneyland as an example of a simulated reality in which it's influence on American culture and society has become part of the American value system. Likewise, he claims that Watergate is only a scandal because of the way society tacks on beliefs and value systems.

Naturally, these ideas translate to virtual worlds. Second Life and World of Warcraft act on some level as a reality for users. The avatar a player makes, regardless of the game, is a simulacra of the player. It does not represent who the player is, but is an effigy of what the player wishes to be. And given the anonymity granted to the player, a person can truly live in the simulation as a unique entity.

One of the most important aspects of World of Warcraft's design is its scale. The size of the world requires players to spend hours traversing it in multiple ways. It may be tedious, but traveling in this way adds to the "reality" of the simulation.

THIS BLOG HAS BEEN HIJACKED!

Hey everyone.

Just a quick heads up: This quarter I'll be taking a class on Virtual Environments, and part of the required work is that I make blog posts about readings as well as my time spent in virtual environments like World of Warcraft and Second Life. So expect an influx on blog posts about that subject over the next 10 weeks. Any blog posts related to that class will be marked with the tag ICAM 120.

That is all.