It's not news by now that the Warlords of Draenor launch has been rough for Blizzard, who's managed some very polished expansion releases in the past. We've had queues the like of which we haven't seen since vanilla or BC, crashes, disconnects, bugged out quests and perhaps most damning: the complete implosion of the expansion's main feature, Garrisons. I got lucky in that Cookie and I both ordered retail, and couldn't even play Draenor (Draenic?) content until 10AM yesterday. We missed out on the DDOS because of that and work; got enough behind the leveling pack that we don't have to face the competition, crashes, and sheer dickery that came because of the number of players in one small area; and had a more or less uninterrupted two windows of playtime. The biggest hiccup we ran into was when the garrisons crashed around 3pm EST yesterday and I got stuck RP walking through the terrain on a flight path. But like I said, we had to be to work anyway, so it was probably a good thing.
It kept us from calling out, which would have been bad, not least because the rest of the afternoon and evening was shot to shit by shoddy performance and hackattacks from China. (A guildmate's conspiracy theory is that the Chinese farmers want to slow the progress down in NA and EU so that they can get ahead and then transfer their resources West and make buckets of money off gold sales. I laughed. He's probably not wrong, but it's still laughable.)
I know an expansion's not an easy thing. And like with my calls for patience with ArcheAge's abysmal launch, I'm trying my best to keep an open mind and a level head about all of this. When Cookie and I decided which days to request off, we sort of planned ahead for this- that's why we took Friday/Saturday/Sunday instead of launch day and the days after it. The first day is always the roughest, and I'm guessing when the servers come up here in a little bit things are going to be better. Say what you want about Blizzard CS, they fix shit quickly. With decades' worth of experience supporting multiplayer games, they'd better.
If you'd asked me last night how I felt about Draenor, I probably would have ranted, raged, and rampaged at you about broken this or bugged that. I was pissed. Then again, last night I ran into a quest in Frostwhatever-that-first-zone (too lazy to learn proper names, you should know me by now) that was set up basically as a scenario. Cookie got credit for it, I didn't, and when I found out I couldn't complete it because the game had a set order of operations in mind and I hadn't followed it...
Freya's balls, you would have thought someone beheaded my puppy, pissed on it, and broadcast the whole thing on Al Jazeera. I'd forgotten what tears of rage were like. But I'm not the most...grounded of individuals at four in the morning after a sprint through content. I'm just not.
Anyway, the biggest complaint I've got about all of the Draenor bullshit is really that my free boost to 90 requires that I quest in Tanaan Jungle to get my ablities. If I'd boosted a level one, I could understand treating me like a Deathkinght and making me earn my abilities, but for fuck's sake my rogue was 60. The game TOOK AWAY her skills, left me with three skills, and said GG. No vanish, no cloak of shadows. Hell, no sap or recuperate. What the hell were they thinking when they made that a thing. All of the boosts before Draenor's release, free or otherwise, simply granted you a level ninety like it just popped out of an Easy-Bake Oven. I understand that they couldn't do it that way with the Warlords content not out yet, but... fuckstockings, man. You can't just TAKE THINGS AWAY from someone after they already had them. And seriously? Soloing this shit on a rogue without skills is worse than trying to do it as a holy priest. At least they have fucking smite and can heal themselves. I'm in shitty greens and have no access to any of my abilities or talents. It's a fucking nightmare.
That, imo, is the BIGGEST mistake Blizz made with the launch. Not the Garrisons bugs, not failing to anticipate Every WoW Player Ever coming back for the xpack and anniversary... The motherfucking boosts.
Which reminds me. I need to feedback that shit.
All in all, it's a rough launch, but not as bad as it could have been. The game's still playable, the layout and design of the new zones is kind of cool (if a little Wrathy so far with all the damn snow and cliffs), and I've only had a few instances of OH JESUS GOD WHY OH FUCK GET IT OFF MY FACE because I explored someplace I shouldn't have been. I'm a little disappointed that I can't get ANY upgrades to my gear until like 98, but... ultimately, that's the price for having raid gear. It's a good thing in the long run, because it means the stat inflation won't be as bad as it has been in the past. (Cataclysm, Pandaria...I'm looking at you.)
The After Dark crew is going to be streaming live for most of the day through the weekend, so you've got plenty of opportunities to drop by and say hi.
Friday, November 14, 2014
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Anniversary Flashbacks, One of...several
2014 is kind of a big year for MMORPGS, mostly because 2004 was a HUGE year for the genre. Ten years ago we saw the release of three of the most notable games of the second/third (depending upon your reckoning) generation: Everquest 2, City of Heroes, and World of Warcraft. I wish I could say I got in on the ground floor of all three, but I passed up the City of Heroes beta/release for Lineage 2, and hadn't yet lost my cherry to the Everquest franchise when the sequel came out. Still, it was a great time, and even though it makes me an old fuck, I'm proud to say I lived and played through it.
The first gen of MMOs was only in its fifth or sixth year when 2004 started. The genre was still more or less young, and publishers were only just beginning to realize the potential profit from persistent-world games thanks to Everquest and Asian titles like Lineage. Back then, nobody knew how long one of these things could last, and I can only assume that Sony, EA, and other wayback machine publishers were hedging their bets that five years was the longest a single game could hold a solid playerbase. Graphics had lept forward in quality since 1999, and it was time for a little sumpin' sumpin' more.
I remember being skeptical of the second gens. I was playing Lineage 2 at the time, and adored its then-gorgeous, anime-style graphics. EQ2's graphics struck me as play-doh-esque, City of Heroes was just a dumb comic book game, and WoW... I loathed WoW. My guildmates dragged me into beta kicking and screaming, and I hated every minute of it. Going from L2's click-to-move, limited-hotbar grindathon to WoW was like going from vanilla ice cream to hot dogs. But when the choice came down to World of Warcraft or GuildWars, I opted for the former...and that only because I hated not being able to change my abilities in GW.
I'm one of THOSE WoW players. You know the breed. We sit back and remember fondly how we had to pay piles of gold for our epic mounts, and how hard that gold was to come by. We laugh about our completely wonky hybrid builds, using spirit gear on our bears and int gear on our hunters. We wax rhapsodic about needing groups for devilsaurs in Un'goro Crater so we could get their skins and keying for Molten Core. The game was so much harder back then, we say. More dynamic. There were more ways to fuck up.
And yet, at the time, WoW was the easiest game on the market. A lot of people forget that when it released, World of Warcraft's biggest innovation was simple, streamlined questing. Previous games had required you to talk to your questgivers and guess at phrases that would trigger the next step of the conversation. There weren't quest journals- unless you counted the notebooks we kept close to hand on our desks. You could SOLO in WoW. On any class. The same couldn't be said of the other MMOs out at the time. And tradeskills... Holy shit, a crafting system that wouldn't give you carpal tunnel or randomly fail/blow up your gear? No meaningful death penalty, bonus xp while logged out...
I still remember camping out at the border between Ashenvale and the Barrens during world PvP gluts, cutting off reinforcements headed for the Crossroads. My hunter buddy and I merrily duoed through content we probably shouldn't have been able to do because we had the right combination of heals, damage, and kiting. My go-to story has always been the time I killed my ghost with fatigue while trying to find the second pearl for my druid's water form quest. It seems farfetched these days, but back then that kind of stupid shit happened every day.
It's been a fun ten years. I've played a lot of games, and over the next few updates I'm going to be revisiting some of my favorite moments, mechanics, and memes from the last decade. Somewhere in the mix I'm going to give City of Heroes the writeup it deserves, because my "In Memoriam" post fell well short of what I'd originally intended.
Got some memories of your own? Give me a yell on Google +, Facebook, or Twitter and share your stories! Never know...might show up on the blog or stream!
The first gen of MMOs was only in its fifth or sixth year when 2004 started. The genre was still more or less young, and publishers were only just beginning to realize the potential profit from persistent-world games thanks to Everquest and Asian titles like Lineage. Back then, nobody knew how long one of these things could last, and I can only assume that Sony, EA, and other wayback machine publishers were hedging their bets that five years was the longest a single game could hold a solid playerbase. Graphics had lept forward in quality since 1999, and it was time for a little sumpin' sumpin' more.
I remember being skeptical of the second gens. I was playing Lineage 2 at the time, and adored its then-gorgeous, anime-style graphics. EQ2's graphics struck me as play-doh-esque, City of Heroes was just a dumb comic book game, and WoW... I loathed WoW. My guildmates dragged me into beta kicking and screaming, and I hated every minute of it. Going from L2's click-to-move, limited-hotbar grindathon to WoW was like going from vanilla ice cream to hot dogs. But when the choice came down to World of Warcraft or GuildWars, I opted for the former...and that only because I hated not being able to change my abilities in GW.
I'm one of THOSE WoW players. You know the breed. We sit back and remember fondly how we had to pay piles of gold for our epic mounts, and how hard that gold was to come by. We laugh about our completely wonky hybrid builds, using spirit gear on our bears and int gear on our hunters. We wax rhapsodic about needing groups for devilsaurs in Un'goro Crater so we could get their skins and keying for Molten Core. The game was so much harder back then, we say. More dynamic. There were more ways to fuck up.
And yet, at the time, WoW was the easiest game on the market. A lot of people forget that when it released, World of Warcraft's biggest innovation was simple, streamlined questing. Previous games had required you to talk to your questgivers and guess at phrases that would trigger the next step of the conversation. There weren't quest journals- unless you counted the notebooks we kept close to hand on our desks. You could SOLO in WoW. On any class. The same couldn't be said of the other MMOs out at the time. And tradeskills... Holy shit, a crafting system that wouldn't give you carpal tunnel or randomly fail/blow up your gear? No meaningful death penalty, bonus xp while logged out...
I still remember camping out at the border between Ashenvale and the Barrens during world PvP gluts, cutting off reinforcements headed for the Crossroads. My hunter buddy and I merrily duoed through content we probably shouldn't have been able to do because we had the right combination of heals, damage, and kiting. My go-to story has always been the time I killed my ghost with fatigue while trying to find the second pearl for my druid's water form quest. It seems farfetched these days, but back then that kind of stupid shit happened every day.
It's been a fun ten years. I've played a lot of games, and over the next few updates I'm going to be revisiting some of my favorite moments, mechanics, and memes from the last decade. Somewhere in the mix I'm going to give City of Heroes the writeup it deserves, because my "In Memoriam" post fell well short of what I'd originally intended.
Got some memories of your own? Give me a yell on Google +, Facebook, or Twitter and share your stories! Never know...might show up on the blog or stream!
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Seven days and counting
Warlords is a week away, and the excitement is building here in the house of Kattz. Sort of. We finally have both copies paid off, we have our weekend away from work secured... Our plans are set and we're ready to go.
And we have six new kittens. Because our cat Fiona is a ho.
Yeah...
It's going to be interesting streaming Draenor, and I plan to be streaming close to twenty hours a night during release weekend, with six eight-day-old kittens mewing and meeping at me.
Not much of an update, for now. Been too busy with the babies to really do much gaming.
Ole!
And we have six new kittens. Because our cat Fiona is a ho.
Yeah...
It's going to be interesting streaming Draenor, and I plan to be streaming close to twenty hours a night during release weekend, with six eight-day-old kittens mewing and meeping at me.
Not much of an update, for now. Been too busy with the babies to really do much gaming.
Ole!
Monday, November 3, 2014
Another year, still no mount
I swear to by Freya's flying fucking cats, the horse off Headless Horseman must be the most godawfully rare mount ever. I've been trying for three years or something to get the thing, and STILL have not gotten it. And that's with pulling Horseman every day on at least two if not five characters. That's not even taking into account the years I did the fucker before I decided I wanted his mount.
I got the Raven Lord on my second run. Why can I not get that damn pumpkin headed fuck's mount?
Anyway. After making an ass of myself on Twitter, I found out that there is a Bronze Dragonflight npc in Blasted Lands that will teleport you "back in time" to the old version of Blasted Lands, which makes it so you can get the candy bucket there. So many hours of rage and frustration wasted because I didn't notice the random NPC sitting in a random fucking spot in the middle of nowhere.
And before you say it was in the patch notes, I don't care if it was. I pretty much skimmed through the shit to find the monk changes and moved on.
So now that Halloween is passed, we're officially on the countdown to Warlords of Draenor's release on November 13th. That's ten days, kids. Are YOU prepared? Because I sure as shit ain't. I'm still sitting at around 70k of my 100k goal, primarily because I had the genius idea to put together a set of mistweaver gear and fuck around on alts instead of going out and farming. I could pretty easily make a good 10k or more off the herbs in my bank, but like a pro I'm respeccing my tradeskill to alchemy, so... that's out. Go figure.
Ultimately, the 100k number was something I picked out of the air on a whim. Still want to see if I can make 30k in ten days. Given that's only 3k a day, I think I'm in a good position to do it. I just need to stop SPENDING the fucking money as fast as I make it.
Aside from money and tradeskill catching up, though, we don't have much to do in World of Warcraft until the expansion hits. It's hard to get motivated for a raid when you know that two weeks from now you'll be wearing quest greens that are ten times better. The only folks with anything to push for are the poor fucks who haven't gotten their cloaks yet, because in ten days they won't be able to get it at all. I've got it on my main. Mostly there on a lot of my alts, but they're not getting played for probably the next year, so they can go fuck themselves. Heh.
I wish they'd put in something more in the way of an expansion hype event, with how long we're having to wait for the thing to drop. This is the most confusing mix of kid at Christmas and senioritis I've ever experienced, and it's very much likely to drive me insane.
Er. More insane.
Anyway! Monday and Thursday are this week's Early Edition streams (5pm est). The rest of the week we'll be running After Dark from 11pm until I fall the fuck out of my chair around 2am or 3am. Drop by the stream and check out the newly (re)updated graphics!
I got the Raven Lord on my second run. Why can I not get that damn pumpkin headed fuck's mount?
Anyway. After making an ass of myself on Twitter, I found out that there is a Bronze Dragonflight npc in Blasted Lands that will teleport you "back in time" to the old version of Blasted Lands, which makes it so you can get the candy bucket there. So many hours of rage and frustration wasted because I didn't notice the random NPC sitting in a random fucking spot in the middle of nowhere.
And before you say it was in the patch notes, I don't care if it was. I pretty much skimmed through the shit to find the monk changes and moved on.
So now that Halloween is passed, we're officially on the countdown to Warlords of Draenor's release on November 13th. That's ten days, kids. Are YOU prepared? Because I sure as shit ain't. I'm still sitting at around 70k of my 100k goal, primarily because I had the genius idea to put together a set of mistweaver gear and fuck around on alts instead of going out and farming. I could pretty easily make a good 10k or more off the herbs in my bank, but like a pro I'm respeccing my tradeskill to alchemy, so... that's out. Go figure.
Ultimately, the 100k number was something I picked out of the air on a whim. Still want to see if I can make 30k in ten days. Given that's only 3k a day, I think I'm in a good position to do it. I just need to stop SPENDING the fucking money as fast as I make it.
Aside from money and tradeskill catching up, though, we don't have much to do in World of Warcraft until the expansion hits. It's hard to get motivated for a raid when you know that two weeks from now you'll be wearing quest greens that are ten times better. The only folks with anything to push for are the poor fucks who haven't gotten their cloaks yet, because in ten days they won't be able to get it at all. I've got it on my main. Mostly there on a lot of my alts, but they're not getting played for probably the next year, so they can go fuck themselves. Heh.
I wish they'd put in something more in the way of an expansion hype event, with how long we're having to wait for the thing to drop. This is the most confusing mix of kid at Christmas and senioritis I've ever experienced, and it's very much likely to drive me insane.
Er. More insane.
Anyway! Monday and Thursday are this week's Early Edition streams (5pm est). The rest of the week we'll be running After Dark from 11pm until I fall the fuck out of my chair around 2am or 3am. Drop by the stream and check out the newly (re)updated graphics!
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