Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Down Time

I have found that Tuesday mornings are going to be my best time to post because the servers are down. This weekend was productive, I got my Rogue up to  85 and Valor capped for the week. Ended at 371 gear score, so just shy of the raidfinder. Of course, this was with cheating PVP gear, so not really there yet.

The hardest part of the weekend was just hitting level 83. I am very bored with the cataclysm dungeons and areas. I really want to have a bunch of 85s but the cata zones are just boring. It is also hard because I am not a fan of PVP, ironically for having a rogue.

I am one profession away from having a complete profession empire. Leatherworking was probably the worst one out of them all, though tailoring was a close second. I spent about 5k on leather after hitting 85 to get my PVP gear and get to 525 LW.

Last night, I hit my valor cap on my Rogue and I just didn't have much left in me. Ironically, it was the night before a patch and I spent the night browsing Reddit. I should probably take a break, but I only have three characters to go.

The hunter will be the best choice, as it is easy leveling and I need engineering. However, I am so worried about how boring the priest and the druid are going to be. I should probably get them over with, though maybe I should just level them as I feel and not worry about it.

That is all for today. My goal for the next week is to get a full Dragon Soul run with my Rogue and start up my  engineering on my hunter.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Star Wars the Old Republic

I really wanted to like the Old Republic. I think overall, my distaste for the game stems from old games and my weird tastes, with a little bit of my distaste for Bioware mechanics in general. Now, let me explain those items.

First off, Star Wars the Old Republic is a good game. It is a great single player game set in vanilla wow clone. The game reminds me a little too much of Star Wars Galaxies with a Wow skin. That is not a good start, as I loved that game until they ruined it. TOR also has one other thing in common with Galaxies, the space combat is lacking at launch. Sure they have it, but I can get a better experience with a number of other console games, mainly Star Fox 64. They may as well call it Ground Wars the Old Republic with a loading screen for the Star aspect.

Oh but they have great 'plans' for space combat I hear you say. As I have shamelessly stolen from the TOR boards, this is a company that is having a rough go at fixing their action bars. They are deep in the first part of an MMO launch, and they are back logged with problems they didnt know they would have. I honestly believe they spent a little too much on a voice acting quest line system that will take a bit too much time to keep up. They have a fantastic plan for future content patches, but we will see how long that takes when they are running around trying to fix systems and PVP.

I love seeing the cycle of new MMO's come out and claim to be WoW killers. I am not trying to be a fanboy, but that is like saying Western Washington University can start up a football team this year and go for the BCS championship. Though to be fair, Bioware and EA are like using a solid PAC-10 school like Oregon to go for it, but even then that might not be enough.

They copied a number of awesome Wow systems, but they stopped paying attention in Burning Crusade. How can you launch an MMO without a dungeon finder? Really? Your single player MMO is great until you make me beg for a group. Wow's greatest achievement for me is allowing me to see 99% of it's content without being in a guild or having a lot of friends.

I stopped pretty early on in my Star wars career here, as most of my experience here is seeing my girlfriend play through it. I would be annoyed to get to end game and have to beg, borrow and steal to get into a group. Oh and they don't even have meeting stones? Really? Why would you create a single player focused game that makes it so hard for players to see your content? I mean it's obvious that flashpoints and raids, yeah I know not the right terminology but whatever, are going to be the focus of the game now. Once your player base reaches the level cap, you create content that they can achieve.

I love the Raid Finder because I can see the content on my schedule, not on the schedule of a group. Drama free raiding in 'Content Touring Mode,' as coined by the Horde for Life podcast. It is cool to see some of the content, even if it is easy. Should I want to try the hard modes, I can. Just don't force me to it. Give me options and I will pay for it.

So rant is going on long, but I really wanted to get my rant out on Star Wars. I really hope they get some of this figured out. PVP space battles or a space to star port assault would be a good start. Dungeon finder would be the best thing. For now, I will stand back and enjoy my Wow until they figure it out. Keisha is enjoying the game for sure, so they will get our money until she gets bored.

First Post

Ah the cliches, the first post. Since I have wandered away from wargaming in the last few months, I thought it best to move to a general gaming blog. My gaming has been confined to World of Warcraft and a dabbling of Star Wars the Old Republic.

On the World of Warcraft front, I have nearly abandoned my Alliance characters since Christmas time. I started a guild with only four people in it. My friend and his girlfriend, me and my girlfriend. We started off pretty gung ho, but it has petered out. I am the lone person still leveling regularly. This is the nature of things, especially with Jason, as his kids live with him.

Since Christmas, I have leveled a Blood Elf Mage, a Blood Elf Paladin and I'm half way through wrath with a Rogue. Being an altaholic, this has been pretty fun leveling classes I have rarely played. Once I get them to 85 and geared for Raid Finder, I move on to the next one. My goal of creating a crafting Empire and having a max level character for each class is fast approaching.

After my Rogue, I have a druid, priest and hunter left. I think the druid will be the hardest, as the low levels just feel like gimped versions of the warrior and rogue, in kitty and bear respectively. I think I will move to easy mode next, with a hunter, though the priest might be harder still. Maybe Ill try to level healing? That is crazy talk.

In the future I plan to stay playing Wow, though I can feel it waning a bit. Hopefully just in time for Diablo 3!