Blizzard just announced their Worldwide Invitational 2008 for end of June, and it is in Paris, just 3 hours door-to-door away from me. And while the tickets are pricey ($100), I think I would like to go, at least for one day trip. Suddenly the philosophical question of "are bloggers press?" turns into the more practical question of "could I get a press pass for the Blizzard Con", and I'm afraid the answer is "no". So I'll just have to hope that it will be possible to get tickets, and they aren't all sold out 5 minutes after going on sale.
Oh, and by the way, one of the events at this convention is that players can try out Wrath of the Lich King and Starcraft II for the first time. Which confirms that the release of these won't be in the first half of 2008, but looks good for a christmas 2008 release date.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Paul Barnett explains MMOs to normal people
Interesting video of Paul Barnett at the lift conference. He's not saying anything about Warhammer Online, but instead explains very well why it is usually a bad idea to try to copy something successful, especially in a fast-changing market. I liked his talk very much, because he talks honestly about the need to make profits, the fact that nobody really knows how to make successful MMOs, and how to steer the difficult part between brilliant but crazy innovation and solid but staid game design. I so hope the man can make games as good as he talks!
WoW patch notes 2.4
WoW patch 2.4 is coming soon, we just don't know when. :) But the World of Warcraft under development webpage at least gives us some info on what to expect. Please note that all this information is still subject to change after testing on the public test realms, and also is probably incomplete. So, what are the major features of patch 2.4?
The major content addition is a new area called Sunwell Isle, north of Silvermoon City. Yes, you got that right, that's in old Azeroth, not Outlands. But the area is going to be for level 70 characters, including a new reputation to grind, a new 5-man dungeon named Magister's Terrace, and a new 25-man raid dungeon named Sunwell Plateau. I'm not quite sure how people are supposed to get to Sunwell Isle. I hope there is some sort of teleport, because while being close to a Horde city, it is damn far from any Alliance location. Note that this is the first 5-man dungeon patched in since Maraudon, which somehow balances the addition of yet another raid dungeon I will never see. Sunwell Plateau will be harder than any existing raid dungeon. We can discuss for hours the exact percentage of people who'll ever get to see it, but "small" is a fair description of it.
But apparently even Blizzard noticed that there are more people doing PvP nowadays, and less doing raid dungeons, especially the harder 25-man raids. Thus the existing 25-man raids have been made more profitable and easier to access. 25-man raid bosses now drop more gold and more tokens. Attunement has been removed for Mount Hyjal and the Black Temple. Kael'Thas and Vashj can now be killed without killing the other bosses in the dungeon. But I assume the difficulty remains the same, so while you can *try* the end bosses without having beaten all the others, your chance of success remains slim. But maybe I'm just being cynic here, and Blizzard actually made the 25-man dungeons a bit easier without saying so in the patch notes. One can always hope.
Apart from raiding and the new 5-man dungeon, Sunwell Isle will also be a hub for daily quests. The limit of how many daily quests you can do per day has be raised to 25, which is a lot. Fishing daily quests also have been added to the game. Daily quests have turned out to be extremely popular, because they are both more interesting and more profitable than farming the same mob over and over. Kudos to Blizzard for realizing the popularity and giving us more of what we like.
There are various changes to all classes and all professions, too many to mention. Usually they tend towards the reasonable, for example a new enchanting recipe that splits Void Crystals into two Large Prismatic Shards. As void crystals were actually *cheaper* than even just one large prismatic shard, this addition should balance prices a bit better (you might want to sell your large prismatic shards *now*). Or added meat cooking recipes of 250 skill, so you can now level cooking up to 300 without catching fish. Many professions have new epic recipes added, but as these drop in Sunwell Plateau, they will be rather rare.
Another practical addition is a teleport to the Caverns of Time for people who have already a bit of reputation with the Keepers of Time. For people who respec often, the cost for that has effectively been lowered, because you now don't need to relearn spell ranks for talent spells you previously had but gave up. A big PvP change is that the diminishing returns of killing the same player repeatedly in a battleground are gone. That not only will give you more honor from the same time spent in a battleground, but also you get the honor now immediately. The annoying "estimate" of honor gained, with having to wait for the next day before you can spend it, is gone. If that is still not enough honor, there are rumors that the daily battleground quests will be changed to be repeatable, that is you get the gold only once, but can get the added honor many times a day. MMO-Champion.com has more of the unconfirmed details of patch 2.4.
There is also a big UI change, to the combat log. If you ever had a look at the current combat log, you probably noticed that it wasn't all that useful. Too much information scrolling by too fast, especially if you are in a group or raid. The combat log can now be filtered, so if for example you just want to see what hit you, you can find the information easily. The new combat log is also supposed to work well together with addons, allowing mods to do more.
All in all a very nice patch with something for everybody. Which should buy Blizzard a bit more breathing space for developing Wrath of the Lich King. People tend to get bored when waiting too long for an expansion, and a big content patch should keep them busy playing instead of leaving.
The major content addition is a new area called Sunwell Isle, north of Silvermoon City. Yes, you got that right, that's in old Azeroth, not Outlands. But the area is going to be for level 70 characters, including a new reputation to grind, a new 5-man dungeon named Magister's Terrace, and a new 25-man raid dungeon named Sunwell Plateau. I'm not quite sure how people are supposed to get to Sunwell Isle. I hope there is some sort of teleport, because while being close to a Horde city, it is damn far from any Alliance location. Note that this is the first 5-man dungeon patched in since Maraudon, which somehow balances the addition of yet another raid dungeon I will never see. Sunwell Plateau will be harder than any existing raid dungeon. We can discuss for hours the exact percentage of people who'll ever get to see it, but "small" is a fair description of it.
But apparently even Blizzard noticed that there are more people doing PvP nowadays, and less doing raid dungeons, especially the harder 25-man raids. Thus the existing 25-man raids have been made more profitable and easier to access. 25-man raid bosses now drop more gold and more tokens. Attunement has been removed for Mount Hyjal and the Black Temple. Kael'Thas and Vashj can now be killed without killing the other bosses in the dungeon. But I assume the difficulty remains the same, so while you can *try* the end bosses without having beaten all the others, your chance of success remains slim. But maybe I'm just being cynic here, and Blizzard actually made the 25-man dungeons a bit easier without saying so in the patch notes. One can always hope.
Apart from raiding and the new 5-man dungeon, Sunwell Isle will also be a hub for daily quests. The limit of how many daily quests you can do per day has be raised to 25, which is a lot. Fishing daily quests also have been added to the game. Daily quests have turned out to be extremely popular, because they are both more interesting and more profitable than farming the same mob over and over. Kudos to Blizzard for realizing the popularity and giving us more of what we like.
There are various changes to all classes and all professions, too many to mention. Usually they tend towards the reasonable, for example a new enchanting recipe that splits Void Crystals into two Large Prismatic Shards. As void crystals were actually *cheaper* than even just one large prismatic shard, this addition should balance prices a bit better (you might want to sell your large prismatic shards *now*). Or added meat cooking recipes of 250 skill, so you can now level cooking up to 300 without catching fish. Many professions have new epic recipes added, but as these drop in Sunwell Plateau, they will be rather rare.
Another practical addition is a teleport to the Caverns of Time for people who have already a bit of reputation with the Keepers of Time. For people who respec often, the cost for that has effectively been lowered, because you now don't need to relearn spell ranks for talent spells you previously had but gave up. A big PvP change is that the diminishing returns of killing the same player repeatedly in a battleground are gone. That not only will give you more honor from the same time spent in a battleground, but also you get the honor now immediately. The annoying "estimate" of honor gained, with having to wait for the next day before you can spend it, is gone. If that is still not enough honor, there are rumors that the daily battleground quests will be changed to be repeatable, that is you get the gold only once, but can get the added honor many times a day. MMO-Champion.com has more of the unconfirmed details of patch 2.4.
There is also a big UI change, to the combat log. If you ever had a look at the current combat log, you probably noticed that it wasn't all that useful. Too much information scrolling by too fast, especially if you are in a group or raid. The combat log can now be filtered, so if for example you just want to see what hit you, you can find the information easily. The new combat log is also supposed to work well together with addons, allowing mods to do more.
All in all a very nice patch with something for everybody. Which should buy Blizzard a bit more breathing space for developing Wrath of the Lich King. People tend to get bored when waiting too long for an expansion, and a big content patch should keep them busy playing instead of leaving.
US presidential elections
Please don't read on if you are part of those people who think that just because somebody has a gaming blog he is disqualified from having any political opinions. I'm European, and thus obviously can't vote in the US presidential elections or primaries. But the outcome of them is of huge importance for the rest of the world, so many Europeans follow the current developments with interest.
Now if you take all the political parties of the USA and Europe and place them on a scale from most right-wing to most left-wing, you'll find that most European rightish parties are still very much to the left of the US Democrats, the US leftish party. For example the Democrats are still debating universal healthcare, while the first such system was introduced in Europe (Germany in that case) in 1883. The UK National Health Service was founded in 1948. So given that on average Europeans are more leftish than Americans, it is not surprising that most of them morally support Democratic candidates in US presidential elections.
That usually would be true for me as well, I'm not exactly a fan of George W. Bush, few people are nowadays on either side of the Atlantic. But somehow the Republicans managed to beat expectations this time around. Not only did they surprise everyone by more or less already choosing one viable candidate while the Democrats still have a tight race for the presidential nomination. But they also managed to put up the one candidate I would vote for (if I could) in preference of either of the Democratic candidates. I like John McCain, because he appears to be far more honest than any other candidate. It takes guts to tell Michigan the truth about their economic situation, and it takes somebody to be aware of the truth to improve that situation. McCain's "straight talk" is a big point in his favor in my opinion, and I hope that he'd continue to talk and act straight if he were elected President of the United States.
I could live with a President Hillary Clinton as well, but the dynastic aspects of it worry me a bit. A Bush or a Clinton has been president since 1989, and if Hillary is elected that could continue until 2016. Followed by Jeb Bush for 8 years and then Chelsea Clinton? Double dynasty is a strange political system, and it is statistically unlikely that somebody happens to be both related to a previous president *and* the best possible candidate for the job at the same time.
I'm not at all a fan of Barack Obama. This is where *not* being American comes in as an advantage. Europeans don't have the same sense of guilt towards African Americans. Electing somebody just because he is black seems like a bad idea to me. If he was the best possible candidate, him being black just shouldn't make a difference. But his relative youth and inexperience make him look bad against a John McCain. In a battle of "straight talk" versus "I have a dream", I'd chose the realist every day. It is good to have politicians with dreams, but the oval office isn't exactly the best place to dream. Obama as vice president to Hillary Clinton would be a lot more attractive. An idealist to egg the White House on, but somebody more cool-headed to take the decisions. With a vice presidential experience under his belt he'd make a much better candidate the next time around. I just doubt he sees it that way.
But the whole race is still wide open, and either of the three candidates mentioned could still end up becoming president. While funnily it is Obama who most reminds me of George W. Bush (as in having to rely on advisors to make policy), all of the candidates have the advantage of being "not Bush". It appears as if the USA this time gets a rare chance to vote in an election which isn't just about partisanship, with lots of relatively centrist candidates. May the best person win.
Now if you take all the political parties of the USA and Europe and place them on a scale from most right-wing to most left-wing, you'll find that most European rightish parties are still very much to the left of the US Democrats, the US leftish party. For example the Democrats are still debating universal healthcare, while the first such system was introduced in Europe (Germany in that case) in 1883. The UK National Health Service was founded in 1948. So given that on average Europeans are more leftish than Americans, it is not surprising that most of them morally support Democratic candidates in US presidential elections.
That usually would be true for me as well, I'm not exactly a fan of George W. Bush, few people are nowadays on either side of the Atlantic. But somehow the Republicans managed to beat expectations this time around. Not only did they surprise everyone by more or less already choosing one viable candidate while the Democrats still have a tight race for the presidential nomination. But they also managed to put up the one candidate I would vote for (if I could) in preference of either of the Democratic candidates. I like John McCain, because he appears to be far more honest than any other candidate. It takes guts to tell Michigan the truth about their economic situation, and it takes somebody to be aware of the truth to improve that situation. McCain's "straight talk" is a big point in his favor in my opinion, and I hope that he'd continue to talk and act straight if he were elected President of the United States.
I could live with a President Hillary Clinton as well, but the dynastic aspects of it worry me a bit. A Bush or a Clinton has been president since 1989, and if Hillary is elected that could continue until 2016. Followed by Jeb Bush for 8 years and then Chelsea Clinton? Double dynasty is a strange political system, and it is statistically unlikely that somebody happens to be both related to a previous president *and* the best possible candidate for the job at the same time.
I'm not at all a fan of Barack Obama. This is where *not* being American comes in as an advantage. Europeans don't have the same sense of guilt towards African Americans. Electing somebody just because he is black seems like a bad idea to me. If he was the best possible candidate, him being black just shouldn't make a difference. But his relative youth and inexperience make him look bad against a John McCain. In a battle of "straight talk" versus "I have a dream", I'd chose the realist every day. It is good to have politicians with dreams, but the oval office isn't exactly the best place to dream. Obama as vice president to Hillary Clinton would be a lot more attractive. An idealist to egg the White House on, but somebody more cool-headed to take the decisions. With a vice presidential experience under his belt he'd make a much better candidate the next time around. I just doubt he sees it that way.
But the whole race is still wide open, and either of the three candidates mentioned could still end up becoming president. While funnily it is Obama who most reminds me of George W. Bush (as in having to rely on advisors to make policy), all of the candidates have the advantage of being "not Bush". It appears as if the USA this time gets a rare chance to vote in an election which isn't just about partisanship, with lots of relatively centrist candidates. May the best person win.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
A forgotten controversy
Blizzard is more famouse for excellence of execution than for revolutionary innovation. So sometimes we forget that World of Warcraft did in fact contain a couple of features that were revolutionary and new, and which caused quite some controversy when they were first reported on. Meanwhile we got so used to them that we don't even remember that these features haven't been around since the time of Everquest. One of these forgotten controversies is World of Warcraft's day/night cycle, which is based on a 24-hour real time clock, and not accelerated like nearly every other game.
When I first saw the 24-hour day/night cycle of World of Warcraft in beta in 2004, I didn't like it at all. But at that time the night was still a good bit darker than it is now, and I had to play with the gamma settings to see reasonably well at night. I don't know when exactly they changed that, must have been before release, but nowadays the night in WoW isn't really very dark. It is more a question of colors, the night being more blueish.
The main disadvantage of having a 24-hour day/night cycle is that it introduces real world time constraints into the virtual world. For example during the week I can only play from 6 pm to 10 pm, so all week long for me in World of Warcraft it is evening. There are few things in WoW that depend on the local time, but it isn't totally without effect. For example your chances of catching certain fish decrease or increase with time of day.
So while there are disadvantages of a 24-hour clock, Blizzard wisely chose to make the time of virtual day of very little importance, thus many people don't even notice the day/night cycle. Which in itself is a minor disadvantage, LotRO's Middle Earth world somehow seems more real by having a visible day/night cycle with much darker nights and monsters that only appear during certain times of day. But for such a day/night cycle to work, it has to be shorter than 24 hours, because you want people who only play a few hours still to experience it.
Do you think World of Warcraft would be better off with a lets say 4-hour day/night cycle, darker nights, and events and mob appearences related to the time of virtual day? Or do you prefer the way where server time is local time, and you can tell your real time by hovering your mouse over the little sun icon next to your mini map?
When I first saw the 24-hour day/night cycle of World of Warcraft in beta in 2004, I didn't like it at all. But at that time the night was still a good bit darker than it is now, and I had to play with the gamma settings to see reasonably well at night. I don't know when exactly they changed that, must have been before release, but nowadays the night in WoW isn't really very dark. It is more a question of colors, the night being more blueish.
The main disadvantage of having a 24-hour day/night cycle is that it introduces real world time constraints into the virtual world. For example during the week I can only play from 6 pm to 10 pm, so all week long for me in World of Warcraft it is evening. There are few things in WoW that depend on the local time, but it isn't totally without effect. For example your chances of catching certain fish decrease or increase with time of day.
So while there are disadvantages of a 24-hour clock, Blizzard wisely chose to make the time of virtual day of very little importance, thus many people don't even notice the day/night cycle. Which in itself is a minor disadvantage, LotRO's Middle Earth world somehow seems more real by having a visible day/night cycle with much darker nights and monsters that only appear during certain times of day. But for such a day/night cycle to work, it has to be shorter than 24 hours, because you want people who only play a few hours still to experience it.
Do you think World of Warcraft would be better off with a lets say 4-hour day/night cycle, darker nights, and events and mob appearences related to the time of virtual day? Or do you prefer the way where server time is local time, and you can tell your real time by hovering your mouse over the little sun icon next to your mini map?
WoW Journal - 11-February-2008
I leveled up my mage from 55 to 58 this weekend, mostly in Un'Goro and the Western Plaguelands. Being level 58 has some major consequences, many of them to do with The Burning Crusade. First of all I'm still wearing auction house bought green items with the "of the frozen wrath" appellation, but now they are of the quality that drops in Outlands, which is a considerable step up. I gained over a hundred points in frost spell damage, and am now at +536 when fully buffed. Not bad considering that my highest ranking frostbolt according to his spell description is supposed to do just under 500 points of damage, but with my gear it does just over 1,000 points, over 2,000 on a crit. Mobs of my level have around 3,000 to 4,000 health, so I can kill nearly everything in two to four frostbolts, before the mob even reaches me. I soloed Araj the Summoner in Andorhal for a quest, and he is a level 61 elite. Okay, that was the best case scenario, because I can use frost ward against his spells, and him being a spellcaster he doesn't have huge amounts of health. But I was pretty impressed with myself anyway. :)
The other important consequence of being level 58 is that I can now go through the portal to Outlands. I went to Thrallmar to check out the enchanting trainer, wondering whether due to my blood elf +10 racial bonus to enchanting I could already learn some new things, even if I thought that I would only be able to raise the cap at level 60. But to my surprise it turned out that the level cap to raise your professions past 300 is only 50, not 60. So I raised all my caps for enchanting, tailoring, cooking, and first aid.
That in turn lead to a big crafting session. I had lots of Netherweave cloth on my bank alt, which my mage now used to skill up tailoring to over 340, at which point I was able to my first 18-slot bags for himself. Then I disenchanted the items I tailored to skill up, and used the materials plus what I already had stored to level up enchanting to 340 as well, the level where I could do my own superior wizard oils. I stopped tailoring and enchanting there, because I would have needed to buy too much stuff to continue, and that would have been rather expensive. I also leveled up first aid to a similar level using stored runecloth, but the heavy runecloth bandages are really more than enough for my low health mage.
Skilling up cooking for my mage went hand in hand with skilling up fishing for my warrior. His fishing is up to 355, and the mage used the caught fish to get up to 349 in cooking. I need to catch some more mudfish or bluefish to get to 350, and then catch high level fish from the elevated lakes to level up my mages cooking to 375. I shouldn't have cooked all those high level fish last weekend with my warrior, but I was restocking the guild bank with food and selling the surplus.
My mage is probably strong enough to quest in Hellfire Peninsula, but I don't really want to. I'll go to Silithus first, making xp while grinding reputation for some recipes there. And maybe Winterspring if I'm not level 60 after Silithus. Hellfire Peninsula is the new Stranglethorn Vale, the bottleneck where all the players of a certain level range hang out, and I already did it too often. I'd rather explore the old world a bit more, and only enter Outlands again at level 60, minimizing my time in Hellfire Peninsula and moving on to the other zones as fast as possible.
The other important consequence of being level 58 is that I can now go through the portal to Outlands. I went to Thrallmar to check out the enchanting trainer, wondering whether due to my blood elf +10 racial bonus to enchanting I could already learn some new things, even if I thought that I would only be able to raise the cap at level 60. But to my surprise it turned out that the level cap to raise your professions past 300 is only 50, not 60. So I raised all my caps for enchanting, tailoring, cooking, and first aid.
That in turn lead to a big crafting session. I had lots of Netherweave cloth on my bank alt, which my mage now used to skill up tailoring to over 340, at which point I was able to my first 18-slot bags for himself. Then I disenchanted the items I tailored to skill up, and used the materials plus what I already had stored to level up enchanting to 340 as well, the level where I could do my own superior wizard oils. I stopped tailoring and enchanting there, because I would have needed to buy too much stuff to continue, and that would have been rather expensive. I also leveled up first aid to a similar level using stored runecloth, but the heavy runecloth bandages are really more than enough for my low health mage.
Skilling up cooking for my mage went hand in hand with skilling up fishing for my warrior. His fishing is up to 355, and the mage used the caught fish to get up to 349 in cooking. I need to catch some more mudfish or bluefish to get to 350, and then catch high level fish from the elevated lakes to level up my mages cooking to 375. I shouldn't have cooked all those high level fish last weekend with my warrior, but I was restocking the guild bank with food and selling the surplus.
My mage is probably strong enough to quest in Hellfire Peninsula, but I don't really want to. I'll go to Silithus first, making xp while grinding reputation for some recipes there. And maybe Winterspring if I'm not level 60 after Silithus. Hellfire Peninsula is the new Stranglethorn Vale, the bottleneck where all the players of a certain level range hang out, and I already did it too often. I'd rather explore the old world a bit more, and only enter Outlands again at level 60, minimizing my time in Hellfire Peninsula and moving on to the other zones as fast as possible.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Charlie Wilson's War
I just saw the movie Charlie Wilson's War and would like to recommend it to you. Not only is it a good movie with great actors (Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts), but it is also based on a true story. You can learn a lot about how world history is *really* made.
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