Lately my blog has been invaded by proselytizing Rift fans, which in their eagerness to spread their religious cause said a lot of things that were simply false. That didn't exactly endear them to me. But I'll try to correct some of those misconceptions, and establish some ground rules in this post.
Misconception 1: "Tobold doesn't know Rift". I already played Rift during the beta for several days. Of course there is the eternal discussion how many hours exactly one has to play a MMORPG to fully "get it". But I certainly played it sufficiently long to have experienced the two factions, different archetypes, the soul system, the rifts, and many hours of the general gameplay. Don't pretend I don't know what I am talking about.
Misconception 2: "Tobold hates Rift". I never said that, in fact I said a lot of nice things about Rift. It is a fun enough game, and far more polished at release than most MMORPGs. It is *not* the best MMORPG I've ever played, but certainly ranks up somewhere in the top 10. The top 10 are full of MMORPGs I can't find the time to play, like Lord of the Rings Online, and for LotRO I actually have a lifetime subscription.
Misconception 3: "Everybody should play Rift". I'm not convinced of that. And what is absolutely certain is that if you think everybody should play Rift, you are doing a lousy job of promoting it here. Sorry, but this is not a soccer stadium with some sort of contest whose fans can cheer the loudest. This is a rather intellectual blog discussing the merits of various features of all possible MMORPGs. The majority of pro-Rift comments I've seen completely failed to address even the most basic question of *why* Rift is a good game in your opinion. I would be very much interested in hearing your opinion about that: What exactly makes Rift better than other MMORPGs in your eyes? Up to now I've mostly seen mindless cheering, garbage arguments like "Rift is better because it doesn't have a Dungeon Finder - Oh, wait, they are just adding one - In that case Rift is better because of it's superior Dungeon Finder", or the eternal "Rift is the best game evah, because everybody who plays something else sucks". Sorry, you are unlikely to convince me or anybody else with arguments like that.
I've played Rift for hours, and during those hours I was mostly occupied doing "kill 10 foozles" quests, and moving from one quest hub to the next. That is exactly the kind of gameplay I've grown bored of from other games. I also battled in some rifts, but from my experience with WAR and reports from blogs like Kill Ten Rats I still have questions about the long-term viability of such public quest features once the initial bulk of players passed through a zone. I have a long list of other games which I would like to play, which don't play like the standard generic fantasy quest-based themepark MMORPG. So right now I just can't justify spending the 50 bucks and the time to play Rift. I have a intellectual interest in discussing what features "work" for you in Rift, but I am under no obligation whatsoever to play Rift, or to support the crusade mindlessly promoting that game.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Possibility space
Imagine a n-dimensional space.
...
Hmmm, that probably isn't going to work as introduction. Let's try something else: Imagine a list of features describing a MMORPG. For example the first item on the list could be the genre, with 1 representing fantasy, 2 science fiction, 3 historical, and so on. The second item describes the advancement system, with 1 being with experience points and levels, 2 being a skill point system, and so on. So you list ten or twenty or more sub-systems of a MMORPG, and in each of these sub-systems you assign numbers to all possible options.
What you end up with is a single long number describing a MMORPG in all its features. And if you do the list right, and include every feature of every MMORPG ever made, including exotic games like A Tale in the Desert, Puzzle Pirates, or Wizard 101, the totality of all the long numbers possible spans all the possible MMORPGs that can be made, just by using already existing ideas. You could then create random numbers, and see what kind of a game you get, for example a historical game with a skill point system, combat done via a collectible card system, and crafting done by puzzle mini-games.
Now if you take a list of the 50 biggest or best-known MMORPGs and describe them each with their single long number of all features, you would find that many of these numbers closely resemble each other. Starting with the first cipher, it is already obvious that the fantasy genre dominates over the other possibilities. Games with experience points and levels are far more frequent than games with skill point systems or other forms of advancement. And so on. To come back to my n-dimensional space, if you plotted all the existing games using the feature numbers as coordinates, you would see that most of these games form some sort of cloud, with only a few games like A Tale in the Desert being really far away from that cloud.
MMORPG players are an extremely territorial bunch, constantly fighting turf wars of "my game is better than yours". Thus when I am trying to express my disappointment about the possibility space of MMORPGs not being used better, that is immediately interpreted as bashing some particular game. You guys simply don't understand. I am not "anti Rift". I am just saying that in the huge possibility space of MMORPGs, I would like to see more games further away from the cluster of the majority of MMORPGs. I would like to see more games that aren't fantasy, more games that don't have xp and levels for advancement, more games that don't use autoattack plus hotkey combat, more games that don't guide you through various zones by series of quests, more games in which you don't spend the majority of your time killing and looting monsters, and so on. As there are a few examples of games like these, I know that the possibility exists. I just would like this possibility space used better, with more different games produced, instead of lots of minor variations of the same features and principles.
...
Hmmm, that probably isn't going to work as introduction. Let's try something else: Imagine a list of features describing a MMORPG. For example the first item on the list could be the genre, with 1 representing fantasy, 2 science fiction, 3 historical, and so on. The second item describes the advancement system, with 1 being with experience points and levels, 2 being a skill point system, and so on. So you list ten or twenty or more sub-systems of a MMORPG, and in each of these sub-systems you assign numbers to all possible options.
What you end up with is a single long number describing a MMORPG in all its features. And if you do the list right, and include every feature of every MMORPG ever made, including exotic games like A Tale in the Desert, Puzzle Pirates, or Wizard 101, the totality of all the long numbers possible spans all the possible MMORPGs that can be made, just by using already existing ideas. You could then create random numbers, and see what kind of a game you get, for example a historical game with a skill point system, combat done via a collectible card system, and crafting done by puzzle mini-games.
Now if you take a list of the 50 biggest or best-known MMORPGs and describe them each with their single long number of all features, you would find that many of these numbers closely resemble each other. Starting with the first cipher, it is already obvious that the fantasy genre dominates over the other possibilities. Games with experience points and levels are far more frequent than games with skill point systems or other forms of advancement. And so on. To come back to my n-dimensional space, if you plotted all the existing games using the feature numbers as coordinates, you would see that most of these games form some sort of cloud, with only a few games like A Tale in the Desert being really far away from that cloud.
MMORPG players are an extremely territorial bunch, constantly fighting turf wars of "my game is better than yours". Thus when I am trying to express my disappointment about the possibility space of MMORPGs not being used better, that is immediately interpreted as bashing some particular game. You guys simply don't understand. I am not "anti Rift". I am just saying that in the huge possibility space of MMORPGs, I would like to see more games further away from the cluster of the majority of MMORPGs. I would like to see more games that aren't fantasy, more games that don't have xp and levels for advancement, more games that don't use autoattack plus hotkey combat, more games that don't guide you through various zones by series of quests, more games in which you don't spend the majority of your time killing and looting monsters, and so on. As there are a few examples of games like these, I know that the possibility exists. I just would like this possibility space used better, with more different games produced, instead of lots of minor variations of the same features and principles.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Fake escape
Let's play a little game, a small quiz: I'll give you a list of 5 games, and you tell me which 2 of those 5 resemble each other the most. Ready? Here we go:
{Call of Duty Modern Warfare - World of Warcraft - Pro Evolution Soccer - Shogun 2 Total War - Rift}
Too easy? Maybe try a harder list:
{Rift - Puzzle Pirates - World of Warcraft - Ultima Online - EVE Online}
Hmm, still everybody giving the same answer. But even if further narrow down our list to lets say {Lord of the Rings Online - Age of Conan - Warhammer Online - World of Warcraft - Rift}, most people would still pick out WoW and Rift as being the most similar games on that list. In fact it is kind of hard to come up with a list containing WoW, Rift, and three other games and have the majority of the answers pick WoW and another game but Rift.
That is not to say that Rift is a "WoW Clone", or that there aren't significant differences between Rift and WoW. But it is hard to deny that there are also significant similarities between the two games. Fortunately the MMO blogosphere is full of masters of denial; and so it isn't uncommon to find blogs in which a blogger who spent considerable time to tell his audience that World of Warcraft is fundamentally flawed as a game concept now praises Rift as being the greatest game ever. That has more to do with some people's need to rationalize their game choices than with any real fundamental differences between World of Warcraft and Rift.
Therefore I am highly sceptical of the advice often repeated in the comment section of the Cataclysm replayability thread: Combatting World of Warcraft burnout by switching to Rift. Not because I don't believe that Rift isn't a good game, or that I'd deny that by nature a new game has more fresh content than a 6-year old game. But because I doubt that Rift is *sufficiently* different from World of Warcraft to not have the same burnout reappear in a few months. Or in other words: If Rift is the solution, then the problem with World of Warcraft can't have been all that fundamental.
I am reluctant to switch to Rift, because I'm afraid that will quickly turn out to be a fake escape. It won't take long before the same social patterns evolve in Rift that I dislike in World of Warcraft: The "leet" complaining about the "morons & slackers". The virtual idolatry of the purple pixel e-peen. The fundamental belief that somebody who advances faster and further in a video game is a better human being than somebody who doesn't. Of course in a new game these old attitudes might take on new forms and express themselves in new vocabularies. But I seriously doubt that Rift somehow magically managed to solve all the social problems of the MMORPG genre. People might still be too busy with the new shiny, but very quickly they will fall back into the bad old habits.
I think I'll play more single-player and browser games in the coming months, instead of another MMORPG. I'll play WoW when I feel like it, and will unsubscribe when my weekly playtime naturally dwindled to nothingness. I'll certainly try out Star Wars: The Old Republic later this year, which is probably slightly less similar to World of Warcraft than Rift is. But I'm not holding my breath hoping for any miracle.
{Call of Duty Modern Warfare - World of Warcraft - Pro Evolution Soccer - Shogun 2 Total War - Rift}
Too easy? Maybe try a harder list:
{Rift - Puzzle Pirates - World of Warcraft - Ultima Online - EVE Online}
Hmm, still everybody giving the same answer. But even if further narrow down our list to lets say {Lord of the Rings Online - Age of Conan - Warhammer Online - World of Warcraft - Rift}, most people would still pick out WoW and Rift as being the most similar games on that list. In fact it is kind of hard to come up with a list containing WoW, Rift, and three other games and have the majority of the answers pick WoW and another game but Rift.
That is not to say that Rift is a "WoW Clone", or that there aren't significant differences between Rift and WoW. But it is hard to deny that there are also significant similarities between the two games. Fortunately the MMO blogosphere is full of masters of denial; and so it isn't uncommon to find blogs in which a blogger who spent considerable time to tell his audience that World of Warcraft is fundamentally flawed as a game concept now praises Rift as being the greatest game ever. That has more to do with some people's need to rationalize their game choices than with any real fundamental differences between World of Warcraft and Rift.
Therefore I am highly sceptical of the advice often repeated in the comment section of the Cataclysm replayability thread: Combatting World of Warcraft burnout by switching to Rift. Not because I don't believe that Rift isn't a good game, or that I'd deny that by nature a new game has more fresh content than a 6-year old game. But because I doubt that Rift is *sufficiently* different from World of Warcraft to not have the same burnout reappear in a few months. Or in other words: If Rift is the solution, then the problem with World of Warcraft can't have been all that fundamental.
I am reluctant to switch to Rift, because I'm afraid that will quickly turn out to be a fake escape. It won't take long before the same social patterns evolve in Rift that I dislike in World of Warcraft: The "leet" complaining about the "morons & slackers". The virtual idolatry of the purple pixel e-peen. The fundamental belief that somebody who advances faster and further in a video game is a better human being than somebody who doesn't. Of course in a new game these old attitudes might take on new forms and express themselves in new vocabularies. But I seriously doubt that Rift somehow magically managed to solve all the social problems of the MMORPG genre. People might still be too busy with the new shiny, but very quickly they will fall back into the bad old habits.
I think I'll play more single-player and browser games in the coming months, instead of another MMORPG. I'll play WoW when I feel like it, and will unsubscribe when my weekly playtime naturally dwindled to nothingness. I'll certainly try out Star Wars: The Old Republic later this year, which is probably slightly less similar to World of Warcraft than Rift is. But I'm not holding my breath hoping for any miracle.
Why is my comment not showing?
Just a technical post about this blog, and the Blogger comment system.
In the great majority of cases, when you write a comment to one of my blog posts, the comment will appear on the blog pretty much immediately. If that is not the case, one of the following things happened:
1) The stupid heuristic Blogger spam filter identified (probably mistakenly) your comment as spam, and quarantined it. About once I day I have a look at that spam folder and "unspam" comments that have been mistakenly withheld. Unfortunately Blogger does *not* allow bloggers to turn that spam filter off.
2) You commented on a post that is more than 2 weeks old. In that case your comment is automatically withheld until I approve its publication. The reason for that is that comment spam most often happens on older posts with a high pagerank. Yeah, blog discussions are short-lived, and 2 weeks are an eternity on the internet.
3) Your comment was initially published, but then later deleted by me because it didn't comply with the rules of civilized discussion. That happens rarely, to less than 1% of comments, and usually to one-liner comments containing profanity and personal attacks instead of contributing to the discussion. But in those rare cases the comment does *not* disappear without a trace. Instead the text of the comment is replaced by a "This post has been removed by a blog administrator" message, so the commenter knows his comment has been deliberately moderated.
So, unless you see a comment moderation message, if your comment is not showing, chances are that it is stuck somewhere in the pipeline. I'll do my best to unclog that pipeline regularly, but you will understand that I can't watch the comment section 24/7. My apologies for any inconveniences.
P.S.: I know that other blogging systems or comment systems might have technical advantages. But I'm not moving my blog elsewhere.
In the great majority of cases, when you write a comment to one of my blog posts, the comment will appear on the blog pretty much immediately. If that is not the case, one of the following things happened:
1) The stupid heuristic Blogger spam filter identified (probably mistakenly) your comment as spam, and quarantined it. About once I day I have a look at that spam folder and "unspam" comments that have been mistakenly withheld. Unfortunately Blogger does *not* allow bloggers to turn that spam filter off.
2) You commented on a post that is more than 2 weeks old. In that case your comment is automatically withheld until I approve its publication. The reason for that is that comment spam most often happens on older posts with a high pagerank. Yeah, blog discussions are short-lived, and 2 weeks are an eternity on the internet.
3) Your comment was initially published, but then later deleted by me because it didn't comply with the rules of civilized discussion. That happens rarely, to less than 1% of comments, and usually to one-liner comments containing profanity and personal attacks instead of contributing to the discussion. But in those rare cases the comment does *not* disappear without a trace. Instead the text of the comment is replaced by a "This post has been removed by a blog administrator" message, so the commenter knows his comment has been deliberately moderated.
So, unless you see a comment moderation message, if your comment is not showing, chances are that it is stuck somewhere in the pipeline. I'll do my best to unclog that pipeline regularly, but you will understand that I can't watch the comment section 24/7. My apologies for any inconveniences.
P.S.: I know that other blogging systems or comment systems might have technical advantages. But I'm not moving my blog elsewhere.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
1,000 hours per year
Various surveys over the years showed that MMORPG players on average spend around 20 hours per week with their favorite game, that is 1,000 hours per year. As a consequence of the RealID debacle I turned on parental controls for my World of Warcraft account, and the weekly play time reports Blizzard sends me confirm that I too play around 20 hours per week. That makes over 6,000 hours since the game was released, so it isn't really surprising that I and many others (see comments in yesterday's thread) are somewhat burned out.
But still the question remains whether it would be possible to make a game in a way that players *don't* burn out when playing it 1,000 hours per year for several years. Basically there are two major axes along which a game can entertain for thousands of hours: Content and replayability. Of these, content is currently the focus of most game developers: Blizzard made a huge effort to tell more engaging stories in Cataclysm using a mix of quests, phasing, scripted events, and cutscenes. And Bioware promises epic storytelling as the "fourth pillar" of their upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG, with "over 50 novels worth" of voiceover text.
I have repeatedly voiced my doubts about that approach. It is not that I don't believe that games can't tell stories well. But I do believe that they usually do it well only for shorter blocks of time. If you play through lets say a Call of Duty game in 10 to 20 hours, you will have experienced a gripping story. Keeping that level of story-telling up for 1,000 hours and more is a challenge that hasn't been met yet. Even voiceover is no help when ultimately the game goes back to telling you to "kill 10 womp rats".
Replayability is about "making interesting choices", the hallmark of a good game according to Sid Meier. Unfortunately MMORPGs don't appear to have made much progress in that area in the last decade. In some areas the making of interesting choices even regressed, due to the growing popularity of MMORPGs leading to theorycrafters finding the mathematically optimal solution, thereby eliminating choice. Game developers also contributed to that, by trying to make their games more convenient, and less punishing, thereby eliminating the *need* to make a right decision. The only thing we gained since Everquest is better technology that enables us to play much faster, thus making a "do not stand in the fire" type of challenge possible. Unfortunately "not standing in the fire" is *not* an interesting choice, and ultimately boils down to reflexes and excellence of execution. It makes it possible to fill 1,000 hours of gameplay with 10 hours of wipes each for 100 different raid bosses, but that isn't everybody's idea of fun.
Replayability suffers a lot from different MMORPGs having so similar basic gameplay. An Everquest player frozen for a decade and thawed up at PAX East to play a SWTOR demo would have found the controls and combat very familiar, just prettier and faster now. If anything the choices are less interesting now, because in a modern game randomly mashing buttons has a higher likelyhood of success and a much lower penalty for failure. That carries the risk that players burn out in a new game much quicker than they burned out in the previous game. Once the player consumed all the new content of the new game, the gameplay isn't holding him, because he was already bored of that from the start.
I do believe that if MMORPGs want to ever make the next quantum leap in popularity, developers will have to come up with new forms of gameplay that offer more interesting choices, and thus better replayability. Chess has been doing quite well for hundreds of years, in spite of it having lousy story-telling. Instead of creating interactive television, which by nature is limited in the number of hours of entertainment it can provide, developers will need to remember some of the core values of game design. It is hard to fill 1,000 hours per year of gameplay if that gameplay doesn't offer interesting choices.
But still the question remains whether it would be possible to make a game in a way that players *don't* burn out when playing it 1,000 hours per year for several years. Basically there are two major axes along which a game can entertain for thousands of hours: Content and replayability. Of these, content is currently the focus of most game developers: Blizzard made a huge effort to tell more engaging stories in Cataclysm using a mix of quests, phasing, scripted events, and cutscenes. And Bioware promises epic storytelling as the "fourth pillar" of their upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG, with "over 50 novels worth" of voiceover text.
I have repeatedly voiced my doubts about that approach. It is not that I don't believe that games can't tell stories well. But I do believe that they usually do it well only for shorter blocks of time. If you play through lets say a Call of Duty game in 10 to 20 hours, you will have experienced a gripping story. Keeping that level of story-telling up for 1,000 hours and more is a challenge that hasn't been met yet. Even voiceover is no help when ultimately the game goes back to telling you to "kill 10 womp rats".
Replayability is about "making interesting choices", the hallmark of a good game according to Sid Meier. Unfortunately MMORPGs don't appear to have made much progress in that area in the last decade. In some areas the making of interesting choices even regressed, due to the growing popularity of MMORPGs leading to theorycrafters finding the mathematically optimal solution, thereby eliminating choice. Game developers also contributed to that, by trying to make their games more convenient, and less punishing, thereby eliminating the *need* to make a right decision. The only thing we gained since Everquest is better technology that enables us to play much faster, thus making a "do not stand in the fire" type of challenge possible. Unfortunately "not standing in the fire" is *not* an interesting choice, and ultimately boils down to reflexes and excellence of execution. It makes it possible to fill 1,000 hours of gameplay with 10 hours of wipes each for 100 different raid bosses, but that isn't everybody's idea of fun.
Replayability suffers a lot from different MMORPGs having so similar basic gameplay. An Everquest player frozen for a decade and thawed up at PAX East to play a SWTOR demo would have found the controls and combat very familiar, just prettier and faster now. If anything the choices are less interesting now, because in a modern game randomly mashing buttons has a higher likelyhood of success and a much lower penalty for failure. That carries the risk that players burn out in a new game much quicker than they burned out in the previous game. Once the player consumed all the new content of the new game, the gameplay isn't holding him, because he was already bored of that from the start.
I do believe that if MMORPGs want to ever make the next quantum leap in popularity, developers will have to come up with new forms of gameplay that offer more interesting choices, and thus better replayability. Chess has been doing quite well for hundreds of years, in spite of it having lousy story-telling. Instead of creating interactive television, which by nature is limited in the number of hours of entertainment it can provide, developers will need to remember some of the core values of game design. It is hard to fill 1,000 hours per year of gameplay if that gameplay doesn't offer interesting choices.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Obat Jerawat Dan Flek Ala Photoshop
Menyembunyikan noda dan flek hitam di wajah hanya dalam beberapa minggu,” ujar slogan iklan produk kecantikan di TV.Wah, kelamaan. Kamu bisa melakukannya dalam waktu beberapa menit saja, kok. Mau tau rahasianya? Ini dia cara praktis untuk Obat Jerawat Dan Flek Ala Photoshop. Cara ini ampuh ketika ada foto wajah kamu yang bikin kurang percaya diri, misalnya gara – gara jerawat, flek, atau hal lainnya. Untuk keperluan koleksi foto pribadi, profil di facebook atau twitter, atau mungkin untuk foto identitas, cara ini dapat digunakan tanpa harus meminta bantuan make – up artist untuk menyembunyikan jerawat atau membubuhkan obat jerawat. - ( Baca Juga : kumpulan vector gratis )
- Buka foto diarea kerja. Perhatikan foto yang hendak kamu olah dan tetukan bagian mana yang hendak dihilangkan agar wajah terlihat bersih. Jika hanya ada beberapa flek di wajah, manfaatkan saja spot Healing brush tool di toolbox untuk mehilangkannya.
- Langsung saja pulaskan dan klik pointer pada noda di wajah yang hendak di hilangkan. Besarkan ukuran pointer dengan menekan tombol “]’’ atau kecilkan dengan tombol “[‘’ di keyboard jika dirasa kurang. Beberapa saat setelah diklik, noda akan memudar. Ulangi klik beberapa kali hingga benar – benar menghilang.
- Jika noda atau jerawat di waja h cukup banyak, lakukan cara lain. Pertama, gandakan layer foto wajah yang sedang kamu olah. Tarik layer foto utama ke tombol bergambarlembaran kertas di bagian bawah panel Layer. Cara lainnya adalahdengan menekan Ctrl +J di keyboar.
- Buatlah wajah agar terlihat benar- benar halus.Sebelumnya, gunakan dulu fasilitas “Smart Filter” agar filter yang kamu terapkan bisa di utak-atik terus. Klik layer hasil penggandaan, lalu klik “Filter > Convert for smart Filter”.
- Smart Filter yang telah aktif di tandai dengan munculnya gambar kotak-kotak di layer baru. Kini gunakan Filter pemburam gambar untuk menghaluskan wajah. Klik “Filter > Blur >Gaussian Blur” . Pada boks dialog Gaussian blur geser-geser slide bar “Radius” hingga mendapatkan kehalusan wajah yang kamu inginkan. Akhiri dengan mengklik OK.
- Klik layer duplikasi. Pada panel layer, layer hasil duplikasi akan mendapatkan mask layer bernama “Smart Filter”. Mask layer itulah nantinya akan kamu utak-atik. Selanjutnya, pastikan kotak warna “Foreground color” dan “Background color” di tool boks terpilih hitam dan putih.
- Klik Brush Tool bergambar kuas. Pilih kuasjenis soft round dengan mode Normal. Aturmenu “Opacity” ke angka antara 70-90% dan biarkan nilai “Flow” di angka 100%. Selanjutnya, klik untuk mengaktifkan mask layer “Smart Filters” pada panel layer.
- Selanjutnya, pulaslah bagian wajah hingga tampilan aslinya yang tajam (tidak buram) keluar . Atur “opacyti” ke nilai 10-30%. Gunakan kuas berukuran kecil dengan mengaturnya lewat slider di menu “Brush:”. Sekarang , pulas kuas atau brushke bagian outline wajah agar wajah terlihat tegas.
- Cara ini di lakukan untuk mengembalikan bagian wajah yang tetap ingin tampil tajam (selain bagian wajah yang ingin di haluskan), seperti mata, hidung, rambut, dan lainnya. Lakukan tahap ini dengan seksama agar bagian kulit yang sudah halus tetap terjaga. Lakukan hal yang sama untuk bagian mata, alis, dan bibir. Gunakan saja persentase Opacity yang minim dan lakukan pulasan berulang-ulang.
Kini bagian kulit wajah pada foto telah tampil halus. Gunakan semua layer dengan mengklik layer Flatten Image. Lalu kamu bisa menyimpannya.
Selamat mencoba Obat Jerawat Dan Flek Ala Photoshop
Cataclysm replayability
Blizzard releases expansions for World of Warcraft every two years, and there is nothing to suggest that Cataclysm will be an exception. Thus the question is: What are we going to do in the remaining 20 months? Of course there is not one answer for everybody, as different people play the game in different ways. But I'd like to tell you a bit about my characters, and what I'm doing.
At the end of Wrath of the Lich King, I had 5 level 80 characters, a priest, a warrior, a mage, a druid, and a paladin. I leveled up the priest to 85 doing Vashj'ir, Uldum, and dungeons. I got the warrior to 85 mostly by doing archeology and gathering herbs. The mage got to the level cap by doing Mount Hyjal, Deepholme, and Twilight Highlands. And currently the druid and paladin are level 82.
Now questing in Cataclysm level 80 to 85 zones feels different from previous expansions. The zones are rather linear, with one major quest chain leading through it. You cannot pick, lets say to just do the Therazane quests in Deepholme, you need to do nearly all the quests in the zone to get there. You can't even skip quests you don't like all that much. And this structure really kills replayability for me. I tried doing Vashj'ir again, with my druid and his aquatic form, but doing exactly the same quests in exactly the same order thoroughly depressed me. Knowing that I wouldn't be able to skip the naga quests, which I hated because I had to play a completely different character through them, I abandoned the idea. And I didn't have much more fun with the paladin in Mount Hyjal, so instead I started to tanks dungeons and gather ore with him. As my paladin is Alliance, and the other 4 characters are Horde, I also discovered that in the new Cataclysm zones there are basically only neutral quest givers, and there is practically no difference between Horde and Alliance quests in this expansion.
So right now I'm struggling with my motivation. There are only 5 zones, one doesn't get much choice which quests to do or not do, and even switching from Horde to Alliance doesn't give access to more variety. It isn't as if there was no content in Cataclysm, but most of that content is in the level 1 to 60 range, and I'm not sure I want to level up another bunch of characters to 60, and even less beyond. I did the goblin and worgen starter zones, and then stopped. But I don't really have a good plan about what to do with my high-level characters either. I made 100k gold with gathering and tradeskills for fun, but even that is getting old. 5-man dungeons are still the most fun to me, but there aren't a huge number of those at level 85 either, and running them repeatedly for the next 20 months doesn't really excite me.
So I was wondering how Cataclysm is treating you. Are you still having fun? What are you doing? Do you play alts, and if yes, how did you experience replayability in Cataclysm?
At the end of Wrath of the Lich King, I had 5 level 80 characters, a priest, a warrior, a mage, a druid, and a paladin. I leveled up the priest to 85 doing Vashj'ir, Uldum, and dungeons. I got the warrior to 85 mostly by doing archeology and gathering herbs. The mage got to the level cap by doing Mount Hyjal, Deepholme, and Twilight Highlands. And currently the druid and paladin are level 82.
Now questing in Cataclysm level 80 to 85 zones feels different from previous expansions. The zones are rather linear, with one major quest chain leading through it. You cannot pick, lets say to just do the Therazane quests in Deepholme, you need to do nearly all the quests in the zone to get there. You can't even skip quests you don't like all that much. And this structure really kills replayability for me. I tried doing Vashj'ir again, with my druid and his aquatic form, but doing exactly the same quests in exactly the same order thoroughly depressed me. Knowing that I wouldn't be able to skip the naga quests, which I hated because I had to play a completely different character through them, I abandoned the idea. And I didn't have much more fun with the paladin in Mount Hyjal, so instead I started to tanks dungeons and gather ore with him. As my paladin is Alliance, and the other 4 characters are Horde, I also discovered that in the new Cataclysm zones there are basically only neutral quest givers, and there is practically no difference between Horde and Alliance quests in this expansion.
So right now I'm struggling with my motivation. There are only 5 zones, one doesn't get much choice which quests to do or not do, and even switching from Horde to Alliance doesn't give access to more variety. It isn't as if there was no content in Cataclysm, but most of that content is in the level 1 to 60 range, and I'm not sure I want to level up another bunch of characters to 60, and even less beyond. I did the goblin and worgen starter zones, and then stopped. But I don't really have a good plan about what to do with my high-level characters either. I made 100k gold with gathering and tradeskills for fun, but even that is getting old. 5-man dungeons are still the most fun to me, but there aren't a huge number of those at level 85 either, and running them repeatedly for the next 20 months doesn't really excite me.
So I was wondering how Cataclysm is treating you. Are you still having fun? What are you doing? Do you play alts, and if yes, how did you experience replayability in Cataclysm?
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