Massively Multi-player Online Games
An interesting read over at Ars Technica today.
My favorite classes in college were socioloy courses. And part of sociological work is getting your hands on data and trying to form the data into useful conclusions. It’s part data mining, part theorizing, and mostly all crazy. And this is no different in my eyes. You get the data and you compare reality to what people say. You can come up with some really interesting correlations.
Like, how average the average MMOG player really is.
Syp over at the Gameriot Blogs posted a list of seven favorites about Warhammer Online. And, me being a little lazy, took the time to write some of my own down.
Favorite Zone
So far, the T2 Open RvR areas of Elf-lands are my favorite. I really like the rocky crags of the Shadowlands section of the zone. The fog could be rendered better, but it’s a nice touch.
Favorite Race
Man, this is a tough one. Right now, I’ll say Dwarves. And I don’t even play Order actively. Something about their design and look really appeals to me. The tough little annoying jerks I know they are in PvP is also a draw.
Favorite Career
Again, a touch pick since I really am drawn to several. Shaman has a very cool mechanic that draws me towards playing them. But, at heart, I suspect I’m an aesthetics guy and I really like the look of the warrior priest. But, in the end I’ll give it to the engineer. Dwarf plus turrets and guns is a win.
Favorite WAR Feature
Keeps. Period. Taking a keep, while not the best implimentation, is my favorite part of the game. Defending or attacking, I love the entire concept. I know keeps are in need of some real re-design, but this is where the rubber meets the road for a PvP game.
Favorite Skill
To me, this is like asking for my favorite fork or knife in the kitchen. Uh … all of them? I use some more than others, but I don’t have a favorite. A skill is a skill is a skill … right?
Favorite Scenario
Having never made it past T2 (YET!), I’m limited in my choices here. I’ll say Mourkain Temple. Mostly because it’s a simple scenario, yet few people seem to really play it at it’s face value. Not to mention that since my main career is a sorceress, it’s a great scenario for AoE spells. Muhahaha.
Favorite Live Event
I’m not an event person. I actively avoided logging into WoW anytime there was a holiday event, so I’m not partial to these at all. But, the most recent Night of Murder was really low-key and very well done. These events that are really “icing on the cake” and not a whole other slice of cake I feel obligated to eat are my … uh … cup of cake.
It’s amazing how much my likes and dislikes seem to be contrary to where I spend my time in the game and what career/race I play. I’m a little surprised.
I have not been veraciously playing WAR like I played WoW. I log in, I play, I log out. No big deal. And those sessions have slowly payed off. Aside from playing better and mastering my class more, you earn influence for the open RvR sections of the game. So, once I hit class rank 18 and realm rank 18, I had tons of blue and purple gear to pick up from the warcamp rally masters.
You could look at this as a grind, no different than grinding purple gear in WoW. Except, I did this guildless without any real dependency on twenty four other people. All pugs. Just playing the game. I like that.
Is it so hard to find twenty five people who are not suffering some kind of mental impairment? I think ten people is pretty reasonable number of sane, intelligent people. But twice that starts to push the limits of expectations.
World of Warcraft is a fun game, but if you want to pursue the end-game raiding content, you will have to find twenty four other people you can work with. And they can’t just be people you can get along with under ideal circumstances. These people need to be comrades when the chips are down and things are not going well. They need to agree on what they expect from everyone else and be able to apply that same expectation to themselves. I don’t think I know that many people in real life, and if I did, I certainly were not friends with them all at the same time.
When you try to build this dream team, you end up with some people waiting around for the rest of the team to stumble into your guild. Sometimes after being through several other guilds, searching for their true home in the game. And that journey can leave this otherwise normal person with any number of strange quirks and psychological problems. Sometimes it’s something as simple as “we don’t pull the mobs like this” or “I cleared this in another guild so you should be coming to me for advice!” And it can be worse. After spending twenty hours a week with a group of people who hate each other to get some content down, they have often abandoned any protocols for working with people in any rational way. They learn to treat people like dirt to show their own superiority. They learn to insult people who are not as well geared or skilled as they are. They develop these insecure mechanisms where they tout their spec as being the same as the main tank in Nihilum instead of taking any pride in having a spec they know is good and WHY it is a good spec. I’ve had people, after being removed from our guild for not fitting in well, actually try to argue their way back into the guild. Often they expect to stay in the guild based on their skill or gear, even if everyone in the guild hates their guts. Who does that? I know who. Insane people!
It makes being a guild leader a nightmare sometimes. On one hand you need to recruit and grow your guild. On the other hand, you need to scrutinize these new people and keep the jerks out. When someone is really bad, it’s not such a bad job. It’s the people who seem normal, but are a swirling storm of drama underneath that make being a guild leader a serious pain.
Grrr.
