Too Soon?
Maybe I turned in my Gamer Card too soon 🤔
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Death to Legion
It certainly was short lived. My return to try Legion only lasted a mere two weeks. I just cannot get into it. I find myself bored out of my mind. As a person who likes playing different characters and trying different things. I couldn’t do it. It’s an insane amount of work to not only level 7 characters, but 7 or more artifact weapons. The new crafting, while more involved, isn’t worth the effort. I’ve unsubscribed again.
Then there is the lack of community and team spirit. Trade chat is so quiet now that Blizzard has instilled the auto silence for spamming. If it isn’t for bad chat, it seems we have no chat at all. Gloom, Despair and Agony Oh … uh.. them!
I agree with most of what Alexensual points out in his video below.
The worst part is, I tried to return to my legacy server Atlantiss. Legion has bored me so much, I can’t even play there and enjoy myself. I’ve no idea if this is the end for me and Warcraft once and for all. Because I’ve said that same thing many times, only to find I’ve lied to myself. So rather than repeat the lie, I’ll just let it run it’s course. I’ve already tried a new game, Mad Max. But new games are just so overly complicated now. I just don’t enjoy them like I do the classics. Though my determination still makes me look for something. Perhaps Pantheon will turn out good.
Which Server to Choose?
I went Rogue about a month ago. Not playing the class, but where I play my normal characters for World of Warcraft. The original game evolved, and I have not. I still love to play, but not their way. I want to enjoy what I know, not relearn on every single expansion. Thus, screw the advanced graphics for game-play that I enjoy. It’s not my fault Blizzard refuses to learn from the plentiful of examples set before them. That lesson being, is there are loads of players who still love the old content and are content to play it. If Blizzard simply understood that, they would still be getting my monthly fee. As well as thousands, possibly millions of others.
Besides, it seems like the mighty game gods have run out of ideas and are now simply rehashing old content. Since Legion is basically a reboot of Burning Crusades. I’m guessing the Lich King will return. Probably Bolvar Fordragon, as he took up the helm after Arthas was defeated. I mean seriously. Oh and all skills will have to be completely redone yet again and you’ll lose and gain skills as with every expansion. …yeah I’m over it.
However, I’ve been confronted with new issues. Sure playing on a different server, comes with caveats of it’s own. Like bugged quests. OK that’s expected on a handful of issues. Along with bugged NPC’s. OK sure. Poorly run servers. That’s a bit of an issue. I’m on server number 4 after the first two would crash daily. The first server was Vanilla and I started in Lich King. So I wasn’t into it as much. The second server was dead. I mean I could do a global /who and find exactly zero other players. I started to really gain ground on the third server but it crashed too often. Both the second and third servers were hosted by the same people and they would crash every single day. The main server had roughly 800 players at peak. If it can’t handle 800 connections then someone isn’t running a server properly.
Then of course there is the global hatred of Americans. That can be an issue since 90% of servers are not hosted in the US for obvious reasons. So far, the hatred has been minimal and I’ve found very friendly folks generous enough to help a person starting over. The old content in it’s original state was hard and making in game currency is tricky without a little boost.
I’ve only been on server 4 for a few days, but most of that time I’ve been working or fixing other peoples problems. So not sure where this server stands, but I do like the ping rates.
Lastly this means that some of my toons will have to have slightly different names due to lack of availability. ?
As the French would say, “c’est la vie”.
Going Old School
The problem I’ve had playing games the past few years, is that as the graphics get better and the game play gets more in-depth… The less I enjoy it. It’s been true in many cases for me.
I play a game like say … Thief (1998). I had a blast playing it. Next one I got was Thief: Deadly Shadows (2004) and I had an absolute blast. In so much as I still play it. Then Thief (2014) came out and it lost its magic. It is beautiful, but I don’t care for how it plays.
Same thing with Grand Theft Auto. I started playing GTA III (2001), it was fun. GTA Vice City (2002) it was a blast from the past, and a blast to play. GTA San Andreas (2004) was fun. GTA 4 (2008) was cool, but not as much fun. GTA 5 the graphics are astounding, but it just doesn’t feel the same. I love driving the cars. That’s about it.
It seems I have a very hard time of letting go of games I loved. New games just don’t do it for me. God knows I’ve tried endlessly the past few months to find something to enjoy. I guess I’m no longer a gamer in today’s definition. Rather I’m an Old School Gamer.
Everyone who knows me, knows I love my World of Warcraft. As much as I try to quit playing it. I always end up coming back eventually. Problem is, just like every other game. The newer it gets, the less I enjoy it. I came in when Burning Crusades (2007) was on it’s way out and Wrath of the Lich King (2008) was coming in. Best two years of gaming ever. I was crazy for the game.
Then Cataclysm (2010) came out. I had a pretty good time. Never made it to the end raid though. Still haven’t and it’s 2016. Mists of Pandaria (2012) was launched and I felt something inside me die when I was surrounded by happy bouncy fat pandas. I spend most of my time on the Timeless Isle for the last six months. I really didn’t even find it pretty. Then again, I’m not into asian culture or art/design. Then Warlords of Dreanor (2014) came out and it almost felt like they were simply rehashing old content and upping the visual aspects. Sure it involved time travel. Honestly, if you don’t have a TARDIS, it’s best to leave time travel to The Doctor. Again, spent most of my time doing Garrison missions and farming Tanaan Jungle. I only did one WoD dungeon. Didn’t even care to try the others. Now here comes Legion (2016). It’s Burning Crusades all over again. I wasted $70 on the pre-purchase of the Deluxe Edition. I have absolutely no interest in trying to relearn my character all over again. The more they change it, the less I like it.
While I can go back and play my old favorite games to my hearts content, I can’t do it with World of Warcraft. I have no choice in the matter. Either I learn to play the way Blizzard wants, or I simply don’t get to play at all. Or do I 😈
What to do? What to do..
Here’s that familiar limbo I go through every few months or so. I love playing online games on my PC. Though I can’t seem to find joy in the games I have. I’m forever stuck in “the games I once loved” mode. Every MMORPG game I find, is either on the new microtransaction system, or has changed the game play so much that you spend an eternity lost in trying to work it. Microtransactions have murdered any good time you can have in a game. If you don’t want to spend the money, you don’t get to have the fun. In every single game I have ever tried that has the microtransaction payment system sucks unless you pony up the dough. Usually costing more than $15 per month. Let’s not talk about the time I spent $1100 in one year to play one of those ?
It’s actually hard to find a subscription game now. Even harder when you don’t want it vomiting up anime-dayglow. Take your Kon’nichiwa and shove it up your Kōmon. I tried playing Final Fantasy XIV for maybe 6 hours total before I wanted to throw up. I mean seriously, sheep that look like cotton candy?
There are games that are pay once and no subscription or microtransactions. Possibly limited microtransactions that do not affect the game play are acceptable. Basically called Buy to Play. Though I’ve tried Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. Neither tickled my fancy. I’m currently waiting for Elder Scrolls Online to go on sale on Steam. That way if I don’t like it, I won’t cry too terribly hard.
Why am I not playing World of Warcraft? Honestly I’d like to continue playing it. I just really miss how it used to be. I love the new graphics, hate the new game play. Tired of new skill trees on every single expansion. Tired of leveling up crafting skills in different methods. New useless activities like Archeology. Even though they make things easier, they also make it harder. You no longer have your friends help you learn to play in Dungeons or Raids. You use tutorials. They call them Proving Grounds. Of course I hear they are going away, which of course is pissing off players who take the game far too seriously. Really? You need to pass a test and an interview to play games now? WTF? Whatever happened to hilarity of trying and failing but having friends who will pick you up and make you stronger? I miss those days. I really, really do. Then there is flying in new expansions. It is so controversial now. It’s to the point you don’t enjoy the reward for the work you put in just so you can have it.
I miss the World of Warcraft of yesterday so much. Nostalrius has the right idea and a damned good one at that. He ran a Vanilla Warcraft server. True to it’s origins. Available to players so they can enjoy the game when they loved it most. Even better would be a series of servers for each expansion. (Burning Crusades, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria [for the panda lovers] and so on) I have very seriously considered playing on Warmane servers. Though I can’t confirm the legitimacy of their payment system and they offer up increased gold and experience. I would rather play it as it was meant to be played. Untouched or unmodified. However, even if they are on the up and up, it’s only a matter of time before they get hacked or shut down by Blizzard like Nostalrius was.
Many of the new games that aren’t anime on overload, don’t look all that pretty to me. Seriously. I guess I love the bright colors and upbeat models. See for yourself.
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- World of Warcraft Screenshot
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- Rift Screenshot
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- Elder Scrolls Online Screenshot
Call me a weenie, but I also prefer good old fashioned “tab-targeting“. Most newer games, like Elder Scrolls Online have adopted “crosshair targeting”. I’m getting old and don’t move as quick as I used too. Though I might still be able to kick your ass in the classic Unreal Tournament 😛
So you see, my range of choices are incredibly thin. Because I want:
- A Monthly Subscription or Buy to Play
- Is more Western and not Asian looking
- Is based in Fantasy (Dragons and such)
- Would really prefer mounts, especially if they can fly
- Has tab-targeting
There is one more thing. Darla has expressed interest in playing games with me. Although she’s not a computer geek like myself. So a game that would be easier to learn and not so involved would be nice. Perhaps limited in the number of skills needed to remember would be good.
Thus my hunt continues. I’d even be open to non-MMO’s, such as a co-op game. I hear Fable III might be a good choice. ?
The Next Expansion
Here we are at the edge of the crucible that is Legion. Within 3 days the pre-patch begins and the masses will flood the landscape to try out the new content, new skills and of course the Artifact Weapons. Which seems to be the only real focus everyone cares about. Sure you can play a Demon Hunter too, but the weapons seems to be all anyone really drools over. I’ve seen many videos depicting that other classes will be more fun to play. Shaman seems to be on top for best kick-assery.
I’ve reduced my force back to 7 characters. All of which I have loved to play for their uniqueness. My current setup includes a Druid (Balance/Boomkin), Warlock (Destruction), Mage (Frost), Priest (Shadow), Hunter (Beast Master), Shaman (Elemental) and my Death Knight (Frost). It was 9 with a Rogue and a Paladin, but it’s insane enough to keep up with the seven.
I’ve spent the morning,
- Saying farewell to my bodyguards and my garrison
- Closing out all garrison missions
- Selling off the massive amounts of resources what will be soon fairly obsolete
- Spending all my garrison resources for several Smuggled Sack of Gold
Using this handy macro helped shorten the insane time it would take doing it one by one and managed to get a couple of achievements doing so: Got My Mind on My Money
/run BuyMerchantItem(27)
/use Smuggled Sack of Gold
Still took nearly an hour doing all toons. Though I imagine it cut the other way in half in terms of time.
Looking back, I wasn’t really thrilled with Dreanor. I’ll be happy to visit Stormwind for a few days and pet battle while time ticks by for the switch to flip and we move on to more green. I’m sick of green. Fel this and Fel that. Garrisons were OK, and made me money. The flying requirements pissed me off to no end. Sounds like that will continue into Legion despite the hatred Blizzard got for it last time.
I still spend my time in WoW alone, so I don’t do high end raids. I don’t have end of game gear. I only play an hour here and there. Maybe two if I’m lucky. Still nothing seems to keep my attention like WoW does.
A lot of new games don’t look fluid. Rift was touted as such great graphics, but I reinstalled it yesterday. Although I forgot how to play my Mage, the movements don’t look smooth like WoW does. The attention to detail WoW has. I have Elder Scrolls Online on my steam wishlist, but won’t pay for the Imperial Version at full price (or the regular for that fact), but I missed the summer sale by a day or two. Though I found Skyrim to look so dreary. So can’t imagine that ESO will impress me much. Besides, I have never taken to a game that is absent of tab targeting. I’ve yet to find a true free to play that isn’t either pay to win or just sucks. Then there are the games like ESO where you buy the game and there is no subscription, such as Guild Wars 2. I hated GW2. I hated Guild Wars.
The only game I’m fairly interested in that isn’t out yet, is Pantheon. However, the alpha videos make it looks just as clunky as Rift, if not worse.
I can’t help it. I like the cartoony look of WoW, it’s fluid motions and detail. The bright happy colors. I don’t like that every expansion is change-city. New skill trees, or talent systems. New stat systems. Now it seems gear won’t matter. A gamer showed us you can play naked and just have your artifact weapon and do PVP just fine.
I can’t say I’m excited for Legion. But I’ve no idea what else to try.
I’ve tried in the past year:
- Guild Wars 2
- Rift
- Dungeons and Dragons Online
- Lord of the Rings Online
- Neverwinter
- Forsaken World
- Perfect World (yeah, I was getting desperate)
- Runes of Magic
- Lineage II
- Everquest II
- Wizard101 (told you, desperate)
- Alganon
There may have been one or two more, just can’t think of them.
And no I don’t want anything that is arena fighting or PVP. No DOTA or MOBA. I like fantasy, medieval stuff similar to WoW, but without all the changes they’ve made. I’ve seen some Co-op Games, but few have such MMO like play. Anime looking games make me want to regurgitate.
I’ve even tried to get away from fantasy games and play GTA Online. It’s pretty much a griefer’s paradise. May as well call it Douchebags Online.
If Blizzard would ever do nostalgic servers like Vanilla or *ahem* Lich King, I’d be all over that.
Anyone have any thoughts?
Guild Theme/Site Design
Check out this sweet piece of work. I recently renamed my Guild when I moved back to the Alliance. In an effort to help entice Darla to come play World of Warcraft with me. It’s based off of this website with it’s transparent design, to see the background and the header image that changes on page load. I’ve added a changing background on page load as well. Also a custom 404 error page.
Check it out and see for yourself 🙂
If you don’t see the backgrounds or headers change, make sure your caching addons are turned off. If on mobile, turn off data-saver.
If you’d like a website designed or a custom WordPress Theme, visit:
Mount Parade
Holy crap what a day for mounts! I don’t think I’ve dropped so many mounts in one day before. Yeah I’m a bit of a mount junkie. Not as much as of an achievement junkie as I once was. But I got two achievements today and 8 new mounts!!
Started out my day with a simple run to Nagrand (Draenor) to drop off a Highmaul Relic for reputation with the Steamwheedle Preservation Society on my Death Knight. I see something flickering nearby out of the corner of my eye. It’s purple smoke. It’s the Edge of Reality Portal!! I get excited, run over and click it. This is a hard to find but a simple gimmie for a mount called the Voidtalon of the Dark Star. Pretty purple non-flying bird mount. (See 3D version from link.)
Earlier in the week I was on the Isle of Giants collecting Giant Dinosaur Bones and Primal Eggs. Having 8 different characters I play, they each had an egg and today they turned into Cracked Primal Eggs (they have a 3 day wait time) and I managed to get all 3 mounts from them.
I also managed to collect over 10,000 bones to get the rewards for those. A Spectral Porcupette and the Reins of the Bone-White Primal Raptor! This also gave me a cool achievement of: I’ve Got 9999 Problems but a Bone-White Primal Raptor Ain’t One!
So then I decide to run two old raids in search for more mounts. My Paladin finally dropped Experiment 12-B from Dragon Soul! This put me at 200 mounts! So got the nifty achievement of Mount Parade 🙂 Although it didn’t take effect until I logged onto one of my Horde characters 😉 Love the Horde 😀
Which immediately awarded me with a new mount! An Armored Red Dragonhawk (or an Armored Blue Dragonhawk for my single Alliance toon) So… Now I have 201 mounts 😀
Then to put icing on the mount cake, I was wandering about Frostridge and found pig-face er I mean Gorok just standing around. I gave him a quick ass-whooping and got the Great Graytusk mount! It was a good day to play 😀
That’s 202 mounts! Now to knock out another 48 mounts to get Mountacular and a Felfire Hawk 😈
Why do I try?
Try as I might, there’s just no other game for me that gives me what I want. Yes, I’m back into World of Warcraft. No, I’m still not happy with their idea of flying in new content. But just about every other MMO out there is Pay to Win. Free to Play is a myth. Even in Rift. You pay for Patron status, but that doesn’t give you everything. If you want to be not bored out of your mind, you still have to buy packs, unlock armor slots and if you want to play many of the roles, you have to pay to unlock those too. In Layman’s Terms, fuck all that. I will forever stick with subscription games. Plus WoW still does things none of the other MMO’s can for me.
MMO The Movie Part II
Right now I need a high quality video camera, for summer to come and a whole bunch of people who are into Cosplay and MMO’s. That’s not asking for much right? Oh and an epic CGI studio to help out. The past few days I got back on the thought pattern of my MMO Movie idea. A live action, slapstick comedy set in a fantasy world where everything is just Like the Game.
Submerged in a world where anywhere you go, denizens found in towns and standing along the road have limited speech and specific objectives for you to achieve. Epic battles with mythical creatures and enormous monsters.
Last time I wrote about this, I gave specific scenes that would be very comedic and show just some of the silly things that would happen if a typical game was made with real life characters. Of course there are plenty more where that came from, but also you have the little things going on throughout the movie that would add to the hilarity.
Such as the useless NPC (what is known as a Non-Player Character). This character’s sole purpose seems to be just to be a body in the crowd. You can “talk” to them by touching, and he or she will respond with a standard set of responses. If you do this repeatedly, the responses sound more annoyed. So having an actor just stand or pace and someone comes up to them and starts touching them repeatedly. This could be a background piece as the main characters are passing by and the camera briefly focuses on this action.
“Hello”
“Blessings”
“Can I help you?”
“Quit it.”
“Go away.”
“Guards!”
“Do you need medication?”
“I’m not that kind of (Fill in the race they portray.).”
In some games like World of Warcraft, some of the creatures you can summon to aid you in your travels may also have NPC’s of their own. Perhaps to sell and trade items and even repair your weapons and armor. One of the funny things they do is when you kick them off or you get off the mount, they become annoyed that you’ve abandoned them some place and while they seem to be angry, there’s nothing they can do about it and you can resummon them later. This as a live action would be humorous as they are repeatedly summoned and dismissed throughout the movie and small jokes can be inserted everywhere. Especially since they are repeatedly dismissed in the middle of no where with no way home or left in hostile areas. This could also be a brief scene of drama as perhaps the hero confronts them as to why they are angry. The in turn explain that their lives are tied to the main character. They are unable to have lives of their own. Maybe if there are two of them, they could perhaps be upset they can never have a romance as they only exist when summoned on the mount and fade away when dismissed.
Three Paladins walk into a bar. A human female, an orc male and a goblin (we’re left wondering if it’s a male or female). They stop and look at each other in disgust. They are all wearing the exact same armor. {insert drums here}
One of my personal favorites is how much stuff a character can carry and look like they are carrying nothing but the clothes on their back and their weapons. Like the endless storage Hermione had in her beaded bag during the Deathly Hallows adventure. In a live action MMO movie, we could have a simple leather purse or pouch affixed to the hero’s armor that could produce food to feed a small army, potions, extra armor and more. Just moments during the film where they causally pull out epic things from something so tiny.
It’s little things like this and so much more that could make for one hilarious movie. I’d need an entire room full of idea filled people to extract the tons of fun. Maybe someday I’ll get the chance to do such a thing. 😯
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