Gone back to #wow

So ehm. two months ago I got a resurrection from one of my favorite guildies and top paladin healers ever.

I took it. Logged back in. Did some questing. did some dailies. Chatted with some guildies. And in between each thing, I slept, or fed my daughter or something else.
And I never felt like I had to start everything over.
That is the big difference between swtor and wow. In wow, you can break your game up in very tiny bits if you want to. I never felt like that was possible in swtor.
When levelling I had to keep track of story, get into the combat rythm. get used to the theme of a class. Every time I logged in. And I never knew if id' have 12 minutes to play, or 3 hours. That is the life of parents of newborns.

And that life fits very well with wow. Not so much with swtor... nor blogging it seems, when you look at my posting frequenzy as of late - or lack thereof.

Plus... well you just can't ignore the huge headstart wow has, in building a community. I've got many old friends still playing. People whom's names brings smiles and fond memories. Granted the list has grown short since back in 05 when I started playing, but still there are plenty names left in guild, I remember from since then, when I joined.

So I have not raided, not even dared try out lfr, but I have fished, digged for treasures, tried out pvp (disc pvp is FUN, haven't done that since season 1 of arena), I've levelled toons, raised faction rep. hunted for transmog sets, or rare mounts.
I've honestly had a blast. I've been listening to Ricky Gervais guide to... or radio or whatever I was in the mood to do, while I bumbled about.
For the first time, ever, i played without any long-term goals, other than what I fancied doing that day... and what Mini-Dwism allowed me *to* do.
I've even held back on doing dungeons. The few runs I did, was either filled with dps that did 7k dmg, or I had a kid that woke up in the middle of the run.

So after a month of this, I signed up for the 12 month sub thing, got d3 for free, and a cool mount that goes well with my old pet. And I got into MoP beta.
Going to go back to healing, going to try out which healing class I like the most: priest or Monk. ATM I am leaning towards monks. since I've never liked any ranged dps... and you gotta dual-specc if you want to be a healer and play 10 manned dungeons. And boy do i want to run dungeons again.

finished Jedi Knight story (and ding, 50!)

So there is going to be some major spoilers.. because this post is about the last part of the Jedi Knights storyline. I'll mark em /spoiler and /end spoiler 
If you just wanted the tl:dr version: I liked it, I didn't see the ending coming, it was obvious, but I could not believe they would end the story line where they did. That is also what I'll complain about in the following

/spoiler
We start of at the end-planet of Corellia, where you... wait. Am I assuming you've played through? Umm. Okay short short up until now: you got to be part of an elite Jedi super team, you faced the emperor, and lost. Half the team got killed the other (incl you) got mind-raped by the emperor and are now fighting for him. With the help of Lord Scourge you are freed and run of to battle the emperor again. okay?
So you are on Corellia figthing the last of the empires troops there. They are lead by the old Jedi master -now sith- Warren Sedoru - You find him. Defeat him and he tells you where you can find the emperor in a weekend state. You travel there face the emperor again, and... kill him.You've killed the emperor. game over?
I've killed the emperor. What's left to do in game? The Sith, as I've been told several times, are nothing without him. He directed most of them via mindcontrol. So we've won the war. What a weird weird place to start of an mmo.
He wasn't even a raidboss. I've killed him. Me, alone (okay t7 helped a bit).

/end spoiler


This underlines a greater problem I have with this game in particular, and mmos in generel. I can't just be a cog in the machinery. I *have* to be the headlining moviestar in an blockbuster celebrating my awesomeness. Not even when I started as a lowly trooper. You know troopers, they are the dime-a-dozin soldiers, who can't aim. EVEN then, I am the most special unit in a super-special unit and (at 20-something) It is once again on my shoulders to save everything. Read Calli.
I honestly think that storylines like these, where everyone thinks that they are the greatest and only hero - leads directly to more selfish gamers.
If you had been (or at least started as) an complete nobody, constantly being shown and told, that you needed a greater team, that you where a small part of a greater war - would you not feel more inclined to team up, to enjoy and respect your fellow (N)PC? Instead you are getting americanisized into believing that you are the greatest thing that ever lived and that everyone else admire the very ground you walk, even if you play with one hand and point'n'click everything.

Content or community: decisions for Swtor

Content or Community, that is in my eyes the big question surrounding SWTOR.

Does Bioware gamble on building up a strong community or ensuring that players get to see and play content. WoW chose content. They made raids PuG'able, they made dungeon groups-cross-server (and soon cross-faction??? -That's me guessing). Every change made to wow in this regard, has been towards players getting easier access to content.
Players must be allowed to see as much content as soon and whenever they want to. 
That seems to be the mantra for wow.

Even jenkins will get to all the content

Is it a bad thing? No. Not necessarily, but it does lead to players like me, getting sick and tired of LFD. Because. well.. I think anyone who has ever had bad pugs in wow, know the type of player I am thinking of.
If they aren't: AFK, ungemmed/ungeared/un-talented, lost or abusive, they either yell "GOGGOGOGOGOGGO" or queue as tank so a friend can get ahead in queue. It is an alternative of the Dickwad theory : If you are not imidiatly held accountable for your actions, some people will act out in their most inner dickishness. And you don't have to spend a lot of times in WoW's LFD in order to experience this. After I ran out of free time to raid, I stopped with wow because of people acting like agressive arseholes. No content is worth getting abused over... unless of course the abuse comes from a raid-leader whom deep down (sometimes very deep down) loves you, and respects you. He can shout abuse at me, when I fuck up.
But we are going in circles here, because I still don't have time to raid.

So what does SWTOR do? Do they follow WoWs formula? the only formula that has proven to generate millions of subscribtions for any lenght of time? No.

Group Finder: They will be introducing Group Finder in 1.3. This will work for missions, flashpoints, and operations. It will be single server only. Community is very important, and they don’t want random pug dude who goes AFK And doesn’t care about his reputation – you avoid that when more people know each other. - from askajedi.com

Personally I love love love this. I'd rather be a part of a strong community, where your rep matters. Where your guilds rep matters. If your actions have consequenses, dicks will behave better. And I like my dicks welbehaved... wait.

Erhm. In my eyes this is great. Personally I'd much rather spend 15 minutes looking for groups and maybe only doing 1 or 2 dungeons a night, instead of the 3-4 I could do in wow. If it means avoiding moronic dickheads, or egotistical-phallos-swingers. If I get (like I used to in vanilla wow... ahh vanilla) groups of people who chat, who talk about bosses, who *plan*. instead of charging then wiping the quitting. I'm going to stick to SWTOR.
But I may not be the majority. I fear I am not

Why wow's MoP just might be the greatest thing ever

I've been studying the development of MoP (Mists of Pandaria) with greater and greater enthusiasm.

Not for the class changes, nor the fluff of Pandaars (although I do not mind them). But this is the first ever expansion in wow where the storyline is not a complete given.

In the very first expansion The Burning Crusade, we where told by the great evil that we where NOT PREPARED (but it turned out that as raiders steamrolled through content, that it was in fact the devs who where not prepared). There was one big bad baddie, and the entire expansion where about defeating Illidan. First to weakening him by taking out his leutenants, then breaching his fortress then killing him.

In the second expansion Wrath of the Lich king, we where told the story of the alliances would be greatest hero, who then turned to evil. There was one big bad baddie, and the entire expansion where about defeating Arthas. First to weakening him by taking out his leutenants, then breaching his fortress then killing him.

In the latest expansion The greatest threat to the world (ever) almost destroyed said world in Cataclysm, and it was up to both alliance and horde to stop him. There was one big bad baddie, and the entire expansion where about defeating Deathwing. First to weakening him by taking out his leutenants, then breaching his fortress then killing him

...Notice a pattern here?

In Mists of Pandaria there is... well uhm. Notice a difference in tone? Well for one, this isn't a launch trailer like the rest. But there is an important point here. There is no greater evuuul that both horde and alliance must work together in order to defeat, and save everything. There is a new continent, sure, but no new grand evil - That we now of.
And that is the important bit. For once the launch of an expansion is not just a countdown to when you get to kill the final boss (or Kil'jaden). It is a new continent. It will be alliance and horde fighting over territory, and maybe then the big evil will emerge. But we don't know whom, we don't know when. We don't even know for sure. All we know is that there will be an expansion.
In movie terms we are watching alien 1(for the first time). We know something is about to go down. But we have no idea what, when or how.
And that has sort of gotten me interested in WoW again. Of all things.

Wow (litterally), I did not see that happening.

Also... dwarf monks

http://the-fronti.deviantart.com/ Check out artist

Q: When is an mmo sub not worth it?

A. When you aren't using it.

Since my last post (two weeks ago) I've managed to log in 5-6 hours of play time. Depending on who you are, that may or may not be a lot.

That is a lot!

But for me, that is what I used to log in a day. 6 days a week. So 6 hours a fortnight (and it'll be 3 weeks, since I don't see myself having a spare night before Sunday), is an insanely minuscule amount.
Is SWTOR to blame? No.
I think it is agreed that the biggest strength of swtor is the leveling game, and I've not yet finished that. And I am looking terribly much forward to starting to tank instances. So no, I am not tired of swtor. I am just out of time for any swtor.
It sucks.
What sucks more is that after a 6 month of waiting for said swtor with nothing decent to play (I was in fact so bored out of my skull that I levelled a mage to 85 so my wow-guild could get its "that takes class" (or whatever the "get each class of each race to 85 achievement" is called. And let me tell you. MAGES ARE BORING).

So then swtor launches and out comes Kingdoms of Amalur. And ME3. And Diablo3 (and I guess DOTA2) ect ect. So I am swamped.
And I don't even have time for the game I am loving as it is.

Kids. blast em. They are so cute and wobbly and they cry. And before you know it, it's 10PM and you know she is going to wake you at 5 am. So you don't log on.
Obviously she is not the only excuse, I've been social with my wife, and her friends. and my friends.

I guess, what I am saying is, that for the first time since purchasing an mmo, Im starting to look at the cost. At the moment swtor is like a gym membership. You pay for it, but you never use it.
My economy isn't strecthed or anything, so it is an expense I can afford. But the question is, do I want to.

Part of me have started to dream about wow again. Log in, run an heroic, chat with people. log out. But that was the point of swtor for me. No more raids (because I know I wont have the time), no more arena. Just levelling ONE tank and play with lightsabres.

Well that was the plan at least. Run a dungeon whenever I had time. What I had not counted on was a) nobody seems to RUN dungeons in swtor because dailies+pvp give better gear (or so I've read) and b) I dont even have time for effing GET to max level.

I love this game. It is a great game. It is like wow, but with focus on story and with lightsabres and big fucking guns. Q: What else could you ask for?

A: Time to play it

Easy link day: how to tank as a JK

Look, I was going to write something insightful and even try at some calculating and theory-crafting. Then I remembered this:

http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-Immortal-Defense-Compendium-A-Tank-s-Guide-To-The-Galaxy

And game over. Nothing more to see nor read.

On Diablo 3 beta aka #D3

First off, a shame-filled plug: http://dudewheresmybantha.wordpress.com/ (Dude... Where is his Bantha??) is a new blog from my absolute favorite blogger Calli.
He was the guy responsible for getting me to start blogging in the first place (please, don't send him any threatening emails, he has publicly denied responsibility). And he is a genius of a blogger (especially now that Righteous orbs stopped blogging). And he is young. And has all his hair. And is very muscular. And manly. Even if he only plays female toons. Which makes him even more manly.

He is also my guild leader in SWTOR. Biased? I don't know the meaning of the word. Literally, I don't, I'm not a native Britishspeak language.

Anyways, here's hoping that his new blog http://dudewheresmybantha.wordpress.com/ will do just as well, and be just as fabulous (in a manly way), as his old blog http://pewpewlazerz.wordpress.com/

Diablo 3 beta
So thanks to twitter and the @blizzardCS account. I am in the D3 Beta. How do I like it? First let me set the scene:
The year was 1996, Quake had released earlier that year. So had Tekken 2. (not to mention Duke nukem). But those games paled in comparison to what would be released that christmas: Diablo.
Before Diablo, I was a teen who liked games. After Diablo, I was a gamer who liked Diablo. I still remember me and my little brother spending the weekends on 3 hour rotation shifts playing the game. Before WoW, this was the game that I sunk the most hours into (combined with the sequal). I still think that the reason why my mouse hand creaks is after that long summer with D2s expansion 'Lord of destruction'.

In so many words, Diablo - for me- was where it all began.

So I was pretty excited to get into this beta. Even if I knew that Blizzard North where in no way involved. And all the key personnel from Diablo 1 and 2 are now on Torchlight (more on that later)
Even if I knew these things, intellectually, emotionally I was - and still am- in love with Diablo.

From the moment in 2008 when I was at the Blizzard Worldwide invitational in Paris and heard that guitar play those chords (great moment, all the kiddies went "huh" and all the elderly gamers started weeping.) I have been looking forward to this release.
However, the more info that started to pour in, the sadder I got.
No, I am not one of those "it's too bright and colourfull" morons.

 I actually *remember* the old games, and not just the Hell parts of em.
To me, it was the playable characters. None of them stuck to me.
Sure the good ol Barbarian is there, and he looks better than ever. But the reiteration of the Monk? meh. The wizzard? shrug. And I really don't want to talk about the witch doctor or the demon hunter.

None of the lore, nor the mechanics really did 'it' for me. I talked about this back in September, and after having played the game I'll stand by this post:
http://dwism.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-biggest-problem-with-upcoming-diablo.html

The "oh no a click to another article- not reading that" short version: The Companions look way more attractive to me, than the playable characters.

Especially now that Torchlight 2 has released their playable characters

Sure the Engineer looks a little silly compared to the serious tone set by the barbarian above. (and this is Blizzard throwing away their cartoony looks of WoW and following the gritty look of Diablo, so it fits, its not the style i'm moaning about)
But C'mon, a *steam* powered tank! Every class in Torchlight looks like something I want to try, none of the classes in Diablo are something I and gagging to throw days upon days of played time into.

Gamewise, Diablo 3 is fantastic. I've completed it twice now, and think i'll go through it on at least one more class, so if any of the Diablo 3 characters looks awesome to you - get the game. Me, I think i'll be waiting on the first expansion with new playable characters before I buy it.

But I am giving it to my brother for his birthday. You know, for old times sake.