The Daily Quest : blizzard

Things that make you go Hmmm...Craft

Indelible — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 17:16:16 GMT

Last night I logged on to my friends IRC channel to speak to some people about the mammoth that is Blizzard Entertainment and all I could get out of them was…

omgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomg omgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomg omgomgomgomgomgomgomgomg […]

So on and so forth.

I think that has something to do with Drysc and his rumour mill. He only went and revealed that the New MMO is not a WoW title on the US forums and thus, sent the whole world into a spin.

In true me style, I have theories… and they aren’t demons.

1 World(s) of (Hmm)Craft
2 World(s) of (Star)Craft
3 World(s) of Diablo
4 World of… aww… I really can’t be arsed

World(s) of (Hmm)Craft

I was bored with the term TheoryCraft so I renamed the entire concept of TheoryCraft to HmmCraft as A) It sounds cooler and B) It’s easier to type. The type of HmmCraft I like has nothing to do with maths or numbers and doesn’t focus around what skills I’m supposed to be using and where I’m supposed to be using them. It focuses around what we may be seeing from Blizzard in the next few years.

Many have discredited the idea of a StarCraft MMO set after the events of SC2 because, “the fans don’t want it,” but let’s be entirely honest here. Who in their right mind thought about and wanted a Warcraft MMO? I certainly didn’t and it certainly wasn’t the most logical franchise for Blizzard to pick as their debut MMO title considering Diablo had already made a pretty good story for an MMO environment. Despite this, it was and there is nothing we can do to change that now. All we can do is sit back and think about what the next one is going to be.

We know for a fact that Blizzard plans to MMO-ise all of their major franchises. They’ve said as much on multiple occasions. We also know that they plan to continue the other side to those franchises as well. Blizzard brass has already commented that Warcraft 4 is on the cards and they are making StarCraft 2 so it is apparent they don’t want to limit those franchises to the MMO world. So Blizzard wants to utilise all of their titles as best they can.

World(s) of (Star)Craft

Let’s role-back to Warcraft 3. Warcraft has always been an RTS title ever since its inception but things were blatantly going to change after the third title. Warcraft 3 neatly tidied away major bad guys and left Azeroth pretty much clean of any shite that may have hindered the transition from RTS to MMORPG. The expansion to the title, The Frozen Thrown, sorted out the Lich King and Illidan as well, putting one of them in seclusion and the other one on another planet behind a big, closed gate, which meant that the rest of Azeroth didn’t have any major antagonists to deal with for a few years.

At the moment, we’ve got StarCraft 2 in the works and it is suspected that it will be released next year. We have yet to hear what the storyline will be about but I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Metzen is working his magic again, cleaning away some of the antagonists and major characters to make the franchise more MMO friendly. In fact, I would hazard that that is going to occur, irrespective of whether the next MMO title out of Blizzard has anything to do with StarCraft.

Another fact that I think roles in favour of a Science Fiction StarCraft based MMO out of Blizzard is the current state of the MMO market and what other companies are looking to. Let’s face it. The fantasy arm of the MMO market has been milked for year and years. Fantasy has become the dominant area associated with MMO gaming thanks to titles such as World of Warcraft, Ultima Online, EverQuest 1+2 and so on and so forth. In fact, the only major Science Fiction based title I hear about on a regular basis is Eve Online. Even titles like Star Wars Galaxies and The Matrix Online have faded into oblivion.

Stargate Worlds, Star Trek Online, Firefly Online, A new Star Wars MMO – look how many major franchise titles are either debuting or reinventing themselves in the MMO market. Whilst some may think that Blizzard wouldn’t want to compete with such brutes, I don’t think that is the case at all. If a StarCraft based MMO were to be released and were to see off franchises like Star Wars and Stargate, think of the implications for Blizzard. Think of the money involved. In a situation like that, StarCraft could make more money for them than World of Warcraft has.

World(s) of Diablo

It’s been a while (see: nearly 10 years) since a Diablo title was released and recently, things have started to indicate that a new Diablo title is in the works. Seeing as Blizzard is working on StarCraft 2 and possibly an expansion (they like their expansions) we could assume that any StarCraft MMO is few years away.

Diablo presents some interesting ideas for an MMO environment. Firstly, World of Warcraft is very comical and immature in its presentation, as was Warcraft, as was StarCraft. Diablo, on the other hand, is a very mature and well developed, late-teen/adult orientated title. We have yet to see an MMO title that tries to appeal to people who want to be scared all the time. Hellgate arguably tried this a little every now and again but the game was more of a hack ‘n’ slash with as little emotion as possible (and it lacks the bodies on spikes that you got in D2). I personally feel that the Diablo storyline is far, far more epic than any other gaming storyline I have ever subjected myself to and as such, an MMO would have to be equally as epic.

There have been little hints here and there that have kept the Diablo spark alive and I think almost all of these, “accidents,” were intentional. From the beta keys at BlizzCon that weren’t for a WoW title, to the mysterious happening with the Diablo3 domains that Blizzard own. Comments by a famous Diablo author, in which he stated he was not writing for a dead game and other more prophetic speeches by Blizzard employees have really done well to keep the fire burning quite furiously but all of a sudden…

Silence has befallen the Diablo community.

For the last few years there has not gone a day where something has not been generating Diablo hype specifically. I know you are sitting there saying, “What about the Next Gen MMO Matt?” and all I have to say is that is far too impersonal for my liking. For the last 3 years we’ve had specific Diablo hype occurring. All of a sudden; nothing; not a hint; a few comments about a couple of novels about 6 months ago and then… silence.

I admit that is a weird impression to derive from such an occurrence but I genuinely believe that there has been no hype because Mr. Blizzard is far to busy focusing on the franchise in a development way rather than, “har har let’s wind the fan base up,” way.

World of… aww… I really can’t be arsed

All of this speculation and conjecture is making babies cry. We’re all an impatient bunch of hippies really, aren’t we? There are only two ways we are going to know what the next title is and we can theorise all we want but that isn’t going to change.

1)Organise a picket. Head to Blizzard. Sit outside Blizzard HQ and chant, “What do we want? Clarity. When do we want it? When it is ready,” for the next 3 or so years. 2)Wait.

I think I’ll stick with the latter.

Yes, I know this looks oddly like me bailing out.

Activision Blizzard: The New Titan

Indelible — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:42:27 GMT

In a recent twist of events, Activision and Vivendi Games are merging to form the Worlds largest third party publisher. EA must be chewing at the bit right about now with four out of the top five selling PC games of all time being Blizzard titles.

It’s all well and good glorifying the take over but what are the actual fine details? Well I took the time to compile relevantinformation into a convenient little post for you all to mull over.

1 About Activision
2 About Vivendi Games
3 Merger Details
4 Approval and Conditions

About Activision

Activision is one of the worlds leading developers, publishers and distributors of interactive entertainment products. Founded in 1979, Activision posted net revenues of $1.5 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31st 2007.

#1 Console Gaming Brand – Guitar Hero – 2007
Highly rated blockbuster, Call of Duty
10 multi-million unit selling franchises
Stable of 12 developmetn studios
Pipeline includes: Call of Duty 5, Guitar Hero 4, James Bond, new Tony Hawk, new, DreamWorks title, new Marvel titles and entry into racing with Bizzare

About Vivendi Games

Vivendi Games is the #1 developer of subscription-based Massively Multiplayer Online Games and Multiplatform Interactive Entertainment titles. Vivendi Games has four divisions comprising of Sierra Entertainment, Blizzard Entertainment, Sierra Online and Vivendi Mobile.

Key franchises include World of Warcraft, Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo as well as Spyro and Crash Bandicoot.

Blizzard Entertainment

Highest margins in the industry (>40%)
4 out of 5 best-selling PC games of all time
Over 56 million units sold since 1995
Largest Online Gaming Community: 9 million+ subscribers world wide.

Merger Details

Not wanting to drown you with technicalities, I have taken the most important points and compiled them into a list. This should give you an impression of how the company will lay itself out before the world.

Vivendi will contribute Vivendi Games and its subsidiaries to Activision who will, in turn, provide Vivendi with 295.3 million additional newly issued shares in Activision, implying an $8.1 billion valuation for Vivendi Games.
Vivendi will purchase a further 62.9 million newly issued Activision Shares for a total of $1.7 billion
Vivendi will own 52% - 68% of Activision Blizzard with the rest of the stock being diluted between current Activision shareholders
Activision and Blizzard will continue to operate as separate publishing label with Activision Blizzard operating as the corporate identity and not publishing identity of either company

Approval and Conditions

The merger is subject to approval by Activision shareholders as well as customary closing conditions and regulatory approval.

So what does this all mean for us Blizzard fans? Well nothing apparently. Mike Morhaime, CEO and President of Blizzard Entertainment was quick to squash the conjecture that Blizzard and Activision would be dropped as publishing labels, stating that Blizzard would continue to develop and publish its own titles as will Activision.

All this means is that Blizzard and Activision will have more financial security as they will be making more money than any other third party publisher, including that which is God - EA.

The Arena System - How to be the Best!

Indelible — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 19:21:41 GMT

Becoming the top arena team on your server, battlegroup or in the world takes time. Time and energy. It takes stamina and knowledge of your class that surpasses all others. It takes skill and effort. You have to be willing to play 100+ arena matches a week and you have to be able to take the losses you may suffer with a pinch of salt in order to keep up moral.

Well, you would think that wouldn't you?

I'd consider a successful arena team anyone with a rating of 1800+ and this should be a universal, but it is not. My own 5v5 team has a rating of 1675 currently and as we break into the high 1600's/ low 1700's, we will be hitting on the top spot on our server. Of course, there are underhanded methods that teams use to raise their rating beyond the 1800 threshold and I've discovered how the majority of arena teams do it. It isn't through skill that a lot of them make it up there. It's through an exploit - an exploit that can not be detected or, in fact, acted upon under any circumstances. In fact, it is so cunning that it doesn't even break the rules. That's right! A completely rule following way to get your arena rating from 1500 to 2000 with little to no effort and that isn't playing fair arena matches against other teams.

Teams have been doing it since season 1. Who had the idea? No idea to be honest. It just cropped up over night and allowed certain teams to go from nobodies to somebodies. I warn you now that this will cast doubt on teams like the HukHukHukHuks. I'm not saying they do it, but this is going to make you think about how exactly those teams got from being 1500 to 2000+. Some of them are genuinely skilled but this method isn't rule breaking and only takes another WoW Subscription and 5 other level 70s (excluding those in your team). In other words, each member of your team needs to have a level 70 on another account.

The Method

The method is simply, slightly costly, but well worth it if you are going to get yourself rash epics and possible contracts to play the game. Let's say you are in a 5v5 team that is doing average to good. You decide that you want to be the best on the server. Each member gets' another account, levels another character to 70 and then runs them through arena during the day to get the rating on the team high enough to award good rating gains. Then, you wait until early in the morning and simply log both sets of accounts (that of your main team and "alt" team) and queue them in the arena queue at the same time. You'll still have to face some random teams but if you time it well enough you will face your alt team, who can just stand there and die for you, awarding you the arena rating.

Now that might seem a little lengthy to you but look at it this way. If you grind your main arena team straight off and lose rating, it matters. It matters a lot. If you have an alt team that you are guaranteed a decent arena rating gain and if that team losses some rating, oh well! It doesn't matter because the toons don't matter.

This actually goes on by the way. There are teams out there who admit openly to this practice and whilst some of the top teams aren't going to openly say, "yeah, we cheat," I am pretty sure they have done it at one point or another. It's easy arena rating and it doesn't break the rules.

Now to the big question - Is this practice fair?

Well the rules say so. There is nothing stopping you from having multiple accounts and there is nothing stopping you from playing them at the same time and there is nothing stopping you from encountering them in arena. Nothing at all.

The player base however, sees things differently. It is unfair for the most part as it is a cop out. Just like RMT, some people can't afford it and also think it is game breaking. How could Blizzard allows a competitive e-sport be so easily exploited? We're talking about the company who knows Warlocks and warriors and druids are unbalanced in arena but doesn't care so it is no surprise that they don't care about this. After all, it is just a game and nothing more. It doesn't break the rules, therefore it is perfectly ok. It isn't hampering their profit (in fact, quite the opposite) so it is ok. The 3v3 e-sport ladder failed and the 2v2 is going to go soon as well. Eventually, the 5v5 ladder will also fail and Blizzard are probably working tremendously hard to stop that from happening but eventually, nobody will want to compete in a system that can so easily be taken advantage of.

The Arena system is a fun addition to a game that needs new things and quickly. It is fun but it is also supposed to be professional in the higher echelons and so you would think that Blizzard would find a way around this? Well, in truth and defence, they can't. IP logging won't work because of the fact that they are unreliable and if a separate account is used, there is no way to stop people from logging both at once. Of course, there could be a system whereby only one account under one name can be active at any one time but then this is impractical for other reasons.

Blizzards main focus at the moment is on security and content. They very rarely go back to revisit problems unless they are game breaking or player wide issues. This isn't and seeing as this, "exploit," doesn't effect other players game play, there is very little we can hope for Blizzard to do about it.

Project Hydra - The Art of Codenames

Indelible — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:11:32 GMT

With many websites now reporting the new codename for Blizzard third project as Hydra, people have begun speculating exactly what this new title will be. The speculation is going to get worse, so before random illogical ideas appear, I shall look at this new title and what we might be expecting from Blizzard in the next decade.

Now, it is good to note that Blizzard announced three projects are in development but not that they would announce all three titles this year. This was a claim that began somewhere and snowballed out of control. This has created expectations from Blizzards dedicated player base and this is something Blizzard try their hardest to avoid. So far, Blizzard have announced two out of three of these projects, these titles being:

-World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
-StarCraft 2

It is also worthy to note that Blizzard employees, such as Mr. Paul Sams, have hinted at other titles being explored in the future, these titles being:

-Warcraft 4
-StarCraft: Ghost
-Diablo 3
-A Next-Gen MMO
-A New Franchise

So what we have here is seven possible titles to come from Blizzard in the next decade or two. Warcraft 4 will happen. Warcraft is the game credit as popularising the RTS genre along with Command and Conquer so Blizzard will explore this title more in the coming years aided by the fact that we have had very few massively popular RTS games in the last few years and that Warcraft is probably the single biggest gaming franchise of all time. Diablo 3 seems to be a sketchy subject. Diablo fans want it more than anything else in the world and with the fear that Warcraft has become Blizzards pet RPG title, Blizzard would do well to announce something in the next coming years otherwise they may have a massive exodus on their hands with developers such a Flagship producing Diablo-like games. Interestingly, Flagship contains 13-17 ex-Diablo developers so it isn’t a surprise that they are rolling out Diablo-like titles such as Mythos.

StarCraft: Ghost was a fun one for all of us. Announced and then cancelled, this is one of the only titles Blizzard have publicly announced and then axed in quick succession. Despite this however, certain important figures have said that returning to SC: Ghost is a viable option and is in serious consideration and with Blizzard advertising for people with console development experience, it isn’t alien to think that Blizzard might revisit this title in some way, even if it is just to assess the mistakes they made.

Now there is the rumour of a new franchise being developed by Blizzard and I can see why. Blizzard milked Warcraft and the lore is becoming too complex for new players to follow. Diablo looks like it is on hiatus for the time being due to issues we don’t know about and Starcraft is entering the milking phase right now so a new franchise would lend itself to Blizzard quite well. In fact, I think they know that we know that they need a new franchise in the next decade otherwise they’ll have no motion by 2020.

So, how do these titles related to Project Hydra? Well firstly, we don’t know that it is a new game. It was a conversation overheard at a convention. For all we know it could be a reference to a new unit in Starcraft or a new boss in World of Warcraft. This however, seems to be destroyed simply by the fact that Blizzards recent codename convention has been to use the names of mythical creature, such as Medusa. So there’s the apparent link between codenames. Many speculated that Medusa has a connection with a similar character from StarCraft and that is why Blizzard used that name for the working title. However, Medusa also has note worthy links to the Diablo and Warcraft franchises, namely that both contain Medusa-like figures. There is no point in speculating why Blizzard chose Medusa now because StarCraft 2 has been announced, but Hydra deserves speculation. What we have to remember is that Blizzard never does anything on a whim so it is likely that Hydra was chosen for a very good reason and we will never fully understand what that reasoning is.

Firstly, what is a Hydra? Well, a Hydra is several things and if you look on wikipedia, any one of the main uses could be used in reference to a particular Blizzard franchise:

-Lernaean Hydra (a mythological many-headed serpent)
-Hydra (the largest of the modern star constellations)
-Hydra (the third moon of Pluto)

Those from what I can tell are the three most obvious definitions. I did discover something interesting however. Hydra has a link to the Warhammer 40,000 universe in so much as there is a unit called the Hydra Flak Tank although this is probably irrelevant to this discussion and Blizzard probably had no idea.

The word Hydra itself does have obvious connections with both StarCraft and Warcraft. In StarCraft there is a unit called the Hydralisk and in Warcraft there are many Hydra-like monsters and several bosses, such as Hydross the Unstable that take their names from the word Hydra.

So the first meaning is a mythological many-headed serpent. When you chop one of these many-heads off, another two grow in its place. It lives in water and eats just about anything it can…erm…get its heads on. Scary stuff.

Hydra is also the single largest constellation of stars in modern times and also the name of a supercluster of galaxies. It’s also a moon that orbits an ex-planet, now a planetoid. I know – I don’t get NASA either. Why can’t Blizzard just pick transparent project titles and make this a hell of a lot easier for us? Well that would be because they are noobs. Yes. Noobs. I’m not going to bore you with the reasons these link so well with Blizzard franchise because that would poison your own expectations and I suspect you can see the readily obvious links yourself. In short, every single project that has ever been hinted at or explored by Blizzard has obvious links with Project Hydra in some way or another (excluding the fact that it is a Blizzard project).

We have to admit right here that taking this Project name into account when speculating what it is that is behind this title is a little far fetched. It’s difficult to extract any form of noticeable lead any of Blizzards franchises has when linked to this title. We can however, look at Blizzards track record when it comes to developing titles and we can look at what games have come out of Blizzard or been announced by Blizzard recently.

Firstly, the most obvious title to come out of Blizzard in recent history is World of Warcraft.

We know from content patches and the two expansions that development of this title is ongoing and we can safely expect to see a couple of expansions left before there is a decline in development. World of Warcraft isn’t in question when it comes to development. It’s just a case of when and what. Starcraft 2 has been announced and if any other Blizzard game is to go by, an expansion will come out for this game inevitably but that won’t be announced so soon after the announcement of the base game.

It seems that the only franchise Blizzard haven’t touched on recently is the Diablo franchise but there was a 10 year gap between StarCraft and StarCraft 2 so Diablo could be anything up to 3 years away. We know that Blizzard will continue to develop MMOs from their job advertisements and we know that the team behind Diablo and Diablo 2 is hiring actively. So we know that an MMO and we can assume that Diablo 3, are in development. Could these two be related? Possibly. Diablo is an established RPG franchise and the ending of Lord of Destruction leaves the possibility of Diablo becoming an MMO very real. Many argue that this would be competition for World of Warcraft but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you are playing World of Warcraft or another MMO by Blizzard – they still get your money. In fact, many Diablo fans still play Diablo and not WoW so if anything, having a Diablo MMO would serve only to increase Blizzards profits. Diablo is also a much darker and mature game than Warcraft so it would be pitched at a slightly different audience. I personally don’t see Blizzard making a none-persistent, single player RPG again due to the fact that they can make more money from MMORPGs.

My own opinion is with a Diablo MMO being the next title to come out of Blizzard and that Project Hydra is this Diablo MMO. That’s just my opinion based on my own speculation however. A StarCraft MMO is a very real possibility as well based on the way Blizzard used Warcraft 3 to set up the premise for World of Warcraft. StarCraft 2 could simply establish a back-story for StarCraft to go MMO. This however, would most likely disenfranchise the StarCraft fan base that for the most part sees StarCraft as a competitive RTS game and not a casual gamers franchise.

It is unlikely that Hydra has anything to do with Warcraft so I’m going to rule that one out personally. I’m more inclined to go with a Diablo MMO or possibly a StarCraft MMO over any Warcraft related title. I’m even more inclined to go with a Diablo MMO than a StarCraft MMO. The production time of an MMO title is around 10 years and we know that Blizzard have been working on this MMO since WoW shipped and the Diablo team have been hiring for roughly the same amount of time. It’s odd however that the two teams have been hiring separately. There is also the possibility that this has something to do with the mobile platforms and consoles that Blizzard have been looking at developing for since StarCraft: Ghost, so it could simply be a renewal of the SC: Ghost project. Blizzard have yet to announce their Direct X 10, Vista only game and it is inevitable that they will do so in the next 3-5 years. Seeing StarCraft: Ghost was supposed to be their entry into the X-Box 360 market; this could be their Vista only title we are talking about.

So what I have done here is spent the last hour or so concluding that I can’t come to a total conclusion. I’ve pretty much ruled out Warcraft but that is just one small cog in the Blizzard machine and there are many more cogs out there. This isn’t a complete failure however. We know that Blizzard want us to come to a conclusion so they can revel and giggle at their staff meetings about how the gaming industry doesn’t know the gaming industry so I feel I’ve taken Blizzard hype generator and turned it into a confusion generator – in your face Blizzard. Some Blizzard employee will read this and giggle at what I am saying – I have no doubt that is happening. All I have to say is that if you are smart, you’ll develop something gamers want as a pose to something you want. That said, Blizzard claims you are all gamers and notably most of you are ex-EverQuest freaks these days.

Again, my head turns to Blizzard. We shall have to wait for a little more to be put out before we can come to any solid conclusion but at the moment, it looks like this one might be in the Diablo or StarCraft camps.

Blizzards Blunders 2

Indelible — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 15:25:36 GMT

As you may have noticed my blogging has become rather lax of late. This is due to a distinct lack of free time. I'm back at work and so finding the time to write this blog is becoming testing. I have to maintain my exercising because I don't wish to be fat. I have to play WoW enough to generate a profit in some way otherwise there is no point in playing. I have to spend 7 hours a day at work with no forcible benefit. It's become a case of as and when, which is regretful but unavoidable. I also find myself drilling for ideas. I'll have one and then in a flash it will disappear to be replaced by a lonely though that dies pretty quickly. I don't know why this is.

Once again I am back on the Blizzards Blunders. These guys seem to be on the receiving end of more rubbish than my next door neighbours bin man, and they have 6 kids. I don't understand it but I have done it I will admit. The highlight of my day used to be providing Blizzard with enough rubbish that they could fill a rubbish tip with only my words. Ah...those were the days. Now however, I find myself asking why I did this? There was no point to it and it didn't gain me anything. It just increased my cynical nature ten fold and made me more bitter about a game that I generally enjoy playing.

Still, the show must go on.

Reputation Grinding

Reputation grinding has been around since day 1. It is something that has both pleased and angered players on an outrageous level. Generally, reputation grinding rewards you with some of the best items that WoW has to offer and in the end it is worth it but this doesn't stop the whine police from engulfing it in a ball of whine.

Apparently, these people feel they should be allowed into heroics instantly. They feel that they should be aloud the epics ring from the Violet Eye instantly. They shouldn't have to mess around with dirty reputation, which gives them something to do in between those global cooldowns and lack of raids. It's these people who think that anyone who so much as flinches in PvP should be a Conqueror. Why? Probably because it's something else to whine about and because they lack the motivation and the effort to grind such a mammoth thing as reputation.

I've ground rep with several factions and frankly, it isn't as hard as it sounds. In fact, the single most hard task in the game is levelling reputation with the Warsong Outriders closely followed by levelling Tailoring. It's going to cost me 1100g to level tailoring to 375 and it is going to cost me a further few weeks in time to get exalted with Warsong Outriders. I'll do it willingly just so I have a funky new rank to display but I'll wave my fists at Blizzard in rebellion after I have done so. Without whining of course.

So I'm honoured with the scryers and I need exalted to get Runic Spellthread. I want Runic spellthread. My legs need Runic Spellthread and frankly it would be 20 times easier to get Runic Spellthread and make it myself that it would making rash deals with dodgy tailors who fell 300g is a fair price when I provide the mats. It isn't. Anyone with half a brain knows that. So eventually, I'll have to not only grin reputation with the scryers but also reputation with one of the many instances factions so that I can get some Nethers. Doesn't sound like a joyous task but it gives me something to do, doesn't it?

Inevitably, people whine because reputation grinding takes a lot of time. However there are no diminishing returns. I can think of how much I would wind if reputation diminished but it doesn't. Once you have it, you have it and it doesn't go away so the time it takes you to get exalted is merely effected by the time you play but eventually, you will get there and you will have shiny items to smile about.

Battlegrounds

Now here's a topic I love and hate. This one makes me go all tingly inside. People genuinely whine that BGs are unfair, unrewarding and silly whereas they are not and they know it. Battlegrounds provide players with a way of killing other players and getting rewarded for it. You get epics and sets and weapons for your efforts and as if that isn't enough you can even get a shiny rank for being Exalted with all three major BG factions.

Whiners however find it in contempt. They want arena grade items from none-arena grade battlegrounds just because they can't be bothered to put the effort into grinding a fairly good rating in arena. I'm in a team that has 1650+ rating most of the time and for a team in PvE gear that isn't bad. Me and a warrior are the only two fully decked in PvP gear whereas our team mates are decked in PvE gear and we are still up there with the top teams in the battlegroup.

Another thing that people are whining about is the implementation of a rating cap on the Season 3 weapons. I personally don't have a problem with this and as long as they allow me to get the set at any rating, I'll continue to smile about arena. I admit that if this rating cap applied to all items from arena, I'd be a little annoyed but seeing as it is designed to stop PvEers from stealing PvP weapons without a second thought, there is no problem with it.

Again, people whine because of the time involved and also because the more skilled players are getting better items in arena and they don't like this one bit. After all, why should a player with more skill be aloud to have better items? Blasphemy!

There is far more whine topics to come in Blizzards Blunders and even more entertainment. Next time I will only be covering one topic and I'll let you know what that is as and when I finish it.

Blizzards Blunders

Indelible — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 17:41:29 GMT

It seems over the last 4 years, Blizzard have gone from captivating the minds of gamers on a global scale to being the arch nemesis of all gamers...even their own fan base. After 2 years of content patches, players began to cry for an expansion so they gave it but that wasn't good enough. "It's more of the same!" which is what they asked for initially. "Balance 1v1," they cried, after crying for group PvP. It seems there is no pleasing the whiners and they persist with whining.

So let's take a look at some of the things that Blizzard do, that keeps the whiners whining.

The Customer Service

Rated as one of the best Customer Service Departments of any gaming company both offline and online, Blizzard pride themselves on their ability to answer most problems within a matter of hours - both minimal stupid problem and vast complex problems. Every experience I have had with Blizzard has led to a resolution with 48 hours. This is brilliant service in my honest opinion and whilst it is a little difficult to get used to that sort of time span, it is very efficient for an MMO.

Take Eve Online for example. You submit tickets via the website mostly and with only a few hundred thousand accounts (not even that) you'd expect the fewer numbers to mean better service. No, that really isn't the case. I submitted a ticket regarding my connection to the Eve server and 5 days later, I got a response. Not a resolution...a response. It took 2 weeks to get a resolution out of them.

Guild Wars is another good example, but not quite as bad as Eve. You submit a ticket and have to wait 3-4 days for anyone to pay it any heed. Even the ticket submission is complex and it took me a while to figure how to actually pull it off.

Blizzard, on the other hand, have a nice little red question mark, right there. Click it and you get the knowledge base and if you aren't an arrogant, self righteous person you may decide to search through this before submitting issues to the GM team. If that doesn't help, you simply submit a ticket and they give you a nice big text box to describe your issues with the game. They even provide you with a ticket box that lets you know what exactly is happening with your ticket. How is that bad customer service? If you aren't logged on, they send you an in game mail or an email telling you they resolved the issue whilst you were offline. How, again, is that bad customer service?

Where is this whine worthy treatment I keep hearing about?

The Dev Team

This is a touchy one. The Dev team seem to be on the receiving end of more slander than George W. Bush jr and that is not an easy feet. Providing content and constantly changing the game (for the better in the most part) they are bound to piss off someone, somewhere. Once one is angry, the rest come following. Maybe it's just because they give you something to complain about? I don't know.

Nax is a good example of this. People whined and whined and whined about not getting to see this instance pre-TBC so they go out of there way to move it to Northrend so that people can experience battling Kel'Thuzad...and then the very same people whine about that being against the lore etc etc. Make your minds up! Surely the fact that the instance you wanted to go in is being redone so that you get to go in that instance you keep whining about not being able to go in, is a good thing?

40-man raids is yet another example of whine worthy content apparently. People cried that 40-man raids were a logistical impossibility and that they wanted a smaller number like 25. So Blizzard gave them 25-man and a small yet vocal group that mainly consisted of those who whined about 40-man, whined about 25-man saying that it was to small. What? Why? Why did you ask for 25-man and then whine about it when they gave it to you? It makes no sense.

Blizzard provide content patches and updates to the game at no extra charge to you. You get new recipes, new items, new mounts etc free of charge. Granted, you have to pay for new continents but you get even more new stuff after that. They keep the game going long after you'd have completed it otherwise and yet people insist upon taking a giant, bloody, metaphorical stake to the hearts of the people that make the game cool. That's bad form in my opinion.

There are lots of other things to cover and so not to exhaust my resources before I am ready, I shall leave todays entry of, "Blizzards Blunders," here for you to mull over and consider.

Next time, I shall cover reputation grinding and battlegrounds.

The Arena System - In General

Indelible — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 02:54:44 GMT

Needless to say, I want to complain about the queue system again so this time I am going to discuss interrupt effects first and then move on to the whine about arena queues and match ups.

Interrupt Effects.

In a team with warriors, rogues and shamans the only thing you can do as a caster is stand still and hope and pray that you don't die before they've finished with their interrupts. As a Shadowpriest (and thus only knowing what it is like from my perspective) this is not only the single most annoying moment in PvP but also the single most unbalanced against me.

Think about it this way: All other DPS casters have a multitude of trees they can cast from. Mages = Frost, Fire and Arcane. Warlocks = Affliction and Destruction. Even shamans and paladins can rely on their melee DPS when not being able to cast and they can also heal themselves as well. Shadowpriests, on the other hand, have one tree which is the Shadow tree. We can not heal ourselves and we have no other tree containing DPS options unless we drop shadow form. If we drop shadow form, we lose 15% of our durability and instantly die against melee. So what do we do? We just stand there and take it.

Originally, our 41-point talent was going to be a shadow heal ability. This would have balanced the above issue but instead, I got a mana return curse, that adds to my problems where interrupts are concerned and has to be renewed every 15 seconds. Add this to the fact that my two main abilities take time to cast and one of them roots me in position and I should basically have an interrupt effect above my head saying, "interrupts here," so that people can take me out of the fight without me even having to die.

I'm not complaining of course. After all, shadow priests shouldn't be balanced in group PvP because they are unbalanced in 1v1... even though by Blizzards admittance, 1v1 is not considered when balancing PvP. I'm perfectly willing to admit that I could be wrong but at the end of the day this is a problem that many priest has mentioned and it still gets ignored. One more thing to add to the long, long list.

Arena Match Ups

Earlier tonight I did 3v3 arena. This was fun because my arena team is a very dominant combination in this ladder as well as being 3 fairly good PvPers. What I did notice however, is that teams who had no hope of beating us were being presented to us time and time and time again and I failed to see how this was fair. Is it fair that a team who can't beat another team should be forced to play that team over and over again.

From what I can see, this is beginning to have a bad effect on players on my server. Teams who were constantly playing in season 1 have been driven out of the arena tournament and left hanging because they weren't quite skilled enough to play the teams that were constantly beating them. Don't get me wrong. I understand that you need to have some challenge when it comes to this type of thing but you wouldn't expect the top football (soccer) team in the world to lose to a few casual players, would you? Why should casual PvPers who want to do arena be forced to constantly lose to teams they have no hope of beating?

In other words, why hasn't Blizzard created brackets based on the average performance of teams in the season and why isn't the queue system stricter? All it takes is 10 matches and not the 1000 some teams seem to be putting in to raise your rating enough to smile about.

Maybe one day I will see something that will fix the shadowpriest interrupt issue. Maybe one day Blizzard will make an effort to provide an balanced PvP experience. Until that day comes, I shall sit here and grit my teeth for those of you who don't want to PvP in a hardcore way and I shall hope and pray that you get your worth... one day.

Diablo 3 Mystery Takes a New Turn

Indelible — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 19:29:16 GMT

After seeing my RSS feed update itself with, "Diablo3.eu - Forbidden 403," my spider sense began to tingle. I had to check this out.

I promptly read the article on BlizzPlanet to find that www.diablo3.eu, a web address that previously led to the World of Warcraft demo site now leads to the fabled 403 Forbidden page, not dissimilar to what happened with the Wrath of the Lich King site previous to its opening at Blizzcon.

With GC only a matter of days away and a press conference due on 22nd at 10.30am with Blizzard Entertainment themselves, are we set to see the third and final game announcement and is it going to be Diablo 3.

Well, I'm excited. I don't think I've been this excited since the time I learned to tie my shoe laces.

Domain Name: diablo3.eu
Status: REGISTERED
Registered: April 7, 2006
Last update August 10, 2007 7:32 PM
Name: Domain Administrator
Organisation: Blizzard Entertainment

Interestingly enough, diablo3.de now leads to the Diablo 2 Expansion site at Blizzard.de whilst all other domains owned bu Blizzard lead to the relevant www.blizzard.fr/.com.au/etc.

Could this be a hint that Diablo 3 is on its way at Leipzig?

Hardcore WoW fans and the Warcraft Movie

Indelible — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 23:17:34 GMT

Warcraft: The Movie has created massive hype, not only in the player base but also outside the player base. Finally, people who are not interested in playing the MMO will be able to see (at least) a small aspect of the Warcraft Universe and what the epic storyline is all about - Horde V Alliance.

Warcraft: The Movie has been defined by Blizzard and Legendary as a war movie sighting examples like 300 and Gladiator; Lord of the Rings and Braveheart, when talking about what they want from the movie. They haven't said whether they are intending to have battles featuring lots of people fighting lots of people but have said that new technology (specifically the technology used in 300) will allow them to make the movie really good. In the end however, it is all down to the Director according to Metzen and we aren't going to be finding out who any time soon.

As Metzen said at the WoW panel at Blizzcon, the Warcraft movie will mainly focus around the Horde V Alliance War and it will be told from the Alliance perspective, specifically humans. To the player base, this might appear like Metzen and co are preparing to step into the realm of clearly defining Alliance as the good guys and Horde as the bad guys. This has, of course, set off rebellions from the hardcore community.

The Alliance players who play the game specifically because of the Alliance are cheering in the forums at the prospect of having themselves portrayed as the be all and end all of good, while the Horde players are sitting, biting their finger nails at the idea of being the bad guys. Is it really going to be this linear or have we been subjected to simplistic movies for too long?

If we know one thing about Metzen, we know that he is capable of creating story lines that are easily followed but deep and meaning full. For example, in the game neither the Horde nor Alliance are evil or good but both are subject to their own conditioning. Both have aspects of good and both have aspects of evil. Will this be portrayed in the movie?

Then there is the worry of characters and to that, we've been told that many characters will be featured in the movie but the main hero is a brand new addition to the franchise. Fans are worried that the franchise is becoming saturated with heroes but many will have noticed that there are no new heroes entering the game at the moment so perhaps this new hero is a good thing.

Next we have the time period it is set in...1 year before the events in WoW. Many fans are worried that this will be none canon in their eyes and ruin the continuity of the Warcraft franchise but Metzen and Legendary have both said that they are not looking to create a PC game move but that they are looking to create a movie BASED on a franchise that just so happened to emerge in the gaming industry.

So there are a lot of things for fans to be worried about and we shall have to wait until 2009 to see what we think. Interestingly however is the use of, "properties," when referring to Legendary being the new home of Warcraft in Hollywood. That is a plural and considering the recent Diablo fiasco on the Legendary website, could it be that this is a small hint the Legendary have the movie making rights to ALL of the Blizzard franchises? Could we see not only Warcraft but Diablo and Starcraft coming out of Legendary in the next decade?

Where is World of Warcraft Going?

Indelible — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 03:37:53 GMT

Since it's inception in 2004, World of Warcraft hasn't broken any new ground in the RPG genre mechanics wise and has only one credit to its name: taking the world of gaming by storm. That said however, World of Warcraft seems to be a compilation of the greatest aspects of RPGs rolled neatly into one package with added Blizzard bling just for luck.

So what does the future of World of Warcraft offer us?

Well in the world of instances and raids, before WotLK, we can expect to see Zul'Aman, a new 6 boss, 10 man raid dungeon to follow on from Karazhan, geared towards those players who capped their raiding experience, either through choice or lack of progress, at the 10 man marker. It will be tuned to take players geared up in partial tier 4/random epics from Kara and will offer none-tiered items, similar to those items offered in Zul'Gurub pre-TBC, as well as Heroic Badges which will be handed in for brand new heroic gear (which may contain some interesting itemization changes). This addition is expected in 2.3.

Following on from Zul'Aman, we have another raid dungeon but this time we're looking at a new 6 boss, 25 man raid dungeon to follow on from Black Temple. It will drop items better in quality than Black Temple and possibly better than tier 6, but it is as yet unconfirmed as to whether these items will be tiered or none-tiered. Another item query that is unconfirmed is whether their will be set drops for each class - watch this space. Not much is known about the actual raid location, "officially," but unofficially, it is rumoured (and the source is 99.9% trustworthy) that in 2.4 we will be seeing Sunwell Plateau.

On the cards but not concrete is one last 5 man before Wrath of the Lich King and nothing has been even hinted at in this case. Watch this space as well.

So that is raid content and instance content covered but what about the one thing on the majority of players minds - itemization. There are some interesting itemization changes in the making and rumoured, that will please a lot of people.

Firstly, we have the lack of items for two off-classes - retribution paladins and balance druids. It is well known that both of these classes have little to no good itemization choices at this moment in time and Blizzard have answered this problem with the announcement that the new heroic gear that will be added to coincide with the release of Zul'Aman will contain brand new gear to fill the void for these two class specs, as well as gear for other none-generic class specs. This change is expected in 2.4.

A lot of PvPers were disgruntled when, after the start of season 2 and the inception of a new arena set, the old arena set was not made available to those who only play battlegrounds. Well, they will be pleased to know that the old Gladiator set will be made available to them for roughly 15k a piece. We don't know when this will be but it is expected at the start of the next season, shortly after 2.3.

Next, we have some dramatic additions to the game that will make it even more addictive than it already is.

Voice over IP software has been used by both hardcore and casual raiding guilds to direct and better communicate during raiding and now arena teams and premades are using the same software for a similar thing in PvP. Despite this however (and the blatant fact that boss encounters were designed with VoIP in mind) Blizzard have never had it in the game. That is all about to change as in patch 2.3 (expected in the next 1-3 weeks) there will be a brand spanking new in-built VoIP sytem that will hopefully render the need for TS or Ventrillo old. This system is currently on the test realms and from what I have experienced of it, so far so good. We shall have to see if it can handle a few thousand players and not cause major lag in game on our servers. Fingers crossed.

Next we have Guild Banks. A highly anticipated aspect of the game and on the table since after 2.1 was released, Guild banks are going to change the way guilds work. They will allow members to deposit and withdraw items from a bank available to the entire guild and also allow Guild Masters and Officers to set restraints on the bank, meaning (for example) I could set it up so that you can only take an item after depositing an item, or something along those lines. When we will see this addition is still unknown, but it is expected after Zul'Aman, possibly 2.5 or 2.6 (or maybe even 2.7...). Guild Housings, instance areas that only members of a guild can access, are also going to make an appearance in the future, but when this will be...nobody (not even Blizzard) knows.

Other interesting changes and rumours that may or may not be added to World of Warcraft are to come but these are not confirmed or are confirmed but not a priority at this moment in time.

An interesting change is the prospective lift on the level cap of Outland. At the moment, players of a lower level than 58 can enter Outland through Warlock summoning' spells or portals and Blizzard have said that this is not a bug and are considering removing the level cap on Outland in the future. This wouldn't effect game-play really and would only server to get more low level players ganked by high level mobs. Another interesting idea is the arena spectator mode. At Blizzcon 2007, the spectator mode was previewed and from what I have heard is a brilliant idea and a step in the right direction. We shall have to wait and see when this will be added but it gets my vote.

At the end of the day, the story here is that there are still plenty of things that can be added to the World of Warcraft gaming experience and maybe one day we will see that graphics engine update that everyone so eagerly wants and longs for. Maybe one day, it will be a Direct X 10 Vista only game...actually, let us hope that day never comes.

The future is bright but it isn't Orange this time ;-) (CHEESE!)