One of the benefits to my adding of random gewgaws on the blog last week was finally setting up Xfire to monitor my gaming box. If you scroll to the bottom of the page you can see what I’ve been up to lately. Oh heck, I’ll save you the scroll: I’ve been playing World of Warcraft.
Specifically, I’ve been trying to catch up to my Uberwife, she of the many level 60s all in post-BWL gear. Her main dual wields a Perdition’s Blade and a Gutgore Ripper and her stat bonuses can only be described in imaginary numbers. Yet, in what can only be described as true love, she actually wants me to catch up to her so we can stare at CTRaid output together.
The problem, now, is that I am a permanewbie. As in, I constantly reroll. I *always* reroll. I am *never* happy with my avatar; I am always thinking that some other mystical combination of class and race and starting location and server will be the Magic Number Combination that will unlock the keys to happiness or something. The first game where I actually achieved maximum level (aside from Ultima Online, where you could cap out a character from breathing hard) was Dark Age of Camelot, and that only because guilds managed to get powerlevelling down to a science. Don’t ask what realm rank I achieved though, because you’ll only laugh. (Oh, OK. RR3, on a nightshade.)
However, my wife finally discovered something that would break the permanewbie conundrum – a secret concoction of bribery and guilt. Oddly enough, this is also what powers most marriages, so it works out rather well as a system. So she has been raining quest hellfire and damnation down upon my character, who is only peripherally along for the ride. Last weekend we finished up Felwood, did all of Winterspring, Sunken Temple (with some help) and all the necessary paperwork for Blackrock Depths.
My little character is now level 57. This is attracting no little attention. When our guild leader noticed, he blinked, and said over Vent, “wait a minute. Scott has a character over level 20?” My wife helpfully said that I was free to tell him to bite me. (I did, using Shakespeare).
So, I’m taking mental notes as I progress. I’ve always said, although more from observation than experience, that World of Warcraft’s endgame isn’t organic to the rest of the polished experience, but a grafted patchwork that causes people to hit a brick wall and halt all progress. So is that holding up to my personal experience? Well, yes and no.
No, because clearly I am advancing. However, I’m doing it with a support network worthy of Delta Force TEAM AWESOME. Most players of WoW are not married to someone equipped with the best gear in the game and willing to spend an awe-inspiring amout of time making sure you get your dinky little quests done. I’m also in a guild that is currently doing AQ40 regularly, so sneaking into Molten Core sometime and getting uberrific stuff probably won’t be an issue, since I’m given to understand most of what I need is being disenchanted anyway. So my World of Warcraft character is kind of the George W. Bush of Azeroth. He may like to think he’s getting through life on his own merits, but it helped when someone helpfully leaned on the King of Ironforge to get him out of Gnomeregan National Guard patrol duty.
My experience with what most people see as the game – pickup groups – has been, post level 40, unremittingly bad. People in “pugs” simply don’t know how to play. I mean, they’re so bad at the game that *I* know that they’re bad at the game. Without the social connections of knowing people who can help you bypass this, I never would have gotten through ANY instances save MAYBE Deadmines. I know, because, as mentioned, I didn’t clear Sunken Temple finally until this weekend, at 57. Note that Sunken Temple is aimed at high-40s players. I tried doing the dungeon with multiple pick up groups over a week and a half before swallowing my pride and finally asking my guild meekly for help, at which time four of them blew through the whole thing in about an hour. It’s an entirely different game.
Much of this I blame on WoW missing some key social tools (such as a working Looking for Group tool), but to be honest most games tend to ignore these tools when they exist anyway. But if I didn’t have the out-of-game social connection to this guild (aka “honey, if I make dinner tonight will you PLEASE get me Onyxia keyed?”) then I’m pretty sure my WoW career would have ended at level 30.
Tune in next week, when your erstwhile hero discovers the joy of BRD/BRS and other arcane abbreviations.
{ 43 comments… read them below or add one }
So this is a WoW blog now? Cool!
j/k
“a secret concoction of bribery and guilt. “
Ahh, Lysistrata in 2006….
You take marrying your character to a whole new level.
Scott, you n00b. Even Bartle has a level 60 Paladin with Epic class mount. Hell, I’m to the point where I let my account with my level 60 go dormant because I’m bored already. You shame us all.
So, should we start making bets about what kind of game NCSoft is working on? I think it’ll be a game focusing on marriage relationships, where you have to get your wife to powerlevel you to create married bliss. *evil grin*
Getting another character to 60 myself, and it’s amazing how much the average PUG player sucks. Baboons throwing feces at the keyboard would be better at tactics than these people.
Of course, since I’m doing it on a PVP server this time and I’m laughably inept at PVP, it all works out.
Many of the same issues exist in DAoC RvR/PvE. The difference between a pick up group, a guild PUG, and a gank group/PUG is just astounding. Add in disparities in gear, group setup, and realm abilities, and it’s just horrifying.
I don’t see any solution, sadly. If the content is racheted down for the LCD, then the top players will be bored. Keep the top players entertained, and a very large subset will not be able to use that content.
“I don\’e2\’80\’99t see any solution, sadly. If the content is racheted down for the LCD, then the top players will be bored. Keep the top players entertained, and a very large subset will not be able to use that content.”
Use the same content for all of them.
AKA: Beat the dungeon of doom in 2 hours, get the green thingie. Beat the dungeon of doom in 1 hour, get the blue thingie. Beat the dungeon of doom in 30 minutes, get the super duper purple thingie. Beat the dungeon of doom in doom in 30 minutes, naked and with no deaths, get the omg red thingie.
What class are you playing anyway? I don’t think I saw it in your post. Glad to hear that your wife is guilting you into leveling, they’re good at using their womanly ways to get us doing things. Damn women. =)
Funny, I know EXACTLY where you’re coming from. My brother is a RR11 infiltrator on Gawaine. He got me into the premier Alb rvr guild on the server which basically allowed me to keep playing after level 50. I can’t imagine how horrible RvR must be with crappy PUG’s or in guild groups with people who are your friends… but suck. There is no doubt in my mind I would never have gone past RR5 without the tenuous connection I had to my guild (Unity yay!) through my brother.
Your perma-newbie comment reflects my mmo experience exactly. I call it being a perpetual newbie. It’s actually fun before the grind sets in. DAOC was also the first major game in which I made max level and we won’t talk about realm rank here either
Haven’t tried WoW yet…kinda all burned out on the MMO scene atm.
Good luck!
One of the big problems I’ve experienced with PUGs is people with no clue about aggro, their role w/r/t aggro, and how to manage it when they group. Why, oh why can’t the newbie zones include training quests that send players out with a couple of NPCs on quests designed to teach this?
I once did a run of Razorfen Downs in semi-PUG with a warrior who stood back when combat started because “all of the monsters jump on me”. Doh!
Once there was a little Orc with a little curl right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very good. When she was bad, she had to keep herself from screaming abuse at Czechs who play an english-speaking european RP server without a basic grasp of english or how to wield a mouse.
I’m eagerly awaiting your story of the Glorious End Game \’c2\’a9 Scott. Let the rest of us permanewbs know what awaits us if we ever get to level 40 and beyond!
Funny, the first person I’ve heard that works in the MMO industry and isn’t a cattass or powergamer.
I prefer the term permalowbie.
Permanewbie implies a lack of knowladge about the game, but that’s not necessarily the case. I’ve become a very knowledgable players of any MMO I’ve played for an extended period, even though I keep rerolling and almost never get above the equivalent of level 20. Heck, in EQ I was often advising characters that had more than twice my levels about various aspects of tactics they should be using.
Those who can’t do, teach.
How and why you don’t play EVE is beyond me Lum. What happened to the days of crushing the perma newbs?
And to add… what happened to the days of gaming where it was about playing your character instead of maintaining someone elses goals? What happened to the days where a virtual world was more than a pit stop on the super highway to phat loot?
What has happened!
Ah!
I played UO for three years, at least, and i only got 3-4 GM skills on ONE character.
And in DAoC my highest RR is 4!
We are all noobs!
I like the idea of Eve.
When I had a group of friends who played regularly my video card rebooted at random when running the Eve client which made it difficult to play. It’s been fixed since but in the meantime my friends moved on and I had little motivation to try to get past the boring early game.
geebus, you can make a rr3 character in daoc in like… 2 hours of rvr, lol
I was so sick of the endgame concept five years ago. I like Bartle’s take on it; you don’t have to play the endgame, if you’re in it for the gameplay. You’ve experienced the core gameplay all the way there, and won’t find anything new.
The first level-based MMO I really got into was AC, and I never played it to level. I was more interested in what content was available for a 23rd level character, instead of charging headlong into level 24.
SOOO Grateful I weasled out of WoW before the raid-bug caught me again like it caught my former EQ guildies who left hardcore raiding on Rathe same time as me to ‘enjoy a MMOG again’. Meh, some people just love the catass-life wether they admit it or not.
Personally I preferred seeing just how badass I could be with only the mad d0rf skillz and shell launcher shotgun and loyal kittie in tow, and then I realized I might as well be playing a SRPG, i’d deal with fewer retards and goldfarmers, and might actually have a chance in hell at better then ‘blue’ gear. meh. quit.
Tried it again a couple months ago, rolled a new priest instead…..same meh.
Viva la Oblivion.
Guilds have been built albeit slowly from PuG’s. Believe it or not if you are patient you can find some really good players in pick ups (people from small guilds, people who are not used to 40 man instances, etc etc). I find it challenging actually to run a pickup group now and then (I have to be the leader of the pug of course simply because if a major tool somehow gets in I can immediately bewt), simply to look for new recruits.
Many diamonds in the ruff have been found. Not everyone had 40 friends to start raiding with in just about any game. I actually pugged to 60 even though I had a guild, (everyone else was already leveled, and with the raid schedule no time to level me
, HEY LUM can I borrow your wife?)
Annnnnd Pug’s can also be used for asmusement, inviting the local ninja’s, farmers, and newbies to an onyxia run, or an ubrs run can be quite entertaining for a guilds offday raiding plans. The best was when we had a pali in one of our pick up ony runs use “consecrate” over and over on Onyxia no matter how many times we told him this wasn’t useful.
Your wife has to be a great person to help you like that. I couldn’t think of anyone else other than a family member or close friend willing to help with anything in WoW that didn’t benefit them. It still befuddles me how she got caught up in that incident a while back.
I’d be interested to know Raph Koster’s character levels and in-game achievements in the MMO genre. He is regarded as such a luminary but I have a strong suspicion that he doesn’t play the types of games he designs. How a person can be behind the miserable failures of early UO and SWG yet still be considered a good designer is beyond me.
WoW is the first game I ever had a max-level character in, and it wasn’t from lack of trying (just lack of time).
Now, I’m in a raiding guild who’s started on BWL.
The moral is, as they say on Conan: “You could do eet!!”
Side note: I haven’t had nearly the problems with pugs that you guys seem to have. Maybe because I play on an older server, but I have pugged most of the endgame instances (Scholo, Strat, *BRS) and -most- of the time they weren’t too bad… I may just be lucky though.
Then I say to you Mr Scott Jennings. Was beating on pigs and rabbits in UO fun in the begining? Look at where that has gotten you. The virtual world experience is there… the question is whether you have the initiative to go out and experience it. I tried EVE and dumped it in a heartbeat because of the beginners funk. Then I came back with a plan and some help in the form of Ethic of the Kill Ten Rats blog. Been happy ever since.
Will there ever be another MMOG with a GUI and experience remotely like UO? I mean that one worked pretty damn well except for the players. When EQ came out it sucked and I waited for another UO like game that I could actually get into. It’s been a while now.
“I mean that one worked pretty damn well except for the players.”
Most MMOGs work pretty well except for the players. Damn those players!
Getting power-levelling down to a science is actually kind of fun. When EQ was fairly new (pre-Kunark) I had a 50 monk on Xegony and was getting kind of tired of the game. I got my friend into the game, and told him “Make a druid” because, as we all know, you must be a druid in EQ to powerlevel. I power levelled his druid with my monk (found a few tricks), and I have no idea how many people we power levelled in Cazic-Thule before it got changed to a high level raid zone.
He would camp a little dead end at the edge of the “maze” in Cazic with his druid and whomever we were power levelling, I’d go with my monk to pull as many mobs as humanly possible and run back to his druid and feign death. The person being power levelled could whack each mob 1 at a time (1 pt. of damage was all you needed) or just use an AE over and over ’till we were sure it landed at least once on everything, then let the damage shield (thorns) do the rest.
Damage shields didn’t count as anyone’s damage, and all of us had a damage shield on. Druid sits and heals whoever needs it, and he’d log in his other account with an enchanter for clarity whenever he needed it. We could get a character from 1-30 in a day, and within another 2-3 days they were 50.
And about pickup groups: This is probably a lot of people’s first MMOG. I usually expect that people are going to suck, that way if they do I just take it for as long as I can then move on and it doesn’t irritate me… if not it’s a pleasant surprise.
The other fun part about WoW’s pug’s are their their transitoriness (yay new word). I’ve had people leave, often, the second they got their final item for *insert quest here*, whether that be in an instance or not, or finished whatever goal they have. Sometimes even without saying so much as “bye”.
The current winner of worst pug I’ve had was the tank hearthing as we pulled that final boss in SM cathedral since he realized the exp from the kill would level him. Yes, that’s right, he didn’t want to level. See, he had this AMAZING plan to just pvp until he was whatever max pvp level since he felt it would be easier at 39 than 60 (since at 39, he’d be the highest out of all the other schmucks on the field). The kicker was of course he was the group leader, so when he hearthed out and dropped group, the instance kicked us all. Yay!
The problems with the social interaction stem not from poor game tools but the fact that there are 5 million players, the majority of which seem to think that social interaction is a game producer. It took me 3 weeks of playing SWG to find a guild who I went in game to spend time with (and still have contact with now we’re all waiting the next incarnation with baited breath). Nearly 6 months after starting to play WoW and I’ve yet to meet a group of people I’d like to talk to for much more than “gief gold plz!”
Level 39.5 and proudly guildless. (But no endgame for me!)
How the frak can I edit my post for poor English?
I’m in a large power guild. My biggest problem is that I can’t stand a lot of the people who are active in the guild. So I spend a lot of time doing what I did on my way to 60 – soloing/levelling an alt.
I don’t even bother with instances or quests on alts, because I despise pugs, don’t like asking for help, and enjoy crafting, so I’ll be grinding rep on anything I get to 60 anyway, mostly likely – unless I find that magic class that is insanely fun to play in groups (I haven’t yet – tried rogue, hunter, priest, warrior, warlock and mage).
Large raids are either hohum affairs (MC) or way too stressful (AQ), neither of which I’m finding fun.
(Oblivion’s fun though – I just wish it had other people for some odd reason).
“(Oblivion\’e2\’80\’99s fun though – I just wish it had other people for some odd reason)”
Indeed, and there’s the rub. While the rift of the solo to raid game has been commented on here, Lum now touches on the issue of practical social connection in MMOs. While some of us may lament the matter that WoW changes at end-game, this post touches on the real reasons why it does so. MMOs engender increasingly complex social structures.
Whether that should translate directly into a raid game is obviously up for debate, but the fact remains that the creation of larger and larger groupings are a natural tendency for MMOs. Guilds are, at their core, social contracts created not by any one game or mechanic, but by the social needs they address. What makes them last are the foundations they are based in. An arbitrary collection of people have a larger chance of dissolving than does a group that are connected IRL. In this particular case, Lum’s breaching of the end-game bubble is coming due to a real support net. It’s sorta like having your parents put the down-payment on your first home; not something that the average bloke can solo. Is it possible? sure. Likely? not so much. As you progress, the need to rely on others becomes more tangible, practical and necessary.
As WoW or any MMO grows in population, so does the potential connections between players. Or, more to the point, you get a better chance at finding your soulmate-guild or -group or what have you when drawing from a larger pool. At the same time, the larger pool demands more organizations for the sake of making sense of the teeming masses. And the bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy. Makes sense that the best place to find assistance is to find it in your immediate life. Charity begins at home.
It only goes to show that, having been exposed to the potential of MMOs, the single player game may seem somewhat lacking in comparison. This is probably the only aspect in which I might agree with Raph’s assesment that single-player games are an abberation.
Human beings are social creatures and the complication of social behaviors is inevitable in a dynamic environment. However, being alone in a crowd is a moment I value and find important. Hell, that’s basically my argument for player housing in any MMO. A necessary social buffer and source of identity. The lack of that in WoW is something I think keeps people unanchored or atomized, more so than being unguilded (which is, I think, really more of a conscious decision for many, rather than an unavoidable reality). While there is potential for someone to find that group that will help them get to the next level, the transition is not smooth because it works best with external structures that exist outside of gameplay. Now, perhaps that transition could be made more gradual through game design, but the most powerful incentives for lasting group experiences are outside of the game. It’s the only meta-game in town; guild drama
Well…that or forum trolling. Your pick. Solo or group angst, heh
As previously stated, it’s who you know.
Feckin’ relativism…
…ok, I’m done rambling
“The problem, now, is that I am a permanewbie. As in, I constantly reroll. I *always* reroll. I am *never* happy with my avatar; I am always thinking that some other mystical combination of class and race and starting location and server will be the Magic Number Combination that will unlock the keys to happiness or something.”
This describes my mmorpg philosophy right down to the T. But add to the mix jumping from one game to another and then back again. I have so many low level characters spread out over so many different games it isn’t funny. I’ve only made it to the “end game” in one game ever. In EQ I rolled a cleric because my new guild on the new server of Stromm only had one. I was needed, so I leveled up. I made it to 65, got many AAs, made it to 70, got more AAs. I still raid with her today. But my other time is spent trying to unlock the secret formula for true happiness…..
“But my other time is spent trying to unlock the secret formula for true happiness\’e2\’80\’a6.. “
I’m fairly certain it involves bunnies in some way.
“My experience with what most people see as the game – pickup groups – has been, post level 40, unremittingly bad. People in \’e2\’80\’9cpugs\’e2\’80\’9d simply don\’e2\’80\’99t know how to play. I mean, they\’e2\’80\’99re so bad at the game that *I* know that they\’e2\’80\’99re bad at the game. Without the social connections of knowing people who can help you bypass this, I never would have gotten through ANY instances save MAYBE Deadmines. I know, because, as mentioned, I didn\’e2\’80\’99t clear Sunken Temple finally until this weekend, at 57. Note that Sunken Temple is aimed at high-40s players. I tried doing the dungeon with multiple pick up groups over a week and a half before swallowing my pride and finally asking my guild meekly for help, at which time four of them blew through the whole thing in about an hour. It\’e2\’80\’99s an entirely different game.”
Sunken Temple is not aimed at high 40′s players. More like low to mid 50′s. If you couldn’t clear this dungeon until level 57, with what sounds like 4 pimped out level 60′s holding your hand, maybe it is yourself you are describing with “People in \’e2\’80\’9cpugs\’e2\’80\’9d simply don\’e2\’80\’99t know how to play. I mean, they\’e2\’80\’99re so bad at the game that *I* know that they\’e2\’80\’99re bad at the game.”
“transitoriness”
I suppose that’s more polite than “selfishness”, which is what it really is most of the time. I can understand if there’s an emergency of somesort, but selfish reasons like stopping before you level to 40 just so you can pwn in 30-39 BGs is not something you want to happen when your goal is to work together to finish a quest.
I blame humanity for being cruel, heartless beasts. But I also blame developers equally for not even trying to work around our evil nature.
I’ve been having amazingly good luck with pugs in DDO… I *hope* that shows that a game can train players to be competent group members, but I fear that it’s just because the steep learning curve scares off the kind of idiots you encounter in wow pugs and that any hugely successful mass market MMP will suffer from crappy random groups because of its own success. It’s a shame because I fear the very things that train players to be good group members are the very things that drive away the mass market.
Every online game I’ve tried without FIRST using EXTERNAL resourses to connect to an established player community has resulted in my quitting in less than 30 days. It’s all about the people. If I had to slog it out in with PUG noobs in WoW I’d have quit before I finished open beta. As it is, I’m still playing.
How did you fix your video card problem with Eve? It’s happening to me too and I’m trying to get all I can out of my free 15 days (only 7 left!).
Oh, and there is no joy in BRD. Ironically I’ve enjoyed my solo experiences there (Plugger, Burning Essence, Incendius), but otherwise there is nothing to be found but frustration and sorrow.
I’m playing AutoAssault right now, and loving it. Okay, so I just like being able to crash my car into things and watch them blow up! So far, it’s had the best launch of any MMORPG I’ve played, very smooth, no major catastrophes. (I’m a Shadowbane veteran, so I know bad launches) But … I doubt if I’ll be playing it a couple of months from now.
Why? Because, as far as I can tell, I’m playing a single-player game. I see other players’ cars cruise past once in a great while, I’ve met a few people in towns, and I got invited into a guild by a guy I haven’t seen since. Once in a while I see something said in chat, though I’m usually too busy making things blow up to reply. But other than that, my server (Carnage) seems to be empty. I’m not paying fifteen bucks a month to play by myself.
There seem to be two major things missing: One, the chat is in a microscopic font, there seems to be no way to make it not fade out and need to be re-clicked, and it tends to get flooded with game messages. If there’s a fix for any of this I haven’t found it yet, which means that neither will a lot of other players. Two, there seems to be no viable player market system, unlike WoW’s Auction House, DAoC’s vendors on every porch, even Shadowbane’s town merchants. So, I either have to use items myself or sell them to NPCs, and so does everyone else. No communication and no economy makes it hard for a community to coalesce.
All in all, blowing things up is fun, the quests seem to be fairly entertaining, and if it was a single-player game, especially a PS2 game, I’d be happy as a clam. But a multi-player game with very few other players, interaction with those players seemingly made as difficult as possible, and no economic system to speak of, feels like it has gaping holes in it. Player perception? Probably. But damn, it seems empty in there.
I’ll probably wander back to WoW eventually. Yeah, PUGs suck. Thanks to my RL commitments and schedule, no raid guild would have me — they want people who can, y’know, be on for raids. So I drift around essentially guildless, joining the occasional PUG, saving my money to hire a raiding guild to give me a tour of MC some day, and wishing that Blizzard had lived up to their promise of not just making EQ with the serial numbers filed off.
Well, that and some version of not being evil. I’ve got issues with a game company that will forcibly rename a character named Artorius (a friend of mine) but leave all the Chuck Norris clones, DBZ characters, and random strings of letters used by the non-English-speaking gold farmers intact … or, for that matter, allow those farmers to farm unimpeded for months on end, but ban legitimate players for minor rules infractions. And yes, there’s the incident that Freakazoid referred to. I was on the server that got the unwelcome … gift. What Blizzard did wasn’t the worst part — it was the way they lied about what happened, why it happened, and what they were or were not going to do about it.
Hey, Scott, can you make them fix AutoAssault? I’d like a resizable chat window, please, a larger font, a way to turn off the text fade, a “scroll all the way down” button, some kind of market or merchant system, and some reason for housing to exist other than to be able to stand in an empty room and look confused. Maybe we could buy an extra locker to put in it? Oh, and a pony.
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