The Angry Raider

Here in bulleted fashion are my random thoughts about and impressions of Warhammer Online, in no particular order. Call it stream of consciousness blogging.

• I wish there were a way to extract the information in the Tome of Knowledge and share it, perhaps on a website or even a printed book.
• Tier 1 RVR scenarios got progressively more frustrating as I leveled up, but I realized that I was once the level 1 guy rolling need on everything and not knowing what to do.
• Speaking of rolling need, a level 2 white lion rolled need on a sword that was an upgrade for me at level 9, and useless to him. Sigh.
• The game feels very natural to me. As I gain in ranks and get new abilities, I gain more utility and capabilities that don’t seem unnecessary. I’m also able to change my playstyle at-will (it’s a function of the Shadow Warrior class), and I’m only Rank 9. In other games I’ve played, I needed to be at least level 20 to get the same experience.
• Public quests are a lot of fun and a very interesting way to socialize in the game. Mythic has done a lot of tweaking to PQs since the open beta, and I’m pleased. I’ve gotten some pretty nice rewards from PQs.
• Speaking of nice rewards, the Renown system is fantastic. I love earning new gear from RVR. I can see how the PVE vs PVP gear differential is going to come into play as I gain levels. I have to balance skills that are good for both (such as Ballistic Skill) against RVR-specific (resistance).
• I have found some really amazing WAR blogs, and I added them to my blogroll. Please check them out.

That’s all for now. I’ll have a more coherent post up tomorrow that details my experience leveling a shadow warrior from 1 to 10.

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR, isn’t that clever?) entered open beta today. As a preorder subscriber, I get to participate in said beta. I got up early (10 AM!) on a Sunday to play it. I launched the game and….patching. It’s currently at 57%. Sigh.

I’m pretty excited about this game. I do have some nervous trepidations, as I mentioned in my previous post: will it live up to my expectation? What things have been removed that I was excited about (such as reverse questing, which didn’t make v1)?

The fiancee is on her way to pick up Spore, which she preordered. I think she’s more excited about Spore than I am about WAR, and that’s saying a lot. Spore isn’t an MMORPG like WAR; while it has an online component (organisms that other players create will populate your world), it’s not an interactively social game. And I think that’s a good thing for Spore because the fiancee isn’t particularly competitive. She’s excited about growing something that’s uniquely hers. When we play MMOs, she creates identities for the creatures under her command. For example, her World of Warcraft blood elf paladin’s war charger is named "Rain Cloud." Summon War Charger is just a spell. Every paladin’s war charger is the same. But the fiancee made hers unique, with a little macro that makes her character say, "Rain Cloud, where are you? I need a ride" when she summons her mount. In Spore, she’ll be able to create as many unique life forms as she wants, and get attached to them all. So while my greenskin shaman or chaos magus is laying waste to high elves controlled by other players, the fiancee will be meticulously masterminding the evolutionary growth of a synthetic life that’s more than the color of its armor. In way, I envy that.

Of course, in WAR, I’ll have my own attachments to my characters. Those attachments will just be different. Perhaps I’ll make a name for myself as a particularly devastating adversary. Or maybe I’ll be the worst PVPer on the server, a sort of Glass Joe that everyone kills on their way to Mike Tyson (or Mr. Dream, as it were). Who knows? For just as the fiancee’s world of Spore grows and changes as a function of her involvement, so does mine in WAR. It’s just on a much different scale.

WAR is at 61% now. We’re getting close!

Everyone loves a list. The last list I did here was the Feral Druid Weapon Buyer’s Guide, which I honestly need to update, and barely existed in list form (it was more of a bullet list). Matticus suggested people post more list posts, so here’s mine: five truths about raiding.

1. Every player has his or her own reason for being there. There are so many reasons people raid. The thrill of boss kills, the prospect of gear upgrades via loot, reputation gains, and completing quests are just a few of the more common reasons people raid. Some others are the feeling that there’s nothing else to do in endgame, getting one’s money worth, the social aspect of raiding, and assuaging feelings of guilt. No particular reason is better or worse than another one, but nobody agrees on that point. Sometimes, people have nowhere else to go.

2. Egos are rampant and it’s hard to keep them in check. Whether it’s the warlock watching the meters constantly or the mage going on and on about having the best gear, you’re dealing with 24 other people who all believe they’re the best at what they do. Or they should, which leads me to number 3.

3. The raid leader/guild master will often have a sense of entitlement. This leads to issues like loot privileges, bench privileges, and group makeup in the raid, even when those things directly hurt the raid. I’ve seen raid leaders get preferred loot on Ashes of A’lar just because they’re the person who leads the raid. In that particular case, morale fell through the floor, but people kept on going because it was a top guild and they had nowhere else to go (see #1). This doesn’t happen in every guild, but it happens more than it should. This is a point I’m going to expand upon in a future post.

4. Some people aren’t cut out for raiding, but nobody knows what to do about it. Maybe that mage is really nice on Vent but dies on Naj’entus at the pull. Or it’s the BM hunter who puts out 600 DPS but just broke up with her boyfriend. Or it’s the priest who has great +healing, but panics on the constructs in the Gorefiend fight. For raids to be successful, everyone has to give 100%, and some people just can’t do that. That doesn’t mean they can’t raid at all–they just won’t be in guilds that go very far. But what can you do when you have people like this in your guild? Kick them out? Bench them? Not let them in to begin with?

5. Raiding is expensive. Repairs, buff food, potions, scrolls, arrows, reagents, good gems, and good enchants don’t come cheap. Nobody should ever show up to a raid without all of the appropriate consumables and gear, nor should anyone not have enough money for repairs. But they do (see #4).

Do you agree? Disagree? What did I leave out?