Growing up did you ever have a friend that you got along with swimmingly and had some amazing times and then something changed. You aren’t exactly sure what changed but there was a shift where they moved from being this loveable goofball that you cherished time with, to being something that just could not ever seem to get their shit together. You would try and go hang out with them again, but you always felt worse about everything after spending a significant amount of time in their aura. You would try and offer advice or attempt to help them get their shit together, but it always ended up backfiring somewhere along the way. Eventually, you found yourself distancing from them just to keep your own hopes and dreams from coming crashing down around you as they pulled you into their void.
I’ve had that friend, actually more than one of them over the years. I’ve also had a very similar relationship with Blizzard and more specifically World of Warcraft. When you are in this situation you want the world for this person that you love, but also know that it is actively harmful to have them in your life. The thing is I have learned to cut myself off from those influences in the real world, or at least significantly distance myself from them to where they are no longer impacting me. I’ve never really managed to do the same with World of Warcraft because even though I know it is bad for me… I still care.
So as a result it hurts a bit when news comes out that they are flailing and are not so great condition right now. In part, I am talking about the supposed leak that was circulating or the long-winded rant thread by Grummz the other day adding to it. Side note… that is not a leak friend. That is not something that came from official company emails or documents that were then circulated without the permission of Blizzard. That is someone having a rant and while I don’t know the circumstances of that rant, it was purposeful and very much not something that leaked out. I am not sure if it is real and someone thought they were venting in a safe place… and someone copypasta’d it onto Imgur or if it is corporate cosplay. Whatever the case it is still a bad look at a bad time when World of Warcraft is seemingly already reeling.
I’ve been following this drastic turn from the zeitgeist on their opinion and general sentiment about World of Warcraft. The thing is it isn’t like we have not been collectively “mad” at the game before. This always seems to be a cyclical happening and there is always something in every single expansion cycle that pisses someone off enough to start sharpening that axe. However this time it feels a little different. For years on the podcast, we have raised the question of what happens to Warcraft when they release two poorly received expansions in a row. Blizzard had been on this cycle of a good expansion and a bad expansion and the goods are always high enough points to pull up the public sentiment creating a mindset of “just wait for the next expansion and everything will be alright again”.
Battle for Azeroth was not well received and for me personally, it was the doubling and tripling down on the big dumb Red versus Blue narrative of factional conflict. I enjoyed the storyline Horde side quite a bit but never could seem to get into the Alliance narrative in spite of on paper it seeming to have a bunch of elements I would care about. Shadowlands had moments of brilliance like the Maldraxxus but zones I had to force my way through like Bastion… which unfortunately was the very first zone of the expansion. Normally I manage to level my main and an alt before bouncing from World of Warcraft but I only actually made it to the new level cap on a single character before tossing the game aside.
I am not a proponent of Classic World of Warcraft because it creates this revisionist narrative of the past. Coming back and playing that game made me realize that so many of the elements that I deeply cared about and remembered fondly… specifically involved the people that I remembered them fondly with. There is no going back to a better time in World of Warcraft because you will never actually capture that lightning in a bottle that was gaming at that exact time in history. However, I do look fondly upon the first trilogy of World of Warcraft like a magical time and I have been trying to understand why it felt so much better back then at least compared to the more modern incarnation that really started with Cataclysm.
The thing is if you follow the arc from World of Warcraft to The Burning Crusade and into Wrath of the Lich King not only did you have a strong narrative path that connected directly to Warcraft 3, but also a game that was built on constant and iterative improvements to the existing formula. Sure there were some wild changes here and there, but for the most part, each expansion added to the things that were available to the player base and offered not only quality of life improvements but also changes that enrich the existing systems rather than radically changed them. An example of this is Gem Sockets, which is a system that layered on top of the existing gearing systems and enriched them adding another layer of customization to something that already seemed to be working.
With Cataclysm we started what I will refer to as the “Wild Moodswing” era of World of Warcraft. This is marshaled by what seemed to be a desire to erase the past and create something completely new. They were not going to actually create a Warcraft 2.0, but with each expansion, it felt like they were making radical enough changes that they might as well have called it that. Cataclysm started this off by quite literally nuking the world and replacing almost every single old-world zone with a slightly different version. It was ambitious as hell, and while it didn’t work for me I think the concept was cool. For me, it was oversteering while you are already hydroplaning and I think the game ended up in the ditch as a result.
The problem with radical change is it ends up creating a vastly unpredictable user experience. We all have a love for World of Warcraft and all of this nostalgia… but end up having them try and apply those feelings to a game that no longer feels like we want it to feel. The end result is you wind up with great vacillations between moments of unexpected brilliance like Legion and extreme low points like Warlords of Draenor. So the thing with WoD is that on paper it seemed like everything going into that expansion was going to be awesome. I actually greatly enjoyed the leveling process, but the huge gaps between content after the initial burst left a bad taste in so many mouths. I will always remember it fondly because it gave me the one-player fantasy I have always wanted… DPS Warrior with Sword and Shield.
After years of gnashing my teeth about what makes an MMORPG great, and I think I have ended up with a basic template. Here are the bullet points I have boiled it down to:
Small iterative changes over time that feel like they improve not only the quality of life for the player but enrich the existing systems and build upon them.
A predictable release cadence that allows your player base to know when then the next content drop is going to happen so that they can play their schedule around it. Additionally, the content quality needs to be consistent and meet most of the player’s expectations.
Support multiple styles of play so that your raider, pvper, crafter, and your extreme cosplay aficionado all have a home and feel like they have equal footing in your game. The content drop should give each of the groups of players something they feel is theirs and can be excited about.
Make additive content not subtractive content. The world should feel like it is getting bigger and there should be systems that make the older content evergreen and still relevant in spite of times changing. The alternative makes you feel like the world shrinks each time content drops as this new thing is the only part of the world that now matters.
Catchup mechanics that allow new players to easily slide into content if they have walked away for a while. Games need to support the ability to fade in and out of a game as your life changes and not feel like the player has sacrificed too much in the process.
The thing is there are a number of games more or less following these bullet points. You have games like Elder Scrolls Online and Final Fantasy XIV that have slowly been building momentum for years. There is also Guild Wars 2 that is doing its own thing but should probably be mentioned even though the thing that it is doing is not really in my wheelhouse. The problem is there are two games that I love that are absolutely NOT doing these things… namely Destiny 2 and World of Warcraft. I struggle in both cases because the world seems to shrink each time a content drop happens as the players are funneled towards this new thing that just got added in, with no real reason to keep doing the older things that were still enjoyable. That is something that Final Fantasy XIV has excelled at is bribing players to keep doing the back catalog of content because it is good for the health of the game to make sure everything stays active.
I think another important note we should talk about is console support for games. World of Warcraft does not have console support, nor does it appear like they are heading in that direction. Final Fantasy XIV and Elder Scrolls Online both jumped early on the console bandwagon, and while at least in the case of FFXIV system design being initially limited because of the PlayStation 3 I think that flexibility has paid off in other ways. Folks might have been PC gamers in their High School or College years but found as an adult that sequestering to a dedicated room of the house to play games no longer fits their way of life. Having the flexibility of still playing the MMORPGs that you loved in your younger years, on the console that is more practical in your older years is a big boost in the total pool of players that you can draw on.
So I have said a lot of words today and unburdened myself with a lot of concepts I have been thinking about. I want to close things out, but I feel like I need to draw back a specific point that I feel is extremely important to underline. I do not want World of Warcraft to fail. I do love and want Final Fantasy XIV to be successful, but I do not want it to be entirely due to the failure of what was a long-time friend of mine. World of Warcraft is that friend that cannot get their shit together, but even though you have been distancing yourself… you still really want to see them succeed. I would love for us to tell in a decade’s time the riveting tale of the revival of World of Warcraft and how it is the second greatest comeback tale of all time… because let’s be honest no one is going to outdo the FFXIV 1.0 to FFXIV 2.0 story. As much as I want this success for an old friend, I am just resigned to the fact that we are going to get more of the same with an added focus on mobile game mechanics and alternate streams of monetization. I want World of Warcraft to be a better game than it is today, but I have lost my faith that it can be.
The post The Battle for Azeroth’s Soul appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Hai Friends! Today is my Friday and I am apparently all over the place when it comes to my gaming. After not having played Outriders for a few days I returned and worked on some monster hunts. I had only really been focused on the Wanted quests since I was seeking legendary weapons. That said I should probably also start acquiring some legendary armor pieces, which are guaranteed for completing a full round of Monster Hunts. Thing I noticed immediately is that it seems Monster Hunts end up scaling more severely than the humanoid based Wanted quests. I struggled a bit at trying to take out the Monsters given their already more bullet sponge nature.
If you are so inclined I recorded another Outriders thing where I track down Bigjaw one of those aforementioned Monster Hunts. Last night I continued this process however and am now two hunts away from my free legendary. While doing this I also leveled the world up to tier 13… and noticed another significant jump in difficulty. I might have to grind for a bit in order to level my gear up to ilvl 40 before making much in the way of forward momentum. I might also swap over and start working on expeditions now that I’ve made some progress from the very raw starting location that I began with previously. World tier activities will take your ilevel up to 42 and expeditions will go all the way up to 50.
After several hunts I needed something a bit more relaxing so I headed downstairs and wrapped myself up in a cocoon of blankets and snuggling cats and finally played some Elder Scrolls Online. After the nonsense of grinding up alts and doing dailies for the anniversary quest, I have now returned to Murkmire and continued trying to help shy awkward Argonians hook up. It is a weird zone with an equally weird main story quest, but I am enjoying it because I am always down with strange lizard people stuff. I needed the super chill nature of ESO last night, and I really would like to keep moving forward that mission of catching up on the story before the impending expansion.
Lastly a reminder that if you are on Windows 10, you can apply for the PSO2 New Genesis Closed Beta but Microsoft had to make it weird. Firstly you have to install the Xbox Insider app… and you can find some directions on how to do this thing here. Next you will find one of the offers being the New Genesis closed beta and it is on a first come first serve basis… but seemingly right now everyone is getting in? The Closed Beta will run from May 14th at 6 pm PDT to May 16th at 7 pm PDT. Not a very long test but should allow us to pop in and kick the tires a bit on this new rendition of the PSO2 game setting. I plan on doing the thing and likely writing about it but you should also do the thing.
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Good Morning Friends. I have not been sleeping terribly well the last few nights which has lead me to be sorta walking through the world in a fog. I am not sure what is up but whatever the case I hope it passes soon. As a result I am not terribly certain I am up to some epic post, so instead you are going to get some blurbs about various things I am doing. Firstly I am still playing quite a bit of Outriders and am pretty much doing farming runs. Essentially in Trench Town there are two repeatable quests that reward quite a bit of gear in the process. The first of these is the Wanted posters that I have talked about before, but each individual quest rewards you a random epic or better weapon and doing the full sequence of ten quests rewards you a random legendary weapon. The other series is the Monster Hunts, which each reward a random piece of epic or better armor… with the full sequence rewarding you a piece of legendary armor.
I also find myself recording some more videos and I am not entirely certain why. There are just times that it is easier to talk about something while doing it and recording it in video form. One that I am releasing today shows off my favorite “loot cave”, which is actually just the outhouse mission over and over. I’ve also released a video of me doing a single Wanted quest on World Tier 11, and then another where I did two on World Tier 12 and got a random useless legendary weapon from turning in. If watching me do nonsense is your jam then by all means have at it. Like I know I will never have many viewers but I also find recording videos to be this weirdly relaxing extension of blogging? I push myself into the same sort of mindset as when I am writing and pretending that I am largely just talking to myself.
On a whim last night I started playing State of Decay 2 again and I mean I know precisely WHY I did it… but actually going through with reinstalling it and playing it was not terribly expected. One of the folks at Undead Labs, Geoffrey Card aka @Rangutang does these really enjoyable streams where he either plays State of Decay or explores some random game that he finds interesting. More recently he has been on a kick of playing State of Decay 2 again, because Undead Labs is leading up to some open beta on Steam and the combination of hanging out in chat while he played made me want to play. This is the problem I have with streaming… it doesn’t trigger a feeling of wanting to watch more of the stream but instead triggers a desire to just play the damned game myself.
So last night I started a brand new group of survivors. Things were going awesome until they suddenly were not and I wound up losing two people when tangling with some bandits that stole an allied groups meds. I did manage to relocate us to a new base of operations centered around a truck stop. Now I need to find a programmer so I can loot a drop pod that is taking up one of my spaces, so that I can build something useful there for my community instead of it just taking up space.
Lastly I am still playing Elder Scrolls Online, and by playing I mean logging in every night to loot my daily reward cache and train mounts on my four 50s. I allowed myself to get into the bad pattern of just logging in every character and doing crafting writs during the recent holiday event, and I need to actually get back into questing and doing something more enjoyable. The combination of the Jesters Festival and the Anniversary event meant that I devoted a bunch of time to grinding up three characters from low levels to the level cap. This however sorta knocked the wind out of my sails because it got me out of the pattern of logging in and questing each night. I need to get back into that because it is that sort of thing that keeps me engaged in the game. Unfortunately I have been in the pattern of “maintenance gaming” where I just log in to do dailies and then immediately log right back out.
I am not entirely certain what is going to win when it comes to my play time. I had a lot of fun last night playing State of Decay 2 and I expect that I will probably play some more of that in the coming evenings. Then given how exhausted I am right now… it is highly likely that I might just crash at some point rather than spend much time gaming in the first place. I wish I knew why I was not sleeping well, because I sure would love a good nights sleep.
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Hey Friends! Like all weekends this one went way the heck too fast. I ended up taking off Friday but a good chunk of that was spent taking my dad to the doctor and running errands. As far as activities this weekend they fall into three distinct buckets. Firstly I managed to finish leveling my Bow Nightblade which is the last of the characters that I was planning on leveling while the buff was active. I am contemplating maybe putting a few of the easily levels on the new Sorcerer Tank experiment, but I am absolutely not going to do the grind all the way to level 50. What I really need to spend the next few weeks doing is burning through all of the treasure maps that I have clogging my inventory and bank from doing the Dark Anchor grind.
I need to spend some time evaluating pricing on the guild store so that I can maybe move some of this stuff more quickly. Right now I have my 30 slots filled and I wish there was a way to be able to sell more items without joining additional trade guilds. I guess it makes sense why folks have more trade guilds than pretty much anything else. On the radar is a return to running content on my main because I still would love to be caught up to the point of being able to start the new expansion fresh in June when it lands. I don’t think there is a shot in hell of that happening however, which again is a me thing… because anyone can start the new content day one. I just have this hang up about wanting to complete content in the order it was released.
Another thing that I spent some of the weekend doing was working on my nonsense playlist. At the time of writing this I am up to 894 songs for a grand total of 59 hours and 47 minutes of play time. Considering that I am using shuffle and spotify doesn’t seem to play through everything once before repeating… it is highly likely I will actually listen to everything on it but it makes a good radio that brings me joy. I am still periodically adding things to it as I think about them, but I am probably going to start creating some focused “mixtape” playlists and sharing them with you as well. I am not sure if this brand of nonsense is down anyone’s alley, but I am enjoying it.
Another thing that I spent some of the weekend doing was catching up on Outriders. I attempted to play a bit when it launched but have been otherwise occupied, first with the Diablo 3 Season 23 and later with grinding my Nightblade in Elder Scrolls. The first thing that I did was turn off the thing that keeps increasing your world level because this felt a little weird. My power gained from dropped items was just not keeping up with the difficulty increase and it sorta felt like being dropped into Torment 1 in Diablo 3 before being fully geared. I’ve now set the world level to 3 aka what they call “Normal” and am back to enjoying myself.
I am sure at some point I will write a general review of the game, but one of the bigger takeaways is just how bleak it is. Like I have played some bleak games… but this one is on a whole new level. It seems like so often you meet a character that seems interesting, and then in a very Walking Dead fashion… they callously kill them off with a stray bullet or something else that feels meaningless. I think this is absolutely on purpose to illustrate just how bad of shape the world is, but it does grate on you a bit as you continue to play. I hope that as I keep moving forward I will eventually start to see a glimmer of hope, because right now the straights are much dire.
That is all folks. I hope you have a great week. I seem to have jacked up my sleep patterns and am personally hoping that settles out.
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