I’ve played a lot of MMOs and in nearly every one I’m a caster, therefore casting animations are kind of a near and dear thing to me. Some games have wowed me, EverQuest, and others have let me down, World of Warcraft. To be fair the only reason EQ really wowed me is I had nothing to compare it to, every spell was really just an explosion of different colors that resembled a cheap Tijuana firework, but I loved it though. WoW’s spells never seemed special to me though. They didn’t utilize my character or my items and my weapon typically rested on my hips or back.
Rift has won me with their casting animations. I play a cleric and was excited to realize my primary weapon would be a mace or war hammer; I just love the idea of war hammers as some holy smiting badass. I had severely hoped for some caster shields for my off hand but I was let down and ended up with Tomes… but now I love tomes. I run a Purifier spec which essentially has me lighting people on fire in order to heal them, it’s kind of sadistic but I enjoy it. It took me a few days to really notice the cast animation of my primary healing ability.
Now the majority of my time my Tome is closed, just gingerly held in my off hand. However when I feel the need to light one of my fellow allies a blaze my character looks down at the Tome and flips it open. WOW! Cool he is going to read the spell!? He then begins to wave his primary hand around, which holds a mace in a kind of old school Sorcerers’ Apprentice sort of way. It gets better though. As the spell builds the Tome lights on fire, I’m reading a frigging flaming book of life! As the spell completes I swing the Mace down in some final mocking gesture at the irony of setting my friend’s expensive clothes on fire, close my flaming book, and look up. It’s truly a beautiful sight.
I haven’t seen all of Rift’s casting animations and I doubt they will all move me in this way. However the fact that Trion put that much effort into one spell animation screams a lot about this game. I’ve complained for years that items for a caster are worthless; they are merely stat sticks we never use. Trion incorporates them into the casting animation and I love it.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Indiana Epiny and the Artifacts of Doom
I hit a wall recently where I wanted to quit Rift. Luckily for me I only have a limited number of games installed on my computer at the moment because I bought a new hard drive and I am in the process of transferring them all to it. So I logged onto Starcraft 2 for a few hours and that pretty much cured my desire to play another game. I love Starcraft and I’m fully capable of reaching Diamond league I’m just not willing to put in the time that would require. So it’s either I play a lot of Starcraft or none, I choose none.
Back to Rift I went! I hit level 50 about a week and a half ago now. Any time I hit max level in a MMO, regardless of the type of end game that develops past that point, I always feel as those a huge weight is lifted off my shoulder. I didn’t HAVE to exp every night. I could craft, explore, PvP, dungeon, rift, whatever I felt like now and not worry about how it affected my overall level. I know I shouldn’t feel this way when leveling but I had two friends already at 50 and I wanted to play with them, in content that challenged all of us, rather than them helping me quest.
Since hitting 50 I’ve done a lot, and found a new love for Rift. If you are willing to consider certain activities worthwhile then the game becomes very fun. Artifacts are a key to making Rift’s world feel alive. I will go out of my way to places that look seldom traveled in the hopes of finding rare artifacts. This task has allowed me to see much more of the nooks and crannies of Rift and I must say, it looks pretty good. I will take the less efficient path to a destination with the goal of finding artifacts on my way. It’s the first time in a long time on a MMO where I felt as though traveling around the world was equally fun and rewarding.
I want to throw this in real fast, because it amazes me. I love the cast animations in Rift on my Cleric healer. I think it deserves and entire blog post, and I hope to write it this week.
Back to Rift I went! I hit level 50 about a week and a half ago now. Any time I hit max level in a MMO, regardless of the type of end game that develops past that point, I always feel as those a huge weight is lifted off my shoulder. I didn’t HAVE to exp every night. I could craft, explore, PvP, dungeon, rift, whatever I felt like now and not worry about how it affected my overall level. I know I shouldn’t feel this way when leveling but I had two friends already at 50 and I wanted to play with them, in content that challenged all of us, rather than them helping me quest.
Since hitting 50 I’ve done a lot, and found a new love for Rift. If you are willing to consider certain activities worthwhile then the game becomes very fun. Artifacts are a key to making Rift’s world feel alive. I will go out of my way to places that look seldom traveled in the hopes of finding rare artifacts. This task has allowed me to see much more of the nooks and crannies of Rift and I must say, it looks pretty good. I will take the less efficient path to a destination with the goal of finding artifacts on my way. It’s the first time in a long time on a MMO where I felt as though traveling around the world was equally fun and rewarding.
I want to throw this in real fast, because it amazes me. I love the cast animations in Rift on my Cleric healer. I think it deserves and entire blog post, and I hope to write it this week.
Monday, May 16, 2011
The WoW Tourist Phenomenon
I think I have an idea as to what causes the WoW Tourist Phenomenon.
People aren’t willing to stick through a lull in a new MMO when they can simply return to WoW with their preexisting characters and often times relationships. All new MMOs have some sort of growing pains; combine that with the fact that everyone has to level up a new character again and you open up a lot of possibilities for situations that feel grindy, not fun, or just unappealing when you compare them to your previous MMO. WoW has gone through its growing pains, the game runs very well and it’s a testament to Blizzard’s dedication to the game.
When people hit a bump in the road on a new MMO they immediately question their motives for playing. Is it worth it? Will it last? These questions ring loudest in people’s heads as they run into adversities in new MMOs; be those intentional hardships or technical ones. No MMO regardless of the amount of quality, polish, or effort put into it can overcome this long term draw that WoW creates.
I said this on Keen’s blog and he took it as some philosophical paradox; however I don’t think that even WoW could unseat it’s self at this point. MMO gamers want a new MMO, but they seem to be too impatient to suffer through any hardship or growing pains. Until a MMO can sustain a LARGE player base in order to make improvements the way WoW’s player base has allowed it to nothing is going to compete.
Blizzard has essentially created a market where no gamer is willing to move on and no developer can afford to improve their MMO past launch because they can’t sustain sub numbers.
People aren’t willing to stick through a lull in a new MMO when they can simply return to WoW with their preexisting characters and often times relationships. All new MMOs have some sort of growing pains; combine that with the fact that everyone has to level up a new character again and you open up a lot of possibilities for situations that feel grindy, not fun, or just unappealing when you compare them to your previous MMO. WoW has gone through its growing pains, the game runs very well and it’s a testament to Blizzard’s dedication to the game.
When people hit a bump in the road on a new MMO they immediately question their motives for playing. Is it worth it? Will it last? These questions ring loudest in people’s heads as they run into adversities in new MMOs; be those intentional hardships or technical ones. No MMO regardless of the amount of quality, polish, or effort put into it can overcome this long term draw that WoW creates.
I said this on Keen’s blog and he took it as some philosophical paradox; however I don’t think that even WoW could unseat it’s self at this point. MMO gamers want a new MMO, but they seem to be too impatient to suffer through any hardship or growing pains. Until a MMO can sustain a LARGE player base in order to make improvements the way WoW’s player base has allowed it to nothing is going to compete.
Blizzard has essentially created a market where no gamer is willing to move on and no developer can afford to improve their MMO past launch because they can’t sustain sub numbers.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Rift, LVL 48
I’m level 48 in Rift. I’ve had some highs and lows. The game’s combat is fun. It does however lack any sense of world. I’m not entirely sure what’s with all these Rifts coming down and killing thing, I believe it has to do with some guy named Regulous. Under normal circumstances I would give myself another month until I was done with Rift… however at the end of this month I’m leaving for field exercises for the military. So I’m going to spend 30 days in the field, then I’m going to be living at my Mom’s house for 3 months while I attend a military school. (I live 1 ½ hours away she lives 10 minutes away) So I’ll need something to do there. This will probably allow me to continue to play Rift until September, or so I hope.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Rift and LFD tool
Rift’s loot was not designed with the implementation of a cross server Looking for Dungeon system in mind. Mages can only use cloth, Rogues can use cloth and leather, Clerics can use cloth, leather, and chain, and Warriors can use everything. However anyone can roll need or greed on any item regardless if they can use it or even need it.
Itemization needs to be reworked. Gear types need to be specific to each archetype. Each class should only be able to use one armor type or receive a significant bonus for using their “preferred” armor type. This would encourage and reward warriors for using plate rather than leather and clerics to use chain instead of cloth. Why is this relevant; because the need and greed options need to be changed that’s why.
In WAR and now in WoW you can only roll need on usable items. This prevents other random people in your group from rolling need on items they cannot use in order to sell. HOWEVER you can’t just put restrictions on who can roll on the items in the current state of the game. PvE warriors have found leather to be better itemized for DPS and many healing Clerics have found cloth to be better than some of their chain choices. You have to change how stats are allocated along with how we roll on items.
In a normal MMO… well not normal anymore, in the past the community would police its population it’s self. We would ostracize players who acted in ways the community deemed inappropriate. The LFD system permits players to act in any manner they desire with little to no social repercussions. Logging on the forums and blasting them or trolling them on an alt isn’t practical. Therefore we need the game to implement restrictions on what players can do in dungeons in order to maintain some sort of civility among players.
Not every player is bad, in fact most are good. However those bad experiences will always stand out in our mind more than the good ones, which will eventually turn us sour on the game and the community. To be honest I would like to see this style of loot system become standard regardless of how the LFD is implemented.
I honestly believe that cross server LFD and WFs are bad for a server’s sense of community. I do however recognize that with a limited amount of people willing to participate in those activities it makes it difficult for some people to find groups without increasing the size of the player pool. It’s a double edged sword, damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
One more thing. The “Anti-LFD” people… we should call ourselves Pro Group hehe, anyways they view a LFD system as a threat to their ability to form groups. We only have a finite amount of people willing to do dungeons on a shard as it is. If you remove any portion of those people, because they choose to use the LFD tool, it makes manually forming groups harder. No not impossible, but yes harder.
Itemization needs to be reworked. Gear types need to be specific to each archetype. Each class should only be able to use one armor type or receive a significant bonus for using their “preferred” armor type. This would encourage and reward warriors for using plate rather than leather and clerics to use chain instead of cloth. Why is this relevant; because the need and greed options need to be changed that’s why.
In WAR and now in WoW you can only roll need on usable items. This prevents other random people in your group from rolling need on items they cannot use in order to sell. HOWEVER you can’t just put restrictions on who can roll on the items in the current state of the game. PvE warriors have found leather to be better itemized for DPS and many healing Clerics have found cloth to be better than some of their chain choices. You have to change how stats are allocated along with how we roll on items.
In a normal MMO… well not normal anymore, in the past the community would police its population it’s self. We would ostracize players who acted in ways the community deemed inappropriate. The LFD system permits players to act in any manner they desire with little to no social repercussions. Logging on the forums and blasting them or trolling them on an alt isn’t practical. Therefore we need the game to implement restrictions on what players can do in dungeons in order to maintain some sort of civility among players.
Not every player is bad, in fact most are good. However those bad experiences will always stand out in our mind more than the good ones, which will eventually turn us sour on the game and the community. To be honest I would like to see this style of loot system become standard regardless of how the LFD is implemented.
I honestly believe that cross server LFD and WFs are bad for a server’s sense of community. I do however recognize that with a limited amount of people willing to participate in those activities it makes it difficult for some people to find groups without increasing the size of the player pool. It’s a double edged sword, damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
One more thing. The “Anti-LFD” people… we should call ourselves Pro Group hehe, anyways they view a LFD system as a threat to their ability to form groups. We only have a finite amount of people willing to do dungeons on a shard as it is. If you remove any portion of those people, because they choose to use the LFD tool, it makes manually forming groups harder. No not impossible, but yes harder.
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