Posts Tagged ‘ raiding ’

Dig A Little Deeper, Come A Little Closer

Said the dragon to the knight from the depths of its lair.

Let’s talk dungeons.

You all know I’m a former World of Warcraft player, an active raider even (why do I feel like I’m saying I’m a recovering alcoholic?). I played WoW because it was fun and I got to hang with my friends. A couple years ago, however, I played WoW because it was INSANELY fun and I got to conquer gods with my friends. (If you’re wondering though, this was my proudest moment, I was raid leader for that and we were still 25-strong.)

Anyway! Guild Wars is great, and Guild Wars 2 looks even more great. Even in the midst of my excited anticipation, however, there was still a part of me that mourned the passing of Tigerfeet the Raider. There’s something about talking with other people, adrenaline running high as everyone concentrates on performing to the best of their ability, failing, failing, and finally the rush of SUCCESS when the Big Bad of the moment finally falls. It’s the euphoria of accomplishment shared with friends.

Guild Wars Classic has this to a point, but the majority of the boss fights do not leave me feeling like I have accomplished something epic, though Dhuum at the end of the Underworld certainly comes close. The activity I’m missing can best be described as a carefully orchestrated dance to stay alive. WoW’s heavily scripted battles are often maligned as predictable and compared to a guided theme park experience.  I at least found them exceedingly fun.

My explorer was satisfied by wondering “What’s he going to do next”. My competitive side was satisfied when we finally worked through the difficulties and conquered the boss. Since these encounters were scripted, once we gained a little experience (practical experience, I’m not talking about arbitrary numbers attached to your character) we would take that knowledge back with us and try again, eventually becoming proficient enough individually and as a group to overcome the challenge.

While reading Jeff Grubb’s article I started smiling. (Two dungeon modes? Yes Please!) As I kept reading my smile broadened, (dynamic changes within the dungeon? Absolutely!) and when I reached the end and read about the massive scripted bossfights my smile broke into an enthusiastic grin. (HELL YES!) This is the challenge, the experience I’m looking for. This is the manner in which I want to catch Tyria in a headlock and wrestle her to the ground.

The dungeons also remind me of a point I’ve made about Guild Wars 2 in the past. For every amazing and revolutionary step forward ArenaNet takes (dynamic dungeon content), they offer in the other hand a treat of the ‘familiar’ for players of older MMOs (scripted boss battles).

It’s so easy to get angry and feel betrayed when a tried mechanic is implemented in a game that’s touted as being original and revolutionary, but please, think about it.  A game can be new and fresh without all of its parts needing to be so.  I can build a beautiful new wooden floor out of salvaged barn lumber, for example.

If ArenaNet were to turn away every idea and mechanic that had been used in games previously I truly believe that Guild Wars 2 would be less for it. I respect a company that can get excited about the new and unique things its doing while still being happy to offer more familiar mainstays when they work. And that’s exactly what ArenaNet is doing with the dungeons. As we say here in the Midwest, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Of course, a bit of spit shine polish doesn’t hurt.

2011
06/24
CATEGORY
Game Mechanics
TAGS





10 comments

Allright Everybody, Take Five

Unemployed is on hiatus this week. With flagging attendance and some recent burnout victims, we decided to call a halt to raiding for at least one week in order to give everyone a breather and some more vacationing time. Not that most weren’t vacationing already…

I’m personally relieved as I was feeling the burnout pretty bad. Most of my times spent raiding I was wishing I was doing something else, like drawing, or cooking. It’s a very welcome opportunity to step back and take some time for myself without knowing that there’s 20-something other people who can’t have fun because of me.

2009
08/26
CATEGORY
WoW General
TAGS


8 comments

Faction Champions Can Go Jump In My Litter Box

My frustration with this fight can boil down to one sentence.

Get your PvP out of my PvE.

Last night was a beautiful one-shot of the first two coliseum bosses, even despite my ‘doh moment of taunting the magnataur too soon, amassing five stacks, and then letting the other tank die. (I’m so high-maintenance). The Jaraxxus kill was everything I could have asked for and more. No one died, no one stood in the fire, no one was screaming at me to “Get this Infernal out of my face aaaaan infernals in my face!”

PS – that’s a fight where your lesser-geared (or lesser-skilled) tank can get some time in the limelight as main tank. So long as everything is interrupted/dispelled/purged properly, Jaraxxus hits like a kitten (and not the ferocious face-ripping kind, more like the lolferal pre-BC kind)

But then came the faction champions.

/grind teeth

We spent most of the night cycling through every form of CC we could muster in order to keep one healer locked down while burning the other (we had resto druid, holy priest, enh shaman, mage, rogue, warlock-with fel puppy)

We wiped, and we wiped, and we wiped some more. Granted, I saw some of our raiders rise to multitasking like I’d never thought they could (it was beautiful, really) But we couldn’t kill them.

In fact, we didn’t make any measurable progress until we adopted a more chatoic, blitz style, with myself running interference. (I know nothing about football, so forgive me if my analogies limp)

Everyone was to burn down the priest as fast as possible (He’s the squishiest, he can be interrupted, so we only have to deal with his (and the druid’s) hots instead of dealing with hots from the druid and casts from the priest if we tried to kill the druid first)

So, we’d burn the priest, then we’d bloodlust and kill the druid. Next we’d kill the warlock (thinking this would also rid us of the fel-puppy, no such luck there) and then we’d take out the mage, rogue, and shaman in that order.

MY job, was totem-stomping, and ping-pong.

Wait, whut?

Swipe is very good at taking out totems. Bear swipe that is. When I’m not swiping at totems I’ve got my camera zoomed all the way out and I’m using every taunt I’ve got, as often as I’ve got it, to pull the melee off of our casters.

This worked pretty well. I think tonight, if we go in with two tanks (we had an enhancement shaman tanking on his warrior alt, then had him switch to his shaman for the pvp bit) I think we’ll get this pretty readily. We’re replacing a shadow priest with an elemental shaman so we won’t miss the bloodlust from the enhancements shaman. We’ve still got healing priests to mass-dispell heroism.

We’ll kill these guys tonight, I’ve no doubt of that.

That doesn’t mean I have to like it.

2009
08/19
CATEGORY
Raid Leading
TAGS




10 comments

Fun New Boss Time?

I don’t think so.

Last night, like every Tuesday, Unemployed gathered up to go kick some bad-guy butt.

We went to the Crusader’s Colliseum. We had some lag issues and a couple of disconnects, but after we learned to compensate we took out the Northrend beasts pretty easily.

Then came the fun part, Lord Jarraxus. We had to learn an entirely new fight. The only information we could find was a video in german and a list of abilities. We were almost completely blind.

You know what? It was wonderful.

The entire group banded together to offer suggestions and ideas for how to handle what. Wipe after wipe, morale was high as we inched that much closer to victor until, at last, 15 minutes before the end of raid time, exhultant cheers of joy and excitement rang out over vent as the boss dropped. It was a difficult fight, won through hard work, and everyone was thrilled.

Except for one.

That one would be me.

I can’t tell you what the fight was like, I can’t tell you any stories from our attempts.

I wasn’t there.

Where was I? I was sitting in my chair staring at a login screen as I kept attempting to log back into the game. Without fail I was disconnected at the start of every fight.

It was maddening and frustrating enough to bring me close to tears even.

Last night I tried one last time and finally got back in just as the boss dropped, just enough to see that my guild had persevered and achieved its victory.

Without me.

WoW to me is my only form of entertainment. Living a life where sometimes I don’t even know what will be available for dinner, the paltry $15/month is my one escape.

When I spend an entire evening watching my favorite part of the game pass me by, I start to wonder if it’s worth it at all.

2009
08/12
CATEGORY
Instancing
TAGS


4 comments

I Feel Dirty

I just sent a fellow guildmate a link to Nightcrowler’s Feral By Night addon. You know, the one I’ve so maligned in the past?

You see, I have a new kitten. (Feral Druid, not a real kitten) And he wants to raid with us. Now, I’ve got a pretty hefty pride for my own class, and for ferals in particular. The very LAST thing I want to see is a feral scraping the bottom on numbers and I’ve been warned this particular person has some… issues.

With pretty much everything.

But it seems he knows he’s bad, so that’s a plus. If you think you’re awesome there’s no room for learning new things. A willing mind is a wonderful thing to teach.

I still feel dirty for throwing crutches at him though. I’m a bit of an optimist when it comes to people. I try (consciously) to believe that, given enough effort, anybody can learn to be good at something. I tend to learn pretty quickly, but I’ve worked with those who don’t and all they require is a little more patience.

I’m giving him crutches because I suspect he’s one of the latter. A person who will take a while to learn things, and I’d rather get him up and running (and raiding) now, than wait 3-4 weeks while I sit behind him with a wooden yardstick and watch him at the target dummies.

That wouldn’t be fun, for either of us.

In other news, if you’re over the age of 18 and enjoy horror flicks, definitely check out a little game called Requiem: Bloodymare.

My husband picked it up a few weeks ago and I dabbled my toes in it too. I really like the graphics. Poly counts are good, textures are really nice, but the animation takes the cake. Really, this game has TOP NOTCH animation. It’s very, VERY good. Fluid, weighty, believeable, and oftentimes creepy as all get out.

There are a few problems. Quest destinations can be vague at best and outright wrong at worst, randomly characters will jump sideways when they should go forward, and there’s a complete lack of proper text formatting. (Word integrity is not preserved)

Observe:

I play a ‘human’ Templar. Well, she’s a
templar right now, I plan to level her i
nto a Radiant when she gets to the right
level. I can only heal myself right now
but I hope to have proper spells eventua
lly to heal other people.

That’s what text boxes are like. It’s a little maddening for the literary-minded (like myself) and completely irrelevant to the non-literary-minded (like my husband).

It’s free to play, and definitely worth a look. If you’re curious, you can find me on the PvP server (there’s only one). Just look for Alegra, Maelix, or Shmee.

2009
07/27
CATEGORY
WoW General
TAGS



2 comments
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