Sunday Silliness – PuGs

I haven’t posted much about our adventures in World of Warcraft. I’m still a little freaked out to be playing it again, and though I really do love my Shaman, it was a bumpy start – and I’m still not really playing it on anything more than a casual level – hanging out with Spinks and some of her friends from her main server, and also my other sister and some people we picked up along the way (we’re on Steamwheedle Cartel, Alliance, btw).

We’re using the Dungeon Finder interface quite a lot, which means many PuGs. In general, they’ve been pretty good, and it’s definitely been a good way to get xp and decent gear and see the instances in the game. We’re now in the Outland ones, ones I’ve not seen before, so that’s fairly challenging/interesting!

Today I decided we need a game associated with being in a PuG, and devised one that can work across games – so feel free to spread the word and play along. The basic concept is ‘Word a Week’, where each week I nominate a word you need to slip into chat in your PuG, and then send in a screenshot for it. This week, I decided on ‘disenfranchised’ in celebration of this week’s UK election! I even used it in a group today, though not a PuG – but next sunday I hope to have a screenie of me saying it in a genuine PuG!

Wonder if anyone else will join in, but if not, this will be my Sunday posts for a while

Blip, blip, blip

I’m aliiiiiive.

Or – the plagues of London haven’t kept me down too long! (I’ve been down to London a lot recently to see family. I come home each time with a cold. Or an allergy, or something that means my body does not enjoy London trips as much as I do!)

LotRO is still quiet for me. I’m slowly trying to get myself back into it, because I love my guild folk there and miss them dearly. But I’m definitely having a lull the game. Regardless, I’m raiding on sunday night, so I will definitely be on well beforehand to remind myself how to play a Capt reasonably. No-one will expect more from me! I’m kind of glad to hear WB bought Turbine outright, but we’ll see how it plays out with Codemasters and also with whatever secretive IP Turbine say they’re working with (I’m fairly sure it’s Potter, but then that might be taking Steefel’s word about it being a massive IP a little too at face value.)

I’m still playing WoW with Spinks, which is more surprising to me than anyone else. After numerous stop-and-start returns to the game, it seems the Refer-a-Friend scheme helped me get past level 40. Ok, so I was too involved in LotRO to play all the way to 60 with triple xp, you have to do that within 90 days and I played a month, left a month, returned a month, etc. But now we’re settled in, using the dungeon finder and scarily close to 60. I’m playing a Shaman, the one class I despised in my earlier trips to WoW-lands. I’m also genuinely loving it, so much so that I plan not to play a Worgen main, so I can stick with the Shaman. Maybe as a dwarf so I can play with other new-starters! The dungeon finder has helped me cut through the quests I’ve done too many times, the R-A-F scheme would have done the same, but I have better gear and more cash this way.

I’m not playing games much though, despite how this all sounds. I still haven’t finished Dragon Age for my second playthrough and refuse to play the expansion till I have, as I prefer my second char. After listening to a few podcasts yesterday, I really want to play Mass Effect. But, I’m also working more at the moment, enjoying my job and having to bring home work for the first time in years. So – not as much time to game, and that’s definitely made the biggest impact. But enjoying work is a good thing, so not going to knock that. Of course, I’m also having to apply for the extra-hours-part of the job, and may well not get it, so very soon I could be restored to my slacker-dom!

And in the meantime, all the shows I love are on-air and on-form. And taking up a lot of my reduced leisure time, because frankly, I’d rather be up-to-date with Lost than do a few skirmishes or a raid – sorry MMOs, you only have my soul until the one-eyed-god needs it back.

Which means, on the whole, that this blog is going to become more mixed. I may talk about books (my day job is in a library, I now run two reading groups, which means reading homework!), comics, my upcoming trip to Comic Con 2010, games, MMOs, and TV. And you’re all welcome along for the ride. The cats will, of course, still take pride of place. With pics!

The Name Game

LotRO has 12-person raids, on the whole. We go on fridays and sundays, on the whole.

Tonight, as our group formed, I noticed the first 4 members all had names that started with vowels. And then we started to play the name game – working out which people who raided in the kin had names that started with a vowel that we could incorporate, and whether we could get a rounded group that way.

I have a feeling I’ll be playing this and other name games all night. Next, I was thinking how another kin Captain whose name starts with a B would manage, and decided he could try for a group that had names starting A,B,C, etc.

It’s a silly thought and perhaps an odd way to return to talking about games on this blog. But I had it, so I thought I’d share.

Inappropriate Boss Names

[Inspired by the sign-up thread on my kin forums]

Please game companies, do not give bosses silly names. When we sign up to kill them we want them to sound fierce. Also assume your players will abbreviate to the first name or a description of the boss.

Examples from LotRO:

• Nornuan – too much like Norman, we all just say ‘The Turtle’.
• The Mistress of Pestilance – sounds ominous until you get sign-up threads asking ‘who wants to come to the Mistress on friday night’ (seriously, one day I AM going to write Carry on Raiding)
• Zurm – an old Rift favourite, also known as Zurm the Worm, even though he isn’t ;p
• Narnûlubat – can’t pronounce it, so he just gets called Narn-thingy
• Thaurlach – a decent name, but will always just be called The Balrog. Until we have to fight another!

In general I’m very bad at learning names in LotRO, but that’s actually because Turbine have made the names Tolkeinesque so I approve. The Mistress just makes me laugh, and I hope we soon start to call her Miss Pestilence, MoP or something else. But let’s face it, the ‘giant slug’ will always be known as The Mistress.

I’d think of some from other games, but I didn’t raid in them much, any contributions gratefully received.

Boggle

I was reading this story about the UK opening its first games addiction clinic when I came across the following quotation:

It’s not unusual for people to get so obsessed with online gaming that they forget to eat and drift towards an anorexic and undernourished state…

While I’m sure it’s true, it’s certainly not true for me! Which obviously means I’m not obsessed or addicted. Hurrah (and bring on the chocolate).

Don’t Fence Me In!

We’ve been having a lot of interesting discussions in-kin recently about various classes and their roles, which tends to be quite an eye-opener, especially if, like me, you’re a die-hard hybrid fan. So it’s made me think why I feel so uneasy when people tell me the Captain’s primary role is buffing – it’s the thing we do better than any other class.

And what have I come up with? Not all that much. Undoubtably the Captain in LotRO is the best group buffer in the game. We can raise individuals’ crit chance, their parry or their power regen. We have a group banner/herald buff that increase morale, power or agility/might depending on which we pick. And we can raise morale by 5% across the board, as well as give everyone in the group +50 to all stats. Don’t get me wrong, none of this is to be sniffed at, it makes a massive difference in group survivability. But buffing is such a passive role, compared to how I feel when playing my Captain.

Sure, people also know we have In Harm’s Way (takes 50% of group’s incoming damage and gives it to Capt) and Last Stand (invulnerability), and also that we have a bunch of on-defeat skills (incl. a group heal). I’m sure most of them know we can single target heal too. And that we make ok healers if you can’t get a Minstrel or Rune-Keeper. I say all this with a slight case of tongue-in-cheek, because those REALLY in the know understand Captains are viable as primary healers if needed and if traited accordingly. I wonder what other skills people imagine Captains use.

I wonder if anyone can name (or even guess) the other three on-defeat skills we have access to, other than the heal. If they know about our taunts and detaunts, our bleed attack, our ability to raise our own armour rating by hitting a mob the right way. And the fact that to truly play a Captain well the buffing becomes secondary, despite it being a defining aspect of the class. To stand and add buffs to people every 5 or 30 mins isn’t very skilful, even if you have to make a small choice over what to buff each class with – they’ll tell you if you get it wrong anyway! So while it’s true it’s one of the things we do better than any other class, it’s not very rewarding to do it, as a player. I suppose that’s what grates a little.

I want people to notice all the little decisions I have to make in timing my skills, when to use which of my crit attacks, how to manage my power, when to use shield-brother skills and on whom. I know some people do. And trust me, all it really leaves me with is the sense that I do the same to every other class – I think of their main skills and know very little about the other things they can do. For some classes this will always be more hurtful than for others. People dismiss hunters and minstrels quite readily as classes they can easily pinpoint. I know I rarely thank the minstrel for their in-combat song-buffs as often as I can, nor that I notice them very often. And even when I play a hunter I don’t really think about the nuances of play.

I suppose it’s just an excuse for me to write a bit more about why I love the Captain so much than no other class has come close for me in LotRO, and only a few classes in other games (friar in DAoC and druid in WoW, of course!). When I play, I want choices, and I want my choices to matter. I want to feel like I’ve mastered a class that gives me options – not just in traiting, but in every longish fight. I want timing and strategy to matter. And I think perhaps it’s also in my nature to want to feel like I play a class particularly well, whether I do or not.

I started off this post wanting to point out all the cool stuff I can do, I conclude it considering how little I know about all the cool stuff other people can do. A cautionary tale, indeed.

Pay-off

I knew one day all my geeky hobbies would pay off. So finding out I won a Watchmen competition over at the Limited Edition podcast really made my trip home from work yesterday a far more exciting one. Validation that reading comics is good for you! As is winning prizes!!

Anyway, if you don’t listen to the podcast, you should consider it (esp if you read this blog). They now alternate between talking about comics and talking about games (so essentially it’s two podcasts from the same stable), and even if you don’t read comics actively, the chit-chat is interesting and worthwhile. And the same goes if you don’t usually play games, but read comics instead. There’s cross-pollination and general all-round good geekery.

Check out an episode or two and see what you think. And let me know (if you remember!)

Non-MMOs

I don’t play many computer games. I especially don’t play many non-MMOs, unlike almost all of my peers.

I never played games much, preferring to watch skilled games-players (and sisters) play through the games. I guess I have performance anxiety!

I finally finished a game when I played Ultima 6 on an old crappy PC Spinks was given when she left one of her first jobs (and we shared a flat). I was so proud of myself, but was in my early 20s. I used to play bits and pieces, but in real roughshod manner. I then played most of the Ultima games, but not all the way through. In fact, husband had to play Ultima 9 for me cos I couldn’t be bothered with the bugs but wanted to see the story.

Then I finished Final Fantasy X and X-2 on the PS2. I played lots of games in-between, but they were mostly things like Civilization and SimCity. And Diablo 1. And then eventually Diablo 2, which I played for over a year. Seriously. I finished it long before that, but I played it lots and lots, and only a couple of times on Battle.Net.

I’ve never finished a Bioware game. In fact, I haven’t played many at all. I played some of Fallout and Fallout 2 before handing them over to husband to finish for me also. I’m a lazy gamer, what can I say!?

And yet, I have Dragon Age: Origins and Diablo III on pre-order. I have Mass Effect, Oblivion, Fallout 3 all on my desktop. I want to play Fable 2 (but can’t due to no console), I want to look at Final Fantasy 13 (see above). I want to play these games.

But MMOs are easier for me because of the social side, I guess. I have no idea. I don’t know many MMO-ers who aren’t gamers too. Or maybe I’m a bit too honest about my own inability to play through a game!

Dragon Age: Origins

Not been to play it yet, am hoping to soon (sunday if I must wait till the end, but I will go), but they gave me one of my fave bits of swag today – a static clinging decal (um, that’s what my American husband calls them, no idea what we do – a thingy?) Anyway, you peel off the back and get an enormous Dragon Age: Origins logo to plaster across your window. Neat! It’s FULL poster size, which the pic may not show, have to keep mine in a poster tube! And um.. considering how to get it back to the UK…

Games on Show

Information has started to come out about Comic Con, all the panels and music and stuff to go see. Because it’ll be my first time, I’ve been busy scouring the web for information – because, the official page hasn’t really updated much in a while. Luckily, there’s a lot of sites covering such things.

Anyway, it obviously caught my attention when Comic Con was mentioned in the same breath as the Games Industry – and from twitters and articles it does seem that I’ll have quite a lot to do games-wise, when I’m not embracing my inner TV-Film-Comics geek. I mean seriously, look at the Games Company list:

2K Games

Activision/ Blizzard

Capcom

D3Publisher

Electronic Arts

Hudson Entertainment

Konami Digital Entertainment

LucasArts

Namco Bandai Games America Inc

NC Soft

NIS America Inc/ Rosen Queen Company

Rockstar Games

Sega of America

Sony Computer Entertainment America

Sony Online Entertainment

Square Enix Inc

Telltale Games

The Pokemon Company International, Inc.

THQ, Inc.

Ubisoft

Xbox

Now obviously I’m very interested to see quite a few of these, Electronic Arts will be showing Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2 I imagine, possibly some Warhammer and Star Wars: the Old Republic. So under every developer and company, there’s numerous games to go peek at.

And, most of my time is going to be taken up by juggle TV and film panels, as well as trying to see some of the Comics-related stuff I’d like to. It’s a massive undertaking, and I’m getting a bit scared of it all.