Northrend: No Fly Zone

There has been a lot of talk lately that flying mounts will not be usable in World of Warcraft's next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. Blizzard has stated that the use of flying mounts may be restricted until players reach level 78 or higher. The reasoning: flying mounts would allow players to bypass too much content.

Flying mounts were introduced in The Burning Crusade, WoW's first expansion, but were not accessible until players achieved level 70. Therefore, flying mounts had little to no effect on leveling speed. They served as an end game treat for players to zip around the zones in Outlands.

With another expansion in the works, Blizzard seems to be concerned that players on flying mounts would be able to just zip around from quest to quest ignoring the vast amount of content built in between. This is understandable, as Blizzard puts a lot of hard work into building their content.

As a player who does not have a flying mount, I tend to agree with Blizzard. There is an ever growing gap between the "haves" and "have nots" in WoW. Nothing would suck worse than landing on the shores of Northrend and be forced to take the hard road as players with flying mounts zip around at 2-3x your speed while skipping over annoying random aggro.

It is understandable that players with flying mounts would be upset that they have invested large amounts of time into getting something that they can no longer use. Or not use for a certain period time. In this regard, I sympathize with flying mount owners.

However, considerations have to be made. Not just for players without flying mounts, but for the design of the content. With flying mounts, the design of both the static terrain and playable content needs to branch into a third, vertical dimension. It is not feasible that Blizzard places "flying guards" over every single quest location. The question needs to be asked, what do players want Blizzard spending time on? Getting the expansion shipped or double checking the expansion for consistency with flying mounts?

Not only is there game play reasons for turning Northrend into a No Fly Zone, but there are lore reasons as well. Blizzard has already stated they will be involving the Dragonflights heavily within WotLK. So, it may turn out that players who attempt to fly over Northrend will be downed by a "sky guard" until they reach an appropriate level and can become friendly with said "sky guard".

I strongly believe that players will be far more accepting if there is a valid lore-related reason for the restriction of flight. If it turns out that Blizzard just wants to slow leveling speed, then there will be valid room for complaints. Azeroth currently doesn't allow flying mounts, but it was also built before TBC. WotLK does not have that same luxury. Players will expect more.

No One's Talking!

Tabula Rasa is set to launch October 19th, the beta NDA has been lifted, but I can't seem to find anyone that will give a decent post about their beta experience. Hopefully, in the next couple of days we will see some great posts from beta testers.

Sadly, this just confirms my suspicions that the interest in Tabula Rasa is not that big. I'm not interested in the game and I don't know anyone that is actually set on playing it. A few of my "I play every MMORPG" friends may give it a whirl, but they will play anything.

I'm debating whether to give the game a try. It has been a good while since I gave a random game a chance. I normally stick to playing games that I've followed for months (or years) through development, beta, and launch. I have paid almost no attention to Tabula Rasa and that may have set the stage for me to play it. Unfortunately, there is that whole work, school, wife, and dog equation that I need fit gaming back into.

Bloggers Roll Call

MMORPG and gaming bloggers, I need you! I need links for a new blog roll I will be putting up. Plus, I want to find new blogs that I don't read. I plan to visit each of these blogs on a daily basis, so please drop your link in a comment.

Bye-Bye Xfire

I have removed Xfire from all of my computers and my Xfire profile link from this blog.

I will miss one-click server joining for my favorite FPS games. I will miss having a running record of what games I've played and for how long I've played them. However, I won't miss the constant desktop crashes, disconnect messages, and annoying key combinations to make Xfire work.

I will be better off without Xfire.

PvE in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

I'm going to do something new. I'm going to post more about some games that I am looking forward to. Today, I am going to talk about Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR) and it's PvE.

WAR, without PvE, is just a mess waiting to happen. Online games, especially MMORPGs, thrive on diversity. The more things there are to do in a game, the more players it attracts. Differences between play styles and players build communities. Community is not built through forcing players into groups. It's been said a thousand times: things get pretty boring when everyone is the same.

WAR needs PvE and it needs PvE players. However, it's not pure PvE players that will make WAR great. It is the PvE player that wants a little bit of RvR every now and then that will be WAR's key demographic. There will be plenty of full-time RvR players in WAR, but I am betting that there will be far more part-timers.

But what is the benefit of all these part-timers? Simple. Sheep. PvP combat is always better when it is wolves vs sheep. When there is only wolves, PvP becomes static. The fights start becoming far too routine with the same wolves endlessly gnawing at each other for a bit of epeen. The non-wolves, finding there is really nothing for them to do, leave. Then the wolves start complaining that there isn't anyone around to fight.

I don't want to categorize all part-time RvR players as sheep, but there will be plenty of them that are not as strong in RvR as others. This creates a great dynamic in the RvR/PvP fighting.

The sheep can form and fight together against smaller packs of wolves, but when the going gets rough they CAN go do something else other than complain and quit. The sheep also provide an interesting change of pace because most often they RvR/PvP only when they are having fun. It is immensely better to be playing against an opponent that is having fun, even if it is in a losing effort.

With the sheep mixing into the wolf pack, it offers a chance for stronger players to help them out. DAoC was great when an entire realm worked together to take keeps or relics. It was very important for the stronger guilds to work and coordinate with the weaker guilds and players to form a cohesive team. Stronger players HAD to help weaker players if they wanted to accomplish the end-game goals of DAoC's RvR.

And that was all possible, because the weaker players weren't forced into RvR/PvP against their will. WAR has the same approach, but is setting the stage for the "sheep" to get more involved in RvR. This is good for WAR.

Mythos BETA

A friend of mine sent me a beta access code for Mythos, a soon to launch free Diablo-type game from Flagship Studios. The game was built to test out the online tech for Flagship's first large title, Hellgate: London.

The game is cute and fun. It features hack and slash in it's purest form, but unlike Dungeon Runners (another free to play Diablo Clone), Mythos doesn't try and mock the hack and slash genre.

It is fun when you have a few minutes to kill, but I don't see it replacing anyone's main game anytime soon.

Update: 9 May, 2009 - Removed broken link and updated labels.

Ten Things From Vacation

10. A five-month old Doberman puppy that doesn't want to sleep in her crate at the vacation home means you better make room in the bed.

9. Gatlinburg, TN is a 50/50 split of new shiny and 1980's rundown.

8. The mountain roads are not friendly to a "four banger" from Japan carrying far too much stuff.

7. The rabbit can't be left alone for a week, so it's easier to just bring him with than find someone to rabbit-sit.

6. The cat can be left alone for a week and causes no issues.

5. The dog crate is bigger than the car trunk; something that should be noted before you start packing the car. Oddly enough, it eventually did fit.

4. Hill Billy Golf is actually run by real life hill billys.

3. Davy Crocket's mini-golf is far superior to Hill Billy Golf.

2. The first 350 pages of George RR Martin's, A Storm of Swords, is kick ass.

1. While on vacation, claiming to vacate my brain is not a key to my wife's good graces.

I'm Back

I'm back from vacation. Wrap-up to follow at some point this week, but classes and work start back up Monday.

Vacation

I'll be back in one week. Happy gaming!

Perfect Again

4.0

Three in a row. 4.0 cumulative. Enough said.