Monthly Archives: October 2007

I need something to support me

A little while back, there was an interesting post on Keen & Graev’s splendid blog, “Why do players prefer a DPS role?”. As I said in the comments at the time, it’s not so much DPS that I like, it’s “enemy focused combat” (as inspired by the episode of People Like Us that goes into the difference between “pupil centred teaching” and “teacher centred learning”). I hate hanging around, seeing what happens, reacting appropriately…

Perhaps it’s something ingrained from years of single player gaming prior to getting into MMOs, where the idea of a “support role” doesn’t really exist, it’s just you, and a whole bunch o’ the enemy (or some pegs, if you’re playing Peggle). The only way to play is to focus on the enemy (usually in order to inflict large amounts of damage somehow). Starting with City of Heroes as my first MMO meant I didn’t get exposed to the “holy trinity” of mandatory tank/healer/DPS. Almost any combination of classes worked together; instead of a healer, you could bring along a force-field defender to throw up a shield so you didn’t get hit in the first place; instead of a tank taunting and soaking up damage, you could have a controller holding and immobilising mobs to stop them getting near you. It’s like they didn’t *quite* trust themselves to break away completely, though, so you still had tanks (you can tell, ‘cos the archetype is called “Tanker”), and you still had healers. Sort of. You actually have “Empathy defenders”, whose initial powers are heals, but they also get a bunch of nifty buffs later, and a whole secondary powerset of attacks.

Anyway, after trying a few different characters, I never really liked the ones who helped out fellow heroes, or stood around getting punched a lot. Raining flaming death upon all and sundry? Much more like it, so I continued down the “never mind the team-mates, here’s a fireball” path, and again into World of Warcraft with a Rogue (though more swords than fireballs in that case). I’m not sure if I went with those classes as they suit the way I play, or after playing those classes my playstyle has adapted to suit them (nature vs nurture, hmm…) Whatever it is, I’ve tried to diversify into support characters now and again, most recently with an Ice/Kinetics Corruptor in City of Villains. Corruptors have access to a set of ranged attacks (Ice, in this case), and a support powerset; Kinetics is quite interesting, generally debuffing an opponent to buff your team, so there’s a power that slows a mob while boosting your own speed etc.

The first challenge to the support-mindset is, every two levels, you get to pick a new power. So at level 16, I’m sitting there, looking at what I can select… I should really be picking pre-requisite powers that will lead up to Stamina, as the endurance boost it gives makes life so much easier, but they’re so terribly dull. I could pick Increase Density, a way of freeing allies from holds, very useful in teams, excellent support power. Or I could take Ice Storm, SHOWERING FROZEN DOOM UPON MY FOES, MUAHAHAHA! Guess which I took?

So then we’re off on a jail break, me, a Brute and a Stalker. The Brute and Stalker are DPS archetypes, their raison d’etre is DPS. The most efficient course of action is for me to support them doing this damage, buff their damage output, heal them, generally be supportive. And I try. Honestly, I do try, I check they’re standing near, fire off the damage buff, check their health bars, they’re looking OK… pom de pom… damage buff recharging… tum te tum… single target ice blast to finish off the Brute’s target… health bars still OK… what harm could be done by a quick FROST BREATH! ICE STORM! FREEZING AoE DOOOOOM, MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!1!

The answer is, of course, “plenty”. And not just to the mobs, who (quite unreasonably, in my view) take a dim view of their frosty assault, and start hitting poor, squishy me, causing desperate popping of inspirations and flailing for the heal (which needs to hit a mob to take effect, fortunately doing so in this case).

Next lot of mobs… well, it’s pretty similar. I know AoE attacks aren’t a particularly bright idea, but there’s all those guards, standing so close together, just a tiny little attack, sure n’ they won’t even notice, ah go on, just a quick FROST BREATH! ICE STORM! FREEZING AoE DOOOOOM, MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!1!

They do notice. And kill me (again, really quite an overreaction, if you ask me). After finishing them off, a team-mate passes over an Awaken inspiration so I can resurrect and carry on. And I really have learned by lesson now, no more ill-judged AoEs, certainly not! This resolve lasts a good couple of minutes, then the temptation just gets too much, and it’s FROST BREATH! ICE STORM! FREEZING AoE DOOOOOM, MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!1!

It’s not so much I feel I have to be doing damage, if I was a Dominator I’d be happy lofting holds at anything that moved. It’s not entirely a “DPS” thing, it’s more I need to be doing something, and while the buff/debuffs are recharging, attacking is all that’s left. Yes, I have the attention span of a gnat, and not even a particularly attentHAI WHAT’S THAT OVER THERE??, though once again, m’lud, I blame society. Or games with a focus on MOVE! JUMP! SHOOT! RUN! TWITCH! Inaction is DEATH! CLICK! CLICK FOR YOUR LIFE!, reinforced by playing MMOs that same way as DPS-types. It’s not that I can’t spend hours contemplating minor adjustments to the tax rates of all my cities in Medieval: Total War, or carefully equipping a squad in UFO: Alien Invasion (a nifty open source XCom-alike I was playing last night); I was just whining about needing a pause option in RTS games, after all. MMOs have just got wired into the “twitch” part of my brain.

There were a few other challenges in the mission, like annoying enemy group proxomitiy that meant chasing a final mob from one group tended to aggro another, and Longbow flamethrowers, flaming AoE attacks being particularly damaging when we’re all clustered together for my buffs to take effect, but we did make it through in the end (albeit losing 2 of the 3 NPCs we were supposed to rescue on the way, but hey, who cares about NPCs?). There were a few deaths, but fortunately my itchy trigger-finger (or icy-palm, or whatever is used to launch cold attacks) mostly just to lead to my own doom, except in a couple of cases where the lack of support from my twitching corpse led to the whole team getting overwhelmed.

I don’t know if there’s a cure. I suppose I could take my AoE attacks off the power bar, so I can’t use them. Some sort of self-help hypnosis tape, involving taking deep breaths, perhaps… “Apply buffs, now breathe in… hold… 3, 4, 5… and out. And relax, while not launching attacks.” Maybe there’s a patch, or a chewing gum? “Feel like launching an AoE attack? Just chew a stick of IcyFresh gum! That same cool hit, but with no aggro drawn!” Or I could wire up the attack keys to a battery… FROST BRzzzzzzzzapOW! Aversion therapy, that ought to do it. Or! I could just be so poor that my team-mates get exasperated, roll a support character themselves, and play it properly. Decisions, decisions…

Wii pointed out the way to go

I’d vaguely seen a few gadget-blog headlines around about using a Wii remote to control PC applications, but not paid too much attention. Then, you know how it goes, you’re sitting around one evening with a USB bluetooth dongle, a Wii remote, a pot of marmalade and half a sliced loaf, and you think to yourself… “I really fancy some toast and marmalade. Oh, and I wonder how easy it is to actually get the Wii remote recognised by the PC.”

Turns out, it’s a piece of cake (getting the Wiimote working, that is. The toast and marmalade isn’t a piece of cake, that would be weird. Unless you’d made bread and butter pudding with it, or something, but then that’s more pudding than cake, surely?) Just follow this handy guide (though it seems to be in reverse order, start with 9 and work back), and the splendid WiinRemote and/or GlovePIE can translate your frantic waggling into PC input! I couldn’t be bothered to drag the sensor bar over (or light a couple of candles on top of the PC monitor, despite that clearly being a flawless plan) so didn’t try the IR sensor/pointer, but the motion sensors and nunchuck joystick certainly worked.

If you have a PC connected to a television, the Wii remote could be a handy wireless pointer, and it might be interesting trying PC games with it, but what really prompted me to give it a try was the closer-looming release of Guitar Hero 3 for the Wii (or the further-away-looming release for us Europeans, as various online stores release predictions move from the end of October to early, mid and/or late November). As the Wii remote slots into the guitar, hopefully the inputs can be picked up for Frets on Fire, for extra rocking-type fun! (I tried Frets on Fire a while back, after having to hand back Guitar Hero, but it turns out it’s far easier to believe yourself to be the reincarnation of Jimi Hendrix when standing, legs akimbo, pressing buttons on a small plastic guitar than sitting at a PC pressing F1-F5 on a keyboard…)

Wither?

I’ve mentioned before that I’m not really one for the serious analysis of the MMO market, the games or their design; I started out that way, but too many others are all ready doing it, and far better than I could ever be bothered to.

Making light of the industry and its games is easier, for me at least.

I did however have a small vent a while back and received some encouraging feedback from the general bloggerati.

A small addendum, then, to that original post, the basic thrust of which was:

So here we are in the tree of MMO life, where Everquest saw the graphical MMO genre explode out from its roots, and World of Warcraft brought it into the branches of mainstream popular culture as perhaps Half-Life did for FPS games. And now we begin to see the influx of MMOs released in the wake of this success, and the weight of all this extra growth that isn’t needed begins to damage the tree, it weighs it down and forces it to spend resources in keeping these branches alive which would be better spent in growing a few stronger and healthier branches. And if nobody comes along to prune it, eventually it will wither and fail, until it is a gnarled trunk unrecognisable from its former glory.

Today we have news that Gods & Heroes is to be cancelled in favour of Perpetual focussing their collective effort on their Star Trek based MMO instead.

Yesterday we had news that WAR is stuck in the trenches and the limited beta has now been closed entirely for a period in order to allow for what, one can only assume, is some major emergency reworking of some fundamental part of the game.

It is a few months ago now since Van Hemlock’s supernatural kiss of death upon the niche yet ambitious Auto Assault, and more recently the blogreel has been spattered with tales of the latest saga of Ryzom.

Even the stalwart golden child of the current MMO crop, Pirates of the Burning Sea, has not been without the odd delay, which means that its release date is pushed back – along with nearly every other anticipated MMO of 2007 – into at least the first quarter of 2008.

And need one even mention the delays to release, and the lukewarm beta response, that Tablua Rasa has experienced?

My problem is this: I’m not sure what this means with respect to the tree analogy; the cancellation of AA, G&H and Ryzom seem to be a pruning of the weaker branches, allowing for more freedom on the part of these companies to produce newer, fresher and more healthy growth. However, the delay of nearly every significant MMO title of 2007 still seems to me to be indicating the suffocating effect that all this extra growth is having on the MMO market, and that the phenomenal success of World of Warcraft still casts a monstrous shadow over the rest of the canopy of games, thus blocking out their light.

It will be interesting to see how the MMO market shifts in the coming year or two, whether WoW’s domination will finally break, whether the current crop of anticipated MMOs (when they are eventually released) will produce more than just another batch of fresh blooms, that burst forth in all their fragrant glory only to wither away to nothingness too soon after. Will frameworks like Metaplace actually shift the market in an entirely new direction? Will it, perhaps, seed an entirely new market tree, one we cannot yet predict because the opportunity has never been presented before?

If nothing else I’m still glad that I, like many others, have built my house in the MMO tree, and I wait with a fervour of anticipation the next major development of the surroundings.

War does not determine who is right.

World of Warcraft, then. I’ve always wondered what exactly was involved in the ‘craft of war’ within this MMO for the masses, but the other night I received a small hint of what it might entail. I was out questing with my level seventy druid and had found an interesting quest chain that I was enjoying working through. However, coming towards the end of the chain I received a tingling sensation from my Adventurer Sense[TM] and I got the distinct, yet subtle impression that it was all about to get a little bit tricky and complicated.

Me: “What’s next, oh recently met this morning person; oh possessor of much shiny loot; oh giver of passages of text that compel me to undertake tasks that your own parents wouldn’t be prepared to do for you?”

Quest Giver: “Oooooooo, it’s all about to get a little bit tricky and complicated!”

My adventurer sense really is that good.

It turns out that the couple of bits of crystal that I’d been hunting for all this time were not, in fact, in the handbag of a defenceless little old lady who wanders the marshes around Telredor. Nor were they being used as dradles by the infant offspring of the over- exfoliating contentious objectors of northern Nagrand. And neither were they being used in the bedding of the small fluffy herbivores of the Oasis of Calm, Peace and All-round Non-aggressive Nicety. No, apparently these crystals were wedged beneath the fiery arse cracks of a couple of twenty foot tall mega demons who had liked the look of the shiny pebbles and decided to use them as some form of demonic butt plug(*).

(*) May not represent actual quest text.

And so it’s off with the Fel Leather gloves and on with Marjorie’s Marigolds of Giant Demonic Buttock Mining, and away I go to have a look at these fellows. And so begins the craft of war…

The first rule of Warcraft Club is, you do not talk about Warcraft Club.

The second rule of… uh…

You see, the problem is, they didn’t really think those rules through, because after you’ve stated the first rule you run into the slight snag of not being able to talk about it any more. There were actually one hundred and forty seven rules of the super secret Warcraft Club, but rule one was the only rule anyone ever knew. In fact, nobody knew who the other members were, where to meet or even what the club was actually all about. It was the second worst club in the world.

It was, however, just slightly more successful than the worst club in the world: the super secret Craft o’ War group – formed shortly after it was realised that the Warcraft Club wasn’t going anywhere – had the unfortunate first rule that you absolutely, positively, must talk about the club at all times. This certainly overcame the issues presented by the Warcraft Club rules, but alas was not entirely conducive to keeping a secret school of war very much of a secret. Two hours and thirty four seconds after the Craft o’ War club was formed the core members were rounded up and shot, partly for being involved in an underground movement for training in internecine warfare tactics, but mainly because they were all clearly idiots.

Where in the Inferno was I? Oh yes! The craft of war.

The first rule in the craft of war: Scout out the objectives.

Scouting is probably a slight understatement. In normal warfare a scout would generally observe the enemy encampment through some sort of optical magnification device from half a mile away, make a note of numbers, patrol routes and any other such information that they can glean, then high-tail it out of the area before they were discovered. In the craft of war, the scout can walk into the enemy encampment, have a good old nose around of what’s going on and maybe even carry a small clipboard with them and take a survey of a few wandering patrols:

Scout: “Excuse me! Excuse me, sir! I was wondering if you had a little time to talk to me today about the reinforcement capabilities of your camp here.”

Throgg: “Oh… uh… no. Throgg real busy right now. I, ahhh, I talked to previous person further up the camp, yes that it, spoke to one already, must get to bank before it closes, sorry.”

Scout: “Come now, sir, just a moment of your time to detail patrol movements over each twenty four hour period.”

Throgg: <Walking faster now> “Noooo, Throgg not interested.”

Scout: “Well, can I ask you to take this leaflet? It details who we are, and why we’re going to be attacking your camp later this afternoon.”

Throgg: <Snatches leaflet> “Ok! Ok! Now leave Throgg be!”

And the great thing is, once you’ve scouted around, you won’t have to do it again: the enemy won’t react to you roaming around their fort by, say, reinforcing the gate guard, switching patrols around or even plugging up the gaping great hole in the perimeter that you waltzed in through, they’ll just carry on as happy as ever, although one or two might be grumbling about the recent influx of street surveys.

The second rule in the craft of war: Plan an escape route.

It’s always a good idea to plan your escape route should something go wrong. Generally though, your escape route is going to be your entry route, since you’ll have cleared a neat little path right through the centre of the enemy camp, and the enemy certainly won’t consider the trail of corpses of their nearest and dearest comrades in arms to be any reason to follow the trail on to its source, namely you.

“Throgg not remember this many corpses of Groth and Strugg and Krung last time he patrol past here. Oh well. Throgg not see any hoomans, so on Throgg goes.”

The third rule in the craft of war: Have a little go.

This is a fierce demon you’re facing, and you don’t know quite where in that megalith of a butt he might have stashed the crystal. It looks like you might have to defeat him outright and then search the corpse due to the concern that trying to pick this particular flatulent pocket might cause you more than a little harm. Never fear, however, because you can take this chap on as many times as you like so long as your escape route is clear, for despite commanding legions he will never call upon them when he is set upon by troublesome adventurers. For example, if you want to know if your rooting spell will hold him, just stand back a bit and cast it; if it fails he’ll charge after you, certainly, but you can just saunter away from him, perhaps while smoking a pipe and twirling a cane in your other hand. Keep walking nonchalantly along, because just as he is about to reach you he’ll suddenly remember that he left the iron on, or he forgot to feed his cat, or perhaps he hears the tinkling tones of a nearby ice cream van, and he’ll turn tail and rush back to camp as fast as his cloven-hooves will carry him.

“Curse you to all four corners of the fiery underworld you puny mortal, you dare to taunt me?! I will DESTROY YOU, I WILL UTTERLY… oh hell, I left my socks drying in the oven. <Turns around and legs it back to base>NEXT TIME ADVENTURER. NEXT TIME!”.

The fourth rule in the craft of war: Clear all the minions in the area.

You’ve cleared a huge swathe of mobs on your way to their leader, but always hang around for a bit to see if there are any patrols that you’ve missed. You may have to wait a while though since the patrols, although eminently predictable, may range far and wide in the most illogical and utterly bizarre manner possible. Thus, it may take some time for various patrols to reach that point, five feet in front of the person they’re supposed to be guarding, where you are currently camped.

“This is the seven thirty south western patrol, calling at Far Away, Further Away, Way Way Too Far Away, All The Way On The Other Side Of The Map, Half Way To Nowhere In Particular and Stratford Upon Avon.”

The fifth rule in the craft of war: Have another little go.

While you’re waiting for patrols don’t be afraid to have the odd pot-shot at the demon commander when you feel you have enough room. The boss will have entirely forgotten you since two minutes ago, and certainly won’t have developed any strategies to undermine what you attempted last time.

The huge pile of his guard patrols’ corpses seems to be entirely uninteresting to him. Maybe he’s deep in thought, perhaps composing an irritating Muzak tune that he will unleash on all the elevators of the world; he’s not an evil demonic commander for nothing, you know.

The sixth rule in the craft of war: Buff up.

A small delightful picnic a few yards away from your target is always a wonderful way to boost the morale of yourself and any other members in your party. Be sure to bring a nice bottle of Beaujolais nouveau!

Don’t worry though, as well as not being able to see for more than a few feet in front of their nose, demonic commanders are notorious for their complete lack of the sense of smell.

The seventh rule in the craft of war: Charge!

Attack for all you’re worth!

You’ve had some light exercise, a delicious light lunch, and a quick round of ‘toy with the mob’, so you should be ready by now.

The seventh and a half rule in the craft of war: Run away!

I told you those patrols took a long time to come around.

The seventh rule in the craft of war: Charge!

Ok, you’ve finally cleared all the patrols, including the seven thirty south western service, so it’s time to try rule seven again. Yes, rule seven again, we’re not wasting a new rule because you didn’t clear all the patrols; did you think the fourth rule was there for fun?

The eighth rule in the craft of war: There is no rule eight.

And for good reason.

The ninth rule in the craft of war: Run away!

Don’t be complacent in your victory, for the demonic commander does, at least, have one trick up his sleeve. Once you’ve defeated him and retrieved your crystal, wiped off the goo and stored it away, do not then take time to gloat, because as you stare at the very corpse of the one who you but moments ago defeated, the very same demonic commander will also, through some bizarre and incomprehensible spawning process, be looming up over your shoulder ready to deliver you to your doom, and this time he put his socks in the airing cupboard to dry…

And finally, the tenth rule in the craft of war: You absolutely must or must not talk about the craft of war depending on the situation, but the general idea is that we’d like to keep it a secret so use your common sense and discretion.

Oh wait, sorry. That’s incorrect, the tenth rule is: Never wear a lilac cummerbund with a white dinner suit, it just isn’t the done thing in polite society.

… of Heroes

I had a fairly quiet weekend for once, so managed to get in a bit of gaming (between rugby world cup quarter finals). I’d picked up Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts when it was released, and finished off the German Market Garden campaign last night. Generally it was fun, though it did seem to be monstrously unfair attacking paratroops in Arnhem (heaviest armament: a PIAT, the anti-tank equivalent of launching baked bean tins with a spring) with massed armour. Accurate, perhaps, but not terribly sporting… Next up, the British campaign to take Caen, when at least I shouldn’t feel quite so guilty about completing mission objectives. I also got to use the programmable-key functions of the G15 keyboard, even if it was only to put the pause key in a more convenient place for the left hand.

As widely reported there was a stress test for Pirates of the Burning Sea, covered by an NDA, but I would imagine such a test would prominently feature overcrowding, queues, collapsing servers and/or more lag than you experience on a Monday morning before drinking a lot of coffee (or is it just me who misses when trying to put a foot into a trouser leg, falls over backwards onto the bed and shouts “LAAAGGGG!”?) ‘Cos, y’know, that’s rather the point of a stress test. Still, I’m sure a bunch of people took the opportunity to have a bit of a peak, so it’ll be interesting to see how that’s going once the NDA is lifted.

I did actually get a bit of MMOGing in, in City of Heroes (just to keep up the theme of playing three word games, the second two being “of Heroes” and the first beginning with “C”. Look out for Cheese of Heroes in the shops soon, unless Crinkle-cut Crisps of Heroes gets released first…) There’s lots of shiny looking stuff coming in Issue 11, notably time-travelling to go back to content you have have missed, and weapon customisation. For a game with such amazing costume options, it’s always been slightly ironic that everyone got issued the exact same katana/axe/so-called “assault rifle” that really resembles a super-soaker water pistol on Day 1 of hero school, and has never bothered changing it. Digging around my list of characters there was a distinct lack of weapon-wielders (not to worry, I’ll doubtless roll up somebody with the new dual blade powerset in Issue 11), though I did turn up a Claws Scrapper in his mid-20s, and had some fun slicing up some villainy in preparation for slicing up more villainy, with slightly different slicing-things.

Finally the ever-splendid Rock, Paper, Shotgun had a link to a demo of Escape from Paradise City. I set off the download, then promptly forgot all about it until last thing last night, hastily installed it, and played for all of a couple of minutes, but it has me intrigued with the suggestion of Syndicate-meets-GTA-meets-XCom-meets-Baldur’s Gate and Freedom Force and… stuff!

We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.

I find myself bumbling around in City of Heroes and World of Warcraft at the moment, playing neither of them with any real passion but enjoying the short stints of play that I do embark upon. I’m surprised by this newfound ability to play in ever smaller slices of my daily time pie; although in truth these can’t really be seen as a slices, but more as the simple pleasure of scraping out of the filling and eating that alone, leaving the overly thick and unpalatably burnt crust of housework and chores until later. The arcade-like accessibility of CoH allows for this brief gorging, with its lack of loot and, more importantly, a community that seems not quite so hell-bent on turning the game into a bizarre new TV ‘talent’ show called Loot Idol, the game’s society does not present that cognitive dissonance that can be found in the more time-intensive MMOs where a considerable investment is required for any real return in gaming satisfaction.

Curiously though, I am also currently experiencing that same feeling in World of Warcraft, and the reason is an interesting one. Well, interesting like the ingredients on the back of a packet of crisps are interesting when you’re waiting for a train and have nothing else to read, but I’m bored, you’re here, so let’s just pretend that it’s full of fascinating e numbers and calorie counts, shall we? The reason that I can play in such short periods of time and gain satisfaction at the end of it is due to a couple of factors. For one, I’m playing one of my level seventy characters and therefore, level wise, there’s nowhere for me to go, nothing to crave and no new abilities to desire. No level based restrictions whatsoever. Now this is interesting in itself because there are plenty of other artificially introduced restrictions and ‘levels’ in the form of reputation and raid attunement and such, but they don’t register with me as being The Game. What I mean by The Game is that when I sit down and play an MMO for the first time the simple challenge that is presented front and centre is that you are level one and have something like two abilities that you can use to advance in the game; advancement, and hence The Game, is that you will gain in level and with each of those levels you will gain new or improved abilities that will allow you to continue further in your player experience.

A quick aside: those two new abilities you get will allow you to stab innocent folk in the mediastinum, set innocent folk alight or explode innocent folk into a fine cherry vapour mist. A character never starts out with abilities that allow them to help innocent folk across the road, sell Tupperware or build housing for innocent folk to hide in so that they don’t get stabbed in the medulla oblongata. Ok, those are crap abilities, but perhaps starting out with skills in diplomacy or crafting might be an interesting change from starting out with the ability to effortlessly slice and dice an orc into fillets suitable for a Gob Kebob.

Raiding and other past times are not The Game to my way of thinking because they are clearly an artificially tagged-on treadmill for people who have completed The Game. Specifically, raiding is based on loot progression not character progression. If I returned my character to earlier areas and gave him the same gear as he had back then, he would not only be able to defeat those encounters more easily, but could also take on harder content that he wouldn’t have been able to when he was the appropriate level. The character improvement is the intrinsic part. So anyway, tenuous as that argument may seem, it’s how I feel about current MMOs and therefore, because there’s no XP bar silently staring at me from the top of the screen projecting a contorted face of anger and derision that says “You don’t do enough to fulfil me, I’m leaving you for another hero who has a bigger sword with which he can satisfy my needs”, I can play for as little time as I want and then log-out without feeling as though I should be doing more for my bunny boiler of a progress meter.

Another factor that allows for brief spurts of WoWgasm is that travel time is short. Outlands – where most of the quests that I can undertake are to be found – is pretty small as it is, add on top of this fact that I can now fly and therefore not only travel in a straight line to my destination but do so without drawing aggro from crap animals along the way, and travelling becomes a minor break between having fun rather than a major expedition that would make Sir Ranulph Fiennes blanch. This again makes sense within the context of The Game: I’m done, I’ve hit the level cap, I’ll either re-roll, leave or repeatedly hit my head against the reinforced glass wall of raid content; so because The Game is over, there’s no need to keep things like artificially slow travel in the way of play any more since there’s no levelling progress to restrict and obstruct in order to keep people in the bulk of the content.

Finally the other joy that immediately springs to mind is that I can pick the quests that look and sound interesting, rather than feeling the need to complete any quest I can lay my hands on so that the Experience Mistress won’t release the Hounds of Achievement to hunt me down and deliver their own special brand of frothing, tooth-laden guilt. Thus, I have the freedom to say:

“I’m sorry Farmer Bob, but stuff you. Stuff you, and stuff your crops that are being overwhelmed by rats. Perhaps if you hadn’t built your farm in The Valley of Rats on Plague Island, next to that giant rat hole where Gorgonra the terrible red-eyed queen of rodents lives; perhaps if you hadn’t decided to grow a specific crop that can only be considered the crack cocaine of the rat world; perhaps if you had developed some form of basic hygiene rather than just defecating where you stand through a flap in the back of your dungarees; perhaps if you had built something, anything that might be considered a defence against a rampage of rodents, rather than a picket fence and a scare crow that wouldn’t bother Terrified Tim the Timid of Treenton, who is scared of absolutely everything, including the thought that someone might cure him of being scared. Then I might just find it in myself to be bothered to waste my time chasing ten of the little bastards around and bringing you their measly little hides so that you can reward me with a piece of moss and half a button.

It’s deliciously refreshing. Although that might just be the air I’m breathing now that I’ve moved on from Farmer Bob’s rat infested poo pile.

The main problem I have with these brief but enjoyable sojourns from the real world is that this style of play does not provide a lot of material for a blog: “I logged on. I did a couple of quests. I fed Farmer Bob to Gorgonra. I logged out” is hardly compelling reading and I don’t have the inclination to make it sound more dynamic or epic, it’s just not my thing, and I’m certainly not experiencing anything new and irritating that would inspire a tirade of biting satire or comedy situations.

I’m afraid that I’m not one to talk just for the sake of it, so if it’s a bit quiet here then it’s simply because I’m waiting for more fuel to fire the Inferno.

Time! Got the time tick, tick, tickin’ in my head.

Time, that fickle mistress, sometimes smothering you like giant flannel, other times flitting out of reach like an escaped pet hamster with a jet pack. Currently I’m experiencing the latter (lack of time, that is, not an escapee hamster with a jet pack, I don’t think rodent technology has progressed that far). Not much time for playing, still less time for blogging, though that itself prompted this post… Time is money, as they say, and as another round of “RMT: alternative payment model, or satanic abomination from the lower reaches of Beelzebub’s pit?” sweeps the blag-u-spore, I say to you this: a man doth have two sons, and to one son he gives land and geese and sugar and socks, and to the other he doth give but a tangled slinky… no, wait, wrong parable.

A man doth have two sons, and one son toils for forty hours in Lord of the Warquest to gather the materials he requires and creates a Helm Of Teh Uber. The other son toils for forty hours in a small newsagent or shoe shop, and with ten dollars from his paycheck he buys a Helm of the Uber. Which of these brothers truly earned his helm, hmm? Ahhhhhh! For bonus points, would any of the following affect the answer:
i) Buying items for real currency is forbidden in the EULA of Lord of the Warquest
ii) Items can be bought with real currency from the publishers of Lord of the Warquest
iii) The gathering of materials for the helm in-game is a long, involving quest sequence featuring much travel and fierce battles
iv) The gathering of materials for the helm in-game is a tedious, repetitive business that could be performed by a ‘bot with five lines of BASIC programming (10 RUN UP TO MOB 20 KILL MOB 30 LOOT MOB 40 PRINT “LOLOLLOL” 50 GOTO 10), if such things weren’t forbidden in the EULA

Thought for the day.

If I were a quest giver, I’d get heroes to:

  • Mow the lawn. Reward: Mighty Blade of the Grass.

  • Fetch the shopping. Reward: Whatever change there is from a tenner.

  • Clear out the loft. Reward: +20 to dust resistance. New ability: Cobweb camouflage.

  • Clean my car. Reward: Dropping covered helmet of Pij’Eon. Disclaimer: Might be a plastic bucket full of dirty car water.

  • Sort out my sock drawer. Reward: The Wholly Holey Sock of Holiness.

  • Feed my cat its medication tablet. Reward: -50hp. -1 eye. +20 tetanus resistance.

  • Cook dinner. Reward: The follow-on quest “Washing dishes is propitious”.

  • Do the washing up. Reward: Prune fingers of the Marigoldless.

  • Perform my job for a day. Reward: Ah hah hah ha ha! Hooooooo.

  • Answer the door to cold callers. Reward: -5 Int. +5 Stam.

  • Watch daytime TV and summarise it for me. Reward: -20 Wis. New ability: Train small dogs to cook banana fritters while they ride a unicycle.

  • Clear away the horde of youths hanging around the local shops and being a nuisance. Reward: One thousand gold; it doesn’t really matter what the reward, no adventurer has ever returned.

  • Fix the leaking cistern. Reward: +20 water resistance. New ability: Swear like a gangster rapper.

  • Level my current character in the latest MMO grind-fest. Reward: None. As well you know.

  • Perform any other task that people define as ‘character building’. Reward: I dunno, +1 in a stat, or something. Apparently.

Thinking about it: if I could get enough adventurers on the books I could start a cleaning company, I’d just tell them that it’s a rep. grind and they’d be all over it like a WoW forum on patch day. I’m not sure what Johnny Homeowner would make of a van full of heavily armoured, beefy heroes and buxom heroines unloading on their driveway, though.

Melmoth’s Municipal MMO Maids, coming to a zone near you soon.