Friday, April 15, 2011

Of all the Crazy Half witted, Hair Brained Ideas.....

OR....Where Mhorgrim gets to find out what pvp is like as a tank......

 Over the last week I've been working on my tank, Mhorgrim. I hit 78 yesterday and donned my Savage Saronite set, only to realize it was meant for PvP. But wait, a crazy hair brained, idiot idea hit me like a ton of griffon droppings; lets try to go onto the BG's as a tank spec! I had never done this before and I figured the armor set is perfect for it even if I have crap for weapons. Besides, I reasoned, I need honor points for BOA Gear and stuff. So, I went into a couple of randoms before bed. Arathi called me to service like a sweet siren to a sailor. There I went thinking I had some decent things to offer....BWAHAHAHAAHAHAHAH!!!!!! Not so much. Even at 78 I was struggling. But the good thing was, I noticed on our Battle Group makeup, the priests really did keep me alive. The fighting was intense. the first battle was a non stop fight up around the Lumber Mill. My Horde opponents as noble as they were and as hard hitting with their uber pvp earned gear could only stalemate us up on that lonely ridge. In the meantime our other units were speeding around taking ground then loosing it. I am learning there are uses for a tank in BGs but so far I am still figuring out how to get more killing blows. I am seeing that Horde wanted me dead first every round. Good thing my Healers were on point. One final fight at the Lumbermill lasted close to 1 minute of trading blows between an arms spec warrior and myself, both sides had a healer. It was an epic duel though and I had a blast as we went back and forth on each other. I never popped so many cool downs in any instance I had ever been in so fast. It was a mad minute of jumping, stunning, throwing weapons, sundering armor, maneuvering around etc. Finally the mighty Tauren warrior fell. I am guessing it had to do with either mana on the other healer or a mistimed heal. I can't be sure which at this point, as I was as exhausted mentally as a real warrior would be physically. By that time reinforcements had arrived and the Horde healer decided best to retreat back to his farm. We won that battle with hard fighting, controlling at least 4 nodes at once during the fight. The Horde came back swinging hard though and they were no slouches. In the end I believe it was 1600 to 1400 in resources held.

The second battle, also epic in nature was lost to us. Soundly beaten by 1600 - 1200. Not a happy ending. I noticed how critical it is to have more than one healer in your crew. Many times I think we would have done allot better had we just a few extra heals. The Alliance at this level in our Battle Group have figured out road fights are stupid so avoid them. This is a good thing.

In all, Mhorgrim didn't do well killing people but he did a helluva job making sure his crew was protected as long as possible. This often made the difference in holding or keeping an area secure. So, there is my epic fun.

But why write about it? I mean, I did what I did and though it wasn't exactly a faceroll to the other side, it was still fun. Oh Yeah! IT WAS FUN! See I change the pace up. I switch between things so nothing gets stale. If you find yourself feeling that the game is stale, try something new. Get outside your comfort zone of what you do well and work on the things you don't do well. You may not ever get perfect at everything but it will without a doubt be an interesting journey. So tonight I might do more pvp till I hit 80 before I roll out to level again. I get the best of all worlds. Have a great day in Azeroth everyone!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

The Adaptive Gamer....Challenges which can be over come

So I ran across this yesterday concerning an Adaptive Player. The player was really trying to get across that it is possible for someone with physical or mental handicaps to still play and enjoy WoW up to and including Raiding. The responses over all were pretty positive with only the occasional troll out there. I was actually pretty inpressed by the tenacity of the player and applaud his efforts to still enjoy the game. I think the diea here was to help other disabled players see that there are methods to still enjoy the game. There are a few posters that were less than cordial but that is their right to post, so I ignored them for the most part.

I have had first hand experience with working in a PUG with someone visually impaired. He put raid icons over our heads which we werent used to and kinda screwed with my kill order. After asking him why, he explained it helped him see the tank and healer to easier to assist in attacks due to his visual impairment. Well I gotta say that I support fully to assist those with disabilities who still are motivated enough to play the game and overcome some problematic issues when dealing with the physical aspects of repetitive motions and manual dextuerly required for doing Hotkey hits etc. His idea also incudes creating a website where people can go and share techniques in overcoming these challenges. Should this website go up, even if you are not an Adaptive player, just someone who enjoys the game and raids, it might expose you to understanding those who play WoW with disabilities. Well Walaman good luck to you and I hope your idea takes off!

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Questline Fashion...Serious Makeover needed

So I dropped by Keredria's blog today to find this on alternate ways to level. Obviously not necessarily to everyone's taste and most likely a very very long grind. But a few thoughts rose up in my peaked lil mind. Is it possible to have quests designed specific for classes and or professions that reward particular styles of play? Well, to tell the truth, there are some non combative quests out there currently though they can be engaged with combat while doing this. Since I've been out in Northrend,  I noticed a few quests don't require combat at all per se. The thing is, with the exception of advancing a story theme line, they don't highlight character skill sets or a profession base skill set.

Periodically, there should be quests pertaining to both profession and specifically to class/skill tree sets. Would it be difficult? possibly but still doable. Kill 10 ratz still applies mostly to a DPS mindset. But what about a questline that emphadsizes tank skills in holding aggro? Or a Healer questline maintaining an NPC getting through from point A to point B utilizing the healer skills? Rogues specifically to go in stealth, avoid detection and steal specific items or scout specific areas. These I came up with just rambling as a wrote, the ideas are there. My question is, can they be implemented through code? I mean, the complexity can't be nearly as hard as phased questlines in WoW so why not class specific?