Time Spreading

Gaming time spreads like butter. Easily, but thinly. That's right. I just compared my gaming time to butter. And not the low-fat kind either. I'm talking high octane stuff.

Take THAT you video game hating, Excursion driving, soccer mom health nazis!

Ahem.

*Calls a cab in order to get back to the point*

Alts are horrible. Alts are wonderful. I love my witch elf, I love my sorcerer, and I'm going to end up playing around with the new tank classes when they come out.

I have alts for games too. Right now they are Fable 2, Heroes of Might and Magic 5, and the desire to play Dead Space, Fallout 3, and Chrono Trigger DS (when that comes out).

A friend of mine said that having too many games to play is a problem he can live with. I admit, of all the problems you CAN have, it's one that provides a lot of entertainment.

I just end up feeling like I should be playing WAR when I'm playing Fable or Heroes...or the feeling that I'm letting my WoW characters suffer alone in the eternal login waiting room.

(Do you ever imagine your characters playing card games while waiting for you to get off work?

Mage: "How about another game of Go Fish?"
Warlock: "How about I eat your face and feed the rest of you to my pet orc?"
Warrior: "I told you, I was only your pet for one day! One!"
Druid: "Could you guys cut it out? I'm trying to hibernate here."
Rogue: *Sneak sneak sneak* *AMBUSH!* *RUN!*
Priest: "Stupid rogue...That is the 40th set of holes you've put in my robes this week!" *Heals self*

...and then the guilt trip starts, because I know that I left them to their own devices, which are obviously not that great.)

At any rate. I still have fun playing whatever it is I'm playing, but I can't help feeling like I should be doing something else. Maybe I'll feel different when my main gets to 40 in WAR.

(26 now -- a long long way to go)

Tore and Rock

I don't hate Tor Anroc.

I just hate playing it ALL the time.

Why oh why oh why can't anything else pop? Temple of Isha, maybe? The one with the graveyard? (I can't even recall the name, as I've only been in it 2 or 3 times.)

Now, I've heard the assertions that Order ONLY queues up for Tor Anroc. But is this really true? If so...why?

Is it because of their knockbacks?

After her nth trip into the lava during one game, Sycorax asked, "Does *ALL* of Order have knockback abilities?" It certainly feels that way sometimes.

I don't think Order is overpowered by any means. I think Mythic did a pretty good job of faction balance. I just happen to think that there is one scenario in which the levels and abilities don't work out quite so nicely.

Also...it's a shame to ignore so many other scenarios in favor of Tor Anroc. The game itself isn't so bad. Hold ball, kill things. I like it.

The lava isn't so much fun, but I'm ok with it in moderation. (I love landing on a rock and still being able to heal my group. It's like that Ironbreaker did me a favor by giving me a lava moat! Also...being on a rock as an Order player desperately hops towards it -- that's priceless. Congratulations, you're saved from the lava. But due to your 1% health, I'm afraid you aren't really saved from the healer. Bwahaha.)

But the other games involve killing too! It isn't like your options are between "Tor Anroc, the massive bloody death and killing zone!" and "Temple of Isha, the rainbow brownie and pillow fight zone!" -- Death happens in ALL scenarios (although brownies are really tasty...)

I'll expand you!

For a long while, I've been thinking 'I'm sure I'll buy the Wrath expansion and level my mage or warlock to 80. Why not?'

Then I realized...'Because it will work out like BC -- all gear outdated and replaced with quest greens in no time. PvP will reset. Everyone will race to 80 and I still won't end up seeing the really cool instances.'

Now, this same statement has been made by many different people in many different places. It just didn't sink in until I actually thought about *playing* WoW. The idea just no longer appeals to me. I think I would be a lot more likely to go back and play WoW if there *wasn't* an expansion.

I never raided enough to see the cool stuff (didn't spend enough time in game for that), although I loved instances when I had an opportunity to get into them. I loved PvP as a member of an organized group before BC...but I can't handle PuGs or Arenas with both myself and my partner being undergeared and rusty.

No...I think that WoW has taken everything I've accomplished in game and said 'Well, that actually doesn't mean anything now. Have fun doing it over.'

They've done it a couple of times now. It all started when they changed the PvP system. I worked freakin' *hard* to get to rank 11. A few months later...the whole system changed. Don't get me wrong. The initial PvP/honor system was seriously screwed up, and it needed fixed -- it's just that Blizzard really killed my faith in them as an MMO company by changing a niche of the game to appeal to the masses.

Great business strategy...but eventually people are going to tire of having their favorite aspects of a game wiped out so that it will appeal to a larger audience.

I don't hate WoW...it's just that I don't love it anymore.

I'm sorry. This hurts you more than it hurts me.

The Multitasking Healer

When I got my first mastery point as a DoK, I immediately put it into the melee focused path. After all, the zealots and shaman are the *actual* healers, right?

I played a few scenarios in which I was one of two healers. Coincidentally, I also died a LOT. Not because I healed so much that the other team deemed me worthy of focus fire. No...I died because I charged into the fray, determined to get the killing blow on that bright wizard that killed me 15 times over the previous 2 games. (of Tor Anroc. Of course.)

It's just really hard to remember to heal when you are a DPS-minded individual in the middle of melee combat.

I decided that I would better serve the purposes of Destruction by healing as my healer.

Don't get me wrong, I had as much healing as I had damage in virtually every scenario I played from ranks 1-23. The problem is that both healing numbers and damage numbers take a big hit when I spend all of my time dead.

I changed my spec. I am now strictly healing...I've played several scenarios in which I had *zero* (that's right, zero) damage. It is a completely different experience. I barely even notice when a half-dead bright wizard looks at me funny. (Before, that was grounds for ... permanent...termination.)

The games seem to go better, my girlfriend stays alive longer, and I'm not spending 3/4 of the game watching that stupid rez timer.

So I'm leaving the damage to my alts, and I'm taking on the healing role!

...But a word to that bright wizard that keeps looking at me funny. If you happen to walk up near me...I *do* still have swords, and I *do* still know how to use them. (Pointy end towards the enemy.)

Pumpkin WAR

WAAAGH!

An early 'Happy Halloween' to all the peoples.

We spent some of tonight carving pumpkins (and watching horrible movies...Duel and Hawk: The Slayer. *Shudder*)

We came up with our characters (Vlad and Sycorax, by name) and this nice little gem. Knife wielding done by yours truly, and the design and drawing done by my girlfriend. Bless her for participating.

Thanks for the group! Now please die.

My main alt is a witch elf. She is very similar to my first character in WoW -- A rogue I created at release.

My ALT alt (can you have an alt alt? I do, apparently) is a sorcerer. There's something to be said for getting your hands dirty and stabbing people in the face, but there's also something to be said for exploding that same face from 60 feet away.

When I'm playing my witch elf, groups of people create problems for me. It doesn't take much for them to figure out that there's a portable blender working on their back line healer...so they turn around and kill me.

When I'm playing my *sorcerer*, those same groups of people provide the perfect target for some ranged AoE. It's a great feeling when you see about 10 crits all at once, and you *know* that the healers just can't keep up.

Scenarios with choke points are my new favorite thing. (The temple in Tier 2, for example...)

So I just wanted to say 'thanks!' to everyone who groups up in front of the artifact. You save me the trouble of having to call out a focus fire target, because I can just death hug your whole group! (Seriously. My girlfriend was on her sorceress, and I started a lot of scenarios trying to coordinate our targets. Eventually I ended up saying 'that large group right there'. That seemed to work out.)

Public Queuests

One of my favorite features of WAR is the Public Quest system. I'm pretty sure that most of the people who renewed their subscriptions past their first month of play would agree with me.

Mythic is adding some new PQ's for Halloween, and I think that's great.

I now have a dilemma. Do I focus on the new PQ's, influence, and random (likely just cosmetic) loot? Or do I continue on my quest to be a halfway decent healer in scenarios, earning me much renown (both the purple number type and the 'fame within game' type) and experience (both the yellowish number type and the 'learn to not suck' type)?

Because it always happens like this:

1. Enter a public quest about halfway through Stage 1.

2. Slaughter my way through hordes of [Elven Women, Ballistas, Lost Puppies, Elven Warriors, or Dropouts from the 'High Elf Academy of Special Swordmasters'].

3. Work with my girlfriend to kill several champions in Stage 2.

4. SCENARIO TIME! AND IT'S FINALLY NOT TOR ANROC!

Well crap. See the problem?

Maybe I'll keep track of how many times this happens during the Halloween live event...