Choosing SWTOR Alts

One of the quirks to SWTOR's new business model is that players who know roughly what their alts are going to be in the future can save some money by subbing up for one month, and using that time to start new characters. 

• Species locks are not enforced retroactively, so you are free to create premium race characters and keep them after your subscription lapses.  There is also the option to unlock races - including ones that cannot normally be used for all classes - using credits (either directly - for 1.5 million a piece, or for whatever the cash shop unlocks are selling for in your local GTN - as low as 400-600K on my server).  Due to the credit cap, this is also a subscriber-only feature.
  
• Non-subscribers cannot mail credits, even within their own legacy.  This is allegedly to deter credit farming on free accounts and more likely to make it harder for non-subscribers to get around the credit cap by shuttling credits to alts.  (You can mail items - one at a time - to your alts and then try to auction them.)  I typically spend around 100K credits setting up a new alt with legacy perks, such as mount access at level 10, entry level affection perks for companions, basic gifts, etc, and this option is not available without a way to send your alt the credits.  (Note that you should check the GTN for mounts before buying one from a vendor.  You may be able to find one of the more common options on sale for less than the 8,000 credits required to buy a standard mount from the vendor.) 
  
• Nonsubscribers cannot purchase inventory upgrades using credits, only cartel coins (or GTN purchases of cartel coin unlocks, which will cost significantly more for your first few space increases).  Personally, I don't find that I need more than 40-50 slots, YMMV.
  
• TEMPORARY: Currently, non-subscribers are capped from creating more than two characters on their entire account (i.e. NOT per server), but lapsed subscribers can access as many pre-existing characters as they have.  It's somewhat inexplicable that Bioware launched free to play without implementing the item that lets you purchase more slots.  Now they're going to have to spring the restrictions on people down the line.  Note that this bullet will become moot when they do implement the character cap, at which point free players will have the two slots and preferred nonsubscribers will have six.

With all that in mind, I set forth on a side project to start up alts during my one month subscription.  I already had a level 50 Trooper Vanguard (tank) that I really liked and a level 19 Sith Warrior (DPS) alt that I hated because of how much time he spent running between targets that my NPC companion was killing.  I decided to roll through to the six character cap, with the thinking that I won't repeat either of the two archetypes I already had for now.  The good news is that all four alts are ready to go.  The bad news is that now I have to figure out which one(s) to play.  

1. Amargosa, female Rattataki Sith Sorcerer (caster DPS/healing): Purple force lightning aside, this advanced class is interesting in that it's a ranged DPS with regenerating energy that does not depend on how much energy you have remaining.  All of the other ranged classes use a mechanic where how quickly your ammo/etc regenerates scales with how much you have spent.  One downside - your initial companion appears to actively hate you, which I'm guessing could get old. 
2. Kalestra, female Mirialan Jedi Consular Shadow (stealth melee/tank): I chose to make this the tank because I think the Jedi ranged caster path - somehow miraculously finding the same sized debris to throw at foes with telekinesis - looks really stupid. On the downside, I didn't like the other melee class because of how quickly individual targets die in this game, so the consular could suffer the same flaw.  Meanwhile, I was initially underwhelmed with all the rambling about the Jedi code on Tython, but the story picked up a bit as the planet's class story unfolds.  
3. Mirish, female Chiss Agent Operative (healer/ranged DPS): The agent is universally hailed as one of the best storylines, the starting companion is a relatively normal character, and there are a few interesting mechanics going on here including a ranged tree, a stealth melee tree, and full out heals.  One question mark is whether I will start to find the cover mechanic irritating, as right now I seem somewhat limited if I don't have something to hide behind.
4. Chulak, male Twilek Smuggler Gunslinger (ranged DPS): Almost an afterthought, but one of my favorite stories, with a very good Star Wars feel.  I arguably should have flipped the advanced classes on this pairing, as I'm now lined up to have all three healing specs on the Empire and all three tank specs on the Republic, assuming I ever get that far.  Oh well.  One big downside, though, is that I'm really not all that fond of my starting companion, and apparently I'm stuck with him for a bit.  

And so I'm on the fence.  Ideally, I'd choose one Empire and one Republic representing one each of the two archetypes and then backtrack to deal with the last round.  Or I guess I could in principle give the poor Sith Warrior another chance.  What I don't want to do is level more than one alt on the same faction due to how much content is shared.  It's also unfortunate that I seem to be having so much trouble matching up all three of a class story, gameplay style, and supporting cast that I can live with on the same character.  Ah well, I guess trial and error will eventually prevail - at least I'm not paying by the month at the moment? 

Early Observations for SWTOR's Non-subscription Model

SWTOR's big relaunch day has finally arrived.  The model can and probably will change over the coming weeks, but things have settled down enough to get an idea of what we are dealing with.  I have actually gone into the relaunch with a recently renewed subscription - no, not because I wanted to pay $15 for $5 worth of "bonus" coins.  SWTOR as currently implemented may be the first model where it can make sense to jump back and forth between the two payment options.

For endgame, not so much...
For better or worse, Bioware has made the decision to give away most of the game's content.  This leaves them in the position of trying to convince players to fork over cash for playing the game as a service.  Thus, it does not appear that Bioware is keen for existing subscribers to switch to a non-subscription model and pay less.  There are various things to unlock - including some extraordinarily petty options such as a charge to hide your helmet (certainly not mandatory, just petty) - but the bigger story is what you cannot unlock. 

• Endgame content requires the purchase of consumable weekly passes per type of content you wish to play.  Even at the most favorable exchange rate, unlocking two of the four types of content (raid, PVP, space combat, flashpoints) will cost you more than $15/month.   
• Nonsubscribers are stuck with a currency cap that cannot be lifted.  This limit applies not only to credits - the standard currency - but also the various token currencies used to purchase items.  
• Nonsubscribers are also slapped with a permanent penalty to vendor prices, which includes gear vendors that take tokens.  
• The cap plus the penalty combine to make it impossible for non-subscribers to purchase certain token rewards, and more generally require 25% more grinding at whatever you are grinding (raids, PVP, flashpoints, etc) for gear. 

There might theoretically be a very specific niche of players (perhaps if you and a group of friends have an appointment to log in and do flashpoints precisely once a month) that can save with the non-subscription model, but most players at endgame will be worse off for the attempt.

Leveling and grandfathered unlocks
Setting aside the endgame, what if, like myself, you are primarily interested in the game for the solo story content?  This scenario is a bit more interesting.

There are certain restrictions that you can't lift (or won't want to pay for) including the currency penalties (you won't hit the credit cap but you may have problems with commendation vendors on planets) and restrictions on travel.  There are also restrictions on your rate of exp gain, but that is ironically a mixed blessing in that I found the game's exp curve to be faster than I needed and skipped most of several planets to preserve challenge.  And there are things you will probably need to pay for, such as access to your crewskills, probably a third hotbar (I don't know that all four that players had previously - or six that subscribers now get - are completely mandatory, but you will probably need a third bar).

Then there are an odd handful of things that can be unlocked in principle, but in practice are cheaper to unlock via a temporary subscription.  Access to races - which are purely cosmetic in this game - will run you 600 Cartel Coins, but your existing characters are not affected when your subscription lapses.   Your first two inventory upgrades can be paid for with 5000 and 20,000 credits as a subscriber, while non-subscribers must pony up 175 Cartel Coins per unlock - 350 total.  In short, if you're looking to start up one - or better yet several - new characters, a one-month subscription may be the way to go.

And finally, there's the question of content.  The new "Section X" content added with this patch will run non-subscribers 600 Cartel Coins.  This content features new daily quests, which will be markedly less attractive to non-subscribers due to the currency issues, and the one-time questline for the HK-51 droid companion.  This sort of content may well be more attractive as a rental than a permanent unlock.

Looking Ahead
On the horizon, Bioware plans at least one major content drop.  It will also be interesting to see whether some of these restrictions get relaxed - either by default or through additional purchases - as  the model matures.  In the mean time, I don't regret my one-month subscription, and I might even see an advantage to subscribing for a month at a time periodically.

I suppose the risk you run - and perhaps the reason why Bioware is willing to make the temporary subscription attractive - is that you get used to the perks that cost money and do not want to give them up.  Then again, I suppose that is a good thing to the extent that it would mean that you are playing the game and enjoying it enough to want to pay. 

Musings At The Six-Fold Cap

In my post about re-acquiring the level cap in LOTRO, I failed to mention a minor milestone; I now have eight current max-level characters in six separate MMO's.  These are:

WoW: Greenwiz (85 Gnome Mage) and Greenraven (85 Tauren Warrior)
LOTRO: Allarond (75 Human Champion)
Rift: Telhamat (50 High Elf Cleric)
DCUO: Green Armadillo (Level 30 Sorcery Hero)
Star Trek Online: Green Armadillo (50 Federation Engineering) and Narilya (50 KDF Tactical)
SWTOR: Aldabaran (50 Cyborg Trooper)

Allarond just graduated from a shorter list of characters who had previously been max level prior to some previous cap increase.  The folks remaining on that list are:
EQ2: Lyriana (90 Fae Dirge - current cap is 92, increased in April 2012)
WoW: Greenhammer (70 Human Paladin, capped during TBC) and Cheerydeth (80 Gnome Death Knight, wiped at the end of the Wrath beta in 2008, but I count her for posterity's sake)

What I did mention was that I expect this achievement to be temporary.  LOTRO and WoW both have expansions out in September, Rift has an expansion slated for "fall", SWTOR plans to increase its cap in a patch "this year", and EQ2 (assuming I get back to the cap in the first place) will almost certainly have another expansion this year (though it is unknown whether the cap will rise again).  I'm half tempted to focus on EQ2 solely because it may be my last chance to claim seven different MMO's with capped characters for a while to come. 

I don't know that there's anything bad about my current plight - indeed, it's probably for the best that games are adding new content.  If anything, there may be upsides to having the cap increase more frequently but by smaller numbers of levels (2-5); some games have struggled to generate enough leveling content for larger increases, and many have suffered to come up with any significant changes in the way characters play at higher levels.  That said, yet another reason why I'm struggling to find time to try new games (though I'm certainly tempted).

A few random superlatives:

• Most time spent in groups while leveling: Rift, courtesy of public groups, and later an instance finder - I even healed
• Least time spent in group while leveling: SWTOR and STO - as far as I can recall, none of my capped characters in either game has ever joined a group for any reason (my low level sith warrior alt once took a blind invite from someone who needed a second warm body to collect a datacron).  
• Most time in endgame groups: hands down WoW  - worth noting that EQ2 is the only other MMO where I've spent significant amounts of time in endgame group content
• Most time in PVP: Other than a few weeks playing a LOTRO Warg back in 2007, WoW is probably the only entrant here.  
• Favorite Crafting: EQ2, best crafting-related content
• Favorite minigame/system not already named above: STO Duty Officers
• Favorite Story: LOTRO, they have an unfair advantage in the license, but they have executed well given the opportunity
• Least Memorable Lore: Rift.  Unfair I suppose since the competition is Azeroth, Norrath, and a bunch of licensed IP's, but nothing about Telara sticks out in my mind
• Best Races: I'm still inclined to tip the hat to EQ2 here with its selection of scaly and furry races, but I have to admit that WoW is doing about as well these days with the non-Tolkien races.  LOTRO has an excuse, but what does everyone else have to say for themselves?
• Lowest Mob Life Expectancy: WoW - even con mobs for your typical kill ten quest are lucky to survive for ten seconds each.  It's probably not a coincidence that WoW is the only game where I have a pure ranged character for a main - I'm willing to kite on special occasions, but I find it tedious if that's what I'm doing every mob.

In an unrelated story, MMOGC has a post up today along similar lines.

Updated Fuzzy Legacy Math

SWTOR's patch 1.3 landed today.  I'd previously posted about the questionable pricing of a character-specific companion affection perk, so I figured an update was in order. 

The issue with these perks is that there is a relatively limited amount of total affection each character will get during their career, the perks do NOT apply across your entire legacy, and each point of affection can be assigned a value in credits based on the cost of gifts.  Paying a large number of credits for an exp bonus that cannot be earned any other way - thus saving you time in leveling - is a luxury item.  Paying a large amount of credits for an affection bonus when you could have just purchased enough gifts to get that much affection for a smaller amount of credits is just bad planning.

Anyway, in response Bioware tweaked the numbers - the bonus has been doubled and the cost slashed by 2.5-fold.  The good news is that the entry level perks are a very attractive deal, especially for newer characters.  (The deal gets worse as you complete more of the story, because you will have fewer remaining quests to benefit from the bonus.)  At 10K each for 10% bonuses to gifts and conversation gains, I'm not going to spend too long worrying about whether I got the best deal.

Unfortunately, I'm still not convinced about the higher ranks.  It's an extra 30K credits (per bonus) for an additional 10% affection, but my guess is that you will most likely cap out your affection with most or all of your companions before you really benefit from this increase.  I guess the real question is whether +20% to conversations would allow you to slash or eliminate your gift budget - you will definitely profit from a single rank of the gift perk if you're handing out rank 1 gifts until they stop awarding points, but this will still cost you some money (roughly 30K credits per companion for the non-picky companions).  Then again, the numbers are probably close enough that it doesn't really matter.

If you're curious, here's an update to my numbers on how much you can save on rank 1 and 2 vendor gifts with the 10% bonus. 

Affection Range	Affection/Gift	Total Gifts
0-1999 (base)	96	21 (to 2016)
0-1999 (+10%)	105.6	19 (to 2006.4)
2000-3999 (base)	48	42 (from 2016 to 4032)
2000-3999 (+10%)	52.8	38 (from 2016 to 4012.8)
4000-5999 (base)	19	104 (from 4032 to 6008)
4000-5999 (+10%)	20.9	96 (from 4012.8 to 6019.2)
6000-7999 (base - rank 2 gifts)	19	105 (from 6008 to 8003)
6000-7999 (+10% - rank 2 gifts)	20.9	95 (from 6019.2 to 8004.7)

 Total Saved on Rank 1 Gifts: 6+6+8 = 20 x 200 creds =  4000 creds saved per companion (assuming non-picky companions)

Legacy Chapter 3

My trooper, newly renamed from "Aldebaran" to "Aldabaran" due to the server transfers, hit another milestone this afternoon while I was babysitting the dog and some house painters.  I powered through the Corellia class quests in one sitting,  completing the third and final Chapter of the Trooper class story.  I started the afternoon as a freshly dinged level 47, and ended with a 95% full exp bar... toward level 48.  This means that I "need" to scrape together just over two more levels' worth of exp using the non-story quests I skipped, possibly the Hoth Bonus series, and the abridged storyline on Ilum. 

I airquote need because I don't actually feel any especially pressing need to hit the level cap.  I already have all five companion legacy unlocks (3 are maxed for extra crafting bonuses and the other two are close).  With the class story complete, I have my legacy ability unlocked.  I hit legacy level 5 and paid for the human racial legacy bonus because it is a decent bonus to solo play but I'd rather give up half a million credits than wait out 50 levels as a human to obtain it.  The one bonus I would obtain for getting this character to 50 is the racial unlock for Cyborgs, which opens up the race for all classes.  However, I don't really plan on doing another Cyborg in the near future. 

As a solo player, the biggest argument I have for sticking it out on this character is probably that it's easier to earn credits at higher level, which can be used to pay for gifts for companions on my new alts.  Somehow, this seems less pressing than experiencing a whole new story - or seven. 

Fuzzy Legacy Math

Update (26 June): The patch is live, see this post for updated numbers.  Bottom line: the first ranks are now worthwhile for most characters, but the higher end bonuses are still probably a bad deal.


SWTOR patch 1.3 has hit the test servers, bringing a new round of various legacy bonuses.  The numbers may change in testing, but they did get me thinking about how some things that sound good on paper don't work out so well.

I did a fair amount of math, summarized below, trying to figure out if the companion gift affection bonus was ever worth purchasing.  The answer is extremely borderline, because the bonus is per-character, there is a limited amount of affection you can earn on each character, and the only way to "cash in" the bonus is to consume a gift that has a cash value.  In order to profit from a 5% affection bonus that costs 25K credits to unlock, you need to be spending over 100K credits per companion for each of your five companions.  This is technically possible if you intend to powergrind each companion from 0-10,000 as quickly as possible using vendor gifts and paying whatever it costs on the trade network.  Most people probably will not do this.

I got sufficiently into the analysis of this that I lost sight of the bigger picture.  There are two additional ranks and these boost the costs even further - a total of 250K credits for the top rank.  It's also worth noting that the two perks for conversation gains and gift gains are somewhat mutually diminishing in value - due to the cap, the more affection you gain from one of the two, the less remaining affection there is to gain from the other.  (The conversation option has the advantage that players will do this anyway - you still have to earn more affection than you could buy with the credits for this to be worthwhile, but at least you don't have to be planning to spend an unreasonable total amount on gifts to profit from it.) 

Don't get me wrong, some of the new legacy unlocks are legitimate luxury item credit sinks.  These particular bonuses, though, especially for the top two ranks, are never worth the money for anyone.  As with your real money, I suppose the lesson is "buyer beware". 

The numbers
The chart below summarizes the cost of power-grinding the 80% of companions who have at least one gift they "love" for maximum favor using vendor gifts.  You can get from 0-8000 affection for under 100K credits using gifts from the vendor - which means that the 5% bonus you paid 25K credits for saves you fewer than 5K credits per companion.  If your crewskills and/or the auction house are more cost-effective than the vendor - or if you are less excessive in your use of gifts, you will save even less.   

Affection Range	Affection/Gift	Total Gifts
0-1999 (base)	96	21 (to 2016)
0-1999 (+5%)	100.8	20 (to 2016)
2000-3999 (base)	48	42 (from 2016 to 4032)
2000-3999 (+5%)	50.4	40 (from 2016 to 4032)
4000-5999 (base)	19	104 (from 4032 to 6008)
4000-5999 (+5%)	19.95	99 (from 4032 to 6007.5)
6000-7999 (base - rank 2 gifts)	19	105 (from 6008 to 8003)
6000-7999 (+5% - rank 2 gifts)	19.95	100 (from 6008 to 8001.55)

Total Rank 1 cost saved: 8 rank one green gifts (1600 credits) per companion, 8000 credits for five companions (assuming none who are picky)
Total Rank 2 cost saved: 5 rank two green gifts (3000 credits) per companion, 15000 credits for five companions (assuming none who are picky)
Total "saved": 23000 credits
Total Spent to earn these savings: 25,000 credits.

Founding a Legacy

My trooper was finally able to finish Chapter One of his class story, unlocking the Legacy system.  I'd been brainstorming for a while on a legacy name that A) looks enough like a name to pass muster on an RP server and B) somehow addresses my status as a MMO nomad.  I considered various combinations of "WorldSpanner", "RealmCrosser", etc in English, and then had the idea of branching out into French. 

The result was the name "Jeutrémie", which combines the words Jeu (game) and trémie (hopper).  Technically, it's the wrong kind of hopper - this is the giant funnel-like structure that you use to load up exceptionally heavy cargo (e.g. cement, ore) - but I suppose my the analogy to my MMO habit holds regardless.  In any case, it sounds vaguely namelike and it has a pun on the theme I wanted, so I'm happy with it.

I understand the desire to have the legacy unlock - it also came with a bind-to-legacy token for a free weapon for my next alt to hit the teens - come as a special reward.  However, there was a side effect to this plan - players cannot earn exp for their legacy until it is unlocked.  The final quest in Chapter One rates at level 31, but I ended up pushing the envelope and clearing through it at level 28/29 (dinged midway through the instance, and a good thing since the final bosses were 32 elite and time-consuming). 

I suppose the wait paid off in the end.  I had a lot of fun pushing the envelope to get through those last few missions "early" (delaying the Tatooine bonus series and most of the non-story content on Alderaan until I could earn legacy exp for them).  As a tank-spec trooper with a healing companion, I can get through a lot, and that level of challenge often isn't found in the solo game of an MMO anymore.  Looking ahead, I see some tough choices on what classes to play next based on juicy perks to unlock for my legacy.  From Bioware's perspective, that's a win/win, and I guess it is for me as well.

A Tale of Two Captains

Narilya, my Klingon Defense Force captain in Star Trek Online, hit level 50 today.  Given how I've spent my time in game, I've taken to joking about how impressed I am with the cosmetic ships and the ship/ground combat minigames attached to the vessel that I use to fly my duty officers around the galaxy looking for missions.  (The joke is that said "minigames" are actually the entire game of Star Trek Online as it existed prior to the most recent patch.) 

That said, as I've spent more time with the system, its flaws are beginning to show through.  Much as I enjoy it and find it unique, comparing the progress of these two characters has made me feel like my main is not getting all that much for a vastly greater time investment.   

The Federation Main
Vice Admiral Green Armadillo has made a lot of progress though the duty ranks, with a minimum of rank two in every commendation category, one rank 3 complete, and half a dozen more closing on that number.  I have completed around 2/3 of the assignment chains in the game (21 chains complete, 13 in various stages of progress, and only one chain that I'm aware of but have yet to encounter).  

In order to reach this this plateau, the Faydwer routinely makes 2-3 circuits around the Galaxy daily, in search of the best missions its crew can complete.  Earlier on, this process would take around 30-40 minutes, though it has started to take less time now that I have improved travel options and less need to travel to destinations where I've already completed the main missions.  Typically, my priorities are:

• Missions that advance assignment chains.   
• Missions that recruit more duty officers.  Sometimes I'll pass on one if I'm really close to hitting a milestone somewhere else, but in general these are the longterm investment that keeps the quality of the crew expanding.  
• Missions that award better than normal commendation advancement.  Typically these occur less frequently, require additional/more specific officers, or in some cases cash/commodity items to begin.  
• Other priorities, which vary.  If there's a sector reset looming, I might take the shortest missions available so they will be complete and out of my log when the new missions come up.  If I'm close to the next rank in a commendation category, I might focus on that.  Earlier in the leveling curve, I made an effort to advance crafting, while now I'm more likely to use excess slots on Gamma quadrant commodities (which tend to be used in the better-than-average and/or story missions).  

As a result of all these efforts, the DOFF crew of the USS Faydwer includes 180 officers (including the active duty folks - I paid 580 Cryptic points to boost the cap on this character by 100 from the default 100).   Of these, 14 are "very rare", 27 are "rare", and over 100 are "uncommon" (33 are "common" and I wasn't bored enough to count the greens).  I have 2-4 of most specializations, with larger numbers in some of the more frequently used callings (for example, 11 security officers, only one of which is common quality). With this contingent is pretty rare that I'm NOT able to put together an assignment team with at least a 75% chance of success. 

Stats on the crew of the Faydwer - note that you can temporarily have more than 20 assignments due to injured crew in sickbay, which appear on your "in progress" list and award some medical commendation xp but do not count as real assignments. 

The Klingon Alt
As a Klingon faction character, Lieutenant General Narilya started out at level 20, but my Federation main actually had the far greater head start because he had several weeks to collect duty officers while earning the required 25 levels to unlock Klingon play.  Additionally, as an alt, this character was always a lower priority. 

For the majority of her career, Narilya's ships never went more than a lightyear away from the Klingon homeworld of Qo'nos.  I simply logged in with her for maybe 5-10 minutes to accept any missions her more limited crew was able to complete.  This often meant low quality missions with less impressive rewards, and higher failure chances due to a lower quality crew. 

With fewer trips to the locations where missions occur, this character has never completed an assignment chain, or even gotten more than two steps into one.  Her commendation ranks sit at mostly 1's and 2's (though a few of the 2's are surprisingly far along because those mission types were more common on the Klingon side). 

(The IKS Kunark, which is capped at 100 reserve officers plus the 10 active slots, currently has a contingent of 97.  This includes only one "very rare" officer, from the DS9 questline and 7 rare officers, though the majority of the crew - 60-some - are uncommon quality.  It may be worth noting that the Klingons offer frequent and profitable rewards for executing white quality officers, which definitely helps with staying under the cap.) 

The Smaller Gap
Despite this massive different in time investment, the rewards weren't as different as one might expect.  The way the duty exp curve is set up does not award anywhere near the premium that one might expect for lengthy missions.  A common mission that takes 20 hours may only award as much exp as an uncommon mission that takes two hours. 

By logging in and taking a bunch of short duration missions, Narilya sometimes completed more missions in an individual day than Green Armadillo could, with most of his slots tied up in 20 hour story missions.  In her five minute session, Narilya would pick up 10 missions, while her Federation counterpart might spend 30 minutes looking for the most profitable use of his last two slots. 

Meanwhile, the dramatic difference in the size and quality of the respective crew is mitigated by the cap on active assignments.  Any given task requires from 1-5 duty officers, and you are limited to 20 no matter how large your crew is.  The Faydwer generally has 50 or so out doing stuff, while the Kunark generally has 30-40 officers on assignment, and generally cannot take multiple copies of lucrative missions, such as military offensives, for lack of personnel, but both ultimately cap out at the same number of assignments. 

There is definitely a difference in rate of advancement -  both characters have been able to advance at a rate of nearly a level per day if I really focused on running missions for regular exp, while Narilya's cruise control approach netted more like a level every 2-3 days.  My main also has way more money - around 20 million energy credits - due to obtaining stuff that he can sell on the exchange, along with higher quality officers for his active duty slots and more transwarp teleports earned through diplomacy.  It just seems that the difference isn't that satisfying given the vastly different effort I'm investing on one character over the other.

Looking forward
One thing that will be very interesting to watch is whether Cryptic adds the ability to obtain additional assignment slots to the store.  This would be a popular seller, as it's an oft-requested feature and it would allow more dedicated players to leverage their larger and more skilled crew (and, in turn, encourage players to pay to get a larger crew).  However, it also poses a challenge to the rate of advancement - already players are arguing, for better or worse, that this system awards too much exp too quickly (especially if you actually combine it with playing the traditional game).   

Meanwhile, some of the changes they are making seem to further diminish the value of focusing on the Duty system, by increasing the variety of missions available to the five minute captain.  A patch last week added mission NPC's to the interior of player ships.  The NPC's now always offer certain basic missions (which no longer take up slots on the exterior mission list), and can also provide extra options for the captain who does want to duck in for five minutes, fill up their log, and not think about the system again for a while.  At the moment, the bad news is that this requires zoning into each deck of your ship and running around, but this will soon be moved to an "intercom" button on the department head UI. 

Overall, as they flesh the system out more and make it more accessible, it's beginning to feel more like a minigame than a game in itself.  In some ways, this is a good thing, to the extent that it encourages focus on what they still view as the core game. 

That said, I was focusing on getting the second character to level 50 while the one month of subscription time I paid for was live, to take advantage of subscriber unlocks.  The issue for Cryptic is that I probably won't turn around and spend the excess time playing STO's regular missions.  Instead, I'll log in to my main for the requisite 10 minutes every day or two and then go play something else that rewards me more proportionally for my time investment. 

Legacy of the Server

One of the quirks to my decision to wait a bit on the SWTOR launch - with new graphics cards launching over the next month, it made sense to delay purchasing the graphics card for my new machine - is that I will have a bit more information than those who showed up on day one.  Case in point, a pair of great posts by Psynister describing the practical effects of the new legacy system.  If I'm going to play through say 2-3 characters' stories, this type of information is very valuable in helping secure the best perks for my alts.

Perhaps it isn't worth changing my class or race choices to max out perks - though it definitely sounds like there's an advantage to getting characters to 50 one at a time versus working them in parallel.  However, this does call attention to a huge decision that I will need to make before I even get as far as picking a race and class.  While most other games are working to get away from the traditional server structure with creative transfers, sharding, and cross-server groups, Bioware is doubling down on the approach from ten years ago.  The Legacy system creates an incentive structure that strongly encourages players to stay put wherever they've ended up.

While you can't judge a game by its forums, I find reports of low populations on at least some servers, posted at the official forums, reasonably credible.  This does not mean that the sky is falling or the game is failing - just that throwing additional servers at the launch day rush is not a viable longterm approach to distributing players.  If anything, I wonder the Bioware's guild pre-registration plan may have hurt matters - servers that got large number of pre-release guilds may be more stable in the long-term than servers that got rolled out on launch day and occupied by tourists fleeing the queues (who are more likely to vanish 30 days later).

As a late-comer, I will have the luxury of being able to research the state of the servers six months post launch BEFORE investing time setting up camp on a new server.  (If any of you who are actually playing TOR have opinions on this topic I'd appreciate them, though it will probably be another month or two before TOR can crack my crowded calendar.)  Meanwhile, whatever the system's other faults, at least they started keeping track of the "legacy exp" at launch so that players who showed up early can get credit for their accomplishments to date.  I just wonder how many of those players will find themselves regretting decisions of server, class, or race that were made before they had even zoned in to kill their first Jedi/Sith rat-equivalent.

Update: MMO-Mechanics has the first post I've seen summarizing the things that the Legacy system will offer in patch 1.2 (currently testing) and patch 1.3.  (They had to powerlevel on the test server to unlock the system and get screenshots.)  Interesting perks, including earlier access to mounts, enhancements to your companions (who also offer buffs to your alts), etc. 

Scroll of Resurrection: Game Vs World

While I was struggling with internet access issues last week, Blizzard announced that they'd gone ahead and implemented that crazy idea EQ2's David Georgeson kicked around last year - a free boost to level 80, but only as a promotion for lapsed subscribers.  MMO Melting Pot has two posts rounding up the blog reaction so far, and even this list only scratches the surface. 

The conflict
This debate emphasizes the split between MMO's as games versus MMO's as worlds.  As a game, the correct answer to the question "can I play with my friends?" is always yes.  By contrast, the very structure of the persistent online world is full of "no" answers to that question. 

• Wrong server/faction?  No.  
• Wrong class?  No.  
• Wrong spec/group role?  No.  
• Wrong level?  No.  
• Not enough gear?  No.
• Don't own enough expansions?  No.  
• Not located in the right location (back in the days when traveling across the world could take all night)?  No.  

For the players who primarily see the MMO as a world, all of these answers are the entire reason to play the game.  What is the point of playing a game where everything you have worked so hard for will be given away for free as the next promotion?  For the players who want to play with their friends, all of theeeese answers are what's keeping them from playing the game.  If there is fault in the new system, it's that it's still too limited - current players need not apply, while even the fortunate former subscribers must grind out five levels and whatever gear they need to join their friends at endgame.

A solution worth trying?
In the short term, I think there are legitimate questions about whether this approach will work or is a good idea.  As Azuriel points out, some of these goodies represent money left on the table for Blizzard, and it's not clear how many of the returning players Blizzard will be able to retain.  That said, I think it was overdue for someone to try this, and Blizzard is one of the best positioned, even after the rough year. 

As long as entire segments of the game - such as solo content, non-raid group content, etc - are reduced to a prerequisite that raiders must complete to be allowed to advance, there will be consequences to the way that players who actually want to use this content are able to experience it.  In Cataclysm, Blizzard expended a staggering amount of resources on new leveling content that even their core demographic for this material - longtime players like myself with high nostalgia value and willingness to roll alts - can't use the content because the rush to level cap ruined the exp curve for everyone else. 

As damaging as paying to skip to max level (the next logical step in this progression) may be to the MMO's, I think the consequences of continued inaction may be worse. 

Class Selection By Role Subtraction

Like Spinks, I'm pondering what I'm going to do about a main character when Rift's headstart kicks off this week.   Historically, I've done pretty poorly in guesstimating which classes I will prefer in a new MMO.  That said, I'm writing down my Rift open beta class thoughts anyway so I can see how they compare to what I actually end up playing.

The Two Honorable Mentions
A quirk to today's flexible class systems is that in some ways you're choosing based on what you don't want to play (or at least are willing to forego) as by what you like.  For example:

• Rift's warriors do some interesting things.  In a few examples, there is the anti-magic specialist Void Knight, the DPS Beastmaster with its off-tanking pet cat, or the highly mobile ranged elemental attacking Riftblade.  That said, warriors can't heal others and offer only limited support/utility.  If you're not looking to tank, you're just another DPS.  That's a bit of a liability in a game where you're probably going to run into open rift groups that have someone tanking but are struggling for heals. 
  
• Ranged DPS pet classes always have an easy time leveling since they have a tanking pet they can hide behind.  Rift makes this even easier for the appropriate combinations (Rogues who take Ranger and Bard, Mages who take Chloromancer and either Necromancer or Elementalist) because these archetypes offer passive DPS smart healing.  You won't have to watch your pet's health, because you'll be topping it off automatically as you nuke, and you won't need to worry about aggro too much since your DPS will usually be slightly lower to account for the healing output.  No thanks.

There are some interesting options elsewhere in the mage tree - for instance, both the Dominator (a CC specialist) and the Archon (buff/debuff specialist) have some interesting tricks, and even the Elementalist does a decent job of providing the player with offensive spells so that you're not left feeling like you're some NPC pet's sidekick.  Even so, mages can't melee (or tank) at all, and I hear underwhelming reviews of their damage potential, so I think I'll save that one for a future alt.

The Top Contenders
So, I'm left with the Rogue and the Cleric.

Rogues do a bit of everything.  Beyond the smart-healing bard (which might be very useful in public rift groups, where you can't be sure who will have aggro or who else will be trying to heal them), I find the Riftstalker tanking soul intriguing.  Riftstalkers can turn their combo points into damage shields for extra durability and healing.  The other soul that stood out for me was the trap-based Saboteur.  If you're going to be tanking the mobs yourself anyway (which everyone does while solo), dropping traps at your feet seems like a good way to increase your AOE damage.  Also, throwing half a dozen explosive charges at a mob and then detonating them all at once is one of the more amusing combo mechanics in the game. 

Priests also do a bit of everything, but with a major in healing and a minor in off-tanking (rather than the other way around).  The Justicar off-tanking soul does some passive self healing powered by life elemental attacks, including life spells you get from other souls (such as the healing/nuking Sentinel or Purifier).  Melee priests seem to like the elemental attacks of the Shaman, but I found that I was getting by alright with the Druid occupying the third slot with a mix of melee, ranged, healing, and a support-based pet. 

In the end, I think I'm going to go with the Cleric to start with.  My favorite race, the high elves, comes with a minor bonus to the priest primary stat.  I'd like enough tank-ability to solo, but I'm more interested in healing than tanking in a group setting, and the Clerics definitely offer more options in that department (even if fewer involve smart healing).  The thing that's surprising about this decision process is that it's almost entirely driven by what I'm less interested in doing than by what I'm actively looking for. 

Now watch me end up switching to a warrior in the first week, just because I said I wasn't that interested.  :)

Cataclysm Old World Leveling Paths

One of the things that I've been wondering about was how many new alts it would take to see all the content of the revised old world in Cataclysm.  Having covered the newbie zones of Cataclysm, here's a listing and commentary on the zones of the revised old world (from 10-60). 

Overall, pretty much every zone has at least one new flight path.  With a few exceptions, the plan is for you to spend five levels in each zone.  You'll typically have 2-4 choices for any given level range.  In most cases, you can move on to the next zone a level early - if you find yourself several levels ahead of the curve as you finish an area, you can probably run a dungeon or two with the dungeon finder and then skip a zone to move on to the next five level tier.  Here's the rundown, based in part on the list of Horde and Alliance breadcrumb quests.

Levels 10-20
Alliance: Westfall/Redridge (humans), Darkshore (NE and Worgen), Loch Modan (Dwarves, Gnomes), and Bloodmyst (Draenei, presumably unchanged from TBC)
Horde: North Barrens (Orcs, Trolls, Tauren), Azshara (Goblins), Silverpine (Undead), and Ghostlands (Blood Elves, presumably unchanged from TBC)

The quirk with this level range is that you might be starting as early as level 9 (if you ditch the newbie zone the moment you qualify for the breadcrumb quest) or as late as level 13 (which I hit on some characters with rest exp, heirlooms, and exp for harvesting).  I find it interesting that the six non-TBC zones got some of the biggest and most dramatic geographic revisions of the Cataclysm.  Perhaps Blizzard decided that they had to show veterans changes early and often if they want them to stick with new alts to level 20? 

Levels 20-25
Ashenvale (both factions), Wetlands (Alliance), Duskwood (Alliance), Hillsbrad (Horde)

Though these zones are considered "contested" territory on PVP servers, the contest has been won in all but Ashenvale; the remaining three zones only offer quests for the closest side.  (From here on out, everyone shares all the zones.)  It's kind of unfortunate that the Horde bottlenecks into literally two choices so early in the level progression. 

I've actually done Duskwood on an old Discipline Priest alt.  All of the major plots from 2004 remain in the zone, they've just moved so that you don't have to run back and forth across the zone repeatedly.  

Levels 25-30
Stonetalon, Arathi, and North Stranglethorn Vale

I'm kind of looking forward to NSTV because I hear that there are quests in the former raid area of Zul'Gurub.  Otherwise, I can't say that any of these really interest me.

Levels 30-35
Desolace, Hinterlands, South Barrens, Cape of Stranglethorn (South STV)

This is the only range between 20-60 with four zone - more on this below.  The Alliance breadcrumb quest for South Barrens is a bit weird, in that there's no flight path or boat - you have to run/swim from either Ratchet or Theramore.  You'd think they could have chartered something for the occasion, given that the NPC is standing on what appears to be a dock. 

Levels 35-40
Ferelas, West Plaguelands, Dustwallow
 
WPL was just about the first place I went to visit when 4.03 went live.  The geography has not changed, but the zone has a completely re-written plot, many areas that are no longer plagued, and a variety of solo quests pitting players against the bosses of the Scholomance instance.

Levels 40-45
Thousand Needles, East Plaguelands

Here's another unfortunate level range with only two options.  Worse, IMO one of the options is way better than the other.

The Scourge-mopup operation in EPL is not as far along as the effort in WPL, so the zone looks very similar to how it did previously.  Also, this area probably holds the record for most flight paths in a single zone, since ALL of the former world PVP towers get their own neutral flight points. 

Meanwhile, TN was once a canyon and is now completely underwater.  Can't say this is going to be a very hard choice. 

Levels 45-50
Tanaris, Felwood, Badlands (45-47) + Searing Gorge (47-50)

Blizzard opted to deal with some of the sparser zones of the Central Eastern Kingdoms by having them span narrower level ranges.  The Badlands is supposedly amusing.

Levels 50-55
Un'goro, Winterspring, Burning Steppes (50-52) + Swamp of Sorrows (52-55)

This is another range that I'm just not that excited to see.  The geography is pretty much the same as it was, and there aren't any major changes in the balance of power (like, say, the Forsaken conquering Southshore). 

Levels 55-60 (or 58)
Silithus, Blasted Lands

There's only two options here, but you do have the option of moving on to Outland and the unchanged TBC content at 58 if you don't hate that entire expansion.  Also, you now get hit with a 90% exp penalty for mob kills once you exceed that expansion's level cap (60 in this case), and you can unlock flying mounts (usable in Azeroth if you have the Cataclysm expansion - note that everything else in this post is 100% available to players who do not own Cataclysm). 

I'm definitely more interested in the Blasted Lands, which got bumped up by 10 levels (while WPL and EPL got bumped down with the demise of Arthas) so that players can actually be standing at the Dark Portal when they reach the appropriate level.

A math error at Blizzard?
Loosely speaking, you're looking at two core paths that get you from level 25-60 using roughly adjacent zones: 

• Kalimdor: Stonetalon, Desolace, Ferelas, Thousand Needles, Tanaris, Ungoro, Silithus
• Eastern Kingdoms: Arathi, Hinterlands, WPL, EPL, Badlands, Searing Gorge, Burning Steppes, Swamp of Sorrows, Blasted Lands

There are also three little detours:
North+South STV (25-35)
South Barrens+Dustwallow (30-40)
Felwood+Winterspring (45-55)

Looking at it that way, I wonder if Blizzard screwed up the level ranges on South Barrens and Dustwallow; if these zones had instead run from 35-45, there'd be a complete third path from 25-55.  Now, there is instead an inexplicable glut of content from 30-35 and a painful gap from 40-45.  I suppose that you can make up the difference with the dungeon finder (or do the two STV's and then run all of South Barrens and Dustwallow over-level). 

One final note, Wowhead says there are about 2900 quests from levels 20 to 60, and about 900 of those are available to both factions (i.e. neutral questgivers).  This does not account for situations where the two factions have the same quest with different flavor text (and does catch some of the early TBC quests), but it gives you some idea of how much duplication you're going to see if you're playing all the paths on both sides. 

The answer:
So, how many leveling paths are there in the old world revamp?

12 paths to level 5 (2 unchanged from TBC)
10 paths to level 10 (2 unchanged from TBC)
8 paths to level 20 (2 unchanged from TBC)
5 paths to level 25
3-6 paths to level 55 (depending on how you're counting neutral quests)
2-4 paths from 55 to TBC

The odds that I'm going to end up with four new level 60's by the end of Cataclysm aren't great, but I suppose they're not zero either. 

Guide To WoW Cataclysm Newbie Area Revamps

I've finally "finished" my survey of the new level 1-11 content in Cataclysm.  If you're considering rolling up a new race and have no idea which way to go, there's a rundown.

The New (Worgens in Gilneas, Goblins in the Lost Isles)

Cataclysm added new introductory experiences for the new Goblin and Worgen races.  I don't say "new zones" because, like the starting storyline for Death Knights, these stories are ONLY available to newly created characters (who are not allowed into the "real" world until they finish them).  If you like the DK intro, or the linear quest style of the level 80+ zones in Cataclysm, these new areas are not to be missed.  If you dislike the "theme park", well, at least you'll be done in two hours or so? 

Many people like the Goblin story for its sheer uniqueness - there are a lot of vehicles and other gimmicks, along with a storyline that continues into the new Azshara.  For some reason, I wouldn't rate it so highly.  I don't know why - the content is pretty, and the comic relief fits with the personality of the race.  Somehow, it felt like I was spending more time watching travel than I did in other zones, and like almost every quest involved some gizmo from my amazing toolbelt.  Maybe I was just burned out by the time I got to this one (which I saved for last because it got such good reviews).

By contrast, I really enjoyed Gilneas, which I felt captured the feel of an old school werewolf story nicely, while bringing in clear reasons for the Worgen to side with the Alliance against the Horde.

The Abandoned (Eversong for Blood Elves, Azuremyst for Draenei)
It appears that these areas did not get significant attention for the Cataclysm.  Both have new voiceovers explaining what the races have been doing for their respective factions in the four years since TBC.  Azuremyst has at least one new flight point, and Eversong has two.  Unfortunately, it looks like that's where the changes ended.  I didn't see any new content in Eversong, and I gave up on my Draenei when I realized that all the quests were still set in the immediate aftermath of the crash of the Exodar four years ago.  (Sorry, gang, just didn't feel like doing that arc yet again, even for the blog.) 

On the plus side, these areas are both a bit less linear (especially Eversong) precisely because they're older, which I guess is good if you miss that sort of thing.  However, both areas are more isolated than ever now that lowbies from the other races get equal quality loot in their new areas.  The BE still at least have some personality, but the Draenei would have been better off if the Exodar had been destroyed in the Cataclysm so that they could start somewhere else (perhaps Elwynn?).   

The Half-Stories (Trolls in a corner of Durotar, Gnomes in a corner of Dun Morogh)
Both races get their own content from levels 1 through 5-6 before joining their Orc/Dwarf comrades on their leveling paths.  As with most new Cataclysm content, expect significant quality time with NPC voiceovers.  The intended epic feel of these stories is cut short by the abrupt endings; it's hard to build that much accomplishment into a story that ends at level five.  Also, I'm not a huge fan of the zones that either of these feed into.

The Revamps
The remaining six races got a range of updates.  There are limited changes to the geography.  (On the other hand, there appears to have been an conscious effort to Cata-splode all of the level 10-20 zones except for the abandoned TBC areas.)  All zones also got significant travel improvements - at least one new flight path, and often some one-way rides from one hub to the next to save some time running without a mount.  Some of the zones got a more dramatic scripted event as a finale.  The rundown:

• Durotar (Orcs, later trolls): The level 1-5 section was completely untouched.  The north west chunk of the zone has been partially flooded, and feels poorly paced - you're sent on a long circuit around the area, but it's not clear what quests you need to do first, and I found myself outleveling them (perhaps because I went out of the "correct" order?).  Also, the zone storyline just ends with routine breadcrumbs to The Barrens.
   
• Dun Morogh (Dwarves, later gnomes): Level 5 characters no longer need to run through the cave of troggs - an NPC gives you an airlift out of the starter valley.  Beyond that, the content seems to have gotten a fair amount of attention, but there's actually too much of it.  They could have easily left out at least one quest camp and still had enough exp to go around.  Instead, there are too many quests and you end up feeling dragged around by the nose as you go somewhere to be told that you only need to kill 6 rats (or whatever) before being sent on.  At least this zone does get a finale event. 
  
  
• Teldrassil (Night Elves): The major change here is that there are no more quests that require players to run all the way back across the zone to talk to the dude by the lake in the far eastern corner.  Your quests will either be turned in near where you did the killing, or at the next hub.  Also, the zone has a finale event.  Considering that this was the most painful zone to start in previously due to insane travel, making it up to average status is a huge improvement.
  
  
• Mulgore (Tauren): The story here is similar, many quests provide one-way travel on to the next location, and the zone got a finale event (before putting you on a flight path to Ogrimmar to hit The Barrens).  I've always loved the look of this zone, and now it's just a bit less painful on the travel.  That said, if you've done this zone before, you're probably going to find it very familiar. 
  
  
• Elwynn Forest (Human): The newbie area has been attacked (and set ablaze) by Blackrock Orcs and Goblins.  I don't know if your average newbie realizes that these guys are NOT the factions in The Horde, but they're certainly more memorable than the previous residents of the area.  Travel time out to the lumber camp on the far east of the zone has been fixed with a much needed new flight path.  The finale is the most epic-est encounter that any level 11 will ever attempt and (possibly) survive. 
  
  Also, I might have been doing things wrong by trying this on a completely un-twinked warrior (a class that really suffers from outdated weapons), but this was far and away the zone that challenged me the most.  Elwynn seems to have more social mobs than most areas, there's a few areas even a perfect pull brings multiple mobs, and one quest target who has a whopping three helpers in his hut with him. 
  
  
• Tirisfal Glades (Forsaken Undead): Among the existing zones, this was far and away the most dramatic revamp.  All of the lore has been re-written to accommodate the fall of the Lich King.  An additional mini-hub has been added to avoid some previously long travel time.  We get some new supporting characters who will apparently be following us to Silverpine.  Overall, I give this zone the highest marks, both for the improvements and for creating the most compelling storyline - if I had to delete ten of the eleven new characters I created for this exercise, the undead is the one storyline I would choose to continue.
  
  

Overall, I'm glad I went on this little project, and I hope that this info is at least somewhat useful to some of you who are considering new alts.  I should have a followup in the next day or so looking at the paths from 10-60 (no, I'm not planning on actually leveling characters through all of them). 

Cataclysm Class Rotation Design

MMO-Champion held a contest for writing guides in their forums, and I've been reading through the winning DPS guides since I'm experimenting with so many specs at the moment.  I was struck by a common thread in the advice:

• "Shadow Priests do not have a DPS "rotation" in a classical sense. Instead, we operate on a priority system, determined by which of our spells should be cast at a given time, given its supposed superior damage benefit over other spells." - Newnoise's Shadow Priest Guide
• "In contrast to the Fury Warrior who has more of a preset rotation, the Arms Warrior's rotation is a priority based system that constantly fluctuates based upon inconsistant procs and abilities that pop up randomly throughout the rotation..." - Loto Bordeau's Arms Warrior PVE Guide
• "Alright, the first thing you need to know about frost's rotation is that you're not casting spells in a repetitive cycle. You're conforming to a priority list." - The Ultimate Guide to Frost by Karrok
• "Cats don't use a set ability rotation; instead we have a priority list of buffs/debuffs/abilities to use." - The Cat Guide, 4.0.3a edition by Mihir

I don't know enough about the endgame to tell whether these guys know their stuff or not, but my personal class impressions back them up; Blizzard seems to have gone out of their way to add some kind of reactive proc mechanic to DPS classes.

This approach makes sense because it provides more room for character performance to scale with player skill.  In a world where bosses like Patchwerk sit still and take whatever players are dishing out, gear and a pre-set rotation can account for the majority of player performance.  Moving to a world where players need to adjust their actions allows more room for superior skill to shine through.  (It also means that a subpar random DPS player in an automatically generated group might be that much further below what the dungeon was balanced for.) 

Then again, I'm also looking at these classes from the bottom up, as I play around with each at level one.  Everyone now has some way to restore HP to either themselves or their pets, generally pretty early on in their character's lives.  The casters all have a spammable nuke and the melee all have an instant attack of some sort.  Everyone can now expect some sort of light-up proc that tells them to drop their bread and butter skills and use some more beneficial situational ability.  Though various classes get various buffs, it seems like these too have been shared around enough to make sure that most raids will have most of what they need without too much suffering. 

It's certainly possible that there are exceptions - the Arms guy says that Fury is EZ-mode, though I'd take that assessment more seriously if it came from an actual Fury player - but the result seems to be that you're getting a very similar play experience as you level.  There are still differences in feel - the hunter's focus mechanic is different, some of the healer DPS specs are locked out of healing by stances, etc - but I wonder whether the similarities are going to start standing out more if and when players spend more attention on rolling up alts.

Shattering Month 1.5

It's been about a month since my last update on my post-Shattering army of WoW alts.  What has my $15 contribution to the Blizzard world domination fund accomplished this month?

• Greenwiz, my Gnome Mage and nominal main, hit level 84, having cleared out Vashj'ir and done various other things that were neither questing nor extensive dungeon running.
• Greenraven, my Tauren Warrior, hit level 82 after doing about half of the quests in Mount Hyjal and five Blackrock Caverns runs in pursuit of a hat for the Winter's Veil achievement.  

• Tangleroot, previously level 9 Druid, advanced to level 16 (Balance), clearing out the remainder of Durotar and the pre-Crossroads portion of The Barrens.  Unlocked turquoise cat form and green bear form.  The enchanted heirloom staff is really killing the enjoyment of this character, as I routinely one-shot mobs with eclipsed Starsurge. 

• Sorrowdusk, a new Undead Warlock, hit level 12 (Destruction) clearing out the revised Tirisfal (probably my favorite revamp of a pre-Cata newbie zone so far).
• Seloxia, a new Blood Elf Priest, hit 11 (Discipline) with a number of quests yet to go in the zone.  In search of a way to challenge myself, my plan is for this character to actually wear the cosmetic holiday armor outfits.  This means I'm statistically (and cosmetically until the Lunar festival hits, since the Christmas outfit is underwear on females) naked, and actually finding a fair degree of challenge as a result.  Possibly the most fun I've had on any alt so far, even though the disorganized quests of Eversong appear to be all but unaltered.
• Blackwold, a new Worgen Hunter, hit level 13 (Survival) while clearing out Gilneas. The scripted storyline is impressive, like most of the new Cataclysm content.

As it now stands, I still have three newbie zones left to go on my survey project (Goblin, Human, and Draenei).  I also have yet to see the majority of the new level 80+ solo content, even though I have one character most of the way to the cap.  Overall, I suppose the content is probably about where it should be; I've still got more stuff left to do in Cataclysm (albeit in part because I'm now running a second max level character) than I did a month into Wrath, and way more stuff to do if I actually continue to work on the new low level stuff.

I will note that I have long since given up on using heirlooms for my budding alt army because they break the difficulty curve.  That aside, I find it slightly mind-boggling that Blizzard designed the new content as a linear quest "theme park" but then set things so that the exp curve breaks if you ever log off (thereby earning rested exp).  Isn't the whole point of a theme park that you arrive at new quests at the appropriate level, rather than after you've greened them out?  I guess the current system is fine if you're just in it for the next level up message, but it's a bit disappointing if you're actually hoping to see the new content at an appropriate level.

(P.S. If anyone who plays Alliance on a US server wants a visit from yours truly, I'm out of slots for the Human and Draenei characters on Hyjal.)

Future Directions In DDO

Turbine produced a surprize announcement for DDO players at this year's Penny Arcade Expo.  They had previously confirmed a new playable race - the half orc - for the forthcoming Update 7 patch (now confirmed for October).  The big, unexpected reveal was that the same patch will ALSO add half-elves to the game.

This is the kind of clever move that Turbine has to be making with DDO's business model.  Those of us who have gone the "Premium Free To Play" route literally only have to pay when Turbine adds something new that interests us.  Half-Elves presumably did not take a ton of effort to implement - they're Elves with slightly less pointy ears and stats based at least somewhat on the pen and paper stats for the race.  Even so, they're something new to add to the game, and people who don't care don't need to pay for them. 

Camping Out At Low Levels
As is increasingly traditional, Turbine has welcomed the US holiday weekend with significant sales on both Turbine Points and store purchases.  I've taken the opportunity to top off my balance and pick up the newest adventure packs. 

In principle, I could use my newly refreshed point balance to buy up all of the remaining adventure packs in the game and still probably have enough points left to buy the two new races (pretty remarkable for a total of $100 spent on the game).  In practice, there's no point in saving a dollar on some higher level quest pack that I might not need for months (if ever) and then not being able to pick up something that I actually want and would use right away.

In the mean time, I've been happily using my purchased Veteran Status to re-roll, experiment with new builds, and generally explore the low level content.  The way character power scaling works under the DND rules literally breaks large numbers of character builds that are perfectly fun to play at lower levels.  I've decided to embrace this rather than stress out about it, and have bought up basically all of the low level content in the game to give my army of alts the widest possible variety of options to visit. 

I will probably get to the upper levels eventually - perhaps my latest character will be the one I stick with, and I do want to see the new Red Fens questline - but there's no real hurry.  The value of the DDO free to play/freemium model is that I can take as long as I want (and even earn small amounts of Turbine Points while I'm doing it). 

Trials of the Defiler

I spent the other half of the EQ2 holiday bonus weekend working on a new Defiler alt.  As is my habit, I named the Ogre Narache, after a Tauren newbie village in WoW.  (I dubbed the wolf Cairne, a less obscure reference, but I figure that relatively few players will be thinking in that direction, and the ones that do can't claim that it's not a fantasy-appropriate name.) 

My road to the defiler
The defiler is notoriously one of the worst solo leveling classes in EQ2, to the point where the standard advice is to start as or betray to its good-aligned counterpart, the mystic, and switch back at the level cap.  I'd actually considered a Mystic when I was trialing melee-spec priests back in the day, but I went with the Warden instead in large part because the Mystic's wolf is a ghost wolf, and I'm not that impressed with its appearance. 

In the interim, I've tried half a dozen of EQ2's caster subclasses (the fury druid, and all but the coercer amongst the mages) but none of them have really stuck with me.  If you've played a WoW mage, "root+nuke" simply feels inferior to "nuke and incidentally root as a bonus effect".  I was interested in field testing either a defiler or a templar (which also has a reputation for poor DPS) because these two healer classes rely on spells for DPS but do not have traditional root/kiting tools.  The defiler gets a nice looking black wolf and a giant spear, and is available to evil races at creation (I've been avoiding Tolkien races, I already have a Fae, and the Froglok hopping animation looks atrocious with runspeed enhancements), so Defiler it was.

Woes of a low level priest
As advertised, the DPS is pretty bad at the low levels.  In particular, all priests really suffer for DPS in the thankfully-brief level 6-10 range, because their spell lists focus on healing at a time when most characters are going to be trying to get by on solo DPS.  (The game's next patch will supposedly add another attack for all healers in this level range to try and improve this situation.)  Your damage spells consist of a DOT and a nuke, each of which has a cooldown.  If you aren't aware that casters can autoattack in between spellcasts without losing casting time or that you can combo those two spells together with the poorly described "heroic opportunity" for a bit of additional damage, you might actually find yourself failing to kill under-conned mobs.  (This was my experience on my very first day in EQ2.) 

Fortunately, the pampered Narache is not my first character.  I had Samarya, who is going to be a Woodworker, craft the new guy some pikes.  Lyriana produced some jewelry, a mastercrafted ranged slot item, and all of the spells (including a few key mastercrafts) for the trek to 20.  I was aiming Narache himself at the Armorer profession, so I powered him through the crafting tutorial and promptly crafted a full set of Defiler-appropriate chain armor.  I also picked up my first AA to acquire the dog, who serves as a reasonable off-tank and DPS.  Though a more DPS-oriented class would be even more impressive in that setup, suddenly DPS was no longer an issue. 

Overall, I like the flavor of the Defiler as a caster class.  The pet is an effective addition without requiring micromanagement or making the actual character feel like their job is to provide support for an NPC.  If attacked by multiple mobs, I can make a point of attacking a different foe from the one the wolf has chosen, relying on group-wide cures or damage wards to heal us both.  Maybe it won't scale well into the higher levels, especially if I'm unable or unwilling to keep twinking it out in the best gear.  Then again, quest content doesn't take any huge jumps in difficulty until Kunark, and level 68 would make this far and away my most successful EQ2 alt to date. 

Most of all, I think it's unfortunate that a relatively unique class, which is actually well-desired in groups besides, is hamstrung by being given low DPS in the name of "balance".  Unlike the melee healers, this type of character doesn't get to just add most of its possible to DPS for free while simultaneously healing (remember, in EQ2 you can autoattack at no penalty between casting, including casting heals).  I don't know who exactly wins by having the classes balanced in this way, but people who are missing out on the Defiler because of the bad solo reputation are clearly losing out.

Re-departing Outland

My long-neglected Tauren warrior finally hit level 68 this week, making him eligible to depart Outland for Northrend. I did all of the "Horde-specific" quests in Nagrand and Blade's Edge between levels 65-68, though the quotes are necessary because many of those quests were identical to their Alliance counterparts other than the questgiver saying "For the Horde" when you talk to them. I was very disappointed because I had always figured that my fourth trip through Outland (twice on retail, one in the Wrath beta) would feature new and different material, but instead I was simply killing the same mobs for different questgivers more often than not.

I did cheat a little bit in obtaining my Northrend alchemy perks early, but, even so, I was a bit surprised at how easy the content was. I had My Fury spec was less than ideal, but I suppose that the option of swinging a pair of two-handers and glyphing Bloodthirst for double healing didn't even exist back in 2007. I would have expected a cake walk on my home server with a full set of heirlooms across the board. Cut off from all those resources, and left with only the stuff I could pay for with gold from that particular character, the content was still a cake walk. If I want a challenge, I need to aim for mobs 2-3 levels higher than I am, so that the reduced hit rates can kick in and slow my swinging flurry of death down a notch.

In one final note, as nearly as I can tell, Netherstorm and Shadowmoon are both completely obsolete. I had just barely replaced my last pre-Outland item when I hit 68, and I didn't have any trouble jumping into Northrend (where I promptly upgraded those items even further). I remember this jump being tougher during the Wrath beta (I haven't tried it with a level 68 on the live servers), even with the then massively-overpowered Death Knight. Under the circumstances, there's no reason whatsoever to stick around in TBC content, gaining less exp and worse rewards.

Given how slowly Blizzard adds content, it will never fully make sense to me why they make such a point of aiming whole zones in each expansion at players who aren't already at the previous cap. Are there really players who gave up at level 68 and weren't willing to pay for Wrath until they heard that they could skip those last two zones? In Cataclysm in particular, with a relatively smaller amount of the new content allocated for max level characters to begin with, I'm concerned that this will leave not all that much content to go around for the leveling path to 85.