New Year's Resolutions For 2011

With another year over, it's once again time for New Year's Resolutions here at PVD.  I have somewhat of a mixed record at this activity (usually all the resolutions that are going to happen are done by Canada Day), but I find the exercise worthwhile for planning out my year.  Without further ado, here's what I think I'm going to be up to in 2011, along with some comments on why I'm interested in things and/or how far I've gotten already.

Post-Cataclysm WoW

• Get both my Gnome mage (currently 84) and my Tauren warrior (82) up to the new level cap of 85. 
  My mage came up just short of hitting the milestone this year for reasons I've discussed. 
  
• Complete every normal and heroic 5-man at least once on both high level characters.     
  
• Explore some of the revamped old world on new alts.
  Currently, I'm a bit over halfway through a tour of the newbie (1-12) zones with a small army of new alts.  My favorite lowbie specs right now are Subtlety Rogue, Survival Hunter, Destruction Warlock, and Discipline Priest.  It's possibly telling that none of those are traditional leveling specs, which tend to make life too easy.

DDO

• Actually get a character into the mid-high levels.
  My highest is currently level 7 (out of 20).  This doesn't bother me, since I'm having fun with the chronic re-rolls, but it might be nice to eventually see some of the new mid-level content as it arrives.

LOTRO

• Complete the Vol 3 Book 2 content in Enedwaith (added during the F2P switch)
  
• Await Isengard
  LOTRO has never been the game I go to for dungeon grinding, and new dungeons are the only announced content between now and next fall. 

EQ2 Live/Extended

• Write fewer news posts about the EQ2 business model.
  Every studio spent 2010 experimenting with new ways to charge players more, but SOE has really managed to make me feel like I'm getting less and less for my money with EQ2, as the "missing" resources go to the game's cash shop or the studio's other offerings.  Though I believe my coverage to be accurate and informative, I feel like I've said what there is to be said here.  I'd like to pare back my posts about this game to the (currently minimal) time and money that I actually spend on it.
  
• Either find a Velious bargain or skip the expansion entirely
  We won't know until they lift the NDA, but nothing that I've heard about this expansion makes me excited about spending money on it.  Right now, the only way I can see myself paying for Velious is if I can get an extreme discount on a surplus unsold retail box later in the year.  If that happens, I might pay to copy Lyriana, my main, off of the left-for-dead Lucan D'Lere server and over to the Extended servers so that I can enjoy this and future content at my leisure without paying for a subscription.

Runes of Magic

• No current plans to return to ROM
  I would not be opposed to paying money for this game, but they would have to actually deliver an experience that's better than what I could get for the same amount from other games.  I'm at level 30 now and already feeling that the exp curve is balanced around grinding with exp pots and paying for daily quest limit reset tickets to keep both my classes leveled appropriately.  This just doesn't strike me as fun.

PS3 Games

• DC Universe Online: Sightsee for a month, maybe return for a month at a time as content is added
  If I find enough to have it be worth paying for two additional months (beyond the month that comes with the box), I'll consider this exercise a success.
   
• Check out followups to games I've enjoyed, including Uncharted 3 (Nov 2011), Batman: Arkham Asylum 2 (a.k.a. Gotham City?), and one or more Assassins' Creeds.  I'm also vaguely interested in the supposedly forthcoming Tomb Raider collection, and perhaps Red Dead Redemption. 

Rift (or whatever it's called when it comes out)

• Probably visit this game for a few months
  Depending on what else I'm up to when the MMO-siah of the moment arrives, I might wait and see what people are saying at the 30 day mark.  Telara sounds promising, and it might be unfortunate to miss the launch crowds because these will spawn massive invasions, but I remain concerned about the long term. 

Other MMO's

• F2P Watch: Both Vanguard and STO have been discussed for potential F2P conversions.  I would try both of these if/when they lose the monthly fee. 
• My interest in SWTOR is currently extremely low after not having liked any of the past Bioware games I've played.  Also, this may or may not even show up in 2011 anyway. 
• Though I try to keep an open mind about these things, I've also got limited time if anything else (or even everything I've listed above) is going to get my attention.   

The Blog

• Though I did manage 200+ posts this past year, my work schedule has made 3 posts per week about what I'm capable of handling these days, which would put me more in the 150 range.  Unfortunate, but I'd rather not feel compelled to post stuff I don't enjoy writing just to make an arbitrary posting quota. 
• As always, thank my readers for sticking with me for another year. 

Best wishes to everyone for a happy 2011! 

Cataclysm Mid-level Gear Resets

My mage just hit level 84 while doing some of the early quests in Uldum. I decided to skip Deepholm so that I could do SOME of the expansion at its intended level.  As a result, I hit Uldum with a bunch of fresh blue loot that I'd just gotten out of BRC and Throne of Tides... only to immediately replace them with quest reward greens. 

Hitting a gear reset when a new patch or expansion comes out is relatively common at this point, but I really wasn't expecting dungeon reward gear to be quite so short-lived. 

Leveling dungeons of Cataclysm
The seven new 5-man dungeons of Cataclysm are effectively divided into three level-range tiers (81-82, 83-84, and 85).  The strange thing is that players gain enough (or, in my case, more than enough) experience to leave each level range just from then solo quests.  My dungeon gear got pitched the moment after I looted it because it was already out of date by the time I got it (late in level 83, and therefore in the tier above the 81-82 content).   

This design drastically limits the range of dungeons that you would want to do at any given level. Once you get to level 85 and acquire enough gear to unlock heroic dungeons, you will have nine options available to you.  Unfortunately, a level 83 character's random queue includes four dungeons (two of which are out-dated), and I'm told that the level 85 random normal dungeon includes the 3 level 85 dungeons plus the 2 83-84 dungeons (which you no longer want to run by then).  If there's one thing that makes WoW's dungeon system feel old faster, it's doing the same limited selection over and over again. 

Exp but not gear
Blizzard's in a difficult situation here because the power level of gear increases significantly over the expansion.  The experience curve seems to be balanced around players completing all the solo content without rested exp.  In reality, the stuff I've done for the exp from 80-84 includes: 

• All the quests in Vashj'ir
• 2-3 quests in Deepholm (for access to the zone)
• About a dozen quests in each of Hyjal and Uldum (about the minimum needed to hit friendly with the local reputations, so that I can have their tabards for dungeon rep at 85). 
• One run each through Blackrock Caverns, Throne of the Tides, and Stonecore
• Enough archeology surveying to get to 135 skill
• 15-20 days worth of daily cooking quest
• Completed the "explore Cataclysm" achievement by flying around the new zones
• Logged off in cities, so that I've always had rested exp while leveling

The last four items are the problem, as all of these award exp (not huge amounts individually, but they add up) while not providing any gear.  If there was no exp from these activities (or if the exp curve was balanced to account for them), Blizzard would be able to safely assume that I was always acquiring level appropriate gear as I gained levels.  Because players can inadvertently get ahead of the gear curve, it becomes necessary to provide a way to catch on gear. 

The result has the unfortunate effect of really limiting the value of running these leveling dungeons.  It's probably still worth visiting each location once since there are guaranteed quest rewards, but the remaining loot for the majority of the expansion's normal five-man content just isn't going to stick around long enough to be worth farming. 

Solo Vs Group, Vashj'ir Style

After slogging along for the better part of two levels, my mage finally completed the quests in Vashj'ir.  The zone offers underwater combat, a seahorse mount, possibly the best visuals in the game, and a main storyline that runs through something like 145 solo quests.  Then you reach the end, and it turns out that the entire arc you've been soloing for hours is merely the lead-in for a group instanced dungeon. 

In fairness, we have come a bit of a ways since 2007.  The entire chain is not required to get the dungeon quests, which are found inside the zone itself.  (Some of the early quests in the zone are going to be nigh indispensable for actually reaching the dungeon in the first place.)  Meanwhile, the random dungeon finder makes it much easier to actually find a group for leveling instance content, though it did take me over 90 minutes to queue and complete the zone.  Back in the Burning Crusade era, all the solo quests would have been required to even zone in, and then the story finale would have been a raid encounter that most players would not be able to complete. 

That said, this compromise isn't really ideal for anyone.  Group players don't get the backstory behind the dungeon unless they're willing to spend hours on quests that will not challenge anyone in decent gear.  (You're also required to complete about a third of the quests for access to the Earthen Ring quartermaster, whose rep rewards include a tanking head enchant not available elsewhere in game.)  Meanwhile, solo players will need to carve out a large chunk of uninterrupted time to actually see the payoff of their lengthy work through the zone.

In the end, players generally choose their preferred playstyle for a reason.  Much as I understand Blizzard's desire to get group players to visit all the solo content they spent so much time on, and to get solo players to try the dungeon gear grind (the first two upgrades are free guaranteed quest rewards), this type of mechanic isn't going to change anyone's mind on how they want to play the game.  

Early Impressions of the PS3 DCUO Beta

I spent about an hour over the weekend playing the DCUO beta on my PS3, and I've also skimmed some of the information about the title available online. 

The good news is that I enjoyed the game, to the point where I'm probably going to save the content for when the game actually comes out.  There are some flaws; the menu controls on the PS3 controller are awkward (as always), and newbies are hit with a lot of choices up front about powers, weapons, and skills, with limited information to evaluate the choices (or determine which, if any, can be fixed later).  Even so, the devs really nailed the atmosphere, and I'd rather be playing this than anything else I own on the PS3 at the moment. 

On the downside, the content appears to be extremely limited; I expect to pick the game up with the included month in February and then resubscribe for a month every few content patches.  Ironically, playing the game on the PS3 helps with this plan. I don't own either a keyboard or a headset, so I won't be able to communicate in any meaningful way; this greatly reduces the chances that I would make any friends and then feel compelled to stick around in a game when it's not delivering content. 

I fear that PC MMO players are going to be very disappointed with this project.  Compared to a single player PS3 game, though, DCUO offers more depth and more content, at a price that is only slightly higher so long as you game the subscription system appropriately.  Infrequent players, and those who spend a lot of time replaying the initial content, will pay more than they would with the current console $60 + paid DLC model.  If, on the other hand, you play a single character, pass on the inevitable microtransactions, and carefully time your subscriptions for when you actually have time to play, you may actually see all the content for less than it would cost to unlock DLC content one hour at a time. 

In the end, I'm not sure that it's entirely a bad thing if we start to get more MMO's that aren't necessarily designed with the expectation that players will stick around for years on end.  Many of the most unpleasant things about the genre result from developers trying to extend the /played time on a game beyond the legitimate entertainment value of the product.  By contrast, Sony's PS3 division would like to continue to sell you new games, not merely continue to charge you for games you've already purchased.  Though I'm not convinced that a monthly fee is the best approach (for either players or SOE), I'd like to think there's some potential in games that deliver a smaller quantity of higher quality content.