05/26/10

The Case for the Hero Class

I’ve been gone from World of Warcraft for some time, but, since returning, I’ve found myself reminded why I fell in love with WoW: the dungeons. Tonight, it was Violet Hold. Though exceptionally quiet (not a word spoke until the final boss was downed), it was a good run; quick and easy. I was able to keep threat the whole time, and only stuttered when I accidentally alt+tabbed out of window meaning to hit my alt+1 skill. I don’t think anyone noticed, though, because we got through it, pew-pewing our way to glory, and had the good time only a smooth, uninhibited run can provide.

The Arch-Druid should be the next Hero Class

Yet, even though I enjoy playing my mage arguably just as much as my Death Knight, I haven’t played him for more than a few minutes at a time. Why? Because I’m perpetually stuck waiting 10 minutes or more fun a dungeon. That’s not to say that there’s nothing to do on him, I could always quest, after all, but these experiences have really evidenced one of the biggest remaining problems in World of Warcraft: the proliferation of DPS classes.

But, I have to ask, why is that a problem? DPS is fun to play and I blame no one for taking it up over tanking/healing. There’s no responsibility (usually), so every run turns into a minigame to see how high you can push Recount. Every dungeon is a chance to see how powerful you are. Does tanking and healing do the same thing? No. At least, not in a way that appeals to the majority of players. Tanking is pass/fail and failing results in embarrassment. Healing gives the numbers but relies on the player being more of a helper than an ass-kicker.

The tank shortage was largely addressed when Wrath came out. If you played during TBC, you know how bad it got. I remember sitting in groups, using the LFG channel, and waiting for hours for a tank to respond. And then, the group had to live up to their standards or else they’d move on. Tanks being commodities, back then.

WoW’s first Hero Class made tanking easy and fun. Granted, the numbers game still isn’t as satisfying, since no one is competing with you, but the ease with which threat is kept emulates a great sense of power. DK numbers spiked initially and have since leveled out. We’re no longer in a situation where every dungeon would net you a DK tank, but it’s not uncommon, and the addition of more tanks into the pool help keep groups supplied.

And yet, here we are, almost two years out of the gate, looking down the aisle at Cataclysm, and there’s no additional Hero Class on the horizon. Why? Certainly, the great success of the Death Knight should have sent the message that we enjoy the additional options HCs provide.

The way I see it, there are a few possible reasons.

They don’t want players skipping New Azeroth; or,
They don’t mind DPSers waiting 15 minutes for dungeons; or,
They’re holding it for future expansions.

Death Knight in a cow suit! Wait...

Out of the three, I’d put my money on a combination of 2 and 3. It doesn’t make much sense to avoid a new class to keep people in Azeroth when thousands of players will go right into the 80+ content anyways.

We also can’t forget that, though she’s aging gracefully, WoW is getting pretty old. There’s still a lot of life left in the ol’ gal, but, let’s face it, the game hasn’t shown much growth in the last two years. Players are shifting in and out, and I’m sure it’ll spike with the expansion, but if Blizzard hopes to continue pulling old players back, they need to keep having exciting additions to offer. A new Hero Class certainly falls under that heading, and will be well received in the expansion after Cataclysm. As I mentioned before, I don’t think Cataclysm is going to last as long as Wrath. Blizzard will have a harder time pulling players back the more time goes on, this might be an ace they’re keeping in the hole.

Yet, I can’t help feeling we’re missing out on a good opportunity by not making new Hero Classes a standard expansion feature. I mean, let’s get the tank and healing classes out of the way first, and then bring in the more fun and creative ones. They’re giving all of the old world an overhaul, providing HC versions of existing classes would be like applying the same philosophy to every role. It’s an area of the game full of potential for exciting new ideas.

I’m not expecting any word on a new Hero Class anytime soon, so maybe this is all just a lot of wash. Still, it’s fun to think about what the future might hold. What about you, does WoW need more HCs, and healers at that?

Anyhow, I’m off to teach fourth grade. Happy Hump Day, folks!

05/19/10

Why WoW is like an old Shoe

That might sound derogatory, but I promise it’s not. As I mentioned a while back, I re-upped my subscription to WoW for this month. My re-entry into the game has been a bit hap-hazard, I’m afriad. My original plan was to work on my Death Knight and pull him the rest of the way to 80 (he’s 75 now). Yet, on that first night, I was bombarded with error messages and a UI gone bonkers from not having played in six months. I blame Curse; no better than a common peddler, I tell ya. So, I got annoyed for an evening, distracted for the couple days that followed and came crawling back to the Curse Client for my fix of fresh addons.

But, once I got in is when the real fun started. I have a problem. I always feel like I know exactly what I want to do until I get the chance to do it, then I get the urge to start on something else. So, when I came to the character select screen, I threw caution to the wind and changed realms away from my DK. No, it was a night for my mage to melt face. Except, when the time came for face melting fun, I was immediately ganked before the zone loading bar even finished for me. But, hey, I had a plan and I was going to stick to it. I flew back to my corpse (having died in Icecrown), rezzed, and queued up for a random dungeon. Word on the street says that you can get more gear through tokens than you could six months ago. So, queued I did.

That’s when I saw it. Approximate wait time: >12 minutes. TWELVE minutes?!? What was I supposed to do for twelve minutes? Questing was out of the question due to Ganky McGanksalot. I’m absolutely horrible at mage PvP (I still contend Blizzard put a target on my back that only I can’t see), so that was out too. Dailies? What am I, a vending machine; push the button for random thrusting motions? No. I wanted my loot pinata. Give me dungeons or give me death.

So, I caved and logged out back to the character creation screen. Hmmm, I thought, perhaps this is a good time to get ready for Cataclysm and roll an alt on Emerald Dream (my home server). Yes, a new plan was born. I looked into the races and classes coming with the expansion, saw that Goblins couldn’t be druid and decided it was the time. I was finally going to be an owlbear. And a cow. I made the biggest, ugliest, milk cow you’ve ever seen. And, in honor of my co-hosts on The Multiverse, I named him after both of them; Rikel (Riknas + Ferrel = Rikel) was born. As it turns out, leveling up seems to be easier in the beginning. I felt powerful right off the bat and didn’t run out of mana once. Still, killing ostriches only goes so far. I logged out again.

Now, I’m back at character select and steadfastly determine that it was time for the fix to be itched, and the scratch to be fixed. I logged into my DK. My tank. My undead Ken doll. My LFD popper; and, a strong popper he turned out to be.

Within two minutes, I was in Old Kingdom killing spiders. And, to my surprise, I was doing pretty good at it. Having not so much as thought of my rotation since the last December, I was expecting to have some trouble. After the first pull, I was back into it like I’d never left. 4,5,3,3,9,0. Just like that, Tank-Zilla. The only hiccup we had was when the hunter decided to run back through the instance to pull a pat we’d snuck past. Crazy hunter, hopping his way to heals like that.

The whole experience really reminded me of what’s so nice about WoW. You get into this nice little groove and everything begins to feel really familiar. You get to sense exactly how close to mobs you can get before they attack; you know the architecture before it ascends the horizon; you can alliterate all of the appropriate words until the game really starts to feel like home.

It reminded me of a pair of sneakers I own. I actually have two pairs that I wear often. The first is newer, cleaner, and all around better looking. The other I’ve had for three years; they’re old, stretched, scuffed, and generally just a lot more worn. But, they’re also really comfortable. They’re the ones I can slip on and off at a moments notice, for just about any purpose, and think nothing of. That’s WoW for me: comfortable, worn, and easily slipped back into. I like that familiarity, and that, for the last four years, WoW has fundamentally been the same game throughout.

Sometimes I don’t feel like wearing those old shoes, and sometimes I don’t feel like playing the old and familiar. But it’s nice to be able to slip back into those old familiar feelings– even if they’re often laced with indecisiveness. At the end of the day, it’s always satisfying because I’ve gotten what I expected to. When that stops happening, it’s time for a break.

The return is sweeter for it.

01/2/10

Tank it or spank it?

Lately, I’ve been playing around with tank classes even though my main role is usually ranged DPS. I love playing the long-distance nuker. Big numbers and high scores on the DPS meter excite me, what can I say? It calls out to my competitive, “be the best you can be,” side. But, there’s another part of me that wants to do something important. And that’s where tanking comes in.

Don’t get me wrong, you need good DPS’ers for any fight. But, like any player in a raid-heavy game will tell you, they’re a dime a dozen. Everyone wants to play DPS because, frankly, it’s easier. You have less to worry about, less to maintain, and less riding on your shoulders. DPS is the game within the raid and tanking is the task.

So, as an aside to my DPSing, I always pick up a tank class as an alt. In The Burning Crusade, it was a warrior. Except, back then, I sucked. I didn’t know nearly as much about the game as I do now and didn’t have the gear to support it. Consequently, I wiped. A lot. Tanking was stressful and, more often than not, I was running around trying to catch the mobs I’d dropped. Now, then again, these were the days when warriors had very few AoE abilities, and even those were limited. Still, the fact remains, it was nothing short of ‘teh suck’.

Within the last few days, though, I decided to pick up a Death Knight to compliment my mage in WoW. Tanking is not only surprisingly easy, but it’s also surprisingly fun! I’ve been using the Dungeon Finder tool (which pops quick, even for Outland instances) at every opportunity and really enjoying it.

So, I ask myself why. What is it about being a tank that changes the game so much?

First, it’s surprisingly refreshing to not have to worry about my place on the damage charts. I mark the mob to kill, pop an AoE to make sure none get away, and go. From there, it’s a matter of controlling the fight. Where should the mob face? Is he in the right position? What skill should I use to keep this up?

There’s no gogogo! like there is with DPSing. I’m not watching the meters. It’s all about maintaining, and I like that. Tanking, believe it or not, is actually kind of relaxing (watching raid threat is another story 17 levels down the line).

Then there’s the other side of it: the control. As a tank, the run is in your hands. Like I mentioned above, that puts the responsibility on your shoulders. But, as long as you can use the tools at your disposal, that’s actually not so bad. You decide the pace of the run, you decide what approach to take, you decide… well, just about everything. As a tank, you’re in charge of where things are going. As someone who’s done way too many bad PuGs, I like being able to keep things smooth when I’m running with people I don’t know. In essence, it turns this shifting, unpredictable ball that is the PuG into something you can hold.

Now, a lot of my enthusiasm comes from the fact that I’m a tanking noob and playing the easiest one in the game. But, you know what? I don’t care. I’m having fun with it. I’m learning as I level and, thanks to group experience, I’m going faster than I ever have before. As a warrior, the easy money was to go DPS 1-70 and tank at the end. I’ve been there and done that, it’s a hard road to learn a totally new playstyle at the end when the pressure’s on. I like this. It’s laid back, rewarding, and, honestly, it’s nice to be a leader after so long on the sidelines.

The question now becomes, do I tank today, or DPS? Right now, I’m playing it by ear and I feel good having that option. They’re so different, the playing one recharges my batteries for the other. And I have enough to do with both to keep me occupied for a good, long while. How much more can you ask for?

If you’ve never played a tank, give it a shot. You’ll have growing pains, most people do. But, who knows, you might just love it.

Post Note: Though I’m talking WoW here, the same playstyle goes in most of my MMOs. In LotRO, my main is a Guardian and my alt is a Loremaster. In EQ2, I rolled a Shadow Knight main and a Warlock on the side. So far, these feelings transcend title. It’s a role thing.