Hello again everyone. Its been a busy summer for me, I have made sure to keep some time to play games and I figure its time for another “what I’ve been playing” update. This time two games I’ve played approached a system in such strong opposite fashion that I’ve title my post around it. Matchmaking.
Let’s start with the bad: APB
The game industry as well as my family have had a busy summer so far. So much so, that I probably should have taken the time to compose posts about things as they were happening. *shrug* Oh well, this summary of thoughts will have to do.
The List starts here:
Wowhead posted some new information about the upcoming expansion, Cataclysm. While I’m disappointed in the “Path of the Titans” loss, and not completely sold on their take on “Guild Leveling”, I was very happy to find this little nugget:
Here’s another big change—they’ve added a great deal of flexibility to raid lockouts. Rather than being locked into a particular raid ID, you can now join any raid, as long as it doesn’t have any bosses up that you have already killed. Basically, as long as you’re not killing the same boss twice in one lockout period—you have total freedom.
Fantastic news! This could be what I was asking for, explained in a much simpler and clearer way, as long the “ it doesn’t have any bosses up that you have already killed.” part checks the character status of kills and not the last raid the character was in status.
What I mean is I want to:
If that is how Blizzard expects things to work then WELL DONE Blizzard.
While I was thinking about a quick post about things I was playing, watching, listening to, all the talk about Lord of the Rings Online going F2P helped tipped my hand. Thus here I am actually sitting down to type out words on the blog.
LOTRO F2P
I have not even started to read everything people have said about this move to F2p, but I see there is a lot of conversation about it. From a quick glance there is some positive, some negative, some a bit crazy, and a few of my friends believe its a sign of the future; F2P is the way “all” future MMOs will use.
With all the discussion’s lately of cataclysm Raid changes, my mind started pondering how much I don’t like the way current Raid IDs are implemented. In doing so I started thinking about ways I would improve the system and came to the same conclusion I did a few years back. When I do this sort of thing I always ask myself, why did you not write your thoughts down? My answer is always dumb, so this time I’m going to write instead of just talk.
Where to start?
How about how one person can screw everyone else out of raid content for the lockout period?
Yep, I think that is a good place to start since the worst things about MMOs are the other people. 
I am back again, and with much less angst and apologies for my last post. All my old frustration has been washed away by last weeks big news.
Cataclysm Alpha Leaks!
If you don’t want spoilers for the next World of Warcraft expansion, you should be careful about traveling to some of the popular WoW fan sites and blogs. Last week the Friends and Family Alpha for Cataclysm started up and some people got their hands on the client and have been going crazy posting images pulled from it.
Since I don’t mind being spoiled, I could not resist the indulging in the information, and thus far I have not been disappointed. The face of the old world is changing, in some major ways, and I am encouraged to go back and visit some of my favorite (and not so favorite) locations; taking screenshots along the way.
I have also made a decision to put my plans to level up a shaman on hold, until I can do so with a Goblin. I am going to want to experience the leveling up process through the new world, and I think a shaman will be a great class to do it with since I can heal or DPS.
MMO-Champion currently has the largest compilation of information I have found, so if you want to spoil yourself head over there.
My Play List
Probably a surprise to no one, I played a whole lot of World of Warcraft last week. The highlights:
A second trip to ICC10
I was able to sub into my guild’s weekly ICC run and had a great time. My first visit, with some alts, took me up to Professor Putricide and I thought it was a good run. That is until this last week, when in about just as much time this group sailed all the way up to before Sindragosa. It was a blast. I love running with people that have a clue.
More Rogue Leveling
My little Rogue is not up into her 50s and I have been having a blast with her. I could be more efficient with her, and level her faster, but I am enjoying simply wandering around and doing blocks of quests. I will be much more efficient with here when I hit Outland.
Shaking the Dust of my Pally
I have a confession to make. I have never been a tank. For some reason I every character I have started with the intent of tanking has become either a healer or shelved. My Blood Elf Pally has been resting unplayed in her high teens for years. Until last week!
After talking with a few of my Raiding Pally friends I decided to at least try leveling up a pally and tanking some old instances. Step one is complete, I have her UI set up and got here up to level 26 so I can learn the basics of how to play her. Step two will be to Tank and instance, and I hope to try that out this week.
Achievements
While I have not been actively working to acquire dungeon & raid achievements, there are a few general achievements that my priest has been working on getting. I know its not the “smart” thing to do, but I enjoy having meta goals that I can slowly work toward while doing other things.
My Watch List
And I will end with a quick list of things I have been watching:
Dear Blog,
I hope you don’t mind listening, but I feel I need to unload and you have always been a good shoulder for me to cry on.
But the last couple of weeks have been exceptional. I know I told you I was playing World of Warcraft again. I have been really enjoying my time back, doing dailies, leveling up an alt, and last week I even raided. Ya, I know I am back into the game.
Of course being back also means trying to keep up with WoW news, and rumors. To do so I have turned to podcasts and blogs, since these people normally do a great job of collecting and analyzing things for me. Podcasts are particularly useful for those long drives to and from the office. I have a lot of respect for those that take time each week to record conversations about a game / industry they love.
But, and I have pretty thick skin, sometimes people make me nuts. Most of the time when this happens I will simply sigh, roll my eyes, or chuckle, but sometimes when normally rational people, say things I disagree with, or say things that are simply wrong, I *cough* get worked up. Over the last couple of weeks two discussions, set me off.
Welcome to another episode of “What I’ve been playing.”
The last few weeks have been full of World of Warcraft goodness. Its been a lot of fun to be back in and chatting with old friends, and just enjoying the game. The key to this has been not raiding.
Sure I would love to see Ice Crown, or help guildies with Ulduar, but I have little patience for four hour focused intense sessions of play. Instead I have been enjoying popping in at lunch to do daily quests, jumping online before bed and running a quick dungeon, or even sneaking in a quick Battleground. Good times.
I have also played a little bit of God of War 3. Though for some reason, which I have not yet figured out, I have not been drawn to play it. *shrug*
Unlike the last game I want to mention, Warstorm. This is a Facebook collectible card game that has captivated me, its all about crafting your squads (decks) and watching them battle opponent squads. It’s a great between tasks at work sort of game, but it does have the “please spend your money” hooks.
That’s about it on the gaming front.
As for other entertainment, I wanted to mention that two weeks ago we officially (though minimally) entered the HDTV era. I had been holding off on a new Tivo for a couple of years, but finally decided it was time. I picked up a new Tivo Premier, and signed for Charter’s basic HD package.
Amazing. Even on our 10 year old rear projection 1080i TV the picture quality is great, and we can not record 2 shows in HD at the same time on that machine, while the old tivo has become a dedicated kid show recorder! I cann’t recommend Tivo enough.