Why wow's MoP just might be the greatest thing ever

I've been studying the development of MoP (Mists of Pandaria) with greater and greater enthusiasm.

Not for the class changes, nor the fluff of Pandaars (although I do not mind them). But this is the first ever expansion in wow where the storyline is not a complete given.

In the very first expansion The Burning Crusade, we where told by the great evil that we where NOT PREPARED (but it turned out that as raiders steamrolled through content, that it was in fact the devs who where not prepared). There was one big bad baddie, and the entire expansion where about defeating Illidan. First to weakening him by taking out his leutenants, then breaching his fortress then killing him.

In the second expansion Wrath of the Lich king, we where told the story of the alliances would be greatest hero, who then turned to evil. There was one big bad baddie, and the entire expansion where about defeating Arthas. First to weakening him by taking out his leutenants, then breaching his fortress then killing him.

In the latest expansion The greatest threat to the world (ever) almost destroyed said world in Cataclysm, and it was up to both alliance and horde to stop him. There was one big bad baddie, and the entire expansion where about defeating Deathwing. First to weakening him by taking out his leutenants, then breaching his fortress then killing him

...Notice a pattern here?

In Mists of Pandaria there is... well uhm. Notice a difference in tone? Well for one, this isn't a launch trailer like the rest. But there is an important point here. There is no greater evuuul that both horde and alliance must work together in order to defeat, and save everything. There is a new continent, sure, but no new grand evil - That we now of.
And that is the important bit. For once the launch of an expansion is not just a countdown to when you get to kill the final boss (or Kil'jaden). It is a new continent. It will be alliance and horde fighting over territory, and maybe then the big evil will emerge. But we don't know whom, we don't know when. We don't even know for sure. All we know is that there will be an expansion.
In movie terms we are watching alien 1(for the first time). We know something is about to go down. But we have no idea what, when or how.
And that has sort of gotten me interested in WoW again. Of all things.

Wow (litterally), I did not see that happening.

Also... dwarf monks

http://the-fronti.deviantart.com/ Check out artist

Q: When is an mmo sub not worth it?

A. When you aren't using it.

Since my last post (two weeks ago) I've managed to log in 5-6 hours of play time. Depending on who you are, that may or may not be a lot.

That is a lot!

But for me, that is what I used to log in a day. 6 days a week. So 6 hours a fortnight (and it'll be 3 weeks, since I don't see myself having a spare night before Sunday), is an insanely minuscule amount.
Is SWTOR to blame? No.
I think it is agreed that the biggest strength of swtor is the leveling game, and I've not yet finished that. And I am looking terribly much forward to starting to tank instances. So no, I am not tired of swtor. I am just out of time for any swtor.
It sucks.
What sucks more is that after a 6 month of waiting for said swtor with nothing decent to play (I was in fact so bored out of my skull that I levelled a mage to 85 so my wow-guild could get its "that takes class" (or whatever the "get each class of each race to 85 achievement" is called. And let me tell you. MAGES ARE BORING).

So then swtor launches and out comes Kingdoms of Amalur. And ME3. And Diablo3 (and I guess DOTA2) ect ect. So I am swamped.
And I don't even have time for the game I am loving as it is.

Kids. blast em. They are so cute and wobbly and they cry. And before you know it, it's 10PM and you know she is going to wake you at 5 am. So you don't log on.
Obviously she is not the only excuse, I've been social with my wife, and her friends. and my friends.

I guess, what I am saying is, that for the first time since purchasing an mmo, Im starting to look at the cost. At the moment swtor is like a gym membership. You pay for it, but you never use it.
My economy isn't strecthed or anything, so it is an expense I can afford. But the question is, do I want to.

Part of me have started to dream about wow again. Log in, run an heroic, chat with people. log out. But that was the point of swtor for me. No more raids (because I know I wont have the time), no more arena. Just levelling ONE tank and play with lightsabres.

Well that was the plan at least. Run a dungeon whenever I had time. What I had not counted on was a) nobody seems to RUN dungeons in swtor because dailies+pvp give better gear (or so I've read) and b) I dont even have time for effing GET to max level.

I love this game. It is a great game. It is like wow, but with focus on story and with lightsabres and big fucking guns. Q: What else could you ask for?

A: Time to play it

Easy link day: how to tank as a JK

Look, I was going to write something insightful and even try at some calculating and theory-crafting. Then I remembered this:

http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-Immortal-Defense-Compendium-A-Tank-s-Guide-To-The-Galaxy

And game over. Nothing more to see nor read.

On Diablo 3 beta aka #D3

First off, a shame-filled plug: http://dudewheresmybantha.wordpress.com/ (Dude... Where is his Bantha??) is a new blog from my absolute favorite blogger Calli.
He was the guy responsible for getting me to start blogging in the first place (please, don't send him any threatening emails, he has publicly denied responsibility). And he is a genius of a blogger (especially now that Righteous orbs stopped blogging). And he is young. And has all his hair. And is very muscular. And manly. Even if he only plays female toons. Which makes him even more manly.

He is also my guild leader in SWTOR. Biased? I don't know the meaning of the word. Literally, I don't, I'm not a native Britishspeak language.

Anyways, here's hoping that his new blog http://dudewheresmybantha.wordpress.com/ will do just as well, and be just as fabulous (in a manly way), as his old blog http://pewpewlazerz.wordpress.com/

Diablo 3 beta
So thanks to twitter and the @blizzardCS account. I am in the D3 Beta. How do I like it? First let me set the scene:
The year was 1996, Quake had released earlier that year. So had Tekken 2. (not to mention Duke nukem). But those games paled in comparison to what would be released that christmas: Diablo.
Before Diablo, I was a teen who liked games. After Diablo, I was a gamer who liked Diablo. I still remember me and my little brother spending the weekends on 3 hour rotation shifts playing the game. Before WoW, this was the game that I sunk the most hours into (combined with the sequal). I still think that the reason why my mouse hand creaks is after that long summer with D2s expansion 'Lord of destruction'.

In so many words, Diablo - for me- was where it all began.

So I was pretty excited to get into this beta. Even if I knew that Blizzard North where in no way involved. And all the key personnel from Diablo 1 and 2 are now on Torchlight (more on that later)
Even if I knew these things, intellectually, emotionally I was - and still am- in love with Diablo.

From the moment in 2008 when I was at the Blizzard Worldwide invitational in Paris and heard that guitar play those chords (great moment, all the kiddies went "huh" and all the elderly gamers started weeping.) I have been looking forward to this release.
However, the more info that started to pour in, the sadder I got.
No, I am not one of those "it's too bright and colourfull" morons.

 I actually *remember* the old games, and not just the Hell parts of em.
To me, it was the playable characters. None of them stuck to me.
Sure the good ol Barbarian is there, and he looks better than ever. But the reiteration of the Monk? meh. The wizzard? shrug. And I really don't want to talk about the witch doctor or the demon hunter.

None of the lore, nor the mechanics really did 'it' for me. I talked about this back in September, and after having played the game I'll stand by this post:
http://dwism.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-biggest-problem-with-upcoming-diablo.html

The "oh no a click to another article- not reading that" short version: The Companions look way more attractive to me, than the playable characters.

Especially now that Torchlight 2 has released their playable characters

Sure the Engineer looks a little silly compared to the serious tone set by the barbarian above. (and this is Blizzard throwing away their cartoony looks of WoW and following the gritty look of Diablo, so it fits, its not the style i'm moaning about)
But C'mon, a *steam* powered tank! Every class in Torchlight looks like something I want to try, none of the classes in Diablo are something I and gagging to throw days upon days of played time into.

Gamewise, Diablo 3 is fantastic. I've completed it twice now, and think i'll go through it on at least one more class, so if any of the Diablo 3 characters looks awesome to you - get the game. Me, I think i'll be waiting on the first expansion with new playable characters before I buy it.

But I am giving it to my brother for his birthday. You know, for old times sake.

No longer a hardcore casual, just casual

So something dawned on my yesterday.
I finally had an evening free to game all the SWTOR I could want. Instead I saw a documentary with Mrs Dwism, played for an hour, then went to bed early.

There where a time, where I'd log on when i got home from work, scan the AH, do dailies, then prep for raid (then -sometimes- eat dinner).

I am the only 'main' left in my SWTOR guild that have not reached 50. I say 'main' because we have some members who rolled alts on our servers to hang out with us, when their Empire mains, are not demanding their attention. Hell, Mr. Calli has a main at level 50 and 3 alts who are closing in on my level 40 main.

Part of this is because I have a 6 month old child, but she goes to sleep at 7 at the latest, so that really should not interfere with evening gaming/raiding.
Another part is that, I think (hindsight and all that) that the gruel grinding of hard mode Lich king, and the following 8 months of no content to raid, killed my last love of raiding. Sure I can watch strat videos of fireland (and I still do, even though it's been.. oh boy 6 months, since I had an active wow account), and miss raiding. But I doubt I'd find time to clear anything *for* raiding. Even if I still believe that I'd still enjoy the actual raids in themselves, but it's been so long I don't really remember.

I stress to underline that no part of this, has anything to do with the game I am playing atm. Leveling in SWTOR is way more fun, than in WoW. Only time I ever got a bit tired of it, was when I hit 36'ish and I felt I had to level 2 levels up before I could continue on my class quests, and the story had JUST gotten to such a exciting point (again). As a matter of fact I try and postpone my class quests on each planet to as late as possible, so I can do those in one go. Nothing kills story more than having another exciting storyline come and distract you.

What I fear has happened
I fear, that I have outgrown gaming. I truly am afraid of that. So much of my identity is around me playing games in my free time. Hell, the reason I have the job I have, is because I play so many games, and know so much about games. I haven't touched my xbox since two hours right after I got Batman Arkham City home, and before that, not once in 4 months.
I dunno what I'd do, if I turn into someone who comes home from work, cleans a bit up, starts dinner and then spends the evening in front of the television, repeating the "whats on tonight" line. Night after night after night. That sounds very close to my version of hell.
Maybe it's the whole, 'life has kindda changed, your a dad' - thing. Maybe its because i'm turning 30. I'm not sure what the illness is, I just know what the symptoms are. And this patient, does not like what he is witnessing. I'm getting old
I fear that one day, I'll be in a permanent state of this:

I really hope, that when my babygirl gets to that age, when she wants to play with me, I'll have outgrown this thing, and be all like  

"barbie-adventure dressup???? I've completed it TWICE, but for you my love, i'll play it again".

But for now, I'll just take a slight step back, log in when I feel like playing, and cross my fingers that I won't fall completly out of love with gaming. Because right now, the only thing that is keeping me playing anything, is the fantastic people in my guild, and the story of Star Wars The Old Republic.


I did it, made this whole post w/o using the "I'm getting to old for this... sh"

Why is healing in swtor so bad?

For those that do not know my history, I've started my mmo-career out as a healer. Hell this blog is named after the nicname my healer had (Dreamweaver, DW). And I've always had him in my backhand ready to help out, in case my group did not need a tank.
So it was with WoW, so I had planned it to be with SWTOR.

Enter; Washburne Whom I had (in honor of Alan Tudyks marvelous performance) rolled as a smuggler and planned on giving him the title Captain, and never changing that. So I rolled Scoundrel, and talented up in sawbones.
Now, I'm okay with the fact that it seems to take him *forever* to kill anything, he is a healer after all, even if my tanking companion seems unable to do any actual tanking... may just be a low level thing. Regardless, everyone knows healers, level up in group play. So I went group playing.

Healing is horrible in this game. Both because of personal preferences and because the game does not seem to not like healers. Allow me to elaborate

1. Setting up any sort of decent healing grid is a pain. 
Honestly, when you have to look at tutorial videos in order to find out how to set groups up in the same grid as in operations, something is wrong. It is not very intuitive, it is not easily done and you have to set it up in order to have any chance at healing, because the default is not made by healers for healers. It's made by... well my guess is that the UI in general, has been made by a designer. Not a game designer, but an add designer. It has all the slickness and cleanliness as any add agency I've worked with, can produce. But it has no thought behind it, either. It was made to look pretty, not to be functional. 

2. Nobody in the design process where healers
That is a harsh statement, I know, and it is more meant as a provocation than something I actually believe, but when you can't get companions on your healing bars. And you can't get the person you group with Companions health to show up *anywhere*, something is amiss.
I ran Esseless with a guildie on his Jedi Sentinel alt, so our two companions where the tanks. It was a horrible experience. He had to remind me of his little droid every now and again because I had no where to see it's health. And then I had to try and click on that little metallic thing in the middle of where all the mobs where, in order to heal it.
If Companions are supposed to receive a heal, either in Flash-points or in heroic areas, why not automatically add em to the group grid, so I can see their effing health?

3. (personal preferences) I want my click casting
This point might seem petty to some, but for me, this is the difference between enjoying healing, and not. It's to do with those blasted addons, that has spoiled me. Be it "Healbot" (my ol' favorite), Vuhdu, grid or whathaveyou. They gave me a clear view of HoT's, health and made it easy for me to cast a heal and the type of heal I wanted to cast. I could rightclick on a portrait that lacked health, and it would cast my big heal. If I held down Ctrl+right clicked, it would cast a HoT ect ect. Sure it sometimes gave healing a "whack-a-mole'esque" feel, but it allowed you to do what you wanted to do, when you wanted to do it.
Just looking at theese addons makes we long to play WoW again...

4. SWTOR does not seem to know what they want healers to do
Heal.
That would be the short answer, but it would also be wrong. Do they want all healing classes to be similar? Doesn't seem like it.
Do they want healers to do damage while healing? This does not seem to have been discussed. On one hand it seems that the idea for healers where that healing is boring, so the design of the class was that they (not unlike WARhammer) should be able to dish out whilst still healing.
But then why not give us the same ability as in WARhammer? two targets, one friendly, one not. Allow me to target a mob while I heal the tank.
Actually, this is something my tank could use in pvp too.
This was one of the greatest things about WARhammer. If you are of the belief that healing is boring, then facilitate us healing and dps'ing, similar to how WARhammer did it.
If you believe that people actually roll healers because they want to heal (shocking), then give us the tools to actually heal.
They way I see healing, is that the people behind the game, have not been able to decide what they want healers to do, or be.
Smuggler, do you want us to do damage too, while healing? Why not pair us in the gunslinger tree, instead of the melee tree? (This might change drastically if I ever get him past 30'ish, but atm it is clunky and akward to heal and do dps, and it seems to be a waste of my time to only heal - especially soloing)

Gone blackout

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/stand-together-the-gaming-community-vs-sopa-and-pipa

https://www.google.com/takeaction/

Yes even few-reader blogs, like mine, will close shop if anything like SOPA og PIPA gets through over there... in America. That weird and wonderful and powerful country that is so very far away from where I live, but has so much power over stuff like this.