WoD Was Just a Time Loop

Well played Blizzard, well played.

As everyone is busy busting their nuts over patch 6.2.3; aka the "This Should Have Came With Launch" patch, we need to realize that this xpac is a beautifully perfect play on time-travel conundrums.

WoD's incomplete launch was on purpose. If we take all the patches combined.. "6.1", 6.2, 6.2.3 (what happened in between 6.2-6.2.3 I did not notice), we end up with a FULL launch xpac. WoD is now complete and whole and fresh and new. However this also marks the end of the xpac. The beginning is the end. Ultraxion had it right all along:

"I am the beginning of the end...the shadow which blots out the sun...the bell which tolls your doom..." (Ultraxion 2011)

But my dear Ultraxion, the beginning IS the end; WoD cast its own shadow upon the shining glory that is WoW; the bell which tolled its doom.

Will I play in 6.2.3? Well having been inactive for THREE months I am still rocking ilvl 700+ from all the freebie gear and now that there is a rare mount to be caught and personal gradual progression my answer is "Probably heck ya!".

I have not touched the legendary quest past the 695 (?) ring and I do not intend on jumping into LFR any time soon. So no ring for me but that's okay. Truny is rocking her old 4P from the Foundry so upgrading those should be good enough to the end of the xpac.

So they solved one part of the puzzle, but what shall we do while waiting on our queues? Ah wait I'll just play my druid for healer queues!

Will people come back in the MILLIONS to upgrade their gear? Assuming gear levels have remained relatively untouched, maybe not.

Turny the Time Tree

If You're in the Gaming Industry, Never Break This Rule

Is this even a contentious issue? No, because it has never really BEEN a major issue. Has it always been quietly on the sidelines, trying to dig into the core issues that players tend to rant/complain/report about? Hell yes.

The reason why regardless of your role in a gaming company be it the CFO, chief programmer, janitor, food supplier, contractor, everyone must be "with it" for whatever your gaming mission and vision is. This is where I love using the word "immersion" and getting people talking. Who DOESN'T want their players to be immersed in their game?

Ahh that is the golden question. I commend you my single reader for following me for so long *digital tree-branch druid high-five*. What we saw in WoD is what broke this rule, and why there has been an increase of discussion towards the mobile gaming market in my humble old blog. They are all related. Sort of.

Let's look at mobile games. Low development cost, but with the right setup, massive massive potential for immense profitability. Massive margins. Look at Candy Crush, they were making $300,000 a day? Now before you put on your judgmental glasses, that is totally fine. There is only so much "immersion" you can expect out of a mobile game, but it can be designed so that you never ever break this very important rule.

We can summarize that most mobile games try to churn out low development content to fish for the highest possible returns over time. Sometimes what they offer hit gold or become niche/clique eg Flappy Bird type games, Angry Bird where you can build a brand on top of it, etc etc.

Regardless, in the time that players are immersed, most mobile games don't break the golden rule. The ones that do tend to fail or stagnate.

We can skirt about this rule, but if your game is strong enough then players won't care. They'll find ways around it.

What exactly is this strange rule?

The answer: Players should never question your business decisions.

Now, business decisions differ from what we see as business model. A game may be set-up as a pay-to-get-ahead model, but players will adjust. WoW may be slowly shifting from an MMO with an in-game store type model. That is fine.

It's the business decisions where it gets dirty.

When players question your model, they visualize a model usually with charts and graphs and there are expectations and preconceptions and that's it. They go back to the game.

When we start questioning your business decisions, how you handle PR, what you are doing with your designers, why certain decisions were made, we start digging deeper in our visualizing. We picture your office, we start seeking out a target. Who made that decision, and why? The players are now TOO close to us. Get them back into the game, and out of our offices in their heads.

Uh oh immersion's coming back. When you completely break any sense of game immersion with questionable actions, the players have nothing to hang onto in game and we start seeking. Once we're in, you're going to need a lot to get us back out. We no longer see a game as just a game, but a product from a company who makes questionable decisions.

Tough decisions need to be made I agree but what I am trying to say is COVER YOUR ASSES. Make that link, get your decision makers to understand the implications of how they are affecting immersion. Have a back-up plan to keep us out of our own heads.

That is enough with free advice for one day, get the hell out of my office.

Turny the Angry Tree

FFXIV: Things I Miss From WoW

Not everything is all rainbows and sunshine in FFXIV. While FFXIV currently (as at WoD Hellfire Citadel Raid) trumps WoW in terms of character progression/development/immersion, profession, community, story, real player housing, there are a lot of cumbersome points that people tend to gloss over but I shall be the reasonable and balanced player here! But let's start with the complainy bitchy stuff first!

Truny's Top 10 FFXIV Pet Peeves

1. Storage space (or lack of bag management addon).

Storage space is horrible in this game where you are limited to 2 retainers who can hold 140 items each, and also your own bag. While this sounds decent, as there are NO JUNK items in FFXIV, you'll end up hoarding everything and eventually losing them. If you're leveling multiple professions, the constant upgrading of multiple gear-sets is bound to fill up your armoury which is an additional storage of all your gear.

The fact that we can't SEARCH for items and that a lot of items have similar icons make looking for a specific fish or berry that I stashed away ten levels ago a particular hassle.

While this is a great addition, the armoury NEVER sorts itselt to highest level item first, so this must be manually done EVERY TIME you go in. Makes it a pain to swap classes.

The guild storage space is a joke. 3 slots non-expandable. The total storage is probably LESS than what a normal person has in their bags.

2. Playing on Multiple Devices. 

I know this is FWP'y but for those of us with multiple homes and multiple computers/laptops FFXIV is a NIGHTMARE as your bars and gearsets and keybinds DO NOT get saved server side. And of course since there are so many classes on one of your toons, if you made any progress on one computer, you're pretty much focked. There IS a way to copy over the data files but that's such a hassle. Luckily my keybinds have been relatively standard in all MMO's, but still an ANNOYANCE.

This point exacerbates point 1 as there is SO MUCH gear clogging up your armoury when you're levelling up multiple classes/professions its just a nightmare to sort through and find your highest ilvl piece again.

3. Clunky Companion System.

Level 20 is a magical time for most players as they have most likely heard of having their Chocobo MOUNT fight with them! While this is an awesome addition, with stances and skills and gear and feather custom colors.....this "pet" system isn't exactly seamless since the Chocobo acts as an additional member to your PARTY.

So this means you can't queue for a dungeon with your chocobo, nor can you dismiss them, queue, then resummon. You also can't jump into a duty with your chocobo out. Why can't the game dismiss them FOR ME? If you're a squishy DPS who likes having your chocobo as backup, well..while you're queuing you're on your own.

4. Scattered Attunement Quests

Perhaps I'm inefficient without seeking out information but each of FFXIV's dungeons have a "hardmode" or even an "Extreme" mode and since I came back just at the release of Heavensward, a lot of the old content is just ...old, but to unlock certain hardmode features one must know where to find the proper quest. This also comes from materia desynthing, treasure map finding, how were we supposed to even FIND these quests? A lot of them are random NPC's in random locations. Locations I would not even think of going back to unless there was a specific resource or fishing node happened to be nearby?

Perhaps I should speak to EVERY SINGLE NPC? An Adventurer's Guide would definitely be handy here.

5. Gathering Success Rates Look ....Stupid

When you're out gathering the UI shows a % success for how likely you are to gather a certain item. Due to only getting 4 or 5 chops out of one node, an unlucky or multiple unlucky streaks could make that famous 83% seem like 20% or less. Which when you boost your HQ % to 50% you really then think, perhaps the universe is indeed infinite.

Take note at how these complaints are all part of having something to do to begin with to have to actually complain and nothing seems to really point at the core of the game. Nothing is breaking immersion yet. There's been so MUCH to do in terms of professions I have not touched my PVE class in a week and that is totally fine.

Strange no?

Truny the Complainer