I’m always on about how I enjoy moving from game to game, how I enjoy comparing and contrasting. How I’m very much not the ‘hardcore’ type of player.

Well, in the last two weeks, I’ve been a little bit Hardcore. The problem is one of PvP. Though it’s not something I ever think a lot about, I really like PvP. Pitting my brain and reflexes against those of another human is about as ‘real’ a contest as you can get in an online game. In Halo 3 that results in my embarrassment and a lack of achievements. In Team Fortress 2 I can hold my own a bit better, but I still spend a bunch of my time either a.) repairing my turrets or b.) trying not to get headshot while lugging around the heavy’s gun.

In WoW, that contest is mitigated heavily by gear. Lots of people don’t like WoW’s PvP, because it’s (in some ways) fundamentally broken. In the last two weeks I’ve kinda/sorta proven for myself that Blizzard knows what they’re doing with this stuff. I don’t think PvP in WoW is broken per se - it’s just not for the faint of heart. Just as the max level raiding experience is an animal completely different from the 1-70 climb, Battlegrounds in WoW are completely different as well. Going into a BG with a PvE attitude will net you heartache and loss.

So what is the right attitude? In a word: patience. While in PvE the ultimate goal is to stay busy (grind, grind, grind) PvP requires a much steadier hand. That’s an interesting thing, I think, because a lot of people associate PvP with twitchy meth addicts. Here’s the inside info: twitchy meth addicts make crappy PvP players. The best PvP players (whether in WoW or UT, Halo or TF2) have a steely eye, solid nerves, and a grim smile on their face.

I’m not bragging here: I don’t think I’m that great a PvPer. But realizing that a different approach was needed really helped me a lot in the last two weeks. I’ve had a great deal of success under the ‘patience, grasshopper’ mantra, and it’s netted me the first gear I’ve ever really felt like I earned.

For the moment, I’ve decided I’m going to be a bit obnoxious. I’m going to park my little rogue at 39 and have some fun at the upper end of performance in the 30-39 bracket. I’m going to twink her out the right way: with PvP gear instead of AH buys. The only real twinking I’ve done was a celebratory enchantment. I was so pleased with my Scout’s Blade that I snagged a Fiery enchant for it to help me focus my zen-killah skillz.

Now, on the subject of patience, I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to stay away from a mount and the continued push upwards and forwards. Will I make it till 2.3 hits? If it’s next week, probably. If it’s the week after next, maybe. Beyond that … well, like I said, I’m not that great a gankstah.

Our adventures in the Sinking Sands continue apace. For the last  two weeks we puttered about not only in the open desert, but also braved the mean streets of Maj’Dul for the first time. It was a harrowing experience. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Doing quests in the Sands is interesting, because even more so than in Enchanted Lands we’re finding ourselves doing dissimilar quests. We’re all going for Blades faction (because it sounds cool), and the random quest-giver-guys seems to want to make sure none of us have the same quest at a given time. That’s fine, just means we tend to have lots of little fiddly quests to deal with at the same time.

Exploring the zone more I’m struck again and again by the contrasts between old world, Desert of Flames, and Faydwer content. I’m glad we jumped into Steamfont when we did, but I think it would have been interesting to see what my opinion would have been if we’d gone old world -> DoF -> KoS -> EoF.  As it is, I’m left feeling like the Sands zone is much nicer than most of the old world areas, but not as nice as Steamfont. (And definitely not as nice as .)

I don’t know why (maybe we’re getting punch-drunk), but the last two weeks have been the source of great merriment during our questing time. One particularly awesome encounter left our Necro lying on the ground, unable to find his feign death icon to disable it. So (displaying the tact and grace that any team leader should have) I teabagged him. Now, I’m not saying I’m proud of this. But I am.

We also had some hilarity ensue when exploring the Rujarkian Cleft. We’d just made a little bit of progress into the zone and encountered the big slave-workers area, which is jam-packed with mobs. We arrived at the door fresh, ready to go, and Brian pulled a nearby slave … who promptly turned and ran around a big rock through some sort of wonderful patching glitch. I can now say I know what an entire room of orcs looks like when they aggro. Thankfully Katie teleported us out of there before anyone other than Brian died, but it was an impressive sight.

Our experience in Maj’dul was a bit more serious. Those Coin guards really don’t like us. Vets, help a guy out: do we want to be gaining rep with all of these folks, or just our chosen Blades? Because if we aren’t going to gain rep with the other two factions, shopping in MD is going to be a bit exciting. Hearing Katie yell “They’re after me!” for the fifth time was just as funny as the first, though. Thankfully, we also stopped Brian from attacking one of the camels.

We’re not going to be playing this week, but next week we’ll get a start on Beetle racing and pull some more of the Maj’dul quests into the sunshine. We have to move onward and upwards … after all, we’re just a few levels off from carpet questing!

I hope you don’t mind my talking about the upcoming reboot to D&D, because I’m going to be doing it a lot in the next year or so. :)

One of the things I’m most enjoying about the rules as they trickle out to us is the feeling that, indeed, this is MMOGish. In fact, several oldschool gamers I know have pronounced that ‘they’re turning it into a massively multiplayer game’ in dire fashions with frowny faces.

My response, I think, belays the amount of growing up I still have to do, and goes something like ‘Woohoo!’

Aggro Me (nice to see you posting again, man) has a lengthy piece up on specific conventions adopted from online gaming. Obviously some of these elements were picked up from online games from yet a third party. It’s easy to see correlations just the same.

What happens when there’s a bug in your MMO? Well, it gets patched (or at least you hope it does). It’s a pretty good system and I appreciate when companies patch their games often. But what happens if there’s an error in a D&D book? Well, they can’t really patch that can they? It’s a physical text. But Wizards may be borrowing the concept of patching for D&D. See the following quote from here:

Another factor that will change the face of errata is the implementation of the database, which plays such a central role in our management of 4 Edition. With the institution of ebooks that accompany one’s physical copy, we have the option of keeping one’s ebook updated with the latest changes, from the very small (a “+2” instead of a “+3”) to the very big (changing the text of an ability or feat). That’s not to say there still won’t be a physical copy of the errata, but we might simply compile quarterly changes made in the database into a readable format, rather than the sporadic release that now exists.

Keiron Gillen talks about the same issue more broadly over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, and brings up the same issue I have: price.

To get all the D&D Insider stuff you need to pay a MMO-equivalent monthly fee of $9.95. However, it’s also been said on the forum that not all the group may need to pay this - i.e. Players may play free, or at least cheaper. I’d hope that’s true. I’m aware that pretty much every group I’ve ever ran, none of the players owned any of the books, and trying to talk Kid-with-knife to give some Americans ten dollars a month (”That’s more than a drink!”) just so I can excitedly narrate about the molted brown skin of an orc in voice-chat is, I suspect, the sort of impossible quest that’s more traditionally reserved for inside the game. So we’ll see.

(As an aside, orcs are greenish-grey, noob. L2DM.)

I’ve been running Dungeons and Dragons for almost sixteen years now. Since I got back from college I’ve run three campaigns, two of which lasted more than a year (and one of which lasted almost three). To put it mildly, the idea of being able to run a game online for folks I wouldn’t otherwise be able to play with: tasty.

What I’m really looking forward to are the possibilities for systems we haven’t heard anything about yet: items and crafting. Itemization has long been recognized as one of the weakest elements of D&D 3.x, and the Magic Item Compendium attempted to solve that via a mighty big patch. Likewise, crafting is broken. The rules for making an item with your Craft(blah) skill are tediously annoying, and have no place in the average D&D game. I’m not saying I want players to be able to bang out a suit of full plate in a day, but … they’re heroes! Why does it take a player archer weeks and week just to craft a single quiver of 50 master work arrows The careful attention that Massives pay to these two systems has me very hopeful that 4.0 will address these issues as well.

As for excitement about what they’ve already revealed, it’s hard to pick. As a player, I’m probably most excited about the implications made surrounding class balance. Fighters will now have completely different combat styles based on the weapons they wield. Wizards, meanwhile, focus their arcane arts through staff, wand, or orb, and follow specific traditions - with implied factional affiliations. Fascinating. As a DM, the encounter creation simplification has me jumping for joy. The recent podcast about the Monster Manual saw me literally dancing in my seat … which was bad, since I was listening to it while hunting in the ruins of Dalaran. Damned elementals have huge aggro radiusessuses.

At the end of the day, it’s all about the fun, right? So far, everything they’ve mentioned sounds really fun. The only thing that doesn’t sound fun is the constant nickling and diming … but that’s pretty much par for the course for Massive games too, isn’t it?

There are very few companies that ‘complete me’ from a gaming perspective. Blizzard, BioWare, Bethesda … lots of B’s, now that I think about it.

Valve did it again last week. I love Half-Life 2 with an unyielding passion, and the triple threat of Episode 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2 has crushed my gaming life in the last week.

Here’s a big bunch of links celebrating the beauty that is the Orange Box:

• My Review of The Orange Box on Slashdot
• Zero Punctuation on the Orange Box - Yahtzee makes me look like a hamfisted word-tard.
  
• The Gnome Quest - Once you’ve beaten it the regular way …
  
• ‘Still Alive’- I have had this song in my head for over a week now. My wife is really sick of it.
  
• Coulton Comments on ‘Still Alive’ - Why the song in my head got made.
• RPS On Portal
• RPS On Episode Two
• RPS Team Fortress Two Interview Part One and Interview Part Two.
• RPS Rundown on Team Fortress Two Classes.

Also! If you don’t own Half-Life 2 or Episode One, I’ve got those gift codes - and I think everyone I know that would want to play it already has. Want mine?

This week’s Big Story is kind of a loaner from the rest of gaming news but … you know … it’s BioWare.

As you’re probably well aware at this point, well-respected RPG developer BioWare purchased by Electronic Arts for an obscene amount of money. From all points, despite the understandable misgivings of gamers, things look pretty good for the developer. Mass Effect is still on track, analysts give the move a thumbs up, and the purchase was apparently something BioWare wanted.

“Ray Myzuka: Well, I’m really excited about the opportunity to integrate the great development teams we have here, the marketing teams we have here. As you said, EA is the largest, and I think, the best publisher in the world, and I think we can [add] some value to that team, and that organization as a partnership.”

Why is this so important to massively multiplayer games? Well, the business implications aside, perhaps you’re forgetting that unannounced game they’re working on right now (*cough*KOTOR*cough*)? The one Damion Schubert is working on as combat development lead, and helmed by former Knights of the Old Republic Lead Designer James Ohlen?

Brent, buddy … why the angst?

You know I love Virgin Worlds. You know I do. But ehh … your crazy rant where you bag on the PA podcast? It’s kinda crazy!

Well, after being there for pretty much a year solid, VirginWorlds has been ousted from the featured game page in iTunes. They show 15 podcasts on the feature page. VirginWorlds and GFW Radio were always fighting for slot 15, but now we’re ranked 16 and 17 …  The other reason is the one that is a serious bummer. The Penny Arcade Podcast. Why is this a bummer? Two reasons: 1) They never ever update the darn thing and 2) It’s complete crap.

I’m not saying that Jerry poops gold, or that Mike bleeds platinum, but the two of them are golden. It’s an incredible pleasure to get to listen to the two of them work, and are basically the only example I can think of where an infrequent posting schedule isn’t that big a deal. I think you may be overreacting because of bad iTunes blood. Which I can understand.

After all, while I definitely think the PA podcast derserves props … X-Play? Achievement Junkie? Pfft.

Grimwell took myself and a bunch of other MMOG-interested writers on a walking tour of Kunark earlier this week. I went to Kunark and all I got were these lousy screenshots.

Below is a rundown on the half dozen zones we got a look at, with some images to boot. I also run down some critiques of the expansion (I don’t do total fluff pieces), and offer up my hopes for the future of EQ2. Read on for the beauty of the Rising of Kunark.
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