Biggs' Zone

A Geek's Cogitations, Conjectures and other Cortical Experiences

Tag: MMO Page 1 of 26

WoW: Bidding Adieu to the Dragons

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On August 19, 2024

In Gaming, MMORPG, World of Warcraft

Another World of Warcraft expansion is in the books. While we prepare for The War Within let’s reflect on Dragonflight, Blizzard’s 10th expansion. This will cover some of my likes and dislikes regarding the story, the content, and new and updated systems.

Overall it is a decent expansion. It’s much better than Shadowlands and, in my humble opinion, it’s better than Burning Crusade and Warlords of Draenor. Wrath of the Lich King remains my favorite of the expansions, followed by Legion and Dragonflight may just come in third. The dragons have always been one of my favorite races in WoW.

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WoW: On the Eve of Dragonflight

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On November 28, 2022

In Gaming, MMORPG, World of Warcraft

Well folks, here we are. We are on the eve of Dragonflight, Blizzard’s 10th World of Warcraft expansion. I have moved all my toons out of Oribos and back to their respective capital city. As we return from saving the afterlife and begin our adventures in the Dragon Isles, let’s do an expansion character recap.

Being the nerd that I am, I have a spreadsheet in Google sheets to track my goals all through the Shadowlands. I began this spreadsheet during Battle for Azeroth but kicked it up a notch during this expansion. Many have already told me that there are addons that will do a lot of this for me. I appreciate the suggestions but I enjoy doing it my way instead. I am going to use that spreadsheet to discuss my Shadowlands progress. You’ve been warned that this post will be a little data-heavy.

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WoW: Return from the Shadowlands

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On October 18, 2022

In Gaming, MMORPG, World of Warcraft

Return from the Shadowlands

We are at the end of another expansion. I cannot believe I will soon be entering the 10th expansion of this game. While I have taken a couple of breaks, here and there, I have played through all of the content of each expansion since I started playing back in Vanilla. Not Classic! Classic is not as good as Vanilla on any day. As our heroes return from the Shadowlands, let’s reflect on this ninth expansion.

Keep in mind that, as I am writing this, the pre-patch has not yet launched. However I do not expect the events of the pre-patch to affect my final thoughts of the Shadowlands expansion. In my opinion, the pre-patch is content that is linked to Dragonflight and is, therefore, exempt from this expansion.

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WoW: Male Chauvinism is Disgusting

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On July 26, 2021

In General Cogitation

First off I would like to begin by apologizing for my gender. If you’ve been paying attention to the various World of Warcraft media sources I’m sure you are aware of the lawsuit that has been filed against Activision Blizzard. I don’t really want to get into the details because male chauvinism is disgusting and embarrassing. I’ll be honest, I haven’t read all of the allegations because I had to stop reading. It’s so gross and uncouth that I couldn’t bring myself to finish. That kind of sophomoric behavior does NOT belong in the workplace.

I’ll admit that I can have a pretty sophomoric mind at times. I will make rather off-color remarks to my guy friends. Emphasis on guy. I may make some pretty immature statements to guys I’ve known for almost 30 years but I would never make those same comments to a female. I would never say it, think it or type it. NEVER! I don’t think its ever appropriate in ANY context. “Boys will be boys” but we should know when to be gentlemen too. If I see or hear any guy making an inappropriate comment to a female co-worker, friend, gamer, even a stranger, I’ll record you and report you.

Will I Cancel My Sub?

The short answer is No, but I thought about it. I gave it some very serious consideration. Cancelling my sub could stick it to them where it hurts. On the other hand, if we all stopped buying their games and paying their subs, then hundreds of thousands of people would be out of a job. The gaming industry and gaming community has been a male dominated culture for years so it still wouldn’t stop this kind of thing from happening.

Then I saw this tweet from former Blizzard Developer Cher Scarlett:

Cher is spearheading an effort to collect witnesses for this lawsuit. You can read more about her and other devs in this Massively OP article.

I’m one of the good guys. I don’t treat women poorly. If I leave the game; if every guy like me leaves the game, then who is left? All that remains are the toxic, disgusting male pigs and the victims. I would essentially be abandoning the victims. My wife plays this game with me. Thankfully she has not been harassed, however if she had been, I would want someone to report it and stop it. If I leave, then I’m just turning a blind eye to it.

There is the old adage “If You See Something, Say Something”. While I have not witnessed any harassment in the game you can bet I’m going to be a lot more vigilant. I will have my Alt + Print Screen fingers ready. If I see or hear any player say something remotely offensive to a female player, you will be reported. Keyboard anonymity cannot protect you. Your avatar is tied to an account. Your account has a name and that name has a credit card number. Credit Card numbers have addresses.

You. Are. Not. As. Anonymous. As. You. Think!

What Do I Expect From Blizzard?

I’m expecting Blizzard to do something to make this right. They need to take some public action. Now! It’s time to clean house. The current president, J Alan Brack, needs to step down. I think it would be a great statement if he is replaced by a female. However it would need to be a qualified, zero tolerance female; not some token female just for appearances.

Also, any Blizzard employee mentioned as part of this lawsuit needs to be fired. Any former Blizzard employee needs to be prosecuted. Any of these employees that have been immortalized as an NPC (ex: Alex Afrasiabi) in the game, needs to be replaced/removed. This can be done with a hot fix or tomorrows maintenance.

To all the victims out there, I’m sorry this is happening to you and I am praying for you. I have been a developer for 20+ years and I have never seen this kind of behavior at any of the places where I have worked. If I did, I assure you I would have reported it. This makes me sick to my stomach.

Shadowlands: Torghast First Impressions

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On December 8, 2020

In Gaming, MMORPG, World of Warcraft

Torghast First ImpressionsThis is my first Shadowlands post since it’s launch. While it seems logical that I would first talk about leveling, instead I decided to skip to Torghast. This is a brand new game mechanic Blizzard introduces in this expansion. We saw something similar in the Battle for Azeroth 8.3 patch with the Horrific Visions. In fact, I almost suspect that the Horrific Visions were the “beta test” for the Torghast mechanic. I haven’t spent a lot of time in there yet but I thought I would share my Torghast first impressions.

An Ever-Changing Dungeon

There was a lot of build up about this place. Blizzard was pretty clear that it will be essential to our raiding progression. Initially I was skeptical. While the horrific visions weren’t terrible, eventually I became bored doing them every week (and, ultimately, I stopped doing them altogether). The engineers at Blizzard have definitely raised the bar with Torghast.

Basically Torghast is a type of dungeon divided into six wings, each with eight layers consisting of six floors per layer. You can complete Torghast solo or you can go as a group. Every trip into Torghast is different. Statistically you should never experience the same trip twice. As you progress each floor becomes more and more difficult until it becomes too difficult, for your current gear score, to complete. This has not yet happened to me so I don’t know if its actually true. If you complete the third layer on one wing, you can go immediately to the third layer in another wing. I’m not sure how this works when the remaining layer’s become available. Completing the layers awards you Soul Ash which you need to construct legendary gear. As far as I can tell, Torghast does not drop gear.

No Gear?? What’s the Point??

I, honestly, struggle with this concept. It’s probably the one negative to Torghast, especially for alts. Obviously, for my raid toon, this provides the ability to craft gear that will give me a significant advantage in the raids. The amount of Soul Ash you get is capped each week so going in weekly will help craft your legendary gear (and upgrades) sooner rather than later. I rarely, if ever, raid on my alts so getting a legendary for them is simply cosmetic. Does this mean I will still do Torghast on my alts? Probably, because the challenge could be fun, however its not going to be something I do every week on every alt.

So far I like Torghast; more than I thought I would. I’m glad there is a cap each week so I don’t feel obligated to do it every single day, each week. It would get pretty old, really fast if I had to do it that frequently. Granted we are just beginning week 3 so the question is will I continue to enjoy Torghast? Or will the interest wane over the next couple of months? It’s difficult to say. Perhaps I should consider a follow up post in the spring to discuss how its going. I’m also going to predict that something will change about Torghast in future content patches to keep it interesting. We’ll see.

What are your Torghast first impressions?

duke-nukem-sm If zombies attack the world, everyone will run and hide. Except for us gamers, of course. We’ve been waiting for this all our lives!

 

WoW: The Battle for Azeroth is Over

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On November 19, 2020

In Gaming, World of Warcraft

The Battle for Azeroth is OverLast week the pre-patch event for Shadowlands began. As we embark on our journey into the afterlife, let’s reflect on Blizzards 7th expansion. Battle for Azeroth had a tough act to follow. Legion, in my opinion, is the second best expansion since Wrath of the Lich King. Unfortunately BfA didn’t quite live up to the same level as Legion and Wrath. Personally, I would rank this expansion around the middle of the pack. Now that the Battle for Azeroth is over, what ruminations do I have from the past 2 years?

Honestly, the first half of the expansion was pretty good. I enjoyed meeting Jaina’s family and restoring her people’s faith in her and meeting Taelia Fordragon and learning her story. I hope Blizzard will pursue a possible love interest between her and Anduin. It has been a long time since there has been a Queen in Stormwind. The real story is told by the raids and I’m pretty split on that.

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