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The Daily Grind: Do you get game wanderlust?
We gamers are a fickle bunch. Perhaps you're a veteran player of Guild Wars and have always loved the game, even when you knew the sequel was coming. But you saw the recent Ranger reveal, and when you logged in you were suddenly struck by an overwhelming urge to play Guild Wars 2 immediately, not this crappy old game that you hate and is terrible. It's not that you're actually dissatisfied with the game, but the promises of new shiny things have left you feeling an urge to pick up and go somewhere new. The allure of something new and good can be a powerful intoxicant, and it can bring people into strange new locations. Do you find yourself wanting to head off into a new game despite there being nothing wrong with your current main game? Are you tempted to try out newer titles on a regular basis, even if you know you'll end up going back? Or do you convince yourself not to go anywhere when you'll just turn around in the end?
The Daily Grind: Beta burnout, spoilers, and testing TOR
The recent hubbub surrounding Star Wars: The Old Republic's closed beta invites got me to thinking. Perhaps I should reconsider my recent policy against signing up for the betas of games that I'm planning on playing long-term, not only to get a sneak peak at the most anticipated title in years (purely for journalistic purposes of course), but also to help test and make my voice heard while the game is still somewhat malleable. Then, I recalled my experiences with betas ranging from Vanguard, to Mortal Online (alpha?), to The Matrix Online, all titles which at one point or another were at the top of my list of prospective "main" MMORPGs. In each case, the testing period soured me on the games before they even launched, and while each case was different, the ultimate outcome was the same: come release, I really had no desire to be there. That changed quickly with Vanguard, and I did ultimately end up playing the release client for quite a while, but as a result of the other burnouts, I've adopted a policy of signing up for betas of those titles that don't really interest me long-term. What say you, Massively readers? Are you prolific beta-testers who lend a bug-hunting hand to every title that comes down the pipe? Or are you more like me, selective and prone to avoiding those games you know you actually want to play at release?
The Daily Quest: Burning out
Here at WoW.com, we're on a Daily Quest (which we try to do every day, honest) to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment and you may see it here tomorrow! Take a look at the links below, and be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW-related sites. It seems to happen to everyone at some point or another: the game's no longer as exciting as it used to be, and your logins become sporadic and finally vanish entirely. At WoW.com we love World of Warcraft as much as anyone -- but once in a while, everyone needs a break. Even from their favorite game. Today, a few posts on the subject of burnout. Achtung Panzercow discusses the dreaded b-word. Since this blog post has been gathering dust in my "links to use in The Daily Quest" list for a while and Panzercow is still blogging about WoW, it can only be assumed that burnout has come and gone. Or perhaps come and gone and come and gone. Or perhaps... well, you get the idea. Mana Obscura talks about battling burnout. Moar HPS! talks about trying to stay interested. Any tips on escaping WoW burnout to share with us? Leave 'em in the comments!
Arcane Brilliance: Great balls of fire
It's time again for Arcane Brilliance, the weekly mage column that asks the question: Which balls are the best? The answer, of course, is also provided by Arcane Brilliance: balls of fire. Balls of fire are the best. Wait, what kind of balls were you thinking about? That's pretty gross. But Arcane Brilliance likes where your head is. When the Cataclysm class previews were announced by Blizzard lo those many months ago, my initial reactions were a decidedly mixed bag. Arcane scared the crap out of me. Mana Adept? It took several weeks and many hours of therapy before I could envision any sort of scenario in which that idea didn't sound like a terrible, terrible idea. Frost struck me as kind of meh. I gradually became more excited after I thought about it for a while, but Deathfrost and Wall of Fog simply weren't all that thrilling as initial concepts. Fire, on the other hand, sounded awesome. A giant ball of conjured flame that travels along a set path, sending out tendrils of destruction that incinerate anything in its path? Sexy.
Officers' Quarters: Last stop on the gravy train
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available this spring from No Starch Press. What is the purpose of an officer? Most would say, "to run a guild." Here's where definitions begin to diverge. To some players, running a guild means little more than handling guild invites and occasionally managing drama. Those duties are fine if your guild exists for purely social reasons. Any guild that is actively raiding, PvP'ing in an organized way or holding official roleplaying sessions requires much more from its officers. Too often, the vast majority of those tasks fall on the shoulders of a single individual. This week's email is a cry for help from one such officer. Hi Scott! I am the leader of a Casual/Raiding Guild, and we've been together for 2 years by now. We were like 5 or 6 close friends that met each other at another MMO and founded a Guild. When we decided to come to WoW, we founded our Guild together, and worked towards its improvement. Today, we are one of the biggest guilds at our server, and we have a strong realm reputation. Of course the guys that founded the guild with me were officers, including their spouses as we were all close friends, and founded the guild together. That was the right thing at that time. They sometimes worked as counselors at some difficult times that we had, when I was lost and didn't know what to do or how to do. However, most of these guys never helped me at all with the "every day job" like recruiting, leading a raid, being the master looter, handling drama, or every other daily task that all the guilds have. Every single problem or drama that shows up, I need to solve by myself.
Guild life pre-Cataclysm: Surviving the end times
When I inherited leadership of a successful 25-man raid during The Burning Crusade, I had a steep learning curve. After the first year, I had mastered the fine arts of recruiting, juggling subs, managing raid time, resolving disputes and running a tight ship. Little did I know what awaited us when halfway through our Sunwell Plateau progression, Wrath of the Lich King was announced! Fortunately, my guild was able to weather the storm, and now that we are closing in on Cataclysm, I am much better prepared. Guild masters who haven't experienced the pre-expansion blues may find themselves overwhelmed with the task of keeping their once tight-knit community from turning into a ghost town. Some players may choose the months before an expansion to take an extended vacation from the game. Others may choose to focus on a favorite alt, and still others are chomping at the bit to farm the highest tier of raid content in order to complete their ideal gear sets. No doubt all three types of players are in your guild. How are you expected to funnel everyone's pre-expansion desires and expectations into group-friendly activities that keep them logging on night after night?
Officers' Quarters: An uncertain return
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available this spring from No Starch Press. As I mentioned two weeks ago, we are really hitting the lull between expansions at this point. Many officers and guild leaders will be tempted to take a break from the game between now and Cataclysm. For a guild leader, it's a particularly tough decision. There's quite a bit of uncertainty about what will happen to a guild in its leader's absence. What many guild leaders don't think about, however, is the uncertainty that can occur once they return to the game. This week, one guild leader is returning from an extended break to find that the guild is still going strong, but that many things have changed in his absence, not the least of which is his own role. Dear Scott, I have a different situation than I have seen you discuss before. I am the guild creator and original GM of a raiding guild. I set up all the rules for the guild, with advice from my officers, set raiding rules, assigned ranks, and generally ran the guild how I wanted. It turned out to be quite a wonderful guild and I am happy that I was able to create a guild that functioned so well. Well, after leading the guild for more than a year, we started to grow rather large. We had 3-4 10-man groups going each week, 2 25-man groups, and other various activities. Even though I had asked some officers to step up and lead events, they didn't really pull through so I ended up leading a lot. At one point, I was leading 5 raids a week. With everything else going on in my life, I realized I couldn't maintain that sort of schedule for long.
Officers' Quarters: The benefits of Cataclysm raiding
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available this spring from No Starch Press. If you've read WoW.com's reaction to the new Cataclysm raiding paradigm, you already know that I'm a bit biased about this whole situation. I can't deny that this announcement had me cheering. On the other hand, I'm hearing a lot of doom and gloom from around the WoW community. Few people seem to embrace these changes wholeheartedly, and that's all right. There's quite a bit of uncertainty -- even fear -- about how it will all play out. I understand that. All raiding guilds will be affected one way or the other, and it could be that your guild will have a hard time adjusting to the expansion's raiding environment. As officers, however, we can't give in to negativity. No matter how you might feel about these changes, they are happening, so let's move the conversation into a more productive area. Let's examine how Cataclysm raiding could help us as officers and how we can take advantage of these changes to help our guilds thrive.
The Daily Grind: Do you have fantasy burnout?
Okay, a lot of us rolled our eyes after a while at Global Agenda's ongoing No Elves campaign, but there was a ring of truth in it. Other genres are definitely out there -- post-apocalyptic, sci-fi, and so on -- but the fantasy genre is still the king of MMO Land. If you look strictly at overall numbers, particularly in the free-to-play category, fantasy is easily the most dominant category. So does it get to be too much after a while? Do you need a break from wings, mages, and mythical creatures? There have always been alternatives lurking here and there, but with the growing popularity of alternatives such as Fallen Earth, Champions Online, and Star Trek Online it seems that maybe the industry is suffering from a bit of fantasy burnout of its own. So what about you? Hit that handy little button there and let us know: are you more than ready for a change?
Anti-Aliased: Burnout, revenge
Oh those sparkle ponies. They were a fun diversion last week, and a pretty fun topic to write on. Kudos to Blizzard for making crazy amounts of cash last week -- you guys at the marketing department really knew your audience and how much they'd pay for a shiny mount. While I may disagree with the size of the price tag, I still admire how well that move worked out for them. I'm sure we'll be seeing more things like that for World of Warcraft in the future. Anyway, let's move onwards to this week's topic: MMO burnout. Almost all of us experience it at least once with one of our favorite games, and some of us have experienced it more than once across a single game or many games. Right now, I'm really with you guys who are suffering from burnout. I've been looking for a good game to sink my teeth into, but I just can't seem to find "the one" right now. So I'm off doing some other activities, trying to rekindle that spark of love for MMOs. This week I want to talk about some of the ways I've been combating burnout, much like Mr. Kyle Horner did before me, and hopefully you guys can chime in with some ways of your own!
Drama Mamas: The burden of guilt
Dodge the drama and become that player everyone wants in their group with the Drama Mamas. Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are real-life mamas and experienced WoW players -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. We're taking your questions at DramaMamas@WoW.com. Burnout burns (yeah, we see how that word works), but guilt grinds. We've talked about burnout here before. The only way out is -- well, out. But when your friends and guildmates still want to dive into the surf, how do you handle the guilt of leaving them high and dry? Dear Drama Mamas: Since the beginning of Wrath, I've been the main tank of my guild. It's what I've always done and I've really enjoyed it. I MT for two raids, one being a very casual 25-man (only 7 bosses in ICC) and the other being a 10-man that's a bit more hardcore (did Alg in Uld, various raid achievements, downed LK, etc.). I've enjoyed both raids very much for different reasons. The 25-man is very laid back, with many of my friends, and the 10-man sates my need for challenging progression. Recently, the leader of our 10-man decided to call it quits for awhile, just to take a break from WoW before Cat. is released. Not a problem for me, in fact, I've also been feeling a bit of WoW burnout and also thought it the perfect time to take a break. A few others in the 10-man also felt the same way. So no hard feelings there. The problem is my 25-man raid. I've been one of the anchor members for a while and have helped out quite a few other tanks that have come and gone. I've also been told repeatedly that the raid performs horribly when I am not there. In fact, I almost left this raid once before when I was recruited for a much more hardcore raid but was convinced by many of my friends to stay on.
Officers' Quarters: Verge of collapse
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available this spring from No Starch Press. If ever there were a time for guild-leader or raid-leader burnout to set in, we are living in it. We are at the end of perhaps the most challenging six months of raiding content in WoW's history -- not in terms of its difficulty, but in its sheer potential for drama and member loss. First we had the half-hearted tier that consisted entirely of Trial of the Crusader, a one-room raid that took all of an hour to clear, and Onyxia, a well-loved but well-worn raid boss that was also a quick, and often boring, clear. Keeping raiders motivated during what felt like an endless four months wasn't easy. Many raid leaders were pulling out their hair trying to fill slots. For the most serious guilds, ToC was an absolute nightmare. Not because the content was itself difficult, but because of the rewards offered for clearing the zone without a single wipe, or even a single player death. Some very good players cracked under this kind of pressure. In a situation where one person's mistake -- not to mention disconnects, lag, or other external factors -- can quickly cause a death or a wipe and cost the entire raid access to loot, offering these achievements seemed to me like Blizzard was going out of their way to cause drama. Icecrown Citadel was supposed to be our savior, but instead it brought new and unanticipated problems.
Criterion puts the brakes on hopes for more Burnout Paradise DLC
You probably got that idea already, considering nothing but the sound of crickets and tumbleweeds have emerged from Criterion HQ since the release of the last bit of Burnout Paradise DLC, Big Surf Island. A tweet from the company account confirms our fears, stating there will be "no more" DLC and that the company "did WAY more than everyone else." That's all well and good, but it doesn't slake our need for more amazing DLC! So there you have it. The world is a colder and darker place today. If you need us, we'll be Freeburning our troubles away online, pining for what could have been.
15 Minutes of Fame: Retirement home
15 Minutes of Fame is WoW.com's look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes -- from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about. Is there such a thing as retirement guilds for burned-out players? When Sharaya and Boltac of Vanguard of Norrath spotted that innocuous question on the Blackwater Raiders realm forums, they recognized a familiar face: their very own guild. A collection of former hardcore gamers from the EverQuest era, VoN has become home base for a more casual approach. "We've all done the hardcore raiding thing, which comes with wanting to see everything and do everything in a high-content mass online game," explains VoN officer Sharaya. "We all have had our stints with guilds sporting the usual raid schedules, leveling needs, gear requirements and members constantly preening about scores from tertiary web sites with convoluted ranking systems. In the beginning, we all did this as a choice. It let us see everything, and let's face it -- it was fun. "But as in most games with such demands, many good players get burnout," he continues. "They don't tire of the game; they tire of the routine. They tire of 'having' to log in to make events or risk /gkick. They tire of the constant fighting over drops and arguing about who gets invited to what. The game ceases to be a game and becomes a chore. It truly is a 'daily.' What we realized is this is not a fault of the game; it's a fault of the guild you're in." So they created Vanguard of Norrath to offer a refuge from the grind, a place to indulge what Sharaya calls "the ability and know-how to blitz most anything we wanted but ... on our schedule, at our pace and without any pressure." The big surprise? How many other players have been attracted to VoN for exactly the same reasons.
Criterion details Burnout Paradise DLC that never was
You gotta give it up to Criterion Games. Throughout the lifespan of Burnout Paradise, the developers at Criterion worked their buns off to give us all kinds of juicy DLC, from a new island to explore, a new game mode, right down to motorcycles and many, many car packs. Now, the company has prepared a lengthy diatribe documenting some of the updates that never got off the ground. For one, did you know that Criterion initially planned to have motorcycles vs cars? Yep, sure was planned -- and did you know that Criterion wanted to create a whole series of islands, not just the one? The devs even wanted to give players the ability to go to the moon, complete with lunar challenges for Freeburn addicts. Also: the planes thing wasn't an April Fool's joke -- the dev actually wanted to add them (and other vehicles) into the game. Overall, it's a pretty great read, if only to show you just how committed the studio was to the game and raising the bar for DLC in general.
Stop playing your favorite game
Do we have everyone's attention? Great. Now do exactly that. Stop playing your favorite game. Not forever, just for now. Just let it rest and play something else for a while. That's the idea proposed by Bio Break in an entry about letting go. The idea, as it's put forth, is that the best way to fight burnout is to prevent it from happening in the first place. If you're really enjoying a game and are just a few days away from a major goal, why not put it down and savor that instead of pushing forward until the game has stopped being fun? Of course, it's hard for us to behave that way -- if we're enjoying a game, our inclination is to keep playing until we aren't, at which point burnout kicks in and we start almost dreading logging in. But it's an interesting idea and a different approach to keeping ourselves engaged. It's a lot easier to go back to a game if you've just let it sit for a while and have had some time to think about it fondly without being reminded of its blemishes. Absence can indeed make the heart grow fonder, and perhaps you should let your favorite game be absent for just a little while. You'll still be almost at your next major checkpoint when you get back, after all.
MMOrigins: The devolution of a gamer
It all started with a sick kindergartener. Trapped inside our tiny apartment, watching my feverish son flop listlessly on the couch, I was determined to find something to distract him. "He loves those wiggly, fiery pet things people have in that new game with all the rats," I thought, pulling up my husband's brand new EverQuest account. "I'll start him whatever makes those, and that'll keep his mind off how rotten he feels." After a hurried phone consultation with my husband on classes and stats, we found ourselves flitting about in front of Felwithe, searching for a way to summon our pet. "What's with this shield and sword that keeps popping up?!" I cried in frustration. Frantic inquiries to any enchanter who seemed likely to know how to summon the orange thing that wiggled its tail as it slowed down finally yielded the truth: we'd created the wrong class entirely. One re-roll and seemingly hours of dead bats later, our magician summoned her first fire pet -- firing an interest in MMOs that would become a family passion. My son went back to school the next day, leaving me at home with my work ... and that magician. Felwithe was annoyingly dark, and I kept getting lost every time I got beyond sight of the castle ("I've lost my body again; you think that bard friend of yours will be online tonight? Every green hill and tree looks the same, and Sense Heading does nothing to help ..."). Still, there was something persuasive about the experience. It wasn't long before my character had outleveled my husband's, I'd made friends with a band of intrepid trailblazers and joined what would become one of the server's top two raiding guilds.
Drama Mamas: The searing agony of burnout
Dodge the drama and become that player everyone wants in their group with the Drama Mamas. Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are real-life mamas and experienced WoW players -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. We're taking your questions at DramaMamas (at) WoW (dot) com.Should you stay or should you go now? You know the drill: if you go there will be trouble ... but if you stay it will be double ... If you find yourself doubting whether or not you really want to log in tonight -- or the next, or the next, or even the next -- make a decision. Don't be one of those burnouts who flop around like a beached Dragonfin Angelfish. When burnout hits, it's time to take action, both for your sake and the sake of everyone around you. So fire up this week's theme music, above, and let's proceed with the Drama Mamas Method of curing a raging case of burnout.
Codemasters: Natal won't replace traditional controls in racers
Codemasters wasn't too impressed with that Project Natal-enabled Burnout demo, apparently, and thinks gamers won't trash their controllers and steering wheels for racing games when Natal is unleashed on the public. Speaking to Videogamer, Codemasters' Ralph Fulton -- who is currently hard at work on DiRT 2 -- said, "The complexity of control for a racing game, certainly for a core racing game like ours, requires a controller." Fulton points to the need for feedback and precision, claiming that Project Natal just won't do either justice. That's not to say there isn't a place for Natal in racers, as Fulton thinks it could add some functionality on top of traditional controls, though he fails to provide us with any ideas of his own. Until we get our hands on the final product, we're just going to have to watch those chase scenes from Ronin over and over again with a pair of fuzzy dice strapped to our TV.
Valve wants to see a 'compelling game' from Natal (so do we!)
Project Natal has been the talk of the virtual town since its unveiling back at E3. A few developers have dished on the possibilities, but theoretical physicist-employing Valve has kept silent. The reason behind that silence, Destructoid reports, is because Valve is waiting to see something "compelling" before diving right it.Okay, we'll admit that Block Breaker and Burnout Paradise looked pretty fun on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and at E3, but Valve certainly has a point. Talking with a virtual kid is kinda cool, but we can see the novelty wearing off quickly. And how much Block Breaker can one honestly play before having a heart attack?
