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VP says Gametap's troubles are 'greatly exaggerated'
In an interview with GameDaily, GameTap's VP of Content, Rick Sanchez, explains that rumors of the gaming-buffet's death are "greatly exaggerated." Although he avoids divulging whether GameTap is profitable, he does say that it is hitting parent company Turner Broadcasting's P&L (profits and losses) figures, so apparently it's still keeping daddy happy.Although rumors of GameTap's demise have pretty much been present since the service launched -- something even Sanchez jokes about -- things went into overdrive after the company laid off its all-star editorial team. GameDaily reports it heard rumors in the wake of the firings that the service would remain online only as a shell until December and then be buried. Sanchez "categorically denies" any of that, pointing to Grimm and more announcements expected in the future as proof of the service's growth.
Raid Rx: Analyzing your healers Part 4
Raid Rx is designed to encapsulate and cure the shock and horror that is 25-man raid healing. Ok, so it's mostly horror... Anyways, if you're a big fan of X-TREME Whack-A-Mole (or are being forced into it against your will) this is the column for you. That above is the fun product of Wordle. I creatively call it "WoW WWS Healing". Click on it to give it a spin of your own. So, if you've just randomly stumbled upon this multi-part saga on WWS meets healing, here's a lovely link to get you caught up. For the rest of you operating with mere short term memory lapses, this link right here will transport you to the example WWS we've been mulling about. But more on that after the jump.
Animations to die for
I was chatting with a friend the other day (shut up! I do too have friends!) and we were playing reference poker -- you know, someone makes a comment referring to some aspect of pop culture, and the other person replies in kind. She said ' ... you are eaten by a grue.' I made the obligatory Zork return reference and we moved on, but the bit about being eaten stayed with me for some reason. That night, I was running around in WoW and realized that nobody in Azeroth is eaten by anything.Why can't we have encounter-specific death animations? I, for one, would love a chance to be messily devoured by a Sludge Beast! I can imagine the horrific wounds as it slid over me, eating away at my flesh until only bones remained. A much more affecting experience than merely swooning and dropping dead, as though nothing more mortal than narcolepsy had occurred. Or how about a set of pre-built death animations, available at the touch of a key? Everything from 'clutching at your heart: myocardial infarction', to 'going white as a sheet and dropping dead from fright', to 'Scanners cranial explosion'. In fact, wouldn't this make pulling off the ol' 'Feign Death' trick a lot more fun? I'm telling you, it's the little things in life that make existence bearable. Let's see more creativity with our dying moments, developers! Believe me, you stand to ... make a killing. Hahaha! Oh, I slay me.
Breakfast Topic: Famous Last Words
I can't tell you how many times this has happened, and I'm sure you can all relate. You're in a group, in an instance, and in (or were in at the time) unfamiliar territory. Your group leader gives the command. You, being a good group member, follow the command that you've been given, only to see "wait!" go by just a split second too late as your group leader realizes that they've made a tactical error in judgment. The only problem is that you are already committed, and there is no going back. The next thing you know you're staring the rez angel in the face, and the rest of your team is either screaming in /p or (more often in my experience) howling with laughter in TeamSpeak at your group leader who just happens to be a (now) very embarrassed guild mate. I think these kinds of stories are really kind of universal in WoW, no matter what language, countries, or other differences we may have separating us. In my case, I've been involved in wipes in places as varied as Wailing Caverns where we jumped in the wrong place, not knowing you needed to clear all of the Scarlet Monetary Cathedral before you pull Mograine, and level aggro jumping off a balcony pulling huge amounts of the dungeon down on us in BRD. Of course, my personal favorite involved watching a Shaman say "Check this out!" and putting on Water Walking. He then decided it would be cool to run down the river as opposed to the land as a means of showing off. This, in and of itself, was no real big deal. However when he got to the end of the river rather than stopping he apparently completely forgot that he had Water Walking on and decided to take a swan drive over the waterfall. His intent was to just land in the pool below and swim to the side while the rest of the party had to ride down the cliff path in the Hinterlands. The only problem with this is that if you leave Water Walking on, it tends to makes the water react like you've just jumped onto solid ground. Needless to say that Shaman immediately died, and the guild mates he was showing off to still haven't let him live that one down as yet. (And frankly, we probably never will because he never lets us live ours down, either.)What famous last word situations have you been involved in? Are there any that your guild mates still haven't let you live down? Anything that made you completely howl with laughter when it happened and still makes you chuckle even now? Share your stories!
How to die (without style)
Over on his blog, Gitr discusses the many ways in which one can die when playing a warrior after playing a priest for 64 levels. And oh -- I feel his pain. There's a reason I always play healing classes that stretches beyond helping others. There's no better way to save yourself than with a quick power word: shield or a timely psychic scream. While I've never seriously played a warrior, Gitr lists a few ways to die that I'm completely familiar with: Wait until you get to 1000HP and try to heal yourself. Spam the Bubble key over and over again to deflect damage. Aggro too much and try to Psychic Scream. Whenever I'm playing my rogue, I just keep hitting the flash heal button and it never works out quite the way I expected. (Why not, I may never know.) However, I'm very glad to read that I'm not the only one who has this sort of problem when switching classes.
Should you lose experience when you die?
In the World of Warcraft, the cost of dying is really pretty minimal. Yes, there's the trouble of running from the graveyard to your corpse and yes you take 10% durability damage to all of your equipped gear (the cost goes up to 25% if you need to spirit rez). So you lose a minute or two of time running back to your corpse eating/drinking/bandaging, and rebuffing yourself before getting right back to where you left off. In terms of gameplay, you're not really set back at all -- you don't lose experience or levels from death. And sometimes death can even be beneficial to your character: say, by killing one of a pack of three monsters (dying in the process), and then coming back to take out the second and the third. You've just managed to kill a group of monsters larger than you could have killed alone -- all by benefit of the death system!But the penalty for death is so light that there's not really much reason to avoid it. Oh, I know the time spent in corpse runs adds up and the cost of repairing gear only gets higher and higher. But it's not the end of the world if you die -- and it's hardly even the end of your online character. And so there are some players who think the death penalty needs to be harsher. If death mattered, we'd all be playing more cautiously -- in fact, the difference in playstyle would make it a whole new game. But it would make the most difference in the raiding game -- I can't say I've ever learned an encounter without a few deaths. Losing experience or levels for wiping in a raid situation?"Sorry everyone, I just leveled down to 69 from that wipe, have to go grind."Ouch!
Breakfast Topic: Worst Death
While you may think that no death is a good death, some are definitely worse than others. I can pinpoint my least favorite immediately - it was a full party of mid-40s players running through Jintha'Alor to finish making Zul'Ferrak mallets. The final pulls as we approached our goal were level 51 elites, and quite challenging for our under-leveled group. We finished and started heading out, to be met with respawns. I, a cloth wearer, was taken out pretty quickly, while the rest of the group managed to run, and keep running, to safety. I must say that extracting myself from this temple, swarming with angry trolls, was quite interesting. But there are still other scenes that come to mind - instance runs gone wrong and particularly underhanded PvP tactics. What about you? Do you have a least favorite encounter with your friend the spirit healer?
The Death Stories Project
The Death Stories Project is a research progress focusing on how players experience death in MMO's. The project is currently seeking contributions from players of various MMO's who are interested in describing their in-game experiences with death and share screenshots. There are no results or findings posted yet, but the project looks to be an interesting one. So take a look, and if you have time, fill out the survey. [Via WarCry]
