learning-to-play
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The Daily Grind: What things should MMOs explain to new players?
Games do not like to explain the concept of roles to players. This is not to say that they don't expect players to take those roles, most frequently the standard trinity setup; rather, those roles are never explained in depth. There's no tutorial in Star Wars: The Old Republic explaining what a tank is or how you will want to play one. In a game like Guild Wars 2, which has a radically different role structure from every other game, you'd expect more explanation, but it offers even less. This is a smaller part of a larger problem: Many MMOs are built with the assumption that the players are familiar with certain core conventions. So you get tutorials on movement but not on roles or character builds or group behavior or anything that you might need if you've never played an MMO before in your life. What do you think MMOs in general should explain to new players? What areas are lacking in resources for anyone getting into a game cold? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Summoner's Guidebook: Practice makes perfect
If you haven't noticed from previous editions of The Summoner's Guidebook, I emphasize practicing new techniques a lot. Practice is the only thing separating novice League of Legends players from experts. Talent can help speed up the process, but the best summoners are those who work hard to improve their skills. No pro player got to where he is today by playing only one or two games a day. However, merely playing a lot of games doesn't make you a good player. In fact, the wrong kind of practice builds bad habits that are hard to break. When I first got into League of Legends, I knew quite a few people who also played the game. Although a few (who are semi-pro players) are still much better than I am, I became vastly better than the rest of my peers in a very short amount of time. Want to know my secrets? Read on!
Encrypted Text: Even rogues have homework
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any screenshots you'd like to see featured here or any questions you might have! I hate homework. When I was in school, I was always finding creative ways to turn my assignments in as late as possible. I completed most my English assignments the night before they were due, and I've solved a few calculus questions in the car on my way to class. No matter how important the assignment was, there was always something more interesting that I would rather do. When it comes down to a heads-up match between playing Warcraft 2 and studying biology flashcards, there's really no contest. Playing a rogue successfully in the endgame of World of Warcraft requires a lot of homework. We've talked before about the very math-centric natures of rogue theorycrafting. Without a spreadsheet or other mathematical tool, it's almost impossible to create a working model for testing DPS and checking gear. Boss abilities are constantly changing and being added, and they often interact with our abilities in non-standard ways. Blizzard's developers are implementing fixes on a daily basis. In order to keep up with the pace of WoW's development, you simply have to do your homework.
Lost Pages of Taborea: The importance of learning to play your role
This past week I was working on a couple of planned articles when I saw Josh Myers' post on WoW Insider about being a middle-ranged DPSer. I think the gist of the article was that we shouldn't look at another player's class and keep asking for buffs, skills or stats that would give another class more direct output to even out the equation. Not being able to pump out the most DPS is not a bad thing. This falls right in line with the subject of class balancing that I've been talking about with some astute players on the Runes of Magic forum. I wish I could take credit for this, but it was midknight129 from the RoM forum who said -- to paraphrase -- "Classes don't have to be equal; they just should be equitable." Any player should want to play his class because he enjoys the skills and abilities that his preferred class provides, but he should also want a class that will hold up when compared to the other classes. This is especially true in a PvP environment. It's just hard sometimes to compare the damage-dealing capability of a Priest to that of, say, a Scout. All of this brings me to the idea of learning to play specific roles around intermittent patch updates and skewed mechanics. Can we enjoy our favorite class in such a gear-heavy MMO without worrying about maximum damage or healing output?
