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The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV did not ruin your birthday party
If you were one of the many, many people trying desperately to get Square-Enix's account management page to work on Wednesday evening, you're probably not one of the people this week's article is aimed at. It's pretty clear that even amidst all of the recent controversy surrounding Final Fantasy XIV, there is no shortage of players who couldn't wait to get into the game at the first opportunity. So if you were also up until way too darn late hitting "Refresh" and getting sick of hearing that the connection was reset, you don't need to worry. But there are a lot of things that have prompted players to call the premature death of Final Fantasy XIV. The fatigue system in particular did a wonderful job of making roughly nobody happy, spawning rage-filled comments that are still showing up in my inbox. Guildleve cooldowns are another big complaint, the one that originally prompted me to start planning this article. (Yes, well before Komoto tried to calm people down and accidentally did precisely the opposite.) But the sky isn't actually falling, and these systems do have their positive points... and there are very good reasons that we shouldn't be worried.
Flying Lab explains the 7-server shutdown
Flying Lab CEO Russell Williams has explained the reasoning behind the recent shutdown of 7 of the 11 servers that host Pirates of the Burning Sea. In an e-mail to news publication Next-Gen, Williams gives a number of factors that went into the decision to close down over half of their servers and consolidate the in-game population.Among the numerous reasons are the fact that they made some faulty assumptions concerning player balance and play style, based on the way their beta testers stressed the game more people showed up for the beta than stuck around after the official launch. Williams goes on to say " ... we have systems that require a minimum number of players to function correctly, such as our economy, and they break other systems if they're not working correctly (such as PvP). If we didn't have these kinds of interdependent systems, we wouldn't even be considering server merges."For the full list of reasons for the shutdown, read the entire article. What do you think, Learned Audience? Was this the right decision to make, based on the evidence?
To click or not to click?
Flipping through the forums I came across a post by Taithleech where he was asking why everyone seems to think clicking is bad. It's only been recently that I knew about this debate, but I can't really call it a debate if it's one sided, can I? A lot of players seem to believe that using keybindings is the only way to play. When I started playing World of Warcraft I was actually taught by a friend to use the mouse to click on my spells as a way of improving my speed in the game. Since hearing about the keybinding argument I have recently tried using them more than my mouse in instances, and I do find that my speed has greatly improved. Now, being the frost mage I find I spend a lot of time spamming Frostbolt, so that's a situation where I don't think clicking the spell with my mouse hinders me in any way. There are even fights, such as Warlord Kalithresh, where I use a combination of keyboard and mouse to maximize my speed. Many of the posts on the forum thread made reference to something I hadn't considered. They say that in order to play WoW properly, you need to approach it like an FPS. I guess this argument is particularly valid if you spend a lot of time in the arenas. I personally have little FPS experience, and so this viewpoint makes me a bit uneasy. I see the advantage of working your keyboard to its full advantage, but I'm just not sure I've got the reflexes to play like that. In the end I will have to agree with one poster who said that clicking isn't wrong, it's just slower. Where do you side on the keybindings/clicking debate?
Breakfast Topic: Certain death
I think I have an addiction to dying. Especially on characters I don't really care about. I was recently playing on the test servers and decided to run my orc all the way to Stormwind (not so bad with an epic mount!), just to see how far I could get. Mage District, in case anyone's interested.A week later, I was passing some time fishing in pleasant solitude -- just me and the rod -- when an orc ran past me. Again, this was in Stormwind, but this time I was playing as Alliance. I admired his guts, but then moonfired him to death after a guard had softened him up a little. It's karma.Ever since these oddly similar orc incidents, I've tried to get my alts into strange and dubious places to die. Jumping off tall rocks -- check. Seeing how many fast-running mobs I could kite before they overwhelmed me -- check. PvP flagging in Hillsbrad -- check. The unnerving thing is that the deaths of all my alts combined are outweighed by the deaths of my main character -- PvP and raiding on a new boss all combine to make so much mincemeat of me. Have you an addiction to death? Do you enjoy death, see it as an inconvenience, or try to avoid it altogether? Are you attached to the happy smiling face of your wisp or ghost more than your flesh-and-blood character?
Breakfast Topic: I tank, you tank, she tanks
Quote of the evening last night: "we need war druids cant tank". (Of course, two druids proceeded to tank, presumably confusing this particular group member.)What defines a 'good' tank? What do you look for when selecting which group member should take on the onerous duty of being hit a lot? As a tank, what do you look for in a group?Having spent much of my time until level 60 in PuGs, I have something of a fear of tanking. Despite being a feral druid (for the most part), my experiences with random people have been universally dismal. To give you some idea, the best run I'd had for a long time was the Stockades, an instance which is loathed by many players.From the tank's point of view, it really helps to have group members who understand -- and listen. Those who realise it takes time to build up aggro, and don't rush in immediately with killer DPS. Those who realise that sometimes the squishies shouldn't do all the pulling. Those who appreciate the problems of adds -- or too much to handle -- and yell if they're in trouble. I've encountered everything from crazy DPS shadow priests to tanking mages, and most of it puts me off tanking with strangers -- but it's a dirty job, and someone's gotta do it.
