Amusing graph of the WoW Token exchange rate when the new mount was released. From Reddit. |
Monday, October 28, 2024
Thoughts on the Gilded Brutosaur
Monday, September 30, 2024
The Trading Post
Monday, September 23, 2024
Raiding Plans, Ner'ubar Palace
Monday, September 16, 2024
The War Within: Last Zone, Delves, Endgame
Thursday, September 12, 2024
Hero Talents in Future Expansions
Kaylriene has some thoughts on the future of Hero Talents:
The pros are that Hero Talents add fun customization that is a decent flavor without requiring relearning a spec and that they are powerful – the stated design intent is that they can and should be near 33% of your overall throughput, which is a very-potent 10 points to spend. The cons are that they just aren’t flavorful enough, they’re largely passive bonuses that take agency out of your hands, and oh yeah – it’s WoW and mathematically you have a top pick for every spec and every mode of play that’s already mathed out and written up on Wowhead guides, Icy Veins, and the class Discords. My longer-term wait-and-see con for them is that they also feel like a trap that is going to be designed around in just one expansion – by using this solution, Blizzard has functionally trapped themselves to either expanding the Hero Talent trees for a couple of expansions until they’re as big as the class and spec trees or pruning them down and making the big marquee rollout of them a bit of a waste, and neither of these is a particularly good outcome. I hope there’s a secret third option and that Blizzard has already identified this as a priority.
I was thinking about the future of Hero Talents in new expansions, and I do think there's a third path. Blizzard could completely replace the 3 current Hero archetypes with 3 new ones. So in The War Within, you're a Templar Retribution paladin. In the next expansion, you can be a Crusader Retribution paladin that focuses on an entirely new mechanic.
Then in a couple of expansions, maybe they can bring back popular and successful archetypes, mixed in with new ones.
That way it becomes an evergreen system, but bounded at the same time. Each spec only has access to two Hero archetypes, but the archetypes change from expansion to expansion. Each archetype focuses on a specific ability, the way they do now, but remains at 10 points, and you get 1 point per level in the new expansion.
The core class and specialization remain consistent with the standard tweaks and tuning, while the changing Hero archetypes would provide the radical changes which people like to see.
Monday, September 09, 2024
The War Within: Hallowfall
This post may contain spoilers for The War Within.
Hallowfall may very well be the best zone ever created in World of Warcraft.
Now, I'm probably a little biased as a paladin player, but everything about the zone is just perfect. The Arathi are excellent. It's so nice to have a zone of basically Lawful Good people and have it be played straight, with none of "the good guys are really the bad guys" twists that have infected modern media. (Well, there is the Priory, but even that is more a case of the good guys getting desperate.)
The motif of fires and flames holding back the darkness, and Lamplighters who go into the darkness, works perfectly in this expansion. It also has surprising parallels with the kobolds and their use of candles to hold back the darkness. I'm waiting for the inevitable meeting of the kobolds and the Arathi, where the kobolds decide that the Sacred Flame is the biggest candle of them all, and become Lamplighters.
The questing plate armour is superb, perhaps the first armor that has surpassed Judgment in the eyes of the community. At least until the Judgement remaster was announced.
There are two very memorable side-quests. First, Alyza Bowblaze, who is quite likely to lead a crusade when she grows up. The second is The Last Mage, which is worth avoiding spoilers even in a spoiler-marked post.
Hallowfall is a superb zone, one of Warcraft's best. It manages to be a standout even in a very strong expansion.
Monday, September 02, 2024
The War Within: Second Zone
This post contains spoilers for The War Within.
I hit 80 while working on the second zone in The War Within, the Ringing Deeps. I guess the expansion is really balanced around only doing the main quests. And maybe doing the remainder on your "Warband"? Shades of FFXIV and doing side quests on other jobs.
In any case, the second zone was pretty decent. It continued the story of the Earthen from the first zone. One thing though, there's a plot line about how the Earthen can transform into some type of ghoul. This seemed to come out of nowhere for me. I was rather confused for much of this, as the quests seemed to take it for granted that we knew all about this and how it was a problem.
Actually, to be fair, it was really unclear whether: A) we knew that ghouls existed and didn't know where they came from; or B) we knew the ghouls came from Earthen. Maybe there was an introductory quest line in the first zone that got cut.
Otherwise, it was a good zone. Again, very Alliance-heavy with the focus on the Bronzebeards. I do wonder how primary-Horde players are finding this.
This is also the first zone in the expansion that is underground, and I do think Blizzard has done a good job here. It's clearly underground, but at the same time there's enough room to move about easily. The ecology also reinforces the feeling of being underground, with really interesting choices in flora and fauna.
Friday, August 30, 2024
The War Within: First Zone
Monday, August 26, 2024
The Infernal Hordes
The history of Diablo IV is Blizzard trying to make unique and interesting content, and the community yelling that the content needs to be more streamlined. That there's no point in making complicated dungeons, or making the players search for keys, etc. Then Blizzard gives in and smoothes out the rough edges.
And so in Season V, we come to the ultimate expression of this philosophy: The Infernal Hordes.
The Infernal Hordes is basically a large round room. Waves after waves of enemies spawn, and then you kill them and collect aether. After several waves, you go to a new room and fight a council of 3 bosses. Then you can spend your aether on rewards.
I fully expect the community to complain that you have to switch rooms for the boss fight.
On the other hand, the Infernal Hordes is pretty fun. There's also a mechanic after each wave where you can choose a boon/bane combo from a set of 3 options, which can change up how you approach future waves.
The Infernal Hordes is Diablo's combat in its rawest, purest form. Yet, Diablo's combat system is strong enough to make that compelling. But I guess the true test is staying power. Can the Infernal Hordes remain fun after a few weeks?
Friday, August 23, 2024
The War Within Early Access
Monday, August 19, 2024
Alleria: Light and Shadow
The second short for The War Within is Alleria: Light and Shadow.
I gather this is a condensed version of a longer audiobook. The artstyle is nice.
Also, I kept thinking that Alleria should have become a Demon Hunter. She's an elf, and she has all the same lines. She even uses her bow as a glaive-style weapon.
Heh, maybe this is hinting at a third specialization for Demon Hunters: Void. Demon Hunters that are void themed instead of Fel and fire themed.
After all, they gave Evokers a third spec, so maybe Blizzard will do the same for Demon Hunters.
Friday, August 16, 2024
Threads of Destiny
WoW is doing short trailers for the new expansion. Here's the first one, Threads of Destiny.
It's a pretty interesting introduction to one of the antagonist factions in the expansion. It also features everyone's favourite dagger, Xal'atath, doing traditional corruptive villain things.
One thing I particularly liked about the cinematic is that Xal'atath set things up so she wins both ways. The queen accepts, the princess supports the queen, Xal wins. The queen declines, the princess dethrones the queen, Xal wins.
If The War Within is just one crazy Xanatos Gambit from Xal'atath, I'll be pretty happy.
Monday, August 12, 2024
Dragonflight Catch-Up: Patch 10.1
I've been going through the Dragonflight story quests for each patch. Since WoW throws all the quests at you once you hit max level, it's very easy to do them out of order. I've been following this guide on Reddit.
So far, I've done the 10.1 quests, which focused mainly on the Black and Blue dragonflights. I quite liked both of them. For the Black dragonflight, I liked the triad of Ebyssian, Sabellian, and Wrathion. I thought their story was well done. It's pretty rare for WoW to focus on the flaws of the heroes in this fashion, and it was a nice change of pace. Compare it to the Blue dragons, where all the dragons had quirks, but no real flaws as such (well, maybe Azuregos).
The Blue dragonflight were also good, but very different in tone. I liked that Blizzard used the old world and history, taking players back to previously-visited locations.
All in all, the 10.1 quests were quite good and interesting. I'm looking forward to the next set of quests, which look to be focused on the Bronze and Green flights.
Friday, August 09, 2024
Radiant Echos
The WoW pre-patch event, Radiant Echos, is currently active. I caved during the free weekend and downloaded WoW again. I haven't played since launch.
First thing I noticed is that the UI feels slightly off. They didn't do a full overall, but Blizzard changed enough icons such that it's a bit unfamiliar. I still haven't figured out what the hourglass next to people's names in guild chat means.
The event itself is pretty fun. You go to three zones, do events based on quests and bosses from previous expansions, and then kill the memory of a major boss like Arthas. Then the cycle repeats, though the bulk of the reward comes from killing the boss once. It's a pretty good rhythm, and the quests are fun callbacks. There's also a nice variety of quest types. Sometimes it's killing a named character, sometimes it's collecting pages from Stranglethorn, and sometimes it's trying to get the perfect boar liver to drop.
I gather the original incarnation was much stricter. The event didn't repeat and only did one cycle, so it was easy to miss the boss kill. Also, I think the time between events was longer. Blizzard has tweaked it so that you can keep going consistently, and also have several chances to get the boss kill.
There's also a quest line, though I don't think it is complete. I imagine the second half will activate closer to the expansion launch.
Thursday, August 01, 2024
Heuristics for Building a Diablo IV Character
Diablo IV's next season is coming up, so I thought I'd lay out some heuristics and strategies for getting a semi-decent build. Now, none of these will compare to a true pre-made build from the various websites, but I think they're a good skeleton for a player to experiment with.
- Diablo IV is built around builder-spender gameplay. Generally only take 1 builder and 1 spender.
- One of your abilities (usually the spender) will be your main source of damage. Only put multiple ranks into this ability. Just take 1 rank of the other abilities you want to use. Other than your main ability, focus on passives.
- The legendary aspects you put on your gear are your "set". The priority for the early game is figuring what your "set" looks like and assembling the necessary aspects. After that, just keep imprinting your set on new gear.
- Put your best aspect on a 2H weapon (2x effective) if you are using one, otherwise on your amulet (1.5x effect).
- While levelling, temper your gear with the basic stats. The more exotic stats generally need a full build to take advantage of.
- As for gear, just upgrade whenever you can. You can worry about specific stats once you hit Ancestral gear.
- Unique items are powerful, but don't use too many. Much of your power comes from your "set" of legendary aspects, and each unique you use causes you to lose one of your set pieces.
- What sort of abilities and special effects you focus on depend mostly on your build (i.e. crowd control, burning, overpower, etc.). But you need an easy, regular source of Vulnerable, be it ability, aspect, paragon glyph, etc. You should have it by the time you hit Tier IV.
- For the paragon board, your first priority is glyph sockets, and enough ability points to activate the secondary power of the glyph. Then paragon nodes if they are good for your build. You should aim for at least 5 sockets. Pick up rare and magic nodes if they are close by, but focus on the path between sockets and paragon nodes.
- Personally, I think D4 works best when you do a wide variety of content. Mix things up.
Monday, July 29, 2024
The War Within Official Cinematic
The War Within official cinematic is rather different than most of the previous expansion cinematics. There's no attempt at a narrative, it's more a collection of characters and scenes. In some ways, it harkens back to the Classic and TBC cinematics.
However, the tone is very different. It's darker and more mysterious. A lot of people have said that it's closer to a Diablo cinematic than a Warcraft one. There's a lot of truth there, as there a "lightness' to WoW which is missing here.
Still, though it's pretty interesting trailer. That Arathi shield with a flame is quite neat, and hopefully will show up as an actual item.
Tuesday, July 23, 2024
Arcadion Light-Heavyweight Raids
This post contains spoilers for the Arcadion raids in FFXIV: Dawntrail.
The 8-man raids in Dawntrail are centred around the Arcadion. They're basically a fun set of wrestling-style raids. This set up allows for the bosses to be themed characters, but essentially unrelated to each other. The only relation is that they use a feral animal soul.
So you end up with bosses like the good-hearted rookie who's a cat, an idol who's a bee, a "heel" (wrestling bad guy) who's a bomb king, and a serious fighter who's a levinbeast (lightning horse).
The fights are all themed well, and are well done. There are some interesting mechanics. The first fight has the boss hit the tiles. Two hits break a tile, but the players can partially control which tiles get hit.
The second fight has a mechanic where if you have to avoid getting 3 stacks. One stack is unavoidable, and half the raid has to take a second stack. But you can choose which players get the second stack, so it can allow you to make life a little easier on weaker players. Having roles like this which vary in difficulty is good, especially in the middle tier of group play.
So far, the raid is a lot of fun. Interesting fights, stylish opponents. The stakes are not too high, though the ending of this part makes the stakes higher. Not world-threatening, which is a welcome change, but still important.
Friday, July 19, 2024
Spiritborn Unveiled
Diablo IV unveiled the new class in the upcoming Vessel of Hatred expansion: the Spiritborn.
The reactions online are pretty amusing:
It's just a druid.
It's just a monk.
It's just a witch doctor.
It's just an amazon.
Harambe!
It clearly draws a little from all these classes. The Aztec Jaguar Warrior motif is very neat. It's not something you see in many games. As well, it is a good mix of the familiar (Eagle, Jaguar) and the unusual (Gorilla, Centipede!).
I'm looking forward to Vessel of Hatred, and will probably give Spiritborn a spin in the first season. (Along with 95% of the game's population.)
Monday, July 15, 2024
Stars Reach Reveal
- There's an emphasis on simulation. How will that interact with immortal players who play at very different rates?
- The idea that "players move fast, goods move slow" is very interesting. Ideally it makes trading and multiple marketplaces and costly arbitrage possible.
- Combat seems to be primarily ranged, which will be interesting. What will the skeleton of combat look like? Threat-based, free-for-all, or maybe cover-based shooting?
- Stars Reach is expected to be Free-2-Play and sell cosmetics. Does that mean that the cosmetics will compete with crafters?
- Having it be based on multiple planets and stars is interesting. It allows the game to shrink or increase for player-size without greatly affecting the player's current planet.
- The biggest thing is that Stars Reach is going all in on player interaction. This is in strong contrast to WoW and FFXIV who are coming up with more and more ways to avoid playing with others.
Friday, July 12, 2024
FFXIV Dawntrail, Part 3
Let's ignore Wuk Lamat and discuss the rest of the MSQ. Let's start with the villains:
Bakool Ja Ja - a classic over-the-top bad guy. He gets introduced by stepping on our tacos! But it turns out he has a tragic backstory and eventually joins the heroes. Overall, Bakool Ja Ja was pretty good. The only problem with villains like these is that you can't make them do anything unforgivable, and Bakool Ja Ja came pretty close when he released Valigarmada. Probably a slight tweak to that part, maybe having Bakool Ja Ja releasing it so he could fight it, but he fails, would have been better. But overall, he's an enjoyable character.
Zoraal Ja - The problem with inscrutable villains is that they are, well, inscrutable. The player has to read deeply into their behaviour. I've seen really interesting discussions and theories about him, but they all rely on a level of subtlety that is hard to square with Wuk Lamat and the rest of the MSQ. Maybe the idea of Zoraal Ja is stronger than the actual portrayal. He plays his part well enough, but there's a nagging feeling he could have been done better.
Actually, an interesting alternate story would be your character assisting him in the trials, but he still fails and becomes the bad guy.
Sphene - Sphene would have made a much better villain in the next expansion. Her motivations are too close to Emet-Selch: restoring or preserving her people at the expense of other life. And in form and character, she's very close to Meteion. As a result, there is a very similar feel to Endwalker, and it is too soon for that. But if it wasn't for Endwalker, she would have been a very good villain.
The final half involves Alexandria and the conflict between the Alexandrian system and Eorzea. It's an interesting conflict in some ways because Eorzea puts great importance on the soul, but Alexandria puts the importance on the memories, and treats the soul as mere energy. Of course, Alexandria killing people makes it obvious which the right side is. It might have been more interesting if Alexandria was powered by memories, and the invaders didn't kill anyone, but stole their memories instead. It might even fit better with the concept of the regulators taking the memories of those who die.
Looking at the Dawntrail MSQ again, there are the bones of a great expansion. However, the timing is wrong, the themes are too close to the last expansion. And none of the pieces quite fit together smoothly. Nothing matched the high points of previous expansions.
Monday, July 08, 2024
FFXIV Dawntrail, Part 2
This post contains significant spoilers for the FFXIV Dawntrail Main Story Quests.
As always, the Simpson's did it first:
Homer: Whenever Poochie's not on screen, all the other characters should be asking "Where's Poochie"?Wuk Lamat is the Poochie of Dawntrail. You can't escape her presence. Out of six zones, she's present in five-and-a-half. The half-zone she wasn't present was blissful, until you find yourself tracking down a bracelet that belonged to her. She's almost always the main character talking. If the group splits up, you always go off with her.
Thursday, July 04, 2024
The Evolution of Diablo IV
Monday, July 01, 2024
FFXIV Dawntrail, Part I
Final Fantasy XIV's latest expansion has just launched in early access. The expansion is called Dawntrail, or has I call the first part, The Excellent Adventures of Wuk Lamat.
The story so far is big step back from the world-ending threats of Endwalker. The first part of the story, up to level 94 or so, is set in the continent across the western ocean, Tural. Which is based on South and Central America. You are helping a young claimant to the throne, Wuk Lamat, in a competition to determine the next leader of Tural.
Wuk Lamat is an interesting archetype. The young, naive, good-hearted, airhead. It's a fairly common archetype in Japanese anime, but I'm not really sure it's very attractive to Western eyes. I think we prefer our main characters to be more serious. For example, Stormblood featured a similar claimant to the throne in Hien, but I think Hien worked better for Western sensibilities. The heir in exile, struggling with the weight of his duties.
Which is not to say that Wuk Lamat is a bad character. Just that the airhead-ness sometimes comes across as flippancy, especially very early in the story.
Mechanics-wise, the first part of Dawntrail is an interesting exercise in what happens when you remove fetch quests. As is tradition for these types of competitions, there's lots of arbitrary fetch quests. Except your character does very little of the fetching. Instead the NPCs you are travelling with do all the work. For example, in a previous expansion, you might have to fetch wood and then hunt some animal for dinner. Here, Alphinaud will fetch the wood, and Alisae will do the hunting.
It feels like a very strong reaction to complaints about having to do menial quests in previous expansions.
However, I'm not sure it was a good idea. It doesn't give you much to do. You're basically running your character from cutscene to cutscene, with relatively little opportunity to actually "play" your character. There's still dungeons and the occasional special duty. But the amount of interaction with the world environment and monsters feels unusually limited.
It's quite possible it's a Main Story Quest thing only, and the side-quests have all the interaction one desires. But the game encourages you to save the side-quests for later. Maybe I should consider going back and doing them on a second class before continuing on.
The dungeons and first trial are pretty good. You can actually do the trial with an NPC group this time around, and they've put in some interesting behaviour. For example, the experienced characters always avoid mechanics, but the younger characters get hit the first time they see it.
All in all, the first part of Dawntrail is slower and lighter than previous expansions. It's still pretty good, but I hope it picks up in the next sections.