From Sunken Temple to Blackrock Depths

We have all reached 50th level and been instructed by our class trainers to visit the Sunken Temple. Our path before us is clear. But, wait, Qattara is a level above us. She's broken the covenant! Oh, she mentions something about the drop rate for her Sunken Temple class quest pre-requisite being poor, and that she is only a handful of XP in to the forbidden level, but this is clearly an escalation of previous competition. I will not be surprised if Livya retaliates after this, having been two levels below us all in Zul'Farrak. For now, we head in to the depths of the Sunken Temple, hoping that our descent is only literal, and not metaphorical for our continuing journey. To lighten the mood, Vulzerda gets her draenei boobs out.

Previous weeks of boasting about my intimate knowledge of the layout of the Sunken Temple are soon put to the test. Simply getting to the entrance of the instance can seem tricky. The route quickly comes back to me, and has nothing to do with large tribal masks hung along the correct path at every junction. Inside the instance, there are four paths, all heading in different directions, and all leading to a different level of the temple. Instead of being a straightforward romp along a mostly linear path, the Sunken Temple has several tiers, all of which can be visited in any order via separate paths. But I know the way. Our first destination is the lowest level, where we need to determine the order with which to activate the altar.

'Can't we just look it up on the wiki?', asks Livya. We could, but our mission is to explore and experience Azeroth in all its glory, like a first exposure. We are here for adventure in the Sunken Temple, to fight our way through it like a group on its virgin visit, albeit without the wasted time of getting lost. 'Anyone who hadn't been here before would look up how to activate the altar on a wiki.' Be quiet, we're doing this the hard way. Besides, I've already flawlessly guided us to the right place, without any jumping down of levels. So the altar is activated, the order of the green lights is noted according to proximate compass points, and we head back up to activate the statues in the correct order.

With the altar activated and the path below cleared, it makes sense to take the short-cut of jumping down to face the first boss. Quick work is made of the big troll monster, and I get a neat new piece of armour as a result. From here, we go up two levels to the minor troll bosses, who drop feathers for the class quests. Again, finding the right level and all of the six bosses is easy with me as a guide, and our little group plucks all the feathers from their bodies. We certainly don't have an unfortunate paladin and warlock in the party who fail to collect a feather each, the despawned corpses needing us to complete the instance, reset it, and return to get the missing quest items. This isn't an amateur group of idiots.

After the trolls, we face dragons, so it is up to the top level for dragon-slaying. The main chamber is emptied of dragons, Vulzerda skinning each one of them, although she almost gets a bit carried away. 'Oh no, I've just skinned Livya! Wait, no, that's her over there with you, this must be someone else's skeleton.' Getting rid of the dragon's bodies makes room for us to enjoy the other feature of the Sunken Temple. The instance is remembered both for being labyrinthine, but also for the hole in the top floor that falls right to the bottom. In every new group, someone inevitably drops to their death by not noticing the hole until it is too late, or not gauging from such a height that the water is only ankle-deep. Luckily, we are an experienced group, so we are all aware of the pit and the peril it presents. Unluckily, Qattara's cat has apparently not visited the Sunken Temple before, and a short rest next to the hole and cat-like typing results in Qattara plummetting over the edge.

Extraordinarily enough, a soulstone is active at the time, so Qattara uses it to return to life, Livya then summoning Qattara back up to the top level, avoiding the lengthy run up the stairs. There are a few more dragons to deal with on the path to Jammalan the Prophet, so whilst we deal with the problem of the fallen druid we let the imp loose again. After his exemplary performance at clearing Zul'Farrak when we got bored, he is keen to show he is equally as efficient at slaying dragons as trolls.

The way to Jammalan the Prophet is clear, and the fight is smooth, even with the mind control causing friendly fire at a couple of points. At least, mind compulsion was the excuse for attacking me. The spirit of Hakkar is just around the corner, and although not all of us gained a sinful level to get the quest, extinguishing the flames to make Hakkar vulnerable is completed without problems. We don't dare ask any questions when Qattara fills her egg with Hakkar's essence. From there, we only have the Shade of Erakinus left to defeat. I keep Erakinus turned away from the group, as he probably has nasty breath, to which Vulzerda points out that he has a nasty bum too. 'Have you ever seen a nice bum?', I ask, before being reminded that Vulzerda has an internet connection. I take a nap during the fight, letting others get bitten for a change, and we all remember to complete the quest within the room, rather than escaping the instance under the assumption that we probably have to hand it in on a different continent.

The whole run has been remarkably smooth, mostly because of the completely flawless navigation through the mutli-tiered maze of the Sunken Temple that confuses lesser adventurers. Never a wrong turn is taken, every objective is completed in an efficient order, and whoever makes the effort to journal our adventures gets the benefit of editorial revisions. I bet Livya won't be as sure in her efforts to guide us through Blackrock Depths. Indeed, so quick and efficient is our Sunken Temple visit that we have enough time to attempt an initial exploratory delve in to the Depths. We could at least attempt to get the Shadowforge Key, hopefully so we can get Blackrock Depths completed in only two visits. We travel to Searing Gorge and head in to the visually stunning heart of Blackrock Mountain, jogging across the connecting chain to reach our new objective.

The first challenge for getting the Shadowforge Key is picking up the quest. The NPC who holds the quest is a ghost, and only other ghosts can interact with him. Someone has to take one for the team. As fortune would have it, this is not only Livya's choice of instances to play her joker, but being a warlock gives access to life tap and hellfire spells, providing an easy combination with which to beocome a corpse. Livya runs back from the graveyard, talks to the ghostly dwarf, and shares the quest with us. Unfortunately, Livya's 'encyclopaedic' knowledge of Blackrock Depths doesn't extend as far as realising the quest with the dwarf is a two-part chain, requiring every party member to corpsify themselves at some point and collect a secondary quest that leads to getting the key. We find this out after our first BRD wipe, where the soulstone had 'only just run out', and Qattara and Vulzerda note the question mark above the dwarf's head as they run back to the instance.

Meanwhile, Livya and I have taken the raider's short-cut, traditionally used when returning to Molten Core after a wipe, jumping over the ledge on to a stone ramp just above the lava instead of running back down the chain. We are distracted by the other pair's quest discovery by our arguing about whether it is a Horde or Alliance-discovered short-cut. Once we realise that we've both bypassed the dwarf, and missed out on getting the quest for the key, we argue again about whose short-cut it is, but curiously both from the opposite perspective than before. Livya has time to turn around and get the quest, but I am back in the instance and alive, and the quest cannot be shared. Getting the key isn't terribly important, particularly as three of us will have it soon enough, but I would rather like it for the 'Keymaster' achievement. Livya obliges by pushing me off a bridge in to some lava, offering me a new opportunity to pick up the key quest. Thanks, Livya!

Without the Shadowforge Key, Blackrock Depths can be reduced to an almost-linear path. Of course, there are tempting side-routes to take, but they are either dead-ends, loops, or ultimately blocked by Shadowforge locks. Livya encourages us to 'clear the whole dungeon, so we can properly absorb the atmosphere', but I think the heat is getting to her. The heat has also got to the mobs, with many of them immune to fire damage. The fire immunity causes Blackrock Depths's only advocate to wail that 'half my arsenal is obsolete, this dungeon is rubbish!' She teases, though, because we plough through the first ante-chamber, defeat the monsters in the Ring of Law to appease the spectating crowd, and find the holder of the artefact that creates the key. But being an MMORPG, there is just one more boss a couple of minutes further down the path, so we take time to defeat fire elemental Lord Incendius. And then head a bit further down to see if Bael'Gar is at the end of the corridor. Once we find out that he is, and that we can encounter him quickly on our next visit if we have the key, we follow our footsteps back to complete the quest for the Shadowforge Key. Our intermediate goal is complete, and we head back home.

Back in Stormwind, there is sadly no RP for us this week, the cathedral being strangely empty. A disappointed Vulzerda uses her hearthstone to get back from the Stormwind Cathedral to the inn in Stormwind, citing it as 'quicker than running'. The night ends with us now able unlock the rest of Blackrock Depths. Being able to bypass the areas we have already visited makes it easier to attempt a full run to rescue the Princess of Ironforge from Emperor Thaurissan. I may need to get a green version of Vulzerda's outfit if we don't want to find the princess is in another Blackrock Depths. Livya can easily be mistaken for one of the midget mushroom people, and Qattara can turn in to a tree. I'm not sure how that last point is relevant, though. Next week, we'll return Princess Bronzebeard to Ironforge, or she'll die trying. It promises to be long.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on From Sunken Temple to Blackrock Depths
Tags: azeroth, filesystem checkwits, kiska, mmorpg, world of warcraft

From quests to achievements

Over at Killed in a Smiling Accident, Melmoth muses on the proclivity of players to skim quest text. I think it's fair to say that most players try to get only the gist of the quest, normally the number and type of mob to kill given conveniently at the bottom of the text, before hurtling off in the general direction of action. Clicking past quest text, using a quest tracker, and using meta information on the map is more of an indication to me that we want to get in to the world to be the hero, and not be bogged down in the mundanities that we deal with in the real world. And Melmoth is right that voice acting can be more of a hindrance to gaming than a factor for immersion, slowing down interactions when we would rather face orcs and elves in vast numbers. Adding voices to the mobs in battle tends to be more engaging than having quest NPCs talk to me.

I quite like the idea of an 'NPC' class, though, as it could feed a more complex crafting system. Players set objectives, needing items to be brought back to them, from which they can craft items as rewards. The crafters can remain in settlements, setting up and maintaining the processes needed to create superior equipment, whilst adventurer PCs have a way of turning their triumphs in to tangible rewards. The prestige for a crafter would be found in their ability to craft the most complex items in the game, with adventurers seeking them out for their equipment. But I digress.

A better evolution to skipping quest text may be to move away from the rigid questing system, where quests are picked up, objectives met, and the quests handed back in. Even though the game may never promise we're the main hero of the world, being shepherded around by the whims of NPCs rather lessens our pretence at heroism. A real hero takes the initiative, goes beyond the normal endeavour to analyse situations and put the world to rights. We need to make independent decisions about our surrounding environment and act on those decisions. Currently, if you are tasked with discouraging a group of ogres from setting up camp and you see an ogre that looks like the boss, when you kill the boss, hoping that this will shake the ogres' morale, you should be able to return and announce this victoriously. Yet inevitably all that happens is you are given a second quest to kill the boss, who has respawned now thanks to the MMORPG demands on the environment. This lack of intelligence in questing has been commented on enough times that it is surpising to see it still cropping up.

The idea of heroic adventures needs to be refined. The world can be presented as it is now, quests can be offered for those requiring structure or guidance, but there should also be the possibility for adventuring, heading out in to the world to make your mark. A hero can wander the land, defeating hostile forces, fighting plagues, routing raiders, and when he visits a settlement his victories can be sung by bards. This can perhaps be achieved by having each mob drop a token of some kind to show for the kill, and it be a guaranteed drop. The tokens can be used when a settlement is reached to show what deeds have been done, rewards then offered based on how the deeds affect the population. It is questing without needing the quest, but with the opportunity of also having quests to guide those who prefer a narrative. But maybe the idea could be taken further.

Where two or more opposing factions are in the game, give each one differing ideals. Defeating certain mobs, or doing certain tasks, will gain rewards with one faction but make another more hostile. It may be good for the farmers to kill the creatures eating the harvest, but the owners of the creatures who sent them out to forage may not appreciate it as much as having the farmers intimidated in to submission. There is scope to create a world no more complex than those already created, yet allow for more fluid adventuring in a grander sense. Quests can be removed from NPCs and made more universal. It seems to me that part of the initial reason for quest NPCs was to drag players backwards and forwards between settlements, taking up monthly subscription time. But there have been many moves away from wasting players' time, offering better modes of transport and reducing dead time between adventures. Removing the need for players to go back-and-forth between quest NPCs now seems like a natural progression of MMORPG gameplay.

In some sense, awarded achievements are the first step torwards universal quests. Achievements are built-in quest-like objectives that offer rewards. There is no limit to the number of achievements you can be eligible for at once, as they are pre-existing, every achievement available to read and gain from character creation, which also means you don't need to collect them from an NPC. The achievements offer some straightforwad goals to complete, as well as some more complex or aggregated challenges. The rewards for achievements amount to little more than a pat on the back for the most part, but this is only because the underlying power of achievements has yet to be realised. Even so, the mini-ding an achievement receives is not far removed from the feeling of satisfaction of gaining a level.

It may seem overwhelming if the player has access to a single interface containing thousands of quests in the form of minor achievements, but I see that as a relatively simple problem to overcome. The achievement system in World of Warcraft already has hundreds of achievements, yet individual ones are relatively easy to find. The achievement browser has sensible groupings and a minimal tree structure, allowing quick locating of individual achievements without having to delve deeply in to nested windows each time. With a more mature browser, abstracting the data in a way the player needs to see, achievements can easily be structured according to level and location, and automatic tracking can highlight begun objectives. Once an achievement has been awarded, it would only take a trip to an appropriate settlement to gain additional XP or material rewards in the same way a completed quest would.

Players choose to skip quest text to get to the adventure, and pursue achievements that offer mostly meta-rewards. Maybe what players need is the choice of how to explore the world, either guided by quests that offer a narrative or taking a more active approach by creating your own story. Exploring the possibilities of a more flexible and progressive achievement system would certainly be an interesting development.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on From quests to achievements
Tags: achievements, comment, melmoth, mmorpg

Abandoned arrays

Having lost his Nemesis, which really isn't funny, my colleague goes out scanning again. On finding some abandoned hangars and arrays, he wonders what happens to the items and ships inside if the hangars were broken apart. Perhaps the contents spill out in to the vacuum of space, or maybe everything inside is destroyed too. We must solve this mystery in the name of science. But we need to find the abandoned arrays first. He comes back to guide me in my Manticore through the wormholes to the w-space system, and we begin looking.

I rely on my directional scanner again, knowing that the arrays are sitting around a moon somewhere in the system, making them relatively easy to locate. I am able to find the relevant planet quickly enough, simply by pointing my d-scan at each planet in turn. When I see a refinery and ship maintenance array in the results I know I am pointing in the right direction. I warp to the planet and start scanning the moons, with a narrow 5° beam, but the arrays don't appear on any scan that coincides with the planet's moons. The arrays must be around here somewhere.

I move the d-scan around a bit more. Widening the beam initially, the arrays are picked up by the d-scan again, so I narrow the beam once more to get a more accurate bearing on their location. I end up with a 5° bearing on the arrays, but one that points out in to space. As far as I can tell, there are no planets or moons in that direction. But there is more I can do with the d-scan, as the range can also be adjusted. With a bit of extra scanning, I track the arrays to a point in space between 450,000,000 km and 460,000,000 km away from me, nowhere near a celestial object. They really have been abandoned.

A quick calculation, based on a constant flight speed of 500 m/s, puts the arrays around 29 years away, which is a little long. A micro-warp drive probably won't help much to make the travel time feasible either. I'm happy to leave the arrays where they are, particularly as we may not be able to open or transport them anywhere. But my tenacious colleague's curiosity has overcome him, and he stays out there in his scanning boat. By the time I am back at the corporation tower, he has the arrays resolved to within a few million kilometres, only a few months of travel away. Let's hope he sets a long skill training before starting the journey.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Abandoned arrays
Tags: eve online, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, w-space

Facing a Nemesis

I am out in w-space in my Manticore stealth bomber. A corporation colleague out scanning for wormholes has seen on his directional scanner poorly defended corporation's tower. He wants to test just how poor the defences are. He guides me through the couple of wormhole jumps, then warps off in his scanning boat to start locating the tower. I could sit cloaked near the wormhole, waiting, but instead want to see if I can find the tower before my partner.

Checking my own d-scan reveals the tower, and I know that towers have to be anchored to moons. As there is only one planet also within range on d-scan, the moon and tower must be in its orbit. I mention the targeted planet to my colleague, and warp to one of its moons at random to start my search. I take a look around when I drop out of warp, but there is nothing here and so I warp to a second moon. During flight, I reason that there is a more intelligent method of finding the moon, and thus tower, one that would also help improve my skills with the d-scan.

The tower is near a moon, and that moon must be in orbit around the nearest planet. I narrow the scan resolution from an all-encompasing 360° angle down to a finer 5° beam and point my scanner towards one of the planet's moons. The tower disappears from the scan results. The d-scan's bearing is related to the direction of the ship's camera, not the ship itself, so to change it I spin my camera view around to the next moon. It will take much less time to use the d-scanner on each moon than to warp to them, only needing the tower to re-appear on d-scan along with a single moon to have found it.

Imagine my surprise when I spin my camera view around for the second scan to find the tower and its shield only 120 km away. I probably should update my overview settings if I am going to be looking for corporation towers more often. I poke my still-scanning colleague, letting him know that I stumbled on the tower's location, and he dashes back to our own tower to jump in to his newly bought Nemesis, the Gallente-designed stealth bomber. My friend is keen to find out if we can knock out the three measly guns protecting the tower. I'm not terribly optimistic myself, but I'm willing to throw a bomb or two around.

I only know the Nemesis has arrived when I am told, as it remains sensibly cloaked. I have meanwhile repositioned myself to be around 30 km away from the tower's guns and ready to fire. We coordinate our bomb launches, after which I recloak. But my partner starts hurling torpedoes at the gun. I didn't realise we'd continue to barrage the gun, but that's okay. I decloak and let loose my own volley of torpedoes, whilst a bomb is launched from the Nemesis. I think he mistimed dropping the cloak and activating the bomb launcher, but he gets it away eventually.

Two impressive explosions follow. The first is the Nemesis's bomb exploding around the gun. The second is the Nemesis being turned in to a wreck. The tower's barely scratched guns retaliated on the Nemesis, reducing it quickly to scrap metal and a bit of salvage. Personally, after having seen how little damage a solid hit of my bomb did to the tower's gun, and realising I am in a relatively flimsy frigate-sized hull, I was content to end the experiment then. Never mind, his pod warps away cleanly, and I salvage a spare bomb from his hold before warping away myself.

Not having learnt the lesson, instead of warping back home I go in search of the second tower seen in a neighbouring system. I am certainly not going to bomb it, even if it weren't heavily defended, but simply would like to practice using the d-scan to locate such objects in space. I think finding the last one was something of a cheat. It is fairly easy to find the right planet, which I warp to, and then I scan each moon in turn until I find the tower. This time, I do it properly, finding the moon to which the tower is anchored and warping to its location.

I drop out of warp sucked in to a bubble some distance off the tower's shields. I don't panic, only navigate myself carefully away from the bubble before taking a look around. The warp bubble holds secure containers, perhaps a lure for opportunists, and all the ships visible on d-scan can all be seen within the tower's shields. It looks like the occupants are currently inactive, perhaps for the best, even if my cloak remains engaged. Content with having found the tower, and been suitably nosy, I jump back to our home w-space system safely.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Facing a Nemesis
Tags: eve online, manticore, mmorpg, nemesis, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

Warping without a wing

We almost have enough pilots available to wreck some Sleeper ships. Fin and I are around to pilot the twin Guardian logistics ships, that will provide enough remote repairing to keep the fleet afloat. If the other capsuleer dares to dual-box to bring two battleships on-line, we can attempt to clear some anomalies. Our lack of firepower would struggle to let us clear anything more difficult than an anomaly, in our class 4 w-space system, and it would be unwise to try with one capsuleer controlling two ships.

Fin creates the fleet hierarchy. As wing commander, she can warp us as a squad to the anomaly, but having the two Guardians cancel the warp to follow behind. The battleships get warped in to the heart of the anomaly, the Guardians drop out of warp 50 km away, far enough from the action to be safer but still comfortably within range to effect repairs to the fleet. This tactic isn't entirely necessary, but it is certainly preferable to having the more agile, and vulnerable, Guardians warp to the site first. It also allows for a clever use of the Zephyr that has been found.

The Zephyr may be a poor scanning boat for dedicated w-space operations, but it is treated like a capsule by the Sleepers, meaning that they won't engage it. This allows the Zephyr to be used to scout a site and bookmark a suitable point to warp the fleet to. As the Argos guns of the Sleepers hit for significant damage, and can appear over 100 km away from the scanned warp-in point, being able to create a closer bookmark is quite advantageous. The battleships can engage the guns sooner and at a more convenient range, with no additional risk.

The first Sleeper anomaly is cleared smoothly, if a little slowly with only two battleships. Ships are swapped to destroyers as the loot and salvage is picked up, before moving to the next anomaly. At least, that's the plan. Warping the wing goes awry, and only Fin in her Guardian shoots off to the anomaly. Expecting the fleet to enter warp simultaneously means we are not immediately aware that the situation has gone amiss. By the time we realise what has happened, Fin is in the anomaly alone and warp-scrambled. Prevented from fleeing, the Sleepers are blasting their way through her ship's armour.

As squadron leader, I make the executive decision to warp the whole squad in to the anomaly to rescue our colleague. I prepare all four of my large remote armour repair systems to activate on the damaged Guardian as soon as is feasible. But we are seconds too late, dropping out of warp to see the Tech II dust disperse from what is left of the ship. I turn us around to warp out again, as the fleet is not fitted to survive running only a single Guardian, but the Abaddon doesn't follow. The battleship has been caught by the Sleeper frigates and scrambled itself. But we're not losing another ship today.

Back at the tower, Fin and I jump in to our trusty Drakes and warp back to the anomaly where Sleeper frigates are swarming around the Abaddon battleship. Our battlecruisers lock on to the frigates and cruisers and start raining missiles on them, managing to break the lock on the Abaddon so it can warp out safely. I am told not to shoot the last frigate, but it's too late. I wreak my vengeance and the next wave of Sleeper ships warps in, but not fast enough to stop me from warping my Drake out safely, the last ship back to the tower.

We don't have a spare Guardian, nor enough pilots to make an effective fleet without two logistics ships. An exit is scanned out of w-space to buy and fit a new Guardian, whilst I abuse the Zephyr's properties to salvage whatever loot I can get from the wrecks, the Zephyr's 10 m³ cargo hold and immunity from Sleeper aggression proving handy, even if unintended. Sadly, we don't have enough time to get the fleet re-coordinated and back in to the anomaly, and the profits from the one we successfully cleared don't come close to covering the subsequent loss. It has not been the best evening in w-space.

Posted in Gaming | 3 Comments »
Tags: abaddon, drake, eve online, guardian, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, sleepers, w-space, zephyr

A new drake in an unexpected colour

I feel reinvigorated. A break for several months has made Northrend feel fresh again. I ease myself back in to activity by refreshing my jousting skills, soon earning the title of 'Crusader' that eluded me before. The intangible nature of all the gold piled up in my bank convinces me to invest in a second talent specification, such that I can investigate the path of the fury warrior whilst remaining a tank. But my return to Northrend is not as ephemeral as making cosmetic chages, which was my concern. I am actually enjoying adventuring again.

Becoming exalted with the Argent Crusade, necessary for the Crusader achievement, allows me to investigate other factions. Before being disappointed at not completing the Argent Tournament and realising I needed the Crusade to like me, I was aiming to become exalted with the Wyrmrest Accord. The Accord interest me partly because their quartermaster offers some decent tanking gear, but mostly to get myself a nifty drake mount for flying around Northrend. I like my Veridian Netherwing drake, and a second drake could keep it company.

It is possible to earn reputation more easily in Northrend simply by wearing a tabard of the faction and clearing dungeons. Unlike Outlands' dungeons, where faction gain was based on the location of the dungeon, wearing a tabard of a faction 'overrides' the normal faction gains in a Northrend dungeon, offering greater choice when deciding what dungeons to run, as long as you have the appropriate tabard. Discarding my Argent Crusade tabard for the less stylish Wyrmrest Accord one, clearing dungeons with my guild starts earning me many small reputation gains. I bolster the small gains by completing quests for the faction. But there is a better way.

The new looking for group (LFG) tool is supposed to add greater flexibility and automation to speed up entering dungeons. With a cross-server implementation, a queueing mechanism, and joining a group as a rôle—tank, healer, or DPS—the amount of time required to find a suitable group composition is removed from the character and handled automatically. As soon as a tank, healer and three DPS characters are available in the queue, you are grouped together and transported to the dungeon. You don't even need to travel to the dungeon entrance any more, no doubt a result of the cross-server groupings but another time saver and stress-reducing addition. And dual-talent specs are recognised.

If a character has dual-talents and is happy to adventure using either of them, the LFG queue accommodates this, allowing the character to enter the queue as any of the rôles allowed for the class. As a warrior, I can join the queue as either tank or DPS, and the system will let me know which rôle I am expected to fulfil before entering the dungeon. Being able to join the queue in alternative rôles and switching talents and gear as necessary helps the queue move more quickly, getting characters adventuring together smoothly.

I enjoy tanking, I find it challenging and rewarding, and I like to think that I understand how to tank effectively. But I don't particularly like the attention it garners. I don't mind the responsibility of the rôle, as that is what it means to be the tank, but I simply don't like being put at the front of a group of strangers and expected to perform. I simply don't feel comfortable. But with my new fury talent spec, I can join the LFG queue as a DPS class, and DPS is easy. Or, at least, DPS is rarely noticed, or blamed. I feel a little embarrassed when I get killed during fights, or when rolling 'need' on some tanking gear, but generally I am anonymous, which suits me fine in an arbitrarily composed group.

I even have good enough gear, perhaps thanks to the shiny swords bought from Argent tournament quartermasters, and a good enough idea on how to be a fury warrior to be competent in heroic-difficulty dungeons. I had never tried a heroic dungeon before my return, successfully completing my first with the guild as a re-introduction to Northrend dungeons. It was quite thrilling. But a guild friend introduces me to the random heroic dungeon queue in the LFG interface, which offers extra rewards if the dungeon is completed, as well as offering achievements if enough groups are formed successfully. And, surprisingly, the groups are mostly competent, generally composed of good players wanting a quick fix of mob slaying, perhaps with the addition of achievements and reward tokens. I find I can participate positively in random heroic dungeon runs, returning most days to see a new dungeon in the more difficult heroic difficulty level.

The tokens awarded for completing the dungeon, as well as those that drop from bosses, are not a great incentive for me. Gear bought from quartermasters cost enough tokens that I am unlikely to get more than a couple of pieces even if I enter a dungeon a day for two months. But I enjoy running through the dungeons, being a fury warrior, a hero. And the reputation gains from heroic dungeons are greater than normal dungeons, by quite a margin. The reputation gained from killing one boss is equivalent to completing a daily quest, and there are normally three bosses in a dungeon. Each trash mob also offers a handful of reputation gain, and with dozens of them to fight through it all adds up. Instead of crawling my way to exalted status with the Wyrmrest Accord by completing daily quests, I am racing towards it. I can almost picture myself sitting on a new drake, flying high above Northrend.

With a Wyrmrest Accord drake looking much closer to being mine than expected, it is amusing when the Culling of Stratholme instance is chosen as a random heroic dungeon. The group I am in is as competent as the others, and we speed from pull to pull, barely resting between fights, such is the gear of the healer and tank. The speed with which we move through the dungeon is perhaps my only concern with the new LFG tool. My guild is fun, but not strong, and we often have to pay careful attention to strategies for boss fights, even on non-heroic mode. But the LFG heroic groups damage and heal through nearly all special attacks, rendering the fights straightforward. It can be more interesting to be situationally aware, and have more to do than repeat the same attacks, but at least random groups aren't subjected to repeated wipes, which is more demoralising.

The Culling of Stratholme has a timed achievement. If the group can get through all the mobs and defeat the black dragonflight boss within twenty minutes, before it manages to close a time portal, the achievement is awarded and a single bronze drake is dropped as a reward. I am fairly sure our group is aiming for that achievement, which is exciting enough in itself, so I shall not expect to get the drake. Even though one party member gets confused and runs off to pull final boss Mal'Ganis whilst the rest of us head to the time portal to defeat the black dragonflight, we are able to defeat the dragonflight as it is tanked towards Mal'Ganis. We are successful in completing the timed achievement!

Mal'Ganis kills our wayward party member, but the encounter resets and we finish the Culling of Stratholme. Meanwhile, the bronze drake has dropped as expected, but curiously no one is interested. I think I had better mention something before needily trying to grab it for myself, and the replies I get, amidst grumbling about the failed Mal'Ganis pull, are decidedly apathetic. It seems everyone either has the drake or really doesn't care. So I select 'need' and win! I was expecting my exciting runs through heroic dungeons to get me a drake, but I thought it would be from the accelerated reputation gains. I was only friendly with the Wyrmrest Accord on my return to Northrend, and although a few quests got me to honoured status the heroic dungeons have thrust me over half-way through the revered level already, one step away from being exalted. But I don't buy a red drake, instead bagging myself a bronze drake.

My adoption of a dual-talent spec unburdens me from the pressure of tanking, and in turn opens up the random heroic dungeon with the help of the revamped LFG tool, resulting in my getting an excellent new flying mount. I have found plenty to keep me entertained in Northrend over the past month, and it looks my interesting adventures are set to continue.

Posted in Gaming | 2 Comments »
Tags: mmorpg, northrend, sapphire, world of warcraft

Duelling bistots

When one wormhole closes, another one opens. At least, let's hope so, as a wormhole collapses behind our colleague. He passes in to a class 5 w-space system connected to our home system, only to find the occupants actively destabilising the wormhole. It's good he is out in his Cheetah scanning boat. He can at least find his way back to New Eden, and from there be guided back home later. With one man lost in w-space, there is unlikely to be any assaults made against Sleeper outposts, so instead I jump in to a Retriever and start mining bistot rocks with Fin.

Apart from watching the directional scanner for probes or ships, and transferring rocks from my Retriever's hold to a jet-can, there isn't much to do whilst mining. Having good company always helps, and Fin and I shoot the breeze of the solar wind, turning our attention to the future. Living out in w-space has naturally affected our skill training, nominally towards fleet operations, with the logistics and command ships, but also taking steps towards greater defence against attacks from other capsuleers. We may be making small efforts to enhance our PvP abilities by training some key skills, but without some practical experience we risk failure.

It is fine to read about PvP engagements and learn the theory, as long as we reinforce the learning with demonstration. We fill and haul ten jet-cans of bistot back to the tower before trading industrial ships for combat, to begin duelling. Choosing cruiser hulls, we have two duels. In the first, we warp to a safe spot together and start attacking at the same time. The second duel involves one of us ambushing the other, with the ambushed ship either fighting back or escaping. In both fights, I am smoked.

Fin points out that I have chosen Amarr ships with guns, eschewing my missile specialisation. It's true, my choice caused by my impression that guns are more valued in PvP than missiles, although my relatively weak gunnery skills are surely not helping my assaults. My skill in armour tanking is also lagging behind all the time spent training for shield tanking Caldari ships. Even so, the duels serve their purpose. We get to use some of the modules never used in PvE engagements, learning their effectiveness a little better, and become more aware of our deficiencies in PvP skills and experience. We should do this more often.

Posted in Gaming | 2 Comments »
Tags: eve online, mining, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, retriever, w-space

Marauding through Maraudon

We're off to Maraudon! The dungeon was discovered late in the exploration of Azeroth, and so is rather more involved than the other dungeons we've delved in to so far. But Livya says that she knows Maraudon like she knows Wailing Caverns, so we should have no problems navigating our way through the labyrinthine passageways and levels. And Livya is focussed today. After last week's visit to Zul'Farrak, where she was consistently two levels below the rest of the Filesystem Checkwits, Livya has made a pact with demons to stay ahead of us this time. There must be some witchery involved, for no human has the capacity for the careful planning involved to gain a level within the first few mob deaths, no matter how bitter that person may be.

And so we bounce in to the entrance. But which one? In a bid to be more confusing than Blackrock Depths, Maraudon has more than one entrance, both leading to a different route in to the main dungeon, and both needing to be visited to complete a certain quest. Orange crystals are more enticing to me than the purple, so we go that way. Inside, we are greeted by plants and centaurs, centaurs and plants. And maggots. The maggots seem easy enough to kill, they're only maggots, so I grab a few groups and start inflicting AoE pain on them.

It is only when the maggots start dying that I realise my error, as they release a poison debuff on death. Killing a group of them simultaneoulsy thus stacks half-a-dozen poison DoTs on me, and others in range, whilst the other maggots continue to gnaw on us. My 'cleanse' spell only removes one debuff at a time, but luckily Vulzerda's cleansing totem is more effective, otherwise maggots would have been chewing on all of our corpses. I decide only to pull one group at a time.

We reach the water elemental boss and ask our tour guide Livya about his attacks and abilities. 'Um, he does something with adds.' Thanks, Livya! With this keen insight we have no trouble defeating the boss and moving on, where we start to encounter fewer plants and more slimes and demons. It looks like we can avoid one group of slimes by jumping off a ledge, but closer inspection reveals that we'd be jumping in to a second group of slimes, so we plough through the first group as Blizzard intended. I am so engrossed in tanking the slimes that I only notice I reach a new level during the combat after it ends, and I see the congratulatory text in my chat window. When asking casually if something happened, Vulzerda is momentarily insulted.

'Oh', she says, when I correct her confusion, 'I thought you were referring to my chain lightning casting successfully.' It is quite a rare event, I suppose, although it perhaps doesn't deserve Livya yelling a cheer for chain lightning every time Vulzerda successfully casts it. The first time is admittedly amusing, but the second is a little stale, particularly as we've also pretty much forgotten the joke by then. But as Livya has managed to get rid of her annoying little green stalker imp for a rather more imposing seven-foot-tall goat demon, complete with bondage chains, I politely chuckle anyway.

After the slimes, we meet a rather grander centaur, and promptly slay him, causing his redeemed spirit to appear and thank us. This not only advances a quest we're on, but also effectively condones all our future pre-emptive killings, which is nice. With a small ceremony, Celebras offers us his staff as a reward for killing him. But, like most men, and centaurs in particular, he is prone to exaggeration. Celebras's 'staff' doesn't quite living up to expectations, Livya calling it a 'stubby little cock'. At least it's smiling at us.

Moving on from the centaur's happy cock rock, we get to a waterfall, overlooking several teams of synchronised swimming turtles. It is rather tempting to jump over the edge in to the water below, but as there is a corridor off to the side, and we are here to experience the dungeon fully, I don't want to miss anything. I ask Livya if the corridor is the right direction to take. 'I don't know, I've never seen this cave before.' Maybe she was thinking of a different Maraudon earlier. It turns out that the corridor turns a corner and leads to the bottom of the waterfall, and we spent five minutes wondering whether to jump or walk ten feet.

We fight our way to Landslide, awkwardly stepping in the puke of a passed-out guard, and somehow find our way to crocodile boss Rotgrip without jumping in to his pond after we defeat the Princess. To Livya's credit, when I am running around with all the leadership skills of a PuG hunter, she manages to guide us back and up to the Princess. I have a suspicion that Livya just listened to Vulzerda's advice, but as I ignored it it is fairly difficult to make that judgement. Encountering the Princess makes me think it's less of a title and more of a name, as I would more consider teaching her to play fetch with a ball than taking her to one. Never the less, we swiftly defeat the final boss and another centaur spirit appears, giving us a quest to take something to Moonglade. Not that he offers to teleport us to Moonglade, or simply out of Maraudon, so without a convenient exit we are stuck in the centre of a mountain.

The only easy escape is by using hearthstones, forcing us to travel back to Desolace to turn in completed quests another day, because being back in Stormwind means it is time for our weekly RP session! Trying to weird out random RPers in Stormwind by pretending to be statues around the canals isn't terribly effective. Instead, we follow a solid-looking dwarf who is walking towards the Old Town, acting nonchalantly whenever he glances around, pretending that we are coincidentally heading in the same direction as him. We notice a couple of glances thrown over his shoulder, but I don't think he suspects anything.

We're eventually rumbled. There are only so many times we can pretend to be looking in to shop windows when he turns around, but we manage to follow him half-way across the city before he confronts us.

His strong accent confuses us in to thinking he's speaking Dwarven, so we reply in Draenei and understandably don't get anywhere. It's quite likely he's asking us not to follow him everywhere, so we go back to the Trade District to find someone else interesting to stalk. Sadly, no likely targets appear, and Stormwind Cathedral is bizarrely empty of RP attempts, ending our own RP for the evening. Next week, our sights are set on the Sunken Temple, another confusingly constructed dungeon. I accidentally boast that, after years of getting lost, I am now completely confident about the internal layout of the Sunken Temple. I suspect Livya may be mocking me soon.

Posted in Gaming | 3 Comments »
Tags: azeroth, filesystem checkwits, kiska, mmorpg, paladin, world of warcraft

Autopilot back to HQ

Alone at the tower means more scanning. Maybe we should invent a technology for more reliable passageway through w-space, perhaps some kind of 'gate' that links two star systems together. Until this marvellous new invention becomes a reality, I borrow the Buzzard again to try to find a route to New Eden, as I need to refresh my laboratory research again. The wormhole in our home system is easy to find. The neighbouring system is occupied, and I quickly locate another wormhole, thanks to the lack of signatures to resolve. Warping to the wormhole and interrogating the Buzzard's systems reveals that the wormhole 'leads to dangerous parts of unknown space', which is an indicator that a class 4 or higher w-space system lies beyond. A class 4 system won't get me any closer to New Eden, so I warp back to a relatively safe spot and resume scanning.

Another wormhole is revealed, but only after chasing around a 99·9% strength signal for ten minutes. I try to resolve the location of the wormhole so I can warp to it, but nothing works. In desperation, I increase the probe resolution from 0·5 AU to 1 AU, and the next scan reveals the precise location. This second wormhole also leads to unknown space, but nothing 'dangerous', indicating a lower class of w-space system on the other side and more likely to hold a wormhole leading to k-space. Jumping through, I find quite a few sites appearing on a scan. Thankfully, it doesn't take long to find a wormhole leading out of w-space to New Eden, and that it leads to low-sec doesn't concern me at all. I bookmark the wormhole without venturing through it, and head back to the tower.

I dutifully copy the bookmarks of the wormholes describing the route to low-sec for my corporation colleagues, swap the Buzzard for a Crane, and head out to New Eden. When I reach low-sec, I find a rather lengthy route waiting for me, having to make over thirty jumps to reach the laboratories. I check my autopilot settings, but they are already directing me to the shortest journey by including low-sec hops, only saving me three jumps or so. At least high-sec navigation can be completed automatically, unlike scanning, so the inconvenient exit is compensated by the ease of finding the route out of w-space.

The autopilot settings are changed to remain in high-sec and I set my Crane on its way, the few extra jumps being inconsequential when I'm not paying attention anyway. Instead, I get out my drums and bang away for a while, keeping an occasional eye on my Crane's progress. After a good amount of practice I am in the system adjacent to my corporation's laboratories, which is good timing. I refresh my ME research jobs, installing one new BPO to replace the Badger Mk II BPO, which is now nicely researched and ready for the production line. The shorter journey of a dozen hops to my manufacturing bases seems like a stroll in the park now, so I navigate my way there and install a sample production run of the Badger Mk II.

Whilst out in New Eden and at my production facility, I take the opportunity to check on the state of the market. A quick scan of the prices reveals some excellent gaps to be filled as well as some outrageous prices to be marginally undercut. It's handy that I have my previous batch of production runs available to take to market, which should generate a tidy profit, although I don't have the minerals available to refresh the manufacturing lines. That will have to wait for another day. I set course for the journey back to the wormhole and w-space.

I restore my autopilot settings to guide me through low-sec for a shorter route, and enjoy all six of the low-sec jumps along my longer route. When I am a couple of hops away from the wormhole, I realise that I am close to my old PvP corporation's base of operations, where I still have a few ships parked. A one-jump diversion seems quite reasonable in order to collect a ship. I also find that it is now possible, if it wasn't before, to repackage a ship and have all its modules automatically be unfitted and dropped in the hangar, removing the need to swap between ships. With the ship and fittings transferred to the Crane, I am able to return through the wormholes to the tower in w-space, with a tracking-disrupting Crucifier to add to our resources.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Autopilot back to HQ
Tags: buzzard, crane, crucifier, eve online, industry, low-sec, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

A more polite introduction to the neighbours

The Imicus is out scanning for an exit, but this time I'm not piloting it. Instead, the owner asks if I'd like to tag along and maybe find something to bomb. I like his anti-social approach to w-space, and jump in my Manticore to shadow him. We pop through our local static wormhole in to a class 3 w-space system, and he starts scanning. The first signature he resolves is a wormhole, which may be good for his finding an exit but doesn't help my bombing opportunities. At least the wormhole continues in to w-space, so there is hope yet. I wait as he jumps through to reconnoitre.

On the other side of the wormhole a HAC is spotted by the Imicus pilot. It is likely the same HAC he saw earlier in the class 3 system, leaving some Sleeper wrecks behind. I sit at bombing range on the wormhole, but nothing comes through, so I approach and jump myself. As I re-orientate myself in the new system, a Zealot HAC appears, dropping out of warp at the wormhole. 'Run', suggests the Imicus pilot, warping off quickly. But I'm okay, I'll cloak and set full speed in an arbitrary direction, which should be enough to keep me safe, whilst also allowing me to keep an eye on the Zealot's position. The Zealot soon warps off, probably not because the pilot has places to be, but more because the soft Imicus target is gone and he knows a stealth bomber is lurking nearby.

It turns out that the pilot of the Zealot isn't overtly hostile, as he opens communications in the local channel. In w-space, the local channel offers no information on inhabitants or visitors to any system unless they specifically announce their presence, thus the significance of this pilot's act. He is curious as to our business in the system his corporation has claimed, and offers a bookmark to a wormhole leading to high-sec space, if we are friendly. As a high-sec exit is what my Imicus friend seeks, and we aren't naturally hostile, we let ourselves become known on the local channel, admitting what ships we are in and our intentions.

The Zealot pilot seems convivial enough, even offering to jump out of his HAC and in to something less threatening if it would help with trust. Mind you, he tricks me in to appearing antagonistic towards my Imicus friend, even though I am clearly only defending myself against obviously forthcoming barbs from the scamp. As negotiations proceed, the Imicus continues to scan for the wormhole regardless, finding it just before arrangements are made final. We both warp to the wormhole to investigate its properties, and it does indeed lead out to high-sec New Eden, although the wormhole is approaching the end of its lifetime.

The Zealot pilot, now in a shuttle, informs us that he is letting in a couple of his corporation colleagues, ostensibly for information but I suspect mostly as a warning not to engage them. I sit off the wormhole as a Raven and another ship come in to w-space and warp away. But my friend in the Imicus is unsure about heading back in to New Eden, given the longevity of the wormhole. He wants to conduct some business and come back to w-space, which requires some stability in the wormholes en route. I am not going to get to bomb anything on this trip, and also don't want to end up outside w-space today. I bid good day to the friendly Zealot pilot and head back to our home w-space system and the corporation tower, leaving my colleague free to make his own decision.

I feel a bit guilty having turned up in a Manticore, considering the friendly disposition of our resultant host. On the other hand, our host started out in a Zealot. It is better to appear in a gunboat and swap to a shuttle, than appear in a shuttle and wake up in a clone.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on A more polite introduction to the neighbours
Tags: eve online, imicus, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space, zealot