Continuing missile production

More missiles roll off the production line, over a million-and-a-half this time. Despite manufacturing so many I immediately start the next production run. The reasons for this are two-fold. First, even though there is an initial set-up fee for the production run it is minor compared to the hourly cost when running for days at a time, so it can be more prudent to run smaller batches and get product out on the market to recover costs and make profit than run a single large batch. Second, I over-bought the tritanium required for my last run and have almost a million units sitting around unused, which means I don't have to hunt around for cheap stocks and jump half the region to pick them up; my next production run is ready for immediate installation.

I felt a bit foolish buying so much tritanium when getting the just-finished run ready. On the one hand, I had found a good price and bought all the stock, rather than only what I needed, allowing me to continue to take advantage of the low price. On the other hand, I spent millions on minerals that I wasn't going to recover at least until a second production run had completed, leaving a discouraging dent in my wallet. Having seen the price of tritanium continue to rise my decision to buy plentiful tritanium stocks has paid off for me this time, but I can't always assume that to be the case. Mind you, the price of tritanium at the moment is almost making me want to hit vacuum and mine my own ore.

Not wanting my Six Nations Rugby viewing to be interrupted I swap my skill training around a little, so that I can finish learning Lab Ops V to coincide with the missiles coming off the production line. This allows me to set my next skill training whilst actually in the game—the limited ability to queue skills in the next expansion will make this even easier—and poke around the certificates some more on the off-chance that I have actually gained one. Surprisingly, I find that completing Lab Ops V allows me to claim the Caldari Business Engineer basic certificate, which then lets me claim the same certificate at the standard level.

The more interesting aspect of completing my training in Lab Ops is that I can run an extra manufacturing slot. As profitable as missile production can be it is far from interesting to churn the same item off the production line all the time and I am quite looking forward to when my material efficiency (ME) research jobs finish and I have more researched BPOs to play with. The extra manufacturing slot lets me install another BPO for ME research before my current jobs finish, speeding up the process a little more.

Having noticed the different base and run costs of various installations I search the region for a competitive quote that has a slot that will start within the month. I find an installation with a low running cost and a slot in the next three weeks and wonder why it is being underutilised, until I realise the installation is sitting in a low-sec system and cross it off my list. Even so, I end up picking an installation different from where my current ME research is scheduled.

Whilst making my way to the new system I investigate ME research a little more and find a short guide to ME values and wastage levels. I still need to get a feel for what values of ME I should aim for with each BPO, as I am probably over-researching some. If I pay attention to the initial and researched wastage levels of my BPOs I hope to be able to apply my knowledge to future ME research jobs.

In the mean time, as my missiles are being produced, blueprints are researched and training plan is adhered to, I ought to take on a few more missions. This will bolster my wallet with useful ISK, help my standings with various factions and get me more involved in the galaxy. Although it seems like a lot has happened recently I haven't spent more than a couple of hours as a capsuleer in achieving the above.

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Tags: eve online, industry, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Stealing aggro from a tank

With a recent successful pick-up group run through Azjol-Nerub with my death knight I feel more comfortable about tanking the instance with my warrior, Sapphire. I manage to get in to another pick-up group and we all enter the instance. During the run I find that I am have a really hard time keeping aggro, as the death knight, two levels above me, is putting out huge amounts of threat. Curiously, his damage doesn't seem high enough to generate that threat. Having my own death knight I am fairly sure what's happening. 'Are you in frost presence?'

'You will die less if I steal aggro from you', comes his reply. This may be superficially correct, as I will end up taking fewer hits and thus take less damage, but it misses the point of the current archetypical group composition.

As a tank I am set up, both from equipment and talents, to mitigate and withstand large amounts of damage whilst generating threat, at the compromise of the amount of damage I can output. Rage powers my abilities and is built-up in part from being hit, so by not being hit I end up being far less effective in the group. By stealing aggro from me I become almost useless, preventing me from getting hit and removing the advantage I have in being able to absorb that damage, as well as reducing my already-low damage output.

As if making me next-to-useless isn't enough the death knight acting as tank is also a waste of his own abilities. Being in frost presence reduces the death knight's damage output, which means it takes longer to defeat mobs and in turn the group is taking more damage overall. This puts more pressure on the healer, who has to heal more damage and concentrate on more than just the tank.

Funnily enough, if the death knight stuck to a DPS rôle the mob would be killed more quickly. I would take less damage, the healer would be under less pressure, and we all end up dying less as a result. If only I could communicate this succinctly in a simple sentence in party chat, but I am not known for my brevity. Luckily, another party member comes to the rescue: 'go in to blood presence', he says. And, with that, I am no longer struggling to maintain aggro, no longer bereft of rage to power my abilities. Moreover, the damage output of the group is increased by about 20% and we suffer fewer incidental deaths.

The 'holy trinity' of tank, healer and DPS may be an artificial construction of MMORPGs but it is what the games currently demand in order to overcome many challenges. To ignore that is to put an unfair burden on the rest of your group and increase the risk of failure.

Posted in Gaming | 1 Comment »
Tags: azjol-nerub, death knight, mmorpg, northrend, sapphire, world of warcraft

Another snow day

A colleague calls from his car saying he is on the M1 junction's exit slip road and it is an hour later before he makes it in to work, having travelled the one mile or so left of the journey. It seems that the horrendous traffic that I got caught up in yesterday has returned. I'm glad I was able to miss it this morning.

It isn't long until The Company sends out another e-mail effectively closing the site again because of the severely restricted access to site. Employees already on site are allowed to stay but may leave at any point to get home safely without losing core hour times. I am happy to take advantage of this generosity and make my way home before the weather or traffic conditions deteriorate further.

I spin my tyres a little reversing out of the parking space and cautiously make my way off site through several inches of snow. As I join the main road I can see the traffic heading the other way is gridlocked again. Luckily, a gap is left on the roundabout that lets me join the motorway slip road and what I expect to be the only perilous stage of my journey is over. The traffic heading the way I came is clogged back past the spur road, the exit junction, and about six miles down the motorway. It's pretty bad and I am glad not have got snarled up in it again.

The journey home is uneventful but lined with wonderful scenic views of fields blanketed in snow. The roads are all but clear of snow, being the motorway or main roads, but I still exercise some caution. Sadly, my dreams of taking picturesque photographs or making a snowman are dashed when I get home as snow gives way to its ugly remnant slush, nothing like the conditions back at work. Still, I make it home safely and have another relaxing day and weekend ahead of me.

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Tags: motorway, snow, weather

More snow

There was a fresh snowfall yesterday morning, but not so much as to stop me from jumping in the car and making the daily commute. Sadly, the weather north of the M25 had different ideas about my getting to work. The snowfall wasn't great, but combined with the previous snow turning more to ice the conditions around the site became treacherous, not helped by the entrance being shortly ahead of a steep hill.

I managed to get to the exit of the M1 and although there was some traffic building up I attributed this to the jack-knifed lorry further up the motorway that I heard about on radio traffic reports. It took about an hour to make it the half-mile to the roundabout at the end of the slip road and a further two hours to get the other half-mile to the end of the spur road. I am confident I only got that far after people decided to turn around at the end rather than try to press on, because the road down to the site was blocked with stationary traffic. It simply wasn't moving at all.

Having made it so far it was a tough decision not to press on, but I didn't relish spending another few hours sitting in traffic only to get to work incredibly late. I would have bitten the bullet and turned home earlier, to make better use of my time, but being on a motorway prevents any U-turns. Now I had an option to escape the traffic, perhaps for more traffic but at least it would be moving. I was so close to being able to circle the roundabout and turn back the way I came, but the gridlocked traffic shut off the way. Instead, I headed off the roundabout further away from home, but at least I was moving again.

After a bit of incredibly slow driving down slippery hills I made it to the next junction north of the M1 and started heading south again. I noted on my way past that traffic was still stationary, knowing that I made the right decision to try to salvage what I could of the day. I got home without incident and had myself a relaxing time, watching some comedy DVDs, reading in a hot bath, and soloing the Scholomance with my death knight. By the end of the day the settled snow was all but gone, at least in my area, after some light rain melted most of it.

Unfortunately, the weather hasn't quite finished showing us quite how unprepared we are for the largest snowfalls we've seen in many years. I wake up this morning to hear on the radio that big fluffy snowflakes are falling and, sure enough, looking out my window confirms this. I wish I had time to appreciate the beauty but I am concerned about getting to work and making up lost time, which is tragically adult of me. There is a fresh layer of snow outside and it is still falling quite heavily, although conditions don't look too bad. Of course, everything is relative and although this small coating of snow isn't enough to make driving too dangerous stopping is another matter. I make sure to leave plenty of stopping space.

I am relieved to see that traffic is moving all along the M1, although a bit unsettled to see people driving at 60-70 mph in the uncleared outside lane. I also make a point of experiencing the heavy snowflakes falling chaotically yet silent, my own forward movement making them seem more energetic, wonderfully highlighted by the powerful streetlights. I recall when the alien family in 3rd Rock from the Sun first encounters snow and they think it is 'albino brain chiggers' and fly in to panic, which I still find amusing. I then contemplate the sight of millions of these albino brain chiggers and am strangely awed.

Traffic continues to move on the exit slip road and down the spur road, and there is no sign of the awful jam of yesterday. I manage to get to my site, but there is a small queue forming to get around the back to the staff car park already. This is probably caused by the slopes being slippery, which I find out for myself when my car starts skidding down the hill towards the braking and stopped cars ahead of me. Even travelling at 10 mph and leaving plenty of stopping room isn't sufficient at times. Not panicking, I alternately brake and steer carefully and am able to come to a halt by the side of the car in front. If I hadn't got out the way I would have gone in to the back of the car in front, there is no doubt.

Having moved my car in to the opposite lane turns out to be benefical. The queue ahead isn't moving and I don't particularly relish the idea of negotiating it either on the way in or out, so edge down the hill and turn around, parking my car in the visitor car park outside the front of site. I made it to work.

I am amused to find, when logging in to my computer, an e-mail sent by The Company yesterday informing people not to come to work or to turn around if the journey has been started, because the road to site is blocked. I'm not entirely sure how I was supposed to read that without making it to work. I am also a little relieved, because The Company making the site closure formal has credited my working hours with core hours for that day rather than having to make up the entire day, which is a considerate gesture.

At the moment, I am the only member of our small department at work, although I have heard from another who is stuck on the motorway slip road. Some chap came around to the laboratory and asked if his case was still there. It took me a moment to remember that I had put a test item of his in a chamber and heated it to 50° C, which he wanted to be held for a few hours. A couple of days later and it is still in there, although at least it has had a good soak test, which is what he wanted.

Now I am sitting back eating Chocolate Covered Hokey Pokey from New Zealand waiting for others to come in. I'll later work out how I am going to make it home in the still falling and settling snow.

Posted in Personal, Work | Comments Off on More snow
Tags: motorway, snow, traffic, weather

Death knight tanking and spanking

The interesting part of my two recent instance runs is how adaptable the death knight is to the two rôles of tanking and spanking. Simply by changing presences the death knight is viable in both rôles, although holding two sets of suitable equipment is necessary to be effective. However, switching between tank and DPS isn't just a matter of changing between frost and blood presences. The death knight spell rotations need to be modified to focus on the desired generated output.

An important part of tanking effectively is to generate more threat than anyone else, particularly the healer, who generates threat against all mobs in combat with each healing spell. To achieve this with the death knight I make good use of area-of-effect (AoE) abilities. I first hit the main target with icy touch and plague strike—so that the initial burst of damage from the DPS characters won't pull the mob off me early on in the fight—following up with pestilence to spread the diseases to all the mobs in combat, and then use the high-threat death and decay AoE.

Having frost talents also gives me access to the howling blast AoE spell, which I can enhance every two minutes with deathchill to guarantee it a critical hit. This general rotation gets me damaging and causing high threat to all mobs in combat. High-damage spells like obliterate can be safely ignored when in a tanking rôle, as it is someone else's responsibility to deal plenty of DPS. The death knight's runes can be better used in generating threat.

Whereas tanking has a multi-mob view of combat a DPS rôle focusses on single-target damage. There is little need for pestilence, death and decay, or howling blast as a DPS death knight, as they use runes and global cool-down inefficiently for the purpose of dealing damage to a single target. Instead, a standard rotation would be to use icy touch, plague strike, blood strike, blood strike, obliterate. Runic power can be spent on rune strike whenever it procs and talent-gained spells, like frost strike, as required, preferably when obliterate isn't available and the death knight's diseases are still ticking away on the target.

Even though obliterate does more damage than blood strike I include the blood strikes first because of the blood of the north talent. This talent converts blood runes to death runes, where a death rune can be activated in place of a blood, frost or unholy rune. Using blood strikes first in the rotation thus allows for more flexibility, giving the opportunity for two consecutive obliterates in later rotations and increasing overall DPS.

Using Recount, my damage meter, I get a report of my DPS from the run through Utgarde Keep. After testing my damage output in different presences on target dummies I am quite interested to see what sort of DPS I achieve under combat conditions. In solo PvE the mobs are generally defeated too quickly to get a good representation of my damage output, but facing multiple elite mobs simultaneously in an instance offers an excellent opportunity to measure sustainable DPS.

Equipped with quest reward greens and crafted items I maintain 1,300 DPS during the instance run, which I consider quite respectable for my level. My DPS will only increase as I gain levels and better equipment, as well as a better feel for adapting rotations to make best use of the runes available.

It is great to be able to tank in one instance group and only have to switch presences and equipment to spank in another, which amounts to a whole lot of fun with a death knight.

Posted in Gaming | 1 Comment »
Tags: death knight, gnomesblight, mmorpg, theorycraft, world of warcraft

Gnomesblight conquers The Nexus and Utgarde Keep

In World of Warcraft my warrior, Sapphire, has been through The Nexus with a pick-up group (PuG) as well as going on a guild run of Utgarde Keep. My death knight, Gnomesblight, on the other hand, has yet to experience an instance in Northrend. With the guild's successful run through Utgarde Keep there is talk of a return to The Nexus, after an early attempt to get our Christmas hats saw us unprepared to tackle the instance at that time.

Having already completed The Nexus with Sapphire I grab Blighty away from eastern Northrend and take her to the other side of the continent to Coldarra. There I pick up the quests for The Nexus to give me the option of tanking the instance with Blighty instead, should I feel confident enough. As it turns out the guild run doesn't happen, with people's schedules conflicting, but running Gnomesblight around Coldarra reminds me how much fun the death knight can be, renewing my interest in the character.

Rather than continue where I left off, with solo questing, I want to see how the death knight copes in a Northrend instance, as well as how I cope playing one in a group. I throw myself upon the mercy of the looking for group (LFG) interface, offering myself as available either for The Nexus or Utgarde Keep. After a short while I get a random invitation to a group, without any precursory conversation. I discard my usual trepidation about receiving such an anti-social invitation and accept it. Perhaps I need to trust my instincts, because it isn't long before the group leader tells the rest of us to find a healer as he's going for food, after which he disconnects and isn't back for at least half-an-hour. The group fizzles.

Undeterred, I plonk myself back in the LFG channel and this time someone asks me first if I would like to tank in The Nexus before inviting me to a group once I cheerfully agree. Luckily, I have anticipated the option of tanking with my death knight and have kept hold of equipment high in stamina. I'm also fairly sure my frost talent spec is suitable for tanking. A quick change of gear and switching to frost presence, with its extra threat generation and increased armour, I am ready.

The run through The Nexus is fairly smooth overall. There are a few deaths, one wipe, and no arguments. It's quite good fun, in fact, as well as getting me about a third of a level's worth of experience. So much fun that I later go back to the LFG channel with the aim of taking Gnomesblight through Utgarde Keep. I eventually get in to a group for the instance, a group that already has a tanking warrior so I assume a high damage, or DPS, rôle.

To concentrate on DPS I keep all my +str and +crit gear equipped and ensure I am in my blood presence, offering extra damage to my abilities. As long as the mobs are hitting the tank I can concentrate on doing as much damage as possible whilst requiring little healing. I focus all my attacks on the main target and eschew area-of-effect (AoE) spells for the harder-hitting ones, only using AoE when talents proc or non-elite mobs are encountered. I am impressed with the amount of damage I generate, the damage meter showing my contribution being around 40% of the total damage of the group. And it is a good group, clearing Utgarde Keep with little fuss, few deaths, and no bickering, making it another fun instance run.

I am still greatly enjoying the death knight as a character, or at least as floating husk of armour and weapons. Even though Gnomesblight is capable as a tank the damage I generate as a DPS character is an exhilarating change and I am keen to find opportunities to repeat this experience. Sapphire can always fulfil the tank in me when required.

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Tags: death knight, gnomesblight, mmorpg, northrend, the nexus, utgarde keep, world of warcraft

Music of 2008: the new

In this review of the music I listened to in 2008 I look back on bands who released their debut or second album last year, or were completely new to me.

The Ting Tings had a huge hit with That's Not My Name, drawing a trememdous buzz for the duo. For a new band to gain so much attention so quickly normally means that there is a lot of hype surrounding them and I tend to avoid music based on hype alone. I couldn't help but like the single, though, and despite the large amount of airplay it received I found I was enjoying it more with each listen. Hoping that they weren't a one-hit wonder I bought the album, We Started Nothing, and I wasn't disappointed. There is much to like on the album and even though there hasn't been a second song that has caught the public's—or marketers'—attention the whole album is melodic and catchy and well worth picking up.

I was surprised when I received Kyte's eponymous debut album, as it came in unusual cardboard packaging and was a hand-numbered limited release, if only because I wasn't expecting the release to be so small. My lingering impression of the album is one of slight disappointment, yet when I revisit it I find the first track to be an entirely agreeable experience, with guitars gently sprinkled on top of a smooth synth and gentle bass, with the vocals being airy enough to lift you out of your chair. I then expect the rest of the album to be too similar to itself, hence my feeling of disappointment, but the next few songs are most distinct and only serve to make me wonder I haven't played the ablum more. Even so, by the end of the album I do indeed feel like I've had enough, although I can't find much to be at fault. Maybe it is just a matter of having too much of a good thing.

I wrote about White Hinterland after I picked up the album Phylactery Factory last year, being swept away by Casey Dienel's vocals and the beautiful music. I still listen to the album fairly regularly, enjoying the delightful and bittersweet songs. After discovering White Hinterland I found out that Casey Dienel had released a previous album, Wind-up Canary, which I bought soon after. Dienel's voice is as amazing as in the later album, but with sparser musical accompaniment the album seems somewhat less substantial. This view is only from having listened to the second and more developed album a considerable amount before buying the first, with repeated plays of Wind-up Canary revealing its own charm to be present in abundance. Not only is there a wonderful collection of songs on both albums but there is a natural progression that can be followed across the two. It would be more disappointing to have two nearly identical releases.

Writing of two nearly identical releases brings me nicely on to Fujiya & Miyagi. Lightbulbs follows the faux-Japanese electronic/Krautrock band's previous release, Transparent Things, but follows it in more than chronology. Transparent Things is a great collection of cheerful beats and nonsenical lyrics and I was hoping for more of the same with their new release. I should have been more careful what I wished for, because 'more of the same' was exactly what I got. This isn't to say that Lightbulbs is bad, it's more that there is no sense of the band's progression when everything else has moved on. It's worth picking up Lightbulbs if you like Fujiya & Miyagi's earlier work but it may be a good idea to play it back-to-back with Transparent Things and pretend it is only one album. It also may have been a good idea not to name the final song on the album One Trick Pony.

The Problem of Knowledge by Holton's Opulent Oog adds to my growing collection of alternative folk music, as my musical taste seems to be veering towards more artistic pleasures than loud guitars and distorted lyrics. Whilst there is nothing particularly outstanding in this album it is consistently pleasing, making it an excellent example of the genre and certainly worth listening to.

And just to show that I'm still young at heart, Times New Viking piqued my interest with a tale of theirs I read in the NME. It seems that they sent their tapes off to be mastered and the studio sent them back claiming that they had been corrupted with amazing amounts of distortion in transit. Times New Viking replied that their music is supposed to sound like that. This happens to them often, it seems. Curiosity overwhelmed me and I bought their current album, Rip it Off. What an incredible lo-fi assault on the senses! Times New Viking have turned everything up to eleven before running it through a fuzzbox just because they could, and yet they have produced a strong, colourful sound that even has recognisable tunes. You may need to put your amplifier on minimum to listen to it without annoying your (international) neighbours but Rip it Off is definitely worth the bleeding eardrums.

Posted in Audio | 2 Comments »
Tags: casey dienel, cd, fujiya & miyagi, holton's opulent oog, kyte, the ting tings, times new viking, white hinterland

Selling like hot cakes

One day of being on the market and over 80,000 Scourge heavy missiles have sold from my production run. This gets me back my investment in the run as well as some profit, leaving the remainder of the missiles as pure profit when they sell. Considering how quickly the missiles have sold initially I can only assume that the remainder will sell, so I get working on the next production run.

For the missiles currently flying off the market I tried to use my knowledge and experience to find the best place to sell them. First, I use the EVE Agents database. Despite my belief that any information you need about a game should ideally be easily found within the game itself, for purposes of immersion and convenience, so that you don't need to search for and read large amounts of text instead of actually playing the game, there are certainly some tools that make finding information quicker and easier. As I am after quite specific information I want to use the best tool for the job.

I am trying to sell heavy missiles, which I know are used on cruisers and battlecruisers and that those ships are taken on level two and three missions. I select my region on the EVE Agents database and restrict the search to level three agents. Plucking agents with reasonable standings who work in the command or security branches of the Navy from the list, I check the prices on the market for Scourge heavy missiles in the stations of those agents. This little research pays off. I find a station that has a good level three agent where the missiles for sale are priced with a 15% markup over other systems. I already know that people will often pay a little more instead of travelling outside the station so I set course to the new system, where I undercut the competition slightly whilst still making a much more healthy profit than selling in my previous location.

As I am warping and jumping I buy more minerals from the market to set up another production run of missiles. The price of tritanium is shooting up and it is difficult to get a bargain at the moment, but as long as I take the high cost in to account during manufacturing I can price the missiles to make a profit overall. Even so, making larger and larger production runs is costing me millions of ISK in materials. Although the missiles sell quickly the profit margin is hardly close to 100%, so I am either restricted to continually producing small runs or funding larger runs from my savings. For the moment my balance peaks and then dips below its previous value as I invest in ever more minerals, but as long as the missiles continue to sell I will get my money back with a profit and my wallet will grow steadily.

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Tags: eve online, industry, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

So much to do, plenty of time to do it

Thousands more missiles roll of the production line, ready to be sold for a small profit that adds up decently for the quantities involved. It took a few days for this run to complete and I might leave it a day or two to see how this production run sells before committing the ISK to a subsequent run of such magnitude. I can wait, and not just because my expanded cargoholds are continuing to sell steadily with a healthy profit margin.

I have trained most of my industry and science skills to a competitive level so far. To get these skills to the most efficient level I have at least a month's worth of training and then I have more to learn to improve other aspects of research and manufacturing. Even if I had the relevant skills learnt my BPOs are waiting for material efficiency (ME) research jobs to complete—to start, even—which will also take around a month. I can wait, because I have to.

In other massively multiplayer games short-term goals can often be measured in a matter of hours. In EVE Online, a short-term goal can be a fortnight's concern, with long-term goals involving anything up to a year. I can afford to relax about trying to get everything done at once. I might have BPOs to buy and research, skills to learn, modules to manufacture and profits to make, but I still have a lot to learn about the process. I need to learn how to walk before I can run.

I am immensely grateful to Kirith Kodachi for giving me the researched BPO for Scourge heavy missiles, which has allowed me to start production runs and still turn a profit early in my change to an industrial rôle whilst my skills train and ME research sits in a queue. Once my first run of ME research has completed I will have the skills in place to make the next run quicker and cheaper, even if there is little that can be done about the queue. Not only that, I will have a bunch of newly researched blueprints ready to run through the production line.

Until I get new modules to manufacture I can continue to produce missiles and investigate cheap sources of minerals, production facilities and viable market centres, which is all valuable experience that can be exploited for greater profits in the future.

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Tags: eve online, industry, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Jumping through hoops in World of Warcraft

I am exploring Northrend a little with my death knight, Gnomesblight, when I stumble in to Wintergarde Keep. It isn't my first visit, as a chat with some NPC in an eastern zone, probably Howling Fjord, ended up with me randomly being thrown on gryphons and sent half-way across the continent needlessly a week ago or so. I hadn't stayed long in Wintergarde Keep, mostly because I was only exploring the landscape that time too and hadn't planned on being flown so far west, but partly because there didn't seem like there was much to do.

This time, there still isn't much to do. I have one quest lingering from my last visit that involves a gryphon ride from the keep to somewhere, yet another entirely passive mission that takes time but not input to complete, which I decide to complete to clear it from my log, although 'decide' may be too deterministic as I think I just talk to the wrong person when trying to fly out of the keep and am sent on the quest instead.

Having been pulled away from exploration mode in to a quest I take the next quest given to me in the keep, to pick up villagers whilst riding a gryphon, so that I don't need to come back again. It's a curious place, the keep seems to be fully populated with buildings and NPCs, and it even has an inn where characters can rest, yet there is a dearth of quests. It feels unfinished, or a quest destination for Horde characters. But when I complete my quest the mini-map lights up suddenly with yellow exclamation marks.

This is a frustrating trend in quest-giving in Wrath of the Lich King. When Sapphire arrived in Borean Tundra there was little to do until I had been recruited to work for the Alliance Vanguard, working through a small chain of quests before anything else opens up for me to do. Gnomesblight found the same problem in Howling Fjord, having to complete a small quest chain before being able to pick up more than one quest at a time. I had hoped this was only a feature of the introductory areas, a welcome to Northrend, but now I have been exposed to it several times.

It is annoying enough to have to run back and forth to the same place for a single quest chain and it is made worse when it is the only quest you have for that area. In a game where it is possible to have a dozen quests available in a single place, where you can run around and progress multiple quests at the same time, it feels like slamming in to a brick wall when you have to slow down to concentrate on just one. That the game forces this emergency brake on your efforts to advance is bewildering.

I can understand the idea behind the design. The compulsory quest chain highlights the overall story behind the game's expansion, revealing crucial plot points in an attempt to engage your character to more than an experience bar. Unfortunately, not only does it come across as overly controlling the compulsory quests fail in an important respect. It's bad enough that you can turn up at a new area and feel like you are in the wrong place or that there is nothing to do there because there is only one quest to pick up, but it's even worse when you play more than one character.

I took Sapphire over to Howling Fjord in preparation for running Utgarde Keep with the guild. After completing nearly all the quests in Borean Tundra I had attained an honoured reputation with the Alliance Vanguard, yet the commander of Valgarde refused to let me work for anyone until I completed his petty little initial quests. I also face the same problem when I take Gnomesblight to Borean Tundra, and it looks like I will encounter it again and again in every new zone, being forced to slow down to a crawl to complete some initial quest chain.

These initial quests really need to be the pinnacle of quest design and adventuring excitement for this MMORPG-imagining of cut scenes to work. One of the pleasant aspects of World of Warcraft is its large number of quests, in that it is feasible to ignore the ones you don't like with little consequence. Now, however, if you find rescuing ten villagers too burdensome when five should be enough, particularly when your gryphon keeps throwing you off its back because you fly too close to Wintergarde Mine even though it is supposed to be happy to fly there, you have no choice. Either you tolerate the tedium or you forgo access to a considerable number of more interesting quests. To have to do this for every character you run through the zone will get tiring quickly.

It is a peculiar change for Blizzard to have made. The heavily limited level requirements on quests already feels horribly restrictive now, more so than Outlands ever did, forcing you to trudge on in a zone you would rather leave for some new scenery, but to further restrict quest selection before completing a compulsory quest of Blizzard's choice is quite unfriendly. In a period where Blizzard are trying to remove inconveniences from players—remaining mounted on ships and in more in-town areas, reducing collection times of quest items, and changing mining to collect all ore at once, amongst other changes—these forced-plot quests seem like a big step backwards.

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Tags: mmorpg, world of warcraft, wrath of the lich king