Wrath of the Lich King; the end of new WoW players?

Should this game be called “World of Warcraft: Now You Have No Life!”? With this content expansion, they are essentially barring new players from starting. The focus of the game up to this point was accessibility and ease of play, but this new expansion is doing the exact opposite. Leveling to 80 is a very daunting task. From 70, its only 10 levels and for the experienced 70s, its 10 levels of refreshment. They have had lots of time at level 70 to play around not having to level up. They got to raid and reputation grind and all. But now, they have are anxious to return to what initially drew them to the game: leveling up.

But what about the new guys? Everyone started out at one point and leveled up. But now we run into a barrier to entry. Most people playing the game now have been playing for a while and they have built up a social structure while playing. The vast majority of players are in a guild and have friends in the game. The newbies have none of this. If the entrees can bring themselves to level to 80, who are the guilds going to take on a raid: the guy who has been there for several months, or the new guy who just leveled up? They will take the veteran and the newbie will get discouraged, quit, and not encourage his friends to join. Word of mouth is the most effective form of advertisement. I think in this case though, its called word of ventrillo.

How do we judge the successfulness of a MMO? I can't be how fun the game is because we all know that MMOs are boring as shit. We judge a MMO based on subscription numbers and WoW has been no different except the quantity of subscribers. At the peak of WoW, the numbers were at about 11 million people playing. Those numbers have dipped since then, with many people defecting to Warhammer Online, Age of Conan or simply getting bored. With this release, Blizzard is expecting to pick up lots of subscribers. But who is really making up that increase? Chances are, it is veterans coming back to the game, wanting to see the new content and experience the process of going through Northrend. How many people are going to join this game because they see an advertisement on their TV? I'll admit, I played up to 70 because of a Mr. T commercial I saw about a night elf Mohawk, but I was a veteran. I didn't have a 70,60,50 or even a 40, but I started out a long time ago. I started playing based on a friend's recommendation in 2005, a year after the game came out. I didn't see Mr. T saying, “I pity the fool who doesn't play WoW” and run out and buy World of Warcraft, its expansion and a time card.

The bottom line is that Blizzard is now catering to the hardcore and experienced players. All the people in the game will be vets and very few new players will be coming to the game. The game that started out as a very user friendly and accessible game is now turning into the exact opposite. The connotation of a WoW player is very present in the video game community and even in the main stream world. It is viewed as a overweight person, sitting in a basement who has no life. This is actually contrary to reality, for studies have shown that MMO players are actually just under the national obesity average. Now, the time commitment to really make the game fun is climbing ever higher and now the stereotype might have to be true for the entry level players. They will have to move into the basement, become obese, eat mounds of Cheetos, Hotpockets, and Rockstars. Unfortunately, since nerds have no social skills, they will not be able to convince their parents that living in the basement is a good career move, at which point they will be kicked out and there is no internet o the street. This game is becoming school: you have to have started reading early or else you're so overwhelmed by the quantity of work, you just don't bother.

Playlist:

1. World of Warcraft
   

Shameless Plug/Update

I started a WoW blog to just babble about WoW. It's so this isn't so nerdy....if thats possible
Playlist:

1. WoW
   

I Can't Believe It

I started to play World of Warcraft again. I think that patch 3.0 and being there at the live recording of the instance is what really encouraged me to renew my subscription. And, I have had a pretty good time playing it so far. The achievements have made this game a little more addicting than heroin. I've been running around revealing lots of parts of the map. Also, with all these achievements that came out, I realized how much I really haven't done in the game. I only have about 1000 points. I'm not sure the maximum that can be achieved, but I have about 93/750. That's a lot of stuff to do. I do have to take issue with some of the things that happened. I killed some of the bosses that it said I didn't kill. I have the t4 helm to prove it. Anyway, most of my work has been me running around exploring everything. And raping low level dungeons. With this release date and patch, the game is starting to feel like the end of high school did. Everyone knows the end is coming, but we are all still there. We are doing things as if they don't have repercussions. I bought lots of expensive gems for my ret set, which is something I wouldn't probably have done unless I had a lot of money. Everything is now a joke. We 5 manned Onyxia, and Kara groups are a dime a dozen. No one is taking this game seriously anymore, and I have always felt that games really become fun when the game isn't too serious. It's a thing that this game will have for a while. No raids will really exist until about next spring which might actually be a little to early. People will hit 80 soon, but enough people to have a reliable raiding guild is something that will not exist for a while.


Speaking of Warcraft, I've also been playing Warcraft 3. Just normal games online, with matchmaking. It's a really fun game. I remember everything that I liked about RTSs and I do like them a lot. I also played Starcraft recently and it is still fun and an amazing game. Games that good really transcend the age barrier. By that, I mean are immune to the passage of time when speaking of playability. I have also realized that I have played WoW since basically the beginning of the game. I started in 2004. I never got past level 36 but I was playing. I had my mage, then a druid and various other characters. I never really settled on a character like I have now. I do like my druid, but my paladin has everything that I want and it makes playing him a real joy.

I said earlier that Shawn Elliot left the brodeo and it spelled certain doom for it as a podcast. Well, he never really left. He will always be here with stories. Only this time they will be read by Chuff(Anthony Gallegos) and Babito(Robert Ashley). And now Ryan Scott will actually be able to talk. However, it would not surprise me in the least if they got Jeff Green or Shawn Elliot to phone in to the podcast using their fancy new ….phone in technology. GFW was my favorite podcast and it still is. I really like their random tangents but they usually have good insight. I hope that it wasn't just Shawn who had the insightfulness. Shawn Elliot is such an amazing individual and he will be sorely missed.
Back in the good ol' days.

I really like to write, I have realized. I like to flush out my thoughts and put them down on paper. I do have this blog, and I am trying to evolve this blog into a thoughtful, insightful place. I will, of course, just put random things on there, I.e.: hatdog, but I also want to try and put things that delve into the game theory. The problem is, I might be going into it already, but it lacks life relevence, so its going to be hard for me to really recognize when I do it. So, it is here I announce that I am probably going to write a back story for my World of Warcraft character, Akoris. Dun, dun daaaaaa.
Playlist:

1. World of Warcraft
2. Warcraft 3
3. Team Fortress 2
   

OpenOffice.org

This isn't really video game related, but I downloaded Openoffice.org 3.0. It's amazing. Its basically a free, FREE, competitor to Microsoft Office. It doesn't disappoint. It's amazing. It looks like office so everything is where is should be. And it runs naively in Mac OSX. win.
Playlist:

1. Team Fortress 2
2. Warcraft 3
   

Hi guyz

hi guyz!!
im hat dog!!!

Playlist:

1. Team Fortress 2
2. CSS
   

I just wanted to say this:

When in doubt, chuff it out.Which makes me think: maybe I should finish Crysis and Half Life 2. Just chuff it out and play them.

Playlist:

1. Team Fortress 2

Shawn Elliot leaves the Brodeo

I'm so depressed that he left. I guess everything is ending for me now that high school ended. But, high school ended and college began, so I guess that other things will too.

Shawn Elliot is a huge inspiration to me. He is not only a hilarious individual, but he is also a very insightful and intelligent one. I wish that I could poses his insight that he seems to have every week. I get a good idea maybe once every month. Plus his awesome stories are so amazing that I have started to amass stories that I can tell.
Playlist:

1. Team Fortress 2
   

BonK!

I started playing Team Fortress 2 again. It's a lot alotta fun. But, the question that has been pestering me lately is: why? Why is it fun? Humans by nature are pretty competitive creatures. We've been racing each other places since the dawn of time and wars simply come from competitions over natural resources. So, I doubt I am any different than those humans, despite my constant showering and my real lack of having to do physical labor. So I do enjoy competition. Blowing up someone with a sticky bomb you lobbed over a wall or cliff is extremly satisfying. As is throwing someone up in the air with a ocket launcher and then fataly shooting them again while they remain airborn. Is this fun because you beat another person? If I killed you once, then I am way better than you are. This statement is not valid, for in that game, random events can and do occur that resut in freak deaths, eg. rounding the corner into a crit rocket that someone shot at nothing. I think the real pleasure and the thing that keeps bringing my back is beating the other team. Working together with your teammates to defeat a common enemy is an incredably uniting experience, eg. World War 2 and us kicking the shit out of the Taliban. The great thing about that game is that somehow, situations can arise that leave both teams satisfied. I was playing dustbowl and we were holding the other team down for the entire match. And then, at the end of the match we all of a sudden all died for various reasons and the other team managed to capture the point and win. We know we were the better team, so we were not mad. And the other who pulled a miracle win was jubilant. Not many games are able to do that.

It's been a while since there has been a new class update. But, Robin Walker, blogger on behalf of the dev team, has been doing his job. Namely, blogging. His last blog was titled "Gentlemen" and his newest is entitled "Git along there, little doggies". These are some of the spy and engineer taunts, respectivly. This could point to a class pack release, maybe of both spy and engineer. This would be interesting because spies and engineers are basically enemies of each other. Well, not really. I think the engineer hates the spy, and the spy hates the pyro. The pyro in turn hates the soldier, who hates the demoman. The Demoman does not care for heavies or pyros. Heavies hate spies. Medics hate everyone, scouts are ignored by all and everyone hates snipers, who hates spies. That is why they should release a offense, defense, support pack. I would vote for soldier, demo, sniper. But that is probably not going to happen. I would be okay with engy/spy/offense. I enjoy both scout and soldier so I am okay with either. What if they released another pack for the already updated classes. Just add more weapons! that would be nuts.

Playlist:

1. Team Fortress
   

New layout

I just wanted to point out I put Twitter back on here. I update to say things that I'm doing. Follow me if you want. I'll probably follow you back. I also put a follow feature that's from Blogger. I'm not sure what it does. I also put up a new poll. I think its clever.

Playlist:

1. Team Fortress 2
   

I want to Post here

But I really don't have anything to say. Only, that in college, ive stopped playing WoW and am playing TF2. That's it.

Games of Interest

So, a lot has happened recently in teh gaming industry. Will Wright finally released his new pet project, SPORE, this past weekend. The game has been getting tons of positive feedback, allowing the user to personally tailor a universe. Starting from the cell stage, much like a point-and-click game, to the create stage, more like an rpg, to the tribal and then civilization stages, dumb downed rts's, to the space stage. Space is a combination of all of these and more. A world pissing you off - bomb its inhabitants, use a laser on the buildings. They launching interstellar warefare against you - sign their death contract with a simple click releasing the planetary bomb that explodes their entire planet. (I have yet to unlock this tool but I imagine it's amazing.) All-in-all, SPORE is a revolutionary game that will be the talk of the town for quite sometime.

On a different note, Blizzard Entertainment gave an official release date for Nov. 13th of this year, claimed to be "invading a store near you." I'm sure I am not the only one shocked to find out that Blizzard is on top of things, not pushing back the release date an entire year as was done with the previous expansion. Wrath of the Lich King is set to deliver an even bigger overhaul to the UI and gameplay then before, complete with a new hero class, the Death Knight, bringing more of the old Warcraft Lore, as well as the Inscription profession that augments the abilities of players in certain situations, and finally the increased level cap to 80 and the Northrend area to do it in. Many other additions have yet to be revealed, but the game is expected to have no real effect on the market. One critic was quoted saying that the game will "simply keep current players in the game, and those who would just begin the game out because of the gap between leveling and gameplay."

Things still on the horizon are the much anticipated FallOut 3, and Fable 2. I will be purchasing these games and recommend them to any person seeking intense rpg action, intriguing, depthful story lines, and creative ingenuity. I also recommend a trial of Mythic Entertainment's, those who brought you Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer Online (referred to as WAR). Having participated in the Beta versions of the game, it leaves much to be expected. Whether due to WoW's near monopoly on MMORPG gameplay and creativeness or expectations, who knows. The game features a multitude of classes, in-depth storylines and quests, as well as something WoW has only recently thought of, siege-warfare. While WoW has their battlegrounds, WAR has full on castle assaults and siege equipment usage. WoW will be releasing these additions in Wrath of the Lich King, and some suspect WAR took this idea from them.

To conclude, it should be a very interesting Q4 for video games.

Playlist: World of Warcraft, Team Fortress 2, Warhammer Online, Spore

Portal 2

Could this possibly ever be a good idea? It seems very unlikely that they could ever make a complete gaming experience as tight and compelling as the original. I only ask because I saw something about Gordon Freeman earlier today on some gaming sight, and I thought it said something about him at Aperture Science. I was wrong about that, though.


Playlist: Bionic Commando Rearmed, Madden '09, Final Fantasy VI

im so cool

So I bought the World of Warcraft soundtrack. And now I've been
listening to it when i play WoW. Sorta defeats the purpose right?
Also, the past two nights I have been up really late playing WoW, this
past night being up untill 5 30am. That is the point when it stops
being late and starts being early. I did not know a game could hold my
interest for so long and so intensely. And now I started a warlock
that i have to level. O man.

Working at the library tonight

Was incredibly boring.

Though I did read a very interesting book about Ayn Rand, Objectivism, Atheism and Rationalism.

My Mage (100th Post)

Well, I have a paladin, druid, hunter and a really low level mage. Now, I like my mage, but I always think that they are better than they really are. They really don't have enough health to stand up to anyone in a melee fight. They do have the power to kill people from afar but then they really have to rest after they kill anyone because of the large mana requirements of all their spells. I wish I could have all these guys up at 70, but I really don't have the time. I work all the time and I wish I didn't so much. I have worked constantly since two wednesdays ago. Wednesday through saturday, monday through friday, then i went to tahoe with my family until today. Now, this is a vacation but I like my house and I like my room and I miss it. I have all this stuff for a good reason, which is to use it. There was internet up at tahoe but it was slow and only available from the window sill of my room. There was the Hyatt across the street and I didn't want to go over there just to play World of Warcraft. I will also be working from wednesday to saturday it looks like. This bums me out a little bit. We are returning home a little early, which I am all for. I do want some off days though. I want to just sit around and play World of Warcraft. I also want to play through the new Team Fortress 2 achievements and test out all the new heavy weapons, which one of them seems to be a sandwich to regain health when you do not have a medic around. This is a good thing to put in there, allowing heavies to be a class that is good to play when you do not necessarily have a medic on your team.

I think that heavies are a class that really insights terror into the other team. When I as a soldier round to corner and see that ugly russian heavy visage, I turn and run right away. There is no way that I can take him on. I can take him if i get the element of surprise on him, because I can get at least 2 rockets at him before he can even start shooting me. The sandwich will not be in any way replacement to a medic. I am assuming that the sandwich is a single use thing that must be switched to use. This would stop the damage output from the heavy by a significant amount, first to stop firing, switch to it, use it, and then switch back to the minigun and start firing again. So this sandwich will probably just be a out of combat use thing that you use after a fight. Also, the new five maps will have to be played so that I can get use to them. I still think Goldrush is a thing of beauty along with Dustbowl and Badlands. I hope that the new payload map is as genius and fun as Goldrush. I do admit that I have not really played a lot of Fastlane and that other new one. Also, arena mode will be able to bring the strategy of Counter-Strike Source to Team Fortress. As it is now, there might be game plans, but they are only general strategies. There are no things that people do that are incredibly specific like in Source.

Speaking of Source, I have sorta taken it up on my free time. It's an incredible game. It's fast, intense and complex. My favorite map is definitely Dust2. It's evenly balanced, and small, allowing for quick transversals of the map. The thing that really makes me mad is when I die very quickly and don't even kill anyone, or even hurt anyone. That is one thing that Halo really hooked people on, is the ease of killing people randomly and not dying easily. You can throw a grenade and, if there are any people around at all, you can probably kill one. But, Halo also made it so that you could take a grenade and not die. It was the game for people who were new to shooters and it hooked them in for other ones. I do not particularly like Halo anymore, but I have many fond memories playing it with all my friends. It also hooked me in for games like Gears of War and Counter Strike.

This furthers my belief that what you like now is primarily a product of where you were. I first played Halo at Chris Clark's house and I was really bad at it. But I liked it and kept playing and got way better, eventually becoming the best of all my friends. I then learned about the video gaming center The Matrix. We went down there and use to pay $5 an hour to play the games on their high end computers. I use to play Counter Strike and Battlefield 1942. I eventually got Counter Strike on my home computer and played there and stopped going to The Matrix for I could play all their games. I then played Halo 2 a lot after it came out. I think the success of Halo 2 rested on the ease of play online and the fact that no other games for the Xbox came out at that time. There were games like Half Life 2 and Counter-Strike Source, but I didn't have the money to do computer games then. After Halo 2, came Gears of War, then Halo 3. I liked Gears a lot more than I liked Halo 3 I think because Gears was so different and a departure from the traditional run and gun gaming. But then, I started playing more and more computer games on my brother's computer, which reigned supreme over my eMachine piece of garbage. One day, I bought the orange box and played Team Fortress 2. That game was truly amazing and I remember the day I knew I would play it forever. I bought a BFC can of monster on a friday afternoon and played until 3am. That was last October. And I am still playing it. I did take a break from it for a couple months and right now am not playing it a lot, with WoW taking up most of my time. But I am not expecting to quit any time in the near future. There really isn't game on the horizon that has me very excited. I am very on board with World of Warcraft, its upcoming expansion, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike Source and Starcraft 2. Okay I lied, Starcraft 2 has me excited.

What does worry me is if World of Warcraft will get boring. The grind is pretty common in virtually all forms of WoW. Even with my level 70, I am still needing to grind rep in order to get those patterns. With Wrath coming out, all the factions that we grinded o so hard to get up will become useless because new factions will come out. Argent Dawn is not going to all of a sudden become useful again. If they do, they are rewarding old players and not encouraging new players to come in. That is the same reason that the Sha'tar will not be useful in Wrath. I think that World of Warcraft will end at level 100. By that time, levels 1-90 will be a breeze. It will fly and it will only demand about a quest or two a zone to level up. I also think that either 80-90 or 90-100 expansion will be the emerald dream. Maybe, in a bold move, Blizzard will make the Emerald Dream expansion a 80-100 expansion. Also, I think a very interesting idea would be that if you could start a character at level 60. All characters that went through the all 100 levels will be "true" level 100s but you can do it.That would allow people who want to play a chance to only have to level 40 times. That would devastate the old world and would make getting an instance group together for anything but 60+ instances impossible without prior planning. One thing that would also not surprise me is if Blizzard made every instance available in Heroic mode. If Razorfen Downs was a 80 instance, I might be encouraged to go do it. That is the only reason I am doing things like The Botanica and Ramparts. I might be able to experience Blackfathom Deeps and Maruadan and Dire Maul. Also, it would not surprise me if they tuned down Upper Blackrock Spire and Molten Core and other old raids and even Burning Crusade raids to 5-mans and made it a heroic. If Blizzard did those things, it might breathe old life back into a dead world.

on the road blog

now now now, what is there to do? well, i could write. but of course, what is there to write about?

Altophobia

Now, I usually right about things that are philosophical in nature, usually trends in video games that I see as troubling. But, I have exhausted tings to talk about for now, so I'm going to be a little more shallow and World of Warcraft related.

As previously stated in this blog, I have a level 70 Paladin, who happens to be Holy Speced (Healer) Paladin named Akoris. I do have about 20-21 days of play time on him and I still have a lot to do. I play him continuously because I need to do things that I can do without raiding. Namely, getting badges for my good plate healer belt, but I was able to pickup a blue healer belt for about 70g today on the AH. I'm also going for the best healing trinket in the game. I have a badge trinket that is very good and my other is just a philosopher's stone, making it better than my running trinket. I do miss my Nifty Stopwatch. It made getting away from a lethal fight a lot better. But, I need to craft my healing trinket, from alchemy. I did pay about 700g to level that up to 375, which is the max level. Now I have to get to revered with Sha'tar. I did recently get to honored with them and that allowed me to purchase the Heroic key for the Tempest Keep instance wings. Then, I have to make an alchemist's stone with the recipe I can purchase with the revered reputation. That will take a lot of money to do, but it will give me +15 to all stats, which will help. After that, I have to gain exalted with Shattered Sun Offensive, which I'm at about half way to. Exalted will get me the Redeemers Alchemist's Stone recipe, which will give me +115 to healing and mana potions become 40% more effective. It will also give me a good neck item that gives some pretty bonus healing. Then, I have some raiding to do to get some gear. I need a new chest piece, gloves, wrist and shoulders. My chest, gloves and shoulders are good because they are epics and have good stats, but they are PvP pieces of gear and are not for raiding. My gloves and pants are cloth and don't give enough armor, but will do because they are PvE pieces. 

That is stuff I have to do. That is a lot to do. I have a 36 Druid from my server Kil' Jaeden that I transfered to Kul Tiras. I went balance spec because I was bored with feral. I do like it actually. I heard that Moonkin form is pretty good, so I am excited about that. But, I don't want to play him when I have so much more to do on Akoris. I feel like I am not doing him justice or something. I feel I need to have someone good before I work on someone else. I also have a 21 hunter that I would to play some more of but I run into the same dilemma that I do with the druid. I get on them and realize that I have more to do with Akoris. I also immediately realize why I loved Akoris and why I played him all the way to 70. I really loved Paladins and I loved him so much that I played him constantly all the way to 67.  

Use what now?

I wish I played the drums. The drum set I use for Rock Band is used constantly and I am really getting good at it. But real drums are loud, noisy and you can't pack them away under your bed. Games today seem to like to add elements to add realism to our games. We first concentrated on graphics, then sound and now we are moving to the next sense of touch. The consumer doesn't know it, but they want to be a Guitar Hero, so Harmonix makes a game where you can play a plastic guitar and be good with no calluses and, if desired, no sound. This really isn't all that new except everyone with an PlayStation can buy it. Arcades have had race car, ski-do, snow mobile and pod racer simulations for a long while now. But now, we can set up our band in the living room. Then Harmonix broke new ground and made plastic, fake drums, which included real replicas of drum sticks.

Nintendo had tapped into this market now. Wii is an entire console based around touch and motion realism. Bowling, baseball, tennis and golf are games included with it and of course have the corresponding motions to go along with it. Then Wii fit game out, complete with a yoga mat and all. Let's run over the fake plastic stuff we have now: PS2 guitars, XBox 360 guitars, drums and microphone, and Wii mat, gun, racket and bat. And I don't really have a huge closet or anything.

That's all good because at least we can use them in future games, right? Apparently not. Guitar Hero 4, who is jumping the fake band boat, has announced it will have drums and microphone included. Of course, the Rock band drums won't work because the GH4 drums have a totally different layout. Rock Band 2 is also designing a new layout for it's drums, rendering it previous version a useless piece of earth polluting garbage. It is comforting that Harmonix recognizes this and it offering all Rock Band 1 songs as free downloadable content so that you can really throw away or long term store your fake drum set. Wouldn't both companies sell more game copies if they standardized the designs?

This trend might be a good thing. It does really make us feel like we are playing the drums and can help us feel as though we are playing tennis or at yoga class. But, as it is, because of multiple companies in the market competing, everyone will make their peripherals game unique and only for one generation will they be usable. If Company A stays with one design, Company B will innovate and they will get more sales revenue and the publishing company of Company A will yank the cord from Company A and those nice game designers will be out of a job. If my complaint is that all this junk takes too much space, Wii is really catering to me, for the controller and the num-chuck really have multiple uses. I think that this whole peripheral war was instigated by the government in an effort to get video game nerds out of apartment and into houses with bigger closets and garages. That might stimulate this housing market.

Depth of Interest

I know what it means to play a game for a long time. I currently have at least 634 hours of Wold o Warcraft. That's a lot of game time. On my character Akoris, my level 70 Paladin has about 20 Days of playing time. That is 480 hours of playing. It really says something about the game when it can hold interest for that long. But why do games strive to hold our interest for such a long time? For a game like WoW, there is a monetary incentive for it: the longer people play, the more subscription fees they collect. Yet that isn't the case with a game like Oblivion, which an entirely offline, single player game. There were times when Donkey Kong, a 2D platformer, was the pinnacle of gaming, being fun and easy to pick up.

Why do we strive for depth in our games? It isn't about just shooting people over and over and over. People enjoy novelty in games, which is why Geometry Wars can be fun. It is certainly different to fly around shooting shapes. Yet, that doesn't remain fun. The game eventually introduces different modes in the game, different guns and more shapes and more enemies. Yet that game looses it fun after a while because it is always the same. That is where WoW gets its fun. There is always more. More areas, more spells, more levels, more dungeons, more fights, more gear and more quests. Is this truly fun,. or is all this new stuff just renewed novelty? Is depth just renewed novelty? Just an effort to give us new stuff all the time? Maybe depth is just an excuse to not come up with something fun, just give us so much that we think what we do is fun. We are constantly impressed by all the new stuff that we are getting that we fail to realize that what we did wasn't fun. 

Depth might be good for players who really want to play and for people who are veterans to the game, but does it stop some players from playing? WoW is about to release the new expansion pack Wrath of the Lich King which raises the level cap to 80. 80! That is quite a milestone. For players at the current level cap of 70, that is only 10 more levels. But to a newbie, that is 80 levels. Blizzard did cut the experience required to get from 20-60, a process that seemed to have been largely ignored by the game's designers which is evident is the amount of ingenuity put in. But that is still a long ways to go and a lot of things to do. Is the amount of depth in a game like WoW a good thing or would it scare off new players? Team Fortress 2 is running into this problem. It gave players unlockables which rewarded players for laying well. But, all these new weapons and perks give them an unfair advantage over their lesser experienced counterparts. Could these barriers to entry be a reason that a game like Counterstrike:Source is so successful? It is still being played in record numbers today, with thousands of servers still up and tournaments being held around the globe. The money system in that game allows players to buy better guns, but that resets after every game. Pros and novices start out with the exact same amount of money in the beginning. Will Team Fortress 2 still be as popular 4 years from now? Or will these new unlockables keep piling up so much that new people will not want to start playing and experienced players will stop playing because things stop being new.

just awesome

Murder Suspect Too Busy Playing Guitar Hero To Notice Impending Arrest

My LAN party

I went to another AG LAN Saturday. Pretty good LAN. I played a remarkable amount of World of Warcraft for a LAN party. I played a lot of Team Fortress 2 as well. I punched out a lot more BonK members as a Heavy than I should have, namely 3. Sorry, I'm sorta blogged out for now. Read my post below to know why.

Playlist:

1. World of Warcraft
2. Team Fortress 2