It would be rude not to....

.... so i naturally re subbed to checkout the Cataclysm expansion as it promised to change so much of the established game we had all come to love and know. Did i regret going back? No not really and for about 7 months it was nice to soak up all the nostalgia again with some familiar and new faces.

Level85 came and went with my newly prepared Draenei Priest to help fill the crucial healer role in any team which would ensure me being always needed. After some weeks of gearing up with the welfare epic items that came from the easily farmable 5man heroic dungeons we stepped it up a gear and began raiding, that's what World of Warcraft is all about after all.

We experienced mixed success with the guild to begin with, of the initial 3 raids when Cataclysm started we managed to beat Throne of the Four Winds (ToT4W) and cleared the first 4 bosses inside Blackwing Descent after alot of effort, frustration and of course drama! Something about MMOs seems to attract a variety of personalities and individuals meaning alot of time was spent of training up members only to have them leave shortly afterwards and the cycle restart with someone different. Eventually a "core" group was carved of friends/colleagues that allowed us to advance. A major update updated added the Firelands raid to the game before we had chance to finish these so our focus changed and the process restarted of learning the new tactics and encounters that Firelands had to offer.

For what seemed like an eternity we would hit mental blocks on some bosses, Beth'talic is one that immediately comes to mind writing this post. The encounter was designed as a gear check (failure to kill the minions quick enough would soon mean you were over run) by Blizzard and this proved to be the case.

Eventually Firelands was cleared just in time before the next major update was added, DragonSoul in patch 4.3. However this was where my interest started to run out again and World of Warcraft had once again served its purpose in passing the time. The new feature "Raid Finder" undermining the purpose of guilds that allowed a bunch of strangers to be put together via a match making system and have access to all the content previously reserved for guilds..

As i mentioned at the start i didnt regret going back and i encorage anyone else who used to play to do the same even if for nothing else than to be able to experience first hand what has changed for the better and in some cases, the worse. Who knows, i may do the same during the upcoming Mists of Pandaria.

Until next time.

WAR is everywhere...

... Just not as fun as WoW. I spend my time in WAR playing "SarGara Waarteef" the BlackOrc on Karak-Azgal. Much in the same way as WoW when you pick a class you stay with it until you create another, so in this case every BlackOrc is a tank however you can specialise to be either offence or defence orientated.

The game is very fun and leveling isn't an issue at all. Each of the 3 races areas offer different content and quests to help you sail through towards the end game. Personally i found the Greenskin chapters to be the funnest to play.

Along the way i founded a guild with a couple of real life friends, PlainLazy that developed into quite the organised rabble capable of tackling the end game dungeons. We even got invited into the biggest alliance on our server, Fightclub.

Before we knew it months had passed but then the game started to decline and alot of members left for other upcoming MMOs such as Age of Connan and things started to look shaky but we plodded along.

Much in the same way as Lineage 2, Warhammer Online really does have some amazing graphics and sights that make you want to keep exploring. This for example we discovered frozen in a cave deep under ground in a forgotten corner of a Chaos chapter. Impressive or what?

The real fun in Warhammer Online however stems from the integration of PvP right from the offset. Unlike other MMOs which punish you for PvPing, WAR promotes it offering it as a viable choice for leveling up allowing quests and exp to be completed both inside battlegrounds and in open combat.

The Game:

If i could change anything it would have been to push the games launch back by a couple of months. Unfortunately alot of the content now in the game was needed from day one. As it stands alot of people tried the game, got bored and then left or got frustrated at bugs that no longer exist. Warhammer truly is a good game its just a shame its reputation doesn't match.

Grind-o-holic

The first eastern market MMO i ever classed as a mainstream title that i tried out was this game back when it first launched in early 2004. I look back at how the game used to be at launch and I'm impressed that NCsoft turned it into the title that it did.

Anyway this was me at the time of quitting. While SarGara the Level62 Warcryer was my main by the time of parting i had sold all of his equipment so that i was able to continue my alt Remorse the Destroyer to Level61. Those of you who played Lineage2 will be aware of the ridiculous cost of equipment in this game and how difficult it was to obtain anything substantial. At the time of the screenshot above i was one of the first to complete the set of armor for my class.

One of the redeeming features that i think kept me playing this game was the visuals. I was blown away by how stunning alot of the areas looked. Where as other games like WoW relied heavily on their artwork to hide the poor graphics, Lineage2 was completely the opposite and it was only later on that their artists started to create some impressive areas.

The Game:

My biggest gripe about Lineage2 wasn't the grinding, which believe me was impressive in comparison to other MMOs but turned out to be the death penalty. Playing a whole evening and getting 10% only to die due to lag, or a misjudged pull and end up loosing 5% was frustrating beyond belief. And the more you leveled the worse this became! The PvP system in Lineage2 also needed some sort of degree to understand the mechanics of flagging and when you could and couldn't kill someone without being penalised.

All this aside i did enjoy my time in Lineage2. Now if only it had WoWs social and raiding we would be onto a real winner!

Too much of a good thing...

... Is the only way i can honestly sum up my time in WoW. Don't get me wrong, i really liked the game and the time i spent playing it but i just feel Blizzard ruined it towards the end, more on this further on.

SarGara the level70 Frost Mage. This was my only character throughout the almost 2 years i spent in the game. Hard to imagine considering how Alt fever grasps most people but i think this is how i managed to stay on top without dedicating all of my life. While guild members were busy leveling their 3rd character i was happily plodding along doing battlegrounds and slowly but surely improving my gear. The above screenshot is how i ended my WoW experience months before WotLK launched during Season3.

Pre-TBC

Or as i like to remember them, the "good old days". The best of my gaming time came from running the 20 man raid instance: Zul Gurub located to the south in Stranglethorn Vale. I know alot of it was a pain wiping on bosses again and again but as me and the rest of the guild were all experiencing this first hand together it only helped to bond us.
We skipped the other end game raid instances such as Molten Core and Black Wing Lair due to their 40man nature so this made Zul Gurub ideal for a hatchling guild such as ours and being the logical step up from the 10man UBRS raid meant it was a tough ride.

As you can see things didn't always go to plan! As well as issues progressing in the instance, our guild also had its fair share of issues outside of instances as well, queue: e-drama!

Mage envy is a horrible thing!

The Game:

As i said earlier i don't dislike the game at all and i will still recommend this to anyone to try out. What i do dislike is the way Blizzard changed alot of things to mainstream the game for the masses. Obviously unless you played from the start this isn't a problem and your gaming experience wont be jaded like mine. But honestly, ask anyone in the same situation as myself and they will tell you how much better the "vanilla" WoW was. I would give anything to see the below scene again in Alteric Valley for example:

By making the game easier and more accessible to the masses alot of the fun or quirk's were removed. Combine this with expansion packs making everyone feel useless just devalued the time i had spent.

Whats done is done but i still miss WoW and i will definitely be checking out WoW2 :)

One of the few games i still play...

... And that's saying something surely? Unlike most of the other MMO articles in this blog i can write this one in the present tense *yey*! The Galante known as SarGara was "born" on 06.05.2003 and i still actively play him on an occasional basis. I say occasional because those of you familiar with EvE Online will all too well be aware of the games learning mechanic which allows you to progress your skills without really progressing and in reality just logging out!

So here i am at the time of this post with a respectable 23 million skill points under my belt. Not amazing i know but i have been juggling this game around other MMOs so unfortunately my playtime statistics will reveal huge year gaps where WoW took over to name just a few. Ive just finished polishing off the Dreadnought skills and I'm now working towards T2 ships such as Heavy Assault Cruisers (HAC).

Ship:

I decided after many expensive ammo bills from level4 missions to change my play style away from Galante faction fittings/ships to something more wallet friendly, namely lasers! What with Amarr faction ships being the best to fit said lasers too it was only natural i ended up in an Apocalypse battleship:


Its not the best situation to be in flying another factions ships with average skill set but it gets the job done and alot cheaper i may add. Overall to refit a lost "Banana Hammock" as i decided to name my Apoc I'm looking at about 88mill for the ship + roughly 50mill to fit. With figures like these you can understand why only the game has to cater for both PvE and PvP players to prevent most being over whelmed.


Corporation:

Truthfully however the real reason for me continuing to play EvE Online is because of the corporation i belong to; the Three Wise Kings [3WK]. No this isn't some sort of hardcore regime but rather a couple of friends from my work place who decided this was a good game to play so roped me into helping them and Ive stay since. We jump online from time to time and do the occasional mission in a fleet, nothing demanding but enough to keep ourselves content with the game.

As of writing this Three Wise Kings has been around for the best part of 2 years with very little change other than the odd office move here and there when we forget to pay a bill and get evicted.

The website seen to the right was my friends idea by the way. Other than being a hangout for various advertisement spam bots i doubt its used anymore.

The Game:

I have to hand it to CCP the developers of EvE Online. They have really gone above and beyond when it comes to maintaining there crafted world. I cant think of any other MMO where the game has had an entire revamp with updated graphics rather than merely being churned out as a sequel title to milk some additional money.

I definitely recommend checking out this game at some point or another in anyones MMO career.