Having already given my opinions on Vashj'ir as a questing zone, I feel it's time I turn my eye towards the other Cataclysm starting-zone: Mount Hyjal (the fact that I promised I would do so in my last post might also have something to do with why I'm looking at it now). Now, Mount Hyjal wasn't my favorite zone of the expansion, but if I were to rank the zones in order of how much I enjoyed them, Mount Hyjal would definitely be in the middle (Twilight Highlands > Deepholm > Mount Hyjal > Uldum > Vashj'ir, if you're interested). I agree with the commenters on my Vashj'ir post that Mount Hyjal wasn't exactly innovating or ground-breaking, but overall, I felt that the zone worked well, and that's where its strength was.
As I said in my last post, Mount Hyjal was similar to Vashj'ir in many ways, but overall, I felt that Mount Hyjal worked in many ways that Vashj'ir didn't. To wit, Hyjal has the enemy that we need to face right on our doorstep in plain view, a pattern done right from the beginning with the earth elementals attacking Nordrassil, and the sense of urgency created by the mountain being on fire could not be mitigated by leaving the zone, creating suspense that remained taut even if you left the zone and came back later (which could not be said for Vashj'ir). It was also not of unreasonable length, which certainly didn't hurt its overall quality.
So what do I have to say about Mount Hyjal that I didn't say in my last post? One thing I was appreciative of about the zone was its liberal use of phasing, allowing the player to have a very real sense of having an impact on the zone. This was another way that I felt Vashj'ir was lacking: it didn't feel like our actions changed the zone at all, even though they would occasionally cause NPCs to spawn where they hadn't been before. There was also a sense that Mount Hyjal was unfolding before our eyes, what with its almost spiral-ish structure and fairly linear physical progression path, giving a real sense of progress, something I feel is lacking in many of WoW's zones. What I mean by "progress" is that was had a sense of how far we were in completing the zone. Most zones send you running around the zone in a seemingly orderless fashion, making it difficult to tell how far you have to go before you have solved that zone's problems. Sure you could check how far you are in the quest achievements to figure that out, but where's the fun in that? With Hyjal, you traversed through the zone in a fairly linear fashion, making it easier to tell how close you were to the end.
As for flaws? One of the major things about Cataclysm that bugs me is how most of the new factions have little to no representation outside of their respective zones, and the Guardians of Hyjal are no exception. Sure, their name may preclude them from doing much outside of the zone, but they are still a very one-dimensional organization. Their tabard claims that, by wearing it, I am "championing their cause", but how can I do that when their sole purpose is to save Hyjal, and I'm running around in an instance that has nothing to do with the zone? I felt this was a problem with many of the factions, but it's especially bad for the Guardians of Hyjal, since their purpose is so obviously one-dimensional and they were my introduction to just how self-contained Cataclysm's factions are.
But that's clearly not a criticism of the quests themselves, and I really don't have many negative things to say about Mount Hyjal as a questing zone, because Blizzard just played it really safe with this zone. There wasn't much innovation, but because it's familiar territory, they were able to pull it off quite well. So overall, my thoughts on Mount Hyjal could be summed up as, very well executed, but not very ambitious. It's nothing new, but that's why it's not so bad; as I said in the title, it "won't appall" because we've seen much of it before. And perhaps my disagreements with the Vashj'ir camp in the Hyjal vs. Vashj'ir debate stem from my prioritizing execution over ambition; in other words, I judge a zone more by what it is than what it could have been. But more on that on Friday.
Showing posts with label miscellany-impressions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label miscellany-impressions. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
Oh dear, Vashj'ir
This post contains spoilers about the storyline of Vashj'ir, as well as a plethora of negative opinions. If you haven't finished Vashj'ir or you prefer to read optimistic and constructive posts, you have been warned.
Apparently, overly opinionated posts criticizing Cataclysm's content are all the rage in the blogosphere these days. Of course, I'm in no position to judge Cataclysm as a whole, which presents a bit of a problem when writing one of those total review posts. I have yet to experience the 5-man content and will probably never experience the raid content, and PvP hasn't interested me in years, so I haven't experienced fighting in Tol Barad, The Battle for Gilneas, or Twin Peaks. What I have experienced is every zone's one-time quests and all of the daily quests (Alliance side, anyway), as well as Archeology, but being that I have already given my thoughts on the latter (though I have taken a decidedly more neutral view on it since then), it is the former to which I shall turn my discerning eye this week. And by discerning, I mean incredibly subjective and opinionated, so get your grain of salt ready before you start reading today.
Got it? Good. Now, I was originally going to write a post about all of the zones, including the daily quests in their own section, but I had so much to say about Vashj'ir that I had to give the zone it's own post, so I plan to put the other zones under the lens on Wednesday. Without further ado, let's get to my very opinionated review of Cataclysm's underwater zone.
It's something of a tradition in video games that if a game contains a water-based level, it's going to be the least fun level in the game. There are many reasons for this: if swimming isn't an integral part of the game otherwise, a physics engine for swimming may need to be thrown together for just that level, which will likely lead to that engine being sub-par due the limited amount of use it will actually get. Breath gauges are also a nuisance, as is the often low visibility in water levels. Blizzard managed to avoid these common pratfalls when they designed Vashj'ir thanks to the fact that WoW has always had swimming, so we are used to navigating water, and thanks to the sea legs buff, which does away with the breath gauge, and the Abyssal Seahorse mount, which largely does away with the limited mobility typical of a virtual aquatic environment. Which is why it's such a shame that Vashj'ir was the zone I liked least out of all of Cataclysm's zones.
Maybe it's the zone's size. Vashj'ir is the only zone in Cataclysm's high level content that had to be split into multiple subzones--and three of them, at that--and moving around in these huge zones became tiresome at times (especially the latter quests in Darkbreak Cove). Maybe it was the lack of any grounding aspect of the zone's storyline. Moving from shelter to shelter without any constant base that could be considered the main outpost of the zone made the whole zone feel very disconnected. Vashj'ir is the only Cataclysm zone (to my knowledge) that will send you to a different part of the zone, depending on where you are in the quest lines, when you use its portal in the capital cities, and that becomes disorienting, especially since the caves all look the same, as do many of the environments, beautiful though they may be. This leads to the zone not having many landmarks that give us a definite sense of where we are, which doesn't help things.
But maybe, just maybe, what makes Vashj'ir so unenjoyable is the impossibility of creating the mood that Vashj'ir is trying to create. From the moment the boat sinks on the ride over, it's clear that Blizzard's intention with Vashj'ir was to create a zone where we are constantly on the run, ducking for cover in an environment where we are out of our element, while being constantly surrounded by foes who would love nothing more than to rip us to shreds. And yet, as they are trying to create that mood, there is nothing preventing me from swimming to the land in the zone, mounting up, and flying out of there, or better yet, hearthstoning back to Stormwind. Was I supposed to be in danger or something?
Now, Mount Hyjal is similar to Vashj'ir in a lot of ways, in that we are constantly moving throughout the zone and the zone tries to create a sense of urgency on the part of the player. I'll go over this zone more in another post, but the reason the creation of tension works in Mount Hyjal and not in Vashj'ir is that Mount Hyjal's tension is much more feasible to maintain. In both zones, the enemy is supposedly right on our doorstep, a threat we need to face immediately. In Mount Hyjal, there are earth elementals right in the front lawn of the zone's main hub, so this sense is created successfully. In Vashj'ir, these enemies are often far away, and though their numbers are supposedly imposing and dangerous, they rarely are if we actually go an have a look at them. In other words, in Mount Hyjal, Blizzard successfully followed the mantra of "show, don't tell", whereas in Vashj'ir, that was not the case.
And as for the sense of urgency, in Hyjal, that sense of urgency is created by the fact that the mountain is on fire. If we leave the zone, it will continue to burn, though we may now be safe. As such, though we can leave the zone and its problems with little difficulty, its conflict still remains. As for Vashj'ir, I get the distinct feeling that the zone is trying to create tension by implying that you yourself are in danger by being stranded in the zone, but if you hearth or fly out, oh look, problem solved! Sure, the soldiers of your faction and the Earthen Ring might still be in trouble, but again, the zone depends too heavily on telling us that our allies are in danger without ever showing us how they are in danger. Do these naga that we need to be afraid of ever storm the caves we get our quests from? Do they send out scouting parties to see if we have become a threat yet? Nope, they just leave us alone, and whatever tension that could be drawn from this situation is diffused by the fact that the zone just tries too hard to create it, breaking the tension by exceeding the capabilities of text-based tension creation.
Then there's the zone's length. It's bad enough that the zone doesn't create the kind of tension that can keep me interested in the storyline, but it then drags me through that tension-less chore for longer than any other zone in the game expects me to stay within its boarders. If Cataclysm's one-time quests werre like a novel with five chapters, the only one that wouldn't have any kind of suspense or tension would also happen to be the longest one. A lack of tension compared to other parts of the story can make anything seem to drag on, even if it isn't longer than the other parts of the work in question, but Vashj'ir has the double wammy of seeming to drag on due to its lack of tension and actually dragging on because it is so much longer than the other zones. For members of the Horde to get the quest achievement for Vashj'ir, they need to do 25 more quests than they need to to get the achievement for the next longest zone. The Alliance have it even worse, needing to do thirty five more quests to get their achievement, making Vashj'ir almost a third longer than any other zone in Cataclysm for the Alliance. Unbearably long, and boring, to boot. Oy vey.
And then there's the ending of the zone's storyline. I'm not even going to bother talking about that submarine ride that made Crime and Punishment feel like a haiku and forced you to watch the battle as your sub-mates narrated the fact that you were losing because the battle itself was so uninspired in its design that you really can't tell who's winning and who's losing (there's that "telling instead of showing" problem again). Or the inexplicable hole in the bottom of that submarine (or maybe it was a different one; I can't differentiate between the submarines when I remember them) that invites you by its very presence to go for a swim, only to deposit you in the ocean if you should swim too deep, with the submarine moving too quickly for you to catch up and get back in. No, let's just get right to the ending.
After losing the battle, Erunak is pulled into the breach by a mysterious tentacle and your commander follows. Without actually giving you a definite prompt to follow your commander into the Abyssal Maw, the quest simply leaves you outside of the rift, with no one around, abandoning you in the deepest, most desolate part of the most disconnected-from-the-rest-of-the-world zone in the game. It's about as lonely as WoW can possibly make you feel, and that's how this chore of a zone ends: an empty ending to a tension-less story. And if you do follow your commander into the Maw, you have to enter an instance to continue the story. So you are left with an exceptionally unsatisfying ending: you have been defeated in battle, your allies are nowhere to be found, and you have to do an instance to finish the story. If you wanted to move on to the next zone's quests after finishing Vashj'ir, too bad; go into that dungeon and find out what happens!
And speaking of moving on to the next zone, I think I should do that mentally, because all of this accentuating the negative isn't good for my psyche. So let me conclude by saying that if you are still working through Northrend, Outland, or even the remade vanilla content and you still have to make the "Hyjal vs. Vashj'ir" choice, choose Hyjal. The only reason to go to Vashj'ir is for the extra gold, Earthen Ring rep, and quest rewards to disenchant. On Wednesday, shall I move on to Mount Hyjal, and perhaps another zone or two if I don't have enough to say about Mount Hyjal alone.
Apparently, overly opinionated posts criticizing Cataclysm's content are all the rage in the blogosphere these days. Of course, I'm in no position to judge Cataclysm as a whole, which presents a bit of a problem when writing one of those total review posts. I have yet to experience the 5-man content and will probably never experience the raid content, and PvP hasn't interested me in years, so I haven't experienced fighting in Tol Barad, The Battle for Gilneas, or Twin Peaks. What I have experienced is every zone's one-time quests and all of the daily quests (Alliance side, anyway), as well as Archeology, but being that I have already given my thoughts on the latter (though I have taken a decidedly more neutral view on it since then), it is the former to which I shall turn my discerning eye this week. And by discerning, I mean incredibly subjective and opinionated, so get your grain of salt ready before you start reading today.
Got it? Good. Now, I was originally going to write a post about all of the zones, including the daily quests in their own section, but I had so much to say about Vashj'ir that I had to give the zone it's own post, so I plan to put the other zones under the lens on Wednesday. Without further ado, let's get to my very opinionated review of Cataclysm's underwater zone.
It's something of a tradition in video games that if a game contains a water-based level, it's going to be the least fun level in the game. There are many reasons for this: if swimming isn't an integral part of the game otherwise, a physics engine for swimming may need to be thrown together for just that level, which will likely lead to that engine being sub-par due the limited amount of use it will actually get. Breath gauges are also a nuisance, as is the often low visibility in water levels. Blizzard managed to avoid these common pratfalls when they designed Vashj'ir thanks to the fact that WoW has always had swimming, so we are used to navigating water, and thanks to the sea legs buff, which does away with the breath gauge, and the Abyssal Seahorse mount, which largely does away with the limited mobility typical of a virtual aquatic environment. Which is why it's such a shame that Vashj'ir was the zone I liked least out of all of Cataclysm's zones.
Maybe it's the zone's size. Vashj'ir is the only zone in Cataclysm's high level content that had to be split into multiple subzones--and three of them, at that--and moving around in these huge zones became tiresome at times (especially the latter quests in Darkbreak Cove). Maybe it was the lack of any grounding aspect of the zone's storyline. Moving from shelter to shelter without any constant base that could be considered the main outpost of the zone made the whole zone feel very disconnected. Vashj'ir is the only Cataclysm zone (to my knowledge) that will send you to a different part of the zone, depending on where you are in the quest lines, when you use its portal in the capital cities, and that becomes disorienting, especially since the caves all look the same, as do many of the environments, beautiful though they may be. This leads to the zone not having many landmarks that give us a definite sense of where we are, which doesn't help things.
But maybe, just maybe, what makes Vashj'ir so unenjoyable is the impossibility of creating the mood that Vashj'ir is trying to create. From the moment the boat sinks on the ride over, it's clear that Blizzard's intention with Vashj'ir was to create a zone where we are constantly on the run, ducking for cover in an environment where we are out of our element, while being constantly surrounded by foes who would love nothing more than to rip us to shreds. And yet, as they are trying to create that mood, there is nothing preventing me from swimming to the land in the zone, mounting up, and flying out of there, or better yet, hearthstoning back to Stormwind. Was I supposed to be in danger or something?
Now, Mount Hyjal is similar to Vashj'ir in a lot of ways, in that we are constantly moving throughout the zone and the zone tries to create a sense of urgency on the part of the player. I'll go over this zone more in another post, but the reason the creation of tension works in Mount Hyjal and not in Vashj'ir is that Mount Hyjal's tension is much more feasible to maintain. In both zones, the enemy is supposedly right on our doorstep, a threat we need to face immediately. In Mount Hyjal, there are earth elementals right in the front lawn of the zone's main hub, so this sense is created successfully. In Vashj'ir, these enemies are often far away, and though their numbers are supposedly imposing and dangerous, they rarely are if we actually go an have a look at them. In other words, in Mount Hyjal, Blizzard successfully followed the mantra of "show, don't tell", whereas in Vashj'ir, that was not the case.
And as for the sense of urgency, in Hyjal, that sense of urgency is created by the fact that the mountain is on fire. If we leave the zone, it will continue to burn, though we may now be safe. As such, though we can leave the zone and its problems with little difficulty, its conflict still remains. As for Vashj'ir, I get the distinct feeling that the zone is trying to create tension by implying that you yourself are in danger by being stranded in the zone, but if you hearth or fly out, oh look, problem solved! Sure, the soldiers of your faction and the Earthen Ring might still be in trouble, but again, the zone depends too heavily on telling us that our allies are in danger without ever showing us how they are in danger. Do these naga that we need to be afraid of ever storm the caves we get our quests from? Do they send out scouting parties to see if we have become a threat yet? Nope, they just leave us alone, and whatever tension that could be drawn from this situation is diffused by the fact that the zone just tries too hard to create it, breaking the tension by exceeding the capabilities of text-based tension creation.
Then there's the zone's length. It's bad enough that the zone doesn't create the kind of tension that can keep me interested in the storyline, but it then drags me through that tension-less chore for longer than any other zone in the game expects me to stay within its boarders. If Cataclysm's one-time quests werre like a novel with five chapters, the only one that wouldn't have any kind of suspense or tension would also happen to be the longest one. A lack of tension compared to other parts of the story can make anything seem to drag on, even if it isn't longer than the other parts of the work in question, but Vashj'ir has the double wammy of seeming to drag on due to its lack of tension and actually dragging on because it is so much longer than the other zones. For members of the Horde to get the quest achievement for Vashj'ir, they need to do 25 more quests than they need to to get the achievement for the next longest zone. The Alliance have it even worse, needing to do thirty five more quests to get their achievement, making Vashj'ir almost a third longer than any other zone in Cataclysm for the Alliance. Unbearably long, and boring, to boot. Oy vey.
And then there's the ending of the zone's storyline. I'm not even going to bother talking about that submarine ride that made Crime and Punishment feel like a haiku and forced you to watch the battle as your sub-mates narrated the fact that you were losing because the battle itself was so uninspired in its design that you really can't tell who's winning and who's losing (there's that "telling instead of showing" problem again). Or the inexplicable hole in the bottom of that submarine (or maybe it was a different one; I can't differentiate between the submarines when I remember them) that invites you by its very presence to go for a swim, only to deposit you in the ocean if you should swim too deep, with the submarine moving too quickly for you to catch up and get back in. No, let's just get right to the ending.
After losing the battle, Erunak is pulled into the breach by a mysterious tentacle and your commander follows. Without actually giving you a definite prompt to follow your commander into the Abyssal Maw, the quest simply leaves you outside of the rift, with no one around, abandoning you in the deepest, most desolate part of the most disconnected-from-the-rest-of-the-world zone in the game. It's about as lonely as WoW can possibly make you feel, and that's how this chore of a zone ends: an empty ending to a tension-less story. And if you do follow your commander into the Maw, you have to enter an instance to continue the story. So you are left with an exceptionally unsatisfying ending: you have been defeated in battle, your allies are nowhere to be found, and you have to do an instance to finish the story. If you wanted to move on to the next zone's quests after finishing Vashj'ir, too bad; go into that dungeon and find out what happens!
And speaking of moving on to the next zone, I think I should do that mentally, because all of this accentuating the negative isn't good for my psyche. So let me conclude by saying that if you are still working through Northrend, Outland, or even the remade vanilla content and you still have to make the "Hyjal vs. Vashj'ir" choice, choose Hyjal. The only reason to go to Vashj'ir is for the extra gold, Earthen Ring rep, and quest rewards to disenchant. On Wednesday, shall I move on to Mount Hyjal, and perhaps another zone or two if I don't have enough to say about Mount Hyjal alone.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Suggestions for Cataclysm's Druid talents
A while ago, Blizzard announced their intentions to trim down the talent trees for Cataclysm, making them smaller, while also making each talent choice more fun and meaningful. I can't find the exact quote, but the announcement, or one of the same topic, mentioned that, these days, we have to take quite a few boring talents just to open up the more interesting talents, the ones that will actually change the feel of our class, and Blizzard wants to change that. This is a design philosophy that, assuming they can pull it off, I am totally in support of; I'm willing to trade off the excitement of getting a talent point each level for making each talent itself more exciting, and after looking at the new trees themselves, the current trees seem bloated and cumbersome by comparison.
Which brings me to the point of this post: the first drafts of the new talent trees have come out, and thus we can finally give our thoughts on them, and I intend to do so right now. Specifically, I'll be giving my thoughts on the Druid talents, since that's the class I play. I'll be skipping over issues discussed in the latest developer chat, like the fact that the first tier of the feral tree only has two talents, the fact that some talents had their maximum number of points one could spend in them reduced without the effects of their ranks being increased, the loss of the shapeshifting cost reduction from King of the Jungle, the the fact that Primal Fury no longer causes critical strikes of combo-point generating abilities to give and combo point, or the fact that Swiftmend is gained from taking Restoration as our main spec and still present as a talent within the tree (no pun intended) itself. All of these issues were acknowledged during the developer chat and are scheduled to be fixed. So let's focus on the things they didn't mention. Also, because I dual-spec and feral/resto, I won't be giving my thoughts on Balance, since I have no useful thoughts on Balance to contribute. Sorry, boomkins.
-Move Furor into the Feral tree.
This long-suffering Restoration talent needs to be put out of its misery and resurrected as a Feral talent. As it stands, this talent is one of three in the first tier of Restoration, yet serves no purpose for healers. There aren't any other talents any deeper in the Resto tree that Balance or Feral Druids would want (except maybe Perseverance, which could be moved up a tier), so why have this here? It forces Resto druids to take Blessing of the Grove and Natural Shapeshifter, the former of which is pretty underwhelming as a healing talent, the latter of which is greatly underwhelming. It would be far better to put a talent that all Restoration druids would find useful in Furor's place (Genesis, perhaps?)
-Blessing of the Grove should include Mangle (Cat)
As it stands now, Blessing of the Grove increases the damage of Claw and Shred, yet does not increase the damage of Mangle (Cat). However, Mangle (Cat) is designed to flat-out replace Claw. It costs the same amount of energy, adds a combo point like Claw does, and causes much more damage, in addition to making bleeds cause more damage on the target. There is, quite simply, no reason for a Feral Druid to use Claw, so if this talent is going to increase the damage of Claw, it should also increase the damage of Mangle (Cat), or else Claw's inclusion will be completely meaningless.
Now, some might argue that, because one needs to be spec'ed as Feral Combat to acquire Mangle, and thus not all druids have it, the inclusion of Claw isn't completely meaningless. But here's the thing: Balance and Restoration Druids have no reason to ever enter Cat Form and fight their enemies with melee attacks. Balance has all of its offensive spells to help it fight, and if a Restoration Druid needs to cause some damage, it's going to do so with Balance spells, as well. After all, any Restoration Druid will have gear with intellect, and thus spellpower, rather than gear with agility, and thus attack power, so the damage of their Balance spells will gain a bonus from their gear, while the damage of their Cat Form attacks will not. The only Druids that would conceivably use Claw are Druids with agility on their gear, i.e. Feral Druids, and they get Mangle right off the bat. In fact, Claw is looking to be pretty useless in general now...
-Fury of Stormrage should be retooled to be more useful.
One of the things the developer chat revealed was that Blizzard wants to give healers a way to cause damage when they don't have to do any healing, as a way of getting some mana back. That's why Restoration Shamans have the spell Telluric Currents. If that's the way that they want offensive abilities to work in the hands of healers, then Fury of Stormrage can't remain in its current form. As it stands, Fury of Stormrage gives Druids the occasional opportunity to use an offensive spell (Wrath, specifically) without using mana to do so. However, there are no benefits to the Druid himself for using Wrath under these circumstances, and the Druid needs to work the casting of Wrath around his healing, or else he risks wasting the proc. While homogenization isn't necessarily a good thing, I'd much prefer a talent that resembles Telluric Currents to the current incarnation of Fury of Stormrage.
-Rend and Tear should increase the damage of Mangle on bleeding targets.
I've never been a fan of Rend and Tear, and have always viewed it as a talent that is only useful to Cats doing raid DPS. Maul doesn't account for nearly enough of my threat to justify taking it as a Bear tank--and it won't account for much more when Cataclysm comes--and the only time a Cat uses Shred a lot is while DPS'ing a raid boss. While solo-ing, Mangle is used much more, and on trash, Swipe is used much more, though that will probably be changing come Cataclysm. Regardless, R&T is only useful to Cats during raiding, but in Cataclysm, it will be a prerequisite for the Bear ability Pulverize. Since talent points are going to be even more scarce in Cataclysm than they are now, I'm really not comfortable with needing to spend so many talent points on a talent that is only useful to Cats in order to get a Bear Form ability. However, there is a simple way to remedy this situation: make R&T increase Mangle's damage as well. Not only will this make it a useful talent for Bears (for whom Mangle accounts for a good portion of their threat), but it will also make it useful for Cats outside of raids.
-The second tier of Restoration needs another talent.
As it stands now, not only does the top tier of Restoration only offer two marginally useful talents for trees, the second tier doesn't even offer five points for those spec'ing purely for higher healing. As it stands, Restoration Druids can put three points in Perseverance and three in Improved Rejuvenation. While some Restoration Druids probably appreciate the opportunity to take some defensive talents, unless wide-spread magic damage is going to be a huge part of the Cataclysm raiding scene, there just isn't enough choice in the second tier of Restoration.
-Nom Nom Nom [name not final, unfortunately] is too specialized to be worth two points.
Currently, Noms has the benefit of allowing Cats to keep one of their longer lasting bleed effects active on their target as it nears death, which is beneficial, considering that as a raid boss gets closer to dying, most Cats likely start using Ferocious Bite instead of Rip, hoping to avoid the lost damage that would result from Rip not lasting its full duration. However, this talent will only provide its bonus during the last minute or two of a boss battle. After all, Cats don't use Rip on trash, and even if we get long-living trash in Cataclysm, the limited health range of this talent means Ferocious Bite may only benefit from it once per a fight, twice, at most. And yet, we are forced to spend two points to get that limited effect, and with points much scarcer in Cataclysm, that's not something I'm comfortable with Now, if they made it so that this talent applied at all health levels, then I could see it being worth taking.
-Bring back Omen of Clarity
Seriously, where did it go? It was here one expansion, and gone the next. That free ability every so often is an important part of the Druid's identity. I suppose they may have gotten rid of it because it was pretty much a mandatory talent for every druid, yet was also in the third tier of restoration, which is now inaccessible to all non-Restoration Druids. Say... perhaps Omen of Clarity could be the replacement for Furor. Just turn it into a multi-point talent, add the phrase "(higher than rank 1/2)" after the word "chance" in ranks two and three, et voilà!
Which brings me to the point of this post: the first drafts of the new talent trees have come out, and thus we can finally give our thoughts on them, and I intend to do so right now. Specifically, I'll be giving my thoughts on the Druid talents, since that's the class I play. I'll be skipping over issues discussed in the latest developer chat, like the fact that the first tier of the feral tree only has two talents, the fact that some talents had their maximum number of points one could spend in them reduced without the effects of their ranks being increased, the loss of the shapeshifting cost reduction from King of the Jungle, the the fact that Primal Fury no longer causes critical strikes of combo-point generating abilities to give and combo point, or the fact that Swiftmend is gained from taking Restoration as our main spec and still present as a talent within the tree (no pun intended) itself. All of these issues were acknowledged during the developer chat and are scheduled to be fixed. So let's focus on the things they didn't mention. Also, because I dual-spec and feral/resto, I won't be giving my thoughts on Balance, since I have no useful thoughts on Balance to contribute. Sorry, boomkins.
-Move Furor into the Feral tree.
This long-suffering Restoration talent needs to be put out of its misery and resurrected as a Feral talent. As it stands, this talent is one of three in the first tier of Restoration, yet serves no purpose for healers. There aren't any other talents any deeper in the Resto tree that Balance or Feral Druids would want (except maybe Perseverance, which could be moved up a tier), so why have this here? It forces Resto druids to take Blessing of the Grove and Natural Shapeshifter, the former of which is pretty underwhelming as a healing talent, the latter of which is greatly underwhelming. It would be far better to put a talent that all Restoration druids would find useful in Furor's place (Genesis, perhaps?)
-Blessing of the Grove should include Mangle (Cat)
As it stands now, Blessing of the Grove increases the damage of Claw and Shred, yet does not increase the damage of Mangle (Cat). However, Mangle (Cat) is designed to flat-out replace Claw. It costs the same amount of energy, adds a combo point like Claw does, and causes much more damage, in addition to making bleeds cause more damage on the target. There is, quite simply, no reason for a Feral Druid to use Claw, so if this talent is going to increase the damage of Claw, it should also increase the damage of Mangle (Cat), or else Claw's inclusion will be completely meaningless.
Now, some might argue that, because one needs to be spec'ed as Feral Combat to acquire Mangle, and thus not all druids have it, the inclusion of Claw isn't completely meaningless. But here's the thing: Balance and Restoration Druids have no reason to ever enter Cat Form and fight their enemies with melee attacks. Balance has all of its offensive spells to help it fight, and if a Restoration Druid needs to cause some damage, it's going to do so with Balance spells, as well. After all, any Restoration Druid will have gear with intellect, and thus spellpower, rather than gear with agility, and thus attack power, so the damage of their Balance spells will gain a bonus from their gear, while the damage of their Cat Form attacks will not. The only Druids that would conceivably use Claw are Druids with agility on their gear, i.e. Feral Druids, and they get Mangle right off the bat. In fact, Claw is looking to be pretty useless in general now...
-Fury of Stormrage should be retooled to be more useful.
One of the things the developer chat revealed was that Blizzard wants to give healers a way to cause damage when they don't have to do any healing, as a way of getting some mana back. That's why Restoration Shamans have the spell Telluric Currents. If that's the way that they want offensive abilities to work in the hands of healers, then Fury of Stormrage can't remain in its current form. As it stands, Fury of Stormrage gives Druids the occasional opportunity to use an offensive spell (Wrath, specifically) without using mana to do so. However, there are no benefits to the Druid himself for using Wrath under these circumstances, and the Druid needs to work the casting of Wrath around his healing, or else he risks wasting the proc. While homogenization isn't necessarily a good thing, I'd much prefer a talent that resembles Telluric Currents to the current incarnation of Fury of Stormrage.
-Rend and Tear should increase the damage of Mangle on bleeding targets.
I've never been a fan of Rend and Tear, and have always viewed it as a talent that is only useful to Cats doing raid DPS. Maul doesn't account for nearly enough of my threat to justify taking it as a Bear tank--and it won't account for much more when Cataclysm comes--and the only time a Cat uses Shred a lot is while DPS'ing a raid boss. While solo-ing, Mangle is used much more, and on trash, Swipe is used much more, though that will probably be changing come Cataclysm. Regardless, R&T is only useful to Cats during raiding, but in Cataclysm, it will be a prerequisite for the Bear ability Pulverize. Since talent points are going to be even more scarce in Cataclysm than they are now, I'm really not comfortable with needing to spend so many talent points on a talent that is only useful to Cats in order to get a Bear Form ability. However, there is a simple way to remedy this situation: make R&T increase Mangle's damage as well. Not only will this make it a useful talent for Bears (for whom Mangle accounts for a good portion of their threat), but it will also make it useful for Cats outside of raids.
-The second tier of Restoration needs another talent.
As it stands now, not only does the top tier of Restoration only offer two marginally useful talents for trees, the second tier doesn't even offer five points for those spec'ing purely for higher healing. As it stands, Restoration Druids can put three points in Perseverance and three in Improved Rejuvenation. While some Restoration Druids probably appreciate the opportunity to take some defensive talents, unless wide-spread magic damage is going to be a huge part of the Cataclysm raiding scene, there just isn't enough choice in the second tier of Restoration.
-Nom Nom Nom [name not final, unfortunately] is too specialized to be worth two points.
Currently, Noms has the benefit of allowing Cats to keep one of their longer lasting bleed effects active on their target as it nears death, which is beneficial, considering that as a raid boss gets closer to dying, most Cats likely start using Ferocious Bite instead of Rip, hoping to avoid the lost damage that would result from Rip not lasting its full duration. However, this talent will only provide its bonus during the last minute or two of a boss battle. After all, Cats don't use Rip on trash, and even if we get long-living trash in Cataclysm, the limited health range of this talent means Ferocious Bite may only benefit from it once per a fight, twice, at most. And yet, we are forced to spend two points to get that limited effect, and with points much scarcer in Cataclysm, that's not something I'm comfortable with Now, if they made it so that this talent applied at all health levels, then I could see it being worth taking.
-Bring back Omen of Clarity
Seriously, where did it go? It was here one expansion, and gone the next. That free ability every so often is an important part of the Druid's identity. I suppose they may have gotten rid of it because it was pretty much a mandatory talent for every druid, yet was also in the third tier of restoration, which is now inaccessible to all non-Restoration Druids. Say... perhaps Omen of Clarity could be the replacement for Furor. Just turn it into a multi-point talent, add the phrase "(higher than rank 1/2)" after the word "chance" in ranks two and three, et voilà!
Monday, February 1, 2010
Reflections on leveling a shadow priest
Having grown bored with all that end-game has to offer my druid and having temporarily lost interest in my long-suffering shaman alt (I'll find him interesting again at some point; my interest in him ebbs and wains) I have turned to the dark side, rolled a priest, and spec'ed him shadow for leveling (get it?). I rolled him simply because I was getting bored with healing as a tree and I wanted to try a new healing style. Neither the shaman nor the paladin healing style particularly appealed to me, so the priest was the logical decision. In leveling my priest, I have learned a few things that I thought I would share with you.
Leveling an alt is easier when you have goals for that alt and they are reasonable.
What surprised me the most was how dedicated I was to this alt. Most of my alts never get past level 25 (my shaman being the notable exception, currently at 62), but my priest is currently level 30 and still going strong. In fact, he is the first character I have leveled mostly without any rested state. What made him different? Probably my goals with him. I rolled my shaman mostly with the intent to have fun, which is why I have stuck with him. I rolled all of my other alts out of class envy and leveled them with the intent of using them in group-play in the back of my mind. However, that was such a far off goal I never stuck with those alts. With my priest, my goal was to get him to 40, buy dual specs, make his other spec holy, and start healing dungeons. A much more reasonable goal, aye? Since my end-goal for my priest isn't as far off as my goals for my other alts were, I was more motivated to level him. The larger lesson is that if you role an alt for fun, focusing on how you will use him at end-game will make you less motivated to play it.
Leveling an alt is more fun when you take two gathering professions.
My priest has skinning and herbalism, but if he actually reaches a higher level, I'll drop skinning and power-level alchemy. Why herbalism and not mining? For Lifeblood, of course; that ability has saved me quite a few times. Why not level alchemy now and save myself the hassle? A few reasons.
1. Selling all those herbs and all that leather on the auction house makes my alt filthy rich and able to stand on his own without injections of money from my main.
2. Leveling alchemy would just be another thing to do and would distract me from questings and leveling in general.
3. Leveling a profession now so I don't need to do it later causes me to think about the future too much, and though having reasonable goals for an alt makes him easier to level (as I said before), the easiest way to stick with an alt is to focus on the here-and-now and not think about the future.
Shadow is not a very attractive leveling tree.
Now, when I say that shadow isn't attractive for leveling, I don't mean that it isn't viable or fun; it is both of those things. However, when a priest first starts out, he can cause more damage with Smite and Holy Fire than he can with Mind Flay and Mind Blast. Throw in the DoTs for added damage and leveling holy seems like a good idea. Thing is, Mind Flay and Mind Blast have many talents that improve their damage and mana-efficiency, but Smite and Holy Fire don't have as many, and priests that spec holy won't take talents that improve those abilities. Smite and Holy Fire are supposed to allow healing priests to be able to fend for themselves, so they need to have high damage to be viable. However, that means that at low levels, shadow doesn't do as much damage as holy, which is just not right. Perhaps increasing the damage of low ranks of Mind Flay and Mind Blast (and increasing the damage they cause at lower levels once ranks are removed) could solve this problem. Speaking of which...
Ability ranks need to go, now.
Ability ranks are going away with Cataclysm, but they need to go out the door right now. As it stands, all ranks of spells cost the same amount of mana. This means that as you level, each spell gets less and less mana efficient until you can purchase the next rank. On my priest, this resulted in Mind Flay, which is supposed to be the pinnacle of mana efficiency, being my least mana-efficient ability during the few levels before its upgrade. It also caused the least amount of damage, so I had no reason to use it at all. Having all ranks of spells cost the same while still requiring that their damage be upgraded every few levels simply doesn't work; it needs to end now, before Cataclysm comes out. It can't be that difficult to implement, so why delay such a necessary fix?
Have you learned any other interesting lessons by leveling alts?
Leveling an alt is easier when you have goals for that alt and they are reasonable.
What surprised me the most was how dedicated I was to this alt. Most of my alts never get past level 25 (my shaman being the notable exception, currently at 62), but my priest is currently level 30 and still going strong. In fact, he is the first character I have leveled mostly without any rested state. What made him different? Probably my goals with him. I rolled my shaman mostly with the intent to have fun, which is why I have stuck with him. I rolled all of my other alts out of class envy and leveled them with the intent of using them in group-play in the back of my mind. However, that was such a far off goal I never stuck with those alts. With my priest, my goal was to get him to 40, buy dual specs, make his other spec holy, and start healing dungeons. A much more reasonable goal, aye? Since my end-goal for my priest isn't as far off as my goals for my other alts were, I was more motivated to level him. The larger lesson is that if you role an alt for fun, focusing on how you will use him at end-game will make you less motivated to play it.
Leveling an alt is more fun when you take two gathering professions.
My priest has skinning and herbalism, but if he actually reaches a higher level, I'll drop skinning and power-level alchemy. Why herbalism and not mining? For Lifeblood, of course; that ability has saved me quite a few times. Why not level alchemy now and save myself the hassle? A few reasons.
1. Selling all those herbs and all that leather on the auction house makes my alt filthy rich and able to stand on his own without injections of money from my main.
2. Leveling alchemy would just be another thing to do and would distract me from questings and leveling in general.
3. Leveling a profession now so I don't need to do it later causes me to think about the future too much, and though having reasonable goals for an alt makes him easier to level (as I said before), the easiest way to stick with an alt is to focus on the here-and-now and not think about the future.
Shadow is not a very attractive leveling tree.
Now, when I say that shadow isn't attractive for leveling, I don't mean that it isn't viable or fun; it is both of those things. However, when a priest first starts out, he can cause more damage with Smite and Holy Fire than he can with Mind Flay and Mind Blast. Throw in the DoTs for added damage and leveling holy seems like a good idea. Thing is, Mind Flay and Mind Blast have many talents that improve their damage and mana-efficiency, but Smite and Holy Fire don't have as many, and priests that spec holy won't take talents that improve those abilities. Smite and Holy Fire are supposed to allow healing priests to be able to fend for themselves, so they need to have high damage to be viable. However, that means that at low levels, shadow doesn't do as much damage as holy, which is just not right. Perhaps increasing the damage of low ranks of Mind Flay and Mind Blast (and increasing the damage they cause at lower levels once ranks are removed) could solve this problem. Speaking of which...
Ability ranks need to go, now.
Ability ranks are going away with Cataclysm, but they need to go out the door right now. As it stands, all ranks of spells cost the same amount of mana. This means that as you level, each spell gets less and less mana efficient until you can purchase the next rank. On my priest, this resulted in Mind Flay, which is supposed to be the pinnacle of mana efficiency, being my least mana-efficient ability during the few levels before its upgrade. It also caused the least amount of damage, so I had no reason to use it at all. Having all ranks of spells cost the same while still requiring that their damage be upgraded every few levels simply doesn't work; it needs to end now, before Cataclysm comes out. It can't be that difficult to implement, so why delay such a necessary fix?
Have you learned any other interesting lessons by leveling alts?
Monday, December 28, 2009
My review of World of Warcraft and Philosophy
I have finally finished World of Warcraft and Philosophy, and it was a great read. If you have read my "so far" review of it, some of this will be repetitive, but cest la vie.
World of Warcraft and Philosophy was a very enjoyable read. Each chapter examines a different issue in WoW, like ninja looting, the Winterspring funeral massacre, and the famous Onyxia wipe (NSFW), from various philosophical perspectives, including Nihilism and Deontology. Thus, not only will you learn more about WoW (I didn't know about the Gnome Tea Party until after reading the book), but you'll learn more about philosophy too, a fantastic subject. I feel it's important to mention that this book examines WoW from a philosophical perspective, not the other way around. What's great about the book is that it uses World of Warcraft to explain these concepts in terms that are easy to understand, so you are guaranteed to walk away a bit smarter. You may not always agree with what the authors of the chapters say, but they lay our their arguments well enough that you can formulate a logical rebuttal if you do disagree.
Still, the first section of the book is a bit of a chore, and that can turn off readers who might otherwise be interested in the book. The two good chapters include one that examines how ethics change when we enter WoW and one that looks at WoW as a response to Nihilism, i.e. life's meaninglessness. However, another chapter is simply a script of a skit in which a raid boss cries in front of a tax specialist because she is being taxed on her drops and can't afford to pay. Although it can be thought provoking, the chapter only glances over its topic and never actually says anything about it. Another chapter talks about the metaphysics of movement, but it often feels like it is over-examining every issue it looks at, and it is such an overview that it can never elaborate on what it is saying, eventually being reduced to recommendations of what to read if you are interested in the topic. The book gets its act together as it goes on, though, and gets much better.
If you are reading my blog, then you probably play WoW, so you may want to know if the book's chapters contain a tedious amount of detail and explanation about things that aren't obvious to non-players but that we would already know. Thankfully, the book seems to contain just the right amount: enough to explain the concepts discussed without explaining it so much as to bore players who are familiar with the game. The explanations of philosophy also contain a similar amount of exposition, enough to explain the concepts without boring those who already understand them. In this regard, the whole book is, for the most part, very well written.
The book is not without its flaws, though. One of its most obvious flaws in the aforementioned first section. The other large flaw is that the book just... ends. Though World of Warcraft and Philosophy contains a good introductory section, after the last chapter (about metaphysics and how it impacts WoW) ends, that's it. No conclusion, no last words; it simply goes right into the brief biographies of the various authors of the chapters of the book. It feels like a very empty way to end what is otherwise a great book. I suppose if you know that is how it will end, then it won't disappoint you as much as it disappointed me.
If you play WoW and enjoy philosophy, even a little bit, you should pick up this book. Even if you don't enjoy philosophy, maybe this is the book you need to really appreciate it. Either way, I highly recommend you give it a go. At the very least, it will make you sound more intelligent when you are conversing with your guildmates over vent after another wipe.
3.5/4 stars.
World of Warcraft and Philosophy was a very enjoyable read. Each chapter examines a different issue in WoW, like ninja looting, the Winterspring funeral massacre, and the famous Onyxia wipe (NSFW), from various philosophical perspectives, including Nihilism and Deontology. Thus, not only will you learn more about WoW (I didn't know about the Gnome Tea Party until after reading the book), but you'll learn more about philosophy too, a fantastic subject. I feel it's important to mention that this book examines WoW from a philosophical perspective, not the other way around. What's great about the book is that it uses World of Warcraft to explain these concepts in terms that are easy to understand, so you are guaranteed to walk away a bit smarter. You may not always agree with what the authors of the chapters say, but they lay our their arguments well enough that you can formulate a logical rebuttal if you do disagree.
Still, the first section of the book is a bit of a chore, and that can turn off readers who might otherwise be interested in the book. The two good chapters include one that examines how ethics change when we enter WoW and one that looks at WoW as a response to Nihilism, i.e. life's meaninglessness. However, another chapter is simply a script of a skit in which a raid boss cries in front of a tax specialist because she is being taxed on her drops and can't afford to pay. Although it can be thought provoking, the chapter only glances over its topic and never actually says anything about it. Another chapter talks about the metaphysics of movement, but it often feels like it is over-examining every issue it looks at, and it is such an overview that it can never elaborate on what it is saying, eventually being reduced to recommendations of what to read if you are interested in the topic. The book gets its act together as it goes on, though, and gets much better.
If you are reading my blog, then you probably play WoW, so you may want to know if the book's chapters contain a tedious amount of detail and explanation about things that aren't obvious to non-players but that we would already know. Thankfully, the book seems to contain just the right amount: enough to explain the concepts discussed without explaining it so much as to bore players who are familiar with the game. The explanations of philosophy also contain a similar amount of exposition, enough to explain the concepts without boring those who already understand them. In this regard, the whole book is, for the most part, very well written.
The book is not without its flaws, though. One of its most obvious flaws in the aforementioned first section. The other large flaw is that the book just... ends. Though World of Warcraft and Philosophy contains a good introductory section, after the last chapter (about metaphysics and how it impacts WoW) ends, that's it. No conclusion, no last words; it simply goes right into the brief biographies of the various authors of the chapters of the book. It feels like a very empty way to end what is otherwise a great book. I suppose if you know that is how it will end, then it won't disappoint you as much as it disappointed me.
If you play WoW and enjoy philosophy, even a little bit, you should pick up this book. Even if you don't enjoy philosophy, maybe this is the book you need to really appreciate it. Either way, I highly recommend you give it a go. At the very least, it will make you sound more intelligent when you are conversing with your guildmates over vent after another wipe.
3.5/4 stars.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Reviewing the new quest tracking feature
In all of the excitement over the new dungeon finder feature, a lot of people seem to have forgotten the other big feature added in patch 3.3: the new quest tracking feature. As a long-time user of QuestHelper, I was excited that they were finally including this feature in the game so that I could finally stop using that incredibly memory-heavy addon, but how does it compare? I took my shaman though some quests in Un'Goro Crater to find out. Keep in mind, the only mod I used to make my leveling easier was QuestHelper, so some of the features I mention and extol may be familiar to you already if you use other addons.
The new tracking feature, when activated, puts dots on your in-game map to represent where you need to go for each of your quests (with a few exceptions, which I'll go over later). If you click on one of those dots, it shows you all of the areas where you can do that quest. If there are multiple areas, the dot will be on the closest one to you. The new feature will also show you a question mark where there is a quest giver whom you can turn in a quest to. You can also click a little arrow on the top-right of the map to make it smaller, allowing you to move around and fight while still being able to see the tracking dots, a useful feature considering that Blizzard didn't copy QuestHelper's arrow that pointed you to your next objective.
Then again, I don't miss that arrow, since half the time, it never pointed me towards the quest I wanted to do. The quest tracking feature doesn't suffer that problem since it doesn't have an arrow; it simply shows you where to go for each quest and lets you decide the priority. Well, not each quest. If a quest must be turned in in an instance, the quest tracking feature will not point you to that instance, a feature that QuestHelper had. It will also not point out where to go for quests with general directions rather than specific locations to go to (e.g. the fishing dailies Blood is Thicker or Monsterbelly Appetite) or with a wide area where the quest can be done (like Monsterbelly Appetite or Un'goro Soil). Granted, QuestHelper wasn't very helpful with these kinds of quests and would rarely point you to the best spot to go for them, or it would tell you to do them first when you really should have done them while doing other quests (e.g. Un'goro Soil). Thus, with the exception of pointing out where to go for out-of-zone quests, the quest tracking system is satisfactorily extensive.
Some of my complaints about the new system are that you can't see the quest objectives unless you are looking at the map of the specific zone the quests are in. If you don't know where to go for a quest, you can't just look at the map of the continent and look for the dot there. Still, if you look at the quest in the quest log, you can click on the "Show Map" button, and it will automatically show you the map of the zone the quest is in. Still, the one thing I do really miss from QuestHelper is that the little dots that show you where the quest objectives are do no show up on the mini-map. I'm sure its only a matter of time before someone invents an addon that does that, but it's still a fairly big oversight on Blizzard's part.
Overall, I am very satisfied with this new feature, and though it may not be as game changing as the Dungeon Finder, it has made me as excited for leveling my alts as the Dungeon Finder has made me for doing heroics. My interest in the game had been waning quite a bit since patch 3.2, and these two features together have really brought my interest in the game back up. Well done, Blizzard. Well done.
I suppose that since this is a review, I should end it with a rating of some sort. Three and a half stars out of four.
The new tracking feature, when activated, puts dots on your in-game map to represent where you need to go for each of your quests (with a few exceptions, which I'll go over later). If you click on one of those dots, it shows you all of the areas where you can do that quest. If there are multiple areas, the dot will be on the closest one to you. The new feature will also show you a question mark where there is a quest giver whom you can turn in a quest to. You can also click a little arrow on the top-right of the map to make it smaller, allowing you to move around and fight while still being able to see the tracking dots, a useful feature considering that Blizzard didn't copy QuestHelper's arrow that pointed you to your next objective.
Then again, I don't miss that arrow, since half the time, it never pointed me towards the quest I wanted to do. The quest tracking feature doesn't suffer that problem since it doesn't have an arrow; it simply shows you where to go for each quest and lets you decide the priority. Well, not each quest. If a quest must be turned in in an instance, the quest tracking feature will not point you to that instance, a feature that QuestHelper had. It will also not point out where to go for quests with general directions rather than specific locations to go to (e.g. the fishing dailies Blood is Thicker or Monsterbelly Appetite) or with a wide area where the quest can be done (like Monsterbelly Appetite or Un'goro Soil). Granted, QuestHelper wasn't very helpful with these kinds of quests and would rarely point you to the best spot to go for them, or it would tell you to do them first when you really should have done them while doing other quests (e.g. Un'goro Soil). Thus, with the exception of pointing out where to go for out-of-zone quests, the quest tracking system is satisfactorily extensive.
Some of my complaints about the new system are that you can't see the quest objectives unless you are looking at the map of the specific zone the quests are in. If you don't know where to go for a quest, you can't just look at the map of the continent and look for the dot there. Still, if you look at the quest in the quest log, you can click on the "Show Map" button, and it will automatically show you the map of the zone the quest is in. Still, the one thing I do really miss from QuestHelper is that the little dots that show you where the quest objectives are do no show up on the mini-map. I'm sure its only a matter of time before someone invents an addon that does that, but it's still a fairly big oversight on Blizzard's part.
Overall, I am very satisfied with this new feature, and though it may not be as game changing as the Dungeon Finder, it has made me as excited for leveling my alts as the Dungeon Finder has made me for doing heroics. My interest in the game had been waning quite a bit since patch 3.2, and these two features together have really brought my interest in the game back up. Well done, Blizzard. Well done.
I suppose that since this is a review, I should end it with a rating of some sort. Three and a half stars out of four.
Monday, November 23, 2009
World of Warcraft and Philosophy so far
As you may know, I am currently reading World of Warcraft and Philosophy, and though I have not finished it yet (I'm a bit over half-way through), I thought I'd give my impressions of the book thus far. Once I finish, I will write a proper review.
Thus far, World of Warcraft and Philosophy has been a very enjoyable read. Although it starts out a bit disjointed in the first section, it gets its act together as it goes on and gets better. Each chapter examines a different issue in WoW, like ninja looting to the Winterspring funeral massacre, from various philosophical perspectives, including Nihilism and Deontology. Thus, not only will you learn more about WoW (I didn't know about the Gnome Tea Party until after reading the book), but you'll learn more about philosophy too, a fantastic subject. You may not always agree with what the authors of the chapters say, but they lay our their arguments well enough that you can formulate a logical rebuttal if you do disagree.
If you are reading my blog, then you probably play WoW, so you may want to know if the book's chapters contain a lot of detail and explanation about things that aren't obvious to non-players but that we would already know. Thankfully, the book seems to contain just the right amount: enough to explain the concepts discussed without explaining it so much as to bore players who are familiar with the game. The explanations of philosophy also contain a similar amount of exposition, enough to explain the concepts without boring those who already understand them. In this regard, the whole book is, for the most part, very well written.
That's all for now. I won't give this book a rating yet, but I will say that if you enjoy WoW and philosophy, even a little bit, you should pick up this book. Even if you don't enjoy philosophy, maybe this is the book you need to really appreciate it. Either way, I highly recommend you give it a go.
Thus far, World of Warcraft and Philosophy has been a very enjoyable read. Although it starts out a bit disjointed in the first section, it gets its act together as it goes on and gets better. Each chapter examines a different issue in WoW, like ninja looting to the Winterspring funeral massacre, from various philosophical perspectives, including Nihilism and Deontology. Thus, not only will you learn more about WoW (I didn't know about the Gnome Tea Party until after reading the book), but you'll learn more about philosophy too, a fantastic subject. You may not always agree with what the authors of the chapters say, but they lay our their arguments well enough that you can formulate a logical rebuttal if you do disagree.
If you are reading my blog, then you probably play WoW, so you may want to know if the book's chapters contain a lot of detail and explanation about things that aren't obvious to non-players but that we would already know. Thankfully, the book seems to contain just the right amount: enough to explain the concepts discussed without explaining it so much as to bore players who are familiar with the game. The explanations of philosophy also contain a similar amount of exposition, enough to explain the concepts without boring those who already understand them. In this regard, the whole book is, for the most part, very well written.
That's all for now. I won't give this book a rating yet, but I will say that if you enjoy WoW and philosophy, even a little bit, you should pick up this book. Even if you don't enjoy philosophy, maybe this is the book you need to really appreciate it. Either way, I highly recommend you give it a go.
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