I’ve spared you the actual notes, (until now) but somehow on Monday my coffee fueled brain went all crazy on World of Warcraft thoughts, and I wanted to write a well composed post from my notes, but you know, that just isn’t me.
Then I saw this great E3 summation by http://xyzzysqrl.livejournal.com/502505.html
and really enjoyed the way it was a list of sorts, but a greatly entertaining one. I like lists. I make them every day.
This led my twisty mind to devise an experiment wherein I will take notes while I play and just pop them into this space after the session. I personally enjoy reading blogs not just for the Big Ideas people have, – and there are some brilliant game bloggers out there having them!- but for seeing what people think about games as they play them, because sometimes they feel the same way I do and sometimes they give a glimpse of other ways to approach a game.
What to call this experiment? I used the title “Afterplay” previously, and it’s descriptive but somehow I don’t like it. I’m going to go with PlayNotes, though I also came up with the obnoxiously funny Raw Thots.
I’ll start Sunday and will play each game in my rotation for the week, taking notes as I do and dropping them in here. Boring yet fun! Hey, it’s summertime!
PlayNotes Issue #1 (So you can skip the rest of the week if this makes you buggy. However if this makes you buggy, all my posts probably do, and you don’t read this blog anyway. Hmmpf.
I’ve been leveling my WOW Paladin and decided to just push her forward to the top, because I have the rare opportunity with the guild I’m in to do the biggies: Mythics, Heroics, Raids!!! I’m quite certain they’ll make me a better Paladin and Player.
I have been having a great time working in the lower areas of Azeroth, and really sort of hated to abandon them to move forward in the game to areas up ahead I don’t enjoy so much. This thinking led to my disjointed notes:
For me, Wow is almost 4 different games
From the beginning to Northrend. Great maps, love all the dungeons, storylines make each area unique.
Pandaria, where they take away flight for awhile for the first time and dungeons become uninteresting. The grind of Dailies appears. Rep grinds galore. The grind of the Timeless Isle to get decent gear to move forward. GRIND-O-MATIC begins!
Draenor Once again no flight till they decide you’ve earned it. Killed Inscription making it a bizarre little gambling game for the Inscriptionist. I do not know why people didn’t complain more about this. Crafting generally takes a big shot for actual crafters in order to give non-crafting types their very own insta-gear, but only three pieces. Here is where I thought crafting was just gathering endlessly and dropping it all down a hole to come out the other side as…not much. As I’ve said elsewhere, I craft to make things for other people, and this was all just me, me me. You absolutely had to do the gear grind in the Tanaan Jungle, whether your character is of the gear grinding type or no-you could not move an inch in Legion without a certain level of gear rating. Something they did right but refused to go further with: The Garrison. This was wildly popular in beta, and many more features were added than originally intended because people loved it and wanted more. Still, they wouldn’t add guild features, or make it easy for others to visit, or let you customize it in any way other than by the choices of your garrison buildings and where you placed them in the compound. Interestingly, they offered some decorative packages for Holidays, which could have been expanded in so many ways to let people at least choose decorative packages and feel like they were making the only real home they’d ever been given in the game their home.
Legion Again, a long wait and grind to fly. Crawl on your belly like a snake if you want to fly, player! Here they actually killed crafting, in essence. Not just a grind to advance, but roadblocks everywhere, including making you go in raids and dungeons to advance in your crafts. Sometimes game developers seem to hate crafters, but not this much. So they make you do raids, but don’t allow random Looking For Raid grouping because…why? This is the first time ever class changes arrived with a wallop, making actually most classes not any fun to play. I usually just adjust to changes for classes, adapt and move on, but man, they whacked everyone. Except my Druid who was once again great. Awful Dungeons, that you’re REQUIRED to go through over and over. None of the game areas are enjoyable to explore. Stories are meh. Endless artifact grind. So you don’t get to enhance your character with new skills anymore. Your weapon, which looks like everyone else’s weapon, (unless you grind to get a different appearance) gets all the glory! You are just a puppet. I shall call Legion the Rats On A Wheel Approach To Gaming.
Ta da! More than was on the page because blah blah blah goes the mind. See ya Sunday, Rift Day.
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