Panda Postmortem

Yes, it's going to get ugly.

Warlords of Draenor is here. We're done with Pandaria and I don't sense that it's a place I'll be terribly excited to revisit, unfortunately. I was trying to piece together why that was the other day and realized that I missed something Blizzard did last time around, which was a full-on public post-mortem of their work in Cataclysm. It was refreshingly honest and it was good to see how the company assessed their own work.

Well. if Blizzard isn't going to do the job this time, somebody has to. So, let's give it a go! I'm not sure that this can be comprehensive because there's so many aspects of the game, but here's a few thoughts all the same.

The World
Pandaria looked very pretty, really. The zones had some distinctiveness while still seeming to be a part of the same world. That said, I didn't feel that the continent had any particularly memorable sites.

(Haha... I just Googled "Pandaria Map" so I could have a reference to look at and it showed me Pandaria, in the Chhattisgarth province of India.)

Actually, that's not entirely true, I was moved by the view of the Vale of Eternal Blossoms with its Mogu architecture and spray of manicured trees, and that was destroyed.  Because I like it better before the Alliance and Horde have a battle there, I specifically stopped running through the full story in Jade Forest with my alts just so I never reached that part where the statue of the Xu'lon gets covered in sha goop.

I think a bigger problem with the settings was that none of it felt essential to the story. Jade Forest and the Valley of the Four Winds had some personality to them, but Kun-Lai Summit, Townlong Steppes, and Dread Wastes felt like one long slog of progressively uninspired waste.  I remember reading, before Pandaria came out, that "Kun-Lai Summit is 4 times bigger than the largest zone in Cataclysm." But didn't you notice how much completely empty space was in the Kun Lai region? And naming the tallest mountain "Mt. Neverest" and then putting nothing of any essential importance even near it was both boring and uninspired.

It Was the End of the World As We Know It, Part 2

This is Not Our Story

It's his story.

Here on Summer Holidays, I've been able to catch up with a few titles on my XBox, in addition to WoW-- particularly the new content for Mass Effect 3 and Skyrim.

These two titles and so much WoW makes me think a lot about how games do a story. There's a lot of questions that come up in regards to the story the developers give us and how much of that story belongs to the players.

That last one is a doozy. Many game writers would hear me ask that question, sit up straight, aim their nose at the ceiling and tell me to go to hell. The whole controversy revolving around the ending of Mass Effect 3 has put writers in a corner trying to take control of their artistic license and come up with polite responses like the one suggested above. "We should be able to tell the kinds of stories we want to tell and make the games we want to make." There is some approach being taken here to suggest that the story in a game is inviolate as the printed words of a book.

I want to be sympathetic to that. And I don't suggest story-building by committee is the way to go, but these writers are forgetting the first lesson I learned in media classes a freshman in college: each medium for presenting a story or set of information has its own set of rules, its own strengths and weaknesses. The media are all different and you mustn't come to a new medium with the expectations of the old.

It Was the End of the World As We Know It, Part 1

A Familiar, Yet Broken World

The Talondeep Pass: Proof that there was more than one cataclysm to hit Azeroth.

The Midsummer Fire Festival started this week and I took the time to take a couple of characters on a tour of the world. Desecrating some fires while praising some others is a relaxing way to gain some cash, but more importantly, these sorts of world events are a chance for me to look over my history in WoW and put things in perspective.

It's been a while in coming and it's time for the Cataclysm Post-mortem. The Cataclysm is over and getting to stack a few things up in my mind helps to formulate things that need to be said.

Personally, there has been a great deal to take me away from WoW: a really big move, new social pressures, new job, and graduate school all made it so that a lot of my social structure in WoW vanished from beneath me, and I never got to raid properly in this expansion. Those two things are the most important parts of WoW to me and I half expected my interest in the game to wan this past year, but yet that hasn't happened. Nevertheless, it has colored the way I look at most of what went on with the Cataclysm. I have tried not to let this unduly affect my perceptions of the state of the game.

But make no mistakes: Cataclysm was a bummer.

Why Cataclysm Couldn't Top the Lich King

Nice try, DW, but no cigar.

I think Blizzard made a mistake trying to "top" The Wrath of the Lich King.

One of the problems that I have sensed in the past several months is that many players aren't as invested in the story Cataclysm has brought us. In one regard, we could probably look and say that players may be getting jaded, and there is probably some truth in that. But on the other hand, there are some principles of story-telling that didn't line up well in this tale of the Black Dragon that destroys the world.

The company line is that "This Cataclysm is like... the most dangerous thing that has ever happened in the world! Everything's all broken! Fire! Fire!" But, the structure of the video game doesn't support such histrionics. The day that Patch 4.0 hit, we all logged on and all the worst destruction had already occurred and the world was still there. Our immediate reactions were not "Oh noes! Must... fix... world...!" For most of us, it was just curious amusement and the knowledge that the world was going to persist, because if it didn't... what were we going to play in?

And, for the lore student, it's easy to see the Cataclysm isn't the most horrible thing that ever happened to the world. The Sundering, 10,000 years before, that split the Pangea-like super-continent into the major landmasses we have now (as well as the full-fledged demon invasion immediately preceding it) clearly altered the face of the world more than Deathwing did.

Another of the key storytelling problems this expansion is just simply that The Lich King was a tough act to follow.

Quality Content Control

I remember reading an article by a former GM who described the amount of WoW douchebaggery rising significantly when players get bored of the content and instead of playing "the game," they decide to mess with people instead. Generally, this was a problem in the months before a new expansion. Yet here we are, early in Cata, and the problem is clearly going out of control again now.

 - Me, in February

World of Warcraft's subscriber base has reached pre-Cataclysm levels, according to Mike Morhaime, CEO of Blizzard Entertainment. He then later stated an actual number, with subscriptions at the end of March clocking in at right around 11.4 million.

That's down by about 5% from the announced 12 million mark late last year. Interestingly enough, that was right before Cataclysm released. In fact, it's actually lower than the milestone reached in 2008 with the release of Wrath of the Lich King.

Another point, Mr. Morhaime touched on as well is that World of Warcraft's subscriber base does not change linearly. It fluctuates based on content consumption, which players seem to be doing a whole lot of -- at a more rapid pace -- with Cataclysm. "Subscriber levels have decreased faster than previous expansions," he said.

- Curse.com, early May

This is not going to be a very positive post. Let's just put that at the top here.

Guest Post: Further Reflection on Game Changes

An Adventuring Tunnel: Relish your time in the Maelstrom because you can only come here as a part of a quest, and presently, there is absolutely no way to come back once that quest is done.

[Merinna's Note:  Somaric has been further evolving his comments from last week, regarding the style of questing gameplay that seems to dominate this new expansion.]

I realized that my previous posting was a little incomplete.  The message that I was trying to get across was that the original World of Warcraft was, more of a sandbox environment, in which one could openly explore and find different quests to do from different places. Now, it seems that the Cataclysm addition has taken WoW into an adventuring tunnel. There is only one place to start, and basically one place to finish. And if you lose something along the way, it holds up any progress that you might make. 

What has prompted this examination of the old WoW versus the new WoW is the fact that poor Somaric got disconnected in Vashj’ir.  He lost the quest giver and couldn’t continue with any quests.  A search of almost the entire Vashj’ir area revealed not one unscripted quest.  Nothing.  What is this Night Elf hero to do? 

Guest Post: First Impressions

Somaric: "Does this helmet make my ears look big?"

[Merinna's Note: Today, I'm happy to bring a guest post from longtime WoW friend, Somaric. He and I both play on the Oceanic realms, so our times represent Australian standard times instead of Blizzards American PST. Please enjoy!]

As a long-time questing sidekick of Merinna, Somaric thought it might be interesting for a first impression posting about the new release, Cataclysm

I seem to be levelling very fast.  I made level 81, yesterday, in about 4 ½ hours.  Most of this was done in Mt Hyjal.   

The realm I play on was locked up on the 7^th, so I didn’t get to do anything except gain my Azeroth riding skill. Consequently, I got up early the next day.  

And They're Off!

Ding!

I dunno what to say. Cataclysm is here and everybody I know is much to busy hitting the slopes of Mt. Hyjal to do anything like raid or whatever. Which is just as well.

First thoughts going into the real thing from Beta.

I've got a gut feeling that the dungeons got nerfed at the last moment. It was way incomplete at the time, but Throne of Tides was much harder to heal in beta than it was last night. And I was 82 at the time I did it in beta. It was my first go into Blackrock Caverns today, and I dps'd (woo-hoo! Fun!), but apart from some malarky with boss mechanics, it was not overwhelming. Our tank even made some bad pulls, yanking in some trash on the second boss and that didn't stop anybody. I am feeling a tad disappointed, but reserve judgment for now.

Where the hell do Cocoa Beans come from? If you follow that link back, you'll see that Wowhead has no idea. Allakhazam doesn't know either. Nor does Crafter's Tome. Wowpedia? No. Wowwiki? No. Google only brings back forum posts demanding the same question, that has no answer. It's the biggest mystery in WoW today. To hell with DW and his machinations, I just want some beans so I can make some Starfire Espresso for that sweet, sweet, mana-rich taste. If anybody knows, post a comment please!

For my unofficial WoW Soundtrack of the Cataclysm, I've adopted Zoe Keating's song "Escape Artist" as the theme song. This song just stirs ideas of epic things afoot, journeys to be made and hits of tragedies to come.  Keating is using her "one cello" technique. That whole video is being played live with no back track or anything. That computer next to her takes samples of her playing and then loops them, and then she uses foot pedals to switch between loops while building on top of them as she continues playing.  Awesome.

What's the Recipe for a Cataclysm, anyway?

Booyakasha!

Warning: Herein lie major spoilers, based largely on my experience in beta, but including elements of Christine Golden's The Shattering, and a handful of developer notes, Blizzcon comments, and other gleaned facts.

The world has changed, and there are a lot of questions about this but most important are "Why? And How?"  (You know you are asking these. Don't pretend otherwise!)

All signs point to Deathwing but it's not really that simple. He is at the root of all this for sure, but the damage to our world comes from four separate (though related) problems.

Please follow the jump if you wish to pursue this question with me.

4.0.1 To-Do List: You Are Not Prepared!

Unless something mighty funky happens, one week from now, WoW Patch 4.0.1 will be upon us. This includes all the changes to just about everything in the World of Warcraft that doesn't include new content.

Here is a short list of some of the things changing:

• New launcher
• New gem stats
• New glyphs
• New stats
• New abilities
• New 31-point talent trees
• New gear
• Reforging

Pretty much everything you know about your character now is changing.
But, there's a week left. Time enough to get prepared. To that end, here is my to-do list: