As a long time player of WoW I've been very hesitant to explore any other MMO's. But reduced income and encouragement from my lovely girlfriend has led me to purchase Guild Wars 2. I'm only up to about lvl 5 of 80, so this is by no means fully comprehensive, but it's very telling as to the overall playstyle.
1. Character Creation
WoW: Well, I initially wanted to be a Troll Rogue, but my roommate was already playing as a Troll Rogue, so I went with a Troll Hunter. Mowhawk? check. Big Tusks? Check. Completely pointless name? Check.
GW2: Ok, I did a fair amount of research before I created my first character. I knew I wanted to be a Human Engineer. So I figured that would save me alot of time in character creation. No, not really. The amount of character options you have at creation is staggering. 40 different eye colors, 30 different hair colors, 18 different hair styles, eye width, eye height, size of pupil, size of upper lip, size of lower lip, the options are endless. I had to ask my girlfriend if there was an option to change this stuff later so I could rush through it. Apparently there is, but you have to pay real money for it (Like WoW's race change options). Eventually I decided all the details of what my character would look like, then came personality questions, are you aggressive? Social? reserved? Were you poor? Middle class? Wealthy?
Turns out all of the background questions help decide which Hero story you are going to be in. I chose the poor kid who is social and was adopted and never searched for his real parents. So far I am digging the story.
2. Introduction.
WoW: When I first started playing many years ago, I got very, very lost in the starting zone. I died somewhere, couldn't find my body and ended up wandering around as a ghost for an hour, getting lost in higher level zones. I eventually had to take the spirit healer, which broke my gear, so I had to find someone to repair my gear, which took all of my money. Plus I had Rez sickness for awhile to deal with too.
Back then WoW was a much different creature, very few addons existed, the game was nowhere near as user friendly as it is now.
GW2: Ok, arrows pointing where to go, pop up hints everywhere, re-occuring pop-up hints in case you don't seem to be getting it. Very user friendly right off the bat. You follow the green arrows to the green star, talk to the dudes with the green star over their heads to progress in the quests.
3. Questing
WoW: The starting quests have changed some since I first started, but they are still pretty painful for the older races. The newer races have brand-new starting zones with more interesting quests, but the originals still kinda suck. "Go kill twenty boars. Then come back and see me. Then go collect 8 fruits off the cactus. Then come back to see me. Etc."
Really boring grind, you would almost be more efficient just killing boars all day and not bothering with the quests.
GW2: Ok, so first my dude leaves the city to rescue farmers from a centaur raid. Pretty awesome. Then he helps the farmers deal with all of their various problems, usually by clicking on things or killing trash. Same basic concept as the WoW version, but more story built into it. Then I go back to the city to visit my childhood friend who apparently has gotten involved in a gang, so I have to rescue him from the gang.. twice. then go undercover to find out what the gang is up to and report it to the head guard in the city, who happens to think I'm awesome due to all the centaur killing earlier.
4. Interface
WoW: back then, really confusing, you had to read the guide that came with the game just to learn how to perform basic actions NPC's were totally useless, the map was totally useless (the map in WoW is much better now, it totally helps you with your questing, but before it literally just told you where you were.).
GW2: no guide needed, but much of the controls are the same as WoW so I came in with that advantage. The map is extremely useful, and can be used to teleport yourself to any waypoint you have already been to, from wherever. Most NPC's are useless and just say "whats up?" to you, but the quest NPC's and information NPC's are very useful.
5. Combat
WoW: Stand in one place and mash your attack buttons as often as possible.
GW2: "Stand in one place? Are you crazy? That fucker is trying to hit you! Dodge Motherfucker! Don't bother hitting the attack button! That shit is automatic, Just hit your special attacks when they come off cooldown and Jump Gypsy!"
Cost (over time)
WoW: Vanilla (bought new) $40, Burning Crusade $40, WotLK $40, Cataclysm $40, Mists of Pandaria $40.
Subscription for 5 years $900.
Total cost for 5 years of play $1,100
GW2: Full game purchased at $20 discount for a grand total of $40. No subscription fees.
Now to be fair, there is a little bit of apples to oranges here. WoW is a game focused on Max level content, especially raiding. GW2 is a game focused on leveling and questing. You follow the plot of your character, rather than the meta plot in WoW. There is no organized instance runs like in WoW, there are just random world events. People go in and out of the same questing area as you and you share difficulty with them. Kinda like in Diablo 2 when adding another player to the room increased the strength of the monsters. The game really is much more like Diablo than it is like WoW. It's Diablo as a MMO. With way more customization options and a much better interface. As someone who was addicted to Diablo 2 in the worst way, this game is actually much more up my alley than WoW.
WoW is a game of waiting. waiting for an instance, waiting for a battleground, waiting for a flight path, waiting for a raid.
In GW2 everything is ready for you now. You want to work on your story arc? Ok, do it now, it's ready for you. No need to sit around in a city and wait for the instance to pop. That's gotta be the most frustrating thing about WoW as a subscription-based game. You pay monthly for your game time, but you spend most of your game time waiting for the game to be ready for you to play.
Final review of starting WoW vs. Starting GW2
Go with GW2. Cheaper, and much more instant gratification. I will miss instances in WoW, but I will not miss 45 minute wait queues.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Gaming and getting older.
So, for a little background about myself. I am thirty years old. I started playing table-top roleplaying games around the age of nineteen. I started off with D&D 3.0. Then I progressed on to Old World of Darkness, GURPS, Mutants and Masterminds 1st edition, D&D 3.5, New World of Darkness, Mutants and Masterminds second edition, D&D 4.0, etc. I've played alot of game systems, I was one of the playtesters for the Eclipse Phase game system, basically I've spent the last ten years gaming.
And as I've gotten older I've found myself less and less interested in tabletop gaming for one simple reason.
The more skilled you become at the game, the less fun it is.
All of these games have mechanical problems, certain things just don't make sense, certain things are horribly over powered or under powered. That's pretty much the status quo. But as you become more knowledgeable in the game system, the difficulty fades away. You reach the point where all of your characters are optimized to be as effective as humanly possible, and you develop a laundry list of things you just can't play anymore because the game becomes entirely too easy.
And because of how well you know the rules, you can steamroller over any game master who doesn't know them as well as you.
This leads to the game no longer being fun.
Then there is the massive split between Character driven players and Strategy driven players.
Fully optimized characters tend to be unbeatable in the rules, but they are insanely boring to play because to optimize means to be really good at one thing. Usually combat.
Character-driven means to be focused on developing the character at the expense of it's functionality.
The problem is that both kinds of players are common and if you have both kinds of players in one gaming group then the party will never be happy. The strategy players will want the game to be focused entirely on combat (D&D 4.0 was built specifically for these kinds of players), and the Character-driven players will want to mostly or entirely ignore combat and focus on the story.
When I first started off, I really wanted to be a strategy gamer, but I wasn't very good yet. Then eventually I became a Strategy gamer, and found it entirely boring. Yes it's fun to create a ridiculous character who can do insane amounts of damage or can destroy the moon with one magic spell, but it sucks to actually play those characters. They have one gimmick. And as the old saying goes "If all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail."
The Duke mocked you?
Fireball to the head.
Children are fleeing a burning orphanage?
Fireball to the orphanage.
Interrogating a prisoner to find the location of the kidnapped princess?
Fireball to the head.
It's silly at first, but in a character-driven campaign it becomes insanely frustrating to only have one response to any situation. Even if it's a really good response.
No, the most fun I've had gaming have been with characters who weren't particularly good at anything. I played a Blind Barbarian once, who I specifically designed to be kinda shitty, but somehow the dice loved him and he was successful at things that he had no business being successful at. And it was fun playing a character who was naturally that weak. Hell, there wasn't even any rules in D&D for how to deal with a permanently blind character. Usually blindness is temporary in that game. But wacky adventures were had, even though I on paper I was playing a character who should have died at the first sign of combat.
I find myself gaming less and less these days, part of being an adult is we don't have as much free time as we did when we were younger.
But just a few things I've learned over the course of my gaming experience:
1. Find a group of players who want to play in the same style that you do, if you want strategy, don't join a character driven group. It'll just make everyone upset.
2. Always carry as much random stuff as the game master will let you get away with. It always comes in handy, and even if it's not specifically useful to your situation, it might be hilarious in your situation. Especially items that could be used for slapstick comedy. No game master is immune to slapstick comedy.
3. Always be willing to try something new. Some people play one type of character for years before they try something new and realize that they like it better.
4. Beware of girlfriend armor. If a game master has their significant other in the game, odds are, that character will never die. Exceptions: That player is me, or if the couple has been gaming together for years and don't hold deaths against eachother. But especially when introducing a girlfriend to gaming, her character is damn near immune to damage.
5.Never trust a Royal/Grand/Whatever Vizer. Vizer's are always evil, without exception. Even if they seem like a really cool and trustworthy guy, they are playing you.
6.Hilarious off-the-cuff remarks are worth more damage than 100 critical hits. If you can say something hilarious as you are swinging at a guy, the game master is going to die laughing and declare that dude horrifically dead.
7. Try to avoid playing any character that can kill the rest of the party in a single action. If it is unavoidable, Don't TELL them that you can kill them in a single action. This will always lead to party civil-war and campaign death.
8. Always keep a spare character within a couple levels of your current character in case of sudden character death. My character deaths used to be so frequent that I would write new characters on notecards and just pull out a new notecard when the old character died.
9. Remember to take breaks during gaming sessions. It may feel epic being in combat for six hours straight, but your legs and back will be killing you.
10.Don't sacrifice real life happiness for make-believe happiness. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for D&D. Seriously... Don't do it... Do not ditch a girlfriend for gaming, it is incredibly sad and really pisses them off. It's ok if you already talked to your SO about your gaming habits and they are fully aware and supportive, just don't cancel plans with your SO for gaming.
All that being said, I see myself slowly fading into the distance as far as my gaming career is concerned. It was fun, but I'm just not getting the same enjoyment out of it that I used to. That might change, but if it goes away completely I won't be too sad. Gaming characters I've played have been the influence for much of the fiction I've written, It was a good launching point for the character to come from, but now I don't need that anymore to create a character.
And as I've gotten older I've found myself less and less interested in tabletop gaming for one simple reason.
The more skilled you become at the game, the less fun it is.
All of these games have mechanical problems, certain things just don't make sense, certain things are horribly over powered or under powered. That's pretty much the status quo. But as you become more knowledgeable in the game system, the difficulty fades away. You reach the point where all of your characters are optimized to be as effective as humanly possible, and you develop a laundry list of things you just can't play anymore because the game becomes entirely too easy.
And because of how well you know the rules, you can steamroller over any game master who doesn't know them as well as you.
This leads to the game no longer being fun.
Then there is the massive split between Character driven players and Strategy driven players.
Fully optimized characters tend to be unbeatable in the rules, but they are insanely boring to play because to optimize means to be really good at one thing. Usually combat.
Character-driven means to be focused on developing the character at the expense of it's functionality.
The problem is that both kinds of players are common and if you have both kinds of players in one gaming group then the party will never be happy. The strategy players will want the game to be focused entirely on combat (D&D 4.0 was built specifically for these kinds of players), and the Character-driven players will want to mostly or entirely ignore combat and focus on the story.
When I first started off, I really wanted to be a strategy gamer, but I wasn't very good yet. Then eventually I became a Strategy gamer, and found it entirely boring. Yes it's fun to create a ridiculous character who can do insane amounts of damage or can destroy the moon with one magic spell, but it sucks to actually play those characters. They have one gimmick. And as the old saying goes "If all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail."
The Duke mocked you?
Fireball to the head.
Children are fleeing a burning orphanage?
Fireball to the orphanage.
Interrogating a prisoner to find the location of the kidnapped princess?
Fireball to the head.
It's silly at first, but in a character-driven campaign it becomes insanely frustrating to only have one response to any situation. Even if it's a really good response.
No, the most fun I've had gaming have been with characters who weren't particularly good at anything. I played a Blind Barbarian once, who I specifically designed to be kinda shitty, but somehow the dice loved him and he was successful at things that he had no business being successful at. And it was fun playing a character who was naturally that weak. Hell, there wasn't even any rules in D&D for how to deal with a permanently blind character. Usually blindness is temporary in that game. But wacky adventures were had, even though I on paper I was playing a character who should have died at the first sign of combat.
I find myself gaming less and less these days, part of being an adult is we don't have as much free time as we did when we were younger.
But just a few things I've learned over the course of my gaming experience:
1. Find a group of players who want to play in the same style that you do, if you want strategy, don't join a character driven group. It'll just make everyone upset.
2. Always carry as much random stuff as the game master will let you get away with. It always comes in handy, and even if it's not specifically useful to your situation, it might be hilarious in your situation. Especially items that could be used for slapstick comedy. No game master is immune to slapstick comedy.
3. Always be willing to try something new. Some people play one type of character for years before they try something new and realize that they like it better.
4. Beware of girlfriend armor. If a game master has their significant other in the game, odds are, that character will never die. Exceptions: That player is me, or if the couple has been gaming together for years and don't hold deaths against eachother. But especially when introducing a girlfriend to gaming, her character is damn near immune to damage.
5.Never trust a Royal/Grand/Whatever Vizer. Vizer's are always evil, without exception. Even if they seem like a really cool and trustworthy guy, they are playing you.
6.Hilarious off-the-cuff remarks are worth more damage than 100 critical hits. If you can say something hilarious as you are swinging at a guy, the game master is going to die laughing and declare that dude horrifically dead.
7. Try to avoid playing any character that can kill the rest of the party in a single action. If it is unavoidable, Don't TELL them that you can kill them in a single action. This will always lead to party civil-war and campaign death.
8. Always keep a spare character within a couple levels of your current character in case of sudden character death. My character deaths used to be so frequent that I would write new characters on notecards and just pull out a new notecard when the old character died.
9. Remember to take breaks during gaming sessions. It may feel epic being in combat for six hours straight, but your legs and back will be killing you.
10.Don't sacrifice real life happiness for make-believe happiness. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for D&D. Seriously... Don't do it... Do not ditch a girlfriend for gaming, it is incredibly sad and really pisses them off. It's ok if you already talked to your SO about your gaming habits and they are fully aware and supportive, just don't cancel plans with your SO for gaming.
All that being said, I see myself slowly fading into the distance as far as my gaming career is concerned. It was fun, but I'm just not getting the same enjoyment out of it that I used to. That might change, but if it goes away completely I won't be too sad. Gaming characters I've played have been the influence for much of the fiction I've written, It was a good launching point for the character to come from, but now I don't need that anymore to create a character.
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