My experience with the Siege of Orgrimmar mostly has been through flex. I’m glad I was able to join my friend’s guild for some progression in that manner since LFR has been more or less poisoned with all the nutcases remaining who are filth scraped from a sewer. But even with that, the big problem with the Siege of Orgrimmar for me is that it still feels more of the same. You’re locked into an instance which you farm continuously for loot. While I understand the concepts behind raiding, I feel that the Siege of Orgrimmar was handled completely wrong.

The problem is that it’s instanced. It’s such a stupid concept because it forces you into another Disney funneled-like experience. All the encounters inside are mostly with meaningless bosses except for maybe 3-4. The rest are just walls you must shoot through in extremely excruciating ways. Take Spoils, Siegebreaker or Thok for instance. They might make for interesting encounters to the developers but why are they even there? They feel out-of-place in terms of rhythm and just so randomly inserted like an experiment. Also, what the hell was Immerseus? It might be an easy encounter but most people already hate it after being around for a few weeks.

The other problem is that Blizzard once again put their eggs into a single basket for handling this encounter by making it a raid. It just feels so stupid because you have Orgrimmar when it’s not instanced and Orgrimmar when it’s instanced. Why should it change because you enter into a little portal? The fact that they want you to continuously grind through heavily controlled/funneled experiences is what makes me hate this game and get burnt out at times.

I would’ve handled Siege of Orgrimmar completely different by actually making it a real siege. Blizzard already has the perfect model in Wintergrasp. So I’m terribly surprised they didn’t do something like that for this encounter. I mean, why not make it into a combined PVE/PVP event and try something new? If you took Wintergrasp but added elements from the original Alterac Valley into it (the one that lasted for days), you could’ve had a really epic encounter.

So my idea would’ve be to join either Garrosh’s faction or the opposing faction. Battles would be endless and horde players would be forced to go to other cities to do things like auctions, etc. unless they sided with Garrosh, at which point they would be considered enemies of the opposing factions and treated with a PVP flag similar to the flag on the item. Similarly, for alliance, you could possibly choose to betray the opposition and the alliance in the ultimate backstab by siding with Garrosh. By doing this, you would be able to communicate with other Garrosh horde players while non-traitorous alliance players could communicate with traitorous horde players. I mean, why should only two NPCs get recognition by King Varien for opposing Garrosh’s horde?

On either side, you would get normal resources like ore, herbs, etc. which provides XXX number of points. Once you reach a certain amount of points, you can use those resources for healing troops, creating weapons like siege machines or armor. Certain daily quests might allow you to utilize those points in commanding skirmishes. With better armor, weapons and supplies, you can do more damage against Orgrimmar and their forces (or vice versa), in turn behaving like a mini warcraft 3 type of scenario/game. You could maximize your resources by extending your participation in the event, thus being able to accumulate other points over time.

Orgrimmar would be destructable so the walls would have hit points and can be permanently torn down (or until someone on that side would spend resources to rebuild it). Once enough of the infrastructure is weakened, you would be able to invade, facing waves of Garrosh horde forces as well as being able to fight key NPCs. The key NPCs would act like world bosses where anyone can assault them or defend them (depending on which side you take). You could even make Garrosh an instanced boss, but I’d prefer to keep him in the open where boss sides could defend or assault him. Although you can technically “kill” Garrosh, he would be resurrected by his priests, allowing a sensible flow to farming him. Only by whittling down his priests can you extend his defeat.

For each type of event and world boss you’d kill as well as downing mobs, you would obtain points similar to Timeless Coins. The points you get would allow you to purchase either PVP or PVE gear. It would be completely up to you. Of course, vanity gear, pets and mounts would be included.

Some other things that could occur are ranks that you would build up. Ranks would permit you to perform more feats over time. They might behave in a similar fashion to how the Molten Front operated where you would complete the dailies to receive points in order to unlock the next section. In this case, you would start as a grunt and make your way up to a commanding officer similar to the Horde quests in Stonetalon Mountains. Ranks allow you to do other activities such as handle catapults and siege weapons, increase the number of soldiers you’d receive, give your more purchasing power for better equipment for your soldiers. The higher ranking activities would provide more points over time.

One possible feat of strength would behave similar to the insane title where you can rep grind on both sides. This would allow players to switch back and forth and experience both factions’ point of view.

The siege would last roughly a week where you can take down walls and work your way towards Garrosh. You could kill Garrosh on the first day as well but each time you make your way inward, he grows more powerful. Every week there will be a reset where Garrosh manages to obtain more supplies somehow (beyond what the people on his side provide). Eventually, he’ll create a fully functional Death Star-like citadel while the opposing faction would be able to create their own counterweapon. When the citadel reaches this level, Garrosh too will assume his ultimate form (the one you see in the actual Siege of Orgrimmar raid) and will be really difficult (but not impossible) to kill.

It’s a shame Blizzard wasn’t creative enough to see the opportunity in front of them for this type of encounter. Instead, they went with their so-called safe route and just created another boring “avoid shit on ground, do rotation” raid that you’ll farm until the expansion comes out. Eventually, that raid will because nothing more than a static dance whereas my idea makes the Siege come to life with it’s dynamic nature.

The post World of Warcraft: Patch 5.4 Not Really Exciting Me (aka How Blizzard Screwed up With Siege of Orgrimmar) appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

Disadvantages

• Low social activity. I feel that a lot of people on my server prefer doing things on their own. A lot of people in my guild rarely talk and with the exception of a few better known people and guilds, it feels quite dead overall.
• High Auction House Prices. The first thing that shocked me in coming to this server was the prices on glyphs. But that was just the start. Most items on the Auction House are probably priced far higher than on other servers, especially crafting goods. Since Blizzard has done a lot to ban bots as much as possible, crafting goods become a higher commodity
• Lower frequency buyouts. Along with the high prices on the Auction House, you’ll see far less activity when you put stuff up. It’s still competitive but the buyouts only occur during certain times of the week.
• Less opportunities for doing world bosses. My server can still down Oondasta, but as the week flies by, the chances of getting into good Oondasta groups dramatically decreases as the quality and quantity of players dip over time. Pretty much you have to do everything the first few days at peak hours. But as time passes less people will be motivated to do any world bosses as most will end up getting enough gear for their mains.
• Faction Tagging Griefing. This is strictly a consequence of being on a PVE server ironically. The thing is you’ll occasionally find allies who will tag or even pull bosses and mobs to wipe out raid groups for encounters like Galleon. You end up seeing people accidentally getting PVP flagged and causing raid leaders to go bonkers, since the opposite faction can now go to town on that person. I’m certain if this was a PVP server, the natural response would just be to nuke the opposite faction members in question. And this situation does not have to occur just on world bosses but even in situations where you might accidentally AoE members of the opposite faction and get your PVP flag inadvertently turned on.
• Not many people willing to do faction raids. It happens from time to time but it’s pretty rare these days. I think most people are far more focused on dailies, LFR or other PVE related activities. I think since this expansion lacks a world PVP zone like Tol’Barad or Wintergrasp, there’s not as much motivation to get faction members together for an easy, fun and organized PVP event.
• Difficulty in Grouping. Since most people on the server are pretty anti-social, it’s very hard at times getting others to join up for other forms of group activity, even stuff like questing. That isn’t to say that you can’t group but I just find it to be a far rarer activity than when I was on Ner’zhul.
• No faction pride. Again another PVE related consequence. I’ll help the opposite faction in doing rares or certain quests (like the 4 mobs you need to kill in the Temple of the White Tiger dailies) However, when the opposite faction does some dumb shit to aggravate you, no one responds with, “Hey, let’s go fuck their capital up!” Or rather you might only see 3 people who are interested. It’s pretty lame and disheartening.
• A lot of terrible players. It feels as if a lot of people start on these servers because they’re probably suggested as an “easy” mode to get newer players started. In turn though, the player quality feels far inferior compared to my old realm at least. I think when you’re on a high population PVP server that is old and has a pretty even distribution of faction members, the quality of players is far higher as those players are constantly forced to think on their toes in the face of constant threat from all types of directions. Since the content has become easier over time, newer players don’t have to deal with the tougher issues that veteran players faced. Furthermore, without high level players ganking you, or even facing people who are near your level in a PVP setting, there’s no real threat to force you to improve your game play. On top of that, you feel that there’s just less faction pride so there’s less reason to band up and protect each other on such a server.

Advantages

• Fast and easy questing. Because there aren’t many people around, you won’t find things like kill stealing a frequent issue. It might happen at the beginning of a patch or expansion, but this issue dies down quickly. In a huge way, this makes the game very enjoyable because you’ll never have to worry about being ganked or griefed.
• Plenty of resources. I rarely have issues finding nodes. Maybe in Cataclysm there was some competition. But on average, I just see tons of gathering resources all over the place.
• Easier to make gold. Although the advantages of questing go hand-in-hand with dailies and the gold you can make from them, the bigger jackpot is when you can find some rare item and put it on the auction house. If you’re lucky, you can make bank. If you’re even slier than that, you’ll focus on crafted professions like enchanting, jewelcrafting and inscription to keep your cash flowing.
• Never have to worry about queues. I’ve seen servers that force people to wait in a queue just to log in. This is one issue I’ll never have to deal with.
• You can farm rares and mounts. It’s not my thing but I do know players who want those remaining achievements and will camp certain zones. It’s completely doable on a low population server.
• No ganking. You’ll have the occasional butthead doing stupid things like invading Orgrimmar or causing mischief. But you never have to watch your back. It’s a totally different world playing on a server like this because people will mostly leave you alone.
• Mostly nice people. If there’s one thing I can say about Ner’Zhul, it’s that it was full of assholes. A lot of immaturity and trolls that filled up trade. I did meet a few decent people but the community in general just was embarrassingly childish. On my current server, I will say that the people I end up meeting feel more mature and handle themselves well. I think a lot are World of Warcraft lovers who are older but lack the time to really put into the game. But when you do have the opportunity of meeting a few, they are for the most part nice to you.

I suppose you could argue from looking at my list that if you’re focused on solo’ing content, prefer questing for leveling and enjoy professions, the low-medium population PVE server is probably right for you. But if you want to do any type of social activity, especially those that require a lot of people, these servers are pretty abysmal.

The post World of Warcraft: Advantages/Disadvantages of Belong to a Low/Medium Population PVE Server appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

First, I think it’s good to talk about my own personality in relation to World of Warcraft. I’m a heavy alt-a-holic and someone who primarily focuses on PVE content. I started back in Wrath of the Lich King with a tauren hunter since a friend of mine was playing a paladin. My thought back in the day was to have a ranged fighter type to back his melee oriented class. I started on a PVP server, Ner’Zhul and didn’t know much about that style of play for a while. I struggled initially in learning the hunter class (and it definitely was harder back then), which ended up frustrating me. In turn, I ended up creating a mage and druid, then later everything except a paladin (since that was my friend’s main). Outside of the hunter and death knight, I never reached level 80 on my alts on that server since I ended up quitting just before Cataclysm came out.

When Cataclysm came out, I decided to switch to a PVE server (which unfortunately was on an Oceanic realm as one of my friends supposedly was playing on there). Eventually, I transported my hunter there and ended up with 10 level 85 alts, most of whom I ended up gearing up with the first iteration of LFR. The switch to a pure PVE server allowed me to focus more on the content as opposed to constantly watching my back. However, I think my gaming style is the result of my personality type and what I seek in games.

I think of myself as someone who focuses more on goals in a game and personal achievements as opposed to pushing for world first. I like attempting to max out as much as I can the aspects I enjoy such as LFR, Pet Battles, leveling, etc. to really partake in content that fits my play style. Although I enjoy the social aspects of gaming, I am a loner for the most part in the game since I realize that people may not share my preference for a certain activity most of the time. In a way my gaming preference matches me a professional level too. Although I can deal with people at a job, I feel far more effective in general when I’m doing things at my pace on my own.

Another thing about me is that when I do have a goal in mind, I like to hit it hard. For instance, when I level or want to gear, I really want to focus on that aspect for as much as I can. It can get mentally taxing at times but once I get in that mood, I find the activity to go by pretty fast. The hardest part is just switching into that mode since it’s a major commitment.

When it comes to other players, I wanted to talk about aspects like higher end PVPers. I have a few friends who almost exclusively PVP. The ones who exclusively PVP strike me as people who enjoy the dynamic style of PVP, especially in arenas and BGs. The really high end PVPers have an additional competitive streak in them where they focus on a single class and attempt to master everything about that class to eventually become number one with that toon. They tend to have better overall reflexives and I suspect that when/if they do try another class, their abilities end up being mapped in a way that matches what their main class does sine their memory muscle most likely is embedded with that one class.

However, I did notice that a lot of PVPers really are bad at PVE. And it’s not really difficult PVE but things like questing. The PVP players I’ve seen on stream quite often will admit to having attention deficit disorder, which does surprise me. It feels as though they need that instant gratification and constant, in-your-face action. So questing and level pose immense difficulties for PVP players as they lack the attention span and focus necessary to really handle that type of activity. For instance, I remember when Swifty first started leveling a death knight, he had immense problems just getting through the starting zone. It was pretty embarrassing to say the least watching him since doing the quests just requires a little reading. Then you have someone like Reckful who leveled his druid through just mindlessly grinding away at killing monkeys because he hates questing. Those who level just do it through instance grinding. I’ve been slightly suspicious about this aspect and believe that these players instance grind to avoid world PVP. At any rate, it’s funny too because to me both ends of the spectrum are grindy.

But I think that a lot of people who enjoy high end PVP are those that focus more on the competitive aspects. Gear to them functions more as a badge of honor as opposed to the end in itself. Either that or gear just exist to get you to the next door opening to meet your goals for hitting the high end PVP content. In any case, their personalities demand for themselves to be the best at what they do.

Then there are those who enjoy world PVP. I consider these people the trouble makers. I find these people to be constantly looking for victims. In some ways, I feel that these people have a lot of mental issues, especially those that camp people for hours upon hours on end. In some cases, camping might be the result of getting revenge. However, the ones that just hover or actively seek to cause people grief are the ones that probably need to see a psychologist. Now, I’ve also heard about groups of gankers. These people remind me more of gangs. Considering that the game does promote gang violence and racism (don’t you dare lie to yourself about this either!), it’s easy to see how perhaps people who were predisposed to gang violence or are/were in gangs, might end up utilizing this aspects to satisfy those dark desires. To me this is probably some of the darkest aspects of the game with regards to the player base.

Moving on, I want to return to the world of PVE and talk about high end PVE players (i.e. heroic raiders). From what I’ve seen from streams, the one common thing I’ve noticed is that outside of having that competitive streak to them, none of the high end PVE players ever look happy. I feel like I’m watching a nazi internment camp whenever I watch high end PVE players. There is a lot of stress because one fuck up will cause raid wipes. And you can see those happen for hours maybe even days. When a group beats a boss, it rarely feels like a real triumphant moment. Instead, it feels like a “glad that piece of shit is over; oh well, I guess we get to do it again in a week. People can’t fuck up now!” When I watch high end PVP players, they look like they’re having fun in their activities, even if they’re doing something competitive. But not in the case of PVE.

But when it comes to raiding in general, one thing I have heard is that there’s a certain level of camaraderie in raiding compared to something like LFR, which is what I suspect most raiders dislike about LFR the most. In between the wipes, you have a lot of interesting conversations that go on, especially when it comes to more friendly/social guilds. I think when you have raiders that fit this mode, the idea of raiding ends up becoming a lot more fun, despite the fact that you’re constantly dying.

Then you get some of the quieter players. I consider myself quiet but not entirely anti-social in the game. There are some people who just never respond no matter what. When I see people in my guild like this, I tend to shun them since they really aren’t fun to be around no serve any purpose outside of just getting the benefits of being part of a level 25 guild. Many won’t even do things like LFR, scenarios nor heroics. The ones I’ve seen doing this end up just getting their gear from valor points and quartermasters, grinding out every point via daily quests. Although there’s no real right nor wrong way to play, it kinda makes me sad with regards to these players since it feels that they’re missing out on a huge chunk of the game as a result of their reluctance to interact with others.

Beyond these types there’s also newer vs veteran players. One thing I’ve noticed about veteran players is that some are pretty crusty about things. It feels that because they’ve played the game for so long, they have a certain entitled viewpoint on the game. Not all of them but the ones I’ve heard grumble all the time. However, I feel that some of these players probably just have been at this game for too long and need to take a break to gain a fresh perspective.

New players really vary as each expansion and patches had changed the game in so many different ways. So the later you end into the game, the less you could see the evolution of how the game was designed. Although it can be argued that the game has become simplified over time, I think newer players, depending on the expansion where they started, no matter what will miss out on some aspect of content. This is a terrible flaw that came in Cataclysm where just way too much had been thrown out the window. So now, there’s real way to compare the game unless you go to a private server.

The post World of Warcraft: (Observed) Characteristics of Players appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

I used to belong to a PVP server, Ner’zhul because my friend was there. I had little idea what PVP meant at that time since it was my first time playing through. While leveling, I found it incredibly difficult at times since people would occasionally camp me or interfere while I was questing. As a result, I ended up grinding most of my levels via dungeons and lost any opportunity to experience most of the vanilla content, which still bothers me to this day. I think if I had a better idea at the time what PVP meant I probably would’ve started on a PVE server.

But the whole experience left a terrible taste in my mouth. I’m still very hesitant about joining a PVP server for that reason. I think that World PVP has it’s place but the reality of what goes on is something I’m not certain Blizzard intended. I think originally Blizzard felt World PVP was, “Hey, there’s a mining spot. Some asshat is stealing it. I’m going to kick him in the shin and get it back!” In other words, what you see in normal Warcraft. Either that or “There’s 10 guys over there. My 10 guys will then meet them in the middle!”

Unfortunately, neither scenario is what PVP really is. PVP brings out the worst in people and surfaces the lowest of the low. It is the lowest common denominator in mankind and it rears its ugly head at all turns whenever brought up. Yet it exist and we have to figure out how to make it less detestable in its current form. I mean, essentially you’re enforcing gang mentality in World PVP, so the way I see it Blizzard is advocating gangs. That’s why I think they need to re-think the way World PVP works because it does contribute to a mental sickness.

Going back to the forums, the main thing discussed has been a penalty for ganking. The best thread I found talked about the idea of bounty hunters. In short, rewarding those who manage to kill people that rise up in infamy. It’s a really good idea and is something I considered in my own RPG that I’m developing. The primary difference is that in my RPG you could become a traitor to the alignment/faction you belong to, causing others to hunt you down. Here, the proposed idea was a reward in getting rid of the ganker with a point system.

Someone countered that the system would eventually lead to point trading. I can certainly see something like that occurring on a server. Also, how would this work for Cross Realm Zones? Thus, I came up with a one up solution that is similar to that and the older dishonorable kills. The idea is that consistent griefers need to be handled. That’s where the real trouble lies. To do this, I would create a 3 strikes type of rule where the griefer in question would essentially become a red mob to all if they grief someone more than 3 times in a row for a certain period. They lose the ability to communicate with their faction and can be attacked by their faction. If they are in their own faction’s zone, all NPCs for that faction will become hostile towards that person and attack on sight.

This would only occur outside in the world, not in battlegrounds nor in major cities since there is the city defender aspect. The penalty will occur for level disparities and whatever the top level is for that expansion and anything lower. For instance, a level 90 who has top PVP gear would receive a penalty even against an 89. The idea is to ensure a level playing ground.

Those who might ask why a person would be ostracized from their own faction. It’s simple: they dishonored their faction. Even Garrosh would frown upon ganking. I would impose this penalty for about an hour. That way they can still gank but won’t be recognizable from a hostile mob. I think that has some interesting consequences.

The post World of Warcraft: Ganking, World PVP and Solutions appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.