No, I don't have moves like Jagger.
I've noticed two things recently that I'm doing, and I know why.
First, when I become bored with certain games I'm playing, besides looking for other random games to fill my time, I pick up and reread Ready Player One. I started reading it last night. This will make for reread number four.
Second, I irrationally disappoint myself by hoping, every single day, that Blizzard will stealthily start doing a WoD beta, and that if I log into my account on the website, or even the desktop app, that I'll have a WoD test server to download or log into. Just sitting there, waiting for me, with open arms, just for me.
It hasn't happened, and it saddens me.
Or a Wildstar beta invite, that would brighten me up a little. That has also been disappointing.
But I do these things when I become kind of bored. Now, nobody needs to break out their 'jump-to-conclusions-mat' any time soon. I love my WoW, my guild, my raiders. I look forward to that all the time. But the other stuff, I just want new things. New story. New landscapes. New levels. New stuff to play with. The old toys are getting...stale. I need a new spice, a new flavor, to make the meal wonderful again.
Anyone have some interesting games that can fill a lot of time? I'll play almost any genre. If you have something interesting, drop me a line in game or here or facebook or wherever. I'm looking for some new filler toys to kill some time.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Logs, meters, and parses, oh my!
Follow follow follow follow,
Follow the addon-laden road!
The natural progression of the focused, goal oriented, min-max player through the years.
Through the life of any game, especially MMO's, the player base will begin to understand the nuances, the ins and outs, all the little nitty gritty details about the game. For the ones that like being "the best", it's a very natural, fluid ordeal for them to achieve everything they possibly can out of their game.
Shit, people study Chess their entire lives to be better at that. Why should video games be any different?
They aren't.
Since the beginning of thought for man, we have always spent time asking ourselves, "What if?". What if that rock would help me cut open this dead animal easier? What if figuring out how to smelt down this stronger rock and shape it into some other shape would make my life easier? What if we could leave a message for each other somehow? What if we could fly? What if I could stop sucking at healing on my druid and keep the raid alive?
Now, what are the key ingredients to all these questions? Information. Experimentation.
You are going to have to fail a lot before you find out what works "best". We live in a very finite universe. There is only so much matter on this rock that we can use for different purposes. Any game developer will only program in a certain maximum amount of combinations of things into their games. Eventually, and sooner rather than later with the help of technology, those combinations will be discovered. We are a curious species, we want to just "know" things. I want to know why all of a sudden I'm a moron on my hunter, but I'm playing better on my mage.
Let's talk Ultima Online. Not sure if everyone reading this (if anyone still does) ever played that game, but it was the first major "theme park" kind of MMO. At first, players don't have a freaking clue what they are doing in it. Use a dagger on a tree? The hell for? Oh, I can get kindling for fire? But if I use an axe on it, I can get wood and make a shield? Oh hell yeah! Let's do other shit!!
Extrapolate that to years later, and players have figured out that if you are trying to raise a particular skill (which normally took years and years and years to do in that game), if you got on a boat, and figured out this exact pattern to sail in, you could almost completely automate rapid skill gains.
Or that each "tile" in the game had a certain amount of skill point resources that could be depleted and replenished over time.
Or that they actually programmed environmental habits for wildlife, migration patterns for food sources, and how to handle predators and prey.
Neat, but what does that have to do with WoW, Dave? Well, your average WoW player, that is super casual, may might LFR once in a blue moon, but just levels up, does quests, maybe crafts some, but nothing too major, for them it doesn't mean anything really.
For the player that says "How hard would it be to kill that dragon over there? Oh it killed me in three hits? Hmmm, would my buddy who's a protection warrior do better? Oh he died in eight hits? Hey let's get our druid friend to heal us. Oh he ran out of mana after forty seconds? Crap, okay guys, let's think this one out. Let's get another guy who can take a lot of hits, that paladin guy over there. And really this will take me like twenty minutes just with the amount of damage we're doing, what if we got like eight more people to shoot this sucker. And the druid may need some help healing that many people, let's get him a shaman and a priest to help him out. Okay, NOW let's go take that dragon down.", then this is exactly for them.
Trial and error, that is how most of the things are learned in this game. Even for the developers too. Test, change some code, retest, change more code, tweek something here and there, test it, more tweeks, etc. etc. etc..
But people also hate wasting their time. So we invent things to save ourselves time, energy, resources, etc. Now we have tools like skada/recount, those dreaded "dps-meters". Websites like World of Logs with all sorts of information hosted there for people to sift through and make use of.
What do all these things do? Give us access to information.
Where does the stigma, the social cry against these come from?
Well, to be honest, bad players. Bad players that get called out for being bad, and it makes them feel bad.
But I'm over simplifying an issue. Both sides of the argument will, until someone like me comes along.
What is the actual point of those "dps meters"? It isn't to brag, it isn't to make fun of other people. It isn't to let someone yell at someone else. The actual real goal of that piece of programming is to display information in a fashion that is both easy to comprehend what it is showing, and provides the information in as close to real time as we can get.
What a human being then does with it...that's a different subject.
God, for the longest time, I would see forum post after forum post where someone would get all cry baby because someone in their random dungeon queued group called them a bad player because their dps was too low for their tastes, and got the group to kick them out. I'd see it every single day on the forums, majorly rampant during Wrath for some reason, maybe because I just spent way too much time on the forums back then. So they would go on a freaking crusade to get the devs to ban "meters", because THAT is what was making players caustic in WoW.
And then this would be the point where most people would ignore them, or just call them butt hurt, and people would move on.
But it isn't the "meter" that is at fault here. Those types of players making those posts, they really just hate the jerk who was a total dick to them and got them kicked from their group.
But what if someone nice, like me :D, were to come up to them, and using that exact same meter, would have them spend some time at a training dummy, and then figure out what they are in fact doing wrong, and work with them on improving it? They'd probably then go download it themselves and see what this world is all about. The player obviously cares about their performance in this game, otherwise they would have completely ignored the incident with the caustic player and just kept doing whatever they feel like doing. If they are going to take time to complain about it, they'll take time to make sure it NEVER happens again.
Another reason for needing this information, besides to better ones self, the devs keep making harder content! I mean, really, if they just keep pumping out easy mode dragon after even easier easy mode dragon, one after another, eventually nobody bothers, because it's too easy. There isn't any accomplishment. There is no knew challenge to try to overcome. Players leave. So...game gets a bit harder and harder, naturally, or it dies a horrible death, and the devs don't make any money, and they go on welfare, and they rape and pillage the countryside in real life to then make ends meet. And really, I don't need a dev looting my actual house, so let's keep having them pump out more content that keeps our interest peaked so we pay them...and it's a cycle of fun for everyone.
Oh and I really would enjoy the "well people will just pad meters to make themselves look good" or "but they don't show the people that are avoiding damage" or other such nonsense.
Shut your mouths, these people. Stop your fingers from moving, and just read.
Our meters show us everything now. How much damage you take. How much damage you deal. How much healing you do. How much wasted over-healing you do. Abilities you use. Sources of damage you take, or deal to enemies. How many times you interrupt enemy abilities. How many times you use crowd control abilities on enemies. How many times you BREAK crowd control abilities on enemies. How much threat you pull.
We see it all. And the good raid leaders, and class leaders, and officers, and other people in charge of interpreting that information, we know what they mean. I know when, on a fight like Paragons in SoO, if someone is just multi-dotting like an idiot (the bosses heal to full whenever one of them dies). I also know when a shaman that is glyphed to let flame shock ticks heal themselves are actually spreading that dot to all enemies to help keep themselves alive better and give the healers an easier time of things.
Stop making the argument against information. You had bad experiences with real shitty players. Trust me, there are waaaaay more good players, using the exact same programs and meters, etc, out there than those bad players. Find them, and enjoy the game like you never have before, playing with people that don't suck at life.
Why I bothered to bring up this subject again? Hell I don't know, but maybe it was just to have something to point to whenever the topic comes up again. Enjoy yourselves people, as best you can!
Follow the addon-laden road!
The natural progression of the focused, goal oriented, min-max player through the years.
Through the life of any game, especially MMO's, the player base will begin to understand the nuances, the ins and outs, all the little nitty gritty details about the game. For the ones that like being "the best", it's a very natural, fluid ordeal for them to achieve everything they possibly can out of their game.
Shit, people study Chess their entire lives to be better at that. Why should video games be any different?
They aren't.
Since the beginning of thought for man, we have always spent time asking ourselves, "What if?". What if that rock would help me cut open this dead animal easier? What if figuring out how to smelt down this stronger rock and shape it into some other shape would make my life easier? What if we could leave a message for each other somehow? What if we could fly? What if I could stop sucking at healing on my druid and keep the raid alive?
Now, what are the key ingredients to all these questions? Information. Experimentation.
You are going to have to fail a lot before you find out what works "best". We live in a very finite universe. There is only so much matter on this rock that we can use for different purposes. Any game developer will only program in a certain maximum amount of combinations of things into their games. Eventually, and sooner rather than later with the help of technology, those combinations will be discovered. We are a curious species, we want to just "know" things. I want to know why all of a sudden I'm a moron on my hunter, but I'm playing better on my mage.
Let's talk Ultima Online. Not sure if everyone reading this (if anyone still does) ever played that game, but it was the first major "theme park" kind of MMO. At first, players don't have a freaking clue what they are doing in it. Use a dagger on a tree? The hell for? Oh, I can get kindling for fire? But if I use an axe on it, I can get wood and make a shield? Oh hell yeah! Let's do other shit!!
Extrapolate that to years later, and players have figured out that if you are trying to raise a particular skill (which normally took years and years and years to do in that game), if you got on a boat, and figured out this exact pattern to sail in, you could almost completely automate rapid skill gains.
Or that each "tile" in the game had a certain amount of skill point resources that could be depleted and replenished over time.
Or that they actually programmed environmental habits for wildlife, migration patterns for food sources, and how to handle predators and prey.
Neat, but what does that have to do with WoW, Dave? Well, your average WoW player, that is super casual, may might LFR once in a blue moon, but just levels up, does quests, maybe crafts some, but nothing too major, for them it doesn't mean anything really.
For the player that says "How hard would it be to kill that dragon over there? Oh it killed me in three hits? Hmmm, would my buddy who's a protection warrior do better? Oh he died in eight hits? Hey let's get our druid friend to heal us. Oh he ran out of mana after forty seconds? Crap, okay guys, let's think this one out. Let's get another guy who can take a lot of hits, that paladin guy over there. And really this will take me like twenty minutes just with the amount of damage we're doing, what if we got like eight more people to shoot this sucker. And the druid may need some help healing that many people, let's get him a shaman and a priest to help him out. Okay, NOW let's go take that dragon down.", then this is exactly for them.
Trial and error, that is how most of the things are learned in this game. Even for the developers too. Test, change some code, retest, change more code, tweek something here and there, test it, more tweeks, etc. etc. etc..
But people also hate wasting their time. So we invent things to save ourselves time, energy, resources, etc. Now we have tools like skada/recount, those dreaded "dps-meters". Websites like World of Logs with all sorts of information hosted there for people to sift through and make use of.
What do all these things do? Give us access to information.
Where does the stigma, the social cry against these come from?
Well, to be honest, bad players. Bad players that get called out for being bad, and it makes them feel bad.
But I'm over simplifying an issue. Both sides of the argument will, until someone like me comes along.
What is the actual point of those "dps meters"? It isn't to brag, it isn't to make fun of other people. It isn't to let someone yell at someone else. The actual real goal of that piece of programming is to display information in a fashion that is both easy to comprehend what it is showing, and provides the information in as close to real time as we can get.
What a human being then does with it...that's a different subject.
God, for the longest time, I would see forum post after forum post where someone would get all cry baby because someone in their random dungeon queued group called them a bad player because their dps was too low for their tastes, and got the group to kick them out. I'd see it every single day on the forums, majorly rampant during Wrath for some reason, maybe because I just spent way too much time on the forums back then. So they would go on a freaking crusade to get the devs to ban "meters", because THAT is what was making players caustic in WoW.
And then this would be the point where most people would ignore them, or just call them butt hurt, and people would move on.
But it isn't the "meter" that is at fault here. Those types of players making those posts, they really just hate the jerk who was a total dick to them and got them kicked from their group.
But what if someone nice, like me :D, were to come up to them, and using that exact same meter, would have them spend some time at a training dummy, and then figure out what they are in fact doing wrong, and work with them on improving it? They'd probably then go download it themselves and see what this world is all about. The player obviously cares about their performance in this game, otherwise they would have completely ignored the incident with the caustic player and just kept doing whatever they feel like doing. If they are going to take time to complain about it, they'll take time to make sure it NEVER happens again.
Another reason for needing this information, besides to better ones self, the devs keep making harder content! I mean, really, if they just keep pumping out easy mode dragon after even easier easy mode dragon, one after another, eventually nobody bothers, because it's too easy. There isn't any accomplishment. There is no knew challenge to try to overcome. Players leave. So...game gets a bit harder and harder, naturally, or it dies a horrible death, and the devs don't make any money, and they go on welfare, and they rape and pillage the countryside in real life to then make ends meet. And really, I don't need a dev looting my actual house, so let's keep having them pump out more content that keeps our interest peaked so we pay them...and it's a cycle of fun for everyone.
Oh and I really would enjoy the "well people will just pad meters to make themselves look good" or "but they don't show the people that are avoiding damage" or other such nonsense.
Shut your mouths, these people. Stop your fingers from moving, and just read.
Our meters show us everything now. How much damage you take. How much damage you deal. How much healing you do. How much wasted over-healing you do. Abilities you use. Sources of damage you take, or deal to enemies. How many times you interrupt enemy abilities. How many times you use crowd control abilities on enemies. How many times you BREAK crowd control abilities on enemies. How much threat you pull.
We see it all. And the good raid leaders, and class leaders, and officers, and other people in charge of interpreting that information, we know what they mean. I know when, on a fight like Paragons in SoO, if someone is just multi-dotting like an idiot (the bosses heal to full whenever one of them dies). I also know when a shaman that is glyphed to let flame shock ticks heal themselves are actually spreading that dot to all enemies to help keep themselves alive better and give the healers an easier time of things.
Stop making the argument against information. You had bad experiences with real shitty players. Trust me, there are waaaaay more good players, using the exact same programs and meters, etc, out there than those bad players. Find them, and enjoy the game like you never have before, playing with people that don't suck at life.
Why I bothered to bring up this subject again? Hell I don't know, but maybe it was just to have something to point to whenever the topic comes up again. Enjoy yourselves people, as best you can!
Monday, December 9, 2013
Breakfast of Champions. And...To Infiinty...And BEYOND!
Mine consisted of:
Coffee, Folgers + Splenda + Hazelnut Creamer
Almond Joy, Large
League of Legends, Jayce (normal/draft, loss) + Sona (aram, win)
Yeah, good breakfast for the most part. Jayce, get your shit together, why did you lose vs Teemo top?
As I'm writing this up, Cillie is taking her last final for this semester. After this, she has one more semester to go before she's graduated, and we move back to GA! So...I guess this post is all about the future.
We've all seen the WoD coverage, posts from the devs afterwards, raiding is changing in a big way. The whole "20 man" thing. Mythic.
There's something funny about our server. Apart from the only actual 25 man raiding team on the server, all of the big 10 man teams have all messaged Cillie about them and us merging for the expansion. From the alliance, we were propositioned pretty early, and invited to join them. Never gonna happen. We like our raiding and guild environment the way we make it.
From the horde side, it was kind of a chuckle. We were propositioned as if their team were better, and we've be helping ourselves out more by joining them. At the time, we were 5/14h (a week later 6/14h) and they had just killed Immerseus heroic.
An even bigger "no". Here's the thing, and I can't speak for alliance side because I haven't seen what their Flex scene is like over there, but besides us, I actually see Little Big Guild getting into some serious progression later on in WoD, hell maybe even some heroics this tier before WoD goes live, they certainly have enough time, and they are already getting serious strats for the Klaxxi fight for the first time. Plus, we've done some Flex with them, and they have a lot of really really strong raiders over in that guild.
Beyond that, nobody else is farming Flex players right now. We're a small server, horde side, with few teams really raiding. Our second team is doing better than most main teams are, they one-shotted two new bosses to put them at 11/14. Some of that has to do with our guild fostering a strong Flex community, and working with people outside of our own to build a raiding community from the ground up. Besides LBG and us, I don't see that happening elsewhere.
I'm sorry MR, but we got a lot of your population because you held your Flex to just your core people. Bad move.
Anywho, I'm excited, really excited, for our prospects in WoD. We have two very good teams, the leadership is incredibly in sync, and we have some good raiding relationships with a lot of people out there. Come WoD, where Flex is the norm except for the very top of the player base, we've already got it down.
If Cillie hadn't been working so hard, so long ago, through multiple tiers, to get a second team raiding, I don't know if we would be in this position. She's got much better long term vision than most people in ET. Without her leadership, EQ wouldn't be where it is today. Sure, I can break down a strat and call things out with the best of them, but running a guild, managing people, keeping the soul of a guild going, and building, that's something she does better than anyone I know.
So...yeah, bring on WoD whenever Blizz, we got this.
Coffee, Folgers + Splenda + Hazelnut Creamer
Almond Joy, Large
League of Legends, Jayce (normal/draft, loss) + Sona (aram, win)
Yeah, good breakfast for the most part. Jayce, get your shit together, why did you lose vs Teemo top?
As I'm writing this up, Cillie is taking her last final for this semester. After this, she has one more semester to go before she's graduated, and we move back to GA! So...I guess this post is all about the future.
We've all seen the WoD coverage, posts from the devs afterwards, raiding is changing in a big way. The whole "20 man" thing. Mythic.
There's something funny about our server. Apart from the only actual 25 man raiding team on the server, all of the big 10 man teams have all messaged Cillie about them and us merging for the expansion. From the alliance, we were propositioned pretty early, and invited to join them. Never gonna happen. We like our raiding and guild environment the way we make it.
From the horde side, it was kind of a chuckle. We were propositioned as if their team were better, and we've be helping ourselves out more by joining them. At the time, we were 5/14h (a week later 6/14h) and they had just killed Immerseus heroic.
An even bigger "no". Here's the thing, and I can't speak for alliance side because I haven't seen what their Flex scene is like over there, but besides us, I actually see Little Big Guild getting into some serious progression later on in WoD, hell maybe even some heroics this tier before WoD goes live, they certainly have enough time, and they are already getting serious strats for the Klaxxi fight for the first time. Plus, we've done some Flex with them, and they have a lot of really really strong raiders over in that guild.
Beyond that, nobody else is farming Flex players right now. We're a small server, horde side, with few teams really raiding. Our second team is doing better than most main teams are, they one-shotted two new bosses to put them at 11/14. Some of that has to do with our guild fostering a strong Flex community, and working with people outside of our own to build a raiding community from the ground up. Besides LBG and us, I don't see that happening elsewhere.
I'm sorry MR, but we got a lot of your population because you held your Flex to just your core people. Bad move.
Anywho, I'm excited, really excited, for our prospects in WoD. We have two very good teams, the leadership is incredibly in sync, and we have some good raiding relationships with a lot of people out there. Come WoD, where Flex is the norm except for the very top of the player base, we've already got it down.
If Cillie hadn't been working so hard, so long ago, through multiple tiers, to get a second team raiding, I don't know if we would be in this position. She's got much better long term vision than most people in ET. Without her leadership, EQ wouldn't be where it is today. Sure, I can break down a strat and call things out with the best of them, but running a guild, managing people, keeping the soul of a guild going, and building, that's something she does better than anyone I know.
So...yeah, bring on WoD whenever Blizz, we got this.
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