Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Job

I went on a job interview yesterday for an IT position at the college I go to. This was my first job interview since leaving the active duty military a year ago. They offered me the job, and I accepted. I start next week. My gaming time will be almost null from this point forward, until I finish school.


Yes, I am that damn good that they hired me on the spot.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Dreamblade: Night Fusion Preview

The official first look at the next Dreamblade expansion, Night Fusion, has been posted here.

My Thoughts

Blah. The pieces are always a mixed bag with new expansion previews. Most of the previews give little indication of how well the expansion will fair in tournament play, but they are an invaluable starting point for understanding the expansion.

What irks me about each consecutive Dreamblade expansion so far, is the fact that they just introduce more and more and more. Baxar's War, the first expansion, offered some solid pieces and very few new mechanics. Bazar's War is my favorite expansion because of this.

Dreamblade launched with a comprehensive rulebook. It was advertised as "all the rules the game will ever have". Every planned ability was supposedly listed. Sadly, new expansions have not followed this mantra.

Surely new mechanics and abilities can't be bad? I wish that was the case. There are tons of abilities in Dreamblade and Wizards of the Coast has, for some reason, made most of them completely unplayable or made abilities that are far superior. For example, Skirmish and Advance are almost required because they allow pieces to be moved around the board. Movement is king in Dreamblade and abilities related to it are far more desirable. Other abilities, which could be usable, are often attached to a creature that is unplayable or is given a cost that is infeasible for any warband.

I don't want to get off track here, but needless to say, abilities are not balanced in Dreamblade. WotC is not helping the situation. Instead of giving players new pieces that are playable with old abilities, they develop new pieces with new abilities or pieces with restricted old abilities.

The Night Fusion preview is a perfect example. Every piece has restrictive versions of old abilities. Instead of giving the game a decent Bodyguard, they develop another spawn expensive piece, but give it a damage restricted bodyguard feature. I truly wish they could just release some figures that are solid and playable with abilities that are already in the game. Screw all this new bullshit.

I guess this is one of the reasons I'm dropping Dreamblade. New expansions are just becoming bloated and overly advanced for my liking. For every ounce of good an expansion brings, there is enough garbage and overpowered pieces to make purchases a losing proposition. And WotC wonders why sales are in the gutter.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

World of Warcraft Hits 9 Million

Have you ever heard the phrase; "television killed the radio star"? Or maybe this one; "The Burning Crusade killed World of Warcraft!". While television may have killed the radio star, The Burning Crusade has not killed World of Warcraft. In fact, World of Warcraft has grown: to nine million subscribers.

From all evidence, the growth is coming from the western market, contrary to what many MMO bloggers have been posting. The Burning Crusade has not launched in China yet, where WoW pulls in a few million of the current total user base! The ten million mark is not that far off, and TBC's launch in China may just be the spur to get it there. I firmly believe, and have for some time, that World of Warcraft will hit ten million by year's end.

This falls in line with what I've been reading and seeing lately. A lot of casual gamers are completely digging the extra ten levels of content, new zones, extended professions, and more accessible end-game content. Most raiders seem to have fallen off the horse as their "perfect" 40-man guilds disintegrated upon TBC's launch. It has been a hard road for them as they restructure, regroup, and realign for the 10 and 25 man content.

So, wouldn't raiders quitting in frustration decrease the numbers? No, because raiders make up a very tiny minority (just shy of 2%) of players. Casual and core gamers have and will continue to make up WoW's majority. Building the game around them has once again proven to be successful. It is a pleasure to read some of the reports from friends that have returned to WoW.

Actually, the more I read about The Burning Crusade, the more I want to play it. And I will play it. I have some time off coming up and I plan to give the TBC 10-day free trial a whirl.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Dear Shadowbane

Dear Shadowbane,

You suck.

I pondered over the last week how to write this letter, but nothing can say it better than those two simple words. You have peaked my interest for over a decade and you never once managed to satisfy my curiosity.

I bought your box, your expansions, and resubscribed my accounts many times. Now you are free, and you still suck. You lag, you crash, and worst of all, you still force people to level. Would it be so difficult to remove your barely working PvE content in favor of an instant level 75 system? No, I thought not. That would require thought and consideration for me, the player.

I've tried to make this work. I've spent restless days trying to rip my eyes out as another bug, lag spike, or plain bad game mechanic sucked another death out of my avatar. All in the vain hope that I would some day get to the "end game" and finally get the chance to PK some newbs. Alas, I never made it.

I'm done and I'm not coming back. Once again Shadowbane, you suck!

Yours truly,

Heartless_

Dreamblade: Organized Play Canceled

It is a sad day for any fans of the Dreamblade CMG from Wizards of the Coast. WotC has decided to cancel the 1k and 10k tournaments and other mainstream Organized Play aspects. Here is the Dear John letter:
Dear Dreamblade Players:

As you prepare your warbands for Augusts’ Dreamblade 50K championship, many of you may be wondering about the future of Dreamblade Organized Play (OP).

When we designed this game, we envisioned highly competitive organized play as one of the key things that makes the game great, and we provided robust organized play with Dreamblade. Despite our best efforts however, we didn’t get enough tournament players, and we can’t continue supporting the game with the same depth of OP that we’ve offered in the past. As a result, we will no longer be supporting the 1K and 10K events. The August 50K event will continue as scheduled, as will Edge Tournaments. We love this game and we know you do too. It’s a painful change but a necessary one.

Night Fusion, Dreamblade’s fifth set, releases in September and promises to be our most exciting set to date. It includes a number of new features that we have been reserving for Dreamblade’s second year. The success of Night Fusion will be very telling for Dreamblade as we gauge demand for the future. We hope fans come out in droves to support it!

Thank you for your passionate support of Dreamblade and your patience during this time. We hope to have the opportunity to continue to bring you this innovative and revolutionary game experience for some time to come.
Does this spell the end for Dreamblade? Not yet. Local Edge tournaments will still be supported, but historically they have been hard to maintain. The prizes for Edge events are sub par. Plus Edge events are easily ruined by veteran players playing top tier warbands forcing newer players to "buy up" or "ship out".

This is not a surprising announcement, but it is a sad one. Dreamblade is a great game that only suffers from a fairly high price point and low player population.