Battlegrounds... the basics!

I didn't exactly get to indulge fully into the battlegrounds (BGs) due to real life stuff, but I headed to Warsong Gulch for a couple hours last night. I will run down the three major things I noticed.

1. The queue. Players run up to the instance entrance portal and get a menu. The player can then select an individual BG to wait for, or first available, which will put them in line for the first open BG spot. There were eleven separate Warsong Gulches open when I arrived. Then I had to wait and when my turn came up I instantly portaled into the BG. A player can portal in from anywhere in the world, a very nice feature for an auction house junkie like me.

The problems with the queue I noticed:
- The estimated wait time was always wrong. It would usually say there was 6-10 minute wait, but I had only one wait time less than 20 minutes.
- Players get invited into BGs to replace players that have left. The problem, players get dumped on their rear with no idea how the battle is going. It could be a jump right into a team winning, or a drop-in right as your team is losing, effectively wasting the 20 minutes the player just waited.

2. Forming groups and raids in the BG is just plain rough. Mixed groups from different raids, and other groups, forcing players to reform. It is a pain because some people just want to go solo. My fix: force all players into a raid group for that BG. This way everyone can communicate and no one has to spam "WHO HAS THE RAID GROUP??".

3. If a player goes into a BG with people that don't want to team together, they will hate life. Unorganized players stand no chance in a BG unless the other team is just as disorganized. Unfortunately, all it takes is 2-3 coordinated players to effectively grab flags and win a game against an unorganized team.

More coming later!

Update: 6 Apr, 2007 - Edited labels and post.

WoW patch 1.5 goes live... Battlegrounds!

Here are the notes.

Here is a link over to my great friends at Dizzarian.com that have researched some alternate download links for the patch.

Get in and get deadly!

Expect a full write up tommorow when I hopefully get into some battleground action tonight!

Raiding Stormwind...

Last night a call went out in Ogrimmar for a raid heading into the depths of Stormwind to kill off the Alliance's Archbishop of Stormwind. It was a well lead and coordinated effort for the most part. We were all summoned in within 45 minutes and the Archbishop fell within an hour of me joining the raid.

Wether both our raid groups got credit is still to be seen. Hopefully when I log on tonight I will have gotten some sort of reward in contribution points. I will be disapointed if we didn't get credit being in the second raid group.

When the end of raid damage reports came out I placed # 3 overall with just over 14,500 damage done. Well done considering it was a 50+ person raid.

Definately a fun event. I followed it up by heading to TM for a few more HK's, but ended up with a disconnect ending my night. My fault actually... knocked my network switch's adapter out of the power strip.

Miyamoto... champion of gaming!

The creative mind behind Mario, Zelda, and Nintendo frontman, Shigeru Miyamoto, has always been a champion to me. Focusing on gameplay and innovation over all else. There is a reason each new Zelda or Mario draw huge amounts of gamers... because the games are always fun and always on the driving edge of gameplay. And according to this article he just isn't happy with the current route that Sony and Microsoft are taking the gaming market.

"Rather than thinking we have a new console, let's make epic games, I want [developers] to make more unique products," - Miyamoto

I couldn't agree more. How many more shoot shoot shoot or drive drive drive games do I need? The problem I see though is that game development costs are skyrocketing forcing developers into the old reliable "make games that people always buy" mentality. This is why we have Tomb Raider games still cluttering shelves; because there is always money to be made in a sequel. It is the reason all the new consoles, Nintendo included, will be launching with sequels to their best franchises.

Like I said in a previous blog post "Is going back a good idea for the MMO world?" maybe game developers need to go back and redefine their roots and then proceed forward with new original ideas instead of pushing graphics over all else.

That is why Miyamoto is my champion of gaming because he will never settle for only graphical upgrades. A few more of him in the gaming industry and we might just avoid a few dark years for gaming.

Legal radar for WoW?

Legal radar for World of Warcraft or UI mod over the edge? That is the focus of this morning’s talking points memo. Sorry, I am a Bill O’Reilly watcher.

Now, I do not condone the use of hacks or cheats in any games I play. Also, I do not support any links to such materials. However, this is the grey area between UI mod and cheat that WoW gamers are quickly becoming unsure of.

The UI mod in question, which cycles through all targets around a player and then populates their mini-map with dots that, is firmly in this grey area. If an enemy is within targeting range, then they can be displayed and tracked on a player's mini-map. Is this considered a legal form of radar? For the moment, it seems that it is.

I do not have much programming talent, or knowledge on the inner workings of this mod, but I only see two possible reactions (fixes) from Blizzard.

1. Remove the ability for a UI mod to track distance and direction between a player and their target. Distance is a core tool in many UI mods. It lets players know when a target is in range for any number of abilities. I don’t see how this could be removed without causing more problems than it is worth.

2. Remove the ability for a UI mod to display self-updating dots on the mini-map. This would not hurt many useful UI mods that display information on the mini map, but would have a negative effect on this "legal radar". However, what effect would it have on hunters?

I hope that I am completely wrong about the fixes, but I will leave it in Blizzard’s capable hands. I say capable assuming that they can and will stop this mod from working.

And that’s the memo.

Update: 4 Nov, 2007 - Edited post and applied labels.

NOTE: I've long since given up watching Mr. O'Reilly. Cable news sucks.