More Arena Cheating

World of Warcraft is set to enter Arena Season 3 after today's downtime. With the new season comes new, rank-restricted arena gear and a personal ranking system, both of which are meant to fight rampant arena "exploitation" from the first two seasons. Sadly, the new season also brings new cheats.

Win trading, the process by which top teams farm another high ranking team, seems to be the new flavor and pretty much cements the high ranking of the team involved. It is easily disguised as normal play and only in the worst cases is it probable that the teams will get caught.

Fortunately, Blizzard seems to be on the case. However, this gives me no faith in the arena system as a viable end-game activity. Before win trading, it was top teams selling spots for gold. The point is, if it isn't one thing, it'll be another and that is enough evidence to me that Blizzard has failed on yet another PvP system. Like the Honor System, it will only be a matter of time before the current arena system is scrapped and replaced.

In my eyes, there are a couple things that would have contained these arena problems to simply arenas and not the entire game. First off, arena gear should of been restricted to use only inside arenas or become severely less powerful outside of arenas. If certain trinkets and out-of-arena gear were going to be restricted inside arenas, it only makes sense that arena gear could have been restricted outside of the arena.

It is a bad sign when the arena rewards are referred to as "welfare epics". Sadly, the epic arena gear turned out to be superior to a lot of raid level gear and quickly became the easiest way to gear up for end game raiding content.

I am not averse to easy to attain epic gear. However, I am against any system that becomes the "path of least resistance" for the opposite aspect of the game. PvP arenas became the preferred method for PvE players, and in my book, that is bad design. I know there is a lot that can be argued over raid loot affecting PvP, but I don't want to get into that aspect. I stand firmly on the concept of separate PvP and PvE reward systems.

Secondly, the arenas should have been about prestige, renown, and good ole' bragging rights. This entails rewards such as special titles, unique mounts, displayable trophies, etc. Arenas should have never gotten involved with rewarding epic gear, because it immediately dashes the illusion of fair play. When teams enter an arena, it should be the group build, player skill, and strategy that determines the winner, not fucking gear (most likely earned through questionable means).

Gear level, in arenas, should always be equal and that would have been easily accomplished through arena-restricted gear. Unfortunately, the system can not be changed and it would be unthinkable for Blizzard to remove all the gear already attained by players. The only hope is a change with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

In the end, this s just another set of reasons why there is no rush for me to get to 70. Arena's are not competitive, will never be, and are no longer my goal. Battlegrounds, which have always been objective-based, provide a better challenge and allow every class and level of player to participate in a meaningful way.

Now, if Blizzard would just put the same effort into Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, and Eye of the Storm, that they put into Alterac Valley, the battlegrounds would be golden!

I'm a Shaman

Hello, I'm Heartless and I'm a Shaman. I'm a conduit of the ancient forces of nature. You are no doubt wondering, "Hey Heartless, how do I hurl bolts of lightning?". Simple, get World of Warcraft dog. You can be anyone you want. I'm Heartless and I'm a Shaman. What's your game?

Now just replace Heartless with William Shatner, throw in some WoW footage, and you would no doubt have a pretty kick ass commercial. Don't worry, Blizzard is way ahead of you.

Oh, and the debate is settled. It is pronounced sh"ah"man, not sh"ay"man. Owned, by Captain Kirk no less.

Numb3rs

0 - Number of active days left on my Dark Age of Camelot subscription.

1 - The average number of walls a bullet goes through before killing me in Call of Duty 4.

2 - Number of kills I achieved in my first Call of Duty 4 multi-player match. Sadly, I also suffered 32 deaths.

3 - Number of days until my birthday, Thanksgiving, and the next Green Bay Packers game.

20 - Number of deaths I suffer on average in a CoD4 match.

47 - Number of kills I average in an a CoD4 match.

50 - Number of Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley tokens I need in able to purchase arena season one gear for my Shaman in WoW when season three starts later this month.

70 - The level I need to reach in WoW before I can use arena season one gear. I'm currently level 66.

2,637 - Number of points I've scored in Team Fortress 2.

65,250 - The amount of honor needed to attain an entire set of season one arena armor for my Shaman in World of Warcraft.

Showdown: World of Warcraft vs. Dark Age of Camelot

William requested that I discuss some of things that made me turn away from Dark Age of Camelot and return to World of Warcraft. However, I want to stress that I did not quit DAoC because of WoW's new 2.3 patch. I quit DAoC because of real life time restraints. I just so happen to have access to my WoW account for the time being and play it casually (very casually).

I want to start this showdown with the one thing I strongly feel that DAoC has cornered the market on, something that WoW has struggled with: PvP. In DAoC, PvP is called Realm vs Realm (RvR). That is a term that can only be found in a Mythic game. Seriously, they trademarked the term.

Semantics aside, RvR is DAoC's form of PvP. RvR pits three realms of players against each other for control of castles and relics. Frontiers are the zones where the castles and relics are located. Open PvP can occur anywhere in the frontiers and there is no shortage of castles and towers to fight over. Both the castles and relics can be captured by opposing forces. This gives real weight to RvR, both for the individual and the entire realm.

WoW on the other hand, focuses on instanced PvP battlegrounds and more recently arenas, both of which have little impact on anything other than the players involved. Since launch, Blizzard has tried several different approaches towards their PvP systems and through numerous rebuilds and tweaks, PvP has simply become a secondary issue taking a backseat to the more popular PvE side of things. That is OK, because WoW's PvE is great and Blizzard should focus on it while letting players bash in each other's heads every once and a while.

The distinguishing trait between the two games PvP, is that DAoC has focused on providing that RvR experience to every single level of play. There are now level-restricted battlegrounds and dungeons for every level range in the game. Players can level from start to finish doing only RvR battlegrounds or dungeons. DAoC knew what people enjoyed and highlighted it. Their only fault is a side-tracked PvE themed expansion that became the bane of DAoC RvR enthusiasts everywhere. Fortunately, Mythic learned their lesson and were able to set the wheels in motion to keep the game afloat.

WoW has tried desperately to fix their PvP, and after dozens of changes the system is still fairly focused on just doing instanced PvP as fast and as often as humanly possible for epic gear. WoW's PvP is still enjoyable, but it holds no weight and is nothing more than a "my l33t sauce is hotter than your l33t sauce". With that said, Blizzard has started tossing around more open world, objective based PvP that shows promise. DAoC does PvP right, with meaning and reason behind it. Hopefully, Mythic will showcase this in their next title: Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

With the PvP topic discussed, I will throw down a bullet list of what WoW has done so much better than DAoC, and then we can discuss them.

• WoW's UI, both in modifiability and out-of-the-box functionality.
• WoW's control scheme is unmatched in the MMORPG industry and should be the starting point for any game. I can not stress how important this is.
  
• WoW's quest system trumps the shambled mess that is DAoC's quest system.
• Leveling is actually faster in DAoC these days, but WoW does it with style and without the grind.
  

There are some other bells and whistles, but those are the four things that have drawn my back into WoW time after time after time. Oh, and sexy elves.

The Return Is Over

I chose a really bad time to get nostalgic about Dark Age of Camelot. Between real life and kick ass new games like Call of Duty 4, I have very little time to dedicate to an MMORPG. Especially one that is six years old and fairly set in it's ways.

I enjoyed the thirty or so hours I put into the game over the last month, but I ended up at the same conclusion I did a few years ago: the genre needs to improve. The genre has grown up and new games do some very basic things very well. Things that DAoC has not improved on over the last six years.

World of Warcraft's controls have honestly spoiled me and I can not seem to adjust backwards to the heavy-handed systems of DAoC. Also, the flexibility of WoW's UI mods trumps any of the custom UI packages available for DAoC. There are tons of other items that I've grown used to and playing DAoC again just made me wish for WoW. There is so much to be said for the little things that WoW managed to get right.

But I don't want to make this a WoW is better than DAoC post. DAoC was the game back in the day and I do not regret the three years I invested into it. In my humble opinion, Realm vs. Realm is still an amazing concept and extremely well implemented throughout DAoC. It is just sad to know that the rest of the game aged like rotten cheese.

Oh well, it was good while it lasted.