Levels 1-20 are really training levels. They start you off with a few basic skills and quickly add more. Even so, combat vs. single npc opponents is rarely going to provide a skill challenge. It's more about figuring out the best combo of abilities than about clicking fast or aiming.
Sounds like you started with an orc or troll - Durotar and the Barrens are two of the least interesting areas in the game imo. If you're set on horde, you might find the Tauren, Forsaken, or Blood Elf starting areas to be much more appealing, otherwise you might try making an Alliance character - their areas seem more polished at low levels.
I don't like MMO PvP. I engage in it regularly with WoW, but the overall experience (even in Arenas - their supposedly pinnacle PvP platform) doesn't begin to compare to a shooter like TF2.
World PvP is just a litany of annoyances - rez timers, corpse campers, ganking, etc. Why bother?
MyTunes vs. iTunes - who will emerge victorious? Just as long as my downloads stay cheap and it plays nice with my music player of choice, i don't really care.
Brandon Sanderson's "Mistborn" is a good read and might be of particular interest to Wheel of Time fans since he's the guy who's going to be finishing off that series. I really liked his magic and the action scenes involving it are fun.
The foursome of the Tank, DPS, Healer and Blaster as roles within a party As opposed to the foursome of Warrior, Rogue, Cleric and Wizard thats been standard since the seventies? Actually, for us old farts that would be "fighter", "thief", "cleric" and "magic-user". Actually, for us old farts that would be "fighting-man", "hobbit", "cleric", and "magic-user".;)
I don't blame Jordan so much as the editors. I've heard from a friend of a friend (for whatever that's worth) who is a writer that this is not missing the mark by much, but it's still Jordan who must bear the brunt of the blame. He needed a good strong editor, but his books were making so much money that he basically said to the publisher "my way or not at all" and got away with it. By the time the books got really bad so many people were hooked on the story that even the crappiest was a great money-maker so they were unwilling to reign him in.
I don't think he was money-grubbing or stretching it on purpose. I just think he had a good story, but more ego than talent.
Still, i would like to know how it ends and i feel sorry for his family.
inconsistent with our corporate policy The only thing here that's inconsistent with their policy is getting caught. I'm not a knee-jerk Microsoft-hater, but this really is par for the course for them.
In that specific case though, he's not claiming more. The story is exactly as he describes it, it just requires the player to suspend disbelief and accept that even though the Defias are still walking around and you can go back and slaughter Van Cleef over and over again, as far as your personal story within the game goes, the Defias threat has been ended once and for all. The fact that you can return to the elements of the story are just a part of the MMO system.
It's not a flaw in his argument. Perhaps it could be called a flaw in the system, but the more of these "flaws" you fix, the more you move away from an MMO and towards a single-player (or small-group multiplayer - whatever) game. For some people, single-player games (or tabletop games for that matter) that back up stories like this with persistence are categorically better games, others are able to get past it. That all has very little to do with the quality of the story or the quality of the role-playing, though i do agree that his argument is flawed.
CRPGs (MMO or otherwise) are a long way from allowing the variety of choices and interactions that would allow them to rival a tabletop game. The role-playing in a CRPG will never be as deep as it has the potential to be in a tabletop game until this limitation is overcome. I don't see how the persistence issue could ever be resolved.
It's not possible have the kind of persistence you seem to want in an MMORPG. It's a practical limitation that is unavoidable.
It's like saying your home D&D game sucks because i can't play it from my house whenever i want with as many friends and/or strangers as feel like playing at any given moment.
Tabletop games and MMOs are different beasts - if you can't accept the abstractions and suspensions of disbelief one of them requires, then that just means you're not cut out for that kind of game, it doesn't make one inherently superior or inferior.
If your house isn't designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, does that make it ok for me to come and piss on it?
Off-topic pedantry is off-topic pedantry whether it's posted in a trivial discussion or an important* one. What makes you think your english lesson is more important than D&D?
*Has there ever been a discussion on/. that really could be called "important"?
Levels are an abstract character advancement system that make balancing and progression easier to handle. They might be unrealistic, but they're not by nature "dumb". There's enough suspension of disbelief going on in most RPGs that to pick out level-based advancement as more absurd than anything else is silly.
You can certainly point to good reason for using other systems of advancement, but most of those have more balancing issues and may be just as unrealistic when people start min-maxing. Once again, it comes down to the player/GM more than the system.
While WoW and D&D are really different experiences and i look for different types of fun from each, the reason i play so much more WoW than D&D (or any RPG for that matter) is because every time i log into WoW i know pretty much what i'm getting and i enjoy that. I've been playing RPGs long enough to have experienced my fill of bad GMs, bad players, and just plain bad games, and i'm sick of it.
I know that when i get into a crappy PUG in WoW, i'm still going to achieve a few basic things, and i have much less invested in the experience. Getting a D&D game together involves much more planning and it sucks that much more when it's a bad game for whatever reason.
I've always said that the quality of an RPG is 90% about the GM and the players and only 10% about the system. WoW reduces the ability of a single crappy player to have such a large negative impact on your game. That also limits their ability to have a positive impact, but given the huge ratio of asshats to cool people, it's a trade-off that i'm very comfortable with.
Interesting that you should say that about turning XP into Magic items. One of their stated goals in taking away the mgic item creation system is to make it more rare. The 4.0 version will allow you to make items but it will (from what i've read so far) go back to the old DM-adjudicated system where you have to gather rare components and discover the proper rituals instead of the current version which is just spend gold, spend XP, fast forward through the time it takes and presto!
I don't know how that will play out in the end though, because common magic items is a logical result in high-magic fantasy, and D&D strictly by the books is very high-magic fantasy. Sure, you can shoehorn it into a lower-magic setting, but that's not really its strength. Monte Cook's Ptolus and Eberron are the epitome of what the D&D 3.x system implies. Maybe 4.x will be different, but i doubt it.
I'm a Wheel of Time fan, but don't bother going all the way on unless/until you hear the series has been concluded. Book 4 is the best of the bunch. They go steadily downhill after that. 8-10 were particularly bad, but 11 was a little better.
My advice: ready 5 and 6, then read the chapter summaries at wotmania.com (http://wotmania.com/chaptersummaries.asp) and if any of those pique your interest, read those chapters of the books.
He defeated Voldemort with Expelliarmus. He defeated Voldemort because he had a better understanding of wand lore. He knew how the Elder Wand would behave because he had discussed it with Ollivander and others. Expelliarmus was just the final flourish.
Well...i'm a member of the slashdot community and it's of interest to me. I'm pretty sure a few of the people who wrote some of the hundreds of other comments are interested as well.
FYI, the generally accepted practice is to ignore things that don't interest you, not to enter into a discussion about them.
Slashdot Mirror
Levels 1-20 are really training levels. They start you off with a few basic skills and quickly add more. Even so, combat vs. single npc opponents is rarely going to provide a skill challenge. It's more about figuring out the best combo of abilities than about clicking fast or aiming.
Sounds like you started with an orc or troll - Durotar and the Barrens are two of the least interesting areas in the game imo. If you're set on horde, you might find the Tauren, Forsaken, or Blood Elf starting areas to be much more appealing, otherwise you might try making an Alliance character - their areas seem more polished at low levels.
The fact that the experience changed so much during the last week of beta should be a big red flag in and of itself.
I have no direct experience with the game, but that sets off big alarm bells in my software developer brain.
I don't like MMO PvP. I engage in it regularly with WoW, but the overall experience (even in Arenas - their supposedly pinnacle PvP platform) doesn't begin to compare to a shooter like TF2.
World PvP is just a litany of annoyances - rez timers, corpse campers, ganking, etc. Why bother?
"We only hurt the ones we love."
MyTunes vs. iTunes - who will emerge victorious? Just as long as my downloads stay cheap and it plays nice with my music player of choice, i don't really care.
Brandon Sanderson's "Mistborn" is a good read and might be of particular interest to Wheel of Time fans since he's the guy who's going to be finishing off that series. I really liked his magic and the action scenes involving it are fun.
Amazing gameplay and humor aside, no other game has dug so deeply into the collective geek consciousness and spawned so many memes.
Weighted Companion Cube
The cake is a lie!
This was a triumph!
etc.
I don't think he was money-grubbing or stretching it on purpose. I just think he had a good story, but more ego than talent.
Still, i would like to know how it ends and i feel sorry for his family.
In that specific case though, he's not claiming more. The story is exactly as he describes it, it just requires the player to suspend disbelief and accept that even though the Defias are still walking around and you can go back and slaughter Van Cleef over and over again, as far as your personal story within the game goes, the Defias threat has been ended once and for all. The fact that you can return to the elements of the story are just a part of the MMO system.
It's not a flaw in his argument. Perhaps it could be called a flaw in the system, but the more of these "flaws" you fix, the more you move away from an MMO and towards a single-player (or small-group multiplayer - whatever) game. For some people, single-player games (or tabletop games for that matter) that back up stories like this with persistence are categorically better games, others are able to get past it. That all has very little to do with the quality of the story or the quality of the role-playing, though i do agree that his argument is flawed.
CRPGs (MMO or otherwise) are a long way from allowing the variety of choices and interactions that would allow them to rival a tabletop game. The role-playing in a CRPG will never be as deep as it has the potential to be in a tabletop game until this limitation is overcome. I don't see how the persistence issue could ever be resolved.
The topic is not grammar, therefore a discussion of proper grammar is indeed off-topic.
Now go get some cofee and bring me some while you're at it!
It's not possible have the kind of persistence you seem to want in an MMORPG. It's a practical limitation that is unavoidable.
It's like saying your home D&D game sucks because i can't play it from my house whenever i want with as many friends and/or strangers as feel like playing at any given moment.
Tabletop games and MMOs are different beasts - if you can't accept the abstractions and suspensions of disbelief one of them requires, then that just means you're not cut out for that kind of game, it doesn't make one inherently superior or inferior.
...and while we're at it, why do you love gravy so much?
If your house isn't designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, does that make it ok for me to come and piss on it?
/. that really could be called "important"?
Off-topic pedantry is off-topic pedantry whether it's posted in a trivial discussion or an important* one. What makes you think your english lesson is more important than D&D?
*Has there ever been a discussion on
Pedanting adds nothing to discussions.
Levels are an abstract character advancement system that make balancing and progression easier to handle. They might be unrealistic, but they're not by nature "dumb". There's enough suspension of disbelief going on in most RPGs that to pick out level-based advancement as more absurd than anything else is silly.
You can certainly point to good reason for using other systems of advancement, but most of those have more balancing issues and may be just as unrealistic when people start min-maxing. Once again, it comes down to the player/GM more than the system.
This really needs +5 insightful.
While WoW and D&D are really different experiences and i look for different types of fun from each, the reason i play so much more WoW than D&D (or any RPG for that matter) is because every time i log into WoW i know pretty much what i'm getting and i enjoy that. I've been playing RPGs long enough to have experienced my fill of bad GMs, bad players, and just plain bad games, and i'm sick of it.
I know that when i get into a crappy PUG in WoW, i'm still going to achieve a few basic things, and i have much less invested in the experience. Getting a D&D game together involves much more planning and it sucks that much more when it's a bad game for whatever reason.
I've always said that the quality of an RPG is 90% about the GM and the players and only 10% about the system. WoW reduces the ability of a single crappy player to have such a large negative impact on your game. That also limits their ability to have a positive impact, but given the huge ratio of asshats to cool people, it's a trade-off that i'm very comfortable with.
Interesting that you should say that about turning XP into Magic items. One of their stated goals in taking away the mgic item creation system is to make it more rare. The 4.0 version will allow you to make items but it will (from what i've read so far) go back to the old DM-adjudicated system where you have to gather rare components and discover the proper rituals instead of the current version which is just spend gold, spend XP, fast forward through the time it takes and presto!
I don't know how that will play out in the end though, because common magic items is a logical result in high-magic fantasy, and D&D strictly by the books is very high-magic fantasy. Sure, you can shoehorn it into a lower-magic setting, but that's not really its strength. Monte Cook's Ptolus and Eberron are the epitome of what the D&D 3.x system implies. Maybe 4.x will be different, but i doubt it.
This is one of those fights, where even if you win you lose. A Pyrrhic victory for sure.
Given how badly she originally wanted to be a witch, i would have pegged Petunia for this one, but obviously that didn't happen either. Sad.
I'm a Wheel of Time fan, but don't bother going all the way on unless/until you hear the series has been concluded. Book 4 is the best of the bunch. They go steadily downhill after that. 8-10 were particularly bad, but 11 was a little better.
My advice: ready 5 and 6, then read the chapter summaries at wotmania.com (http://wotmania.com/chaptersummaries.asp) and if any of those pique your interest, read those chapters of the books.
Umm...series of tubes?
Well...i'm a member of the slashdot community and it's of interest to me. I'm pretty sure a few of the people who wrote some of the hundreds of other comments are interested as well.
FYI, the generally accepted practice is to ignore things that don't interest you, not to enter into a discussion about them.