When I was 18 I did a school project, called simply "project". It's something most kids get to do in swedish schools around that age (usually the last year of what we called the Gymnaisum, approximately corresponding to College)). What the project is to be about is decided by the school, and depending on what kind of school you go to, it can be about anything really. My school was kind enough to allow me to write about anything I wanted because the point of the project was not so much the result, as the possibility to experience and learn the scientific method. To decide for a subject, narrow it down (you always have to narrow it down), collect relevant data and gather it into a result that is interesting and has a point. I had a class mate who did a dance show. I decided to write an essay on a subject that really intrigued me - games. More specifically, I wrote a nearly 70 page long essay on the question as to how Nintendo managed to throw a basic monopoly of the console gaming market into the gutter. My text was in large based on the great book Game Over by David Sheff, a book I really recommend by the way if you're into these kind of things. The answer to my question was simpler than I had thought.
Why did Nintendo lose their console gaming market monopoly? Self-confidence. The belief that the company ruled the interests of the gamers, and not the other way around. I won't give you an entire background history on Nintendo, suffice to say they've done a bunch of things before they decided to try out the gaming market. The former CEO of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi, was in many ways a pure genious when it came to following his intuition and deciding what would work and what wouldn't. But that is all in the book. To grasp the control Nintendo had on the market, you need some quick information about how and what Nintendo could do during their heights (which lasted somewhere between 85-95). To get a license to create games to the Famicom (as the NES is originall called) companies had to agree to terms that shocked most people, like a royalty of about 20% of all sales, and payment for each cartridge created in advance. That way Nintendo would make loads of money even if the game never sold. But Yamauchi just told them that no one forced them to get a license, and if they wanted one they had to agree to the terms. In most cases, getting a license for Famicom games still quadrupled the annual income of a company. Companies that couldn't afford it tried to create their own, un-licensed cartridges. Nintendo didn't look kindly to those companies and forbade any magazines who wrote about Nintendo games to also write about un-licensed games or publish their advertisements. The Nintendo magazines were officially independent but because they completely relied on information provided by them by Nintendo, they obliged. This example is just a drop in the ocean of the close to despotic way that Nintendo ran the market.
But then something happened. Actually, a lot of things happened. If you're not interested in this run down and want to cut to the chase of this post, you can skip this part. This is of course a wrap up and not the whole truth. Like I said, if you want to know it all, read the book!
In 1986, Nintendo started a collaboration with Sony in which they were going to build "the next big console". It was going to upgrade the Snes with a CD-rom, and it was going to be awesome in every way. No one doubted that since Nintendo had basically revolutionized the market with both their NES (Famicom) and their SNES and had games that just were in another league of other game consoles such as the Amiga. Sony were basically done with the console, when Nintendo pulled out. Sony didn't agree to some of the terms that Nintendo had asked for, so Nintendo decided to accept a collaboration with Phillips instead, who offered a lot better terms (ie, agreed to Nintendos without much question). Sony announced that they would release their gaming console anyway, since it was pretty much done. Most gaming magazines, which wrote 99% about Nintendo games, mockingly wrote that it would be really interesting to see how the gaming console that Nintendo had declined to produce would turn out to make it on the market, especially with Nintendo themselves as the competitor. Needless to say, no one thought Sonys new console, named Playstation, would make it very far. Especially not Nintendo.
Around that time, Nintendo only had one really big comptetitor, which was Sega. Nintendo were still Goliath against Segas David, but Sega had a small but strong fan base which shouldn't be ignored. Initially, Sega really didn't have much to put against Nintendo. There are plenty of awesome games to the Master System, but the sales never even came close to the ones of Nintendo. Not to mention that Nintendo had loads of really big games - Zelda, Mario, Metroid to mention a few - where Sega basically only had Sonic. Nintendo couldn't care less about what Sega did, just as they couldn't care less about what Sony did. They still had 95% of the market.
In 1992 was Mortal Kombat released to both the SNES and the Mega Drive. Sega allowed Midway to do their game just as they wanted, whereas Nintendo decided that they didn't want all that blood thrown around. Games were for children, and children weren't supposed to see that kind of stuff they argued. This is where Sega made the first move that would soon spell Nintendos downfall, because Sega had understood something Nintendo hadn't. Markets change. It had gone 10 years since Nintendo really entered the scene and made video games a thing for common people. That also meant that all the people who had started out with the NES and who really loved video gaming were 10 years older now. They would've gone from being children to being teenagers. Teenagers who liked violence and blood and who didn't like other people telling them what they could and couldn't watch. SEGA knew to exploit this Nintendo mistake immediately. They launched the rumours that described the Nintendo console as a "console for children" and if gamers wanted "real games" they had to play SEGAS consoles. The players agreed. Nintendo had no right to censor games for them and they started jumping ship. Because Nintendo really did think their gamer base was mostly made up of 6-10 year olds as it had been during their glory days, they continued to make games aimed at those children. When the Nintendo 64 was released most people agreed - the games were mainly designed to fit children. If you wanted grown up games, you had to go somewhere else. Nintendo never really managed to wash this brand away, and I remember how I had defend my Nintendo 64 to people who were dead set that there was nothing to play on it but games for small children.
Sony released their Playstation just after the SNES and some years before the Nintendo 64, and managed, miraculously really, to launch some great games to it like Final Fantasy. Somehow Sony had convinced Square to take the next part of their big seller series Final Fantasy to their console instead of Nintendos next console. Actually, it wasn't very difficult to understand why. Sony offered Square free hands and the new technology of the cd, which allowed Square to not only do exactly the game they wanted, but also to include butt loads of awesome 3d cut scenes, something they had been wanting to do for a long time. To most game designers it was like getting their hands untied, to be able to create a game exactly like they wanted to and without being buried under a mountain of terms and regulations. Nintendo didn't believe in the cd system, and the Nintendo 64 was therefor yet again played with cartridges. In a combination of Nintendo turning down games they thought were too violent, and game developers themselves preferring the free hands they were offered at the competitors, more and more great games showed up on other consoles than Nintendos. Suddenly, the game series that had been Nintendos great strength - Zelda, Mario and Metroid as mentioned, were also all that Nintendo had left that interested people.
Instead of reacting to the threat that Playstation turned out to be, Nintendo took their time with the Nintendo 64, just as they had done with the SNES. They "knew" that no one really cared about the Playstation and weren't worried that it would completely repaint the market while Nintendo were absent working on their next, big thing. In reality, this is exactly what happened. When Nintendo 64 finally was released, 2 years after the Playstation, Sony had been able to deal a fatal blow to Nintendo and shown everyone that their position on the throne wasn't set in stone. The Nintendo 64 had to be pretty dang awesome to be able to battle the damage the Playstation had done, but people were deeply disappointed.
Nintendo were staggering under the pressure of not being able to make the Nintendo 64 as interesting as the Playstation. That is when the final blow came. Sony released the Playstation 2, and it was compatible with every game to the Playstation. People were flabbergasted. Why had this never been the case before? Why couldn't people play their NES and SNES games on their N64? Since the games is what really makes the money, Nintendo had always argued that there was no reason to make a new console if people only played the old games. People had to buy the new games. Sony, ready to do anything that would please the player public, decided that using this could be a winning strategy, and it worked. Suddenly everyone realized that there was no reason to buy any other console than the Playstation 2. The library of games available to it was just unbeatable, and Sony managed to grab not only veteran gamers, but just about any parent who tried to decide which console to buy their kid for christmas. Just about anyone who decided whether to buy the Playstation 2 or another console inevitably decided for the former making the Playstation 2 the best selling console to date. Nintendo had by then lost basically the entire market to Sony, and noticed it of course. They desperately tried to save a sinking ship, releasing the Gamecube just shortly after the Playstation 2 and having accepted the cd-system (although not a regular one). But it was too late. The Gamecube wasn't backwards compatible either and Nintendo had been firmly branded the "childrens games"-company. Everyone were sure Nintendo would go the same path that Sega had done, closing down their console development and focusing solely on producing games.
Nintendo were down for the round, but definitely not for the match. They managed to get back to the arena because they learned from their mistakes and because Sony didn't. A new competitor came on the scene - the Xbox. The Xbox had one triumphant card - an enourmous economical backing, which would allow them to survive the first years of horror that were needed for them to be able to launch, make people interested, and have them stick, before they were out of money. This is something many mmorpgs recently launched have lacked. To be able to get a foothold in the fierce competition, you have to have the money to be able to go with negative figures for years until you've found enough of a player base to keep you afloat. Initially, Xbox's were sold for less than production cost, just to catch peoples interest. This was something Microsoft could do and they knew how to use it to their full advantage. Nintendo went down with the Gamecube, licked their wounds and made a full blown retort with the Wii. They looked back at their mistakes and figured how to best be able to learn from them and use that knowledge to their advantage. Sony and Sega had been able to get their foothold by pleasing the new adult gamer market. Nintendo decided that they too had to find a new market, previously untapped. They found the non-gamer. Everyone should be able to play games, even people who never played games. With the Wii, they definitely managed to make a come back through these non-gamers. Nintendo had also realized the power in backwards compatibility, and made the Gamecube games compatible with the Wii.
Sony on the other hand, went and made the very same mistakes that Nintendo had done. They decided to keep the launch of their console up to a year after the new Xbox 360 was launched, as did Nintendo with their Wii. Problem was they thought it would suffice to simply launch a better version of the same old. The key is to either launch your system first, or to launch something different (and still good) enough for it to be more interesting than the one that came first. Playstation 3 was neither. But that wasn't the only mistake. Sony too thought they had their player base in a firm grip and that basically nothing could get the players to prefer another console over theirs. After all, they had ruled the market for some 10 years (deja vu anyone?). They decided to not make the new console backwards compatible, and it was also by far the priciest console of the 7th generation. Sony had become too sure of themselves, and basically recreated the very same mistakes that had spelled Nintendos downfall.
Whenever I see how a big company loses market shares, it's often preceded by decisions as the above. The company decides that they have nothing to learn from their own market, that instead the market should adapt to their needs, which usually haves the market travel over to the competitor instead. It's war out there, and if you get too sure of yourself, you will be shot down.
The reason for this rather lengthy post (beside that it is an interesting subject) is that I have been monitoring the decisions of Blizzard, and especially their responses to other mmorpg launches, very closely. They could've easily made the same mistakes as Nintendo (and Sony, and loads of other companies), become too sure of their own greatness and lost market shares because they didn't listen to their market needs. When Activision bought Blizzard, I was very afraid this is what would happen. But I must hand it to them, they have been really good at listening to the players and trying to find a good way to mediate between their visions and the players needs, handing out just enough sparkly ponies for us to stick around and for new players to choose them over the competitors. One great example of Blizzards plasticity is how they have incorporated various addons into their own UI over the years. What better way to acknowledge a player need? Overall Blizzard have been really active in their responses to competitor launches, having some interesting content of their own ready to keep their players interest and most importantly show them that they really care for us (and our money) and don't take us for granted. With the competition growing ever harder however, the margin for error becomes smaller and smaller. In the end, one delayed patch could spell the beginning of the end, and I will continue to watch the process of things to see how they unfurl in the future. It will be very interesting indeed.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Call To Arms - Adressing the right issue in the wrong way
Of course I am going to have to jump on the train and talk about the new Call to Arms change. Even though I said I was going to slow down my posting and not post anything today, it is difficult not to mention some thoughts about a bomb like this. I will admit, when I first read it I had to check the date it was posted to make sure that it wasn't yet another april fools joke. And then I couldn't quite decide whether I thought it was a good or bad idea.
The bloggosphere basically exploded upon these news in a way I've rarely seen any other kind of information affect us players. Maybe because it really affects us all, and not just a specific class, and because most of us didn't really agree with how Blizzard had decided to "solve" this. Here is a wrap up of a couple of posts on it that I thought were interesting.
Pradzha at Piercing Shots thinks this actually is a good idea (the only one I've found who thinks so). He argues that if it would interest bad tanks, then why wouldn't it interest good tanks?
Orvillus, guest posting at Oh my Kurenai says that this "solution" doesn't actually solve the existing problems with tanking, that of tanking being a rather tedious and ungrateful job. It only makes something most people think is too horrible to do slightly more worth it, but not necessarily more fun.
Rohan at Blessing Of Kings compares to Age of Conan where you actually use two tanks. By sharing the responsibility between two people it actually made the role more fun to play, and finding tanks in AoC was way less of a problem than it generally is in these kind of games.
Ohken of Shifting Nature also thinks that what the tanks really need is less responsibility or an easier way of tanking.
Rhidach of Righteous Defense means that this won't have him tank more instances, because the problem isn't (as mentioned) that it isn't rewarding enough, but that it isn't fun enough.
Jar of Rank 4 Healing Touch also talks about what makes people want to, and not want to tank today, mentioning gratification and responsibility as many others, and whether this really could solve that problem.
Ironyca over at Ironyca Stood In The Fire gives us a wrap up of the history of the lfd-system and shows us that it is pretty much covered in Band Aid solutions by now, this is just another one in the heap.
Mhorgrim at the Rusty Blades says that what the lfd-system really needs is some common decency between players. Does it really have to be too much to ask for?
I am a really nice person, believe it or not. I always have a hard time complaining at something someone does when I feel like they're at least trying. Whenever I do random pugs with Love and someone in the pug is just miserably bad, I always say "nah, leave him be. He's at least trying". Honestly. Trying their best is all I ask from people, as long as it still gets the job done. I don't care if I am boosting them, if they're nice I will leave them be and maybe give them some pointers on how they can improve. So in a way I feel the same thing about this. Blizzard are trying, and I just feel bad when I have to say - I am glad you're trying, but it's not the right way to go Blizzard.
So what is the problem? There are too few tanks. As Rohan pointed out, that is an issue in nearly every holy trinity based mmorpg. But why? Why does no one want to tank? I wrote a post about it a couple of weeks ago. The conclusion I had is the same as many others - tanking is too much responsibility and not enough gratefulness. Alot of responsibility doesn't have to be a problem, if it wasn't for the constant whining you get thrown at you. Ungratefulness doesn't have to be a problem either, if you didn't have to bust your ass off to get it. To sum it up tanking often feels like a job. This is coming from someone who has played 3 prot warriors to max level because I sincerely love tanking. I still prefer to level prot warriors because of the fun of tanking. I enjoy tanking with my dk and paladin too (my druid not so much). But there is no denying that it is alot more trouble tanking an instance, than it is to dps or to heal it. That is part of why I enjoy it so much. When the challenge has gone out of healing and dpsing heroics, the challenge of tanking them will always be there. Because you are fighting the players rather than the mobs, it never becomes easier (not when compared to healing or dpsing). I don't say this to whine about it - like I say, I enjoy it. But it is still something that scares most people off. And it is a fine balance. Even though I love tanking it only takes a particularly annoying ass hat for me to drop off. He is not worth my time or effort.
These issues have limited the people interested in joining the lfg-queue for tanking to two types of players;
Either you have the people who really enjoy tanking. I used to be one of them. Back in Wrath I always did at least one heroic on all of my tanks, just because I really enjoyed tanking. The same with early Cataclysm. Recently, the fun of tanking has gone out of me somewhat, especially warrior tanking.
The other group are those people who have the choice between going as a tank or healer/dps, can't be arsed to wait and go as tank just to get it over with. To them, the instant queue is incentive enough. I belong in part to this group as well. A big reason that I love tanking so much, is because I can just log onto WoW and get an instant instance. I don't have to wait around, it's there whenever I feel like it. If I have the option to tank on a char, I nearly always choose that option (except on my druid), just because I don't want to wait, and I don't mind tanking.
So who will the new system lure in? The people who already tank because they enjoy it will get a bonus. But will it have arms warriors decide to polish their prot spec enough to give it a go? Will it have resto druids get their bear gear in shape? Maybe, but I doubt that it will be enough. For those people to whom the instant queue isn't enough of an incentive already, for all those people who right now prefer to wait 20 minutes in queue over having to tank even though they could, I don't think that these rewards will be enough either. I know it wouldn't be for me. Because most people prefer the wait time only if they really hate to tank, or don't have the option to. Since the satchel is BoA I can only see that it could encourage some people to dust off that alt tank they have laying around. The positive thing I see in this is that it might be incentive enough for people to actually try out tanking at all. But it might not have them stick around with it since it's still not adressing the right problem - the fun (or lack thereof) of tanking.
Personally I'm rather going to look at this as confirmation about the fact that I am doing the tougher job in the group. I really don't think that tanks get enough recognition as it is right now, and I could tell you horror stories about how dpsers treat you like dirt under their nails just because you weren't doing the run exactly like they wanted to, even though the bastards have waited 20 minutes for you to join the queue. Yes, tanking has made me bitter. Tanking is extremely ungrateful, and in most random pugs you're not lucky enough to end up with 4 people who won't try to make your tanking experience miserable. I might sound cynical, but that is the sad truth. I won't decide to tank more because of this, simply because mounts/pets and other stuff like it rarely has been much of an incentive to me overall. To some people it might be, question is if it will be the right people. I might decide to tank on my paladin instead of heal, even though I feel more like healing, and I'm not sure that's right either. Blizzard recently changed the way dailies worked because you never should have to do something you don't feel like just to get the full reward. I know it's up to me in the end, but it still feels wrong that Blizzard hangs a goodie bag in front of my eyes and says "do the boring thing and you get this". Couldn't they try to make the boring thing more fun instead? Mhorgrim is absolutely right, tanking would be no trouble at all if people just had a little more patience with eachother. Unfortunately that seems as possible as asking a pig to fly. A possible solution could definitely be what Rohan suggests, in getting tanks to share the responsibility with another tank, kind of like how it works in a raid environment. It would require a complete redesign of the instancing system, but why not?
Maybe this shouldn't be seen as an incentive to join the instance as much as a "thank you" for doing the job no one else wants to do, but that everyone needs. When I do decide to tank, I will definitely feel like I've deserved those extra goodies at the end of the instance.
The bloggosphere basically exploded upon these news in a way I've rarely seen any other kind of information affect us players. Maybe because it really affects us all, and not just a specific class, and because most of us didn't really agree with how Blizzard had decided to "solve" this. Here is a wrap up of a couple of posts on it that I thought were interesting.
Pradzha at Piercing Shots thinks this actually is a good idea (the only one I've found who thinks so). He argues that if it would interest bad tanks, then why wouldn't it interest good tanks?
Orvillus, guest posting at Oh my Kurenai says that this "solution" doesn't actually solve the existing problems with tanking, that of tanking being a rather tedious and ungrateful job. It only makes something most people think is too horrible to do slightly more worth it, but not necessarily more fun.
Rohan at Blessing Of Kings compares to Age of Conan where you actually use two tanks. By sharing the responsibility between two people it actually made the role more fun to play, and finding tanks in AoC was way less of a problem than it generally is in these kind of games.
Ohken of Shifting Nature also thinks that what the tanks really need is less responsibility or an easier way of tanking.
Rhidach of Righteous Defense means that this won't have him tank more instances, because the problem isn't (as mentioned) that it isn't rewarding enough, but that it isn't fun enough.
Jar of Rank 4 Healing Touch also talks about what makes people want to, and not want to tank today, mentioning gratification and responsibility as many others, and whether this really could solve that problem.
Ironyca over at Ironyca Stood In The Fire gives us a wrap up of the history of the lfd-system and shows us that it is pretty much covered in Band Aid solutions by now, this is just another one in the heap.
Mhorgrim at the Rusty Blades says that what the lfd-system really needs is some common decency between players. Does it really have to be too much to ask for?
I am a really nice person, believe it or not. I always have a hard time complaining at something someone does when I feel like they're at least trying. Whenever I do random pugs with Love and someone in the pug is just miserably bad, I always say "nah, leave him be. He's at least trying". Honestly. Trying their best is all I ask from people, as long as it still gets the job done. I don't care if I am boosting them, if they're nice I will leave them be and maybe give them some pointers on how they can improve. So in a way I feel the same thing about this. Blizzard are trying, and I just feel bad when I have to say - I am glad you're trying, but it's not the right way to go Blizzard.
So what is the problem? There are too few tanks. As Rohan pointed out, that is an issue in nearly every holy trinity based mmorpg. But why? Why does no one want to tank? I wrote a post about it a couple of weeks ago. The conclusion I had is the same as many others - tanking is too much responsibility and not enough gratefulness. Alot of responsibility doesn't have to be a problem, if it wasn't for the constant whining you get thrown at you. Ungratefulness doesn't have to be a problem either, if you didn't have to bust your ass off to get it. To sum it up tanking often feels like a job. This is coming from someone who has played 3 prot warriors to max level because I sincerely love tanking. I still prefer to level prot warriors because of the fun of tanking. I enjoy tanking with my dk and paladin too (my druid not so much). But there is no denying that it is alot more trouble tanking an instance, than it is to dps or to heal it. That is part of why I enjoy it so much. When the challenge has gone out of healing and dpsing heroics, the challenge of tanking them will always be there. Because you are fighting the players rather than the mobs, it never becomes easier (not when compared to healing or dpsing). I don't say this to whine about it - like I say, I enjoy it. But it is still something that scares most people off. And it is a fine balance. Even though I love tanking it only takes a particularly annoying ass hat for me to drop off. He is not worth my time or effort.
These issues have limited the people interested in joining the lfg-queue for tanking to two types of players;
Either you have the people who really enjoy tanking. I used to be one of them. Back in Wrath I always did at least one heroic on all of my tanks, just because I really enjoyed tanking. The same with early Cataclysm. Recently, the fun of tanking has gone out of me somewhat, especially warrior tanking.
The other group are those people who have the choice between going as a tank or healer/dps, can't be arsed to wait and go as tank just to get it over with. To them, the instant queue is incentive enough. I belong in part to this group as well. A big reason that I love tanking so much, is because I can just log onto WoW and get an instant instance. I don't have to wait around, it's there whenever I feel like it. If I have the option to tank on a char, I nearly always choose that option (except on my druid), just because I don't want to wait, and I don't mind tanking.
So who will the new system lure in? The people who already tank because they enjoy it will get a bonus. But will it have arms warriors decide to polish their prot spec enough to give it a go? Will it have resto druids get their bear gear in shape? Maybe, but I doubt that it will be enough. For those people to whom the instant queue isn't enough of an incentive already, for all those people who right now prefer to wait 20 minutes in queue over having to tank even though they could, I don't think that these rewards will be enough either. I know it wouldn't be for me. Because most people prefer the wait time only if they really hate to tank, or don't have the option to. Since the satchel is BoA I can only see that it could encourage some people to dust off that alt tank they have laying around. The positive thing I see in this is that it might be incentive enough for people to actually try out tanking at all. But it might not have them stick around with it since it's still not adressing the right problem - the fun (or lack thereof) of tanking.
Personally I'm rather going to look at this as confirmation about the fact that I am doing the tougher job in the group. I really don't think that tanks get enough recognition as it is right now, and I could tell you horror stories about how dpsers treat you like dirt under their nails just because you weren't doing the run exactly like they wanted to, even though the bastards have waited 20 minutes for you to join the queue. Yes, tanking has made me bitter. Tanking is extremely ungrateful, and in most random pugs you're not lucky enough to end up with 4 people who won't try to make your tanking experience miserable. I might sound cynical, but that is the sad truth. I won't decide to tank more because of this, simply because mounts/pets and other stuff like it rarely has been much of an incentive to me overall. To some people it might be, question is if it will be the right people. I might decide to tank on my paladin instead of heal, even though I feel more like healing, and I'm not sure that's right either. Blizzard recently changed the way dailies worked because you never should have to do something you don't feel like just to get the full reward. I know it's up to me in the end, but it still feels wrong that Blizzard hangs a goodie bag in front of my eyes and says "do the boring thing and you get this". Couldn't they try to make the boring thing more fun instead? Mhorgrim is absolutely right, tanking would be no trouble at all if people just had a little more patience with eachother. Unfortunately that seems as possible as asking a pig to fly. A possible solution could definitely be what Rohan suggests, in getting tanks to share the responsibility with another tank, kind of like how it works in a raid environment. It would require a complete redesign of the instancing system, but why not?
Maybe this shouldn't be seen as an incentive to join the instance as much as a "thank you" for doing the job no one else wants to do, but that everyone needs. When I do decide to tank, I will definitely feel like I've deserved those extra goodies at the end of the instance.
Friday, April 8, 2011
500 posts - Time for the next step of writing
500 posts! Wow... it feels freaky really. I remember when I was happy about my first 100 posts, when I was happy about my first 1000 pageviews and when I choked on my morning tea when I saw I was being featured on Wowinsider (it still has that effect on me). I want to thank everyone who has been with me on this journey, which I have loved since the day it started. I would also want to take this opportunity to make some changes. But first I would like to tell you all a boring fascinating story about me and my writing.
I've loved writing my whole life. I started writing stories before I could even write. I've got a couple of old note books filled with just doodles, where I thought up stories in my head and pretended to write them down. My first readable story was written when I was 5 years old. My mom helped me out, and wrote down what I told her. It was a story about a lost princess called "Sitas Adventure". My joy for writing started there somewhere, and has continued throughout the years. I wrote a diary from 8-17 (ish, don't remember exactly) and I still jot down random thoughts whenever they pop into my head. I've written my fair share of horrible poetry. I've written butt loads of short stories, and started a couple of novels throughout the years. And here we have a blog which consisted of 500 pages worth of text last time I counted (which was october last year), by now probably close to 1000. Needless to say, I really like to write.
When I first started out writing this blog, I made a post every now and then, with months inbetween. I had initially thought it would be a pure WoW-related blog, but hadn't really figured what to write about, and how. Then one day in november 2009 I decided I wanted to give my blog a real go. My fingers were itching to write and I had loads of things to write about. I decided that my blog would be about just about anything that popped into my head, not limiting myself to WoW. It turns out it is 95% about WoW, but some other stuff sneaks in occasionally. To avoid getting into the trap of not posting for weeks at a time again, I decided to make myself a challenge. Would I be able to post one post each day for the next coming months?
At first I thought it was a crazy idea. Not only would the work load be rather high, would I be able to come up with enough interesting things to write about? I also thought that by replacing my posts each day, I wouldn't give each post a fair chance to be read. But I disregarded my own warnings. This blog was for me - it really didn't matter if people read it or not (and for the first 6 months, basically no one did). I wanted to see if I had it in me to produce all that writing, and if I could have fun while doing it.
It turned out to be easier than I thought. I quickly learned how to plan ahead with posts and to queue them up, allowing me to write plenty of posts one day and none the next. Initially I wrote one post each day, which gave little margin for those days where there just isn't time to put 1-2 hours into a post. By planning ahead I could take the time to do longer posts, and do more research for a post if I wanted to. The first couple of months just flew by. I decided to keep it up. I had no trouble whatsoever to find things to write about or time to write it. I put my next goal at keeping it up for a whole year. When that year came I evaluated the situation again - did I think I could continue my excessive writing? By then my blog had actually managed to attract some attention, and I yet again thought about the benefits about letting a post lie around for people to have the time to read it before I posted the next one. But I still had so much time to write posts on my hands, I could at times have up to 10 posts queued at once. I set my next goal at 500 posts.
And now I am here, evaluating the situation again. Has something changed? Yes, a couple of things. First of all, summer is coming up. I am planning to both take a lot of computer-less vacation and work during this summer. Last summer I also had a short break without posting, due to things like these. I am also working more overall, giving me alot less time to write my posts.
Did I overdo it? Did I lose the fun in writing? Definitely not! Quite the opposite actually. All this writing, and all the fun I've had with it and the feedback I've gotten from you guys, has given me the confidence to start up a couple of other projects, most importantly a novel which I intend to actually finish this time around. Depending on what happens with that project, I am seriously considering becoming even more of a novel writer than I already am (ok, I'm not that much of a novel writer yet). I won't be writing less, I will only divert some of my writing attention in other areas. Not to mention I've picked up a couple of other things I'd like to put more time into, like painting (well, drawing actually).
Did I run out of ideas to write about? Believe it or not, I've found that difficult to do actually. What with all the great blogs out there constantly giving me ideas to write about, and all the fun I'm still having with WoW, I've got some 15 things I could write about right now, and new ideas constantly popping up. That was never the issue and it hasn't become now either. I have less time at my disposal however, and some of it I want to place elsewhere. That is what has happened.
It is time for this blog to become a normal blog. I think for most of you this won't change much. I am probably just one of many blogs on your reader, and you'll notice whenever a new post pops up here just as with any other blog. I strongly doubt that not having a fresh Jinxed Thoughts-posts to read each morning will ruin someones day ;) This is really just the next step in my writing experiment - can I manage to continue this blog even without the incentive of posting each day? I couldn't see why not. As it is right now I intend to post a post pretty much as every other blogger does it, once or a couple of times per week or so. It wouldn't surprise me if I still was among the most frequently updated blogs that I've seen anyway, but it won't be each day!
It will feel odd to have a day without a new post on my blog tomorrow. I've been at it now for 500 days, and I've had so much fun with it. I've actually got a couple of posts ready to be posted right now, but I will intentionally hold them for a couple of days just to get into the feeling of it. Wish me luck!
I've loved writing my whole life. I started writing stories before I could even write. I've got a couple of old note books filled with just doodles, where I thought up stories in my head and pretended to write them down. My first readable story was written when I was 5 years old. My mom helped me out, and wrote down what I told her. It was a story about a lost princess called "Sitas Adventure". My joy for writing started there somewhere, and has continued throughout the years. I wrote a diary from 8-17 (ish, don't remember exactly) and I still jot down random thoughts whenever they pop into my head. I've written my fair share of horrible poetry. I've written butt loads of short stories, and started a couple of novels throughout the years. And here we have a blog which consisted of 500 pages worth of text last time I counted (which was october last year), by now probably close to 1000. Needless to say, I really like to write.
When I first started out writing this blog, I made a post every now and then, with months inbetween. I had initially thought it would be a pure WoW-related blog, but hadn't really figured what to write about, and how. Then one day in november 2009 I decided I wanted to give my blog a real go. My fingers were itching to write and I had loads of things to write about. I decided that my blog would be about just about anything that popped into my head, not limiting myself to WoW. It turns out it is 95% about WoW, but some other stuff sneaks in occasionally. To avoid getting into the trap of not posting for weeks at a time again, I decided to make myself a challenge. Would I be able to post one post each day for the next coming months?
At first I thought it was a crazy idea. Not only would the work load be rather high, would I be able to come up with enough interesting things to write about? I also thought that by replacing my posts each day, I wouldn't give each post a fair chance to be read. But I disregarded my own warnings. This blog was for me - it really didn't matter if people read it or not (and for the first 6 months, basically no one did). I wanted to see if I had it in me to produce all that writing, and if I could have fun while doing it.
It turned out to be easier than I thought. I quickly learned how to plan ahead with posts and to queue them up, allowing me to write plenty of posts one day and none the next. Initially I wrote one post each day, which gave little margin for those days where there just isn't time to put 1-2 hours into a post. By planning ahead I could take the time to do longer posts, and do more research for a post if I wanted to. The first couple of months just flew by. I decided to keep it up. I had no trouble whatsoever to find things to write about or time to write it. I put my next goal at keeping it up for a whole year. When that year came I evaluated the situation again - did I think I could continue my excessive writing? By then my blog had actually managed to attract some attention, and I yet again thought about the benefits about letting a post lie around for people to have the time to read it before I posted the next one. But I still had so much time to write posts on my hands, I could at times have up to 10 posts queued at once. I set my next goal at 500 posts.
And now I am here, evaluating the situation again. Has something changed? Yes, a couple of things. First of all, summer is coming up. I am planning to both take a lot of computer-less vacation and work during this summer. Last summer I also had a short break without posting, due to things like these. I am also working more overall, giving me alot less time to write my posts.
Did I overdo it? Did I lose the fun in writing? Definitely not! Quite the opposite actually. All this writing, and all the fun I've had with it and the feedback I've gotten from you guys, has given me the confidence to start up a couple of other projects, most importantly a novel which I intend to actually finish this time around. Depending on what happens with that project, I am seriously considering becoming even more of a novel writer than I already am (ok, I'm not that much of a novel writer yet). I won't be writing less, I will only divert some of my writing attention in other areas. Not to mention I've picked up a couple of other things I'd like to put more time into, like painting (well, drawing actually).
Did I run out of ideas to write about? Believe it or not, I've found that difficult to do actually. What with all the great blogs out there constantly giving me ideas to write about, and all the fun I'm still having with WoW, I've got some 15 things I could write about right now, and new ideas constantly popping up. That was never the issue and it hasn't become now either. I have less time at my disposal however, and some of it I want to place elsewhere. That is what has happened.
It is time for this blog to become a normal blog. I think for most of you this won't change much. I am probably just one of many blogs on your reader, and you'll notice whenever a new post pops up here just as with any other blog. I strongly doubt that not having a fresh Jinxed Thoughts-posts to read each morning will ruin someones day ;) This is really just the next step in my writing experiment - can I manage to continue this blog even without the incentive of posting each day? I couldn't see why not. As it is right now I intend to post a post pretty much as every other blogger does it, once or a couple of times per week or so. It wouldn't surprise me if I still was among the most frequently updated blogs that I've seen anyway, but it won't be each day!
It will feel odd to have a day without a new post on my blog tomorrow. I've been at it now for 500 days, and I've had so much fun with it. I've actually got a couple of posts ready to be posted right now, but I will intentionally hold them for a couple of days just to get into the feeling of it. Wish me luck!
Thursday, April 7, 2011
500 posts! What happened since last time?
Tomorrows post is my 500th, and I usually take this opportunity to check out what happened the last couple of months, since my "400 posts!" post. Part because I like strolling down memory lane and part to give old posts a chance to be seen again.
Why don't I post this tomorrow? Well, you will wait and see what I have in store for you then!
If there is something I've learned from all my blogging over the months is that there really are two types of readers; the ones that stick around and the ones that visit only temporarily. They will both equal out to be about as much pageviews in the end, but they look for rather different posts. As an example, my guides are by far the most viewed posts, on the other hand my guides rarely get many comments. What kind of posts will spark your readers interest to leave comments and questions is really difficult to predict. There are "easier" subjects to write about if what you want is a reader reaction, just pick something provocative like: "Why it is ok to ninja", "Why priests suck" or "Gemming for expertise as caster". Here are a couple of posts of mine that have either sparked peoples interest through views or comments. I like to take a look at these statistics every now and then and ponder them, because they say alot about what players in WoW are doing right now and what they feel they need help with or would like to know more about.
Top 5 Googled posts the last 3 months;
Field Report - On Divine Touch and Other Holy Talents
How To Use Holy Nova
Strength of Soul Revisited
Have Shields Become Too Good?
Archangel 101
Surge of Light vs Divine Touch
What is my goal for the next 100 posts? Well, part of it will be explained tomorrow, and for the rest I haven't got a plan, as usual. In some ways it depends alot on what happens in WoW, what I do in WoW and what I do in "real life" of course. Something I really would like to do is to include Love more into my blogging. His talk about feral druids and whatnot can make my ears bleed, and trust me, I have really tried to make him put it down in writing. But it's difficult. There are loads of great druid blogs out there, maybe he is intimidated. I am not clever enough to be ;) I would also love to be able to write more about other classes than just priests, and in some ways I am already. Although I am playing my shaman in raids and playing other alts in endgame I don't feel like I know much about them to be able to contribute anything worthwhile (which you really never should think as a blogger, there is usually always something to add to anything). Maybe the noob-view could be interesting as well? In a way, part of the fun of blogging is to not have a long term plan but to write about what interests you for the moment. I think that is what has kept me at it for all this time - writing posts I would like to read and that I therefor enjoy writing. I'm also lucky to be part of an awesome blogging community, with loads of great bloggers out there. And I find new ones every day! I hope to get to enjoy your blogs for a great while longer. Happy blogging!
Why don't I post this tomorrow? Well, you will wait and see what I have in store for you then!
If there is something I've learned from all my blogging over the months is that there really are two types of readers; the ones that stick around and the ones that visit only temporarily. They will both equal out to be about as much pageviews in the end, but they look for rather different posts. As an example, my guides are by far the most viewed posts, on the other hand my guides rarely get many comments. What kind of posts will spark your readers interest to leave comments and questions is really difficult to predict. There are "easier" subjects to write about if what you want is a reader reaction, just pick something provocative like: "Why it is ok to ninja", "Why priests suck" or "Gemming for expertise as caster". Here are a couple of posts of mine that have either sparked peoples interest through views or comments. I like to take a look at these statistics every now and then and ponder them, because they say alot about what players in WoW are doing right now and what they feel they need help with or would like to know more about.
Top 5 Googled posts the last 3 months;
- Fire Mage Guide - 4.0.6 Edition
- Cataclysm Prot Warrior Guide
- Nefarian 10 Man
- Discipline Priest 4.0 Talent Build
- Holy Priest 4.0 Talent Build
- Mystery Files - The Floating Cat Head
- Healers And Tanks Need Dummies Too
- Stop Talking About Rift Already
- The Perfect Pull
- Healing Changes - Discipline Being Nerfed (And Other Things)
Field Report - On Divine Touch and Other Holy Talents
How To Use Holy Nova
Strength of Soul Revisited
Have Shields Become Too Good?
Archangel 101
Surge of Light vs Divine Touch
What is my goal for the next 100 posts? Well, part of it will be explained tomorrow, and for the rest I haven't got a plan, as usual. In some ways it depends alot on what happens in WoW, what I do in WoW and what I do in "real life" of course. Something I really would like to do is to include Love more into my blogging. His talk about feral druids and whatnot can make my ears bleed, and trust me, I have really tried to make him put it down in writing. But it's difficult. There are loads of great druid blogs out there, maybe he is intimidated. I am not clever enough to be ;) I would also love to be able to write more about other classes than just priests, and in some ways I am already. Although I am playing my shaman in raids and playing other alts in endgame I don't feel like I know much about them to be able to contribute anything worthwhile (which you really never should think as a blogger, there is usually always something to add to anything). Maybe the noob-view could be interesting as well? In a way, part of the fun of blogging is to not have a long term plan but to write about what interests you for the moment. I think that is what has kept me at it for all this time - writing posts I would like to read and that I therefor enjoy writing. I'm also lucky to be part of an awesome blogging community, with loads of great bloggers out there. And I find new ones every day! I hope to get to enjoy your blogs for a great while longer. Happy blogging!
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Patch 4.1 - These buffs aren't good enough
A bunch of interesting patch notes have come up again, here are a few that stood out;
Instances
Various instances are being nerfed. It must be tricky for Blizzard to decide how and what to nerf, because there has to be some difficulty left to the fight or we will be back to where we were in Wrath where most classes could solo the heroic instances, making them not so heroic. On the other hand, they don't want us to continously avoid certain parts or grow tired of the instances overall just because some mechanics are so annoying. Even though I personally thought that the Ground Slam Ozruk did was challenging in a fun way, it was also quite unforgiving, and one mistake when poorly geared would lead to a wipe. I've been lucky, but I know people who've wiped some 10 times on that boss (before giving up probably), and that's just not fun when all you were looking for was a fast heroic before work. I have to shamely admit that I have jumped a couple of dungeons because I just didn't enjoy the prospect of having to run them through with people I couldn't count on getting things right, mostly Wailing Caverns. So although I'm not completely certain I like instance nerfs, I do understand why Blizzard does them.
Priest
Holy Word: Sanctuary healing done has been increased by 35%. In addition, it has a new spell effect.
Sanctuary has always been the iffiest of the different ground heals. Not only do you need to be in a certain Chakra stance to use it, it doesn't heal for very much and also has the same drawbacks as Healing Rain and Efflorescence in that you actually have to place it somewhere where people will stand, for it to be of any use at all. In a fight with alot of movement it adds a level of planning which can either be fun or not so fun, depending alot on what else there is to think about. Otherwise that can turn into some pretty badly used mana. This has made Sanctuary very situational, and I really welcome the rather big healing buff. This combined with the Chakra buff they're making might actually lure me back to holy healing again.
Death Knight
Desecration no longer triggers when an applicable strike hits a snare-immune target. This is primarily to avoid unnecessary spell effect clutter during boss encounters.
I remember having one hell of a time when tanking Commander Springvale in SFK, having an unholy dk dpsing. It was completely impossible to distinguish between his Desecration and that of the boss which made me pretty glad that I use DBM even for instances. I am glad they are fixing this, but I think they could've taken it even further, making the overall spell effect less noticeable. They don't have to remove the funny looking hands, but the rest feels less necessary for people to get the hint.
Shamans
Cleansing Waters now has a 6-second internal cooldown.
I'm not sure if The Cleansing Waters talent made the shaman dispel OP from other classes dispels. Their dispel is the cheapest of the bunch (well, equally cheap as the paladin one actually), and it also heals people. Priests can glyph their dispel to heal as well, and then it actually heals for more than Cleansing Waters and scales better with gear. The differences aren't gamebreakingly huge, and they never bothered me. I usually thought the shaman dispel was slightly better than everyone elses, but by a margin. With this change, I suppose the glyphed priest dispel will jump up to first position. Put on dispel duty again...
Druid
Nature's Swiftness now also increases the healing done by th eaffected nature spell by 50%.
All buffs are buffs. With that being said, I'm not sure what Blizzard wants us to think about this? The reason druids (and shamans) don't like NS today, is because it's a pretty shitty 3 min cd (shamans have 2 min cd though). With good gear and using your biggest spell (Healing Touch), you could bump someone up for 30k ish, non crit. Looking at saving a tank who has 200k hp and taking a blow for 100k, that's just not very impressive. It would've been ok with a 1,5 min cooldown, it's pretty bad with a 3 min cooldown. Even if they buff it with 50%, we're looking at 45k instead. Good enough for a 3 min cd? I don't think so. Compare it to cooldowns like Barrier (2 min cd), Divine Guardian (2 min cd, but getting 3), Pain Supression (3 min cd), Guardian Spirit (3 min cd) and so on. It doesn't measure up. I think they should either lower the cooldown, make NS actually heal alot (which might make it too much like LoH) or change the way it works. Maybe add an absorb/mitigation component?
Alchemy
Flask of Steelskin now grants 450 Stamina, up from 300. The Mixology bonus for alchemists remains at 120 stamina.
If it weren't for the cost, it was clearly superior to use two elixirs as tank over the stamina flask. 300 intellect is increasing my intellect by approximately 5%. This depends completely on what gear you've got, and since I am actually intellect heavy, my percentual gain from the flask is less than if I had had less intellect. Still, a good geared tank has alot more stamina than a good geared caster has intellect. Not to mention that 1 stamina is worth less than 1 intellect for sure. To most tanks the old 300 stamina added some 2-3% stamina, while the intellect flask added some 5-7% intellect, making the stamina flask half as good as the caster one (the Strength and Agi one being as the Intellect one in gain). 450 stamina is actually getting there, adding some 8-9% extra hp (which completely depends on your gear as mentioned, I've calculated it on 5000 stamina). It might make it worth more than elixirs, but it's on the edge, and I think well geared druids would still prefer an agi flask over the stamina one.
Instances
Various instances are being nerfed. It must be tricky for Blizzard to decide how and what to nerf, because there has to be some difficulty left to the fight or we will be back to where we were in Wrath where most classes could solo the heroic instances, making them not so heroic. On the other hand, they don't want us to continously avoid certain parts or grow tired of the instances overall just because some mechanics are so annoying. Even though I personally thought that the Ground Slam Ozruk did was challenging in a fun way, it was also quite unforgiving, and one mistake when poorly geared would lead to a wipe. I've been lucky, but I know people who've wiped some 10 times on that boss (before giving up probably), and that's just not fun when all you were looking for was a fast heroic before work. I have to shamely admit that I have jumped a couple of dungeons because I just didn't enjoy the prospect of having to run them through with people I couldn't count on getting things right, mostly Wailing Caverns. So although I'm not completely certain I like instance nerfs, I do understand why Blizzard does them.
Priest
Holy Word: Sanctuary healing done has been increased by 35%. In addition, it has a new spell effect.
Sanctuary has always been the iffiest of the different ground heals. Not only do you need to be in a certain Chakra stance to use it, it doesn't heal for very much and also has the same drawbacks as Healing Rain and Efflorescence in that you actually have to place it somewhere where people will stand, for it to be of any use at all. In a fight with alot of movement it adds a level of planning which can either be fun or not so fun, depending alot on what else there is to think about. Otherwise that can turn into some pretty badly used mana. This has made Sanctuary very situational, and I really welcome the rather big healing buff. This combined with the Chakra buff they're making might actually lure me back to holy healing again.
Death Knight
Desecration no longer triggers when an applicable strike hits a snare-immune target. This is primarily to avoid unnecessary spell effect clutter during boss encounters.
I remember having one hell of a time when tanking Commander Springvale in SFK, having an unholy dk dpsing. It was completely impossible to distinguish between his Desecration and that of the boss which made me pretty glad that I use DBM even for instances. I am glad they are fixing this, but I think they could've taken it even further, making the overall spell effect less noticeable. They don't have to remove the funny looking hands, but the rest feels less necessary for people to get the hint.
Shamans
Cleansing Waters now has a 6-second internal cooldown.
I'm not sure if The Cleansing Waters talent made the shaman dispel OP from other classes dispels. Their dispel is the cheapest of the bunch (well, equally cheap as the paladin one actually), and it also heals people. Priests can glyph their dispel to heal as well, and then it actually heals for more than Cleansing Waters and scales better with gear. The differences aren't gamebreakingly huge, and they never bothered me. I usually thought the shaman dispel was slightly better than everyone elses, but by a margin. With this change, I suppose the glyphed priest dispel will jump up to first position. Put on dispel duty again...
Druid
Nature's Swiftness now also increases the healing done by th eaffected nature spell by 50%.
All buffs are buffs. With that being said, I'm not sure what Blizzard wants us to think about this? The reason druids (and shamans) don't like NS today, is because it's a pretty shitty 3 min cd (shamans have 2 min cd though). With good gear and using your biggest spell (Healing Touch), you could bump someone up for 30k ish, non crit. Looking at saving a tank who has 200k hp and taking a blow for 100k, that's just not very impressive. It would've been ok with a 1,5 min cooldown, it's pretty bad with a 3 min cooldown. Even if they buff it with 50%, we're looking at 45k instead. Good enough for a 3 min cd? I don't think so. Compare it to cooldowns like Barrier (2 min cd), Divine Guardian (2 min cd, but getting 3), Pain Supression (3 min cd), Guardian Spirit (3 min cd) and so on. It doesn't measure up. I think they should either lower the cooldown, make NS actually heal alot (which might make it too much like LoH) or change the way it works. Maybe add an absorb/mitigation component?
Alchemy
Flask of Steelskin now grants 450 Stamina, up from 300. The Mixology bonus for alchemists remains at 120 stamina.
If it weren't for the cost, it was clearly superior to use two elixirs as tank over the stamina flask. 300 intellect is increasing my intellect by approximately 5%. This depends completely on what gear you've got, and since I am actually intellect heavy, my percentual gain from the flask is less than if I had had less intellect. Still, a good geared tank has alot more stamina than a good geared caster has intellect. Not to mention that 1 stamina is worth less than 1 intellect for sure. To most tanks the old 300 stamina added some 2-3% stamina, while the intellect flask added some 5-7% intellect, making the stamina flask half as good as the caster one (the Strength and Agi one being as the Intellect one in gain). 450 stamina is actually getting there, adding some 8-9% extra hp (which completely depends on your gear as mentioned, I've calculated it on 5000 stamina). It might make it worth more than elixirs, but it's on the edge, and I think well geared druids would still prefer an agi flask over the stamina one.
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