Monthly Archives: February 2006

Warcraft as Teacher

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Another good rant/editorial over on Gamasutra:: Soapbox: World of Warcraft Teaches the Wrong Things.

I’m not buying into the Warcraft is our children’s teacher bit, and an evil one at that, but his “group vs solo” and “rewards tied to time invested” discussions are pretty damn spot-on as far as I’m concerned. BTW, he’s not talking about winky dink level 30s having to group, he’s talking about the big boys. If you want the best stuff (and of course you do), you must play in 40-man raid zones.

I love when developer types talk about burying the best rewards in raid zones as if this is the natural order of things. WTF, when I go to lunch, I don’t take 39 of my coworkers with me thinking we’ll get a better lunch that way. Raid zones require huge manpower only because it’s always been that way and it’s EASIER and probably CHEAPER to build.

This discussion reminds me of a conversation we often have in games: remember the noob levels? You run around by yourself killing ten rats and every once in a while one of the rats drops a weapon that’s better than what you have and you go woohoo? For about 10 or 20 or 30 levels, depending on the game, you’ll get better stuff that you can actually use off the mobs and it’s woohoo each time. Sometimes you’ll get better stuff that a friend or a passing noob can use and you give it to them because you haven’t a care in the world and it’s cool that someone else can use.

Why does that time always have to end?

There’s probably a Robert Frost poem in there somewhere, but I’ll spare you.

I Like to Watch

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I haven’t been a fanboi of anything for a long time. I was an EverQuest fanboi before launch — Anarchy Online, Dark Age of Camelot, same thing — then I slunk back to EQ like the junkie I was, and, it was around that time that fanboi joy was over for me. “This game is gonna be great!” had long since turned to “I really hope this game doesn’t suck.”

However, I am a Flickr fanboi and have been for at least a year and a half. Of course, Flickr is not a game, so that probably explains that, but it is (their words) “… almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world.”

I have a Flickr pro account for AFK Gamer (which you can see), and another Flickr pro account for real life photos (which you can’t see). Most days, I’ll throw up a screenshot or two on Flickr that won’t make the cut for a post here. You’re welcome to poke around there, OF COURSE, cuz Flickr is all about sharing for people that like to watch.

One of the things I do while waiting in a game queue is follow the Flickr gaming tags and check out other people’s screenshots. Here’s a few to get you started if you’re like me and you like to watch:

WorldofWarcraft tag, Most interesting WorldofWarcraft, Everquest2 tag, Most interesting Everquest2, Guild Wars tag, Ragnaros (the bastard of Molten Core) tag, and Flickr interest groups for gaming screenshots.

There are even gaming guilds/clans that have a Flickr group for their members to share screenshots and photos, which, by my way of thinking, makes Flickr a killer guild app, too — unfortunately, not for my guild. We’re still working on How to Register for the DKP Site 101.