pox arcanum

I mentioned earlier I had run across a group of bloggers who had formed a guild to level together. As bloggers do, they started a blog. From the sounds of it, the plan to pwn is working nicely.

levelling, ensemble

I ran across, courtesy of the game dame, a plot on outland bound to create a guild of alts, with the intention of levelling them up together. It's interesting, because I remember how much people hated that Dungeons and Dragons Online required groups to quest, and now all I (and apparently others) want out of an MMO is running in groups.

Anyway, the post inspired me to go back to my alt, a warrior, and level her a bit, with an eye out for deadmines with some others alts in my guild.

levelling

I made it to Outlands, finally. I think we bought BC around July, and I'm just now getting to the content (not counting my level 10 Draeni warrior). I find the whole concept of an expansion rather bizarre, at least the way WoW is doing it, where every expansion brings another ten levels. It obviously adds a little bit more to the endgame, but for the most part people seem to cruise through the content to get to the raids anyhow. Wouldn't it be better to simply work on new dungeons and such, rather than creating a new continent? What I'd really like to see, of course, is changes to the world every so often. Show me the advance or retreat of the enemy. Even better, of course, would be to let me participate in the advance/retreat of the enemy....

Anyway, I'm not actually at the level I need to be to run the BC content - I simply went to train up my leatherworking. Which for me has always been one of the major attractions of the game.

still moving forward

I made it to level 50 with my druid in WoW last night. It was pretty exciting, as it allowed me to max out my balance skills, and now I can summon treants to put the smack down on my enemies, which is very exciting - I love seeing them maul my enemies.

Rereading that sentence, I wonder if I should get Conan when it comes out. I wonder if there will actually be the sounds of 'the lamentations of their women' in the audio track (that's from Conan the Barbarian, if you're wondering).

Anyway, despite my more recent successes, I have been feeling a bit down on WoW lately. I'm afraid my guild is a bit too 'level 70' for me right now. We'll have to see if it continues. I'm pleased with the new levelling system, which makes for faster progression, and I like the fact that there are a lot of new quests. But I can't shake the feeling that all I'm really doing is trying to get to 70 so I can do instances with my guild. Which is a shame, really, as I think the content isn't bad at my level - merely a little lonely. It'll be interesting to see how this resolves.

levelling

Following on my post last week involving alternate endgame options, Tobold posted the question as to whether or not you couldn't just skip the levels altogether. Massively picked up on his post as well. In my original post I said no, because people like the feeling of advancing. The comments on his post seem to back this up, although there were some interesting variations - a lot of people noted that FPS basically is a MMO without levels.

I often find I enjoy doing the quests which follow sequentially - there's one in WoW where you run all over the planet trying to find a missing diplomat, and another where you have to head to someone's hometown to find out more about them. Those sorts of opportunities for storytelling often work without levelling. And as LotRO has done, you could add a title by your name when you complete a complex chain.

I also liked, and yet was frightened by, the person who suggested a game in which the only skill-ups were the ones you actually learned for yourself. How to pick a lock, in a lock-picking mini game, or actually memorizing the prayers which heal people, or whatnot. The idea of a mini-game for certain skills is appealing - I can see it for the rogue and the fighting classes, e.g. Others I'm not so clear on - mages, I suppose, could have verbal and somatic components that had to happen at a certain time. But that doesn't really appeal (though if I could do it with a WiiMote I might find it more entertaining).