I thought I was a fairly serious player, but by the standards of most raiding guilds I was a relatively casual player. My main toon was at maybe 45ish when the Burning Crusade was released, and I didn’t ding 70 on a single toon till shortly after Lich King dropped. I’ve never gotten a Horde toon to 70. I’ve done very few raids or end-game dungeons. There is a lot of content I’ve never seen. And honestly I have little interest in seeing nerfed content with Level 80+ raiders and a group of folks who use add-ons and wikis that tell exactly how to precisely optimize each dungeon and quest. The game was a lot more fun in the early days before it became mostly an addiction for min-maxing button mashers.

I wish there were a way to instance more of the content so that I could effectively start from the beginning and experience it with others. The current situation is more like a comic book than a novel: e.g. reading Batman today you’re hopping in deep in the middle of the story (a major problem in comics for attracting new readers). Whereas with a novel series like Harry Potter, you start at the beginning and work your way through no matter whether you read it in 1998 or 2010.

I do like WoW’s general sense of world progression and world events, and I don’t want to see that go away. Nor do I want to play on an empty server. However I do wish there were a way for a character starting today to experience Ahn’Qiraj, Naxxaramas and the rest of it. I still remember when Blackrock Depths and Blackrock Spire were cool rather than the ghost towns they are today, but I never actually got to them.

I would love to see a fully instanced/phased game that allowed one to start a character at level 1 and work through the game at your own pace and experience the opening of the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj, the opening of the Burning Portal, the Scourge Invasion, etc. And be able to play the entire world with players of similar levels and progression without getting ganked by 80s or having my competition funded by level 80 alts. A player starting today at 1 misses so much. A 12 year old can pick up the Lord of the Rings and read it for the first time. She can watch Star Wars for the first time. She can play Oblivion for the first time, and still get pretty much the same experience her brother/mother/grandparent did 10/30/60 years ago. But there’s just no way to come at WoW as a newcomer any more. The magic and mystery, I’m afraid, is gone.

Here’s a thought: suppose servers had an in-game calendar? A new server could be started with an in game date of November 1, 2004 and run from there? Or maybe not even all servers start this way, but some do? Perhaps the calendar can be compressed a bit so eventually the servers catch up (but not too quickly). Allow characters to transfer backwards or forwards in time by switching servers if (and only if) they’ve reached or haven’t reached certain milestones. For instance, if my mage is still 45 when BC is rolled out to her server, let her move backwards to a v1 server. If a warrior dings 60, has killed Onyxia, and cleared Stratholme, Scholomance, and The Molten Core, let him transfer up to server at the next level.

Don’t allow gold and loot transfer between servers on different calendars. Do use the original experience tables. Don’t offer Recruit-a-friend and other bonuses. Twinks should be possible, but make them be earned from below, not bought from above. Blizzard doesn’t need to reproduce every bug from the early days. They could even upgrade the graphics and gameplay. (I would love an unlimited number of open quests.) But make it possible to play through the original game with the more-or-less the original mechanics and the original rules.

The point is to allow the old content to be experienced as new at a leisurely pace by those folks who haven’t seen it yet, not to be raced through on the way to Level 85 by someone leveling their seventeenth alt. Nor should people playing on a new server have to compete with gold-capped alts outfitted in T8+ gear. (On the flip side Blizzard might want to start Level 58+, 68+, and 78+ servers where anyone can roll any class at that level to start off to recruit more players who are bored with the original content.)

While you’re at it, if there’s any way the content can be more effectively randomized (e.g. different maps on different servers; more unpredictable distribution of monsters and loot) do it. Quest Helper and Thottbot have completely eliminated the magic and mystery that Warcraft once held. And I don’t just want to not use these cheats myself. I don’t want to play with people who use them. Today the only real unpredictability and interest the game holds is PvP. World content is just too well known and documented. Even new players are rapidly spoiled.

I’ve tried other games (Age of Conan, Aeon, Warhammer) but none of them came close to matching WoW’s usability, interest level, and depth. I’m considering reactivating my account for Cataclysm and see what the new races are like. Blizzard says they’re reinventing Azeroth and levels 1-60 in this release with new towns, new quests, and more. That could be fun. However if the game just turns into another race to 85, with every tip and trick already spoiled by Quest Helper and Thottbot, and where 90% of the players have already run three toons through in beta, I won’t stay long.

However, the real WTF is this error message I got while the installer was updating the files:

Naturally, I can’t copy and paste that URL. I’m supposed to type it into my web browser. More likely I just won’t play the game and try Warhammer instead.

To make matters worse when I attempt to e-mail a bug report I get this error:

And again I can’t copy and paste the text of the error dialog. When are we going to figure out that all text on the screen should be able to be easily copied without taking a screenshot and typing it all in again?

If this isn’t fixed soon, it may break my MMO habit once and for all. (Then again, I have been wondering about City of Heroes…)

I would like to pay under $1000 for the rig (monitor, keyboard, etc. not included). I will not pay over $2000 and I probably won’t pay that much. I prefer XP to Vista. I don’t want to build my own system (though I might resort to that if I have to). If I order off the web, I definitely want one that ships fast. Otherwise I want to buy off the shelf at Fry’ or some other local dealer.

CyberPower seems like the cheapest, but has too many horror stories.

Alienware is pretty expensive, but has one really bad horror story. (I could live with that one if they were priced in the same ballpark as CyberPower.)

Dell is a little expensive at $1199, and not as reliable as they used to be.

I am looking for a whitebox vendor in my neighborhood. Anyone know if they’re any of those computer dealer shows that take place in high school gyms coming up in Orange County anytime soon?

Suggestions of specific systems at particular vendors are especially appreciated.

Why did the Gnome cross the road?
A mage polymorphed him into a chicken.

How many Blood Elves does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
One. He holds it up, and the world revolves around him.

How many Orcs does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Duh… What’s a light bulb?

Why are male trolls circumcised?
Have you seen the teeth on a female troll?

• A Draenei ambassador has showed up in The Hinterlands seeking audience with the Wildhammers. He’s giving quests.

  

• There’s a Blood Elf in Nethergarde Keep, though his quest is too high level for me to tell why he’s there.

  

  He’s less buff than a Night Elf so maybe the rumors about Blizzard butching up the Blood Elves are false.

• Several map areas have been unlocked including the Eversong Woods and the Ghostlands in the Eastern Kingdoms, and Azuremyst Isle and Bloodmyst Isle west of Kalimdor. Exodar is the Dranei city. I haven’t tried to actually reach any of those areas yet. By the map the Draenei should be pretty easily able to sail to Auberdine and follow the usual Night Elf paths through Azeroth. The Blood Elves are going to have to go south through the Plaguelands after level 20 or so, which seems excessively challenging to say the least. Mayhaps the goblins will open another blimp stop.
• The Outland map is unlocked, though there’s not a lot of detail yet.
• There’s a jewel crafting recipe for sale in the Stormwind General Goods store in the trade district.

What else have people seen? I haven’t played Horde since the patch. Anything happening over there? (No spoilers if you’re playing the beta, though, please.)

The Num Lock key runs you constantly until you stop. Very useful for long jogs down the road. All you have to do is steer.

Once you start hitting with a melee weapon, you don’t have to keep pressing 1 again and again. In fact, if you do you’ll turn off the attack. Better to hit once and let the computer do the rest of the work. Focus your fingers on special attacks.

The insert and delete keys change the camera angle. If you’re having trouble seeing, try these.

The mouse wheel zooms the camera in and out.

To chat in a specific channel prefix your chat with Forward-slash-Channel number. e.g. to broadcast a message in general chat, type /1 before typing your message.

When first learning a trade skill, make sure you talk to the Journeyman apprentice. If you talk to a Master trainer, he’ll tell you something like “I’ll be happy to train you when you’re smart enough.”

Don’t worry too much about choosing the race/class/gender/etc. for your character. If you don’t like it you can always create another.

The Map is your friend. Hit M to turn it on or off.

Those signposts along the roads that point but don’t actually have any text? Mouse over them to see where the road goes.

Holding down the right mouse button and dragging moves the camera. If you get out of whack with this, use the Home and End keys to get back.

Lately I’ve been playing Neverwinter Nights on my Mac instead of the PS2 (or at least I was until I accidentally returned Disc 2 to Blockbuster instead of Doctor Who Lost in Time – The Patrick Troughton Years). Neverwinter Nights is mildly amusing, though still not up to the level of Summoner. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is probably better, but I can’t see buying a PC powerful enough to support it just for one game.

Besides dropping the price, what would the PS3 have to do to convince me to buy one? I can think of a few things:

1. Much better human rendering: I’d like all characters to look as good as Samanosuke does in Onimusha Warlords. I want full real-time rendering that’s good enough to make the humans looks like humans, not block figures.
2. No loading and unloading. I should be able to move smoothly from one scene to the next.
3. Fully spoken dialog, preferably including any customized text
4. Smarter enemies and NPCs. I’ve lost count of the number of games where I clear out a roomful of guards by luring them out into the hallway one at a time, or closing a door to lock half of them on the other side. Why is every random monster dumber than the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal?
5. Better combat: the interactions should be smooth and realistic: not merely swiping at air in front of each other. Something on the level of Dead or Alive 4.
6. Games with more plot, freedom, and characters

I don’t think I’m asking for anything I haven’t seen on the PS2 or earlier platforms. I just want the best parts of all the various games I’ve seen at the same time. For instance, my guess is that Capcom could only make the human characters look as good as they did in Onimusha Warlords on the PS2 by:

1. Severely restricting the number of human characters. I don’t think there were ever more than two or three on the screen at once, and usually only one
2. Covering up most of their bodies in clothes and armor
3. Locking the camera in each scene so the backgrounds could be prerendered.

I don’t want developers to have to make tradeoffs like this. I want it to be possible to have fully human characters that talk and think while allowing me full freedom of movement and vision. I want the playable parts of the games to look as good as the cut scenes. I am not going to be impressed by slightly more realistic trees and gibs. I want the people and the stories to improve.

My favorite video games are old style, D&D leveling games; i.e. RPG’s. I play other things on occasion, but these are the one that really involve me. However I’m quite picky even within the genre (which is probably a good thing, since it keeps me from wasting too much time playing and developing RSI.) Specifically I want:

• No spiky-haired children. The more realistic the characters the better.
• Serious plot and characters. Not just hack and slash.
• Not excessively hard combat. I’m old enough not to have teenage reflexes. For that matter, I wasn’t all that coordinated when I was a teenager.

To date I’ve found exactly three such games on the Playstation 2:

• Summoner 1
• Summoner 2
• The Bard’s Tale

Not quite what I’m asking for, but close enough was the brilliant Parasite Eve on the Playstation 1. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City isn’t bad either.

However, there really seem to be very few games that hold my interest through the entire game. For instance, Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance had the gameplay right, but little plot and no characterization worth speaking of.

That’s why I’m so hoping for Summoner 3. It’s been foreshadowed in both Summoner 1 (The Mystery of Luleva) and 2 (where an older Luleva shows up in the Arena), and it would be a real shame not to ever see it come to fruition.