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Thursday, November 30, 2006
Playing on Methadone
I told my guild that I was taking a break from raiding until the Burning Crusade. I "finished" playing the BC beta by leveling up my mage to 20. And I installed Dungeons & Dragons Online - Stormreach (DDO). If playing World of Warcraft is an addiction, then I'm on Methadone now. :)
Playing DDO is easy enough. Many things are similar to WoW or other MMORPGs. And at least the early game hasn't changed much since my first impressions of the beta test. And this game is definitely less addictive than World of Warcraft. In fact it feels more like a single-player game than like a MMORPG. One reason for that is that nobody is playing it. DDO has a total of five (5!!!) servers. I chose one at random, Aureon, and when I looked how many people were playing, there were only between 100 and 200 players online. So I looked at the official forums, and found a thread stating that another server, Lyrandar, was the most populated. I created a new character there, and found about 400 people playing on this server. Now I think these servers are international, and as European I'm automatically playing "off-peak", due to the time zone difference with the USA. But if at the time where I am playing all servers together just have about 1,000 concurrent users, even at peak times DDO can't have much more than 5,000 concurrent users. Compared to the 400 US and Euro servers of WoW, with over a million concurrent users at peak time, DDO feels really deserted.
But hey, I bought DDO when it came out, and still had the box shrink-wrapped in my games library. Better get some play value out of the money I spent for it. DDO is not a bad game, but it's main attraction for me right now is that it is "not WoW".
I need to get away from World of Warcraft before I burn out totally. I'd rather play something else now, and be eager again for the Burning Crusade expansion. Especially the level 60 raiding game is something that I had enough of. Yeah, I'm happy and proud to have seen BWL until Nefarian. But that took us two raids last weekend until Chromaggus was dead, for a total of 10 to 12 hours, waiting times included. The idea of doing that every weekend for the next couple of weeks before moving to the next raid dungeon filled me with dread and boredom. I don't know if that is different for other classes, but as priest healing and decursing in BWL plays pretty much the same as healing and decursing in Molten Core. Just the scenery is different. The fights are a bit harder, and the loot is better, but who needs tier 2 loot with BC just around the corner? The only change to that routine in sight was the next patch disabling decursive, and making dispelling magic a lot more hectic for priests. Not something I was looking forward to. Time to take a break.
That doesn't mean I cancelled my account for World of Warcraft. I might still check out the patch, maybe do a little of the "new" PvP (although I guess that the arenas will only be accessible in training mode, because the arena reward system is reserved for level 70 characters), or do some minor preparatory stuff for the expansion. Not sure whether I still want to play my level 63 priest in the BC beta. I just don't want to raid any more. I'll sure be back for the expansion, and that is less than 2 months away.
What I enjoy about DDO is that the playstyle is markedly different from World of Warcraft. Every quest is an instance, and there are a lot more scripted events, jump-climb-and-run parts, switches, puzzles, and the like. As I am still level 1 (there are only 12 levels in DDO, although each has 5 "rank" sub-levels), I didn't try grouping yet. I'll see how that goes a bit later. I choose a cleric for the same reason that I play a priest in WoW: figuring that it would be easier to get an invite. And in the D&D system priests are actually good at soloing, because they can wear heavy armor and heal themselves after the fight. I even got a "celestial dog" summoned pet.
The only trap is assuming that things are the same as in WoW when in fact they aren't. I had great difficulties with a quest where I had to dive through an underwater tunnel, running out of breath far too fast. I searched the potion vendor in vain for a water breathing potion or something. Until I finally looked in the manual and found that I could have breathed a lot longer under water if I had removed my plate armor and heavy shield. There is a certain logic to that, I just didn't think of it because what armor you wear doesn't make a difference to swimming and diving in WoW.
If you happen to play DDO and run into a cleric named Tobold on the Lyrandar server in the next couple of weeks, that's me. :)
- posted by Tobold @ 8:53 AM Permanent Link
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Don't feel bad about WOW burnout Tobold - feel happy that one chapter of your life is closing and another beginning. I quit WOW back in April and I used a number of other distractions (including your blog) as part of my methadone cure.
In this post you even used the dreaded addiction word though you have argued strongly against it in the past. Whatever way you look at the whole WOW phenomenon it is is incredibly compelling. I have played a number of other single and multiplayer games since and nothing has come close to getting the same hooks into me. It is not just the game it is the whole paraphenalia of add-ons and statistics and websites and guilds and blogs and South Park episodes that all mesh together to create a phenomenon that you can just lose yourself in. I guess I knew I had to quit when I realised I was wasting whole days at work browsing WOW related websites. I made a choice that I don't want to get that lost in a game again so even though I enjoyed WOW I won't be tempted back by the expansion.
You seem to be a lot more self disciplined than I am Tobold (you must be to keep up a job , MMORPG, home life and a regular blog) so I don't doubt that you can come back to WOW safely when the expansion come out if you choose.
Of course I shouldn't forget that your blog is part of the whole WOW phenomenon that I am talking about - and certainly many of your most popular posts (judging by response rate) focus on technical details of WOW. Nevertheless your blog consistently gets more readers than many other WOW heavy blogs. I am sure that you have many readers like myself who are here for you excellent writing and who will stay even if you chose to abandon the World of Warcraft.
In this post you even used the dreaded addiction word though you have argued strongly against it in the past. Whatever way you look at the whole WOW phenomenon it is is incredibly compelling. I have played a number of other single and multiplayer games since and nothing has come close to getting the same hooks into me. It is not just the game it is the whole paraphenalia of add-ons and statistics and websites and guilds and blogs and South Park episodes that all mesh together to create a phenomenon that you can just lose yourself in. I guess I knew I had to quit when I realised I was wasting whole days at work browsing WOW related websites. I made a choice that I don't want to get that lost in a game again so even though I enjoyed WOW I won't be tempted back by the expansion.
You seem to be a lot more self disciplined than I am Tobold (you must be to keep up a job , MMORPG, home life and a regular blog) so I don't doubt that you can come back to WOW safely when the expansion come out if you choose.
Of course I shouldn't forget that your blog is part of the whole WOW phenomenon that I am talking about - and certainly many of your most popular posts (judging by response rate) focus on technical details of WOW. Nevertheless your blog consistently gets more readers than many other WOW heavy blogs. I am sure that you have many readers like myself who are here for you excellent writing and who will stay even if you chose to abandon the World of Warcraft.
# posted by 
: 30/11/06 11:11
: 30/11/06 11:11
Gosh...when Tobold is tired of WoW, there really is something wrong!
I've never tried DDO, so am looking forward to hearing all about it in the coming weeks.
I've never tried DDO, so am looking forward to hearing all about it in the coming weeks.
# posted by : 30/11/06 12:06
: 30/11/06 12:06
Actually I'm just returning to previous habits. Read my review of 2004, where I played many different MMORPGs, and you will see that me sticking 2 years to the same game is an exception, not the rule.
Nevertheless my use of the term "addiction" was joking. There is certainly some force of attraction that keeps us playing, and for some people that force is so strong that it makes them neglect other aspects of their live. But we should find a different word for that force, because it is *not* the same as the physiological addiction of lets say a heroin addict.
Nevertheless my use of the term "addiction" was joking. There is certainly some force of attraction that keeps us playing, and for some people that force is so strong that it makes them neglect other aspects of their live. But we should find a different word for that force, because it is *not* the same as the physiological addiction of lets say a heroin addict.
Good luck in DDO; I didn't make it past the initial month myself.
One thing I didn't like is, after the initial solo-only quests, you needed a group to do anything (I believe they may have added some solo content since). If I have a spare half-hour, I like to be able to accomplish something in a game, whether it's doing a quick mission/quest, some crafting or even just scanning the Auction House without having to find a group, get to the same location in the game, decide on what quest to do etc etc.
The other problem was the quests. Each "dungeon" being hand designed was great... the first time. The "DM text"/voiceover, traps and puzzles gave them a nice atmosphere, but without any random elements at all, the 7th time you do it, it's hard to work up any enthusiasm. And because there aren't that many quests (or at least there weren't to start, again they may have added more variety since) you did wind up doing it seven times. Worse still, a quest "chain" could be seven sequential quests, except you'd be sent to the *exact same dungeon* all seven times, just progressing slightly further on each visit. And if you didn't run through all seven at once, it was a nightmare to try and co-ordinate with teams: "I'm on The Quest for Something, part IV", "Oh, I haven't done that, we'll have to start at part I (getting sent back to the same dungeon another four times), but I'm on part VI of The Quest for Something Else" "Nope, I'm only on part II of that".
Anyway, hope you have fun there, I've kept a vague eye on it since and they seem to have added quite a lot in content patches. Either way, a change is as good as a rest!
One thing I didn't like is, after the initial solo-only quests, you needed a group to do anything (I believe they may have added some solo content since). If I have a spare half-hour, I like to be able to accomplish something in a game, whether it's doing a quick mission/quest, some crafting or even just scanning the Auction House without having to find a group, get to the same location in the game, decide on what quest to do etc etc.
The other problem was the quests. Each "dungeon" being hand designed was great... the first time. The "DM text"/voiceover, traps and puzzles gave them a nice atmosphere, but without any random elements at all, the 7th time you do it, it's hard to work up any enthusiasm. And because there aren't that many quests (or at least there weren't to start, again they may have added more variety since) you did wind up doing it seven times. Worse still, a quest "chain" could be seven sequential quests, except you'd be sent to the *exact same dungeon* all seven times, just progressing slightly further on each visit. And if you didn't run through all seven at once, it was a nightmare to try and co-ordinate with teams: "I'm on The Quest for Something, part IV", "Oh, I haven't done that, we'll have to start at part I (getting sent back to the same dungeon another four times), but I'm on part VI of The Quest for Something Else" "Nope, I'm only on part II of that".
Anyway, hope you have fun there, I've kept a vague eye on it since and they seem to have added quite a lot in content patches. Either way, a change is as good as a rest!
# posted by : 30/11/06 14:17
: 30/11/06 14:17
Tobold, did you have to leave your Plate Armor behind (like in the Bank) when you swam through the underwater tunnel? Just wondering, it seems it would be poor game design to that you can swim longer because your Plate Armor is in your pack rather than on your body :P
# posted by : 30/11/06 15:58
: 30/11/06 15:58
Yeah, I was thinking the same. The content of your backpack isn't counting, you swim well with your plate armor in the backpack. Which is illogical, besides the obvious problem of how to get a huge plate armor into a normal sized backpack in the first place.
I played EQ2 briefly and found myself unable to travel very fast at one point. Turns out I was "encumbered" is the word I think EQ2 used, with too much coin! I had to go to the bank and dump some money in order to run freely!
It's illogical to have backpacks that carry anything more than a few items in general. Take WOW for instance: packs carry 80 items total.
If the law of physics existed in WOW, Blizz would have to create another profession-chiropractor- because all of our toons would look like the hunchback of notre dame.
Too bad there wasn't a way to bury your items and then mark them on your map so you could then dig them up at a later date. Imagine being able to leave all your fire res armor right outside the door to MC.
If the law of physics existed in WOW, Blizz would have to create another profession-chiropractor- because all of our toons would look like the hunchback of notre dame.
Too bad there wasn't a way to bury your items and then mark them on your map so you could then dig them up at a later date. Imagine being able to leave all your fire res armor right outside the door to MC.
Correction: The 5 DDO servers I see are just the European ones. DDO has another 14 US servers. So maybe 20,000 concurrent users at peak time. MMOGChart.com shows 90,000 subscribers for DDO. And a 5:1 ratio of subscribers to concurrent users is quite typical.
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