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Replenishment is mandatory and other buff discussion from Ghostcrawler2009-03-10 00:00:00One of the major overhauls heading from Burning Crusade into Wrath of the Lich King was the consolidation of buffs and debuffs. In an attempt to keep raid groups from thinking they had to bring one specific class to get one specific buff or debuff, Blizzard switched some spells up, gave buffs to more classes, and made them unstackable, the result being that one can take one of a certain handful of class and specs to get the buff or debuff they desire, in theory giving a raid more choice about who they bring.
Still, the buffs and debuffs remain, and Ghostcrawler has been having some pretty interesting discussions about them in the past few days. To start with, he came out and said it pretty plainly: Replenishment is Mandatory. Blizzard will balance fights under the assumption you have Replenishment much as they do under the assumption you have a tank. In the short term, this means your ra...
Replenishment2009-03-10 00:00:00There was a recent flurry of interest surrounding the Replenishment mechanic due to Ghostcrawler's statement that "we assume that you have Replenishment available to your raid." He said that it doesn't mean raids will be undoable without it, but that they're tuned assuming you have it, and if you don't, you'll need to out-gear or out-skill the raid, or else you'll have problems.
In this post, I'd like to look at just how easy it is to get Replenishment in your raid. There are three Replenishment specs: Retribution Paladin, Shadow Priest, and Survival Hunter. As you can see, they're all DPS specs. Historically speaking, these specs were probably selected because they had been viewed as suboptimal for raiding (in the case of Survival and Ret), or because they had been valued for their mana regeneration (in the case of Shadow), although at the moment all three of these specs have competitive DPS and don't really need group utility to prop them up.
Unfortunately, GC never clarified whether he was talking about 10- or 25-person raiding, so I'll examine both. I will make the simplifying assumption that the 30 specs are equally distributed in the raiding population: any given character is 1/30 likely to be of ...
Return of the (Lich) King2009-03-10 00:00:00This week we take a break from investigating the elements of gaming as I hazard something new and write my first game review: early impressions on Wrath of the Lich King. I must add before I begin that, since I have no characters L68 and above, I am in no position to discuss the new continent of Northrend. However that is only one facet of WOTLK and while it is the largest addition it is, in terms of advances in game design, perhaps one of the least significant.
With the release of WOTLK, Blizzard proved once again that they understand business far better than the American automobile industry. Regardless of whatever storm of skill and circumstance thrust WoW to the top of the MMO heap, the newest expansion shows that Blizzard isn't content simply to rest on its laurels. Except for graphics, which are difficult to advance in an expansion, WOTLK brings the 4-year old WoW universe on par with the newest innovations of fantasy MMOs and, in several ways, pushes beyond them.
As a minor example, take LOTRO which is now celebrating nineteen months and has just released its own expansion. While a fine game in its own right, LOTRO really didn't introduce anything "new" to MMOs. It differs from WoW in details rath...
RoleCraft Review 20082009-03-10 00:00:00Season's greetings, fellow roleplayers! Here we come to it, the last days of 2008, and the last edition of RoleCraft for this year. I sincerely hope you are having as much fun reading this column as I am with writing it. Many thanks go to WarCry for allowing me this opportunity, and to all the reader comments and emails I've received. Keep 'em coming!
This year was the first full calendar year of RoleCraft articles. For the sake of new and veteran readers, this edition will take a link back to the others published here since January, making for a quick reference and refresher of any and all articles you may have missed this year. I am greatly looking forward to another full year of writing t...
RoleCraft2009-03-10 00:00:00On the last edition of RoleCraft, the discussion was an introduction on Alignments and their significance for roleplayers and their characters. Your character is hopefully going to develop and portray some form of a personality over its existence. Fitting those traits and beliefs to an alignment, i.e., giving your character's character a specific nomenclature, helps set a foundation upon which to continue to grow with some form of method, even if that method is madness.
As mentioned in the last article, prime consideration towards a character's alignment should be made from the point of view as to what is going to be fun for you to play. If it ain't no fun, it won't get done. Yet, another element to consider is the overall 'spirit' of whatever MMORPG you happen to be playing.
At times, the differences between Good and Evil are very distinguishable. Sometimes they're not. The same applies to the worlds of MMORPGs. Take WoW, for instance. I have observed much conversation regarding 'who's Good and who's Evil' in relation to the two main factions there - Alliance and Horde. The answer to such a question varies extremely, depending on which character / player you ask. Blizzard also purposely created WoW wit...
RoleCraft2009-03-10 00:00:00Many roleplayers have our RP background solidly based on the tabletop RP games of yesteryear, Dungeons & Dragons being the prime example. That is still the lens through which I view roleplaying of any type, including MMORPGs. In those classic RP games, there are two components that make up the playing experience: the DM (dungeon master, or GM - game master - if you prefer) and the PC (player-character). People filled both roles, which sparked and fanned the flames of highly engaging RP.
Today's MMORPGs are sadly missing one of those crucial elements, and I'm sure you know which one. Without a DM, the synergy simply isn't there. AI advances in computer gaming over the last decade have been astounding, of course, yet they do not come close to having a living, breathing, and imaginative human being filling the game modera...
RoleCraft2009-03-10 00:00:00As the last days of 2007 pass by, I've been reflecting on the grand MMORPG adventures I have experienced this year through the eyes of my characters. It is my experience that solid roleplayers tend to have more than a few characters on tap, and will generally work to upkeep two or three characters fresh and in play. I could point to fellow roleplayers I've met this year alone who fit neatly into this mold, but to be more precise, I'll use myself as the best example I know.
I've said before that I do not completely understand how or why players get bored with their characters or their current MMORPG. One of the ways I keep my game time fun is by playing and developing a variety of characters through four different MMORPGs: Lord of the Rings Online, World of Warcraft, Ultima Online and Anarchy Online. Counting all the characters I've made in all those games, I have seventeen total. Of course, I don't play every single one all the time, there are not enough hours in the day. I do pay particular attention to a few of them at a time, with that time revolving around which ones have the most interesting story or potential for adventure.
By having a number of distinct characters readily available, each with the...
RoleCraft2009-03-10 00:00:00Many roleplayers have our RP background solidly based on the tabletop RP games of yesteryear, Dungeons & Dragons being the prime example. That is still the lens through which I view roleplaying of any type, including MMORPGs. In those classic RP games, there are two components that make up the playing experience: the DM (dungeon master, or GM - game master - if you prefer) and the PC (player-character). People filled both roles, which sparked and fanned the flames of highly engaging RP.
Today's MMORPGs are sadly missing one of those crucial elements, and I'm sure you know which one. Without a DM, the synergy simply isn't there. AI advances in computer gaming over the last decade have been astounding, of course, yet they do not come close to having a living, breathing, and imaginative human being filling the game modera...
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