Guild Wars 2: Living Under a Rock

Hi, my name is Jomu and I didn't play Guild Wars 2 when it first released, I only started this past week.

[Gasps, and a woman faints]

I tried to explain to a friend yesterday, how good Guild Wars 2 is.. but everything I could come up with, didn't come out right and he said it sounded like everything WoW does. I can't imagine WoW does the same thing as the below. Here you go Brown Magic (and anyone else that hasn't for some reason played the game):

Waypoints
While there aren't many traditional fast travel options in GW2, there are waypoints to each major area that you will travel to in the game; for a small price (1% atleast early game), you can teleport to towns. No longer are you twiddling your thumbs and 'enjoying the landscape view' as the flying mount flies you to the place you want to go; just go there instantly or as fast as your internet will allow. Borderlands had it, and it was good. Nuff said.

Weapon Sets

Remember in traditional mmo's where the skills you use are chosen by you? You'd open the skill/ability tab and click & drag it into your hotbar. Well in GW2, you cannot choose your skills (technically) b/c it is based off the kind of weapons you have equipped. For example, if you're a Ranger, and equip a longbow, you will have skills geared towards attacking single target enemies from very far away, while if you equip a shortbow, you'll be better equipped to do aoe damage instead and cripple them. You'd think that you'd hate something like that, but it is pretty decent and ensures you can change the way you play very easily, for as soon as you switch weapons (there is a hotkey to switch between two chosen sets), it changes the skills in your hotbar.

Jump Puzzles
There is alot to do in GW2.. one of the many diversions is jumping puzzles scattered throughout the land. Some are 'easy' while the one I did last night, gave me a heart attack, and apparently it was one of the mid range ones. So what, you may ask? By completing them, you get achievements and there are chests waiting for you at the end which respawn each day, so you can go back and get the rewards. There is also a huge sense of accomplishment, for not everyone has the finger dexterity to do these.

Dynamic Events
I never understood what they meant when they said 'dynamic events' and always thought ArenaNet had just 'ripped off' Mythic with their Public Quests. I do believe, that the game can tell if there are alot of people in the zone (and certain areas) and will supply 'public quests' for the players to join and work together on. If there aren't alot of people in the area, I find there aren't as many. Either way, it flows very naturally and fits in with the story.

Vistas
Didn't understand this one until I did it myself; a vista is a special area that normally takes a bit of creative exploration to get to, but is significantly easier to get to than doing a Jumping Puzzle. Normally granting you a small experience reward, it gives you a cutscene of a panoramic view of your area. Every screenshot provided are from vistas. It draws you more into the game and to make you realize how much work ArenaNet put into the game to make it beautiful.

Shared Bank
Yes. Shared bank. So no need to mail your alts stuff.. believe me, I tried and was sad when I couldn't. Its a smart shared bank though; when you craft, you don't need to have the item in your backpack, anything you have in your bank, you can use to craft at the station. This means, no going back and forth when you've forgotten material. Fantastic fantastic!

Graphics
Check. Not satisfied? My rogue has an ability called Death Blossom where when used, he does an acrobatic spin in the air while (I guess) throwing knives/daggers at his foes. I've never seen an mmo class that did that; it still amazes me when I watch it in action.

NPC and Creature Placement

There are many npcs placed all over the world, which really makes you feel like the world is populated and not an empty husk, just filled with quest-givers with legs glued to the ground. They walk around, talk and you're even able to have conversations (although a bit hollow) with them if you choose.

Map Innovations
The map feels like a similar innovation that I've seen in another game i've been playing recently, but I can't think of the name. Anyways, my girlfriend tends to get lost easily when we play mmo's which is maddening. In GW2, you can literally draw a path for people to take if they don't know the way. Amazing!

Mail System
Any sent mail seems to be free. Free. And you can send stuff to any player on ANY SERVER. You heard me. Wow. Did I mention it was free?

Many different ways to level
You can level the traditional ways... actually scratch that. There aren't any traditional 'quests' in GW2; although there is the Storyline quests which is your character's story, that is something different. There are Heart Quests which are like public quests (area specific) but for soloing. You can gain xp from exploring areas of interest, vistas, jumping puzzles. You can gain xp from crafting. Let me rephrase that, you can go from level 1 to max level (80?) by ONLY crafting. Yeah.

I'll write some improvements and annoyances later.. i'm busy having fun.. and writing this.. blah!

Feeling Alive

I was reading Hunter's entry on his first impressions of the GW2 beta and he commented on how "Cities feel more alive than SWTOR.." I want to understand that; most capital cities are seen mostly as a hub for people to meet up but doesn't do very much more. You don't go because you want to, but because you have to.


I'm going to brainstorm on some reasons to make a city feel more alive because currently in more mmo's imho is for:


- skill trainers & crafting trainers; possibly making them have special skills/recipes/discounts at certain times


- capital city leaders; normally infrequently used, even at high levels


- pvp npcs that teleport you to the battlegrounds


- show off your gear/mounts


- banks and auction houses; probably 95% of the reason why you're there


So what other activities can make a player want to go a city and make it feel more alive?

- public quests built into the city; similar to WAR's system, Mythic had quests and public questing areas (arena) built into the city. Making them accessible at all levels is sometimes hard, possibly making it a daily activity with fluff rewards can work here


- a relatively cheap money sink via mini game/luck-based game. I know WoW had the bejewelled game built into the fast travel, this could be implemented into future mmos as well but only installed in the city instead, kind of like WoW's Darkmoon Faire, but year round within the city.


- I believe a 'more alive' feel for the city was partially b/c of your personal story area in GW2. If only there was a way to be able to affect more of the city and see an actual effect; now that would be engaging.


- more puzzles, easter eggs and special achievements for exploring the city. From the looks of GW2, the city looks huge; there ought to be many different places to explore for background lore.


- guild housing; GW2 takes care of personal housing via the personal story instanced area, but guild housing would be a nice touch too, preferably farther away; what benefits would guild housing be? Possibly fast travel to dungeons, other cities, or pvp areas.

Undying

I thought it was interesting on how my friend texted me the other day to tell me that he got into WoW for the umpteenth time. I was like "again?" How many times will we get dragged into (in particular) the same mmo? Doesn't it get boring? Don't we remember the reason why we left in the first (second/third/etc) place?


I've gone back to WoW myself only once. And that was because it was *ahem* 'free'. But it was exactly how it was X amt of years ago and I promptly quit for the same reasons as before.


This article is more about the creative ways companies lure you (back) to their game. For Blizzard, if you re-sign up for WoW for a 12mth sub, they will level one of your characters to 80 and you'll get a 'free' copy of Diablo 3. Now a free copy of D3 sounds great.. but thats 100$ you're shelling out for a free game. If you count that you're getting 2 games for 100$, yes you're getting a discount.. but not much of one.


I do like companies that lure you with nostalgia by giving you older games with the game you purchase. Say (for example) on Steam, you pre-purchase Heroes of Might and Magic 6, you may get while you wait, a copy of Heroes 5 to tide you over and thank you for the pre-purchasing. Its no more expensive than buying it normally or from somewhere else, but you get the perk of an additional game. 


I recently got an email from SWTOR about how there is a free week (or two) that you can re-install the game, and as long as you have an account, can just play for free without entering any credit card information. Now, had money been an issue for me, this would be a great way to get me to play again and get (for EA's sake) hooked again. That wasn't the case, so I chose not to participate. Having free full game access without the hassle of re-entering credit card information is a new initiative that I think is positive.


I find that bribing me back with in-game items or xp-boosts aren't particularly effective. For those with a high need for instant gratification, I guess it is effective but it can neer be too overpowering to upset the current active playerbase. 


What incentives are effective to pulling you back to a particular game?

Whats your Title?

Got your attention? Good.

There seems to be a correlation between fitness and the hardcore gamer. It feels like we spend so much time gaming, that we ignore many other areas of life. Whether it be social or physical, the time we put into our games could be spread out into other activities. I'll be the first to pleading guilty of letting my games *cough-Skyrim-cough* take priority and conveniently forget everything else. Why today, I was busy listening to the rebel leaders talk about the importance of Whiterun instead of hearing the timer go off to let me know that my baked potatoes were done. Every night I make it a point to stop playing at 11 to get a good nights rest and wake up early before work to study or workout; instead I end up playing past 2 and waking up with enough time to run out the door.

I love my younger brother; he's incredibly smart and talented. Able to master anything he puts his mind to, he's unstoppable (like his older brother) when motivated. But right now, he'd rather spend 10+ hours a day just playing games *cough-Skyrim-WoW-cough*. It has been over 4 months since his contract at his last job ended and although that 'economy is tough,' it isn't impossible to get a job. Although people tend to pooh-pooh on job agencies, my friend's contract job ran out last Friday and got a new job (with Kobo, no less) in less than a week!

Everything takes effort. Anything worthwhile requires sacrifice. We're not talking about sacrificing a follower so that you survive a quest. We're talking about diverting our time and resources into something else.

So here comes the reason for the good-looking woman above; exercise is important for all of us. Its hard and requires dedication but isn't impossible. Exercising on a consistent basis doesn't mean we give up our hardcore gamer title (I prefer my gamer-photographer title instead). We don't need to become muscleheads, and abandon gaming (I probably won't ever), we just need to add some variety to what is the spice of life.

Anyways; if you're interested in exercising but don't know where to start, head over to Bodyrock.tv which has a pretty good website. Alot of videos that show you techniques, both beginner and advanced. It doesn't hurt that the people in the videos are easy on the eyes ;)

PvE Scenarios

I was reading (yes! Its been a busy month or so) Hunter's entry and he talks about WoW's own interpretation of public quests. I personally haven't read up too much about WoW's new expansion, mostly b/c I don't intend on playing it and thus don't care, but the descriptor of "PvE Scenarios" piqued my interest.

Instead of having PQ's that was an amazing way to tell a story and get people to work together without knowing it, (that eventually dwindled due to high emphasis on pvp in WAR), what happens when you make it something you queue for in an instanced situation? It adds a new layer to the game that creates a fun, engaging environment; I loved PQs in WAR and am very glad its being translated into all MMOs now, but was disappointed when they werent being used in higher levels.
By making people queue for an instanced PQ, you get the necessary amount of people that can do something they enjoy doing. The drawback being is that it is instanced and not part of the game world and that you need to possibly wait a few minutes for one to pop is a small price to pay. Countless times in WAR, when you're in even tier 3, the pve area is deserted; everyone was in the pvp area where the rewards were much greater.
I believe in most mmo's these days, the rewards are greatest in pvp closely followed by raid rewards. Although PvE Instanced (PQ) rewards would be quite lower than either of those, I would still be greatly interested in taking part in that and would be my main source of recreation

Beneath my Feet

After looking at Hunter's entry and looking at the first concept art,

the thought occured to me: mmo's map design is always horizontal and never truly vertical. Very infrequently are we spending time on different levels such as an underground, ground-level and above ground area. There will be small areas in which there is an underground area, but the whole of mmo design doesn't accomodate that.

Think of WoW, there is the Undercity which is underground and has different 'levels'. It still takes up a separate area than the rest of the map as in, nothing occupies the highest lvl of Undercity, just invisible walls.

When I think of Rift, there are castles in which corridors have multiple levels. The Defiant captial, Meridian, has a mage tower with multiple levels separated with teleporters and tries to give the sense that you're going higher up. There is Lantern Hook, a high lvl city which had levels hollowed into a huge rockface. Scarlet Gorge was a great example of giving a sense of depth; being at the top of the gorge or at the very bottom, or even areas underground.

Aion did a cool job with flight and having items of interest floating in the air.

But look back at that photo.


Imagine an mmo world where (say, for example) you started off in the underground area with plot talking about how one day instead of looking up into the sky, you'll find a way to the surface and be able to look down from where you came from. A truly two-plus level game world. Instead of looking at how big a mmo's land mass is, one will need to take into consideration of the underground AND above ground areas that occupy the same space. Sure, this concept (especially above ground areas: think floating islands) may not be applicable to some lore, but it can in many fantasy settings.

This reminds me of rpg Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark. You started off in a tavern of sorts and you are forced to dig deeper and deeper in the dungeons/maze to find the villan. It felt like you were getting incredibly deeper instead of going farther in distance away from your origin. But as a D&D type of game, its levels are not truly connected as an mmo world normally is (no loading screens).

I understand the trepidation of designing such a world though; people have a hard enough time navigating the normal game world, hence the need to indicate waypoints or have a map that shows where to complete quests. And that is only on one plane of design; I myself get confused sometimes when a quest navigator shows me where to complete the quest and I don't realize the quest components are hidden underground. That, and for some people navigating different levels without a defined 'ground' and 'sky' may cause nausea.

Bronze chest piece no. 18 and counting..

Enjoying the new crafting in WoW?
No one has really gone into detail from the blog sites that i frequent to let me know how it works.. not 'that' interested though since i'm not playing.

It got me thinking of how crafting isn't normally that useful in mmos that i've played. Its fun and gives different things to do in the game, but they rarely can be used to an effective degree. By time you can make it, you have better and it is worthless; you can't really sell it b/c you need to make the same thing 20 times and hundreds of other people are leveling their skill too which have diluted the sale price. I've developed a small organization chart of how valuable a loot drop should be worth: Most valuable at the top, worthless at the bottom.

Dungeon rare drops
Extreme rare drop open world (0.10-0.25% chance of ever dropping)
Dungeon boss kill/major reward drop
Pvp skill drop (if applicable)
Crafting - dungeon quest normal reward drops - rare drop (1-2% chance) - pvp normal influence gear
Dungeon normal drops, dynamic event influence reward, end of chain quest reward
Quest reward drop

Normal drop

Vendor Trash

With that kind of chart, I think it makes crafting more viable and useful; in my time with WoW (pre 1st expansion), only the end game items (so max skill) would be useful.. everything else by time you had the resources and skill to make it, was way below useable level. The item would be nice for your alt, but is that the reason why you went into crafting?? In Warhammer, the crafting is .... not robust to say the least.. I found cultivation was fun and useful when we were waiting in keeps or objectives.. b/c as well all know there is ALOT of waiting around in Warhammer. How to implement the system above? I dunno. Goodluck developers!

Slow week going fast

Yeah that doesn't make sense.. a week where nothing really happens and you're just waiting for the weekend to come. Everything right now seems to hinge on my trip to the Bahamas at the beginning of January, but thats another story.

No real gaming news; WoW Cataclysm comes out next week; will NOT be buying it. YOU CAN"T FORCE ME!! lol It just seems too old an mmo, though I always have a hankering to play Ultima Online ;)

Haven't been playing much; been going through my photos that i've taken and getting rid of crappy or blurry photos. I did pick up Archon from Steam; its probably the only game that doesn't crash besides Civ5. I intend on possibly upgrading my RAM by Christmas.

I'm totally on Team Meat

Though PETA likes to have nude models to get their point across... Tie score.

Are we there yet?

How do you want to see the next big mmo's fast travel system to work?

In regards to long distance fast travel:
Wow's nearly every city, non instantaneous, flight paths which used to require mutliple stops, though now I believe it's automatic. The farther it is, the more expensive it becomes. Travel to opposite continents did require travel via free zepplins or boats which would come every 5 or so minutes.

Warhammer Online, fast travel via flight masters at each warcamp; initially just need to get to a flightmaster and then can instantly teleport/fly to a warcamp in any tier with increasing costs depending on the tier. Cost of travel to the capital city though was greatly reduced.

Fallout Type fast travel, once you find the area, you can instantly fast travel back to that place with no cost. I like in Warhammer how it is a flat fee depending on the tier, which makes sense b/c as you lvl up and are able to go to the higher lvl areas, you can afford the flights BUT it doesn't work the greatest imho for the game which has alot of travelling to different tiers to strike at different keeps/lock zones/prevent zone locks, as it ends up costing alot over time. I also like how fast travel is instantaneous.

I like in WoW how to get the priviledge of using fast travel, you need to discover the place too. It doesn't seem to cost too much to travel, but it is a bit mind numbing waiting to get there. I believe implementing the mini games (was it bejeweled?) was a nice touch, especially if it gave some sort of minor reward (the cost of travel, or achievement/title), it should NOT give a major reward that would cause people to constantly travel.

Fallout system is good, though it can be abused; as long as you discover the area, you can return as frequent as you like, doesn't waste any time, and doesn't cost anything.

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Staying similar to the same topic, I was thinking, one of the major issues my friends and I had with playing was trying to all get in one place to quest/raid/pvp etc. With dungeon finders and queues it has become easier to raid and do pvp, but its still difficult to do normal quests. You may say that you have a stone of recall to get back to the town where all your quests are, right? Whereas that may be true, your friend may have been questing somewhere else and doesn't have that town set as the waypoint.

In a future mmo, i'd like to see some sort of item that allows you to teleport to your friend; with a cooldown of once per day. This would probably work better as a cash shop item (yeah yeah "boo!"), so you can buy it, give it to your friend and it binds of pickup and buy additional ones for your other friends/guildies. The item shouldn't take any space but invisibly bind and be found in your friend\link list.

PvP Equalization

Anyone recall what WoW does for PVP?
They have the battlegrounds in level brackets. So lvl 1-11, 12-21, 22-31.. etc

In Warhammer, there was equalization if you were under leveled.It would raise you to approximated 3/4 of the max lvl for that lvl bracket (so if lvls 1-11, you'd be lvled to 8). Your stats would be boosted to an approximate lvl 8.. if you had greater, then nothing happened. I unfortunately never got a chance to test it out; to see whether if you concentrated on a few key stats, would the system still boost you, if you were max level, or not. And to what extent: is the stat boost equivalent to a lvl 8 with green, blue or purple (yea right) gear?

I read in Guild Wars 2 that your character will automatically be given all the skills (or preset), gear and max level for pvp. I'm not too sure how I feel about that, and hence i'm writing about it to figure it out.

I first off, like that I won't have to worry like in Warhammer that the other team has more healers than me, or my team has no healers,, meaning instant loss/being farmed. THAT is a great idea. That may upset my friend Capo, Stef and my gf as they prefer the healer archetype; I don't mind healing, but don't like having tons of mods and just looking at tons of health bars and cast healing spells. I do like the power you get from it; if people piss you off, you don't heal them and they die. But we're getting off on a tangent.

So max lvl, same gear and preset skills (or all the same pool of skills) versus varying lvls, with all sorts of gear and some people don't have the same skills due to lvl difference or talent allocation differences. Its obviously frustrating when you're doing scenarios in Warhammer and your team is full of low bracket people, while facing off against max lvled opponents and vice versa is a cake walk. So in that respect, it brings balance. BUT, it feels to me that i'd be the faceless number out there competing. I'm not a unique snowflake anymore. I want to be stronger than others, and feel the rush when I actually are able to take down a stronger group/player. As hardcore as ill get when the game comes out, i'm still a normal gamer, and not hardcore, so I actually think this balacing will be good; I don't need to worry about spending tons of time grinding for the best gear, to max level as soon as possible, be at the top end of the bracket to be competitive. All I need to do is figure out my playstyle and how to play that class/profession and as a team/duelist.

The hardcore pvpers may not like this at the beginning, but I think eventually they'll like this too. Its all fun and great to be dominant all the time (who doesn't like winning?). But it'll be much more satisfying to have a level playing field and win and be able to say "we were all the same level, geared and skills, and we still beat you." Essentially: "we can beat you any day of the week." Big epeen. lol

I look forward to the ability to try pvp first and see all the skills each profession has to have a quick trial of the professions before investing all my time into one class and unfortunately find out its not for me.

No i'm not talking about Real Id

Everyone is writing and reading about it, so I won't bore you and go into detail.
Only that.. its a good idea.. but the way it sounds like it's being implemented doesn't sound correct and should be implemented differently. You can't stop the signal (a la Firefly) just like you can't stop people from trolling.

I've read only half-heartedly into why Blizzard is doing this and am not too interested right now, but if we're talking about how to stop trolling my solution would be:
- you'd register you product id and acct id to create a forum acct
- it would show your highest lvl character
- the system would allow others to view all other characters that your account has
That last part seems a bit intrusive, but its not giving away your actual name.. and i don't even want to know how people are finding one's home address via a first/last name search.

I understand FB is really popular.. everyone and your mother is on it, which is amazing.
Social connectivity is important and probably would boost a product's sales.
But I think we need to leave our in-game relationships separate from our real life relationships; I may have friends that I play with every day, talk on vent, share laughs, and personal stuff about ourselves, but that is at our sole discretion and generally only at one time. To get that same information, one would have to ask the person to repeat it or ask someone else who may have remembered.

I found this Venn Diagram on Gizmondo the other day on social networks and how they apply.. and RealId seems to foster those kinds of behaviors...

Last time I checked ADHD and Stalking aren't good things..

I want to give information about myself only at the time of my choosing and only that one time, unless that person is a good friend who has the ability to ask me at that time. Personal information should not be floating out there as there can be truly nightmarish things that can be done with it.

so much for not writing too much..

A bit on Monster Hunter Tri

I have about 6-8 entries saved up.. but not enough time to post one every day.. lol

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Monster Hunter Tri Tactics
I remember first reading about Monster Hunter Tri that its different than other games as you could just take any class, charge in and spam your attack until the monster died; you'd have to use tactics, learn the monsters tendencies and movement and counter them. I thought that was very novel and wanted to see that in action.

They were telling the truth.The monsters will have their own habits and move accordingly, but not in a way you can do it without thinking/in your sleep.
For example:
There are little frilled monsters called Jaggi's a little smaller than the average human which are opportunists as they don't charge in but circle around the player and try to attack when they aren't paying attention. If you advance on them slowly, they may jump back. Sometimes its only once, but sometimes i've seen them jump back three times to avoid me.

Yes, there is a Murloc stein from Taverncraft..

There are herbivore dinosaurs that if you attack them/their herd, if they're able to they'll try to run you over or run away to a new zone.

'Little' (size of a dog) insects that will gather honey/mushrooms from closeby nodes will go back and forth. If you attack a friend, the insects nearby will come and attack you and if you wipe them out, future insects that spawn will automatically be hostile to the player.

Learn your monsters and attack accordingly!

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A different kind of game

Encounter enemy!
4.5.3.6.2.2.2.2.
Enemy defeated!
Rinse & repeat

One thing about many games is that your first time attacking a monster is exciting and new. Hopefully.
Playing a few more times, you'll find out what special abilites it has and learn to expect or counter it.

Oh, hey Taverncraft, instead of making Murloc steins, why don't you go make my Warhammer stein! LAZY!

And thats about it.

Is it odd, that whereas you have a plethora of skills, your enemy has their typical normal attack and then 1 special attack?
They either:
- poison you
- knock you down
- daze you etc
Its nearly always only one different attack. And whereas we may like to skirmish and run around (though it may not make a difference), the enemy will just stand in one spot and duke it out you or it goes down.

And while if we get low on life we'll try to run away but also still attack.. enemies don't tend to do that. A smart enemy would cast a net/adhesive to slow/stop movement and then run away or heal. Nope.

I'd like a monster to have a larger array of attacks which will keep me guessing or atleast switch up my attacks.

That IS a cool head..

Monsters tend to just mill around, not having any other purpose than to be defeated by you for your quest. How convenient. I like how in Monster Hunter Tri there are these little mobs called Altaroth which are able to tell where the nodes of resources are to feed on. They are atleast doing something instead of just standing in one spot or pacing around; its a different kind of patrol. What makes it different that other games where there are mobs that patrol is that there is a reason you'd want to wait for the Altaroth to go to the node and feed on the resource (so it drops a special item), whereas taking out a normal mob al a WoW is only to dictate the plain of battle.

What is 25$ Worth to You‏?

Its not worth a unique fast mount.
It needs to be the fastest mount in the game EVER. Seriously. It also can't be 2% faster. It needs to be blazing fast. The fastest mount speed normally is 200% faster than running? Then that 25$ better get me a 400% speed mount. And there better not be any future mounts that come close to that speed. Only if it costs more than 25$.
And it better look amazing. I've seen those mounts Blizzard and Sony put out.. not impressed. Not for 25$ a pop. I won't rag on the two companies too much as they've got to make money, and if people are willing (and they are apparently) then thats great for the stockholders.. which I am. I just think that is not a micro-transaction, that is a big ticket item and as such should warrant good value for it.

People in the streets better cry out: "Mother*bleeper*, that is one crazy fast and sickest look mount ever in the history of time!"

What is 25$ worth to you?
If you think about it, its more than a 1 month subscription to your favorite mmo and nearly 2 months.
Its approximately the same price as a dinner at a restaurant, or a couple meals at a fast food place.
Its almost half the price of most modern mmo expansions.Its significantly more money than many dlc's found on Xbox Live.

For me, 25$ is worth more than just a mount.

..granted, i'm going to probably fork out $300+ for this

Tamron Nikon Telephoto lens 70-300mm

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If you can't go to the Anime Convention in Toronto this weekend...

..get your cosplay fix here!

Instancing

I've been reading some WoW blogger's entries (not b/c i like reading about WoW, but for the content about mmo's), and a hot topic recently has been the difference between 10 man raids and 25 man raids.. that apparently the game is becoming more accessible for all players as they 10 man raid instances will get similar/equal loot compared to the 25 man raids.

It makes me wonder, should games segregate instances/dungeons into two such groups. Would you classify those type of groups as casual vs hardcore. Or is it just close-knit and wide-spread? Sometimes I think it's a combination of both: A small close-knit group could be hardcore, whereas a wide-spread/high population guild could be full of casuals. Whatever/whichever way it is divided, there are two groups, those that can only afford the 10 mans, while others that can meet the 25man requirement.

mmm snowcones.. delicious

Blizzard apparently wants to make the game more accessible to their consumers, which is not surprising due to the many things they've done (convenience items, fluff, premade characters, racial changes etc). This has worked in their favor as they have millions of subscribers and live on their mountaintop of gold. I'm not one to be part of the 25 man bracket, but I would like to see more exclusivity between the two groups. What should happen though, is there should be exclusive areas/dungeons that are solely 10man or 25man and ones where its possible to be both.

Thoughts: The Online Cash Shop

I'm not so sure about the free to play model (i like free but don't like the connotations that come with it) but I was thinking a good side of the mmo cash shop is that if you lack a certain something or don't have the time to do you can purchase it and keep up with others.

for example.
A casual player would like the benefit of larger bag space a la WoW, but doesn't necessarily have the saved up in-game money to buy at the auction house, or have guildies to help make it, or the time to grind skill to have a big bag space. What does he/she do? They spend (hopefully only a bit) RL money to buy some bags/space. Of course we gotta factor the way in which the game company does it, so its not overly expensive *cough gPotato cough*.. and possibly not a required perk (ie. DDO races/classes or STO Ferengi Races).

In Warhammer, it would be nice to be able to purchase emblems/insignias for those times when you just outleveled a lower tier and you missed the influence reward or don't have enough emblems to purchase a piece of renown gear. The convenience of being able to buy it with a bit of cash would be nice. WAR should NOT have a cash shop though on stuff besides these emblems; I think a cash shop should be implemented only right at launch or with a major expansion (and we're not talking TotVL).

The theory is easy, the implementation.. not so much.

The hard part is figuring out what is balanced, the benefit and the cost. Do you sell bags that are unique/better than the ones in the actual game that can be crafted or dropped? And how much will they cost? Make it too expensive and you're gouging, make it too cheap and everyone will buy it and not bother to craft and the economy suffers.
I think it should be both common and unique items, the common though being cheap; anywhere between 1-5$, and then unique items ranging from 2-10$max with weekly deals.

Sometimes it takes unique ideas like WAR; every ten levels you gain a whole bag area. It levels the playing field for everyone (b/c if you have friends in WoW, you just give a lvl 1 4 16+ slot bags, whereas a true noobie will have only 1 bag and a future 4 slot). But one good idea took away time from other things as we've seen. *coughEndgamecoughcough*