LOTRO

You wait for ages, then three come along at once!

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Goldshire, where you can now catch a bus. Or gryphon.

The three buses games coming along at once being WoW and LOTRO expansions, and Guild Wars 2.

But first, where have I been?  I left you wondering how I would deal with my misgivings about SW:TOR.  Would changing to healer and PVPing save the day?  Unfortunately not.  Shortly after I last posted it was announced that level 50 players would receive a free month.  Just about everybody in my guild (and everybody playing SW:TOR, judging from the empty levelling planets) was level 50, so it felt as if a few of us were being singled out to pay for a month that everybody else was getting free.  I put a last effort into leveling, and sadly, it killed the game for me.  I was logging in and “working” at the game, when I’d rather have been doing other things, or when I had a headache.  At the same time, I was starting to realise that I spent too much time on gaming.  Maybe it took being “forced” to game (to avoid being financially penalised) to drive home that it wasn’t good for me.  I decided to cut down my gaming time, and to get fitter.  This was made easier by my new lack of interest in SW:TOR.

I have a lifetime LOTRO membership, so I decided to spend some of my now limited game time there.  There was so much to catch up on, including the last expansion.  To my surprise (given all the bad things you hear about free to play games), there seemed to be an active role-play community and a great atmosphere.  Seasonal events were buzzing with people, many carefully outfitted in cosmetic gear.   My son started a new character and we did skirmishes together.  I finally got my main (but not max level) character out of dark Mirkwood and into the light in a new, bustling area.  I realise that I am advantaged by being a lifetime member, but I still think that LOTRO is pretty good for a free game.  I will be returning now and then.  There’s the Rohan expansion out in September, with mounted combat.  I’ll probably wait until after release and buy it with turbine points.

For some time, I’d been keeping an eye on Guild Wars 2.   As it’s also free to play (once purchased) I’d pretty much made up my mind to buy it if it looked good.  I was hearing very good things about it, that it was the future of MMOs, and finally, the big draw was that many from my SW:TOR guild were going to be playing, so I paid the rather hefty £50 for the digital version and had a go at the beta.  My verdict, from my limited playtime (and given my lack of gaming knowledge), is that it’s not quite as revolutionary as it seems.   From what I’d read, it seemed as if hundreds of events could happen, but when I played it, it seemed to be the same old events happening over and over.  I worry about how much fun it will be when the leveling areas are quieter.  I loved the public quests in WAR, but they lost their appeal when I had to try to solo them after the first month.  Crafting looks more functional than fun (oh, for Everquest’s furniture making, or even the gadgets in WoW!), but I’ve only given it a cursory look.    I can’t put my finger on why, but I’m not quite as excited about the launch as I thought I’d be.  Maybe I’m just burned out with launches.

Meanwhile, I’ve been returning to my first MMO, World of Warcraft.   It doesn’t seem long since I was writing about the last expansion, Cataclysm, but time goes more quickly as you get older.  No really, it does.  If GW2 is the sequel everybody loves, Mists of Pandaria seems to be the expansion everybody hates.  And yet, I’ve been excited about it for months.  The more I hear about it being geared to casual players, the more I think it’s going to suit me.  Pet battles will take me back to the days of playing Pokemon with my son when he was little.  Fishing and farming are right up my street.  I love the eastern theme.  The new areas are beautiful.   I think it’s going to be exciting to not be able to fly again, and to see the world from the ground first of all.  I hate to say it, but I’m more excited about this than about GW2.  But I’m keeping an open mind.
Ah, World of Warcraft, my first (MMO) love!  It has an open world feel that SW:TOR was definitely lacking, and that I haven’t got from GW2 yet.  I know the graphics are cartoony, but I love that you don’t need a good computer to play.  Recently, instead of going off to do something else during long gryphon flights, I’ve been watching the world go by, and it’s gorgeous.

You wait for ages, then three come along at once!

The class choice dilemma

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For a long time I’ve been trying to decide which class to play in Star Wars: The Old Republic.  And the decision-making has flagged up, yet again, one of the dilemmas in playing MMOs.   I’ll be playing what is a group game, but for the great majority of the time I’ll be playing it solo.

My ideal class in a group is one which has a clearly defined role, is useful and wanted in groups, and isn’t too hard to play.   My ideal solo class is one which is tough, fast, fun and versatile.  The difficulty doesn’t matter too much as I’m only letting myself down if I get it wrong.

In groups I love playing (in order of appeal):

  1. a straightforward tank
  2. a straightforward healer (I’m OK at healing, but bad at doing healing along with something else)
  3. a support class, with crowd control and tricks
  4. ranged dps
  5. melee dps

Solo, in order of preference, I like to play:

  1. First equal, hybrid classes and pet classes.   I love to be able to self-heal and to have a pet act as tank/support
  2. Ranged dps
  3. Melee dps
  4. Healer
  5. Tank

Of course, it depends on the game.   I’ve put tank at the bottom of my solo list because I got so bored grinding my guardian through LOTRO.  Never again.  Meanwhile, I’m sure my WoW paladin tank would have been fun solo.   But then, I see a paladin as more of a hybrid.

I was very excited about Rift because the classes were so customisable.  Given my choices above, a rogue was ideal.   I could tank or do a bit of healing in instances, along with the ranged dps (and melee dps if I wanted a change).   I could just switch to play whatever role was missing in the group.  Solo, I had my choice of pets.

Although I still think the Rift class system is great, in practice, it didn’t work the way I’d hoped.  Changing spec was like learning a whole new class.  I tried soloing with the riftstalker (tanking) tree, but I couldn’t get to grips with it, and wouldn’t have had the confidence to try it in a group.  And when I did instances with my guild, we always had a tank, so there was no need.

Now, I’ve been trying to work out a ranking system for the different classes, to help me decide.  For instance, I could give points to a class that can tank, because that’s my number one choice in a group.   However, I suspect that the reality is that I’m not going to tank.   There are others in my guild who might like to tank, and have more time to commit and are, frankly, better at it.  And I could give points for a pet class, but in a way, I feel that all the classes will be pet classes because of their companions.    Then I thought that perhaps the most important aspect was versatility: the ability to try out different roles and change when I find the one that suits.   But from what I gather, at some point with any class I would have to specialise and would lose that versatility.

What I’d planned to do, in this post, was work out a formula which took account of the advantages of each class for me as a group and solo player, and decide, through a points system, which was the optimum choice.  But I know that it’s not going to go like that.  I know that Bounty Hunter would probably win.  And yet, I’m not particularly drawn to Bounty Hunter, even though I think it looks fun.

In the end, I’m probably going to decide on the basis of less quantifiable things.   Things like the look of the character, the voice acting, the starting story, the companions. For instance, I’d like to play an Imperial Agent simply because I like playing less popular classes.  And “Bounty Hunter” just doesn’t sound as good as “Sith Inquisitor”, does it?

I haven’t been playing the beta, so it’s only now that the NDA has been lifted that I’m starting to get more of a feel for the different classes.  But even things like talent calculators don’t get me to the nitty-gritty of “Will I love this class?”.  It’s a gut feeling, and I think I can only find out by playing.

And the solo/group dilemma?   Two things.   First, because I will be solo so much of the time, it’s probably best for me to find what I love playing solo and then adapt to make that work well in a group.  Roll on dual specs.   Second, I have a cat who likes to walk on the keyboard, catch my mouse and sit in front of the monitor.  Whatever class I play, I’m going to be a liability in a group.   As a mum, I’ve been used to working game time around a child’s sleep times.  To my consternation, it turns out that cat sleep times are not quite so predictable.   Cats are like children in one way, though.   They are able to sense when you’re doing something engrossing that doesn’t involve them and then do their best to be the centre of your world again.

The class choice dilemma