Tannlin's Update!

I got a new house?!

To the few people that actually read this blog (all three posts), apologies in the long wait between posts.  Buying a house is no simple task, and as the clocked ticked closer to the “closing” date.  I, in turn, became a twitching, anxious wreck.  Simple tasks requiring any amount of concentration were impossible.  The good news, it’s OVER!  

I now own my very own half acre of prime desert real estate.  The home is gorgeous.  It has just the right amount of work so that I get my hands dirty and to get that real sense of ownership that comes with building something.  At the same time, not SOOOO much work that it becomes a money pit.  In all, my wife and I are incredibly happy.  This added stability now adds a new level of calm to my life, (No more late night parties from the neighboring apartments!) so I can blog MORE!

First, a side note, yesterday was the first day to put have some of the utilities turned on and hooked up.  Friday, when we moved in, we made sure to have the water turned on, but the propane to the house was not turned on.   Our water heater is propane heated, so of course, without propane we have no hot water.   When Monday rolls around, and in the early morning the Charter technician comes out and does what he does to turn on the internet.   After work, we take care of the last few things needed to get the propane into the house and then get the hot water heater going.  It was right after that when I explained to my wife that in true nerd fashion, we had internet to the house before we had hot water. 

NERD PRIDE YO

With the money I’ll be saving with the house move, it’s time to upgrade the PC before Guild Wars 2 comes out.  The current beast use to chomp through Warcraft, but these days there is still a lot of computer lag in large PvP situations, even with the graphics turned all the way down.  Sad times indeed, it was the first computer I ever built.   The current dream is to have a PC capable of maxing out settings in Guild Wars 2, and streaming to Twitch.tv.   This new build will be my first attempt at over-clocking.  So I get to flex a bit of my geek-fu. 

BUT STILL NO GUILD WARS 2

I know.  It’s hard to be a Guild Wars 2 blog when you haven’t actually played it.   I missed the first one as a conscious choice not to oversaturate, and the second one due to the home move.

I did want to put out there that the guild I’m running with at launch and in the beta tests is Team Legacy. (teamlegacy.net) Team Legacy will (without a doubt) be a force in the WvW scene, they are also looking at hosting PvP tournaments, AND fielding their own team.  I feel sort of swept up in a fairly impressive gaming community, but it has a very different flavor from what I’m familiar with.

You can expect to see in this blog: reports on daily / battles which the guild goes through, hopefully with added video content.  And observations, analysis, commentary on PvP tournaments from anywhere I can find out about them.  This, my readers, is what I mean about connecting YOU with the game you play.

And now--- I leave you with the video, of a Team Legacy’s farewell party from BWE2, the March of the Golems.

I WANNA PLAY

I did not play during the first open beta.

I resisted the temptation and spent the weekend instead doing other things.  YES!  Those things other I do on the weekends that are NOT playing the beta… like… watching other people stream themselves playing the beta.  *sigh*   Yah… there’s the truth - I should have just played. 

I cannot comment on a lot of the game play, obviously, but I can comment on what I saw.  What I saw was the most impressive beta test for a ground breaking MMO since I started playing games.  Am I a fan boi?  Have I lost perspective?  Am I seeing things through the rosy colored glasses of someone wanting to hop on the “new thing”?  I don’t know.  So, instead of trying to convince you, I’ll try and describe to you what I saw.

To begin- I am a WvW (or World PvP, wPvP) junkie. 

Or well, I was.  Seriously, I couldn’t get enough of it while I was playing World of Warcraft.  A good group, with some coordinated attacks, well utilized cool downs, and you could dominate an unorganized mess of players for as long as you wanted.  It wasn’t just that, coming from an RP and LARP background;  I wanted to be part of a cavalry charge, that epic part of a battle that cements itself into the memory of the event itself.    There’s a part of us that wants to be part of something larger than ourselves… maybe.

The problem is, in World of Warcraft “world” PvP has no incentive.  The honor gain is trivial, considering most serious PvPers will have their set in the first few weeks of the season.   Faction bosses have no loot.  Faction bosses give no reputation.  And outside of the achievement for doing it the first time, there is no reason to repeat the process.   

There is no need for tactics.  Healers heal.  DPS damage.   The evolved “zerg” mentality is to have one person call targets, everybody kills that target.    No need for complex strategy.  Get in, kill, get out is about the extent of it. 

Not knocking world PvP in World of Warcraft, I’m just saying, I WANT MORE.

Using the art of cinema, I see world PvP as an intersection of two very different movies. 

On the one hand, we want our World PvP to be like the assault and siege of Helm's Deep in the Two Tower.   In this case we’re hopelessly outnumbered, but with positioning and tenacity we’re holding off a relentless enemy.  And then at that crucial moment, when all seems lost, there’s a heroic turn of events and we emerge from the conflict victorious.

And then… on the other hand, we’re like the last battle scene from the movie Role Models.  We love what we do, it’s terrific fun; but at the same time anybody on the outside watching us get really geeked out about what we’re doing might not understand at all.  In fact, they might think it’s a little weird.  But, pshh, like that’s going to stop us from doing it. 

GUILD WARS 2 WvW IS A LOT LIKE THAT, BUT BETTER!

First, it’s loaded with incentives.   Unlike world PvP in Warcraft, you can jump into right out of the character creator, no gear grind required.   You will level while doing it.  You will gain gold and possibly gear.   Arena.net’s vision of playing the way you want to is achieved, no prior time sink in grinding levels or gear necessary.

Next, it’s easy to understand the simplicity of battles.   You kill the enemy.   Batter down walls and doors.   Grab supply or deliver supply.    Take over keeps or castles.  You get the deal- it’s like almost every “war game” you can find, in MMO format.

BUT, for the added bonus, there is the complexity of strategy that makes it unlike any PvP game I’ve seen yet.  With a two week battle between three servers, I see the battles developing like a serious StarCraft II match.  There will be an early game, a mid-game, and a late game.  There is an economy to build and maintain.  There is scouting, reinforcing, harassment.    We will be able to see a combat unfold on the micro level (kill THIS player and taking THIS tower), but we'll also see the BEST servers weave their micro combat into their macro strategy (like, harassing in THIS area, while resupplying THESE points, and engaging THIS keep).

World PvP in Guild Wars is the best take on World PvP I’ve come across yet.  The conflicts have depth and meaning, they leave room for heroic moments, they are simple enough you can jump in and just have fun, but complex enough that grand strategies can be developed. 

WHAT MORE CAN YOU WANT?

The first BWE!

The first open Beta Weekend for Guild Wars 2 and I’m at work.    It’s rather awful.   I just did a quick run through all the web forums that I stop in on to see if there was much of anything than can distract me from the fact it’s 2 hours from the launch event.

And no, nothing did.  That’s why I’m writing.

I’m lucky in the fact that I can stream video at work.   I’m hoping to catch the special pre-Beta Tales of Tyria when it starts in an hour or so. (http://www.talesoftyria.com/)   Will that feed this hunger and addiction I have for Guild Wars 2?  

UNLIKELY!

Even with all the buzz around the beta weekend event, and the excitement that I have towards the game launching in general.  I won’t be playing this weekend.  Nope.   Not playing.  Not at all.  I’ll be watching some live casts and keeping up on what people are saying about the game, but after being involved in two prior beta test for different games, I don’t want to do it again.

YES! I want to do all the things!

When I do them, I want to see them fresh and on the first time through.   I’ve intentionally kept myself ignorant to certain aspects of the game.  Among my most favorite things about games is the discovery aspect of it.   Part of the appeal of puzzles is figuring it out, the idea of the puzzle is ruined if you read a guide somewhere that tells you how to solve it.   I don’t need to know how to do all the things before I start playing the game, I WANT TO DISCOVER THEM while I’m playing. 

More than that, I don’t want to burn myself out.   There is an investment of energy into playing a game.   Because that investment isn’t carried over from the beta to the live launch; and we haven’t heard that it’s carrying over from beta to beta.   When I begin playing the live launch, I want all of my energy, excitement and enthusiasm that I’ve poured into that experience to carry with that character for as long as I play.  I’ve burnt out before, and part of the reason was having to do “the same thing again” because I did it in a beta.

It’s okay not to beta test.

Arena.net has plenty of people testing their product for them.  I don’t need to do that.    BUT GO AND PLAY!  Tannlin will be watching from the sidelines; taking notes, observing trends, and waiting to REPORT BACK TO YOU!

<--- Not a betta test.