One Year of WordPress

WordPress tells me its twelve months since I registered this blog. While that’s not the first anniversary of this blog (it started in October the year before) it’s still a milestone.

BBB has seen some changes in that time. From a blog focused on WoW pretty exclusively, it has broadened somewhat with some bike stuff, some home stuff and random other things. It even became a travel blog for three weeks!

WoW has disappeared in that time and the expected rise of MWO didn’t occur. It’s actually turned in to a general gaming blog, covering all sorts of games. I know the change dramatically affected my already small readership. Not sure there is a big blogging community in MWO. Actually I never checked youtube… I still have some faithful readers, and I’m sure there are a few lurkers out there (hi!). I’m glad you find something of interest here

Odd things I’ve noticed… my post on the Razer Naga scores a lot of hits through Google searches of Naga reviews. Followed by this post on real life (I think the picture gets the hits actually) and then my car mechanic success story but that’s probably the picture too.

I’ve found a bunch of interesting people out there in the interwebs. I’ve reconnected with an RL friend too. Most of all I’ve found it a nice place to get my thoughts down. So thanks for everyone’s comments and thanks to all the readers out there.

And if Navi comments, I have to respond so I can stay ahead of her in the comment count on my blog than me (wave at Navi!)…. ;-P

Mechwarrior

I just received an invite to buy a founders pack for MechWarrior Tactics, the RTS game being developed alongside MWO. I am feeling a little “once bitten, twice shy”, though actually if I add SWTOR it’s more like twice bitten.

MWO, I’ve spent a bit, with the founders pack and the pc upgrades. And I haven’t felt any interest in playing it for some time, several months now. I’ve spoken to colleagues who are still playing and by all accounts it has gotten worse.

To me the game was at its peak just before they removed knockdowns. From that patch onwards the developers have steadily added complexity without balance and have introduced bugs ands instabilities into parts of the game that were working fine. Even bugs that should have been obvious from even a small amount of play testing (the screw up with missile damage when Artemis was introduced for example) before making it on the Beta servers…. one assumes they have their own internal test servers….. assumes…

ECM, by all accounts is really messing with the game. It didn’t have to be, but they’ve made it a must have for everyone, limiting your mech choices if you want to have any real chance of doing well in a match. There is no reliable way for large mechs to combat small mechs without knockdowns (in tabletop you could even fall if you turned whilst running, now you won’t fall if a mech charges into you). They are having a lot of problems with lag and rubber banding (I remember my duel with a light I think I discussed in another post).

The other concern is that some of the “news” on the website suggests that with the timeline they are running it’s about 3-4 months before we have the full Clan invasion. They haven’t even started the metagame part of MWO and they’re about to introduce a whole heap more to this game! That’s surprising a few I’ve been talking to.

The overall feeling is that they are not balancing the game properly, and spending too much time introducing new hardware, without fixing existing game and balance issues. Adding more mechs, when people really want more maps (bigger ones!) and more game types (and the metagame).

So that’s MWO… now I have this invite for the MWT founders. Same deal, instant access to beta, with varying amount of bonuses depending upon your spend. MWT is being published by the same company but it seems to be developed by someone different from MWO.

Honestly, I’m not really positive about it. Anyone else have any thoughts on the games?

Still Walking

I’m partway through Episode 3 now, just got a train running.

I am starting to run into a few places where the dialog has seemed a little off. Some of the time its because they have to be a little generic. Lets say there are three conversation choices, but none change they story, they’re the information conversations where you chat to an NPC until you’ve drained his knowledge.  So if there’s three choices then the finish has to fit, kinda, with however the player finishes.

But that’s a small point.

Another is that some of the conversations I really wouldn’t have said. Take this one between Carley and yourself (Lee). She been pretty smart and level headed throughout so far. And supportive of you…

Cheryl, while discussing whether Lee should reveal his background to the group:”Our group is small”

 

Lee: “You’re small”

Sorry, where did that come from? And how can that not be insulting? It’s like the pop song recently … “don’t take this the wrong way. girl you look better with the lights off”…. is there a right way to take that?

In a conversation you only get a choice about every fifth line, so sometimes you can be left thinking that isn’t really what I would have said if I was really in this conversation. Again, you’re hit by the limits of the rpg.

However these really are small niggles on a pretty polished game. Oh that’s the other thing I giggled at… so far I haven’t had any red herrings… (SPOILER ALERT). Clem is doing a pencil rubbing of a leaf to pass the time. Later, Lee has to figure out how to read the words written on a pad, when the page has been torn off.

See, everything is important, otherwise why include it.

Remember that next time you’re watching a mystery movie or reading a mystery book…..

Who’s for dinner.

ECM Here, ECM There… ECM Everywhere

After the drama the other night, I gave up and played Xcom. Last night I tried again and I got into a group from my new clan, OMC.

It was an interesting, but not successful evening. Initially I launched into my normal LRM Cat, but it became quickly evident that too many LRM boats on a team wasn’t tenable in the new ECM world.

Spectating from a K2 Cat.

So I switched to my Jenner. This has some limitations now. As a scout without ECM I can be detected from some distance. I might have to investigate purchasing a Commando or a Raven if I want to continue scouting.

The games themselves were pretty average. We struck the same team several times. Heavily laden with ECM fitted mechs, including at least a lance of ECM Atlas, they proved decidedly the strengths of this ECM blob. They stayed together and meant that our limited ECM couldn’t counter act them. Equally as a blob of Atlas, they were difficult to take down quickly, meaning that they could wear us down. Three times they smashed through our lines and won the game. Even with some individual performances and some good teamwork, we were unable to beat this group.

So there was some complaints of the ECM. Not in the performance or abilities of the ECM, but the feeling was more that there should be limited in the numbers per drop. I’m not sure that this is the solution. Whether the limit is 8, or say 4 there will be groups that drop with the maximum. There has to be other ways around it.

At the moment, its a massive force multiplier. But if we can find effective counters then the teams that run ECM heavy will find themselves at a disadvantage and stop using it. I heard some talk of TAG range being lifted from 450m to 700m. Perhaps this is one. LRM boats will actually be able to self TAG (though this removes their indirectness). That’s what we need to look for.

I’ll tell you what awaits me….

Corps drama, that’s what.

Ok, as I said in … oh, no I didn’t end up posting that entry.  So I better back up a bit.

I think mid week, there was some drama in the senior leadership in the Corp. I’ve ha a two line explanation that didn’t really explain anything so I’m not going to comment on the reasons but it has resulted in a break up of the Corp with a fair chunk of the players restarting a new corp.

I hadn’t made any decision on what I was going to do, whether to stay with the old Corp or join the new one.

And tonight, I really don’t need to think about it as the old Corp has removed me from their ranks. So an attitude like that, to someone who hasn’t been involved is pretty average, and I’m not interested in pursuing the matter with them.

So it’s Friday night and I want to play in 8 mans… but I can’t get onto either TS server. This really sucks. Not involved in the drama at all and the best night of the week to play is going to waste….

Oh it looks like I’ve picked up a random group on US Beta server, see how it goes I guess.

PUG problems?

PUG problems… The open beta influx of players has seen a host of complaints re PUG v Premade matches. Similar things happened as each group of closed beta invites went out.

It centers around the feeling that the PUG players have of being set upon or victimised by the strength and coordination of the premades they face. Some games they might all be wiped from the match without a scratch on the opponents (at least nothing significant).

And I get that, that’s how my matches were going at the start of the Beta.

But is it a case of expectation management, rather than a problem with the game?

Whilst I haven’t played a lot of FPS, since my early Ghost Recon days, I get the impression from other gamers I know who spend a lot of time in the Call of Duty and other franchises, that most matches are more random in membership. And most work solo, unless they are having a proper clan match. Solo also seems to work out all right for the guys playing World of Tanks and some other online games as well

Mechwarrior isn’t like that. And I don’t think that’s clear enough to new players.

Whilst I’m not saying that everyone needs to join a house or a mercanary company, they do need to get communicating in their matches.

Get into the Teamspeak servers, get into using the ingame chat function. Even this little bit will help coord your team.

Yes, you’re going to get the heroes who rush off on their own, or the solo players who respond with abuse and ignorance (though I haven’t seen much of this myself yet). But if you can get a core of 4 or 5 to work together, that can make a huge difference to your effectiveness. I’ve won games even when we started short 3 mechs. I’ll admit, that was a Company match. But we still had to fight through 8 enemy mechs.

Even though I’ve joined a Company, I think more than half of my games are with random players. I actually find it hard to play at regular times, so I get into Teamspeak, find a group and we run together. Might never play with these guys again, but we have comms, some teamwork, and mostly we have success.

I know that there is a big chunk of the premade players who really don’t enjoy those matches where we walk all over a PUG who’s attacked us piecemeal and been torn to pieces. Sure it pads our wallet some, but I don’t remember those games. I remember and enjoy the games where it’s come down to the wire or the other team has flanked us and caught us out (or we’ve done the same) or some other hard fought match. Yes they’re not all wins, but those are the games I slump back into my seat at the end screen with a happy smile.

My point is twofold

• it’s a team game… play that way
• there’s more ways to communicate than having to join up with a permanent crew.

I think MWO might need to emphasis the team aspect more clearly, and provide some basic improvements to the chat setup (maybe some kind of hotkey macro texts??). I know they did set up some kind of voice comms, though I haven’t tried it.

 

Off Topic – The Mechanic?

Sorry, this is totally off WoW as a topic and even outside Bikes and Babes as well! For about two weeks now, my wife’s car has had a stuffed indicator. It’s just been awkward to get down to the mechanic to get it fixed.

So fix it yourself says the reader…. This is the kind of garage I run you see, something smooth, professional….

Casey Stoners (MotoGP) pit crew at work.

Well, no, my skills are virtually non existent in the mechanical arena. Oh I can change tyres, wipers, fill oil, water or windscreen cleaner and that kind of stuff. I can do a few more things on my bike, adjust suspension, idle, chain… But anything more and the chances of me actually figuring it out or needing a lot more repair afterwards grow quickly the more I unbolt, open, unscrew, unlatch etc. My strengths lie more in the realm of fixing code or computers not cars.

This is probably more true to life for my garage!

I suddenly realised two things. First, I can probably get the bulb for a few dollars and YouTube has probably got a video of someone doing it. YouTube was first and that was moderately successful, enough to give me hope. I picked the bulb up for a total of $1.50 a couple of days ago.

So last night sees me head under the car for an attempt at doing this. After a few referrals to the to that book that real men aren’t allowed to read (the car’s manual), I found myself spending a good 30mins trying to pry off the indicator bulb cover.

That’s with my head in the front wheel arch, with the wheel lying on the garage floor, my arm up a hole in the arch and wound up through the front of the car with my fingers just reaching the cover’s handle. All kinds of metal and plastic creaking or digging into my arm.

And eventually it did come off and I swapped the bulb. I then spent about ten more minutes trying to put it back the @#%&$@ back on.

Ok, test time….. I hit the hazard button (as this will use the lights and I don’t need the car keys etc)….

nothing…

and then more …. nothing… Ah well, I guess it wasn’t the bulb (it actually looked fine too), maybe a fuse or something. So much for me fixing it.

I started opening more stuff, the bonnet (hood for you US), checking the fuse diagrams etc, mindful of previous attempts at this kind of thing, you know, the more unscrewed, unbolted etc…

Then I remembered the bulb holder and that the contacts were very small. Maybe it had not been closed correctly. I turned on the hazards and rotated the cover until I got a flash out of the indicator!

OMG I fixed the car!

And it’s working fine the next day…

Even better I didn’t have any pieces left over when I put it back together, you know that’s always a good sign.

Choose your side Bloggers :)

Ok, as a new member of the blogging community I wanted to share something I’ve noticed. And I haven’t got any hard evidence nor have I totalled up any numbers.

But how come it seems there’s a higher proportion of Alliance players? Or their mains by any rate.

Though there are a lot of Blood Elves as well (even two on my pages).

Please don’t feed the Pandas

Disclaimer first – I’m not in the Beta, I don’t plan to be in the Beta and I’m trying really hard not to read about the Beta. That last one is hard though.

A few have posted something similar as whey wait patiently for their invites, but for me its a case of I want to walk in there and enjoy it in all its glory, for the first time and explore the place. Mabaho will lead the exploration for me. He will head to level cap. After that I might look at levelling a Panda, (most likely a Monk to experience that class as well) or more likely raise Dasal to 90 as well.

I do have a couple of thoughts. The new talent system sounded awful when I first heard about it, but I am less concerned about it now. I suspect there will still be “cookie cutter” builds, but I’ve never used them (see my toons on Armoury) as they are generally designed for raiding or PvP, not the solo explorer with occasional 5man.

Not bothered either about the whole Panda and lore etc drama. I don’t have a background in the earlier Warcraft series as I never really enjoyed RTS games so no preconceptions there. If I was to worry about Azeroth “making sense” then I wonder more about things like why all the red mobs hang around each other and don’t attack anyone except players, not each other! [note - there are places where this does occur, there's not many though]. Its a fantasy world… so Pandas fit right in! Like giant walking cows.

So that’s my position, trying to save all my “Wow, that was cool!” or “Look at this landscape!” etcs for the real one.

I guess it also saves all the “WTF were Bliz thinking here!” moments as well.

Shared Post – Killing the Knowledge

Okay, we’ve had all the responses from the raiders. How about a perspective from the other side

Logtar asks in Blog Azeroth

The last couple of years in WoW have changed the game quite a bit. While it is very easy to jump into the “elite” vs “casual” vs “noob” bandwagon type of discussion, what is causing it I think is a more interesting topic. Do you guys think that the LFR and LFD kill the sense of community, but taking it one step further; does it also kill the passing down of knowledge? I know I did learn a lot from reading the web, but even now I get tons of information from my guild. If I have a doubt, I ask the question and most of the time someone knows off the top of their head where an enchant is, or what the best glyph is, etc. I don’t take that community for granted, but it was built before there was a LFD. We are together because we did have to take the trek to the meeting stone. Now we have a button that 1 person uses and BAM we are all there. We know why that is cool, but many of the new players really don’t know what that really means. So are the new tools for grouping killing the knowledge sharing?

Are the new tools killing the sense of community? Yes, from a server perspective, yes. Before the cross realm LFG we tended to bump into the same toons as we levelled up. Maybe they’d disappear for several levels and suddenly you’d be running with them again. I don’t see this at all now and it should almost be an Achieve to be randomly put in a party with someone from the same server!

At the level caps, if a guild run was short a couple of DPS or a tank etc, they generally knew someone they could ask to join in from outside of the guild. Some guilds even worked together to clear content. I think this has fallen away as well at the top end raiders and PvPers on servers though perhaps not as completely as the solo world. But I can’t talk to that.

As a solo grinder, yes LFG has killed the community. I posted something similar a couple of weeks back. As I said there, do I want to get rid of LFG… omg no! Long gone are the days of spending an hour in LFG channel to find a group, half an hour waiting to get everyone together and then someone leave 20 mins into the run. But I think Blizz could tweak it a little so you ran with your own server if there were people in the queue. That might help rebuild it.

But it certainly hasn’t killed guilds and there are still are all these little communities on every server of people.

Are the new tools killing the sharing of knowledge? Okay again, guilds are safe in this part of my answer. As a long term member of a pretty stable guild, I happily ask gchat the most inane questions, and get a fair bit of decent advice – so the knowledge sharing within the guild is as strong as ever. Sometimes its harder in the quiet times when maybe the World Event expert isn’t on (or you’re the only guildie online, who do you ask then). I still ask gchat in preference to Thottbot or the wiki.

Outside of guilds – well I’m unlikely to ask anything in trade that’s for sure, except if I’m bored and curious to see what I’ll get as an answer! But how about LFG (again, I can’t speak of LFR, but I assume it’s pretty similar). Honestly after the first three or four runs, what knowledge is there to pass on? You and your random group know the fights and know what’s required. Rereading the question, that’s probably not part of what Loktar’s asking.

But what about in that 3 or 4 early runs. Honestly, I just tell them up front - “Sorry first time here, keep me posted on what I need to be watching out for.” I even throw this out if it’s been a while since I ran that particular place or that toon. I can probably count on one hand the number of times that I’ve found myself either ridiculed or staring at the loading screen. And understand that in most cases I was running heroics months into Cata and Wrath due to my snail like pace of levelling. Some dungeons I ran for the first EVER as an 85 heroic, having not had a chance to run them whilst levelling.

In contrast, there is less need to share knowledge in game as these days there are a plethora of videos, strats, blogs etc that provide clear lists of what to expect, what strategies work etc. The knowledge is still being shared, but just not in party/raid chat anymore. Seriously how many times have you run a heroic and nothing is said in party chat except a “GG” or “Thx all” at the end, but the place was cleared in 15 mins. Obviously, the knowledge is still getting out, and its getting out to a wider audience. Just in a different way than many of us remember from the early years of the game.

So is LFG killing the community? Yes (but not in guilds) but is it killing the knowledge sharing? No, but it’s pretty rare to find it in party chat anymore, unless you ask.