The Reese`s Effect

“You got your chocolate in my peanut butter!” “You got your peanut butter in my chocolate!”

Sometimes when it comes to MMOs, that’s how I feel. Only instead of peanut butter and chocolate, its PvP and PvE or Raid and non-Raid. But so far, no one has yet come up with the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of MMOs, no one has found the right blend.

My most recent example is that I’ve quit playing in the Battlegrounds in World of Warcraft. I love the Battlegrounds. I think the idea of Capture the Flag, Control Points, and other typically FPS styles of play being integrated into RPG PvP elements is just awesome. And when the Battlegrounds released, you couldn’t keep me out of them. The problem is… I don’t raid. I really hate raiding. Spending an entire night following someone else’s raid guide to victory is just boring. If I had to do that, I’d cancel my account. Luckily, there is tons to do in WoW besides raiding, and for most of it, my lack of raiding has no effect… until the Battlegrounds. At first, it wasn’t bad. There were tons of people as ill equipped as me. A guy in full raid gear was a rare occurance. But its becoming alot more common, watching my damage spells become less and less effective, while my survival rate continues to plummet… all the fun of Battlegrounds has slipped away. If only there were a way to join a Battleground that was restricted, that you couldn’t enter if you had on you (equipped or in bags) more than 3 pieces of raid gear, and by raid gear I mean the stuff that takes more than a group (I think I’d be willing to let the 10 man instance gear in).

Of course, any game that has ever introduced PvP has had the eventual colliding of PvP and PvE… some skill is overpowered in PvP so they nerf it and send the PvE players into a tizzy. Or some skill gets added or fixed for PvE and it “cripples” some class for PvP. Most times it seems like the developers need to make two distinct and separate games to sort it all out.

Anyway… no lofty design stuff here, just an acknowledgement that it exists and a realization that I, personally, would love it if the problem could be solved.

The Journal

So, I am back to playing WoW a little more consistantly, or at least I hope that I am. For the time being, I will be playing two characters. Ishiro, a human priest on the Durotan server, is currently level 57. With him I mostly play battlegrounds and run quests with Lorilai, Jodi’s paladin. And then there is Ishiro, an undead warlock on the Eitrigg server, who is level 26. My plan there is to level him up and do battlegrounds and run quests with Lochie, Jodi’s warlock.

Essentially, I like battlegrounds and I hate raiding. A brief sojourn back into first person shooters (thanks HL2!) reminded me that most games are relatively boring once you learn the tricks of the game engine, but when you come up against another human being things can get interesting. My only grip with PvP in the context of MMORPGs is the disparity between casters and melees. In a traditional FPS everyone is on the same footing. In RPGs melees can run and jump and strafe and hop around the world like a jackrabbit on crack, but casters mostly have to stand still and pray they can not get interrupted and keep the target within the field of vision. It might be okay if casters we much more powerful, but as a priest, I’ve been killed enough times with a single weapon swing or in a matter of seconds to know that it just isn’t true. But I’m learning to deal with it.

That said, from here on out, everything posted in this category will be concerning what I’ve managed to do in game for either the Alliance or the Horde.