The Circle of Life

Just to prove that 'End-Game' content isn't the only place to have fun in WoW, the Munquis held an unplanned level 1 race last night.

15 Munquis rolled a new level 1 toon, met at the gates of IF, and ran cross-country to try and reach SouthShore. While wearing nothing but the, newly coloured, guild tabard.

After a few minor niggles explaining what the hell we were talking about. (Some of the guildies had never heard of our previous races). The race was on.

As is usual in these races, being first is not always best. Early leads from some of the runners soon put them behind when they got their faces chewed off by the bears, spiders and wolves that wander near the pathways. Which gave the others a chance to catch up.

A bit of tactical dying, to leap-frog to a new Graveyard was employed, but was well-within the rules of the game.

Most of the runners seemed to find the hardest part in getting from the Arathi GY, through the wall to Hillsbrad.

The dino's in that area were eating players so fast that they'd definitely need a few indigestion tablets later. But people did manage to break through. And first place was finally taken by Grenth, closely... and I do mean 'CLOSELY' followed by Biafra, with Knicks taking 3rd place.

Nofrett looked a sure-fire winner for the majority of the race, with a huge lead, but it just goes to show that anything can change.

Prizes of 150, 75 and 35g were awarded. Those, who wanted, then carried on through to SFK for a 2nd stage. Won by Creepa, who was awarded another 35g.

The original intention was to try and reach Lordaeron (above Undercity) but it was obviously not likely to happen. So SFK was a last minute diversion.

Gratz to all involved, it was alot of fun watching you all get eaten.
Who needs heroics / raiding to have a good time!

Keep your eyes peeled for the return of the "Royal Rumble" event soon.

Dignifying the Dollars

I feel I need to clarify my intentions of my previous post a little. So here goes;

World of Warcraft is a game...... OK, everyone still with me? No-one died of shock yet?... Good.

Therefore surely the point of playing the game is to be challenged and have fun with freinds.
No-one wants to play a game that's too easy, it gets boring when you always win. And no-one wants to play a game that's no fun because then it's not a game, it's a job.

Yes, some lucky b*st*rds out there, get to play the games that they love for fun, and for a job. but 99.99% of us don't, so I think I'm covering the majority here.

We pay our money to Blizz every month / quarter / year and for that we expect something in return. But I don't think it's what neccesarily everyone instantly thinks we expect;

If all you wanted was to be able to go into a new dungeon, find some new armour, or become the most powerful person on the planet... there's better ways to do it than WoW.

Any single player RPG will make you feel more powerful, and epic than anything WoW has to offer. And if you want new content, go and look in a bargain bin for some of the non-MMO RPG's, you'll find plenty of them I garauntee you. Some of them are even multi-player, so what's not to like?

They're not social. To play on them with your freinds, even in a single dungeon, you need to find the freinds first and then organise yourselves, and then at the end of it, all is usually lost and you've all got to start again from scratch next time you play.

What Blizz (and other MMORPG developers) do is to deal with all that tricky stuff for you. No set-up problems, plenty of things to experience together, occasional new challenges, persistent worlds. And provide the tools for you to do it in a social environment.

I'd bet there's very few people in the world who have actually seen all there is to see in World of Warcraft. Yet many complain about the lack of new content.

I believe that the reason we keep paying our money, and certainly the main reason I pay my money, is for the social aspect.
No freinds = no fun. If I just wanted to go into dungeons and kill stuff I'd play something else, likely without a subscription fee.

But I get the impression that the whole of the WoW player base is becoming too focused on achieving something. And I'm not talking about collecting points that you can't spend.

Everyone seems very eager to be the best, or to conquer the next big thing. But to be honest.. what's the rush?
Once you've done it, you've done it. Hooray! Now what?

Whereas if you play the game simply to do things with people you like it has a lot more life in it.

Don't believe me? Want an example?

Chess.

How old is that game? I bet there's never been an expansion for it. You only have about 6 different characters in the whole thing. But millions of people play it. And probably millions more have tried it. Because the idea isn't to be the best, although some people are exceptionally good. The idea is to do something social and challenging with similarly minded people.

Want another? Cards. Another? Monopoly.

Allright, those games aren't exactly the same as playing WoW, but they've managed to maintain a player-base of millions without all of the bells and whistles that people seem to expect from WoW.

Prior to the pre-WotLK patches, most of the Munquis had never dreamed of setting foot in Zul'Aman.
But were they bothered by that? I don't think they were.
Blizz spent months, if not years, designing the place, so has the content in Zul'Aman suddenly got worse? I doubt it.
So how many players do you think have been back to clear Zul'Aman, and experience all the hard-work that was put into it? You might, only just, have to take your socks off if your the sort of person who counts on their fingers.

The point of all this is that it's not new content that drives WoW. It's the social aspect of it. If people want to be the best, then that's fine... good for them.

But who usually sticks around longer, the ones who are in big social groups like the Munquis, or the ones who are seriously hard-core and 'finish' the game as quickly as possible?

Achieving is good, but imagine the guy who works all his life and dies a lonely old millionaire, with no family and freinds.
He might get to be a regular at the playboy mansion, and he might drive a sports-car, but on the day he dies, all everyone can say is "Oh, he died?... How much?". With Wow, once that player leaves there isn't even a funeral, or a will to argue over, they're just gone.

So let's focus on doing the fun and sociable stuff. And achieve only if it's fun.

The Good the Bad and the Bolle

Longish Post. No offence to Bolle meant in any of it. And I still love the Munquis.

The Munquis have always been a sort of safe-haven in the World of Warcraft, at least, that's the way I see them.

We're very flexible on our recruiting policies, we basically accept any sort of person / player, and allow people to come and go as they please. We try not to make any serious demands on the players time, unless they want to be a part of orgainsed raiding etc..

We're sort of a jack of all trades guild. Freindly, Sociable, and well bonded together.
I'm pretty sure there's very few players out there who have a truly bad word to say about us.

But that's also part of our problem. Because we're so laid back we can sometimes lose focus on the things that make us a good guild.

I purged the unused toons from the guild the other day. Anyone who hadn't logged on for 6 months or more was out. I probably kicked about 30. And many of them were low level alts.
I think about 4 of them were just Funks! Which was good for a laugh seeing as he was online at the time, and objected to every kick.

But that still left about 300 toons who were regular players, of course many will be alts, but not all of them.
We lose players from time to time because people get borde of WoW, or just end up playing a different game. And that's fine, and to be expected. Some of them might even come back to us after a few months.

But we also lose players like Bolle. And that's a concern for me. Bolle (along with a few others) has always had a history of being more hardcore than the rest of us.
Not in a bad way, at all. He just plays harder, and progresses faster than the average Munqui.
So it's been pretty common for players like him to keep a main in the Munquis and another Main in a raiding guild, and we've generally been happy with that set-up. They usually find a raiding guild that's happy with it too, although there probably aren't many.

Dungeon Raiders deserve an honorable mention at this point. Many of our better players have joined with them for more serious gaming. And they don't seem to have a problem with them maintaining a connection to the Munquis... Kudos.

But recently Bolle took most of his other toons out of the guild too. Not all of them, he still has one or two lurking around. But he took the rest out, and not to join another guild, or to go hardcore on our asses, but just because he felt the guild had changed, and wasn't as suited to him as it used to be.

My first reaction would normally be "maybe it's Bolle that's changed, not us" but it's very clear to me that it's not true. I actually know where he's coming from.
The people aren't the same, the feeling isn't the same, and a little of what makes the tribe a fun place to be has been lost. With Bolle leaving that's made it even worse.

I'm saying Bolle's name alot, and it's not that I'm singling him out or anything, I just feel that he's a perfect example of why the Munquis need to change again. We need to get back to having more fun, and being less serious about stuff. Progress is good, but not at the expense of losing good people.

It's the "Expansion Syndrome" that I blame, there's a new level-cap everyone rushes to reach it, and has alot of fun doing so, but once they're there they don't know what to do with themselves. So they get more serious and start looking for progress.

When I rejoined the Munquis, TBC was already out, and I went back to start from level 1, while some of the guys were already level 70. I was an officer again by level 40, and at level 80 I'm now the GM.
But the reason I gave up everything to switch servers and start again from level 1 was because of the fun I'd have with the Munquis.

I could've stayed on Nordy, formed my own guild, tried to keep it fun, but it'd never have been the same. I've asked myself this question a few times now:

"If I'd joined the Munquis again today though, and had to start from level 1, would I have stuck with it?"

Unfortunately, I think the answer would have been "No". And that's not good.

So let's bring back the fun, win back some players, maybe recruit some fresh blood. And get the Munquis back where they belong. Kicking ass in raids while at the same time doing stupid things just-for-the-sake-of-it.

Who's with me?

Pet Levelling

After doing a bit more research on the best way to play as a survival hunter, I've re-tuned my rotation and re-specced a couple of my talent points.

Mainly to weave Serpent Sting back into the mix, which now gives me an overall 3% damage increase thanks to 'Noxious Stings'.

I also checked out the rumors about Wolves being the pet of choice for Survival Hunters, and it seems to be correct, if only slightly.

So I set off to pick up a new wolf from the Hellfire Ramparts, and after dying only 3 times, due to having to go with no pet, and being absolute sh*te at melee. I finally grabbed my new mutt. Which instantly began chewing the face off anything nearby. Nice.

I Haven't picked a name for him yet.

The problem now lies in levelling him up. My first lvl 80 pet was my cat, which obviously levelled up with me. My second was a Gorilla which was great for multi-mob grinding, and didn't take too long. But this one has got to make up a whole 5 levels solo'ing mobs one at a time. (It's either that or they'll all come and hit me instead).

I hate grinding, anyone got any better ideas?

The Great Munqui Photo-Shoot (Competition)

I'm running a competition over on the Munqui Tribe forums:

http://www.munquitribe.dk

First prize is 500g.

I thought of offering more, but I intend to do more things like this and didn't want to bankrupt the guild within a month of taking it over.

It's open to anyone with at least one toon in the guild. So check it out, and spread the word.

Surving as a Hunter

My recent re-spec to Survival has gone well.. very well in fact.

I'm jumping back up the ranking as one of the top DPS'ers again. It's taken a little while to get used to the new playing style. But if anything it's actually a little simpler than playing as a Beast Master.

On bosses / mobs where I'm allowed to stand still and nuke to my hearts content my DPS (probably thanks to the 'Sniper Training' talent) is awesome. It's a bit less impressive on fights where I've got to move around alot, but still holds its own.

Being used to BM I was used to a differnt shot rotation, and was still stuck on the idea that stings were important. As survival, they're not.
My BM rotation was:
Mark -> Sting -> Multi-Shot -> Steady -> Steady
As Survival it's now:
Mark -> Black Arrow -> Explosive -> Steady -> Steady -> Explosive

Using stings was actually lowering my DPS because of the global cooldown, and the fact that my new glyphs mean that I don't recieve the bonuses from it that I used to.
I miss my traps a little too, since I'm almost always spamming Black-Arrow, which shares a cooldown. But for the times when I do use a trap (when I have time to prepare) they're much more effective.

I managed 2.8k DPS on the VH heroic bosses last night, and can easily put out 2.5k on a target dummy. So it looks like the new spec is here to stay, at least until it gets nerfed.

I believe wolves make better pets for Survival Specs too, so maybe a new pet is also on the cards. I'll research that a bit first.

Edit: I'd better re-install Omen too. Before Vedd starts shouting at me. As BM it was almost impossible to over aggro as my aggro was 50% me and 50% pet... as Survival, my pet is just a side-show.

Free Realms

Having read so much about Free Realms from Tobolds blog, and follwing my dissapointment in City of Heroes, I thought I'd give it a qucik try.

I wasn't really expecting it to be my sort of game, and my expectations weren't the highest. But I was very pleasantly suprised. The graphics are actually pretty good, the basic gameply elemts all seemed to be there, and although I felt it held your hand a little too much I can see myself playing more of it.

Probably the best thing was that I could easily see my 9 year old son loving the game. He always wants to play on Warcraft, but struggles to do so many things at once on the keyboard.

Funnily enough, give him a Joypad or a Wiimote and he'll kick your ass, with fingers flying faster than the eye can see, but he hasn't fully mastered keyboard gaming yet.

If you have any children who you want to introduce into the world of MMORPG's and spend a little family time together online, Free Realms seems a perfect choice. The 3D graphics are very good, the quality is very polished, the interface is intuitive, and the overall feel is excellent. And best of all... it's "Free". (I know there's micro-transactions but they're optional).

Imagine World of Warcraft between levels 1 -20 and that's pretty much what Free Realms is, albeit quite a bit smaller and with less idiots.

If this was a gaming review blog, I'd be awarding it: 8.5/10

City of Heroes

It sucks.

Short and sweet, but unfortunately true.
I thought it had alot of potential, and spent ages designing my character, choosing my skills etc.. but in the end, it was laggy, ugly, and I couldn't help but feel the combat was just predetermined, no matter what buttons I pressed.

It's true, I didn't give it much of a chance. But I gave it as much as I thought it deserved.

So much for a 14 day trial.

Ring of Death - Circle of Life

My Xbox died this weekend. I got the predictable red lights of death almost exactly 1 year to the date I bought my console.
Luckily, the nice people at Microsoft are aware that they little Korean chaps, who actually make the impressive piece of technology, sometimes get a little distracted. So the warranty on all Xbox 360's is now 3 years. Excellent!

Unfortunately, it means that I'll be without my main source of 'casual' entertainment for a few weeks until I get it repaired. I don't find WoW as casual these days, I think Blizz have tuned a little of the fun out of things. It doesn't make WoW bad, it just means I feel the need to invest decent amounts of time in-game to actually achieve anything useful.

Actually, I have two 360's in my House, so I won't be without. But it gives me a chance to try out some other things.

I'd always fancied City of Heroes, it seems a much more casual game, and having been out for a number of years, should be pretty stable and run nicely enough on my laptop.

So before work today, I set the 2.7gb download going, to get the client. And signed myself up to the free 14-day trial.

I don't think it's going to be the game that draws me away from WoW, but it might be a nice distraction for a few weeks, until my Xbox is returned.

Now all I'll have to do is decide if I want to be a Hero or Villian, what special powers I've always wanted, and whether I should go for Leather or Spandex.... choices, choices.
Who knows, if it goes well, maybe I'll set up a 'Supergroup' (aka guild) on there.

Bringing home the baking

After a week and a bit away from the game (apart from the occasional call-in to see what's happening) things should go back to normal from tonight.

My k*tch*n (it's a dirty word in my mind right now) isn't quite finished, but it's near enough for me to take a night off. So this evening I intend to put my new survival spec to a proper test, either in a raid, or in some heroics.

My DPS isn't seeing the major improvements that it used to, but I suppose that's just to be expected. I got most of the best possible gear quite quickly after reaching the level cap, so any upgrades for me are relatively minor for me. While others who always lagged a littl ebehind in the DPS stakes are seeing much bigger improvements as their gear progresses.

Once I start raiding Ulduar I'm sure I'll see the figures start to move again.

On a side note: The Munquis attacked Undercity and got Lady Sylvanas down to 5% the other night. I missed it unfortunately. But apparently it was alot of fun, and I'm glad to see those sorts of events happening again. They can be much more fun than the average raid / heroic / quest. Ad the randomness keeps things intersting.

Lake Wintergrasp

Last night, just for the sake of it. Vind, Funk and myself decided to do a bit of PvP.

Not the real thing, obviously, because I really suck at it.
We were goign to start a WSG match and dance naked in the flag-room, just because we can. Unfortunately, we couldn't find 2 other Munquis who wanted to do the same thing.

I think that's a reflection of the changing attitudes towards the game. Once Upon a time, the Munquis would meet-up in capital cities / interesting places just to sit on the floor and chat in each others presence. These days, the Munquis only seem to meet for raids / groups or occasionally by chance. Such a shame... but I digress.

Anyway, somehow or other we ended up doing real PvP in Lake Wintergrasp. A full 40-Man raid was set up by a non-Munqui, and Vind manged to get us all an invite.

Now I'm usually against PvP, but I've got to say that it was quite alot of fun. It was probably the free-for-all aspect of it that appealed to me. There was just a mass of players everywhere, and anything with a red bar above it was fair game.

My FPS almost reached zero at one point, but that didn't stop me somehow being 6th in the overall damage meter (not bad for a group of 40). My recount showed me in 6th, Vind in 10th and Funk in 12th. All round, very good performances.

We did seem to very heavily outweigh the horde, by about 4-1 but in truth I think it would have been even more fun if there'd been more of them. The rewards don't really mean much to me. And I picked up about 6 achievements during the fight, which also mean very little. but the fun factor was pretty high. So I'll probably do it again soon.

The Munquis used to do alot of big PvP raids, for no better reason than "why not". And I think we should bring them back.
I'd bet most of the Munquis have never even seen Thunderbluff or Undercity, and I've never seen Oggrimar or the Belf place, so maybe it's time we got an army of Munquis together and go and kick some hordie ass, just so we can say "Remember when", again.

Online Mafia Games

I've always been a fan of Mafia / Mobster type games. Gangsters 2, Mafia, Godfather, GTA, Saints Row etc.. etc..

Obviously it would have quite a heavy PvP element to it, but that's all part of the appeal. Guilds / Families would be more important than ever, as there's no way you could take on the other families alone. And a headquarters is an essential part of the play (once your family reaches a certain size and level of influence).

I think what's set this off is my playing of Saints Row 2. Which allows you to go multiplayer throughout the entire storyline, rather than just for a bit of shooty-shooty distraction. An excellent idea, and one that should be implemented in more games.
(I know GoW, R6 etc.. also have similar options, but they're not as open-ended as Saints Row).

I've been having a google around to see if there's any online ones out there. Probably for the PC, rather than the XBox. I could see a mafia-style MMORPG doing quite well. I'd certainly play it... only problem is, I can't find one.

I've played Gangsters 2 online, which was alot of fun. Essentially it's not really any different to playing some of the command & conquer games, only with less units, no tanks, and even more strategy required. The graphics in that game weren't the best, but they were more than enough to make you feel immersed in the atmosphere of the game.

The only games I can find out there are text-based / browser-based games. And as much as they might be good fun for a while, I was looking for something a bit more immersive. It doesn't have to be beautiful, my laptop might melt if I push it anymore, but 2D / 3D would be good.

Anyone know of anything that fits the bill?

How the F*** did that happen?

This is the second part of the political moving and shaking that's currently going on in the tribe:

I'm soon to become the new Munqui Tribe - Guild Master. Yes, you read that right. No, I haven't been drinking (much). And Yes, I'm definitely awake and not dreaming (I think).

So Lewt and the Officer team are appointing me as the new GM, with the OK from Brast. In my eyes I've always felt that Brast is the true GM of the guild, and the rest of us are just looking after it, feeding the cat, and paying the milkman until his return.

Maybe it's because there's only a few of us original Munquis left now.

Way back, years ago, before any expansion packs and when the level cap was only 60, and the Munquis were still based on Nordrassil. Brast and Vind (called Cyrick at the time) invited a lowby warrior to join them in a Deadmines run. It was good fun, the conversation and banter was excellent, the guys were helpful, and the Deadmines was conquered.
Despite me ninja'ing some of the loot by clicking 'need' (nooby mistake), during the run I was invited to join the guild, and soon found the place I'd call home for years to come.

The GM at the time was Stronghammer, although Brast seemed to mostly run the place.
And before long I was invited to become an officer myself. Unfortunately, my circumstances changed, I moved house, lost my internet conenction for several months and didn't even get chance to say a proper goodbye to the guild.

Many months later, I returned to the game to find the Munquis gone, and spent many long months pining for my missing freinds and trying to find a guild that was as good.
A random google one day churned up the Munqui Tribe forums, I found that the guild had moved to Darkspear, logged on as soon as I got home, "/who Munqui" and bingo, there's a guy named Brastfelt online. Too much of a coincidence. Whispered the man himself, and here I am now, about to take over the leadership.

There may only be a few of the original Munquis left. Just Brast & Piri, Vind and Myself (I think). The new Munquis are just as good, if not better, than the old ones, and I'm proud to call myself a member.

I'll hold the GM position until either I feel someone else can do it better, or until Brast wants his crown back.

Lewt has done a great job so far, and I hope I can keep up the high standards he set.
He's staying in the guild, and he'll still be an officer, so make sure you're extra nice to him, and say thanks.