I saw a lot of negative reactions around the blogosphere to the GW2 Tower of Nightmares update. Surprisingly, the main criticism seems to be that people aren’t interested in the new story. It isn’t engaging enough. This is puzzling to me for a couple of reasons. First, I didn’t even realize there was a story in the new GW2 update, and second, I didn’t realize people judged new MMO content on the new storylines brought into the world. (715 words.)

So my WoW mage has Enchanting as a profession, and he’d leveled way past the point where he could disenchant the magic items he picked up at the measely skill level of 15. I had a couple of other characters in the 25-30 range that I could have used to farm items from dungeons, but I didn’t think those items would be any better. So I got the brilliant idea that I would level another character to 15 and just keep doing dungeon instances and send all the excess low-level magic items that I picked up to my mage. (483 words.)

I had an odd, somewhat amusing experience in WoW recently. I’ve been playing a lot of dungeon instances lately, partly because I’ve never actually done any WoW dungeons before, and partly because I wanted to level a mage without going through the hassle of soloing. Almost every instance has been an enjoyable, workmanlike experience … until this tank decided to be an ass. So the random dungeon selector came up with the Scarlet Monastary. Or maybe it was the Scarlet Halls. I can’t remember. They all run together. It was the one that starts out with those piles of corpses and zombies which most people just run around, but the second we stepped into this instance we were beset by flaming zombies and fighting for our lives. That usually happens when somebody doesn’t circumvent that first area, so I figured somebody was trying to do a quest I didn’t know about, or somebody was panicking, or somebody just didn’t know what was going on. (667 words.)

Herding Cats has an interesting post up about how we, the gaming community, may have shot ourselves in the foot by telling MMO developers to limit cash shop purchases to cosmetic items so that the game won’t turn pay-to-win. But she argues that when you play an MMO only for cosmetic items, a cosmetic cash shop is pay-to-win. I’m one of those people who unofficially agreed that cosmetic items are fine in cash shops, because I personally don’t care that much about cosmetic items. I mean, if I run across a neat-looking item, I’ll be all like, “Yay, that looks cool, I’m glad I found it!” But I don’t often set out on any adventures with an objective of getting a cosmetic item. I just pick them up if I “happen” to come across them in the normal course of playing. (464 words.)

NaNoWriMo is off to a mediocre start this year, as I am running about 900 words behind after the first weekend. Not too bad, really, considering what a collosal chore it has been to get writing. I feel like there’s a compelling story in this mess of text somewhere but I’m having a hard time getting to it. I am writing this year with zero preparation, by the way, other than some ideas jotted down so I wouldn’t forget them. Also, I’m not doing very well with my main goal of making myself laugh, because what I’m writing is not very funny so far. (104 words.)

I stopped by GW2 and discovered a big ol’ patch had happened, and when I logged in to see if there was any chance of defeating Tequatl, I had mail telling me to go to Kessex Hills to save the world again. I could describe it, but Inventory Full did a nice summary already: http://bhagpuss.blogspot.com/2013/10/next-stop-kessex-hills-all-change-here.html I haven’t played GW2 seriously in a long time but I was able to get through the initial Tower of Nightmares instance. (That’s one thing I like about GW2-it’s really easy to pick it up again after you’ve been gone, because there aren’t any complex “rotations” you need to know. Just target something, hit your main attack, and off you go.) I almost got facerolled halfway through the last boss fight when those four adds appeared right when my health was almost gone. I thought I was a goner but it turned out if you just run far enough away from them, they stop chasing you. It gave me time to recharge before coming back to take them out one at a time instead of all four at once. (354 words.)

Autumn (aka. Halloween) celebrations are a staple of modern MMORPGs. Ye gods what is that? (I was going to put another picture captioned “It’s always Halloween in Kingsmouth!” but I couldn’t find my screenshot.) (34 words.)

NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow, and I couldn’t be more apathetic about it. A few weeks ago I was very excited about a story idea, but now I’m in that classic writer’s mood that goes something like this: “So what if I write a cool story, nobody is ever going to read it anyway.” At least I think it’s a classic writer’s mood. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it means I’m writing for the wrong reasons. Shouldn’t I be writing because the writing itself is fun? But if nobody ever reads my writing, there is exactly zero chance of supporting myself as a weirdo reclusive author who lives in a cave. (109 words.)

My first month of FFXIV ends on Nov. 1 so I need to decide whether to subscribe or not. I think I will, because it is definitely the “freshest” MMO I’m playing right now, although perhaps not right away. (I’ve also been on a weird WoW kick lately, but that’s another story.) There is an endless number of things to do in the game if you bounce between adventuring, gathering, and crafting, particularly since you can change classes at will. Bored with archer? Switch to pugilist for a totally different gameplay experience! It’s a lot like Rift in that way. (236 words.)

Playing WoW again recently, it dawned on me why it’s been so popular. It’s a good game and all, and it’s more addictive than blue meth, but I think that one of the main things that pushes it over the top from niche game to mainstream hit is: It doesn’t take itself seriously. Most people would probably be embarassed to admit that they play a game involving elves and dwarves and knights and dragons. Society tells us that those things are for kids, or hardcore D&D nerds, and those guys are weird. (At least they were when I was growing up.) WoW said to the world, hey all that stuff is stupid, right? We’re going to make fun of that in our game. We’re going to put in quests with ridiculous characters who say silly things and make meta jokes about pop culture and anything we can think of to keep this from being a serious fantasy world. Our trolls are going to be Jamaican stoners. Our Undead are going to be necrophiliacs. Our dwarves are going to be Scottish highlanders. It’s all just going to be a big silly cartoon. So nobody will have to pretend that they’re really playing in a fantasy world, and it’ll be okay for normal people to enjoy it. (Normal as in not a D&D nerd.) (358 words.)