Strategy
This really comes in two parts, strategy on how to play your character and strategy on how to be successful in an encounter. Both of these can be theorized ad nauseum, but nothing can make up for experience. So brush up online and then jump in.
The Character
The single most successful way to increase character effectiveness is to focus on enhancing the character itself. This means choosing a purpose and then getting the various character aspects – talents, skills, equipment, buffs – synched so they properly support said choice. Essentially you figure out what you want your character to be able to do and then you set them up with the best options available.
Taking the step from being a casual player, who runs a few heroic dungeons every now and then, into a player that is raiding effectively and with purpose (my definition of hardcore) is a massive undertaking. It requires far more focused knowledge and experience then just playing casually. Suddenly many aspects of your character, aspects that were easily ignorable before, become incredibly pertinent.
The second expansion for World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King (WotFK), graced us with its presents a mere year and ten months after the last expansion. (Woot! Our wait was cut by four months!)
Feature wise, it was very similar to the previous expansion, a new continent to explore, new higher levels to reach, more quests, more dungeons, and more loot. They even added a brand new class to play.
And yet, WotLK has been the more successful expansion. Clearly a lot was learned from the previous two games, because they somehow managed to keep and fine tune features that worked well while weeding out most of the irritating bits.
But not all the features are recycled, loads of new ones joined the frey, seamlessly blending new and old. A few of the most notable additions being: achievements and vehicle-combat.
The Burning Crusade (BC) expansion was release just a bit over two years after the original World of Warcraft MMORPG went live, and boy was it long overdue. While there is no doubt that WoW was a massive achievement (feat of strength?), it was by no means content rich enough to remain engaging for two years.
It certainly didn’t hold my attention as I took a long break before BC came out. In fact quite a few of my friends took breaks at similar times.
But promises of new and more lured me back for The Burning Crusade. Two new races, a whole new continent, new dungeons, and loads of new loot were just some of the features that this expansion boasted.
World of Warcraft has lived up to its name and turned the world of PC gaming into a world of WoW. The most successful MMORPG (massively multiplayer role-playing game) to date, boasting over 11 million subscribers (that’s more then the entire population of Switzerland!) and its showing no signs of slowing down as it nears its five year anniversary.
One of the reasons I havn’t been posting as much is because I have been playing World of Warcraft ALL the time. In fact its cutting into my sleep time. (I know I have a problem!)
Besides taking up extra sleep time, it also eating up all my game time (another reason I haven’t been posting reviews). WoW and other MMORPG are really the scourge that killed the PC market. Why buy other games, or play them for that matter, when you spend all your free time on MMORPG. They are built as huge time sinks.
Like most things ‘online social’, I found out about this via email invitation. This sneaky invitational spam, propagated by well meaning friends and email contacts, is usually the first thing to be deleted; yet the avid reader in me just couldn’t ignore this. (That’s how they getcha!)
At first glance I though ‘oh no not another social obligation site’, but with not much digging it became apparent that Goodreads is indeed about books and not just a clever front for social networking. Oh sure people review books and everyone gets their two cents, people friend each other and even authors get a chance to promote their own books, but in the end the books stand for themselves.
Taking my previous leveling extravaganza as a sample, its quite obvious that speed is not my forte. My hunter meandered through levels for almost 4 years before I managed to get her to 80.
Since speed is the main factor in leveling up my warlock, I decided to get help – help in the form of a guide. A friend linked me this site:
There is a web-based version, but I thought that the mod (addon) would probably be faster. So yesterday I installed it and the three base mods it calls for.
It’s like leveling on rails. Truly amazing!
Yesterday was the release of the new Pokemon game for the DS – Pokemon Platinum. Of course we got two copies, one for the husband and one for me, plus the strategy guide.
Its possible to play Pokemon without the guide, but it tends to make everything take twice as long. My use of the guide tends to be as a reference. I play in an area and once its been all explored I check back with the guide to see if I missed anything.
